In Disney News...

...Jack Lindquist, the first President of Disneyland, has a book coming out December 13th: IN SERVICE TO THE MOUSE: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY TO BECOMING DISNEYLAND'S FIRST PRESIDENT. It's cowritten with Melinda J. Combs.

...Dear Old Hollywood has a terrific post with photos of Walt Disney's early home and studio locations.

...HalloweenTime has driven Disneyland attendance up by 40% compared to before the promotion started a few years ago. Fall used to be my favorite time to go as the park was so uncrowded. Fall is still fun at Disneyland, but the atmosphere's sure changed.

...Disney's SECRETARIAT (2010) is receiving generally favorable reviews. Any complaints seem to be along the lines that it's, well, a predictably uplifting Disney-type film. Which sounds fine to me. A story on Disney's marketing tactics is here.

...Jim Hill Media reviewed Destination D. We sure had a good time.

...The Orange County Register ran a story and video report on the September 26th D23 Scavenger Hunt.

...Information has been released on the extras which will appear on various DVD editions of TOY STORY 3 (2010). As is par for the course these days, those of us who plan to buy the DVD are shortchanged of the extras which appear on the Blu-ray edition.

This is obviously a ploy to help drive Blu-ray sales, but I believe there are an awful lot of us who don't intend to repurchase our DVD collections on Blu-ray and don't want it only for new purchases, especially given the regular stories about problems playing Blu-rays -- besides which, a lot of the classic movies which interest me most will either never come out on Blu-ray or aren't appropriate for the Blu-ray process. I hope at some point Disney will rethink their Blu-ray strategy and return to giving standard DVD purchasers the full package of extras.