Progress City, U.S.A.

Yes folks, I’m back. I apologize to the small but valued handful of “regulars” here for taking a powder without notice, but c’est la vie. A too-short holiday in the mountains, a backlog of “real” work, some downtime as my web host moved its servers, March Madness (go Heels!) and the general azalea-blooming weather lately has been a distraction. More importantly, though, is the fact that most of the news out of the House of Mouse lately hasn’t been very inspiring.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t 2001 and we aren’t facing the constant strikeouts of the Eisner-Pressler regime. But perhaps my hopes got the better of me with the management change and I expected more than the singles and weak doubles we’ve been seeing lately. I certainly expected a damn sight more than this, but there will be more on that later. The point is that while many things in the Disney empire are OK on the micro level, at the macro level there’s a distinct lack of vision. Things are continuing to slide, and that’s a problem.

But I’m back, and here are a few tidbits to get the pump primed:

Thankfully the EPCOT Central blog is back at work, and have a post about EPCOT’s current state that touches on the themes I mentioned above.

Alain Littaye hits us with a slew of concept art - from Disney’s America (with props to me!), California Adventure before its budget was slashed, and the Disney-MGM Studios (1, 2). He also has some interesting photos from the Carousel of Progress.

The Hallmark Channel has acquired a 99-film library of classic Disney films to air on their network. According to the press release, the deal includes:

Disney’s “The Shaggy Dog,” “Flubber,” “Old Yeller,” “The Parent Trap,” “The Incredible Journey,” “The Princess Diaries,” “Freaky Friday,” “The Santa Clause,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “That Darn Cat,” “The Love Bug,” “The Shaggy Dog,” “Mighty Joe Young,” “Babes in Toyland,” “The Cat from Outer Space,” “Gus,” “Return to Snowy River,” “Snowball Express,” “White Fang,” “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “Swiss Family Robinson.”

While it’s great that people are going to be able to see these films on television, and they’ll be made available to a new generation of fans, I can’t help to think that it’s sad that Disney doesn’t have their own cable outlet to show their classic films. Why, maybe someday there could be an entire “Disney Channel”, so to speak, that could show Disney material 24 hours a day! Oh I know, it’s just a pie in the sky dream… but wouldn’t that be a great idea? Man, I know I’d watch that channel all the time! But what do I know? I’m old enough to drive so Disney doesn’t really care what I think…

Old EPCOT geeks like myself will remember SMRT-1 from the glory days of CommuniCore. The Paleo-Future blog has a nice piece of concept art I’d never seen before, but the point of the link is the blog itself. You should definitely check it out, as it’s one of my favorites.

Page down for some nice side-by-side comparisons of scenes from Enchanted.

Indeed.

And finally this. Change your life, it will:

I’ll be back soon with more…

WDW Magic has posted an image from the Disney-MGM Studios showing that the park’s logo has been removed from the gateway leading to the courtyard in front of the Animation building. This is, of course, in preparation for the park’s January transition to “Disney’s Hollywood Studios”. Despite my antipathy for this park, I can’t help being a little sad.

When I was in Florida last week I wanted to swing by the Studios and pick up some last-chance merchandise with the Disney-MGM logo on it. Sadly, all the shirts I could find had the Power Rangers or something equally ridiculous on them so that wound up being a wash. Still, I wish I had picked up something.

Note: This post would have featured the delightfully ironic and hilarious title “End of an Error” save for the fact that I’m not sold on the name change itself, and the fact that they’re just changing the name instead of bulldozing half the park and starting over. So I’ll have to save the fruits of my rapier wit for some other day…

Yesterday, Disney went live with their new webpage for Toy Story Mania!, the new attraction for Disney-MGM Studios and California Adventure (where it will be known as Toy Story Midway Mania). The page (pictured above) is still rather sparse, but features a few pieces of concept art and behind the scenes images (through the ViewMaster on the left) and a short video blurb by Imagineer Tom “Walking, Talking Press Release” Fitzgerald (via the videocamera on the right).

The attraction, an interactive dark ride set to open next year, seems to be a combination of two earlier concepts. It’s partially a next-generation Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, but instead of dimensional sets and laser guns the ride will use computer animation and stereoscopic 3-D effects to simulate a shooting gallery environment. As can be seen in the pictures on the site, the “spring action shooters” that are attached to the ride vehicles seem quite similar to the cannons in the Pirates of the Caribbean shooting game at DisneyQuest. Toy Story Mania! thus seems to combine the VR technology of the Pirates attraction with Buzz Lightyear’s omnimover system.

