I collect, I reject: Cobain Mickey

It looks like the Magic Kingdom has finally reached the early 90s:

Yes, that's Grunge Mickey.

[via Stereogum]

Hannah Montana: The end is near

If they're still casting about for someone to play Meg Matthews, it looks like Miley Cyrus might have some availability in line: Disney is going to be shuttering Hannah Montana after the current series.

Presumably because Cyrus is getting too old to be credible for the target audience, rather than because it really wants to choke off the series that launched a million crappy pink products being shipped in from China.

"It's always a shame when a star gets too old for the franchise" sighed an unnamed Disney executive. "Thank God we castrated the Jonas Brothers when we had the chance."

Disney to Disneyfy The Beatles

Could there be any way to make a pointless Disney 3D remake of Yellow Submarine even more annoying?

Disney intends to release the film to coincide with the 2012 London Olympics.

Ah, yes. Because of John Lennon having held the UK triple jump record for seven years back in the early 70s, of course. Why wouldn't you want to celebrate the very made-up links between The Beatles and The Olympics?

There are still negotiations being pursued before the project gets under way - presumably trying to shave three cents off the production costs of the Blue Meanies plush toys.

Disney not exactly endorsing latest Hannah Montana outing

Miley Cyrus' time as an employee of Disney is clearly now in its final stages, after Cyrus' pole dance at the Teen Choice awards.

Disney doesn't actually say "she is so gounded" but...:

According to Newsday.com, a spokesperson for the network said in a statement: "Disney Channel won't be commenting on that performance, although parents can rest assured that all content presented on the Disney Channel is age-appropriate for our audience — kids 6-14 — and consistent with what our brand values are."

So, in other words, not like Miley Cyrus in a tiny top and skimpy shorts writhing on a pole, oh no.

Cyrus, for her part, has attempted to explain why her show wasn't supposed to look like late-night entertainment backstage at a Gary Glitter concert:

Before she took the stage at the show, Cyrus spoke to MTV News about the performance, saying she wanted the whole thing to be a spoof on growing up in Tennessee, adding that "it's about my roots."

"[My] performance tonight is funny, but I wanted it to be about [something more]," she said. "I'm like, 'This is to represent where I am from. I'm so proud of it.' All the girls trying to be Hollywood and stuff with their big glasses, me shooing them away."

As far as we can tell from Wikipedia and other sources, Cyrus didn't actually grow up in a Ukranian brothel, in Tennessee or elsewhere. Perhaps it looks different when viewed through, um, the big glasses of Hollywood. Perhaps.

Disney's cold-eyed machine opened

The Baltimore Sun peers deeply into the heart of the Disney pop machine as the fickle twelve year-old Miley Cyrus fans start to tire of Hannah Montana - Old Lady:

"I'm pretty sure her voice has changed," says Kathleen Boidy, 12, of Glen Burnie, "because in some of her concerts she sounded really bad. The Jonas Brothers - all of their songs are really big."

Raven Symone - who is now in the "trying to build an adult career but appearing in College Road Trip so that's probably not going that well, then" stage of her career - offers advice to the meat in the business plans:

Symone, whose personal worth is estimated to be close to $50 million, offers sage advice to her younger peers: "Make sure you're professional and make sure you understand that it's a business."

Almost as an afterthought, she adds. "Have fun and enjoy your life."

As an afterthought.

Happy childhood, kids. TMZ will see you in a decade.

Miley Cyrus drops the bra

Poor old Miley, eh? People got upset when the internet was awash with a photo of her showing her bra; now, she's taken the bra off and are people happy? Nope. It's not clear quite what Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair thought would happen when they ran topless photos of Miley Cyrus, but we suspect the phrase "this will create a magazine-selling hoo-hah" wouldn't have been far from the process.

Miley, for her part, seems to have confused Leibovitz with some sort of God:

Annie took, like, a beautiful shot, and I thought it was really cool. That’s what she wanted me to do, and you can’t say no to Annie. I think it’s really artsy. It wasn’t in a skanky way.”

You can, actually, "say no to Annie" - what's she going to do? Not take your photo?

Still, Miley has now realised that not being skanky isn't enough, and issued an apology:

“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.”

She never intended for people to say "there's that wholesome fifteen year-old kid off the Disney Channel in a shot that looks disturbingly post-coital"? Fancy that.

The photo crew are quick to stress that - although it looks like she's naked, she wasn't actually naked at all. Oh no. Although:

Originally, she was in a flesh-colored tank top but was asked to remove it."

To be fair, anyone wearing a flesh-coloured tank top probably should be asked to remove it, although it could be replaced with something less disgusting.

Gallows told to go hang by Disneyland

For some reason - we can only imagine an amusing chain of misunderstandings behind the scenes - Gallows had been booked to play a gig at Disneyland. The actual one, with the real Mickey Mouse. Not the pretend one in France.

Luckily for everyone concerned, someone thought to check a lyrics sheet before the band turned up.

Now, Gallows aren't going to be playing Disneyland.

Mouse moves Machine

The planned Machine Head's date in Anaheim has been canned after Disney announced new rules covering heavy metal gigs at the House of Blues. Disney has previously banned bands on the basis of their name alone, but this is the first time Disney have allowed tickets to go on sale before changing its mind.

Some more formats! Yes, a confused marketplace is a healthy marketplace

A couple of weeks after Warners unveiled the MVI disc, which is effectively a CD with some watchable stuff lobbed on top, comes Disney's Hollywood Records with their brand-new CD-VU format. Which is, effectively, a CD with some watchable stuff lobbed on top.

Some grudging respect to the label for trying to interest an audience with something extra for their money, even if it is an uninspired idea to simply add in "digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty" and hope that will do it. And since the bloody labels spend so much time coming together to plan how to shake down their customers for cash with legal threats, is it really beyond their wits to get together to co-operate before launching a range of similar-but-different new formats?

Oh, and while we're on new formats: Scratch and sniff CDs. We can't begin to guess what a Smashing Pumpkins album would reek of.

One's Walt, the other Disney

When Disney were busy lobbying for an extension of the copyright to ninety years after death in the US, we were vaguely surprised at the slightly less greedy than they could have been term they were seeking: since anything much over twenty years is pretty inexcusable, we wondered why they were drawing a barrier round Steamboat Willy that will need to be lobbied upwards again in a few years rather than go for a anything longer.

Then we realised Robert Louis Stevenson died in 1894, and if the copyright protection fence was moved too far back, the already expensive debacle that is Treasure Planet would have become totally unworkable. Maybe, though, this could be the way to fight for the public domain - since the principle that Disney established could be used to threaten them, maybe its time someone tried to get copyright extended for the length of three lifetimes? It would be interesting to see how Disney could argue against such a proposition and for the current length...