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Just caught up with this TL and what a ride it's been so far! I find it fascinating that Yugoslavia hasn't fallen so far TTL. That'll keep the number of participants lower in Eurovision and the European Championships at least. I am definitely watching this with interest :)
Wonder how that affects the contest with much less people. Or is Irish domination of the 90s inevitable
 
Impressive, all impressive.

I can't wait for someone to make writedown on what the London and Sydney Disneytowns look like. For the latter, I keep imaging there will be some form of a wildlife attraction there, and also some form of a Big Thing.
And then Jim Henson talked with the Chinese president and made them realise that oppressing your own population is stupid and so China became a haven of Democracy and human rights.

What too unrealistic?😂
Maybe not directly, but if Disney acquiring MGM leading to Ted Turner at Columbia leads to Yugoslavia staying after doc on Nixon i broadcast, maybe indirectly.

Canada Disneytown at Hamilton? I'd probably get my parents to go there. Hopefully Disney has signed a non-competing agreement with Canada's Wonderland to avoid siphoning off customers to the latter. The Mouse Trap nickname is a funny touch too.

The Earth pavilion is a neat addition, too.

Now that Disney-MGM is open, can't wait to see what else is filmed there in the future. The Ghostbusters Tower of Terror is also cool (guess rights to Twilight Zone couldn't be attained?). And of course, can't wait for Animal Kingdom and Joe Rhode.

The Four Park tourism package is also nice concept.

Also, for Bookmice, @nick_crenshaw82 , didn't grow up with it, but sure, why not?
 
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Would it be possible to get an updated version of this:
Entertainment Companies with Major Assets (1988)

Triad Entertainment Group

Chairman/CEO: Martin S. Davis

Major Subsidiaries:
  • Paramount Studios
  • 20th Century Studios
  • Fox Studios (Includes Filmation)
  • Paramount-Fox Network Television (PFN)
  • Madison Square Garden (Includes the New York Rangers and New York Knicks)
  • Simon & Schuster Publishing
  • Sega Corp.


MCA/Universal Entertainment Group
Chairman/CEO: Lew Wasserman

Major Subsidiaries:
  • Universal City Studios Group
  • Universal Television Group
  • Universal Studios Parks & Tours (developmental)
  • Music Corporation of America (MCA) Records


Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc.
Chairman/CEO: Robert A. Daly

Major Subsidiaries:
  • Warner Bros. Pictures Group
  • Warner Bros. Television Studios
  • Warner Bros. Home Studios
  • Warner Bros. Global Brands and Franchises
  • Six Flags Theme Parks
  • Warner Bros. Publishing (Includes DC Comics)
  • Warner Brothers Animation (Includes Rankin-Bass)


Columbia Entertainment Group
Chairman/CEO: Ted Turner

Major Subsidiaries:
  • Columbia Pictures
  • Columbia Broadcasting Service (CBS)
  • Turner Entertainment Group
  • Hanna-Barbera Animation


Atlantic Communications Corporation
Chairman/CEO: Robert Holmes-à-Court

Major Subsidiaries:
  • Tri-Star Studios
  • Atlantic Productions & Distribution (assembled from CBS Films, CBS distribution, AEG, etc.)
  • Independent Television Service (ITV) Broadcasting and Productions (incl. Elstree Studios)
  • British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) (minority stake)
  • CBS (minority stake)
  • Atlantic Broadcasting Group (Various UK, Australian, and US Local Television Stations)


Walt Disney Entertainment Company
Chairman: Frank Wells; CEO: Ron Miller

Major Subsidiaries:
  • Walt Disney Studios (includes Fantasia Films, Walt Disney Animation, and Disney Publishing, including Marvel, Inc.)
  • MGM Studios (includes Hyperion Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution)
  • Walt Disney Recreation (includes Parks & Hotels)
  • Walt Disney Imagineering (includes Imagine, Inc.)


