Taylor Swift's early music catalog was bought by Shamrock Holdings. For over a year, Taylor has  been trying to buy her master's, which include her first six recorded albums, music videos, and album artwork. She was denied the opportunity to buy them, only for them to be bought by Hollywood's most callous manager . Recently, the master's were sold again to Shamrock Holdings.  A quick internet search will tell you that Shamrock Holdings is owned by none other than the Disney Family. Roy O. Disney founded the investment company and his granddaughter Abigail Disney is currently the Vice Chairman. Abigail Disney constantly speaks out against the Disney company's unethically greed and how current CEOs are not upholding Disney's morals.  According to their website, "Shamrock's tenet's are straightforward - invest and act with integrity, responsibility, and transparency." I have to laugh at the "integrity" part. Stealing another artis...

Everybody has their own opinions on what would make the perfect park for them. In the Disney Parks community, there is constant discourse on everything from which attractions should come back and which ones should be replaced to what type of music should play in the background or what type of coffee should be sold. If I was magically CEO for a day, here are some of the changes I would make to Magic Kingdom park. 1. Scrap that disastrous paint job and restore the castle to its silver and sky blue glory. Add more (temporary) sparkles for the 50th anniversary. 2. Upgrade the monorails and monorail tracks. Before the park closures, it seemed like a high number of breakdowns were being reported. 3. Put in more seating options on the ferry. I know that having people stand makes it possible to cram more people onto the ferry, but it also makes riding it almost unbearable. And courtesy always comes before efficiency! 4. Change up the menu at Tony’s. I personally love it but it seems food criti...

Walt Disney World officially opened up again (with restrictions) this summer. And while many are enjoying being back, for many others visiting the parks will not be an option for months to come. In the meantime, I'd thought I'd share some of my favorite park memories. 1. Big Downpour Mountain        I was spending an afternoon at Magic Kingdom with one of my friends. One of our favorite rides is Big Thunder Mountain. As we were waiting in line, my friend noticed the clouds growing darker. I checked the weather app on my cell and assured her it was not supposed to rain for a few more hours, which gave us plenty of time to have fun before hunkering down in a gift shop or somewhere. So we stayed in line and continued down the stairs to the enclosed loading platform.       If you don't know, Big Thunder Mounta in starts indoors.  The  loading platform is all indoors, and the train enters a cave scene. ...

A Fun Queue Disney Parks have been updating their queues recently to be interactive and interesting to look at it while waiting. The Splash Mountain queue has some great Frontierland theming and look-throughs into the character’s homes. The queue could be gussied up a bit, especially since long wait times will be predicted once the re-theme is opened. I’m not exactly sure what I would want in the queue, but it needs to be updated from just brown cave walls.    New Animatronics Splash Mountain has always had plenty of frogs and alligators. These could easily be recycled for the re-theme, and save Disney some money. But I hope they completely change them out. The Splash animatronics look very dated, and that will only become more noticeable when they are placed next to updated ones. .  Charlotte Lottie is such a great character! She brings comedy, liveliness and fabulousness to the PATF ensemble. I hope she makes an appearance in the ride.   Ray and Evangeline The even...

I’ve struggled with a long time on how to defend Jasmine. If I’m being honest, she’s probably my least favorite Disney Princess. I don’t have much sentimentality for as Aladdin was never my go-to childhood movie. My stereotypical feminine toddler self much preferred Disney movies that featured cats or ball gowns over movies about streetrats.   Jasmine also has the unique position of being the only Disney Princess whose movie is not really about her. Aladdin is, well, about Aladdin. I could say that hinders me from doing a proper analysis of her character, but I easily unearthed much out of Aurora’s character when she only speaks 18 lines – and her movie is supposed to be about her!   Jasmine ranked so low in my personal ratings on the grounds that she doesn’t do anything. Maybe this is ironic coming from someone who passionately defended the “do-nothing” Princesses like Aurora and Snow White, but they do something . They walk the walk, whereas Jasmine just talks the talk. Sh...

At first, I thought it was just one of those April Fool’s-esque jokes, like when everyone was putting out articles that Cinderella’s castle would be changed to the Frozen castle.   But as I read it from multiple sources, I realized that it was true. And my initial, knee-jerk reaction when I heard of this iconic Disney attraction changing was “No!”.   But the more I thought about it, the more I excited I became for the re-theme.   I kind of low-key hate Splash Mountain. Not the drop. The drop is the best part. I hate the show rooms. I already have a slight fear of animatronics, but the ones on Splash are terrifying. The animatronics look very old and move rigidly. Despite the fact that it is refurbished every winter, the “show” never really works right. There are constant animatronic failure and ride breakdown reports. Whether that’s due to the wear and tear of the ride or just the presence of social media, we’ll never know. But we’ve been hearing horror stories of anima...

This is a continuation of the series where I examine each of the Disney Princesses as role models. Disney Princesses have received much backlash and debate over their worthiness of being feminist role models for young girls. I set out to examine the admirable qualities in each and clear up any distortions of their characters.  Belle is a beloved Princess, often regarded as the "strongest", "smartest" or "most feminist".  Yet some  people like to simplify the character down to “read = smart”. But of course, it goes deeper than  that.  Based on the way the town citizens react to her reading (“and her nose stuck in a book/ what a  puzzle to the rest of us is Belle”) you can tell that not many people in the village are educated enough to  read, or even interested enough in becoming educated to read, let alone the women of the village.  Maybe they do not think education is important. Education is so important. I could rant forever a...

Here are several items from Disney Parks merchandise lines that I want.  Rainbow Minnie Ears I've had my eye on these for a couple of years now, and I might actually by them this June.  Rose Gold Spirit Jersey This one is not being made currently, I believe. But the first round of spirit jerseys are far superior than the sweater ones they're putting out now.  Be Our Guest Wine Glasses Another item from the past. I should've bought these when I could've.  Dooney & Bourke Disney Sketch Satchel Every time a new D&B Disney design is released, I get a little excited. But I think the good ol' Disney icon design is my favorite.  Sleeping Beauty Storybook Replica This is a notebook, but I'd really love just to display it somewhere in my house. 

Disney’s relationship with the LGBT is sort of a complicated one. From Disneyland’s early days, homosexual dancing was banned ( except for one couple ). In the 1980s, Disney’s best known openly gay creator – Howard Ashman – revolutionized the animation industry. In 1991 Gay Days at Walt Disney World was established. Gay Days was originally organized independent of the company – but Disney always welcomed celebrators into the parks each June. Just last year Disneyland Paris officially held a Pride celebration. In recent years Disney has started selling Pride rainbow merchandise, and more is added to shelves every June. In 2013, rumors started swirling the internet that Frozen featured Disney’s first gay character . This was debunked by the company, of course. In 2016, viewers headcannoned Judy’s neighbors to be a gay couple .  Then in 2017, Disney announced that they would have their first gay character . The...

Marceline Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. But he did not consider Chicago his hometown. That title went to Marceline, Missouri where he spent his early childhood. Marceline had a great impact on Walt’s life, as he used the small town as inspiration for Main Street, USA in his parks and the setting of The Lady and The Tramp .  Disney Goes Hollywood In 1911, the Disney’s moved to Kansas City. They moved again in 1917 back to Chicago. Walt took art classes wherever he could.  Walt dropped out of school to serve his country in World War I. He became an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. When he returned to Kansas City in 1919, he opened his own cartoon studio, Laugh-O-Gram. Unfortunately, the business had little success. So, Walt decided to move to Hollywood to with his brother, Roy, to join the growing film industry. There, they established another studio – Walt Disney Studios. Walt hired an ink artist named Lillian and the two l...