I like the way there's often running water or waterfalls between different soundscapes to act as a white-noise buffer. It's subtle but incredibly effective. You almost never hear two contrasting soundscapes at once.

In the mid 1990's, the park started researching the problem. It would eventually find no existing solution, so the engineers had to design and construct, on their own, one of the most complex and advanced audio systems ever built. The work paid off: today, as you walk through Disney World, the volume of the ambient music does not change. Ever. More than 15,000 speakers have been positioned using complex algorithms to ensure that the sound plays within a range of just a couple decibels throughout the entire park. It is quite a technical feat acoustically, electrically, and mathematically.

As we land, I ask Mr Q what he considers the highlight of his career. He describes how he wrote some software for "manufacturing emotion" with the thousands of new speakers in the park. The system he built can slowly change the style of the music across a distance without the visitor noticing. As a person walks from Tomorrowland to Fantasyland, for example, each of the hundreds of speakers slowly fades in different melodies at different frequencies so that at any point you can stop and enjoy a fully accurate piece of music, but by the time you walk 400 feet, the entire song has changed and no one has noticed.

Kirby sez, "The December 2009 copy of Garden Railways magazine features an article about the Castle Peak & Thunder Railroad, a Disneyland Park themed, 1370 sq. foot, 1:24 scale model backyard railroad. The CPTRR, like its inspiration, is located in Anaheim, CA. It was built by Dave Sheegog, an architect who was a former Cast Member on the Canoes at Disneyland. He built replicas of all 5 Disneyland Steam locomotives and purchased a Casey Jr. locomotive. He scratch built all scenery to match Disneyland including replicas of the Main Street Train Station, Indiana Jones Adventure, and Sleeping Beauty Castle. Parts of Storybook Land, Big Thunder Mountain, Primeval World and the old Skull Rock are also included."

Castle Peak and Thunder Railroad (Thanks, Kirby!)

Horst Rosenthal: Mickey Mouse in Gurs (Thanks, Avi!)

Boing Boing guestblogger Connie Choe is a health and culture writer by day and a professional kimchimonger by night.

As a young entrepreneur years ago, I found this interview with Julie Aigner-Clark (founder of Baby Einstein, who sold her $20 million enterprise to Disney in 2001) to be pretty inspiring, but it's turned funny in light of last week's news about the big Baby Einstein refund -- what The New York Times says is "a tacit admission that [Baby Einstein products] did not increase infant intellect." No kidding. Here's a bit of that old Aigner-Clark interview:

"I didn't have a video background, but my husband and I borrowed video equipment and started to shoot scenes on a tabletop in my basement. I put a puppet on my hand and plopped my cat down in front of the camera. My husband and I used our home computer to edit our first video... Everything I did in the first videos was based on my experience as a mom. I didn't do any research. I knew my baby. I knew what she liked to look at. I assumed that what my baby liked to look at, most other babies would, too."

It's pretty clear that Baby Einstein was not rooted in cognitive research as they had boldly claimed and many parents believed. Worse yet, scientists at the University of Washington concluded that these videos actually hindered language development in infants. Lucky for me, I came across the interview before I my daughter was born so every time a friend offered us hand-me-down Baby Einstein products, I would immediately picture this woman wagging puppets in front of a Handycam in her basement and would politely decline.

One of Disney's legendary "Nine Old Men"of animation, Marc Davis also stands as one of the most influential and creative forces in the history of theme park design. His clever and highly detailed concepts were the basis for the audio-animatronic vignettes of both Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion, and his unrealized designs for Walt Disney World's Western River Expedition are among the great lost treasures of Disney Imagineering. He also contributed to other celebrated attractions including the Enchanted Tiki Room, the Jungle Cruise and It's a Small World.

Haven't listened to this yet, but I'm really looking forward to it!

Walt Disney

The mission of the Read-Along Adventures site is to assemble the audio and scanned pages from every Read-Along book ever created -- these were the short picture books that came with a 45RPM record that narrated them, with cues to turn the page as necessary. Where possible, the curator has recreated the Read-Alongs as Flash apps. There's even audio for the Haunted Mansion record. How lovely!