Capital Cities/ABC
Chairman/CEO: Thomas S. Murphy

Major Subsidiaries:
  • American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Television Network Group
  • Capital Cities/ABC Broadcasting Group (various TV affiliates)
  • ABC Cable and International Broadcast Group
  • Hollywood Studios (Includes Hollywood Animation/DIC)
  • CC/ABC Publishing
 
Looking through the Ideal Buildout I've decided that I like that version of Timeless Rive more. Considering that a land based on classic black-and-white Disney cartoons is more unique than what's literally just the Great Movie Ride mixed with It's A Small World.
 
Finally, and very successfully, a Canadian Disneytown was built in Ontario in 1998 near the city of Hamilton. There it was deemed far enough from Philadelphia and Chicago not to compete directly, but still very close to several major cities in the Eastern Great Lakes region on both sides of the border and close to the tourist Mecca of Niagara Falls, though world events would soon complicate international travel. Special ferry boats were even constructed, though the notoriously volatile waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario limited their use. For obvious climactic reasons, much of it was built inside, encased in a large, glass-and-steel atrium reminiscent of the Imagination Pavilion that locals and truckers called “The Mouse Trap”.
Huh. I would've had my money on a Montreal Disneytown.

Part of me would have liked to see a Disneytown in western Canada, but I don't really see that in the cards. While Calgary would be a large enough city to host one, the prairie provinces and bordering states are too sparsely populated to make it financially viable.
 
The first of these would be Disneytown London, made in partnership with Pearson PLC, and built in 1994 as an extension of their Chessington World of Adventures theme park in the southwest of London, with an Adventureland theme (in particular The Jungle Book), in keeping with the themes of the Chessington park.

I still kind of like my idea of a Fantasyland theme, but with the Chessington connection, Adventureland makes much more sense. And it's still based on a Disney movie that was based on book by a British writer, which was my point. :)

It's weird that there's two Ghostbusters attractions, isn't that a excessive?

It looks to me like they're aimed at slightly different audiences. Older Ghostbusters fans would probably think We Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts is kind of tame, while younger ones might find Tower of Terror too scary.
 
The presence of an all-seasons, indoors amusement park that doesn't need to be on the scale of the West Edmonton Mall is going to be a significant boost to the entertainment sector in Ontario beyond Toronto and perhaps inspire a couple of copycat attractions. Also, finally a reason to visit Hamilton! (a friendly dig from the other side of the Big Smoke). I have my doubts about ferries, that's a long trip by water to say nothing of the lake's dubious cooperation.
So it's Toronto's Victoria?
 
So it's Toronto's Victoria?
Hamilton's a steel town, so more like Milwaukee compared to Chicago.
Anyway, a ferry service to Niagara Falls would only get you from Hamilton to either St. Catherines or Niagara-on-the-Lake, then you'd need a bus transfer to reach the actual tourist destination of Niagara Falls everyone thinks of. Given that ferries are pretty slow, you're probably best just taking the GO bus the whole way.
 
You have both The Great Movie Ride and the Muppet parody of The Great Movie Ride. Why did you turn Timeless River from a fun themed land to "The Great Movie Ride but worse"?
 
Anyway, a ferry service to Niagara Falls would only get you from Hamilton to either St. Catherines or Niagara-on-the-Lake, then you'd need a bus transfer to reach the actual tourist destination of Niagara Falls everyone thinks of. Given that ferries are pretty slow, you're probably best just taking the GO bus the whole way.
Doesn't help if you were to go there you'd be treated to the lovely sight of industrial plants along the waterfront.

For a western Disneytown, anything in coastal BC could just be replicated with a crossborder trip to Seattle, and good luck with anything in the Okanagan Valley or central BC in general.
 
Disney is making some good strides with the Disneytowns and Hollywoodland, but it's always a bit concerning that investors aren't going to realize the potential of something like Valencia and DisneySea as their major cash cows. Hopefully Dick Nunis is right on this one and that they pull through after the recession.

Sidenote, I've been thinking about where Hollywoodland could end up and the Bay Lake between MK and EPCOT make the most sense to me instead of its OTL location, given its role as a transportation hub between both resorts, though its positioning and land allocation is something to think about.

👀 I sense a Disneyland Down Under!
Not necessarily, because the location (Glebe Island) is rather restrictive to further expansion compared to something like San Antonio or Denver. If it was at the Gold Coast then it would be very easy to do that. It'll take on a life of its own as a unique Disney resort in the future, but I'm not expecting a Disneyland San Antonio scenario for Sydney.

