TCM, which is owned by Time Warner, will become the presenting sponsor of the attraction, whose Chinese Theater home will again become the main visual "weenie" in the park with the removal of the Mickey's Sorcerer's Hat that has blocked the view of the theater facade over the past decade.
The pre- and post-ride film montages will get TCM branding as part of the deal, with new clips hosted by TCM's Robert Osborne. There's no word that anything on the ride itself will change under the deal. The changes are expected by next spring.
In return, Disney will provide TCM with old "Disneyland" and "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" episodes for a quarterly special programming block on the cable channel to be called "Treasures From the Disney Vault." The first block will run in the evening of Dec. 21.
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Hopefully it's ready by May, when my brother and his fiancé come down for their wedding...
Sadly, I think this is kind of a sideways move and a cheap one, at that. It will take them how many months to update a ride queue? And no changes to the ride itself, which has a dated script and somewhat lackluster innards?
Disney seems to be pacing all of its innovation these days, and the pace is too slow.
I think the deal TCM is getting with being able to play archival Disney footage is great. I look forward to DVRing some of those to watch. I missed out on purchasing some of these as DVDs when they were released under the Disney Vault collection.
Ahh, the Great Movie Ride- such an understatement. I rode this for the first time in many years last January, mainly out of curiosity and the fact the wait was short. What I saw was an underwhelming ride with broken animatronics and cast members that seemed sedated. Actually, the animatronics were livelier than the cast member on the ride.
This ride needs to be gutted and renovated into something new. If this is going to be the “icon” or “weenie” of the park, it needs to present itself in a way that is worthy of that notion, rather than being a poor, outdated dud. I think the only purpose this ride really serves is that it is a “people-eater” on high attendance days at the park. If it wasn’t there, the wait times for ToT, Hannah Montana Rock’n Rollercoaster, Star Tours, and Toy Story Mania would be astronomical and drive people away from visiting the park.
Re: Sponsorships
I doubt much (any?) money is changing hands here. Disney is not going hat-in-hand looking for sponsors to do things, but they are happy to take it. TCM said, "hey, let's sponsor that; it makes sense for us." Seems like what Disney got is TCM running their shows, plus the bonus of adding Robert Osbourne to freshen the ride. (All a guess of course, but other deals, like with Georgia-Pacific, often are about procurement contracts, not only cash for placement.)
I also wonder: how many of the folks saying, "rip it out! fix it!" or worse, "make it all about Disney movies!" are the same people who pine for the return of Horizons and World of Motion, rides that were very similar in technology and approach to content?
I think this is great news! I think the TCM brand really fits in the Great Movie Ride. I have always loved this attraction. Pretty good concept with animatronics for the entire family (fun, scary, old movies, etc).
It seems like Disney kind of got the better deal between the two. Sponsorship of their attraction AND somebody to carry their classic TV shows.
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