Disney is being sued by the Michael Jackson estate for using fair-use clips in a biopic called "The Last Days of Michael Jackson" -- in its brief, the company decries "overzealous copyright holders" whose unwillingness to consider fair use harms "the right of free speech under the First Amendment." Read the rest

Six weeks after Bernie Sanders rallied Disneyland employees to call for a $15/hour minimum wage, the company has announced that the minimum wage will rise from $11/h to $13.25 today, and again to $15 on Jan 1, and again to $15.45/h in June 2020 -- homelessness is rampant among Disneyland employees, and Disney had engineered a longrunning complete takeover of the local government, raking in hundreds of millions in breaks and subsidies, until, finally, anti-Disney candidates attained a majority in 2018. Read the rest

In 1976, Walt Disney World was riding high: the oil crisis was over, tourists were flocking back to Florida, and the successful bicentennial celebration at the Florida Disney resort had been national news. Read the rest

The Pirates of the Caribbean was the last ride Walt Disney personally supervised; it has undergone many replications and revisions over the years, but last year Disneyland Paris removed the "Buy a Bride" scene, in which we are treated to a lighthearted human trafficking auction in which captured women are auctioned to pirates as "brides." Read the rest

When Disney built Euro Disney (now Disneyland Paris), it was required to partner with a French company that borrowed heavily, couldn't get out from under its debts, and ended up beholden to creditors who forced it to limit spending on the park, trapping it in a cycle of unpopularity and underinvestment. Read the rest

Jay Malsky knew he'd never get close enough to Donald Trump to heckle him in person, so he did the next best thing, chanting "LOCK HIM UP, LOCK HIM UP" when the Trumpbot took the stage at Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents. Read the rest

Director/Comedian Shannon O'Neill‏ has keenly observed that the Trumpbot just unveiled at the Walt Disney World Hall of Presidents looks an awful lot like a Hillarybot that was hastily converted after a 2016 election surprise. Read the rest

After a series of scandals and rumors, the Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World has reopened with its Donald Trump robot, which "features the latest advances in technology that enable smoother and more lifelike movements" and "personally recorded remarks exclusively for The Hall of Presidents." Read the rest

Dan from the Journal of Ride Theory sez, "This is great. Conducting an interview while this cartoonishly expressive, hyperrealistic Lincoln silently pulls cray-cray Jim Carrey faces is simultaneously one of the coolest, unintentionally funniest and creepiest things ever. Also, all his movements have that weird swoop-to-new-pose weirdness of bad CGI. Swoop-hold, swoop-hold, swoop-hold." Read the rest

Mari writes, "My daughter loves everything spooky--especially Disney's Haunted Mansion! She loves it so much she's memorized the song and likes to dress up as one of the cast members. Her fave ghost of the 999? The Bride, of course!" Read the rest

Francis Xavier "X" Atencio was a key Imagineer on such Disney parks classics as the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, serving as an illustrator, sculptor, scriptwriter, and lyricist (he's co-credited on both "A Pirate's Life For Me" and "Grim, Grinning Ghosts" and was "credited" with a tombstone at the Haunted Mansion). He died on Sept 10 at the age of 98. Read the rest

Ricky from Inside the Magic writes, "Two classic Walt Disney World attractions closed permanently this weekend: The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios and the Universe of Energy/Ellen's Energy Adventure at Epcot. The Great Movie Ride had a bittersweet finale, as enthusiastic cast members received a thunderous round of applause as the experience ended its 28 year run. The Universe of Energy, unfortunately, suffered a few technical difficulties on its final day of operation and unexpectedly shut down early." Read the rest

Epcot Center (now "Epcot") is a weird stepchild among Disney themeparks; it started as a kind of ghastly parody of Walt Disney's plan to build a totally controlled domed company town on the enormous tract of central Florida land that is Walt Disney World, and became a cash-cow-oriented park whose radical break with themepark design norms was a blessing and a curse. Read the rest

The core advice for minimizing wait time at Disneyland is to focus on off-peak hours (in the morning right after "rope-drop," in the evening before the park closes), but within that envelope, how should you prioritize your riding? Read the rest

Ricky from Inside the Magic writes, "The updated redhead/'wench' auction scene in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride has debuted (along with a killer new Captain Barbossa animatronic). The infamous redhead character now has a gun and is no longer being lusted after, instead helping to run an auction for treasure. The controversial changes have appeared first at Disneyland Paris, with the US versions to follow next year." Read the rest

This document has it all: a neat quantization of the qualitative; a tale told in a single bureaucratic leaf that implies a whole hidden universe of night-scurrying morlocks who tend the magic under the harsh glare of floodlights on the third shift; a fine sheet slid in the nearly imperceptible crack between consensus hallucination and objective reality. (via JWZ) Read the rest

On Thingiverse, Gentlegiant's beautiful, faithful model of the Haunted Mansion front-gate sign to 3D print at any size or remix into your other designs. Read the rest