Red Sky Disney

The Economics of Annual Passports

2010-06-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

A common theme on Disneyland message boards is that annual passholders are causing strange things to happen at the parks. True, they behave differently than day trippers and vacationers, and this can have adverse effects on the resort.

Passholders are more likely to drive alone to the park, overloading parking lots (which Disney did not adequately plan for). The parks are not necessarily more crowded, but the crowds are distributed differently. Today, Friday nights feel more crowded than Saturdays. Premieres and openings see massive crowds, sending Team Disney Anaheim running for ze hills. The day before summer blockout days begin are especially uncomfortable. Some long-time fans have pretty much thrown out all conventional wisdom about which days are best to visit.

I've noticed that annual passholders don't hit rides like other guests do, sometimes preferring to hang out, clogging walkways, tables and other areas. I remember Friday nights in 2007 in which the park was packed. It was difficult to move in most lands, yet Indiana Jones would have a 15 minute wait. Space Mountain would post a 30 minute wait. Very strange behavior, indeed.

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with an annual passholder program. I had one for a couple of years and you probably the same. Season passes are standard features at amusement parks across the country. While most people are content to visit once or twice a year, a theme park operator also has a subset of their customer base that enjoys visiting more often than the average person. They pay a lump sum for nearly unfettered access so that the marginal cost of subsequent visits is relatively low. This is all fine and well, of course, but can there be too much of a good thing?

Consider the ways in which an inexpensive annual passholder program can create perverse incentives to visit the park. Once you get past that initial lump sum cost, the marginal cost of visiting the park is relatively low. The price of your admission (and parking if you added it on) is a sunk cost, one that you don't consider anymore. The marginal cost of visiting the park now consists of transportation costs and time. This has a tendency to cause annual passholders to overuse the park because they don't consider the full cost of their visit anymore.

Driving works in a similar way. For the typical car owner, it costs about 50 cents per mile to operate their vehicle. Most of this cost consists of the initial capital outlay for the vehicle and depreciation. The capital outlay is a sunk cost and depreciation isn't on the average driver's radar.

When the car owner does decide to drive, they primarily consider the cost of fuel, which is significantly cheaper than 50 cents per mile, leading to overuse. Even the cost of fuel is in the background as you don't have to insert quarters into your dashboard to begin driving. This in turn leads to overburdened roads and highways, more air pollution and more accidents.

The concept is the same, an initial lump sum cost, followed by a relatively low marginal cost to actually use the product or service, causes overuse in some cases. This is all very much simplified, of course, but the key is finding an appropriate price point so that TDA doesn't find itself dealing with so many power users that the resort's infrastructure is overtaxed. Society is also interested in maximizing utility. Who gains a greater benefit from a visit to Disneyland, a child on his or her first visit or an annual passholder's hundredth visit this year?

While we'll probably never see the A-B-C-D-E ticket books return, Disney may want to set that initial lump sum cost a little higher in order to limit the amount of super users. Or perhaps they could build transportation systems, parking lots, attractions and shows that could actually handle all these people.

In any case, for as long as Disney continues to offer cheap passes, let the good times roll. Just don't complain that it takes a half an hour to board a tram.

Why Be Afraid of Originals?

2010-06-13T06:15:00.000-07:00

After a sudden turn of events, I was able to see World of Color in person (from the blue section, which means a giant speaker pole is in the middle of the action at all times) so that I would be able to complain about it with all two of my readers with full impunity.

My opinion of the show did not really change much after a live viewing. I like World of Color, but it's telling that if I told you about my favorite parts I would only be able to point out the cool effects that stuck out, such as this sequence that suggested diving under the sea or another one in which the water collapses on itself and leaves a figment of color hanging in the air, which is beautifully choreographed. I can't really say that I was jonesing another dose of classic Disney film sequences on mist screens though. Fantasmic! has that covered and over-reliance on the technique can make you want to pull your hair out.

I found the extended mist screen film clips mostly distracting because at its core World of Color is essentially a character hunt. It's an opportunity to point and then demonstrate your ability to remember what you've seen at home on DVD. The basic premise goes like this.

1. Pick a bunch of random Disney movies.
2. Mash them all up.
3. ?
4. Profit.

World of Color takes this concept and runs for ze hills. People are already reciting along with the show, despite the fact that the thing has only been playing to the masses for two days. We expect this on the Haunted Mansion, but a brand new show? A group next to me was even reciting the whole exchange between Buzz and Woody about whether or not Buzz could fly, which is straight out of the first Toy Story movie. We all know this material and we've seen it a million times. I'm sure it took a little longer for some guests to realize that memorizing and reciting, "Is this haunted room actually stretching?" would delight fellow parkgoers, because Lord knows the Waltons from Nebraska spent good money to hear Ashley from Anaheim play the role formally belonging to Paul Frees.

There's nothing inherently wrong with character-driven or movie-based attractions and shows. People clearly go to Disney theme parks to see their favorite characters and movies come to life. Believe it or not, I like to do that as well. Indiana Jones and Star Tours are two film-based synergistic attractions that are among my favorites.

What we tend to forget is that people also go to Disney theme parks for the originals. Sure, Walt Disney may have named his castle to promote an upcoming film, thus inventing synergy and making hypocrites out of all Disneyland purists, but the major focus in those years was on original concepts and ideas. The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World and others all took Disneyland to amazing heights. Imagineers carried on the tradition long after Disney's death, walking a fine line between original and character-driven attractions. At some point an emphasis was placed on more of the latter and less on the former.

Why is there a fear of originals among the powers that be at Disney, especially at the park that started it all? Are they afraid that original attractions won't attract enough visitors to make such an investment worthwhile? Are original attractions too risky? Do character-driven attractions represent fail-safe investments so that even if the underlying attraction is poor, people will still enjoy seeing their favorite characters?

Expedition Everest, a rare specimen, proves that originals remain in demand, even if the Yeti doesn't work. Though California Adventure was lambasted for its poor theme and lackluster atmosphere, its standout attraction was in fact an original, though flawed, attraction called Soarin' Over California. Perhaps the initial failure of DCA led to the mistaken belief that originals are not what guests want to wait in line two hours for.

Whatever is actually going on here, I hope that originals make a strong comeback. They came back in a big way at Tokyo DisneySea, which represents a good balance between characters and originals. Closer to home, Tomorrowland, with its numerous areas in dire need of attention, presents a perfect opportunity to make right those mistakes made over a decade ago. So, too, does the mythical Anaheim third gate, currently a small piece of land that could someday make a big impact.

Photo credit:
Lion king in mickey-shaped bubbles - dreamagicjp

A Belated Tribute to People of the Park

2010-06-12T01:32:00.000-07:00

People of the Park was a short-lived web site in which users posted unflattering pictures of Disney theme park guests. It was inspired by the popular People of Walmart site, which features photographs of fashionably-challenged and downright ugly customers, or "creatures," as the site's authors affectionately call them.

Links to People of the Park eventually made their way to Disney theme park fan forums. These forums were divided, with some users laughing off the site and others announcing their indignation. Other forums forbid discussion of the web site altogether. The rapidly rising popularity of the new site prompted a flood of outraged Disneyland fans to rush the site in order to register their hypocrisy for all the world to see. Here is a typical comment.

Obviously you are trying to copy http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ Butttttt you just aren't funny, or clevor, and like people have said in your past posts, you are taking pictures of children which isn't cool. YAY lets make fun of KIDS!! NOT. Anyways, NICE TRY YA JERK

You see, People of Walmart (which does feature the ocassional child and is itself inspired by similar web sites) is, of course, funny. Obsessed Disneyland fans don't identify with Walmart shoppers, so naturally it's okay. People of the Park, however, hits a little too close to home to be funny. It shatters egos. It causes one to pause and think, "What if people are laughing at... me?" The reality is that if you are a human being, you have been judged, criticized and ridiculed at one point or another in your life, whether it was out in the open or behind your back. In fact, a useful skill to develop is the ability to take criticism in a productive or positive way. The ability to laugh at yourself, too, is valuable.

However, many of those who seek Internet enclaves such as Disneyland fan forums don't want to live in the real world. In the enclave, your massive obesity problem will never be mentioned, even though it may take decades off your life. The enclave accepts those who enjoy dressing as their favorite Disney princesses, despite the fact that it's not Halloween, and you're 45 years old. Those not necessarily seeking an enclave and possess a sense of humor must walk on eggshells to preserve peace. Acceptance is great, but speak one wrong word to the wrong person and you may cause a rift in the enclave that can never be undone, a condition known as "taking the Internet a little too seriously."

Some of the outrage directed at People of the Park is fueled by a misunderstanding over how photography in public actually works.

I can and DO laugh at myself all the time, in private or with my family/friends,co-workers. That doesn't give some stranger with $10 for a camera the right to take my photo without my permission for ALL the world to see.

In actuality, everybody, including this misinformed person, has the right to take pictures of other people without their permission in a public place as long as there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Imagine you are in a drug store and decide to take pictures of people. Any pictures you take of people doing the very public things that people do in a drug store are nice and legal. There is generally no reasonable expectation of privacy here. However, you probably don't want to snap a photo of some lady's prescription, especially if she's in the corner and trying to shield it with her hand. In this case, she has a reasonable expectation of privacy and is taking steps to maintain that privacy. You'll be found in the wrong here.

Disney certainly has a right to limit photography in their parks, but any pictures you take before they ask you to leave are yours. As long as you leave, you're not breaking the law and they don't have the right to delete your photos, try as they might. The laws that govern photography protect freedom of expression, and yes, allow people to take pictures of fat people on scooters and post them on the Internet. That's why America is the great nation that it is.

The morality of this kind of photography is where we are divided. First, karma doesn't exist and if it were real, it works the opposite way that you think it does. Second, what is so threatening about taking someone's picture and posting it on the Internet? Poking fun at somebody doesn't necessarily mean you hate them and it certainly doesn't doesn't mean that the person doing the poking believes there is nothing about them that could be subjected to ridicule. Remember, the site isn't coming into your home and telling you that you look like a putz. That would be harassment.

Pictures of myself are floating around on the Internet, some that are posted with my permission and some without. One could make fun of my yellow teeth, my sausage fingers or whatever stupid thing I happen to be doing.

But the worst element of the backlash to People of the Park is the sheer hypocrisy of the outraged. If you've ever been to a Disneyland meet, you'd know that the cattiest, bitchiest, most judgmental people in the world are Disneyland fans, and that's okay. What isn't okay is expecting others not to make fun of you when you clearly enjoy the type of humor you profess to hate, whether it's People of Walmart, mean-spirited late night talk show monologues, gossip rags (apparently, when the subject is a celebrity it's no-holds-barred) or simply talking behind another person's back.

My favorite response that came out of my very important research into People of the Park was this one, which really says it all.

Most of those were just awful and mean. Like making fun of the little girl for what she was wearing or the matching families. Isn't WDW supposed to be the place we can go and act/dress silly without anybody caring? And shouldn't people be enjoying their vacation instead of taking pictures of the way other people are dressed?

A lot of those were probably from another country.

Because funny looking = foreigner, right? Come on, let's get over ourselves. Sometimes a funny picture is just a funny picture and it's nothing to get all bent out of shape over.

Like man, dig it.

And if all else fails, consult this helpful flowchart.

Space Mountain Around the World

2010-06-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing people love about developing nations, it's the bootlegs. My former professor of development economics once remarked that you can buy first-run films on DVD in Shanghai, three for ten dollars, a fringe benefit of his research trips. Now that's a deal. Developing countries pirate movies, games and, apparently, Disney theme park attractions. Throughout the world there are three bootleg Space Mountains, and like all bootlegs, are of varying quality.

Space Mountain - Divertido - Mexico City, Mexico

Anyone else have a bad case of deja vu?

Space Mountain Mexico appears to be built under a giant fumigation tent in front of a cheap knock-off of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Like the original Space Mountain, many fans have wondered what the ride looks like with the lights on, and what better light than that provided by the sun. Space Mountain Mexico used to be the Tornado at Alton Towers. Alton Towers, which purchased the coaster after a heavy night of binge drinking and QVC watching, sold the machine to Divertido after the English park realized what it had done. Whoever had the bright idea to stick Divertido's new coaster in a fumigation tent and name it "Space Mountain" should be named an honorary Imagineer.

Scary but for the wrong reasons.

Here, the excellent staging of Divertido's Imagineerciόn department gives the entire experience a distinct rape room quality. No expense was spared with the fluorescent lighting on Space Mountain Anaheim's non-union equivalent. Unfortunately, in 2004, despite massive fan backlash that included an Internet campaign called "Save Space Mountain Mexico," the ride was sold to Salitre Magico in Columbia, though there is some question about whether or not it actually got there. For more information about Mexican roller coasters, please visit Montanarusa.com, Mexico's most thrilling and extreme web site.

Space Mountain - Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village - Taiwan

I know where I'm going on my next vacation.

