Billybob Moves to Glendale: Club Penguin Co-Founder Lane Merrifield Joins Imagineering
Waddle On to WDI!
Popular Club Penguin Moderator and Co-Founder Lane Merrifield has seemingly begun a career at Walt Disney Imagineering, according to his latest Instagram post.
What’s Happening:
- 2000s kids rejoice, as one of the creative minds behind the popular online game Club Penguin recently began a career at Walt Disney Imagineering.
- Lane Merrifield, also known as Billybob to Club Penguin players, shared to Instagram a post in front of the famous Glendale, CA headquarters.
- In the caption, he shared “ First day ✔️ I got lost ten times trying to find my way around the office, but otherwise it was a pretty magical day. So excited for this next chapter!”
- While he didn’t share exactly what his position at the highly regarded creative branch of The Walt Disney Company is, it’s cool to see BillyBob head back to the House of Mouse after his 2012 departure from Club Penguin.
- Club Penguin was founded in 2005 by Lane Merrifield and Dave Krysko as New Horizon Interactive.
- The game became incredibly popular, with Disney purchasing Club Penguin in 2007.
- BillyBob served as a moderator in the popular game, consistently writing updates for the Club Penguin official blog.
- Club Penguin would operate until 2017 before it was closed down for good.
- Disney tried to introduce a mobile sequel to the game in 2017 called Club Penguin Island.
- It launched just ahead of the closure of Club Penguin, but was unable to capture the popularity of the original game and was discontinued at the end of 2018.
- It’ll be interesting to see what Merrifield is up to behind the walls of Walt Disney Imagineering!
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