Archive for April, 2010

“it’s a small war”

Friday, April 30th, 2010

A few hours ago, Disneyland Today’s Twitter stream included the following comment: “If all the Disney characters in ‘it’s a small world’ waged war on the original dolls, they’d be outnumbered 10 to 1.”

If this is indeed an official statement from Disney, then it is highly significant for two reasons. First, it is Disney’s first admission that the original “it’s a small world” characters are not Disney characters! How can this be? Who owns the rights? When do they expire? Are there tiny, highly repetitive, mind-numbing royalties to be paid?

And second, this is also the first time that Disney has admitted that the Disney characters within the attraction do indeed intend to wage war against the innocent singing children! Certainly, rumors of this kind of insurrection have been flitting about Fantasyland like so much confetti after a parade-float explosion, but until this time there has been no verification. Could this be the reason that guests are so carefully searched for weapons before entering the park? Does it help shed some light on the violent ejection of the Country Bears after building tension between them and the Song of the South critters? And was “iasm” really the inspiration for the movie Child’s Play”? We have no idea. Only time will tell. Post your updates in the comments!

DisneyLies Official Best & Worst: Pixar films

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Best

  • The Incredibles: Particularly the incredible fight scene between Mr. Incredible and Syndrome (it’s a blow-by-blow tribute to the fight scene in John Carpenter’s They Live, by the way).
  • The Bear and the Bow: It hasn’t been released yet, but just the idea of Koda from Brother Bear learning to fight and striking back has us all excited.
  • Finding Nemo: Based on Verne’s Mysterious Island.
  • Ratatouille: Possibly the best film ever in which the title character is eaten.
  • Cars: The Gary Numan soundtrack is awesome!
  • Monsters, Inc.: Everyone cries when Mike’s mother is killed by “man.”

Worst

  • (This space intentionally left blank)

DisneyLies Official Best & Worst: Common Disney Injuries

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Best

  • Actually, we find that it’s best if you leave the park uninjured.

Worst

  • Bruised ankles from a) standing in line in front of some nearsighted guy with a stroller, or b) psychotic duck attacks.
  • Black lung from riding on the Haunted Mansion and accidentally inhaling some former guest’s cremains.
  • Pin-trading punctures (commonly from forgetting that you aren’t wearing a lanyard).
  • “small world” headache.
  • Jungle Cruise pun overexposure.
  • Battered wallet.
  • Horrible bowel problems, massive weight loss, and eventual death after accidentally ingesting water from the Rivers of America.

DisneyLies Official Best & Worst: Past Disneyland Attractions

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Best

  • Adventure Thru Inner Space: A perfect example of how you can fit a major attraction in a very, very small space.
  • Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland: Who can forget the rainbow-flavored cavern or the Fess-Parker-shaped cactus?
  • The Flying Saucers: Novel and thrilling! (Too bad they caused cancer.)
  • Carousel of Progress: This massive animatronic presentation taught the science of electricity to a whole generation of kids. It was replaced by the (sadly short lived) Carousel of the Feynman Lectures in Physics.

Worst

  • Rocket Rods: It turns out that a vehicle powered by army-surplus rockets just won’t stay on the old PeopleMover track.
  • Mike Fink Keel Boats: So named for their tendency to “keel over.”
  • Skyway to the Parking Lot: Unless you parked right next to it, really not all that convenient.

DisneyLies Official Best & Worst: Disney Theme Park Song

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Best

  • “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)”: Few people realize that the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction was originally sponsored by Life cereal.
  • “Baroque Hoedown”: The Main Street Electrical Parade’s familiar theme is probably the best thing Kraftwerk ever did.
  • “it’s a small world”: Banned in more countries than any other Disney song, but still a classic.
  • “Swisskapolka”: Lively, toe-tapping, and far superior to Epcot’s “Norwegiankapolka.”
  • “Grim Grinning Ghosts”: Here’s a hair-raising bit of trivia — when the Ohio Players were recording this song, a woman was murdered in the next room and her screams were kept on the soundtrack!!!

