Disney Magic #28: What if Sherlock Holmes...Was a Mouse?

In Disney's 26th animated feature, we meet a mouse by the name of Basil who happens to live in the cellar of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. And like Sherlock, Basil has his very own Watson (Dawson), his very own Mrs. Hudson (Mrs. Judson), his very own Moriarty (Professor Ratigan) and his very own pipe (a mouse sized pipe) Basil of Baker Street takes the case to find a missing toy maker, defeat Ratigan and save the queen and all of mousedom.

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Disney Magic: Our Top Ten... So Far

In this special bonus episode, we acknowledge the fact that we are about halfway through the Disney movies so we take the time to each make a top ten list of the twenty five movies that we've seen so far. Everything from Snow White to The Black Cauldron is potentially among these lists. Tune in to see what movie (or movies) takes our number one spots.

Direct Download Link Here.

Disney Magic: Our Top Ten... So Far

In this special bonus episode, we acknowledge the fact that we are about halfway through the Disney movies so we take the time to each make a top ten list of the twenty five movies that we've seen so far. Everything from Snow White to The Black Cauldron is potentially among these lists. Tune in to see what movie (or movies) takes our number one spots.

Direct Download Link Here.

Weekly Disney Roundup: March 25,2012

So the biggest news of this week you've probably already heard, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. Glen Keane is leaving Disney. You can read his full resignation letter here. It's pretty sad, to be honest. He was responsible for so many amazing characters and is just a damn amazing animator. I'm kind of hoping he continues to animate somewhere else, but I know that he had a heart attack a few years ago during the production of Tangled, so he might just be leaving for his health.

In less depressing news, here's the first trailer for Epic Mickey 2! Supposedly it's a musical game? We're a little confused as to what that means. Song numbers maybe? I've played through a bit of the original, and while I like the idea the controls felt pretty glitchy. So I can't say that I'm dying to play this, but it does look fun!

Did you know there's an officially named rose called the Disneyland rose? This is it! So bright and pretty. You can read a little more about the process of choosing a rose to suit the name (and the park!) over here.

How darling are these pictures? From the Disney wedding blog.

Disney Magic #27: The Black Cauldron, or Disney Goes PG

This week's movie may be the most frightening Disney movie yet. With an army of the dead, scary castles, Possibly the most visually unsettling villan yet, and more than a few creepy sequences, The Black Cauldron more than earns its PG rating. Based on Welsh Mythology, this is a very different version from Disney's usual take on princesses, castles, and dragons.

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The Many Appearances of the Aracuan Bird

As we make our way through the Disney Lineup, I think that one of our favorite discoveries has been the Aracuan Bird, a wildly crazy bird that appeared in The Three Caballeros and seemed to exist only to make life difficult for Donald Duck. Needless to say, everyone was thrilled when the crazy bird returned for a segment in Melody Time called "Blame it on the Samba."



So I began to wonder if perhaps there wasn't another time when the Aracuan Bird might have been featured in another movie or perhaps a short. So I took to the internet and as luck would have it I found not one but two shorts featuring the Aracuan Bird.

Clown of the Jungle


The first of the two was from 1947 which actually places it between his appearances in The Three Caballeros and Melody Time. Again, Donald Duck is the main subject of the bird's tormenting as his attempts to photograph the birdlife of the jungle are constantly foiled by the Aracuan's madcap interferences. This short has actually proven to be popular around the world and in Norway & Sweden it is shown as a part of From All of Us to All of You, a Disney Christmas Special that airs every year on Christmas Eve.

Bird Brained Donald


The second short that featured the Aracuan Bird came from 2000 as part of Mickey Mouse Works and later Disney's House of Mouse and this time features Donald trying to get a picture of the Aracuan Bird for Daisy Duck, and as expected, failing miserably. Unfortunately, the Bird does not sing his trademark song in this short but it's tune can still be heard in the background throughout.

Weekly Disney Roundup: March 18, 2012

There's a new interactive adventure coming to the World Showcase at Epcot! It's Phineas and Ferb themed, which is awesome. I'm assuming this one will replace the Kim Possible one that was around long after the show was done.

