Full Ride Through Of Radiator Springs Racers (Video)

WDWNT on March 31, 2012

For the past few days, cast previews have been underway at Cars Land and Buena Vista Street. Today, the first AP Preview took place where you could pay $50 to experience Buena Vista Street and Cars Land. Videos and photos have begun to surface of all thing related to the two new lands. Already up, two videos of Radiator Springs Racers. And to make it even better, this particular videographer got both version of the ride with the tire change and the paint job. Let’s take a look…

WARNING: SPOILERS

 

 Paint Job in Ramone’s

 

Tire Change In Luigi’s

Welcome to the Future: Purchasing Tickets on Smart Phones

WDWNT on March 31, 2012

From Erin Glover of the Disney Parks Blog:

Disneyland Resort guests have a new way to purchase theme park tickets – from their smart phones! Starting today, the Disneyland Resort will begin testing this technology at the Main Entrance during busy times, all in an effort to help guests get their tickets and get into the parks faster to start enjoying their day. This is just one more option for guests, in addition to purchasing tickets at Resort ticket booths or from Disneyland.com.

From your smart phone, go to m.disneyland.com and select “Buy Tickets” from the home page. Right now, only 1-Day 1-Park, and 1-Day Park Hopper tickets are available, but 2-Day tickets will be added to the service later. After entering the number of tickets you want (up to a maximum of 15), and your credit card information, you will receive a confirmation with a barcode that will be scanned as you enter the park for which you’ve purchased your ticket. From there, you will be given a paper park ticket, which is still needed for park hopping or re-entry if you should leave the park and return later.

Theming of Buena Vista Street

WDWNT on March 31, 2012

From Disneyland News:

Expanded Disney California Adventure Park Features New Entrance Themed to Los Angeles of the 1920s and ’30s, When Walt Disney Arrived With Big Dreams and Plans for an Animation Studio

ANAHEIM, Calif., June 6, 2012 – When guests walk into a Disney theme park, they find themselves in a place apart from the everyday world they leave behind. At Disneyland Park, the adventure begins on turn-of-the-century Main Street, U.S.A.  At the newly expanded Disney California Adventure Park, it now begins on Buena Vista Street, a nostalgic look at Los Angeles as it may have appeared to Walt Disney in the 1920s and ’30s when he first arrived in California.

Buena Vista Street welcomes guests to a very specific “Disney California Adventure,” the adventure of a young Walt Disney stepping off the train from Kansas City and into 1920s Los Angeles, the beginning of a wonderful, inspirational period of his life. The dynamic themed environment transports guests to another era, along this boulevard of dreams.

“One of the main things we’re trying to do with Buena Vista Street is create an emotional connection for guests when they walk in,” explained Lisa Girolami, senior show producer and director, Walt Disney Imagineering. “We want people to take in the architecture and the color and the ornamentation, to know where they are and what time it is. The whole street comes alive to put you right there in the steps of Walt when he first stepped off the train in California, with all the optimism and opportunity he felt was there for him at the time.”

On Buena Vista Street, guests board the Red Car Trolley to take a tour and clang-clang-clang their way into Hollywood Land. The tour includes Carthay Circle Theatre, a striking, new Disney California Adventure landmark that stands at the hub of the park, with a beautiful fountain and avenues that lead to the eight themed lands of Disney California Adventure. It’s also home to one of the premier dining locations at Disneyland Resort, the Carthay Circle Restaurant and Lounge. Guests may stroll around a Buena Vista Street “downtown” featuring vintage architecture and a dozen shops and restaurants.