The most impressive thing about Space Mountain Taiwan is its attention to detail, or balls, depending on your point of view. I want to meet the man who designed this suburb knock-off and shake his hand. Here is where the magic of bootlegging really shines, the ability to be so completely off the mark sometimes, and right on target other times. Like all bootlegs, something feels off. This copy is not quite as refined as the original, and it is probably filled with asbestos, but kudos nonetheless. This Vekoma classic has been operating since 1992 and is a staple of Aborginal Culture Village, or "Abo Ville" as we annual passholders call it.

Space Mountain - Dream World - Bangkok, Thailand

This is how Space Mountain would have looked if it were originally built for a family fun center.

In its former home at World Expo Park in Queensland, Australia, this coaster suffered from poor ridership and a habit of spreading cholera. When Dream World acquired the coaster in 1994, its owners did what television executives do when faced with failing ratings, steal someone's idea and call it your own. Thus, Space Mountain Thailand was born.

What Space Mountain Anaheim looked like before it suddenly went down for refurbishment in 2002.

Dream World is known for innovative roller coasters and Space Mountain Thailand is no exception. Featuring Christmas lights shoved into transparent water hoses, the coaster takes riders zooming past hanging rocks that were found outside one day and wrapped in a garbage bags for some reason. Hey, still more fun than the Rocket Rods and its successor, Nothing.

They might also be cuts of meat wrapped in plastic.

Photographer Dave Arnold, who also runs the web site Dubai Theme Parkz, beautifully captures the wonder and magic of Space Mountain Thailand. Rumor has it that they are going to add a loop. Stay tuned.

The Space Mountains 'round the world are a varied bunch, but all of them have one special thing in common, undeveloped laws that prevent Disney from bringing suit against their owners. Godspeed, Space Mountain rip-offs!

Fantasmic! is Better

2010-06-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: These are my pre-viewing impressions of World of Color. It's a place for those of us who cannot see the show yet to discuss our thoughts about it. Those who have seen the show should feel free to tell me where I am right or wrong.

The World of Color viewing area is estimated to hold between four to nine thousand souls, depending on who you trust. There are two showings per night scheduled, meaning that an estimated eight to eighteen thousand paying customers per night may see the show as it was meant to be seen by show creator Steve Davison.

If you do secure a spot in the main viewing area, be it through a dining package or Fastpass, there is no guarantee that your view will be unobstructed. Early reports suggest that those finding themselves in the back of these flat viewing areas will miss plenty of eye candy, even more so because this setup encourages parents to place children on their shoulders. This is fine for fireworks, but not so much for a show that is more down to Earth.

The show can be seen throughout Paradise Pier, but these offer limited views of the mist screens, which are used extensively. A third showing is rumored to be unofficially scheduled each night but it's a gamble for the day tripping visitor. Most people wouldn't plan their Disney trip on a rumor.

The technical achievement that is World of Color may very well be marred by poor planning on several fronts, an unfortunate reality that Disney('s) California Adventure is no stranger to.

DCA's Original Design: When California Adventure was built, no thought was given to a massive, groundbreaking water show in Paradise Pier. World of Color was added after it was apparent that Eisner's "build it cheap" strategy would require another billion in capital investment long after the former CEO deployed his golden parachute. Comparisons to Fantasmic! could be made, but World of Color's spouts were not installed 37 years after the fact.

This is unlike the situation at Tokyo DisneySea, where a "build it right the first damn time" philosophy persevered. DisneySea's Mediterrenean Harbor was designed from the start for a large scale show such as BraviSEAmo! The show itself also adapts to its own artificial lake and is viewable, and most importantly, enjoyable, from many angles.

Back in Anaheim, expect to see plenty of craned necks twice a night. The new viewing area specially built for World of Color is nice, but is it enough to provide the best possible experience? Will guests mind becoming dripping wet by the show's end, as early reports suggest? How will this play out during Christmastime where, yes, it gets cold in Southern California at night?

As much as Disney attempts to fix California Adventure, and they are doing a decent job of it so far, the original design will remain an ever present thorn in Imagineering's side.

Disney's Insistence on Catering to Annual Passholders Over All Other Types of Visitors: Casual Disneyland visitors who are enticed by World of Color's media blitz don't know it yet, but they will be competing for prime viewing real estate with other guests who have been planning their attack strategies for months now. Seeing World of Color is not necessarily as simple as purchasing a ticket and showing up an hour before showtime. To secure a prime viewing spot, one may have to race for a very limited Fastpass or purchase a picnic lunch or dinner.

In any case, I would declare the first few weeks of this show's run strictly an annual passholder affair. The latest rumors put the number of passholders at 900,000 to a million, which doesn't just mean large crowds at night, but parking headaches as well. Annual passholders arrive to park with lower automobile occupancy than other types of guests. Less dedicated guests may want to hold off until the interest dies down.

The Show Itself? Internet strangers have been nice enough to offer a high quality HD video of the show on YouTube. Parts 2 and 3 are here and here. Apparently this person won some sort of radio contest. Here are my video impressions of the show itself because I have a phobia of aggressive water.

World of Color is an amazing technical achievement. I have never seen such synchronization of light and water before. All of the water fountain gizmos I gushed over before the show's premiere deliver on the eye candy and then some. The show looks like it's good for at least one viewing for that reason alone, as if it were an elaborate tech demo of the technology. The standout scenes so far are not the Disney character sequences, but the abstract displays of water, light and color coming together in such unique and impressive ways. It is actually the extended sequences in which those classic Disney scenes we've seen 10,000 times before appear that detract from the show, and, along with a complete lack of story or substance, is what gives the show its "film trailers on mist screens" quality.

The Little Mermaid scene, for example, appears to be culled directly from the film with little modification (the Pixar sequences do appear to feature new animation, to be fair). Even worse is the haphazard sequencing of the show. Unlike Fantasmic!, in which Mickey's imagination is taken over by that awful woman, World of Color is one nostalgic romp through Disney filmmaking after another. In the Up scene, balloons fill your field of vision, which is an impressive effect to be sure, but what does it all mean? We are offered only a catchphrase from the film before we are swept into the next sequence. World of Color has all the flash and style of a Jerry Bruckheimer production, as well as its complete rejection of any substance whatsoever. The show's running theme, if any, is to be visually impressive for the sake of being visually impressive.

When I watch Fantasmic! I get goosebumps when Mickey's imagination turns into an "overwhelming nightmare." So too did I get goosebumps during the "Part of your World" sequence in World of Color. But I can get that at home with the DVD just as well. The show offers nothing new to Ariel's world. You can only experience Mickey's imagination, however, when the Rivers of America are transformed each night into a battleground between good and evil. This is a show that does not need a spoiler warning because nothing actually happens that you haven't seen before.

Fantasmic! sets the stage with, "Are the powers of Mickey's incredible imagination strong enough, and bright enough, to withstand the evil forces that invade Mickey's dreams? You are about to find out. For we now invite you to join Mickey, and experience Fantasmic -- a journey beyond your wildest imagination."

World of Color might as well be introduced with, "Hey gang! Anybody remember Toy Story???"

Does it make me want to go? Disney's incredible water spout technology almost makes up for its failure to win the Kuka Arm instead of Universal. Comparisons to Fantasmic! are inevitable, and World of Color fails to best the 1992 classic, at least from my limited vantage point. Ultimately, whether or not one decides to visit a Disney theme park depends on his or her preconceived judgments about whether or not it's worth it to make the effort. These are influenced by word of mouth, advertising and media. At this point, I'll probably wait until the honeymoon is over before giving this show a whirl in person.

Photo credits:
Maleficent the Dragon in Fantasmic - Loren Javier
My FastPass To The World of Color Cast Member Preview - Loren Javier

Death by Committee

2010-06-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

Adam Carolla is a modern day philosopher. After a series of failed television pilots, radio shows and movies, he finds himself dolling out wisdom on his daily podcast, in which he loses money on every single download. Today he was a guest on the Howard Stern Show and asked a question that is relevant to anyone who appreciates art, be it comedy, film or theme parks. "When did any art form get better by committee?" his rant begins.

"Did anything ever get better, is there any great work, any concerto, any painting, any poet, where a hundred fucking friends of your mom just stood there and said, I don't think I like it? Change that, Leonardo. That should be different. No, it's impossible."

What ultimately goes into Disney theme parks today is dominated by managers, focus groups and other uncreative types. These are committees, whether they are bored housewives corralled into a focus group or executives with agendas, that kill art. They are often persuaded not by what makes good art, but what's new, hot, trending or simply easiest to digest. Disney theme park attractions are no more influenced by the talented folks at Imagineering than by the Disney DVD section at your local Best Buy. Based on which bitter Imagineering blog you prefer, the death by committee disease has even seeped into the highest levels of WDI.

What we want to do is to differentiate from committees this idea of collaboration between visionaries, which is what WED Enterprises once was. Looking back at the great works of Imagineering art and contrasting them with what appear to be committee-driven ideas, it's clear where each project draws its influence.

Collaboration between visionaries.

Inspired by best-selling DVD.

First of its kind.

Budget crunch.

When creativity is allowed to thrive by collaboration.

When creativity is suffocated by committee.

There will always be a need for managers and market research, but they should support art, not dictate it. Top level executives must be Imagineering's biggest defenders, not their saboteurs. The job of anyone with an MBA and a suit should be to get out of the way and allow the talent to really fly. Use that education of yours to figure out how to sell Mount Prometheus to Southern Californians, instead.

Hey John, I Believe You Forgot Something

2010-06-08T02:40:00.000-07:00

Disney legend John Hench created this wonderful tribute for Imagineering's 50th anniversary, which is meant to showcase the incredible achievements of WED and WDI over the past 50 years. Unfortunately, Mr. Hench made an egregious error.

I'm sure it was just a mistake.

Tokyo DisneySea and the Uncanny Valley

2010-06-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, Disney theme parks look like just that, Disney theme parks. Crowds of tourists, queues, attraction marquees, cast members, roller coaster tracks and a myriad of elements give away the illusion. However, find the right angle, zoom in enough and squint just a little bit, and Disney theme parks can reach the uncanny valley, where the line between reality and illusion is blurred. Nowhere does this happen more often than at Tokyo DisneySea. Click on the title of each photo for larger versions.

rails - Flickr user dreamagicjp

The above photograph was taken in the American Waterfront, a land at DisneySea. But if we didn't know any better, we might think we were looking at a typical American city in some forgotten past. It's Christmastime and the elevated train is whizzing by. It's still a little too clean but the recreation is surprisingly effective.

Taken by Flickr user Kazesuki

Again, too clean, and the railing is probably superfluous and people normally do not walk in the street in real life, but it feels authentic nonetheless.

Broadway? - Flickr user drkigawa

This time it's the sponsorship that betrays the illusion, but this facade is far more effective than the Hyperion Theater at California Adventure, which comes off looking flat. Here's to hoping the rumors are true and that the Hyperion will receive a complete redesign very soon.

Fishing Village - Flickr user sfgamchick

The lighting on Mount Prometheus in the background is too theatrical. Otherwise, you might as well be in Provincetown, Cape Cod.

Mount Prometheus - Flickr user kelvin255

Mysterious Island exists only in our imaginations, but the realistic rock work on Mount Prometheus brings this exotic, imagined mountain to life. It is not a geological wonder but an engineering wonder. The absence of the engineer's mark is why this land is so effective. Here's Fort Rock in Oregon, a real geological wonder, for comparison.

On Flickr, I've put together a gallery that features some of these photos and more. My own photos can be viewed here.

Haha, Here's a Trip Report for June 3rd, 2010

2010-06-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

If you've lived in Orange County all your life you probably trip and fall over opportunities to visit Disneyland for free.

All Orange County residents are bound by compulsory service to serve at least a year on active duty at the park, which comes with a pittance and free admission. Working in Southern California, you may find your company working with Disneyland (and after the work is done, free admission) or you may attend a company party held at Disneyland, two experiences I know very well. You'll likely know someone who knows someone who can "sign you in," and be dragged to the park because a significant other does not tolerate your elitist views on Disney theme parks.

So you want to know what I think?

Trams: The new doors installed on the trams are, of course, some lawyer's wet dream, conceived to prevent sue-happy Americans from falling out. I knew I would have a hard time collecting statutory and punitive damages from Disney with these newfangled doors in the way, so I decided not to fall out and sue. I guess they worked!

Captain EO Tribute: Disneyland is a museum, after all!

Also, 3D crotch bulge! At last you've returned.

Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln: What an ingenious solution! Move the 50th anniversary movie to the lobby! It took four years to figure this out?

It's now connected to the Disney Gallery, which resembles more of a store to pimp reproductions of Disney artwork than a gallery to admire Disney artwork.

And I agree, Miley Cyrus is truly a great American.

Rivers of America: A couple of changes noticed on the old river. A stream and new vegetation has appeared just after Splash Mountain and the Hungry Bear. The final bend just before the dock invokes a strong Southwestern motif. Additional animal life improves the atmosphere.