Read-Along Adventures (Thanks, TimK!)

Andrew sez, "This is unbelievable from an amateur photographer. The light, the costumers, the overall keyhole shape, it's spectacular. It looks like a lost Leibovitz outtake and it was shot by an amateur with a point & shoot."

The shot depicts three Sleeping Beauty cosplayers dressed as "Merryweather, Princess Aurora and Flora from Disney's Sleeping Beauty at the Georgia Aquarium during Dragon*Con Night 2009."

Dragon*Con 2009 (Thanks, Andrew!)

(Image: Positive Space)

Imagineers realize that the eyes convey emotions and a two-foot eye prototype showcases our newest concept. It's a new type of mechanism that uses electromagnets to create realistic eye motions. There is only a single moving part -- the eye itself -- and no wear points. That means faster, more realistic movement and longer life.

As Disney Parks continues to experiment and innovate, as with our newest Autonomatronics technology, we'll certainly be talking about it on this blog. Stay tuned.

As Thomas notes in his post, the Disney parks have an exemplary open photography policy, too; one that works superbly for Disney, engaging its fans and customers with its products and resorts. It's a real failure of confidence in their own success to impose a policy like this in the museum.

The New Walt Disney Family Museum's No Photography Policy Sucks (Thanks, Thomas!)

John sez, "It's Walt Disney World's 38th anniversary today and the park has released this great tilt-shift video of a day in the lift of the Magic Kingdom. From up here we all look like little toys."

A Model Day At Disney Parks - Exclusive Tilt-Shift Video Featuring Magic Kingdom (Thanks, John!)

Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts CUSTOM embroidery (via Craft)

Marvel/Disney Hybrids

More Disney/Marvel mashups, Disney/Marvel mashups (Thanks, John!)

Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Disney on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration...

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney's global lines of business to build and further integrate Marvel's properties.

Dan sez, "Its been 40 years since the Grim Grinning Ghosts first opened their doors and invited guests into the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Take a look back to the beginning with Walt and the Imagineers who created the beloved attraction. From stretching rooms to hitch hiking ghosts the 999 Happy Haunts never disappoint and always invite guests to hurry back!"

Haunted Mansion Celebrates 40 Years of Happy Haunts! (Thanks, Dan!)

Home Movies At DisneyLand - 1956 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.

Here's some recently unearthed home movie footage of Disneyland in 1956, the year after it opened. The footage was shot by Jeff Altman's grandfather using a Bell & Howell Filmo and 16mm Kodachrome film stock and includes a scene of his grandmother meeting Walt Disney. John Frost of The Disney Blog calls it "One the best videos of early Disneyland I've seen."

Home Movies At DisneyLand - 1956 (via The Disney Blog)

The project -- a trip through a fantastical dystopian Magic Kingdom -- is being headed by former Deus Ex designer Warren Spector, whose studio was acquired by Disney in 2007 (and who explained why this was such a perfect match in an interview with me at the time). The game was first confirmed to exist last December, when similar images were discovered by artist Gary Glover, including the 'beach attack' above, with its unbelievable Seven Dwarves tea-cup diggers.

Behind the fold, then, more images from both Gambino and Glover, covering rotted Epcots, foreboding Cinderella castles, terrifying scorpion-like mecha-Country Bears, and more -- all of which come with the obvious caveat that they may or may not reflect anything of the current state of the project.

Discuss this on Offworld

John sends us "Rare and unseen footage of Disneyland's construction narrated by Imagineers. Includes some amazing new footage of Walt Disney walking the site before construction even started and some never-before-seen timelapse footage of the park from groundbreaking until opening day. This film was on the way to deep storage and was found by a curious employee, otherwise there's a good chance we'd never get to see this."

