D23 Expo: The Art and Imagination: Animation at The Walt Disney Studios Presentation

Living in Los Angeles has its perks. Aside from the great weather and… the great weather, sometimes the fine folks at ComicBook.com can’t make it to an event on this coast and ask me to go in their stead. This is what happened at this year’s D23 Expo, to which they sent me to cover Disney’s two big arena shows. I’m a frequent comic convention goer, but I don’t usually wait in line for the big panels, so this would be my chance to experience that kind of extravaganza.On Friday, I arrived at D23, around an hour before the Art and Imagination: Animation at The Walt Disney Studios arena show started at 10:30 AM. Plenty of time! Just needed to get my badge, and then I’d walk right in to take my reserved seat… yeah! No problems.It was then that I saw a major difference between D23 and something like Comic-Con International: Disney loves single file lines. I know there are always lines to get into big panels, but this line was to get into the convention center itself, and it basically circled around the building. It was the longest line I’d ever seen. I assumed there was no way I’d get inside in time for the presentation and was ready to tell them I’d failed before I began, suffering all due humiliation.As I wandered to the end of the line, day turning to night and back again in my brain, a fellow press person who heard my plight as I mumbled to myself, told me she noticed an Arena sign that I didn’t. I decided to skip the line and find my way in, Lois Lane-style. (No, not Clark Kent-style. Lois is the snoopy go-getter). This is when the kindly D23 staff saved the day, directing me to the quickest route to the Arena around the back of the building, going into gray doors and seeing a bunch of people in red shirts ready to pounce on the day. I made it with maybe three minutes to spare and was directed to a reserved seat!Thank goodness I didn’t give up, as this presentation was quite entertaining and impressive. Disney Chairman Bob Iger kicked things off. When he mentioned all the companies now under the Disney banner, I realized they own about 90% of my childhood. After a monologue that makes him a candidate to have his own late night talk show, he introduced the man of the morning, John Lasseter, and the show really got started.Lasseter oversees all three of Disney’s animation divisions: Pixar, Walt Disney Studios, and Disneytoons. He went through the production slates of each company, starting with Pixar. After a shout out to this Summer’s MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, in which he brought out the voice of the Slug, Bill Hader, they showed the world premiere of a new Pixar short that takes place in that world: PARTY CENTERAL. It was a very funny take on frat parties, featuring monsters and taking advantage of their door technology to get goods from other frat parties — fun shenanigans, basically. Also, I want to try “door jamming.” (You’ll know what that is when you see it in front of Pixar’s next movie THE GOOD DINOSAUR.)