Rediscovering (Walt) Disney

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I love these black & white construction/publicity photos from Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Here is one of the Star Tours queue area under construction in 1989. The queue area was inspired by  Return of the Jedi , with Imperial forces invading the Ewok village on the forest moon of Endor. Most impressive is the towering 35-foot Imperial All-Terrain Armored Transport Walker (AT-AT) near the attraction’s entrance.     Vintage Walt Disney World  Disney Parks Blog

Well, I guess I should say animation, now that I'm all grown up. *chuckle* But, the point is, I really do still like to watch animated shows and movies. Part of it's is a fascination with the process of hand-drawn animation and the magic that it creates. Part of it's the memory of watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid, or going to the movies to see the latest Disney feature. Whatever the reason, I still like it. Now there's a new cartoon- connoisseur  in the house (Maddy), and I get to introduce her to the fun, the wonder and the excitement of 'toons. She, of course, has a HUGE Disney collection already, and now the new Disney Junior Channel let's us share some of those great (and not so great) '90s Disney Television Animation shows. Recently Maddy discovered Disney's "Tarzan," one of the few Disney features I kind of dismissed, forgotten about. But, after hearing the songs on Pandora, Maddy really wanted to see it. So we downloaded ...

Uncut, broadcast version from the Disney Channel (1995), presented by Michael Eisner and hosted by Robert Urich. "Tonight we celebrate the New Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World in Florida with a television special that's out of this world." Alien Encounters from New Tomorrowland on IMDb

Eleven days until Walt Disney World. For the second entry of 'Countdown to Walt Disney World 2011' the year is 1991, neon color schemes are all the rage, George H. W. Bush is president and Michael Eisner's fingerprints are ALL over Disney. This was my second trip to WDW, and a lot had changed since 1978. Like the fact that there were two more parks to visit now; Epcot and Disney-MGM Studios! We were in the parks only four days, which kind of limited the number of things we did since we were staying off-proprty, trying to squeeze in one park a day, go to Pleasure Island and Typhoon Lagoon. On the list of things I wish I had done differently would have been taking more pictures. I LOVED the Living Seas pavilion at Epcot, especially all of the '20,000 Leagues under the Sea' artifacts and the whole 'Sealab 2020' meets Jacque Cousteau vide they had going on. Sadly all of this has gone the way of the Dodo. On our fourth day the party split up and we got to...

From FILM+TV on 9/3/10 At least that’s how it would be touted in the funny books if The Rocketeer made an appearance in Captain America. When it was announced that Joe Johnston was going to be directing “ Captain America: The First Avenger ” it rekindled my love affair with his other comic book hero adaptation (for Disney btw, who now owns Marvel): “The Rocketeer”. But it also left me a little worried, as it has many of you, ‘cause Cliff and Peevy didn’t fare so well at the box office and most of the blame of course falls on the director. Of course I loved “The Rocketeer” and having just re-watched it I got to thinking; ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if The Rocketeer made an appearance in Captain America?’ Seriously, think about it. Even though IDW now owns the comic rights to “ The Rocketeer ” I bet Disney still owns the film rights (I’m just guessing) and they now own Marvel Comics and Captain America. Marvel Studios hires former Disney Productions director Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Ki...

PART 2 Yesterday I put up the postcards from the '78 trip to WDW. Today I'm putting up the postcards from my 1991 trip. Can you see a difference in the cards my parents bought and the ones I bought? I wonder what we were thinking about when we made our selections? Again, the description from the back of the card is included and you can click on the image to see a larger version. As always, enjoy! On The Magic of Disney Animation, guests meet and talk to Disney artists while observing first-hand the fascinating, multi-faceted process of creating Disney animated films. New York Street, part of the Backstage Tour, provides a versatile, fascinating setting for the filming of everything from flashy dance numbers to sinister spy thrillers! Attention Star Tours visitors! Fasten your seat-belts and prepare for take off. Tours depart every five parsecs from the Star Tours Space Port for hundreds of thrilling intergalactic destinations. The Moon of Endor, home to the resou...

Here are a few more photos from the 1991 trip... The Disney-MGM Studios Backstage Riding Tour. From left to Right: The cabin section of "Blue Thunder", assorted military vehicles, the Blackbird boat from "The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage". (Now gone!) The Disney-MGM Studios Backstage Riding Tour. The Bulldog Cafe and the Gee Bee from "The Rocketeer". (Now gone!) The entrance to Star Tours at Disney-MGM Studios. The Adventurers Club on Pleasure Island. (Now gone!) Here's a blast from the past...

Not a full blown post but I found a bunch of photo negatives from my '91 trip to WDW. They were taken with a now missing Kodak panoramic camera. I scanned a few of them in but did very little Photoshop work on them. Click on the image to see a larger version... This obviously is EPCOT, looking at Spaceship Earth from Japan. The queue for the old Backlot Tour at Disney-MGM Studios. From left to right, the sand skiff from "Return of the Jedi", a snowspeeder from "The Empire Strikes Back" and the Hughes Aircraft gyrocopter from "The Rocketeer". The final act of the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.

The first time I visited Walt Disney World was in 1978. My parents, my mother's parents, myself and a friend made the long drive from Albany, NY to Orlando, Florida in my fathers van. I'm sure the trauma of having to drive that far to Disney has been blocked out as a survival mechanism by my brain! But drive we did. And as with a lot of things that happened prior to say yesterday, I don't remember much about it. I do have some memories that stick out still, Space Mountain, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the Skyway ride. Two out of these three experiences are now gone from WDW. Skyway closed in '91 and 20K closed in '94. I was terrified of Space Mountain, but my friend and I had met a couple of girls and well, I wasn't about to wimp out at that point. But please note I have never ridden another roller coaster since then, and probably never will. The Skyway was a very low-key, non-scary ride that allowed us to fly over WDW from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland....

So my question for Disney is what are you waiting for? “The Rocketeer” was one of the best films the early 90’s, why isn’t it getting the same care and attention of Disney’s other live-action features? I can understand that the majority of Disney’s time and effort is spent on its fabulous animated films, they’re great right? But I can’t be the only one who loved this movie; heck it grossed over 46 million didn’t it? "The Rocketeer" is torn right from the pages of great pulp adventures like The Shadow & Doc Savage, or the scripts of serials from the 1940’s that helped inspire “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. I wonder if all this charm, nostalgia and gee-whiz innocence might be lost on most of our Halo/iPod generation? Like Indiana Jones, Cliff Secord battles Nazi’s during the early 1930’s - there’s even a great zeppelin fight scene – in an average Joe, spy-smash, best-girl rescuing adventure. Complete with plenty of flag waving (literally) this movie is unapologetic about its lo...