In the ride, guests will pull back the spring on the shooters attached to their vehicles, launching a virtual projectile at a series of targets themed to different environments and characters from the Toy Story films. Guests will wear 3-D glasses, giving a depth of field to the shooting galleries and adding realism. One of the more interesting aspects of the attraction is that the computers running the show will change the difficulty level for each individual rider based on their skill, thus changing the show every time you ride it.

So load your shooters, take a double dose of your A.D.D. medicine and head on over to Disney’s site for a preview. Be sure and enjoy Fitzgerald talking about “the classic carnival games that we all know and love”… whatever, dude. The L.A. Times has also posted a short article about the attraction.

From around the web come rumors and portents of upcoming attractions for Walt Disney World in Florida. We remind you that these are only rumors; nothing is certain until opening day. Think about that the next time you’re visiting the Equatorial Africa pavilion at EPCOT…

Magic Kingdom

The big rumor lately is the rumbling about a potential E-ticket for WDW’s 40th anniversary in 2011. No one knows yet what this is (quixotic fans palpatate about Fire Mountain and Bald Mountain), or where it might fit in the park.

More specific, though, are rumors about a Little Mermaid ride coming to the park. No one knows if this is the E-ticket in question, but both Blue Sky Disney and Jim Hill Media report that WDI is eager to revisit this film for a major dark ride in Fantasyland

Disney obsessives might recall that a Mermaid dark ride was originally designed by Tony Baxter’s team for a second wave of Disneyland Paris attractions in the early 1990’s. Following that park’s desperate and hungry early years, those plans (along with a Beauty and the Beast show) were shelved. The attraction was also promised for Disneyland and Walt Disney World for 1993 as part of the “Disney Decade” (thanks Eisner). The ride most recently resurfaced on Mermaid’s DVD release as a CGI ride-through recreation with commentary by Baxter.

More recently, the Mermaid ride was announced as part of Disney California Adventure’s billion-dollar revival. If it’s brought to Florida, odds are that it will in some way differ from the California version. New management at WDI isn’t quite as keen to do the cookie-cutter clone thing like the previous regime, and so we probably won’t see this attraction in Florida for 5-6 more years.

Jim Hill also repeats the recent rumors concerning a new merchandise location at the exit of the Haunted Mansion. According to him, the exit for the attraction will be routed through the current Yankee Trader shop. This location will be tripled in size to allow for the new traffic, but this will most likely not occur for 4-5 more years as the recent $30 Million rehab budget was needed entirely for updating the attraction itself.

In Adventureland, Screamscape has been reporting on a series of rumors concerning a pirate-themed restaurant called “Tortuga” to be built in the former location of the Adventureland Veranda (closed since 1994! Thirteen years!). The most recent buzz has the retheming put on hold as the park’s funds have been diverted to updating the kitchens of a number of the park’s existing restaurants. I’m just amazed that this prime location can sit completely empty for more than a decade. Where have you gone, Kikkoman?

Screamscape also has heard rumors that the TTA will go down for rehab along with Space Mountain next year, and will have some minor updates.

EPCOT Center

Things are quiet at EPCOT now, although rumors are floating around about 2011. The current gossip is that each of the four parks will receive an E-Ticket for WDW’s 40th anniversary, although we don’t know what EPCOT would get. Suggestions have included the enlarged Canadian Rockies that WDI allegedly wants to build with a raft ride in World Showcase; this addition to the Canadian showcase would serve to block the large Soarin’ barn from intruding into Showcase sightlines. Obviously WDI is going to have to come up with something to fill the now-empty Wonders of Life pavilion, and rumors have circulated since John Lasseter came to Imagineering that a complete re-do of the Imagination pavilion was in the cards. But these are all the stuff of complete rumor, and nothing is remotely solid on this yet.

The only thing we do know is that Spaceship Earth’s re-opening has been pushed back until February 18th. Details on the scope of the ride’s overhaul remain sketchy.

Disney-MGM Studios

Yeah Disney, I ain’t calling it “Disney’s Hollywood Studios” until you make me.

