Already this week, we told you about one concern some dog lovers have over the film: Whenever a Chihuahua has been featured in entertainment in the past (or really any adoptable animal -- "101 Dalmatians," anyone?), it's been followed by a spike in adoption, which then later translates into more dogs put up for adoption by people who didn't realize what they were getting into.

But the film, which isn't even out for another month, is also generating another kind of controversy.

Disney is hoping for a good turnout after the film's release Oct. 3, especially with the Latino audience. Although U.S. Census Bureau figures show that Beverly Hills is only 12% Latino, that percentage in Los Angeles County is much higher, and movie executives are hoping that the voices behind the dogs in the film -- George Lopez, Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos, Cheech Marin and Andy Garcia -- will connect with Latinos.

Many in the entertainment industry try to cater to the Latino market, using language, celebrities and music central to the culture to attract attention. Examples include the much-hyped "Latin explosion" in pop music in the late 1990s, with Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez, and the launching over the years of more bilingual publications or Spanish-language versions of magazines such as People or Cosmopolitan.

But marketing to today's U.S.-born Latinos is a sensitive issue, and the "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" campaign may stir up some tension, The Times' Josh Friedman writes:

Walt Disney Pictures is making a lot of marketing noise with its upcoming "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," a live-action comedy about a pampered purebred that gets lost in Mexico....

Early tracking is solid but not stellar among general moviegoers -- Sony Pictures' teen hipster romantic comedy "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist," which opens on the same weekend, has lower awareness but higher interest levels. But kids and moms, the demographics that turn talking-animal flicks like "Alvin and the Chipmunks" into hits, are keen on it.

Latinos, who tend to be among the most avid movie going groups in the U.S., could give "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" a huge boost, especially in urban markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago. According to the Motion Picture Assn. of America, Latinos saw an average of 10.8 movies in 2007, compared with 7.9 for Caucasians and 7.8 for African Americans.

But some think Disney's marketing could also spark a backlash.

"The movie's generalizations about Hispanics and its stereotypical depictions of Mexicans will not get a positive response from most of the 46 million Hispanics living in the U.S.," said Anton Diego, president of EveryMundo Inc., a marketing firm that helps businesses target Latinos online.

The trailer, Diego notes, opens with the voice of a Chihuahua called Papi describing how his descendants fought alongside Aztec soldiers, then pans to footage of Machu Picchu in Peru -- a symbol of the Incan Empire located on a different continent. The music in the trailer is mambo, which originated in Cuba, he adds.

A viral video campaign (with no mention of Disney or the movie title, in today's fashionable stealth style) has elicited groans for its portrayal of Chihuahuas as revolutionaries declaring "No mas!" to being carried in purses -- but "Mas!" to all-you-can-eat taco bars.

Disney declined to comment on the movie's marketing.

Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said he saw two screenings of the completed film after hearing a complaint about the project and found nothing offensive.

"It's not supposed to ignite the world with social consciousness, but this is a clean, entertaining picture with an all-star cast that brings the Latino presence to a whole new height," Nogales said. "It's a marvelous little film that is going to send everybody off to buy their own Chihuahuas."

Maybe the Taco Bell Chihuahua inspired Disney.

Bob Martin, station manager of Radio Disney, said that the station believes in the renaissance of the downtown area and feels that it will continue to grow in a positive way. "We are dedicated to remaining downtown and feel that it will give us a competitive advantage for attracting talent," said Martin. "City Center Square is ideally located for what we do."

The station, devoted to kids, tweens and families, anticipates that City Center Square's location in the heart of the city will help the station interact with its young audience and the community which is in close proximity to the charitable events that it regularly sponsors, including Kids for the Cure, Slugger Days at the K and The Sprint Family Fun Series. Radio Disney also hosts weekly performances in the Power & Light District just a few blocks away from the commercial high-rise office building.

Susan Moore, general manager of City Center Square, welcomes the kid-friendly radio station to the building. "Radio Disney is a wonderful organization and we're looking forward to the youthful and creative presence that the station will bring," said Moore.

"We know the movie is cute," says Kim Sill, who runs the campaign against puppy mills for Last Chance for Animals, the group that organized the protest. "We don't want to say we're against the movie. We're against people going to a pet store after they see the movie.  We want them to go to a shelter, because there are a lot of Chihuahuas there." 

Salty, a 4-year-old female Chihuahua, pictured here, is one of those Chihuahuas. She is up for adoption at LA Animal Services' North Central shelter. (ID #A0974811.)

Animal welfare advocates have been concerned for weeks about the impact of the Disney movie -- which opens Oct. 3 -- on Chihuahuas.  In the past, popular movies featuring a dog often cause a run on that breed. "101 Dalmatians" led to an uptick in Dalmatian ownership.  And, according to Sill, the Taco Bell commercials featuring a Chihuahua helped create a Chihuahua craze. But when people realize the dog may not be right for them or their family --Damaltians are difficult and Chihuahuas are not always great with children --"they get dumped," says Sills.

