A. D'Alessandro

Walt Disney told songwriters the Brothers Sherman: 'This song is going to send your kids through college.'

Let's face it, It's a Small World was always mom's favorite ride. If you thought the time she picked you up at high school with rollers in her hair was embarrassing, accompanying her on Small World was even worse; ripe with its foreign jolly girly dancing dolls.

However, at Friday's D23 Expo panel, It's a Small World: Celebrating 45 Years, the Disney company presented an insightful look at the globe-trotting theme ride that was worthy of a smart extra on a Criterion Collection DVD. A real eye-opening event for any Grumpy dwarf. The best part: Listening to "It's a Small World" co-songwriter Richard Sherman and the ride's costume designer Alice Davis recall hysterical stories about Walt Disney, who sounded like the flip side of Jack Benny (check out this hysterical clip of Benny and Disney doing a sketch together).

Disney Media

John Lasseter on California Adventure: "It was not up to the level of a Disney Park"

If you have ever felt gypped by your trip to Disneyland's California Adventure, then you got a friend in John Lasseter.

"California Adventure: We needed to do something to it," sighed the Pixar/Walt Disney Studios Animation chief creative officer at Sunday afternoon's D23 panel Radiator Springs Reality; "I'll be honest with you, it was not up to the level, for my mind, of a Disney park. It didn't have the theme-ing."

Hence the impetus for his $200 million Route 66 homage Cars Land, which is part of the $1 billion overhaul to bring California Adventure up to par with its sister Disney parks. Despite hitting a record attendance of 6.28 million last year, California Adventure stills ranks as the least visited among Disney's U.S. parks, queuing behind Disneyland (15.98 million), plus Florida's Magic Kingdom (16.9 million) and its smaller resorts (average 10 million apiece). On the upside, it fares better than Universal Studios Hollywood (5 million).

Disney media

"Goofy embodies the can-do spirit, even though he can't do," says the voiceover actor Bill Farmer

Many actors get the chance to play Hamlet, but only one gets to play Goofy. That guy is Bill Farmer, who for nearly 25 years has been the voice behind Disney's top dog in 3,000-plus projects spanning theme parks, TV shows, movies, video games -- everything.

"The best training I ever had was as a road stand-up comedian in the '80s. It you can do stand-up, you can do anything," says Farmer. He is also the official voice of Practical Pig of the Three Little Pigs, Horace Horsecollar, Pluto and a number of Looney Tunes characters as well. You can catch Farmer around town performing in Fred Willard's sketch troupe the Mohos (check out Farmer's kick-ass George Burns here). We caught up with Farmer at Disney's official fan expo D23 and asked him to deconstruct the dog.

A. D'Alessandro

The chimpanzee of Androids? Disney Imagineering's The Amazing Destini

When it comes to the advancement of modern technology, never underestimate Walt Disney. The company's Imagineering Research and Development department -- the engineers, scientists and artists responsible for a number of the parks' special and VFX -- have arguably contributed more high-end gadgets to society than the Pentagon. Skype-ing and touch-screen iPads might be novel for us, but the hardware is old hat for Disney, having employed their forerunners at Epcot during the '80s.

Well, now those Imagineers have really done it: They've created The Amazing Destini, a fortune-telling interactive robot who might actually be the first ancestor to Androids -- even though he looks like he evolved from Muppets. The whole Destini concept makes Steven Spielberg's film A.I. Artificial Intelligence look like a prophecy.

Disney Media

Costumed characters at Disney's D23 Expo -- but do they work for the company?

On Friday, Disney threw the doors open to its D23 Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center -- the ultimate fan-apalooza featuring sneak peaks, panels, special appearances and exhibitions on the studio's upcoming projects, all next door to the Mickey Mouse Mecca -- Disneyland.