This Day in Pop Culture for October 16

1950: The First Trip to Narnia

“The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: ‘Let’s try to make a story about it,’” said C.S. Lewis about the creation of one of his most popular novels, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was published on this day in 1950, and it was the first of seven novels in The Chronicles of Narnia series.

It was illustrated by Pauline Baynes. The story involved four siblings who wander inside an old wardrobe only to find that it led to another world called Narnia. While many have considered the work an allegory, others have described the story as “supposal” meaning that if Narnia was a real world, it too would need redemption. The story provides what type of incarnation of Christ might be sent there.

When the book was first released, fantasy stories were somewhat frowned about for young adult novels. Lewis’ publisher was afraid that the book would ruin the writer’s reputation, and some reviewers of the book thought that the book was overly moralistic and/or too Christian attempting to indoctrinate children. Today, the book is one of the most respected children’s stories of all time. (Image: TVDB)

1941: Young Life is Founded

In 1939, Jim Rayburn, a young Presbyterian youth leader was given a challenge to consider his local high school as his parish and find ways to attract youth who had no interest in joining a church. In the early stages, a weekly club was created that included singing, skits and simple messages about Jesus Christ. The meetings were quickly moved to the homes of the young teens they were targeting. Young Life was officially created on this day in 1941 in Texas. Today, the ministry relies on about 80,000 volunteer leaders to help with more than 8,000 ministry locations. (Image: Younglife)

2023: Disney Celebrates 100 Years

The company was founded by Walt Disney and his brother Roy in 1923, but at the time, it was known as Disney Brothers Studio. Three years later, the pair moved into a studio that was located on Hyperion Street and the company went by the name of Walt Disney Studio. For four years they worked on a variety of Alice’s Wonderland shorts (which featured a live-action girl interacting with illustrated characters) before working with a new character – Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The company didn’t go by the Walt Disney Company until 1986.

Walt Disney and his brother Roy moved to California to set up Disney Brothers Studio in 1923. Three years later, the pair moved into a studio that was located on Hyperion Street and the company’s name was changed to Walt Disney Studio.

For four years Walt and his animators worked on a variety of Alice’s Wonderland short comedies (which featured a live-action girl interacting with illustrated characters) before working with a new character: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The Oswald cartoons were made for Winkler Pictures and were distributed by Universal Pictures.

In 1928, Disney discovered that Universal owned the intellectual rights to the character and that they were taking almost all of Disney’s animators. Disney and his sole animator, Ub Iwerks went back to square one to dream up a new character: Mortimer Mouse. His name was changed to Mickey after the urging of Walt’s wife. As they say, from there, the rest is history.

Long after his death, the company changed its name again in 1986 and it was on this day that the Walt Disney Company celebrated its 100th anniversary.

1992: Gilligan’s Lost Episode

Although Gilligan’s Island debuted on CBS on September 26, 1964, the pilot episode was never shown until this day in 1992 on TBS.

Filmed in November of 1963, “Marooned” featured seven castaways but three of them went through drastic changes before the show aired the next year. In addition to Gilligan, the Skipper and the Howells (still played by Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer), the three other characters were a high school teacher and two secretaries.

John Gabriel played the high school teacher known by his students as “The Professor”. The two secretaries were sarcastic Ginger (played by Kit Smythe) and her co-worker Bunny (Nancy McCarthy), a “dumb blonde”. The episode begins with the characters waking up on the beach and then they go exploring the island. There isn’t much information given about the other characters, but they were good enough for creator Sherwood Schwartz, so they were voted off the island.

The opening and closing songs were different too featuring different lyrics and a calypso beat. And get this – they were written by movie score legend John Williams!