We do it #ForTheCultrs
Memes like this are why I love the internet so much. Jokes aside, I can see Disney Pixar rinsing out the Toy Story franchise until the 2040s. It’d tie in with Buzz Lightyear and whatever advanced technology we’ll have by then.
Chaim Gartenberg wrote about Disney making a not-a-real-one-but-still-retractable-and-awesome lightsaber for Wired yesterday.
To whom it may concern at The Walt Disney Company and / or Lucasfilm:
Show me the damn lightsaber. I know you have a real one now. And it’s time to fess up.
There’s plenty of evidence that a better toy saber has been on Disney’s mind for a while. The company’s current crop of replica props and customized Galaxy’s Edge sabers are already hugely popular, to start.
To be clear, whatever Disney has, it isn’t a real lightsaber like in the movies. People have tried to make those for years and ultimately, it isn’t possible due to the amount of energy and the danger involved. Gotta leave that with the Star Wars franchise, I’m afraid.
But if you wanna look at a cool lightsaber made from plasma (that requires “a massive power pack and is almost certainly not safe to sell as a children’s toy at a theme park”), check out the one below.
Update: Here it is: Disney’s ‘real’ lightsaber.
Bright Sun Films‘s Cancelled series looks at various projects that were cancelled for one reason or another. In S1E2, they looked at DisneyQuest, an ambitious Disney theme park that I had the luxury of visiting twice before it shut down (once in 2010, once in 2016).
Disney planned to build DisneyQuest theme parks across the US, starting with a park in Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs and my visits were before and after the name change) in 1998 and Chicago in 1999. However, low attendance at the Chicago site resulted in its closure 2 years later and the project was ultimately cancelled. But the main Downtown Disney site remained open until it finally closed in 2017.
It’s one of Disney’s many project failures but because Disney owns everything and earns billions from its successes, it’s not so bad! I liked DisneyQuest at least.
Mickeyavenue.com is the home to an “incomplete listing of typefaces seen at Walt Disney World, etc.”
Since listing all of the typefaces used at Walt Disney World would be impossible, and a huge waste of time, here’s a list of just the few that I’ve noticed, and the locations at which I recall seeing them (yes, still a huge waste of time).
Some of the fonts are well-known—Cooper Black, Helvetica, and Broadway—and some more obscure typefaces like World Bold, designed by Deborah Lord for Epcot’s Future World area.
Disney and typography related: the history of Walt Disney home video, Pizza Typefaces, and favourite typefaces of 2020.
This year, I’ve noticed more and more the billions Disney has lost due to terrible business ventures. The only reason why they’ve been allowed to do it is because they’ve made many billions more and… it’s Disney.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot thanks to Yesterworld Entertainment, a YouTube channel that “exists outside of the tangible reality of the present where we explore and investigate theme parks, movies, video games & Entertainment stories of the past”.
In this episode, they examined the history of Walt Disney Home Video and the infamous Disney vault, a collection of Disney films used by Walt Disney Animation Studios for home video releases. The convoluted but lucrative process is explained in the video but in a nutshell, Disney released movies on VHS for a limited time, then put them “in the vault” for a number of years before re-releasing them, therefore controlling the availability—and scarcity—of its media property.
But as Yesterworld shows, it was a confusing and frustrating ideology.
Stream the episode below and become a patron if you enjoy it.
Video/Disney related: 20th Century Flicks: the last video rental shop and an interview with Jim Cummings.
I certainly didn’t think he’d be the same person who voiced Tigger and Pete from Goof Troop. It was one of those things I questioned but had no deep inclination to research. When I found out it was Jim Cummings, I was blown away by the breadth of his voice acting career and how many of my childhood faves he voiced.
Cummings was born in Ohio but relocated to New Orleans, where he worked as a deckhand on riverboats. After a few years in the mid to late 80s voicing characters in The Transformers, Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and Duck Tales, he joined the voice cast of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh where he voiced Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. Since then he’s appeared in a plethora of animated and live action movies and series.
In this video, Jim Cummings discussed four of his best-loved characters and the inspiration behind them. You can check out the video below.
Disney related: The history of Walt Disney Home Video