Urban Legend? - Piranha in the Koi Pond at Epcot's Japan Pavilion

The purpose of this headline, primarily, is to share a link to Disney photographer (and DisneyParksBlog contributor) Kent Phillips' magnificent shot of fish in the koi pond at Epcot's Japan Pavilion. To get the shot, Kent waded into the pond while the koi were being fed.

Large fish, feeding time, photography: here in the cauldron of snark known as the Disney Dispatch, those ingredients came together in a sulfurous cloud and from it spewed the stuff of nightmare.

Apologies to Kent and the koi but not to the makers of Piranha 3D, the unknowing providers of the picture to your left.

The hullabaloo has now left the building. See you tomorrow.

MORE: Disney Parks Blog (Kent Phillips)

WWWD: What Would Walt Do?

In today's edition of The Daily Beast, innovation expert (and Tony-nominated producer) John Kao wonders how Walt Disney would fix the ailing American economy.

The article is not technical: Kao wrote it upon his return from a trip to Disneyland with his two children. As he toured the park, he noted Walt's vision, first minted in 1955, stronger than ever today. And what drives Walt's vision is energy, innovation, and a superbly tuned business model.

But 2010 isn't 1955. What worked for Walt then might not have worked for him now, and clearly it doesn't work nearly as well for the people running Disney today whose bottom line is often based on business partnerships and homogenization, not dreams first, details later.

Kao concludes with a challenge for Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, to dovetail commercial imperatives with creative inspiration and to use Disney's market position to inspire (not just entertain) the millions of children who pass through its gates, physical and digital, every year.

MORE: The Daily Beast (John Kao)

We'll Always Have (Disneyland) Paris

Heather Stimmler-Hall, writing in her blog SecretsOfParis, is an American who has lived in Paris for the past 15 years - and so probably does know some of its secrets by now.

She writes really well, too.

Yesterday (not to be confused with 'Yesterland' - see below) she wrote a long article, Part 1 in a series of articles, about how to survive Disneyland Paris.

If you're planning a vacation to Disneyland Paris, Heather's tips will help: she starts with advice on how to buy discounted tickets and then discusses such practicalities as enduring French public transportation, saving money by boarding your pets for the day at Disney's low-cost Accueil Animaux kennel, and how to dress in Parisian style so as not to be mistaken for an American tourist.

Heather's article is endowed with several gorgeous pictures, including one of her friend Victoria who looks uncannily like Tina Fey (note Jack Sparrow in the background with a line of people not dressed in Parisian style waiting to meet him).

Later this week Heather will offer tips on how to survive the rides. Even if Disneyland Paris is not in your future, the article is recommended for its humor and 'expat' take on the park.

MORE: Secrets of Paris (Heather Stimmler-Hall)

Oh, I Believe in Yesterland (Credit: Lennon/McCartney/Weiss)

The website Yesterland, like the Beatles' song "Yesterday", came suddenly.

I stumbled across it last night while stumbling after another story that I promptly forgot as soon as I found Yesterland and realized that here was a site I wish I had created.

I didn't create it because clearly my depth of Disneyland knowledge (ankle-deep, last time I checked) can't compare to that of Werner Weiss, the gentleman who created Yesterland in 1995 (around the same time I built my first site, Tightbeam, long since lost to cyber-squatters) and still runs it today.

Most of the hullabaloo on Disney Dispatch is about specific topics, but in this case the hullabaloo is about the site itself: kick the tires, take it for a spin, watch the clock tick backwards.

Yesterland is mostly the chronicle of Disneyland past, though it does include some coverage of 'Yesterworld' to appeal to those folks, like me, for whom the 'real' Disney is Florida swampland, not California orange grove.

For example, Werner has reproduced a 1973 Disney World information guide, complete with crude maps, black-and-white photography, and a list of the stores on Main Street that include my personal will-o'-the-wisp, House of Magic, which sold me a magic wand and some card tricks way back then. The guide doesn't include Space Mountain because it hadn't yet been built.

If you groove on the old stuff, Yesterland will take you there.

