Mickey the Mason

http://www.ocweekly.com/2003-02-20/food/mickey-the-mason
Mickey the Mason
Behind the door of Uncle Walts exclusive Club 33
Dan Kapelovitz
Thursday, Feb 20 2003

Deep in the heart of the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland's semi-secret restaurant Club 33 beats like a pacemaker. Officially, the club is located at 33 Rue Royale in New Orleans Square, near the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. A decorative "33" and an intercom next to a French Quarter-style door are the only markers of the club's entrance. Disneyland's info line says 33 is the product of Walt Disney's "vision of a quiet, elegant place where he could entertain special guests." Sadly, Jesus had other plans, and Mickey Mouse's pappy ascended to that Magic Kingdom in the sky five months before the club's 1967 completion.

With Walt gone, it was decided to allow the public to dine there—or, rather, some of the public. Only card-carrying Club 33 members and their guests can enter the exclusive club. Individual gold memberships run $7,500, plus $2,500 in annual dues. Even if one does have this kind of excess income, there's a multiyear waiting list.

Luckily, W.B. Shaffner and Ana Medina—former owners of Archaic Idiot, a groovy, since-shuttered East Hollywood oddities shop—number among their many ex-customers a Club 33 member. They obtained passes for themselves and psychedelic-sex-cult priestess Giddle Partridge, Death in June front man Douglas Pearce, and noise-music pioneer/Disneyland fanatic Boyd Rice. And me.

After buzzing us in, the hostess directed us to the second-floor dining facilities, decorated with 19th-century antiques and reproductions. There's an oak telephone based on the one in the 1967 Disney film The Happiest Millionaire. Ornate, iron-railed balconies overlook the park's "Mississippi River." In the women's bathroom, ladies sit on an actual throne strategically placed over a waiting toilet. At one time, the club featured hidden microphones and speakers. Although it's rumored that these were installed so Walt could eavesdrop on guests, officially they allowed a Disney performer to entertain dignitaries by talking to them through one of several animatronic birds.

The number 33 is omnipresent; even foil butter wrappers are ordained with the mystical number. Disney literature insists the number is derived from the address. Yet pseudo-addresses on faux streets are obviously whatever Disneyland wants them to be. So why 33? One theory is that Walt Disney was a 33rd Degree Freemason, the order's highest level. And that number's significance? It's the age Jesus was said to have been when he was crucified. However, the Internet urban-legend debunkers at Snopes.com give their own elaborate explanation: after Walt passed away, 33 of the 47 amusement-park participants voted to create the semi-public club. This seems even less likely than the Freemason theory. Could Snopes.com be part of an elaborate Masonic conspiracy? Rice, an avid student of religious symbolism who has dined at the club a few times, says he looks for overt Masonic imagery whenever he's there. The closest he has found to Masonic masonry is at the top of the windows, where there are designs that are almost shaped like an eye.

The staff is superfriendly in that Disneyland way. One extra-supernice waiter dressed in the blue Club 33 uniform told us '70s pop idol Bobby Sherman is a long-standing member who visits often and brings presents to club employees. His autobiography, Bobby Sherman: Still Remembering You, suggests the guy is obsessed with Disneyland. The former star of such TV shows as Here Come the Bridesand Getting Togetherhas made three elaborate scale models of the amusement park, the first when he was only 13.

The cuisine is by far the best in all the land of Disney, which, in itself, isn't saying much. We each ordered the all-you-can-eat buffet—tasty cold cuts, chicken, fruit, beef, a variety of salads, artichoke hearts and pasta dishes prepared by a chef any way you desire. The buffet costs $47, but club guests receive free admission to both Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure. Wine, however, is extra.

Delighted to be in the only place in Disneyland that serves alcohol, Pearce ordered bottle after bottle of chardonnay. Luckily, the Goth rocker from Down Under had plenty of cash in his kangaroo-testicle pouch. We paid the bill and left the heavenly serenity of Club 33 for the reenacted hell of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Club 33 is located at 33 Rue Royale, New Orleans Square, Disneyland. It's members-only.

After Mickey’s Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/business/media/05mickey.html

After Mickey’s Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy
By BROOKS BARNES
November 4, 2009

LOS ANGELES — For decades, the Walt Disney Company has largely kept Mickey Mouse frozen under glass, fearful that even the tiniest tinkering might tarnish the brand and upend his $5 billion or so in annual merchandise sales. One false move and Disney could have New Coke on its hands.

