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Are you 23? – Disney’s Mysterious “D23″ Web Site & Countdown
Disney has launched a new cryptic Web site at disney.com/23 promoting… something.
Visitors to the site are greeted with a brief message reading:
Are you 23?
Find out March 10
Tinker Bell then flies in and changes the screen to a countdown to March 10, 2009.
Is it a movie? Probably. LaughingPlace.com has posted a photo of this poster spotted at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA.
Any guesses as to what this might be?
UPDATE (2/24/09): More information about the mystery question here.
UPDATE (3/5/09): Looks like Disney couldn’t keep the secret until March 10. Information about the D23 fan club, convention, and magazine here.
UPDATE (3/11/09): Yesterday was the big announcement, which you can find more about here, here, and on disney.com/23.
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I’m just going to go ahead and say it’s a remake of Jim Carrey’s awful film “The Number 23″ starring Stitch.
That film was pretty bad. I don’t know if Stitch could make it worse. But somehow I doubt that’s it. ;)
Let’s see… March 10… 3/10… 3 10… 10 is 2 in binary… 3 2… 23 backwards! And that means absolutely nothing.
The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1923.
Pixar is 23 years old this year.
Am I going anywhere?
Wow, I just started bouncing all over the net trying to rack my brain about this. I look up, it’s two hours later! The “mystery campaign” has clearly worked on me…
No trace of anything even remotely related.
RU23 is a model kit for the Eagle from Space 1999.
There is a loose consortium of hackers that call themselves “Twentythree”.
People born in 1986 would be 23. March 10, 1986 Halley’s Comet was returning from it’s trip around the sun. Maybe it left some space dust on the Earth and now the government is looking for all the children born during that time (are you 23 years old?) because they are exhibiting super powers!!!! Okay, may a bit of a stretch…
I’m tapped out, nothing else even begins to make sense…
It’s probably in celebration of the company’s year of creation, 1923. Maybe they’re releasing a new documentary on the company. Or perhaps creating a new magazine, for all us Disney nerds…to replace the beloved Disney News Magazine. That would be awesome! (No offense to Orlando Attractions Magazine).
March 10 is my dad’s birthday…but I don’t imagine that’s relevant. And on the forums, I’m scooterb23…so technically I am 23! I wonder what they are going to give me?!!
The Pixar turning 23 is an intriguing thought, although it would be an equally intriguing anniversary to celebrate.
I’m wondering about an relation to 23 years ago…1986. BUt all I’ve got is that’s the year Flight of the Navigator came out (can you tell I have too much time on my hands?)
March 10, 2009 is a tuesday . . . typically new release today for media . . . direct-to-video movie?
Not likely to be a direct to video movie because then we would obviously know about it before the release date. The countdown ends on exactly March 10th. My guess is that it will not be a physical release but instead some form of announcement will come the day.
It can’t have anything to do with Pixar, because it does not say Disney/Pixar. If you remember correctly, Pixar is always very picky about getting their name on things.
‘The Great Mouse Detective’ will be 23 years old this year. But, I doubt they would do something for that, seeing it’s not a very popular film.
It could possibly be an online game like VMK. VMK was opened for a promotion on Disney’s 50th year anniversary (so they say). This could be a new game promoting something different.
If you google search Disney D23 there are a ton of “Lightning McQueen” results – maybe the official announcement of Cars 2?
I just know that if it’s lame, I will become rather violent.
Not sure if it’s related but Pinocchio re-releases on DVD on March 10th.
If you google it Disney is coming out with 23 new family stlye adventure vacations in 2009.
all i could think of is VMK closing on may 23
A whole lot of things have to do with the number 23, so I’m not looking into that. Anyway, it probably won’t be anything good, just something to attract attention to Disney.
Some Imagineer is just lonely and looking for someone?
The number 23 is a mystical number (if you believe all that). Also, I’ve always been fascinated as to why the building numbers between Grizzly Rapids and the beginning of Paradise Pier in DCA are factors of 2 (8, next to it 16, next to that 32, then 64, then 128, then 256) and RIGHT ACROSS from them (next to the bathroom) is “23″! I’ve noticed that “23″ address for ages due to all the hoopla around the number, perhaps a link-in to the new “Little Mermaid” attraction (next door to address “23″) ???
