Inside The Mouse Castle 05-18-2015 - 24 Hours of Disneyland and the Coolest Summer Ever at Walt Disney World

By Tim Callaway

Tinker Bell paints the night.

Team Mouse Castle is going to the Disneyland Resort this Friday for 24 hours of Diamond Celebration fun. Want to join us?

I'll be hitting Disneyland and Disney California Adventure from 6:00 a.m. on May 22nd straight through until 6:00 a.m. on May 23rd...or until I have a psychotic episode. I'll have plenty of friends with me as we battle crowds and exhaustion on our way to get a first look at the Paint the Night parade, Disneyland Forever fireworks and the new World of Color show, Celebrate! The Wonderful World of Walt Disney.

We may even record a podcast episode. Anything is possible.

In today's Inside The Mouse Castle, Anthony and I preview Friday's Diamond Celebration at Disneyland and the Coolest Summer Ever kickoff at Walt Disney World. We also take on these magical subjects:

• Remember Jock Lindsey, Indiana Jones' snake-loving pilot pal in Raiders of the Lost Ark? It appears Jock is getting a bar named after him at Walt Disney World's Downtown Disney. Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar will open sometime this fall. 
• On the Disney Parks Blog, they also announced these shops and restaurants will be joining the Disney Springs expansion sometime between now and 2016:
  
  RETAIL
  Zara
  Tommy Bahama
  Lilly Pulitzer
  UNIQLO
  PANDORA
  UGG
  L’Occitaine en Provence
  Edward Beiner
  
  DINING
  Edison
  Sprinkles
  Blaze Pizza
  Vivoli Gelateria
  Tea Traders by Joffrey’s Tea
• I attended a preview screening of Brad Bird's Tomorrowland to benefit the Walt Disney Family Museum last week. My full review is coming, but let's just say that for all of the film's good intentions, it's not as great as it aspires to be.

Disneyland ticket #1 will be on display at the 2015 D23 Expo.

• This August, sixty years of Disneyland history will be celebrated at the D23 Expo. Disneyland: The Exhibit will contain 12,000 square feet of attraction, parade and entertainment history from the Happiest Place on Earth.
• Screenwriter Stephany Folsom is working on a script for a different kind of Disney princess movie, The Princess of North Sudan. It's based on a strange true story about an American father who claimed control of a disputed piece of land in North Africa so his young daughter could be a real live princess. We're not sure what to make of this exactly.

By the way, if you're looking for a couple of helpful resources for the Disneyland 24-hour party on Friday, this is where to start:

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2015/05/heres-what-you-need-to-know-to-line-up-for-the-disneyland-resort-diamond-celebration-24-hour-event

http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?217308-Disneyland-kicks-off-Diamond-Anniversary-celebration-with-24-hour-party-May-22-23/page4 

Enjoy!

Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/insidethemousecastle/InsideTheMouseCastle05-18-2015.mp3

Listen and subscribe to Inside The Mouse Castle on iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

RSS Feed: http://insidethemousecastle.libsyn.com/rss

Walt Disney World's Peter Pan Gets a Cool New Queue

Peter Pan's Flight at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom has gotten a cool new queue.

No, really. It's air conditioned.

In "testing phase" for a little over two weeks now, the queue has new interactive elements to keep guests occupied during what can often be a long wait for one of the park's most popular rides. 

You can get doused in pixie dust, interact with magical shadows and see Tinker Bell flit about the Darling children's nursery. It's really fun.

Inside The Mouse Castle 11-04-2014 - Fire on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Disney Movies Anywhere and the Walt Disney Family Museum

It was a hot time in the old mine Saturday night. Stray embers from a firework at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom set fire to a building in the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The blaze was quickly put out and there were no injuries but the video we saw made it look anything but minor.

Here are some of the other scorchin' topics Anthony and I take on in this edition of Inside The Mouse Castle:

• Halloween has come and gone at the Disney parks, which means they're leapfrogging Thanksgiving and going straight to Christmas. We've got our likes and dislikes inside the berms this holiday season.
• Disney Movies Anywhere, once an Apple-only app is now available on Google Play and Android devices. By cross-platforming, Disney has turned DMA into a must-have app.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki

• There are more Marvel rumors to speculate on and get excited about: Tom Hiddleston will be in Avengers: Age of Ultron as Loki and Jessica Chastain might be Captain Marvel in 2018.
• We're pretty sure Star Wars: Episode VII has wrapped filming in London. Can a teaser trailer for the December 2015 release be far away?
• There are two new exhibitions opening at the Walt Disney Family Museum in November. All Aboard: A Celebration of Walt's Trains opens November 12th and The Lost Notebook opens November 26th. Get thee to San Francisco.