This is just fascinating -- a look into the raw bones beneath one of the most polished created environments we have. The narration, from Tony Baxter, Ed Hobleman, and Walter Magnuson, is great. And I'm in heaven over the glimpses of the original Tomorrowland, another top time-traveller destination for me once I develop my Tardis.

Be sure to click through to see the whole thing; this is just part one of five.

Building Walt's Dream - Disneyland Construction Timelapse Video (Thanks, John!)

A person who was on the scene reported to the news stations that they head a loud explosion and saw the mangled trains in the station. They tried to run to get people out of the front of the crashed train. They saw a family make it out, but the driver [ed: news report cuts off here]

The monorails involved were the pink and purple trains, according to Local 6 in Orlando; pink was moving and hit purple, which was stationary.

No word on whether the Obamabot will allow release of the photos of the waterbotting on Pleasure Island, a no-go zone for civilians for several years now.

We're just sorting out our Christmas at Disney World plans -- our first WDW trip with the baby -- and I'm looking forward to this. There is something eerily cool and compelling about all those hyper-detailed robots nodding and twitching at you from out of the uncanny valley while Maya Angelou tells you about the War Between the States.

A remarkably lifelike Audio-Animatronics figure of President Barack Obama enters the spotlight in a revised and refreshed Hall of Presidents show when it reopens July 4 in Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort. The addition of the countrys 44th chief executive is just part of the most significant update to this classic attraction since its 1971 debut in the parks Liberty Square.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin helped develop the show with Disney Imagineers. In this video they talk about the Hall of Presidents: A Celebration of Libertys Leaders.

As part of the deal announced Tuesday, the government plans to convert a substantial amount of existing loans to the park into equity, but won't invest any new capital. Its stake in the park will fall to 52%...

The physical size of the theme park, will increase by 23%, Lau said, with the new attractions aimed at broadening Disneyland's appeal to young adults...

In its first year of operations, visitors to Hong Kong Disneyland fell 400,000 short of the park's 5.6 million target. In its second year, attendance fell to just over 4 million visitors.

The park has also drawn criticism for lack of appeal to mainland Chinese tourists, who account for the bulk of its visitors, given their unfamiliarity with Disney stories and characters.

Disney said Tuesday the expansion will focus on "universally understood" stories, adding that many of the new attractions will be unique to the Hong Kong park.

(Image: 27601 - Hong Kong - Disneyland, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Xiquinhosilva's Flickr stream)

Michael Mouse Ring

The Obama figure is the result of attention to minute details by Disney sculptors, animators, engineers and even anatomists who pored over presidential photographs and video of him and then drew on the latest advances in robotic technology.

Thus the audio-animatronic Obama purses its lips to pronounce its b's and p's in a way frighteningly evocative of the real one, and raises its hands, open-palmed, while shrugging its shoulders, in a way that can only be described as Obamaesque. Even the president's wedding ring, with its braided design, has been recreated.

Disney confirmed Tuesday that it has reassigned employees at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure who watched for breast-baring riders because "actual inappropriate behaviors by guests are rare."

Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown says the changes took effect Sunday at Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror, Space Mountain and California Screamin'.

Riders are photographed on the attractions and can then buy souvenir copies. Some have exposed their breasts in hopes that the picture would make it onto a photo preview screen at the ride's exit.

This audio goes straight into the beating heart of what fascinates me about Disney: the use of immersive, mass technology to tell stories and convey value -- all the while embodying a meta-story and a set of meta-values about artisanship (all those handmade robots, sets and controllers!), technology, progress, individualism... I could listen to this all day. The 1964 World's Fair is very high on my shortlist of places to visit when I get my time-machine.

Disneyland Goes To the World's Fair is a rare behind the scenes look at Walt Disney's contribution to the 1964 World's Fair. It was here where Walt unveiled several unique attractions and exhibits that would forever change not only Disneyland, but greatly influence the future of Disney Theme Parks yet to be imagined. This 5-CD Set includes a 24-page full color booklet and more than three hours of recordings from the classic attractions and exhibits Walt Disney and his team of artists created for the 1964 New York World's Fair.

