Happy St. Patrick’s Day – Tune In to Some Irish Talk on Disney

 by Ray Keating

Commentary

DisneyBizJournal.com

March 17, 2024

 

Enjoy some Irish talk about Disney on this St. Patrick’s Day!

Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #820: Walt Disney’s Irish Heritage  – With St. Patrick’s Day upon us, Ray interviews Chris Lucas, author of “Top Disney,” about Walt Disney’s embrace of his Irish heritage.

 

Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #821: Life-Changing Irish Seafood Chowder  – With St. Patrick’s Day upon us, Ray declares his love for the Creamy Irish Seafood Chowder at #RaglanRoad in #DisneySprings.

 

Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #822: A Great St. Patrick’s Day Movie  – Ray argues that the ideal St. Patrick’s Day movie is The Quiet Man. And what does that have to do with Disney?

 

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Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com; and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries, the Alliance of Saint Michael novels, and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.

 

The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

 

The Disney Planner: The TO DO List Solution combines a simple, powerful system for getting things done with encouragement and fun for Disney fans, including those who love Mickey, Marvel, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pixar, princesses and more.

 

Consider other books by Ray Keating, including…

 

• The Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries. There are 19 books in the series now.

 

• Cathedral: An Alliance of Saint Michael Novel is at Amazon. 

 

• Order The Weekly Economist III: Another 52 Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist.Signed books here and Kindle and paperback editions here.

 

• Order The Weekly Economist II: 52 More Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist. Signed books here.  And Kindle and paperback editions here.

 

• The Weekly Economist: 52 Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist. Signed paperbacks at RayKeatingOnline.com or paperbacks, hardcovers and Kindle editions at Amazon.com.

 

• The Lutheran Planner: The TO DO List Solution combines a simple, powerful system for getting things done with encouragement, inspiration and consolation from the Christian faith.

 

• Signed editions of Ray’s books are at www.raykeatingbooksandmore.com. 

 

Also, check out Ray’s podcasts – the Daily Dose of Disney, Free Enterprise in Three Minutes, and the PRESS CLUB C Podcast.

Disneyland Gave Birth to Doritos

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

February 1, 2024

 

Did you know that Doritos were born in Disneyland?

 

There was a restaurant called Casa de Fritos in Frontierland that existed until the 1980s. They included Fritos corn chips with every meal. They also had a machine where you’d put in a coin and a robotic Frito the Kid would give a shout to have his unseen miner assistant, Klondike, send a bag of Fritos down a chute. Kids loved it.

In the early 1960s, the restaurant used to have a lot of leftover corn tortillas, their main culinary product. Instead of wasting them, their cooks turned them into something resembling the Mexican snack known as totopo. 

 

They would slice them into triangles, fry them, and add basic seasoning that tasted like Mexican chilaquiles. They called them “Doritos,” a contraction of the Spanish word “doradito” (little fried golden thing.)

Customers at Disneyland couldn’t get enough.

 

In 1966, Frito Lay started selling these “Doritos” in stores, with the original Disneyland flavoring. Taco flavored Doritos were introduced in 1967. Nacho cheese Doritos came along in 1972. And 1986 saw the advent of Cool Ranch Doritos.

 

The original Doritos logo was modeled on the staggered squares and font of the original Disneyland entrance sign. Both were later changed.

Thanks largely to their annual Super Bowl commercials, Doritos are now the best-selling brand of tortilla chips in the United States.

 

Did you ever visit Casa de Fritos in Disneyland? What’s your favorite Doritos flavor?

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

 

Support the Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating podcast – and by extension Disney Biz Journal – at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1724143. Subscribe at the $8 or $10 level, and get The Disney Planner: The TO DO List Solution by Ray Keating. Remain a supporter and you'll get a FREE BOOK by Ray Keating every six months going forward. Thanks!

