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![Disney's Yacht Club Resort is a New England nautical-themed resort, at Walt Disney World. First opened on November 5, 1990, it is one of several Epcot Area Resorts. Disney's Yacht Club is located next to a sister resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, and across Crescent Lake from Disney's BoardWalk Resort. Disney's Yacht Club Resort has received designation in the Florida Green Lodging Program.[1]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110525234251im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/4e/b5/22850e50ea657df82e2a883c5cc6_grande.jpg "Disney's Yacht Club Resort is a New England nautical-themed resort, at Walt Disney World. First opened on November 5, 1990, it is one of several Epcot Area Resorts. Disney's Yacht Club is located next to a sister resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, and across Crescent Lake from Disney's BoardWalk Resort. Disney's Yacht Club Resort has received designation in the Florida Green Lodging Program.[1]")
| Bgcolor | #4f913d |
|---|---|
| Fgcolor | white |
| Name | Epcot |
| Opening | October 1, 1982 |
| Resort | Walt Disney World Resort |
| Theme | Technology, innovation and internationality |
| Website | Epcot's homepage |
| Operator | The Walt Disney Company |
Epcot is an acronym of Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, a utopian city of the future planned by Walt Disney. Disney's original vision of EPCOT was for a model community, home to twenty thousand residents, which would be a test bed for city planning and organization. Disney's vision was not realized as funding and permission to start work on his Florida property would not be granted until he agreed to build the Magic Kingdom first. Disney died before the Magic Kingdom opened and the Walt Disney Company decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city.
The theme park originally was known as EPCOT Center to reflect the fact that the park was built to embody the ideals and values of EPCOT the city. The park consists of two sections; Future World and World Showcase, laid out in an hourglass shape. Both sections are patterned after the types of exhibits found at world expositions. In its early years, Epcot was often called a "permanent World's Fair."
EPCOT Center was constructed for an estimated $800 million to $1.4 billion and took three years to build (at the time the largest construction project on Earth). Covering an area of , it is more than twice the size of The Magic Kingdom. The parking lot serving the park is (including bus area) and can accommodate 11,211 vehicles (grass areas hold additional 500+ vehicles).
Walt Disney's original vision of EPCOT was for a model community, home to twenty thousand residents, which would be a test bed for city planning and organization. The community was to have been built in the shape of a circle, with businesses and commercial areas at its center, community buildings and schools and recreational complexes around it, and residential neighborhoods along the perimeter. Transportation would have been provided by monorails and PeopleMovers (like the one in the Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland). Automobile traffic would be kept underground, leaving pedestrians safe above-ground. Walt Disney said, "It will be a planned, controlled community, a showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural and educational opportunities. In EPCOT, there will be no slum areas because we won't let them develop. There will be no landowners and therefore no voting control. People will rent houses instead of buying them, and at modest rentals. There will be no retirees; everyone must be employed." The original model of this original vision of EPCOT can still be seen by passengers riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority attraction in the Magic Kingdom park; when the PeopleMover enters the showhouse for Stitch's Great Escape!, the model is visible on the left (when facing forward) behind glass. This vision was not realized. Walt Disney was not able to obtain funding and permission to start work on his Florida property until he agreed to build the Magic Kingdom first. Disney died before the Magic Kingdom opened.
After Disney's death, The Walt Disney Company decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city. The model community of Celebration, Florida has been mentioned as a realization of Disney's original vision, but Celebration is based on concepts of new urbanism which is radically different from Disney's modernist and futurist visions. However, the idea of EPCOT was instrumental in prompting the state of Florida to create the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) and the Cities of Bay Lake and Reedy Creek (soon renamed Lake Buena Vista), a legislative mechanism which allows the Walt Disney Company to exercise governmental powers over Walt Disney World. Control over the RCID is vested in the landowners of the district, and the promise of an actual city in the district would have meant that the powers of the RCID would have been distributed among the landowners in EPCOT. Because the idea of EPCOT was never implemented, the Disney Corporation remained almost the sole landowner in the district allowing it to maintain control of the RCID and the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista; Disney further cemented this control by deannexing Celebration from the RCID.
The original plans for the park showed indecision over what the park's purpose was to be: some Imagineers wanted it to represent the cutting edge of technology, while others wanted it to showcase international cultures and customs. At one point a model of the futuristic park was pushed together against a model of the international park, and EPCOT Center was born—a theme park with the flavor of a World's Fair.