Progressland: Behind-the original World's Fair scenes recordings and original music from the Progressland Exhibit, featuring a never-before released production of Carousel of Progress.

Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln: Experience the sounds of the original Illinois Pavilion. As a special treat, you'll hear the original recording sessions of the man who gave Mr. Lincoln his voice (Royal Dano) and listen to the lavish original score by Disney legend Buddy Baker also presented as individual tracks.

"It's A Small World": Includes the original demo recording of the legendary song as well as isolated vocals and a grand master mix of the varied international interpretations of the famous tune directly from the attraction soundtrack. Also included is a tour of this charming "little boat ride" with Walt Disney as your guide.

Magic Skyway: Takes you on a time-traveling "road trip" with Walt Disney as he personally escorts you hrough the Age of Dinosaurs, the ascent of man, and to the distant future.

BONUS DISC: Carousel of Progress - Alternate Universe Version

Ren sez, "This is a smashing video that remixes scenes from Disney movies that appear to be traced from one another. The effect is super-bizarre, but it explains why I was never able to tell those princesses apart!"

Disney Templates (Thanks, Ren!)

With his homestead bandwidth bills going, Steve is going to shut down the site as early as today. Please help Steve keep the site alive! Email: polynesian@tikiman2001.net if you can provide hosting / help him import to a more reasonable site."

This really is an impressive fan-site. The Poly is one of my favorite hotels in the world. I wrote the middle chapters of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom on a lanai in the Roratonga long-house, listening to the distant howl of the wolves at the Haunted Mansion, the chug of the railroad, the crack of the Jungle Cruise drivers shooting the hippos, and the calls of the tropical birds all around (I made close friends with an ibis on that trip).

Tikiman's Polynesian Resort Pages (Thanks, Henry!)

Today at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco, I saw an outstanding talk on the lessons for level design to be had in the design of Disneyland. It was presented by Scott Rogers, Creative Manager at THQ in Los Angeles, who taught himself level design for Pac Man World by thinking about the experiences he'd had on many visits to Disneyland. The talk was full of lively insights and fun facts about both Disneyland and game-lore, and Rogers was a great presenter. I took copious (for me) notes and photos of most of the slides and I've just put them online (Rogers says he'll put the slides up in better form shortly, I'll link to them when he does).

* Walt invented lots of "moving people around" tricks that are useful in level design e.g. weenies (landmarks that draw guests towards certain locations)
   * Good navigational points for open worlds like GTA
   * Provides "picture spots" to stop and think, "Wow this is cool" -- Athens coming into sight in God of War

* How Weenies Work
    * First weenie is the castle -- you walk down linear Main St, and as you reach the hub, more weenies open up, the fronts of the lands, prompting the player/guest to choose where to go
    * As you go further, more weenies open up, the rivers, treehouse, Matterhorn, Space Mtn -- peeking over the horizon, giving a tantalizing glimpse

* Enhancing Weenies:
    * Draw players towards goals geographically and visually
    * Change altitude to enhance drama/scale
    * Make player backtrack/change direction to give more information
    * Switchbacks can do this
    * See ratchet and clank games

Slides from the talk

Scott Rogers' homepage

Kenneth Anger's creepy/funny homage to Mickey Mouse:

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Waxy's rounded up YouTube clips of the iconic "Ooh-De-Lally" song from Walt Disney's Robin Hood as performed in many languages -- Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, German, Catalan (!) and Norwegian. Top prize for translated title, "Tirly Tirly Truly Truly" (Russian). Though the best song itself is definitely "Durul·lari" (Catalan).

Robin Hood's "Oo De Lally," Translated (Thanks, Andy!)

Stroller rentals and smoking area, Poesy's first birthday, DIsneyland Paris, France.JPG

Haunted Mansion 40th Anniversary Event (Thanks, Ape Lad!)

We've blogged Robbins's amazing home movies here before. The man's a hero of the medium. Well-deserved congratulations indeed.

