If TTL's late night block is catered towards otakus, why not call it Vaultnado? This would both cause the name of Toonami to be preserved if Cartoon TV still wants to tackle the market AND butterfly away the Sharknado franchise!So I recently discovered that The Disney Channel had their own nighttime block, albeit far later into the 90s (and the content isn't the same compared to other blocks like Nick at Nite or Adult Swim/Toonami).
Vault Disney
Vault Disney was a nighttime block on Disney Channel that ran from 1997 to 2002. The block launched on September 21, 1997 as a weekly programming block showing classic Disney movies, TV shows and animated shorts. On December 5th (Walt Disney's birthday), it became a nightly block. Vault Disney...disney.fandom.com
Not entirely sure if Vault Disney is an appropriately catchy name for ITTL's late night block, but I don't really have a clue as to what it could be called. Vaultoons?
A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
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Vaultoons are probably even more appropriate since tornadoes don't really exist in Japan, but typhoons absolutely do. In that case it's a double reference to cartoons and typhoons. Win-win, I guess?
Maybe Vault Disney is the name of the late night block akin to Nick at Nite while Vaultoons are the Toonami-like block that they launched for The Disney Channel.
As for Toonami, I think Nickelodeon is more likely to get the name as a competitor to Disney's own block instead of CartoonTV.
It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine that there might be an equivalent to 4kids TTL, though whether or not the company that became 4kids, Leisure Concepts, Inc., once more goes down that path is yet to be seen. Which allows me to take this opportunity to mention that OTL, 4kids briefly had Bobby Kotick of Activision fame as its CEO before he moved onto Activision, and after he departed LCI expanded into television production, licensing Japanese anime. It's kinda wild to think about, in a way!
And given how 4Kids made that Viva Pinata cartoon, and almost made a Banjo-Kazooie cartoon as well, and if you factor in Activision nearly buying Rare outright, it adds up to a bevy of near-misses that would have reshaped everyone involved for years to come.
What if Jim Henson made a mini series chronicling the making of Most (or some some other show/movie) in a proto reality TV format?
This sound it would work better as a "found footage" or mock reality TV show.
I suspect Henson's idea there was to encourage young would-be filmmakers, so it's not exactly a "Reality" show as we know it, which was a carefully edited version of recorded events used to draft a pseudo-narrative with "heroes" and "villains". I'd think he'd find that manipulative. In fact, it sounds like he's predicting You Tube a decade ahead of the broadband internet to make it a viable creative model.
Does this mean that Disney could be a leader in social media by creating an earlier Youtube?
What. The. Sleaze?
Yeah, that's what I suspect what Henson wanted for this show. I don't think he was interested in making a narrative out of IRL footage but rather just recording the experience and the problems that the crew face as they travel across Route 66.
No, but Disney could be far less corporate this time around when they create channels like Walt Disney I-Works or the Walt Disney Entertainment. Maybe we'll see more interviews with Imagineers or Cast Members or more skits from the Muppets or the Animation Studio.
Oh BTW, I can see Jim Henson being a regular content creator ITTL for YouTube. The cool grandpa that does awesome things like an entertainment version of Adam Savage.
You just meant voice actors, but I wonder if a Disney Princess Magical Girl team would be something Disney thinks about if Sailor Moon turns out to be popular in the U.S.
All said, if I was cruising the early interwebs and I came across a video called "Three men and a handheld camera" I would NOT click on it. Jus' sayin'.
But what if it was under Jim Henson's official account? Wouldn't you be morbidly curious?
I can totally believe Jim would engage in playful, non-malicious trolling.
I'd believe it too. As I said before, Jim Henson would've totally embodied the Cool Old Guy trope if he lived longer.
Cool Old Guy - TV Tropes
This trope is under discussion in the Trope Repair Shop. The effectiveness of a cast member is often determined by his distance from the median age of the cast. Deviations up or down will always be coupled with a lack of effectiveness. The Cool …
tvtropes.org
"Hi, I'm Jim Henson, and today we're going to...{looks at cue card}...make some...dank-ass chickey nuggies." [what can only be described as "Swedish Chef made by David Lynch" commences]
It makes sense that TTL's Disney would use the hypothetical future YouTube equivalent as a platform for the next generation of the shows Walt himself made. A way to pull back the curtain and show what the latest word in Imagineering is.
