Salute to All Things Disney but Mostly Disneyland

So here's what I did the last couple of weeks:

On July 1st, the Disney Vacation Club had their first presentation of the Aulani resort at the Disneyland Hotel.

It started off with the first of a couple of short videos of Joe Rohde, head of the Aulani design team, describing the resort and talking a little about some of the cultural tie-ins the resort will have to Hawaii.

Aulani is translated to "the place that speaks with deep messages," and will have a variety of traditional and contemporary Hawaiian artistic influences in its design and decor. One element they noted was the concept of "hidden menehune" located around the resort, some apparently in places only easily viewable to children--under tables, etc. As a memento, we were all given small menehune figurines of our own.

Between the video clips, the DVC presenters Dave and Nikki described in quick detail the basics of the DVC program. If you've ever been to any DVC presentation, this segment is pretty much the same no matter what resort they're spotlighting, with the exception of different wacky characters that periodically race in for comic relief. This time around, we had "Tour Guide Tim," who seemed a close relative of "Guano Jane, from Flights of Wonder.

Some basic data they related about the resort:
--The 2010 purchase price is $114 per point, which will increase in November.
--Annual dues will be $4.31 per point.
--Consequently, a basic package of 160 points would cost $18,240 initially, with annual dues of $690.
--Hawaii charges a transient occupancy tax of $12-18 per night every stay, in addition to the DVC point cost.
--Parking and internet are included for DVC members, as with other DVC properties.
--All ocean view rooms are actually partial ocean views, with the exception of the Grand Villas.
--Aulani DVC owners may start booking 9/29/10, for the opening of phase I, 8/29/11.
--Phase II is scheduled to open in late 2011.

After the factual part of the presentation, they livened it up with a little singing and dancing from the islands.

Finally, they adjourned to a small reception in the next room complete with character meet-and-greets, dance party, and refreshments.

DVC agents were standing by, in case anyone had a spare 20 grand they cared to part with.

On 7/10/10, I attended the "50 and Fabulous" showing of Swiss Family Robinson at the Disney Studio Theater on the Burbank lot.

D23's Jeffrey Epstein welcomed us to the showing and clarified some points about the ticketing process for the newly-announced Destination D and Scavenger Hunt.

Archives Director Becky Cline then introduced the movie and gave a little background on some of the actors involved, most of which went on to feature in several other Disney films.

The movie about the shipwrecked family that winds up living in a tree, was just as entertaining as it must have been 50 years ago, which is to say, considerably. It seems like such a long time since Tarzan took over the Treehouse at Disneyland, I had forgotten how closely it resembled the actual treehouse from the movie. I am still a little dubious about the survival advantage of installing a full-blown pipe organ in a tree, but perhaps that's the magical part.

Afterward, we were allowed to shop in the Studio Store, which proved a little small for both the volume and enthusiasm of the people trying to move about inside.

Although there didn't seem to be a great deal of merchandise there that wasn't readily available elsewhere, it was a fun experience to take a look around. Of course, it's always charming to be able to wander around (in a restricted manner) the lot, as well.

Finally, we were sent off with commemorative Swiss Family Robinson patches, and the hope that we'll return for the next movie screening, the Sign of Zorro.

You can purchase the movie from the AllEars Amazon Store!

On June 25, the Walt Disney Archives celebrated its 40th Anniversary, along with the retirement announcement of its founder, Dave Smith. To commemorate the event, D23 invited its members onto the Studio Lot for a presentation and reception.

On checking in, guests were presented with a wristband and a souvenir pin, and guided over to the studio theater area. Outside the theater, a booth displaying a variety of D23 merchandise was up, along with an adjoining sales table doing brisk business. Most of the merchandise was from past events or enclosures from back issues of D23 magazine, but there were some new articles as well, such as purple and gold Archive 40th Anniversary polos.

http://d23.disney.go.com/images/062510_D23MerchandiseForm.pdf

Around 5pm we were let into the theater for the program. Steven Clark welcomed everyone and officially announced Dave Smith's intent to retire in October, which had been written up in the LA Times that morning. Bob Iger then came up and related how instrumental Dave Smith had been in acquainting him with the history and legacy of the Disney Company when he first became CEO. He then presented him with his 40 year award, a small statue of Donald Duck.

Subsequently, Leonard Maltin and Dave Smith took seats at the front of the room, and proceeded to have a conversation about Dave Smith's long tenure at Disney, with an emphasis on the early days of Roy O. Disney and The Nine Old Men. Dave initially worked at the Library of Congress after finishing his degree in Library Science, and then at UCLA, where he eventually came in contact with the Disney company while researching a bibliography on Walt Disney. After the death of Walt Disney, UCLA had apparently requested his papers for their archive, only to quickly realize that they did not have the facilities for the sheer volume of material that was involved. They suggested Disney start their own archives, and Dave volunteered to take a sabbatical from his job there to help start it up. The rest, is history.

Highlights of his career at Disney included the time Roy O Disney paid him to travel around the country and up to Canada to research the Disney family tree; riding on both Ward Kimball and Ollie Johnson's personal trains; and determining the official date of both the start of the Disney company (10/16/23,) and Mickey Mouse's birthday (11/18/28, at 1400.)

In his spare time, Dave does not collect Disneyana (he felt it would be a conflict of interest,) but does collect historical autographs, including presidents and Declaration of Independence signers (he has all of them except Button Gwinnett.)

