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By Michael - November 18th, 2010 The estimable Mickey Mouse turns 82 today; hopefully, his birthday is made more happy because it comes on the cusp of a new wave of recognition thanks to the impending Epic Mickey videogame. It’s hard to believe that the corporate icon of today – the giggling, krumping creature of the “Disney Dance Crew” – was once the scrappy, feisty heir of Fairbanks as seen in Plane Crazy or The Gallopin’ Gaucho. Hopefully we’ll see some more of that spark soon!
For your viewing pleasure, we have the special that aired on NBC’s The Magical World of Disney in 1988 to celebrate Mickey’s 60th birthday. If you were around at that time, you’ll no doubt remember that Mickey’s 60th was a huge deal; during the 1980s any major anniversary of a park or character was celebrated, and those early Eisner years saw a number of specials like this. Mickey’s 60th brought Mickey’s Birthdayland and a new parade to the Magic Kingdom in Florida, but it was also celebrated coast to coast and around the world, as can be seen in this special.
As to the special itself, it comes from the couple of years when Disney was partnering with NBC to produce some fairly high-quality original programming. The Magical World of Disney began with the promise of new serial programming – new hour-long specials based on Davy Crockett and The Absent-Minded Professor were produced – in the vein of Walt’s old Wonderful World of Color shows. The push for original programming overlapped nicely with the promise of the upcoming Disney-MGM Studios in Florida.
Of course it never really worked out, but at the time the idea of a return to these classic franchises with a modicum of production values seemed pretty exciting. Let’s face it, once you’ve survived the Klinkers or Kraft, these NBC specials seem like Citizen Kane. Upon watching, I was kind of surprised that it holds up. I watched this a billion times as a kid, but it’s still pretty funny (Charlie Fleischer: “You want me to kill the duck? The duck makes a lot of money…”). At the very least, it reminds us that John Ritter could make the most of any material and that NBC really wishes it still had the primetime lineup from 1988.
So here’s Mickey, with his new friend Roger Rabbit, and a cast of thousands, celebrating Mr. Mouse’s 60th birthday. And a shout-out across the ages to Walt and Ub, for getting the whole thing going and knowing how to make some darn fine cartoon pictures.
Continue reading Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Mouse
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By Michael - November 11th, 2010 Well, here you go:
Pigs with pigs.
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By Michael - November 11th, 2010 As promised, D23 has debuted their new online video feature “Armchair Archivists.” This new series will give us a regular look at the rarely-seen treasures of the Disney Archives, and hopefully some audio and video goodies as well.
Judging from this premiere episode, the new series will be of far greater value than the current D23 “Disney Geek” segments. Hosts Josh Turchetta and Steve Czarnecki manage to be appropriately geeky but also suitably restrained, and do a good job without veering into fanboy caricature. Most importantly, the content is worthwhile.
This big draw for this first episode is recently-found footage of Walt Disney that premiered at the recent Destination D event in California. Discovered by Ed Hobelman, archivist at the Walt Disney Studios, the footage shows one of Walt’s last filmed appearances. In the film, Walt promotes the upcoming The Happiest Millionaire while welcoming viewers to an early screening of Follow Me, Boys! The story of the footage’s discovery is interesting, and the film itself tugs at the clocksprings for Walt fans like myself.
There’s also a visit with Becky Cline, the new director of the Archives, and a look at some of Walt’s personal effects taken from his office. Check it out:
How cool is that Laugh-O-Gram megaphone?
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By Michael - November 10th, 2010 If, like me, you’re a capital-D Disney fan, you’ve long bemoaned the dearth of classic Disney films on the company’s many cable outlets.
Thankfully, other channels like TCM have come to the rescue and give us an occasional taste of Walt’s films. This week, the Hallmark Movie Channel is stepping up with a crackerjack lineup of goodies:
Wednesday, November 10th
8am – The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967)
10:30am – Summer Magic (1963)
1pm – Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968)
3:30pm – Return to Oz (1985)
Thursday, November 11th
8am – Big Red (1962)
Friday, November 12th
8am – The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964)
10am – The Cat From Outer Space (1978)
12pm – THE UGLY DACHSHUND (1966)
2pm – The Gnome-Mobile (1967)
4pm – Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
Be there, aloha!
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By Michael - November 9th, 2010 There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle on the message boards lately about a brochure that someone found on the website of architecture firm George Coon, Inc. The brochure, now removed, described Coon’s work at other firms for a variety of clients. Working with Glover Smith Bode, Coon helped design a new Disney Vacation Club property for Walt Disney World called the California Coast Resort.
From the brochure’s description:
DISNEY VACATION CLUB
CALIFORNIA COAST HOTEL
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Disney Vacation Club decided to extend its hotel experience with their new California Coast Resort at H1, Lake Buena Vista, Orlando, Florida.
George Coon was invited by the DVC Design Team to work under the direct supervision of GSB Architects, and Mr. Wing Chao, providing design direction for this next and possibly best of the DVC properties in Orlando.
California’s remarkable coast offers an experience of recognizable icons which were chosen to be represented in separate hotel experiences including; Venice Beach, Casa del Mar, Montage, the Balboa Pavilion, Laguna Hills, Newport Beach, and Santa Barbara. The project is presently in the Schematic Design Phase.
COMPLETION DATE:
Estimated 2012
SIZE:
Estimated 1,208 units
PROJECT COST:
To Be Determined
Client Reference:
Wing Chao,
Senior Vice President
WDI
Planning & Architecture
Naturally, lots of fans are taking this as concrete evidence that this DVC resort is on the way. Someone even found another mention of the project in a brochure for Square Peg Design. There are just a few problems.
First, Wing Chao retired from WDI in 2009. Then there’s the fact that unless they’ve been hiding construction for some time, there’s no way that a new resort could be constructed by 2012. At 1,208 units, this would be by far the largest of the DVC properties – much, much larger than even Saratoga Springs. There’s no hiding a project of that magnitude.
It’s also interesting to note that Coon’s brochure includes the never-built Disney’s Vacation Club and Resort at Eagle Pines, and lists it with a completion date of 2008. You might remember that project was announced in 2001, only to disappear almost immediately following the terrorist attacks of that September. The land intended for that resort, adjacent to the Eagle Pines golf course, is currently the site of the millionaires-only Golden Oaks development and Four Seasons project.
All the rumors and permits that have been percolating lately indicate that the next resort project at Walt Disney World will be a new DVC facility between Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. This, of course, approximates the location of the once-planned Wilderness Junction/Buffalo Junction resort from the Disney Decade of the 1990s.
Unfortunately, this is going to be the way of things for the foreseeable future – a focus on building DVC units at the expense of everything else, especially all that untouched wilderness that Walt wanted to shield his resort from the outside world. DVC is like running a money-printing machine for Disney, so unless corporate leadership has a sudden attack of conscience regarding sustainable development and good taste, look for all that remaining empty land to slowly fill up with timeshares. I just don’t think that, for the time being, a California adventure will be in the cards.
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