“I’m Going to Disney World” Super Bowl Ad Marks Anniversary

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

January 25, 2024

 

On this day, in 1987, the very first “I’m going to Disney World!” ad was created.

 

This iconic advertising campaign is officially called "What's Next?" It was first launched right after Super Bowl XXI, which was played between the New York Giants and Denver Broncos at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on January 25, 1987. The Giants won the game 39-20.

Giants quarterback Phil Simms, the game’s MVP, was asked as he was running off the field following the victory: “Hey, Phil Simms, you just won the Super Bowl, what are you going to do next?”

 

His answer, “I'm gonna go to Disney World!” was said with a big grin. 

 

It seemed like an impromptu response. In reality, the line was scripted for Simms. He was paid $75,000 for it. John Elway, the quarterback of the Broncos, was given the line and the money, too, just in case.

 

The ad, which featured a montage of Phil Simms’ heroics in the game, underscored by “When You Wish Upon a Star” and finishing with fireworks over Cinderella Castle, began airing just a few hours after the Super Bowl.

It was a smash hit. Almost instantly the line “I'm going to Disney World!” became a national catchphrase. It was an indelible part of the pop culture landscape, soon parodied on TV shows and movies and imitated in other advertisements.

 

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner gives credit to his wife, Jane, for the idea. She claims to have come up with it after overhearing a friend who had just completed a difficult task reply, “I'm going to Disneyland!” when asked what they were going to do next.

 

In addition to Super Bowl winners, Disney produced “What's Next?” commercials with champions from other sports, as well as with Santa Claus, college graduates at commencement, and American Idol winners.

 

Disney ran the spots for 17 consecutive Super Bowls until 2005, when they decided to focus their marketing campaign in other directions. The public outcry after the cancellation convinced Disney to return to the spots. 

 

They did a pre-game commercial in 2006 with members of both the Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks, who played in Super Bowl XL, practicing how they would say the line if they won. (The real honor eventually went to the Steelers' Hines Ward and Jerome Bettis.)

 

The ads stick mostly to football now, and often feature more than one athlete (they also have them say two lines, “I'm going to Disney World” and “I'm going to Disneyland” for commercials specific to both coasts), but they almost never fail to bring the same lump in the throat they did when first aired, over three decades ago. It’s a tradition that people - even non-football fans - look forward to every year.

 

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

 

Support the Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating podcast – and by extension Disney Biz Journal – at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1724143. Subscribe at the $8 or $10 level, and get The Disney Planner: The TO DO List Solution by Ray Keating. Remain a supporter and you'll get a FREE BOOK by Ray Keating every six months going forward. Thanks!

Most Powerful Scene in “Miracle on 34th Street”

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

December 23, 2023

 

The Oscar winning 1947 FOX movie “Miracle on 34th Street” is on TV quite often this season. It is also available for streaming on Disney Plus.

 

It’s a classic and heartwarming movie on its own, but one scene, in particular, stands out for me and is often overlooked.

The brief “Dutch Girl meets Santa at MACY’S” scene is very moving, but even more of a tear jerker when viewed in context.

 

The five-year brutal Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, which ended just two years before this scene is set, left thousands of children - especially Jewish ones - without parents, many sent to camps never to return while their children were hidden for safety with kindhearted and courageous friends and relatives. 

 

After the war, multitudes of Americans came forward to adopt these Dutch war orphans, who had witnessed horrors that no child ever should, as well as thousands of other refugees and immigrants from all over Europe and Asia. 

 

What this shy little girl says to Santa in Dutch when he asks her what she wants more than anything else for Christmas is, roughly translated:

 

“I don’t want anything from you Santa Claus, I only want to be able to stay here safe with this nice American family who adopted me from the orphanage.” 

 

Then, she looks over at her adoptive mother with wide eyes and gives her a beaming smile.

 

Tears. Every. Single. Time.

 

The magic of Santa. 

 

The power of love. 

 

All in one scene. 