After the Leonard Maltin discussion, Becky Cline, the new Archive Director presented awards to the Archives Angels--people who have made significant contributions to the Archives--and introduced the presentation of new acquisitions:
From ABC's Lost: Showrunner Carlton Cuse donated an Oceanic boarding pass (their offer of the Lost airplane having been denied,) and John Locke's knife.
From the Walt Disney Studios: President of Production Sean Bailey presented the Red Queen's scepter from Alice in Wonderland; the Dead Man's Chest from Pirates of the Caribbean; the Dragon Ring from the upcoming Sorcerer's Apprentice; and a disc from the upcoming Tron: Legacy.
From The Disney Channel: President of Entertainment Gary Marsh gave a wand from the Wizards of Waverly series and a jacket worn by Joe Jonas in the new Camp Rock 2: Final Jam movie.
From the Disney Family: Roy Patrick Disney, grandson of Roy O. Disney donated a personal letter from Walt to Roy following the resolution of a three year rift between them.
From Ned Nalle, Producer of Legend of the Seeker: the Sword of Truth; and from his wife, Disney child star Karen Dotrice, Jane Bank's coat from Mary Poppins.

Following the new acquisitions, a new featurette from their People and Places series was shown, entitled "Archiving the Archives." It was a fun and entertaining documentary about the collection and the people who work to accumulate and maintain all the items within it.

Finally, Steven Clark presented Dave Smith with his 40 year pin, and said that his last day wasn't officially until 10/15/10...which was two days after Dave's birthday, on 10/13*. "There's going to be a big party...so if you want an invite, you better start sucking up to Dave now!"

We were then invited outside to a cake and champagne reception where a multitude of Disney employees--past and present--mingled with the D23 guests. People in attendance included Kathryn Beaumont, Tony Anselmo, Richard Sherman, Bob Gurr, Tony Baxter, and Daniel Roebuck. On the way out, Dave Smith was signing autographs and received the thanks of happy people grateful for his role in preserving Disney history.

*If you would like to get Dave Smith a birthday present, I suggest something with Button Gwinnett's signature on it.

On March 10, 2010, D23 celebrated its one year anniversary with an after-hours party in Fantasyland, exclusive for D23 members. Jeanine Yamanaka attended this event and shares this report.

The party started at 8:45pm, after the park closed to regular guests at 8pm. After checking in and receiving both a wristband and an envelope (which contained a welcome letter from Steven Clark and a press release on the recently announced 2011 Expo and the 2010 Destination D event), guests were escorted down Main Street to the hub. There, we were held at rope drop until Walt's original Disneyland opening speech was played, and a voiceover announced the start of the party, accompanied by fireworks shot off from the castle.

As the crowd mobbed across the drawbridge to the castle, people on the sides were able to see that various Disney dignitaries were waving and lining the path. People in the middle were probably trying not to get crushed in the stampede.

The area open to us was largely bounded by the border of Frontierland on one side, and the Small World arcade on the other. Although I didn't realize it at the time, Tomorrowland was also apparently open, with Captain EO running. All along the walkways were spaced decorative tables full of creatively-named desserts and coffee/water dispensers.

A cash bar was also available to those interested in imbibing, which led to some...interesting rides. (Overheard of people lurching into the Storybook Land Canal Boats: "Where are the churros?!")

On the walkway to "it's a small world", there were photo opportunities with two vehicles: Walt's original electric runabout, and the car used to transport the Honorary VoluntEARs in the parade cavalcade. Mickey, in his D23 bandleader outfit, alternately came out to pose with people as well, and generated the longest lines of the night. Right in front of IASW was parked Cinderella and her pumpkin coach as well.

For those who had only a passing interest in vehicular photography, there were also a plethora of characters interspersed around the area. Koda the bear alternated with the Country Bear Jamboree representatives, and Alice and the Mad Hatter, Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket, and the Evil Hag from Snow White all hung around outside their respective rides.

Virtually all the rides in Fantasyland except the carousel were open and running with relatively little wait. Most people seemed to concentrate on the photo opportunities and the meet-and-greets.

It was also advertised that as part of the evening, a number of Disney legends would be in attendance. Unfortunately, this part was a little awkward, as it was never really clarified what they would be doing there, or where they would be doing it. Initially, all the special guests were corralled in the Village Haus Restaurant for media interviews, and then were let out little by little as the night progressed. Another area around Dumbo was also cordoned off for media so it ended up being a little tricky to try to time it right, to be around when the celebrity you were interested in became available.

One thing that would have made it easier, is if they had given out lists of the luminaries that attended, maybe with pictures. As it was, there was no way to really distinguish them unless you knew them on sight (harder in the dim lighting they put on at night.) An easier task with more prominent characters like Tony Baxter and Richard Sherman, but more challenging with some of the less identifiable stars. Another issue was that they were all constantly being taken away to meet with more and varied media, so there was no assurance that by the time you got to the head of the line, they'd still be there. When they were available, however, all the celebrities seemed very welcoming and showed real fortitude by standing out in the cold for hours signing autographs and taking photos.

