Disney Princesses Gone Wild ... and Weird

If you're a Disney purist, stop reading: I repeat, stop reading right now. What I'm about to do is wrong, just plain wrong, and you're not going to like it.

Fat Princesses.

A young artist, known professionally as Creepy Miranda, has drawn the princesses not happily ever after but unhappily pass the bon-bons.

I first saw these controversial images several days ago, and since then they've gained traction and have begun to appear on many of the sites that traffic in the bizarre, the absurd, the wrong.

Back on August 29 I gave hullabaloo to the nice lady from Minnesota who is boycotting Disney for a year because she doesn't like the message of perfect physical beauty embodied by the Disney Princesses. She feels it's harmful to her daughter. I wonder what she thinks about these gals?

But weight, there's more: monster princesses, super-powered princesses, cover girl princesses.

The "monster princesses" are the worst. Zombie Ariel? Scarecrow Demon Cinderella? I suppose, for Halloween only, Disney might consider letting monster princesses roam the park to terrify little girls and, well, maybe not, and maybe I have a problem.

http://disneydispatch.com/hulla/2010/09/disney-princesses-gone-wild-and-weird.htm

Getting Hired by Disney: Mickey Ears Won't Help

Job interviews usually proceed in one of two ways: you have a nice conversation or you endure a series of stock questions read from a sheet of paper.

Interviewing for a job at Disney is no different. Disney, in fact, has a reputation for conducting stringent interviews - and taking its good sweet time about it - with folks who apply for corporate positions. (Customer service positions are usually a snap.)

If your dream is to work for Disney, GlassDoor can help you get past those interviews. GlassDoor collects information from thousands of employees about their interview experience, their salaries, and their opinions of past or present employers.

One such employer is Disney: the site has comments by dozens of people who sat through interviews with Disney and reveal what happened, including the kind of questions you can expect (and, in some cases, the kind of answers you should give).

For example, a person who applied for a Customer Service position was shown a movie, asked a couple of generic questions, and offered the job immediately. Another person, applying for a job as an Animal Nutritionist, was asked nearly 20 odd-ball questions during a phone interview, including this beauty: "If there was a worldwide shortage of kiwis and the diet you were preparing called for it, what would you do?".

The information is fascinating as a behind-the-scenes look at Disney hiring practices.

Warning: GlassDoor permits one full search for free and then requires that you register with the site (also free). If you don't, you only get a partial view of the site content. I suppose you could get around the requirement by constantly clearing your cookies, but the registration process is painless and worth the effort if you're still in the job market.

http://disneydispatch.com/hulla/2010/09/getting-hired-by-disney-mickey-ears-wont-help.htm

Minnie's Moonlit Madness: Good Thing It's Not Monthly

Minnie's Moonlit Madness sounds rather dubious: does Minnie ease her inhibitions under the full moon, or maybe grow fangs and howl with Pluto while Mickey desperates seeks a silver bullet (and hopes he's pure of heart, as the old rhyme goes)?

No. During Moonlit Madness, Minnie remains prim - actually, she has nothing to do with the event, which is a trivia contest held once a year at Disneyland, according to Mark Eades of the Orange County Register.

The contest pits teams (each consisting of one park employee and three normal people) against one another for a night of often insanely difficult trivia games and scavenger hunts.

In his preview of the event, Mark made my eyes water with a sample challenge from the scavenger hunt portion of the contest involving a multi-variable equation based on signs and objects from Frontierland. (Yes, a multi-variable equation.) Mark worked it out step-by-step and I'm still not certain whether I could have solved it on my own.

Of course, you can't even start the scavenger hunt until your team has answered around 50 trivia questions from Disney character biographies to Disney corporate history.

