January 06: Final Day for Disney-MGM

On this day in 2008, the Disney World theme park Disney-MGM Studios was known as "Disney-MGM" for one last day. The following day (January 7) the Florida park would be called Disney's Hollywood Studios.
Spanning 135 acres, Disney World's third theme park originally opened on May 1, 1998 as Disney-MGM Studios. Disney's relation with MGM goes back to 1985, when they entered into a licensing contract that gave Disney the right to use the MGM logo for a yet-to-be-built theme park, as well as the rights to some of MGM's more famous characters from such movies as The Wizard of Oz.
Although Disney's plan for the park included working production facilities for movies and TV shows, by 1988 MGM filed a lawsuit that claimed Disney violated the original agreement by having such a working studio. Disney went ahead and opened the park with the production facility and the only affiliation MGM really had to the park was their brand name and lion logo. Hence began years of problems and disputes between the two movie makers. In fact Disney was contractually prohibited from using the Disney-MGM Studios name in certain marketing contexts ... which is why sometimes the park was referred to as simply The Disney Studios.
In August of 2007 it was announced that the theme park would be changing its name, as MGM had decided not to renew its branding contract.

Click HERE for more January 06 Disney history.