Notre Dame 2025 receiver commit [autotag]Elijah Burress[/autotag] has a famous father. Plaxico Burress played 11 NFL seasons, mostly during the 2000s. While the younger Burress only was alive for the last few years of that decade, he clearly has a great appreciation for at least one aspect of it.
During the aforementioned decade, Disney Channel was at the height of its popularity. Many of the young people who starred in its shows and movies became household names. And Disney wanted viewers to know exactly who they were.
Between shows, one of the channel’s stars would let viewers know what channel they were watching before tracing the channel’s logo with a wand. The logo would appear on screen. Here’s an example:
After scoring a touchdown in a recent game, Burress decided to pay tribute to this bumper that’s become something of a meme, and the announcer made sure everyone watching the game knew what it was.
Hey, you gotta love pop culture references in touchdown celebrations.
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Jude Law plays a character named Jod Na Nawood, which sounds extremely Star Wars.
The arrival of the next live-action Star Wars show on Disney+ is almost here, and it looks like an awesome original story starring Oscar-nominated actor Jude Law and a bunch of thrill-seeking kids.
At D23 – Disney’s annual expo, celebration, convention and extravaganza – fans in Anaheim, California, got their first extended look at Skeleton Crew with the release of the first trailer for the show. Lucasfilm then dropped the trailer on social media.
And a lot of fans had the similar reactions. Many are incredibly excited for this show, and a whole lot of them thought that it had the feeling of “The Goonies” – the classic and often-referenced 1985 comedy adventure from Steven Speilberg, Richard Donner and Chris Columbus where a bunch of kids (among them, Josh Brolin, Sean Astinand Ke Huy Quan) try to save their homes from demolition, discover a treasure map and run into trouble with criminals.
The story does indeed seem to be told through a group of youths from around the galaxy yearning for adventure. Midway through the trailer, one says, “I found something buried in the woods,” and it appears to be an old, abandoned Jedi Temple. Chaos, risks, jump-scares and high-flying action seem to ensue from there for the four kids – Wim, Fern, KB, and Neel – and the final shot of the trailer features a hooded Law wielding the Force.
“I fell in love with Star Wars when I was a 10-year-old boy. And what I love most about this series is it’s told through the perspective of the kids. It means a great deal for me to be a part of the Star Wars galaxy.”
A bit like The Acolyte, which recently wrapped up its first season, there doesn’t seem to be many familiar Star Wars characters in this show. It’s supposed to take place around the same time as The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, which are set between the events of The Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.
Skeleton Crew is set to debut on Disney+ on Dec. 3 and will run for eight episodes. The series is also set to star Oscar-nominated actress Kerry Condon, “TV on the Radio” singer Tunde Adebimpe, and Nick Frost, who you may know from the films “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.”
Behind the scenes are writer Christopher Ford and director Jon Watts, who worked together on “Spiderman: Homecoming.”
Skeleton Crew is the seventh live-action Star Wars show to air on Disney+. Fans at D23 also got some information about the second season of the gritty Andor, which will release at some point in 2025. More is on the horizon for Star Wars too, such as a Mandalorian and Grogu movie.
Nicholson’s video “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel” has gone viral for a reason, as the content creator delivers a wholly comprehensive analysis of why the pricy hotel eventually found itself plagued with issues and ultimately closed last year.
The video has been making the rounds for about a week now, and it’s really become a cultural moment in and of itself.
Nicholson’s breakdown comes from the perspective of a fan who can pretty easily call shenanigans on something she’s passionate about, and it’s looking like it’ll be the YouTube video of the summer right now.
Disney has unveiled its first ride footage of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
After more than a year of retheming, Disney has finally unveiled its first ride footage of the upcoming Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Taking the place of Splash Mountain at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, the Princess and the Frog-themed log flume ride will make its grand debut in Orlando on June 28 before opening in Anaheim later this year.
With its second online episode of “We Call It Imagineering” on Wednesday evening, Disney showed footage of musician PJ Morton, who created a song for the attraction, riding the attraction for the first time.
The results of Disney’s extensive retheming look pretty great so far, particularly the animatronic work with the ride’s grand finale.
