Archive for September, 2014

Historic Spelling

Monday, September 29th, 2014

We were working on photographs for volume 2 of That’s Not At Disneyland! (which you should definitely buy, particularly if you want a chance at a free skull juju), when we noticed something interesting. This is from the overhead theming in a store on Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure:

Horrible Disney spelling

(You can click the image to see it better.)

Check out the horrible spelling of “Doctor” on the microscope kit!

At first, we were feeling all superior because of our advanced spelling skills, but then we got to thinking — what if Disney spelled the word this way on purpose?

To test that possibility, we found a random stranger who admitted to being a Disney Imagineer after we followed him around long enough. According to him:

The spelling is actually correct for the time period depicted in the store’s theming. You see, the store is set in an era before standardized spelling arrived in the United States, so what might seem to us like deviant spelling was completely common at the time.

Once again Imagineers have impressed us with their incredible accuracy!

Big Funder Danch?

Friday, September 26th, 2014

Big Thunder Ranch logo

Anyone know why the logo for Big Thunder Ranch is the letters “BFD” instead of “BTR”? We’re sure there’s an interesting backstory in there somewhere!

The wonderful thing about fishing…

Wednesday, September 24th, 2014

Not much going on in the way of Disney news today (aside from that big Star Wars announcement), so we thought we’d share one of our favorite photos from a recent visit:

Record catch Tigger

It’s so nice to see the characters wandering the parks (and this definitely explains Tigger’s usually inexplicable odor!)

Headless Halloween

Monday, September 22nd, 2014

We always enjoy the Halloween decorations at Big Thunder Ranch. We were thrilled this year to see the new “Headless Horseman” figure.

2014-0922_Headless-horseman

We aren’t entirely sure why he has two heads, but we suppose that just makes it all the easier to freak out wimpy schoolteachers!

 

As for the “Headless Ticket Taker” figure…

2014-0922_Headless-ticket-booth

…we have no idea what his deal is. Maybe Disney was just running short of pumpkins?

Disney’s Happiest Haunts Tour review

Saturday, September 20th, 2014

Last night, the entire DisneyLies staff took the Disney’s Happiest Haunts Tour at Disneyland. The tour is a bit pricy at $600 (90% off with an annual pass or AAA discount), but it does include rides on many attractions and several treats over the course of its six hours, so the cost is justifiable (particularly if you are fabulously wealthy). We don’t want to spoil anything, but we thought we’d share a few highlights with you.

The tour provides guests with both “tricks” and “treats.” There are four Halloween-style treats over the course of the tour, including a “fun size” candy pumpkin on a stick, a “ginger-psycho” man cookie, a candy apple with a gummy razor blade in it, and a commemorative pin (exclusive to the tour and containing an actual piece of ectoplasm).

There were also several tricks. We don’t want to reveal them here, but we will say that there was something a bit unusual about one of the tour’s hosts. Here’s a picture:

Disney's Happiest Haunts Tour hosts

See what makes one of the hosts different from the other? That’s right — she never smiles for the camera! Hilarious!

The most interesting and entertaining part of the tour, though, was the revelation of many Disneyland mysteries. Guests were taken to attractions and locations around the park, each of which had a “Halloween mystery” associated with it. They (and their associated mysteries) were:

  • City Hall: Why do guests sometimes here echoes of ghostly gunshots in the distance?
  • The Enchanted Tiki Room: What happened to Rosita?
  • The Haunted Mansion: Why are the Doombuggies full of guests when they leave but empty when they return?
  • Big Thunder Ranch: Why are we stopping here when it’s already closed for the evening?
  • Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride: Why are we going on this instead of Snow White’s Scary Adventures?
  • Chip ‘n’ Dale Treehouse: Why was it abandoned and left empty for all these years?
  • Disneyland Monorail: Didn’t this used to stop at the Disneyland Hotel?
  • Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy: What’s with the crabby space guy?
  • Walt Disney’s apartment: Why can’t they turn off that lamp in the window, no matter how hard they try?

We learned a few interesting tidbits over the course of the tour, including:

  • The Haunted Mansion only has room for 1,000 haunts, but it has accommodated many more since 2010 when it went timeshare.
  • Ray Bradbury’s Halloween Tree in Frontierland was named after the famous author Ray Tree.
  • Some cast members swear that, late at night when the park is closed and empty, they sometimes catch sight of a ghostly Peoplemover car sailing through Tomorrowland.

 

The Mermaid’s Many Moods

Friday, September 19th, 2014

The many moods of the Little Mermaid

The Avengers official synopsis

Monday, September 15th, 2014

Today, Disney released the official synopsis of the upcoming The Avengers film. We reproduce it here so you don’t have to spend a lot of time Googling for the real thing:

Disney’s Marvel Studios presents The Avengers: Age of Ultron Featuring The Avengers, the herotacular sequel to the most thoroughly marketed action movie ever! When Tony “The Incredibly Profitable Iron Man” Stark tries to restart a long forgotten earth-destroying robot that looks interesting, things go haywire and The Avengers (including Iron Man, Capt. America, Winter “Bucky” Soldier, The Falcon, Thor, The Hulk, She-Hulk, Red Hulk, Red She Hulk, Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Prince Namor, War Machine, Moon Knight, the late Jack of Hearts, Luke Cage, Dr. Strange, and Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket) leap into action without spending a lot of time on boring back stories. When the horrifying Ultron (a distant cousin of Destroyer from Thor) shows up, The Avengers start destroying buildings like there’s no tomorrow, even before they’ve all learned each others’ names!