 

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

Haunted Mansion, Halloween and a Disney Author

 by Ray Keating

Lifestyle

DisneyBizJournal.com

October 26, 2023

 

Halloween is upon us, so it’s time to chat about the Haunted Mansion, scary and not-so-scary movies, costumes, and more. 

Chris Lucas is an actor, voiceover artist, stand-up comic, a TV and movie historian, and Disney expert, including being the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond. Chris joined DisneyBizJournal.com’s Ray Keating on the PRESS CLUB C Podcast to talk about Chris’ return to stand-up, and pretty much all things Halloween, including the Haunted Mansion (park rides and movies), Universal Monster movies, Disney’s forays into spooky stuff, and the critical debate over which 60’s TV show was better – The Addams Family or The Munsters. 

 

Other burning questions are asked and answered. Why do Harry Potter films seemingly fit better at Christmas than at Halloween? And what’s the deal with the Twilight Zone, or lack thereof, at this spooky time of year? And what does The Odd Couple’s Oscar Madison have to do with Halloween?!

 

Enjoy the conversation in the PRESS CLUB C’s “Episode #125: Haunted Mansion and Halloween Movies with Chris Lucas.”

 

__________

 

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com; and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries, the Alliance of Saint Michael novels, and assorted nonfiction books. Have Ray Keating speak your group, business, school, church, or organization. Email him at raykeating@keatingreports.com.

 

The views expressed here are his own – after all, no one else should be held responsible for this stuff, right?

 

Support the Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating Podcast at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1724143. Subscribe at the $8 or $10 levels , and get The Disney Planner: The TO DO List Solution by Ray Keating. Remain a supporter and you'll get a FREE BOOK by Ray Keating every six months going forward. Thanks!

 

Consider books by Ray Keating, including…

 

• The Pastor Stephen Grant thrillers and mysteries. There are 18 books in the series now.

 

• Order The Weekly Economist II: 52 More Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist. Kindle editions and paperbacks via Amazon here and signed books here. And don’t forget the first book in this growing series, i.e., The Weekly Economist: 52 Quick Reads to Help You Think Like an Economist at Amazon.com.

 

• Cathedral: An Alliance of Saint Michael Novel is at Amazon. 

 

• The Lutheran Planner: The TO DO List Solution combines a simple, powerful system for getting things done with encouragement, inspiration and consolation from the Christian faith.

 

• Signed editions of Ray’s books are at www.RayKeatingOnline.com. 

 

Also, check out Ray’s podcasts – the Daily Dose of Disney, Free Enterprise in Three Minutes, and the PRESS CLUB C Podcast.

Disney Legend Floyd Norman Turns 88 - First Full-time African American Animator at Disney

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

June 22, 2023

 

Happy 88th Birthday to Disney Legend Floyd Norman, who was hired as an artist by the Walt Disney company at age 22 to assist on the classic film Sleeping Beauty, and is still producing great work in many fields.

He became the first full-time African American animator at Disney, a groundbreaking moment in film and U.S. civil rights history.

 

After Walt Disney’s death in 1966, Mr. Norman branched out on his own, with his business partner, animator/director Leo Sullivan, to found Vignette Films.

 

Together, they produced six award winning animated films, one of the first companies to produce cartoons on the subject of black history.

Mr. Norman also had a hand in the look and storylines of early Sesame Street animation segments, Fat Albert & The Gang, Josie & The Pussycats, Jabberjaw, The Smurfs, SuperFriends, Alvin & The Chipmunks, Pac Man, and many other Saturday morning favorites.

 

He’s been involved in Disney and Pixar projects for decades and has been honored by many film and African American organizations as a true pioneer in his field.

 

He’s also one of the last active artists who worked directly with Walt Disney.

 

I feel blessed that I got to spend some time chatting with Mr. Norman when he was at two of my book signings at Walt Disney’s personal backyard Train Barn (which Walt built himself) in Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Mr. Norman and his legendary career, there’s a great documentary called “Floyd Norman: An Animated Life,” available for purchase online. 