Disney Legend Bob Gurr and Steven Clark, Head of D23

Kathryn Beaumont, Voice of Alice

Disney Legend Bill Farmer, Voice of Goofy

Margaret Kerry, model for Tinker Bell

Terri Hardin, Puppeteer in Captain EO

Dave Smith, Disney Archivist

The party ended at midnight, and everyone was encouraged to exit out towards Main Street where some of the characters had been relocated to say goodbye and draw people out. As we exited the park, we were given an oversized commemorative 1st Anniversary pin, with the D23 start date and the party date printed on it.

On the whole, it was a fun event, although a little pricey at $65. I would have preferred a more formal structure to the handling of the celebrity guests, but that probably would have involved using an actual venue which would doubtless have increased the price...so, something to hope for, at "Destination D," later this year.

One of the best sessions I attended at the Expo was The Making of Toy Story Midway Mania. It covered the creation of the attraction from idea through design, construction, and the final result. Really fascinating. There were four panelists who spoke: Kevin Rafferty, Robert Coltrin, and Lori Coltrin (who were quick to point out they are brother and sister), who are all Disney Imagineers, and Roger Gould, from Pixar's Theme Park Group.

I wish I had been able to video tape all of this presentation so that you could see the entire thing - it was just awesome. Deb Wills saw it with me, and she said that one presentation was worth the entire trip to California for her.

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Pitch

It started back in May 2005 when they were working on the new Radiator Springs Racer attraction for Cars Land, and wondering if they could bring some interactive components to that. They decided that wouldn't really work, so started coming up with a new attraction idea based on the idea of classic midway games instead, which involved some in-depth research at the L.A. County Fair. :-) The pull-string shooter was inspired by the Pirate Adventure at Disney Quest. They put together this Pitch to management, and got the green light really fast - within about 5 months after they had the original idea.

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Design

Once they got the go-ahead, the problem was that they had to figure out how to build it. :-) And someone also decided that while they were at it they should build one in Florida, too. They had to develop a new ride system along the way, and in the case of DCA, had to figure out how to fit it around and under the California Screamin' roller coaster without shutting the coaster down very often. In this image you can see the track layout, and how it fits around the coaster track.

In Florida they built the new Pixar Place area, and at John Lasseter's suggestion they made the entrance look like the entrance to the real Pixar Studios - even using the same type of brick.

Something I had never realized was the backstory to the attraction. Andy receives a Midway Games play set for his birthday - and you see the box for this set up on the floor as you exit the attraction in California:

When Andy is called away the toys decide to set up and play with the set themselves. The Mr. Potato Head Broadway Barker is actually an additional figure, and "sold separately" - you can see his rather boxy stand and backdrop.

Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Bo-Peep, Ham, Rex, Wheezy and the Green Army Men play host to the various midway games. We, the guests, are the other toys who are invited in to actually play the games - shrunk down to toy-size, of course. In California, as you leave the loading area and enter the attraction, you go through an entrance that looks just like the box.

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Animation

The look of the attraction is inspired by a game that one of the designers had as a kid, called Snoopy and the Red Baron, with what appear to be cardboard backdrops, stickers, and pieces made of single color molded plastic.

One issue they ran into with having two hosts for each game, but also two game screens, was the "Doppelganger Problem". As the car pulls into the game, players can briefly see both screens...and if both hosts are on both screens - then there's the Evil Doppelganger. :-) They solved this by having only one host per screen until the vehicles get pulled in, and then the other host magically jumps in to the scene.

The practice game was the most complicated from the animation point of view, because that's the only time that the players are actually firing at the hosts (who are holding targets in front of them), and they want to avoid a host getting a pie in the face! But people (including Roger's son) have figured out that if both players gang up on one of the hosts, one shooting at the head and one at the feet, they can overcome that. That doesn't seem very nice! :-)

In their test group, they noticed that young children were initially reluctant to break the plates. That's when they added the line where Sarge yells: "I am not your mother -break those plates!". Problem solved. :-)

Something I had never noticed in that same scene...if you watch the green army guys, they are actually working hard to clean up the plate shards as plates are shattered all around them!

Scoring has two components - point score and accuracy. Accuracy was a late addition to the scoring, because they found that some of their testers (cough...executives...cough) didn't shoot very fast so didn't get many points, but when they did shoot, they were very accurate.

Another fun thing during the scoring stop - watch what happens to Woody and Buzz after the "prizes" are awarded. There's so much more depth and detail to this attraction than I had ever noticed before!

Toy Story Midway Mania - Construction and Production

This is the first blacklight show viewed with 3D glasses, which made mixing the paint colors more of a challenge - everyone involved was carrying 3D glasses around with them when they were inside.

Below: Big smile from the boss - must be doing something right!

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Music

Listen to the music - while the music throughout the attraction is "You've Got a Friend in Me", there are different versions depending on what game it is - a more western-sounding version for Woody's Shooting Gallery, and a spacey-theme for Buzz Lightyear's game.

Kevin Rafferty and Roger Gould spent more than 30 hours with Don Rickles as he recorded all of the dialog for the Mr. Potato Head figure. Rickles had some choice comments about the whole experience. :-)

It was really a wonderful session - as far as I'm concerned, this is the kind of thing that D23 should be all about.

I'm writing on Monday about events that took place on Saturday, two days ago, but it feels like two weeks ago! It was a very full weekend.

So...when we left our intrepid reporters they had been shut out of the Princess and the Frog presentation on Saturday afternoon.

