Moving toward the big name change coming up in January, Walt Disney World has unveiled the new logo for Disney's Hollywood Studios -- featuring Mickey Mouse holding a clapboard.
The logo replaces the MGM lion logo that has graced Disney-MGM Studios since it opened in 1989.
"Mickey still plays a prominent role for us," said Studios vice president Michael O'Grattan, "and Hollywood now truly is our middle name."
Even as it announced the name change back in August, Disney revealed several entertainment changes that will debut at about the same time.
Next year the new "Toy Story Mania"! ride (under construction at left)-- the only major attraction currently under construction or announced at Walt Disney World -- will open.
The current Disney Stars and Motor Cars parade will be replaced with "Block Party Bash," a higher-energy play, party and dance show that has been a hit at Walt Disney Co.'s California Adventure theme park in California. In addition, new characters from Playhouse Disney, notably those from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins and Handy Manny, will perform in the "Playhouse Disney-Live On Stage!" show. And this fall's release of the new Disney Channel movie Disney High School Musical 2: School's Out is reflected with a new theme-park street show replacing "High School Musical Pep Rally."
The name change not only gives the park a broader, updated image, as Disney officials maintain, but also drops a name that caused some legal problems in the 1990s.
Disney officials insist that dispute, with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., is behind them and had no bearing on the decision to rename the park. In the 1990s, Disney and MGM were locked in lawsuits for many years over the name, until courts ruled that Disney could continue using the name at Walt Disney World.
The name MGM was originally adopted for the park through a 1985 licensing agreement with the MGM and some related corporations. In addition to giving Disney rights to the name, the contract offered rights to some of the more famous images and characters from famous MGM movies such as The Wizard of Oz.
However, in the 1990s the two corporations sparred off and on over Disney's use of the name. In 1992, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that Disney retained rights to the name for Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World. Another ruling in 1997 concluded that MGM had rights to the name in most other uses.
Even after the name change, Disney will continue to use some MGM properties.
