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By Michael - November 29th, 2007 
Recently, Disney announced that their new Goofy-starring short How To Hook Up Your Home Theater would be released to theaters on December 21st in front of the new film National Treasure: Book of Secrets. This was a surprise to fans, as most everyone had assumed it would be released a month earlier attached to the more animation-appropriate Enchanted. Instead, Disney is choosing to premiere the first release from its new shorts program in front of a live-action adventure film, an act of counter-programming that shows their faith in the product and the desire to reach a larger market with these new shorts than the already animation-friendly family market.
How To Hook Up Your Home Theater is not the first animated short from Disney in recent years; Destino, Lorenzo, and The Little Match Girl were all produced as part of a failed Fantasia sequel and were released on the festival circuit. Still, they weren’t released to a wide audience – only Lorenzo played in theaters (inexplicably, in front of the film Raising Helen) and two of the three aren’t currently available to the public (trust me – I’ve tried to find a copy of Lorenzo to watch!). How To Hook Up Your Home Theater differs from these earlier efforts in that it is part of a program initiated when John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and their Pixar crew came to Disney a few years ago; a official shorts division is now set up and operating under the control of veteran story artist Chuck Williams.
Pixar is well known for its short films – Lasseter and company spent a decade working only on shorts before they released Toy Story in 1995, and nowadays every Pixar release is accompanied by a new short. Lasseter and Catmull had the clout to help revive a similar program at Walt Disney Feature Animation, and we’re now starting to enjoy the fruits of their labors. The benefits of a shorts program are manifold; they are a valuable training tool for new animators, they help to develop and discover new talent, they allow experimentation, and they push innovation. Shorts also provide an outlet for ideas that deserve realization, but aren’t hefty enough on their own to hold up an entire feature film.
The Disney Studios were built on the success of Mickey Mouse shorts in the 1920’s and 30’s, but after the war the profits on shorts began to dry up and they became a drain on resources. Despite several attempts to revive the animated short over the years, they never seemed to be a natural fit in the modern theater industry. Nowadays, however, with digital distribution and new media, there are more outlets for short films than ever. Studios are always looking for new and inexpensive content to add to DVD’s, and Pixar has successfully produced new shorts for their home video products as a value-added inducement to consumers. Shorts are easily shared online, and it’s much more likely that a person would download a few inexpensive shorts onto their ipod for a crosstown bus ride than an entire feature. Shorts are a rarity – an archaic form of media that might just fit perfectly into our attention-span-deprived modern world.
Taking all of this into account, and combining it with a sheer nostalgic love of the Disney animated short, Lasseter, Catmull and the new management at WDAS are setting out to create a steady stream of new shorts for the upcoming years (at the time of this writing, aside from the Goofy short, five more are said to have been approved with three in actual production). Lasseter has specifically indicated a desire to revive Disney’s classic stable of characters, and it’s worth noting that several of the films are in traditional 2-D animation. Let’s take a look at what they have in store:
Continue reading Salute their shorts
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By Michael - November 27th, 2007 
Well, who are you? Kelly Hu? If so, email immediately.
Otherwise, I’m interested in knowing who’s out there. The internet is fascinating because we have all these little tracking geegaws that can tell us how many people are checking in and even, roughly, where they are geographically (hi Beverly Hills! Send money!). Thankfully, it appears that lots of people are at least vaguely interested in what we’re doing here at Progress City but the problem is that we don’t know who you are. While the best solution for this would be a constant stream of enthusiastic and insightful comments on every post, I know how seldom I comment on blogs – even those that I read voraciously.
So, as we gear up to resume daily posting now that our Thanksgiving break is over, I’d like those of you out there to take a second and introduce yourself. To make this interesting, and not totally about us, why don’t you hit us with some links – if you have a site or blog, feel free to pimp it in the comments thread for this post. If you have other blogs or sites that you love, link them too. And if you’re feeling really loquacious, let us know what you’d like to see more of here on the blog.
Take a moment and say hi to everyone – just because Progress City is a world on the move doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other…
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By Michael - November 26th, 2007 
More accurately – “Something is afoot in Florida, what is it?” A warning – this is all complete speculation and hearsay, but it’s fun so get over it.
Two weeks ago the heavy hitters of the theme park industry convened on Orlando for the IAAPA 2007 conference and trade show. Many of Disney’s Imagineering brain trust made the trip, and took the opportunity to tour Disney’s Orlando properties with a fine toothed comb and give some thought to the next wave of new attractions for Walt Disney World. Aside from Toy Story Mania! there are currently no major future attractions announced for the Florida property, and if WDW is to keep up with the multi-billion dollar expansion plans for California and get something ready for the resort’s 40th anniversary in 2011 it’s time to start thinking about these things.
Reports from the last few weeks place Disney CEO Bob Iger in the parks, as well as Imagineering honcho John Lasseter and Imagineers such as Tom Fitzgerald and Joe Rohde. Aside from the requisite wining and dining, these executives were said to be mulling over various proposals that have been made for Walt Disney World’s next wave of expansion. While public announcements are ostensibly a long way off, decisions are being made now for where development funds are going to be allocated and which projects are going to start clawing their way toward the coveted greenlight.
