With this past week's closure of the Backlot Tram Tour at Disney' Hollywood Studios, I thought that it might be fun to take a look back at a time when the Imagineers had far larger plans for this attraction. Back when -- in addition to Catastrophe Canyon, Residential Street and the Boneyard -- WDI wanted to send WDW Guests on a "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Here's an excerpt from a January 2012 Why For column that will hopefully shed some light on what an enhanced version...

One of the reasons that Nancy & I started JHM's monthly newsletter is that we wanted to be able to share some of the more special items that sometimes come our way. Take -- for example -- this e-mail from Wendy W. Who recently read that article I wrote a few years back about what it was like to be at Walt Disney World on September 11, 2001 and then decided ... ... to share a little something with you. My husband and I were there with our then-3 year-old son. We had arrived the day before...

Given that Disney's Hollywood Studios is now in the process of reinventing itself, I thought that it might be fun to take a look back at the very beginnings of WDW's third theme park. Of course, back then, Disney-MGM wasn't actually supposed to be a theme park. But rather ... Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved ... a full-scale motion picture and television studio, to be located at Walt Disney World in Florida. That's how this project was jointed announced by Michael...

Welcome to the JHM newsletter. This has been a passion project of Nancy and I for the past few months. A way for us to (hopefully) engage JimHillMedia's most dedicated fans and give them access to additional in-depth storytelling. So to help kick the JHM newsletter, I've really dug down deep in my files and unearthed a document that I'm sure will fascinate all of you theme park history buffs out there. It dates from 1953 and its title page reads: An Analysis of Location Factors for Disneyland...

So how exactly does Diagon Alley 's marquee attraction -- " Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts " -- compare to Hogsmeade's signature ride, " Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey " ? Copyright NBC Universal. All rights reserved Well, before we get started here doing the compare-and-contrast thing ... I think it's important to acknowledge that "Forbidden Journey" could also be called "Harry Potter's Greatest Hits." Because -- as that...