Feast, a new short from first-time director Patrick Osborne (head of animation for Paperman) and Walt Disney Animation Studios, is the story of one man’s love life as seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.
Kirby Buckets Premieres Tonight on Disney XD
Disney XD is set to premiere Kirby Buckets, a new comedy series following the outrageous adventures of a young aspiring animator, tonight, Monday, October 20 (8 p.m., ET/PT). The single-camera series that mixes live-action and animation stars Jacob Bertrand as the title character.
Kirby is joined by his animated characters, each with their own vibrant personality that only he and viewers can see.
Kirby Buckets introduces viewers to the vivid imagination of charismatic 13-year-old Kirby Buckets, who dreams of becoming a famous animator like his idol, Mac MacCallister. With his two best friends, Fish and Eli, by his side, Kirby navigates his eccentric town of Forest Hills, a place where the trio usually find themselves trying to get out of a predicament before Kirby’s sister Dawn and her best friend, Belinda, catch them. Along the way, Kirby is joined by his animated characters, each with their own vibrant personality that only he and viewers can see.
ABC Family’s 16th Annual 13 Nights of Halloween to Begin Airing Sunday, October 19
ABC Family brings the thrills and chills with 13 Nights of Halloween, a celebration filled with scares as you count down to Halloween. The popular programming event, now in its 16th year, starts Sunday, October 19th and concludes on Friday, October 31st. The fright fest features brand-new Halloween-themed episodes of Melissa & Joey and Baby Daddy, an all-new Pretty Little Liars fan-appreciation special, plus the hilariously scary prank special Freak Out.
The stunt will also include the network television premieres of Dark Shadows and ParaNorman, along with a ghoulish mix of Halloween-themed programming.
See This Fan-Created LEGO Haunted Mansion and Other Disney Ideas for LEGO Sets
Last Halloween we featured D23 Member Matthew Heid and his stop-motion LEGO Haunted Mansion music video, in which he created scenes from the Magic Kingdom version of the attraction out of LEGOs.
His YouTube video caught the eye of Imagineers and he ended up celebrating Madame Leota’s birthday at the Disneyland Blue Bayou restaurant with Kim Irvine, art director for Disneyland and the daughter of Madame Leota.
Well, it seems like Matthew isn’t the only one interested in a LEGO version of the Haunted Mansion.
Several Haunted Mansion fans submitted proposals to LEGO Ideas
—a program that lets fans create their own LEGO sets, gather supporters, and if their idea gets picked, then it becomes a LEGO product sold around the world. It’s a pretty cool program and it is all based on votes from supporters.
In this version, conceived by a creator who goes by the name “NeverBrick,” you can see how he or she designed the set to open up and reveal some popular scenes from the attraction. On the LEGO Ideas proposal page, the fan has also proposed featuring a Hatbox Ghost LEGO figure to be added if the set is picked.
The Haunted Mansion fan has even re-created some of the memorable portraits from the attraction’s stretching room out of LEGOs. The Disney and LEGO fan created the project to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Disneyland attraction.
There is another Haunted Mansion project on the LEGO Ideas website that was created by “DisneyFan55” and is somewhat similar to NeverBrick’s version of the Disneyland attraction. This set has several add-on playsets that include popular scenes and additional characters from Haunted Mansion.
And if Haunted Mansion isn’t your thing, then you should check out what Disney and LEGO fans are creating for Frozen. This version of Elsa’s ice castle created by “Fohzen” is pretty fantastic and is well on its way to getting enough supporters and the chance to be reviewed by the LEGO Ideas team. There are quite a few other Frozen playsets on the site inspired by scenes from the movie and built out of LEGOs.
I guess it gives new meaning to “Do you want to build a snowman?”
Marvel Television and Disney XD Announce New Original Animated Television Series Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Production has begun on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, an upcoming animated television series for Disney XD, featuring the hugely popular characters introduced in the record-breaking Marvel Studios film of the same name. The announcement was made by Jeph Loeb, Marvel’s Head of Television, at New York Comic Con. Produced by Marvel Television, the series stars Peter Quill as Star-Lord, the brash adventurer who, to save the universe from its greatest threats, joins forces with a quartet of disparate misfits—fan-favorite Rocket Raccoon, a tree-like humanoid named Groot, the enigmatic, expert fighter Gamora and the rough-edged warrior Drax the Destroyer. The series will premiere in 2015 on the Marvel Universe programming block on Disney XD.
With the success of its recent theatrical release, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy have joined the Avengers and Spider-Man as one of Marvel’s most prominent franchises.