As I mentioned, Pinocchio is coming out March 10th on DVD. Just received an email from Disney that they are showing Pinocchio in the theater starting January 23rd. Still a coincidence?
perhaps it is something to do with blu ray releases? don’t forget lassiter was at the electronics expo. just a thought – this better be something good…..
For those who played VMK, (Virtual Magic Kingdom), you’d know that when it closed, it was a bigggg deal with lots of screaming and angriness. Haha.
For those who don’t know, VMK was a major multiplayer online game, which opened on…. March 23 O:.
Maybe Disney got tired of the madness and is reopening it.
Unlikely, but maybe!
I think this is a good attempt at a guess.
From Screamscape website…
Disney – (1/13/09) The latest D-23 update claims that the whole initiative came forward last year when a Disney fan berated Iger over the fact that the company only caters to the casual Disney park fans and has abandoned the more dedicated intense long-term Disney fans. If the rumors hold true, people will apparently be asked to pay about $100 a year to become part of this new club which will be offered a bunch of new exclusive merchandise opportunities as well as setting up 1 or 2 fan events at the parks a year, with the first to take place in Anaheim.
As for the origin of the number 23. we still don’t know for sure but it was also pointed out that WED officially became Walt Disney Imagineering in 1986 and the shareholders changed name of Walt Disney Productions to The Walt Disney Company in 1986 as well, making each name 23 years old. As for the March 10th date. some wonder if the details about the new club may be revealed along with the rerelease of Pinocchio on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 10th.
Here are my 2 cents on this -
1. The could be a new “club 23″ that would appear at different resorts. Blend some of the ideas from above. It could be apart of the Little Mermaid attraction at DCA. Combine that with the Skips idea above.
2. My fav though would be to work with the whole Walt Disney Imagineering/Walt Disney Company why not make the announcement of the new name from DCA to WDCA (Walt Disney’s California Adventure)
I’m response number 23, does that count for anything?
I’m guessing it’s also related to founding of Disney, sort of like the “We are Marshall” chant, are you a die hard Disney supporter.
I’ve been looking and still don’t have an answer, but when i saw it i kinda freaked out because I’ll be 23 on March 10! so it was kinda neat to see the countdown to my birthday!
:)
The search continues…
Brittanni: Happy Birthday, but BEWARE! One of the largest corporations on earth has something planned for you. And it may not be pixie dust and slapstick comedy.
;)
23 hmm. Or 2 + 3= 5?? Aren’t there 4 Walt Disney Themeparks now. Maybe that 5th park rumor might be answered.
I read somewhere that 23 vaulted classics may be released, one of them being Pinocchio. Beauty & the Beast?! Lion King, will I be able to hold you in my hands at last!? My VHS versions are beyond repair… :(
But it will probably be something lame…
I played VMK. I don’t think just because Lightning McQueen came up means that Disney has another cars movie coming out, because Disney hasn’t released it. Nobody really knows…
No theories or thoughts but I enjoyed reading all your ideas. Noah, I think being response 23 should get you a big ole prize ! Britanni, happy birthday !
in response to Skip
the address numbers on the block of townhouses in DCA’s Golden State section are a sequence of numbers that would make sense to anyone in computers. it’s the amount of memory in each upgrade. 8mb, 16mb, 32mb, 64mb, 128mb, (256 which is the missing number), 512mb, and 1024. this was actually one of the clues that a friend of mine got when we were trying to save the muppets.
i don’t think its a car 2 cause we already know that they are going to have a second one. why would the have all the hype for blue ray movies, i sounds bigger to me. i think the VMK idea is unlikely. Sorry, we all wish right. haha but really its driving me crazy i NEED to know what it means. i can say for sure its good advertisement it already got me hooked.
