Weekend Update for July 19, 2008
It's Weekend Update time again already! SummerInFL takes us on a tour of two exhibits in Disney's Hollywood Studios. Also this week, guest correspondent pussnboots takes us on a whimsical photo tour of the trashy side of Disneyland Paris, sir clinksalot shows us inside the Animation building at Disney's California Adventure and TDLFAN has prepared a historical tour of some memorable moments in Disney parks around the world. Our "Summer Vacation" report this week comes from MiceChatter SusieP. who shares some photos of her big adventure in London, England.
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida
This week SummerInFL takes us on a photo tour of two exhibits at Disney's Hollywood Studios. First up, The American Film Institute Showcase at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
Right now their current exhibit is "Villains: Movie Characters You Love to Hate".
It's a walkthrough attraction that people see at the end of the Backlot Tour. If you want to skip the tour, just walk in through the gift shop that is near the Monster's Inc. meet and greet.
Recently added costumes from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian:
The recently refurbished Davy Jones organ.
They also had Queen Narissa's (played by Susan Sarandon) dress from Enchanted.
And her sidekick Nathaniel's costume, played by Timothy Spall.
100 Years of Film.
The Chronicles of Narnia exhibit has been freshened to reflect the latest installment of the series, "Journey Into Narnia: Prince Caspian".
You first watch a short video presentation by the director, Andrew Adamson.
Then you enter the chamber where they show a short video clip summarizing the film.
As you exit they have various items and costumes from the film to peruse.
Disneyland Paris
Paris, France
This clever photo essay was sent to us by MiceChatter pussnboots. This may be the most comprehensive photo study ever done of the trash cans of Disneyland Paris.
pussnboots' complete Disneyland Paris trip report, "Strikes, Indian Bankers and Trash Cans: a Week at Disneyland Paris" can be found here. It's worth a look-see. He does take photos of things other than trash cans and he has an engaging writing style, too.
Disney's California Adventure
Anaheim, California
sir clinksalot shares this interesting series of photos taken in the Disney Animation building in Disney's California Adventure. The central lobby features a dizzying 360° array of rear projection movie screens showing clips from Disney animated features.
How many of your favorite Disney movies can you count in the following photos?
London, England
MiceChatter SusieP. recently had a big adventure across the sea in London and shares some of the high points with us.
Summer time at Windsor Castle.
The London Eye and Aquarium, as taken from Westminster Bridge
Westminster Abbey. Jeremy Irons is the voice on the English audio guide and I had no idea that church history could be so sexy!
Alas, no photos are allowed inside.
Tower of London.
This is where the moat used to be. You can see the water line on the stone wall. Up the hill is where they would have the public executions; more high profile people would be executed behind the castle walls.
This is Traitor's Gate, where the prisoners would arrive by boat via the Thames outside. This way it was harder for them to be rescued by their supporters at the last minute - very smart. Pretty much everyone came through the Tower at some point or another, including Elizabeth I, as everyone was trying to make power plays for the throne. One of the first famous people to be executed here was William "Braveheart" Wallace.
A chopping block! Anne Boleyn was beheaded here, but they did her with a sword instead of an axe, and I can't imagine that was a very easy task. Hopefully she had a very delicate neck.
This is a very cool display in the armory, inside the White Tower, which is the middle building at the Tower of London. This represented each king's horse and his choice of weapons and armor that he used. You can read the names on the banners above each horse.
The Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge, because that one is quite regular and boring).
Inside the British Museum (which is free, by the way!)
We picked up a kids' backpack that led us through an educational scavenger hunt, that came with a read-aloud guide and activities to do. This was also a free service and very cool. Our backpack theme was mummies.
Mummy cat.
And mummy alligator!
This is called the Tree of Life and was made in Mozambique. After their 15 year civil war, there was concern about the amount of left over weapons still lying around, so they did this art project and used gun pieces to create this sculpture.
Finally, a Rosetta Stone that I can touch!
All of these people were standing in the rain in their fancy dress to go here...
...and have tea with the Queen! (Buckingham Palace)
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag, at St. Paul's Cathedral.
TDLFAN will take a hiatus from the Weekend Update next week as he prepares to bring you photos of Tokyo Disneyland Resort's new offerings for this summer season... but in the meantime, he has reached back into his photo archives and takes us westbound around the world on a trip through memorable moments at Disney's Lands on Earth.
Let's begin in Anaheim, CA during Disneyland's 50th anniversary (2005)
4th of July... DL's way (2005)
Let's go across the pacific to Tokyo JP and TDL as they celebrate "Cinderellabration" (2005)
It's a night full of Blazing Rhythms during TDL's 20th anniversary (2003)
Pirate Nights light up the sky at TDL, and gets guests soaked to the bone in the process... (2007)
Let's go south to Hong Kong as HKDL celebrates Chinese New Year's Disney style (2007)
Mickey's Waterworks Parade gets guests wet in excitement! (2007)
Let's go west and land in the city of lights... Paris, as DLP lights up the castle for Christmas (2007)
"Wishes" makes it's Paris debut! (2005)
Finally... we fly across the atlantic and end up in sunny Florida... and WDW's MK lights up the sky during the Princess and Pirates Party (2007)
We finish our 'Round the World tour' in grand style as the MK proudly presents... Xmas Castle Dreamlights! (2007)
We're taking some time off from the Eye Spy feature while we evaluate its place in the Weekend Update column.
Here's your Eye Spy Answer from last week:
Photo prop inside Tokyo Disneyland's Disney and Co. gift shop in World Bazaar.