Premiering in August 2014, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy debuted to rave reviews and a $94 million opening weekend—the largest August opening in North American history. The film has become the most successful domestic release of 2014, topping the box office for four weeks since its release.
Neil Patrick Harris to Host the 2015 Oscars®
Show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced that award-winning star of stage and screen Neil Patrick Harris will host the 87th Oscars®. This will be Harris’ first time hosting the ceremony. The show will air live on ABC on Oscar Sunday, February 22, 2015.
“We are thrilled to have Neil host the Oscars,” Zadan and Meron said. “We have known him his entire adult life, and we have watched him explode as a great performer in feature films, television and stage. To work with him on the Oscars is the perfect storm, all of his resources and talent coming together on a global stage.”
It is truly an honor and a thrill . . .
“It is truly an honor and a thrill to be asked to host this year’s Academy Awards®. I grew up watching the Oscars and was always in such awe of some of the greats who hosted the show,” said Harris. “To be asked to follow in the footsteps of Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Ellen DeGeneres and everyone else who had the great fortune of hosting is a bucket list dream come true.”
“Neil Patrick Harris is highly energetic and a definitive entertainer,” Paul Lee, president, ABC Entertainment, added. “We are thrilled to have him as our 2015 Oscar host.”
A Fan’s Obsession With Haunted Mansion and an Inside Look at Memento Mori
Rumors have been whispered for years about the little shop that once was the abode of Madame Leota.
While she disappeared many years ago, it has been said her visage appears now and then and her voice, carried on the breeze, is sometimes heard, humming a mournful tune.
The Imagineering backstory just told continues the tale of one of Haunted Mansion‘s most famous apparitions, Madame Leota. The ghost-lebrity that has since moved on to “regions beyond” is the inspiration for the new shop located in Liberty Square at Magic Kingdom Park in Walt Disney World.
More than 100 Haunted Mansion merchandise items populate the store, and Memento Mori contains a unique Spirit Photography experience where a guest’s image can be magically transformed into an 8″ x 10″ image of a spirit or ghost.
The D23 team wasn’t able to check out the shop firsthand, but D23 Member Holly Frey was able to give us the lowdown on this creepy new crypt. Based out of Atlanta, Georgia, Holly and her husband Brian are quite possibly the biggest Haunted Mansion fans out there, and she describes the shop as “walking into our own personal heaven.”
The couple has been married for 18 years and they have found a way to drag the Haunted Mansion to the dead center of their lives in every way possible. For starters, they love Master Gracey and the crew so much that they named two of their cats after Disney Legends and Imagineers Rolly Crump and X Atencio.
“The Haunted Mansion‘s design style is near and dear to our hearts,” Holly says.
“I adore Victorian-era everything, and we both have a taste for the macabre. Brian’s favorite things in the mansion are the singing busts in the graveyard. I’m partial to the ballroom and all the delicious furniture.”
When the spirited couple went house hunting, it was paramount that they found a home that would fit their Haunted Mansion lifestyle, meaning it would look good painted black and purple, of course. “Our décor taste is definitely not neutral,” Holly laughs. “We wanted to incorporate the style we love so much from the attraction with our own twist on it. When we first walked into the house we’d eventually buy, we knew the second we saw the foyer that we wanted to paint a large-scale version of the famous wallpaper damask there to greet visitors.”
The two Mansion maniacs are always creating something newly inspired by the attraction. Brian works as a graphic artist and Holly has been sewing since she was a kid so there is no Haunted Mansion-inspired project that is too big or too small for them to take on. “We love building and creating things, so it’s a natural progression for us to express our love of the Haunted Mansion through artistic endeavors,” Holly says. “We’ve always wanted more Haunted Mansion merchandise than was available, so we just took matters into our own hands. That’s is why I started sewing Haunted Mansion dresses, hats and handbags, as well as resin-casting my own jewelry. One of my dreams is to write a Disney sewing and crafting book.”
When they walked into Memento Mori Holly and Brian were right at home. “There was a great deal of excited gasping,” Holly says. “Of course, we wanted everything, but we managed to keep the indulgence down to a dull roar. That way we’ll always have things to buy on future visits. One of the items we just had to have from the shop was the Haunted Mansion sign–we’re still putting finishing touches on our dining room, and it will look perfect alongside a blueprint of the attraction that friends gave us as a gift.”
“Another thing I got terribly excited about was actually the placemats. Not because I have table-setting plans for them, but because I can take them apart and use the fabulous prints to make more things! I have a new handbag in the works already, and additional ideas are percolating all the time.”