 

Happy Birthday, Mr. Norman!

 

__________

 

Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

Disney Not Only Studio Celebrating 100 Years – A Great Salute to Warner Brothers

 by Chris Lucas

Review

DisneyBizJournal.com

June 7, 2023

 

I recently finished watching the brilliant new documentary on MAX about the 100 year history of Warner Brothers, written and directed by the amazing Leslie Iwerks and narrated by Morgan Freeman. 

 

I’m a Disney guy first, but Warner Brothers holds a special place in my heart.

Mickey and the gang are fun, but the anarchic behavior of Bugs, Daffy and the rest of WB’s Looney Tunes taught generations about comic timing (and was our introduction to opera.) 

 

I grew up in the late 70s/early 80s, when Warner Brothers was cranking out hit after hit. 

 

Christopher Reeve’s Superman really did make us believe he could fly, Clint Eastwood was the ultimate stoic tough guy and Spielberg’s Gremlins and Goonies were the stuff that (kids') dreams were made of.

 

Then... 1989 and Tim Burton’s Batman. The one that changed it all.

This documentary is a great trip down Hollywood’s memory lane.

 

It was also a reminder of how powerful a player Warner Brothers became on television in the 1990s with Friends, ER, The West Wing and others, a streak that continues to this day.

 

I especially loved Baz Luhrmann’s reminder about the collective power of seeing movies in a theater with a crowd. There’s nothing like it, which is why Studios like WB are still around.

One of the other things I enjoyed about this new documentary is how they explained that in the early days of Hollywood, studios like Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia, and FOX were seen as also-rans compared to Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) which had the biggest stars and the biggest budgets.

 

Disney wasn’t even close to being a power player, and yet they are the only studio that survived without ever being owned by another company.

Ironically, Warner Brothers now owns the classic MGM library of films, after Ted Turner’s Company (now owned by WB) acquired MGM in 1996. Ted Turner sold the famous MGM Culver backlot, where classics like Gone With The Wind, Singin’ In The Rain, and The Wizard of Oz were filmed. It’s now home to Sony/Columbia, but they still have a giant rainbow leading to soundstage 27, the home to Munchkinland.

 

I highly recommend 100 Years of WB on MAX.

 

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

 

From America Sings to Splash Mountain to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

January 23, 2023

 

America Sings to Splash Mountain? The following are photos of characters from America Sings, which was an attraction in Disneyland that opened in 1974. 

It used the rotating theater that formerly held the Carousel of Progress. There were many people upset over the change at the time.

 

America Sings was designed to celebrate the upcoming Bicentennial in 1976.

Shortly after it opened, sadly, an 18 year old cast member was killed on the attraction. They closed it for a few weeks, then it reopened. 

 

In 1983, Tony Baxter had an idea for a log flume at Disneyland. America Sings was past its Bicentennial prime, and made no sense in Tomorrowland, so they decided to build another attraction in the park around the characters from America Sings. The log flume fit the bill. 

 

To have that make sense, Baxter lifted three of the characters and some of the music from Song of the South, a movie that Walt Disney himself had pulled from the regular seven year release rotation of Disney films, after protests during its initial 1946-1947 time in theaters.

 

Baxter intended to call his ride “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Run.”

 

Disney CEO Michael Eisner suggested naming the ride after the hit 1983 Disney movie Splash - which made no sense.

 

America Sings closed in 1988, Splash Mountain opened shortly after that. 

Splash Mountain was a ride using animatronics from an obsolete Bicentennial attraction with a dark history, characters from a movie that most of the public wasn’t familiar with, and the name of a film about a mermaid. 

 

An odd combination. 

 

Splash Mountain had a popular run, but the time has come for a new story on Disney’s log flume.