Interesting. So no California-themed theme park in the already California-themed California, but a more elaborate Hollywood-themed park in Florida. Will the Westcot-lot ever actually benused, I wonder? Or will it just remain the parking lot?
Perhaps? DisneySea basically solves the Second Gate issue for the West Coast for the time being, so it'll be a while before Disney decided to expand with a third gate. WESTCOT seems the likeliest option, especially when the concept is much stronger ITTL thanks to Jim Henson. DCA is not gonna happen, for obvious reasons.

Btw do they have Marvel attractions too? Or walkarounds?
Very likely tbh. I expect Spider-Man and the X-Men to be exceptionally popular walkarounds.

You would think a Disneytown in Paris could work too
The French would be interested in that kind of deal post-Valencia but Disney probably doesn't want it since the location is too close to both London and Valencia. Disney might not have even done London had it not been for Pearson funding their current projects.

You have both The Great Movie Ride and the Muppet parody of The Great Movie Ride. Why did you turn Timeless River from a fun themed land to "The Great Movie Ride but worse"?
I expected Timeless River to be about Disney's classic B&W animation like what Ideal Buildout suggested. Having a ride that is utterly lacks color while having all of the personality of Steamboat Willie and the other Silly Symphonies is just so ridiculously cool. Plus with Out of the Vault, it basically mandates that kind of ride to happen since Oswald, Mickey/Mortimer, Ortensia, and the other classic characters can all make appearances.
 
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Not necessarily, because the location (Glebe Island) is rather restrictive to further expansion compared to something like San Antonio or Denver. If it was at the Gold Coast then it would be very easy to do that. It'll take on a life of its own as a unique Disney resort in the future, but I'm not expecting a Disneyland San Antonio scenario for Sydney.
Actually, if they adapt this, they could easily open up a Disneyland: Gold Coast Resort. Disney: USA. They could easily sell that to the Aussies.
 
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Alien Puppy from Beyond the Moon
Chapter 16: Big Films and Little Films, Part I
From the Riding with the Mouse Net-log by animator Terrell Little


As we moved definitively into the 1990s, Disney Animation continued to expand like crazy. For a long time, there’d always been a single tent pole animation feature, but by this point Disney had moved into a two-film arrangement with a Christmas tent pole and a Summer film, often something experimental or less on-brand. You’d have your sure-fire crowd-pleaser like The Little Mermaid and your gamble like Shrek! Any slack or idle animators would be put into a WED-sig film, Shorts, or new TV series. But the success of some of the smaller animated films like FernGully got the board thinking about the potential of smaller, cheaper films while the ever-increasing abilities of computer animation led the folks at 3D to be certain that they could do an all-vector animated feature for the same cost or less than current methods.

So, for the mid-1990s we expanded, not just in the number of productions, but in the types. Not only would we have the tent pole and the experiment, but we’d start introducing some mid-budget animated features, smaller, less inherently “big” films that would grab a middling audience and make a profit while also giving animators a chance to explore less inherently mainstream ideas, or so the thinking at the time went. It also made use of otherwise idle animators between major projects, whose salaries would otherwise simply become additional non-productive “overhead” expenses.

PreStitch.jpg

Original 1985 Stitch Concept Art by Chris Sanders

First up, Chris Sanders. In the mid-1980’s he’d come up with a sort of tiger-koala-spider alien creature named Stitch intended for a kid’s book. He’d taken it to Soft Pitch a couple of times and made it to Hard Pitch in 1991, but the plot of a violent alien encountering forest creatures wasn’t connecting with Roy or anyone else in Animation. That is until he had a talk with Thomas Schumacher from the Disney Theatrical Productions department, who’d been assisting the music production on The Little Mermaid, allegedly as an excuse to hang out with Freddie Mercury, whom rumor has it he had a small crush on.

