November 13th would have been Robert Louis Stevenson's 160th birthday, author of "Treasure Island!" So I thought it was appropriate to write something about "Pirates of the Caribbean."

When Walt Disney told his animator X Atencio he wanted him to switch from animating to work for WED, now known as Walt Disney Imagineering, X really had no idea what Walt wanted him to do. He soon learned that Walt thought he'd make a great writer!

One of X's early assignments was to write all the dialogue for Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. (The dialogue would also be heard in Walt Disney World's version a few years later.)

In addition to the dialogue, X jotted down sample lyrics for a song to be heard and he showed them to Walt, assuming Walt would give the sample to the Sherman brothers, Disney's staff song writers. Instead, Walt gave the lyrics to George Bruns and told him to write music to them, and not a word of X's "Yo Ho (A Pirates Life For Me)" song was changed.

Fascinated with the dialogue in the attraction I asked X about his inspiration, and he cited two sources he often referred to in his work for the attraction. 1) The thesaurus, and 2) The film "Treasure Island."

That be the truth about the dialogue, matey........ and remember, "Dead men tell no tales!"