1st. The release of 23 titles on Blu-ray at once seems a bit much, but possible considering that most families with young children have massive disney dvd libraries, and Disney would LOVE for them to switch to Blu-ray
2nd -Song of the south was last released to home video in 1986, 23 years ago.
3rd The easiest way for Disney to release Song of the South back on the home video market would be to make “SoS” one of many titles as opposed to giving it a stand alone release which might draw more attention and controversy
4th Disney has never sought legal action aginst the many bootleggers and pirates who sell DVD copies of “SoS” on the internet. Releasing “SoS” straight to Blu-ray and bypassing a DVD release all together eliminates the need to address that issue, and gives fans more incentive to buy a Blu-ray player and then buy up all 23 titles eventually.
I have no inside information on this but I have a feeling that this might be the tactic Disney is using.
Just to save everyone some effort, the animation on the page does nothing, even when it thinks that the date has passed, so don’t go that route… lol
As for what this is, I would LOVE for it to be a 5th park!!!
Is 23 is the winner at the new Carsland attraction?
1923 is the year Disney founded the Studios. I heard the campaign is a new “exclusive club” called “Dis 23″ that disney will be selling membership to. It will allow “elite” fans to get a special magazine and admittance to special conventions, etc that will have special speakers and merchandise.
I’m 23. Do I get a cookie? *inserts high wishful thinking* Well, I’m hoping that on March 10th, the Disney Vault can come back to TV~! I want my Zorrooooo… T_T I want an old school Disney Channel… *sobs sobs*
But an “exclusive club”….? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case. That “free birthday” announcement briefly left a bitter taste in my mouth.
A Song of the South release would be interesting. I never saw it so seeing a DVD release of it would be nice. Apparently, I was too late for the video release. I was 0 years old at that time. >_<
I think it might have something to do with VMK for some reason. All the other online games are crap, seriously. VMK was the most realistic one of them all. Hopefully something with an online game just like it.
I miss VMK. I hope 23 has to do with something similar to VMK in anyway. Let’s hope. If anyone remembers on VMK the last words said where, “See you real soon”"
I hope its going to be another vmk, or something like that hopefully!
I Work at the Disney Store and I asked a fellow manager if he had any idea what it was about….Then he made a call and just like tht he found out that it has to do with the environment. Disney Is Promoting something to do with it.
Go Green…yay Disney
TDS Cast Member..8=)
The 23rd letter in the alphabet is W, so I’m not sure if that means anything or not.
And from what I’ve been told, I don’t think SOS would be released because the NAACP has always boycotted and have been against that movie based on how the movie portrayed black people in the film. Hence the reason why all Splash Mountain rides have Brer Rabbit stuck in honey, and not a “tar baby.”
Here’s a few more things about March 10th…..
It’s the 69th day of the year. Divide 69 by 3, and you get 23! Woah!
It’s also a birthday for a few well knowns, Chuck Norris, Sharon Stone, Emily Osment from Hannah Montana, and….uhm, the notorious Osama Bin Laden. Hmmmmm…..
I’m hoping it’s some kind of huge party for 23 year olds, like myself. I just saw the “Are you 23?” ad on my way out of Magic Kingdom a couple days ago…
I bet they are going to do something like every 23rd person who enters the gates gets something or wins something…they did something similar a few years ago didn’t they. With the year of a million dreams ending and no one getting dream fast passes, etc. anymore, maybe this is a new thing! I guess we will have to see. To me…the question is, “are you 23? find out on March 10th.” so it has to be with something about a person being the 23rd person in something.
Back in the mid 80′s, it was only $23.00 to get into Disneyland. Hmmmmm
I would love for Vault Disney to come back to. I absolutely loved watching Zorro also.
A new theme park announcement seems highly possible, since there have been a lot of rumors about it. My guess would be that.
Then again cool nifty free things would be awesome too. Anything. Now I just want to know. Blah!
well idk wat it is………..could it be Disney’s first rated R horror movie staring Jason as the killer and the cast of High School Musical as the victims? tat would b exciting lol
all very interesting speculations!!! i’m quite excited to find out.