As part of the opening-day ceremony, dancers and band members performed We've Just Begun to Dream. The Sherman Brothers wrote a song especially for the occasion entitled, "The World Showcase March". During the finale, doves and many sets of balloons were released.
Performing groups representing countries from all over the world performed in World Showcase. Water gathered from major rivers across the globe was emptied into the park's fountain of nations ceremonial containers to mark the opening.
Located at the front of the park is a plaque bearing Walker's opening-day dedication, as seen above.
Each Future World pavilion was initially sponsored by a corporation who helped fund its construction and maintenance in return for the corporation's logos appearing prominently throughout the pavilion. For example, Universe of Energy was sponsored by Exxon from 1982 to 2004, and The Land was sponsored by Kraft from 1982 to 1993, then Nestlé from 1993 to 2009. Each pavilion contains a posh "VIP area" for its sponsor with offices, lounges, and reception areas hidden away from regular park guests. In the years since the park's opening, however, some sponsors have decided that the branding wasn't worth the cost of sponsorship and have pulled out, leaving some of the pavilions without sponsors. Disney prefers to have sponsors helping to pay the bills, so pavilions without sponsors have an uncertain future. After General Electric left Horizons in 1993, it closed for a couple of years, then re-opened temporarily while neighboring attractions Universe of Energy and World of Motion were renovated. Horizons closed permanently on January 9, 1999 and was demolished in the summer of 2000 to make room for the opening of Mission: SPACE on October 9, 2003. Metlife sponsored Wonders of Life from 1982 to 2001, until that area was closed. However, the Wonders Of Life pavilion is still mostly intact and is used for both the Flower and Garden Festival and the Food and Wine Festival. Test Track opened in the World of Motion pavilion and is still sponsored by General Motors. is sponsored by Hewlett-Packard. Spaceship Earth was sponsored by Bell System from 1982 to 1984, then AT&T; (Bell System's parent company, following the Bell System Divestiture) from 1984 until 2003. It was not sponsored between 2003 and 2005. It is now sponsored by Siemens.
World Showcase contains pavilions representing eleven countries—click on the links below for more information about each. In clockwise order, the pavilions are: Mexico Norway China Germany Italy The American Adventure Japan Morocco France United Kingdom Canada
Of the eleven pavilions, Norway and Morocco were not present at the park's opening, and were added later. Each of these contains representative shops and restaurants and is staffed by citizens of these countries, as part of the Cultural Representative Program. Some also contain rides and shows. The only pavilion that is sponsored by the country it represents is Morocco. The remaining country pavilions are all sponsored by private companies.
Pavilions for Australia, Russia, Spain, Venezuela, United Arab Emirates, and Israel never made it past the planning phase. An Equatorial Africa pavilion was planned but was never built. It would have featured a large African presentation film hosted by Alex Haley. A small African themed refreshment stop is now in its place, known as the Outpost. After Disney's Animal Kingdom—an African-and-Asian-themed animal preserve and park—opened, any plans for an African Pavilion were dropped.
The World Showcase usually opens two hours after park opening and remains open later than the Future World section of the park, however most major attractions in Future World including Test Track, Soarin', Mission Space, The Seas with Nemo and Friends, and Spaceship Earth remain open until park close.
Unlike the Magic Kingdom, which does not serve alcohol, many stores and restaurants in the World Showcase do serve or sell alcoholic beverages from their respective countries, and beer is sold at refreshment stands throughout the park.
There is an entrance to the park between the France and United Kingdom Pavilions known as the International Gateway. Guests staying in a number of the Epcot Resorts and guests coming from Disney's Hollywood Studios can access this gate by walkway or boat.
:Side 2 #"Universe of Energy" - Universe of Energy – 2:14 #"Listen to the Land" - The Land – 2:59 #"One Little Spark" - Journey Into Imagination – 3:40 #"It's Fun to Be Free" - World of Motion – 2:14 #"Makin' Memories" - Journey Into Imagination – 3:26 #"Kitchen Kabaret Medley" - The Land – 2:20 #*Boogie Woogy Bakery Boy #*Meat Ditties #*Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit
When the day finally came, guests were surprised as they received special maps, resembling the Opening Day maps, rededication event and "chat" with Marty Sklar. There was also an "EPCOT's 25th Anniversary Gallery", special Opening Day foods at the restaurants, merchandising and a new tag to be added to the end of Illuminations: Reflections of Earth. After the tag, another surprise from Disney: music from past attractions started playing live, while the old logo of the park was projected onto Spaceship Earth. Martin Smith, famous for his "tributes" to past attractions, available on the internet, was the last guest on the park. His words were: "Goodnight EPCOT, happy 25th."