These are probably inconsequential changes that will go unnoticed by the general public but are otherwise appreciated by fans. They were likely designed by someone with a true sense of appreciation for this often overlooked Disneyland gem. If more tasteful improvements and additions like this are budgeted for, there may be hope for the old park just yet. We are still waiting for the ultimate Rivers of America upgrade, some version of Discovery Bay planned and designed so many years ago.

World of Color: Over at DCA, they are really pushing World of Color, going so far as to countdown to the water show that will end all water shows. The mass of spouts, nozzles and machinery that will power the performance is on full display and impressive in its own right as technicians make final preparations throughout the coming days. The test videos that I've seen are amazing, as if they are some kind of water show tech demo.

What remains to be seen is how the actual content of the show resonates with audiences. I would definitely prefer a show that is more abstract, such as BraviSEAmo!, over a traditional Disney character-driven show, but characters alone wouldn't stop me from enjoying World of Color.

I suppose it depends on whether or not World of Color feels like a real, unique show, and not just a rehash of Disney film clips. Fantasmic! strikes a balance between the mist screens and the live performance, something World of Color may have a harder time with. Lacking a human component, the challenge for World of Color will be to capture the essence of the Disney films and personalities it has at its disposal without simply turning it into a 26-minute trailer for Disney films.

Space Mountain: In the past I have harped on Space Mountain for always being dirty. On this day, it was reasonably clean, but not to the extent that you could eat off of it, something I would like to try someday.

General Notes

-"This is my daughter's favorite ride," overheard on Pirates of the Caribbean. So much for pixies and princesses, huh?

-I take bad behavior at Disney parks in stride, but it's fun to bitch about it. Flash photography in dark rides is an art. "C'mon kids, let's get a picture of us surrounded by darkness!" Teen girls who scream at the drop of a hat (or the bump of a boat) distract and disturb. Theme park etiquette dictates that you scream during drops and maybe when the lights suddenly go out, not during the entire ride and whenever nothing is happening, for example.

-The grounds were impeccably clean and generally well maintained. Most of the wear and tear could be found in high traffic areas, especially where thousands of feet trample through, which is to be expected. The problem was always when nearly half the effects in any given attraction were simply not working, and those days appear to be over.

All in all it was a fun experience, but man, the parks really get packed around quittin' time. When you've got Space Mountain holding steady with a 30 minute wait time all day, but ratchets up to 60 minutes by 6 o'clock, you know it's time to head home. Something, something annual passholders.

An Unfortunate Myth

2010-06-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

The author of EPCOT Central often writes about the perceived downfall of Epcot in educational value. The blogger sums up their philosophy below.

EPCOT is not for a family of six who wants to spend their time being passively entertained. EPCOT is not for small children who want desperately to dine with a princess or pirate. EPCOT is not for people who find the news and documentaries boring and pointless. EPCOT is not for guests who feel education is meaningless.

Some theme park fans scoff at this kind of longing for silly little things like educational value and enlightenment in Disney parks. A commentator on EPCOT Central expresses the opposing viewpoint.

That fact of the matter is that you have to change and grow if you want Disney to remain #1. the things that were once fun and thrilling arent so much now a days, now a days poeple want thrill rides and less education.

I've never heard an abandonment of education mentioned in the context of "growth," but the point is clear, we just aren't that into learning anymore.

The common perceptions about what people believe and how things really are in the world are often wrong. For example, 75% of Americans believe that crime is going up and getting worse. However, statistics reveal a long-term downward trend in crime throughout the country. Another example is that many Americans believe illegal immigration is ruining the country. The best studies show that there is probably not a huge impact positively or negatively. It's a real issue, to be sure, but the outrage is not proportional to the net result (see the work of Borjas, who is quoted by both pro- and anti-illegal immigration advocates). By the way, what would most people say when asked which state downloads the most porn? California? Actually, it's Utah.

But one of my biggest disappointments is this idea, so astutely stated by the EPCOT Central commentator, that Americans are not interested in education anymore and that in some mythical time they were more interested in education. We are not interested in learning anymore. We are not interested in intelligent entertainment anymore. Are kids, for example, simply mindless drones that exist only to be molded by commercial interests, flashy colors and derivative entertainment? Based on what I see coming out of entertainment companies, this is what the really smart people who run them actually believe as they routinely underestimate the intelligence of America. Individuals get in on the act as well, often underestimating the intelligence of each other in a kind of elitist superiority contest.

As is usually the case, this kind of widely held belief is dead wrong. A cursory glance at the top 1000 web sites according to Google shows that Wikipedia is number four with an estimated 390 million unique visitors per month. A closer look at the most popular Wikipedia entries include historical events, entries about specific countries and historical figures. Every month, millions of pages about math, science and history are served up. The arts, too, get a good look. William Shakespeare is in the top 100. And yes, you'll find plenty of traffic for entertainment figures near the top, but educational entries are often spread among many more specific entries in a particular field of study. There's only one Michael Jackson. Even Abraham Lincoln made the top 25 for 2009. Clearly, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln ought to be shuttered forever. I can't imagine how hard the fight was to get that attraction reopened.

The fact of the matter is that education is more popular now than it ever has been. More people are going to college than ever before. Woman outnumber men in universities today. Don't be fooled, people are smarter and more curious than they ever have been. Children are as curious about knowledge today as they were in 1955. Nothing has changed but our perceptions.

There's a demand for learning, especially learning that educates as well as entertains, and the powers that be at Epcot are missing the boat.

Portal to Another World

2010-05-27T18:29:00.001-07:00

Disneyland has long been described as a three-dimensional movie in which park guests are spectators as well as participants. The windows on Main Street represent opening and ending credits. Transitions between lands are the cross-dissolves and scene changes. While guests may choose what to experience and in what order, Imagineers ultimately decide what they see and when through staging. In Designing Disney, John Hench writes, "Some of our best staging is in the Fantasyland 'dark rides' at Disneyland, where we illuminate only the most essential elements of the story." It is a tried and true interpretation about what Disneyland does and how it does it.

Over the years, I have developed another interpretation. Disneyland is a collection of portals to other worlds, which consist of past worlds, alternate universes and exotic locales thousands of miles away from the mundane. Many worlds are a combination of all three (Critter County, for example, is both a past world and an alternate universe). Park guests are time traveling, inter-dimensional tourists, picking and choosing among the alternate worlds to explore.

The Esplanade is where the business of portal-hopping is conducted. Tickets and cash are exchanged. Baggage is rifled through. Tickets are scanned. Just beyond the main gate, final preparations are made in a nicely landscaped lobby of sorts. Strollers are rented. Questions are asked. Parties are accounted for. The first portal is on your left or your right. They are simple tunnels, but are also incredibly effective portals. A plaque above explains what is about to happen. Posters promoting other worlds are on display.

Either portal leads to a turn-of-the-century American street in an alternate past reality that may or may not have actually existed in our world. All we know is that it exists here, its sights, sounds, smells and tastes ours for the taking.

Worlds contain other portals that branch off and lead to new worlds, four of which are maintained in Disneyland's central hub. Throughout the park, portals are represented by gateways, doorways, pathways, tunnels, vehicles and even waterfalls. Pirates of the Caribbean is effective in its use of portals. In a promotional special, Walt Disney explained how the attraction works, "People are gonna get on a boat here, ride through the lagoon, and then as they get around here we're gonna take them down a waterfall, take them back into the past into the days of the pirates, you know, where the whole Caribbean area was full of pirates and they were always sacking towns and things. You believe in pirates, of course?"

As if people were denying the existence of pirates at some point. However, the language here is clear. Pirates of the Caribbean transports riders to a past world, its supernatural phenomena suggesting an alternate universe of sorts.

Whatever your interpretation about what Disneyland does is, it probably requires some suspension of disbelief. After all, in our cynical reality Disneyland is nothing more than a tourist destination built to extract money out of people with mundane lives looking for excitement in order to profit shareholders, many of whom have no interest in Disneyland as an artistic endeavor. Unfortunately, this sentiment has been shared by many in the top echelons of management over the years.

I prefer the three-dimensional film and portal interpretations, myself.

One big portal.

Behind the Matterhorn Fence

2010-04-03T05:18:00.000-07:00

The real world is carved up and fenced off for our own good, it would seem. The same is true in the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy. Disneyland is fenced off for our protection, saving us from certain doom, or at least from the urge to trample on flowers. While erecting a fence on the high-traffic banks of the Rivers of America was probably a good idea, nowhere does a fence intrude on the ambiance of the park more than at the base of the Matterhorn.

A six foot tall or so black iron fence partially obstructs a miniature Matterhorn ecosystem of flowers, rocks and rivers. The fence is probably designed with the best of intentions. We wouldn't want clueless, litigious guests to trample on said flowers, fall on said rocks or drown in said rivers. Would a waist-high fence suffice? A waist-high barrier appears to do a good job of keeping guests from falling into the Submarine Lagoon or the Rivers of America.

In any case, I decided to stick my little camera through the fence, attracting the attention of a security guard that trailed me for the duration of my photo shoot, and discover what many Disneyland guests often miss. As always, click the image for the larger version.

John Hench briefly mentioned fences in his book Designing Disney. One day a landscaper approached Walt Disney and told him that guests were trampling on a flower bed and that a fence had to be built to keep them out. Walt suggested a pathway be paved instead and explained, "When guests make their own path, they probably have a damn good reason for doing it."

Walt Disney appeared to like the guests enough to trust them not to hurt themselves. And if the worst happens, if someone slips somewhere they shouldn't have been in the first place, if someone becomes Matterhorn meat, perhaps someone, somewhere would stand up for the concept of personal responsibility.

I just really hate fences that are erected where they don't belong.

Note: If you check out Daveland's vintage Matterhorn photos, you can see that there was a shorter fence at one point. By the mid-60s, the larger fence appears, however. It appears to have been installed between 1962 and 1964. I wonder which lawyer told Walt to make the fence taller.

Disneyland isn't a museum, eh?

2010-03-06T19:18:00.001-08:00

Disneyland isn't a museum when it's time to turn a classic but neglected E-Ticket into an advertisement for a DVD. Disneyland is a museum, however, when it's time to make a quick buck on an eccentric pop star's death.

I sure hope those 3D glasses are rose-colored.

The Monorail is Dead

2009-07-08T23:02:00.001-07:00

Monorails are safe. There is nothing inherently dangerous about them. The recent accident at Walt Disney World was the first fatality in the history of the 38 year old system. I would gladly ride in the cockpit of a monorail without a care in the world. The monorail is safe.

That's about the only thing this mode of transportation has going for it.

When I was a young teenager I loved monorails. I would pour over books and web sites about them. I would talk about them constantly. I wanted to be a monorail pilot when I grew up. My parents thought I had autism and sent me to a specialist. Turns out I was just stupid.

I was dangerously close to becoming a monorail zealot, like the kind of people who join The Monorail Society. I thought that the monorail was the solution to our city's congestion problems. I envisioned monorails whisking people across Southern California. In 1963, Ray Bradbury condemned the City of Los Angeles when they refused Alweg's offer to build a monorail system that crisscrossed the city for free as long as they were allowed to collect the fare revenues. It turns out that they made the right decision, if not for the wrong reasons.

Ray Bradbury's monorail vision for Los Angeles.

Ray Bradbury will die someday, his dreams of monorails towering over Los Angeles unfulfilled. I hope that he at least takes solace in the fact that more reasonable forms of transportation are transforming Los Angeles County with each addition to our expanding light rail, subway and heavy rail network. Along with rail, innovations on the bus system, such as Metro's hugely successful Rapid Bus network, is making mass transit less for "those" people and more for everybody. Residents and non-residents alike are finding even more alternatives to the personal automobile.

What monorail zealots fail to take into account is that the majority of monorail installations in the United States have been complete and utter failures. The Las Vegas Monorail is, excuse my French, a piece of shit train that not even a rail wonk like me would bother riding again. There is talk of an expansion but how realistic that plan turns out to be is suspect.

The world's most successful monorail operation.

Seattle's monorail is a neat tourist attraction but failed to capture the imaginations of transportation planners. Sure, it's self sufficient, but how could it not be when you charge $2 a ride to travel 1.2 miles? The Seattle Monorail Project never got off the ground. No surprise there. Most other installations are merely theme park attractions.

The only successful monorail operation in the United States, successful meaning that it's more than a tourist attraction and is actually okay at moving people, is at Walt Disney World, and they have neglected any notion of expanding that system in the foreseeable future. Disney World has instead opted to use buses to transport people to Animal Kingdom, MGM Studios and other destinations within the resort. The same is true at Disneyland, where there is nary a rumor that someday the monorail will be expanded to other destinations such as the possible third gate. Nobody is stupid enough to start that rumor. No one would believe it.

This flies in the face of Walt Disney's vision for Disney World, who made all-electric forms of transportation a focus of his EPCOT. No, not Epcot, EPCOT.

