Mousekingdom Blog

Opera might not be everybody’s cup of thee, but when it is about the life of Walt Disney himself, opera might find a whole new breed of followers; namely the Disney fans. Philip Glass, an academy award nominated classical and experimental composer who has worked with the likes of David Bowie and Errol Morris. This would not be Philip Glass first opera, he has composed well over 20 of them during his carier. He has also a whole list of symphonies and soundtracks under his name. Now he wants to add an opera about the final months of Walt Disney based on the novel “Der König von Amerika” by Stephan Junkg. The translation of König to “King” will be replaced to Perfect, making the US titel to be “ A Perfect American”.

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Second part of our holiday in August 2009 has been booked. 5 Extra nights in Animal Kingdom Villas Kidani, Savannah View .

A total of 14 nights at the most magical place on earth. Now it’s waiting to book the Vero Beach part of the holiday and the extra days in greater Orlando. Tips for those days are always welcome.

The only worry I have is the 24 hour construction work that will be going on at the Animal Kingdom Villas. I hope they will not be to disturbing, otherwise this might have been a mistake! (I’m sure it will be OK).

Picture Copyrights Disney

Latest rumors suggest that Johnny Depp will be returning for Pirates of the Caribbean 4. However, before any work can start on the 4th installment Johnny signed on for several other Disney projects.

He will team up with the always amazing Tim Burton who will work on yet another stop motion picture. This time we will get (a hopefully darker version of) Alice in Wonderland. Johnny will be voicing the Mad Hatter in this adaption of the story.

Another project involving Johnny Depp is a movie version of The Lone Ranger. Johnny Depp appeared on the Walt Disney Studios showcase Preview day in Hollywood, dressed as Captain Jack, marching in on the theme music of the Lone Ranger. (Source Hollywood Insider). However Johnny is not up for the titel role but will play Tonto. Tonto is a American Indian who finds the Lone Ranger after his group where ambushed. He nurses the Lone Ranger back to health before they go after the Lone Rangers attackers.

Before you comment on Johnny Depp playing a native American; Depp has German, Gypsy, Cherokee and Irish blood running in his vains…

Cars II, the follow up of the original Cars success movie from Pixar, is arriving a little earlier as it was first announced.

The animators are racing to get the movie ready for the summer of 2011 instead of the summer 2012 date. (source Comingsoon.net)

Picture copyrights Disney

Fawn (an animal fairy), Rosetta (a garden fairy), Silvermist (a water fairy) and Iridessa (a light fairy) have appeared together with Tinker Bell for the first time at the Magic Kingdom today. Pixie Hollow, the new fairies home located in Toon Town, will open on October 24.

Pixie Hollow will be in Toon Town; a corridor will “shrink” guests from human world to fairy-tale world; it will run continuously through the day and involve storytelling as well as meet-and-greet photo opportunities. The fairies will talk. (Orlando Sentinel)

Picture copyrights Orlando Sentinel.

There seems to be some new concept artwork regarding the changes in Disney California Adventure. The pictures include information and/or artwork from the Trolley car that will ride from the main entrance up to the Tower of Terror, the new look for the Sun Wheel (including Mickey’s head as main decoration), The Silly Symphony Swing (replacing the Orange Stinger), the Goofy’s Sky School (Mulholland Makeover) and the most anticipated new attraction for DCA; The Little Mermaid Ariel’s Adventure. To see the artwork visit the Original D website.

Just booked our next Walt Disney World stay at our home resort Old Key West, end of August. It is only the first part of our booking as we will have some extra time at our other home resort, the Animal Kingdom Villas. For the second booking the 11 month window wasn’t reached yet, but you can imagine I am already excited about the first booking. In a couple of days AKV can be added and then we will have to wait for the 7 month window so we can book Vero Beach! Although it sounds like a lot of Disney, we will have some extra days to fill up. We are thinking Miami or the Keys, but anybody with a good and nice idea, either location or adventure, can always let us know here…

Countdown can start now!

