Happy Birthday, Mickey!

The first Mickey Mouse cartoon was called Plane Crazy. Charles Lindbergh’s heroic first solo flight across the Atlantic was its inspiration. The test screening premiered in Hollywood on May 15, 1928. Unfortunately, it was never picked up for distribution. 

The second Mickey Mouse cartoon was called The Gallopin’ Gaucho. Like Plane Crazy, it suffered the same fate.

However, on November 18, 1928, a star was born! It was that date that Walt's third cartoon, Steamboat Willie, premiered at The Colony Theatre in New York. The cartoon was a huge hit! Walt ended up receiving $1,000 for its two-week run. At the time, it was the highest sum ever paid for a cartoon on Broadway.

Favorite Disney Things ~ R-n-R Coaster Launch

Favorite Disney Thing #17 - The Rock-N-Roller (RnR) Coaster Launch - This coaster is elaborately themed around a night in the life of the legendary rock-n-roll group, Aerosmith. After working your way through most of the queue, you enter a recording studio at G-Force Records. There you'll find the five members of Aerosmith just finishing up a recording session, but unfortunately, as the story goes, the band must leave quickly to make it in time to perform at their concert. Lead singer Steven Tyler doesn't want to leave everyone behind, so he requests 'backstage passes' for everyone. Guests are then ushered through a door to a scene portraying the back alley of a parking garage, where 'super stretch limos' (24-passenger coaster trains) are picking up guests and whisking them away to the concert. While you wait, you'll see the limo-themed coasters drive up to and then stop at a traffic light hanging from the entrance to a tunnel. What happens next is my favorite part of the whole ride!

walkDisney, Training for a Better Trip

Have you ever heard of runDisney? I am NOT a runner, so when I first heard that word years ago, all I could picture was a bunch of people at rope drop sprinting towards Toy Story Midway Mania. Disney mornings like that usually leave me exhausted by noon because I am not used to all that running. It turns out that runDisney isn't about rope drop at all. It's what Disney calls their premiere destination race series. This includes nine different marathon and half-marathon weekends that are hosted at the different Disney parks. Since I am not a runner (unless you count being chased by a large flying insect), you will probably never see me participating in a runDisney event.