If Disney takes a stab at the Magical Girl genre, there could be time travel involved to address the different eras and nations the princess's stories originated. Not to mention the absolute stone-cold fact that Maleficent would be the Big Bad.
I have the image of the various princesses speaking with the accent of their country of origin. It might be originally surprising to have Snow White speak with a German accent or Cinderella speaking with a French accent, but I like the idea of the show being a bit more faithful to the source material. Not to the point of emulating the Brothers Grimm, of course.
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Technically Imagineering is doing that now but I reckon they would cut loose with their presentation and be more enthusiastic about new production from the 90s onward, because really, they're making even better stuff under Henson than OTL, even for the 90s. Same for the Animation Studios or the Creatureworks.
One gripe that I have with Disney+ is how little bonus features exist for new properties like Soul or Raya, something that is sorely missing ever since the post-home video era. Hopefully we'll get to see these kinds of tid bits through DisneyDirect or the official Disney YouTube channels ITTL.
The Wide Wide World of Warner
Chapter 22: When Warner Went Worldwide
From Theme Park Confidential: The Corporate Machinations and Machiavellian Intrigue behind your Favorite Parks, by E. Z. Ryder.
Warner Brothers at first seems like the obvious company to expand into the world of theme parks and themed resorts. Like Disney, they have iconic characters and like Universal, they have classic movies. And yet WB was late to the game. Instead, long after Disneyland and Disney World were established parks and ground was breaking on Tokyo Disneyland and EPCOT Center, WB licensed their classic Looney Tunes characters to Marriott’s Great America theme parks in Gurney, Illinois, and Santa Clara, California. These license agreements persisted until 1984 when Marriott, in the aftermath of the Kingdom Acquisitions Group’s attempted hostile takeover of Disney, traded the two parks to KA member Bally Midway in exchange for Bally’s acquired shares of Disney.
With this acquisition, the parks, and through them the Looney Tunes rights, were incorporated into Bally’s subsidiary Six Flags Entertainment. The Six Flags Great America parks already had Looney Tunes based attractions, and soon the other Six Flags parks (Six Flags over Texas, Six Flags over Georgia, and Six Flags over Mid-America at the time) began featuring Looney Tunes walkarounds, Looney Toons themed rides, and special attractions like Bugs Bunny Land. These Looney Tunes themed rides did not create the desired spike in attendance, however, since generally speaking, slapping Bugs’ & Daffy’s faces on an existing roller coaster is not the same as a fresh, immersive experience.
This brief moment of Bally-run Looney Tunes attractions came to a close in 1987 when a financially strapped Bally sold a controlling interest in the Six Flags parks to Warner Brothers in a Crown Jewels strategy to avert a leveraged buyout by Wesray Capital Corp[1]. At first, Warner Brothers treated Six Flags as a turnkey operation, leaving the current management in place. However, the parks’ returns failed to meet the optimistic expectations of the WB management. This all started to change in 1989 when Lorimar was acquired[2]. Among the Lorimar employees that were now claimed by WB was former Disney WED Imagineering head C.V. "Woody" Wood. Wood, who falsely claimed to have an engineering degree, had been one of the driving forces in developing Disneyland back in the 1950s before he was fired, overtly due to the disastrous “Black Sunday” opening of Disneyland but largely over his long string of Machiavellian intrigues against Walt.
After leaving Disney, Wood was the driving force behind the ultimately failed Freedomland park in NYC (which may have been part of a long-con real estate plan and intended to fail) among other corporate plans before settling at Lorimar. When WB took over Lorimar, he ingratiated himself to the new management who in particular sought his help in updating the Six Flags parks[3]. He explained to them the difference between a “ride” and an “experience”, urging the executives to visit not just Disney, but the Universal Studios Hollywood King Kong ride.