Schumacher had been on the Hard Pitch board and generally had liked the concept for the titular alien, but noted that it lacked a “human connection”. They figured out that what Stitch needed was a human, perhaps a little girl, to interact with. They kicked around places to have him crash-land, coming close to having him land in a hillbilly town, playing with the stereotype about rural people and alien abductions, before eventually deciding to move it to Hawaii, where they could make it a commentary on colonialism, drawing direct parallels between the arrival of tourists and an alien invasion.

This time, the Hard Pitch went well, with Thomas signing on to produce, his first animated feature. Skeleton Crew head Tim Burton, who’d been on the Hard Pitch board, loved it and agreed to executive-produce, bringing in Kathy Zielinski as lead animator and art director, but suggested that they move the timeframe to the late 1950s to early 1960s (no year specified). This was a period when Hawaii was just entering into the Tiki Tourist Flood era that saw the isolated new state suddenly overrun with foreign tourists, and which also allowed for the 1950s-era UFO craze and matinee era tropes to be employed.

What emerged was a sort of atomic-era Cold War story of a young Native Hawaiian girl named Ulani, ironically meaning ‘cheerful’ given her anger issues, whose parents had died before the film began and whose exhausted and overworked older sister Luanna (enjoyment) was trying to keep the family together. It was chock-full of midcentury pop culture references, Elvis and Don Ho songs, appearances by surfing legend “Duke” Kahanamoku, long boards and woodies[1], Panama hats and obnoxious shirts, and visual references to the rubber alien matinee films of the era. Theremin music and midcentury science fiction designs added to the visual ties to the midcentury.

Stitch himself would be an intergalactic bank robber whose partner Mahua (based on the Hawaiian word for bragging) decided to turn on Stitch and cooperate with the galactic authorities, represented by the effeminate Agent Kacaki (based on an old Hawaiian word for gangly or clumsy). And when the violent fugitive alien Stitch[2] crash lands on Hawaii and is adopted by troubled, unpopular Ulani, who mistakes him for a puppy, the resulting film plays the alien invasion themes against the colonial history of Hawaii and the influx of tourists, and plays alien abduction themes against the government agency that’s threatening to take Ulani from Luanna and put her into the government foster system, which in the 1950s held implications of cultural assimilation.

It was a screwball, slapstick comedy.

220px-LiloandStitchmovieposter.jpg

Effectively this a decade earlier, but with a Burtonesque veneer and a ‘50s/’60s setting

Over time the characters and audience alike learn that Stitch is a good being at heart who had a hard childhood, and in many ways is a reflection of Ulani and her own trauma. We watch them learn and heal together and eventually learn the important lessons of Family and how that means being there for one another (“‘ohana means ‘family’, and ‘family’ means no one is left behind”).

Ironically, finding a name for the film became the biggest challenge for the production team. “Ulani and Stitch” was the working title, but Tim wanted something that “popped” and had that “campy, matinee feel”. So they kicked around ideas like “It Came to the Luau” or (in a nod to Satriani) “Surfing with the Alien”. They tried out plenty of names: “From Space to Honolulu”, “My Pet Alien”, “My Friend the Alien”, and even “Alien Puppy from Beyond the Moon”. One animator got a talking-to after jokingly suggesting “Illegal Alien”. About the only thing that all this name-storming led to was the Chiodo Brothers’ low budget horror-comedy Hawaiian Vamps.

Ultimately, they decided on An Alien in the Family[3], which fit well with the prevailing theme of family, specifically the Hawaiian concept of ‘ohana.

I always wondered what was wrong with just calling it “Ulani and Stitch”.

Either way, it’s combination of heart, cute, campy, scary, and weird netted a good $227 million against its $56 million budget when it released in July of 1993[4]. It also kicked off a still-beloved line of merchandise, which made Bo Boyd very happy, and eventually a popular ongoing TV series just called Ulani and Stitch.

220px-James_and_the_giant_peach.jpg


The Skeleton Crew was also producing a hybrid stop-motion animation James and the Giant Peach based on the Roald Dahl book. Henry Selick was directing. It was weird. If you’ve seen it, you know. Part of me at the time wanted to volunteer just to learn the stop motion skills for when I was finally replaced by a computer. Alas, it ultimately flopped.