The new Mark VII monorail makes a rare appearance.

Monorails are expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if current Disney World management stopped running a monorail operation and switched to buses to cut costs. Then they can sell off parts of the trains for a quick infusion of cash (precedent was set with the Electrical Parade) and offer nostalgic merchandise related to the retired attraction to sycophantic Disney nerds.

Monorails were great on untouched land such as the festering swamp that is Walt Disney World. The idea of running monorails through existing cities, however, runs into trouble. A monorail alignment was studied as part of the Metro Westside Subway Extension project in West Los Angeles. It was determined that a monorail alignment would overpower the street scape and not be able to offer the capacity that a heavy rail subway would. A decision was made to extend the current Purple Line subway to Santa Monica instead, and rightly so. Monorail projects run into similar problems everywhere else. "19th century technology" such as steel-wheeled trains running on steel-wheeled tracks is just more versatile than concrete-beamed monorail systems.

Shiny? Yes. Useful? No. Such is the fate of most monorails.

Much like the company whose founder introduced this kind of train to America, I've lost faith in the monorail.

The monorail is dead.

Blindness

2009-04-03T22:18:00.001-07:00

Over the past year or so Disneyland has been rolling out a series of "new" monorails, which appear to be Mark V's dressed in Mark VII clothing (but good luck getting the straight dope out of anyone), that have been fraught with defects.

When the upgraded Monorail Red made its debut it could hardly complete a circuit before having to be towed back to the monorail barn, which has been re-purposed into a kind of intensive care unit for one-rail trains these days. It appears that not one of the engineers who designed the goddamn thing could be bothered to take out a ruler and go to Disneyland to measure how large the existing track actually was. When the time came to test their fantastic designs, the monorail actually scrapped the loading platforms in Tomorrowland and Downtown Disney and lacked the ability to navigate those pesky little things called turns.

When they figured out how to make it go, another problem reared its ugly head. During the Summer the monorails became so hot that no human being could actually survive in one. The monorail was not allowed to carry passengers on days when the temperature exceeded a certain amount. To fix the problem, they cut big holes in the windows in order to increase air flow so that by the time I finally take a ride on one my face is pelted with pouring rain throughout the two and a half mile journey to Generic Outdoor Mall and back.

Next time you want a monorail designed, get this jerk off. His monorail can actually navigate the track!

Bob Gurr, largely responsible for anything that moved on wheels at Disneyland during its early years, is still alive, so he's not exactly spinning in his grave, but I think when he finally kicks the bucket he'll be spinning into his grave, considering how much they screwed up this monorail project.

The Mark VII debacle highlights an overall problem that Disney has not been able to shake off, a lack of vision.

Instead of investing in a true rapid transit network for Disneyland, they decided to build these "new" monorails on the cheap. Their design is pathetic. Their roll out was botched. There is no net benefit to the average resort guest who doesn't give a damn that the monorail now looks more retro and phallic. Island seating and neon lighting. This is the effing future right here. How about designing a monorail that is, you know, useful?

Obligatory screenshot from that one episode.

How about tearing down the old track and replacing it with a new network that would connect the parks, the hotels, the major parking lots and the 3rd gate? Imagine stations in the Esplanade, the Disneyland Hotel, the Mickey and Friends parking structure and the 3rd gate, at the very least. It's not like there isn't a precedent for this sort of thing at Disney parks. Walt Disney World is renowned for its monorail network that connects two parks, a handful of hotels and has been largely abandoned since the 80s. Wait, there's the precedent I was looking for. The Walt Disney Company simply doesn't care about the monorail anymore.

No, that's too Walt Disney for them.

There is no vision at The Walt Disney Company. Any vision that remains at WDI has been snuffed by blind executives. These guys can only see as far as the next focus group full of blithering middle-American idiots who wouldn't know WED from their own fat scooter-riding asses.

For those of you that still go to Disneyland, enjoy parking next to the strawberry field if you dare to visit the park on a busy weekend. The International Disney parks all happen to be within walking distance of a train station. It seems that everybody in the civilized world has embraced modern rapid rail transit except for Disney and the United States.

Looking toward the future. That's too Walt Disney for 'em.

Compare and Contrast: Part 2

2009-02-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

"This concept here will have to be something that is unique, so there is a distinction between Disneyland in California and whatever Disney does in Florida."

- - Walt Disney

"We know that our Guests want a 'one-Disney' experience and we must organize around that expectation . . . Prime examples of our successes are the establishment of many maintenance and safety practices, holiday castle lighting that began in Paris and expanded into our other theme parks, the speed with which we integrated the High School Musical shows into our parks around the world, and the simultaneous openings of Toy Story Mania at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's California Adventure."

- - Jay Rasulo

See the original here.

Catharsis

2009-02-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

"Get it out of here! Get it all out of here!"

"Don't you want to keep the fire extinguisher?"

"Nah, too many bad memories..."

The bulldozers have arrived.

Loose Ends

2009-02-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

Besides It's A Small World, there were a few things that I saw (or did not see, fortunately) at Disneyland last Friday.

The Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough

Now this is the kind of restoration I want to see at Disneyland. The new walkthrough takes an old classic and utilizes new technology to resurrect it while keeping true to its original vision. It's one of those little things that Disneyland used to be known for. It's one of those little things that completes the Disneyland experience.

Here, a marketing tie-in (for the DVD release of Sleeping Beauty) is used for good rather than evil. Disneyland absolutely needs more A and B tickets like this. Give us our People Mover, our Skyway and our Disney Gallery back as well!

Toy Story Midway Mania

Before this attraction ever opened I was commenting on how great the building was coming out. I saw it in person last May using some free tickets I got from work. It looked good then and it looked good now. If that's how the rest of Paradise Pier is going to look, sign me up for a visit to DCA in 2012. This was the first time however, that I actually had the opportunity to ride it.

While the ride itself is simply 3D screens and painted flats, Potato Head is a mesmerizing audio-animatronic. I only wish WDI could put animatronics like him back into the attractions!

The main attraction is interesting, but just not my cup of tea. I was more fascinated by the ride system, how everything was controlled and managed by the computer software that powers the shooting game, which is actually pretty good in the context of a video game. It was easy to get a hang of the physics and the process of shooting down plates and balloons came naturally to me. I ended up beating my girlfriend by a wide margin even though she had played countless times already.

I found the shooting method to be odd though. I would have envisioned a trigger or a button to push. Here, you have to grasp the knob and pull the string in a rapidly repetitive motion to shoot. Needless to say, my right arm has had more than enough practice for this game.

I just hate 3D effects though. 3D has never looked good to me. After all these years it's the same old glasses on the same old screens. I go to Disney theme parks for their fully realized environments and captivating stories, not to play video games. If I want to play games I've got a Wii at home. A 3D attraction could never be more three dimensional than The Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean.

At the end of the day, however, Midway Mania is a great addition to a struggling theme park. It didn't replace anything substantial and offers something else to do in this Frankenstein of a park.

Fry Cart

Oh, what a glorious sight! When I heard that McDonald's was getting the boot from Disneyland, I felt like shouting, "And don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!"

I made a point to visit the former spot of the Fry Cart, and now that you can experience its absence, you realize how much it intruded on the area. Not only is the cart gone, but so is the awful smell.

Thank you, Disney, for not renewing the McDonald's contract. We can now breathe a little easier in Frontierland.

Blue Sky Cellar

What a marvelous idea. Not only does the Blue Sky Cellar give us model and concept art junkies our fix, but it allows Disney to advertise some upcoming attractions to park guests in a way that doesn't feel like a hard sell. It's win-win.

While there is no doubt in my mind that DCA will be vastly improved over what opened in 2001, I can't help but be disappointed how much Pixar is going into the park. Even if I can't get into the world of Cars, I think I will be able to appreciate the investment and work that is going into the new land.

I'm most excited about the entrance plaza and especially the Red Cars. As a mass transit advocate the sad story of the Red Cars hits home. It's wonderful that as rail is getting a new lease on life in California, WDI has decided to create a tribute to the trolley that built Los Angeles. Bravo.

But it's only until some new Disneyland concept art is installed inside the cellar that I will be really excited about visiting it.

Operations and Maintenance

Main Street is currently undergoing quite a bit of refurbishment and the work that has been done looks great. The paint is gorgeous and there only a few burned out light bulbs.

Tomorrowland on the other hand is continuing to age badly. Space Mountain's queue continues to deteriorate. Its dome is so dirty that even a heavy downpour can't make a dent in the dirt, but can only spread it around. Paint is peeling everywhere, on railings and even up high on buildings such as Star Tours. As always, the rotting People Mover track is a sad sight.

Renovate Tomorrowland already. This corner of the park urgently needs it. It's time for a New New New Tomorrowland.

Cast Members

Despite poor wages, cast members can do nothing but smile even in this economy. While there will always be cast members whose spirits have been crushed and look like they want to throw themselves in front of a Matterhorn bobsled (I don't blame them!), many are friendly, personable and some even seem to take pride in what they are doing, especially the Disneyland Railroad cast members.

I always feel for the old dudes working at the park, though. They do such a great job, but they can't be getting paid much. I hope they are all retired, just working at Disneyland after a career of making it big. But I feel for the old timers who I imagine trek over to the Katella lot after work, collapse into their 1989 Accord and drive home to their studio apartment.

These guys are the soul of operations. Their interactions with the guests are always great, and I'm not talking about Maynard.

Guests

I don't know what it was about Friday, but the assholes were out in full effect. Two groups were especially problematic.

Two guys on Small World talked the entire length of the ride about how gay and stupid the attraction was, and their comments weren't just about the new characters!

On Indiana Jones a group with an obvious smell of alcohol coming off of them carried on throughout the queue. I've seen my fair share of rambunctious yahoos at Disneyland so it wasn't a big deal at first. They even asked me to take their picture for them and I obliged. Then they got on the ride.

First, they take flash pictures of themselves, blinding everybody in the row behind them. They do this not once, not twice, but thrice. I had to lean over and say, "Enough with the flash pictures already!"

Once the ride got underway, the drunk chick in their group starts flailing all over the place and putting her hands up in a way that grazed my forehead. It was insane. Once at the exit, they went left. We went right.

I had thought about alerting security about this obviously drunk off their ass group parading around Disneyland and how they were pissing off everybody they came into contact with, but then I would just be a square.

Conclusion

Except for It's A Small World, I've found that some things have improved at Disneyland in the past year. However, there are still many fixes to make before Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth again.

What Disney Does Right: Staying Open

2009-02-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

In 1998 Mickey's Toontown closed two hours before park closing. Big Thunder Mountain opened an hour after the park did. Major attractions such as the Jungle Cruise also closed early back then, but protest ultimately reversed that policy. Shops, not surprisingly, did not have their operating hours cut.

In 2009, things are much different. On Friday, February 6th around 10:30PM, half an hour before closing time, when a rampant downpour had chased most guests out of the park, Toontown remained open. Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin was serving the few guests that braved the rain. The land was literally a ghost town, my girlfriend and I two of roughly six or seven guests walking around. Yet Mickey's House, Minnie's House and Roger Rabbit stayed open. Understandably, Gadget's Go-Coaster and Goofy's Bounce House were closed.

This is something Disney does right. The Submarine Voyage was a walk-on. It's A Small World, despite re-opening after a long refurbishment that day, was deserted. A lesser park would have closed entirely.

When the park actually did close, few shops on Main Street remained open for that extra hour. Imagine that, attractions staying open and shops closing early. Even Winnie the Pooh, which isn't even that popular when it isn't raining, stayed open. It must have cycled through five empty vehicles as my girlfriend was dragging me to ride it.

I certainly don't have access to Disneyland financials, but the marginal cost of running an attraction to closing time can't be that high. While closed attractions only disappoint paying customers, keeping attractions open mean more options for latecomers and those looking to squeeze an extra bit of fun out of a long day.

Compare this to just a decade ago when the strategy was to close rides early to save cash. Disney said business was slow. No wonder it was slow. They were running the place into the ground!

Keeping attractions open creates a sense of respect for the guest, at least in my view. I hope it continues to stay a priority.

Applying the Wisdom of John Hench to It's A Small World

2009-02-05T15:48:00.000-08:00

John Hench is dead. I think that's the one thing we can all agree on in this update.

Before he died Hench wrote quite a bit on the principles of Imagineering in his book Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show. In order to understand, analyze, and critique the recent changes to It's A Small World, I have looked to Hench's wisdom for guidance.

What follows are my interpretations and mine alone. I invite everyone who reads this, all three of you, to respond with your own interpretations of Hench's words, Small World and the changes that have taken place.

The concern over Small World isn't so much over whether or not the changes will look good. It's about how they affect the overall story, theme and message of the attraction. Here, Hench explains the principle of a story place.

When we design any area of a Disney park, we transform a space into a story place. Every element must work together to create an identity that supports the story of that place--structures, entrances and exits, walkways, landscaping, water elements, and modes of transportation. Every element must in its form and color engage the guests' imagination and appeal to their emotions.