Lafayette, the famous French department store whose Paris’ location is on the must-do-list for nearly all first time guests, is celebrating the 80th birthday of Minnie with a special charity auction coming October.

Lafayette commissioned 80 prey-a-porter designers to dress up small dolls of Minnie in unique dress creations, which will be auctioned of for charity. However, before that the dolls are touring the various locations if Lafayette. Till last Monday the dolls made their first stop outside France: at the Berlin location of Lafayette, where they were on display in two shop windows as well in a central area right behind the store’s main entrance.

After the success of the Pirate movies Disney is looking to do it all over again. This time they want to go to space and use Tomorrowland as their base.

A good movie, or in this case concept, will also need some good actors. While Johnny Depp made the pirates what it is today, it’s going to be Dwayne Johnson that will have to proof himself that he will be able to do the same for Disney next space odyssey. Good choice? You know what! I do think so. Dwayne is a man with many talents and has proven himself worthy as a entertaining pro wrestler (The Rock) as well as an actor. While most of his movies have not been box office number ones, they are entertaining and fun to watch…

The Walt Disney Parks and Resorts department announced today that if you come to a national Disney park (Walt Disney World or Disneyland) on your birthday, you’ll get your day ticket for free. This is part of the new campaign “What will you celebrate?” that will kick of in 2009. While Disney already has a big chunk of the birthday cake from people like me, who love to celebrate inside a park for their birthday, they will now get even more people to visit the park.

This is one great move by the Disney company as the free Birthday boy or girl will bring in more cash then Disney would loose on giving away the ticket. The birthday person might be in for free, but who wants to celebrate alone? So there comes the rest of the family and friends!

I can already see an increase in sales on birthday cakes and special birthday gifts… And it is easy to say “I got my ticket for free, so I can buy an extra Disney gift for myself with the money I saved”. Brilliant move by Disney.

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In the US the new “The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning” DVD was released on the 26th August. The European markets release starts on the 17th September. To get the attention of the press a release party is organized… underwater.

To plunge the international press into a deeply authentic mermaid experience, French composer Michel Redolfi, will stage an underwater concert in a heated pool lined with state-of-the-art speakers and a live solo percussionist in full scuba gear for the floating audience. (Hollywood Reporter)

You can visits Michel Redolfi website for some of his underwater work, videos and pictures.

Copyrights picture; Michel Redolfi

On the Hong Kong Disneyland website you can find a video about their upcoming Halloween event. The video is fun and even a little (for the smaller once) scary. It gives you a nice idea what to expect and is fun to watch. Even if you would not make it to that park (I guess I am not the only one living a little far away from Hong Kong to just go over there and pop in), make sure to watch the Hong Kong Disneyland site and watch this video.

Things that really caught my eye on the video (for me at least) is the “Adventure Haunted Trail” where zombies and pumpkin men will be waiting for you (I wonder how scary they are going to make this) and “Demon Jungle”. “Demon Jungle” is another scary looking theme where you’ll meet… well… demons. Sounds scary for a Disney park, but to me it sounds like great fun…

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It’s only September but Halloween has already emerged in Walt Disney World. With pain in my hart I will not be able to visit Orlando during my favorite time of the year so all I can do is browse the web in search for some pictures on the 2008 Halloween season.

If you want to have a first look, but can’t visit yourself, check out the nice Halloween picture collection on Mousesteps for a first impression.

Picture from Mouseteps. Click on the picture to see the whole collection.

If rumors are correct we might not only see a new Muppets movie but a possible return on television. It has been 27 years since the original went of the air but there have always been fans keeping the Muppets from fading away.

Even after 27 years, they still are great characters that deserve to step back in the light. How I used to love the Swedish Chef, Animal and Pigs in Space.

And Kermit still got it. He proofed that on America Got Talent when duetting with the winner Terry Fator.

Via Calgary Herald.