Mousekingdom Blog

Beloved actress Estelle Getty, who created the timeless role of Sophia Petrillo on the Disney / ABC hit series ”Golden Girls”, died on Tuesday, July 22, 2008, only three days before she could have celebrated her 85th birthday.

In her role of Sophia on “Golden Girls” she became a close family member to millions around the world, the Sicilian mother of us all - we loved with her, prayed with her and shared the most intimate moments of Sophia with her - especially when she swung her oversized purse, she tokk along for every ride. Like none other could have done Estelle Getty gave Sophia a heart, a soul and made us laugh every day again - whether we saw an episode the first time or on a re-run.

Estelle Getty had her breakthrough in Hollywood as Sophia after years of minor parts. The success on “Golden Girls” finally opened the doors for her to the big screen, where she stared in several movies including “Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot”, next to Sylvester Stallone. Mostly forgotten is that she had success on the theater stage as well, and nowhere else than on the Broadway, where she created the role of Harvey Fierstein’s mother in “Torch Song Trilogy”.

Her death on Tuesday morning ended her suffering from Lewy Body Dementia which she had ailed under for several years already. The team behind the Mousekingdom Blog wants to express it’s heartfelt condolences to her family and friends.

And to you, Estelle - Sophia: you will never be forgotten and always stay our big Sicilian mother … wait for us with your big purse…

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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The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced the 60th Primtime Emmy Awards nominations and Disney has some of their talent and productions in the running too.

In the category Outstanding Children’s Program Disney managed to get three of the five nominated entries. Hannah Montana, High School Musical 2 and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. While I would love to see The Suite Life win I think the title will go to HSM2.

Outstanding Choreography is another category where Disney is present. Again for High School Musical 2. This for the routines; ‘What Time Is It?’, ‘Fabulous’, ‘Work This Out’, ‘I Don’t Dance’, ‘You Are the Music In Me’, ‘For One’. Although not a fan of the High School Musical movies, I do understand they are nominated for this category. The choreography is good and fun, but will it be enough to win? Personally I hope that one of the three “So you Think you Can Dance” routines (either Hummingbird and Flower / ‘The Chairman’s Waltz” ,“Transformers / ‘Fuego” and “Table / ‘Sweet Dreams”) will make it as the choreography in this program is awesome. This show is proof that dance is an amazing art form, but unfortunately so many people still don’t (want to) see it.

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Europe is a massive market so expanding a brand their could bring millions of new costumers. Disney is well aware of that and is now looking into expanding their TV market in Europe. Obviously not completely new (like I can enjoy the Disney Channel on my Sky box), there is enough new viewers that can come on board. Disney is looking at a possible growth of 100 million households within 5 years…

The UK (via sky) and Spain for example already have a pay TV channel, but it could be that Disney might expand their TV market by offering a Free channel in other countries.

Picture (first Disney Channel Logo used from 1983-1997) copyrights: Disney

If you don’t mind watching a movie on your PC you might find the following Disney news interesting. Disney will stream full length movies via their website Disney.com.

The movies will be on Disney.com from Monday through Friday after their ABC broadcast the preceding Saturday night as “Wonderful World of Disney” presentations. “Peter Pan” will be the last movie to stream, ending its run August 8. (Yahoo News)

The other movies you’ll be able to see online are “Monsters, Inc.”, “Haunted Mansion”, “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen”, “Princess Diaries 2″ and “Freaky Friday”. Personally I will not watch the movies online, I might be a little old school here (although a Semi-PC Geek), the movies, I like to watch them on a TV set. On the other hand, I do think it will be a success to a whole new generation that uses their PC for all media.

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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Just a short post for all fellow LOST fans in Germany: FOX (the all new tv-station on air as of May 19 via satellite and as of May 20 in the cable of UnityMedia) announced that the season premiere of LOST’s season 4 (currently on air in the US) will be aired on June 15 (a Sunday).

It is that time of the year again - no, not awards, even so I had one of those posted about for Brad Bird. I am talking about the time the stations decide which shows will be allowed to return for another season. According to the TAG Blog decisions for two of Disney’s animated shows have just been made:

“The Replacements” (on the Disney Channel in the US, on Toon Disney in Germany) will not get a third season but will end after 52 episodes. In the meainte “Phineas and Ferb” got picked up again and an order for 26 and 13 episodes seems to have been placed. “Phineas and Ferb” in the recent months managed to garner fans on the Disney Channel in various age groups and is currently also introduced to the European market. E.g. guests visiting the all new “Stitch Live!” attraction at the Walt Disney Studios Paris at Disneyland Resort Paris are introduced to the show during the pre-show.

Disney’s international mega hit “LOST” might soon be banging the drum for FOX, one of the big competitors of Disney’s network ABC. No need to worry if you are in the US. Certainly the fifth season will be back on ABC. What I am talking about is Germany.

The first four seasons of “LOST” in Germany premiered on “Premiere”, a pay tv station to move on to the free tv station “Pro7″ roughly six months later. While Premiere is a partner of Disney as it also provides the platform via which the Disney Channel is offered in Germany, Pro7 is “just” a regular customer for Disney tv products. But now “Premiere” seems to be out of the picture…

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Disney has unveiled their Japanese version of Stitch’s television animation series, where he will be accompanied by a young Japanese girl who is skilled in karate. The Japanese version will take place on a fictional island in the subtropical southern chain of Okinawa.

