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Oh Disney animators, you know how to breathe life into characters in a way which makes them seem so real, from the dawn of the animated feature (Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs) to your latest hit (Tangled) you’ve almost never disappointed, despite the fact that you’ve been so busy buying up franchises (Marvel Comics,The Muppets) that you haven’t had time to keep your television programming (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) from becoming utter drek.
This video was created by a true Disney film fan (NkMcdonalds), and while it may not feature enough classics for my taste, it tugs at the heartstrings just enough to make you want to bust out the DVDs and have a Disney marathon. Great Mouse Detective here I come!
–via The Mary Sue
Lots
of children love Disney princesses, but most of them kind of grow out
of it. But not Annfaye Kao, 27, of Taichung, Taiwan.
Annfaye loves Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs so much that she got the entire cast tattooed on her back.
'As a child I used to imagine I was Snow White in a fairytale so it seemed like a good thing to have tattooed on my back.
'Snow White is a part of my childhood and therefore me, so I’m happy I will have it on me forever - it reminds me of my princess dream.'
The Daily Mail has more photos (some NSFW): Link
What Disney movie would you have tattooed on your back? Sadly, I think only Dumbo would have enough heft to fill my backside.
DeviantART member viria13 put modern fashions on Disney princesses (and Anastasia, too). The artwork is lovely, but can someone tell me who “Kida” is? Link -via The Daily What
There are a lot of people who critique the Disney princesses as being poor role models for little girls. I wonder if they’d change their tune if they were more empowered like the X-(Wo)Men.
Link Via The Mary Sue
Cruella de Vil | $10.45
Seeking inspiration? How about a little Cruella de Vil figure from Disney POP! to keep you on your toes? This stylized villain from the movie 101 Dalmations is 3″ tall, so she can watch over you at your desk, workbench, or even your bedroom. It’s a great conversation starter, too! See all the Disney POP! figures at the NeatoShop. And order your Cruella de Vil today!
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Everyone joined in the war effort during World War II, helping out however possible stateside. Disney artists decided to join the cause by creating various forms of propaganda, like this surreal animated short, meant to show how food will help the Allies win the war. Using morbidly obese Americans to “black out all of Berlin” never seemed like a valid wartime strategy until this short came out!
Disney’s animated tv shows used to be so good, especially the adventure packed series like DuckTales and Gummi Bears that appealed to audiences of all ages. These shows were so good that I felt superfan nostalgia sweep over me as I watched these 16 intro videos, and I know i’ll be singing the theme songs for days to come!
If cute cartoon theme songs that easily get stuck in your head is your idea of personal hell, then don’t watch these videos. If you enjoyed these shows back in the day and like taking trips down memory lane, then seeing the intro will make you feel like a kid again. Don’t hate!
Someone should turn Mandie Manzano's fantastic stained glass-style illustrations of Disney characters into actual stained glass, stat!
Take a look at more of her artwork at her Tumblr page or over at Buzzfeed - Thanks Donna!
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Disney characters switched faces with one another? The result can be even stranger than you could imagine. BuzzFeed has a variety of bizarre Disney face swaps for your enjoyment.
Behold the fantastic (punktastic?) Steampunk Mickey Ear, made by Christina Grey. Our pal Jen over at Epbot has got it, and I'm officially jealous: Link
Finnish graphic design student Jirka Väätäinen has recently been turning Disney princesses into realistic looking drawings of women. The results are stunning, even if Jasmine looks a little too much like Kim Kardashian to only be coincidence.
If you absolutely adore Disney’s Haunted Mansion, then why not incorporate your own version of the ride’s classic Grim Grinning Ghosts for your Halloween decor this year? Instructables has all the directions you need to get your ghosts socializing.
Link Via Laughing Squid
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Disneyland
may be the happiest place on Earth, but it's no walk in the park for its
hundreds of laundry workers.
Steve Lopez of The Los Angeles Times wrote about the "electronic whip" that hotels at Disneyland installed to spur productivity:
In the basements of the Disneyland and Paradise Pier hotels in Anaheim, big flat-screen monitors hang from the walls in rooms where uniformed crews do laundry. The monitors are like scoreboards, with employees' work speeds compared to one another. Workers are listed by name, so their colleagues can see who is quickest at loading pillow cases, sheets and other items into a laundry machine.
It should come as no surprise that at the happiest place on Earth, not all the employees are smiling.
Isabel Barrera, a Disneyland Hotel laundry worker for eight years, began calling the new system the "electronic whip" when it was installed last year. The name has stuck.
"I was nervous," said Barerra, who makes $11.94 an hour, "and felt that I was being controlled even more."
Previously on Neatorama: Neatorama Facts: Closed Disney Rides | The Early Days of Mickey and Minnie Mouse | The Dark Side of Disney
I wondered “How is he going to handle Nancy Callahan?” With a clip from The Great Mouse Detective, which was rather clever. Disney movies now seem to be a bit risqué.