Now, however, concerned that Mickey has become more of a corporate symbol than a beloved character for recent generations of young people, Disney is taking the risky step of re-imagining him for the future.

The first glimmer of this will be the introduction next year of a new video game, Epic Mickey, in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, as he traverses a forbidding wasteland.

And at the same time, in a parallel but separate effort, Disney has quietly embarked on an even larger project to rethink the character’s personality, from the way Mickey walks and talks to the way he appears on the Disney Channel and how children interact with him on the Web — even what his house looks like at Disney World.

“Holy cow, the opportunity to mess with one of the most recognizable icons on Planet Earth,” said Warren Spector, the creative director of Junction Point, a Disney-owned game developer that spearheaded Epic Mickey.

The effort to re-engineer Mickey is still in its early stages, but it involves the top creative and marketing minds in the company, all the way up to Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive.

The project was given new impetus this week with the announcement that, after 20 years of negotiations, the company has finally received the blessing of the Chinese government to open a theme park in Shanghai, potentially unlocking a new giant market for all things Mickey.

Disney executives are treading carefully, and trying to keep a low profile, as they discuss how much they dare tweak one of the most durable characters in pop culture history to induce new generations of texting, tech-savvy children to embrace him. Disney executives will keenly watch how Epic Mickey is received, to inform the broader overhaul.

Keeping cartoon characters trapped in amber is one of the surest routes to irrelevancy. While Mickey remains a superstar in many homes, particularly overseas, his static nature has resulted in a generation of Americans — the one that grew up with Nickelodeon and Pixar — that knows him, but may not love him. Domestic sales in particular have declined: of his $5 billion in merchandise sales in 2009, less than 20 percent will come from the United States.

“There’s a distinct risk of alienating your core consumer when you tweak a sacred character, but at this point it’s a risk they have to take,” said Matt Britton, the managing partner of Mr. Youth, a New York brand consultant firm.

In Epic Mickey, the foundation of which a group of interns dreamed up in 2004, the title character still exhibits the hallmarks that younger generations know: he is adventurous, enthusiastic and curious. “Mickey is never going to be evil or go around killing people,” Mr. Spector said.

But Mickey won’t be bland anymore, either. “I wanted him to be able to be naughty — when you’re playing as Mickey you can misbehave and even be a little selfish,” Mr. Spector said.

In many ways, it is a return to Mickey at his creation. When the character made its debut in “Steamboat Willie” in 1928, he was the Bart Simpson of his time: an uninhibited rabble-rouser who got into fistfights, played tricks on his friends (pity Clarabelle Cow) and, later, was amorously aggressive with Minnie.

Epic Mickey, designed for Nintendo’s Wii console, is set in a “cartoon wasteland” where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations live. The chief inhabitant is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a cartoon character Walt Disney created in 1927 as a precursor to Mickey but ultimately abandoned in a dispute with Universal Studios. In the game, Oswald has become bitter and envious of Mickey’s popularity. The game also features a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck and a “twisted, broken, dangerous” version of Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.” Using paint and thinner thrown from a magic paintbrush, Mickey must stop the Phantom Blot overlord, gain the trust of Oswald and save the day.

Consumers will not be able to buy the game before fall of next year. Anticipation is intense. “Wow! This is amazing,” said Eli Gee on GameInformer.com. “I’m really... REALLY excited.”

Other observers are less impressed. “The approach warrants a lot of caution given the difficulty that publishers have had gaining traction on the Wii,” said Doug Creutz, a media analyst at Cowen and Company.

Industry veterans with experience in the family niche think that the Disney brand can overcome such hurdles.

“This is a huge opportunity to create more relevancy for Mickey and pull him into the fastest-growing entertainment medium,” said Jim Wilson, the chief executive of Atari’s North American business. “If it’s a good game — and given the strength of the developer and I.P., the likelihood of that is high — people are going to buy it.”

Not that the idea is not radical. “I was told to withhold judgment until I had seen the whole pitch,” said Graham Hopper, executive vice president for Disney Interactive Studios.

Disney has big video game ambitions, spending at least $180 million on their development this year alone. It has had successful spinoff titles, but no true self-published blockbusters. Disney generated about $86 million in retail sales from January to September in the United States, according to NPD data. Nintendo of America, the leading seller of games, had about $1 billion in sales.

