Whit Honea is the author of The Parents' Phrase Book. He lives in the L.A. area with his wife and two boys. You can find his writings and other works all over the Internets. Now available on Twitter.
Wild West World, north of Wichita, Kansas, has closed just about two months after opening. The bankruptcy leaves hundreds of unpaid creditors — including Park City, which is owed more than $2 million for industrial revenue bonds and other equipment — in a lurch. The bankruptcy filing lists millions more owed to banks, ride manufacturers,… Read More »Theme Park Business Ain’t Easy
Movie Gallery is having trouble paying its bills, online services like Amazon continue to expand their downloadable offerings. Blockbuster, which is competing head to head against mail-delivery service Netflix and recently announced plans to close hundreds of brick-and-mortar stores, has benefitted, at least temporarily, from gaining a new CEO. With people able to buy physical… Read More »Tough Times For Movie Rental Houses
Check out this 1938 rejection letter sent to a woman seeking a job with Disney. She was apparently rejected for being a woman. Turns out she went to work for Disney anyway. I found it via Recruitment Views, and they found it via A Welsh… Read More »How Times Have Changed
David Pierson writes in the Los Angeles Times about Ocean Park in Hong Kong, and compares and contrasts it to Hong Kong Disneyland. With Allan Zeman’s help, the government-owned park has since set attendance records while Disneyland has suffered one blow after another, even failing to reach attendance goals. And Zeman, whose bald head and… Read More »Hong Kong’s Ocean Park Does Well vs. HKDL
My wife and I, enjoying her 9th month of pregnancy, dropped in to Disneyland Park to ride the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It is a decent attraction and I think it will be a hit, especially with the kids. It’s nice to have the subs back, along with an experience that isn’t essentially duplicated at… Read More »Disneyland Submarines, Past and Present
Thomas S. Mulligan reports in the Los Angeles Times that… Nickelodeon is teaming up with Marriott International Inc. on a chain of kid-friendly resort hotels that will feature elaborate water parks and live entertainment from SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and other stars of the cable TV channel. Look’s like Walt’s revolution continues. The first… Read More »Nickelodeon and Marriott, Sitting in a Tree
I look at the recent management changes at Walt Disney Imagineering to be a good thing. Whether or not will end up taking WDI in a better direction will depend on many factors. Even if everything internally gets all hunky dory, WDI does not operate in a vacuum. It is part of a large corporation… Read More »Thoughts on WDI Management Changes
Chuck Salter of FastCompany.com takes an extensive look at the results of Disney/ABC’s deal with Apple’s iTunes, and Disney’s post-Eisner doings in general. Breaking ground on iTunes was a risky strategy, one that could have alienated advertisers and local affiliates. "It wasn’t something you expected Disney to be the first to do, given its historically… Read More »Disney Does Well through iTunes, But…