Disney Family Museum opens today in San Francisco

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Culture Monster certainly hopes that Diane Disney Miller isn’t planning to run with those scissors.

But Miller -- Walt’s daughter -- did use the giant scissors to cut the ribbon as the new Walt Disney Family Museum opened its doors today in San Francisco. We couldn’t be there, but asked museum representatives to send Culture Monster a few photos as soon as they were in, and they were happy to oblige.

Miller and other Disney family members and assorted officials gathered at the new museum at San Francisco’s Presidio before the museum opened its doors to the public for the first time at 10 a.m. Included on the list were Walter E.D. Miller, Walt Disney’s grandson and president of the Walt Disney Foundation, and Richard Benefield, founding executive director of the Walt Disney Family Museum. The museum, officials have said, is dedicated to the man, not the Mouse -- that is, the story of Walt Disney, not the entertainment mega-corporation that bears his name.

And we spoke afterward with Diane Miller, who described the crowd who showed up to be the first ones through the door this way: ‘There weren’t an awful lot of people there, but the people who came were really ‘Disney people.’ One young woman had been to the opening of every Disney theme park...I was very touched...’

Added Miller, ‘My whole purpose was to let people know my father, to feel like they are meeting him, you hear his voice everywhere. And there is lots of media everywhere in the museum -- a power shortage would shut us down. It’s very exciting, and we can keep improving it -- it’s like Dad said about Disneyland, there are things that if we think of a better way to do it or to tell it, we can keep changing and improving.’

For more details of the opening, check out today’s AP story.

Related coverage:

Get your mouse ears on for the opening of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco

Walt Disney Family Museum to open Oct. 1 in San Francisco