Can’t Tell the (Disney) Players Without a Scorecard

Honor Hunter of Blue Sky Disney has created a couple excellent cheat-sheets for those of us who might confuse Ollie Johnston with Eric Larson, or somehow even forget who Ed Catmull is.

• The Nine Old Men: Walt’s original supervising animators.
• Suits vs. Creatives, Heroes vs. Villians: Major players in the “Walt Disney Company Game”

Those with opinions on Tony Baxter (or wishing to form some) will want to read the comments on the Suits vs Creatives post fer sure.

Vintage Walt Disney Cartoon: Alice’s Egg Plant (1925)

Chickens going on strike! An oversized mouse laying an egg! Check out Alice’s Egg Plant, one of the Alice comedies made by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in the 1920s. (Might want to watch it with the sound off . . . the soundtrack was dubbed in later, and is somewhat distracting. Thanks Crayshen for posting it to YouTube!)

You might notice one of the main characters strongly resembles Felix the Cat . . . this is not an accident. From Wikipedia:

Julius the Cat, later renamed Mike to match the name of Ike the Mouse which he often appeared with, bears a striking resemblance to Felix the Cat. This wasn’t accidental: Charles Mintz, who distributed both the Felix series for Pat Sullivan and the Alice series for Walt Disney, had insisted on this in an attempt to emulate Felix’s success. Ike the Mouse on the other hand, bears a striking resemblance to a nude Mickey Mouse. This couple was one of the earlier attempts to create a cat and mouse pair in the animation business.

Ah, the earliest forerunners of Itchy and Scratchy . . . it warms my heart.

Nara Dreamland: Another Disney Clone Park

Thank goodness for the Interweb. How else would I have friends like Eric from MouseGuest, who send me links to awesome things I may have otherwise missed?

Nara Dreamland is another Asian Disney clone park, this time in Nara, Japan. The illustrated trip review at ThemeParkInsider presents it as a wonderful mass of contradictions. One minute you’re in Disneyland, the next you’re in that haunted, abandoned theme park from Spirited Away. And Hello Kitty is there too!

Haven’t had enough? Need a little spin on the Screw Coaster? Here’s a YouTube for you, from the same good people:

1943 Walt Disney Cartoon: “Education for Death”

This haunting 1943 cartoon is among those featured on the DVD Walt Disney Treasures: On the Front Lines. More details and commentary can be found on Wikipedia and IMDB.

Also currently available on YouTube is the 1942 cartoon Der Fuehrer’s Face, which features Donald Duck as a Nazi. I find some of the imagery too disturbing to include for viewing on my blog (for example, there’s a hideous stereotype of a man apparently of Asian descent). You might recognize the main song from the cartoon, as Spike Jones and his City Slickers rather famously covered it later on. Check out this Wikipedia article if you’re hungry for more info.

Disney Launches New Cable Content

Can’t get enough of those Disney Parks specials on Travel Channel? Tivo filling up with old copies of Walt Disney World: Behind the Scenes? Pining for Disney Resort TV, with its insufferable yet oddly-addictive Top 7? Well, Disney’s got something new for you. TechWeb sez: Disney Parks Launches First-Of-Its-Kind Programming For Interactive Cable Networks; Introducing Disney Travel on Demand.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts today announced Disney Travel on Demand, a breakthrough in original programming that combines innovation, storytelling and the power of interactive television to deliver a soup-to-nuts vacation planning and entertainment experience to television viewers, starting on two cable systems nationwide. The program mix will include episodic, reality and special event shows as well as concerts and celebrity hosts, all focused on the magic of Disney’s destinations around the world.

The programs are designed to uniquely engage viewers with a variety of industry-leading interactive and entertaining components that showcase Disney Parks’ innovation, Disney cast members, and the legacy behind all the magic. It will first be made available this month on Cablevision and Time Warner Cable network systems reaching more than nine million viewers.

But wait, there’s more! Operators are standing by:

The hallmark of Disney Travel on Demand is a groundbreaking level of interactivity with audiences. On Cablevision systems, which will carry Disney Travel on Demand on channel 650, viewers will be able to communicate directly with a Disney travel representative from the comfort of their own homes with the new ‘Talk To Agent’ feature. With the click of a button on the remote control, viewers can request to have a telephone call back from a Disney travel representative to make all their travel arrangements at one of Disney’s destinations: Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, Disneyland Resort in California, and Adventures by Disney vacations.

You know, I can currently access amazingly similar functionality by simply pressing 10 on my cell phone speed dial. And then I get a cute little picture of Mickey Mouse with the caller ID. (Um, I guess you didn’t really need to know that last part, did you?)

The new service will be debuting on Time Warner Cable and Cablevision by the end of May. The rest of us will have to console ourselves with whatever snippets of said new content show up on YouTube, at least for the time being.