Frozen attraction coming to Norway pavilion at Epcot

Interesting take from one of the guys at Theme Park University.

Just read the TPU thing from FB before coming here - agreed, very interesting take on the "characterization" of the EPCOT countries...

That was awesome. A real kick in the nuts of pin-trading Disney nerds everywhere. I'm convinced they're less fun than the worst coaster enthusiasts.

I can understand being sentimental about a lot of things, but Maelstrom? We did it once after getting annual passes, and haven't been back since. We've been on that awful Mexican stereotyping boat ride more often.

I remember Disney characters at EPCOT World Showcase. It seems to me that it might've been pre-1984 Eisner era, but I could be wrong. Mickey was a fez wearing Moroccan, Minnie was a Japanese geisha, Chip n Dale were Chinese coolies (for lack of a better, non-derogatory word), Goofy was a kilted, bagpipe playing Scot, Donald had a huge sombrero in Mexico, and Daisy was the German frauline. In Future World Mickey and friends donned space suits, diving helmets, farm overalls, and more.
Later, movie character meet and greets became common, and they're all over the park now.

We had a lengthy discussion about this very thing a few months ago and I came down on the side of the detractors mentioned in the article. Upon further thought though, I've come to the belief that's it's all good and Frozen is here to stay. Largest money making animated show ever? And how many billions of dollars so far? Hell yes, c'mon in.

The Princess breakfast was the first thing that came to mind, the first time I read someone bemoaning the "Frozen-ing" of Norway -- the Frozen characters are a whole lot closer to home in Norway than Snow White.

During the Paramount years, I was at Kings Island and they had Romulans wondering around Rivertown, which bothered me. Romulans? Rivertown? Made no sense.

It's about the willing suspension of disbelief. I can accept Snow White at breakfast in Norway, Elsa, Anna and Olaf "taking over" Maelstrom; these are fairy tale characters, so while Snow may not live in Norway, I can buy into her visiting Norway.

A Star Wars character breakfast in Norway? A Spider-Man breakfast in France? Not so much. I can't suspend my disbelief enough to buy into that, just as I couldn't it with Romulans in Rivertown.

32% of Norway is tundra. So if the Star Wars characters show up in Norway, their just reminiscing about the days on Hoth.

I doubt you'll ever see Romulans in a Disney park since they're owned by Paramount & CBS ;-).

Star Trek is owned by Paramount. CBS was spun off from parent company Viacom in 2006. CBS Corp's Pocket Books division does publish the Star Trek books under a license. Sorry. I'm fascinated by corporate minutiae like this.

Yeah? Well here's another... SeaWorld was once owned by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ), the book publisher. It eventually was sold to Anheuser-Busch, which later merged with InBev. InBev sold it to private equity firm Blackstone and relocated the corporate headquarters from St. Louis to Orlando. Blackstone took it public while owning a controlling stake, and they moved into a building on John Young. Concurrently, HBJ eventually changed names and went through various mergers. Concurrently to that, Vivendi bought a different publisher, Houghton Mifflin, while owning NBCUniversal, including the theme parks. Vivendi sold the publisher and the parks to Blackstone, who eventually sold NBCUniversal to GE. Then Riverdeep acquired Houghton Mifflin, and that company eventually bought the educational division of HBJ, and settled on a new name: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

And guess what? HMH has office space in the same building as SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. Did that blow your mind?

All I could think through that whole Six Degrees of Corporate Kevin Bacon was:

"There is something you should know about us, Lone Starr..."

"What?"

"I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate..."

"What's that make us?"

"Absolutely nothing! Which is what you are about to become!"

NBCUni ended up as part of Comcast, which wants to merge with Time Warner Cable, which no longer has anything to do with Time Warner aside from the name.

The same office building?!? Cool.