Category:1982 establishments Category:Amusement parks in Greater Orlando Category:Disney parks and attractions Category:Visitor attractions in Greater Orlando Category:Walt Disney World Resort
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Walt Disney |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Walter Elias Disney |
| Birth date | December 05, 1901 |
| Birth place | Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Death date | December 15, 1966 |
| Death place | Burbank, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Film producer, Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions |
| Yearsactive | 1920–1966 |
| Spouse | Lillian Bounds (1925–1966) |
| Parents | Elias DisneyFlora Call Disney |
| Relations | Herbert Arthur Disney (brother)Raymond Arnold Disney (brother)Roy Oliver Disney (brother)Ruth Flora Disney (sister)Ronald William Miller (son-in-law)Robert Borgfeldt Brown (son-in-law)Roy Edward Disney (nephew) |
| Children | Diane Marie DisneySharon Mae Disney |
| Religion | Christian |
| Signature | Walt Disney Signature 2.svg |
Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, a character for which Disney himself was the original voice. He has been awarded four honorary Academy Awards and has won twenty-two competitive Academy Awards out of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual. He also won seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong.
Disney died of lung cancer in Burbank, California, on December 15, 1966. The following year, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.
His father, Elias Disney, moved from Huron County, Ontario, to the United States in 1878, seeking first for gold in California but finally farming with his parents near Ellis, Kansas, until 1884. He worked for Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888, in Acron, Florida. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1890, where his brother Robert lived. where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland. One of their neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paid him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert. before moving to Kansas City in 1911. There, Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School where he met Walter Pfeiffer. The Pfeiffers were theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Soon, Walt was spending more time at the Pfeiffers' than at home. During this time he attended Saturday courses as a child at the Kansas City Art Institute. While they were living in Kansas City, Walt and Ruth Disney were also regular visitors of Electric Park, 15 blocks from their home (Disney would later acknowledge the amusement park as a major influence of his design of Disneyland).
After his rejection from the army, Walt and one of his friends decided to join the Red Cross. Soon after he joined The Red Cross, Walt was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance, but not before the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.
In 1919, Walt, hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory, left home and moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career. After considering becoming an actor or a newspaper artist, he decided he wanted to create a career in the newspaper, drawing political caricatures or comic strips. But when nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist or even as an ambulance driver, his brother Roy, who worked at a bank in the area, got a temporary job for him at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio through a bank colleague. It was here that he met a cartoonist named Ubbe Iwerks. When their time at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio expired, they were both without a job, and they decided to start their own commercial company.In January 1920, Disney and Iwerks formed a short-lived company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". However, following a rough start, Disney left temporarily to earn money at Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon joined by Iwerks who was not able to run the business alone. While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animation, Disney took up an interest in the field of animation, and decided to become an animator. He was allowed by the owner of the Ad Company, A.V. Cauger, to borrow a camera from work, which he could use to experiment with at home. After reading a book by Edwin G. Lutz, called Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development, he found cel animation to be much more promising than the cutout animation he was doing for Cauger. Walt eventually decided to open his own animation business, and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Fred Harman, as his first employee. — to screen their cartoons — which they titled "Laugh-O-Grams" — at his local theater. Through their success, Disney was able to acquire his own studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram, and hire a vast number of additional animators, including Fred Harman's brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his close friend Ubbe Iwerks. Unfortunately, with all his high employee salaries unable to make up for studio profits, Walt was unable to successfully manage money. As a result, the studio became loaded with debt
The new series, Alice Comedies, was reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice. Lois Hardwick also briefly assumed the role of Alice. By the time the series ended in 1927, the focus was more on the animated characters, in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.
In February 1928, Disney went to New York to negotiate a higher fee per short from Mintz. Disney was shocked when Mintz announced not only that he wanted to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators—including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng (notably, except Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney)—under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Disney. Disney declined Mintz's offer and lost most of his animation staff.
With most of his staff gone Disney now found himself on his own again. It took Disney's company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character. The Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal in 2006, through a trade for longtime ABC sports commentator Al Michaels.
