The queue area at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland features a row of changing portraits wherein paintings everyday scenes are revealed as sinister and haunted (originally the effect was done with crossfading slide-projectors; now it's done with an amazing, crisp electroluminiscent effect). Read the rest
Crystal Liu is the actor who plays Mulan in Disney's live-action reboot; on Weibo, she has been publishing messages in support of the Hong Kong police, who have been brutally attacking pro-Democracy protesters and tacitly collaborating with organized crime gangs. Read the rest
The Folio Society has announced a series of volumes paying tribute to the history of Marvel Comics, the inaugural volume was originally scheduled to feature an introduction from Art Spiegelman, the creator of Maus and the first person to ever win a Pulitzer Prize for a graphic novel. Read the rest
The Folio Society's limited, slipcased editions (previously) are some of the most beautiful books being produced today; the company's $225 Marvel: The Golden Age 1939-1949 ships in late September, and includes a facsimile of the ultra-rare Marvel Comics #1, reproduced from one of the last surviving mint-condition 1939 copies. Read the rest
Imagineering In a Box is a free lecture series on Khan Academy that covers a broad swathe of elements involved in storytelling in built environments, from theming a land to landscaping, architecture, sound design, robotics, smell design (!), color, material science, food-based theming, ride design from pitch to execution, animatronic programming, queue management (MY FAVORITE!), costuming, etc. Read the rest
From a long thread documenting which workers are prepared to walk out on Monday for the general strike in support of the pro-independence movement: the news that Hong Kong Disneyland workers organized by the Hong Kong Disneyland Trade Union will be among the strikers. Read the rest
In 1955, Disneyland opened. In early 1956, Sherman W. Carter, Jr. took his family to the park and shot this home movie. The video was just uploaded to YouTube on July 1 by a family friend.
Read the restThe first part takes place in Frontierland, one of areas of Disneyland that has changed the most over the years. And yet there are many familiar sights as well. The park looks almost unrecognizable with so many of the trees and foliage still essentially saplings. Today it’s a veritable forest in the middle of Anaheim.
Be sure to pause the video at 0:21 where you can see three Jungle Cruise boats docked in Fowler’s Harbor, currently home to the Harbour Galley restaurant. I knew the water systems for the Rivers of America and Jungle Cruise were connected, but were you ever able to sail from one to the other in the past? We later see The Jungle Cruise with no water in the moat, so this likely just temporary storage.
Some other fun highlights to keep an eye out for; watch at 1:05 for a glimpse of the old gun fight skit atop the Golden Horseshoe Saloon. Then right after that, the Jungle Cruise with no water in the moat. Just a few wonderful shots of Tomorrowland right at the end too.
From a 1977 bootlegged videocassette of Disney's Fantasia, a fine bit of mockery from Miracle Productions Company, "leaders in illegal Betamax recording since '76."
The election of authoritarian racist garbage person Donald Trump to the presidency was attended by many controversies, but none so salient as his inclusion in Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents, wherein each newly elected president is represented as an animatronic figure whose dialog that president gets to record, using their own human voices. Read the rest
Escape from the Haunted Mansion is a massive, ambitious free papercraft project to download, print, mount on coreboard, cut out, assemble and play. I have no idea if the gameplay is any good, but the model is freaking gorgeous. It's from the good folks at Disney Experience, who have a wealth of papercraft Disney projects and other fan media for you to play with. (via Metafilter) Read the rest
The LEGO Steamboat Willie is absolutely darling.
Based on the legendary animation that introduced us to Mickey Mouse, the Steamboat Willie can be yours!
It also comes with black and white Mickey and Minnie minifigs. A Minnie-fig??!
LEGO Ideas 21317 Disney Steamboat Willie Building Kit , New 2019 (751 Piece) via Amazon Read the rest
This trailer nearly had me in tears. Read the rest
If you haven't seen them already, do check out Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoon shorts. They're delightfully retro and great under-five-minute escapes. The latest one, Our Floating Dreams, has Mickey and Minnie speaking Thai!
Last night, I went to see Public Domain: The Musical at the Actor's Company Theater in West Hollywood. I had no idea what to expect, but I was prepared for the worst (I've been to shows at fringe festivals where I would have walked out in the first five minutes, except I was the only person in the audience), and I was totally wrong. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. Read the rest
Disney CEO Bob Iger made $65.6M last year, 1,424 times that of the median Disney employee (a situation that Walt Disney's grand niece called "insane") -- and last weekend, Disney's movie Avengers: Endgame broke all opening records, bringing in $1.2B. Read the rest
More than a century before the Disneyfication of Snow White, German folklorists the Brothers Grimm collected the fairy tale in their anthology Nursery and Household Tales. But their version, and earlier tellings including one titled "The Young Slave" from the 17th century, was not quite the Snow White that in 1937 became Disney's first animated feature film. No, the original story, as summarized by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo at the Daily Grail, "has elements of murderous jealousy, ritual cannibalism, sexual temptation, necrophilic imagery and capital punishment." From the Daily Grail:
Read the restMad with envy, feeling that her power is at stake by the young girl’s increasing beauty, the queen orders the huntsman (who in other versions is her lover) to kill Snow White and bring back her lungs and liver. The huntsman takes her to the forest, but when he is about to kill her, she begs for mercy and he feels incapable of harming someone with such beauty. He finally abandons her in the deep forest, convinced that the wild beasts will take her. The queen wanted her internal organs, so the huntsman, in what historian of religions Norman Girardot suggests is a reminiscence of the “sacrificial rites of the virgin maiden”, kills a wild boar instead – in antiquity, these were frequently used as a substitute for human sacrifice to appease the gods.
The subsequent event has been largely forgotten – and rarely shown in film adaptations. When the queen receives her daughter’s viscera, she decides she’ll have them salted and boiled, then feasts upon them with epicurean pleasure, convinced that they’re Snow White’s.
It took me a while to realize the actors in Disney's "Wand" idents were supposed to be drawing Mickey Mouse's head.
Previously: Disney deletes "Dead Inside" tweet. Read the rest