DebK and I chatted with Jeanine for a while and then I headed down to the exhibit hall to get in line for "The Making of the U.S. Presidents" session. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but demand for sessions in the Storytellers Theater (the smallest venue) was so high that they had moved the queue downstairs to an unused part of the exhibit floor. Of course that meant they had to ferry us all upstairs and into the theater, but they really did a good job of getting us in there and still getting the presentations started about on time. Especially considering it was a process they developed on the fly after seeing what the lines were like on Friday and Saturday morning.

I met DebW in line and while we were waiting we had a wonderful chat with Wayne and Jennifer who had come all the way from Australia to attend the D23 Expo!

The session started off appropriately enough as "Hail to the Chief" started playing. First on stage were Eric Jacobson, Pam Fisher, and Kathy Rogers, who talked about the process of updating the Hall of Presidents attraction at the Magic Kingdom with the new President Obama figure. In addition to adding the new president they changed some other parts of the attraction as well.

The focus of the Hall of Presidents has never been about political parties or politics - in the past it's been more about the history of the United States, and now there's more of an emphasis on the bond between the President and the people, and what the Oath of Office means. They consulted Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in putting together the updated attraction, and added another speaking figure: George Washington, who offers the oath of office to President Obama. Actor Morgan Freeman narrates the current version.

The creative team traveled to Washington D.C. to meet President Obama and to record his speech for the attraction. Apparently he really didn't know what an "audio-animatronic" was, but thought it was cool when they told him he was going to be a robot. :-)

After they met with Obama they got a private tour of the White House, or as they called it, "Imagineers Gone Wild". They lounged on the sofas, bowled in the bowling alley, and had a great time - apparently the Secret Service agent escorting them said it was the most fun tour he'd been on in a long time!

Imagineers Tony Baxter and Josh Shipley discussed the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction, which should reopen at Disneyland in December. They went back to actor Royal Dano's original voice recording of the Gettysburg address and found a recording of Paul Frees that they used with it, as you can hear in this clip. (Sorry about the big head in the middle of the screen at the end - I was cursed the last couple of days of the Expo and always seemed to get stuck behind some tall guy with a big head.)

The Civil War piece "Two Brothers" will be returning - it's been redone in HD.

For the finale, they looked at a lot of pieces of music, but finally settled on the original Battle Hymn of the Republic. They said that it will be "magically stereo".

After the show "ends" and they open the exit doors, they said that there will still be music going on if people want to stick around - it sounds like this is where they will do the video montage to the music of Golden Dreams (same music as the American Adventure at Epcot).

I met Lee in Studio 23 after that for a session called "Lost Chords - Never Heard Music from Disney Animation", hosted by Russell Schroeder, who also authored a book on the subject. They had a choir and a vocal ensemble made up of Cast Members who performed a number of songs for us. Some were from familiar movies like Dumbo, Mary Poppins, and Cinderella, while a couple were from movies that were never made.

It was really fascinating - we learned that creating the music for a movie starts at the beginning, before there's anything at all on film, and so there's a lot of music written for a film that just doesn't make it to the final movie. There were a lot of reasons for this and he gave us a number of examples:

For Sleeping Beauty, there was a complete set of songs written, but when Walt Disney decided to go with the Eyvind Earle look for the movie, the songs no longer "matched", so they went with the Tchaikovsky style instead. Even then, there was at least one song written in the Tchaikovsky style that didn't end up fitting into the movie. The singers performed three different "lost" songs from Sleeping Beauty: "Sleeping Beauty", "Sunbeams", and "Evil-Evil".

There was a song written for Tramp to sing, but they eventually decided that he just wasn't a singing kind of guy.

For Pinocchio, there was a song we heard called "Rolling Along to Pleasure Island", which was removed when they changed that scene into a conversation between Pinocchio and Lampwick to provide additional character development.

Or sometimes the actor voicing the character changed, so their song had to change - this happened with The Aristocats. Louis Armstrong was originally set to voice the cat jazz band leader (called Satchmocat), but he became ill, so Scatman Crothers took the role of Scatcat, and the song written for Armstrong, Le Jazz Hot, gave way to Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat.

Lee put together a video medley of the 15 different songs we heard to give you an idea of what they were like. There were a couple that I thought were very good. There was one I wish he had taped all of - it was from Sleeping Beauty, in which the fairies sang their blessings on the baby...or curses, in Maleficent's case! I thought the Maleficent part was especially good. Included in its entirety is the song "Evil-Evil" from Sleeping Beauty, which is sung by the Goons and Maleficent.

In addition to the singing the presentation included a lot of photos and concept art that went with the lost songs. One project that got pretty far into development was The Rainbow Road to Oz, set to star some of the original Mouseketeers in the roles of Dorothy (Darlene), Ozma (Annette), the Patchwork Girl (Doreen), the Scarecrow (Bobby), and the Cowardly Lion (Jimmie). In addition to music they even did some costuming for this one, and there were stills of all of them in their costumes. The song they performed from this one was called "A Voice to Sing With."

There was some wonderful concept art for a film that was never made called The Tale of a Mouse. It was based on the story about the town mouse and the country mouse. Maybe it's just me, but I found it stunningly beautiful. The song was called "This is Home".