 

The attraction and all of its elements (boats, cute critters, great music, a protagonist in trouble, dastardly villains, a few small drops and then a big one, just before a joyous ending) will remain pretty much the same. Disney has a habit of incorporating classic attractions in a re-theme, and they will likely keep some nods to Br’er Rabbit and his friends. 

 

Farewell, Splash Mountain. Welcome, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

 

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

 

On the PRESS CLUB C Podcast, enjoy two of Ray’s discussions with Chris Lucas. The first was about Chris’ career as an actor, author and Disney expert. Tune in right here! The second was a chat about the Disney World’s 50 anniversary. Listen here!

Disney Essentially Created the Central Florida Economy

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

April 21, 2022

 

Walt Disney and his older brother/business partner Roy appeared at a November 15, 1965, press conference at the Cherry Plaza Hotel in Orlando, Florida, near Lake Eola, with conservative Florida Governor Haydon Burns. There, they officially announced to the world what a few had already suspected: that they were the mystery buyers of almost 30,000 acres of bog and swamp land in Central Florida.

 

Source: Chris Lucas

To say that this was one of the most important dates in Florida’s history is no understatement. It instantly made Florida a power player. It ranks right up there with Ponce DeLeon's arrival in 1513, and the opening, four centuries later, of the highways and rail systems connecting the northeast and Midwest to the Sunshine State.

 

To put it in perspective: Before Disney set up shop, most visitors to Florida - around 8 million a year - were wealthy folks from northeastern cities headed to the beaches or to the coasts, and usually only from November to March. The swampy, marshy, lake filled interior of the state was overlooked desolate land used largely for agricultural purposes. 

 

Now, over 75 percent of the 120 million people, mostly middle class, who visit Florida from all over the world in an average year spend their time in the greater Orlando area, never venturing anywhere else in the state. 

 

In 1965, there were less than 400,000 people living in central Florida, and it accounted for just 10 percent of tax revenue to the state. Today, it's one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the country, with close to four million residents, and provides well over 50 percent of Florida's tax revenue. 

 

Walt passed away just about a year after this press conference, so he never actually got to see the finished version of Walt Disney World. Roy broke ground for his late brother Walt’s Florida project - renamed Walt Disney World in his honor - in 1967.

 

It marked the immediate transformation of a sleepy, farming state of just six million people into an economic powerhouse today where 21 million live and work in the 15th largest economy in the world, bigger than that of the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia or Taiwan. 

 

The presence of Walt Disney World alone has brought thousands of related businesses to Florida and has generated more than five billion dollars for the state on its own. 

 

The economic, political and social environment that is Florida today owes a lot to the fateful decision of Walt Disney to come to Central Florida. It includes:

 

- $75 billion annual economic impact for Central Florida. 

- 500,000 jobs. 

- and the sales tax collected just on the 55 million Walt Disney World tickets sold in an average year, which is around $415 million. That’s more than what the state of Florida will spend on school construction and maintenance or the entire Department of Elder Affairs budget.

 

Disney pioneered land-use planning and growth management in Florida by setting off land not to be developed from the very beginning of construction and keeping it pure and preserved. 

 

The idea of mapping out the natural systems for a 38-mile region and confining development to the least environmentally sensitive areas was unheard of in 1960s Florida. 

 

Disney also struck a deal for self-sufficiency in roads, sewage, waste disposal, utilities and emergency services that took the burden off of local taxpayers and was the model for decades to come. 

 

Florida owes a tremendous debt to Walt Disney, to Roy Disney, and to their successors, up to and including current CEO Bob Chapek.

 

Florida as we know it wouldn’t be the same without them. Thanks, fellas! 

 

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

 

On the PRESS CLUB C Podcast, enjoy two of Ray’s discussions with Chris Lucas. The first was about Chris’ career as an actor, author and Disney expert. Tune in right here! The second was a chat about the Disney World’s 50 anniversary. Listen here!