Mickey in the Parade

In a few years, I will make it to Disney World in Florida for the Star Wars weekend. I can’t wait to take “the boys” (Carter and Riley) when Riley is old enough.

When we visited Disney/MGM last year, Carter wasn’t quite tall enough to ride the Star Wars ride, so we had to make do with the large AT-AT and Speeder Bike on display. We did manage to catch the parade at MGM (which I highly recommend) and the appearance of Darth Vader, R2, and C3-PO were his highlights for the day. A full Star Wars takeover of Disney would be a blast.

View more photos from the Star Wars Disney weekend on Flickr.

Halloween 1980

While in a Star Wars mood, check out the photos on the Growing Up Star Wars Flickr Photo Pool. Featuring all vintage photos of Star Wars memorabilia, there are lots of photos like the one above. Somewhere in the Duncan archives, there’s a photo me wearing that Yoda costume.

Boba Fett airport promotional image for Star Wars weekends at Walt Disney World.

That’s a hilarious image. It’s one (of many) that will be appearing in Florida airports until the end of June promoting the Star Wars Weekends at Walt Disney World. I can’t wait until we can all go back and ride the Star Wars ride. Carter was about an inch too short this past April when we went, so we just looked at all the Star Wars items in the MGM Park. He got excited when R2-D2 appeared in the parade and said “he’s so silly.” Maybe when we go back, we’ll go for a Star Wars weekend (next year).

One more image from the airport promos. Check them all out here.

Darth Vader airport promotional image for Star Wars weekends at Walt Disney World.

Poster for How to Hook Up Your Home TheaterGrowing up, I was always a Looney Tunes fan more than I was a Mickey Mouse / Disney fan. Having said that, I always got a kick out of the Goofy “How to” series. I remember seeing these on TV, not sure where or when, but they were always hilarious. Goofy usually didn’t talk and a narrator would explain things as Goofy tried them. I remember ones about skiing and football, but there are quite a few more. Now, 46 years later, Goofy will return to the silver-screen with a new short, How to Hook Up Your Home Theater.

How cool is that? Not only is it the format I love, but it’s a subject I love as well (having worked in Home Electronics for years). We recently went to see Meet the Robinsons and the Donald Duck / Chip and Dale cartoon Working for Peanuts was in front of the film. I’ll have to say, the prospect of a new Goofy short would get me to see a film I was only mildly interested in, not that Meet the Robinsons was bad, it was actually quite fun.

Anyway, when Disney and Pixar merged, many predicted that Pixar head John Lasseter would do great as the new head of Disney animation, so far, I’ll have to agree. Not only did he announce the return of traditional animation (The Frog Princess), he also brought back the classic “shorts” that often ran before Disney’s feature films.

Already, a number of the upcoming titles have been leaked, including The Ballad Of Nessie (a stylized account of the origin of the Loch Ness monster), Golgo’s Guest (about the meeting between a Russian frontier guard and an extraterrestrial), Prep And Landing (in which two inept elves ready a house for Santa’s visit) and what we can reveal is now known as How To Hook Up Your Home Theater. This is the much anticipated and very welcome return to the big screen of one of Walt’s most popular characters, Goofy, in an update to the ever popular How To cartoons of the ’40s and ’50s in which a deadpan narrator (usually John McLeish) explained how to play a sport or execute a task, while The Goof attempts to demonstrate, usually with unexpected and disastrous results!

Animated Views has got a great interview with Disney animators Andreas Deja and Mark Henn that reveals a lot more details about the new short. It sounds very “classic” in style. Old style Goofy with no kids or any of the other characters that were added years later in the Goof Troop animated show.

Buzz Lightyear and Carter

Carter and Buzz Lightyear, originally uploaded by allaboutduncan.

You may have noticed a lack of posts last week. You may have also noticed the large amount of Disney related photos on this Photos page or in the Flickr bar on the right. That’s right, we loaded up the family and went to Florida / Disney on vacation.

We spent two days total at Disney. The first day was in the Magic Kingdom (what most people think of when they think Disney World). While we didn’t get to do everything, we did quite a bit and had a great time.

The second day we split between Disney MGM and Disney Animal Kingdom.

MGM is geared to older kids, but Carter still had fun. He loved the 3D Muppet movie and got very excited when he saw Darth Vader, R2-D2, Luke, and Leia in the parade. He was an inch too short for the Star Wars ride, so we didn’t get to check that out.

Animal Kingdom was great and I’d love to go back there and spend more time. The safari ride was worth the wait and the Festival of the Lion King entertaining as well. Still not a lot of rides for Carter. He was a little short for a few and some were still a bit to scary. He’s decided he would he ready for them when he’s 4.

We spent the rest of our time with some of Jill’s relatives, who made us feel right at home. Add in a day at the beach and it was a fun vacation, but a tiring one (with the driving and walking).

Carter was moping for a day or two about how he missed Disney World, but seems to have snapped back to normal now. I have to say, I can’t wait until he is a little older and we can go back and do even more (Star Tours, Haunted Mansion, Epcot, Dinosuar!).