1) Transportation Woes

(July 17) Two WDW Buses collide. The driver of one bus failed to stop on time and ran into the other.

(July 6) Monorail Pink crashes into Monorail Purple. At 2 am, Monorail Pink was moving into the TTC when it ran into the Purple Monorail, which was stationary. The driver of the purple monorail was killed. After the crash, Disney made several changes to improve monorail safety and combined the two wrecked monorails into one: Monorail Teal.

(September 18) Bus system crippled by a bomb scare. After further inspection, it was revealed that the device was a tracking device that had been placed on the bus a number of years ago.

(September 30) Monorail system halted by smoke. After an electrical board short circuited at a platform in the Magic Kingdom Monorail Station, passengers were escorted off the train before the train was taken back to the Monorail Barn.

2) Company Expansion

(February 9) Disney acquired Dreamworks SKG. Under the deal with Steven Spielberg’s wing of Dreamworks, 6 films per year will be produced under the Touchstone films label.

(March 11) Disney Cruise Lines expanded its hold on the deep blue sea. Two new ships, the Disney Dream (which will host the water-coaster “Aquaduck”) and the Disney Fantasy, will be anchored in Port Canaveral from 2012 to 2014.

(May 14) Disney/PIXAR expanded into Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The new studio will focus on short films and non-feature products that feature previously established characters (a.k.a. legacy characters).

3) Memorable Deaths

(May 20) The 3rd voice of Mickey Mouse died. Wayne Allwine passes away at age 62.

(December 16) Walt Disney’s nephew, and savior of the Disney kingdom, died. Roy E. Disney passes away at age 79.

4) The Great Movie Update

(September 11) Disney wants to dare you and take you on a submarine ride. Guillermo del Toro and Richard Cook announce a new film label, Disney’s Double Dare You, that will be animated family films with a bit of horror mixed in. Robert Zemeckis will helm the 3D Performance Capture version of the Beatle’s classic Yellow Submarine.

(October 7) Disney trades in its management. In a strange twist of events, Richard Cook suddenly resigned from the Walt Disney Studios only to have Richard Ross (former President of the Disney Channel) promoted to the position (he’s already axed a number of projects that Cook had on the stove and has another few in limbo).

(December 18) Captain EO returns posthumously. Disney announced that the Captain EO film will be returning to Disneyland in the Magic Eye Theater.

5) Disney Parks & Resorts Expand

(August 4) The Contemporary Resort gets a sibling. After many months of rumors, Disney finally announced and opened Bay Lake Tower next to the Contemporary.

(September 16) The Swiss Family Robinson would be proud. After many years of being left alone, it was finally announced that the Treehouses near Saratoga Springs would be refurbished and turned into DVC Villas.

(September 12) The Fantasyland Expansion. Walt Disney World’s Fantasyland will be receiving a makeover much like Disneyland’s DCA is in the midst of a makeover. Both involve the placing of The Little Mermaid Ride, but WDW’s expansion will give each princess her own area. All classic rides will remain (save Dumbo which will increase its ride capacity). Both projects are set to be finished by 2012.

6) New Investments

(February 16) Disney tries to reel in young male viewers. In an interesting move, Disney replaced Toon Disney with Disney XD, a channel devoted to boys with shows like Aaron Stone and Zeke and Luther.

(April 2) Disney joins Youtube. They use the site to release trailers and other short-form features.

(April 16) Disney helps the blind see. With an innovative new device, people who are deaf can see captioned text of audio being spoken in rides and people who are blind can hear descriptions of rides.

(April 30) Disney buys into Hulu. With a 27% investment, Disney officially became a partner in the online video-streaming site. After the buy in, only CBS remains the main network to abstain from Hulu (NBC and Fox were two of the first partners).

(December 31) Disney powers up with Marvel. In the 4.3 billion dollar purchase, Disney has bought the rights to over 5000 characters (many of the more well known names are tangled up in contracts with Sony or Universal)

7) Strangest Story:

(May 28) Woman “abducted” to Walt Disney World. A Pennsylvania mother faked a call to 911 saying that she and her daughter were thrown in a car trunk when, in the real world, she dropped her daughter off with her mother and continued down to Orlando, where she checked into the Grand Floridian.

A more detailed biography of Roy E. Disney can be found here.

Ana has run aground in the Caribbean and is weakining. If she curves northward, she might dump some rain on WDW, but that’s all

Bill, now a hurricane, will spin north, north-west and has a potential to hit New England, but won’t be impacting WDW.

Walt Disney World issued the following statement on the crash:

“Today, we mourn the loss of our fellow cast member. Our hearts go out to his family and to those who have lost a friend and co-worker. The safety of our guests and cast members is always our top priority. The monorail is out of service and we will continue to work closely with law enforcement to determine what happened and the approximate next steps.” — Mike Griffin, Walt Disney World Vice President of Public Affairs

Update:

CNN is reporting that a witness said one monorail train rammed into the back of a stationary train. Another image of the crash from a witness is provided below.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the last in the This Week in Disney History series for a while (as history will repeat itself. To check out the older posts, visit them on the forums, here.]

Alvarez was previously arrested in October of last year on a similar charge.

Marc Davis was born on March 30, 1913, in Bakersfield, California. His father, an oil field developer, traveled frequently to sites across the country where oil fields popped up. So wherever a new oil field was found, Harry (Marc’s father) would pick up and move to the site, bringing  his family with him. This caused Marc to attend over 20 schools nationwide before graduating high school.

Upon graduation, Davis first enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute, then the California School of Fine Arts (San Francisco), and, finally, the Otis Art Institute (Los Angeles). The common denominator between all three schools is the fact that he could focus on his drawing and painting skills. While in college, March honed in his animal drawing skills (and would spend countless hours at the zoo just sketching).

Davis signed on with The Walt Disney Studios in 1935 as an apprentice animator on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After Snow White, Davis worked on story sketch and character design in Bambi (his drawings still stand as the best animal characters ever created at the Studios) and Victory Through Air Power. After these, Davis worked on Song of the South (Br’er Rabbit), Cinderella  (Cinderella), Alice in Wonderland (Alice), Peter Pan (Tinker Bell),  Sleeping Beauty (Maleficent and Aurora)“African Diary”, “Duck Pimples”, “Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom“, and 101 Dalmatians (Cruella de Vil).

Side Note: While working on Sleeping Beauty, Davis called up a costume designer to create a dress for the live-action model for Aurora. He called up the latest and greatest designer in Burbank, Alice Estes, and the two grew close during the project-eventually marrying each other.