Disney Imagineer Story
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Martin A. "Marty" Sklar, a right-hand man of Walt Disney and central figure in the development and expansion of his company's theme parks around the world, has died.
Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown confirmed Sklar's death for The Associated Press. He died Thursday at his Hollywood Hills home at age 83, a company statement says. No details were released on his cause of death.
"Here you leave ...
Disney Imagineering Made A Significant Mistake On A Classic Disneyland Attraction
Did you know Disney Imagineering made a huge mistake on a Disneyland opening day attraction? Blink, and you 'll miss it.
Disneyland Resort has been a staple for family fun in America since the 1950s, welcoming millions of families each year, eager to experience Disney magic through breathtaking storytelling, immersive lands, timeless attractions, innovative new experiences, world-class ...
Disney Imagineers Seek To Inspire The Next Generation Of Theme Park Dreamers And Builders
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Dreaming up a roller coaster that wraps around a mountain or a theme park land set in a galaxy far, far away is a puzzle that can only be solved with a mix of creativity and technical know-how.
“It becomes this problem-solving exercise of how do we do this?” Walt Disney Imagineering executive creative director John Larena said. “And then when we figure out how to do it, how do we keep it ...
Disney In talks To Buy Pixar
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The Wall Street Journal is reporting (Bloomberg, too) today that Disney is in serious talks with Pixar about acquiring the animation studio in a stock deal worth nearly US$7 billion.
Most people have probably heard about the well publicized rift between the two companies over renewing Disney's distribution rights to Pixar films. Steve Jobs, the CEO and majority shareholder in Pixar, had decided not ...
Disney Indiana Jones Ride Whipped Into Shape
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The adventure ride was closed for three months for refurbishment.
Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure will resume operation on Dec. 8 after a three-month refurbishment.
Besides the popular inside ride, based on the "Indiana Jones" movies, no other Disneyland Resort attraction is scheduled for closures in December because of the heavy crowds coming for special holiday features and long school ...
Disney Investment In A Dream
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Adventure is the goal of master showman Walt Disney as he transforms 160 acres of [arm land on the outskirts of Anaheim into a spectacular showpiece of past, present, future, feet and fantasy -- to be known as Disneyland. Opening date is set for July 15.
Adventures will include activities of Frontierland, one of the four major realms of Disneyland. America's frontiers of the 18th and -19th Centuries ...
Disney Is Apparently Making Flying Stunt Robots For Its Parks
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In a move straight out of Tomorrowland, Disney is about to use robots in a brand new way. While visiting Disney Theme Parks always includes more spectacles than our eyes can handle, the bi-coastal and worldwide parks are stepping up their game in a big way.
For decades, Disney has been incorporating animatronic robots into various attractions, from the famed Hall of Presidents and franchise-inspiring ...
Disney Just Updated Its Pirates Of The Caribbean Ride. Here's What Changed
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We know a little more about why Disney decided to update its Pirates of the Caribbean rides.
Visitors to the Pirates of the Caribbean rides at Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom have gone through the same experience for 50 years.
Few people ever noticed a scene in which pirates auction off women to pirates to be their brides.
Disney announced in June 2017 it wanted to change a ...
Disney Knotts Frequent Targets Of Lawsuits
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Darth Vader was shooing away a bird at Disneyland when he smacked a woman in the back according to the lawsuit she filed claiming such "severe injuries" as back pain, headaches and trouble sleeping.
Scores of other visitors to Orange County's showcase theme parks have gone to court in recent years with accusations of dangerous mistakes, accidents large and small, and lots of slippery floors. A ...
Disney Know It All's
As a Disney "know it all" and contributing writer here at DLDHistory.com I have to admit there are times when I am quite annoyed when listening to another fan talk about material concerning the history of Walt, his Family and the Disney Theme parks. I often have examined (in my head) my rational for having such feelings and why I get so bothered about. They usually range from the following thoughts
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Disney Landscape Artist Morgan 'Bill' Evans, 92
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Morgan "Bill" Evans, the landscape architect who planted a group of orange trees upside down so the gnarled roots would look like exotic jungle branches on Disneyland's Jungle Cruise ride, died Saturday in his native Santa Monica. He was 92.