So what is on the way? No one, even the Imagineers on the projects, probably know for sure – but there are a few clues. Respected posters on prominent Disney message boards have reported that a great deal of attention is being paid to the Japan pavilion at EPCOT Center. Imagineers have been sniffing around, and something is said to be in the works. Exactly what is unknown, but it’s said to differ slightly from previous proposals.
Long-time EPCOT obsessives will no doubt know that this pavilion has come painfully close to actually having an attraction several times over the years. Plans from the 1970’s included a travelogue film delivered via a simulated trip on a bullet train; by the time of the park’s opening a show entitled Meet the World was being created for the pavilion. This attraction, something of a Japanese Carousel of Progress, was designed and the ride building was actually built behind the castle gates at the rear of the pavilion, but in 1983 the attraction was diverted to the new Tokyo Disneyland park and the empty ride building has been a warehouse ever since. Later, during Eisner’s “Disney Decade”, the pavilion was supposed to receive a “Mount Fuji” themed roller coaster, but this too went unrealized.
In recent years there’s been a constant rumor that a certain faction at WDI wants to remedy some of the errors of the past and build up World Showcase’s skyline so as to block out certain outside visual intrusions. Mount Fuji would obviously help in this, and indeed it seems to be the centerpiece of most of the new rumors. Hopefully WDI has some elaboration on this concept up its sleeve, as Fuji (along with a proposed Swiss Pavilion and its Matterhorn coaster) was intended as an east-coast Matterhorn substitute, a position which has since been taken by Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom. Strangely enough, Everest impresario Joe Rohde is said to have a hand in this new Japanese project.
The point of all this is that public announcements are a long way off, but funding decisions aren’t and at least management is thinking about these things. The acknowledgment that World Showcase desperately is in need of something new is much appreciated, even if it is all hearsay. Let’s hope WDI is as up on this as rumor holds, and that further leaks aren’t far away. And maybe we’ll just hear something about Imagination 4.0, while we’re at it…
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By Michael - November 22nd, 2007
“Every day, a diverse and unlikely society, made up of every culture and race on earth, is working together to build a great nation. We have a single vision – a new order based on the promise of democracy.
Our resources for building this nation are a rich mixture of land, family and beliefs – which we apply with our own fiety brand of spirit, humor and innovation.
As the nation has grown and changed, we are constantly reminded of how impossibly far we’ve come – and how far we still have to go.
DISNEY’S AMERICA celebrates these qualities which have always been the source of our strength and the beacon of
hope to people everywhere.”
– Disney Promotional Material, 1994
As we in the States gather around the table today to gorge ourselves on unreasonable amounts of lethargy-inducing slather, I thought it would be good to take a moment and reflect on what we have to be thankful for. Then I ran out of those, and started thinking about things I’m not thankful for. Namely, the year 1994 and Michael Eisner’s complete creative and personal meltdown that began the disastrous eleven-year stretch that wrapped up his career at the Disney company. If not for the year 1994 and a number of factors both controllable and not, I would be able to spend my turkey day a few hours away in rural Virginia enjoying Disney’s tribute to American history, Disney’s America.
Recall the Past, Live the Present, Dream the Future
– Disney Promotional Material, 1994
Just over fourteen years ago, on November 11th, 1993, Michael Eisner and other Disney officals gathered in Haymarket, Virginia to announce the Disney’s America project. The announcement was rushed, as Disney had been forced by press leaks to move the press conference up and thus try and get ahead of the story. Secrecy had allowed Disney to either purchase or option 3,000 acres of property in the area, but made them unable to quickly respond to area critics who were both well-connected and very well funded. Nearly a year later, in September of 1994, Disney would announce that they were no longer seeking to build the park in Prince William County. While the story of Eisner’s ‘year of hell’ and the political and business machinations that helped torpedo the park are significant, what’s really important here is the park we missed out on. So let’s take a look at the process that brought us the park, and specifically what we’re missing on this Turkey Day.
Continue reading Thanksgiving Special: Neverworlds – Disney’s America
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By Michael - November 22nd, 2007 
The interweb is lighting up with rumors that the new narrator for EPCOT Center’s Spaceship Earth will be British actress Dame Judi Dench. While I was personally hoping for a secret return of Walter Cronkite, this is a more than satisfactory substitute. This is all still hearsay, of course (although strangely widely spread hearsay, unless the Dench fanboy movement is far more entrenched than I thought).
Disney has kept details on the Spaceship Earth rehab locked up tight, but a small trickle of details continue to emerge. Video screens which will allow a Horizons-like interactive finale have been installed in all the vehicles; these are at least partially on-line and on site. What might be an out-of-control rumor cascade is currently insisting that the project is ahead of schedule and will be soft opening by the second week of December. This would be a Very Good Thing considering that Team Tangaroa is going to be in situ that very week and was getting very testy about having to miss Spaceship Earth for a second consecutive visit. Get to work guys!
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The Progress City Primer
 From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats. |
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