Suitably impressed, the WB leadership named Wood the Executive Vice President of Parks and Attractions for Warner Brothers, reporting directly to Chairman and CEO Robert A. Daly, which ironically put him above the President of Six Flags in all but title. Wood set out to turn around the parks, securing several hundred million dollars to upgrade and expand the existing parks. He hired or subcontracted as many former Imagineers as he could get ahold of, including Disney Legend Bob Gurr, and implemented a staged upgrade to the Six Flags over Georgia and Six Flags Great America in Santa Clara. Suddenly these parks were enclosed in decorative walls and realistic rock formations or building façades that hid the outside world. Bugs Bunny Land was updated and upgraded into an interactive “Toon Town” in all but (copywritten) name. New dark rides with audio-animatronics were added, as was a Batman Stunt Show.
More or less… (Image source “visitbrisbane.com.au”)
The newly updated parks were developed in stages, allowing attendance to continue as the updates went on. The locations, Santa Clara outside of San Francisco and Cobb County outside of Atlanta, were close enough to compete indirectly with Disney and Universal, and yet far enough away to not compete directly. The newly minted Warner Movie World Resorts with active studio tours, partnering hotels, and visitor shuttles, would see a major spike in attendance and earn a profit within a few years’ time.
Meanwhile, Hollywood Studios/ABC had acquired DeLaurentis Studios in 1987 in a leveraged buyout, selling the Gold Coast studios in Australia to Village Roadshow shortly thereafter to help pay down the short-term debt[4]. Village Roadshow, who had a working relationship with Warner Brothers, acquired some swampland around the Gold Coast studios and in late ’88 convinced Warner Brothers to split the costs and launch a Warner Brothers Movie World at the location. C.V. Wood again consulted, and in 1989 ground was broken on Warner Brother’s first, but hardly last, international venture.
[1] Wesray successfully claimed Six Flags in our timeline. Time Warner eventually grabbed a major stake in Six Flags, but never outright controlled them, meaning that “true” Warner parks like Warner Brothers Movie World were only available outside of the US.
[2] As per our timeline. Among the casualties of the Lorimar buy in our timeline was a new Lorimar executive named Bernie Brillstein!
[3] In our timeline Wood was the driving force behind WB Movie World in Queensland, Australia.
[4] Second-order butterfly where the logical follow-on secondary butterflies send things back down the pathway from our timeline. Eisner probably isn’t going to get involved in Australia yet and Village Roadshow is the natural buyer. Congrats, my Australian readers, WB World in Queensland isn’t butterflied!
From Theme Park Confidential: The Corporate Machinations and Machiavellian Intrigue behind your Favorite Parks, by E. Z. Ryder.
Warner Brothers at first seems like the obvious company to expand into the world of theme parks and themed resorts. Like Disney, they have iconic characters and like Universal, they have classic movies. And yet WB was late to the game. Instead, long after Disneyland and Disney World were established parks and ground was breaking on Tokyo Disneyland and EPCOT Center, WB licensed their classic Looney Tunes characters to Marriott’s Great America theme parks in Gurney, Illinois, and Santa Clara, California. These license agreements persisted until 1984 when Marriott, in the aftermath of the Kingdom Acquisitions Group’s attempted hostile takeover of Disney, traded the two parks to KA member Bally Midway in exchange for Bally’s acquired shares of Disney.
With this acquisition, the parks, and through them the Looney Tunes rights, were incorporated into Bally’s subsidiary Six Flags Entertainment. The Six Flags Great America parks already had Looney Tunes based attractions, and soon the other Six Flags parks (Six Flags over Texas, Six Flags over Georgia, and Six Flags over Mid-America at the time) began featuring Looney Tunes walkarounds, Looney Toons themed rides, and special attractions like Bugs Bunny Land. These Looney Tunes themed rides did not create the desired spike in attendance, however, since generally speaking, slapping Bugs’ & Daffy’s faces on an existing roller coaster is not the same as a fresh, immersive experience.
