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So what does it actually take for D23 to pull together those Fanniversary events that they've been presenting around the country for the past few weeks? According to Jeffrey Epstein, spokesman for the Official Disney Fan Club, it takes a solid six months of behind-the-scenes effort to produce each...

Last Monday afternoon, I was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum and overheard a pretty funny exchange between two of the docents who'd been assigned to work the " D23 presents Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives " exhibit. Photo by Alice Hill It seems that one of these...

Jim Henson , Disney Legend . For a lot of people (myself included) this phrase doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. But perhaps that's because - for so many of us who grew up in the late 1960s / early 1970s - Jim Henson was / already is a legend. This enormously talented individual who - through...

I got an e-mail asking me what I thought of that concept painting of the Shanghai Disneyland Resort which was shown at The Walt Disney Company's 2011 Investor's Conference yesterday. Concept art for the Shanghai Disneyland Resort. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved To be honest...

Hey, gang. My apologies if JHM seems to have been running at half speed for the past 10 days or so. But after spending October 8 - 10 th in the Big Apple covering New York Comic Con , I came down with a bad case of Convention Crud. Which is the Pop Culture equivalent of Kennel Cough. Anyway, what with...

Given the strong positive reaction that Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman ’s Window on Main Street ceremony received this past Thursday morning, Disneyland Resort President George Kalogridis remarked “ … we should open the Park like this every day.” But – then again -- how could you not love an event...

Though I must admit that back in January, when the D23 Anniversary event at Disneyland was first announced, I was skeptical as to how Disney would put together a three-hour party on a Wednesday that was worth a three-hour drive to the park.Three hours, each way, I might add. Having just attended the...

D23 is still a few weeks out from its really-for-real birthday (Just for the record, The Walt Disney Company launched its Official Community for Disney Fans back on March 10, 2009). But given that D23 just revealed that it will be holding first anniversary parties at Disneyland and WDW’s Magic Kingdom...

If you ask Pam Burns-Clair to describe her mother, she’ll tell you that Disney Legend Harriet Burns was not your typical 1950s housewife. “When I was a girl, the shows on TV were Ozzie & Harriet , Leave It to Beaver and I Love Lucy . These women were very much stay-at-home moms with the chocolate...

Last year, after Disney Legend Harriet Burns passed away, Pam Burns-Clair decided to put together a book about her mother. Mind you, what Ms. Burns-Clair had in mind wasn't a traditional biography. But -- rather -- a gathering of memories. Which is why -- in partnership with noted Disney historian Don...

For the better part of five years now, I have been waiting on “Wally Boag: Clown Prince of Disneyland” (August 2009, Disney Editions). Ever since I first learned that this project was in the works, I have been dying to get my hands on Gene Sands & Wally ’s book. So imagine my surprise last week when...

Picking up where we left off with Part II of this series : The Walt Disney Family Museum opened on October 1st in San Francisco ’s historic Presidio . The $110 million museum explores the life, family, and accomplishments of Walt Disney, the man, in an attempt to restore the “Walt” to “Walt Disney.”...

Walt Disney acknowledged that the name “Disney” had become a thing, a genre, an entity separate from himself. By Walt’s design, he had become was a character, a front man for a grander idea. Many of you remember seeing Mr. Disney on television pitching some amazing story about Disneyland , that latest...

You'll find all sorts of tributes to the late John Hughes around the Web today. Stories where people talk about their favorite lines and/or sequences from " Sixteen Candles ," " Pretty in Pink " and " Ferris Bueller's Day Off ." But I wonder how many of these articles will bother to mention the role...

Early this morning, Martin A. Sklar ’s friends & family gathered at Disneyland . Where this Disney Legend was then honored with his very own Window on Main Street . And it was kind of appropriate that Marty spent his last official day as a Disney employee at the very place where his career with the...

Last Tuesday night, I traveled down to one of the cities I most dislike in all of Southern California: I went to Hollywood . Good ol’ Tinsel Town, with its sidewalk hucksters wearing eBay costumes of Bugs Bunny and SpongeBob , with its endless food courts and faux-trendy boutiques. Hollywood, that theme...

This past Friday, the Disney community lost one of its celebrities. Harriet Burns passed on at the age of 79. She was the first woman hired by WED as an artist. She was born in San Antonio and remained in Texas for most of her young life, venturing only to Dallas to pursue a college degree in art in...

As a kid I'd tune in the Wonderful World of Color every Sunday night. Most of the time Walt would introduce some western or historic feature - or some story like "Melvin, the Manic Marmoset" - and I'd switch over to watch Ed Sullivan . He had ventriloquists ! On a good week, there'd be an animated feature...

Hey, folks -- Jim Hill here. Before this month's Floyd Norman column officially gets underway, I thought that I'd take a moment to let JHM readers know that Mr. Fun recently launched his very own blog. Appropriately titled Mr. Fun's Blog . So if you want more than just the usually once-a-month dose of...

Last month, theme park fans the world over rejoiced at the news that the Walt Disney Company would be spending more than a billion dollars to redo DCA . With a large chunk of this cash being committed toward the retheming of the entrance portion of this troubled theme park . Which will soon be turned...