-via The Flavorwire
Here is a Disney Studios reference test film synched with the finished scene from the 1951 film Alice in Wonderland. You also see the animators at work, capturing the mood and the movements of the actors. -via The Daily What
Remember James Cameron’s newest Disney film Avatar? Of course you don’t, because the movie had nothing to do with Disney. Nor has it established itself in the public long enough to become a classic like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. But that hasn’t stopped Disney from announcing that they will be creating an Avatar-themed area at Disney World. Construction is expected to begin by 2013.
While I think Pandora was beautiful, I don’t think it warrants its own Avatarland. What do you guys think?
Simba or the Beast may seem like the obvious heavy hitters, but I’m seeing potential for epic combos with Dumbo’s giant ears. And what will happen when Aladdin and Tinkerbell meet?
If you’ve been to Disneyland in the last twenty years, then you’re almost certainly familiar with Splash Mountain. Even if you refuse to ride the massive log ride, you probably at least rode the train through the tunnel that shows the happy ending of the ride. But did you know the ride is based on a movie that has never been released on home video because it’s considered too offensive? Or that the reason there are so many familiar faces inside is because the imagineers salvaged the characters for another attraction? There’s plenty more fun trivia like this inside this edition of our Neatorama Facts series.
Image Via OpenThreads [Flickr]
The Zip-a-Dee River Run was originally conceived of as a way to start attracting more people over to the often empty Bear Country area of the park, which was renamed Critter Country after Splash Mountain was opened. Unfortunately, the project quickly ballooned over budget, becoming one of the most expensive projects the Imagineering team had worked on up until that point. To help reduce the cost as much as possible, the team decided to use previously existing animatronic animals from the recently closed America Sings attraction. Even then, the ride still ended up costing $75 million to complete.
Although CEO Michael Eisner kept pushing for the ride to be based on the film Splash, imagineers had long planned to base the ride on the live action/animation film Song of the South and they refused to be moved on that point. In honor of Eisner’s ignored contributions, they did decide to change the name of the ride from the Zip-a-Dee River Run to Splash Mountain.
Strangely, despite the fact that one of the most popular Disney rides was based on Song of the South, the company has still refused to release the title to American home video or DVD because their executives believe the content is offensive to black people. While Uncle Remus is the character believed to be the most offensive and was left out of the ride as well, his presence can be felt in the queue area; a variety of his quotes can be found throughout the barn-themed line area, all the way up to the loading area.
Images Via Express Monorail and PrincessAshley [Flickr]
more …
Dante Tyler‘s mock-up Vogue covers featuring Disney Princesses as glamazonian models is at first funny (“Thingamabobs? She’s got 20″), then a bit unsettling. With Pocahontas as a fierce Beyonce look-alike and Belle staring smoky-eyed from behind her top five novel recommendations, you have to wonder how far removed the marketing plans for Vogue and Disney really are from one another. Link -via Flavorwire
via Design You Trust
When you talk about Star Tours nowadays, you have to distinguish between the new and improved version that just opened this year and the classic incarnation, which was first launched in 1987. Personally, I haven’t been on the new version and I’m sure many of you haven’t yet either, which is why it’s so exciting to read about. Of course, the classic ride was something all Disneyland lovers recall with fondness, so I’ll be sure to include plenty of info on that one as well, including the history of the ride itself.
Image via inturnaround [Flickr]
While Star Tours eventually became the first Disney ride based on a film the company had nothing to do with, it didn’t start out that way. Originally the ride was conceived to go along with the 1979 Disney film The Black Hole. The ride was intended to be an interactive simulator that allowed guests the opportunity to choose the car’s route, but because the project was going to be so expensive (ringing in at an estimated $50 million) and the film wasn’t a big success, the idea was quickly shelved.
Fortunately, rather than trashing the idea altogether, the company decided to partner with George Lucas, who was already working with them to produce Captain EO. Once everyone agreed to the idea, the Imagineers started work on the project by buying four military-grade flight simulators that cost $500,000 each and then they started designing the building and ride around their new toys.
While the Imagineers worked on the technical side of the project, Lucas and his team at Industrial Light & Magic worked on the film that would be played inside the simulators. Once the simulators and film were up to speed, a programmer then had to sit inside with a joystick to manually synchronize the vehicle’s movements to the action on screen.
By the time the project was completed in 1987, the ride cost a total of $32 million, which was almost twice the cost Disney paid to build the entire park back in 1955. To celebrate the official opening, and to help promote the new ride, the grand opening of Star Tours coincided with the park being left open for 60 straight hours starting on January 9, 1987 at 10 am.
Image via popculturegeek.com [Flickr]
Have you ever wondered what Disneyland had to offer before it began getting massive, modernizing facelifts? Then take a look at this old map of the magical kingdom from 1962, scanned and uploaded in full size by Wishbook, with lots of classic Disney character heads surrounding a detailed, Imagineer drawn map! Look for the view all sizes button on Flickr and choose original size if you want to read the tiny text, and see all the pretty little drawings up close.
Link via Boing Boing.