Having not received any updates of note in recent years, D-MGM is coming due for an overhaul. As I wrote about previously, and reported by the Orlando Sentinel the park is being renamed “Disney’s Hollywood Studios” in January and WDI is allegedly working on a slate of improvements to the park to unify its theme and ‘plus’ the park a la their announced rebuilding of California Adventure. While no details of these rumored improvements have surfaced, the park’s new wave of attraction begins when Toy Story Mania! opens next year (along with other much less interesting things). Blue Sky Disney reports that if these changes do go through, 2008 will be a transition year for the park while 2009 will be a “kicker” with improvements to both decor and attractions.

From the land of less exciting things, Screamscape has been reporting on plans to fill the empty ABC Theater (formerly SuperStar Television) with a new interactive show based on American Idol. As building permits have been filed showing that work is in fact being done on the facility itself, Screamscape and LaughingPlace have reported that Disney is in talks to actually license the American Idol name for the show. We’ll have news on this eventually, I’m sure, which will be heralded by the audible gnashing of my teeth.

Animal Kingdom

Much like EPCOT, Animal Kingdom is coming off of a building spree (Everest, Nemo) and it’s “Phase II” is now complete. While there’s obviously a lot to do to make this a legitimate and complete theme park, it looks like Disney is going to try and capitalize on the newfound popularity of the park due to Expedition Everest and parlay that into longer operating hours. DAK has traditionally operated very short days, usually closing at or before nightfall. Every hour that the park stays open later means lots of cash for Disney, so now that they actually have rides (well, a few) and a restaurant (Yak and Yeti - now open!) at DAK they’re going to try and keep it open later.

Jim Hill Media has reported that an after-dark parade called “Rivers of Light” is in development. Contrary to its aquatic name, the parade is a traditional land-based affair with character-laden boat floats (not flote boats) circling around the Tree of Life and Discovery Island (not *that* Discovery Island).

As to any real new attractions for the park, if the cycle of attendance and later hours and filthy lucre continue, then we might see Phase III coming down the pike sometime soon - maybe they’ll realize if they finally build “Beastly Kingdom” then we’ll shut up and leave them alone…

A few weeks ago the folks at Disney HQ announced something that the net nabobs had been expecting for a long time - a name change for the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park in Orlando. These rumors go way, way back - litigation over the name began even before the park opened and extended well into the 1990’s. MGM management at the time realized that their predecessors had been totally chumped by Disney when they brokered the sweetheart deal over licensing rights, and have been trying to increase their take ever since.

So, for years we’ve been treated to a constant stream of rumors. “This is the year the contract is over… look for the name to change.” “Next year the contract with MGM is running out - it’s going to be Disney Studios then.” The park has been referred to as “Disney Studios” on WDW promotional videos for years, and the name change was always rumored to be right around the corner.

Things heated up again with the Disney - Pixar merger. The rumor mill started cranking with tales of the impending announcement of “Disney-Pixar Studios Theme Park”. Counter-rumors circulated that a thawing relationship with George Lucas after the departure of Michael Eisner would lead to an increased Lucasfilm presence in the park, and out of respect for that “Pixar” would be dropped from the name or “Lucas” added in some way. People photoshopped park logos with Mickey and their favorite Pixar character; various rumor sites contradicted each other but they mostly all agreed that the jury was still out at WDI on what to do with the park.

So, finally we get the announcement that WDW fans have been waiting for for at least a decade, and it’s something that no one had expected: in January 2008, the park will become “Disney’s Hollywood Studios”. No one really expected this name, and the web immediately began circulating with stories that it wasn’t necessarily a permanent name, and that it would change sometime in the near future once certain improvements were made to the park. But for now “Hollywood Studios” it is.

What does this all mean, really? Well, in the words of Walt Disney World president Meg Crofton, “as a park all about entertainment, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will deliver like never before. Now we can say that Hollywood is literally our middle name.” Now aside from the fact that someone in PR actually got paid to write that press release, this big name change is worth just about as much as the handful of crumpled paper in the dustbin beside my desk. Namely, very little. The Studios theme park is a mess; a disaster of both theme and execution, and is in more desperate need of immediate and massive overhaul than I think WDC realizes. Slapping a new name on the marquee won’t change that; if this park is really going to catch up to its Florida siblings, the folks in Burbank are going to have to get serious about commiting to change.

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