Okay, let's define this term as it relates to Small World. What is the story of this place? If we showed up to It's a Small World with no knowledge of its history or the interpretations of others, what could we directly infer about the story from the attraction itself?

We board a boat and enter the main show building and the first thing that would become apparent is that we are taking a cruise around the world. Each section showcases a different country's culture, style of dress, customs and that sort of thing.

If we are paying attention to the song that's being played we infer a theme of unity and peace. Though these countries may be different on the outside, they tend to have more in common than not on the inside. Corny stuff, I know. It's an attraction that challenges our preconceived notions of what the world is like, and shows us a vision of how the world could or should be. There are no bombs flying through the air, for example.

Astute individuals may realize that the singing dolls are meant to symbolize the children of the world, and that children are more likely to believe in the naive ideal of world peace before they become cynical adults. If you put two young children from Israel and Palestine in a room together they are not likely to fight, unless they've been brainwashed by adults to hate each other.

That's just my interpretation. Yours may be different. But now that we have defined our story place we can analyze whether or not the Disney characters, the USA scene and Disney melodies interspersed in the soundtrack support that story.

The New Music

What do you think of when you hear, "When You Wish Upon A Star"? I usually think of Pinocchio or the fireworks show. While the song is beautiful, how can its inclusion in Small World be justified if it distracts you from the ride's message and takes your imagination to another place? The same is true for the other Disney melodies now present in the attraction.

If details are to be added to an existing attraction they must support and enhance the attraction's theme and message or else they become needless clutter. The saving grace of adding Jack Sparrow to Pirates of the Caribbean is that, at the very least, he was technically a pirate (though there are other concerns about the story there).

A detail should only be used if it is essential to the story in some way. There is a big difference between being overwhelmed with detail that really amounts to clutter, and the feeling of perfection that is real storytelling. As designers, we must not make the mistake of thinking that a "big look" with lots of detail is enough.

The New Characters

How does the addition of Donald Duck, Stitch and Mulan support Small World's story place? That's what opponents of the changes have been asking since the news was first broken by Disneyland muckraker Al Lutz.

While supporters have been unable to articulate how they add to the attraction, they claim the characters do not detract. An issue similar to the new musical cues presents itself. The characters divert your attention away from the children of the world. Instead of the naive ideals of world peace and unity, your imagination is focused on Donald Duck and his crazy antics or Aladdin and Jasmine and their wondrous magic carpet ride. Those are all good things, but they belong elsewhere.

The characters are a contradiction, a danger John Hench explains.

The minute details that produce the visual experience are really the true art of the Disney themed show, its greatest source of strength. The details corroborate every story point, immersing guests into the story idea, and that if one detail contradicts another, guests will feel let down or even deceived.

The additions create within Small World two separate story ideas, that of the children of the world who believe in unity and peace, and the Disney characters themselves. The Disney characters are competently constructed. I'm sure many of us would want one displayed in our homes. But they don't support Small World's story idea, they are supporting another entirely different story idea. The ride's new marketing even encourages guests to keep an eye out for familiar faces, overshadowing the original meaning of the attraction further. Is Small World now a character hunt?

No, Small World's new residents are simply inappropriate details.

This is why he insisted that even details that some designers thought no guest would notice-such as the replicated period doorknobs on Main Street, U.S.A.-were important. Inappropriate details confuse a story's meaning.

Small World may not be a period replication of a real life object. But in creating this original attraction, WED has established some rules in the development of its story idea that future Imagineer's must follow. The most basic rule of which is to make sure added details support the attraction's story idea.

The New Scene

The LA Times is reporting that the USA scene now present in Small World was once sketched by Mary Blair with the intention of going into the original attraction. Someone who is more familiar than I with the backroom dealings of Disney in the 1960s will have to verify that one, but one thing is clear, the United States of America was not given its own scene in the original version of It's A Small World. Nor was it added when the attraction was moved to Disneyland after the World's Fair.

It would be difficult to figure out just why the USA scene was not present in the original Small World. Many of the ride's original designers are now dead. By telling the LA Times that tidbit of information, Disney is implying that the USA scene was always meant to be. Maybe it wasn't.

If we go back and look at the rich history of this iconic attraction, I think we can agree that the original intent of It's A Small World was to showcase the cultures of the world to Americans (or to whip up something real quick for Pepsi, who sponsored the ride at the time). Why, then, would we need to "discover" our own culture near the end of the ride?

Events earlier this decade have made "GO USA #1 NEVER FORGET" type jingoism very popular but it has experienced a backlash in recent years. The symbolism of an American scene replacing the rain forest scene has become something of a punchline. As someone who loves his country, I'm sick of hearing about America.

There are many places to see patriotism in action at Disney Parks. Walt Disney World has Liberty Square and the Hall of Presidents. Epcot has The American Experience. Disneyland's Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln will return soon. Main Street itself, with its moving flag procession performed every single day, is a slice of Americana. There is a place for patriotism. Small World is not that place. Here, the USA scene seems to contradict the historical context of the attraction itself.

Conclusion

While the additions to Small World may be aesthetically pleasing to some guests, they have no place in the attraction. Some don't want to make a fuss, I understand.

The most confusing thing to me, however, is why those who speak out against the changes and try to examine Disneyland at a higher level are told to get a life or worse. Disneyland itself would not exist had Walt Disney not sat on a bench at Griffith Park while watching his kids, bored out of his skull, and wondered why going to the park couldn't be so much more.

And They Say Purists Get Riled Up...

2009-02-03T19:14:00.000-08:00

As seen on Re-Imagineering.

All while defending Under New Management of all things. Hehe.

The Best of Both Worlds

2009-02-03T17:22:00.001-08:00

One of the arguments often spouted by those in favor of the addition of Jack Sparrow to Pirates of the Caribbean is based on a fear that guests who are familiar with only the movie version of the famous attraction will ride and furrow their brows in a vain attempt to understand why Sparrow was not present during the experience.

Of course, we could explain to them that Pirates of the Caribbean was in fact built long before the movie entered production, but that would be far too difficult. Following the logic of the argument, I suppose it was much easier to stoop to the lowest common denominator and simply add Jack Sparrow to the legendary boat ride. The extra revenue from all the new pirate junk Disney could sell at the exit was just the icing on the cake.

I've been wondering, why doesn't it go both ways?

Alright, hear me out. Let's say the Alice in Wonderland ride isn't relevant anymore. I've got the fix. A new character!

They should add one of those hammer birds but this one should be a wisecracking hammer bird with an attitude. And throughout the attraction he makes wisecracks like, "NAILED 'EM, ALICE!" because he's a hammer, you see, and when he hits one of those playing card dudes that defend the queen he goes, "BUY WAR BONDS." and they don't paint the roses red anymore but red, white, and blue. Go America.

The character becomes a smash hit and lines go through the roof, literally. People have to stand on ladders because there is just no more room on the ground. At annual passholder previews a record amount of churros are consumed. Hammer birds become the new plush sensation.

So why not take that new character and insert him into Alice and Wonderland: The Movie, re-release it, and burn all old copies of the original film? I mean, if I'm riding Alice in Wonderland and see a wisecracking hammer bird thing with an attitude, I'm going to be confused if I watch the movie and he's not there.

Let's add a whole bunch of other Disney characters to Peter Pan's Flight and then let's desecrate the classic Peter Pan movie by adding those new characters to it. Why not? We'll be rich! Let's add Disney characters to every ride! When I'm riding Splash Mountain in a Disney theme park, I expect to see the Three Caballeros. There's no excuse.

Wait a second, didn't people get pissed when they released horrible straight-to-video sequels of classic animated Disney movies? So why don't they get pissed when classic attractions designed by WED are given cheap makeovers under the illusion of progress? When George Lucas changed his films, he never heard the end of it. But when someone messes with Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, those who speak up are told to get a life.

Yeah.

Mom, why is visiting a Disney theme park so f'ing complicated?

2009-02-01T13:31:00.000-08:00

Upon discovering the Walt Disney World Moms Panel the first question that comes to mind is whether or not the "moms" are real. I have to wonder if all of these questions from real moms like you and I are being answered by some guy in India copying and pasting answers from a script. Please to be having a magical day at the Land of Disney!

The Walt Disney World Moms Panel is basically Disney admitting that going to one their theme parks is getting way too goddamned complicated.

There's Magic Your Way Parkhoppers, Disney Dining Plans, dining reservations, Fastpass, more theme parks than Disney is able to properly maintain, inconsistent transportation options, free birthday tickets, annual passes, Southern California/Florida resident discounts, payment plans, child swap, expiration dates, specially ticketed events and early entry. It's no wonder visitng a Disney theme park has become a baffling ordeal.

The complexity of modern Disney theme parks has allowed third parties to step in and offer questionably useful services such as RideMax and Tour Guide Mike, not to mention a bevy of vacation planners, to help retarded people like us deal with Disney's confusing theme park policies and practices. You know the ones that go, "EX-DISNEY WORLD CAST MEMBER SPEAKS! ALL THE SECRETS TO GET THE BEST DISCOUNTS so just pay $15 and download this PDF of information that's freely available pretty much everywhere..." Since when does a theme park need tech support?

It's become a lucrative industry and perhaps the Disney World Moms Panel is meant to stifle such third party services. Why go to Tour Guide Mike when you can go straight to Disney?

However, what I find surprising is that Disney doesn't even believe in their own advice.

The views expressed in the Walt Disney World® Moms Panel are those of the panelists, who are independent contractors, and may not be factually accurate. These views are not intended to reflect the opinions of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online, its affiliates, its management, its agents or its employees. Panelists have received/will receive a trip to the Walt Disney World® Resort for their participation on the Panel.

Here's a site what is owned and controlled by Disney, and most likely heavily moderated so no negative comments are posted, and yet the company will not stand behind the advice it offers? Disney is always in cover-your-ass mode. I wonder if when Iger speaks at a shareholder meeting the disclaimer above pops up on a video screen before he opens his mouth.

Okay, maybe the "Moms" are real since Disney apparently doesn't want to be held responsible for what they say. I mean, Disney shills aren't hard to find on the various Disney park message boards, after all. And boy do they shill. Here's a simple question that could have been easily found on a more streamlined and easy to use official web site.

I have already ordered tickets for our daughter and grandsons. Where are the Will Call locations for picking up the tickets?

Alright, how would you answer this question? You'd probably list the will call locations, maybe even provide a link to a map. How do the Moms answer it?

The Will Call option is a wonderful option that Disney made available back in "2002" for guests who would like to purchase their Park admission tickets separately

Will call is wonderful? What? It's a standard feature of any venue that sells tickets to something. You pick up your tickets at will call. Suddenly it's this wonderful magical thing when Disney does it? Knott's Berry Farm has will call. Not even a cast member would call will call wonderful. "Hey cast member, where's will call?" "Oh, the magical wonderful fantastical will call booth is that way!"

Remember, the Walt Disney Company, its subsidiaries and shareholders do not necessarily agree with the statement that will call is wonderful.

Unfortunately, they won't answer my questions.

Hello!

I am the proud father of two cynical Disneyland® purists. We begrudgingly plan to visit Epcot® in May and are wondering about the best time to visit guest services and complain about the infiltration of characters and thrill rides into the park. When will Epcot® be restored to its former glory?

Thanks!

What do people want to know when they are planning to visit a Disney theme park? How about, "Where is it?" and "Much much does it cost to get in?" It shouldn't be any more complicated than that!

That's why I have all the answers, and if there's one thing I love about Disneyland purists it's that they always have completely reasonable solutions to the perceived problems they furiously rant about. Instead of creating a web site to help people plan their complex Disney vacation, why not make the whole experience less complicated? Here's what I would do at Disneyland and Disney World, where applicable.

Immediately discontinue Fastpass.

Significantly decrease the price of 1-day 1-park tickets (some of the purest among us may even argue for the return of ticket books). Currently the deck is stacked against 1-day visitors. How long until Disney starts paying you to stay a 12th day?

Significantly increase the price of annual passes, eliminating SoCal and similar cheap passports.

Expand the monorail system to provide transportation to all theme parks, most hotels and most parking areas. Buses and trams can supplement monorail transportation, not replace it.

Immediately cease all promotions such as "What Will You Celebrate" promotion and declare 2009 the year of no promotions. Extend the year of no promotions by 18 months for no reason.

Finally, stop this ridiculous Moms Panel. Streamline the various theme park web sites so that basic, relevant information (like where it is and how much it costs) is easy to find. Theme park advertising should be gender and age nuetral. Disney theme parks are meant to attract children and adults, men and women, boys and girls, of all ages. Not just moms and their DS9 and DD5.

Give us IDP24's (Insufferable Disney Purists in their mid-twenties) a break.

This is the Kind of Theme Park I Want to Visit!