Buena Vista Street Landmarks

  • The new entry turnstiles of Disney California Adventure are inspired by the Pan-Pacific Auditorium. The Pan-Pacific was designed by architect Welton Becket. Disney is said to have consulted his friend Becket when he was planning Disneyland in the 1950s. Becket told Walt he already had all the talent he needed at the Disney Studios. That talent was the creative team that became Walt Disney Imagineering.
  • Entering the turnstiles, guests find themselves in Buena Vista Plaza, a town square with a flag pole, a stop for the Red Car Trolley, and Oswald’s gas station. Passing through the town square, guests walk under Hyperion Bridge(the Disneyland Resort Monorail track), modeled on the concrete Glendale-Hyperion Avenue bridge near Walt Disney’s early Hyperion Animation Studios.
  • Past Hyperion Bridge and into the central entry plaza, which leads into the eight themed lands of Disney California Adventure, guests will find Carthay Circle Theatre, inspired by the motion picture palace where “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” premiered in 1937. It’s the home of the Carthay Circle Restaurant and Lounge.
  • The Carthay Circle Theatre stands 89 feet 6 inches to the top of the cupola spire. It is approximately a ¾ scale to the original Carthay Circle Theatre building. In comparison, Sleeping Beauty Castle stands 77-feet high, with a design that makes it appear taller through forced perspective.
  • The central plaza is also home to “Storytellers,” a statue of Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse. Placed at street level and less monumental than the “Partners” statue in Disneyland, “Storytellers” depicts Walt Disney as a humble, optimistic young man, dreaming of achievements to come, standing alongside Mickey Mouse.

A New Attraction – Red Car Trolley 

  • Inspired by, and lovingly modeled on the historic Pacific Electric Railway system which operated in Southern California from 1901 through 1961, the Red Car Trolley runs through Buena Vista Street and into Hollywood Land, making multiple stops until it arrives at the Hollywood Tower Hotel, aka The Twilight Zone™ Tower of Terror.
  • The red cars of the Red Car Trolley are modeled on two Pacific Electric Railway designs, representing different eras of the system’s history. The attraction evokes the original Red Car line with large windows all the way around the cars, a distinctive single headlight in the center of the front panel, and even overhead “catenary” electrical lines (all part of the show).
  • The Red Car Trolley makes four stops. Trolley car conductors, in uniforms evoking the ’20s time period, call the stops, toot the trolley whistle and entertain guests with historical tales of Buena Vista Street.

Shopping On Buena Vista Street

  • Oswald’s stands in Buena Vista Plaza, just inside the Disney California Adventure turnstiles. The name might have prompted a young Walt Disney to name his early cartoon success, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald’s is actually a shop selling sundry “road trip” vacation necessities: travel mugs, sunscreen, hats and more.
  • On the east side of the central plaza is Los Feliz Five & Dime, themed to a vintage five-and-dime or variety store. The Los Feliz area of Los Angeles is near the site where Walt Disney’s Hyperion studios were built. Los Feliz Five & Dime offers t-shirts, fleece, hats, figurines, souvenirs and more.
  • Big Top Toys features innovative and interactive toys, games and plush inspired by such Disney characters as Tinker Bell, Disney Princesses, Phineas & Ferb and Duffy the Bear. The shop is a nod to the Disney animated film “Dumbo,” which provides much of the inspiration and the background music.
  • Elias & Co. is the largest shopping location on Buena Vista Street and pays tribute to the opulent art deco style department stores of yesteryear, selling apparel, watches, handbags, accessories and more. The Canadian-born Elias Disney was Walt Disney’s father, and Elias was Walt Disney’s middle name.
  • Kingswell Camera Shop, on the west side of Buena Vista Plaza, is headquarters for Disney’s PhotoPass, where guests can pick up their photos taken by Disney’s roving photographers. The shop also sells memory cards, cameras, film, batteries, frames and photo albums. Kingswell Avenue was the site of an early Disney animation studio.
  • Julius Katz & Sons carries a variety of home décor and seasonal merchandise including kitchen gadgets, dinnerware, hand towels and aprons. “Julius Katz” was inspired by Julius the Cat, an animated cat who joined the live-action Alice in Disney’s silent “Alice in Cartoonland” shorts of the 1920s.
  • Atwater Ink & Paint is a Hollywood-style market house selling coffee, tea and other delectable treats to enjoy or take home. The name refers to the Atwater Village district of Los Angeles, a regular haunt of animators in the early days of the Disney Studio.
  • Trolley Treats offers packaged candy as well as signature items from the Disney candy kitchen: hand-pulled taffy, gourmet marshmallows, caramel apples, toffee, dipped strawberries and more. Some are made on the spot by Disney candy makers. Another treat is in the window – a display of Rock Candy Mountain, an attraction designed for Disneyland park but never built.

