Disney Lies

Best

• Walking down a deserted Main Street after the park had been evacuated for some false alarm or another.
• On a cold night, the smell of a warm churro purchased with your last $15.
• Meeting Walt Disney himself in the park, shaking his hand, suggesting that he open an inexpensive, state-themed park where the parking lot currently was, and then listening for an hour and a half as he detailed all the problems with that idea.
• Being able to look at a few seconds of some ancient movie for only a penny.
• A five-hour Jungle Cruise on which skipper John Lasseter explained in brilliant detail the back story of every single creature we passed.
• Laughing so hard at the wacky antics of a costumed character that an ambulance has to be summoned.

Worst

• Going to Disneyland alone for your birthday and asking the park photographer if they can insert someone else into the photo so you’ll look less pathetic.
• Standing for an hour in the Matterhorn queue only to find that you’ve somehow circled the mountain and ended up back where you started.
• Fifteen painful minutes desperately trying to locate the Innoventions restroom.
• Getting caught shoplifting from the Emporium and having to choose between prosecution or two hours on Star Tours vomit-cleanup duty (we chose prosecution).
• Accidentally referring to the Matterhorn as “Magic Mountain” in front of a tour group from a Disneyana convention.
• Years of therapy bills after the kids happen to catch a glimpse of one of the costumed characters (Alice) with her head off.

Best

• A family of well-adjusted individuals who have had plenty of rest, know what they’re doing, have intelligently budgeted both their time and money, and actually exist.
• The friendly man who, for his 80th birthday, celebrates by buying churros for everyone then goes to City Hall and files a report about how wonderful all the cast members have treated him.
• People who ask questions that are reasonable and that you actually have a chance of knowing the answer to, but that you haven’t heard every minute of every day since you started working at the park.

Worst

• Kids who think that costumed characters are robots and/or unable to feel pain.
• The guy who shows up at Jedi training with his own sword.
• The snooty woman who throws a piece of trash on the ground and then checks how long it takes a cast member to pick it up.
• Relatives that you signed into the park who then expect you to do them special favors and give them big discounts all day.
• People who fall asleep dreaming of massive insurance payouts and visit the park hoping against hope that they’ll be injured.
• The man in the bathroom who asks where the nearest bathroom is.
• The screaming, abusive, anti-social lost child.
• That child’s screaming, abusive, anti-social parents.
• Annual pass holders who are such know-it-alls that you wish they’d just stay at home and annoy people on the Web.

Best

• Toy Story 2
• Toy Story 3
• Toy Story 4

Worst

• Old Yeller II: The Search for Yeller
• The White Hole
• Herbie Goes to Rehab

Best

• Photo of you in front of the castle just as the sun begins to glint off the gold filigree (available seasonally).
• Getting Tarzan to autograph your chest (ladies can ask for this too!)
• Piece of an original Electrical Parade vehicle (a friend of ours got a fire extinguisher!)

Worst

• Piece of an original Imagineer.
• Disneyland 50th Birthday Cake Pin (made from real cake).
• Do-it-yourself deep-fried churro kit.

Best

• During Beauty and the Beast’s “Gaston” song, one of the heads on the wall is Bambi’s mom.
• In The Rescuers, while the heroes are rushing past an apartment building, for a few frames you can see an adult Ariel, formerly the little mermaid, standing at a window.
• Snow White’s seven dwarfs are named for the seven types of theme-park guests.

Worst

• In Oliver & Company when Oliver says, “Yes,” that’s a direct quote from The Absent Minded Professor.
• The third guy from the left in the background in frame 217,143 of Chicken Little is the head of Disney animation’s gardener’s cousin.
• If you play Toy Story backwards, Buzz Lightyear is the embodiment of Michael Eisner’s career.