Okay. The cupcakes have all been consumed. The limited edition t-shirts & pins have all been purchased. Those special July 17th edition mouse ears and guide maps are already popping up on eBay. So it’s now time to stick a fork in Disneyland’s 50th anniversary. Because this once-in-a-lifetime celebration is finally over & done … right?
Actually, no. The Walt Disney Company plans on keeping the “Happiest Homecoming” going for another 15 months yet. Mind you — in order to keep those turnstiles turning — the Mouse still has a number of rabbits that it plans to pull out of Disneyland’s hat. Among these are:
- DCA’s “Monsters, Inc: Mike & Sulley to the Rescue” attraction (which is scheduled to debut in January 2006)
- Space Mountain’s “Rock It Mountain” night-time-only soundtrack as well as the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror’s new drop profile (Which is currently scheduled to be unveiled in the late Spring / early Summer of 2006)
Which brings us to the Fall of 2006. When Disneyland’s “Happiest Homecoming on Earth” celebration — as it enters its final few months — will obviously be running out of gas. So what can Disney’s marketing department do then to compell people to come back to the park? Get guests to book on-property hotel rooms, come back to Anaheim for one final fling?
Well, we’ve already seen how the Walt Disney Company regularly “clones” successful Walt Disney World projects (EX: Tower of Terror, Disneyland’s “Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters” & DCA’s recently opened “Turtle Talk with Crush”), then transplants these properties in Anaheim … With the hope that these “new” rides & shows will then compell people to come on back to the Disneyland Resort (I.E. This is why WDW’s “Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party” will be presented at California Adventure this coming October. With the hope that this highly successful WDW annual event will help the still-struggling DCA draw some crowds).
Soooo … Come the Fall of 2006, another direct copy of a highly successful WDW annual event is supposedly coming to Anaheim. A marathon.
Don’t believe me? Okay. Then take a look at these domain names that the Walt Disney Company registered back on July 7th:
- DISNEYLANDMARATHON.COM
- HAPPIESTRACE.COM
- HAPPIESTRACEONEARTH.COM
Not to mention the other domain name that the Mouse registered back on June 26th:
- DISNEYLANDHALFMARATHON.COM
Those domain names would seem to strongly suggest that a Disneyland marathon is looming on the horizon.
Okay. I know. Just because a company registers a domain name doesn’t automatically mean that a website and/or a product that actually features this name is due to hit the market anytime soon. And the Mouse has been known to register domain names just so other people then can’t get their hands on them. Take — for example — this particularly unappetizing little gem, which the Walt Disney Company decided to register (and thus take off the market) back on June 19th:
- BARFBAGATWDW.COM
Which was why — before I posted this particular story — I made a few phone calls to friends out west who actually work for the Disneyland Resort. Just to see what they’d heard about a marathon that would possibly send runners racing through the two Anaheim theme parks.
These folks confirmed that such a project is already in the works. The current plan is to officially announce Disneyland’s marathon sometime in the early Fall of 2005, with the race itself not being held ’til the Fall of 2006. With the hope that this will then give interested runners plenty of time to register for the race. Not to mention giving the Mouse lots of time to plan a route, work out all the bugs, etc.
“Bugs? What bugs?,” you ask. Well, let’s remember that the Disneyland Resort has actually already held one marathon back in March of 1995. Which (Due to the fact that all 1,600 runners — less than a mile and a half into the race — were mistakenly directed off the planned 26.2 mile route. Which nearly resulted in the racers missing two miles of the planned course) really left a bad taste in a lot of Southern California runners’ mouths.
But — as unnamed Team Disney Anaheim official explained it to me yesterday:
“It’s been 10 years since that first race got botched. Hopefully, by now, people are willing to forgive & forget. More to the point, this time around, the route will be clearly marked and laid out weeks in advance. So all the racers who are taking part in the Disneyland marathon will then be able to familiarize themselves with the planned course, where they should be going, etc. That way, we can hopefully avoid another mishap like what happened back in March of 1995.”
Long range, what the folks in charge of Disneyland’s marathon project hope for is that this tentatively-slated-to-become-an-annual event will eventually become as successful as the Orlando original. Now entering its 13th year, the WDW marathon draws such a large field of runners (26,000 athletes are expected to take part in this January 2006 event) that the Walt Disney Company has finally been forced to separate the two races that have previously been run concurrently as part of this event. So now WDW’s half marathon (for which participants receive a Donald Duck-shaped medal) will be held on Saturday, January 7th, while the full length WDW marathon (for which participants receive a Mickey Mouse-shaped medal) will be held on Sunday, January 8th.
FYI: Anyone who runs in both WDW’s half marathon as well as the full-length marathon will automatically qualify to receive a third medal. Which will be shaped like Goofy. “Why Goofy?,” you query. Because — to be honest — you have to be kind of goofy (Not to mention being a bit of a masochist) to run nearly 40 miles over a 30 hour period.
Anywho … That’s it for this morning, folks. Sorry that this column is a bit on the brief side. Not to mention being posted on JHM rather late in the morning EST. But today is Alice’s last day here in New England. Tomorrow, she and her Nana get back on the plane for their long flight back to Honolulu. And after that … Well, hopefully things will get back to normal here at JimHillMedia.com.
I want to thank you all for the patience that you’ve shown over the past two weeks, while I’ve been on divorced daddy duty. I’ve really enjoyed this time that I’d had with my daughter. But — that said — I’m also really anxious to get back to work now. To start cranking out lots of new stories for the site.
So come back tomorrow, people … When I promise to share some of the other surprising things that I discovered while looking over the domain names that the Walt Disney Company has registered over the past two months. Then — come Thursday — the “Star Tours” saga continues …
You folks have a great day, okay?
j