Over the past weekend I had the pleasure to meet Dina Benadon and Brent Young, owners of the 1893 house that Walt and Roy Disney were born in. They bought the place on Tripp Avenue and Palmer Street in Chicago and are now in the process of restoring the home to its original state – turning Walt Disney’s birthplace a landmark and probably a tourist attraction.
The home was actually built by Disney’s father, Elias, and much of the original wood, nails and cement used in 1893 are still there! Benadon and Young are also reviving another of Elias Disney’s creations – O-Zell Soda!
In an effort to profit from the forthcoming prohibition movement. Elias Disney teamed with dubious businessman Ernest Scrogin to create the O-Zell Company to manufacture and market a carbonated “Oriental Fruit Beverage,” which they hoped would soon take America by storm.
For three years, Elias awaited shipment of the first bottles of his investment to arrive. Nothing. In 1916 the company did yield a line of Jellies and Jams… but Elias was swindled. The full story can be read here.
Young Walt “took a job on the O-Zell factory floor, washing jelly jars, pulping apples, and packing cartons. By the end of 1918, however, he dusted out to drive ambulances for the Red Cross in France.”
The O-Zell Company was gone by 1920 – but a few years ago Benadon and Young decided to revive the name – bought the rights from whoever – and have just started making new soda (sold in bottles), all proceeds going to restoring and preserving Walt Disney’s Birthplace home in Chicago, IL!
So now it’s back (or here for the first time – I’m not sure if the sodas were ever really produced in the teens) – and the good news: it tastes pretty great! So far, they are just selling Root Beer and Vanilla Cream flavored sodas… with plans for many more. The website is pretty nifty too – with a great Sherman Brothers-esque theme song.
Word of advice: Disneyland should be selling this on Main Street – and Oswald The Lucky Rabbit should be the mascot on the label. Oswald, Ozzie, O-Zell? Makes sense to me.
So forget about Donald Duck Cola, your Orange Julius or Laugh-O-Gram Liqueurs – O-Zell is the true drink of Disney-holics everywhere!
Jerry Beck says “Drink O-Zell – It’s Swell!”
End of plug!
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of Cal Arts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
Just wondered if Elias Disney and/or his partners were going for some unauthorized Wizard of Oz connection with the prominence of the ‘O-Z’ lettering both on the product and especially atop the stock certificate? Such an association would of course have nothing to do with the works of L. Frank Baum other than a subliminal pairing in the minds of the customers. The Oz books and Baum’s live theatrical adaptations were still going strong at the time of the O-Zell venture’s initiation. This is one moot point as no one alive in 2014 would know for certain.
Having grown up in Chicago, being a Disney fan, and knowing my propensity for all things Windy City, I can’t believe my dad and I never got out to see the Tripp Ave house ! This is so exciting !
I wonder if the Canadians would consider putting up a marker or something in the area of Goderich Ontario where the Disneys were living. On the soft drink-perhaps if the ‘oriental fruit’ drink was easy to ferment or made homemade hooch more palatable,it would have been a hit during Prohibition.
Now all we need is for someone to make and bottle “Jippo”.
Ha ha! Well, Bosco is a beverage, so why not?
Awesome! I read that Elias Disney hoped that O-Zell’s soda would rival Coca-Cola, but his dreams were crushed when O-Zell went bankrupt after the owner turned out to be a thief. Will the O-Zell sodas be available in stores like Wal-Mart and Kroger or are they exclusive to Chicago?
Donald Duck Kerosene Root Beer?
What a Coincidence…
Both of these men are in my Ancestry family tree
Michael Morrison Family Tree – Combined
Ernest Arthur Scrogin (1875 – 1952)
Elias Charles Disney (1859 – 1941)
I am the connection between them…
Disney on my wife’s side and Scrogin on mine