A Museum Dedicated To The Creator Of Mickey Mouse

While the life of Mickey, Minnie and the rest of the Disney characters is well documented, very little is known about the genius behind them - That will all change in October, when the first museum dedicated to Walt Disney, opens its doors in San Francisco's Presidio neighborhood.

However, if you are envisioning the normal dreary museum, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Like all things Disney, this one will be a full of fun, interactive exhibits, as well as, a 123-seat state- of-the art-theatre, that will screen old Disney classics in Blu-Ray quality.

The museum hall will include 10 galleries, filled with artifacts from Walt Disney's life, which include early sketches, his favorite hand-built miniature train and his entire collection of academy awards - 32 in all.

Also included, will be some of the props used in filming the movies - like the two-story multiplane camera used to film the rooftop scenes in the Disney classic 'Pinocchio' and the optical printer that the filmmakers used to blend the real and animated characters in 'Mary Poppins'.

And thanks to over 19 hours of archived voice recordings, Walt Disney himself will be guiding the visitor through many of the exhibits.

There will of course be a scale model of Disneyland and snippets of Disney movies and cartoons will be playing on the dozens of monitors all over the museum. Even more exciting - the folks at Pixar, who work next door, may offer lessons in animation for both kids and adults.

The museum is scheduled to open on October 1st and tickets will be sold online in advance, to avoid long lines and disappointment. The theater, which will sell its tickets separately will open with a three-week screening of 'Fantasia', after which 'Snow White' will be re-released in Blu-Ray, to celebrate its 50th anniversary. To keep up with the progress of the museum, check out their site http://disney.go.com.

sources:sfgate.com, latimes.com, disney.go.com