Disneyland's Mission to Mars opens in Tomorrowland. Designed in cooperation with NASA, the show replaces Flight to the Moon (opened since 1967). Guests enter a viewing area known as Mission Control, which is modeled after a typical mission control center featuring seated Audio-Animatronic "technicians" whose backs are to the audience. Facing the audience is an Audio-Animatronic named Mr. Johnson who hosts the show with film clips about space travel. After the pre-show, guests board their spacecraft - a circular theater with stadium-like seating featuring circular flat screens on the ceiling and floor. It is here they experience a trip to Mars.
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On the same day the 2011 feature The Muppets is released on DVD and Blu-ray, the Muppets are honored with their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At 11:30 AM, the Muppets receive the 2,466th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the category of Motion Pictures. The star and ceremony is located at 6834 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the El Capitan Theatre.
Walt Disney Productions releases The Shaggy Dog - the studio's first live-action comedy. The film centers around Wilby Daniels (played by Tommy Kirk), a teenage boy who is transformed into a sheep dog when he accidentally happens across a magical but cursed Borgia ring. Fred MacMurray (in his first of what will be 7 Disney films) plays Wilby's father Wilson Daniels. Also appearing are such familiar "Disney teens" as Annette Funicello, Tim Considine, and Kevin Corcoran. Veteran Disney voice actor Paul Frees has a rare on-screen appearance in the film as well! The film also features a sheepdog from California named Sam. Also released - the fifteenth People and Places film Cruise of the Eagle and the live-action short Nature's Strangest Creatures.
The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction opens in New Orleans Square at Disneyland, California. The debut kicks off with great excitement, as a group of marauding sea-dogs, led by Wally Boag, first shanghai the sailing ship Columbia before bursting through the new attractions' doors with a battering ram! All the figures in the attraction are designed by Imagineer Marc Davis and the lavishly detailed sets are by artist & color stylist Claude Coats. (It is the largest audio-animatronic project to date and the last attraction Walt Disney himself worked on extensively before his death.) Also opening at Disneyland is the Blue Bayou Restaurant in New Orleans Square. The restaurant is built within the same show building that houses part of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, with parts of the ride even taking place beneath the restaurant.
Test Track officially opens at Walt Disney World's Epcot. Sponsored by General Motors, the attraction is the fastest ride ever designed (at this time) by Disney's Imagineers ... guests can reach speeds of 65 mph! (The ride has been up and running since December 1998.)
Another Rock 'n' Roller Coaster debuts - this time at the grand opening of Walt Disney Studios Park (located at Disneyland Resort Paris in France). It is Disney's 10th theme park in the world. Other attractions making their debut include Animagique (a black light show) and Armageddon: Les Effetcs Speciaux (a voyage through the history of special effects). The Studios is the smallest of all the Disney theme parks.
Disney's Donald Duck short The Riveter - directed by Dick Lundy - is released. An unhappy Donald lands a job working high steel as a riveter for construction foreman Pete.
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Dumbo appear on the cover of this day's Liberty (a weekly, general-interest magazine). The cover art, which depicts the characters paying their income taxes, has been created by Hank Porter, who over the course of his 15 year career at Disney will create dozens of illustrations for magazine covers, advertisements and articles.
On a train ride back to California from New York City (with his wife Lillian) Walt Disney sends his brother and business partner Roy a Western Union telegram that reads:
"LEAVING TONITE STOPPING OVER KC ARRIVE HOME SUNDAY MORNING SEVEN THIRTY DON'T WORRY EVERYTHING OK WILL GIVE DETAILS WHEN ARRIVE= WALT." This is in reference to the fact that although the Disney brothers have probably lost their animated creation Oswald the Rabbit to Charles Mintz who Walt had been in negotiations with while in NY City. Walt has a new idea for an animated mouse character. It is on the train ride mentioned in this telegram that Walt is believed to have created the character of Mickey Mouse. The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World unveils the first phase of the new Storybook Circus area of Fantasyland with a "soft" opening. The Storybook Circus area pays tribute to the traveling circuses of the 1950s and 1960s and features the first part of "Dumbo, the Flying Elephant" (with Dumbo spinning clockwise for the first time in Magic Kingdom history), "The Barnstormer, Starring The Great Goofini" (a family coaster attraction) and "The Fantasyland Train Station" (one of the three stops for The Walt Disney World Railroad).
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