Mousekingdom Blog

Sunday saw the premiere of the latest entry to Disney’s High School Musical franchise: the series “High School Musical - Get in the Picture” reality show on ABC. The new series runs Sundays and Mondays and is presented by pop star Nick Lachey (no connection to the HSM franchise so far).

In HSM - GitP thousands of kids from all over the US are competing for their chance to become part of the HSM family. However, it is not a part in the upcoming theatrical feature HSM3 they are competing for but a contract to record two singles with Walt Disney Records and film a music video for one of the singles, with the music video being shown during the end-credits of HSM3.
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… on May 27, 1933 three little pigs with the help of Walt and his crew made their big, colorful entry on cinema screens around the USA. Yes, today 75 years ago Walt Disney released the technicolour animated short “Three Little Pigs” on the big screen, directed by Burt Gillett. The short not only introduced the Fifer Pig, Fiddler Pig and Practical Pig who went on to star in three additional shorts for Disney (1934, 1936 and 1939), were seen again Who Framed Roger Rabbitt as well as in Disney’s tv show House of Mouse and are even today can still occasionally be met as characters in the Magic Kingdom style parks around the globe.

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Everyone ready? In just two minutes the finale of the 53rd Eurovision Song Contest will commence in Belgrad, Serbia. Hundreds of millions of viewers all over Europe and even on tv-sets in Australia and New Zeeland plus countless fans all around the globe watching live online at eurovision.tv will see and hear songs competing for 25 countries (down from an original 43 after two semi finales).

Why am I posting this on a Disney blog? Hey, I just want to point you to some great entertainment! Well, actually there is a Disney connection this year: Germany is represented by the girl band No Angels singing “Disappear” - please no cheap jokes now

Anyway, the girl band casted on the tv show “popstars” had an extended chart success in Germany and several European countries in the 90s and early years of this century before disbanding and then reuniting a year ago (albeit now missing one of the original members). So where is that Disney connection I promised? Keep reading after the break…

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I finally managed to see “Enchanted” in the German version last night. See, here in Germany we dubb all the movies. Whether this is good (young children can enjoy a Disney movie) or bad (if there would be subtitles they would learn English playfully) is up to everyone. I personally do see some problems, especially if they choose a very unique voice to dub a certain actor / part. But hey, that even can be in favor of a character, as a different speaker can also positively influence a performance. Where it does get IMHO very problematic is with songs…

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We are still waiting for the May 16 opening of the second installment of the “Narnia”-series, titled “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (or even longer for some of us here in Eruope, where at least in Germany the movie won’t open till July!) … but the powers at Disney and Walden (the partner of Disney for this franchise) already proof all the gloom sayers on the internet wrong by announcing, that Disney and Walden are NOT abandoning the franchise!!

While some popular sites already declared the series dead or nearly dead unless the second movie did outstanding business the partners used the Comic Con in New York to announce that filming for the third movie in the series will commence as early as October of this year!

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As many of you might know I am in love with music from the Disney movies and theme parks. Therefore, I was especially excited, that Randy Thornton - producer of the most recent “Official Album” releases for the US Disney resorts and thereby responsible to decide which tracks make it onto the 2-disc sets - over on MagicMusic.net  has revealed which new tracks will be found on the new OAs for Anaheim and Walt Disney World.

Interested? It is all revealed under the break…

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Let’s get this out of the way first: besides families animated Disney features and the theme parks always have had a notable amount of gay fans. But while some minorities regularly raise a ruckus about their underrepresentation or any supposed to be “inacceptable” representation there has been but a peep from the GLBT corner - and when was it that you saw a character in an animated Disney feature that would be a member of the GLBT team?

[Keep reading after the break ... especially if you want to find one of the best spoofs ever of a scene from Aladdin!!]

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I’d like to come back to Andrea’s post about last year’s Halloween Parade at Tokyo Disney from a few days ago … cause there is a really interesting backstory to one of the guys behind “Disney’s Halloween Happy Haunted Parade” as the 2007 daytime parade was officially called.

While the catchy song “One More Ghost” (I wonder when Vasile Sirli will re-purpose it for Disneyland Resort Paris) plays during the stop of the parade, the loop playing while the parade moves includes another all-new song specifically written for Tokyo Disneyland: “Our Halloween Party”. The latter song was composed by Rick McKee!