My guess is that it’s some new merch campaign. However, i would much more enjoy some type of exclusive lounges throughout the parks that require membership. You know, big comfy chairs and free drinks. along the lines of the concierge level services. The corporate lounges in Epcot could have been a test run to this type of service.
(not that I’m elitist or anything but, some relief from all the “first timers” and families that wear all the same color shirts could be nice!!!)
i believe that it is a kingdom hearts game call Mushroom Kingdom Hearts. It stars Sora (and other characters) from the original Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, etc. It also stars Mario (thats a little weird!) and his characters, and some other Disney characters from different movies!
Well the question is our you 23, so I would guess it has something to do with us interacting with whatever they come up with.
March 10, 2009 is the Shareholders meeting in Oakland, CA. I will be there. They say it will be announced at the Meeting.
Well, I noticed Disney is not offering vacation specials for the 10th of March. I would assume it has something to do with the parks not just an announcement for a movie or something (not saying I wouldn’t love a Cars 2!!!). Maybe they are announcing they are going out of business :)
I just read about this criptic information today. It sort of reminds me of the movie “23″.
@Michael:
They’ve already announced a Cars 2, you tourist.
Ok. First of all, Someone I know works for the Studios. Cars 2 is already in production. It was announced last year along with the project for cars land in DCA.
Second, you call yourself Disney Fans, there are already 5 parks, big dummies. The fifth being Disney Hong Kong which opened 3 years ago. So lets count, Disneyland in California (1), Walt DIsney World in Florida(2). Disney Paris in France (3), Tokyo Disney in Japan (4), and Disney Hong Kong(5), congrats!
From what I am hearing, it will be an exclusive club but less exclusive and not as grand as CLUB 33 inside of Disneyland Park in Anaheim. The Vault thing, wrong, all merchandise stores would have to be aware of it and prepared for it and if that were the case, the secret would have been let out by now.
Definiteily not going out of business, The Walt Disney Company is one of the Largest and Succesful companies in the history of the world. They are the only company who has been open since before the 1930′s and has NEVER had a business quarter where they didn’t net a profit.
Have fun trying to figure this out. Just remember, Disney is doing a great Job in keeping this under wraps, so that means there has to be Very little people involved.
The message “Are you 23″ also appears on the reverse of the tickets to the Annual Shareholder’s Meeting to be held on March 10, at 10 AM Pacific. The count down timer cooresponds to that date an hour after the meeting starts. Wonder if some announcement will be made at the meeting at 11 AM.
Here’s some more potential information: http://www.distantcreations.com/blog/2009/02/24/d23-are-you-23-revealed/
Look at THIS!
http://www.wdwnewstoday.com/archives/2736
I don’t think it has anyhting to do with the Little Mermaid attraction at DCA because I saw the add in the Mickey Monitor for Walt Disney World Passholders so it’s something that affects BOTH parks!!!!!!!!
Also, Disney is not going out of bussiness because Magic Kingdom still get’s a minimum of 73,000 people a DAY.
There’s only about a 2,000 drop of an average from last year.
So they still make about $5,475,000 and that’s enough to keep the park open.
So I was just surfing the search engines and I stumbled on what appears to be an amendment stating “PART 23″ from site http://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/FARTOCP23.html whose headline reads the following Part 23—Environment, Energy and Water Efficiency, Renewable Energy Technologies, Occupational Safety, and Drug-Free Workplace , so could it be Possible that Disney is asking ” ARE YOU 23″ meaning have you gone GREEN yet. Think about it for a minute if it was a DVD release thousands would of had to been involved and that would be impossible to keep quite, It could be an exclusive club but then why we they do that in this state of economy, if it was a ticket sale then again thousands would be involved etc…, correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t there some sort of bill or earmark President Bush passed around businesses and industries using renewable technology by 2010? I could be wrong but if you think about the term “Are you 23″ I don’t believe it to oriented around an age or date for some product release.
It’s already been widely reported, but the answer with photographic evidence is right here: http://www.stitchkingdom.com/tag/d23/
Its actually not that cool. I was kinda let down to find out what it was… Oh well. It is not a movie. It is not a ride. I’m a cast member so I can’t say, but don’t get your hopes up.