This brief moment of Bally-run Looney Tunes attractions came to a close in 1987 when a financially strapped Bally sold a controlling interest in the Six Flags parks to Warner Brothers in a Crown Jewels strategy to avert a leveraged buyout by Wesray Capital Corp[1]. At first, Warner Brothers treated Six Flags as a turnkey operation, leaving the current management in place. However, the parks’ returns failed to meet the optimistic expectations of the WB management. This all started to change in 1989 when Lorimar was acquired[2]. Among the Lorimar employees that were now claimed by WB was former Disney WED Imagineering head C.V. "Woody" Wood. Wood, who falsely claimed to have an engineering degree, had been one of the driving forces in developing Disneyland back in the 1950s before he was fired, overtly due to the disastrous “Black Sunday” opening of Disneyland but largely over his long string of Machiavellian intrigues against Walt.
After leaving Disney, Wood was the driving force behind the ultimately failed Freedomland park in NYC (which may have been part of a long-con real estate plan and intended to fail) among other corporate plans before settling at Lorimar. When WB took over Lorimar, he ingratiated himself to the new management who in particular sought his help in updating the Six Flags parks[3]. He explained to them the difference between a “ride” and an “experience”, urging the executives to visit not just Disney, but the Universal Studios Hollywood King Kong ride.
Suitably impressed, the WB leadership named Wood the Executive Vice President of Parks and Attractions for Warner Brothers, reporting directly to Chairman and CEO Robert A. Daly, which ironically put him above the President of Six Flags in all but title. Wood set out to turn around the parks, securing several hundred million dollars to upgrade and expand the existing parks. He hired or subcontracted as many former Imagineers as he could get ahold of, including Disney Legend Bob Gurr, and implemented a staged upgrade to the Six Flags over Georgia and Six Flags Great America in Santa Clara. Suddenly these parks were enclosed in decorative walls and realistic rock formations or building façades that hid the outside world. Bugs Bunny Land was updated and upgraded into an interactive “Toon Town” in all but (copywritten) name. New dark rides with audio-animatronics were added, as was a Batman Stunt Show.
More or less… (Image source “visitbrisbane.com.au”)
The newly updated parks were developed in stages, allowing attendance to continue as the updates went on. The locations, Santa Clara outside of San Francisco and Cobb County outside of Atlanta, were close enough to compete indirectly with Disney and Universal, and yet far enough away to not compete directly. The newly minted Warner Movie World Resorts with active studio tours, partnering hotels, and visitor shuttles, would see a major spike in attendance and earn a profit within a few years’ time.
Meanwhile, Hollywood Studios/ABC had acquired DeLaurentis Studios in 1987 in a leveraged buyout, selling the Gold Coast studios in Australia to Village Roadshow shortly thereafter to help pay down the short-term debt[4]. Village Roadshow, who had a working relationship with Warner Brothers, acquired some swampland around the Gold Coast studios and in late ’88 convinced Warner Brothers to split the costs and launch a Warner Brothers Movie World at the location. C.V. Wood again consulted, and in 1989 ground was broken on Warner Brother’s first, but hardly last, international venture.
[1] Wesray successfully claimed Six Flags in our timeline. Time Warner eventually grabbed a major stake in Six Flags, but never outright controlled them, meaning that “true” Warner parks like Warner Brothers Movie World were only available outside of the US.
[2] As per our timeline. Among the casualties of the Lorimar buy in our timeline was a new Lorimar executive named Bernie Brillstein!
[3] In our timeline Wood was the driving force behind WB Movie World in Queensland, Australia.
[4] Second-order butterfly where the logical follow-on secondary butterflies send things back down the pathway from our timeline. Eisner probably isn’t going to get involved in Australia yet and Village Roadshow is the natural buyer. Congrats, my Australian readers, WB World in Queensland isn’t butterflied!
Hey, you think WB would try to purchase Games Workshop ITTL to get a foothold in the tabletop gaming market? Seeing as Warner Brothers has a more daring reputation in contrast to Disney's wholesome image, I can see Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k) as the "edgier" counterpart to, say, MickeyQuest.
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