I think of all the sessions I saw all weekend this one had the most "heart". You could just tell that it was a labor of love for everyone involved: Richard Schroeder, who did so much painstaking research, and the singers, arranger, director, and accompanist who took the time to rehearse and perform the music.

It had been a long day and we were pretty tired by then. So we all took the night off, and the Debs and Lee and I had a lovely dinner at Catal in Downtown Disney. I'd never eaten there before, but I really enjoyed it - we all did. And as an extra bonus, we could see the fireworks from Magical from our table! It was a wonderful way to end the day.

As usual, not enough time to write everything I'd like to write about, so just a few things.

Lee's been busy editing video, so we have a few new videos on youtube from Jay Rasulo's Imagineering the Future of Disney Parks talk that we'd like to share with you:

The Fantasyland Expansion:

Star Tours II at Disneyland (unfortunately he had to change the camera battery just before this started so he missed the beginning):

And the new Cars Land at Disney's California Adventure:

Today - the final day of the Expo. Deb Wills and I attended the Making of Toy Story Midway Mania talk. It was wonderful. Deb said that talk alone was worth the trip to California. The four speakers, Imagineers Kevin Rafferty, Robert Coltrin, Lori Coltrin (who are siblings, not husband and wife), and Roger Gould of Pixar's Theme Park group, described the development of the ride from concept through design, construction, and completion. It was really fascinating - I plan to do an entire blog on it - I learned so much about the ride and the story and details within the ride that I never noticed.

Next we attended John Lasseter's talk on the Future of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation. John Lasseter is the "Chief Creative Officer of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios" (among other titles). There weren't really a lot of surprises or announcements in this one, but I have to say that the future of Disney animation looks really good.

There were a lot of clips, including a few that had never been seen before, so no cameras were allowed inside and we have only this image provided by Disney to show you.

We saw an all-new trailer for the 3D versions of Toy Story 1 and 2, which was all-newly developed and not actual footage from the movie. Short, but very entertaining, as the Toy Story characters have fun playing with being 3-D - like reaching into the audience.

In Toy Story 3, coming out June 18, 2010, Andy has grown up and is headed off to college, and decides to donate his old toys to a daycare center. These kids make Sid look gentle!

A grown-up John Morris returns as the voice of Andy. And of course there are a bunch of new toys, voiced by actors such as Ned Beatty, Bonnie Hunt, and Whoopi Goldberg. The character of Barbie is back, and this time she's joined by Ken, voiced by Michael Keaton. We saw a very amusing clip that they "found" called "Groovin' with Ken", where he talks about how good it is to be him, and how he's a man's man. He ends the "interview" when the interviewer points out that on his box, Barbie's name is a lot bigger than his. :-)

Another new character is Mr. Prickle Pants, a lederhosen-wearing hedgehog thespian voiced by Timothy Dalton(!). That looks like fun.

We saw a brand-new trailer that was 100% scenes from the movie. It looks we're in for a lot more fun times with the Toy Story gang.

Walt Disney Animation Studios is bringing back Winnie-the-Pooh in a new movie. They went back to the original A.A. Milne books and chose some new story lines. This movie will be all hand-animated to match the original style of Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree and Winnie-the-Pooh and the Blustery day, including the watercolor backgrounds. Bernie Madison, an animator who worked on the original Honey Tree movie (and looks a bit like Pooh!) is working with new artists to recreate the classic look. They showed a bit of the older movies - I'd forgotten how clever they were with things like bringing the pages of the book into the movie and having characters jump from one page to the next, or slide down the edge of several paragraphs. That one should hit the screen in spring 2011.

We saw a new Cars Toon, directed by John Lasseter - he said he enjoys these so much that he directs them himself. This one is in the series of Mater's Tall Tales, and was called Unidentified Flying Mater. Really cute.

Cars 2 is scheduled for summer, 2011. John Lasseter was traveling the world promoting a film, and when looking out his hotel window at the streets below he wondered what would happen if Mater was driving in a foreign country - how would he deal with the Autobahn, or French roundabouts, or dodging motor scooters in Italy - or driving on the left side of the road in the UK. In Cars 2, Lightning McQueen is invited on a world racing tour with Mater as his crew chief (and of course other inhabitants of Radiator Springs come along, too!). Mater gets caught up in an espionage thing with a super-sleek and gadgety spy car named Finn McMissle. The story starts with a race in Japan, then moves on to Germany, Italy and Paris before ending in London. It looks really clever and a lot of fun!

John Lasseter may be best known for his work in computer animation, but his roots are in classic hand-drawn animation, and they are bringing that back to Walt Disney Animation Studios with movies like the upcoming The Princess and the Frog. This also marks the return of the musical to a Disney animated feature. We saw some new footage of the bayou scene. Fun stuff.

There is going to be a whole sequence of Tinker Bell movies - each related to a different season of the year. The first movie was set in spring, the next one, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure, is set in the fall. Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue will be set in summer, and Tinker Bell and the Mysterious Winter Woods is set in winter, where Tinker Bell will encounter a whole new set of fairies. Tinker Bell - Race Through the Seasons is set on Leap Day - the one day every four years when the fairies get a day off and play the fairy version of the Olympics. These are all direct-to-video releases over the next several years.

