Walt Disney and the CIA

A new book claims Disney conspired with the CIA to buy up cheap land in Florida for Disney World and orchestrate a unique legal situation that makes the theme park above the law. The company took advice from former CIA agents and lawyers to engineer statutory grounds which still allows Disney World to avoid taxation and environmental regulation, it is alleged. The special legal situation underpinning the site is not only unconstitutional, it is claimed, but allows the company to avoid any inconvenient decisions democratically taken at the local level. Continue after the page break for the rest of the story...

Walt, Roy and Retlaw

Retlaw, Walter spelled backward, was incorporated on April 6, 1953. The company would provide Walt a way to fund the development of Disneyland. He owned one-third of the company, and his daughters owned the other two-thirds. Walt negotiated a deal that in return for licensing his name to Walt Disney Productions, he would receive either a five-percent royalty from every merchandising transaction, or he would take a share of up to fifteen percent in every Disney project. Considering that the Disney name appeared on virtually everything, the agreement was especially lucrative to Walt and his family. This eventually created tension between Walt and his brother Roy. Continue after the page break for the remainder of the story...

Disney Avenue Looking For Writers

Have you ever wanted to write about your love of Disney? Have you gathered a ton of knowledge and history over the years about Walt, the Disney Company and the theme parks and want to share it with the world? If so, Disney Avenue wants you! Continue after the page break for more info...

Walt Disney's Airplane

If you’ve ever experienced The Backlot Tour at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, chances are you’ve seen “The Mouse” – a white airplane with a Mickey Mouse icon on its tail. As the tour says, this airplane was used to fly Walt Disney on secret scouting missions over Central Florida when he was looking for the perfect spot to build a second theme park. Continue after the page break for a look inside Walt's plane...

A Cute Little Story

No one knows better than Alex and Donna Voutsinas that it’s a small world after all. Thirty years ago, when they lived in separate countries long before they met and married, a family shot of little Donna at Walt Disney World captured Alex in a stroller in the background. “It just blew our minds when we realized,” Alex Voutsinas, a 32-year-old transplanted Montrealer told the Star Thursday from south Florida. That fateful realization came just one week before their wedding eight years ago. Alex and Donna had been going through old family snapshots. There, in the blurry background of a 1980 picture of 5-year-old Donna was 3-year-old Alex being pushed down Main Street in a stroller by his father. The senior Voutsinas’s distinctive jet-black hair with its white tuft caught his eye. “My mother pulled out albums from the same trip. My dad is wearing exactly the same outfit.”

30 years ago, this family photo at Disney World captured a woman’s husband in the background long before they met. That's pretty darn cool!

Making of: Disney's Electrical Parade

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... Disney Avenue proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic musical sounds—The Main Street Electrical Parade!” Today we will take a look into the making of the beautiful parade with some history, music and a wonderful video. Continue after the page break for Disney Avenue's popular Making of series featuring Disney's Electrical Parade...

The Amazing EPCOT Model

Epcot's model was truly amazing: 115 feet wide, 60 feet deep, with 1400 individually street lights, 2500 moving vehicules representing future transportation, 20000 trees and 4500 structures / buildings. Disney Imagineer George Windrum recalled that, at Walt Disney's insistence, the interiors of the 1/8 inch scale buildings of the original Epcot model, which were barely visible through their tiny windows, had to be finished, furnished and lit. The guests might not notice but Walt would know the details were there. Today I'd like to take you on an in depth look at the making of Walt Disney's amazing Epcot Model. Continue after the page break and let's get started...