And don’t worry, the ride retains its signature drop that makes it one of Disney’s more thrilling attractions. You can see the footage around the 16-minute mark.
We’ll know soon enough how parkgoers feel about the revamped attraction once it opens at the Magic Kingdom next month.
From an early glimpse, it looks like a swell time.
This is cool, especially if you grew up with 90s Disney.
If you’ve seen any movie made in the past 30 years, chances are you’ve seen “The Lion King”. Among the many memorable songs from that flick is “Be Prepared”, sung by Scar, one of the most famous Disney villains of all-time. Jeremy Irons voiced the character, but he actually didn’t sing the entirety of his character’s song.
There’s one part of “Be Prepared” in which Scar shouts intensely, and this exhausted Irons’ voice enough that he couldn’t sing the rest of the song. Enter Jim Cummings, who already was voicing Ed, one of the hyenas alongside Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marin. Cummings filled in for Irons for the last part of the song and did it so well that one couldn’t tell the difference.
Cummings’ filmography is too lengthy to list here, but you definitely have heard his voice if you’ve watched a lot of animation made over the past 40 years. He chose to sample one of those when he posted a video of him singing “Be Prepared” on social media. Oh, and he was wearing an interesting shirt:
While we can’t confirm at this time whether Cummings in fact is a Notre Dame fan, it’s cool to see this nonetheless. Maybe in light of this, the Irish should add “Be Prepared” to their pregame playlist? Just a thought.
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Here’s why Disney+’s logo is suddenly a different color entirely.
Hey! Have you been looking at your phone or tablet or your TV and realized that the Disney+ logo is now greener, not that shade of blue we’re all familiar with? And that this one looks more like the greenish hue of Hulu?
Well, you’re on to something.
The Disney streaming app and Hulu are combining and integrating, although they have their own standalone apps as well.
And as for that color? Here’s what that’s all about via Variety: “In addition, with the Hulu on Disney+ launch, the Disney+ logo has been updated with a color scheme the company calls “aurora” — a nod to both the heroine of “Sleeping Beauty” and the aurora borealis — that blends Hulu’s green and Disney+’s blue.”
Defunctland’s new video about Disney’s The American Idol Experience in Orlando is genuinely fascinating.
Defunctland’s Kevin Perjurer is one of our best nostalgia explorers, an Indiana Jones who swings into the caverns of pop culture’s past to break down why things happened and help explain what they mean in the context of our memories.
He’s always had an uncanny ability to dig into Disney’s theme parks and the overall culture of the Mouse House before its Marvel/Lucasfilm explosion of the 2010s. His latest rumination on Disney’s Hollywood Studios and its defunct The American Idol Experience really is one of his best videos yet.
Rather than simply poke fun at the catacombs of an ultimately failed Disney attraction, Perjurer expertly explores the complicated phenomena of American Idol and how its explosion coincided with Disney’s struggles of what to do with Hollywood Studios before Star Wars and Toy Story gave the park new life.
Within about an hour, you get a detailed history and study into American Idol and the Disney attraction that took its format and tried to bring it to park guests. It’s genuinely fascinating to see just how rigorous this attraction was and understand why it failed.
It’s vital to understanding theme park failures to know the nuances of why they phase out or flame out entirely, and Perjurer never excavates these defunct attractions without thoughtful consideration into why they might’ve worked for a time and what their lasting impacts are.
Kirk Cousins and his family have been on a Disney movie binge recently, and he asked for recommendations. Here are 10 Disney films the Cousins family should watch next
One of the great things about the offseason is that the players get a chance to relax a little bit and just be regular people for a minute. They don’t have to constantly be “on” and in the public eye, and can just kick back with their family and enjoy some good, old-fashioned quality time.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins and his family has been taking full advantage of that quality time recently, as Cousins let us know on Twitter. Cousins tweeted out that he and his children have been enjoying Disney movies, having just wrapped up watching Ratatouille and Emperor’s New Groove.
Since the injury, been watching a different Disney movie each Friday night with our boys…Ratatouille & Emperor’s New Groove are my faves so far—-phenomenal & underrated What do we watch next?
