Walt Disney

Prickly Mickey While hiking last year in the mountains of Sedona, Ariz., I came across this unique cactus with a familiar shape. It reminded me of a famous mouse created by one of my favorite people: Walt Disney, of course. Kathryn H. Knight Clarksville

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The Wild is simply the latest in what has been a years-long creative holding pattern for the animators at Disney, who seem to have lost the ability to come up with anything new and fresh. The only difference here is that, while audiences may think they've seen movies like Chicken Little before, they'll know they've seen The Wild before. Because they have. Like last year's Madagascar, The Wild is about a zoo animal that mistakenly finds its way back to Africa and the wild, and about a group of zoo friends who set out to rescue and bring it back to the safety of its cage.

NEW YORK-- --Two visitors were scrutinizing a painting at the Museum of Modern Art and pondered aloud the artist's thought process. On another evening, they might have been studying the museum's signature pieces - Van Gogh's luminous Starry Night, Andy Warhol's iconic Campbell's soup pop art and Picasso's early cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which is said to be reproduced in more art history texts than any other 20th-century work. But those creations were all several floors above them.

You can't say Disney doesn't listen. Guests have been complaining for years that Orlando's Animal Kingdom needed more rides, that the parks needed more roller coasters, and that Walt Disney's magic needs to be based more on the authentic vision that the man himself once embodied. The answer: Expedition Everest: Mission Himalayas. This new thrill ride, the first in this park since Primeval Whirl opened in 2002, is a 200-foot peak that takes riders for nearly a mile aboard a runaway train through the Himalayas, the habitat of the yeti, a mythical creature protecting the sacred mountains.

THE WORLD COULD HAVE BEEN HIS. International fame. Academy Awards. Theme parks. Television shows. His face on watches. His ears on hats instead of those of that ... that ... mouse. If not for a little underhanded dealing and a lot of gamesmanship nearly 80 years ago, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit could have supplanted Mickey Mouse as a true American icon. Instead, Oswald became a background character in animation history until this month, when the Walt Disney Co. reacquired the rights to Walt Disney's first animated character from NBC Universal, which had held the exclusive rights since 1927.

You silly rabbit, Michaels is for NBC. Al Michaels officially made his move yesterday, when NBC announced he would become the play-by-play voice of the network's new Sunday night NFL package this fall. But after Michaels initially had committed to continue on Monday Night Football as it moved from ABC to ESPN, the all-sports network and the Walt Disney Co. didn't just let him walk away from his contract. No, they kicked some tail. Some cottontail. As part of the deal releasing Michaels, ESPN received: Rights to Friday coverage - for which it paid - of the next four of golf's Ryder Cups, along with extended highlights.

LOS ANGELES -- The Walt Disney Co. formally announced yesterday an agreement to buy industry pioneer Pixar Animation Studios, sending a clear signal it intends to fix its ailing animation unit while aggressively pursuing a strategy to be at the forefront of Hollywood's digital future. The $7.4 billion all-stock deal aims to re-establish a tradition of creative and technological innovation that began with founder Walt Disney 80 years ago. It allies Disney Chief Executive Officer Robert A. Iger with Pixar Chairman Steven P. Jobs, the co-founder and head of Apple Computer Co., whose iTunes technology and other innovations changed the way people consume entertainment.