Will the real 'Uncle Walt' please stand up.

So far, in the last 12 months, we counted 10 items, between books and major stories, on Walt Disney and The Disney Company.

In our September '93 issue, Movie/Video Age International reviewed Marc Eliot's Walt Disney, Hollywood's Dark Prince. In this issue, a contrasting book by Bob Thomas titled Walt Disney, is reviewed.

Following are excerpts of quotes from both books (two of many written on the subjects.

In the midst of all this, we've sprinkled the pages with recent editorial cartoons and cover stories on the Walt Disney Company, together with quotes reported to us by Fini Littlejohn.

As indicated by Newsweek's cover and various editorial cartoons, Disney is going through a transitional phase: Euro Disney's large losses, Disney's America controversy, corporate restructuring, Jeffrey Katzenberg's resignation, the chairman's heart problems and the president's premature death. Even great successes like The Lion King have been tainted by accusations of plagiarism by Japan's Tezuka Productions which, in the 1960s, developed a cartoon series inspired by the late Osamu Tezuka's comic book The Jungle Emperor.

From Marc Eliot's Book, Walt Disney, Hollywood's Dark Prince:

* When (his) artists demanded union representation Disney took their action as an act of betrayal, refused to negotiate with them in good faith, and went so far as to align himself with known members of organized crime to reinforce his resistance. Once the strike was settled, Disney determined that those who had led it should pay dearly for their action.

* Walt Disney had been among the earliest and most forceful of the film community's anti-communists. From October 1940, he had been a loyal and dedicated domestic spy for the FBI, assigned a Los Angeles-based SAC (Special Agent in Charge) to whom he was to report anything that might be of interest to the FBI. Disney filed dozens of reports.

* Disney became vp and one of the founding members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American ideals. He...considered the New Deal proof that Roosevelt was a dupe of the grand world Communist conspiracy. The purpose of the Alliance was to combat the industry's "domination by Communists, radicals and crackpots."

* Walt ended his close friendship with Spencer Tracy after learning that the actor had separated from his wife and taken up with Katharine Hepburn. Disney never spoke to him again.

* Walt increasingly lost patience with his staff, often at the slightest provocation, recalled animator Dave Hand. No one was ever quite sure what it was Disney wanted from them.

* He (Disney) remained convinced that the "Old Boys Club" of mostly immigrant Jews who controlled production, distribution and exhibition, had worked to limit him to production while denying him full access to distribution and exhibition where money was made. Disney ... believed himself to be Hollywood's bastard son.

From Bob Thomas' Walt Disney:

* Not that he (Disney) was saint-like. He could be all of, angry, wrong-headed, intemperate. His accomplishments outweighted such foibles.

* Walt Disney was Mickey Mouse, and Mickey Mouse was Walt Disney. Their personalities were inextricable. Walt Disney was an uncomplicated man.

* He found it punishing to sit in negotiation meetings and listen to his own employees try to dictate conditions under which they wanted to work. He said naive things which were damaging to his own cause.

* After (the strike) he seemed to bear no bitterness toward most of the strikers. But Walt could not forgive the animator who mouthed the inflammatory remarks through the loudspeaker.

* Quote from Disney: "Don't go for the avant grade stuff. Be commercial. What is art, anyway? It's what people like. So, give them what they like. There is nothing wrong with being commercial."

* The Thomas book completely ignores Disney's relations with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover or his close relationship with the ultra-conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American ideals, or his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee; nor does it even refer to Disney's anti-semitism or his feeling about blacks.