Why do I feel like we’re WAY overthinking this. I am the only one who feels this way?
I just hope that the online community is as good as VMK was. Don’t care if it’s a game or whatever like VMK… I just want pure unadulterated awesome.
I dunno about a yearly convention. I’d probably be the youngest person there by at least 10 years or so.
Getting exclusive pins in the mail would be nice, though. Hope it’s open to international residents, cause I’m up here in stupid Canada.
vmk closed march 23 and is rumered to reopen march 10th
Canada ain’t stupid — I’ll trade houses with you! LOL! I doubt VMK (www.vmk.com) will come back (I too wish it would!) as it was originally outsourced thru a third party and they would want BANK to reactivate it. I still think the exclusive merch is what we’re in for.
Michael Jordan :D
Disney has been buying up lots of property in Texas recently in it’s 23rd district. They have been talking about building a park in Texas for some time now. As a Texan and a Disney fan I hope this is the case. I will be in Disney World on March 10th, anyone know if there is going to be a ceremony or anything?
For those that are interested, I just added an audio clip of Bob Iger all but mentioning D23 by name: http://www.stitchkingdom.com/tag/d23
I’ll be in Disneyland on March 10th, so I’m also wondering if there will be an announcement in the parks. My parents were just there yesterday and the CM still don’t know what it is.
I work in the newsstand at a bookstore & today in my “eplanner,” which lists upcoming projects, there was one about a magazine called Disney Twenty Three with a strict on-sale date of March 10th. Don’t know if this magazine is what the fuss is all about, or if it’s part of a bigger thing.
Very interesting. A return of the Disney Magazine in a new form, targeted toward fans? We’ll see!
Long time podcast fan, first time poster.
Well, it looks like Carrie was partly right. My local Barnes & Noble wasn’t so strict with the on-sale date and I saw a huge display of the magazine last night. Despite feeling slightly ill at having spent $15.95 on a magazine (albeit a fancy-schmancy one that comes in a protective plastic sleeve), I’m enjoying it. It’s a large format, perfect bound publication with high quality image reproduction; 63 pages long. It includes articles on the Disney Archives, the Sleeping Beauty Castle walk through, Pixar’s “Up,” an exclusive look at Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” etc.
However, “Twenty Three” is NOT just a magazine, it is “the new quarterly publication exclusively for D23: The Official Community for Disney Fans.” In the opening letter Bob Iger writes: “To thank all of our fans, we have created D23 with its one-of-a-kind experiences, special events, collectibles, Web site, and opportunities to meet others who share the same affection and fascination for Disney . . .” Cost is not given, but one-year membership includes: the publication, a membership card & certificate, “a surprise collectible gift just for D23 members from the new Walt Disney Archives Collection,” exclusive special events & merchandise opportunities, and (I’m sure this will interest many of you) “Discounted admission to the D23 Expo: The Ultimate Disney Fan Experience, taking place on September 10-13, 2009 in Anaheim, California.”
Now you know what “Are you 23?” means.
SORRY TO RUIN THIS FOR YOU. THIS IS ALL IT IS. NO BLURAY, NO 5th PARK, NOTHING!!!! IT IS A SHAM, THATS ALL.
http://thedisneyblog.com/2009/02/24/d23-disneys-new-membership-club/
Magazine about whats new and old in Disneyland to be released on the 23rd. That would be wonderful
I’m on the site now; it’s midnight but there’s no announcement. Just a blank page. No countdown or anything…
I’m on it and it just went to zero then the numbers went to minus 11 hours ect very bizarre and annoying pmsl
less than 3 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Go to disneyshopping.com and search for 23…I’m already a member.
I’ve updated the post above to link to more recent posts about the announcement and the details of D23 / Disney Twenty Three including membership and Expo information.
Hello Watching the View is how we found out about D 23.Its nice watching the View from disney Land.Its great place to go and be a Kid again.Everuone should go and enjoy the great times.
Am i 23 because my friends say i am not 23