Of the fairy tale princesses instantly recognizable by name, the one Disney hasn't yet done is Rapunzel. But that changes during the 2010 holiday season. Rapunzel will be the 50th feature animation film and the first computer-animated fairy tale and the first CGI musical. This Rapunzel has spunk and "lots of girl power" - she's not just waiting for a prince to come. One of the "characters" in the film is Rapunzel's 70 feet of hair.

Mandy Moore is the voice of Rapunzel and Zachary Levi (from the Chuck tv series) provides the voice of her "rescuer" Flynn.

Prep and Landing is a new holiday special coming to ABC this holiday season. Apparently Santa Claus has an elite force of specially trained elves who prepare each house for Santa's arrival - making sure the kids are asleep, the milk is the proper temperature, and that any dogs won't cause trouble. We saw a short clip - this looks like it's going to be a hoot and a half, and I'm really looking forward to it.

He finished by showing us another Cars Toon - Heavy Metal Mater. Never knew that Mater was in a heavy metal rock band, did you? :-) Their big hit was "Dadgum".

Deb Koma, Lee and I tried to go to the Muppets Presentation, but the Lasseter talk ran long enough that we didn't get up there in time to get in line before the theater reached capacity. It was VERY popular. I'm sorry we missed that...we all love the Muppets!

Lee and I had to head back to San Diego after that since we have had tickets for months to see Spamalot tonight! Though I kept wanting to yell: "Grail, grail, grail...uhhhhh" every time they said "Holy Grail"... :-)

More on the Expo and a wrap-up coming "soon".

(Yes, I know I said at the beginning this would be "just a few things". But I got on a roll!)

We're having a great time but getting tired - there is so much to do and not enough hours!

Haven't had much time do any video editing, and only a little photo editing, so this is going to be a little less complete than I would like.

Back to Saturday's events...

We headed over to the Expo about 8:15 where we met up with Deb Koma. Lee went off to the "Who Wants to Be an Imagineer" presentation, while Deb and I went down to the exhibit hall for a while.

Where I got to meet Lucky the Dinosaur. He is so cool!!! He purrs if you scratch him under his chin, and he really seems to look at you and react to what you are doing.

I went to the Disneynature event at 10:00, presented by Paul Baribault. They are doing some beautiful, beautiful films, working with the leading filmakers in nature films like Alister Fothergill and Mark Linfield (who did Earth for them). And they are using new camera technology that allows them to get very stable images from a helicopter, even when the 'copter isn't that close to its subjects.

Coming over the next few years are:

2010: Oceans, which will be released on Earth Day, 2010. The footage we saw is absolutely stunning - the colors, the amazing creatures...wow.

2010: The Crimson Wing - Mystery of the Flamingos, filmed in Tanzania

2011: Hidden Beauty - this is about the pollinators - bats, bumblebees, hummingbirds, and butterflies (and now I have the "We're pollinators" song from "it's tough to be a bug" going through my head!")

2012: African Cats - Kingdom of Courage. Filmed in Kenya, which is the only place lions, cheetahs, and leopards all live in relatively close proximity. They had just gotten some footage back from their first season of watching the various cat families, so we got to take a look at some of it. I love cats, so this one looks especially interesting to me!

2013: Chimpanzee - they are working with Jane Goodall as a consultant, filming in West Uganda and the Ivory Coast of West Africa.

With each film, Disney is making available educational materials for free, designed for teachers or other groups to use (there were some Girl Scout people in the audience who were interested in that.)

I didn't attend Jay Rasulo's Imagineering the Future of Disney Parks session since we had other people covering that...but I'm sure by now you've heard the big announcements: the big Fantasyland expansion at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, and the new version of Star Tours that will be coming to Disneyland.

I wanted to attend the Science of Imagineering session, which started shortly after Rasulo's talk was supposed to end, and given the lines to get into the small venue for it, I knew I needed to be in line early.

This session is actually something that Disney developed about a year and a half ago which is aimed at kids, and getting them interested in math and science, but there was still plenty of interesting stuff for those of us who are kids at heart.

So they brought out some of their "toys". First off was a session on roller coasters, where they brought out the Force Vector Simulator and demonstrated it with the help of a volunteer from the audience. I have a video of this, but can't get it uploaded in time...sorry.

There were also sections on special effects (acoustics), fireworks, biology, and computer simulation. On our way out, everyone in the audience received one of Disney's educational DVDs: The Science of Disney Imagineering: Fluids. Apparently there's 8 other DVDs in the series, with such topics as Levers and Pulleys, Gravity, and Energy. It was a lot of fun - there is an encore presentation today.

I happened to catch up with Deb Wills and we wandered the exhibits a little bit, where I had a close encounter with a storm trooper.

DebK and I tried to see the Princess and the Frog session at 3:00, but there was a HUGE line. And as it turned out, they took all recording devices away from everyone (which they had NOT announced prior), so so the presentation started an hour and a half late!

That's all I have time for now!

Back to Day 2 of the Expo.

One thing I didn't mention...except for the Arena, most of the rooms for the presentations are pretty small - seating maybe 500 people at most, so it's hard to get into most of the sessions without lining up at least 30 minutes in advance.

After lunch we wanted to see Steven Davison's World of Color presentation, but the line was very long,,,fortunately we did get in, though we were towards the back of the room.

Now, some of you might say: "You've already seen Steven Davison do two presentations of World of Color...why are you going again?" Because he is just so amazing to watch - he throws himself into these things and he comes out exhausted afterwards. And then there's the fact that there are some new pieces of information each time - this session was no different.