If you love the topiary, or animal-shaped plants, around It's a Small World, or the miniature plants dotting Storybook Land, or the luscious growth that renders ...
Disney Launches Site Selling Parks Merchandise
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Walt Disney Co on Tuesday launched a new website offering merchandise from its theme parks and resorts as the entertainment group seeks new revenue sources during a slump in business at Disneyland and other parks.
Shoppers can go to http://www.disneystore.com/ to buy more than 100 top-selling products like customized Mickey Mouse ears or other items that were previously only available at the parks and ...
Disney Lays Off Workers In Its Facilities Division
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Disneyland has laid off an undisclosed number of supervisors and about 50 workers in the facilities division the past few weeks after a reorganization of the unit.
Disneyland officials would not disclose numbers, and said the layoffs were partially a result of the decline in repair work done at this time of year. Many of the facilities workers let go were casual or part-time employees.
''It's not ...
Disney Legend Alice Davis Passes Away
Alice Estes studied animation and costume design at Chouinard Art Institute, which trained countless Disney animators and artists and was one of the precursors of Walt and Roy Disney's California Institute of the Arts. It was at Chouinard where Alice met her future husband, Marc Davis - one of Disney's Nine Old Men and later one of the leading creators at what became Walt Disney Imagineering.
...
Disney Legend Bob Gurr The Man Behind The Motion
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Disneyland, “The happiest place on Earth,” is known for its attractions, which transport people of all ages into a world of imagination. Park guests can voyage under the sea or even slide down a snow-covered mountain. One man to thank for this is Bob Gurr.
Gurr often quips, “If it moves on wheels at Disneyland, I probably designed it.” He is responsible for more than 200 motion projects ...
Disney Legend Marty Sklar Leaves His Post At Imagineering
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Signaling the end of an era at Walt Disney Co., Marty Sklar is stepping down as the principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, the company's theme park design and development arm.
Sklar, 72, is one of the last remaining employees who once worked closely with the Burbank company's late co-founder, Walt Disney.
In a memo to colleagues, Sklar said he was leaving his job to serve as ...
Disney Legends Die Within A Day Of Each Other
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They shared a stage at Disneyland five days a week for nearly three decades and died within a day of each other.
Betty Taylor, who played Slue Foot Sue in Disney's long-running Golden Horseshoe Revue, passed away Saturday - one day after the death of Wally Boag, who played her character's sweetheart, Pecos Bill.
The 91-year-old Taylor died at her home in Washington state, Disneyland announced on ...
Disney Limits Fastpass Use To Printed Hour
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On Tuesday, the Anaheim parks began enforcing the 60-minute window on each ticket.
For more than a decade, Disneyland and Disney California Adventure have issued passes for certain attractions, allowing visitors to wait in a shorter line by returning within a designated 60-minute window.
But savvy visitors knew that employees laxly enforced the hour window stamped onto Fastpasses, letting guests ...
Disney Limits Halloween Fireworks To Partygoers
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Disneyland no longer will show its Halloween fireworks show to general theme-park visitors.
Instead, guests must buy separate tickets to private trick-or-treat parties at Disneyland if they want to see the show.
Last year, Disneyland debuted its first fireworks show for the season, called Halloween Screams, which could be seen by all Disneyland visitors. Halloween Screams proved immensely popular ...
Disney Live! Winnie The Pooh
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Disney Live! Must be every kid's dream come true. Who amongst us hasn't sat there while watching a Disney film and thought:
'Wouldn't it be amazing if all those characters were real?''
Dads! Get your mind out the gutter. I'm not talking about Snow White, Cinderella or Cruellá deVil (hmmn, kinky), I mean Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Dumbo and, maybe most of all, Pinocchio.
You see, I had a ...
Disney Magic A Strong Magnet At Mouse Meet In Lynnwood
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For eight years, the Pacific Northwest Mouse Meet has sprinkled a little Disney magic on Snohomish County.
The annual event brings together Disney fans at the Lynnwood Convention Center for a day of presentations, photos, autographs, sweet treats, activities and displays.
