Mickey Ville , The Toon Town that never was

After yesterday's introduction to the talent of Hani El Masri, here is the part two of this article.

At the end of 1990, Hani was asked by Walt Disney Imagineering to work on the creative development of a new project "Mickey Ville" which was supposed to be a new land for Tokyo Disneyland.

It was the first study for a "Toon Town", but much different than the one we know, as the architectural style was more "medieval". For a very good reason: this Mickey's Ville was supposed to be a tribute to Mickey's "medieval" cartoons, like "The Brave little tailor" or "Mickey and the Beanstalk".

Hani's team was under the direction of imagineers Yoshi Akiyama and Bob Weis - yes, the same Bob Weis who designed the Disney-MGM Studios and Disney's America and who is now in charge of the huge placemaking of Disney's California Adventure.

Here is a first rendering of the Mickey Ville project. For the design of this artwork, Hani was also slightly inspired by the architecture of Pinnochio’s Village.



At the entrance, guests would have find at the left of the porch a nice fountain with Daisy...



But Mickey Ville also would have include a "Mickey's Music Store" with chimneys who looks like pipe organ. Inside the music store, CD’s, sheet of music, and all kind of merchandise items related to music would have been on sale.



Also envisioned, a "Minnie's Candy" house, which looks like a real candy house, and was supposed to be.....that’s right: a candy store.



Another interesting concept was this "Donald's Dock" where Donald's house and boat were mixed all in one.



In fact , Donald’s dock would have been the departure point where guests would have embark in small boats for a little cruise on a small river all around the village.



But the project also include this beautiful Mickey's Theatre - artwork above, on the top. Because the Oriental Land executives knew how popular Tokyo Disneyland is, they wanted a big theatre,. So, instead to design one big facade, Hani and the imagineers thought it would have been more interesting if all the facade was designed like a little village. With on the right side the house of Mickey and Minnie - not to forget Pluto’s doghouse.



And in the front, another cute fountain, with Minnie on the top.



The entrance of the Mickey’s Theatre was on the middle of this little village facade...



And inside the theatre, guests could have watch old Mickey’s cartoons - like “Plane Crazy”, Steamboat Willie”, etc..but also others animated shorts with Pluto, Donald, etc...

By the way, when i saw this Mickey's Theatre artwork, it reminds me the facade of Mickey's Philarmagic theatre at Hong Kong Disneyland. I remember when i was at HKD being surprised by the architecture, but may be HKD imagineers took their inspiration from this concept - who knows?

To come back to the Mickey Ville story, and always back in 1990, another team lead by Tony Baxter and imagineer Joe Lanzisero was working on another Toon Town concept, this time for Disneyland, Anaheim. And it seems that when the executives of Oriental Land Company heard about it, they decided to wait and see how this "other" Toon Town will look once it'll be built at Disneyland.

We know the end of the story: Toon Town opened at Anaheim, everybody loved its great "cartoon" style, and so did the Oriental Land executives who decided to build it at TDL.

This marked the end of the Mickey Ville project, and Hani moved from one team to another to work with Joe Lanzisero's team where he created the Toon Town concept-arts you saw yesterday.

In a future article we will talk about Hani's work for Dream Works Animation, as he did wonderful paintings on the three animated movies "Prince of Egypt", "El Dorado" and "Spirit", and also his extensive work on the 'Thousand and One Nights'.

You can see some of his work for animation on Hani's site, where all the renderings you saw today and yesterday were previously posted.

All Artwork by Hani El Masri and copyright Disney and Walt Disney Enterprises Inc.

Many thanks to Hani El Masri for his great help in the making of this article.

The Day America entered the 21st Century

Editor's Note: The World is proud of America, and today America finally entered the 21st Century, a century where intelligence must triumph over fear, where people must be judge on their heart and intelligence instead than the colour of their skin, and where, finally, the words "citizen of the world" will have a meaning. A meaning which include a responsability to the other peoples and the planet which is hosting us.

It's the perfect day to introduce to you Hani El Masri, great painter and former WDI Imagineer. Hani is Egyptian AND American, he helped to design wonderful concepts while he was at WDI as you will see today, and even more tomorrow!

Discover Hani El Masri, wonderful Designer, Illustrator, and former WDI Imagineer

Today, i would like to introduce to you Hani El Masri. Not only Hani is a highly talented designer and illustrator, but he was a WDI imagineer some years ago and did creative concept for many WDI projects.

Hani is Egyptian, but he was raised by French Jesuits in Cairo. Thanks to this, he spent most of his childhood reading european literature, and so, at the surprise of others WDI imagineers, he was familiar with the world of European tales, myths and architecture.

And, as an Egyptian, and after five years of academic studies at Cairo's school of Fine Arts - the oldest in the Middle East - he is of course also familiar with Oriental tales like the famous tale of "One thousand and one nights". So, it's naturally that in the mid 90's Walt Disney Imagineering asked for his help on the design of Tokyo Disney Sea's Arabian Coast.

In fact, Hani, it's more than twenty-five years of an award-winning creative career in illustration, graphic design, advertising and promotion of an unusually broad array of consumer products, as well as children's books and theater productions.

He arrived to the United States in 1987 and freelanced until being hired by Walt Disney Imagineering in March of 1990. We will have a look to his work for Walt Disney Imagineering, but while he was in California, Hani did some beautiful watercolor paintings like this one of Los Angeles Chinatown - picture above, on the top - who look also like a decor study for a Disney theme park...

Or this one of the San Juan Capistrano mission. By the way, this reminds me that San Juan Capistrano was part of the inspiration for some of the Zorro series decors...