Dining Along Buena Vista Street

Upstairs at Carthay Circle Theatre is the Carthay Circle Restaurant, one of the premiere dining locations at the Disneyland Resort, with a menu of hors d’oeuvres, salads, soups, California specialty entrees and desserts. Downstairs is the Carthay Circle Lounge, which serves appetizers, wine, craft beer and specialty drinks.

  • Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Café is a diner-style, quick-service restaurant serving soups, salads, sandwiches and beverages, including Starbucks coffee. Guests enjoy a pleasant view of Carthay Circle from the picture window. The café name references the names of the Three Little Pigs in the award-winning Silly Symphonies cartoon.
  • Clarabelle’s Hand-Scooped Ice Cream is a soda fountain and ice cream shop whose name might have inspired the name of one of Mickey Mouse’s friends, Clarabelle Cow.
  • Mortimer’s Market offers whole and cut fruits, bottled water, juices and soft drinks. (Mortimer is the name Walt Disney originally gave his new creation in 1928; he later changed it to Mickey.)

Entertainment on Buena Vista Street

 ”The Red Car News Boys” roll into town on shiny Red Car Trolleys, singing “California, Here I Come!” and other fun tunes from the 1920s and ’30s. The News Boys also deliver the latest “headlines,” in the Buena Vista Daily Bugle.

  • The citizens of Buena Vista Street – a cast of L.A./Hollywood “characters” out of the 1920s and ’30s – interact with guests, creating impromptu laughs, smiles and memories.
  • The musical group Five & Dime adds all that jazz to Carthay Circle “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” This ensemble of friends and relations, led by a vivacious singer named Dime, has travelled Route 66 all the way from Chicago in hopes of making it big. Like everyone who comes to Buena Vista Street, great things await them just around the corner.

Spotlight On: Custom Vinylmation Artist John Ward

WDWNT on March 31, 2012

Destination Vinylmation: What have you been up to lately?
John Ward: I’ve recently been working on holiday themed customs. It started with Evilos’ Blind Bag series 3, I did 4 holiday themed customs for that series, three 3″ customs and one “Grand Prize” 9″, each with sculpted elements.

The 9″ which I call “Christmas at Mickey’s” was very difficult to complete and make it look right. It took a lot of trial and error to make the fireplace look right and function the way I wanted it to.

Having to remove the entire front part of the custom, to add the fireplace element was a new challenge for me, the only other time I’d cut into the main part of a custom was for my “Peter Pan’s Flight”.  Trying to get detail on the tiny paintings that are on the mantle was very difficult.  In the end though, I am very happy with how it turned out.

DV: It seems like you have quite the collection of holliday customs.
JW: Once I finished those 4 pieces, I had been hit by the holiday-themed custom bug.  I made Minnie baking cookies, The Coke Polar Bear, Rudolph the Rose-nosed Reindeer and started on my Nutcracker Series.  I plan on doing 12 nutcrackers in all. It started with Mickey, naturally, and the second one I just finished is Stitch.  The rest of the series isn’t finalized quite yet, but I do know that a Little Green Man, Goofy and Mr. Frederickson will be in it.  They should all be available sometime at the beginning on the year.  I just didn’t have time to complete them for this season.

DV: What’s next?
JW: My next projects are a couple of 9″ pieces. One will require me to cut into the Mickey vinylmation once again. It’ll be interesting to see if I can make the finished piece look as good as it does in my mind, lol.  I got the inspiration for the other piece from something I saw hanging on a rack at the cash register at a local craft store.  I saw it, and instantly though, “That’ll look awesome used with a vinylmation figure.”