Illustrator Claire Hummel has taken a look at the Disney princesses with a historical eye, from Snow White’s 16th-century Germany setting to Belle’s late 18th century French environment. She found that the clothes they wore didn’t match up to the historical settings very well and decided to set things straight. Here’s what Claire had to say about her interpretation of Jasmine from Aladdin (above):
“Let’s be frank — Aladdin is hardly an exercise in historical accuracy… It took some effort to track down some midriff-baring outfits but BY GEORGE I DID, thank you Persian fashion plates. I now know what sirwal are called (besides Hammer pants), and that Persian women wore some pretty sweet little jackets that I wish I owned.”
You can read about the rest of her findings over at Flavorwire. Prints are available on Claire’s site – wouldn’t they be a lovely addition to the room of a princess-obsessed little girl?
Link via Flavorwire
Carl and Ellie’s dream house from the movie Up! comes to life in Herriman, Utah, with Disney’s blessing. At Lovely Listing, you can also see a bit of the inside, too. Link
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Walt Disney World in Florida is a mecca for tourists now, but back in the early 1960s, it was just swampland. Walt had his choice of many locations, so why did he choose the Orlando area? An article at mental_floss has the answer. But even after he decided on the site, buying the land and building on it had their own problems.
Although he had solved the problem of where to build, a new dilemma cropped up: Walt knew if he was making queries about buying land under his own name, the insanely cheap swampland price of $180 an acre would immediately skyrocket. To avoid price gouging, he created a number of fake companies and purchased the land under their names instead. It only worked for a little while – the Orlando Sentinel caught whiff of the scheme and published a story reporting that Walt was the man behind the purchase of thousands of acres of land in Orange and Osceola counties. He was right about the money – in some cases, prices went up to $80,000 an acre.
Of course, the property now is worth its weight in gold. Link
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I’ve always been impressed with dollhouses, but this particular one owned by silent filmstar Colleen Moore is truly amazing. Its opulent interior includes a mural of Cinderella painted by Walt Disney himself and chandeliers with real diamonds and emeralds. Read more about it over at Mental Floss.
Disney has commissioned Southern California native artist NOAH to work his airbrush magic on a painting for their upcoming D23 Expo, which will feature movies celebrating an anniversary this year, like 101 Dalmatians and Alice In Wonderland. This illuminating video shows the master at work on the classic Disney inspired painting featuring a realistic portrait of Walt and a ‘toony Sorcerer Mickey causing lots of colorful trouble. Link
These days, it seems there’s a tool to alter photos into just about every character type you can imagine, but if you can’t get enough of these…or if you just love Captain Jack Sparrow, don’t miss out on Disney’s Pirate Yourself app on FaceBook. That’s mine up there.
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The Sunshine Pavilion at Walt Disney World in Florida, home of the magical Tiki Birds, opened in 1971 with a show modeled on the older Disneyworld version. Many longtime Disney theme park fans objected when the Tiki Room’s “Under New Management” show debuted in 1998 featuring Zazu from The Lion King and Iago from Aladdin. Now that the attraction had a forced retooling after it was severely damaged by a fire in January, the show will be changed yet again -to be more like the original Disneyland (California) show.
The “new management” has been let go and the future of the Adventureland landmark is in the wings and wit of José, Fritz, Michael and Pierre – four crooning parrot hosts who ushered in sophisticated Audio-Animatronics technology at California’s Disneyland in 1963 at The Enchanted Tiki Room.
The attraction, to be renamed The Enchanted Tiki Room, is scheduled to reopen in August. Link -via Boing Boing
Previously: Neatorama Facts: The Enchanted Tiki Room
These new Muppet figures dressed as Star Wars characters will be sold at Disney theme parks beginning this fall. You’ll see Sam the Eagle as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Beaker as C-3PO, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew as R2-D2, Fozzy the Bear as Chewbacca, Link Hogthrob as Han Solo, Kermit as Luke Skywalker, Miss Piggy as Princess Leia, Gonzo as Darth Vader, and his chicken Camilla as a Storm Trooper. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Osama bin Laden was one thing, but The Mouse? I think the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 is in for bruiser of a fight. You see, it has a new bigger and badder adversary: Disney and its team of lawyers.
SEAL Team 6 isn’t going down without a fight.
The Navy is challenging Disney’s attempt to trademark the name of the elite squad responsible for taking out the world’s most wanted terrorist.On May 3, just two days after Usama bin Laden was killed in a raid on the Al Qaeda leader’s Pakistan compound, Disney filed trademark applications to use the name "SEAL Team 6" on everything from entertainment, toys, video games, clothing, footwear — even Christmas ornaments and snow globes.
Disney’s applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filed cover three separate categories of goods and services — meaning, they don’t yet have consumer products but intend to in the future.
But 10 days later, on May 13, the U.S. Navy hit back, filing two applications of its own. The Navy’s competing applications sought trademark status for "SEAL Team" posters and clothing, as well as “Navy SEAL” goods and services, identifying the Navy squad as an organization that “develops and executes military missions involving special operations strategy, doctrine and tactics."