After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him. He based the character on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City. Ub Iwerks reworked the sketches made by Disney so the character was easier to animate. However, Mickey's voice and personality was provided by Disney until 1947. In the words of a Disney employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul." and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. Disney himself provided the vocal effects for the earliest cartoons and performed as the voice of Mickey Mouse until 1946. After the release of Steamboat Willie, Walt Disney would continue to successfully use sound in all of his future cartoons, and Cinephone became the new distributor for Disney's early sound cartoons as well. Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most popular cartoon character. Mickey's popularity would now skyrocket in the early 1930s. and in 1930, Disney signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the cartoons were musical novelty, and Carl Stalling wrote the score for the first Silly Symphony cartoons as well.
Iwerks was soon lured by Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract. Later, Carl Stalling would also leave Disney to join Iwerks' new studio. Iwerks launched his Flip the Frog series with the first voice cartoon in color, "Fiddlesticks," filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other series of cartoons, the Willie Whopper and the Comicolor. In 1936, Iwerks shut his studio to work on various projects dealing with animation technology. He would return to Disney in 1940 and, would go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized animation technologies in the studio's research and development department.
By 1932, Mickey Mouse had become quite a popular cinema character, but Silly Symphonies was not as successful. The same year also saw competition increase as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, would gain more popularity among theater audiences. Fleischer was considered to be Disney's main rival in the 1930s, and was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom Disney would later hire to direct his 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of Disney cartoons and was replaced by United Artists. In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera, approached Walt and convinced him to redo Flowers and Trees, which was originally done in black and white, with three-strip Technicolor. Flowers and Trees would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons for 1932. After Flowers and Trees was released, all future Silly Symphony cartoons were done in color as well. Disney was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use three-strip Technicolor, which would also eventually be extended to five years as well. The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, and also featured the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf". .]]
All of this development and training was used to elevate the quality of the studio so that it would be able to give the feature film the quality Disney desired. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as the feature was named, was in full production from 1934 until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To acquire the funding to complete Snow White, Disney had to show a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers at the Bank of America, who gave the studio the money to finish the picture. The finished film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937; at the conclusion of the film, the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in America and Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures; RKO had previously been the distributor for Disney cartoons in 1936, after it closed down the Van Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution. The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million in its original theatrical release.
Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters in 1940, but both were financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was planned as an income generator, but during production of the new film, most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining the relationship between Disney and his artists.
Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the United States entered World War II. The U.S. Army contracted most of the Disney studio's facilities and had the staff create training and instructional films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the feature film Victory Through Air Power in 1943. However, the military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed when it was released in April 1942. Disney successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for Disney features. In 1945, The Three Caballeros was the last animated feature by Disney during the war period.
In 1944, William Benton, publisher of the Encyclopædia Britannica, had entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Disney to make six to twelve educational films annually. Disney was asked by the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the Amazon Basin and it resulted in the 1944 animated short, The Amazon Awakens.
By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, both of which had been shelved during the war years, and began work on Cinderella, which became Disney's most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio also began a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, in 1948 with On Seal Island. Despite rebounding success through feature films, Disney's animation shorts were no longer as popular as they used to be, and people began to instead draw attention to Warner Bros and their animation star Bugs Bunny. By 1942, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the country's most popular animation studio. However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's; Donald would also replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star character by 1949.
During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957. in 1954.]]
Additionally, Disney accused the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.
As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955), Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70mm, 1959), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and The Sword in the Stone (1963).
Production on the short cartoons had kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed by Disney's new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had assumed all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 1955. Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of successful Disney properties and films.
After 1955, the show, Disneyland came to be known as Walt Disney Presents. The show transformed from black-and-white to color in 1961 and changed its name to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moving from ABC to NBC, and eventually evolving into its current form as The Wonderful World of Disney. It continued to air on NBC until 1981, when CBS picked it up. Since then, it has aired on ABC, NBC, Hallmark Channel and Cartoon Network via separate broadcast rights deals. During its run, the Disney series offered some recurring characters, such as Roger Mobley appearing as the newspaper reporter and sleuth "Gallegher", based on the writing of Richard Harding Davis.
Disney had already formed his own music publishing division back in 1949. In 1956, partly inspired by the huge success of the television theme song The Ballad of Davy Crockett, he created a company-owned record production and distribution entity called Disneyland Records.
After decades of pursuing, Disney finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' books about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers. The same year, Disney debuted a number of exhibits at the 1964 New York World's Fair, including Audio-Animatronic figures, all of which were later integrated into attractions at Disneyland and a new theme park project which was to be established on the East Coast.