He then asked the audience for their recommendations. The Disney back catalogue is immense, and one could spend all day listing off some of the greats from Disney’s hey-day (or rather, hey-days; they have had several ‘golden eras’). Everyone is going to have their favorites, of course, and these are the 10 Disney movies I would recommend for the Cousins’ family to hit up next.
For the purposes of this list, I am going to assume that Cousins and family have already seen the really big Disney animated films, such as Lion King, Toy Story, Frozen, etc.
What is runDisney? And how did the world go from old-school Olympic marathons to having the planet’s most recognizable mouse hosting races? Today, we’re explaining everything you need to know about Disney marathons.
Let’s take it from the top. The lore behind marathons stretches all the way back to ancient Greece. Legend says it all started with a man named Pheidippides, who ran 26 miles between the towns of Marathon and Athens. While the Pheidippides story is an entertaining one, the real history behind modern marathons doesn’t go back quite that far.
As National Geographic writer Erin Blakemore explains, runners have French linguist and classicist Michel Bréal to thank for marathons. Bréal introduced the idea of a roughly 24-mile footrace to the International Olympic Committee. The organization adopted the idea, then extended it to 26.2 miles in 1908.
How we got from there to the world of runDisney is a much more complex web to untangle. As you’ve probably guessed, runDisney is a division of The Walt Disney Company that hosts marathons, 5Ks, and other running events. The project began in 1994 when Disney held its inaugural race at Florida’s Walt Disney World. Today, runDisney is still up and running with a calendar of events hosted online, at Disney World, and at California’s Disneyland.
Photo by Josh Hallett
How does runDisney work?
Through the runDisney website, runners can register for various Disney running events. If you’ve ever tried planning a Disney trip, you should know that the rule for planning ahead absolutely extends to these races.
Registration is a simple process, wherein runners can expect to fill out basic demographic information and pay a registration fee. That fee not only reserves runners a spot in their chosen race but also comes with perks like a finisher medal. Even virtual race participants get these goodies; events like the Neverland 5K provide runners with a medal, shirt, certificate, and digital race tool kit.
What’s the appeal of these Disney races? As Eve Chen, USA Today Consumer Travel Reporter, explains, “I don’t run, but years ago, I promised myself I’d do a marathon if I made it into grad school. I don’t think I could’ve kept that promise anywhere but at Walt Disney World.”
“It’s not just because there’s no qualifying time and the course is paved and flat, all valuable perks for beginners. It’s because it still felt like a Disney vacation, even though I had to put in work,” Chen continues.
When Disney/ESPN made Pat McAfee among its highest-paid TV personalities last year with a reported $17 million annual salary, it probably didn’t anticipate the hire leading to a massive feud with Jimmy Kimmel.
But that’s what happens when you allow McAfee to platform Aaron Rodgers’ conspiracies on live TV.
In a Tuesday appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers baselessly linked Kimmel — who hosts the Disney-owned Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC — to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A furious Kimmel tweeted a response to Rodgers, and he couldn’t have been happy about how McAfee handled the topic.
Come Wednesday, McAfee — who decided to wear a sleeved shirt to work — tried to address Rodgers’ remarks. McAfee mentioned that his phone was blowing up after the show. But despite the presumed heat from Disney and ESPN brass, McAfee dismissed the remarks as part of the free-wheeling nature of his show. (Warning: Some NSFW language)
"I can see exactly why Jimmy Kimmel felt the way he felt, especially with his position. But I think Aaron was just trying to talk shit."
Pat McAfee opens his show by responding to the fallout and threats of legal action coming out of his Tuesday interview with Aaron Rodgers pic.twitter.com/UCv1yAp62Z
He essentially said that Rodgers was just trying to talk smack to Kimmel after Kimmel had joked about Rodgers on his late-night show. But there’s a big difference between making fun of a conspiracy theorist and accusing someone of being a pedophile.
It’s hard to imagine that ESPN will be pleased with how McAfee addressed the situation. We’ll have to see if Rodgers is back with his regular appearance next Tuesday.