From the Library of Congress’s press release:

Disneyland Dream (1956)
The Barstow family films a memorable home movie of their trip to Disneyland. Robbins and Meg Barstow, along with their children Mary, David and Daniel were among 25 families who won a free trip to the newly opened Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., as part of a ‘Scotch Brand Cellophane Tape’ contest sponsored by 3M. Through vivid color and droll narration (”The landscape was very different from back home in Connecticut”), we see a fantastic historical snapshot of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Catalina Island, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios and Disneyland in mid-1956. Home movies have assumed a rapidly increasing importance in American cultural studies as they provide a priceless and authentic record of time and place.

The film, along with 15 other Barstow Travel Adventure titles, is available for viewing and downloading at the Internet Archive.

Doctorow's Kingdom? Disney turns its world over to unknown (Thanks, John and Benjamin!)

What's not to like? Shag's art + the best ride Disney's Imagineers ever built = sheer heaven!

Details are still a little sketchy (pardon the pun) at this time, but it appears that a range of merchandise will be created based on the art: at the very least, Shag will be signing prints on Sunday, August 9th at the park. Buyers, however, will get the first opportunity to buy the prints at a cocktail party the evening of the 8th where Shag will be the guest of honor. Here’s hoping that they hold the event in the Mansion itself — Walt Disney World has done dinners in the stretch rooms in the past — what a blast it would be to party where “candle lights flicker where the air is deathly still.”

ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG. Nipper, a Counterstrike map-hacker, has devised an incredibly detailed reproduction of the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World, a ride so fine I wrote a novel about it. Nipper's packed a jaw-dropping amount of detail into the map, even down to various behind-the-scenes sections, and has creatively improved some of the slacker moments in the ride, such as a set of Eschereqsue staircases to one side of the otherwise boring stair-climb. The only thing that could make this better would be modelling ALL the backstage areas, so you could tear through the break rooms and maintenance areas with your giant guns, hunting your fellow players.

YouTube: A ride-through of NIPPER's de_haunts (a "The Haunted Mansion" Counter-Strike: Source map), Download the map (Thanks, David, Nick, Jeremy, Dreambank, Waxy, and Justin!)

First off, Bossa Disney Carioca, which has the worst cover and the best music of all three. These cool Brazilian covers reveal the pure, breathy dreamlike character in Disney's best music, especially Saigenji's "When You Wish Upon a Star" and Maucha Adnet's "Sonhar E Desejar" ("A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes"). Every track on this disc made me smile and sing along.

Next up, the altogether more challenging Modal Jazz Loves Disney, a more free-form approach to the canon. These are a little spottier, but when they score, they score big, as with the Helge Lien Trio's cover of the sinister, slinky overture from The Jungle Book, and LTC's sprinkly Baby Mine.

Disney's Jazz Album: Big Band & Swing is the least interesting of the three, but that's mostly because so much of it is drawn from common issues like Disney Songs the Satchmo Way and original soundtrack recordings of tracks like Peggy Lee's smoky He's a Tramp. But this disc does have some standout rarities that were new to me, like the cover of Heigh Ho from Mary Martin and Tutti Camarata and His Orchestra, as well as their cover of Bibbidi Bobbidy Boo.

Bossa Disney Carioca on Amazon Japan, Modal Jazz Loves Disney on Amazon Japan, Disney's Jazz Album: Big Band & Swing on Amazon

See also: Bossa Nova greats cover Disney songs

Disney has a sickness when it comes to abusive EULAs and contracts. I once had to cancel a speech at Imagineering because the legal department wanted me to sign something saying that I'd never use the word "Disney" in print again without permission. The Laugh Factory attraction at Disney World's Tomorrowland had a ridiculous EULA on a sign (you agreed to the terms by passing under the sign) (!) in which you promised that any jokes you suggested were your own and that you would indemnify Disney from any copyright suits arising from the telling of the jokes (the sign was not a joke). As though eight year olds can form contracts (they can't), by standing under signs (they can't), and as though most jokes people tell are original (they aren't).

