A Belated Realization

Well, your faithful skipper was palling around on the Window to the Magic Forums(1) when she caught a reference to the previous incarnation of the onboard Space Mountain music. Y'know, the Dick Dale track that ran from 1999 to 2005, when it was replaced by the score by Michael Giacchino. Well, this particular poster referred to the Space Mountain track as "The Aquarium," as in possibly the most famous portion of Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals."

And since I have a copy of the Space Mountain music on my computer, I just had to listen . . . and the poster was right! I had never noticed it before, but the track for the roller-coaster is a souped-up, surf-guitar version of that piece of classical music. I'd just never noticed because of the immense difference in speed and tone. But listen for yourself:

Space Mountain's version:


And the original theme:


Bizarre, eh?

(1) What? You don't think we have technology in the Jungle? That's what we keep the Robinson Family around for - water-wheel powered computers, while a dangerous arrangement, are perfectly adapted for jungle living. Now that hippo-on-treadmill-powered blender . . . well, we just won't talk about that.

Hello, WALL*E!

So while watching the previews for "WALL*E," I noticed that a rather familiar song played a rather key role in the movie. Y'know, this one:


I didn't know the name of the song at the time, but I sure did remember it. It's "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from "Hello, Dolly." Where, you might ask, had I heard that song before? Why, on Main Street, U.S.A., of course, where an instrumental version is used in the music loop:



At first I wondered if the use of this song was the result of aural osmosis on the part of John Lassiter, who worked in the park as a younger man (and as a skipper too, the lucky fellow!). But, as Andrew Stanton explains in an interview:

I had done some musical theater in high school, so I auditioned songs from plays I was familiar with, one of them being Hello, Dolly! The instant I heard the opening of ''Put On Your Sunday Clothes,'' with the opening phrase ''Out there...'' I was hooked. I knew it was the weirdest idea I'd ever had, so I kept it to myself for a while until I felt I could better justify its use. Then I realized the song is about these two naïve guys, who've never left their small town, and just want to venture to the big city for one night and kiss a girl. That's my main character!

I liked my Disneyland theory better, though.

Happy Birthday, Tiki Room!

And a very Happy Birthday to you too, Rongo.

Yes, folks, the Tiki Room has now reached the venerable age of 45,
though thanks to its 2005 restoration, it looks better than ever.
Let's just hope the Tiki Gods don't suffer a mid-life crisis and
decide to give in to the whole "Under New Management" glitz.

The Best of "Window to the Magic"

I'm a big fan of Window to the Magic, a great Disney Podcast.  In my mind, their best shows are the ones dedicated to the history of various attractions.  So, here are my picks for the best shows so far:

The Haunted Mansion

The Matterhorn

and (best for last!):

The Jungle Cruise

Indiana Jones Returns to the Jungle!

Well, he never actually left, but he hasn't taken a break from
rescuing hapless tourists who are unable to follow the simplest
instructions (what part of "Gates of DOOM" do you people not
understand?) for more than a decade, so it's nice to see him delving
into more esoteric topics again.  Like, say, how to pillage ancient
civilizations of their precious idols.  Or how to run from Nazis. Both 

will be explored at a symposeum Dr. Jones will be hosting later this
week (in between his "Random Acts of Indy (TM)").

And now some wisdom from Shrunken Ned

Or, as I call him, "Jungle Ned, the Shrunken Head." For the uninitiated, Shrunken Ned is a arcade element designed in the vein of the old fortune teller machines. But instead of fortunes, Shrunken Ned, the Jungle Witch Doctor, diagnoses you with an appropriate jungle ailment, mocks you, and then dispenses a prescription. I first discovered the joy of Ned when Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye opened in Adventureland. The first few months after Indy opened, the line for the attraction was so overwhelming that it stretched out into the hub and started down Main Street. Adventureland Cast Members had to act as crossing guards to keep from making the bottleneck that is Adventureland even worse than it usually is.