And when a movie is about to open, puppy mills, she contends, gear up to produce more of that breed to supply pet stores. (Many animal welfare organizations, including the Humane Society of the U.S., contend that most pet stores get their dogs from puppy mills.) "It used to be you would walk into pet stores and see maltipoos and Yorkies. All of a sudden in the last two months, we've seen Chihuahuas infiltrate the pet shops," Sill says.

Los Angeles is already awash in Chihuahuas.  There are more Chihuahuas among registered dogs in Los Angeles County than any other breed, as we reported in July.  And Sill says the shelters already have a high number of Chihuahuas.  Some of the ones at the Carson shelter, run by the Los Angeles County shelter system , are featured in the video that Last Chance for Animals made to drive home its point about not buying Chihuahuas.

Sill says her group wanted Disney to air a public service announcement in theaters before shows telling patrons to think hard before choosing a pet. "We would have happily produced it for them and given it to them," says Sill.

It turns out that several of the Chihuahuas in the film were rescue dogs found in shelters in Los Angeles and Mexico, according to Disney's promotional materials.  The lead dog, known in the movie as Papi --the face of the movie on all the posters around town -- was rescued from the Moreno Valley Animal Shelter and lives with his trainer.

The theme of responsible adoption echoes through the movie -- some of the dogs get adopted as part of the story -- and all the promotional material, says the spokesperson. The movie's website (at the bottom) and the movie itself (at the end before the credits roll) have written messages noting that getting a pet is a serious and lifelong commitment that should be researched first. "We felt this was an important message to visibly relay at the end of the movie," said the spokesperson.

The Disney spokesperson added that the cast of the movie and the trainer of Rusco, the dog who plays Papi, have been talking publicly about animal adoption.

Ed Boks, general manager of LA Animal Services, saw the movie Thursday night.  "I was a bit disappointed," he wrote in an e-mail. "The movie has a strong 'adopt' and 'rescue' message, but no 'spay/neuter' message. In fact, one female dog opined that she longed for a boyfriend who has NOT been 'fixed.'...Disney just does not seem to share our concern over the influence this movie could have on people who will now think of Chihuahuas as cash cows."  

The Mouse's ad-supported toon net will face a tough hombre in the mighty Cartoon. The Viacom net recently announced new iterations of marquee properties -- including a new Star Wars show -- for the fall, and it's about to debut a giant, downloadable massively multiplayer online game called FusionFall; after all, the kids these nets need are notorious for reaching for a joystick before their remote control.

If Disney has a cheering section in this enterprise, it's Madison Avenue, which, if it's going to sell action figures or sugary food, has to buy boy-focused ad time from Nick or Cartoon, whether their ratings are good or not. And Cartoon, with its majority male aud, has carved out a deep niche. "Kids used to be more widely dispersed throughout syndication and the major networks," observes Brad Adgate, a researcher with media buyer Horizon. "Now the ratings go to two places: Nickelodeon and Cartoon (which gets a larger percentage of boys than Nick)."

The new XD gives buyers another alternative.

"If they can get the same kind of audience delivery on Disney that they can on Cartoon, I think that's something that buyers would welcome," Adgate says.

Conventional wisdom holds that Disney's TV properties appeal mostly to girls -- Hannah Montana and the Disney Princess licenses are two of the biggest success stories -- but XD's Rich Ross says the rebranded net didn't have as far to travel as one might think. "We already have a raft of programming geared toward boys," Ross says. "It's not a standing start at all."

Disney XD has tried to attract boys with indestructible older titles that used to run in syndication, like "Batman: The Animated Series," while upcoming shows include a "Ben 10"-ish skein called "Aaron Stone" and a Japanese robot skein called RoboDZ. The net's ratings bear out Ross' thesis: In total day numbers for August, 32,000 of the net's 48,000 viewers in the 9-14 demo were boys. XD's problem is the number of households where the channel is available: Cartoon has much deeper penetration (97.2 million households to Toon Disney's 71.3) and in August, it averaged 329,000 viewers in the 9-14 demo (including 232,000 boys). Disney must sell the net in many more markets if it's going to compete, and while it is busy doing that, Cartoon is trying to dig even further into the limited demo with initiatives like its buzz-heavy weekend lineup and copious vidgame tie-ins. What may turn out to be Disney's ace in the hole is a partnership with another network in the ABC/Disney family: ESPN.

"Our sister network -- I suppose brother network would be more appropriate in this case -- has been working with Disney Channel and Jetix (Toon Disney's online presence) for years," Ross says. "We thought it would be to our advantage to bring in things from their library, and some new material, as well."

But while Disney is trying to build up a base of franchise properties that can pull more boys back to TV, Cartoon is already there, working to incorporate its homegrown characters into the FusionFall gaming world where the game and the network will advertise for one another.

Ironically, it's a tactic Disney itself had great success with: Square developed the multiproperty "Kingdom Hearts" game series for the Mouse in 2002, which sold more than 10 million copies. So if Disney does choose to compete in that market, it will be a formidable opponent.