“But even though there were heaps of lovely things to admire and carry home with us, I actually think the highlight of Memento Mori may have been the cast members. They all seemed just as excited as we were to have the shop open and welcoming applicants for the Mansion’s 1,000th happy haunt. Could the two of us count as one for that position?”
As Holly and Brian left their visit to Memento Mori, now their new favorite haunt in Magic Kingdom, something magical materialized. “The Halloween fireworks were going off,” Holly remembers. “And it was one of those perfect moments that only happen in Disney.”
ABC Kicks Off Halloween-Themed Programming
ABC celebrates the scariest night of the year with Halloween-themed programming, kicking off tonight, Wednesday, October 15, 2015.
Highlights include:
- The beloved animated special, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (tonight, Wednesday, October 15, 8:30–9 p.m. ET)
- Ghoulishly good times with The Chew (beginning Monday, October 20, 1–2 p.m. ET)
- The return of fan-favorite special, The Great Halloween Fright Fight (Tuesday, October 28, 8–9 p.m. ET)
- A Wednesday night family comedy block of tricks, treats and laughter with The Middle (Wednesday, October 29, 8–8:30 p.m. ET), The Goldbergs (Wednesday, October 29, 8:30–9 p.m. ET), Modern Family (Wednesday, October 29, 9–9:31 p.m. ET) and new comedy series black-ish (Wednesday, October 29, 9:31–10 p.m. ET), along with an all-new Cristela (Friday, October 31, 8:31–9 p.m. ET)
Click here for programming details.
First Look at Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Animated Series, Tomorrowland, and Big Hero 6, and More News Briefs
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy TV Show to Premiere on Disney XD in 2015
Marvel announced at New York Comic Con that production has begun on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, an animated series to debut on Disney XD in 2015. The above video, which features Rocket Raccon in action, is test footage of the series, which will also star Peter Quill as Star-Lord, everyone’s favorite tree-like humanoid Groot, expert fighter Gamora, and warrior Drax the Destroyer. The series will be part of the Marvel Universe programming block on Disney XD.
First Trailer for Tomorrowland Debuts at New York Comic Con
At New York Comic Con last week, Walt Disney Studios previewed a teaser trailer for Tomorrowland, a riveting mystery adventure that stars George Clooney in a film directed by two-time Oscar® winner Brad Bird. The film features a screenplay by Lost writer and co-creator Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird (from a story by Lindelof & Bird & Jeff Jensen). The first theatrical poster for the movie was also released.
Tomorrowland tells the story of a jaded scientist and an optimistic teen who embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space. The film opens in U.S. theaters on May 22, 2015.
Save the Date!
Be sure to mark these upcoming Disney events on your calendar:
| D23 and Walt Disney Archives Summer and Fall 2014 D23 Disney Fanniversary Celebration November 8 Walt Disney Studios and Archives Tour November 11 The Hunchback of Notre Dame VIP Experience November 22-23 Destination D: Attraction Rewind at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Walt Disney World Through January 4, 2015 Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives, presented by D23: The Official Disney Fan Club at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago August 14-16, 2015 D23 Expo 2015 returns to Anaheim, California Television October 20 Kirby Buckets debuts on Disney XD at 8 p.m. ET/PT. |
Parks September 1, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23, 26, and 28; and October 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, and 31 Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties at Magic Kingdom Park September 26, 30; October 3, 6, 8, 10, 14, 17, 20, 22, 24, 27, 29, and 31 Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland Resort November 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, and 30; and December 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 19 Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Parties at Magic Kingdom Park Studios November 7 Big Hero 6 opens in theaters. December 25 Into the Woods opens in theaters. March 13, 2015 Cinderella opens in theaters. June 19, 2015 Inside Out opens in theaters (along with the short Lava). |
Big Hero 6 Sizzle Premieres at New York Comic Con
Disney fans in attendance at New York Comic Con were treated to a new sizzle for Walt Disney Animation Studios’ upcoming release, Big Hero 6. Check out the above video for a sneak peek at the film, which hits theaters this November 7.
Star Wars Rebels to Air on ABC with Special Guest Darth Vader
The new, critically acclaimed animated series Star Wars Rebels has premiered in its regular time slot (Mondays, 9 p.m. ET/PT) on Disney XD. But ABC has announced that a special broadcast of the movie Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion will air on Sunday, October 26 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Star Wars fans will be even more excited to learn that this broadcast will feature an added scene that gives additional insight into the Inquisitor character—and includes a cameo by Darth Vader, voiced by none other than actor James Earl Jones.
Here Come the Disney Brides
Alfred Angelo, America’s oldest and foremost bridal company, has introduced its 2015 Disney Fairy Tale Weddings bridal collection. The latest line includes dresses inspired by eight of the Disney Princess characters and a bridal gown inspired by Elsa from Disney’s Frozen. To learn more and see the Princess-inspired dresses, visit D23.com.
