WDWNT Gains Exclusive Rights to Broadcast Parade

WDWNT Author on December 23, 2007

LAKE BUENA VISTA,  Fla.— Move over Regis and Kelly, a new Christmas Day Walt Disney World tradition has begun. While the long running Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade taped in early December airs on ABC this Christmas morning, another parade will be making its way down Main Street U.S.A. at the Magic Kingdom. The first annual Christmas Podcast Parade will be broadcast live from Walt Disney World on Christmas day, but it won’t be on any television station. The parade’s creator, Tom Corless, has received the exclusive rights to broadcast the parade on episode 23 of his popular WDW News Today podcast. “Being the creator of this new parade, I felt that I should be the only one airing it, plus, no television channel wanted a parade full of internet stars”, said Corless.

While many people are not aware of the stars of this particular parade, to thousands of Disney fans, they are pseudo-celebrities. Jason Diffendal, Adam Roth, Luke Manning, Steve Swanson, Tom Corless, Brian Sommer and John Corigliano are among the notables from the Disney Online Community to have their own float in this holiday parade. Another star of the community will be taking hosting duties, but he will only be the co-host of a podcasting newcomer, Larry Mongello. McLamb of the Disney News Weekly Podcast gives most of the spotlight to Mongello, who is looking to step out of his brother’s shadow. “With all of my brother Lou’s success, its been hard for me to find my spot in this community”, said Larry. Well, Larry will not have to share the fame this time around, his brother Lou could not make it to the parade due to a scheduling conflict.

This upstart holiday event has garnered some major attention from some big stars, and some people are even looking at this as an opportunity to save face. While Amy Adams and Roz appear in the parade to bask in their fame, Spaceship Earth narrator Judi Dench and Walt Disney Imagineering are using this chance to win over the people. Siemens and WDI have spent the last 6 months working on Spaceship Earth at Epcot as well as a corresponding float for this parade. Judi Dench will ride upon this float in an attempt to gain some good publicity for the attraction, which has been the butt of many jokes over the last few weeks since reopening from its lengthy refurbishment.

Will Larry Mongello become the next big star in the Disney Online Community? Will Disney fans learn to communicate with the new lackluster Spaceship Earth? Will John Corigliano wake up in time for the parade? The only way to find out is to tune in to episode 23 of the WDW News Today podcast on December 25th, 2007 for the First Annual Christmas Podcast Parade live from the Walt Disney World Resort.

To subsribe to the WDW News Today Podcast on Itunes, click this link. Otherwise, go HERE to download the show after it’s release.

Ring in 2008 With A Bang

WDWNT Author on December 23, 2007

Reported by WDWmagic:

This years Magic Kingdom new Year’s Eve show is set to be one of the biggest and loudest ever at the Magic Kingdom. It features all new firework design by Walt Disney World’s Brad Cicotti, who has designed Magic, Music, and Mayhem, the Peace on Earth tag to Reflections of Earth, Epcot’s 25th birthday tag, and the 4th and New Year’s Eve shows at Epcot. This years show will feature a full 360 degree perimeter firework display, including fireworks launched from the island in the Seven seas lagoon. Each perimeter location around the park will be firing 50 shells – the largest ever for a Magic Kingdom show! Enjoy the show!

Behind The Scenes: Deck The Resort

WDWNT Author on December 20, 2007

Back from an extended hiatus is columnist Sparky LD. Good thing too, because our resident Walt Disney World Cast Member is here just in time to talk about the magical holiday season at WDW. So grab some cookies and cocoa, and enjoy another Behind The Secens look from Sparky.

Hey there everyone, back again with another Behind the Scenes look into the Walt Disney World Resort. Since Christmas is only a few days away, let’s use that as our topic for discussion.
Christmas at the Parks is an amazing site. Not only is it beautiful, but how much of it there is and the amount of time it takes in preparation and installation is a modern marvel. A crew of 25 or so work year round in the Holiday Services Warehouse to put together all the trees, garlands, wreaths, and other decor. The Holiday Services Department is responsible for the 4 theme parks, 20 some resort hotels and Downtown Disney. Once Christmas is over, they begin on next year’s displays right away. The Warehouse has racks and racks of ornaments, garlands, tinsels, toppers, etc. These “elves” are also responsible for store window displays around the entire WDW property.
The week before the Christmas season starts, small decor begins to go up. The larger stuff goes up mainly overnight, which doesn’t happen often anymore. Usually the larger stuff will go up over two nights.  Crews of 75 or so install the decor after hours. The Christmas season gobbles up about 3,000ft of garland, 4 million strands of lights, over 2,000 wreaths, more than 1,000 Christmas trees varying in height from 2ft to 80ft, over 1,000 yards of fake snow sheeting will be used, and over 200,000 ornaments will be used for decorating. Not to mention that new castle lighting this year, takes up another 200,000 strands of LED lights, a little over 4000ft of control cable, 300 strobes, and over 10,000 yards of fishing net.
During the Christmas season, certain Cast Members are decked in holiday costumes as well as shows and parades with holiday costumes. There are over 2,500 pieces of holiday costuming used throughout the season. Not to mention the new talking character heads that are used in 3 different shows. You now have Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Chip, Dale and Pluto talking, winking, and more in “Cinderella’s Holiday Wish”, “Celebrate the Season”, and “Mickey’s Twas the Night”.
You can’t forget the holiday fireworks, “Holiday Wishes: Celebrate the Spirit of the Season” and “Holiday Illuminations”. Holiday Wishes uses the same bunkers as regular Wishes, but they add an extra touch. On certain nights they fire the show with a 180 degree pyro on both sides of the castle. Pyro fires from not only behind the castle, but the left and right sides. This is accomplished by flat bed trucks with pyro bunkers on them that are driven out on the road surrounding the park. They used to do a full 360, which still happens on the rarest of occasions. For that a site on an island in the Seven Seas Lagoon is used as well as other various flat bed bunker trucks. Holiday Illuminations uses all the launch sites for the normal show, plus 1 extra barge and 55 extra launch tubes.
Christmas at the Walt Disney World Resort is the most magical time of year where anything can happen.  From all of us here at the Walt Disney World Resort, and from everyone in the the Parade and Technical Services Department we wish you and your family a Very Merry Christmas.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

The Management That Stole Christmas

WDWNT Author on July 23, 2007

Here we are in July, and already there is loads of news on the upcoming Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Parties. In addition to the entertainment changes we have already announced here on the site, the free photo that was a staple of the event for many years is now not only a thing of the past, but now it seems party guests may have to shovel out for full price photos. A very merry Christmas from Walt Disney World Management!!!