And the little yelper, being unleashed in theaters Oct. 3, could show plenty of box-office bite despite detractors who say the marketing materials perpetuate ethnic stereotypes.

The PG-rated family film features Piper Perabo and Jamie Lee Curtis and a voice cast headed by Drew Barrymore along with such Latino stars as George Lopez, Salma Hayek, Edward James Olmos, Cheech Marin and Andy Garcia.

Early tracking is solid but not stellar among general moviegoers -- Sony Pictures' teen hipster romantic comedy "Nick & Norah's Infinit Playlist," which opens on the same weekend, has lower awareness but higher interest levels. But kids and moms, the demographics that turn talking-animal flicks like "Alvin and the Chipmunks" into hits, are keen on it.

Latinos, who tend to be among the most avid moviegoing groups in the U.S., could give "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" a huge boost, especially in urban markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago. According to the Motion Picture Assn. of America, Latinos saw an average of 10.8 movies in 2007, compared with 7.9 for Caucasians and 7.8 for African Americans.

But some think Disney's marketing could also spark a backlash.

"The movie's generalizations about Hispanics and its stereotypical depictions of Mexicans will not get a positive response from most of the 46 million Hispanics living in the U.S.," said Anton Diego, president of EveryMundo Inc., a marketing firm that helps businesses target Latinos online.

The trailer, Diego notes, opens with the voice of a Chihuahua called Papi describing how his descendants fought alongside Aztec soldiers, then pans to footage of Machu Picchu in Peru -- a symbol of the Incan Empire located on a different continent. The music in the trailer is mambo, which originated in Cuba, he adds.

A viral video campaign (with no mention of Disney or the movie title, in today's fashionable stealth style) has elicited groans for its portrayal of Chihuahuas as revolutionaries declaring "No mas!" to being carried in purses -- but "Mas!" to all-you-can-eat taco bars.

Disney declined to comment on the movie's marketing.

Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, said he saw two screenings of the completed film after hearing a complaint about the project and found nothing offensive.

"It's not supposed to ignite the world with social consciousness, but this is a clean, entertaining picture with an all-star cast that brings the Latino presence to a whole new height," Nogales said. "It's a marvelous little film that is going to send everybody off to buy their own Chihuahuas."

The marketing effort appears to be clicking with broad audiences.

The trailer, featuring a Busby Berkeley-type musical number, has been popular since it premiered with this summer's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," according to executives at Disney and rival studios.

Disney has also raised awareness for the movie, originally titled "South of the Border," with a poster campaign in various cities featuring a Chihuahua and the simple message "Heel," done in the style of artist Shepard Fairey's "Hope" signs for Barack Obama.

The company's more traditional movie posters are plastered with a series of cheeky tag lines: "I, Chihuahua," "You Want Some of This?" "Actual Size" and, of course, "50% Warrior. 50% Lover. 100% Chihuahua."

Exhibitors and Wall Street analysts expect "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" to gross $40 million to $50 million domestically during its full run, targets that are almost certain to rise as the opening draws near. If the buzz turns out to be really good, "Chihuahua" could end up nipping at the heels of "Chipmunks" ($217 million domestically).

With summer over, current films such as "Burn After Reading," "Righteous Kill" and "The Women" have been tailored toward adults, said Bruce J. Olson, president of the Marcus Theatres chain, based in Milwaukee.

"There is a pent-up demand among families, so the market is ripe for 'Chihuahua' to be the first sleeper hit of the fall," he said.

Chris White, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, noted that DreamWorks/Paramount's over-the-top, R-rated action comedy "Tropic Thunder" drew fire from some groups for supposedly stereotyping the mentally disabled, but it opened at No. 1 and topped the box office for three weeks in late summer.

Disney advises U of I on service strategies

DesMoinesRegister - The University of Iowa is looking to add a little magic to a new off-site hospital facility.

U of I Hospitals paid $3,000 to have two consultants from the Disney Institute visit last month and talk for three hours about the Disney approach to business. Strategies for creating "warm welcomes and fond farewells" could be implemented for a new ambulatory care center to be built by 2010, said Gordon Williams, chief of operations for U of I Health Care.

The Disney Magic cruise ship is in drydock at BAE Systems and, for two weeks, about 200 employees are working around the clock.

It's being worked on in Titan, the largest floating drydock on the East Coast.

At 980 feet and 47,000 tons, Disney Magic takes up the whole drydock.

Workers are blasting and painting and repairing rudders, propellers and thrusters. Disney folks are onboard doing upgrades up above.

"Disney has approximately 800 people onboard doing habitability work -- the state rooms, the swimming pools, the restaurants," explains Dave Thomas, vice president of ship repair for BAE Systems.

Superintendent John Lifesey is the project coordinator.

"Most of our work involves underwater portions. The ships have to dock every two years and they have surveys that are required to be worked. Sea valves, the thrusters, the ships have stabilizers which make them go smother through the water, we're taking two of those off."

Lifesey says there hasn't been a Minnie or Mickey sighting.