BVTV to Present 'Growing Magic: The Mickey Mouse Cornfield Story’
A labor of love encompassing 3.5 years, thousands of miles in travel, and 36 BVU students comes to fruition with a March 28 premiere. The documentary shows how the 60th birthday of Mickey Mouse was celebrated with an Iowa cornfield.
A labor of love encompassing 3.5 years, thousands of miles in travel, and 36 students comes to fruition with the March 28 premiere of a Buena Vista University documentary. A screening follows two days later in Orange, Calif.
“Growing Magic: The Mickey Mouse Cornfield Story” is a 60-minute documentary written and produced by BVU Digital Media students under the direction of Jerry Johnson, assistant professor of digital media and avowed Disney fanatic.
The documentary shows how a 520-acre “card” to celebrate the 60th birthday of Mickey Mouse generated international news and acclaim for the Walt Disney Company and hundreds of northern Iowa residents that made it happen.
Johnson learned of the story four years ago and made a few calls to begin digging into its origin. Soon, he had a group of digital media students eager to conduct research, interviews and more in the effort to produce a documentary on a subject covered 31 years ago by the likes of USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Associated Press and more.
The birthday card was the brainchild of Jack Lindquist, then-vice president of Disneyland marketing. Troy Lindquist, Jack’s son, will be present for the BVU premiere and plans to offer his remarks and reaction to an idea that was said to be his father’s greatest marketing coup.
Following Lindquist’s talk and the screening that night, Johnson and Lindquist will join Ted Pitzenberger, the farmer who helped oversee the planting and harvest of corn and oats in the field in 1988, in a panel discussion. Four Buena Vista students, Olivia Weissler (writer), Mason McGrew (editor), Zach Hess (production, editor) and Jordyn Daggs Olson (publicist) will participate in a panel discussion following the screening of the documentary on March 30 at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. Chapman’s Hilbert Museum of California Art hosts a Disney exhibit at that time.
A third screening unfolds at 2 p.m. April 7 at Sukup Manufacturing in Sheffield, Iowa, home base for the “World’s Largest Field Mouse” in 1988.