Laurence Boag on His Dad, Wally — The Clown Prince of Disneyland
The Walt Disney Family Museum hosted a treat of a talk for Disneyland fans.
The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco is a sort of Mecca for Disney history buffs. With its wonderful multi-media design philosophy and the remarkable displays of Disney artifacts dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, it is a not-to-be-missed attraction for the lover of all things Walt. Bolstering its bona fides with occasional talks by and about Disney Legends has been part of the WDFM experience for years and last weekend’s lecture by Laurence Boag about his father Wally Boag’s legendary career was something particularly special. It is truly a rare thing to get such a deeply intimate and emotional look at the characters that make up the Disneyland story, but that’s exactly the experience that Mr. Boag brought to the WDFM audience.
Wally Boag (1920–2011) is most remembered as part of the cast of Disneyland’s Golden Horseshoe Review (1955–1986) — and, briefly, Walt Disney World’s Diamond Horseshoe Review (1971–1986) — which he starred in from its opening in 1955 all the way to 1982 — five shows a day, for just shy of 40,000 performances. (“Not a single full performance was ever filmed,” noted Laurence.) His career as a dancer, comic, balloon folder, actor, and all-around vaudeville-style performer spanned four decades and multiple continents.
A young Julie Andrews got her start at age twelve performing with Wally Boag in England. A young Steve Martin studied Wally Boag in order to learn comic timing while working at Disneyland. Boag was Walt Disney’s choice to voice Tigger for Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (but was replaced after Disney’s death) and he was the voice of both Jose and the Barker Bird for The Enchanted Tiki Room. For the opening day ceremonies of Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean (1967), Wally lead a crew of pirates who had commandeered the Sailing Ship Columbia (1958), to assault the attraction’s building, break the door open, and lead the initial, lucky, riders inside. He was a featured performer on both The Mickey Mouse Club and The Muppet Show.
The scope of Wally Boag’s career is undeniably impressive, but what made his son’s lecture so special was the intimacy with which he shared reminiscences of his childhood, eyes clouding with tears as he spoke of his sister’s tragic death at 19 while his father continued to have to work five shows a day just to keep the payments up on her hospital bills. He was also forced to take a pause as he choked up remembering the kindnesses that the late Diane Disney Miller — Walt Disney’s daughter and founder of the museum — and her husband, former President of the Walt Disney Company, the late Ron Miller had shown to him and his family in later years.
A wealth of Boag home movies playing around at home delighted the audience by showing this dedicated, and truly odd, family off-stage. At one point during a play boxing match between Laurence and his older sister, the four-year-old boy is shown play punching his father and Wally launches himself through the air in an astounding backflip as if he has been shellacked by Sonny Liston himself! The eccentricity of this group showed through the clips and pictures, as did the family’s deep devotion to each other.
Being variety performers, the Boag family didn’t settle in any one place for very long, at least until Wally got the role at Disneyland.
“After dad finished his first audition for Walt [using his standard nightclub act] there was a long pause until Wally quickly added, ‘I can clean it up.’”
Boag rapidly became one of Walt’s favorite comedians, being given surprisingly free reign by the boss. Many Frontierland traditions — the gunfights on the building roofs for example — were created, on a whim, by Wally Boag.
Laurence told stories of his childhood around Disneyland: playing with Kevin (Swiss Family Robinson (1960)) Corcoran and several of the Mouseketeers, staying overnight in his father’s apartment in Frontierland (above where the River Belle Terrace is now) and having Uncle Walt (“I really believed he was my Uncle.”) take him onto the set of The Absent Minded Professor (1961)and show him how the mechanics of the Flubber car worked.
His affection for old-time Disneyland, near and dear to his heart as a home away from home for him and his father as well as his earliest place of employment, was somewhat tempered by his mixed feelings about the park today.
“I went back to the park after having not been there for about twenty-five years. Things have changed so much. I don’t think I’ll do it again.”
Perhaps the most moving moment in the talk came when he showed Steve Martin’s filmed eulogy for Wally as the famous comedian bursts into tears reciting the lines from Boag’s famous “Traveling Salesman” song.
“I just got off the stagecoach to Chicago,
Gotta catch a steamboat to St Lou.
I have a lot of things I wanna sell you.
So let’s proceed with what we have to do.”
The lecture was filled with laughs, little-known stories of Disney history, and a profound respect for the life of the Clown Prince of Disneyland, Wally Boag. His son’s generosity as a storyteller and clear love for his father made for one of the museum’s finest events.
“There are three stages of learning about your parents. First you’re young and can’t think of what to ask them. Then you get older and have a family of your own and you’re too busy to ask. Then they get older and you start to take care of them and you get to learn who they really are through their stories.” — Laurence Boag
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times
