August 20, 2010
5:23 PM
Disney Everywhere
Here's a Disney trivia question I would have missed: which English character actor voices the pirate chief who dunks the magistrate into the well in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride?
It's no fair looking at the title.
The answer is Pat O'Malley, an actor often used by Walt Disney to provide voices in such animated films as The Jungle Book and One Hundred and One Dalmations. In addition, O'Malley appeared often on television comedies in the 1950s and 1960s, and capped his career shortly before his death in 1985 with a guest role on one of my favorite 1980s sitcoms, Taxi.
Why all this hullabaloo over Pat O'Malley? He's the latest subject in Jessica Clewson's cool 'Unknown Actors' series on her blog, TheTrueDisneyFan. Jessica spotlights obscure actors with familiar voices we'd recognize instantly in a Disney film or cartoon. Other actors dredged by Jessica from cinematic limbo include Sterling Holloway and Verna Felton. For more about those two, check out Jessica's Unknown Actors series and then impress your friends with how much amazing trivia you know.
MORE: TheTrueDisneyFan (Jessica Clewson)
Comedian Steve Harvey (shown here not smiling) once more teams with Essence magazine for the 4th Annual Disney Dreamer's Academy to be held at Disney World March 3-6, 2011.
Only 100 high school students will be selected from among those who submit applications by October 31. The winners will work side-by-side with Disney Imagineers and other mentors who'll help them get started on the road to achieving their dreams.
Does your child have what it takes?
At minimum, a successful applicant must be smart, compassionate, and courageous, have a positive attitude, and the power to dream.
Once over that hurdle, the student must answer three essay questions (in 450 words or less, total), including one about what they would tell Steve Harvey if he asked for their life story. An answer that begins "I was born in a log cabin..." probably won't cut it.
It doesn't sound easy, but for the fortunate few, the experience will be fantastic.
MORE: Disney Dreamer's Academy
Pam Brandon of DisneyParksBlog spoke with San Angel Inn president Richard Debler about what to expect when La Hacienda de San Angel opens next month in Epcot's Mexico Pavilion.
According to Debler and Executive Chef Ernesto Zendejas, the new restaurant will resemble, appropriately enough, a hacienda with magnificent waterfront views of the World Showcase Lagoon.
But the big news is Disney's 'flex-space' plan: under this plan, La Hacienda will be open as a quick-service restaurant during lunch hours and as a table-service restaurant during dinner hours. It's likely Disney will also use flex-space to enhance other restaurants, including the planned Be My Guest venue in Fantasyland.
Debler brought two 'taco specialists' from Mexico to help Chef Zendejas with the new appetizer-focused menu, raising hope that the new cuisine will be regionally authentic, or at least as regionally authentic as American palates will tolerate.
As a final touch, La Hacienda will have its own resident 'Tequila Ambassador' eager to help you select one of the restaurant's new margaritas, such as the Orange Mango Fire margarita with dashes of Tabasco, chile powder, and ginger liqueur to make your hair stand up before crisping it off.
For that margarita I just might risk crisping what little hair I have left.
DisneyParksBlog has gotten hullabaloo here before, most recently in the August 18 edition for Just Two Words: Steampunk Mickey.
MORE: Disney Parks Blog (Pam Brandon)
12:10 PM
Disney Everywhere
In a recent article for his website, Disney at Work, J. Jeff Kober draws parallels between the office water cooler and the Liberty Tree in Disney World's Liberty Square.
Sucker that I am for historical trivia, I enjoyed Jeff's explanation of the lanterns hung on the tree: they represent, courtesy of Ben Franklin, a vivid reminder that the colonists would either hang together or hang separately. And you thought they were just pretty lights.
The gist of Jeff's article isn't public execution but rather the importance Walt Disney Imagineering and Pixar Studios each place on social networking. Both organizations have common areas where employees are encouraged to gather for professional discussion and debate (shop talk). Walt Disney Imagineering took the concept even further with its 'Virtual Water Cooler', software that employees use to share ideas by projecting them on their office walls.
Fascinating stuff!
Jeff concludes with some practical questions you can ask yourself when evaluating your own organization's water cooler culture and he extends an invitation for readers to join him next month in Disneyland for a seminar called Creating the Customer Experience.
No word yet whether no-shows will be hanged from the Liberty Tree.
MORE: Disney at Work (J. Jeff Kober)
10:58 AM
Disney Everywhere
When I visit Disney World, I employ an intricate system of lists, napkins, and gum wrappers to organize important information like my park hopper serial numbers and a plea to notify local authorities should someone find me wandering in the swamp.