In 1995 Hani was hired as a visual development artist by Dreamworks SKG - Steven Spielberg's studio - to work on the animated "Prince of Egypt", and stayed on for another two animation movies "El Dorado" and "Spirit". The September 11 attack was devastating for Hani, as he always dreamed of being a cultural bridge between Orient and Occident and thought his work on the 'Thousand And One Nights' could be of some help in this dream...
He then came back to live and work in Egypt in February of 2005 and was awarded Best Egyptian illustrator of 2004 by the National Council for Children Books, headed by Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt First Lady, in may 2005.

At walt Disney Imagineering, Hani, as i've said, worked on many different projects, whether it was the Blizzard Beach concept - here two concept study for the Summit Plummet chalet and the Merchandise shop.




Or these boat concepts for Tokyo Disney Sea....




Not to mention this beautiful Nautilus artifact who was supposed to be placed outside on TDS Mysterious Island. The imagineers idea was that, when a guest will use the telescope to look at other places of the park, a green laser ray coming out of the telescope would have point the place the guest was looking at. Great idea, unfortunately never realized.



For Tokyo Disneyland, Hani - and it was one of his first work for WDI - did the concept-art for the Grandma Sarah Restaurant located in Critter Country.
He did also amazing concepts of "Critter Cars" that Tokyo disneyland wanted to use as photo-ops in the land. The first rendering below was inspired by the shape of an old Rolls Royce - totally transformed in a vehicle you will only see in a Disney theme park!




Hani also worked on the Disneyland Toon Town project and ended up designing Minnie's House and Goofy's Bounce House, and here is the concept for his Goofy's house...



And pictures of the model that was done inspired by Hani's concept art




This color rendering was Hani's concept for Minnie's house...



Here are the preliminary black and white study for Minnie's house




And, too, pictures of the model inspired by the concept arts




But there is much more to say about Hani's work for Toon Town... And this is why i invite you to don't miss tomorrow's part two of this article, as you will discover something you've never seen before!


All Artwork by Hani El Masri and copyright Disney and Walt Disney Enterprises Inc.

Many thanks to Hani El Masri for his great help in the making of this article.

Editor's Note: The least that i can say is that my endorsement for Barack Obama did provoke some reactions. I am not surprised, and this is a good sign that we're still living in a democracy.
The daily Disney article is back today, and the first picture below fits perfectly with the U.S issue of the day, i.e that we all live on the same planet, and everything is linked, not divided. The decision of any nation has effect on all the others, specially when it is the most powerful one. And we all know that......it's a small world, after all.

The Good Old Time of Disney LP Records

Good news for those who didn't like my endorsement for Obama yesterday, my Disney articles are back!

More seriously, and less provocative, today we will have a look back at the glorious time of Disney LP vinyl records and the first one above is the one which was released more than forty years ago with the song of It's a Small World and 18 favorite folk songs from 13 countries.

For each LP you will find the picture of the front and the back of the album. Photos are in high-res, so if you double-click to see them in big size, you'll be able to read the text in small letters on the back! Below, the back of the It's a Small World album.



Next one is the "Pirates of Caribbean" record with a fantastic cover! On the side 1, the "Pirates of Caribbean Adventure" was narrated by Thurl Ravenscroft.




This one is the rare "Firehouse Five plus Two" record...




And this one was a picture disk released at the time of the "America on parade" parade.




Let's end with pictures of the record of "the Haunted House" and a good news: this record was re-released recently on ITunes, and you can buy all the tracks on the ITunes Store!




Tomorrow, i will post the first par of a great artwork article and part two will be thursday, don't miss it!

LP records photos: copyright Disney

Disney and more endorses Barack Obama

I know, I know, you don't expect a Disney fan blog to talk about politics, but, dear Disney and more readers, tomorrow's election of the next president of the United States is such an important issue - not only for the United States but also the whole world - that i can't avoid to talk about it.

After eight years of a Shakespearian tragedy - i always thought that if Shakespeare was living now he will surely write a great play about that-son-who-wanted-to-do-better-than-his father...and the consequences - it's time for America to say Stop! to all this madness. If we except the decision to create a natural park in the area of Hawai to protect sealife, it's hard to find one good decision in eight years of Bush administration.

Barack Obama is not only a great hope for America, but also for the rest of the world. He has the intelligence, the vision, certainly the wisdom, to lead America - i should say to save America - out of the dangerous grounds where the previous administration did put it. You have no idea, dear American readers, how we would love in France to have somebody like Barack Obama as president. Really.

For those of you who missed it, i've embedded below the thirty minutes Ad of Barack Obama which was aired last week. Not only the filming, the photography and the editing is beautiful - not to mention Barack's message - but this short movie has sometime the spirit of a Norman Rockwell painting. Have a look to it, you'll understand what i mean.

Tomorrow's election will change in a way or another the destiny of America and the fate of the world. And it's all in your hands, dear American readers.

Every country in the world is watching with hope and apprehension the result of this election. We know that America can be a great country who will inspire again respect and admiration instead of hate and fear. We know you can do it. So, please, tomorrow, give your vote to Barack Obama.

Thank you, and God bless you.




Note: All anonymous or hatred comments - whether they are against Barack Obama or John Mc Cain - will be deleted.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

The Halloween season will end tonight at Disneyland Paris, but the spirit of Christmas is already there, at least in Main Street's Emporium - including a lovely Tinker Bell in Christmas costume - as you can see on these two high-res pictures.



Pictures: copyright Randie Soul & Disney and more