Newsies opened on Broadway this week! So awesome.

Walt's original notes on the Disneyland entrance sign! Too cool.

Storybook Circus soft opened this week at Disney World! The fancy giant new Dumbo is open as well as The Barnstormer, a new rollercoaster. You can see more pictures here!

Disney Magic #26: The Fox and The Hound...And The Bear as well, Apparently

This week's movie return to the sadder side of Disney with The Fox and The Hound. Instead of the "fairy tale" style of story that Disney is famous for, we get an animal story closer to the vein of Bambi. We get a friendship between a pair of two unlikely characters and a story with surprisingly deeply themes about society pressures.

Direct Download Link Here

Weekly Disney Roundup: March 11, 2012

Disney's latest cruise ship, the Disney Fantasy, was christened this week. I don't particularly care that much, but I do love seeing celebrities with Disney characters, and Neil Patrick Harris is adorable with Minnie :D More famous people with Minnie and Mickey here!

This post was the funniest thing I've seen all week.

So in case you're still not excited for Brave, you should watch this Japanese trailer. Here's a rough translation I found from lilyliqeur on tumblr:

Narrator: From long ago, the humans and the forest lived peacefully together…Until the laws of the forests were broken.

Writing: Born as princess…

Queen Elinor: Listen here, Merida in order to be a proper Queen, you need refinement/elegance and endurance.

Writing: A Girl who fights for her freedom

Merida: Living like this every day is too constraining.

Writing: Her name is Merida

Merida: Please, let me meet the witch

Witch: Tell me your wish

Merida: I want to be free

Witch: This is a charm that will change your fate.

(I can’t understand what that deep voice is saying, unfortunately)

Queen Elinor: This is very sinister… The forest is making an uproar

King Fergus: What on Earth is going on?

Writing: The humans must follow the laws of the forest

Random character: The law of the forest has been broken. This means war!

Queen Elinor: What exactly did you do in the forest?

Merida: This is all my fault…

Queen Elinor: Long ago, the laws of the forest was broken by a Prince who used magic, and because of that the kingdom crumbled.

Merida: Is this the forest’s curse?

Merida: Help me!

King Fergus: The time has come!

Merida: I have to protect the kingdom.

Witch: You won’t be able to reverse the curse once the sun comes up.

Background character: Hurry! To the forest!

Queen Elinor: Merida!

Merida: Mother!

So yeah, that sounds awesome. Much more plot and excitement than the American trailers/clips!

This is not a real movie, sadly. Instead, it's some excellent photoshop work by an artist named Pascal Witaszek. Sad, but still very cool.

Disney Magic #25: Bianca and Bernard, Rescue Rangers!

This week we watch what many consider to be the end of an era as far as Disney Films go. While there's less slapstick and broad humor as some of the earlier movies we've seen, The Rescuers makes up for with a story of high adventure, intrique, kidnapping, and mystery.

Direct Download Link Here

Weekly Disney Roundup: March 4, 2012

So Disney had developed, created, and even soft-opened an exhibit at Epcot called Habit Heroes that was suddenly shut down indefinitely this week. Basically it made a bunch of fat villains that threatened to make you fat and evil like them unless you danced. Yeah. This is pretty ridiculous to be honest, I'm surprised a project like this got this far. There's more info about the actual exhibit here and more about the problems with it here.

A redditor shared this photo of Disneyland's Space Mountain with the lights on and proved that it does not consist of space or a mountain. Very depressing indeed. Source.

Why yes, that is a photo of Neil Degrasse Tyson posing with Pluto. The irony and awesomeness are not lost on me.

This has been circulating around Tumblr and it doesn't stop being hilarious and extremely depressing at the same time.

I love this. People are really big about choosing favorites and fighting over which park is better, it's really lovely to see them united in awesome :D (I'm just going to entirely ignore all of the youtube comments because they completely missed the point, as is typical of youtube comments) It was also for kicking off One More Disney day! 24 hours in a Disney park must be exhausting but I'm still so jealous of those who got to go!