FP+ only Toy Story Midway Mania

1023

1023

Provocateur, Rancanteur, Plaisanter, du Jour
I want a FP+ for the adult beverage lines at F&W (MyBeerPlus). I would rather not spend the extra up-charge they are promoting this year.

*1023*

P.S. I would like MyButlerPlus and MyPersonalShopperPlus so I never have to leave my ECV also.....
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
BigTxEars said:
No real internet forums 15 years ago so you may be right that is there were they would have been much more positive in nature.

I was referencing now though, not much occurs here that does not draw some negativity. I have used it before but it still holds water so here it is again.

This year (early on) someone posted a story on here where Disney gave $3 million to a children's hospital....and yet some posters on here found a negative angle...."only $3 million?...."only did it for publicity"....yada yada yada.....

Just incredible....

I get people being critical but it goes way overboard on here sometimes IMO.
Click to expand...

There was USENET back then and before that UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) used a bang path of sites

A Disney post from back in the day (not one of mine)

Article 3216 of rec.arts.disney:
Path: pt.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!rutgers!sun-barr!olivea!oliveb!felix!daver@felix.UUCP
From: daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Re: Fantasia
Keywords: Fantasia soundtrack Stokowski's dead (I know!)
Message-ID: <168617@felix.UUCP>
Date: 16 Aug 91 02:22:06 GMT
References: <510@ccop1.ocpt.ccur.com> <1991Aug6.181703.28690@yenta.alb.nm.us> <517@ccop1.ocpt.ccur.com> <91220.145036CC100PG@GITVM1.GATECH.EDU>
Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards)
Organization: Humble Excerpts, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA
Lines: 87

This is one of those subjects that won't die. In the past, people have even
accused Disney of some kind of conspiracy regarding the replacement of the
Stokowski soundtrack with the Kostal recreation. A few months ago I attended
a lecture about the restoration of Fantasia in which ALL the aspects of this
were discussed at length. About the same time there was a story on the same
subject in American Cinematographer magazine. The following is a summary of
the information from these two sources, which should tell you everything you
want to know about the sound for Fantasia AND MORE.

First, a little background:
Fantasia started as a short, consisting only of The Sorcerer's Apprentice
sequence which began production in January, 1938. Completed, it was two
reels at a cost of more than $125,000. On top of that, Disney had invested
$3 million in their new Burbank studio which they needed to recoup. They
knew that a short subject would never return that amount of money, so they
decided to expand the film to a feature.

When Fantasia was made, tape recorders didn't exist (maybe experimental, but
not in production). The precursor to tape was optical recording. The orig-
inal orchestral recording was made by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra
at the Philadelphia Academy of Music, said to be acoustically perfect. The
recorder was an eight-channel variable-area optical type. The 8 channels
were mixes from as many as 33 microphones. This was then mixed-down to
three channels, with a fourth amplifier control track added for additional
dynamic range. This fourth track consisted of a combination of three oscil-
lator tones of different frequencies. When rectified, each tone provided
gain information for one of the other three channels. For the road-show
engagements, the four-track optical-sound film was reproduced from a machine
separate from the picture film, but running in synchronization with it (a
double-system).

The standard sound setup had the output of each track fed through a relay
fader system and then amplified by separate preamps. Each of the three pro-
gram preamps fed into a variable-gain amp which fed a 20-watt driver amp.
Each driver amp fed two 60-watt power amps in parallel, giving a rated
output of 120 W per channel, but capable of 200 watts. The three speaker
systems were placed on the stage at left, center, and right. Each consisted
of four large high-frequency baffles fed by eight low-frequency speakers and
one large cellular high-frequency horn fed by four high-frequency speakers.
(That last sentence is almost verbatim from the article. I don't have a clue
what it means.)

The cost to produce Fantasia approached $2.25 Million. It premiered at the
Broadway Theatre in New York on November 13, 1940. For that engagement, two
additional 50-watt power amps were used, each driving 22 small speakers mounted
on the sides, back, and ceiling. (It's not clear what signal(s) were fed to
these speakers -- but it sounds like surround sound to me!) The sound setup
was customized somewhat in each theatre. The original film length was 133
minutes including intermission.

The film was put into general release in April, 1942, cut to 88 minutes and
with a standard sound track. It was too heavy for the kids that were used
to Disney fare and many of their parents as well, and was consequently a
financial failure. Likewise for reisuues in 1944, 1946, and 1953. Disney's
Buena Vista distributing company subsequently released the "Superscope"
(pseudo wide-screen) version in 1956, with stereophonic sound. There were
further reissues in 1963 and 1969, after which it finally made some money and
stayed in release, because the new generation greeted it as a psychedelic
experience.