Mr. Iger solved a right problems with the game by making a deal with NBC Universal in 2006. In the negotiations, Mr. Iger persuaded NBC Universal to trade the Oswald rights for rights to Al Michaels, the sportscaster. NBC wanted Mr. Michaels for its new football franchise and Mr. Michaels wanted to go, but Disney held him in a longtime contract through its ESPN unit.

In the interim, Mr. Spector has struggled with the correct 3-D model of the mouse, consulting with animators and John Lasseter, the Pixar co-founder.

Considerable effort has gone into instilling a backdrop of choice and consequence. Players can either behave in an entirely happy way and help other characters — and have an easier go of it in the wasteland — or choose more selfish, destructive behavior with a harsher outcome, including a Mickey that starts to physically resemble a rat.

“Ultimately,” Mr. Spector said, “players must ask themselves, ‘What kind of hero am I?’ ”

When it comes to Mickey, Disney is asking it, too.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 5, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Disney to expand Fantasyland at Disney World

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58B25O20090912

Disney to expand Fantasyland at Walt Disney World
Sat Sep 12, 2009
Gina Keating

ANAHEIM, California (Reuters) - Mickey Mouse's house and his Toon Town world will make way next year for a vastly larger Fantasyland, in the biggest-ever expansion of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida, Walt Disney Co said on Saturday.

The Fantasyland expansion, whose price tag was not disclosed, will open in two stages in 2012 and 2013 and builds on the popularity of the Disney Princess and Fairies franchises, which have topped $4 billion in global retail sales.

Disney theme parks Chairman Jay Rasulo said the Fantasyland project, which breaks ground next year, will be paid for from funds designated for the theme park division's annual capital expenditures.

Plans call for four Disney Princess characters -- Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" and Ariel from "The Little Mermaid" -- to be featured in "fantasy lands" where park visitors engage in dancing, storytelling or a birthday party with costumed characters from the films.

The expansion includes two new dining spots -- Gascon's Tavern and the 552-seat Beast's Castle. A new underwater ride based on "The Little Mermaid, will be built both in the Florida Fantasyland and at the ongoing expansion of California Adventure in Disneyland.

The second phase of the Fantasyland expansion will be an oversized world based on the fairy world of Pixie Hollow from "Peter Pan," but no other details were available because the attraction was still in early development stages, Rasulo said.

As part of the Fantasyland expansion, Disney plans to double the size of the popular Dumbo ride to add a covered "three-ring circus" waiting area with interactive games and a play area.

Disney Imagineers, who design rides and attractions, said the Toon Town attraction would be dismantled and its popular Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse houses relocated to another section of Walt Disney World.

Rasulo also announced an upgrade to the Star Tours rides at Disneyland in Anaheim and Disney's Hollywood Studio in Florida to open in 2011.

Star Tours simulates a ride through space aboard spacecraft like those in the original "Star Wars" film.

The updated version features new digital 3D effects and projectors that let ride operators vary "destinations," as well as upgrades to the Star Speeder cabins, Rasulo said.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Militant 'Mickey Mouse' pulled off air

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070510/ap_on_re_mi_ea/hamas_mickey_mouse_11

Militant 'Mickey Mouse' pulled off air
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer
Wed May 9, 2007

Hamas militants have suspended a TV program that featured a Mickey Mouse lookalike urging Palestinian children to fight Israel and work for global Islamic domination, the Palestinian information minister said Wednesday.

Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the character — a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice — represented a "mistaken approach" to the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

He said that the program was pulled from Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV at his ministry's request and "placed under review."

The character, named "Farfour," or "butterfly," but unmistakably a copy of the Disney character, preached against the U.S. and Israel each Friday on the show called "Tomorrow's Pioneers."

"You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode. "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."

Children called in to the show, many singing Hamas anthems about fighting Israel.

A spokeswoman for Burbank, Calif.-based Walt Disney Co. did not return phone calls seeking comment, and the Gaza TV station had no comment.

The program was opposed by the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., which is controlled by the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival that shares power with the militants in the Palestinian government.

Barghouti is an independent aligned with neither Hamas nor Fatah.

Loyalists of Hamas, which is sworn to the destruction of Israel, launched the Al Aqsa satellite channel last year. Bearded young men read the news and Islamic music is layered over footage of masked militants firing rockets into Israel. The channel also broadcasts talk shows, programs about the disabled and cartoons.

Hamas loyalists also run at least five news Web sites, a newspaper and a radio station.