You ask: what’s so special about that?

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… How many wonders can one cavern hold Looking
Looking around here, you’d think
Sure, sh’s got everything
I’ve got gadgets and [glitches] a-plenty…

Sorry to interrupt Ariel, but “glitches”? Shouldn’t it be “gizmos”? Ok, bad pun, I admit it … but I couldn’t resist. Sorry? You don’t know what I am talking about. OK, guess I should start telling the story from the beginning.

Originally I wanted to entertain you all with a short report about the Original Broadway Cast recording of Disney’s The Little Mermaid that was released last week.

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Joel McNeely - who is Joel McNeely? Well, have you seen one of the many direct-to-dvd/video releases of the The Walt Disney Studios released in the recent years? Then chances are high you enjoyed some of the scores he composed for releases such as Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007), The Fox and the Hound 2 (2006), Lilo and Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005), Mulan II (2004), The Jungle Book 2 (2003) or Return to Neverland (2002). But his work can also be heared in sevearl big screen releases of Walt Disney Pictures such as Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005),  Holes (2004), America’s Heart and Soul (2004) and other releases such as The Avengers (1998) or Air Force One (1997).

Unfortunately most of his work for Disney features, in particular for the direct-to-DVD/video sequels was never officially released on CD - which is a shame, since his work for Return to Neverland (the sequel to Disney’s Peter Pan), Mulan II and The Fox and Hound 2 which has been released (at least partially) on Walt Disney Records clearly shows a great ability to come up with impressive scores fitting the very different needs of these features but also entertaining enough to be listened to on its own without the movie. But there is a special treat to be found online…

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Only recently fans had to deal with the closing notice for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and now the next closing notice is rolling in … Sure for many occasional theater goers Disney Theatrical has been one the role - thanks to the selective memory of the public for many occasional theater goers Disney Theatrical still wears the mantle of the infalible who score a hit with every project. Upon closer inspection though, Disney Theatrical had had its fair share of not so successful productions as well … coming to my mind are Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (world premiere in Berlin, long closed, never made it to any other location), On the Record (a touring show which originally had been expected to make it to the Broadway but never did), Aida (which touted as the next big thing after The Lion King fell out of favor with theater patrons rather fast on Broadway and never made it to the West End, but did open in the Netherlands and Germany at least) … and now: Tarzan.

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According to Playbill the original production of the stage musical version of Mary Poppins in London’s WestEnd has posted a closing notice. According to Playbill (a reliable, professional notice in this regard) Mary Poppins will fly into the WestEnd for the final time on January 12, 2008. The co-production of Cameron Mackintosh and Disney Theatrical featuring the world famous songs by the Sherman Brothers but much closer to the original stories by P.L. Travers than the classic Walt Disney feature opened in the Price Edward Theatre on December 15, 2004 which would mean a run of a bit more than three years. While such run would have to be called more than respectable for any show in the WestEnd it can be called doubtful whether the show really satisfied the expectation of the producers. Afterall The Lion King is still filling the Lyceum in the WestEnd long past the three year mark - even so fans had not to wait decades for that show to premier and it was at the time of its premiere not yet a story dear to children of several generations. But looking back it seems that the show suffered a classical problem of shows targeting families: problems to fill the 1,600 seats of the huge Prince Edwards Theatre during the week, when children are not taken out for the night by their parents.

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As Andy seems to have started his personal countdown to the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean - At World’s End there is another first to report: the first listen to the score by Hans Zimmer for the third movie in the series. Once again Soundtrack.net scored this exclusive (just as last year) and provides us with a track by track description of the soundtrack-CD to be released on May 22nd in the US and around the same date also internationally (in Germany it will be on May 25th). What makes this so exclusive is the fact that there are excerpts available on the tracks to listen to as well!!

With 13 tracks directly from the movie (so no remixes, suites or techno-cover versions to skip here) the soundtrack-CD will clock in at a strong 56 minutes and promises (based on the report by Soundtrack.net and the short excerpts) a great listening experiences continuing the styles of the first two movies while at the same time introducing strong new themes … so check it out for yourself!

