France will soon have Euro-Disneyland, and Japan already boasts a Tokyo Disneyland. Now , Columbia Pictures has received the nod from its Japanese owners to launch Sonyland in the United States. Details on the park will not be available for several months, but Southern California is being considered as a site. The folks at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm may wonder what Sony knows that they don't know. ...

Ending nearly a year of speculation, Walt Disney Co. unveiled plans Wednesday for a $3-billion expansion at Disneyland that would include a second theme park patterned after its highly successful EPCOT Center in Florida. A highlight of the expansion to be called WESTCOT Center, would be a giant golden sphere called Spacestation Earth that probably would join the Matterhorn as Disneyland's best-known ...

Off-screen as well as on, the folks at the Walt Disney Co. have that certain touch. Recently they've announced two proposals for theme parks. Does Disney really intend to build both? Whatever the answer, the announcements have come so close together that it's as if Disney is trying to play Long Beach off against Anaheim to see which city will win the prize. This week Disney unveiled what had already ...

Despite rosy imaginings about the city's future with Disney's serene WESTCOT Center and its glittering Spacestation Earth as a centerpiece, city officials must face the cold reality of 1991: Anaheim would be forced to pledge millions in public funds it does not have. At minimum, the preliminary master plan for the proposed $3-billion development calls for the city to acquire more than 50 acres for the ...

NO FANTASYLAND: The Walt Disney Co. is buying up the tiny motels that surround Disneyland so it can expand the aging theme park. In the process, hundreds of people are losing the only homes they can afford. An odd assortment of drug dealers, down-on-their-luck families and teen-age castaways live side by side in the tiny tourist motels that crowd the streets around Disneyland. These are the working ...

A 40-year-old Romanian man was hospitalized after he was found lying injured alongside the tracks of Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster ride. Paramedics said Grigore Grigorean may have tried to exit the twisting, curving train that speeds through the mountain. But a Disney spokesman said no witnesses were able to say they actually saw him on the ride, or fall. "Quite frankly, we don't know ...

In the company town that is Hollywood, the Walt Disney Company is the supreme temple of cultish corporate culture, with its strict hairstyle and manicure codes for theme-park workers and the fanatical devotion and round-the-clock hours demanded of employees high and low. It even has an initiation ritual all its own. They call it "Disney Way I" ("Disney Way II" is in Florida), and fresh company recruits ...

In its initial negotiations with the city, the Walt Disney Co, has suggested that Anaheim raise as much as $1 billion toward the entertainment company's financing of the Disneyland expansion, city sources said Thursday. However, city officials have answered with a public financing package totaling slightly more than half that amount that includes a variety of funding options, including possible federal ...

Entertainment industry analysts may be split over whether Walt Disney Co. should build its next theme park in Anaheim or Long Beach, but they agree on this: Wherever it is, Disney will make plenty of money. The Burbank-based entertainment giant has built successful parks in California, Florida and Japan, and industry experts expect the same kind of performance from the $2.9-billion Euro Disneyland when ...

Expansion: Analysts generally applaud Disney's ambitious resort project in Anaheim. Some say it is time for company to grow once more. Walt Disney Co.'s decision to launch a $3-billion resort project in Anaheim comes at a time when revenue for its existing theme parks is down and the company is a target of sniping by critics for missteps in its film and music businesses. "If the question is, do you ...

Development: Firm cities costly regulatory review process for its decision to bypass Long Beach. The Walt Disney Co. settled a high-stakes battle between two Southern California cities Thursday, announcing that it would award Anaheim with a $3-billion resort at Disneyland and abandon a seaside project in Long Beach. Officials in Anaheim, a city whose economic fortunes have been tied to Disneyland for ...

Hopes that the Walt Disney Co. would rescue Long Beach from its deepening economic woes were dashed with Thursday's announcement that the entertainment giant is abandoning plans for its second Southern California theme park of the city's waterfront. The news that Disney has chosen Anaheim for a resort and park was yet another in a series of economic setbacks for the state's fifth-largest city. "I ...

January 1991:--An 11 year old boy is thrown from the Mad Tea Cups and struck by a second cup. He sustained a fractured spine, shoulder injury and nerve damage in one arm. [MickeyMousePark: We are unable to find an exact date for this ...

June 15, 1991:-- Maintenance crews find Grigore Grigorean, a 40-year-old visitor from Romania, lying on a maintenance catwalk near the track of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with serious cuts and bruises on his right ...