So there we were, standing in a long line snaking through Adventureland, eating Dole Whip purchased as we meandered by the Tiki Room, when my cousin, who'd ditched the line-standing for wandering, came up and told us we simply had to "see this." He led his sister and I into the Adventureland Bazaar, whipped out some quarters, and shoved them into Ned's slot. And then Ned started talking. He made us stand on one leg. He insulted us. And then he dispensed a prescription. Smitten, we insisted on bringing the rest of the family in to see Ned in shifts as we slowly progressed towards the Indy entrance (the attraction was excessively buggy in those days). I think we contributed $5.00 to the Disneyland coffers during that wait, just trying to see how many different cards Ned would pop out. All of this leads, of course, to one of the cards I still have. Please enjoy: a prescription from Shrunken Ned:

Jane's Tour of Walt Disney World

Four parks, three days, two people, one mission...

Part One - Prologue
Part Two - A Walt Disney World Adventure
Part Three - The Magic Kingdom I
Part Four - The Magic Kingdom II
Part Five - The Magic Kingdom III
Part Six - Animal Kingdom
Part Seven - Disney-MGM Studios
Part Eight - EPCOT
Part Nine - Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company..."

"Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company..."

EPCOT

EPCOT is actually the park that inspired me to post this comic on The Back Side of Water. Or rather, it was this article about EPCOT, which made it sound about as interesting as a dental equipment convention, that did.

Disney [MGM] Studios

Well, it isn't Disney-MGM Studios anymore, but it still was when I was there. Either way, that damnable sorcerer's hat is still blocking the sight-line to the park's big wienie, the replica of Grauman's Chinese Theater that houses The Great Movie Ride. If a Florida hurricane happened to carry that thing off one night, I think there would be few people crying into their mouse ears the next morning. (At least people that aren't mid-level marketing executives at Disney who probably thought this eyesore is exactly what the park needed.

Actually, what the park needs is a much better version of Fantasmic! (yes, the exclamation point is in the title). The Disneyland version of Fantasmic(!) is not just a spectacle - it is an unsuspected spectacle. It uses the Rivers of America and the various crafts on the river (the Colombia, the Mark Twain) and Tom Sawyer's Island as part of the show. It is also quite in-your-face in a very positive way - you don't need opera glasses to see the show, partly because the viewing area is only 100 feet deep at most locations. This means less people can watch the show at one time, but they compensate by doing two shows nightly (tip: always stay for the 10:30 show - there are less people).

The Florida show, by contrast, uses a specially-built arena that makes the Hollywood Bowl look intimate. From the nose-bleed seats that my mother and I stood in, since we arrived only 45 minutes before the show was to start, you could see little ants moving around on the stage (I've been assured by my mother that they were, in fact, people). There is water, and there is a boat, but the whole thing is longer, but in a bloated, sagging-middle sort of way. Namely, this is due to the fact that the Florida version of Fantasmic! contains several tracks from Pocahontas. You may or may not remember this particular Disney animated feature that was released as part of Disney's slide from 1980s/90s renaissance down into animation oblivion, but you'll wish that Disney had forgotten about it too after you watch dancers with shovels prance around singing "Dig man/dig man/diggety dig..." Memo to the wise: save Fantasmic! for your trip to Disneyland (ours has a dragon!), and go on Tower of Terror a few times instead while the lines are down. Hell, catch MuppetVision 3-D! (Featuring "a salute to the countries of the world, but mostly America.") Just say no to Fantasmic!.

Animal Kingdom

The Magic Kingdom - Part III

The Magic Kingdom - Part II

The Magic Kingdom - Part I

A Walt Disney World Adventure

A Walt Disney World Adventure - Prologue

Yes, that's right, you can be a 24-year-old Disneyland fanatic and never make it to Disney World. Mainly because your parents always use the argument: "Why travel across the country when you've got the original 15 minutes away." And so, the years passed and we never went.

But finally, thanks to Dad's "legal troubles" (and inability to leave the state) and some unused Southwest vouchers that were set to expire, Mom and I found ourselves on our way to WDW. Now obviously, I'm a bit of a Disney junkie - but the first step is admitting you have a problem, right? - so there were spreadsheets comparing attractions available in California and Florida so I didn't miss anything key that we didn't have here in the Golden State, hours of website research on which restaurants were best and how to get reservations, but this was a pretty great trip if I do say so myself. As you can see, I've summarized it into tidy comic book format with random observations from my stay.

Bertha Makes the Big Time!

see more crazy cat pics

She is, to my knowledge, I Can Has Cheezburger's first LOLephant.