P.S.: if you want to help us pay the bills for this blog (as well as DLP.info and Clickmagique) why not pre-order the soundtrack-CD already on amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or amazon.de through these links?

Last weekend at the WonderCon at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, California, the latest about Disney Pixar’s upcoming feature “RATATOUILLE” was revealed during a presentation by its director Brad Bird. Attendees were treated to some more details about the story and the voice casting as well as to new clips from the movie - and finally also the first trailer, after the teaser has been around for quite a while. While attendees certainly enjoyed this part of the presentation, for those of us not able to attend another segment of the presentation might be even more exciting: the open-question session, during which the audience got Brad Bird to reveale some rather interesting news … about “RATATOUILLE” as well as other projects…

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Disney fans can be found around the globe … and we bloggers here at the Mousekingdom Blog love to believe that there are readers from around the globe as well … so today a short post for all our readers and Disney fans living in or close by Seattle (or visiting Seattle at certain dates). Still reading? Ok, so I assume you are either totally bored, really love this blog (THANKS!) or are actually living in the area / visiting the area.

Maybe you already now that the EMP (Experience Music Project) is currently (till September 9, 2007) running the special exhibition “Disney: The Music behind the Magic 1928 - today“. If not: there is a great website for that exhibit with plenty of audio clips that is worth visiting also (or: especially?) for those of us who can’t make it to the exhibit. E.g. one can listen to Tom Schumacher, President of Disney Theatrical, talking about the origins of the company’s Broadway productions. Anyway, back to the topic. In connection with this special exhibit a series of three great lectures in February, March and April has been announced.

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The new Disney.com has gone live since a couple of days and looks great. The first page shows you a lot of options to choose from like Movies, TV, games, and so on. However, the first section I checked out was the Travel section. All the little trailers of the parks and other Disney locations where fun to watch (and makes me want to be there even more as before).

Parents and adult will have a lot of fun planning their next trips… but beware of the children’s section; before you know it you will be playing the games. (I was playing Mickey’s Tool Shed game and it was fun – I’ll never grow up)

You do remember Richard Sherman, don’t you? He is one half of the brothers Sherman & Sherman who are responsible for some of the most memorable and successful Disney songs ever written for popular Disney recording artists such as Annette, Disney features and certainly the Disney theme parks. To name just a few there are: it’s a small world, The Parent Trap, Tall Paul, Merlin Jones, A Spoonful of Sugar, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Step in Time, Let’s Go Fly a Kite, I Love To Laugh, Chim Chim Cher-Ee, I Wanna Be Like You, The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room, There’s A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, Winnie the Pooh, The Age of Not Believing, Higitus Figitus, Let’s Get Together, Fortuosity, Makin’ Memories, One Little Spark and certainly Walt’s personal favorite Feed The Birds. But back to the original topic of this post…Richard Sherman has just finished another song for Disney - this time for the DVD re-release of the animated classic Peter Pan!…

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Tonight another exciting season of american football in the NFL will come to an end, as the world champion is determined by way of the SUPERBOWL XLI in Miami, Florida. Ok - is this blog now sponsored by the NFL? No, in fact the Superbowl attraction millions around the globe on tv and regularly raking up the highest viewer numbers of any shows on tv really wouldn’t need any promotion from this blog. So, why are we suddenly posting about an american football game? Well, I could just say that I am looking forward to seeing the game - which would be true but is not really enough reason to post here. No, the real reason is … there is a connection between the Superbowl and Disney that is often forgotten and which I therefore would like to point out again. And no, I am not talking about ESPN or ABC here. We are talking show here!

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Tatiana Hancheroff was the young Canadian singer who performed the theme song for Disney’s ImagiNations Parade at Disneyland Paris and was on-site for the parade’s premiere during the Millennium Celebration. Even so the parade ended its run prematurely the song ”All Around The World” by Vasile Sirli and Jay Smith is still frequently used by the Disneyland Resort Paris. E.g. it played last summer season when the characters drove down the Main Street, U.S.A.

After her performance on Central Plaza during the official premiere of the parade Tatiana Hancheroff disappeared from the radar of Disney fans … but now she is back.

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It all started in December 1901 when Walt Elias Disney was born!

Happy

Birthday

Walt

You will life forever in the hearts of all the Disney fans in the world!