2/25/08
The Earful Tower and the Animation Courtyard Arch continue to be in the process of being updated. See Ed's post below for a picture of the new Mickey image being painted on the Earful Tower.
Over the weekend, the first Disney's Hollywood Studios merchandise appeared. The park is currently offering a 2008 Disney's Hollywood Studios T-Shirt.
1/28/08
Signage updates appear to have spread to other locations around the resort prior to finishing all of the updates in and just outside of the park. While signage has been updated in places like along the Crescent Lake walking path to the park and some resort bus stops, signs like the featured attraction billboard outside the park entrance and the bus stop marquees at the park's bus depot have yet to be updated.
The Earful Tower continues to be slowly updated. After having the Disney-MGM Studios logo painted over, the black ears portion of the water tower has recently started to be re-painted with a fresh coat of black paint. It is expected that this work is in preparation for the addition of the Disney's Hollywood Studios moniker to be added.
According to recent reports, merchandise baring the new park's name has yet to appear. While Merchandising Cast at the park have yet to report a hard date on when they expect merchandise to appear, the general expectation is that it will be "soon".
1/7/08
The park has officially transitioned to the new Disney's Hollywood Studios name.
A new Park Entrance Marquee reading "Disney's Hollywood Studios" has been added to the park entrance. The marquee is in the same style and color scheme as the previous one.
Park information signs, park maps and times & events guides also now feature the new park name.
1/6/08
The "Disney-MGM Studios" Park Entrance Marquee has been removed.
12/31/0712/21/07Quote:
Name Change Rolling Out
by Scott Powers
Orlando Sentinel's Tourism Central Florida
December 31, 2007
The transformation of Walt Disney World’s third theme park into Disney’s Hollywood Studios already is visible though the park does not officially drop its old name Disney-MGM Studios until next Monday and the full transition should take months to complete.
Some signs with the old name already have been taken down or painted over, including the one featuring the MGM lion trademark and Mickey Mouse that adorned the archway between the park’s central courtyard and the Animation Courtyard. The Mickey ears water tower, essentially the park’s road sign for traffic approaching from the south, also was painted over last week.
New park maps and merchandise with the new logo should start appearing within a few days, a Disney spokesman said. New Disney’s Hollywood Studios signs should start going up Wednesday on and around the property, but some, including the water tower and the archway, will take weeks to complete.
Across the resort, nearly 500 signs need to be changed, including more than 200 inside the Studios park. Others range from bus stop signs to medallion signs.
Disney announced the name change in August, saying the new name will better reflect the company’s determination to create a broader, updated image for the park, which opened in 1989. The change also, however, ends a rocky, litigious partnership that had developed between Disney and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. film company.
The park’s new logo dumps MGM’s lion with Mickey Mouse, and replaces it with the torso, arms and head of Mickey Mouse, who is holding a filmmaker’s clapboard amid simple, brown lettering that gives the whole thing a retro-Hollywood look.
In preparation of the park's change-over, Disney-MGM Studios has begun to remove all Disney-MGM signage. Earlier this week, the Disney-MGM marquee was removed from the Animation Courtyard Arch. More recently, the Disney-MGM logo on the Earful Tower has been painted over.