Check Out This Fan-Made, Shot-For-Shot Remake of The Empire Strikes Back
The folks at Lucasfilm have shared The Empire Strikes Back Uncut (aka ESB Uncut) on StarWars.com. The film features more than 480 fan-made segments, that have come from more than 1,500 submissions from fans, who used everything from action figures to homemade props to impressive visual effects. This shot-for-shot remake project was launched in 2013, and was helmed by Casey Pugh, who previously oversaw the 2010 Emmy®-winning Star Wars Uncut. Visit StarWars.com to also see fan-made Star Wars guitars and to learn about the Star Wars Fan Film Awards.
ABC Family’s “25 Days of Christmas” Begin December 1
From December 1 until December 25, ABC Family will again help viewers ring in the holidays with new holiday episodes of original series, holiday specials, and returning favorites. Highlights this year include original holiday episodes of Melissa and Joey, Baby Daddy, Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters, Switched at Birth, and Chasing Life; the network-television premiere of the movie Arthur Christmas (Saturday, December 6, 9 p.m. ET/PT); the ABC Family debut of the new Christmas special Toy Story that Time Forgot (Sunday, December 7, 8 p.m. ET/PT); and a marathon of Rankin Bass holiday classics on Sunday, December 21, a lineup that includes The Little Drummer Boy, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, and The Year Without a Santa Claus. ABC Family will kick off its annual “Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas” on Sunday November 23.
ESPN Invites You to “Cheer Your Disney Side”
ESPN is asking college cheer and dance teams to create a 30-second Disney Parks-inspired routine that shows how you feel when you visit one of the Disney Parks. Teams that participate can download remixed Park-attraction music, create a cool and unique routine to show off your Disney Side, and upload your routine by November 10. The winning team earns a team trip to Walt Disney World and $100,000 for your school’s spirit program. Visit the official page to find out more about how you and your team can Cheer Your Disney Side!
Marvel Celebrates 75 Years with Primetime Special on ABC
On Tuesday, November 4, Marvel will celebrate its 75th anniversary with an hour-long primetime special at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ABC, Marvel 75 Years: From Pulp to Pop! The special—hosted by Emily VanCamp (Revenge, Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier)—will take fans through the decades, from 1939 to present, and will also offer an extraordinary peek into Marvel’s future.
Disney.com Presenting Fun and Frights for the Entire Family
Visit Disney.com/Halloween to find Halloween-themed content throughout the month of October. Disney.com’s Haunted House features themed not-so-scary stories told by Disney Blogs, trick and treat ideas inspired by Disney Family, and a costume destination brought to you by Disney Store.
Pants on Fire Premieres Sunday, November 9, on Disney XD
Disney sitcom star Bradley Steven Perry (Mighty Med, Good Luck Charlie), Joshua J. Ballard (Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days), and Disney XD-favorite Tyrel Jackson Williams (Lab Rats) star in the comedic adventure Pants on Fire, an original movie premiering Sunday November 9 on Disney XD (7 p.m. ET/PT). The funny, fantastical story introduces 15-year-old Jack Parker as all the lies he’s ever told suddenly become real—including a possessive girlfriend, a roving duo of alien body snatchers, and Mike, the made-up friend that Jack claims to tutor. Now it’s up to Jack (Bradley Steven Perry) and his buddy Ryan (Joshua J. Ballard) to figure out who or what is behind this crazy situation. The film is directed by Jon Rosenbaum (Mighty Med, Austin & Ally) from a script written by Alex Cramer.
Disney Interactive and Gameloft Release Cars: Fast as Lightning for Smartphones and Tablets
Start your Nitro! Disney Interactive and Gameloft, a leading global publisher of digital and social games are pleased to announce the release of Cars: Fast as Lightning, a new game inspired by Disney•Pixar’s Cars franchise. Cars: Fast as Lightning invites players into what promises to be an exciting and memorable experience within the Cars universe, thanks to unique storytelling and the official voice of Lightning McQueen.
. . . explosive races that can be completely customized with easy-to-use controls
Players of all ages can go up against each other in explosive races that can be completely customized with easy-to-use controls, nitro boosts and many other surprises. From the legendary Lightning McQueen to the brash Francesco Bernoulli, fans can choose to play from among 20 Cars characters and have fun building their own Radiator Springs, home of Lightning and his friends, with iconic buildings and locations from the film, such as Luigi’s Casa Della Tires and Fillmore’s Taste-In.
Cars: Fast as Lightning is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.