Last year a British film archive discovered a print of an 1928 Oswald The Lucky Rabbit short that had previously been thought lost. “Hungry Hobos” was the 20th out of 26 Oswald films worked on by Walt Disney and his team of animators before he… Read More »Lost Oswald Short Restored and Shown at Film Festival
I started blogging personally back in 1999. I didn’t call it blogging then, it was online journaling. The thought was that the internet and related technologies would eventually be the network that controlled the details our friendships, our businesses, and even our private lives. Therefore… Read More »Disney Corporate Finally Opens a Blog
Believe it or not, I have fond memories of camping out in Disneyland’s Town Square for most of the day just to catch a semi-obstructed view of the train station while Michael York or some other celebrity narrated the traditional Candlelight Ceremony and Processional. It… Read More »Disneyland Extends Candlelight Processional to Lengthy 20 Nights
The arts, crafts, and traditions that built Disneyland may have created something totally new, but they were rooted in film making. In fact, Walt poached employees from studio art & set design departments across Hollywood to make sure his vision was realized. It followed that… Read More »The Original Windows of Disneyland’s Main Street USA
Roy Rogers Western World, Six Flags, Paramount Orlando, Blockbuster park… the list of theme parks that have been announced for Orlando, but were never built is long. We excitedly reported on the announcement of Paidia back in 2005. In 2010 there was the Orlando Thrill… Read More »Dreams of Orlando Theme Parks that Died on the Drawing Boards
Can you believe it! This is the last DCA History Lesson! More importantly, the week we have been waiting for since it was announced in 2007, DCA’s 1.1 billion dollar expansion will finally be completed. Time has flown. To celebrate, I thought the only way to cap off an incredible expansion of this size, would be to go to the most iconic part of DCA…Paradise Pier. Strap in screamers, we have 4 topics to cover. Sit back, face forward, and hang on!
The focal point of Paradise Pier was (and still is) the Ferris wheel. Being 160 ft. in diameter, it is hard to miss. WDI decided that the essence of California could be represented by the sun (hence the Sunshine Sculpture at the front of the park), so they stuck it on the side of the wheel. Based on Mexican folk-art, one of the main “defining features” of the park also featured a very fun, and sometimes thrilling, ride. With 16 swinging gondolas, it brought Ferris wheels to a whole new level. Once the expansion was announced and the direction Paradise Pier was taking was different than what the sun represented, they announced that the Sun Wheel would now becomes Mickey’s Fun Wheel. The attraction closed in Oct. of 2008 and reopened in May 2009 with the Mickey head.
The Kansas City Star, the very paper Walt Disney once delivered papers for on his father’s route, has written a nice piece on the efforts of preservationists to save the original location of Walt’s Laugh-o-Grams Studios and the location where Walt first drew the character… Read More »Effort to Preserve Walt Disney’s Kansas City Studios
Finally things are starting look right at Disneyland. That empty window next to Marc Davis’ has its pairing. Disneyland has honored Alice Davis with her own window on Main Street USA at Disneyland which serve as the ‘credits’ to the full experience of the park. There ceremony was star studded as far as Disneyland luminaries go.
Alice Davis was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2004 and is known for her work on the costumes for “it’s a small world” and “Pirates Of the Caribbean,” however, her accomplishments also include live action films, developing WDI standards, and is a brilliant artist and imagineer in her own right.
I’ve been writing about the need to correct this injustice since at least 1999. I mentioned the lack of windows for Alice Davis and Mary Blair in the 2nd month of this blog and later added in Lillian Disney as another major oversight. Davis joins Harriet Burns, Cicely Rigdon, and Mary Anne Mang as the fourth woman to be honored with a ‘credit’ on Main Street USA at Disneyland. Let’s hope that number quickly rises to six and higher as the company finally starts to recognize the contributions made by women in their cast, not just the men.
A full video of the ceremony is available below the cut:
Read More »Alice Davis finally gets her Window on Main Street at Disneyland