2009-01-27T23:25:00.000-08:00

Hayao Miyazaki is not only a master of animation, but apparently he is a master of museums as well. I've never had the opportunity to visit it myself, but in pictures the Ghibli Museum is beautiful. No wonder tickets must be purchased well in advance.

On the museum's official web site Miyazaki himself outlines the principles on which he expects the facility to adhere to. It's not surprising that with a few words changed around, this list could easily be a kind of blueprint of ideals that all Disney theme parks must strive for. Some already do in many ways, most notably the non-Disney owned Tokyo DisneySea.

Imagine, if you will, what a Disney theme park should stand for.

A theme park that is interesting and which relaxes the soul
A theme park where much can be discovered
A theme park based on a clear and consistent philosophy
A theme park where those seeking enjoyment can enjoy, those seeking to ponder can ponder, and those seeking to feel can feel
A theme park that makes you feel more enriched when you leave than when you entered!

To make such a place, the park must be...
Put together as if it were a film
Not arrogant, flamboyant, or suffocating
Quality space where people can feel at home, especially when it's not crowded

The theme park must be run in such a way so that...
Small children are treated as if they were grown-ups
The handicapped are accommodated as much as possible
The cast members can be confident and proud of their work
Visitors are not controlled with predetermined courses and fixed directions
It is suffused with ideas and new challenges so that the attractions do not get dusty or old, and that investments are made to realize that goal

The attractions will be...
Not only for the benefit of people who are already fans of Disney
A place where visitors can enjoy by just looking, can understand the artists' spirits, and can gain new insights into Imagineering
Original works
Past attractions will be probed for understanding at a deeper level

The restaurants will be...
Important places for relaxation and enjoyment
Good restaurants with a style all their own where running a restaurant is taken seriously and done right

The shops will be...
Well-prepared and well-presented for the sake of the guests
Not bargain shops that attach importance only to the amount of sales
A shop that continues to strive to be a better shop
Where original items made only for the theme park are found

This is what we expect a theme park to be, and therefore we will find a way to do it

This is the kind of theme park we don't want to make!
A pretentious theme park
An arrogant theme park
A theme park that treats its contents as if they were more important than people
A theme park that builds uninteresting attractions as if they were significant

Imagine if the Walt Disney Company were man enough, or Disney enough, to release such a document.

Be Ghibli

2009-01-24T04:04:00.001-08:00

John Lasseter can't shut up about Hayao Miyazaki. He appears on every Disney DVD release of Studio Ghibli films and introduces them as if he must plead with American audiences to actually watch the movie once they purchase it. He has also hosted a series of broadcasts of Ghibli films on Turner Classic Movies. His passionate efforts to bring Ghibli films to America have resulted in faithful releases, above average dubs and an opportunity for millions of Americans to experience the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Lasseter can't shut up about Ghibli, and I can't stop listening.

Some Pixar employees have looked to Ghibli for guidance. I've read that when they feel stuck on a particular movie, they'll pop in a Ghibli film for inspiration. Pixar has benefited greatly from the wisdom of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

Disney, too, can learn from Ghibli.

Studio Ghibli is an organization with principles, and they actually stick to them. Disney received much applause for killing the practice of releasing awful direct-to-video sequels. Miyazaki never did sequels in the first place.

While there have certainly been great sequels, most are rehashes, suggesting a dearth of creativity. What does Cars 2 have to offer the world besides profits to shareholders? Is Pixar selling its soul to do great films that don't lend themselves well to merchandising, such as Wall-E and Ratatouille?

Disney is receiving much praise for bringing back 2D-animated features. Some animation fans are hoping that The Princess and the Frog may usher in a new era of Disney animation. 2D animation never died. Studio Ghibli was doing 2D all this time. Where were you?

But this update is not about movies. It's about theme parks.

The Walt Disney Company once boasted that they replace all of the light bulbs on Disneyland's Main Street when they reach 80 percent of their lifespan. Today they shine until they burn out. Is it too much to ask Disney to live up to their own principles?

When Lasseter became the Principal Creative Adviser at Imagineering and an overall head honcho at Disney, I hoped that he would bring some of these principles and ideals he learned from Ghibli to Disney theme parks. Instead, valuable real estate has been gobbled up by all manner of Pixar franchises, from Cars to Toy Story. There was even a concept in the works for a Wall-E attraction according to the usual rumor mills, which leads me to ask if anyone at Disney actually watched the movie.

Were movie tie-ins what made Lasseter fall in love with Disneyland in the first place? While Disneyland has always had rides based on Disney films, I'd wager that his affinity for the park would have more to do with the great original works of WED like Pirates and Mansion that made Disneyland what it is today. Who knows, he would never talk to a fan like me. If I could I would ask him, can Disneyland not be a launching ground for original works instead of a dumping ground for every movie tie-in ride Disney wants to infest the parks with?

In this 1991 interview Hayao Miyzaki speaks about creativity.

We live in an age when it is cheaper to buy the rights to movies than to make them. Rather than suffer all the problems of making movies, it often seems more expedient to buy them from abroad. In fact, movie producers in Japan have the impression they can buy what they want as easily as if from a vending machine. People often come to me and say point-blank: "Make a film for us as you can see fit. We'll pay whatever you ask." I think Japan today is in an age unsuited to creativity.

It is much easier and cheaper to take an established world, such as Toy Story, and fit it into a themed environment, than to make one entirely from scratch. It's also cheaper to transplant that attraction (especially if you don't care where it goes or if its location even makes sense) into other Disney theme parks than to create a new one entirely from scratch.

The result is that there are fewer opportunities for artists to create. Walt's famous quote, "Disneyland will never be complete as long as there is imagination left in the world." is used to defend awful projects such as the addition of characters and a USA scene to It's a Small World.

Why not use that quote to combat the proliferation of cloned attractions at Disney theme parks? While cloned attractions may be good for Disney's bottom line, it's not good for the artistry of its theme parks. This one-size-fits-all mentality to attractions is the result of a drought of creativity and imagination.

Rattling around in some young artist's brain is the next Pirates of the Caribbean, Tiki Room or Horizons. If Imagineering's only job is to figure out how to plop Woody, Stitch or Nemo into Disney theme parks and then copy-paste them all over the world, then what business does it have calling itself a creative organization? Money can't buy creativity. The power structure at Imagineering and Disney itself must be adjusted so that original ideas may come to fruition, even if they come from the most unlikely of sources.

Another blog will suggest that Imagineers be Disney. I've got another suggestion. Be Ghibli. Be like Ghibli and be proud. After all, this is an organization that respects its works enough to maintain a museum celebrating them. They don't go back and insert Totoros into Nausicaa. Disney is an organization that is only now figuring out where to put The Disney Gallery, a collection of works that showcase Disneyland art, past and present, when it should have never been displaced in the first place, especially for a soulless marketing campaign.

Be Ghibli. It worked for Pixar. It can work for Disney theme parks.

To watch Lasseter freak out over Miyazaki's visit to Pixar watch this video.

Great Attractions: The Haunted Mansion

2009-01-21T00:20:00.001-08:00

The Haunted Mansion is the complete package from the pre-show to the post-show. It's the real deal. The crème de la crème. It's the pinnacle of the kind of theme park showmanship that WED strove for.

In an era of computer animation The Haunted Mansion takes us back to a time when special effects were accomplished with smoke and mirrors. In one scene ghosts materialize in the mansion's ballroom, taking an old magic trick and executing it on a grand scale. Relatively simple illusions delight and amaze even today, owing to the attraction's incredible longevity. Everybody knows how it's done by now, but no one cares. We not only admire the end result, but the technique that got us there.

This is an experience that begins the moment you enter the mansion's gates. Because of the attraction's monster capacity there is hardly ever a long wait time, negating the need for silly reservation systems that only serve to confound the typical guest's day.

While The Haunted Mansion didn't invent the pre-show, it sure as hell perfected it. In the foyer a short narration sets up the experience to come. Here, guests are not hit on the head with needless plot details or a setup for a derivative adventure. The narration doesn't tell you what you're experiencing, but encourages you to simply absorb all that the show has to offer.

The language itself hearkens back to a time when Americans were thought to have listened to and understood words. One has to wonder if The Haunted Mansion were written today, how juvenile and unimaginative the script would be, as many corporations underestimate their customers.

The exposition is genuinely creepy and foreboding. A hallway leading to the loading area features changing portraits and busts that seem to track your movements, a trick that may cause guests to tell themselves to remember to look up how they did that when they get home.

As guests snake their way through the mansion creepiness turns to silliness. The ghosts display no malice toward their guests or each other (well, most of them anyway). As ghosts attempt to communicate with the living we sometimes mistake their intentions as violent. Ghosts are not haunting, they are celebrating with song and dance.

Walt Disney did not live to see what were probably the two most signature attractions during this era in Disneyland history, the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Caribbean. As the woefully synergistic character and movie tie-in rides, projection screens and 3D glasses invade the parks, he and his proteges have not been outdone, not by any stretch of the imagination.

This type of attraction has been forgotten by the powers that be. No longer is Disneyland thought of as a stage to launch original content. It's a clearinghouse for every Woody, Buzz and Nemo and their overhyped technology.

The Haunted Mansion has seen changes as recently as 2006. Here the Walt Disney Co. showed remarkable restraint and taste. Upgrades were commissioned for the aging attraction that respected the show's original vision. This is the right way to do a refurbishment.

The attic's admittedly corny pop-up ghosts and mannequin bride have been replaced with more details of a black widow's ghastly deeds. Other changes such as audio improvements and a floating Leota ball have also been installed at Disneyland as well as The Magic Kingdom.

The Haunted Mansion has been cloned at Tokyo Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom with subtle differences and a different exterior. The most recent version, in Disneyland Paris, is the right way to clone an attraction. This time the bride is the main focus of the experience. These types of clones allow Imagineering to experiment with new interpretations of old favorites without desecrating the originals, as opposed to McPark style exact clones that turn Disney theme parks into soulless commodities, not works of art.

The Haunted Mansion Holiday has seen mixed reviews from purists. I like it. It's not only temporary, but detailed and extravagant. Those who don't like it need only to wait for February to come. Now if only Jack Sparrow's inclusion in Pirates was temporary...

On the Haunted Mansion we are not told what to experience, only encouraged to experience. We are free to develop our own interpretations about what it all means. Who was the mansion's owner? Who is the "ghost host"? Who is the guy who hung himself in the attic? What made the bride go crazy? Some answers are out there for those who need an absolute, or you can make up your own, as others have over the years.

As we wonder about these things, we try to pretend that the Eddie Murphy version doesn't exist.

Great Moments in Disneyland Drama: The KFC Caper

2009-01-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

When I got an annual pass to Disneyland I got one because I enjoyed going to Disneyland. I enjoyed riding the rides. I enjoyed watching the shows. I enjoyed strolling the grounds and enjoying myself.

What I didn't get an annual pass for was to do surveillance on other guests.

It's one of my favorite threads of all time. A family brought in a rather large meal from KFC to California Adventure and annual passholders had to witness this horrible Disney crime, and one lucky poster got it all on film. You're breaking my f'ing heart, here.

The 2fer is when "those" people show up to Disneyland. You know the ones I'm talking about...

First, some talking points. This family did indeed break the rules. They didn't break the rule of law, but Disney's own rule that they are responsible for enforcing. This family may have snuck the food through the gates in a backpack. They may have made a fuss and a frustrated cast member simply let them in.

What I don't understand is why a Disney theme park enthusiast would feel the need to take a picture of this family so fellow posters can insult them on the Internet. Is there nothing more creepy?

This is the same forum where if you insult anyone the slightest bit you are gone, but that doesn't stop posters from insulting this anonymous family with their lame quips.

I guess they mistook DCA for a theme park worth going to, even if it were free.

Maybe that family couldn't afford to eat awful, overpriced Disneyland food. Maybe they didn't know about the picnic area. Maybe they didn't realize how close McDonald's was. Maybe they were embarrassed about what they did.

But dammit, they wanted to go to Disneyland and that was the only way they knew how without going hungry. Disney wants them to go to Disneyland. For these elitist AP types to take pictures of them and post them on the Internet exemplifies just how insane and hypocritical they are. Some of these people won't criticize Disney management for some of the crap they've done in the parks but they have no problem criticizing a fellow guest who didn't do anything to them.

Wait, your family brought in outside food too?! That is the most classless, most crass, white-trash thing you could ever do- oh wait, you're a MiceChat poster, an annual passholder and a moderator, so it's okay! We broke the rules, but not as much as this ghetto family!

Yeah, this family cheaped out on lunch, just like Disney cheaped out on California Adventure. Creepy AP assholes. You can bash this anonymous family all you want but God forbid you criticize these posters about anything.

I have to ask about how the guy took the picture. Was he eating his snack from BUR-R-R-BANK (LMAO) Ice Cream when he suddenly saw this awful family and their meal and thought to himself, "Gotcha! Oh man I'm going to be a forums superstar!"? I imagine that he preceded to slyly snap a photo of the offending act, his hands shivering at the excitement of what a scoop he had gotten. What a putz.