A new version with remixed stereo sound was released in 1977, but by this
time the sound was pretty bad. You see, in 1955, after the road-show engage-
ment the soundtrack was transferred to magnetic from the optical master.
Unfortunately, by 1955, the only remaining Fantasound playback system was
being stored at RCA in Burbank, which did not yet have the new 35mm magnetic
recording equipment. So the transfer to magnetic was done from RCA to Disney
OVER PHONE LINES! This was from a disintegrating nitrate optical print in
poor condition, and re-recorded on magnetic equipment which was not yet a
mature technology. It is no wonder that Disney decided in 1981 that this
30 year-old recording (that was a horrible transfer to begin with) was no
longer useable. It really wasn't. At that time there was only one alter-
native, and that was to record a new soundtrack, which resulted in the Kostal
version used in the 1984 release, which we all know and hate.

Since then however, the technology of sound restoration has improved to the
point where the original soundtrack could be recovered. The work was done by
Oscar-winning recordist Terry Porter. One of the tools used was the Quantec
software which runs on a Mac (I have seen this system, and it is remarkable!
It can remove almost any cyclic noise, such as hum, motor whine, etc.) That
and eight other tools were used to create a new master that was up to current
theatrical standards. Of course this was the soundtrack used for the recent
re-release, and which will be used for the upcoming video release.

That is the history of Fantasia and its soundtrack. I hope you'll appreciate
hearing the original Stokowski version even more now.

Dave
 
BigTxEars

BigTxEars

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
There was USENET back then and before that UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) used a bang path of sites

A Disney post from back in the day (not one of mine)

Article 3216 of rec.arts.disney:
Path: pt.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!rutgers!sun-barr!olivea!oliveb!felix!daver@felix.UUCP
From: daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.disney
Subject: Re: Fantasia
Keywords: Fantasia soundtrack Stokowski's dead (I know!)
Message-ID: <168617@felix.UUCP>
Date: 16 Aug 91 02:22:06 GMT
References: <510@ccop1.ocpt.ccur.com> <1991Aug6.181703.28690@yenta.alb.nm.us> <517@ccop1.ocpt.ccur.com> <91220.145036CC100PG@GITVM1.GATECH.EDU>
Sender: daemon@felix.UUCP
Reply-To: daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards)
Organization: Humble Excerpts, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA
Lines: 87

This is one of those subjects that won't die. In the past, people have even
accused Disney of some kind of conspiracy regarding the replacement of the
Stokowski soundtrack with the Kostal recreation. A few months ago I attended
a lecture about the restoration of Fantasia in which ALL the aspects of this
were discussed at length. About the same time there was a story on the same
subject in American Cinematographer magazine. The following is a summary of
the information from these two sources, which should tell you everything you
want to know about the sound for Fantasia AND MORE.

First, a little background:
Fantasia started as a short, consisting only of The Sorcerer's Apprentice
sequence which began production in January, 1938. Completed, it was two
reels at a cost of more than $125,000. On top of that, Disney had invested
$3 million in their new Burbank studio which they needed to recoup. They
knew that a short subject would never return that amount of money, so they
decided to expand the film to a feature.

When Fantasia was made, tape recorders didn't exist (maybe experimental, but
not in production). The precursor to tape was optical recording. The orig-
inal orchestral recording was made by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra
at the Philadelphia Academy of Music, said to be acoustically perfect. The
recorder was an eight-channel variable-area optical type. The 8 channels
were mixes from as many as 33 microphones. This was then mixed-down to
three channels, with a fourth amplifier control track added for additional
dynamic range. This fourth track consisted of a combination of three oscil-
lator tones of different frequencies. When rectified, each tone provided
gain information for one of the other three channels. For the road-show
engagements, the four-track optical-sound film was reproduced from a machine
separate from the picture film, but running in synchronization with it (a
double-system).

The standard sound setup had the output of each track fed through a relay
fader system and then amplified by separate preamps. Each of the three pro-
gram preamps fed into a variable-gain amp which fed a 20-watt driver amp.
Each driver amp fed two 60-watt power amps in parallel, giving a rated
output of 120 W per channel, but capable of 200 watts. The three speaker
systems were placed on the stage at left, center, and right. Each consisted
of four large high-frequency baffles fed by eight low-frequency speakers and
one large cellular high-frequency horn fed by four high-frequency speakers.
(That last sentence is almost verbatim from the article. I don't have a clue
what it means.)

The cost to produce Fantasia approached $2.25 Million. It premiered at the
Broadway Theatre in New York on November 13, 1940. For that engagement, two
additional 50-watt power amps were used, each driving 22 small speakers mounted
on the sides, back, and ceiling. (It's not clear what signal(s) were fed to
these speakers -- but it sounds like surround sound to me!) The sound setup
was customized somewhat in each theatre. The original film length was 133
minutes including intermission.

The film was put into general release in April, 1942, cut to 88 minutes and
with a standard sound track. It was too heavy for the kids that were used
to Disney fare and many of their parents as well, and was consequently a
financial failure. Likewise for reisuues in 1944, 1946, and 1953. Disney's
Buena Vista distributing company subsequently released the "Superscope"
(pseudo wide-screen) version in 1956, with stereophonic sound. There were
further reissues in 1963 and 1969, after which it finally made some money and
stayed in release, because the new generation greeted it as a psychedelic
experience.