And that brings us to the end of another week. Our photographers have just enough time to reload their cameras before we see you all again next weekend. Thank you to all of our wonderful readers, and as always, a huge thank you to our amazing team of global photographers, spies, and gossips:
Jack Hollywood 1939 Wixom
TDLFAN
Denise nbodyhome Preskitt
SummerInFl
PhotoMatt
Fishbulb
sir clinksalot
MickeyMaxx
A very special thank you to our wonderful guest photographers pussnboots and SusieP. for sharing their vision with us.
Your Editor - Rixter
If you have interesting theme park shots that you would like to share with the readers of the Weekend Update, please send a message to dustysage@aol.com, it is readers like you who make MiceChat such a special place.
Don't miss a single one of MiceChat's Featured Blogs (including the Weekend Update). Add our feed to your favorite feed software or site: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Micechat-Featured
Total Comments 17
Comments
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Great update. All of it was fascinating and made my heart pitter patter. I would actually love to have a room in my house like the animation studio lobby. It's so magic. It would have to be sans the high level volume, but still, could you imagine eating dinner at a huge table in that room? AWESOME!Posted 07-19-2008 at 05:17 AM by Petchaurus
- I would hate to see you delete the Eye Spy feature. I don't know any of them, but they're interesting. Me likey them!Posted 07-19-2008 at 05:58 AM by Marko50
- I enjoy the eye spy feature. Please keep.Posted 07-19-2008 at 08:58 AM by thunderbird
- This is a terrific update and I love reading it each Saturday morning but I recieve no joy from the eye spy portion. No matter how many times I go to the park, I am not going to reconize a close-up of the flood lamp on the roof of the Hungry Bear.Posted 07-19-2008 at 09:57 AM by toemblem
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I loved the Trash Can photos... but this being DLP, it's too bad these have cigarette butt holes which smear them dirty... and reason why there are some cigarette butts on the floor around some of those trash cans.. which are too pretty for the abuse they endure.Posted 07-19-2008 at 10:02 AM by TDLFAN -
Thanks for posting those excellent photos of the beautiful waste cans in Paris, and going the extra mile by presenting both perspective photos and formal elevations of the designs. They are really gorgeous.Posted 07-19-2008 at 10:29 AM by Katella Gate -
Great pictures!Posted 07-19-2008 at 10:44 AM by WheresMickey -
I love the weekend update and really love it when MC'ers share their vacation photos, I adored the pictures of London.Posted 07-19-2008 at 10:50 AM by pratt55 - Very nice update as always, however I think a little more information is needed, I was left wondering what the Tower of London was all about. Was it primarily a place of execution? I found in wikipedia that it is a fortress, palace and a prison. Just a minor suggestion.Posted 07-19-2008 at 11:29 AM by Disneykin Kid
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I'd like to give major kudos to Rixter, who spends many hours every Friday night putting this together for us. Having done the first few weeks of these myself, I can tell you that it takes forever to get the pictures together, watermark them, put them in order, upload them to our image server, reassemble the code, put in the text format, and write all the copy.
That is gets done every week is amazing. That it is always entertaining is a miracle.
(and for those asking for more information about the pictures, Rixter gets what he gets. We rely on the people who submit the pictures to tell us what they are of - there really isn't very much time for research at 11:50 pm on a Friday night)Posted 07-19-2008 at 12:14 PM by Dustysage -
Every picture was amazing. I would love to have some of those trash cans for my house. I think it would be cool if you could buy them.Posted 07-19-2008 at 01:24 PM by Craigroy8287 -
I didn't want to overwhelm this little overview with all of the history of every place we went to in London, as much as I would have liked to hijack the whole thing with a history lesson. The Tower of London was actually intended as a stronghold and a royal residence and the Queen still keeps a house there to this day (complete with a guard marching about in front, even though she's not there.) Eventually it became the prison that it is known for, and mostly due to all of the executions that happened there. I'm glad the pictures made you go out and discover some new information!Posted 07-19-2008 at 02:02 PM by SusieP. -
Aw shucks! Thanks Dustysage for your kind remarks. I really enjoy putting this together each week. I have the privilege to work with such a talented group of contributors. They really make it easy for me.
I have noted that the comments on EyeSpy are mixed which reflects the conundrum that we have now. I'm thinking along the lines of an EyeSpy type feature, but with a twist. I need to talk to our photographers about this. I'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, thanks for reading Weekend Update!Posted 07-19-2008 at 04:00 PM by Rixter
Updated 07-19-2008 at 09:10 PM by Rixter - Love the update. Those trash cans looked much better than during my trip to DLRP 2 years ago, and it's not because of new paint. On my trip, they were all overflowing with trash, and had garbage piled along side them. I was really shocked by the mess around what otherwie is an absolutely gorgeous park.Posted 07-19-2008 at 06:56 PM by Instidude
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GREAT update! I have been planning for quite a while for a "World Of Disney" trip. I have a friend in Australia who actually has done this. But, I want to do this myself. This update really has me truly riled up to continue to save the money to do this! Love it! Please, more, more MORE!!!! Ha!Posted 07-20-2008 at 04:12 AM by DisneylandManFan -
Awesome.. awesome.. awesome.. as usual!Posted 07-21-2008 at 01:42 AM by Giddy4Aladdin -
I, too, would like to see the Eye Spy feature continue in some form. I mean, we all know that when it comes to the Disney parks, the magic is in the details! Even if I can't identify the object, I still enjoy having them brought to my attention.
Thanks for all your hard work putting this fun update together every week, Rixter!
-JonPosted 07-21-2008 at 03:34 PM by triesch
