Hal Adelquist

Harold Lennis "Hal" Adelquist Jr. was an American animator, assistant director, storyboard writer, and TV producer, primarily known for his work in helping to create and produce Mickey Mouse Club, which began running as an ABC television series in 1955.

Adelquist was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Harold Adelquist, an accountant and son of Swedish immigrants from Iowa, and Francis Sarah Williams from Utah. The family relocated to California before 1920, and eventually settled in Los Angeles where he attended Los Angeles High School, graduating in 1932. He joined the The Walt Disney Studios by 1933 as an animator but soon worked in a variety of positions from head of the Story Department and then the Production Department. He would serve as an assistant director for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He also led training sessions for new and experienced animators, where they would work on things, like character development and learning the technical skills necessary to film demos of their work. Hal was then transferred to the Personnel Department in 1938. In that department, he organized employee picnics, among other, more standard personnel tasks. During the Disney animators' strike of 1941, he was placed in charge of all of the operations of the Disney studio personnel. This led to him becoming "middle management", a liaison between Walt Disney and the Nine Old Men.

Throughout the next several years, Adelquist enjoyed his position, hardly getting any thanks for it. In 1955, he became part of the team that conceived Mickey Mouse Club, ensuring production schedules were met and being Bill Walsh's right-hand man as an associate producer for the first handful of episodes and the production supervisor for other departments within the show. After the first season, an exhausted Adelquist was demoted to "talent scout" for "Talent Round-Up Day" segments with his production duties being taken over by Mike Holoboff. He was then assigned to produce a live "Mickey Mouse Club Circus" at Disneyland which was not a hit attraction. The failure of the circus with the pressures and bitterness of his new role drove him to a drinking problem. Following an argument with Walt, Adelquist resigned from the studio in 1956.

Following a failure to bring a pilot series, The Adventures of Nip and Tuck, to television, Adelquist had written a letter to Walt asking for his job back but was refused. He would not work in Hollywood again and drifted in and out of work from an executive at Freedomland amusement park and washing cars in New York before becoming a homeless panhandler often spending time at the Bowery Men's Shelter in Manhattan. He soon made his way back to Los Angeles in an effort to get back into industry work but with no success, and he remained homeless until he moved in with his mother in Long Beach. He died on March 26, 1981.

Filmography[]

Year	Film	Position
1937	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	Assistant director (uncredited)
1954	"The Disneyland Story"	Production coordinator
1955-1956	Mickey Mouse Club	Developer (uncredited) Production supervisor Production manager

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

He worked with the costume designer, Chuck Keehne, to develop the iconic "mouse ear" caps based on the original sketches of Roy Williams.
During the 1960s, he reached out to former colleague David Swift, whom Hal had fired in 1942 at Walt's request, to make amends. Ironically, Swift would return to the company to direct popular films, such as Pollyanna and The Parent Trap.