A new version with remixed stereo sound was released in 1977, but by this
time the sound was pretty bad. You see, in 1955, after the road-show engage-
ment the soundtrack was transferred to magnetic from the optical master.
Unfortunately, by 1955, the only remaining Fantasound playback system was
being stored at RCA in Burbank, which did not yet have the new 35mm magnetic
recording equipment. So the transfer to magnetic was done from RCA to Disney
OVER PHONE LINES! This was from a disintegrating nitrate optical print in
poor condition, and re-recorded on magnetic equipment which was not yet a
mature technology. It is no wonder that Disney decided in 1981 that this
30 year-old recording (that was a horrible transfer to begin with) was no
longer useable. It really wasn't. At that time there was only one alter-
native, and that was to record a new soundtrack, which resulted in the Kostal
version used in the 1984 release, which we all know and hate.

Since then however, the technology of sound restoration has improved to the
point where the original soundtrack could be recovered. The work was done by
Oscar-winning recordist Terry Porter. One of the tools used was the Quantec
software which runs on a Mac (I have seen this system, and it is remarkable!
It can remove almost any cyclic noise, such as hum, motor whine, etc.) That
and eight other tools were used to create a new master that was up to current
theatrical standards. Of course this was the soundtrack used for the recent
re-release, and which will be used for the upcoming video release.

That is the history of Fantasia and its soundtrack. I hope you'll appreciate
hearing the original Stokowski version even more now.

Dave
Click to expand...


Yeah but only nerds debated over the internet back then, not cool folk like us :)
 
pumpkin7

pumpkin7

Well-Known Member
wogwog said:
OK. Now I am afraid to tell you about Mickey bars unless you certify you are in good health and do not have high blood pressure.
TheMickey Bar price has increased and the new version being phased in as stock is depleted at a location is smaller.
Click to expand...


What is the world coming to?! Absolute carp! Gahhh. Oh well, at least 25cents is only like, what, 10p? I can live with that I think.

Ps, I am in good health and do not have high blood pressure.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
pumpkin7 said:
What is the world coming to?! Absolute carp! Gahhh. Oh well, at least 25cents is only like, what, 10p? I can live with that I think.

Ps, I am in good health and do not have high blood pressure.
Click to expand...
Even if you weren't in good health, there is no better way to go out then with a Mickey Bar. Save me a place in line. I may only need it once!
 
AEfx

AEfx

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
It's just Disney's attempt to be realistic in everything they do. We all know that mice are very small. It's all in the detail.
Click to expand...

But what's funny is I wonder if it simply is an arbitrary, "we can cut costs" thing and a sheer "let's give 15% less product" or whatever to save, or if they actually had folks study it - what percentage of the bar do most folks not finish when they toss it, what size are comparably marketed bars, what percentage can they cut before the guest notices the decline, etc.

I find questions like that amusing, because on one hand we give them too much credit for thinking things through/properly analyzing them, and on the other, we sometimes don't give them enough.
 
BigTxEars

BigTxEars

Well-Known Member
AEfx said:
But what's funny is I wonder if it simply is an arbitrary, "we can cut costs" thing and a sheer "let's give 15% less product" or whatever to save, or if they actually had folks study it - what percentage of the bar do most folks not finish when they toss it, what size are comparably marketed bars, what percentage can they cut before the guest notices the decline, etc.

I find questions like that amusing, because on one hand we give them too much credit for thinking things through/properly analyzing them, and on the other, we sometimes don't give them enough.
Click to expand...

Sounds like what we do with our politicians :)
 
BigTxEars

BigTxEars

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
Perhaps you do, I assume that politicians are deceitful, self-dealing lying B-------s oh and generally evil and dont give a D--- about the people who they supposedly represent.
Click to expand...

Well I am not that pestimistic :)

I think there are a mix of both in office, just like in society. I do think the position can corrupt long term so I am in favor of term limits. Ted Kennedy was in office wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy too long for example, not the only one but he comes to mind.
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
BigTxEars said:
Well I am not that pestimistic :)

I think there are a mix of both in office, just like in society. I do think the position can corrupt long term so I am in favor of term limits. Ted Kennedy was in office wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy too long for example, not the only one but he comes to mind.
Click to expand...

No the current bunch in DC and most state capitals are just plain EVIL on BOTH sides of the aisle. Term limits would help mitigate the damage any single individual can do though.

Mark Twain noted the only native criminal class in the US was Congress...
 
BigTxEars

BigTxEars

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
No the current bunch in DC and most state capitals are just plain EVIL on BOTH sides of the aisle. Term limits would help mitigate the damage any 1 individual can do though.
Click to expand...

Well EVIL might be a bit much, I mean no doubt some of them plain suck but evil is not something I would call them. Lazy, out of touch, short sighted......and a few others but I would not say evil. But I get your point :)
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
BigTxEars said:
Well I am not that pestimistic :)

I think there are a mix of both in office, just like in society. I do think the position can corrupt long term so I am in favor of term limits. Ted Kennedy was in office wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy too long for example, not the only one but he comes to mind.
Click to expand...

We call him 'The Submariner' up here amazing how politicos can literally get away with murder and it's why I call them EVIL.
 

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