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Greetings from the Universal Orlando Resort . Where I’m now in my final day of covering the grand opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter . Photo by Jim Hill It has been an absolutely amazing couple of days. And I’m heading back to New Hampshire tonight with all sorts of stories to share about...

IronManFan236 sent in a question that was short & sweet: Did Marvel Studios deliberately make Howard Stark look like Walt in “ Iron Man 2 ” as a tribute / tip-of-the-hat to the Disney acquisition deal? Iron Man 2, the Movie: Copyright 2010 MVL Film Finance LLC. Iron Man, the character: TM & Copyright...

Good God. Are we really already be up to Volume 9 in the “Walt’s People” series? I can recall when Disney Historian Didier Ghez initially proposed these books (which – if I’m remembering correctly – was sometime back during the Pleistocene Epoch) that would collect & then reprint the very best Mouse...

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...

Did you hear about the play test that WDI ran at The Magic Kingdom last month? Where the Imagineers used Guests who were waiting in line for a character meet-n-greet right outside of Pooh’s Playful Spot to try out a new entertainment-based queuing system? Though the Imagineers are being pretty close...

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...

Was your darling daughter one of those tweens who helped make that " Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both World Concert " film such a smash this past weekend? If she just can't get enough of Ms. Montana, then you may want to schedule a trip to Disney's Hollywood Studios in the not-so-distant...

It's been a little over a week and I'm still trying to deal with reality. Sometimes, reality is hard to take. Although much has already been said and written , I feel there is still a little more to say about the loss of Disney Imagineer Bruce Gordon . It's difficult to believe that only two weeks ago...

When you're the creator of a popular television program, It's always a somewhat bittersweet experience to put the finishing touches on a series finale. Well, for Robert Schooley and Mark McCorkle , working on "Graduation" (i.e. the two-part " Kim Possible " closer that airs on the Disney Channel tomorrow...

Okay. Let's start your Monday morning off with a funny little Disney-related story from the September issue of " Star Wars Insider " magazine. Which alludes to a particularly bizarre moment during the production of " Episode IV - A New Hope ." It seems that -- with the hope that they might be able to...

If you've been reading JHM for a while now, you already know that I'm a very big fan of Didier Ghez 's "Walt's People" books . So -- that said -- is it really all that big a surprise that I enjoyed reading " Volume 5 " of this ongoing series. Mind you, at 443 pages in length, this paperback is the heftiest...

Good God. Has it really been less than a year and a half since " High School Musical " originally debuted on the Disney Channel ? Copyright 2006 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved Back in January of 2006, Mouse House execs were just hoping that they hadn't wasted any of their promotional money...

It's one thing for Disney Studio executives to decide to base a motion picture on the " Pirates of the Caribbean " theme park ride. It's quite another to take that bare-bones idea and then turn it something truly special. A series of films that people the world over could then enthusiastically embrace...

Having gone for the gold with its " Pirates of the Caribbean " trilogy, is the Mouse now getting ready to go for the silver ? As in "Hi-yo, Silver ! " It certainly sounded that way late last week. As the Web (Keying off of a story that had originally been posted on Collider back on May 24th) was suddenly...

Look, if you're a regular reader of JHM, I'm just going to assume that you already know what this is a picture of. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved Yep, that's Johnny Depp. Making his memorable entrance as Captain Jack Sparrow in the very first film of Disney's " Pirates of the...

Christian P. writes in today to say: I'm a huge Pirates of the Caribbean fan and I'm literally counting down the hours now until the third movie opens next week. Do you have any new stories that you can tell about these great great movies that might distract me for a while? Prevent me from spending so...

Karen M. writes in to ask a special favor: Dear Jim -- I just want to send you a quick e-mail to thank you for writing about Charlie Ridgway 's new book, " Spinning Disney's World ." On your recommendation , I picked up a copy and found that Mr. Ridgway's biography was just as you said it would be: Loaded...

We got any " Get Smart " fans out there? If so, how many of you remember the Cone of Silence ? The weird Plexiglas thingy that Agent 86 would insist on having lowered whenever he had something super-secret to share with the Chief of CONTROL? Which was then supposed to shield the outside world...

First up, Kelly T. writes in to ask: Whatever became of Roger Colton ? I used to really enjoy his "Ruminations" column. But it's been months now since you last published anything from Roger. Is everything okay? Kelly T. Everything's fine. It's just that -- after almost four years of writing for JHM ...

Okay. How many of you remember that story that I told as part of last Friday's "Why For" column ? Where I detailed how -- back in the early 1990s -- Universal Studios swooped in & snagged the theme park rights to Jay Ward 's Rocky & Bullwinkle characters right out from under Mickey's nose? The...