People worry that Disney trains their kids to grow up to be princesses and whatnot, but that's nothing next to the risk that watching Sleeping Beauty on Blu-Ray will lead your kids to believe that it's normal to have to agree to hundreds of pages of garbage every time you want to experience culture. Imagine how awful their dinner-parties will be! Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray requires viewers to agree to 57 page EULA Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Three UCF students showed up dressed as Pamelia Perkins, Hathaway Browne, and the Colonel. “It’s the final night,” said Pamelia look-alike Beth Phillips. “We had to do something big.” Nathan Kohlun said choosing to dress like Hathaway was easy. “Everyone loves this character, especially the women. It’s just all really fun.”

About an hour before the doors opened, many of the actors came out in their street clothes to loud cheers. They posed for photos, answered questions, received gifts, and thanked as many fans as they could for their support over the years.

Cassie Cameron, who wore a hand-made Hathaway shirt, brought a snapshot to give to the cast showing her at age 9 in the Mask Room. The now 24-year-old said she’s just sad she won’t get the chance to bring her own daughter to the Club. “She’s three and can already sing the Adventurer’s Song and even Toast! I had really hoped to share this with her some day.”

On the projector, Campbell placed slides of the cartoon icon: one at his skinny genesis in 1928, one from his 1940 turn as the impish "Sorcerer's Apprentice," and one of the rounded, ingratiating charmer of Mouse Club fame.

"How," he asked his students, "has Mickey changed?"

Natives of Disney World's home state, they waved their hands and called out answers.

"His tail gets shorter," Bryce volunteered.

"Bigger eyes!" someone else shouted.

"He looks happier," one girl observed. "And cuter."

Campbell smiled. "Mickey evolved," he said. "And Mickey gets cuter because Walt Disney makes more money that way. That is 'selection.' "

Brown went searching for flawed formalities -- and found one. It was on the title card at the beginning of a "Steamboat Willie" cartoon that had just been rereleased on a 1993 LaserDisc honoring Mickey's 65th birthday. It said in full:

"Disney Cartoons
Present
A Mickey Mouse
Sound Cartoon
Steamboat Willie
A Walt Disney Comic
By Ub Iwerks
Recorded by Cinephone Powers System
Copyright MCMXXIX."

[...]

The authoritative legal treatise "Nimmer on Copyright" says that a copyright is void if multiple names create uncertainty, and courts have agreed. In 1961, a federal judge in Massachusetts cited the "accompanied by" rule in throwing out a copyright claim by newspaper cartoonist Art Moger. Moger's name was included in the title above his panels, but the name of another artist ran inside the boxes.

More than 600 protesters marched from a Disney-owned hotel to try and block the entrance to the park.

The employees were waving placards and chanting slogans, calling on Disneyland to provide better wages and benefits. Some of the protestors dressed as Disney characters like Tinkerbell, Aladdin and Mickey Mouse.

She also occasionally filled in for Walt Disney on "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color."

In 2000, the Walt Disney Co. named Burns as a Disney Legend, an honor that acknowledges people "whose imagination, talents and dreams have created the Disney magic."

Walt Disney Imagineering issued a statement this week, calling her "the best-dressed employee in the department."

It also released a quote from Burns in which she described her work for Disney in the 1950s: "I wore color-coordinated dresses, high heels and gloves to work. Girls didn't wear slacks back then, although I carried a pair in a little sack, just in case I had to climb into high places."

(Image: Harriet, Blaine, and some traveling companions, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Ste3ve's Flickr stream)

1. WALL-E records audio from his favorite movie, XXXXXXXXXXX, putting in onto his own digital recorder (bypassing the macrovision DRM on the tape). A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61

2. WALL-E archives the audio, he doesn’t merely time-shift it. He listens repeatedly! A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61

3. WALL-E shares his DRM-broken music with his friend, another robot named XXXXX. A COPYRIGHT CRIME UNDER C-61