By Guillermo Azabal |
Los Angeles (USA) (EFE).- The Walt Disney Company kicked off its centenary season with special programming displayed at the Disneyland Resort, the first theme park to open the franchise and which is located in the Californian city of Anaheim (USA).
The main novelties for 2023 in this recreational area, which was founded in 1955 by Walt Disney himself, are the inauguration of an immersive experience that pays tribute to the famous Mickey and Minnie mice, as well as new nightly shows of fireworks, lights and digital projections.
“It will be a unique opportunity to be able to enjoy new experiences with endearing Disney characters throughout the year,” explained the president of the Disneyland Resort, Ken Potrock, at a press event prior to the opening to which EFE had access.
The activities, which in the coming months will be adapted to the different parks it has spread around the world, will be complemented with a parade of the brand’s most iconic characters, new decoration, exclusive merchandising and even a gastronomic offer inspired by its own centenary.
The place chosen to kick off the centenary celebrations of the House of Mouse is Disneyland Resort, the enclave where its own founder met with personalities of all kinds to show them the happiness that the attractions based on his drawings caused in children and adults.
“It all started with a mouse”
Walt and Roy Disney were two brothers who started the Disney Brother Studio cartoon company in 1923, but their brilliant success led them to take one of their first creations (“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”) to the big screen in 1937 and that this way an entire empire would be built.
By 1955, Walt Disney’s ideas were unrivaled in the animation industry, and the company’s first theme park opened its doors.
A fun center for all ages that, just one year later, a million people had already visited and from which, on its tenth anniversary, Walt Disney stressed that he only hoped that no one would ever forget that “all this began with a mouse”, specifically with the first drawing he made of Mickey Mouse.
“That is the essence that continues to surround the entire Disney universe. A drop of water can form a wave, Mickey gave way to everything we know today with Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars,” Disneyland Resort spokesman Evan Palomeque explained in statements to EFE from the California theme park.
The executive director of the Disney Imaging department, Kim Irvine, stressed to EFE that “all creations” of the franchise “are backed by a positive message” and that is something that “has not changed nor will it change.”
“In addition, the people who come to the park forget from the first minute of the possible problems they may be going through and feel liberated,” said Irvine, who has been associated with the company for decades and whose mother worked hand in hand with Walt Disney.
New shows in the hundred years of Disney
Among the attractions that can be enjoyed stands out “Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway”, a train captained by Goofy that includes twists and turns while dozens of digital representations of the different stages through which the famous mouse has passed are displayed.
In addition, the new night shows “World of Color – ONE” and “Wondrous Journeys” will be carried out, in which fireworks, laser lights and video projectors will be combined to recreate animations on real surfaces, a technique known in English as “mapping”. ».
The “Disney 100 Years of Wonder” exhibit will also open its doors to pay tribute to the films that became Disneyland Resort attractions and the park experiences that went on to inspire movies.
On the other hand, in the coming weeks the “Magic Happens” parade will be reissued, in which the best-known faces of the Disney universe will physically interact with everyone who comes to the theme park.
Disney celebrates its 100 years exactly on October 16.
Faced with a foreseeable increase in the number of visitors to the Disneyland Resort, the company plans to open its fourth hotel within its own facilities in California, which would be available to the public from June 27.
Currently, The Walt Disney Company has theme parks in California and Florida (United States), Tokyo (Japan), Paris (France) and Hong Kong and Shanghai (China). In total, according to official data, they accumulated 37.6 million attendees in 2021.