To enter, it costs $75 per team, with proceeds going to Mercy House for the Homeless. The Disney employee member of your team must register on the company's internal website. Your team can pick easy, medium or hard challenges, and prizes are awarded to the winners. The event starts September 13 at 8:00 PM and ends by midnight.

http://disneydispatch.com/hulla/2010/09/minnies-moonlit-madness-good-thing-its-not-monthly.htm

Blast from the Past: Donald Duck vs. Bombie the Zombie

Blogs are supposed to be topical, but dishing up hullabaloo about a Donald Duck comic book first published in 1949 isn't at all topical nor is it likely to rack up the retweets.

Win Wiacek, owner of ComicsReview (and past chairman of the Comic Creators Guild), could give a duck's behind about retweets: earlier this week he reviewed a Disney comic book first published in 1949, namely, Walt Disney's Donald Duck Adventures: Voodoo Hoodoo.

The comic book, though interesting, isn't as noteworthy as its creator, Carl Barks, described by Win Wiacek (who looks completely bonkers in his picture, by the way) as a reclusive but inveterate Duck storyteller who developed a 'cohesive Duck universe' for Donald, his nephews, Scrooge McDuck (a Barks creation), and other webbed denizens.

Despite his statute in the comic book world, I had never heard of Carl Barks. One of the greatest pleasures I derive from the Disney Dispatch is discovering new sites, new things, and new people as I track down interesting topics to hullabaloo. Thanks to Win Wiacek, I found Carl Barks, and you can learn all there is to learn about him from an unusually thorough Wikipedia article, which includes a nice picture of the gentleman at a comic book convention.

First, though, make sure you read Wiacek's equally thorough review of Voodoo Hoodoo, an assembly line tale of zombies, devil dolls, and witch doctors - heady stuff for 1949 - given unexpected heft from Barks' vigorous pens and unintended controversy from what Wiacek describes as 'racial undertones', most likely arising from the Ducks' expedition to Africa.

Strangely, Barks never did the obvious sequel: Bambi vs. Bombie. That would've been money.

http://disneydispatch.com/hulla/2010/09/blast-from-the-past-donald-duck-vs-bombie-the-zombie.htm

George Roush Lets His Hair Down at Rapunzel Event

Some blue chip media outlets were invited by Disney for a sneak peak at the upcoming Rapunzel reboot, Tangled. The Disney Dispatch was among the invitees, of course, but we were, uh, busy that day, yeah, busy with, uh, the White House - that's the ticket!

(Actually, the Disney Dispatch is more potato chip than blue chip and was not invited.)

But George Roush of the Latino Review was invited, for real, and his report is the best one I've yet seen about the event.

George summarizes the film's plot, reminds us that Tangled will be Disney's 50th animated feature, and then gets into the nitty-gritty of what went down at the party. He even took a photo of the lunch menu - which, of course, had only Rapunzel-themed dishes such as Mother Gothel's Wilted Bloomsdale Spinach. I'd probably have passed on that one.

In addition to lunch, George and the others played games (including the fabled Turkey Leg Toss), had their pictures taken with Rapunzel (who seemed not impressed with George at all), and listened to a presentation by Pixar's John Lasseter. And, of course, they saw a screener of Tangled, though only in 2D.

An amazing day! George's report is loaded with details and cool pictures. If George needs a trusty sidekick for the next Disney media event, I'm available and look good in tights.

http://disneydispatch.com/hulla/2010/09/george-roush-lets-his-hair-down-at-rapunzel-event.htm

Site News: The Crosswords Are Here!

The first interactive crossword, Day of the Dwarves, is ready and I guarantee it's more challenging than you might think. The puzzle interface is dead-simple to use, though if you need help, instructions are in the FAQ.

The Games page is a bit plain right now. I plan to roll out some snazzy navigation over the weekend. I may also publish the first trivia game, but more likely I'll keep that for next week and drum up a couple new word searches and crosswords, instead.

If you visited the News page recently, you already know that I did some work on the navigation (clicking one of the dates in the yellow bar now takes you to that day's news, not that day's hullabaloo) and I added a short list of links to other Disney sites.

Now let's get to some fresh hullabaloo.

http://www.disneydispatch.com/games