Though the studio probably would have made great competition with Hanna-Barbera, Disney had decided not to enter the race for producing Saturday morning cartoon series on television (which Hanna-Barbera had done at the time), because with the expansion of Disney's empire and constant production of feature films, there would be too much for the budget to handle.
Disney was cremated on December 17, 1966, and his ashes reside at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Roy O. Disney continued to carry out the Florida project, insisting that the name be changed to Walt Disney World in honor of his brother.
The final productions in which Disney had an active role were the animated features The Jungle Book and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, and the live-action musical comedy The Happiest Millionaire, both released in 1967. Songwriter Robert B. Sherman said about the last time he saw Disney: }}
A long-standing urban legend maintains that Disney was cryogenically frozen, and his frozen corpse was stored underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. The first known instance of cryogenic freezing of a corpse occurred a month later, in January 1967. Roy died from a cerebral hemorrhage on December 20, 1971, the day he was due to open the Disneyland Christmas parade. During the second phase of the "Walt Disney World" theme park, EPCOT was translated by Disney's successors into EPCOT Center, which opened in 1982. As it currently exists, EPCOT is essentially a living world's fair, different from the actual functional city that Disney had envisioned. In 1992, Walt Disney Imagineering took the step closer to Disney's original ideas and dedicated Celebration, Florida, a town built by the Walt Disney Company adjacent to Walt Disney World, that hearkens back to the spirit of EPCOT. EPCOT was also originally intended to be devoid of Disney characters which initially limited the appeal of the park to young children. However, the company later changed this policy and Disney characters can now be found throughout the park, often dressed in costumes reflecting the different pavilions.
In an early admissions bulletin, Disney explained: }}
A minor planet, 4017 Disneya, discovered in 1980 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina, is named after him.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, opened in 2003, was named in his honor.
Beginning in 1993, HBO began to develop a Walt Disney biopic under the direction of Frank Pierson with Lawrence Turman. The project never materialized and was soon abandoned.
Category:1901 births Category:1966 deaths Category:American animators Category:American anti-communists Category:American cartoonists Category:American Congregationalists Category:American Christians Category:American entertainment industry businesspeople Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American screenwriters Category:American television personalities Category:American voice actors Category:Animated film directors Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale) Category:California Republicans Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Disney comics writers Category:Disney people Category:English-language film directors Category:Film studio executives Category:American artists of German descent Category:American writers of German descent Category:Illinois Republicans Category:American writers of Irish descent Category:American people of Canadian descent Category:American people of English descent Category:American people of French descent Category:Kansas City Art Institute alumni Category:National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Category:Animated film producers
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| Name | Tank |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Durrell Babbs |
| Born | January 01, 1976Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US |
| Origin | Washington, DC, US |
| Genre | R&B;, pop, hip hop, dance, crunk&B;, reggae |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, dancer, actor, model, musician |
| Instruments | Vocals, keyboard, piano, drums |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Label | Blackground (2000-2009), Atlantic (2010-Present) |
| Associated acts | TGT, Tyrese, Ginuwine, The Underdogs, Aaliyah, Omarion |
| Url | www.TheRealTank.com |
In 2002, Tank released his second album One Man and a single of the same name. Later the same year he went on to co-produce Missy Elliott's smash hit single "One Minute Man".
Tank released his third solo album entitled "Sex, Love & Pain" on May 15, 2007. The lead single was intended to be "I Luv Dem Girls", but for unknown reasons the song was given to Marques Houston who renamed it "Strip Club" (intending to place it on his third solo album "Veteran"). However, "Strip Club" did not make "Veteran," and "Sex, Love & Pain"'s last track is the Timbaland remix to "I Luv Dem Girls". The first single from Tank's third album was "Please Don't Go". Later in the year Tank, Ginuwine and Tyrese Gibson formed a group called TGT. Their first single was a remix of "Please Don't Go" with an international tour entitled "The Shirts Off Tour" and search for a fourth member to follow. Tank has also just released his 4th studio album Now Or Never on December 14, 2010. Tank collaborated with other artists on this project like Chris Brown, Drake, Letoya Luckett and many other artists.
Tank's song writing and production credits include working with Dave Hollister, Marques Houston, Omarion, Jamie Foxx, Donell Jones and Monica amongst others. As an associate of production team The Underdogs, also Thomas Dudley Tedii from LOVEISREALBAND, and along with his team, Song Dynasty. He has worked with many different artists over the years and was also a contributor to the score of the film adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, in which he also had a cameo. He was also featured in the movie "The Preacher's Kid."