I agree with "sir clinksalot" here.

We should call out the idiots in society, and we should start with the idiot, elitist annual passholders on MiceChat.com.

The California Adventure Railroad

2009-01-18T18:38:00.000-08:00

DCA feels empty whether the joint is crowded or not. When you enter its gates you can feel something missing. It's missing a soul. It's missing that signature Disney theme park transportation.

Disneyland has vehicles on Main Street, including a horse drawn carriage, turn of the century automobiles, a fire truck and an omnibus. Throughout the park there are riverboats, canoes, rafts, cars, submarines and monorails. There used to be a people mover, a skyway, and keel boats. Even ToonTown used to have a trolley system. Disney vehicles, whether they take you somewhere and leave you, or take you somewhere and bring you back, breathe life into Disneyland.

Circling it all, the second and last requirement Walt Disney demanded of Herbert Ryman when he commissioned the artist's skills to help visualize his magic kingdom, is a train.

California Adventure, on the other hand, has no transportation to speak of unless you count Heimlich's Chew Chew Train. A monorail may streak by, a figment from a better park, teasing DCA's inhabitants. The park's only locomotive, a replica of an EMD FP7, is bolted to the ground.

The locomotive is "pulling" the famous California Zephyr. It's a gift shop and a snack bar all rolled into one. It doesn't go anywhere. You can't ride it. You can, however, buy ice cream in it. Hooray?

Once upon a time many of these locomotives actually did roll around California depositing passengers to and fro on such routes as the Coast Daylight and the San Diegan. Now the old EMD locomotives evoke feelings of nostalgia, once a feature of Disney theme parks. How wonderful would it have been to see a scale replica of such a train circling DCA on narrow gauge tracks? DCA could have done for these old diesel locomotives what Disneyland did for the steam train.

What would a California Adventure Railroad have been like?

At the main entrance a recreation of a grand old passenger terminal in the Mission Revival style could have stood across the esplanade from Disneyland's vintage Main Street Station. Our next stop may have been Hollywood, its station modeled after the Pacific Electric building in Los Angeles, making for an easy "transfer" to the DCA Red Cars.

From Hollywood our next stop might have been the beach at Paradise Pier. After that, the California Adventure Railroad could have taken guests through the Grizzly Mountains, stopping at its famous peak where rushing rapids await and perhaps a smaller, scenic mine train ride. Our grand circle tour would continue through the desert flats before arriving at the entrance plaza.

If they had built it like that, I would have come. Alas, DCA was not designed for such a train. Today, a portion of Downtown Disney and a hotel would be insurmountable obstacles. Building a railroad around DCA would be like trying to run a bullet train through the Bay Area Peninsula. There are just too many jerkoffs in the way. Imagineers tasked with remaking the ailing theme park have to work with what was given to them.

A small but important role in California Adventure's 1.1 billion dollar makeover is a recreation of the Red Cars that once transported passengers to and from Los Angeles County over a half century ago. This A-Ticket is sure to reanimate this bloated corpse of a theme park, though not everyone likes the idea. One correspondent of mine suggested they use vintage buses to transport guests around the park.

Come to think of it, do you think he works for Cloverleaf Industries?

Great Moments in Disneyland Drama: Ebola Man & The Fry Cart

2009-01-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

It was 1998. The Pressler era was in full swing and Disney fans were beginning to realize what a mistake putting this guy in charge was, as if they had a choice in the matter.

The New Tomorrowland drama had come and gone. It was John Hench who said of the first Tomorrowland makeover that "movement depicts life" and that movement "was an essential element in establishing the overall character of Tomorrowland". After it was apparent that the '98 makeover of Tomorrowland all but snuffed out that life, the next Disneyland controversy presented itself.

In those days most Disneyland discussion took place on Usenet on groups like rec.arts.disney.parks and alt.disney.disneyland (A.D.D.). Usenet was unmoderated and the only recourse against trolls (i.e. people who disagreed with you) was to edit your "killfile", a file that blocked your client from downloading messages from unwanted authors.

It was never that effective because those posters you wanted to hear from would invariably quote posters you didn't want to hear from as arguments and flame wars erupted. Also, as much as Internet folk like to say, "Don't feed the trolls" they continue to do so because, let's face it, we love drama. The Pressler era was all about drama.

Sponsorship has always been a part of Disneyland. Companies would fund attractions, shows or exhibits in exchange for top billing as the attraction's sponsor. Walt never liked the hard sell and once had the post-show of the Bank of America-sponsored It's A Small World changed so it felt less like an advertisement and more like a farewell to riders.

So it was quite the surprise when plans for the McDonald's corporation to install a McDonald's branded snack stall selling french fries descended on the online Disneyland community. While a Disneyland spokesperson attempted to reassure fans that there were no plans for any other sales of McDonald's products at Disneyland, the sponsorship would eventually expand to a second location within Disneyland and another location at California Adventure.

The news divided the Disney Usenet groups, with some crying foul over the french fry folly and others wondering what the big deal was. The infamous Al Lutz was on Usenet back then and offered his view on why the fry cart was wrong for Disneyland.

Lutz would later become fed up with Usenet and swear it off forever.

But there was one young man, who went by the name of "Ebola Man", who expressed his discontent with the direction of the park in a very different way.

Ebola Man maintained a web site called the "Disneyland Underground Intelligence", or DUI for short. On his web site he would detail his exploitation of Disneyland, which included breaking into Club 33 and causing various types of mischief at the magic kingdom. He boasted about it all on Usenet.

Mere trinkets such as a script to the new Bug's Life 3D movie and other stolen items didn't satisfy Ebola Man. No, he had his eyes set on a bigger prize, the destruction of the McDonald's Fry Cart.

Who knew what actually went through his mind as he handed his annual pass to a Main Gate Employee, entered through the gates, and proceeded to unleash his master plan to stop McDonald's from selling fries in the park. I wonder if he thought he would be heralded as a hero. I wonder if he knew that capture was inevitable. How does Disneyland attract a person capable of theft and vandalism?

We may never know the answers to those questions, but on November 18th, 1998, Ebola Man announced that the deed was done.

If the lack of blueprints wasn't going to stop Disney, then the spilled paint surely would. I wish I could get hold of this guy and ask him just what the heck he was thinking. Fortunately for Ebola Man, he was a minor and his identity was not released after he was arrested in early '99 for a range of charges, including the fry cart incident.

The cart, unpopular with some park aficionados, was vandalized in a late-night attack in December. The damage, caused by someone slinging brown paint, was described in an Ebola Man posting on an Internet chat site the next morning.
Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said the youth, whom The Times is not naming because he is a minor, was booked and released last month on felony charges of grand theft and receiving stolen property. He also is under investigation in connection with the vandalism, Vargas said Thursday.

It was a textbook example of a passion misdirected. Few will condone the youth's actions, but after all these years I understand his frustration. All he had to do was wait a decade. The presence of McDonald's in the parks has come and gone, recently removed amid a stream of celebration from longtime opponents.

Somewhere out there, Ebola Man must be smiling.

Untapped Synergy

2009-01-16T15:43:00.001-08:00

In just a couple weeks it's a small world re-opens with a brand new cast of characters to help celebrate the peace and unity this iconic attraction has stood for since its unveiling at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Now Mickey, Mulan, Cinderella and all your favorites join the happiest voyage that ever sailed.

The upgrades will make small world more relevant to today's audiences. Where the failing small world pulled in only 35,000 riders on a typical day, the new additions are expected to increase the aging attraction's daily ridership to about 40 billion.

The success of the small world character additions have prompted the Imagineering wizards in Burbank to be chained together and enslaved in a dank room by upper management to come up with character concepts to spruce up other Disneyland classics, or their families will be killed.

My Disney spies have come back with a look at just some of the character additions that Imagineering is throwing around.

The Haunted Mansion: Animation connoisseurs fondly remember the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon "Haunted House". What people don't know is that the original plans for the Haunted Mansion called for guests to explore the famous ghost home alongside Mickey and his pals, just like in the cartoons. Unfortunately, primitive technology at the time prompted the early Imagineers to go with a more serious haunted house theme not unlike the ones you see at most amusement parks, a setback that disappointed Walt Disney himself.

Now Walt Disney's original vision for Haunted Mansion can finally be realized with 21st century technology. New painted flats are to be installed in some of the Haunted Mansion's most memorable scenes featuring the comic antics of Mickey, Donald and Goofy as they explore this spooky abode.

A psychic Goofy attempts to communicate with ghosts with his magic crystal ball but things suddenly go wrong! In the mansion's ballroom Donald sits down for dinner and so do a few uninvited guests! Mickey Mouse can't escape the Mansion's graveyard, which has suddenly come to life in an all-new musical revue featuring the Jonas Brothers and their hit song "Ghoul, I Just Wanna Make Love To You (But, Baby, My Ring Says No)!

This time it's not hitchhiking ghosts who wish to follow you home, but Mickey, Donald and Goofy! Help them escape this all-new retelling of an old favorite!

The Matterhorn: 1978 saw the addition of an abominable snowman to Disneyland's famous Matterhorn mountain. However, recent surveys have revealed that some riders find the creature too fearful to children while older kids scoff at the corniness of the aging figure. In order to keep a dying classic from hitting rock bottom, the Imagineers have come up with a dazzling addition sure to keep guests coming back for more.

This Summer, keep cool with the Matterhorn's newest inhabitant, the Abominable Snowman from Disney/Pixar's animated hit Monsters, Inc.! Instead of frightening growls the Abominable Snowman now offers bobsledders delicious snow cones. Just don't eat the yellow ones!

Keep at last one eye open because Abominable Snowman's best friends Mike and Sully might just pop in to wish him luck. It's an upgrade that's sure to please on Disney/Pixar's Matterhorn Bobsleds.

Space Mountain: What's gotten into Space Mountain? That's what guests will be talking about after they experience the all new Space Mountain: Experiment 626.

The lovable rascal Stitch from Disney's hit animated feature Lilo & Stitch breathes new life into Space Mountain with all-new thrills. Stitch has broken free of his confinement and is wreaking havoc (and laughs!) all over the space station. It's up to you to board a rocket ship, find Stitch and bring him home.

It's the Space Mountain you love with an all new rockin' soundtrack sung by Miley Cyrus.

What will you celebrate this year at the Disneyland Resort? I know what I'm celebrating. Relevancy! Get an annual pass today (just 12 easy payments of $29.95) and experience the relevancy all year long!

Disneyland Can Be Beautiful

2009-01-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

The key word here is "can".

I once remarked to a friend how intricately detailed Tokyo DisneySea was, especially the Mediterranean Harbor section. He asked why I didn't go to the real Mediterranean and criticized Disney theme parks for being fake and said that everybody who visits them is obese or a jerk.

I said to him that we're not all obese and that visiting the Mediterranean would be fun, except that there isn't a huge man-made mountain with two kick ass rides within in Italy.

No, Disneyland can't replace the real thing. It doesn't attempt to. Imagineering could never recreate a hike up to Mount Hollywood on a clear day so that the vastness of Los Angeles fills your peripheral from Santa Monica to the San Gabriels. In a decade I don't think nature could recreate a hike up to Mount Hollywood on a clear day at the rate we're going.

Disneyland is not the real thing. On the contrary, it is a theatrical experience.

To me, half the experience of Disneyland is discovering the mechanics of making the illusion possible. Ride systems, construction techniques and special effects methods (God bless you Yale Gracey) are just as fun to watch as they are to figure out. There is an art in making the unreal seem real.

The Walt Disney Company is an organization that is responsible for some of the most wonderful works of art ever created. It's also responsible for some of the most banal entertainment with few redeeming social qualities (Technically, hard-working people were employed during Beverly Hills Chihuahua!). No where is this more apparent than at Disney theme parks. The worst of the worst sit side by side with the classics of Imagineering past.

Space Mountain towers over Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. The Jungle Cruise is just a couple doors down from the cheap cartoon makeover Tarzan's Treehouse. The Pirates of the Caribbean's upstairs neighbor is an overhyped door prize for a select few, where once was a happening arthouse loft and everyone was invited.

There is value in not sticking a cart full of crappy Chinese Disney merchandise into every nook and cranny in this magic kingdom. There is beauty in a fountain, a floral arrangement or a flight of stairs. Such unique spots should not be obstructed by racks full of the same Christmas garbage sold in every other store in the park.

The following photos were taken by me (except for one) and represent what I consider beautiful about Disneyland from spectacular vistas to the not-so-obvious. Click on the image for a bigger, higher quality version.

I was surprised at how much the Disneyland fan community was divided over Toontown. For a cartoon world it's pretty damn detailed.

See all that stuff in the middle of the track? That's why my roller coaster didn't work. The whirs of the machinery, the hisses of the hydraulics and the clacks of steel complete the experience for me.

Waterfalls and streams are an integral part of the Disneyland formula.