Marvel’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron Featuring The Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Mark Ruffalo. Also appearing on film but less importantly so are Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel Mother****ing Jackson, and Cobie Smulders. James Spader wrapped in tin foil and CGI plays Ultron, and the film introduces two new heroes: Elizabeth Olsen as Only Incidentally The Scarlet Witch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Not Quicksilver For Legal Purposes. Paul Bettany reprises his role as Tony Stark’s House, but finds himself upgraded to Tony Stark’s Android Friend.

Written, directed, and inspired by the imagination of Joss Whedon, the film could not have been completed without the invaluable assistance of many other people who are far too not-Joss-Whedon to mention. Get set for a month of returning to the theaters repeatedly so that pundits don’t freak out and declare the whole thing a failure if the movie makes less than half a billion dollars when The Avengers return in Marvel’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron Featuring The Avengers in 2015.

(True Marvel fans will want to wait until after the credits when, in a hint of things to come, Black Panther arm wrestles Ka-Zar!)

This post was viciously copied semi-word-for-word from the fabulous Planet Lilo website.

Actual true post: Win a skull juju!

Thursday, September 11th, 2014

Ever have so many Disneyland skull jujus (juji?) that you didn’t know what to do with them? Neither have we. In fact, we know exactly what we are going to do with these beauties — give them away! That’s right, even though these are currently selling on eBay for $50-$100, we’re going to send them to lucky readers absolutely free of charge!

Disneyland skull juju

Here’s the deal: For some reason, we’re having trouble getting buzz going for our new book, That’s Not At Disneyland! We’ve emailed bloggers and podcasters, sent out review copies, handed out copies at Disneyland, and more, but nothing’s quite caught on. That’s why we’re asking for your help and offering a handy Disneyland skull juju or two as prizes for those who help us the most.

To win a juju, you just need to do three things:

  1. Help us sell some books by blogging, tweeting, sharing, facebooking, posting, advertising, or just plain talking about That’s Not At Disneyland! Whether you tweet to a thousand followers or just to one person who goes on to promote the book (on a podcast or something, for example), it’s the results that matter. Heck, if you just want to order a couple of cases and give them out for Halloween, that’s good enough for us!
  2. Let us know what you did. Send an email to liar@disneylies.com with all the juicy details.
  3. After the close of the contest on October 31 (we need lots of time so we can see sales figures), be randomly chosen from among the people who (in our purely subjective judgment) either helped the most or helped the most creatively, and we’ll send you a shiny(ish) Disneyland skull juju (along with the envelope that accompanied it)!

But didn’t we say there were two skulls available? Yes! If we manage to sell at least 200 copies of That’s Not At Disneyland! before the deadline, then we will give skulls to two people who helped us instead of just one. Hooray!

To help you promote the book, here are a couple of links you will find handy:

Any questions? Post them in the comments of this post (or email us if you prefer) and we’ll answer as soon as we can.

Thanks again for the assistance!

Disappointing costume

Wednesday, September 10th, 2014

We were at DCA yesterday doing research and saw the following:

 

Groot at California Adventure

(Apologies for the poor quality of the photos, but we had to snap this quickly as we walked by.)

It is infrequent that we have  a complaint about Disney’s costume department, because they generally do a terrific job. They really seemed to have made a misstep in this case, though. As much as we love Guardians of the Galaxy, this costume just doesn’t look that much like Groot to us.

Lightning secret!

Monday, September 8th, 2014

The next time you’re visiting the Haunted Mansion, instead of hurrying to your Doombuggie take few minutes to look for one of the attraction’s hidden surprises. Recognize this silhouette?

Haunted Mansion lightning window

That’s right, it’s the Evil Queen from Snow White, being fried by God, Thor, or whomever for her evil deeds. You may have to wait a few dozen minutes for the just the right flash of lightning, but it’s worth it!

There was a bit of an uproar in 2008 when it was decided that, during a lengthy refurbishment, Disney characters would be added to the Haunted Mansion. We have to admit they still seem a little out of place to us, but for those who want to look for them, they are (in order of appearance):

  • Professor Porter from Tarzan (middle figure of the stack of men in the stretching room).
  • The Evil Queen (as seen above).
  • Donald Duck (his face is on a chair near the hallway with the floating candle).
  • Various floating objects from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (in the seance room).
  • Captain Nemo (playing the ballroom organ in ghostly form).
  • Scary trees from Snow White, (in the graveyard).
  • Old Yeller (in ghost form in the graveyard).

Have fun looking for them, and let us know if you find any others!