Oh Dear!

Tomorrow Disney releases the latest Winnie the Pooh movie. Now don't get me wrong, I love 2D, I love old school, and I will see this movie but I have to predict this thing is dead on arrival. It's almost as if there is a death wish for Disney 2D animation.

Winnie the Pooh vs HP7

Princess and the Frog vs Avatar

Oh dear!

Of all the movies you would want to avoid with in the last 10 years I can't think of anything worse to release against. Who in their right mind decides to put out Winnie the Pooh, a DVD offering as far as the public is concerned, the same weekend as Harry Potter? The idea that families will see this as an alternative is asinine for many reasons and so is the myth that it has to with maintaining the rights.

Designer Land-Tiki Room Sound Board

If you haven't jumped over and and taken a look at Richard's DesignerLand site- do it!

He has a line called Retro 71' with all kinds of cool designs based around retro Disney World apparel. He does amazing case studies on the typography of all the parks and rides and he has soundboards for certain rides- something I've been wishing Disney would do for a long time. This is the exact type of thing Disney needs to start getting on board with.

Hey Disney hire this guy!! And have him redo your parks website while you're at it.

Hipsta-Magic

Hipstamatic is one of the most fun camera apps available. It makes taking photos almost addicting. With the square format it's almost hard to take a bad picture, and it makes your photo look old school- what's not to love. Here are a few from Disneyland, I'll post some WDW ones later in the week...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year!

The Glorious Mr. Lincoln

It's time to catch up on a bit of news that I haven't had time to post about...

Mr. Lincoln is back in his rightful home! Out with Mr. Martin and in with the Mr. Lincoln. The world seems to be back in its proper order now. It is as if we had been rotating off axis ever since a certain little birthday celebration. Things are now back to the way they should be.

I take it as a reassuring sign, in these days where I disagree with almost everything that is going on in the parks, that there are some within the bowels of WDI that still get it, still care, and that they have some degree of clout to pull off the preservation of these little things.

My "top hats" off to the team that put my Mr. Lincoln back where he belongs. He looks better than ever. Now- just don't touch him. Leave him alone. Don't change a gesture, a brow shape, a blink! Just leave a good thing be- for a long, long time to come!

Set It In The Past!

I'm sure it's not news to anyone by now, but Mr. Guillermo Del Toro is set to direct a new incarnation of Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Given how hard the first attempt was botched, and lets not forget how it bad it was, heads should have rolled with some of the basic bad decisions that were made before it left development. I'm sure after the Pirates films hit there were many a Disney exec that had a severe bout of the shoulda-coulda-woulda's in regard to the franchise that Mansion could have been. Time has passed, transgessions and blasphemies have been learned from and the second go around seems to have the deck stacked!

The main character will be the Hot Box Ghost- slam dunk! The other thing I know Mr. Del Toro will not miss (besides not involving Eddie Murhpey) is to set the film in the past! It should be a cardinal rule that any classic Disney ride that is developed into a film be set in the past.

The rumors of Jungle Cruise movie still linger and I'm sure if Del Toro's HM is a hit it, the likely hood will dramatically increase. If that ever comes to light, please guys, set it in the past!! And get Christopher Walken as the skipper... oh and make sure Shrunken Ned gets in the script too! That's just gold.

“Dispatch from Disneyland"

One of the first things I noticed when I started this blog was how kind and friendly everyone was in the Disney Blog community. People have been so helpful with sharing information linking posts etc it really is a fun little community of us geeks!

I love the idea of crowd funding and have seen it in action with animators getting their own short films funded, produced, and distributed. It's an amazing way of directly supporting unique projects. Which is why we need to support one of our own. John Frost over at the Disney Blog is crowd funding his new book "Dispatch from Disneyland: The Fireworks Spot and Other Tales.”

Jump over to John's post here for more info... or you can donate directly here. The best part is if you already have an Amazon account you can sign in and donate in about 1 second using your Amazon info.