The main things that I hadn't heard before:

A laser light show will open the show.

There are two projection screens to provide depth: a 400' wide one in the back, and a 300' wide one i front.

They are *still* installing fountains in the park - he wouldn't tell us the exact number, but said they are about 75% complete.

Amy Grant will be the "voice" for the World of Color.

At the end of the presentation, Mr. Davison acted out the Spring Sprite/Pocahontas sequence, which you can see here:

This looks like a more amazing show every time I see more of it.

Deb Wills and I attended the press conference afterwards, featuring Steven Davison and World of Color's show producer, Sayre Wiseman. Even there I learned some things that weren't in his presentation...I have video of it, but haven't been able to get it to upload yet. A couple of things: At the end of the show, the fountains (who are the actors in the show) will take their bows. And there are going to be different encores available - likely when a new movie has been released there will be an encore available.

Lee and I went to the Tron Legacy presentation. But he's the one with all of the notes on that. It is pretty amazing how so many of the things we saw in Tron in 1982 are things that we live with daily now - we live a lot of our lives in a virtual world!

He stayed to watch the original Tron movie while I went to the Disney Rarities session. This was hosted by Don Hahn and Dave Bossert, and featured a number of short films that have rarely been shown, or haven't been seen in a long time. They several times called them "oddities" rather than rarities - and some of them were decidedly odd!!!

During World War II, the Disney Studios made over 200 training/propaganda films for the U.S. War Department and the Canadian National Film Bord. We saw the opening for a training film made for the Canadians, on an anti-tank gun. It was definitely NOT politically correct, and featured a belching cartoon Hitler popping up out of a tank and jeering at the opposing army - until they blasted him and his tank to Hell (literally!) with their guns. At the end, Hitler ranted and raved in Hell while an amused devil looked on.

The next film was called Winged Scourge, about combating malaria, and featured a giant bigger-than-a-house-sized mosquito. Demonstrating mosquito-control techniques were the Seven Dwarfs, and what makes this film unusual is that rather than using stock animation, animators developed new footage just for this movie. But don't try these techniques at home - some of them involve known carcinogens.

Another odd film was begun in 1946 as a collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali, but it was not finished until 50 years later. It was called Destino, and featured a female dancer, her lover, and a baseball bat, among other decidedly surrealistic images.

There was also a sequence called "One-by-One", which was developed as part of a concept for a new Fantasia movie based on World music. Also a short called Lorenzo, about a cat whose tail was cursed, and is driving him crazy because it (the tail) wants to tango constantly. That was truly weird. Last was an unfinished Mickey cartoon from the 1950s called "Plight of the Bumblebee". This one was all pencil sketches and pretty rough still.

It was getting close to 7:00 by then, but I took a quick turn through the Treasures of the Disney Archives, since it was right there. Lots of costumes - like Annette's and Cubby's Western Day costumes from the Mickey Mouse Club, Mary Poppins' "nanny" costume, ball gowns from Broadway's Beauty and the Beast and the Princess Diaries, and, one of my favorites, Guy Williams' Zorro costume.

The be-jeweled Sleeping Beauty storybook was there, as well as Fess Parker's coonsking cap. And there was a dislay case of crowns...from Princess Diaries there was Queen Clarice's and Mia's crowns, plus Fat Louie's (Mia's cat) little crown! Too cute. There was a case of swords, too - Excalibur, Peter's Narnia sword, Prince Caspian's sword, Will Turner's and Barbossa's sword, and even Barnaby's twisty sword from Babes in Toyland. No pictures allowed in there, unfortunately.

So that was our first day - it was pretty overwhelming and busy. I have to say that for the most part the Expo has exceeded my expectations - there is a lot of content available. I am disppointed in the size of a lot of the venues, though - they don't come close to meeting the demand for many of the presentations. I haven't had much of a chance to get to the exhibits, so I hope to do more of that (and meet Lucky the Dinosaur and the larger version of Wall-E) later in the weekend.

It's Day two of the Expo, but only day one for Lee and me, since we didn't arrive until today.

I have pages and pages of notes, and we have lots of video that we are trying to get processed, so this isn't complete.

We arrived at the Expo this morning about 8:00 and had some time to wander around before our first session. So we met up with Deb Koma:

And I got up close and personal with Herbie the Love Bug:

We met Deb Wills for the Disney Cruise Line session. As I'm sure you've heard by now, the big announcement was that the Wonder will be doing Alaska cruises in spring/summer 2011. They showered us with a bunch of snowflake confetti for that! :-)

Donald Duck was the special guest, and there was a special surprise for Donald, too:

This statue will grace the atrium in the new ship, the Disney Dream.

Other items in my notes...some of the special excursions for the European/Mediterranean cruises this summer are a Princess and Princess Ball in St. Petersburg Russia, a performance of the St. Petersburg ballet, kids get a chance to paint their own fresco in Florence, adults can take a cooking class in a Tuscan farmhouse, and there's a treasure hunt in Tunis.

In the future, there will be some trips that are a combination of Adventures by Disney and the Disney Cruise Line - there will be more information on that in the near future.

The Alaska cruises will start in Vancouver, and visit Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway and the Tracy Arm Fjord. Excursion opportunities will include the Alaskan Railway, salmon fishing, and panning for gold.

