Disney taking Scrooge on long train tour for 'A Christmas Carol'

Never underestimate the power of free entertainment, especially when families are as cash-strapped as they are these days. How else to explain the 30,000 intrepid souls who stood in line for three hours this past weekend to see a tricked-out train that's promoting the upcoming holiday movie Disney's A Christmas Carol?
  The train was parked at Union Station in Los Angeles for the kickoff of a whistle-stop tour that will eventually cover 16,000 miles and 40 cities, including Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Louisville, Ky., Spokane, Wash., and Fargo, N.D. It'll end up at New York's Grand Central Station in October. (That won't be a mob scene or anything.) What do folks get for their investment of time? A peek inside several cars full of elaborate interactive exhibits, costumes, props, a first edition of the original Charles Dickens story and demos of the performance-capture technology used in the 3-D family flick. The studio's also throwing in carolers, cookies and fake snow to hype the Nov. 6 release, in addition to an inflatable theater that will show clips of Jim Carrey playing Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts tormenting him. Given how tough it is to stand out at the jam-packed holiday time, Disney is wise to get started early. And the amount of goodwill and media the tour will spawn is ROI gold. So, maybe people won't mind so much when they have to shell out as much as $4 extra per ticket for the 3-D flick? That's still to be determined.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley