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| MickeyXtreme's News Archive June 18-24 2006 | ||
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Saturday June 24, 2006 |
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Walt Disney Co. is awaiting approval from
China's central government to build a theme park in
Shanghai, the China Daily reported on Saturday.
Shanghai's mayor in March said the city was eager to host Disney, after the $1.8 billion Disneyland Hong Kong opened in 2005, while China's capital city Beijing also wants one. Disney has been in discussions with Shanghai officials for a long time, group chairman George Mitchell told the China Daily, and talks are now under way between the Shanghai municipal government and the State Council, which has the final say. "Our discussions have been with Shanghai officials, and now they are engaging with the national officials," the paper cited Mitchell as saying. "We have an interest in proceeding and we hope that satisfactory terms can be worked out and we can proceed." He did not give a time-frame for a final deal or opening. "We try to proceed as quickly as possible after the execution of the contract, but until we execute a contract we don't get into when we are going to start," the paper cited Mitchell as saying. Disney and Shanghai are believed to want to open the park in time for Shanghai's World Expo in 2010. City government preparations for the Expo rival in scale and enthusiasm Beijing's preparations for the 2008 Olympics. A Disney park in Shanghai would be able to draw visitors from the populous and prosperous cities of the Yangtze Delta, while Beijing has few wealthy cities in its immediate vicinity. Shanghai's park could be located in the Chuansha area, the China Daily said -- midway between the city's international airport and the financial district in Pudong. Disney had been coy about its mainland plans in the run-up to its opening in Hong Kong in September. But Mitchell said there was a market for both attractions, and that a new park in Shanghai would not undermine the Hong Kong site, the China Daily said. "There has been very careful analysis from us and Chinese government officials," Mitchell said. "There are a very large number of people in the Shanghai area and we don't think that this (a new park) will have any more of a negative effect on Hong Kong than, say, having a park both in California and Orlando, Florida." |
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It's about time to walk the plank back to the
Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
On Monday, the public can plunge back into the ride that has been closed for remodeling since March. Disney designers have injected features from the ride-inspired Pirates of the Caribbean movie into the route, which remains the same. Character Capt. Jack Sparrow appears three times in the ride. A premiere party for the movie sequel is set for Saturday, along with the private ride debut. The theme park opens at 8 a.m. Monday. |
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Tokyo
Disney's Tower of Terror Opens Sept 4th, 2006
A quick reminder, Tokyo Disney's Tower of Terror Officially opens September 4th, 2006 |
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The once lavish Hotel Hightower, built by
multimillionaire Harrison Hightower III, is the setting for
the "Tower of Terror" attraction. Harrison
Hightower was a great collector of cultural artifacts, and
explored various exotic regions in search of valuable relics
to take home. Once back in New York, Hotel Hightower was the
adventurer's favorite place to show off his latest prizes
and boast about the exploits it took to obtain them. The
somewhat less-than-scrupulous Hightower apparently used
whatever methods were necessary to acquire the items he
wanted, even at times engaging in outright plunder,
according to rumor. Still, the parties he threw when
unveiling the latest additions to his collection were
thronged with high-profile guests and reporters.
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And
Speaking of Tower of Terror lets go over to Paris At the Walt Disney Studios in Paris more steel and concrete are becoming part of the scenery while work continues on the Tower of Terror. |
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Tower of Terror has received some more walls.
The left hand side of the smaller front section of the tower
walls have been put in place. In front of the walls is a
smaller section of the building that as been given a roof on
top of the steel construction. Also the smaller triangular
roof has been enclosed.
On the top of the Tower of Terror more changes took place. Scaffolding around the top of the main building has been removed with only the two side scaffolding constructions still in place. With the major part of the walls in place guests and fans will be delighted when this bare construction will start to disappear behind some well deserved color. |
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When baseball teams report for spring
training next year, the Atlanta Braves could find themselves
with a new roommate at The Ballpark at Disney's Wide World
of Sports.
That, at least, is Osceola County's hope. And the county has a batter willing to field a pitch: the Cleveland Indians. The Indians have examined several potential replacements for Winter Haven as their spring-training headquarters, and the club soon could get an official offer from Osceola County and Disney. Osceola County Commission Chairman Paul Owen said county officials will meet with Disney executives next week about a plan to add a second team to the company's spring-training roster. County and corporate officials have yet to hash out logistics of a second team -- for example, how many extra practice fields and whether another stadium is needed. "We don't know what we want to do yet -- build a new stadium, put in more fields, expand [the existing stadium]," Owen said. "We don't know all the costs yet. We'll find out and go from there." Disney has hosted the Braves since 1998, and in March, the club logged record attendance. Wide World of Sports officials have had informal discussions with Indians executives about a potential relocation, "But it's all really early in the process," Disney spokesman Darrell Fry said. The Indians told Winter Haven that they want an upgraded facility and have been up front with the city about exploring other markets. Chain of Lakes Park, the club's spring home, was built in 1966. Owen said Osceola County has talked off and on with Indians executives for a year. Asked whether the Indians would look favorably on an offer to come to Disney, Bob DiBiasio, Indians vice president for public relations, said, "Sure. Absolutely we'd look at that." Unclear is how hard Winter Haven would fight to keep a team it has hosted every spring since 1993. The city no longer has a minor-league team generating revenue and loses between $750,000 and $1 million annually on the stadium. Without baseball, Winter Haven could consider converting 62 acres of prime real estate on which Chain of Lakes Park sits into revenue-generating commercial property. The property currently is zoned for recreation use, said Michael Stavres, Winter Haven's director of leisure and environmental services. The Indians moved to Winter Haven after Boston moved out and after Cleveland's new training facility in Homestead was wiped out by Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. The city and the club are in the third year of a five-year agreement for Chain of Lakes Park. There are three additional five-year deals, and all four contracts have options that belong to the Indians. There is no monetary buyout for an early exit, Stavres said. Stavres said the city is considering its options if and when the Indians have an offer to leave. He said Winter Haven would consider building a new ballpark only with a four-way partnership that includes financial stakes from the city, Polk County, the state of Florida and a major-league club. The city could qualify for $15 million from the state, thanks to a bill signed into law this week by Gov. Jeb Bush. But it could apply for the state funding only if it has a 15-year (or longer) contract in place with a team. Applications are due by Oct. 1. "I haven't spoken to them, but I would expect a decision [by the Indians] about their plans fairly soon," Stavres said. Said DiBiasio: "We're exploring other opportunities, and that's about it at this time. We've been doing that, really, the last five or six years." Team officials took site visits to Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Port Charlotte and several cities in Arizona, a state that in recent years has lured Texas and Kansas City from Florida and has designs on adding at least two more clubs. The Indians trained in Tucson, Ariz., for 46 years before moving to Florida in 1993. The club also made a call to Florida Atlantic about the possibility of a partnership for a new facility in Boca Raton, but the idea did not have much traction, DiBiasio said. |
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The MICKEY MOUSE
CLUBHOUSE makes its Canadian television premiere on Astral
Media’s Family Channel during a special primetime preview
on June 23, 2006, at 7:00 pm before settling into its
regular Friday morning timeslot on June 30 at 10:30 am.
Featuring state-of-the-art 3D computer animation, the education-focused MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE begins by inviting preschoolers to join Mickey in calling out the “magic” phrase, “Meeska, Mooska, Mickey Mouse!” Then a fanciful mouse-shaped structure magically unfolds to serve as the gathering and learning place for young viewers with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Daisy and Donald. From the Clubhouse, Mickey leads the fun- and song-filled stories that present stimulating challenges built around the theme of the day. Through a play-along experience that transports them to locations, young viewers learn to develop early math skills, identify shapes, patterns and numbers and decipher picture puzzles. Mickey and his pals help advance and reinforce the episode’s learning through handy gizmos and gear, including the Mousekedoer, Mouseketools and a transportable device called Toodles. Mickey also provides viewers encouragement and super cheers, including the exuberant Hot Dog! song that celebrates the gang’s daily accomplishments. Produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, this first 3D computer-animated TV series starring Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Daisy Duck and Donald Duck features character designs referential to classic 1940s drawings. Overseas animation was done by DQ Studios in India. Family Channel’s weekday morning preschool programming block, Playhouse, is the destination for exclusive preschool series from Disney, including DISNEY’S LITTLE EINSTEINS, JOJO’S CIRCUS, HIGGLYTOWN HEROES and STANLEY, as well as Canadian programs like FRANNIE’S FEET and THE SECRET WORLD OF BENJAMIN BEAR. Each of these series supports multiple areas of child development. Playhouse airs Monday to Friday from 8:45-11:50 am on Family. Family Channel (www.family.ca) is a premium, commercial-free network offering family television entertainment in 5.2 million homes across Canada. Dedicated to celebrating family life and providing a fun experience for all, Family airs a unique mix of series, movies and specials, with a large portion of programming supplied by Disney. Visit us at Astral Media is one of Canada’s leading media companies, active in specialty, pay and pay-per-view television, radio and outdoor advertising. Astral Media’s solid and dynamic presence in the country’s major markets rests on its commitment to offer a unique combination of high-quality, targeted media for all its audiences. |
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Ironton resident Kati Scott can name several
reasons she is excited about her upcoming trip to Walt
Disney World.
At the top of that list is the chance to meet her favorite Disney character Minnie Mouse. Goofy isn’t that far behind, though, she said. The Make-a-Wish Foundation is sending Kati
and her family to the Magical Kingdom Monday as part of its
program that grants wishes to children with life-threatening
diseases. Currently, the tumor’s growth has
stopped. Unfortunately, according to her parents, the tumor
has never shrunk. The youngster has had several rounds of
treatments, but the tumor remains — as the youngster can
explain — “a butterfly on the top of her head.” Cindy Scott, a librarian with the New
Boston School District, said her daughter may have cancer,
but she has come farther developmentally than some of her
doctors had ever expected. She is out-going, talkative and
can tell you most everything you need to know about her
disease. Pretty impressive for a child that was given only a
few years to live at the time she was diagnosed. |
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Friday June 23, 2006 |
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A new chapter has just been written in
Hollywood about the never-ending tension between "the
talent" and "the suits."
It can be found in a soon-to-be-published tell-all book that offers something very rare, indeed: a candid recounting, complete with tears and recriminations, of a messy divorce between a movie studio and one of the world's most famous writer-directors. In "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale," the 35-year-old filmmaker whose name has become synonymous with spooky suspense thrillers crucifies the top executives at the company he long had considered his artistic home since his 1999 surprise hit "The Sixth Sense": Walt Disney Studios. Penned by Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger with Shyamalan's blessing and extensive participation, the 278-page book hits stores July 20. That's one day before the theatrical premiere of Shyamalan's new movie, "Lady in the Water," which is at the center of the dispute that led him to part ways with Disney. The $70-million movie, a scary fantasy that stars Paul Giamatti as an apartment building superintendent who rescues a sea nymph he finds in his swimming pool, was ultimately financed by Warner Bros. But arguably as shocking as the movie itself is the way Shyamalan, in the book, disses his former studio. As galleys circulate around town, that more than anything else has people musing about just how fragile relationships between artists and executives can be. Disney production President Nina Jacobson gets the worst drubbing. Jacobson and Shyamalan enjoyed a close, albeit sometimes combative, relationship. Over six years, she shepherded his four Disney films including "Unbreakable," "Signs" and "The Village." On what would have been their fifth collaboration, their bond so eroded that the two didn't speak for more than a year. At a disastrous dinner in Philadelphia last year, Jacobson delivered a frank critique of the "Lady in the Water" script. When she told him that she and her boss, studio Chairman Dick Cook, didn't "get" the idea, Shyamalan was heartbroken. Things got only worse when she lambasted his inclusion of a mauling of a film critic in the story line and told Shyamalan his decision to cast himself as a visionary writer out to change the world bordered on self-serving. But Shyamalan gets his revenge on Jacobson in the book, in which he says he had felt for some time that he "had witnessed the decay of her creative vision right before his own wide-open eyes. She didn't want iconoclastic directors. She wanted directors who made money." Bamberger readily acknowledges that the book is told from Shyamalan's point of view. "It's not intended to be balanced," Bamberger said of the book, based on a year he spent shadowing Shyamalan. "It's a Night-centric view of how Night works." If that's all it was, of course, there wouldn't be so many bruised feelings at Disney, whose executives the book maligns as drones who lack creative vision. Of Disney's three top executives, Jacobson, Cook and marketing head Oren Aviv, the book says, "They had morphed into one, the embodiment of the company they worked for. And that company … no longer valued individualism … no longer valued fighters." Nevertheless, the book says Shyamalan was haunted by them. "Sometimes Night would close his eyes and see little oval black and white head shots of Nina Jacobson and Oren Aviv and Dick Cook floating around in his head, unwanted houseguests that would not leave," Bamberger writes. "The Disney people had gotten deep inside his head, interfering with the good work the voices were supposed to do — and it would be hell to get them out." In an interview, Bamberger said that in that section — like in several others — he was channeling Shyamalan's deepest convictions, even though the book usually does not quote the writer-director directly. "Night really let me get inside his head," Bamberger said. "He told me what he was thinking, and I wrote it." Shyamalan was vacationing in France and did not respond to questions sent via e-mail. His publicist, Leslee Dart, said her client "totally supports the book," and the book's publisher, William Shinker of Gotham Books, said Shyamalan had agreed to help promote the nonfiction account. Were it not for Bamberger's book, the Disney-Shyamalan split might have been viewed as just another beat amid the constant churn of Hollywood relationships. Everyone knows that highly accomplished artists are often as deeply insecure as they are brilliant. It can be a challenge for executives to pacify the creative folks, while pleasing the bean counters.
"There is an elusive balance that all
parties strive for between art and commerce," said
Warner Bros. President Alan Horn, who was Shyamalan's first
call after the breakup with Disney. With "Lady in the
Water," which is being launched with a $70-million
marketing campaign, Horn said, "We're trying to support
a film that has unique artistic expression and at the same
time make money."
Paramount Pictures President Gail Berman, whose studio recently decided to postpone production of "Ripley's Believe It or Not," starring Jim Carrey, over budgetary concerns, agreed.
"We all walk the line of devotion to the
artist and fiscal responsibility," she said.
"Sometimes this is the trickiest part of the job."
But, whereas Carrey and director Tim Burton are continuing to work out their script issues with Paramount, Shyamalan didn't give Disney that option. As the book says, Shyamalan felt that when executives criticized his "Lady in the Water" script "they were rejecting him." So he walked. Disney's executives are not the only ones who are ripped in the book. Miramax Films co-founder Harvey Weinstein is described as "famously tyrannical" and is portrayed as ruthlessly recutting Shyamalan's 1998 indie film "Wide Awake." "Why is he doing this?" Shyamalan is quoted asking one of Weinstein's lieutenants. "Because you're not an A-list director," the unnamed aide answers. "But could I be?" Shyamalan asks. Then, Bamberger takes us into Shyamalan's head as he imagines Weinstein's answer: "Night heard Harvey screaming in the silence: 'You're not, and you never will be.' The movie bombed, as it had to. It had been made in bad faith." That, in essence, is the reason Shyamalan — who today is not only A-list, but is such a known quantity that his name alone sells a movie — gives for his refusal to continue his relationship with Disney. The book's most revealing scene is the tense dinner of Feb. 15, 2005, and its aftermath — referred to by Shyamalan's colleagues as "The Valentine's Day Massacre." The setting was a fancy Philadelphia restaurant, Lacroix, not far from the farmhouse where Shyamalan, his wife and two daughters live. But from the start, the book says, the dinner seemed doomed. The tables were too close together, and "Night felt that other diners could hear their conversation." Seated next to Shyamalan, Jacobson aired her problems with the script. Criticisms "came spewing out of her without a filter," Bamberger writes. "You said it was funny; I didn't laugh," the book quotes her as saying. "You're going to let a critic get attacked? They'll kill you for that … Your part's too big; you'll get killed again … What's with the names? Scrunt? Narf? Tartutic? Not working … Don't get it … Not buying it. Not getting it. Not working." Her words went over like spoiled fish. "She went on and on and on," the book says. "Night was waiting for her to say she didn't like the font" his assistant had printed the script in. After way too many courses, Disney executives walked Shyamalan and his agent to the elevator, and Cook asked to speak to the director alone. "Just make the movie for us," Cook said, hoping to keep Disney's most important director in the fold. "We'll give you $60 million and say, 'Do what you want with it.' We won't touch it. We'll see you at the premiere." Shyamalan said he couldn't do that. He couldn't work with those who doubted him. As Cook and his team left the hotel, Shyamalan broke down and cried. "He was crying because he liked them as people and he knew he would not see them again, not as his partners," the author writes. "He was crying because he was scared … He was crying because he knew they could be right." Shyamalan wasn't the only one crying. Jacobson has confided to colleagues that when she returned to her hotel room at the Four Seasons that night, she broke down. She and Shyamalan would not talk again until March of this year. At the director's request, the two met for breakfast at the posh Hotel Bel-Air. By then, Bamberger writes, Shyamalan had realized that "it wasn't Nina's fault that she didn't 'get' the original 'Lady' script, it was Night's fault." Despite that late-in-the-book mea culpa, associates of Jacobson say that reading the tell-all was painful for her. She declined to comment on the book and on Shyamalan himself. But she acknowledged the inherent difficulties of the "patron-artist" relationship. "Not seeing eye to eye on a particular piece of material doesn't have to be the end of a relationship," Jacobson said. "It may not always be easy to have an honest exchange. But in order to have a Hollywood relationship more closely approximate a real relationship, you have to have a genuine back and forth of the good and the bad." She added: "Different people have different ideas about respect. For us, being honest is the greatest show of respect for a filmmaker." |
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Come on, shake your body baby, do the conga
I know you can't control yourself any longer Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger Don't you fight it till you tried it, do the conga beat The words to the 1980s Latin party anthem "Conga" are as inviting as ever, and Gloria and Emilio Estefan have parlayed that sizzle into two Bongos Cuban Cafe restaurants, including their flagship site at Downtown Disney. But they're not about to share the dance floor with pretenders. The Estefans are suing similarly named clubs and restaurants throughout the country, accusing them of usurping the Bongos name and concept. The Latin-music icons say their club is the true Cuban experience, where you can feel the fire of desire as you enjoy Havana-style food and ambience and dance the night away. Any other Bongos is an impostor, they say, and is operating illegally. Last month, they sued a local company for trademark infringement in federal court in Orlando. They're demanding that the owners of Coco Bongo's on South Orange Blossom Trail change its name and turn over any profit derived from the business. What's a business name worth? A lot, say corporate officials and others who zealously defend their products and ideas. Trademark suits number in the thousands nationally each year. In the Middle District of Florida -- an area stretching from Fort Myers to Jacksonville -- the number of such suits rose 52 percent to 280 in fiscal 2005 compared with 184 cases in 2001. Coco Bongo's opened in 2001, four years after the Estefans' Downtown Disney restaurant made its debut at Lake Buena Vista. Coco Bongo's is popular with Latin-music partygoers looking for salsa, merengue and bachata dancing and live entertainment. Unlike the Estefans' business, it no longer offers food. "We are not in a position to make any comment at this time," said Jose Santiago, a co-owner of Coco Bongo's. "We are perplexed." Santiago's attorney added that the two establishments are not alike. "The suit is meritless," said Christopher Robbins of St. Petersburg. A year ago, Estefan Enterprises, based in Miami, sued another club, Coco Bongo in Tampa, and successfully forced its owners to switch names. The same thing happened in Houston, after the Estefans reached an out-of-court settlement with Bongo's Latin Grill & Bar in 2004. That business is now Havana Latin Grill & Bar. Karen Stetson, the Estefans' attorney, said the Miami-based superstars will continue to protect their interests and fight to keep others from cashing in on their trademark name.
"It doesn't have to be
identical," Stetson said of the name disputes.
"Is the name sufficiently similar to create
confusion? In our case, it's definitely causing
confusion."
Companies don't hesitate to protect their turf. Many cases are brought by powerful corporate giants such as Disney, which has gone after T-shirt shops and gift stores to stop them from using the words "Mickie," "Mickey Mouse" or any likeness to its ears. The Pizzeria Uno chain threatened to sue a landmark mom-and-pop Cuban eatery in south Orlando several years ago. The company demanded that Numero Uno pay it for the use of the name "Uno," though Numero Uno was in town first. Pizzeria Uno backed off after a public outcry. "Intellectual property is just incredibly valuable, and people are working very hard to keep it protected," said Alan Higbee, a Tampa attorney who defended the WingHouse sports-grill chain in a suit brought by Hooters. WingHouse was accused of copying the Hooters waitress uniform of short shorts and tight tops, as well as its restaurant decor. But WingHouse won, with an Orlando federal jury awarding it $1.2 million in late 2004 to recoup legal fees after the judge ruled the copycat case weak. In the Estefans' case against Coco Bongo in Tampa, co-owners Edwin Gomez and Giovanny Santa Cruz were forced to change their business name to Cohiba Lounge two months ago, after they failed to respond to the suit in time and a federal judge issued a permanent injunction. That wasn't the end of it, though. Gomez and Santa Cruz face up to $79,000 in fines that were assessed daily when the restaurant continued to operate under the old name in violation of the judge's January order. "It's obvious that the name creates confusion wherever it may be used," said Stetson, the Estefans' attorney, who noted that an Elizabeth, N.J., nightclub may face similar action. The Estefans, who applied in 1996 and 1997 to register the Bongos Cuban Cafe phrase and logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, haven't always been the ones on the attack. In 1997, three days after the opening of their cafe at Downtown Disney, the California manufacturer of Bongo Jeans sued the couple in Miami federal court. Bongo Jeans wanted the Estefans to forfeit their cafe's name, destroy its souvenir and clothing inventory and pay for any profit derived from the use of the name. However, a federal judge who heard testimony from the Estefans dismissed the suit. Miami U.S. District Court James Lawrence King ruled that the Estefans could keep their name, saying the two companies' products were not alike and customers were not likely to confuse each other's goods. "We always believed that Bongos Cuban Cafe was a great name because the instrument after which the restaurant is named expresses the passion and flavor of Cuba," Emilio Estefan said at the time. "We never thought there would be any problems or confusion with that name." That's exactly what some of the businesses now targeted by the Estefans are saying. But Stetson said there's a key distinction. "They are completely different scenarios," she said, because of the type of business operations. "We were on the defense then and, since then, we've been on the offense to enforce our rights." |
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Captain Jack Sparrow's
Pirate Tutorial will be presented near the Pirates of the
Caribbean attraction in Adventureland on Friday, June 23 and
Saturday, June 24. The soft-preview times are as follows: |
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Universal
Orlando hires former Disney exec
Universal Orlando has hired Dan Cupertino as senior vice president of sales, effective Monday. Cupertino was most recently vice president for travel agency sales and national accounts with The Walt Disney Co. His job with Disney included managing the sales team for Walt Disney World, the Disney Cruise Line and Disneyland Resort. Prior to his role with Disney, he worked for Delta Air Lines in a variety of sales positions. |
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Disney
Online to Offer Public Libraries Free Access to Playhouse
Disney Preschool Time Online
Disney Online, part of the Walt Disney Internet Group, today announced it will offer public libraries free subscriptions to Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online, a safe, ad-free interactive learning experience for preschoolers. Developed in conjunction with education experts, Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online offers entertaining, story-driven games and activities that teach skills in crucial areas such as letter and number recognition, shape and color identification and counting. Disney Online will be showcasing the service at the American Library Association (ALA) Conference in New Orleans from June 24-27th in booth #240. "Librarians often play a significant role in helping preschool-age children prepare for kindergarten," said Renee Cherow O'Leary, professor at Teachers College Columbia University and President of Education for the 21st Century, an educational consulting firm in New York City. "Resources that support early learning are valuable and allow parents and children to work together." Praised by The New York Times and USA Today for its content, Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online is hosted by "Bear" from Disney Channel's Bear in the Big Blue House. Bear and other Disney characters lead activities that focus on eight key skill areas including reading readiness, thinking skills, daily living skills, social skills, imagination and self-expression, motor skills, and computer skills. Lessons automatically adjust to each individual child's skill level, keeping preschoolers engaged and challenged. New content is introduced every two weeks, letting each child continue to advance at his or her natural pace. "We're very pleased to be able to offer Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online free to public libraries," said Steve Parkis, vice president of premium products, Disney Online. "We believe the public library is a perfect fit for the fun learning offered in Preschool Time Online, especially for guests who may not have easy access to a broadband connection elsewhere." Disney Online will offer U.S.-based public librarians free access to Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online, normally a $49.95 annual subscription fee, beginning June 24, 2006 at the American Library Association conference. Librarians can email library@disney.com to request a free subscription or visit www.preschooltime.com/library for a guide on how to use Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online in the library. Valid credentials must be provided by each applicant. |
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'The
Lion King' moves to Times Square
For most of its Broadway life, The Lion King made its home at the New Amsterdam, the ornate Art Nouveau theatre whose restoration by Disney helped ignite the rebirth of 42nd Street. Now the show's logo, a lion mask against a large, lighted yellow backdrop, looks out from the wide Times Square window of the Minskoff, an antiseptic 1970s-modern theatre that has been transformed into a more inviting space with the arrival last week of the Disney megahit. Why move a show that has been a hot ticket since it opened in New York nearly 10 years ago, transferring it from an 1,800-seat theatre to a smaller 1,600-seat house? Tom Schumacher, the ebullient producer of Disney Theatrical, is ready with an answer. "We get a gigantic amount of visibility. We get to be right here where the bulk of the audience is (the centre of Times Square). We reduce our capacity slightly, but we stay neutral on our gross potential and it creates a home for Mary Poppins, giving it a big Disney embrace," he says. That embrace includes putting Mary Poppins, a Disney co-production with Cameron Mackintosh, into Disney's flagship theatre, the New Amsterdam, beginning this fall. "It came down to creative concerns," says David Schrader, Disney Theatrical's managing director, in discussing the move. "Mary Poppins is more like a play. It's about the interaction of a family. 'The Lion King' is more about the visual." And that visual gets a new, expansive display inside the Minskoff, located in a 55-storey office building that straddles a prime piece of real estate on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets on the west side of Times Square. The theatre opened in 1973 with a revival of the 1920s musical Irene, starring Debbie Reynolds. While it's had notable shows, including Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard and the most recent revival of Fiddler on the Roof, the Minskoff was long thought of as too cavernous and the home of more than a few flops. Does anyone remember such musical-theatre esoterica as Rockabye Hamlet, Got Tu Go Disco, Marilyn: An American Fable and Metro? Yet the theatre's owners, the Nederlander Organization, undertook an expensive renovation to make the theatre more palatable to Disney. The two have had a special relationship for more than decade, with such high-profile Disney shows as Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan and Aida all playing in other Nederlander Broadway houses. But Schumacher wanted something special as the new home for his most successful theatrical offering. "I need this place to feel like there is an event happening," Schumacher said of his requirements for the Minskoff. "I need it to feel warm." Not an easy job, particularly for the theatre's entrance, a sterile passageway linking 44th and 45th Streets. Design consultant Mariuca Brancoveanu brightened what had all the appeal of an airport terminal, circa 1963, with gold rectangles, and a new marquee was added on the 45th Street side of building. Those gold rectangles reappear inside the theatre, complementing the new red carpeting and a new paint job. Despite the smaller size, weekly grosses for The Lion King in the Minskoff should be about the same as in the New Amsterdam. "The math makes it work," says Schrader. "There are more seats in the orchestra level in the Minskoff than in the New Amsterdam," which means there are more seats at the top price. And unlike the New Amsterdam, the Minskoff doesn't have a second balcony, where ticket prices are lower. The Lion King most likely will become the Minskoff's longest running tenant. It gave its last performance - number 3,571 - June 4 at the New Amsterdam, shut down for a week and then reopened on June 13 in its new home. An entire new physical set for The Lion King was built for the Minskoff, while the show continued to play two blocks to the south at the New Amsterdam. That allowed the production - including its 52 cast members and 24-member orchestra - to make the move with only one week off. And it gave the backstage crew, including stagehands and costume people, more time to get used to their new, larger behind-the-scenes surroundings. Nothing has been changed in the show, which has the same visuals, designs and sets. The transfer was accomplished without a drop in business. In fact, for the musical's first week at the Minskoff, the period ending June 18, the show set a new house record, grossing more than $1.19 million US. And no audience members were confused, mistakenly going to the wrong theatre to see the show. Schumacher may have had an inkling on the first night for The Lion King in its new theatre. "When we finished the show, people didn't leave," he said. "The whole lobby was filled with theatregoers for another 45 minutes. You feel like you are getting a full New York experience." |
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Going
behind the scenes at Disney World
Let's just get this out of the way: They're chipper even when nobody's looking. If you go on a behind-the-scenes tour of Walt Disney World in the hopes of catching one of those happy cast members with his smile down -- spitting on the break-room floor, maybe, or being mean to some kittens -- you'll be disappointed. Disney's Cult of Cheerfulness survives even in the no-go zones. Otherwise, this little-publicized series of backstage tours may offer the most mind-blowing Disney experience you've had since your first wide-eyed walk down Main Street. At least, that's what I thought when:
And that doesn't even count such sworn-to-secrecy dish as how they keep the Safari Adventure lions on that viewing rock (air conditioning), what employees really think of certain daily performances ("Cinderellabration, the Loudest Show on Earth") and just who that is in the Mickey costume (a petite woman, most likely). Did you even know you could peek behind the curtains at Disney World? They do almost nothing to promote these stunning backstage ops. But in fact, any civilian willing to pony up $12 to $199 can ogle a bit of what goes on within one of the most painstakingly designed, constructed and managed patches of all human civilization. There are 17 backstage tours in all, from a 45-minute glimpse at Epcot's vast greenhouses to a seven-hour walkaround at three separate parks. Most are offered only on certain weekdays, none allows cameras in the backstage areas, and only a few allow children under 16. I sampled three tours during a four-day visit last month. Here's a report from behind the ears. Keys to the Kingdom, Magic
Kingdom ($58, 4 hours) "The bulls are probably safer," says our sweetly acerbic guide, Matthew. "They don't have strollers." We meander up Main, a gas-lamp ideal of small-townness. Matthew, speaking to us through the radio headsets we all wear, points out how the buildings' second floors are actually about one-eighth smaller in scale than the ground floors. It's an old movie trick known as forced perspective that makes the set look taller. Disney's whole theme park concept was to put visitors inside a cinema experience, Matthew says. Every part of the park has its own constant soundtrack (all in the same key and on the same beat to make for smooth transitions), and there's always a popcorn smell wafting by the entrance. He points to the second-story windows. "And those are our opening credits." Turns out those old-timey ersatz business names feature real people who helped build the park. You'll find Roy Disney above the confectioner's shop (Walt's brother and partner). And above the ice cream parlor at the far end, "Walter E. Disney -- Graduate School of Design & Master Planning." Matthew ladles out cool factoids as we move about the park. For example, did you know there's a trash can in Disney every 30 to 50 paces because Walt himself reportedly handed out candy at Disneyland and then counted the number of steps before people would drop the wrapper? Trash is a big deal in a place that moves a couple of Super Bowls' worth of people through every day. On our first backstage stop, a utility area behind Pirates of the Caribbean, Matthew points out a rubbish compactor the size of a four-unit apartment building. Remarkably, before the garbage is sucked here from around the park by a Swiss-built network of pneumatic tubes, it's sorted by hand to pull out recyclables and all the wallets and cameras people toss by accident. The combustibles are burned to generate a third of Disney's electricity. To get backstage, we cross the steam-train railroad tracks, walk around a bend in the road and finally pass through a secluded gate. When we step over a bright yellow "sight line" on the road, Matthew declares us out of any possible view of guests in the park. "Now, what do you really want to know?" Matthew asks. Only now will he give us out-of-character answers to certain questions. That cable that stretches from the top of Cinderella's Castle? Inside the park, he'll only say it's where Cinderella hangs her laundry. But on this side of the sight line, he comes clean on the magic behind Tinkerbell's nightly "flight" from the castle. The performer in the Tink suit must weigh no more than 95 pounds; she wears nearly 70 pounds of harnesses and lights; she makes actors' equity wages plus hazard bonuses, and she gets paid for eight hours whether she flies or not. "Tinkerbell is well taken care of," he says. The park is open now and filling rapidly. But our group bypasses the long queue for the Jungle Cruise to step aboard a boat of our own. Matthew takes the microphone from the pilot and substitutes the usual corny spiel with some delicious state secrets. He points to a spot on the fuselage of a "downed" airplane where three small metal disks make a familiar mouselike shape. This is our first Hidden Mickey, one of dozens of such built-in winks scattered throughout Disney parks that devotees pursue with "Da Vinci Code" intensity. Matthew points out another an hour later during our private ride through the Haunted Mansion. (Okay, okay. It's on the dining room table, a dinner plate flanked by two saucers underneath the waltzing ghosts.) Our capacity for this stuff is infinite. I've never seen such an attentive tour group, peppering Matthew with questions over lunch in a private part of the Columbia Harbour House restaurant, and finally in the super-secret underground tunnels that lace the Magic Kingdom. If you're really lucky, you might see Goofy schlepping to his shift, head in hand. But mostly this is just a wide utility hallway filled with beeping carts and exposed plumbing (and a display of killer, never-published photos of Disney's construction phase). But by this time, we're so drunk with insider scoop, even the sewage pipes hold us rapt. Backstage Safari, Animal Kingdom
($65, 4 hours) A female munches away as our tour guide, Paul -- a retired biology teacher from Michigan -- recounts the challenges of elephant sex in cringing detail. Animal Kingdom is a fully accredited, state-of-the-art zoo, active in wildlife breeding programs around the world and clearly committed to top animal care. And its backstage tour, popular with critter lovers, is heavy on true-fact science. But even in the nonpublic technical areas, the creative hand of Walt is obvious. Paul points out a lone, tall pine rising behind the employee commissary. "That's a Nextel tower," he says. "It was visible from a few spots within the park, so they turned it into a tree." We drive slowly along the high earthen berm that encircles the park (more sightline management). An electric fence runs along one side of the lane (to keep out deer, mostly), and animal holding areas line the other. We see off-duty cheetahs, rhinos and giraffes taking the shade. At the rhino barn, a keeper explains care and feeding, and we're allowed to stroke the thick hide of a young female white rhino as she scarfs alfalfa on the other side of the bars. Later, during a bathroom break in the administrative building, a keeper joins us for brownies with a breathtaking spectacled owl on her arm. At the vet clinic, they're scraping a callus off a goat. And in the nutrition center, they're cutting up restaurant-quality fruits and vegetables and packing individual plastic bins with the next day's meal for more than 300 species. For the big cats, techs measure out horse meat at a separate station. For the littler carnivores -- reptiles and raptors -- a row of frozen dead rodents thaw on a counter, from bald newborn pinkies to full-grown white mi . . . "We try not to use the M word," Paul says. "Mickey gets upset." But the tour isn't all biology. Good old human smugness kicks in when Paul leads us into a private holding area within the park for the popular Kilimanjaro Safari (essentially, the ride through the zoo section of Animal Kingdom). Paul even invites us to twist the knife a bit, smiling and waving at those who have been waiting for more than an hour as we drive by. Kilimanjaro Safari essentially realizes Walt's original vision for the Jungle Cruise, a fake tour featuring real animals. But it took decades to figure out ways to provide both proper habitat for the wildlife and guaranteed viewing for the visitors. Paul starts pointing out tricks. The huge baobab tree is fiberglass, with a camera in its trunk. The hanging lantern is really a signal for the driver to hold position. And that pond crowded with leggy red birds? "Take a closer look at the shape of Flamingo Island," Paul says. "It's a Hidden Mickey." Epcot Seas Aqua Tour, Epcot
($100, 2 1/2 hours) "When you're in the water," our guide, Amanda, instructs us as we line up on the metal grate at water's edge, "you will be part of the exhibit. People will take pictures of you. They will go nuts. You can wave, make hand gestures." She pauses. "Just remember, there are some hand gestures we don't do at Disney." The actual jump into the tank is just the climax of a two-hour prowl through one of the largest artificial marine environments in the world. The first hour takes us by manatee and dolphin tanks, into an ichthyological sickroom and past boxcar-size pumps that filter the water at the rate of 35,000 gallons a minute. Halfway through, we take a break in a kind of diver's greenroom decorated like a seafood restaurant. We watch a video and get a briefing on the breathing equipment. Amanda assures us that the numerous sharks and rays and sea turtles will do no more than nudge us. "You'll be using the same platform as the feeders use, so they will definitely be interested when you get into the water." She leads us to locker rooms, where we find fresh towels, hot showers and wet suits in our sizes waiting for us. Up on the platform, we shoulder into the tanks and Amanda snaps our pictures just before we put on our masks. (After the swim, we'd find the printed pictures and a tour T-shirt waiting for us). A dive master runs through a few hand signals and warns us to stay away from the fence that separates the dolphins from the main tank (they can be aggressive if you get too close). "In you go," he shouts, and I plunge headfirst into a sea turtle. He's a massive old thing, twirling like a dancer as I right myself and get accustomed to the air regulator. We're nose to nose for a while. Soon we're joined by a spotted eagle ray, and then I'm engulfed by a shimmering school of jacks. The water is warm, salty and perfectly clear. The tank is huge, and I quickly lose sight of the other swimmers. It's half an hour of such blisses with the fishes. There are 65 species of them. Below, the sharks cruise in restless circles. The spectacular coral towers -- absolutely fake -- rise in arching towers from the shell bottom. Behind the five-inch thick acrylic windows, I see shadowy forms, pointing and clicking ... at me. I wave and make Hidden Mickey shapes with my fingers, feeling oh-so-immersed in Disney's world. |
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Disney
and Judith Leiber Team Up For "Disney Couture
Jewelry"
Walt Disney Pictures’ “Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” hits theaters July 7, and
luxe choices will complement the movie - such as T-shirts and
plastic lunch boxes - and will be sold at Disney’s 525
company stores around the world. |
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AAA
Chicago, Disney Dream Vacation Targets Mouseketeering Cubs
Fans AAA Chicago is betting that a host of loyal Chicago Cubs fans will trade in their team baseball caps for a set of mouse ears for a 3rd year this December. Dubbed the Walt Disney World Dream Vacation for Cubs Players & Fans, AAA Travel, the official travel arm of AAA Chicago, will feature this exclusive event from December 8-12 in Orlando, Fla. Access to this Cubs-Disney excursion must be secured through AAA Chicago in advance, as admission will not be sold during the event. Partakers receive five days and four nights filled with private events and receptions featuring several past and present Cubs team members including Hall of Famers Ernie "Mr. Cub" Banks, Billy Williams and current Cubs Michael Barrett, Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Dempster and many more. The 2006 Disney-Cubs Dream Vacation experience includes park admissions and choice accommodations. Admission to the sporting events and dining receptions where fans can freely interact with past and present Cub team members is exclusive to this package and must be secured in advance in order to attend. To reserve your tickets for this magical Cubs-Disney experience provided by AAA, contact AAA Travel at (866) 4AAA-CUBS / (866) 422-2282 |
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Disney
on Ice
Winter has extended its frosty fingers across the land. But even at its coldest, Australia doesn't get much ice - so ice-skating, if you discount Steven Bradbury's miraculous gold at the Winter Olympics, isn't something we're especially good at. Luckily, overseas guests have arrived in town to show us how it's done in a lavish ice-tacular. The Magical World Of Disney On Ice has been delighting children around the world since its first production in 1981. Combining Disney characters with the athletic sorcery of figure skating, it's a show that will leave your average eight-year-old woo-hooing, singing along and kicking the chair of the reviewer in front of them for the duration. Old favorites abound. No Disney On Ice could exclude Mickey and Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy, or Jiminy Cricket - who all introduce various segments with comic aplomb. But the old Disney is increasingly a vehicle for the new, and although Mickey and friends get in a bit of Mouseketeering mayhem, the main attraction comes in the form of a host of short scenes from more recent Disney movies. There's less Snow White and Pinocchio than Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan. This year's takeover of Pixar also allows sequences from Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. (Of all the amazing costumes, the ones for the fish in Nemo are perhaps the most ingenious.) Disney On Ice is a feast of sights and sound, and there are some marvelous visual coups: a platoon of green toy soldiers, a throng of captivating dancing genies, a full-size Chinese dragon, a skating great white shark - even a whale. Needless to say, the production values are extravagant. No expense has been spared to bring this tightly woven fantasia to life, and it's enough to make the stiffest jaw drop. As for the skaters as performers, they work wonders; the audience will be no less awed by their talent than their elaborate costumes and accompanying glitz. The most technically skilled skating occurs during a showcase of Disney princesses. But all demonstrate a physical mastery that is rendered more impressive by the fact that many of them perform their stunts while wearing enormous cartoon heads. Disney On Ice is a spectacle of breathtaking scale. With fabulous choreography, lighting that would outdo most rock concerts, and costuming that brings to life a huge cast of characters, it will excite the wonderland of every child's imagination. |
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Disney lifts Pooh bear grave ban The Disney Corporation backed down yesterday after banning grieving parents from putting Winnie the Pooh on their stillborn baby's headstone. The American giant had warned a stonemason that he would be in breach of copyright if he included an image of A A Milne's "bear of very little brain" on the stone. The baby's parents, from Clacton, Essex, had sought Disney's approval and were amazed when their request was rejected. The Colchester-based stonemason, Aaron Clarke, said: "Disney make billions of pounds every year from children but they won't let a family put a picture on a stillborn baby's headstone. It is ridiculous. The family are upset enough as it is." However, after being questioned about the ban by reporters, a Disney spokesman said: "Our deepest sympathies go out to the family at this time. "We have been in contact with them and are in the process of fulfilling their original request." |
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Mighty no more: Ducks change name, uniforms, logo The Ducks are mighty no more. The NHL team will take the ice next season as the Anaheim Ducks, wearing new uniforms with different colors and a redesigned logo. The makeover cuts the team's final remaining ties to former owner The Walt Disney Co., which sold the Ducks last year to Orange County residents Henry and Susan Samueli. The team kept Ducks in its nickname after a poll of season ticketholders. "A brand image is so hard to build," Henry Samueli said. "If you have to change the name, then you're wiping out 13 years of brand history, not only in Orange County but in the whole country." The new logo is the word "Ducks" in gold with white trim and orange shadowing superimposed on a black background. The capital "D" resembles a webbed foot, and the spacing inside the "D" is an arrow pointing toward the rest of the word. Black and gold replace purple and teal as the team's main colors, with orange and white serving as accents. "I really love the new look and thank the Samuelis for giving me a chance to have input on the design," winger Teemu Selanne said. Home uniforms will feature black jerseys and socks with gold, white and orange stripes. On the road, the Ducks will wear white jerseys and socks with gold, black and orange stripes. Disney owned the franchise from its inception in 1993 and named the team after its movie, "The Mighty Ducks." |
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Now that you are grandparents, are you going to Disney World? A trip to Disney World with 4- and
6-year-old granddaughters and a mother who wants them to see
everything is torturous fun and should not be classified as
a vacation. |
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Pirate
movie premiere to be held at Disneyland
Disneyland will close early Saturday to roll out the carpet for the stars of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." The sequel of the movie based on the Disneyland ride will premiere Saturday night on a screen set up on Tom Sawyer's Island at the theme park. Before that, actors including the movie's star, Johnny Depp, will stroll down a red carpet on Main Street. The park will close at 5 p.m., but will open early at 6:30 a.m. |
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MSN
and Disneyland Resort to Webcast the "Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" Red Carpet World
Premiere
MSN Video will broadcast live the world premiere of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" on Saturday, June 24, from 7–8:30 p.m. PDT to a worldwide audience on MSN Video at http://movies.msn.com/movies/pirates_webcast. Pirates of the Caribbean, the popular Disney theme park attraction that inspired the movie, is once again brought to the big screen in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." In a unique twist, the movie has now inspired the attraction, which will welcome new characters and elements — including the crafty Captain Jack Sparrow — from the blockbuster entertainment franchise as part of a spectacular, star-studded movie premiere. The attraction officially re-opens to guests June 26 at Disneyland and July 7 in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. The webcast will be hosted by the MSN "Dish Diva" Taylor Johnson along with a Disneyland historian and Disney Imagineer who will go live at remote locations along the red carpet at the premiere. The 90-minute webcast will include interviews from the A-list celebrities on the red carpet along with information about the fun and exciting history of Disney's beloved attraction that inspired the movies. "We're thrilled to give our worldwide audience exclusive live access to the premiere event for one of this year's most highly anticipated films," said Rob Bennett, general manager of Entertainment and Video Services for MSN. "Our rich catalog of unique video content from leading producers like Disney is what makes MSN the best destination for online entertainment." Starring a humorous cast of rascals, scoundrels and villains, the world-famous attraction sends guests of all ages on a voyage through mysterious caverns where "Dead men tell no tales" and then into a colonial-era Caribbean seaport under siege by a band of fun-loving pirates. The attraction's jaunty theme song, "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)," sets the show's light tone with its tongue-in-cheek depiction of high-seas lawlessness now featuring Captain Jack Sparrow, Barbossa and Davy Jones, stars from "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." Captain Jack Sparrow appears in the attraction on three occasions. In addition, the treacherous Barbossa can now be seen as the Captain of the Wicked Wench in the attraction's famous battle scene. An apparition of the ghostly Davy Jones, a prominent character in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," can be seen in the attraction's mysterious grotto labyrinth, materializing via a fantastic waterfall effect. "The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and movie have brought a lot of enjoyment to kids and adults of all ages, and this webcast will continue to bring millions of Internet users worldwide into the magic," said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. "Working with MSN and this exciting technology allows people the world over to experience the excitement and fun of a movie premiere at the 'Happiest Place on Earth.'" Disney Imagineers have also enhanced the attraction experience with an all-new dynamic digital sound design, the addition of musical cues from the movie soundtracks, enhanced theatrical lighting designs, and an improved battle sequence between a pirate galleon and Spanish fortress. Featuring more than 120 Audio-Animatronics performers, lavishly decorated sets and special effects, Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the most spectacular attractions ever created for Disney Parks. More than 500 million people have experienced the rollicking fun of the immersive adventure in California and Florida during the past 39 years. |
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Mickey
Mouse Waves His Magic Wand on New Postage Stamps
Sorcerer Mickey Mouse gave the audience attending the “Washington 2006 World Philatelic Stamp Exposition” a sneak peak of the upcoming The Art of Disney: Magic stamps, which will be issued in 2007. |
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In 2004, the U.S. Postal Service issued its
first in the series of stamps entitled The Art of Disney.
That year, Friendship was the theme and it featured Mickey
Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck and a host of Disney friends.
The Art of Disney: Celebration stamps issued in 2005 were
the second in the series and featured Mickey Mouse and
Pluto; Alice and the Mad Hatter; Ariel and Flounder; and
Snow White and Dopey. The third in the series was The Art
of Disney: Romance featuring Mickey Mouse and Minnie
Mouse, Lady and the Tramp, Belle and the Beast, and
Cinderella and Prince Charming, issued just this year. The
surprise announcement of the fourth in the series came on
April 21 as well, only this time the theme is Magic.
“The U.S. Postal Service and Disney have enjoyed a collaborative partnership that has produced a magical series of beautiful stamps,” said Wendy Hocking, Secretary, Board of Governors, United States Postal Service. “Today, the magic continues and comes center stage at the Washington 2006 World Philatelic Stamp Exposition, as we unveil one of the four new The Art of Disney: Magic stamps that will be issued by the Postal Service next year.” |
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Tinker
Bell Talks -- Shame on Disney!
Last fall Disney unveiled a line of merchandise called Fairies, which follows the company's successful Princesses franchise. As part of the series of products and licensing deals, Disney will release straight-to-video animated films featuring Tinker Bell (since when is her name two words?), the tiny pixie duster from Peter Pan, and her fairy friends. As if J.M. Barrie isn't rolling around in his grave enough after the video sequel Return to Neverland or from the fact that Disney has created a clique of friends for Tink (unlike with the Princesses line, Disney doesn't already have a bunch of fairy characters to mine from), Disney is further ruining the playwright's iconic characters by having Tinker Bell speak. And providing her voice is Brittany Murphy. Maybe some people are okay with a talking Tink, but if I'm not one of them. If I remember correctly, a lot of the plot points in Peter Pan have to do with her inability to communicate by any other means than pantomime. Maybe she just is so small that her voice doesn't project to humans, and she can speak perfectly with other fairies, but it still ruins part of her character to hear her voice, especially if it is the same as Murphy's voice. What next? Pooh loses weight? Donald buys pants? Oh, I know! Make another Bambi sequel that claims Bambi's mother wasn't actually killed by the hunters. LINK to source |
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Playhouse
Disney's Little Einsteins and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
Ratings Winners
Preschoolers around the globe are singing "Meeska, Mouska, Mickey Mouse," yelling "Blast off" and will be signaling for the "Super Sleuths" from Disney's three exciting new Playhouse Disney properties. Disney is building its preschool portfolio with a multi-million dollar marketing effort and broad consumer product programs. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - currently Playhouse Disney's highest rated show - Little Einsteins and My Friends Tigger and Pooh - to debut in spring 2007 - focus on different aspects of early child development and combine to address the needs of the "whole" child. Disney Consumer Products (DCP) merchandise will feature elements of the interactive learning specific to each show. "Parents have enjoyed Mickey and Pooh for years, and now a new generation of preschoolers are being introduced to these characters with a fresh CG-animated look. Little Einsteins rounds out a very strong preschool block that blends entertainment with education," said Andy Mooney, chairman of DCP. "Retailers are also seeing potential in these shows and clearing shelf space based on the strength of Playhouse Disney as a preschool platform." Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (MMCH) premiered in May on Playhouse Disney channels and Disney Channels around the world -- the first-ever same-day global launch of Disney Channel programming. The show, which focuses on problem solving and early math curriculum, delivered the highest rated Playhouse Disney premiere ever with preschool kids 2 -5 (6.2 coverage/ 4.9 national rating) - source: Nielsen Media Research. During May ratings, MMCH was in the Top 5 with Kids 2-5 - surpassing Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants. MMCH toys will launch this Fall with all other product categories launching in spring 2007. The toy line from licensee, Character Direct, will feature interactivity and gadgets direct from the television series, as well as new technology and innovation. Name That Song Mickey is a key item in the line - the product features a wireless piano combined with a soft Mickey plush that interactively teaches kids music through numbers. Little Einsteins Little Einsteins premiered in October 2005, and at the time, scored the highest Playhouse Disney debut ever among Kids 2-5. Since then, it has consistently ranked as the #1 series with Kids 2-5 against all basic cable competition in its time period (daily, 8:00 a.m., ET/PT). The show, which fosters creativity through music and art, began debuting around the world, most recently in Australia and New Zealand and will next launch in France, India and Taiwan. DCP will launch a broad cross-category assortment of product in spring 2007. My Friends Tigger and Pooh Finally, My Friends Tigger and Pooh (MFTP) - to premiere in spring 2007 - will introduce a new generation of preschoolers to Winnie the Pooh and friends, as well as their new friends, Darby and her dog Buster, in contemporary 3D CG-animation. The show teaches life lessons, such as friendship, as well as early earth science. Tigger and Pooh are "Super Sleuths" and the audience helps them solve mysteries in the Hundred Acre Wood. A licensing program is currently in development for mass and mid-tier retail distribution for spring 2008. |
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Hit
a High Note with Mattel's New ''High School Musical'' DVD
Board Game
Mattel, Inc. today announced they will introduce a new DVD board game this fall based on the hugely popular Disney Channel Original Movie, "High School Musical." The High School Musical DVD Game is the newest addition to Mattel's DVD games portfolio, which includes the award-winning Scene It? The DVD Game, Mad Gab Mania, Tribond Beyond, Disney DVD Bingo, Barbie Fairytopia Mermaidia, to name a few. The new game lets players enter into their favorite "High School Musical" moments as they interact with the DVD to complete challenges and move through the High School campus in an effort to make final call back auditions. "We are excited to bring this smash hit movie to life in a way that lets kids immerse themselves in an interactive game and be a part of the 'High School Musical' phenomenon," said Tim Kilpin, General Manager and Senior Vice President, Boys and Entertainment, Mattel Brands. "The game integrates audition elements such as memorable video clips, songs and dances from the show that kids will enjoy and love. The High School Musical DVD Game is a perfect addition to Mattel's growing portfolio of interactive games." The High School Musical DVD Game allows players to be one of the six main characters from the movie - Gabriella, Troy, Sharpay, Ryan, Taylor and Chad - and respond to DVD-based questions and challenges in four categories, including "Actual or SO Not!," "Song," "Dance" and "Relationships and Trivia." The game challenges players' knowledge of High School Musical with video clips, movie songs and dance routines to see how well they can "audition" and make their way around the school-themed game board. Game points are awarded based on level of difficulty, with freshman class questions and challenges being the easiest and senior class categories being the most difficult. The High School Musical DVD Game includes a game board, DVD and six character movers and will be available this November at retailers nationwide for an MSRP of $19.99 |
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Mouse
Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records Released
Around the world there are grandparents, parents, and children who can still sing ditties by Tigger or Baloo the Bear or the Seven Dwarves. The staying power and global reach of these songs are testimony to the pizzazz of performers, songwriters, and other creative artists who worked with Walt Disney Records. Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (University Press of Mississippi) chronicles for the first time the fifty-year history of the Disney recording companies launched by Walt and Roy Disney in the mid-1950s, when Disneyland Park, Davy Crockett, and the Mickey Mouse Club were taking the world by storm. The book provides a perspective on all-time Disney favorites and features anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographies of the artists who brought Disney magic to audio. |
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Authors Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar go
behind the scenes at the Walt Disney Studios and discover
that in the early days the Disneys resisted going into the
record business before the success of "The Ballad of
Davy Crockett" ignited the in-house label. Along the
way, the book traces the recording adventures of such
Disney favorites as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Cinderella,
Bambi, Jiminy Cricket, Winnie the Pooh, and even Walt
Disney himself.Mouse Tracks reveals the Disney brothers’
struggles, major successes, and occasional misfires.
Included are impressions and details of teen pop
princesses Annette Funicello and Hayley Mills, the Mary Poppins
phenomenon, a Disney-style "British Invasion,"
and a low period when sagging sales forced Walt
Disney to suggest closing the division down.
Complementing each chapter are performer biographies, reproductions of album covers and art, and facsimiles of related promotional material. Mouse Tracks is a collector’s bonanza of information on this little-analyzed side of the Disney empire. Author Tim Hollis lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Three of his previous books— histories of tourism and children’s television—are published by University Press of Mississippi. Two-time Grammy nominee Greg Ehrbar, a twenty-year Disney company veteran, is a writer of advertisements, books, television specials, radio shows, compact discs, and Walt Disney Records Read-Alongs. |
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Kelloggs:
CARS offers found on specially marked boxes
Visit the official website to learn more about the Kelloggs-Keebler and Cars promotion. Various Cars related items are available with the purchase of specially marked boxes. |
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ViewNow
Licenses Buena Vista Pay Television Titles for VOD
ViewNow,
a leading Video on Demand (VOD) programming provider,
today announced an agreement with Buena Vista Pay
Television to offer Disney studio content to both the
Telco and Cable television markets. ViewNow has also
received licensing rights that will allow consumers
ordering Disney VOD titles a 72 hour viewing period. This
industry first contractual arrangement allows the
consumers to view the film as many times as they choose
for a 72 hour period with full VOD functionality.
The agreement brings ViewNow a hugely popular content collection from Disney, including titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films, and Pixar Animation Studios. This licensing deal will include such popular VOD Titles as Pirates of Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest and the animation film Cars which will be coming to ViewNow Affiliates. Some of the first films available to ViewNow Affiliates will be The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Eight Below, and Chicken Little. Buena Vista Pay Television's content gives ViewNow the most in-depth and comprehensive line up of Studio VOD programming. "Along with Buena Vista Pay TV's titles", says ViewNow CEO Steve Roberts, "ViewNow licenses, encodes, and distributes content from Warner Bros, New Line Cinema, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, NBC/Universal, Dreamworks, and many other Independent studios in MPEG 2, MPEG 4 (H.264), and VC1 encoded formats". ViewNow's unique ViewTrak(TM) solution is a trusted system that provides all of the viewing, accountability and standard measurement metrics cited by Affiliates and Studios as the critical information they need to successfully manage their businesses. "ViewTrak reporting gives carriers a wide array of data on customer VOD viewing habits", says ViewNow President Larry Holeman, "including what was watched, where and when it was watched with all data reported in real time 24/7". ViewTrak's usage reports include total views by program, views by time of day, total number of unique households, average minutes watched, and usage of trick mode functions. ViewTrak's real-time measurement of consumer behavior is anonymous and reported in aggregate to protect customer privacy. |
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RadioShack:
Cars ZipZaps at Radio Shack
ZipZaps micro RCs are made to fit in your pocket so you can race where you want. Radio Shack offers Lightning McQueen, Sally and Mater. |
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Thursday June 22, 2006 |
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Buena Vista Games, Inc. (BVG),
the interactive entertainment arm of The Walt Disney Company
(NYSE:DIS), today announced that handheld video games based
on Walt Disney Pictures' feature film "Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" have shipped to retail
stores in North America. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead
Man's Chest video games for the PSP (PlayStationPortable)
system, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance will be on store
shelves on Tuesday, June 27, in time for the film's release
on July 7.
"Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest lets gamers embark on a
high-seas adventure that parallels events from the upcoming
summer blockbuster film release," said Graham Hopper,
senior vice president and general manager, Buena Vista
Games. "As one of the most successful handheld video
game publishers, BVG looks forward to offering gamers the
opportunity to take the action from the 'Pirates of the
Caribbean' film franchise with them wherever they go."
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Developed by Amaze
Entertainment, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
comprise three unique swashbuckling third-person
action/adventure video games in which players engage in
action that reflects the cunning world of the film franchise
-- with an abundance of disloyalty, humor and revenge.
The PSP system version, BVG's first game for the platform, offers gamers the opportunity to control Captain Jack Sparrow. Players can utilize strength and speed attacks to take down enemies as well as "dirty moves," typical of pirate fighting. The PSP system version also features multiplayer ship battles for up to four players via local wireless. Ship battle gameplay contains 10 maps and offers GameShare mode (only one game disc needed to play on multiple PSP systems). In the Nintendo DS version, players embark on a daring adventure as each of the three main characters -- Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann. Each character has his or her own signature fight move. The Nintendo DS version also includes three two-player mini-games that can be played via local wireless. The mini-games include Walk The Plank, Boom Barge and Shoot The Monkey. The Game Boy Advance version lets players take the helm of the Black Pearl as Captain Jack Sparrow in three-dimensional seafaring action to battle other ships or sail to 15 islands. The title for the GBA includes 50 side-scrolling adventure maps. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for the PSP system and Nintendo DS are rated T for Teen by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The PSP system version carries a suggested retail price of $39.99. The Nintendo DS version carries a suggested retail price of $34.99. The Game Boy Advance version has an ESRB rating of E10+ for Everyone 10 and older, and carries a suggested retail price of $29.99. About "The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" Film In this swashbuckling follow-up to the blockbuster 2003 film, Captain Jack Sparrow is caught up in another tangled web of supernatural intrigue: it turns out Jack owes a blood debt to the legendary Davy Jones, Ruler of the Ocean Depths, who captains the ghostly Flying Dutchman. Unless the ever-crafty Jack figures a cunning way out of this Faustian pact, he will be cursed to an afterlife of eternal servitude and damnation. About Buena Vista Games Buena Vista Games, Inc. (BVG) is the interactive entertainment arm of The Walt Disney Company. BVG publishes, markets and distributes a broad portfolio of multi-platform video games and interactive entertainment worldwide. The company also licenses properties and works directly with third-party interactive game publishers to bring products for all ages to market. For more information, please log on to www.buenavistagames.com. |
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Reliance Communication Ventures Ltd on
Thursday said it has tied-up with Disney to offer India's
first 3D animation on mobile which would be available on
Reliance Mobile World along with a number of other Disney
mobile content offerings.
The Reliance Communications customers can access 16 Disney animated video shorts, including 10 in 3D format, exclusively made for mobile devices and featuring Disney characters, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange. The customers could also download other mobile content featuring Disney characters in the form of wallpapers, ring-tones, games or comic strips from Disney Zone, created on Reliance Mobile World, it said. "Reliance Mobile has unparalleled reach with over 10 million data enabled handsets and a countrywide high speed data network covering small and big towns alike. With Kidz World in Reliance Mobile World, Reliance pioneered edutainment on mobile in India. Disney Zone will raise the bar many notches to give a unique experience," the company's application solutions and content group president Mahesh Prasad said. To cash in on the recent World Cup Soccer fever, the company would also offer wallpapers and animations showing Disney characters in football gear. Downloads would be priced at Rs 5 for wallpapers, Rs 10 for video shorts downloads, Rs 5 for animations and Rs 10 for ring-tones on Disney Zone while games would be charged at Rs 5 per session. The shares of the company, which is part of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, were trading at Rs 248, up 2.42 per cent at the BSE. |
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For most of its Broadway life, "The Lion
King" made its home at the New Amsterdam, the ornate
Art Nouveau theater whose restoration by The Walt Disney Co.
helped ignite the rebirth of 42nd Street.
Now the show's logo, a lion mask against a
large, lighted yellow backdrop, looks out from the wide
Times Square window of the Minskoff, an antiseptic
1970s-modern theater that has been transformed into a more
inviting space with the arrival last week of the Disney
megahit.
Why move a show that has been a hot ticket since it opened in New York nearly 10 years ago, transferring it from an 1,800-seat theater to a smaller 1,600-seat house? Tom Schumacher, the ebullient producer of Disney Theatrical, is ready with an answer. "We get a gigantic amount of visibility. We get to be right here where the bulk of the audience is (the center of Times Square). We reduce our capacity slightly, but we stay neutral on our gross potential and it creates a home for `Mary Poppins,' giving it a big Disney embrace," he says. That embrace includes putting "Mary Poppins," a Disney co-production with Cameron Mackintosh, into Disney's flagship theater, the New Amsterdam, beginning this fall. "It came down to creative concerns," says David Schrader, Disney Theatrical's managing director, in discussing the move. "`Mary Poppins' is more like a play. It's about the interaction of a family. `The Lion King' is more about the visual." And that visual gets a new, expansive display inside the Minskoff, located in a 55-story office building that straddles a prime piece of real estate on Broadway between 44th and 45th Streets on the west side of Times Square. The theater opened in 1973 with a revival of the 1920s musical "Irene," starring Debbie Reynolds. While it's had notable shows, including Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard" and the most recent revival of "Fiddler on the Roof," the Minskoff was long thought of as too cavernous and the home of more than a few flops. Does anyone remember such musical-theater esoterica as "Rockabye Hamlet," "Got Tu Go Disco," "Marilyn: An American Fable" and "Metro"? Yet the theater's owners, the Nederlander Organization, undertook an expensive renovation to make the theater more palatable to Disney. The two have had a special relationship for more than decade, with such high-profile Disney shows as "Beauty and the Beast," "Tarzan" and "Aida" all playing in other Nederlander Broadway houses. But Schumacher wanted something special as the new home for his most successful theatrical offering. "I need this place to feel like there is an event happening," Schumacher said of his requirements for the Minskoff. "I need it to feel warm." Not an easy job, particularly for the theater's entrance, a sterile passageway linking 44th and 45th Streets. Design consultant Mariuca Brancoveanu brightened what had all the appeal of an airport terminal, circa 1963, with gold rectangles, and a new marquee was added on the 45th Street side of building. Those gold rectangles reappear inside the theater, complementing the new red carpeting and a new paint job. Despite the smaller size, weekly grosses for "The Lion King" in the Minskoff should be about the same as in the New Amsterdam. "The math makes it work," says Schrader. "There are more seats in the orchestra level in the Minskoff than in the New Amsterdam," which means there are more seats at the top price. And unlike the New Amsterdam, the Minskoff doesn't have a second balcony, where ticket prices are lower. "The Lion King" most likely will become the Minskoff's longest running tenant. It gave its last performance -- number 3,571 -- June 4 at the New Amsterdam, shut down for a week and then reopened on June 13 in its new home. An entire new physical set for "The Lion King" was built for the Minskoff, while the show continued to play two blocks to the south at the New Amsterdam. That allowed the production -- including its 52 cast members and 24-member orchestra -- to make the move with only one week off. And it gave the backstage crew, including stagehands and costume people, more time to get used to their new, larger behind-the-scenes surroundings. Nothing has been changed in the show, which has the same visuals, designs and sets. The transfer was accomplished without a drop in business. In fact, for the musical's first week at the Minskoff, the period ending June 18, the show set a new house record, grossing more than $1.19 million. And no audience members were confused, mistakenly going to the wrong theater to see the show. Schumacher may have had an inkling on the first night for "The Lion King" in its new theater. "When we finished the show, people didn't leave," he said. "The whole lobby was filled with theatergoers for another 45 minutes. You feel like you are getting a full New York experience." |
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Disney
Shows Muscle with Boys Properties
Disney Consumer Products (DCP) today announced that 2006 will be the best year ever for boys. Driven by the tremendous success of Disney*Pixar's "Cars," the establishment of "Pirates of the Caribbean" as a long-term franchise and the ongoing popularity of "Power Rangers," Disney is reaching boys with everything from die-cast, action figures and bikes to MP3 players, video games and books. "With the strength of our entertainment, we knew 2006 would be the year we became a power house boys player," said Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products. "Similar to DCP's girl's portfolio, which is the best in the industry, our boy's portfolio offers everything from the whimsical 'Cars' and 'Toy Story' characters to the heroic rite of passage that is 'Power Rangers' for younger boys, to the cooler, more aspirational 'Pirates of the Caribbean' brand for the older boy." "Power Rangers" - DCP's #1 Boys Brand DCP kicked-off its year experiencing strong demand for "Power Rangers" action figures, its perennial boy's property, during the Holiday 05 season. In 2005, "Power Rangers" was ranked second in the action figure category behind "Star Wars," according to The NPD Group. Next year's theme will be called "Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive." "Power Rangers" airs more than 65 times each week in over 40 territories worldwide, and continues to expand worldwide with successful launches in Italy, India and other countries this year. Disney*Pixar's "Cars" - phenomenal success The tremendous anticipation of "Cars" before the film was released combined with the huge box office opening resulted in record-breaking retail sales for merchandise based on a Disney*Pixar theatrical film. The film's humor, story and character personalities were incorporated into its products, which featured many category firsts for a Disney*Pixar film, including the first power ride-on, kids electronics line and bedroom suite. Currently, "Cars" is recording 10 to 1 more retail volume than "Finding Nemo" at the same point in its release. DCP plans to expand and refresh product with new creative style guides for fall and beyond. Large retailers have already committed to "Cars" feature shops for the entire months of November and December to maximize the DVD release. "Pirates of the Caribbean" - evergreen boy's franchise On July 7, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" will release to theaters and reignite a pirate frenzy that started in 2003. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" recorded more than $650m in global box office sales, and "Dead Man's Chest" is one of the most highly-anticipated events of the summer. With ongoing entertainment support, DCP is positioning "Pirates of the Caribbean" as an evergreen boy's franchise, comparable in opportunity to its "Disney Princess" franchise for girls. Since the audience for "Pirates of the Caribbean" is so broad, DCP looked to create innovative product and edgy creative designs for multiple consumers. Toy licensee, Zizzle's Black Pearl playset was already chosen for Toy Wishes "Hot Summer Toys" list, a high-end apparel and jewelry line tied into the current Pirates fashion trend will launch to specialty stores, and Disney Publishing developed the largest live-action publishing series ever -- including the latest novel, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (junior novel), currently on the New York Times children's best-seller list. "Pirates of the Caribbean" product will be featured in all key categories represented at major retailers worldwide. "Toy Story" - 10 Years Strong And let's not forget about Woody and Buzz. Ten years from its initial release, the "Toy Story" franchise continues to show growth at retailers like Target, which showed double-digit growth in "Toy Story" merchandise sales this year. Additionally, "Toy Story" is the best-selling boy's property at Disney Store North America, with new Buzz Lightyear and friends product in all key categories featured in more than 100 stores. For more information, please visit: www.disneyconsumerproducts.com About Disney Consumer Products Disney Consumer Products (DCP) is the business segment of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) that extends the Disney brand to merchandise ranging from apparel, toys, home decor and books to interactive games, food and beverages, stationery, electronics and animation art. This is accomplished through the work of DCP's various lines of business: Disney Toys, Disney Softlines, Disney Home, Disney Food, Health & Beauty, Disney Stationery, Disney Publishing, Buena Vista Games, Baby Einstein, the Muppets Holding Company and Disney Shopping, Inc.'s catalog and disneyshopping.com. The Disney Store, which debuted in 1987, also falls under DCP, through stores currently owned and operated by unaffiliated third parties under licensing agreements in North America and Japan, and wholly owned stores in Europe. |
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Disney
honors Meadows Elementary
Meadows Elementary School teacher Jennifer Fry and fifth-graders are honored as state finalists for Jiminy Cricket's Environmentality Challenge from Walt Disney Studios for making their school ecologically friendly. Projects included changing containers from Styrofoam to paper; conserving electricity, recycling paper and planting drought-tolerant plants. The Thousand Oaks students were among more than 35,000 throughout California who participated. |
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Bear
Necessity
When you are a bear of very little brain like Winnie the Pooh, you need a friend on hand to help you navigate life's more demanding days. And when you're about to dance for the Queen, you really need someone you can trust to guide you through your routine. That's where Alison Mellor comes in. With the very long job title: Production and Staging Manager for Walt Disney International Special Events for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Alison is in charge of co-coordinating a host of Disney stars including Pooh. 
It's been long road for Alison to being Disney dance master, starting out using her moves on stage and choreographing Catherine Zeta-Jones along the way. "I'm very proud to say that outside of his close pals from the 100 Acre Wood I am Pooh's best friend," says Alison. "I make sure the stars are in the right place at the right time," says Alison, 36, who works out of Disney's London HQ in Hammersmith. "Wherever they are in my region, except Disneyland Paris, I'm at their side." Her job certainly allows for plenty of exciting trips abroad. "We've been to Spain, Sweden, Poland and South Africa in recent months," says Alison. "You need to be flexible to do the job. Pooh and I are meeting lots of people all of the time. You see a multitude of emotions from children, and their parents! "It's my job to make sure Pooh has all the honey he needs to see him through and that I'm nearby if he gets camera shy." Alison is also choreographer and director for short shows that are performed through the region. "It's a very individual role," she explains. "After all, each character has its own distinct personality and physical limitations. The dancing has to be worked out accordingly." She's certainly got the experience for the job. Growing up in Manchester her Mum was a dance teacher and when Alison had the compulsory chat with her careers advisor it was suggested she too went into performing. "When I realized that was an option, I went for it," she gushes. At 16 she spent three years at the Marianne Jackson College of Dance and Drama in Manchester, where she also took a teacher training course. In need of work to earn an Equity card from the actors' union, she went into panto. "I then got my first performance contract at the Blackpool Winter Gardens for a summer special." From there Alison hit the West End stage big time - she spent the next four-and-a-half years in the hit musical 42nd Street. "I was what is known as a Swing Dancer, where you fill in for all the dancers. "You have to know every routine. I carried on dancing but also progressed to become associate choreographer, which meant that when Catherine Zeta-Jones joined the show I taught her." When the show closed on the West End Alison took it touring and from there became assistant choreographer and resident director for regional musical theatre. "Through this I had my first chance to work with characters, on Jim Henson's Sesame Street Live. I loved it. I even went to Australia with that show which was the start of the traveling." Through Henson's connection with Disney Alison found herself working freelance helping Mickey Mouse and his friends get their moves right, "The rest, as they say, is history." As for this weekend's Royal performance training is well and truly under way for Pooh and Alison as well as Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore. "For several weeks Pooh has been doing his Stoutness Exercises, which involve stretching up high and bending down to touch toes. "That's not as easy as it sounds when you've got a rather large, round tummy to cope with. Tigger meanwhile is practicing his bouncing," says Alison "I'm just so excited. I know this will be one of the highlights of my working life. I'm so lucky - I have found the perfect job with the perfect friend at my side." Dancing's not as easy as it looks when you've got a rather large round tummy If you're interested in a career at Disney log on to www.disney.go.com/disneycareers |
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Oscar Nominee for Best Music Score and
winner of numerous awards, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs
(1937) will air on Disney Channel on June 25, 2006 at 6:00
p.m.
This is the first ever full-length animated feature in color and with sound, which is also one of Disney's greatest films, and a pioneering classic tale in film history. The most revered of all Disney films, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is alive with fairy tale magic, heart pounding suspense and rousing adventure. Once Snow White's vain stepmother, the wicked Queen, consults her Magic Mirror to learn that her stepdaughter's beauty surpasses her own, the lovely young girl must flee into the forest. There she meets seven lovable dwarfs: Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy, Doc and the rough edged, Grumpy. Despite their devotion, the dwarfs cannot save Snow White from the Queen's evil spell - the spell that can only be broken by Love's First Kiss! Will the evil Queen succeed in getting rid of her stepdaughter in her quest for the title "fairest of them all"? Find out on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on June 25th at 6:00 p.m. on Disney Channel. |
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Pirates of
the Caribbean Online Auction Benefiting Make-A-Wish June
22- 29
Various
Pirate themed experiences including A private boat ride
with a Walt Disney Imagineer on Pirates of the Caribbean
in Disneyland Park, the opportunity to be a pirate in
Fantasmic!, and more will be available in special auction
at DisneyAuction.com to benefit Make-A-Wish.
More
Information at this LINK
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There was a bit of a shakeup in the basic
cable ratings last week as ad-free Disney Channel took
top honors thanks to big numbers generated by its latest
original movie, Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, and its
returning series, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
Disney averaged 2.9 million total viewers in prime time for the week ending June 18, as the Friday night premiere of Wendy Wu became the third-most-watched show on cable, drawing 5.65 million total viewers between 8:00 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. A pair of weekend repeats accounted for another 7.6 million viewers, while the second installment of Zack and Cody retained much of Wendy Wu’s Friday night lead-in, as 3.63 million people tuned in. Barring Disney’s numbers, USA Network repeated as the ad-supported cable ratings champ, averaging 2.84 million total viewers and a 2.4 household rating in prime, according to Nielsen Media Research data. As has come to be expected, USA’s WWE Raw franchise boasted a large audience from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday night, averaging 5.8 million total viewers in the second hour and 4.92 million in the first. TNT took second among ad-supported cable nets, thanks to a record showing for the season two premiere of The Closer, which, as was previously reported, lured 8.28 million viewers Monday night at 9:00 p.m., making it the most-watched show on cable––and beating out all the broadcast nets in its time slot save for CBS. TNT averaged 2.73 million viewers and notched a 2.3 HH rating in a week that also saw it launch a new drama, Saved, which kept the lion’s share of its Closer lead-in (5.1 million). TNT sibling TBS took third on the week, with 2.14 million viewers in prime and a 1.8 HH rating, while Lifetime came in fourth (1.68 million/1.5) and Nick-at-Nite finished fifth (1.51 million/1.4). Lifetime may remain in the top five this week, as the network’s original movie, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, drew 5.9 million total viewers last night, finishing number 1 in its time slot among women 18-34, women 18-49. Immediately following the movie, Lifetime’s new original comedy series, Lovespring International, posted its highest ratings of the season, averaging 1.5 million total viewers, a leap of 65 percent over its season-to-date average. |
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Fast National ratings for Tuesday, June
20, 2006.
The Miami Heat won the NBA championship on Tuesday night and the tight game helped push ABC to a ratings win. Overall, ABC averaged a 7.1 rating/12 share for the night, comfortable beating the 5.3/9 for FOX. NBC finished third with a 5.0/9, followed by CBS' fourth place 4.4/8. UPN's 1.7/3 was solid enough to leave The WB far back in sixth with a 1.2/3. Among adults 18-49, ABC also came out on top, doing a 4.4 rating in the all-important demographic. NBC moved up to second with a 3.1 rating, with FOX's 2.9 rating close behind. CBS was fourth again with a 1.6 rating, ahead of the 0.8 for UPN and The WB's 0.6 rating. CBS actually began the night in first the with 5.8/11 for "NCIS." ABC finished second with "According to Jim" and "NBA Nation," which were boosted to a 5.0/9 by coverage of the game in different time zones. FOX's "House" repeat took third with a 4.4.8, better than "Fear Factor" on NBC. UPN's "America's Next Top Model" drew a 1.8/3 for fifth, leaving The WB's "Gilmore Girls" in sixth. The NBA game between the Mavs and the Heat tipped off in the 9 p.m. hour and boosted ABC to a 7.7/13 and a win for the hour. FOX's "House" improved to a 6.1/10 and took second. NBC came in third with a 4.8/8 for "Last Comic Standing," moving CBS down to fourth with "The Unit." UPN's "Veronica Mars" repeat did a 1.5/2 and beat the 1.1/2 for a new "Pepper Dennis" on The WB. ABC closed primetime strong with an 8.8/15 for the hoops action. NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" had a 6.7/11, more than doubling up the totals for CBS's "Tuesday Night Book Club." |
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In conjunction with the release of the original Broadway cast recording of Tarzan — June 27 on the Walt Disney Records label — composer Phil Collins and members of the cast will make several television talk-show appearances. The chat-show circuit begins June 23 at 7 AM ET on NBC's "The Today Show." Other appearances are scheduled for June 23 ("The View," 11 AM ET on ABC), June 27 ("Early Show," 7 AM ET on CBS) and Aug. 5 ("Weekend Today," 7 AM ET on NBC). Tarzan features a score by Phil Collins, including five songs from the 1999 animated film of the same name — "Two Worlds," "Son of Man," "Trashin' the Camp," "Strangers Like Me" and "You'll Be in My Heart" — as well as nine songs composed for the Broadway production: “Who Better Than Me,” “For the First Time,” “Everything That I Am,” “Waiting for This Moment,” “No Other Way,” “I Need to Know,” “Sure as Sun Turns to Moon,” “Different” and “Like No Man I’ve Ever Seen.” In addition to the 18 tracks from the show, the CD will boast a bonus track of composer Collins singing "Everything That I Am." Those who pre-order the CD by June 27 at www.apple.com/itunes will receive not only the cast recording but a digital scrapbook featuring backstage Tarzan photos and one additional song from each of Disney's Broadway ventures: The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Aida. The Tarzan cast recording can also be pre-ordered by visiting www.amazon.com, www.disneydirect.com or the Richard Rodgers Theatre at 226 West 46th Street. For more information, log on to www.tarzanonbroadway.com. |
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3:30 PM SHOW “GERSON SWINGS DISNEY”
DISNEY CLASSICS PAST AND PRESENT INTERPRETED WITH A
SWINGING PERSPECTIVE.
WHEN YOU SWING UPON A STAR Roy Gerson Plays the Disney Songbook There's only one place where the magical innocence of the Disney Songbook comes together with the swinging sophistication of a jazz master: Iridium hosts the debut of a new show that will appeal to everyone from connoisseurs of jazz to the youngest fans of the latest Disney DVD. Roy Gerson leads his orchestra through a parade of hits and memories from the Mouse Factory including classics like “I Got No Strings, “Chim Chim Cheree” and “When You Wish Upon a Star” to the newest hits from Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Tarzan. When Gerson starts to swing, your dreams come true. COVER - $25.00 MINIMUM - $15.00 |
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Wednesday June 21, 2006 |
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The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday it expects
retail sales of its merchandise to jump 10 percent this
fiscal year to $23 billion, driven in part by demand for
products tied to its summer movies including the Pixar film
Cars. The entertainment company said continued demand for
its Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Disney Princess goods
will lift sales. It also anticipates a heightened interest
in products linked to upcoming movie releases such as
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
Disney, based in Burbank, Calif., receives licensing fees from merchandise sold by retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. The consumer products unit, which includes licensed goods, reported revenue of $2.13 billion in fiscal 2005. Operating income fell 3 percent to $520 million. Consumer analyst Britt Beemer, the Orlando-based chairman of America's Research Group of Charleston, S.C., said the company's retail fortunes often rise and fall with the fate of its feature films. "When they've got a popular movie, they do great," Beemer said. "When that movie is not so popular, they struggle." Disney already is banking on product sales tied to Cars, which has netted $117.1 million in theaters since opening this month. The Cars merchandise launch is the largest for a Disney film since 1994's Lion King, Consumer Products Chairman Andrew Mooney said. Mooney would not estimate the consumer product unit's sales or profit in the current fiscal year. The company said it will expand its Disney Fairies line of goods, which will be tied to the fall 2007 release of the direct-to-video film Tinker Bell. The consumer products division also said it will break out Tinker Bell retail sales from its Disney Princess line, which is projected to grow to $3.4 billion, a 15 percent increase over last year. Other announced merchandise promotions include the release of additional Little Mermaid products tied to the October DVD release of The Little Mermaid and a new Disney Princess theme slated to launch next year. |
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When almost every evening is remindful of the
Fourth of July with colorful fireworks bursting in the
nighttime sky, what do you do when it's really the Fourth of
July? That's the case at Walt Disney World Resort, where
Epcot presents the fireworks spectacular "IllumiNations:
Reflections of Earth" nightly, and Magic Kingdom
regularly presents its "Wishes" fireworks
extravaganza.
So for the Fourth of July, Disney will add a fireworks show at a third park, present a different show at Magic Kingdom, and enhance the Epcot show. Disney-MGM Studios will join in the pyrotechnics fun with a special Fourth of July fireworks show prior to its regular nighttime spectacular, "Fantasmic!" Meanwhile, Magic Kingdom will treat guests to the famous "Fantasy in the Sky" fireworks show with patriotic music and "bombs bursting in air," a presentation that thrilled millions of guests during a 28-year run. And Epcot will present its acclaimed "IllumiNations" show with a special holiday finale. Here's the schedule of the Fourth of July nighttime fun (theme park hours for July 4 are in parentheses): Disney-MGM Studios (9 a.m.-10 p.m.) -- Fourth of July fireworks, 9 p.m.; "Fantasmic!" 10 p.m. Epcot (9 a.m.-10 p.m.) -- "IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth," 10 p.m. Magic Kingdom (8 a.m.-1 a.m.) -- "Fantasy in the Sky" fireworks, 9 p.m.; "SpectroMagic," 10:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. The special nighttime shows are included with theme park admission. |
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The Big Ten Conference created its own cable
channel to showcase its athletic teams and reached a new
10-year deal with ABC Sports and ESPN.
The Big Ten Channel - created in partnership with Fox Cable Networks - will launch in August 2007, conference commissioner James E. Delany said Wednesday. "It will be a destination for all things Big Ten," he said. The Big Ten's 10-year agreement with ABC and ESPN involves football, men's and women's basketball and volleyball. ABC and ESPN will carry up to 42 Big Ten football games and ESPN's networks will carry about 60 men's basketball games each season, including games on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Games broadcast regionally by ABC will be cablecast by ESPN or ESPN2 to other markets in the country. ESPN will carry 100 women's basketball and volleyball games over the 10-year period, including the championship games of the Big Ten women's basketball tournament. The Big Ten Channel, which involves Fox Cable Networks as a minority owner, will be available to satellite and cable distributors nationwide and through the Internet, i-Pods, cell phones and other technologies. DirecTV will offer the channel on its Total Choice package. "This agreement, among the most expansive ever, reinforces our position as the No. 1 college sports destination," said George Bodenheimer, president of ABC Sports and ESPN. The new cable channel also will carry soccer, tennis, swimming and diving and wrestling. The channel will allow for 660 hours of non-sports programs produced annually by the 11-member institutions. |
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Disney
cashing in on sleeper hit with teens
First aired on the Disney Channel in January, “High School Musical” scored the network's highest ratings ever for an original movie. But that was just the beginning. "The indicator was when we went to iTunes and we saw that the album had gone to number one on iTunes and on amazon dot com -- and this was an album that launched at number 83 on the billboard chart,” said Rich Ross, president of Disney Channel Worldwide. “So we thought, ‘Something is going on.’" Less than six months after its debut on cable, "High School Musical" is the number one selling DVD. The soundtrack has gone double platinum -- selling more than 2 million units. The paperback is a New York Times best-seller. Even the sheet music for "High School Musical" is flying off store shelves. "I think ‘High School Musical’ has really caught on not just with the ‘tween audience but with their parents as well because it's a universal theme,” said Anne Sweeney, co-chairman of Disney Media Networks. “It's the theme of acceptance -- the theme of valuing other people's differences. And I think it resonates with people of all ages." Convinced that "High School Musical" will also resonate with people around the world, the Disney Channel is now launching local language versions of the movie in a hundred foreign markets -- including a Bollywood version for India "Whether you're in China or Argentina or Sweden, going to school and dealing with peer pressure and wanting to follow your dreams,” said Ross. “Is there anything more universal than that? I'm not quite sure." Over time, Disney stands to reap tens of millions of dollars from the extensions and spinoffs from high school musical. And the company has only begun to scratch the surface of potential opportunities. "We've already written the script for the sequel, high school musical two,” said Ross. “All the leads are signed up." Disney is also developing a stage version of "High School Musical" for real high schools that want to put on a real musical. So far 15,000 schools have expressed interest. |
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ABC's
Internet experiment a success
Over 11 million people signed on to the ABC website to watch their most popular television shows during the first month of ABC's online experiment. The network is doing a two-month experiment with streaming shows on the Internet to see if people will watch free advertising in exchange for free programming, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The numbers have encouraged the network that viewers are willing to watch the shows, "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Commander in Chief" and "Alias", for free and don't mind the commercial interruptions. The commercials are restricted to one sponsor per show. ABC has decided that it will bring back the online service with the television season's start in September. |
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Disney's
Dinner Bell
There will be more pixie than dust in Disney's (NYSE: DIS) latest marketing initiative. At the Licensing 2006 International Show in New York this week, Disney unveiled its plan to turn Tinker Bell and her friends into its next big stars. Until now, Fairies has been little more than an unassuming book line hoping to hook young girls with whimsical story lines. That will change. Disney has tapped Brittany Murphy to voice Peter Pan's spunky sprite in a direct-to-video animated feature next summer. Dolls and toys will follow. The family entertainment giant has already had a few successful years with its Disney Princesses line. Marketing the heroines of its animated classics has turned into a $3 billion a year franchise. Going from Belle to Bell won't be as easy, especially since audiences know little about Tinker Bell and even less about her fellow fairies, but Disney could be well-served by going in this direction. The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Narnia have all whetted the appetites of fantasy fans. Even if the audience for Fairies overlaps with the Disney Princesses crowd, Disney would rather hit them from both sides than let toy companies like Mattel (NYSE: MAT) win them over with Barbies and American Girl. Meanwhile, MGA Entertainment's Bratz and Build-A-Bear Workshop's (NYSE: BBW) personalized bears and friends 2B made lines are also gunning for the same audience. Disney's consumer products division can use the attention. With strength at its theme parks and the resurgence in its media networks, the last time that Disney's consumer products made headlines was when it was partly bowing out of retail by handing over its Disney Stores to Children's Place (Nasdaq: PLCE). Last year, consumer products accounted for just a 7% slice of the company's revenue pie. The top line there has slipped 1% through the first six months of fiscal 2006, despite a 9% improvement in operating profits. Scoring a hit with Fairies will help. Other recent homegrown successes, like the unlikely hit High School Musical, are already helping. So Tinker Bell, often relegated to gliding high in the sky before a fireworks show, will hopefully take flight for Disney again. Pixie dust? Who needs it when you have shrewd merchandising at play? |
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Disney Insider - Walt Disney World Resort is
aptly named - truly a "world" unto itself. The
hotels, theme parks, and surroundings employ thousands of
people both in front of and behind the scenes. Those jobs
may involve operating rides, planning menus, tending gardens
... or perhaps falling from high buildings, driving on two
wheels, or getting set on fire. Those last few are all part
of a day's work for the crew of the Lights! Motor! Action!
Extreme Stunt Show at Disney/MGM Studios park. For three
shows a day, every day of the week, the performers trot out
their motorcycles, stunt cars, and jet-skis for a
pulse-pounding adventure that leaves audiences gasping and
cheering.
We spoke to some of the performers who make the show spectacular, to find out what "just another day at the office" is like when your office is a stunt arena. Kurt Hockenberry and Alan D'Antoni are both precision drivers and stunt assists in the show - they trade off the roles of "hero," "reverse hero" (for which they drive special "backwards cars," in which the driver sits facing the rear and drives in reverse), and "bad guy no. 3." Kurt describes a typical day on the job: "We start off the day by doing a warm-up for all vehicles - that includes cars, motorcyles, and jet-skis. Safety is number one, and we can't have a vehicle out there that's not performing properly. We do jumps, we drive cars on two wheels, and motorcycle jumps as well, so we have to make sure that they're properly maintained. Mechanics are there in the garage making sure that everything is working correctly. We warm up and then we prepare for the show. Then we take a break and the technicians come out to prepare. They set up the fire extinguishers and they have their own choreography with the pyrotechnics and fire and propane. We do three shows. The first two shows have the same drivers in the same roles, and then in the third show we switch roles." |
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The show includes jaw-dropping stunts, all
of them performed before a live audience with no room for
error. "We do five-forties, we have a burning man, we
do a high-fall ..." Alan tells us. Huh, what? The
stunt world has a language of its own, we discover.
Translated, that means the cars do controlled spins that
involve one-and-a-half rotations, for 540 degrees; a
"burning man" is a performer in a special flame
suit who slides through a wall of fire and emerges
engulfed in flames; and a high-fall is what it sounds like
- someone plunges from a 35-foot drop to land on an
inflatable mattress below. This is all in addition to the
ramp jumps, two-wheel driving, and swerves that bring
swerving cars within six inches of each other.
From the audience, it looks incredible. It also looks - well, extremely dangerous. However, Alan says, safety is the first concern. "Disney has just taken every precaution that they can, they're very good about that. But we took six months before we even opened the show, preparing. Part of that was just getting to learn the cars and the stunt choreography and get a feel for it. The cars are set up with safety features, from a roll cage to fire suppression to even the clothing we wear, which is designed as much as possible to be foolproof. He adds, "One thing that puts it in perspective for people is that we have to perform the show three times a day, 365 days a year without fail." The stunt show also looks like a lot of just plain thrilling fun - and that, Kurt says, is no illusion. Alan tells us "It's just so much fun to get in there. You're given the freedom to get into this $100-plus thousand car, it's amazing equipped to do these tricks and just go out and have fun. And it's legal!" "We've had racecar drivers come to our set - Michael Schumacher, one of the Andrettis, and some others," adds Kurt. "And they've come up to us after the show and said ‘You guys have the best job. We're riding around a racetrack at 200 miles an hour, but we always want to do what you're doing! How lucky are you?' That's kind of cool." However, Kurt says, the best part of his job comes after the show - "the opportunity to go out and see the little kids and sign autographs. I remember when I was little I used to go to air shows and watch the Blue Angels, and I was just star-struck when I saw them standing next to their planes in their flight suits. It's sort of the same thing for these little kids. You come up to them after the show, and their eyes are so big. It really warms you up!" And it's that enthusiasm for seeing a Guest smile that sets Disney castmembers apart - whether they're vending balloons, manning the desk at a Disney hotel, or, in this case, leaping through a wall of flames on a custom motorcycle. |
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Disney
Plays in Preschool
Preschoolers around the globe are singing "Meeska, Mouska, Mickey Mouse," yelling "Blast off" and will be signaling for the "Super Sleuths" from Disney's three exciting new Playhouse Disney properties. Disney is building its preschool portfolio with a multi-million dollar marketing effort and broad consumer product programs. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse - currently Playhouse Disney's highest rated show - Little Einsteins and My Friends Tigger and Pooh - to debut in spring 2007 - focus on different aspects of early child development and combine to address the needs of the "whole" child. Disney Consumer Products (DCP) merchandise will feature elements of the interactive learning specific to each show. "Parents have enjoyed Mickey and Pooh for years, and now a new generation of preschoolers are being introduced to these characters with a fresh CG-animated look. Little Einsteins rounds out a very strong preschool block that blends entertainment with education," said Andy Mooney, chairman of DCP. "Retailers are also seeing potential in these shows and clearing shelf space based on the strength of Playhouse Disney as a preschool platform." Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (MMCH) premiered in May on Playhouse Disney channels and Disney Channels around the world -- the first-ever same-day global launch of Disney Channel programming. The show, which focuses on problem solving and early math curriculum, delivered the highest rated Playhouse Disney premiere ever with preschool kids 2 -5 (6.2 coverage/ 4.9 national rating) - source: Nielsen Media Research. During May ratings, MMCH was in the Top 5 with Kids 2-5 - surpassing Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants. MMCH toys will launch this Fall with all other product categories launching in spring 2007. The toy line from licensee, Character Direct, will feature interactivity and gadgets direct from the television series, as well as new technology and innovation. Name That Song Mickey is a key item in the line - the product features a wireless piano combined with a soft Mickey plush that interactively teaches kids music through numbers. Little Einsteins Little Einsteins premiered in October 2005, and at the time, scored the highest Playhouse Disney debut ever among Kids 2-5. Since then, it has consistently ranked as the #1 series with Kids 2-5 against all basic cable competition in its time period (daily, 8:00 a.m., ET/PT). The show, which fosters creativity through music and art, began debuting around the world, most recently in Australia and New Zealand and will next launch in France, India and Taiwan. DCP will launch a broad cross-category assortment of product in spring 2007. My Friends Tigger and Pooh Finally, My Friends Tigger and Pooh (MFTP) - to premiere in spring 2007 - will introduce a new generation of preschoolers to Winnie the Pooh and friends, as well as their new friends, Darby and her dog Buster, in contemporary 3D CG-animation. The show teaches life lessons, such as friendship, as well as early earth science. Tigger and Pooh are "Super Sleuths" and the audience helps them solve mysteries in the Hundred Acre Wood. A licensing program is currently in development for mass and mid-tier retail distribution for spring 2008. For more information, please visit: www.disneyconsumerproducts.com |
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Disneyland
Hong Kong hoping for summer surge
Hong Kong's new Disneyland park was on
Wednesday beginning a campaign to hire hundreds of seasonal
workers in the hope of a summer surge in visitors. |
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Exclusive
New Pirates Photos
Here are exclusive first look at these six
new photos from Walt Disney Pictures' highly-anticipated
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, sailing into
theaters on July 7th. |
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Disney's Thomas Schumacher and Cameron
Mackintosh have found their Banks family for Broadway.
The New York production of "Mary Poppins," opening Nov. 16 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, will feature Rebecca Luker as Mrs. Banks and Daniel Jenkins as Mr. Banks. Two sets of youngsters will portray their children. Katherine Doherty and Delaney Moro will alternate in the role of Jane Banks, and Henry Hodges and Alexander Scheitinger will alternate as Michael Banks. It's the Banks family that comes under the spell of the world's most famous nanny, who will be played by Ashley Brown. Gavin Lee will portray Bert. Cass Morgan will be the Bird Woman. The musical, based on the classic 1964 film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, features songs from the movie and new tunes as well. It begins preview performances Oct. 14. For tickets and more information, go to disneyonbroadway.com. |
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The
Oakland Museum
Disneyland Exhibit
There's a show at the Oakland Museum about the creation and refinement of Disneyland. It's a love letter to kindly Walt Disney, king of product placement and cross promotion, never mentioning his union-busting activities or other right-wing projects, and certainly skipping over the odd pervasiveness of shaking rodent butts in his cartoons, but it's still interesting if you can discount the hagiography. Interesting to me, anyway. I was growing up in Southern California when Disneyland was being built, and I followed its progress avidly. I examined the schematics; I tried to envision the rides. (Particularly Tomorrowland, because I was a reader of science fiction and tomorrow was my destination. Tomorrow is all of our destinations; it just took wise little Asimoviacs like me to realize it.) I went within a month of its opening. It was an overwhelming, if not entirely pleasant, experience. I loved Autopia, which was a sort of fourth-generation-refined bumper car experience. You drove little cars on little highways -- and my, is the portmanteau word "autopia" interesting, combining as it does "automobile" and "utopia" to describe an attraction in Orange County. Kids, can you say "irony"? I can be scornful now; at the time, I just wanted to ride it as many times as possible. Interestingly, Disneyland was also the site of a monorail, a technology heartily endorsed by train nut Disney. It was the future of transportation! Someday our great cities will be linked by these swift, silent capsules, unless the residents of San Jose vote down the transportation bonds. Tomorrowland later was the site of a 360-degree surround-view Michael Jackson video -- I assume that's gone now. Michael Jackson; happy little children -- not a great combo. I liked Tom Sawyer's Island, too, and I disdained the Carousel in Fantasyland, and I was scared witless by the Abe Lincoln robot that held forth at a theater on Main Street. It was supposed to provide patriotic uplift, the improving message at the end of the fun seeking, but it didn't really look that human, and the thought occurred to me that it could be very easily programmed to slice the throats of little children. (Maybe that idea came from reading too much science fiction.) I stayed away from Honest Abe after the first time; he was just too weird. Later on, when they were built, I liked Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. I had no interest in the Matterhorn or Space Mountain; recreational fear has never been one of my pleasures. But more than either of those rides, I liked the Monsanto ride. It's gone now, since it didn't really fit with anything. The lobby of the ride was dominated by a giant replica of a hypodermic needle. You rode in a cart and got "shrunk" into a microscopic particle (remember "Fantastic Voyage"? -- like that) and were injected into the bloodstream of a human being and, look, there are red blood cells skimming past and oh, here comes the heart, nooo ... In other words: sort of like trying to understand the drug problem from the point of view of heroin. When Disneyland opened, the world was so naive that injectable substances suggested nothing more than a penicillin shot. Later on, a new generation of citizens began visiting Disneyland. The Disneyland brass did not like that development -- as the brochures displayed at the museum made clear, Disneyland was a park designed by white people for white people, and employees were forbidden to wear beards, mustaches and a long list of other offensive things that might suggest deviation from the norm. Which was ironic, because people soon discovered that getting loaded and going to Disneyland meant a day of big fun. It was an endless playground for people who said "oh wow" a lot. You could, you know, shake hands with Goofy. ("Shaking hands with Goofy" would be a pretty good code phrase for any number of proscribed experiences.) The lines were a drag, but the lines were always a drag, no matter what your synapses were doing. Go early on a weekday in winter and take your chances; that was always my advice. At some point, it is my theory, the folks at the Disney got the idea -- they had a market. How else do you explain the Main Street Electrical Light Parade? At night, floats juiced to the gills with flashing spinning blinking lights and waving Disney characters would go by, and -- well, you know, wow. It went on forever, for longer than forever. And then there were fireworks! Yes, it was the happiest place on earth. |
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Disney
Changes "Game Plan" After the Rock's Injury
Walt Disney Corp. (NYSE: DIS) was forced to change its script after Dwayne Johnson, better known to wrestling fans as "The Rock", injured his leg while practicing football for Disney's new family film, "The Game Plan". Dwayne Johnson, seen here with his trade mark cocked right eyebrow, says to tell fans "nothing can stop The Rock." While at a football practice Monday for his new Disney film, "The Game Plan", The Rock injured his Achilles tendon. Johnson was practicing for his upcoming role as a professional quarterback in the movie, which was previously known as "Daddy's Girl." Johnson is to undergo surgery Friday in Miami to repair the torn tendon. Until The Rock can resume filming, Disney's studio is putting production on the shelf. The film's shoot will have to wait for Johnson to undergo therapy as well following his operation. Doctors nor Disney have said how long "The Game Plan" will be kept in limbo waiting for The Rock to recover. Disney was ready to begin shooting the film in Boston next week Monday. Walt Disney Motion Picture Group president Nina Jacobson was quoted as saying, "While this is a setback for our production schedule, we completely support him as he recuperates and look forward to resuming production when Dwayne is fully recovered." "The Rock" said to reporters, "I anticipate that with some TLC, pizza and a lot of donuts, I will be making a speedy recovery and will be able to get myself, and everyone who has been working so hard on this production, back to the business of doing what we love most, making movies." Johnson has appeared in the films, "The Rundown", filmed in 2003; "The Scorpion King", filmed in 2002; and is best known for seeing his film career take off for "The Rock's" role in "The Mummy Returns", filmed in 2001. |
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PLAYSKOOL
Sets Sail with Disney Cruise Line
Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) and Disney Cruise Line announced today that new PLAYSKOOL products and Hasbro activities such as a PIRATE MR. POTATO HEAD game and the PLAYSKOOL AGES AND STAGES system will board the line's two ships, further integrating Hasbro products into the fleet's entertainment programs for infants, children and families. The initiative is part of a long-term arrangement between Hasbro and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. "This program is such a natural fit as both PLAYSKOOL and Disney are about sparking imagination and discovery," said Lorrie Browning, general manager of infant/preschool at Hasbro. "The introduction of PLAYSKOOL toys and related activities in the ship's play centers translates to fun for kids and trust for parents. We expect that kids will enjoy the fun and comfort of playing with PLAYSKOOL toys that they already have at home while also discovering new play experiences that will stay with them for years to come." Children aboard the 2,700 passenger Disney Wonder and Disney Magic ships will engage with PLAYSKOOL products at various levels of discovery and play. The Little Mermaid themed Flounder's Reef Nursery, for infants ages three months to three years, will be even more exciting, stocked with brand new PLAYSKOOL toys such as WEEBLES, GLOWORM, BUSY BASICS, and WHEEL PALS, all perfect for play time. Additionally, Flounder's Reef counselors will have the benefits of the PLAYSKOOL AGES AND STAGES system designed to help make the best choices about what toys are most appropriate for an individual child based on their age, development and play levels. For example, the LET'S PLAY TOGETHER stage is ideal for children in a group environment as it teaches them to take turns, share, follow rules, cooperate, and be a good friend. It also encourages soothing and connecting types of play to help children feel secure as well as fantasy and physical play to help children explore and feel independent. For children ages 3-7, the ship's Oceaneer Club, full of adventure resembling Peter Pan's Never Land, houses activities that are designed to inspire imagination and exploration such as a PLAY-DOH and Disney themed play session and a PIRATE MR. POTATO HEAD-branded scavenger hunt. "Ensuring that there truly is something for every member of the family to enjoy aboard Disney Cruise Line means our youth activity areas must be top notch," said Meredith Renard, Director of Youth Activities for Disney Cruise Line. "Taking our partnership with HASBRO to a new level by integrating these PLAYSKOOL products into themed activities and incorporating the PLAYSKOOL Ages and Stages system onboard creates an exciting new experience and level of entertainment, offering even more activities and programs for our younger cruisers." Hasbro's existing relationship with Walt Disney Parks & Resorts encompasses a myriad of licensed toys, games and activity-based entertainment such as Downtown Disney's "build-your-own" retail playground featuring MY LITTLE PONY and MR. POTATO HEAD, as well as special Disney theme park editions of classic board games including MONOPOLY and CLUE. ABOUT DISNEY CRUISE LINE A leader in the family cruise segment, Disney Cruise Line offers a no compromise vacation with something for every member of the family to enjoy. Itineraries include three-, four- and seven-night cruises to the Bahamas and the Caribbean, in addition to land/sea vacation packages that include a stay at the Walt Disney World Resort. Both the Disney Magic and Disney Wonder will embark on new itineraries in 2006 and 2007. In September of this year, the Disney Wonder will sail a 10- and 11-night itinerary to the Southern Caribbean, while the Disney Magic will sail 10- and 11-night Mediterranean itineraries to Europe during the summer of 2007. To learn more about Disney Cruise Line, visit disneycruise.com. ABOUT HASBRO Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) is a worldwide leader in children's and family leisure time entertainment products and services, including the design, manufacture and marketing of games and toys ranging from traditional to high-tech. Both internationally and in the U.S., its PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, TIGER and WIZARDS OF THE COAST brands and products provide the highest quality and most recognizable play experiences in the world. |
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Disney
honors FHS Spanish teacher
Amy Dunaway-Haney, a high school Spanish
teacher at Kettering Fairmont High School in Kettering, has
been chosen from more than 75,000 nominees nationwide to
receive the 2006 Disney Teacher Award in celebration of her
creativity, innovative teaching methods, and ability to
inspire her students. |
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Sadness
at Disney headstone refusal
Grieving parents were devastated after being barred from putting Winnie the Pooh on their baby's gravestone by cartoon giant Disney. The distraught family wanted the popular children's character on the headstone as a touching tribute to their stillborn child. But Disney refused to grant the Clacton parents' request, claiming it would breach their copyright. Now, after being contacted by the Evening Gazette, a spokesman for the company has said the company may try to help with the request. Disney says it is now reviewing its previous decision and may give the family the go-ahead. |
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The
Problem with Disney's Branded Fruit
Earlier this month, Disney and Tesco, the U.K.-based supermarket chain, announced that they are encouraging youngsters to eat fruit by slapping collectible stickers featuring Pooh characters onto satsumas, mini-bananas and apples. The real news? The thing that sent my incredulity Richter scale soaring to 10? Somehow, against all odds, Disney got a free pass on this one. It's a tale of two search engines. Go to Google News and type in "Disney Tesco" and you'll see all the traditional media coverage of this deal-- a lot of facts, easy on the analysis. Then go to Technorati and type in the same thing. Aside from a brief mention in the MIT Advertising Blog, there's almost nothing (at least at the moment I'm writing this). In the face of Disney extending its sugary-delicious, transfat-soaked brand into the fruit aisle, the blogosphere lies silent. How can this be? As a marketer, consumer and father to small children, my own reaction to the deal was complex. The marketer in me admires the boldness of this move. Disney has ended its decade-long Happy Meal deal with McDonald's and wants to distance itself from the bad eating habits that are turning Western children into morbidly obese versions of the Michelin Man. In addition to its U.K. fruit partnership, here in the States Disney has signed a deal with the Cott Corporation to create branded and vitamin-enriched flavored water and juice drinks to be sold in grocery stores. Go Mickey, Go! As a consumer, I'm no more likely to buy Disneyfied citrus than the non-Disney kind… particularly when there's a landfill-sized cache of unused Disney stickers in the hall closet at home. As a father, though, I'm torn. On the one hand, ordinarily I can only get my five-year-old daughter to eat fruit at gunpoint in a hostage situation when the police negotiator has been called in and a SWAT team is on standby. I'll take any help I can get, including some from Tigger. On the other hand, there's a hypocrisy to this that frustrates me. Sure, these days there's a lonely fruit stand on Main Street at Disneyland, but there are also candy purveyors, churro sellers, burger flippers and other pimps for sugar and junk food on every corner in the Magic Kingdom. Yes, you can sometimes still find Donald Duck orange juice at the Supermarket, but go to the Disney Store and you'll see lollipops for sale that are approximately the size of Goofy's head. It seems contradictory for Disney to stand both for immoderate consumption of treats and also for a balanced diet that includes fruit. In our age of empowered consumers, user-generated content and a new blog emerging into cyberspace every time a computer boots, I thought for sure that some engaged citizen would call Disney out on this. I thought that mommy-bloggers would tell Disney that the stickers by themselves aren't enough. I thought wrong. There's a lesson in here somewhere, but I'm not quite sure what it is. Perhaps it's merely a testament to the power of the Disney brand and skill of its marketing department. Perhaps it's an indication that consumers are always more sophisticated than we think, and that they understand that Disney can encourage both healthy eating at home and sugary treats out in the world. In "Song of Myself," the poet Walt Whitman wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes)." Consumers seem okay with Disney adopting a similar attitude. So perhaps the real lesson is that we can never predict what will get consumers up in arms. Or maybe it just hasn't happened yet. |
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Tuesday June 20, 2006 |
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Peter Pan's feisty, but previously mute,
flying fairy sidekick has finally found her voice.
Actress Brittany Murphy will be the Walt Disney Co.'s (DIS.N ) first-ever voice for Tinker Bell, giving the gift of speech to the precocious winged creature who until now communicated via facial expressions and jingling. The iconic green sprite is returning to the screen in a direct-to-video film slated for release next year as part of Disney's new "Fairies" line of products, which the company touted on Tuesday at the Licensing 2006 International Show in New York. Decked out in a tight pink dress and pink Christian Louboutin heels, Murphy, the star of "8 Mile" and "Just Married," looked every bit the curvaceous Tinker Bell vixen as she smiled for a throng of cameras at the event. |
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"How could one possibly say no to Disney
and being the voice of Tinker Bell?" the 28-year-old
actress said in an interview with Reuters. "I thought
maybe I'm too spunky or gritty, but that's who Tinker Bell
is."
The creation of author and playwright J.M. Barrie, Tinker Bell spent the last hundred years fluttering about Peter Pan, jealous of Wendy Darling but never speaking up -- until now. "Anyone that can steal the screen without a single word of dialogue certainly deserves a film of her very own," said Disney Studios Chairman Richard Cook. Murphy, whose earliest childhood memories include listening to her mother read Barrie's book, said she thought it important for the famous fairy to finally have her own voice. "She's such a strong, vibrant, feisty personality, an incredible role model for young women," said Murphy, who also provides the voice for the character Luanne Platter on the animated Fox television show "King of the Hill." "She's been jingling for 50 years and communicating all of her thoughts and all of her strength and all of her humor through jingling light. Finally, she's able to communicate through words," she told Reuters. Disney's "Fairies" merchandise franchise rolled out last fall and follows on the success of the company's "Princess" line, which reached sales of $3 billion in fiscal 2005. Disney expects the Fairies line, aimed at girls aged 4 to 11, to generate at least $1 billion in annual sales within 4 years, Disney spokesman Gary Foster said. |
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Magic Kingdom's new "Disney's Pirate and Princess Party 2007 is expected to be officially announced in the next few weeks. Currently, plans include a treasure hunt with treasure bag, Pirate Adventure Coves and Princess Royal Courts throughout the park, a special parade and special edition of Wishes, lots of characters and walk around streetmosphere, and themed classes, such as "Learn to be a Princess" and "Learn to be a Pirate". The hard ticket events are likely to run from around 7:30pm to 12:30 am, from late January through to March. Ticket prices are expected to be in line with Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, and are set to be on sale in July. Remember this is not officially confirmed yet, and tickets are not yet available. |
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Disney
consumer products see global retail sales up 10%
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) said Tuesday it expects its consumer-products division to realized global retail sales of $23 billion in fiscal 2006, up about 10% from $21 billion a year ago.
Products related to the Disney-Pixar movie
"Cars," which topped the box-office for the second
week in a row since its release, should contribute about
$600 million of that amount, said spokesman Clint Hayashi.
"We see 'Cars' merchandise growing to a
multi-billion-dollar brand in the next few years," he
said Tuesday from the Licensing International trade show in
New York.
The company also said it expects global
retail sales of its popular Disney Princess line of products
to rise to $3.4 billion from $3 billion in fiscal 2006.
Hayashi said a mix of more products featuring
Disney characters, as well as wider retailer support for
Disney-branded products by retailers, should lead to the
improvement.
While declining to make a profit forecast for
the consumer-products division, Hayashi said the licensing
business provides Disney consumer products with double-digit
margins.
Disney's consumer-products chairman, Andy Mooney, said in a release Tuesday that the unit also benefited from a focus on "global key accounts and (a) shift to new business models, such as direct-to-retail programs." |
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Here
we go Again: Malaysia builder in talks with Disney on theme
park
Malaysian construction company UEM World Bhd (UEMW.KL ) said on Tuesday it is in talks with more than four theme-park operators, including Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N ) about a proposal to build a major attraction in southern Malaysia. But Disney officials at the company's Burbank, California, headquarters denied it was in discussions about a new theme park in Malaysia. "We are talking to various parties. That process takes time. It takes many parties to agree. We have begun to create interest with many parties, but it's still a long way to go," Chief Executive Ahmad Pardas Senin told reporters after the company's annual shareholders' meeting. He said the parties include the Disney entertainment giant and Tokyo Disneyland's operator, Oriental Land Co. Ltd. (4661.T ). UEM World shares rose as much as 6.9 percent after the news, brokers said. The stock was up 4.1 percent at 1.51 ringgit by 0840 GMT. Disney on Tuesday denied for the second time in a month it was involved in talks about a theme park in southern Johor state and said it had no plans for a Disney-branded resort development in Malaysia. A spokeswoman for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts also repeated that Oriental Land played no role for Disney outside Japan. "There are no existing discussions in Malaysia and we currently have no plans for a Disney-branded resort development in that country," said Lisa Haines, Disney Parks and Resorts spokeswoman. "Oriental Land Company, which owns and operates Tokyo Disney Resort as our licensee, is a valued partner. However, they have no role in evaluating or negotiating other opportunities for Disney outside of Japan." Asked to comment on Disney's denial, Ahmad Pardas said: "I talk to you, but you can deny that you are talking to me. I am confirming that I am talking, but they are denying. Fine, they are entitled to deny." Disney has said it is negotiating with the Chinese government on a number of projects, including a theme park that would be located in Shanghai. UEM World, with the backing of the government, is interested in developing a theme park on land the company owns in Johor state, on the other side of the narrow strait that separates peninsular Malaysia from the island state of Singapore. The idea is part of a state-sponsored scheme to develop Johor, which has the strategic advantage of sitting close to one of Southeast Asia's biggest tourism hubs. Johor is a focus of Malaysia's five-year development plan for 2006-2010. The government wants to beautify the waterfront around Johor Baru, the state capital, and clean up its image among Singaporeans as a cheap shopping destination dogged by crime. Singapore looking to boost its tourism industry with the development of two big casinos over the next three to four years and Malaysia is keen to draw many of these visitors to Johor. Singapore aims to double visitor arrivals to 17 million and triple tourism receipts to S$30 billion ($18.8 billion) by 2015, helped by the casinos and other attractions. Disney shares were up 7 cents at $29.14 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. |
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Mouse
ears dress up for 'Pirates'
Now all those Mickey Mice can dangle hoop
earrings from their big, round ears. |
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Think faux fur ear hats.
Princess ear hats with lacey veils. Tinker Bell ear hats. Ear
hats with stars for the Fourth of July. Disney first started messing with the traditional version last year as part of the company's "Happiest Celebration on Earth." People loved them, so in recent months more and more versions have been introduced, said Dara Trujillo, Walt Disney World's manager of merchandise franchise and synergy. But Mickey Mouse with an earring? "We are so 2006," Trujillo said. |
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Fairy
magic to boost Disney licensing revenue
Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh were the unrivaled kings of Walt Disney Co, bringing in more than half its yearly licensing revenue, when Andy Mooney joined the company's consumer products division in 2000. Six years later, Pooh and Mickey account for more licensing dollars but a smaller percentage of Disney's overall revenues as Mooney has steadily built a stable of profitable characters, such as the new Fairies line presented on Tuesday at the Licensing 2006 International Show in New York. Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products, told Reuters the division now has the pleasant struggle of deciding which of its many successful franchises it wants to highlight at the show. "We never had it this good ... I'm happy as a business person to have a range of properties to work with," Mooney said on Monday. "This year we made a conscious decision to scream out 'Fairies."' The Disney Fairies line, aimed at girls ages six to nine, is the company's follow-up to its successful Disney Princess franchise, which reached retail sales of $3 billion in fiscal 2005 and is expected to top $3.4 billion this year. Mooney said Peter Pan's Tinker Bell and her fairy friends were an obvious play once he realized the character accounted for 4 percent of Disney products sold at retail. The Fairies line was launched last September with the release of the book "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg," which has become a New York Times best-seller, and more books are planned. Disney also plans a series of direct-to-video movies, starting in 2007 with a film about Tinker Bell that stars Brittany Murphy as the voice of Peter Pan's tiny sidekick. In the fall, Disney will begin rolling out Fairies dolls. |
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Pin
Trading Board Carts Are Back
As part of the eight week "Legend of the Golden Pins" event 6/23/06 thru 8/13/06 Disneyland Resort will feature special Pin Trading Board Carts, one in Disneyland park, one in Disney's California Adventure park and one in Downtown Disney District that will allow you to add to your own Disney pin trading collection. Be sure ye comes seekin' adventure, for there be treasure nearby and remember to pin trade with honor or you may be forced to walk the plank. Pin Trading Board Carts The "Trading Boards" will be open for a limited time each day at the following locations: Frontierland in Disneyland park |
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Hong
Kong Disney Hiring 300 Temporary Staff
Hong Kong Disneyland is hiring 200 to 300 temporary staff to help cater to anticipated strong demand during the theme park's first summer season here, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. The new employees will be assigned to food and drinks outlets, merchandise sales and park operations and be paid an hourly rate of HK$40-HK$50 (US$5.2-US$6.4; euro4.13-euro5.08), Hong Kong Disneyland spokeswoman Glendy Chu said. "It's our first summer here and we anticipate high demand," she said. The theme park, which now employs about 5,000 people, has said it counts on a larger number of visitors during July and August to counter lagging attendance since it opened in September. Hong Kong Disneyland aims to attract 5.6 million visitors a year. It has not disclosed its attendance figures, saying they are commercially sensitive information. |
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Disney
Finds The Mother Of Invention
Walt Disney Pictures has bought the spec
script of Joe D'Ambrosia and Tom Teves, Mother of Invention. The two writers met the real woman at a party, and knew they had to write a script. There's no production schedule yet for Mother of Invention. |
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Disney
imagineer talks robots
Disney "imagineer" M.K. Haley had
dinner with Roy Disney last week, and her name is in Pixar
head John Lassiter’s Rolodex. A computer animation expert,
Haley has helped create or improve many of the Disney theme
parks’ major attractions: Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash
Mountain, the Indiana Jones ride. Last night Haley dropped names and shared Disney stories and tips for unleashing creativity, at a fund-raiser for the Hopkinton High School Robotics Club. As one of more than 1,000 imagineers -- Disney’s term for the artists, designers, architects, engineers and many other specialties needed for its theme parks, hotels and cruise operations -- Haley knows the underpinnings of every thrill. At the heart of it, she says, is a good story. |
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"Walt Disney’s
entire business model was telling stories," said the
former Weymouth resident, who took a side trip to Hopkinton
from a conference in Boston. "He started by making
movies, and the theme parks happened because he wanted a way
to actively engage people in his stories. His key motivation
was giving families something they could do together."
Many of the story lines haven’t changed in Disneyland, which celebrated its 50th year in 2006, but the technology has made the experience more true-to-life. The pirates in "Pirates of the Caribbean" once moved more jerkily but now seem almost human and "are creepily accurate," Haley said. She also shared some stories about the great Walt Disney’s imprint on Disneyland, including on the castle that serves as its motif. While most castles’ turrets are in the front so that guards can better watch for marauders, Walt Disney took one look at a small-scale model for the castle and decided it looked better with the turrets in the back. That’s how the large ones have been built. And for the Tower of Terror, which recreates a harrowing movie scene when an elevator plunges from the top floor of a hotel, Disney executives once asked for technical assistance from the Otis Elevator Company. According to Haley, Otis curtly told Disney that they spent years making sure that such a calamity would never happen. She also said Disney’s brainstorming sessions, which encourage everybody to be freewheeling, are "the single, most unique thing that Disney does." For one new ride called "Blizzard Beach," which includes both a water slide and a ski jump, "we had people throwing ideas around, writing things down and laughing," she said. Haley encouraged her audience, which included mostly students interested in robotics, to push through the limits to their own creativity. She suggested that they stretch their brains by learning a new language or musical instrument; that they practice writing with their wrong hand or learn an alternate route to a familiar place. "Give yourself permission to be awkward or weird when you are learning something new," she said. "The more you do it, the better you will get." Former Disney Imagineer Paul Dietz, a Hopkinton resident and adviser to the Robotics Club, brought Haley to Hopkinton. Last night’s fund-raiser will help the club build next year’s robot, which will compete in local, regional and national competitions. |
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Registration
deadline today for Disney Institute event
Today is the last day to register for the
Disney Keys to Excellence seminar presented by the Rockford
Chamber of Commerce. |
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Disney has decided not to hold any research
screenings of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest'
mainly because the ending cannot be changed even if the
audiences do not like it.
A Disney spokesperson said: 'We didn't think we could gain anything by research screenings,' pagesix.com reported. The film, to be released in July, is a sequel to 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the black Pearl' and will be followed by another sequel next summer. The spokesperson added: 'We couldn't really change the plot since it leads into the third film.' |
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Disney
says ABC free web TV a hit
Prime-time ABC television shows were viewed more than 11 million times on the Web in the first month of a test by the Walt Disney Co of whether consumers will watch ads online if the shows are free. An online exit survey posted the first week of the two-month trial showed that 87 percent of respondents could recall the advertisers that sponsored the episodes they watched. That compares with typical ad recall of about 40 percent for commercials viewed on television, industry sources said. A retooled version of the free site, which incorporates data gathered during the test, will be launched in the fall, Disney officials said. The ABC.com pilot program in one month outperformed the results Disney has seen in its nine-month partnership with Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes to offer episodes of its hit television shows for download, without commercials, for $1.99 each. Since last October, Disney has sold more than 6 million downloads of shows like "Desperate Housewives," "Lost," and "Alias" on Apple's iTunes Web site. Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media for Disney-ABC Television Group, said iTunes sales of ABC shows have remained consistent throughout the trial. Cheng also said company research showed that making the episodes available on online platforms is not decreasing the amount of traditional television viewing of those shows. "We have nothing but grins on all our faces because we have hit on something," Cheng said. "People were very happy with a broadcast network making an offering online." For example, Disney Channel's online broadband player, which offers episodes of the cable network's most popular childrens' series, racked up 26.7 million streams between June 2 and June 11, but television viewership also rose. Disney Channel premiered episodes of "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" online several hours before the program appeared on television, yet saw TV viewership for those episodes soar to number one in its time period for viewers ages 2 and older. Cheng said Disney will halt the trial on June 30, as scheduled, while it examines the research data it collected from the site and from consumer focus groups. The company, which was the first to offer free, ad-supported prime-time television shows online, must now figure out how to set advertising rates for the online episodes, he said. |
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Eight
Below on DVD
Walt Disney Pictures presents Eight Below, the thrilling and heartwarming adventure of loyalty, courage and the bonds of friendship between eight incredible sled dogs and their human guide, on DVD June 20. Stranded in the extreme wilderness of Antarctica, the intrepid sled dogs must band together to survive while their handler Jerry (Paul Walker, "2 Fast 2 Furious") stops at nothing to attempt a rescue mission. With a #1 Theatrical box office debut, Eight Below is an inspiring, exciting adventure of incredible survival and triumphant friendship that will captivate every member of the family. Inspired by a true story, Eight Below is available on DVD and separately on UMD for PSP for $29.99 from Walt Disney Home Entertainment. |
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The Eight Below
DVD features never-before-seen deleted scenes with optional
director's commentary; "Running With The Dogs: The
Making of Eight Below," a behind-the-scenes look at the
film; and two feature audio commentaries - with Director
Frank Marshall & Producer Pat Crowley, and Director
Frank Marshall, Actor Paul Walker and Director of
Photography Don Burgess. Available on DVD in both fullscreen
and widescreen versions. On UMD for PSP, Eight Below
features never-before seen deleted scenes. Also included
onpack is an informative fact sheet on the Siberian Husky
breed, from the American Kennel Club.
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Lady
& The Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure
From the impeccable pedigree of Walt Disney's beloved classic "Lady And The Tramp" comes the hit sequel Lady And The Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, told with the same stunning animation, charming musical style and purebred fun, on DVD June 20 from Walt Disney Home Entertainment. This doggoned delightful edition features new bonus "Junkyard Games" and Disney Song Selection, plus other entertaining bonus features. Lady And The Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure is one of the top-selling Disney Video Premieres of all time, and has not been available for over two and a half years. Available from the Disney Vault for $29.99 (S.R.P.) on DVD. |
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Lady And
The Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure introduces a new group of
irresistible characters and reunites audiences with beloved
characters from the original, including Lady, Tramp, Jock
and Trusty. Now a happy couple, Lady and Tramp busily raise
their well-behaved puppies, except for mischievous Scamp,
who's always in the doghouse. Longing for freedom, Scamp
ventures far from home and meets a lovely, reluctant stray
named Angel. She introduces him to the Junkyard Dogs, led by
streetwise Buster. When Buster challenges Scamp to the
ultimate test of a collar-free life, Scamp finds himself
torn between a world of adventure and love for the family
he's left behind. This irresistible, heartwarming
"tail" presents a whole new breed of Disney magic.
Scott Wolf (TV's "Everwood") and Alyssa Milano
(TV's "Charmed") lead a sparkling cast that
includes Jodi Benson ("The Little Mermaid"), Chazz
Palminteri ("Running Scared" ), Bronson Pinchot,
Jeff Bennett ("Curious George"), Cathy Moriarty
("Analyze That") and Hollywood legend Mickey
Rooney.
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ABC
wins Sunday with NBA Finals
NBC sent contestants to far-flung Hawaii and Alaska for the first round of "Treasure Hunters," but the two-hour premiere of the adventure reality series couldn't match Game 5 of the NBA Finals over on ABC. Final ratings data for Sunday night's game won't be available until Tuesday, although it was the highest-rated of the series so far. And it was a nail biter, with the Miami Heat slipping past the Dallas Mavericks 101-100, to take a 3-2 series lead. Game 6 will be held Tuesday night in Dallas. Sunday's game delivered a 10.2 household rating in the metered markets, according to data released Monday morning by Nielsen Media Research. That's up 2% compared to last year's 10 household rating and up 32% compared to 2003's Game 6, which also did not feature the Los Angeles Lakers. |
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Monday June 19, 2006 |
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If you've ever
questioned Disney's ability to pluck an emotional chord,
consider this:
When the company unveiled the latest ad campaign for its theme parks recently, photographer Annie Leibovitz was on hand to discuss her role. She recalled going to Disneyland as a child -- and talked about eventually taking her own daughter. And she got a little choked up. Now, that alone doesn't mean that Disney's "Where Dreams Come True" promotion will be a slam-dunk. But if someone like Leibovitz -- who has seen plenty over the years -- can get touched talking about taking her kid to Disney, it says a lot about what the Mouse is selling. More than thrill rides or shows, it's emotion and experience. The Dreams campaign kicks off in October, though a preview of one print ad was in USA Today two weeks ago. It is designed to pick up where Disney's successful 50th anniversary campaign leaves off in September. Hankies handy? Here's a preview: In one 60-second TV spot, a little boy's fishing trip becomes a pirate adventure. Three kids jumping on a bed take flight like Peter Pan. And a little girl -- adorable, naturally -- opens a door to become a princess, ready to board her carriage. "Where once upon a time happens once upon a day," an announcer says. "Come live your dreams . . . at the Disney parks." The dollar value? Given the high caliber of talent, not the least of which is Leibovitz, we're talking millions in creative and in media buys. Leibovitz's part will include celebrity photos, though it's unclear whether that means movie stars or park celebs like Snow White. Another part of the promotion: Randomly chosen parks guests will get superperks, like a stay in Cinderella's Castle or having the Magic Kingdom to themselves for a few hours. Here's what I like about the Dreams campaign: It goes to the very heart of the distinction between Disney and its competitors. Put another way, I can't imagine Leibovitz getting emotional about taking her kid on the Jaws ride at Universal. "Your relationship with Disney is an experience," Greg Bustin told me. He's a branding expert in Dallas. "It's one of the most recognizable brands in the world." Still, the campaign has a potential pitfall -- namely, the fact that it's global and will be used by all the parks. Anytime a company goes worldwide with ads, it risks watering down the message so it will fly in all markets. On the other hand, the economies Disney can get from something like this makes me wonder why they haven't done more of this in the past. Wall Street analysts have already weighed in, suggesting that Dreams is a good follow to 50th celebration campaign. How successful was that? In Orlando, it helped the Disney parks rob its competitors -- Mouse attendance climbed while Universal's fell and SeaWorld's was flat. BOTTOM LINE. With Alberto behind us, it's good to remember that a couple of recent surveys have shown that some travelers are leery about coming to Florida during hurricane season. But funny thing: The anxieties melt away if they get a discount. Said one wag: "It's amazing how quickly people get past their concerns if the price is right." . . . Speaking of surveys, this Friday is "take your dog to work day," and a recent poll found that 32 percent of folks would take a pay cut if they were allowed to have their pooches at work. Please -- less money just to have Fido in the office? Sounds like these folks have their collars on too tight. |
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Animated autos retained the pole position
as "Cars" came in No. 1 at the box office for a
second weekend with $31.2 million, holding off the
wrestling comedy "Nacho Libre" and another car
tale, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift."
"Cars," from Disney and Pixar, beat a rush of new movies, lifting its 10-day domestic total to $114.5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Paramount's "Nacho Libre," starring Jack Black as a cook at a Mexican orphanage who takes up wrestling to buy better food for the kids, debuted in second place with $27.5 million. The third in the "Fast and the Furious" racing franchise, Universal's "Tokyo Drift" opened at No. 3 with $24.1 million. The movie stars Lucas Black as a speed freak who gets caught up in Japan's illegal racing scene. "Speed" co-stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunited for the Warner Bros. romantic drama "The Lake House," which took in $13.7 million to place fourth. The time-bending tale casts Reeves and Bullock as pen pals corresponding with each other two years apart. The weekend's other new wide release, 20th Century Fox's "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties," opened weakly with $7.2 million, coming in sixth. The live-action and animated sequel features the voice of Bill Murray as the comic-strip fat cat. "Garfield" had been competing for the same family audience as "Cars," whose voice cast includes Owen Wilson and Paul Newman in a comedy about a race car that learns the value of slowing down. "I guess the family audience picked their favorite and decided that this is what it was going to be," said Chuck Viane, head of distribution at Disney, which recently bought its animation partner Pixar, the maker of "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles" and the "Toy Story" movies. The week's two sequels came in well below their predecessors. "The Fast and the Furious," with Vin Diesel and Paul Walker, opened with $40.1 million in 2001, and Walker's 2003 followup "2 Fast 2 Furious" debuted with $50.5 million. "Garfield: The Movie" took in $21.7 million over opening weekend in 2004. In limited release, the IFC Films crossword-puzzle documentary "Wordplay" opened solidly with $34,959 at two New York City theaters. The film, featuring interviews with such crossword enthusiasts as former President Bill Clinton, comic Jon Stewart and the musical duo the Indigo Girls, expands to more theaters Friday. Hollywood's overall business rose for the fifth-straight weekend. The top 12 movies took in $139.1 million, up 7 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Batman Begins" opened with $48.7 million. Estimated ticket sales were for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday. 1. "Cars," $31.2 million. 2. "Nacho Libre," $27.5 million. 3. "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," $24.1 million. 4. "The Lake House," $13.7 million. 5. "The Break-Up," $9.5 million. 6. "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties," $7.2 million. 7. "X-Men: The Last Stand," $7.15 million. 8. "The Omen," $5.35 million. 9. "The Da Vinci Code," $5 million. 10. "Over the Hedge," $4.05 million. Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Vivendi Universal; DreamWorks is a unit of DreamWorks SKG Inc.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Classics are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney's parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros., New Line, Warner Independent and Picturehouse are units of Time Warner Inc.; Lionsgate is owned by Lionsgate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp. |
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The renovated
Pirates of the Caribbean attraction will look more like the
films it inspired. But some fans feel it's taking marketing
too far.
Purist fans of
Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride are wishing they
could force company officials to walk the plank for doing
the unthinkable.
The classic attraction, which turns 40 next year, is getting an overhaul timed to coincide with the movie premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the second in a trilogy of films starring Johnny Depp. When the popular ride reopens June 26, it will look a lot more like the movie series that it inspired, complete with swashbuckler Jack Sparrow and his nemesis Capt. Barbossa.
Internet message
boards have been in mutiny for months, with fans debating
whether Disney is taking corporate synergy and marketing too
far — and that's saying a lot for a company that
capitalizes on just about every character tie-in imaginable.
"If it ain't broke, why fix it?" grumbled fan Candy Richter, 39, who grew up riding Pirates of the Caribbean. "I think it's really lamentable when society feels that they need to go back and adjust their pop culture icons to fit whatever new spawns out…. I don't think people are going in Haunted Mansion and wondering where the Eddie Murphy character is." In a break from its ride-opening tradition, Disney is not giving any sneak peeks, not even to park employees, until after the movie's celebrity-studded premiere at the Anaheim theme park Saturday. The movie is set for wide release July 7. Disney is banking that fans, even the die-hards, will not be disappointed. "I cannot imagine how anybody can see this attraction and walk off and say, 'Boy, they did something they shouldn't have,' " said Disney Imagineer Kathy Rogers, who is overseeing the ride's creative changes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida. "It really has strengthened the classic." Rogers said ride designers had tried to seamlessly add characters into the attraction in the same way that movie scriptwriters adopted elements of the ride. (Remember the dog holding the keys to the jail cells in the 2003 movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"?) The ride's story line has been tweaked. Instead of pirates ransacking a Spanish seaport town in search of gold, they're now trying to capture Jack Sparrow and beat him to the treasure. The booty, incidentally, has a lot more bling, Disney said. Fans of the movie will see familiar elements, including animatronic characters depicting Jack Sparrow and Capt. Barbossa. In the ride's cannon scene, in which a pirate ship appears to shoot cannonballs over the riders' heads, music from the movie will be playing. Special effects also have been upgraded to make the cannon blasts more realistic. A waterfall scene has been added with the ghostly image of Davy Jones, the evil spirit of the seas and a character in the second movie, Rogers said. In the ride's town and treasure scenes, Jack Sparrow has been dropped into the mix. "They look like they've always been there," Rogers said. "You're not saying, 'Oh, they put that movie thing there.' " In fact, Disney tried not to tinker too much with the classic sets. Old characters are still up to their marauding ways, including the auctioneer, the pooped pirate and the wenches for sale. The burning town was tweaked to make the fire more realistic. The ride remains 14 1/2 minutes long. "There's nothing changing about the fundamental character of the attraction," said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Disney's theme park division. The makeover is in the spirit of what Walt Disney would have wanted, Rasulo said. According to one of Disney's most famous quotes, Disneyland will never be complete "as long as there is imagination left in the world." "I think true purists will know that Walt was a man of innovation," Rasulo said. "Walt was a futurist. He thought nothing of embracing new technology and making new magic." Jeff Baham, founder of the website tellnotales.com, said fans seemed split about the changes, though many were reserving judgment until after they experienced the renovated ride. In the most extreme cases, some fans contend that the ride should remain untouched because it is the last attraction Disney worked on before his death, Baham said. Given the park's track record, some aren't sure what to expect. The last time Disney made changes to the ride in 1997, it became the butt of jokes after its drunken, looting buccaneers were made a bit more politically correct. The company "rehabilitated" the ride to make the pirates in the chase scene pursue food rather than scared maidens. It became a sin of gluttony rather than lust, officials said at the time.
Perhaps in a nod to
the purists, that theme is being ditched to "make the
story consistent," Rogers said, which means that the
pirates will go back to their pillaging, misbehaving ways.
Jamie O'Boyle, a Philadelphia-based cultural analyst who has studied Disneyland and theme parks, said he was not surprised that fans were leery.
"Suspicion of
Disney's motives is legitimate," O'Boyle said.
"The company earned that suspicion over the past couple
of decades with a series of bad decisions."
He cited such actions as Disney's replacement of the Swiss Family Robinson treetop abode with Tarzan's Treehouse and yanking guns from the Jungle Cruise skippers. The cruise captains recently got their faux firepower back but the Robinsons are still homeless. Disney leadership, O'Boyle said, is still on probation. Despite those concerns, he said the additions to the ride made sense. "This is one of those changes that Walt would have done in a heartbeat. If they put Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh in the attraction, it would be a destructive element." Adding Jack Sparrow is a natural story evolution and doesn't contradict the original show, O'Boyle said. Jennifer Figler, 29, a Southern California native who lives in Orlando, Fla., said she was not surprised by the overhaul. "You hate to see a classic get changed, but they really struck it rich this time around so it's only obvious that they were going to give this a try," Figler said. "I am a little bit of a purist, but I'm also an optimist. I'm maintaining some positive hope."
Pirate points
• Ride opened at Disneyland on March 18, 1967 • Cost of original construction: $8 million • Audio-animatronics cast: 68 people, 54 animals • Length of canal: 1,838 feet • The three-level ride is housed in two buildings totaling 112,826 square feet. • More than 400 Disney Imagineers have worked in California and Florida over the last three years to update the ride. • More than 270 speakers have been replaced throughout the attraction. • It took three days to empty and refill the "bayou's" 750,000 gallons of water. • The enhanced "Treasure Cache" scene includes more than 400,000 new gold coins and set pieces. |
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Apple has a
reputation for getting rid of the old and doing new things,
a reputation that it keeps. Much like the initial deal with
ABC that changed everything by offering episodes of TV
shows, Apple is yet again thinking different.
This time, it’s ABC Family’s upcoming series Kyle XY in the middle of it all. ABC is going to use the iTunes Music Store as a promotional launch pad for the new show. Starting with the 20th of June, a full six day before the show actually makes its debut on ABC Family at 8 p.m., users will be able to download the pilot and watch it on their computer, iPod or TV from the iTMS. After June 27, episodes of the show will be available for purchase at the usual price of $1.99 per episode. To support the free iTunes preview, ABC Family will be making heavy use of the media, including on-air promos, a flash ad on its own Web site, radio spots, banners of aol.com and msn.com and a print ad in Rolling Stone magazine. “A free preview on iTunes is a fantastic way to build buzz and increase awareness of ‘Kyle XY’,” said Paul Lee, president, ABC Family in a statement. “It gives our aggressive tease and reveal marketing campaign a major broadband element, that will help drive viewers to the premiere on the 26th.” |
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Notch Novelty Corporation (
"After the tremendous success of the Disney Fuzzy Fun line, these new Disney Dry Erase Boards and Markers will further increase revenue and profits for the company," remarks Brett Weiss, CEO of Notch Novelty. "The product and display are simply beautiful. We believe they are absolutely the best-looking Disney item available at the price point." Disney Dry Erase Boards and Markers are being sold in two formats. Large format retailers can choose to buy full spinning display racks or end-cap displays of the product. For smaller format stores, Notch offers counter-top display boxes of the item. Disney Fuzzy Fun, Notch's first Disney offering, began delivering in October 2005, has met with tremendous success with unit sales increasing each month. Notch revenue continues to grow with product line extensions from Disney licensee National Design LLC of San Diego. Notch Novelty resells an exclusive line of Disney Fuzzy artboards and Write-On Magnetic Dry Erase boards in the top selling brands: Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Princess, Tinkerbell, and now the much-anticipated Disney/Pixar movie, "Cars." You can see Notch items on-line at notchnovelty.com or by visiting high-value retailers in your neighborhood. |
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Reliance Industries Ltd. said on Monday it will approach Walt Disney Co and Time Warner Inc to set up theme parks and family entertainment centers in Haryana. "We are not in talks with them but we will approach Disney and Time Warner in due course of time," Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani told reporters. |
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Disneyland's
magic comes to Oakland
"Come on, everybody, here we go!" Remember Peter Pan's invitation to fly away with him over the glittering lights of London on his whimsical journey to Neverland? Well, even if you've never "taken" Peter Pan's Flight, a favorite attraction for Disneyland visitors for more than five decades, it's not too late to experience the charm of the world's most famous theme park, thanks to an exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California. "Behind the Magic — 50 Years of Disneyland" is an entertaining and educational journey through the mind of Walt Disney and a behind-the-scenes look athow his vision to create an amusement park for the entire family came to fruition. "It's a retrospective of the first 50 years," said Elizabeth Whipple, a spokeswoman for the museum. She added visitors — from the diehard fans that staff members can spot a mile away to those who are interested in the creative side of how the park and its attractions work — make the exhibit a popular one. Whipple said since the exhibit opened last month, the museum has tried to make it more interactive. It added an audio tour, which incorporates the voices of the early creators and artists and expands on several components of the visual display. However, the addition of one of the galleons (ships) from Peter Pan's Flight, in which one can have a photograph taken as they "fly" through the sky, is a favorite among visitors. Although the new features will keep younger fans happy, it is older children, teens and adults who will appreciate the creativity of Walt Disney best. "It was nice to see the history on how everything came about ... and how they thought about the little details of making sure you lived in the little environment they had created," said Dan Ring, 43 of Corte Madera. "It makes you appreciate it more when you go back (to Disneyland) again." Six-year-old Alex Ring also enjoyed the exhibit. A fan of Disney who celebrated his recent birthday at the Anaheim park, Alex said he learned new things from the museum visit like "Frontierland was based on the real American frontier." Edmund Herlihy of Redwood City and Sedonia Yoshida of Napa were two who took a short ride on Peter Pan's Flight. Yoshida, 24, said although she wasn't sure what to expect from the exhibit, she was pleased to see it offered the museum learning experience, not a recreation of the theme park. "I love seeing the original drawing from 50 years ago," says Herlihy, 23, of early park renderings by the Disney creative team, referred to as "Imagineers." The exhibit, which takes a little more than an hour to meander through, is packed full of Imagineering artwork, hand-crafted models, park construction drawings and promotional material chronicling the growth and history of the California landmark. Three-dimensional artifacts; the engineering behind rides like The Indiana Jones Adventure and Pirates of the Caribbean; the animation magic of Toontown; and even the audio-animatronics of our 16th president in Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln are intriguing to young and old alike. "Behind the Magic — 50 Years of Disneyland" definitely is not a "mini-Disneyland" for those wishing a mini-vacation. For those wanting to better understand the creativity, detail and, one could even say, the love that Disney put into his dream, this exhibit, which runs through Aug. 20, is the perfect ticket to the mid-summer blues. |
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Sailing-Pirates
win final leg of Volvo Ocean Race
Pirates of the Caribbean won the ninth and final leg of the Volvo Ocean Race on Saturday, finishing four minutes and 50 seconds ahead of ABN Amro Two. ABN Amro One, skippered by New Zealander Mike Sanderson, had already clinched the race win by winning the seventh leg from New York to Portsmouth last month. The overall winners were unable to sign off in style, however, after finishing the closing leg last of the six boats still in competition. For most of the last third of the race the Pirates trailed ABN Amro Two, but the Dutch team fell into a wind hole in the last hours which allowed the Walt Disney-backed boat to take over the lead. With American Paul Cayard at the helm, the Pirates crossed the finish line with their Black Pearl ship at the Alvsborg bridge in Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast to be greeted by hundreds of boats and thousands of cheering spectators. It was the first leg won by the Pirates. "For sure I wanted to impress people here, especially my mother-in-law," smiled skipper Cayard, whose wife Icka is Swedish and comes from Gothenburg. "It was a difficult leg, and I feel a little sorry for ABN Amro (Two). They were sailing a great race." The Pirates finished second overall thanks to their win. Brasil 1 still had an outside chance of beating them going into the race but had to settle for third place overall after finishing the leg in third. "It really has been steady improvement since the start for us," said Cayard. "Back in Cape Town (after the first leg), we were behind everyone and now we finish second. So I am really proud of the sailing team and the shore team about the success we've achieved today. "We were also the last boat to enter the race, that's why the climb is so impressive." Cayard became the first American skipper to win the race with EF Language back in 1998 when it was still called the Whitbread Round the World Race. "It's completely different now from then," he said. "The boats are so much more advanced technologically these days. Working with Disney has been a real highlight." ABN Amro Two, whose crew member Hans Horrevoets died on May 18 after being swept overboard, kept their fourth place overall by finishing second on Saturday. |
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Narnia
DVD creates history in India
'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe' has created history in India's home entertainment sector by becoming the highest selling Disney DVD since its release last month. The movie, which has won 13 awards and 40 nominations, acquired the feat by dethroning 'The Lion King' by over 30 percent in sales, reports Bollywood Trade. 'The growing hardware (DVD/VCD players) penetration and the aggressive marketing efforts by our partner in India are taking the home entertainment business to new heights,' says Daniel Solnicki, vice president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment International. Adds Rajat Jain, managing director of the Walt Disney Company (India): 'Creativity and great stories traverse all boundaries and this movie has been a great Disney experience that audiences across India have embraced with equal fervour.' 'The DVD being a value product with its inbuilt language selection feature (English, Hindi) enabling the viewer to watch the Movie in the language of his/her choice has further helped the cause,' says M.N. Kapasi of Excel Home Videos. The huge success has also been attributed to the summer vacations and the unique sales promotions activities for children. |
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Eight Below, the thrilling sled dog adventure film from Walt Disney Pictures, comes to Disney DVD on June 20. Inspired by a true story, Eight Below stars Paul Walker who with eight sled dogs tries to survive one action-packed situation after another and find help after becoming stranded in Antarctica. The DVD includes deleted scenes and audio commentary by the director, Paul Walker, and others who worked on the film, as well as a behind-the-scenes feature. In its original theatrical release, Eight Below received mixed to good reviews. It was the number one film at the box office on its opening weekend earlier this year. The San Francisco Chronicle in a recent review called the DVD release a "heartwarming story" with "a twist or two that will leave you feeling warm and sentimental." Eight Below is rated PG. |
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Captain
Jack swashing bucklers at Disneyland
Aaaarrr, matey, Southern California theme parks be swarming with pirates, they be. Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride reopens June 25 after a retrofit to add Captain Jack Sparrow and the evil Barbossa, along with a plot twist and new special effects, from the hit 2003 movie and its sequel. Said sequel just happens to open a few days later, on July 7. For details, call (714) 781-4565 or go to http://www.disneyland.com/. |
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Theme parks' love affair with new
technology shows itself each time a ride debuts, but some
of the most important advances are taking place out of
sight in the attractions' security departments.
A security expert speaking Monday at the National Fire Prevention Association conference in Orlando said new computer software, paired with video cameras mounted throughout theme parks, now allows security workers to monitor visitors' movements. "You no longer have dumb cameras looking at the same scene and waiting for a human being to move," said Lauris Freidenfelds, vice president of consulting services with Sako & Associates. "We can now actually use software to track an individual through a theme park." Freidenfelds said that computers can turn an array of conventional security cameras into a sophisticated tracking system, allowing theme-park workers to keep track of someone acting suspiciously. Theme parks pose unique security problems, Freidenfelds said. Power outages can strand people inside or on top of rides. Loud noises and simulated explosions can make communicating with visitors a daunting task. "You have an environment with explosives and firecrackers," he said. "You need a communications system that is audible but won't make people bleed from the ears." Freidenfelds said quick communications with visitors can be essential, and evacuation plans need to be updated and tested frequently. "A theme-park attack is something a terrorist would look at," he said. "We need crowd controls, evacuation paths and emergency plans that need to be exercised frequently." But new security technology can do more than keep an eye on suspicious people and ready theme parks for catastrophes. Freidenfelds said one new device -- a GPS bracelet for children -- promises to assuage the fear of losing one's offspring in a crowd. "Security is supposed to be covert, but make sure that some of it is overt," Freidenfelds said. Using a GPS tracking system, theme parks can quickly locate children that walk away from their parents. Freidenfelds said theme-park security departments have a role beyond crime prevention. "Theme-park security directors need to realize that it's a public-safety issue and not just about crime prevention," he said. |
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Sunday June 18, 2006 |
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No News Today Happy Father's Day |
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