This year's event was Saturday. It sold out, with 450 tickets purchased by people in 11 states along with Canada and Japan.
...
Disney Magic, West Coast Style
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We were halfway through the six-hour flight from Newark to the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, CA when I began to question our decision to haul our two kids, ages 8 and 16 months, clear across country to visit Disneyland.
True, it's a shorter flight to Orlando, but my son shared our "been there, done that" sentiment about Walt Disney World. We were anxious to check off the Disneyland Resort from our ...
Disney Magic: 'Tour' Vanishes
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There's probably no good reason to write about society's renegades, but when they take on corporate giants like the Walt Disney Co. and they're as good-natured as Jim Hill and they live in a log cabin in New Hampshire .
So, here's a quick Mouse tale of how Hill, a 46-year-old blogger, came to lead a tour at Disneyland and got expelled from the park last Sunday.
Actually, why he got expelled is ...
Disney Making It’s A Small World Into A Movie
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In a surprise move, The Walt Disney Company CFO Christine M. McCarthy announced in a call to shareholders that the House of Mouse is adapting the popular Disneyland ride "It's A Small World" into a live action feature movie written and directed by Jennifer Lee (Frozen, Frozen 2). The movie will be a "globetrotting adventure about a pair of siblings that must travel around the world to find clues to the ...
Disney Making Its Tallest Gingerbread House
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At 9 feet tall with a ghost train around it, the upcoming gingerbread house will stand the tallest and feature the most complex special effects in the Haunted Mansion Holiday's 12-year history.
Disneyland will debut its new, spooky gingerbread house when the seasonal version of the Haunted Mansion ride opens Sept. 14. Disney transforms the Haunted Mansion into the theme of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare ...
Disney Monorail Every Day Makes A Mouse Of The MTA
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When the Metropolitan Transit Authority people quit fooling around and really want a rapid transit mass transportation system built, all they have to do is turn the problem over to Walt Disney.
Disney didn't read any reports on feasibility of monorail etc.
He saw it operate in Germany and came home and said, "build me one of those."
So his engineers went out and built him a monorail system ...
Disney Must Supersize Costumes
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It's not such a small world after all. As Disneyland celebrates its 50th birthday, the park is grappling with a harsh reality of middle age: Mickey Mouse's entourage has put on a few pounds.
To accommodate the ballooning bodies of American workers, the Magic Kingdom is redesigning some of its costumes for ride operators, shop clerks, waitresses and other employees.
A couple decades ago, the ...
Disney New Monorail, Its Transportation Of The Future Still Is
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Although the new craft has made appearances, riders will have to wait a little longer.
Those yearning to ride Disneyland's long-awaited new monorail found they had to hang on a little longer Saturday. The Mark VII, which had appeared off and on late in the week, never made it out of its shelter, to the dismay of some visitors hoping to step aboard.
"I'm a little disappointed," said Samantha ...
Disney Offering A Free One-Day Ticket In Exchange For Volunteering
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Hoping to encourage people to perform volunteer work in their communities, Disney announced a program Tuesday offering a free one-day admission ticket to Disneyland or Disney World in exchange for a day of service with participating organizations.
The "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" promotion will begin Jan. 1, with the goal of inspiring 1 million people to donate their time.
"In 2010, we want to ...
Disney Offers Free Admission To Theme Parks For Visitors On Their Birthdays
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Walt Disney Parks and Resorts will admit visitors free on their birthdays next year.
"Every guest gets in free to one of our parks on their birthday in 2009," Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, said at a news conference in Manhattan today.
Visitors will have to show valid identification and proof of birth date to qualify for the free admission to Disneyland in California and ...
Disney Offers Military A Deal
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During Walt Disney's Armed Forces Salute, active and retired U.S. military personnel can enjoy complimentary multiday admission to Disney's U.S. theme parks, special rates at Disney World Resorts, and additional ticket offers for family members and friends.
For other guests, Disney asks, ''What will you celebrate in 2009?'' Guests can receive free admission to one of the Walt Disney World or ...
