Welcome home to the first Disney Files Magazine of 2025 – a year that’ll mark the milestone 70th anniversary of the Disney destination that started it all. That means it also marks the 70th anniversary of the year my late friend and mentor – the esteemed Disney Legend Marty Sklar – began his remarkable Disney career.
It was July 1955, while working as the student-editor of UCLA’s Daily Bruin
newspaper, that Marty accepted an invitation to create The Disneyland News – a Marty and me in 2016 newspaper sold on Main Street, U.S.A. during the park’s opening year. And while
the decades that followed would see him do everything from writing speeches for Walt to serving as the creative leader of Walt Disney Imagineering, he never stopped being an editor.
I learned that firsthand in 2002, when I was part of the editorial staff at Eyes & Ears – a news publication that served Walt Disney World Cast Members for almost 50 years. One September afternoon, an interoffice envelope arrived on my desk from Marty’s office in Burbank. In it was the latest edition of Eyes & Ears, marking the first anniversary of the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. My introductory column in that issue recognized Cast Members for their role in providing guests with an “escape” – supporting a place that brings fantasy to a world sometimes treated harshly by reality.
“WRONG,” Marty wrote beside my column in his infamous red pen. “Appreciate the sentiment, but we don’t deliver an ‘escape.’ We deliver ‘reassurance.’ Because we’re optimists.”
Marty was right, just as he was in the countless notes he’d send me for the next 15 years. Those notes followed me to Disney Vacation Club, marking the margins of Disney Files Magazine. I eventually gave Marty his own column, perhaps thinking that, if he had his own pages to write, he’d spend less time editing mine. I was wrong, and happily so. Marty’s notes, like his columns, were enormously insightful, and both continued until his passing in 2017.
While I look back at his notes frequently (I kept all of them), that first one rolls through my brain like one of those “core memory” orbs from the Inside Out films, only this one’s scribbled with Marty’s red ink. I think about it every time we create a new edition of Disney Files Magazine, ensuring that the stories we tell highlight, not just fantasy, but also the best parts of our reality.
So to celebrate Marty’s magical milestone, as you peruse the pages ahead and read about everything from sea turtle conservation to the inspiring mission of expedition travel, grab a pen (preferably red). And when you read something that reminds you that life is good, join me in writing these words in the margin: “Marty was right.”
Thanks, Marty. We miss you.
Ryan March
Disney Files Editor
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