Category:African American singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American male singers Category:Living people Category:People from Milwaukee, Wisconsin Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:1976 births
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Robby Benson |
|---|---|
| Caption | Benson in the 1974 TV movie All The Kind Strangers. |
| Birth name | Robin David Segal |
| Birth date | January 21, 1956 |
| Birth place | Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor, director, educator, singer |
| Yearsactive | 1970–present |
| Spouse | Karla DeVito (1982-present) (2 children) |
He was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1976" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 28. [1976], and auditioned for the role of Luke Skywalker in (1977), but lost the role to Mark Hamill. He received critical acclaim for his role as the hockey player, Nick Peterson, in Ice Castles (1978). In Walk Proud (1979), he played a Chicano gang member.
Other notable performances include Death Be Not Proud and Lucky Lady, both in 1975, and One on One co-starring Annette O'Toole in 1977. Also in 1977 came the TV movie The Death of Richie, co-starring actor Ben Gazzara. In 1978 he starred with Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise in The End, directed by Reynolds. In 1981, he costarred with Rod Steiger in the film The Chosen, based on the Chaim Potok book of the same name. Also in the early 1980s, he appeared as a young man with a learning disability in the made-for-television film Two of a Kind, along with George Burns playing the role of his "Grand-Poppy".
In 1983 he portrayed distance runner Billy Mills in Running Brave, a story of an Oglala Sioux who against all odds achieves greatness with a come from behind gold medal win in the 10,000 meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
In 1984 he co-starred among others with Paul Newman in Harry and Son.
In Disney's animated feature film Beauty and the Beast, Benson demonstrated his vocal abilities by providing the voice of Beast. He would later reprise the role in the Kingdom Hearts video game series. This role led to other voice work for animated features, including the widely popular Prince Valiant cartoon series The Legend of Prince Valiant, as well as Exosquad (as the heroic Able Squad leader J.T. Marsh). Benson also lends his voice to some computer and video game work, such as the voice of Prince Alexander in the computer game .Benson directed over 100 sitcom episodes including Friends, Sabrina, an entire season of Ellen, and two seasons of Thunder Alley.
Benson is also an author, penning the novel Who Stole The Funny?, released in 2007.
Benson was born with a heart defect which necessitated heart valve surgery in October 1984 and again in 1998. He is an activist and fundraiser for heart research, which, in 2004, lead him to write the book, lyrics, and music for an original Off-Broadway play called Open Heart. The play starred Robby and his wife Karla, and expressed the trials of heart surgery with a modern artistic flare.
Category:Actors from Texas Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American television directors Category:American Jews Category:American musical theatre actors Category:American soap opera actors Category:American video game actors Category:American voice actors Category:Jewish actors Category:People from Dallas, Texas Category:1956 births Category:Living people
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In 1941, Walker was forced to delay his Disney career to serve in the United States Navy during World War II. After the war, he returned to the studio. In 1956, he became vice president of advertising and sales, before being elected to the Board of Directors in 1960.
As a top Disney executive, Walker played a major part in the early development of Walt Disney World in Florida. He also sought to expand Disney's presence to international territory. Epcot and Tokyo Disneyland both opened under Walker's leadership, and he also presided over the dedications of both parks.
Walker continued to serve as a consultant to the company until 1990 and was member of the board of directors until 1999. His contributions culminated in his induction into the Disney Legends in 1993.
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
![Disney's Yacht Club Resort is a New England nautical-themed resort, at Walt Disney World. First opened on November 5, 1990, it is one of several Epcot Area Resorts. Disney's Yacht Club is located next to a sister resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, and across Crescent Lake from Disney's BoardWalk Resort. Disney's Yacht Club Resort has received designation in the Florida Green Lodging Program.[1]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110525234251im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/4e/b5/22850e50ea657df82e2a883c5cc6_thumb.jpg "Disney's Yacht Club Resort is a New England nautical-themed resort, at Walt Disney World. First opened on November 5, 1990, it is one of several Epcot Area Resorts. Disney's Yacht Club is located next to a sister resort, Disney's Beach Club Resort, and across Crescent Lake from Disney's BoardWalk Resort. Disney's Yacht Club Resort has received designation in the Florida Green Lodging Program.[1]")