No claim jumping, jerk.

A metal fence obscures the foliage at the base of the Matterhorn. Peek between the bars sometime and discover this little stream.

Some lament that Fantasmic! has intruded on the nighttime atmosphere of New Orleans Square and the Rivers of America. I love Fantasmic! but in this shot I took after a night ride on the Columbia, I can see their point. Even here evidence of the nighttime spectacular is visible.

Sometimes nature is the icing on the cake.

With the re-opening of the Submarine Voyage the lagoon feels more alive than it has in a decade. Of course, I pretend Captain Nemo is in there instead of Finding Nemo.

Even toons have somewhere to go and relax.

It may be dirty half the time and wrapped in the baffling "Rockin'" overlay in this shot and obscured by that spinning satellite dish thing that replaced the Rocket Jets, but it's still Space Mountian, damnitt.

Monorail purple soars over the Submarine Lagoon before it was wrapped up in Year of a Million Dreams garb like a common bus advertisement.

Disneyland may not be a museum, but that doesn't stop museums from being a part of Disneyland. Just try and tell me that looking at stuff like this doesn't make you miss the Disney Gallery.

Big Thunder's rock spires.

The balcony at Innoventions, the most popular part of Innoventions.

Disneyland security doesn't kick you out until midnight so you can shop. Pesky people like me use the opportunity to shoot FREE photos when fewer people are around.

Toad Hall, my favorite of the Fantasyland dark ride facades. Now here's a makeover that worked.

Enthusiasm for Disneyland and trains seem to go hand in hand.

These two weren't waiting to cross. They already did. However, they took the time to wave to riders and then they continued on their way to TDA (to the left of this photo).

Splash Mountain's lift hills are powered entirely by waterwheels.

This was shot from the old Fastpass distribution area for Splash Mountain.

And the photo that inspired this article.

This is the Courtyard of Angels taken by Andy Castro, the famous journalist that covers Disneyland. His photo proves that even the smallest parts of Disneyland can be beautiful, if they are allowed to be.

Why is Space Mountain always so dirty?

2009-01-14T19:15:00.001-08:00

Let me rephrase that, why is Disneyland's Space Mountain always so dirty?

During my many visits to Disneyland in 2007, Space Mountain, more often than not, would be caked in dirt. Judging from my findings on Flickr and other picture posting sites, not much has changed since then. Pundits offer a wide range of explanations from "Anaheim is so polluted that the exterior gets dirty quickly" to "Since they repainted it white they just can't keep it clean" to "You just went on a day it happened to be dirty".

Now look, I'm as pathetic a Disneyland fan as they come. I went practically two or three times a week in 2007. Space Mountain was dirty at least half of the time I was there (to be fair I wasn't exactly keeping a journal). That's just bad show. However, I decided to leave it as something that could not be helped and forgot about it.

Then I went to Tokyo Disneyland. Much to my surprise Space Mountain was clean. It was immaculate in fact. You could eat off of that thing. I must have arrived on a day it was just washed. After all, Disneyland's version is cleaned once in a while.

After I arrived home I decided to investigate further. I did a search on Flickr for pictures of Space Mountain. Photos taken shortly after the attraction's re-opening in 2005 appear to be pretty clean (I've never seen it this clean in person), and it stays that way for most of 2005.

Here's Space Mountain in December of 2005 looking a little worn. It's not a deal breaker but it could clearly use a wash. Unfortunately, they actually let it get worse than this way too often.

Just try finding a picture like these of Space Mountain Tokyo. You might have a hard time. The worst I could find is the first image here. Some have suggested that it rains so often in Tokyo that it's a simple matter to keep that flavor of Space Mountain clean. Then again, when it rains in Anaheim it actually makes Disneyland's Space Mountain look worse as the dirt runs down the sloped architecture. Tokyo should also have pollution that wreaks havoc with the attraction's white paint scheme, just like Southern California.

So what's going on here? Is it physically impossible for Disneyland to keep Space Mountain's exterior clean? Let's say it takes four guys getting paid $20 an hour to clean Space Mountain. The whole process might take, let's say, three hours. That's $240 dollars or nearly three 1-day park hoppers. If you know how they actually wash this thing and how often, please let me know.

Does the Oriental Land Company make sure their version of Space Mountain is cleaned more often? Is there some intrinsically unique factor in Anaheim that makes Disneyland's Space Mountain a horror to wash? Is there no excuse and it's simply bad show? Please, could someone who speaks Japanese talk to the OLC and ask them how they do it?

I don't know. Maybe I'm blowing it all out of proportion. What I really want to know is why Space Mountain was suddenly closed without warning to have entire thing rebuilt from the ground up a few years back. Usually when you want to update a classic attraction you don't just build it all over again...

The Great Attractions: Sindbad's Storybook Voyage

2009-01-13T23:54:00.001-08:00

DisneySea's Sindbad's Storybook Voyage probably features, in my estimate, more audio-animatronics than all the of attractions at the American Disney parks built in the last decade combined.

There must be hundreds of these fluid, articulate designs working together to tell the story of Sindbad's quest to mercilessly kill innocent birds and giants in order to steal their treasures and bring them back to his homeland. Wait, that was the old version. Now Sindbad is seen as a liberator who brings democracy to foreign lands and they reward him with gold and trinkets. Look, it's in Japanese. What do you want from me? It still makes more sense than Under New Management.

Modern thinking suggests that only projection screens such as the type installed in the new Submarine Voyage or Toy Story Mania! can offer such movement and fluidity. Try telling that to the designers of Sindbad. The attraction is so full of movement, life and wonder that it puts the derivative Nemo Submarine "Let's Watch The Movie On TV Again But Underwater" Voyage to shame.

Download this video (90 meg AVI) shot by me and follow along as we take a look at some of the highlights of this unique attraction.

In one scene (4:00), Sindbad is seen freeing a green giant from a jail cell. As we sail into the next scene his massive girth is fully revealed (4:45). Even here the giant animatronic gracefully plays his instrument.

In another scene (8:12), a huge whale gives Sindbad and his boat a hand, allowing him to cover more ground as our hero looks ahead through a nautical telescope. In lesser rides the green giant would have been the capstone, but this attraction packs in a huge whale, an oversized bird (3:40) and more animatronics than you can shake an E-Ticket at.

There are subtle details everywhere, such as the fireworks in the finale that cast a green and red glow onto a palace (10:14). In the opening scene a couple of puppet's silhouettes can be seen on the cloth wall of a tent (:42). As the boat sails around the tent, guests can see a full-sized AA manipulating the puppet show. Cartoonish clouds attempt to hide the ceiling (2:55).

Sindbad's Storybook Voyage sets a new standard for a type of attraction that has been neglected for so many decades. The Imagineers who designed this AA extravaganza proved that you can teach an old technology new tricks. Sure, the animatronics don't do backflips and you can't shoot lasers at them to score points, but the magic of Sindbad draws guests into the experience in a way that projection screens and 3D glasses just can't.

Sindbad has been described as it's a small world meets Pirates of the Caribbean. From Pirates Sindbad takes a little swashbuckling. From small world he takes the concept of singing an insufferable song over and over again. Sindbad doesn't rely on modern theme park storylines such as, "then things go horribly wrong!" or "we gotta find (insert character or object here)!". It's a simple story with no gimmicks, just solid Imagineering.

There's hope for the American parks. One of the most beloved attractions never realized, The Little Mermaid dark ride, is slated to be built at California Adventure as part of that park's billion dollar makeover. Rumor has it that the attraction may end up being an AA extravaganza the likes of which American park goers haven't seen in a long time. I hope so, but Ariel has a lot of catching up to do.

While I am looking forward to The Little Mermaid dark ride, let's not forget the great strides the designers of Sindbad have made for this type of Disney theme park storytelling, nor should we forget the Oriental Land Company for making Sindbad and DisneySea possible. American Disney park fans should know what's going on in Tokyo and why Disney isn't offering an equivalent experience in the United States.

Why wait? Go without a few trips to the deteriorating Disney World and make a pilgrimage, if you are able, to Tokyo DisneySea and discover what happens when Imagineers are put in charge and the "accountanteers" are locked in a crate and stored away in that warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Disneyland Purist

2009-01-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

Remember the scene at the end of Schindler's List when the Jews are freed by the Soviets and they ask, "Where should we go?"

"Don't go east, that's for sure," they are told. "They hate you there. I wouldn't go west either if I were you."

Such is the plight of Disneyland purists.

Most Disney web sites, forums and blogs are so sweet, so saccharine, that it makes you want to puke. There are few places to go for the real, honest-to-God Disneyland discussion and criticism that purists crave. Most of these sites are nothing more than shills, defenders of any mediocre product that Disney puts out as they take in ad revenue from any of the 500 advertisements on their site.

Should one proclaim their disdain for any decisions the Walt Disney Company makes in regards to Disneyland they will invariably hear, "Why are you so negative all the time? Wow, you must live a real unhappy life!" Sorry, I just think Jack Sparrow doesn't belong in Pirates of the Caribbean! I didn't know my opinion of it was to become a reflection of my very existence.

When discussions become heated, posters are warned. When threads go off-topic, they are closed. Let the conversation go where it may, I say.

The result is that Disneyland purists are greatly misunderstood creatures. In an attempt to clear up any misconceptions I will explain some of the things that purists believe and why they feel the way they do. In this article you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll roll your eyes, and maybe even learn to love.

Disneyland purists want the very best Disneyland experience possible: If Disney is going to charge top dollar for the privilege of entering their parks, then guests should receive the highest quality experience possible. To read about a company that boasts about changing light bulbs when they reach eighty percent of their life expectancy, and then seeing every fifth bulb on Main Street burnt out on your vacation, you might feel a bit ripped off.

In the past, maintenance at the various Disney-owned and operated theme parks has been so bad that people rejoice when maintenance is actually performed. Some have said that the best part of the Pirates of the Caribbean "plussing" is how great the attraction looked after years of neglect.

Wait a second, it's always supposed to look great! You mean that Disneyland guests only get to see Pirates in the best condition when they decide to add a couple new animatronics to it? It reminds me of the Chris Rock routine where he exclaims, "'I take care of my kids!' You're supposed to! What do you want, a cookie?!"

"Disneyland finally fixed everything wrong with Indiana Jones after all these years! Kudos to you, Disney!" There was never supposed to be anything wrong with Indiana Jones! They want to heap praise upon Disney for simply doing what they are supposed to do in the first place.

I give Kennywood a pass for skimping on the paint once in a while, not Disney.

Purists want change: ...to be relevant and high-quality. Changing a part of Disneyland for the sake of change in a misguided attempt to freshen up a park that doesn't always need freshening up is the wrong way to go. Don't fix what isn't broken such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Disney Gallery. Fix what is broken such as the second level of Starcade, the People Mover track, Innoventions, the Rivers of America, the Motor Boat lagoon, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Tomorrowland in general. I'm indifferent to Pixie Hollow, but why couldn't it have gone into the Motorboat Lagoon area instead of the already established Ariel's Grotto?

If a classic attraction is going to be altered, the alterations should build upon the original intent of the attraction, like the recent Haunted Mansion additions, not shoehorn in the flavor of the month like adding Jack Sparrow to Pirates of the Caribbean or to push plush by adding Disney characters to it's a small world.

The same goes for bringing back classic attractions. The Sleeping Beauty Castle walk-through is a great restoration that actually revives the original vision of the attraction. Nemo, on the other hand, doesn't make sense in Tomorrowland. Would kids and families have rejected a re-imagining of the basic Submarine Voyage concept with updated effects and show scenes? I don't think so. Synergy can be a good thing, but it isn't the end-all be-all. Let's make the world of Jules Verne as happening as the world of Hannah Montana!

"It's good enough for kids" isn't good enough: Walt Disney said, "Adults are interested if you don't play down to the little 2 or 3 year olds or talk down. I don't believe in talking down to children. I don't believe in talking down to any certain segment. I like to kind of just talk in a general way to the audience. Children are always reaching."

Far too often I see Disney fans saying, "Well, at least my kids liked it..." If that's the case, then Disney failed. Cheapening out, cutting corners and delivering a sub-par product doesn't make for good entertainment for any age group.

Children are often taught to accept any entertainment thrown in front of them. They should instead be encouraged to think critically about what they just experienced. It's no wonder so many kids grow up to be so stupid. We already treat them as if they were by default!

Red Sky Disney represents an attempt to give purists and Disney critics an opportunity to critique flaws, praise triumphs and vent about the park they love, without being told to watch their tone because the husband of one of the posters on the forum happened to plant the flowers on the incredibly tacky "What Will You Celebrate?" Mickey flower head even though you're criticizing the original design, not his ability to dig a hole and put a flower in it.

If you're as irrationally angry as I am, if you think John Lasseter might just not be the second coming of Walt Disney, and you're sick of pin traders, give the Red Sky Forums a try, because the sky isn't always blue in the world of Disney fandom.