Smile of The Day: A Figment Eye Exam

Capturing your imagination is always important and the only way to do that is to find that figment on of your imagination.  And finding Figment is easy to do at Disney World.

Here's a clip of the Imagination ride at Epcot in Walt Disney World where Figment gives you an eye exam. Following the bouncing Figment.

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Smile of The Day: Dapper Dans sing Jingle Bells at Disney World

There are many renditions of "Jingle Bells," but none better than the Dapper Dans at The Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.

Every holiday season, the quartet comes out with a great routine.

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Smile of The Day: Walt Disney on What's My Line

Walt Disney spent a lot of time on television and was well known to many in the industry. See here how he tried to disguise his voice during the Nov. 11, 1956 episode of What's My Line - a television show where contestants had to guess the identity of people.

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Smile of The Day: A video of Walt Disney and Jack Benny

When you think of Walt Disney on television, it's usually him introducing the "Wonderful World of Disney" or him talking about a movie or Disneyland. Well, there are a few other times he appeared on other shows. Here's one. A cameo on "The Jack Benny Hour" in 1965. Here you can see how comedic Walt was.

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Smile of The Day: Video of Peter Pan and Captain Hook fighting

The Main Street Electrical Parade at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World is always fun. Watching the later parade can mean getting up nice and close to the characters. Here's a video portion of Peter Pan and Captain Hook having a little swordplay.

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Fun Video: Gopher Aerobics at Disney World

Standing in line at a Disney theme park is just par for the visit. The key is enjoying what you find in the  queues and seeing what little stories you can make up. When going through the The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Disney World, the line started off with what I always like to call -- Gopher Aerobics.

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Disney Facts: The Main Street Electrical Parade

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! The Magic Kingdom proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination. In thousands of sparkling lights, and electro-synthe-magnetic musical sounds: the Main Street Electrical Parade!"

With those words, the lights along Main Street in The Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World are turned off and the show begins. More than 80 performers on 23 floats head through park with synthesizer music blaring.

All the floats are battery-powered with about five miles of wires used throughout the floats. More than 500 batteries supply power for lighting, propulsion, audio and special effects, according to Disney.

The dancers' costumes are composed of a total of 11,000 lights. Each dancer's costume is powered by one battery pack.

The Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Walt Disney World on June 11, 1977 (The original parade started at Disneyland in 1972 and was presented until 1996.) and has gone through three versions since. The first version closed on Sept. 14, 1991. The second version lasted from May 28, 1999 to April 1, 2001 and the latest started on June 6, 2010.

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Great Irish Labor Day festival at Disney World

Disney's Pleasure Island in Disney World is planning a hooley for Labor Day.

Hooley is a Irish slang for part of celebration and Raglan Road Irish Pub & Restaurant (one of my favorite places to eat) is planning on the Great Irish Hooley Labor Day Weekend, Aug. 31 to Sept. 3.

The band Full Set will appear at the First Great Irish Hooley.

The weekend, according to a Disney news release, will feature six Irish bands, Irish Dance Workshops, Celtic face painting and the food and drink. Musicians will perform inside the pub and outside on the patio.

Performers include: Full Set, which will play Friday through Monday;Elevation, the popular U2 Tribute band, plays on Saturday and Sunday; The Raglan Rogues, Danny Burns, Johnny “Snaggs” Norton and house band Creel. The six-member Raglan Road Irish Dancers will perform throughout the weekend. Renowned Irish dancer and choreographer Ronan McCormack of the original Riverdance cast will lead Irish Dance Workshops from Saturday through Monday.

For more information check out: www.raglanroad.com.

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Disney research comes up with face cloning process

For years Audio-Animatronics has been a staple at Disney attractions. (Here's a quick history.) But one of the problems the company has had to deal with is how to exactly duplicate facial expressions. Much of the time this has been hampered not by the mechanical process, but by the "skin" placed over the mechanics.

Now, Disney Research Zurich has come up with a process for designing, simulating, and fabricating synthetic skin that mimics the face.

According to the research abstract, the process begins with capturing 3-D facial expressions of a person by high definition cameras and then analyzing the expressions by using a simulation program to predict the facial behavior of a face when it is placed on top of robotic frame. Then the program determines how thick silicone (which is used as skin) should be in various spots to mimic all facial expressions and predict how the soft tissue around the face, including the forehead, looks.

Then a mold is created and silicone is injected. Seven days later, the skin is ready to be placed on the animatronic device.

This video gives a look at how it all comes together.

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Disney flash mob in Times Square to promote a toy

Fisher-Price coordinated a flash mob recently at Times Square in New York to promote the Mickey Mouse Master Moves Mickey plush toy.

This is the third version of the toy "that infuses the original Disney character plush with modern music and moves appealing to the next generation of fans and aspiring dancers," according to a Fisher Price news release.

This newest version has eight songs with styles including rap, hip-hop and pop. The price of the toy is $69.99 at retailers including Toys "R" Us, Target, Walmart, Kmart, Amazon.com and Fisher-Price.com.

Here is a Fisher Price video of the scene:

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Dog with Mickey Mouse shaped spot meets the Mouse

When the the Aguerre family from Central Florida went to adopt a dog and found a pup with a Mickey Mouse shaped spot, they couldn't resist. The adopted the dog and named her Lilly (after Lillian Disney, Walt Disney's wife), according to the Disney Parks blog.

The blog team members brough the dog in to meet Mickey himself. Here's the video:

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A look at how Disney World is already preparing for Christmas

Yes, it is Christmas in July. If you haven't already checked out those Hallmark ornaments -- you're late.

But it is usually always Christmas at Walt Disney World as Imagineers and workers take months to prepare for the holidays. Here's a video, presented by Disney, of the work taking place for the preparation. And for more specifics don't forget to check out our Christmas By the Numbers at Walt Disney World.

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Disney releases video of people climbing the Matterhorn in Disneyland

The tradition has returned to Disneyland.

Mountain climbers can now been seen on the slopes of the Matterhorn. In this video, provided by Disney,  Technical Director Mike Layman and the climbers themselves give us a different perspective on this experience.

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Smile of the Day: Video of Finding Nemo in Epcot

For those needing a Finding Nemo ride fix, here's about 90 seconds of highlights from the attraction in Epcot at Walt Disney World. Enjoy.

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