The DisneyShawn Blog, "The Story Behind the Story"

This is one of my favorite things to do with this blog. Being able to share information with readers and fellow Disney Gee..., I mean Disney Ner…, uh, that is Disney Enthusiasts is paramount to my goals here. I was listening to the WDW Today guys and heard a show that will change the way I view the parks from here on out. The name of this episode was ‘The Story Behind the Story’. The guys had a guest on this show and his name is Shawn Slater and his blog can be found here;

DisneyShawn .

Here is a description of Shawn from his site, “Shawn Slater has had a long and varied career with The Walt Disney Company, including stints as a writer for Walt Disney Entertainment and Walt Disney Imagineering. His love for the Disney Parks manifests itself in a passion for their history, heritage, and seemingly infinite levels of detail.”

As Shawn says in his bio, he was a writer for Walt Disney Entertainment and Imagineering. From being on numerous projects he has some great insight into the who’s, why’s and what’s of a lot of various items. The show on WDW Today was about Shawn’s involvement in the creation of Ye Olde Christmas shop in the Liberty Square section of the Magic Kingdom. Shawn goes thru the process he went thru in writing the storyline behind the Christmas shop and into some of the facts behind the story of Liberty Square itself. There is a great story here and it’s only for a retail shop. Not an attraction or ride or parade, but a store that sells Christmas items year round. True to the Pledge of the Disney Company, everything needs and has a story. And Shawn’s blog has plenty. At one point in the podcast Mike Scopa asks Shawn if they should take the story written for Le Olde Christmas store and post it outside the store so everyone can read about the story. Shawn’s answer was that basically Disney didn’t want people to come all the way to the parks just to read. The guest should be part of the story as opposed to reading the story. After listening to Shawn's stories and reading his blog, my first thought was tour book. Perhaps an extended version of the Imagineers Handbook series.

Shawn has a lot of great stories on his Blog and I can’t wait to go thru all of them. This is another of those sites that just adds so much to upcoming trips. Both in keeping myself in the Disney Attitude when I am months away from another trip and as a reference to enhance my trips to the parks. So please check out Shawn's Blog