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this day in disney history

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/24 and fact for the day

Epcot's World Showcase Lagoon is 15 feet deep and has a circumference of one and a quarter mile.The World Showcase water area is 185 acres ... that's larger than the original Disneyland!
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/25 and fact for the day

Roy O. Disney raised $400-million and spent the next five years after the death of his brother Walt, building Walt Disney World. He pulled it off with a series of convertible and common stock issues that left the company debt-free when the Florida theme park opened in 1971!

2010:
A high-tech, talking Mickey Mouse character (with a moving mouth and blinking eyes) begins making regular appearances at Disney California Adventure as part of a new show.


2011:
Pop legend Brian Wilson releases his newest CD, In the Key of Disney. The album features the former Beach Boy taking on tunes made famous in films such as The Little Mermaid, Toy Story, Dumbo, The Lion King and Wilson’s favorite Disney movie, Pinocchio.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/26 and fact for the day

WDW's original monorail track ran in a loop directly through the
concourse of the Contemporary Resort, to the Polynesian Resort,
the Magic Kingdom gate and the Ticket & Transportation Center. In 1982
the monorail was extended with a four mile run to Epcot,
including a scenic loop through Future World.


2011:

Disney's Animal Kingdom celebrates the Year of the Bat
at Conservation Station with family-friendly activities.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/27 and fact for the day

The original eight "E ticket" attractions at WDW’s MagicKingdom were
Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion,
Country Bear Jamboree, Hall of Presidents, Jungle Cruise,
It’s a Small World, and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/28 and fact for the day

The Haunted Mansion is the only attraction to appear in a
different land at 4 of the 5 Disney resorts:

New Orleans Square at Disneyland,

Liberty Square at Disney World,

Frontierland at Disneyland Paris,

and Fantasyland at

Tokyo

Disneyland.

2010:

Actor James MacArthur, best known for his role of Danny "Danno" Williams on the original Hawaii Five-O television series, passes away at age 72 in Jacksonville, Florida. Adopted as an infant by playwright Charles MacArthur and actress Helen Hayes, he grew up in Nyack, New York. During summer breaks from Harvard University, where he studied history, MacArthur made The Light in the Forest and Third Man on the Mountain for Walt Disney. Deciding to make acting his full-time career, he left Harvard in his sophomore year and appeared in two more Disney films, Kidnapped

and Swiss Family Robinson (followed by a 12-year run on Hawaii Five-O).



A 23-minute preview of Disney's TRON: Legacy is screened on many IMAX theaters all over the world. (The film will open in December.)
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/29 and fact for the day

In one of the Haunted Mansion's early drafts, Walt Disney himself recorded the narration for the attraction. It was eventually scrapped
for the Ghost Host version.

2010:

The Disneyland Resort marks a milestone in the expansion of Disney California Adventure, by erecting the top peak of Cars Land. Construction workers hoist a 43-foot-long beam onto a structure that will become a mountain-like range during a "topping out" ceremony. The traditional event (an ancient Viking custom) is held by construction workers when the top piece of steel is installed on the frame of a building. (The 12-acre Cars Land, set to open in 2012, is the largest portion of Disney’s $1-billion expansion of the theme park.)
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/30 and fact for the day

The pavement at Epcot was engineered by Disney and Kodak photography to be painted a specific custom color of pink that makes the
grass look greener and pictures look brighter!

2010:

The new 4,000-passenger Disney Dream floats away from its sheltered dock for the very first time at the German shipyard where it is being built. Upon leaving the dock, the Dream remains in the shipyard harbor to undergo a series of trials, testing technical systems such as its stabilizers and rudders. The ship will stay berthed along the yard pier for at least another two weeks, as interior construction continues. (The Dream is expected to depart the shipyard on the second weekend in November.)
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
10/31 and fact for the day

Doom Buggy is the show name for Disney's OmniMover system (used in their Haunted Mansion attraction). It was initially developed for the "Adventures in Inner Space" attraction. Disney World's Haunted Mansion has 160 cars with a guest capacity of 3,200 guests per hour.

2011:

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is held at the Magic Kingdom for the 22nd time this season. One last spooky celebration will be held November 1.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/1 and fact for the day

The demon in Fantasia's "Night on Bald Mountain"
is named Chernobog, after the god of evil in
Slavonic mythology.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/2 and fact for the day

Disney Legend Paul Frees (the voice of the Haunted Mansion's Ghost Host) was often called upon in the 1950s and 1960s to "re-loop" the dialogue of other actors, often to correct for foreign accents, lack of English
proficiency, or poor line readings by non- professionals.
2010:

Volume II issue IV of D23's magazine Disney twenty-

three premieres with stunning collectible covers and

an exclusive sneak peek at TRON: Legacy.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/3 and fact for the day