MORE: Yesterland (Werner Weiss)

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, You've Lost a Clump of Your Golden Hair

Nancy Johnson of DISUnplugged shares concept art depicting a colossal clump of Rapunzel's hair spewing from her refurbished Tower in Disneyland's Fantasyland, extending across a small courtyard, and tangling over the rooftop of an adjacent cottage.

It's eye-catching, for sure.

And, as Nancy points out, it indicates the high hopes Disney has pinned on its reboot of Rapunzel in the studio's new movie, Tangled, opening this fall.

The cynical might imagine the hair soon soiled with bird guano, but I'm sure Disney has thought of that possibility and constructed the hair out of a guano-resistant (or at least easily cleaned) fiber.

What I like most about the concept is its daring: the old-fashioned, in-your-face Disney daring that nowadays isn't as common as it was years ago. The hair is also in sync with its setting - unlike the hideous Tron make-over Disney made to its monorails.

Despite all that, I'm not sold on the strand. It looks as if the 50 Foot Woman dropped one of her extensions. But I've never been sold on the traditional Rapunzel, either. Maybe the 21st century cinematic version will win me over.

I'm sure Disney will tweak those tresses and in a few weeks I'll be extolling their beauty and telling you I knew it all along. Or, rather, telling you Nancy knew it all along.

MORE: DISUnplugged (Nancy Johnson)

Chocolate Chip and Dale: The Sweet Partnership Between Nestle and Disney

Nestle is one of those feel-good American companies that you associate with Grandma, milk, and toll house cookies - except that it's Swiss and its cookie dough had an E. Coli outbreak in 2009.

You can, however, reliably associate Nestle with Disney, since the two global conglomerates have had cordial relations for decades.

In yesterday's issue of the Main Street Gazette, a totally cool website with an interface in the spittin' image of an old-fashioned newspaper, Ryan Wilson traces the partnership between Nestle and Disney from its roots in 1955 (when Carnation, now part of Nestle, ran the Main Street Ice Cream Parlor) to the present.

Nestle's most ambitious and most visible investment with Disney had been The Land, and the company was also a co-founding sponsor in the ridiculously expensive Disneyland Paris (which our friend Cole Younger from the previous headline estimates would cost over $6.2 billion to build today, adjusted for inflation).

The partnership now is on simmer, if not life support, but Ryan Wilson is living the glory days with the recent acquisition by the Main Street Gazette of a Toll House Semi-Sweet Morsels Commemorative Tin that Nestle released to help celebrate Disney World's 25th anniversary in 1996. Ryan has pictures and more details about the heyday of Nestle-Disney (or Disney-Nestle, if you like).

MORE: Main Street Gazette (Ryan Wilson)

The Costs of Imagineering: Then and Now

Economics is not my strong suit. It's more like my brown leisure suit. I know that things cost less when I was a kid (comic books were 20 cents) and more now that I'm not a kid (comic books are several dollars, depending upon whether the cover glows).

The part I can't quite grasp is 'adjusted for inflation'. Depending upon when you spend it, money is worth less, worth more, buys the same, doesn't buy the same. I'm convinced that economists - like their evil twins, statisticians - are able to say anything they want and prove it with a snazzy graph.

Over at Disneyology, however, I can actually understand a recent article written by Cole Younger (whose self-named ancestor, if he had one, may or may not have ridden with Jesse James) comparing the cost of Disney attractions built years (and in some cases decades) ago with the cost were they to be built today. The difference is often astounding.

For example, the Carousel of Progress, when built in 1967, cost a mere $8 million, but were it to be built today, Cole says it would cost $52.5 million, 'adjusted for inflation'. That's a lot of sarsaparilla soda (or root beer, as I guess they're calling it these days - that's progress for you!).

Disneyland itself cost $17 million to build in 1955. Today: $137.5 million! Still peanuts, however, compared to the $800 million sticker price for Animal Kingdom in 1998 (adjusted upwards to over a billion today).

Cole reports other amounts, including several in the multi-billion dollar range - before any adjustments! No wonder Disney keeps raising ticket prices.

MORE: Disneyology (Cole Younger)