DV: How can people contact you?
JW: If anyone is interested in any of my holiday pieces, or my other customs, you can contact me through my email siberianarts@gmail.com. You can also become a fan of my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SiberianVinylmationCustoms.

Spotlight On: Custom Vinylmation Artist John Ward

WDWNT on March 31, 2012

Have your work spotlighted, no matter the skill level. Just email us: DestinationVinylmation@gmail.com
Today we once again spotlight John Ward. He has an amazing custom based on a classic Fantasyland attraction.

Destination Vinylmation: Tell us about how you developed the idea for Peter Pan’s Flight.
John Ward: I wanted to try and come up with something that I hadn’t seen done before, and I wanted to push myself as an artist. The first thing was the I decided that I wanted to try and create something the moved on the Vinylmation, in some fashion. Then I thought that I’d probably be able to create something that would rotate around the outside of the piece, yet still be attached so the it would be all one piece. Once I had the concept for the feature I wanted, I thought about what concept I could use it with. Almost instantly I thought of Peter Pan’s Flight, it’s one of my favorite rides still. So had my concept, ships (the ride vehicles would rotate around over scenes from the ride. The front had to be downtown London, my favorite part of the whole ride. The reverse is Neverland, of course.

After that I had to figure out how to make it all work. How do you have something able to rotate, yet still be attached to the Vinylmation figure. I came up with using a wooden dowel and a lazy susan device.

DV: Besides the moving parts, what was the most challenging part of creating this custom?
John: Trying to sculpt 3 ships that small was quite a challenge, I tried to make them as close to looking like the actual vehicles. I think they turned out rather well, considering the size of them.

Painting the downtown London side was fun, yet very difficult. I had to make sure that the angles were consistent throughout, to where it actually looked like you were looking down from the clouds. I also knew that on one of the ears, I had to put the moon with the silhouettes of Peter and the children.

DV: What’s next and how can people view your work?
I’m currently finishing up my Jafar 2.0 custom. Which is a remake of one of my very first customs. My customs can be viewed on my Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/SiberianVinylmationCustoms or on my website; www.siberianarts.com

Sign of Prices to Come?

WDWNT on March 26, 2012

One of our long time listener/readers Don Sawyer sent us an interesting bit of information today. He told us how he has been in the process of collecting all the variants lately. So he has been diligently following variant sales for some time now. Even he was shocked at this one…

A WDW Park 6 “All Other Guest Areas” variant just sold for $505!!! Don says this by far the highest price he’s ever seen paid for a single variant. Same thoughts here. We do know this particular variant is mostly likely the most rare variant known to Vinylmation. But a $505 price tag? That seems extremely high with very little room for an increase in value here. What are you thoughts? Are there any single figures you would pay this price tag for? What is the most you have ever paid for a single Vinylmation 9″ or 3″?

Director Mickey Figure

WDWNT on March 26, 2012

It appears the Walt Disney Studios Burbank Studio Store is getting a new Vinylmation release. According to @DisneyAllen, the following figure will be released this Wednesday, March 28 at the store which is only accessible to Disney Studio employees.

Right now, this is the only image we have of this Director Mickey. No details about edition size or if it will only be available at this Studio Store event. The event is part of the Disney Store’s 25th anniversary celebration on March 28th. Disney Store Artist Jim Valeri will be on hand from 11:30am – 1:30pm to meet and greet guests. As stated above, this store can only be accessed by Disney Studio employees, so it is a really great exclusive treat for them. They had a similar event with designers of the Animator Doll series.

This sign, also provided by @DisneyAllen gives some of the details. We can’t wait to see this figure and hope it has a wider release. The accessory cap and megaphone look fantastic. If it is not given a wider release, this will probably prove to be one of the hot figures on the aftermarket.