Tim Allen made his film debut in 1994, playing Santa in Disney's live-action The Santa Clause - which earned him a People's Choice Award!
A hit grossing over $144 million in the United States alone, The Santa Clause is about a father who finds himself contractually bound to become Santa when he unintentionally puts on the previous Santa's suit!
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/4 and fact for the day

The design of Walt Disney World's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
is based on California's Del Coronado Hotel
the largest beach resort on the North American
Pacific Coast!
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/5 and fact for the day

The Walt Disney World monorail system has
carried over one billion people Since the park's
opening in October 1971!
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/6 and fact for the day

The 2009 A Christmas Carol is Disney's third retelling of Charles
Dickens' classic tale in 26 years.Disney released Mickey's
Christmas Carol in 1983 and later distributed The Muppet Christmas
Carol for Jim Henson Productions in 1992
(which Disney later acquired the rights to).
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/7 and fact for the day

The Audio-Animatronics figures in Disney World's The Hall of Presidents
need continual maintenance. All the presidents have personal beauticians and at least one change of clothes!

2010:

The first segments for the 2010 Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade

are taped at Disneyland. They include Wizards of Waverly Place star Selena Gomez singing "Winter Wonderland" and co-host Nick Cannon shooting scenes with Woody and Jessie from Toy Story 3.



Shake It Up, Disney Channel's newest sitcom, premieres. The show follows the adventures of CeCe Jones (Bella Thorne) and Rocky Blue (Zendaya Coleman) as they star as background dancers on a local show, "Shake It Up Chicago." (The concept is Disney's second original series, after Sonny with a Chance, to use a show-within-a-show format.)



Amateur filmmaker Robbins Barstow passes away in Connecticut, just 2 weeks after his 91st birthday. Disney fans know Barstow best from his popular Disneyland Dream film, shot in the summer of 1956. By day, Barstow was the director of professional development for the Connecticut Education Association, a state teachers’ union. By night and in retirement, he was the auteur of tenderly shot documentaries, many of them travelogues, chronicling the ordinary doings of ordinary people in mid-century America. He made more than a hundred films in the course of eight decades. In December 2008, his best-known, Disneyland Dream, a 30-minute account of a family vacation, was named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/8 and fact for the day

Disney's Haunted Mansion movie was not the first attempt to tie a feature film to the attraction. In the early 1990s, when Jeffrey Katzenberg was head of the Disney Studios, he wanted to produce movies based on theme park attractions. A Haunted Mansion script was commissioned ... but it languished in development.

2010:
On this evening, The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at
Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at the
Magic Kingdom both kick off for the first time this season at Walt Disney
World.

2011:

Walt Disney World presents Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at the
Magic Kingdom for the first time this season.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/9 and fact for the day

Songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman wrote "It's A Small World (After All)"
for the 1964 World's Fair. Since then, it has become the most translated
and performed song in the world!
2010:

After two years of planning, including seven months of construction,

New York City's new Disney Store officially opens at 1540 Broadway.

To celebrate the launch, Disney uses the Times Square pedestrian plaza between West 45th

and West 46th streets for a two-hour parade featuring such characters as Mickey and Minnie

Mouse, Cinderella and Buzz Lightyear. The 20,000-square-foot store will operate from 9 a.m. to midnight daily.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/10 and fact for the day

Carl Stalling, Walt's first musical director, was the first music
director to extensively use the metronome to time film scores.
Stalling is also one of three composers, along with Max Steiner
and Scott Bradley, credited with inventing the click track!

2010:

Songwriter Alan Menken receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in a ceremony that takes place near Disney's El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. He is being honored for his large body of work, which includes the scores to the animated movies The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas.

2011:

The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights on the Streets of America at

Disney's Hollywood Studios debuts for the 2011 holiday season.
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/11 and fact for the day

The idea of adapting the Aladdin story as a Disney animated musical was
first proposed by songwriter Howard Ashman in 1988.
The 31st animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series,
it is based on the Arab folktale of Aladdin and the magic lamp
from One Thousand and One Nights (a collection of stories).

2010:

The PGA TOUR returns to the Walt Disney World Resort for the 40th consecutive year. The Fall Series event is held at Disney’s Palm and Magnolia golf courses, and features some of the world’s top golfers playing in one of the resort’s longest-running traditions. (Initially held as the Walt Disney World Open Invitational, Jack Nicklaus claimed the first three titles, including the inaugural event in December 1971 less than three months after the resort opened.)
2011:

In the spirit of 11/11/11, Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings marries 11 couples from eleven different cities at Walt Disney World
 

trr1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
11/12 and fact for the day

The first annual American Teacher Awards (honoring exemplary American teachers) was hosted by Disney in 1990. The very first recipient was
Sylvia Anne Washburn.
2010:
The 35th Festival of the Masters fine arts show (at Downtown Disney Florida)
kicks off for the next 3 days.

The Disney Channel Original Movie Avalon High premieres. Allie (played by Brittany Robertson) transfers to Avalon High and is shocked to discover that her classmates are reincarnations of King Arthur and his Court.
 

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