Worst

  • “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Monsanto”: Easily Disney’s biggest musical sell out.
  • “The Rikki-Tikki-Tavi Room”: This Tiki Room overlay didn’t last two months.
  • “The Ballad of Davy Jones”: It was a horrible mistake to make Pirates of the Caribbean 3 a musical.
  • “Stitch’s Great Escape Medley”: Mostly autotuned slobbering noises, this song somehow musically conjures the smell of bad chili.
  • “If You Think We’re Sexy”: Not the Dapper Dans’ finest moment.

Special Mention

DisneyLies Official Best & Worst: Disney Animated Feature Songs

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Best

  • “A Whole New Part of Your World: From The Little Aladdin (also notable, “Prince Ali, Under the Sea.”)
  • “It’s Not Easy, Lovin’ Green”: From The Muppet Princess and the Frog (also notable, “Dig a Little Mah Nà Mah Nà.”)
  • “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Pooh”: From The Many Adventures of Cinderellapooh (also notable, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heffalump Makes.”)
  • “Zip-a-califragilisticexpialidocious”: From the live-action-plus-animation classic, Song of the Poppins (also notable, “Chim Chim-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”)

Worst

  • “A Whole New World”: From Treasure Planet. Okay, it’s another planet — we get it.
  • “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” and “A Girl Worth Fighting For”: From Peter Pan. Peter and Wendy’s relationship is just too complicated.
  • “Go the Distance”: From The Little Mermaid. They should have stopped at “Kiss the Girl.”
  • “The Siamese Cat Song”: From Mulan. These days, it just comes across as racially insensitive.
  • “Pink Elephants on Parade”: From The Jungle Book. Mowgli is way too young to be drinking this much.
  • “A Very Merry Un-birthday:” From Bambi. Seriously, this is the wrong way to try and cheer up someone whose mom just died. Bambi singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be Prince” is a close second in insensitivity.

April fools fallout

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

This morning, there was significant confusion at Disneyland due to fallout from yesterday’s April Fools prank. The situation is complicated, so we’ll pretend to let official Disneyland Resort Blog Liaison Furby Pencilneck explain.

Says Pencilneck, “As everyone and their parakeet knows, Disneyland Resort has been playing little ‘April Fools’ tricks on its guests since Walt first started the tradition back in ’55 by telling his TV audience that the park’s opening day would be April 1. Originally, our idea was to have a cross promotion with this year’s prank and the new Alice in Wonderland film. We’d have folks in Alice-style costumes standing near the entrance armed with paintball guns, and anyone who came into the park who had the last name ‘Rose’ would be shot with hundreds of rounds of red paint. ‘Painting the Roses red,’ get it? Well, at the last minute there was some concern that guests would get upset because we were asking everyone’s last names or that the red paint might not be environmentally safe, so the plan was scrapped. There wasn’t a lot of time left to think of a replacement, so what one of the executives thought was that since the park was scheduled to open at 8 a.m. and close at midnight, wouldn’t it be funny to swap those and open at noon and close at 8 p.m.? It was simple and it would get some news mention, so we went with that.

“Well, the opening staff got the memo that they were to swap the opening and closing times as a prank, but apparently it was ambiguously worded, because instead of swapping the ‘8’ and ‘12’, the swapped the ‘open’ and ‘closed.’ So that means that when 8 a.m. came around, they announced that the park was closed, and they didn’t open the gates until midnight.

“Guests seemed to take the joke in the spirit of the day, and they didn’t mind waiting a few extra hours to get into the park, particularly since it meant a chance to enjoy attractions in the middle of the night when they would normally be closed. But behind the scenes it was a mess. Many cast members didn’t appreciate hearing that they had effectively arrived 16 hours early for work and had to wait for midnight for their shift to start. Things even got more confusing today, with yesterday’s fireworks being launched at 9:25 this morning, not long after the park opened to Friday’s guests. And before opening, guests outside the gates wanted to know why they couldn’t get in when there were already so many incredibly tired-looking guests wandering around the park.

“All said, it was a bit of fun that might have caused a little confusion and forced Disney to pay millions of dollars in overtime, but it certainly made many magical memories. Hopefully next year’s prank — making guests use old-style ticket books to get on attractions — will go much more smoothly.”