In the three-minute pilot version, the girl, tentatively named Hanako, and other characters dance to the tunes of traditional Okinawan music while eating a bowl of rice with chopsticks. (AFP)

Picture copyrights Disney

As an add-on to my earlier review of the third episode of “Me Tarzan, You Jane” I have to report about the ratings of the episode - and those are even worse than the actual tv show. While the show was able to gain some ground from an entertainment point of view it seems the tv audiences have given up on it - and who couldn’t understand this considering the first two episodes? The third episode managed to attract pretty much the same number of viewers as thes econd episode, to be “exact” 1.37 million viewers (in all age groups) equaling a total marketshare of 4.4% (see report by Quotenmeter).

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I promised it (or should I say: I threatened it?) - I would review the third episode of what in the meantime can only be called the failed attempt to promote the Disney stage musical TARZAN in Germany … the casting show “Ich Tarzan, Du Jane” (Me Tarzan, You Jane). Enough introduction…

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Another update for fans of ABC’s hit series “LOST” in Germany: Quotenmeter contacted the German pay-tv station Premiere to inquire about the fourth season of LOST. Since Pro7 announced that it will broadcast the fourth season of the show as of fall 2008, the silence of Premiere, which broadcasted season one to three prior to their free tv premieres, was rather surprising.

The official statement of Premiere regarding the 4th season of LOST? Premiere is interested in once again obtaining the pay-tv rights for the latest season but hasn’t acquired them yet. Instead negotiations are ongoing… so let’s all hope Premiere get’s rights and we once again can enjoy the episodes without any ad-breaks!

It’s part of the business - and part of the real world: just as brands are ubiquitous in today’s world (just look around your desk, there is a brand on your monitor, your keyboard and many other items lying around) so are they in the movies. The only difference between the movies and the real world: movie producers in some cases get paid to present certain brands and their products in a favorous position. Sure, not all brands popping up in a movie (or tv series) might actually be paid for product placements as some might just be necessary in a director’s view to present ouor real world corrently, but quite a few are paid for.

Anyway, everytime a brand pops up on the screen (whether paid for or not) influences the image of the brand and how we as viewers recognize it. Therefore it is really interesting to see which brands show up in which movie. BrandChannel.com does a great job with this in its weekly BrandCameo category for the movies ruling the US box office. Right now there are two Disney features in the list…
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Just a short shout to all fans of LOST in Germany: According to an interview with Jürgen Hörner on the website DWDL Pro7, the free tv station which aired season 1 to 3 of ABC’s mega hit, announced that it will broadcast the fourth season as well - despite the not so stellar ratings of the third season. At this time it is assumed that prior to the free tv broadcast on Pro7 the German pay-tv station PREMIERE will broadcast the fourth season of LOST (as it also did with season one to three).

And now on to the fans of DESPERATE HOUSWIFES: Pro7 is also the German home of ABC’s “Desperate Housewifes” which are a rating hit in Germany as well (different than LOST). As Pro7 already did last year, it currently airs the same season of Desperate Housewifes that is airing on ABC in the US. And just as last year the season will be aired in two halfes: one right now and one after a summer break. The summer break will come rather soon, though, as only the first 9 episodes will be shown before the break - on the other hand this gives Pro7 a great (rather windy) cliffhanger. It also solves the problem of the strike related delay of new episodes in the US, which are only now being filmed.

This might be old news (really old news, in fact news from 2004) but I came across it only today and just had to share it: in 2004 the (at least) third child born in the USA was named after Disney’s sports network: ESPN - to be pronounced as Espen in the boy’s name. Prior to Rebecca and Michael McCall naming their son ESPN Malachi McCall, a couple had named their son “Espn Curiel” in 2000 in Chorpus Christi and enother boy in Michigan had been named “Espen Blondeel” in the same year. According to a report on the website of ESPN the McCalls actually got they idea to name their son ESPN by hearing about another couple naming their boy after the Disney sports network.

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It started out bad and has become worse - at least rating wise. Past Friday the second episode of the casting show “Me Tarzan, You Jane” was broadcasted on Sat.1 in Germany. And the search for the future Tarzan and Jane in the German premiere of Disney’s musical version of its animated hit movie “Tarzan” managed to loose parts of its way too small audience. From a total of 1.54 million viewers (5.0% of the market) the show went down to 1.35 million viewers, equaling only 4.4% market-share - as Quotenmeter reported. Whatever one personally thinks the show has to be considered a bomb by now. The German media business website DWDL even calls it a “megaflop”.

This is especially true if one considers that the second episode was the last episode covering the actually auditioning phase. Starting this Friday the “recall”-phase will beginn, in which the jury reduces the number of contestants during singing and dancing classes before viewers will be entering the game later-on in live shows. If the successful German version of “Pop Idol” is anything to go by, ratings have a tendency to go down (at list a bit) once the auditioning phase and the more serious recall-phase starts. If this trend should show up for “Me Tarzan, You Jane” it might spell doom for the show, as there isn’t much of a viewer-base to loose audience from in the first place. Just for comparison: the 5th season the German version of “Pop Idol” past Saturday had its first live show (after the auditioning and the recall recaps) and even with a slight downturn in the numbers it sill managed to attract more than three times as many viewers as “Me Tarzan, You Jane”: 5.15 million viewers (17.3% market share) according to Quotenmeter.

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