And speaking of computers, you also had The Brave Little Toaster by the 3D crew. John Lasseter had been pushing to do a production of the book for years, but it would be his protégé Joe Ranft that finally produced it. Lasseter, who’d just reemerged at 3D as an animator after suffering demotion and probation for his treatment of his female employees, was an animator on the feature, and saw it as his chance at redemption. I had to hand it to John. A lot of employees would have (and did) leave Disney after the reckoning on sexual harassment (he could have easily gotten a job at Hollywood Animation or Warner Bros.), but John seemed honestly repentant and wanted to make amends. Having come to a reckoning on my own issues a few years back, I wished him luck.

Brave_Little_Toaster_poster.jpg

This, but later and fully CG

The Brave Little Toaster was revolutionary at the time in that it would be all vector CG. No pencil sketches digitally inked and colored using DATA. Not even light-pen sketching like we did on Lost in La Mancha. It was all ones-and-zeroes and three-dimensional vectors and polygons. The only solid art was the concept art, leaving little for the archives. While CG animation is dominant today, back then it was brand new. They’d made several Shorts using the tech, such as Tin Toy Troubles, but this was the first animated feature entirely using the technology, and it was seen as a big gamble at the time. I got pulled in to lead animation on Kirby the vacuum cleaner. I already had learned a lot about vector animation on La Mancha, but this all-digital project was something new and exciting, and frankly a bit scary. We’d already largely put the Ink & Paint department out of work save for WED Signature stuff done “for the art”, and now it was looking like even the old hand-sketched stuff was on notice. I made sure to learn the ropes on vector animation knowing that the second it became quicker, easier, and most importantly cheaper than the old ways we’d soon be looking at a world where hand-drawn animation was a WED-Sig thing too.

Another fear struck me: as more and more stock vector sets were collected, the more could be recycled Woolie Style, with just a basic software geek to merge an existing skin with an existing motion vector sequence. How soon before I, as an animator, was as much a thing of the past as a locomotive coal handler or a wagon maker? Well, hopefully that day won’t ever come, at least in my lifetime. Even so, I made a point of looking into a rotation at the I-Works just to broaden my skill sets in case that day ever came.

Computer animation would also factor heavily in Treasure Planet, made in partnership with Studio Ghibli. Ron Clements had been pushing for a “Treasure Island in Space” film for years, but it had always been on the back burner. And then we partnered with Ghibli to do The Bamboo Princess. Ron, who’d loved Miyazaki-san’s ability with mixing fantasy and technology, pitched the idea as the next collaboration. Miyazaki-san loved how it mixed the old and the new, the technological and the pre-industrial, and its themes of modernism versus traditionalism. And who doesn’t like the idea of Space Pirates?

Though I’d been leading the animation team on Kirby for The Brave Little Toaster, I soon got pulled in as lead US animator for Treasure Planet, apparently by request of Miyazaki-san himself. I girded myself for a lot of hard work.

To be continued…



[1] The large old fashioned surf boards and the iconic car style. Get your head out of the gutter!

[2] Stitch in this case will keep his tiger stripes and be a little more Burtonesque in appearance, just creepy enough in “danger mode” to have the hint of scary, just cute enough in “blending mode” to not cause nightmares.

[3] Merged somewhat with a vague idea that led in our timeline to the ABC Henson Creature Shop supported 1996 failed SITCOM Aliens in the Family.

[4] Roughly on par with how Lilo & Stitch performed adjusted for inflation.
 
Excellent update.

I wonder if thanks to the negative depiction of government colonialism in TTL's Lilo and Stich and how damaging tourism is, tourism to Hawaii is going to take a bit of a decline, but at the same time native hawaiian support grows.
 
Hmmm...could we see a movement advocating restoring Hawaiian independence among some?
Indeed. Unfortunately, even at this point corporations how way too much to lose if that happens, so they'll lobby the government not to let that happen and crush it.

Back to my point, I wonder if on the former point, the tiki culture that fuels Hawaiian tourism will become Condemned by History as being an imperialist, culturally appropriated style nobody wants to have.
 
Another fine update. The only downside to these TL's, is many of these are based off Disney ideas I haven't heard of before, either because they're very obscure, or never got beyond the planning stages.
 
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