The Disney Magic will be returning to the Mediterranean again for 10- and 11-night cruises in 2011.

Castaway Cay is getting a makeover in 2010. There will be a new Pelican Plunge water slide and the "Spring-a-Leak" water play area. Teens get a new hangout called "The Hideout". There will be some private beach cabanas available for guests to reserve - some on the adult beach at Serenity Bay, and some on the family beach. The cabanas come with a personal host.

The new ships, the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy, launch in 2011 and 2012 respectively. They are 50% larger than the Magic and the Wonder.

After the Cruise Line event we had a little time to wander around the Exhibit Hall. There's a great Lego booth where they are building various things out of Legos - like this statue of Buzz Lightyear:

And in the Disney Technology Magic area I got to interact with Wall-E - they had a small one that is remotely operated and does all kinds of cute things. He was adorable.

And there's a tea table set up for a meet and greet with characters from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, where I had a tete-a-tete with her Majesty, the Queen of Hearts. I asked if there was going to be a croquet game, and she said no, that unfortunately all of the hedgehogs had run off with the guinea pigs from G-Force. :-)

The major event of the day was the Walt Disney Studios presentation in the Arena. Oh my. It was amazing. Disney pulled out ALL the stops for this one! We were not allowed to have any cameras, so this is all from my notes, with a few photos Disney hs made available to us.

The presentation began with about a 20-minute video montage, set to movie music played by a live orchestra accompanied by live singers. There were lots of movies that I'd forgotten had anything to do with Disney (having come out under different labels), like Three Men and a Baby, Crimson Tide, and Pretty Woman. And then there were scenes from classics like Mary Poppins, Pollyanna, and Lady and the Tramp.

Dick Cook, President of Walt Disney Studios, talked about, and showed us, all kinds of things.

The movie theater at the Disney Studios in Burbank will be open to the public for special showings of The Princess and the Frog from November 25-December 13.

Wild Hogs 2 comes out in 2010.

We saw a preview of the new "A Christmas Carol" movie in 3-D. Robert Zemeckis came out and said that he wanted to present the movie like Dickens imagined it.

There will be a new version of "The Beatles Yellow Submarine", also directed by Zemeckis, and in 3D.

There was a very funny preview of Old Dogs, starring John Travolta and Robin Williams. John Travolta, his wife Kelly Preston, and their daughter Ella Blue all appear in the movie, and they all came out together to a very warm reception from the audience.

Next up, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which will also be in 3-D. Tim Burton was on-stage briefly, and said that at one time he worked in Disney Animation as an in-betweener. He said this new movie uses live action and animation, mixing technologies differently.

Johnny Depp plays the Mad Hatter: to quote Dick Cook: "Every time we've put [Johnny Depp] in a funny hat it's always been golden." The movie starts March 5, 2010.

One of my favorite parts of the presentation starred the Muppets. First Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and Pepe the Prawn appeared on the big screen looking down at and talking to Dick Cook - until Pepe told him to "go green light something" and he went off-stage. Then the curtains opened, to reveal a scaled-down version of the Mark Twain with Pepe, Gonzo, and Fozzie Bear looking out the front...and as it turned the corner, it revealed a whole bunch of Muppets looking out from the side. Kermit finally appeared in the pilothouse and they sang a version of Rainbow Connection (I love that song!). There will be an all-new Muppet movie coming soon: "The cheapest Muppet movie ever made" according to the ad on the screen. :-)

Jerry Bruckheimer came out and we saw footage from Prince of Persia - Sands of Time, which opens May 28, 2010.

Then Nicolas Cage talked about the movie Sorcerer's Apprentice - he is a huge Fantasia fan, and doing this live action version was his idea - he's also one of the producers. July 16, 2010 for that one.

Next we saw footage from the new Disneynature film called Oceans, opening on Earth Day, 2010. Incredible stuff!

Dick Cook announced a new label that Disney is forming with Guillermo del Toro: Disney Double Dare You. This is supposed to be sort of spooky, sort of scary - Lee calls it "Light Horror". We got video clip of del Toro who is in New Zealand right now filming The Hobbit. The first release will be called "The Troll Hunters", and it's based on an original idea of del Toro's.

Miley Cyrus came on-stage where she performed her hit song, "The Climb" live for us, and talked briefly about her role in the movie The Last Song.

We saw some footage from Tron Legacy 3D, which comes out next year, I think? Jeff Bridges reprises his role as Flynn.

Disney has made an agreement with Dreamworks Studios to produce up to 6 pictures a year under the Touchstone label.

Andrew Stanton of Pixar will be producing a trilogy of movies based on the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Jerry Bruckheimer is producing a new Lone Ranger movie with Johnny Depp as Tonto, slated for summer of 2011.

And the finale of the event...cue the Pirates of the Caribbean music, the curtain rises and we see a figure on board ship silhouetted behind a sail...the ship turns, and it's Captain Jack Sparrow - Johnny Depp himself!!! Huge cheers from the audience! The fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie will be called: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Strange Tides. Captain Jack came down and spoke a little bit - he'd seen a talking frog earlier and was wondering "Where has the frog gone?" Dick Cook enticed him off-stage with the promise of rum. :-)

It was an amazing, amazing presentation!!!

There was more from today...but that's all I have time for now