Episode 065 Black/Orange Gear Bear

WDWNT on March 26, 2012

Ep. 065 Black/Orange Gear Bear

This week we talk about the latest news like the Director and Blueprint Mickeys. We also go in depth about the new Monorail: Cars series. And we have a discussion with Annemarie about her custom set of Furry Friends 2 and she also gives some helpful tips to custom artists.

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Blueprints To a Successful Vinylmation

WDWNT on March 26, 2012

Among the large cardboard cut outs of Vinylmation that adorn the windows of Mouse Gears at EPCOT, we occasionally see a design unfamiliar to us. Last week was one such occasion.

This design was stuck next to good old Park 5 chaser Tom Morrow. It appears to be a blueprint. I for one love the design and hope it is part of an upcoming Urban series, as this is a throwback to Urbans of yesteryear that we at DV enjoy so much. What do you think of Blueprint Mickey?

Spotlight On: Custom Vinylmation Artist Annemarie: Furry Friends 2

WDWNT on March 26, 2012

It seems like it’s been a long time coming. Ever since Disney’s Furry Friends series was announced, Annemarie has been talking about all the other characters that also deserve a chance to appear on this modified mold. So she designed a set of 12 and today we unveil her newest customs she calls (the unofficial) Furry Friends 2!

We are excited to share these with you, and i know she is as well. Annemarie also brought the figures to Disneyland for a photo shoot. We also talked to her about these terrific designs.

Copper and Tod (“The Fox and the Hound” 1981)
–

Destination Vinylmation: What drove you to make your own sequel?
Annemarie: I loved the Furry Friends series, I thought it was such a cute idea to give the characters paws. I figured it would be a great opportunity as a custom artist to give the same look to characters I would have liked to see in the original series.

Lady and Peg (“Lady and the Tramp” 1955)

Little Brother (“Mulan” 1998)
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DV: Did any Disney animals narrowly miss the cut of 12 or did you get in everyone you wanted?
AM: Tito from “Oliver and Company” was one I really wanted in, but we’ve already (luckily!) had several characters from that movie, I wanted to give a couple more obscure characters a chance, like Little Brother and Rufus, for example. I also would have loved to get the rest of Scat Cat’s gang in.

Thomas O’ Malley and Scat Cat (“The AristoCats” 1970)

Rufus (“The Rescuers” 1977)
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DV: We will not let the little guys read this next question… Which one came out as your favorite? Why? And did you know this would be your favorite when you designed it, or did the way it came out make it your favorite?
AM: That’s a really tough question. I’ve been working on these guys for over two months and have grown attached to them all! Figaro is probably my favorite, as you might have guessed. He was the first character I designed, and I really wanted him to be in the original Furry Friends series. As soon as I found out he wouldn’t be, I set to work on him right away, so he’ll always have a special place in my heart.

Figaro (“Pinocchio” 1940)

Georgette is one of my favorite Disney characters, so I was also a bit biased towards her before she was even finished. Peg is another favorite. As for ones I didn’t realize would become favorites, Nana probably best fits that category. I wasn’t expecting her to, but I think she came out as one of the best ones. (Scat Cat is another favorite. I love his little hat!)

Georgette (“Oliver and Company” 1988)

Nana (“Peter Pan” 1953)
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DV: Which FF2 was the hardest to design?
AM: Rajah was the hardest. I initially considered doing him from the scene in the movie where Jafar turns him into a baby. So he would be a cute little baby tiger cub. He definitely would have fit the mold better, so to speak, but I thought it would be a bit TOO obscure, and maybe he would be more recognizable if I just did his adult form.

Rajah (“Aladdin” 1992)
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His ears were the toughest part, I was working off a Furry Friends mold that already had ears in the “ears,” so I had to make Rajah’s ears bigger than I would have liked to cover up the pre-existing ears. Such are the trials of covering up an existing design!

Little Leia is interfering with my photo shoot!