Enjoy!

Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/insidethemousecastle/InsideTheMouseCastle11-04-2014.mp3

Listen and subscribe to Inside The Mouse Castle on iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

RSS Feed: http://insidethemousecastle.libsyn.com/rss

Inside The Mouse Castle 09-02-2014 - The Disneyland Half Marathon, Oswald at Disney California Adventure and Finding 'Lava'

I'm back from Anaheim with all the news from the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend. Meanwhile, Anthony is up to his fourth viewing of "Guardians of the Galaxy," which returned to number one at the U.S. box office in its fifth week of release.

Also in this episode of Inside the Mouse Castle:

• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit will begin making character appearances at Disney California Adventure on September 14. Can Duffy please go now?

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit at DCA.
Photo courtesy the Disney Parks Blog.

• On Saturday, 101 dogs decked out in Disney duds invaded the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World as part of the Disney Side Dog's Day. The event featured a doggy dance party, a walk down Main Street to Cinderella Castle and a costume contest. Animal Planet was on hand to shoot footage for the upcoming special America's Cutest: Disney Side Howl-O-Ween hosted by John O'Hurley.

It's a Disney Side Dog's Day at Walt Disney World
with Pluto, Animal Planet host John O'Hurley and a few friends.

• The Story of Frozen: Making a Disney Animated Classic airs tonight on ABC. You know, just in case you haven't heard anything about the film.
• Pixar released the first film clip from Lava, the animated short opening with Inside Out next June. It's the story of a lonely, love-starved, musical volcano, or as Pixar describes it, "a musical love story that takes place over millions of years."
  

Enjoy!

Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/insidethemousecastle/InsideTheMouseCastle09-02-2014.mp3

Listen and subscribe to Inside The Mouse Castle on iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

RSS Feed: http://insidethemousecastle.libsyn.com/rss

The Mouse Castle Lounge 07-28-2014 - Disney Imagineer Alan Coats Part Two

Alan Coats' first job at WED (Walt Disney Imagineering) was to destroy attraction and character models that were no longer used or needed. Fortunately, his future projects at Disney actually allowed him to create things.

Alan Coats did lighting design for
Cinderella Castle and it's a small world.

With Yale Gracey, Alan did lighting design at Walt Disney World, often working late hours to get exterior lighting correct for Magic Kingdom structures like Cinderella Castle -- just in time for the October 1971 grand opening. He worked on the interiors of many other attractions, including it's a small world, and later partnered with his father, Claude Coats, to design the Eastern Airlines travelogue ride If You Had Wings. Alan would then move on to various projects at Epcot's World Showcase.

In part two of Alan's visit to The Mouse Castle Lounge, he shares more of his experiences as a self-described "Disney brat" and recalls his father's legacy as an artist and Imagineer.

Two generations of Disney creative artists are yours in this edition of The Mouse Castle Lounge. Enjoy!

Download: http://traffic.libsyn.com/themousecastle/TheMouseCastleLounge07-28-2014.mp3

Subscribe to Inside the Mouse Castle on iTunes and Stitcher.

Related: Imagineer Alan Coats in the MCL

www.themousecastle.com

www.facebook.com/themousecastle

www.twitter.com/disneytim
www.tout.com/disneytim

www.youtube.com/disneytim

www.youtube.com/mousecastletrailers

MCL: Monstrous Crowds Expected at Disneyland's 24-Hour Party

I've got a bunch of fun stuff crammed into the latest episode of The Mouse Castle Lounge. First, Disneyland, Disney California Adventure and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom are going to be plenty busy on May 24 when they each host a 24-hour party from 6:00 a.m. straight through to 6:00 a.m. the next day. The Magic Kingdom will be busy, to be sure, but the crowds on the west coast will be, well, monstrous as the Disneyland Resort attempts to hold a Grad Nite at the same time.

Also, Iron Man 3 opens in the U.S. this weekend after an overseas opening worthy of a superhero. I've got sound clips from Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, IM3 director Shane Black and producer Jon Favreau as they talk about the making of the film.

All that and a preview of the still-under-construction Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Walt Disney World are inside this edition of The Mouse Castle Lounge. Enjoy!

The Mouse Castle Lounge can also be heard on iTunes and Stitcher.

Related Story: One More Disney Day: The Hangover

www.themousecastle.com

www.facebook.com/themousecastle

www.twitter.com/disneytim

www.youtube.com/disneytim

www.youtube.com/mousecastletrailers