Mouse Extra

Everyone here at Mouse Extra wish all of our readers a wonderful holiday season!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I am sure the line to Soarin’ is huge by now. Here are some pictures for your holiday pleasure.

We at Mouse Extra sure hope Santa was good to all of you

This shot I happened by early in the morning at Future World.  Cast Members were building a tree of Duffy bears for a Toys for Tots drive.  Disney officials and uniformed Marines officers were also on hand.  Great work from two terrific organizations.

Also, can someone tell me what this bear is?  I guess I am out of the loop on this one…

To celebrate the holiday season, we here at Mouse Extra will keep with our tradition and post some holiday photos from Walt Disney World.  Our first is from Tony’s Townsquare, where Lady and the Tramp sport their very own Santa hats.

All of us hear at Mouse Extra would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  We can’t thank you enough for coming back to Mouse Extra and reading what we have to say.  And we would especially like to thank all of you who have taken the time to comment and send emails. 

wishing us Happy Holidays!

And here is my favorite Christmas photo I took a few years ago.  It was my final day of this trip and I was leaving the park for the last time and heading for the airport.  But as we left the World Showcase on our walk towards the front gate, it seemed like all the characters came around to wish us a Merry Christmas. 

Please have a safe and joyful holiday.  And don’t forget to watch the Walt Disney World Christmas Parade tomorrow morning.

Last year I spent eight paragraphs talking about how terribly unwatchable the Christmas Day Parade from Walt Disney broadcast was.  This year I just assumed it would be just as bad, and feared it may be even worse…if that is possible.  But I must be fair.  Even though it still was tough to watch at times, some noticeable improvements were made.

The biggest improvement was that the producers finally realized that even though they want to use this for one giant promotional stunt, people are hoping to see the parade when they tune in.  This was my biggest complaint last year.  It seemed in 2006 that they forgot there was even a parade to show and instead filled as much time as they could with poorly produced Year of a Million Dreams promotions chock full of old, canned footage.  This year, especially for the first hour, the parade and performances seemed to be the focus.  Disney was showing off their talent, and that was why we were watching.

If they could only get rid of Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa things may really get good.  But even these two were toned down from their over-the-top nonsense from past years.  Don’t get me wrong though.  They still were very tough to watch.  Sometimes they are so bad that it almost seems like they are doing a parody of themselves.  They really feel like they are just forcing it all the time and are plain terrible at reading copy.  However, Ryan Seacrest who hosted from Disneyland seemed very good at this.  Now, I am sure most of you have seen this guy a lot more than I. I never watch American Idol so I know nothing about him.  But compared to Regis and Kelly, he seems like a terrific option.

There are still some shameless and silly segments, like a piece they did from London with an actor from National Treasure 2.  This not only had nothing to do with the parade or a Disney theme park. It didn’t even have the slightest relevance to the holidays at all.  It was just a poorly done promo for the movie.  The difference from last year to this, however, is that last year had more of this stuff than the parade, or so it seemed.

All in all, I found myself enjoying this more than wishing to turn it off.   Seeing the Magic Kingdom on Christmas morning is a treat for all of us.  But if they could only concentrate on producing something worthy of a true Christmas tradition, people would be looking forward to watching every year.