In his blog on TouringPlans, Todd Perlmutter describes his organizational system for Disney vacations that I must grudgingly admit is better than mine.
Todd recommends keeping hard copies of everything on your person at all times, but he's a software engineer and so inevitably his fancy runs digital - to the 'geeky tech stuff', as he puts it.
The remainder of Todd's article delves into the benefits of technology to organize your Disney trip ahead of time so that it runs smoothly in the heat and humidity of daily contact. He recommends Google Calendar because it's compatible with both Apple's iPhone and the Android (one or the other of which you're likely to have). Once you've entered your itinerary in Google Calendar, you can access it from anywhere and even share it with friends and family.
Todd also discusses other tech tools and services, and he does it in an easy-to-follow style, not geek-to-geek. He isn't done, either. Next week he'll be back with iPhone travel apps and an on-line itinerary service called TripIt.
I'm still not ready to give up my napkins and gum wrappers - just in case, you know, the local authorities don't know how to use Google Calendar.
TouringPlans has gotten hullabaloo here before, most recently in the August 14 edition for New Disney Discounts for the Frugally Faithful.
MORE: Touring Plans (Todd Perlmutter)
My favorite place to drink beer at Disney is wherever beer is served. Mike SixPack - Joe's younger brother? - of Brewmates is more particular about his suds. And he's got the Top 10 list to prove it.
Mike doesn't rank by beer alone. The beer, in fact, seems a relatively minor component of his list, perhaps because most of the beer available at Disney is common brand-name brew, not tastier craft and micro-brews. Mike takes both ambiance and alcohol into consideration.
For example, he ranks the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue, which serves brand-name beer, well above Big River Grille and Brewing Works, which serves lots of craft beer - much of it brewed on the premises. Is the beer better at Big River? No question. But is the Hoop-Dee-Doo a more enjoyable place to drink your less enjoyable beer? No question. So what really matters: what you drink or where you drink it? Mike sways on the where side of that rickety fence.
Since Mike unveils his #1 beer-drinking establishment at Disney World with a 'drum roll', I won't spoil the surprise here, especially since it is a big surprise. My #1 choice would have been the obvious one: the Biergarten at Epcot's German Pavilion. And you don't even have to take me into the restaurant to make me happy: my smile grows the more the tap outside the Biergarten flows.
Mike, you'll see, is a classier guy.
MORE: Beermates (Mike)
7:32 AM
Disney Everywhere
I'm adept at folding only one towel animal, the Crumple, usually found on the floor several inches from the hamper where it belongs. Luckily for resort guests, Disney's housekeepers (called 'Mousekeepers') have many more towel animals in their repertoires (and all of them look better than the Crumple).
But not everyone gets towel animals in their rooms. So how, asks Kristin Ford in her Orlando Sentinel blog, A Mom and the Mouse, can you up the odds that Mousekeeping will look at your towel and think not laundry but whimsical creature?
A tidy room, in the eyes of a Mousekeeper, is less work to do. Less work means more time, and that time might be spent folding a towel animal. Also, if it's apparent that your party includes children who, for instance, advertise their presence with stuffed animals, I think it's far more likely a Mousekeeper will create a towel animal than she would in a room clearly tenanted by a portly fellow in town for a convention.
Of Kristin's tips, I would emphasize one in particular: the tip. A real tip, I mean - cash money. I realize that's not supposed to matter, since at Disney the non-tipping resort guest should be entitled to the same service as the tipping resort guest, but Disney never promised you towel animals. If you fold a few bills for Mousekeeping, I think (off-the-record) they'll be more likely to fold a few towels for you.
By the way, Kristin's blog has a link to an eHow article about folding an elephant and a swan. I tried the swan. I got the Crumple.
MORE: A Mom and the Mouse - Orlando Sentinel (Kristin Ford)
35.8 million different people went to Disney Online in July. Process that number: 35.8 million. That's more than the population of Canada.
If every Canadian had sat down in front of a computer in July and went to one of Disney Online's sites, they'd still be about one million Canadians short.
According to an article last night on Marketwatch, several factors contributed to the increase in visitors. The popularity of Toy Story 3 boosted visits to Disney Movies and the surging popularity in online entertainment boosted visits to Disney's many casual games and virtual worlds (of which Pixie Hollow is growing the fastest).
I guess the Disney Dispatch has a record to beat. Who's with me?
I only need 35,800,001 of you...
MORE: Marketwatch
