Archive for the ‘DCA’ Category

All Tired Out

Monday, February 16th, 2015

Today is the last day of operation for the poor, beloved Luigi’s Flying Tires attraction at Disney California Adventure. The attraction was never as popular as Disney might have hoped, but it certainly had its fans. Here’s a picture taken this morning of the attraction so you can have one last look before it is replaced by something that is certain to be less delightful (and possibly Frozen-car themed):

Luigi's Flying Tires last day of operation

(Although the crowds had not yet descended upon the attraction when this photo was taken, the attraction had only been open for an hour at that point. We’re certain that it became very busy later in the day.)

It’s difficult to see in the photo — you might have to click it to see it larger — but all of the Flying Tires cast members wore black armbands on their left arms to mark the attraction’s final hours. It was a respectful, if subtly depressing, gesture.

The general feeling about Luigi’s can be summed up in a quote from a guest we spotted dressed in black and weeping quietly into a black handkerchief near where this photo was taken. Said the guest (only slightly muffled by her black mourning veil):

My parents first met on the original Flying Saucers attraction at Disneyland. They were sitting in their individual saucers, yelling and cursing about how then couldn’t figure out how to get them to move, when they caught each others’ eye. That started them laughing over their shared frustration, and the rest is Disney romance history.

I’ve been coming to Luigi’s every day since it opened, riding it incessantly and waiting for a love connection. After 976 days of trying, I guess I’m going to have to look for another way to find a soul mate. I might have to resort to hoping I get stranded for an hour on Pirates with Mr. Right.

The big question, of course, is “Why is this attraction closing?” It may have been seen as a risk to try a new version of an attraction that originally didn’t last long at Disneyland, and over the months since “Flying Saucers II” opened the company may have lost its nerve. As one former individual said, “Whoever gave the park permission to open Luigi’s Flying Tires sure had a lot of balls, but unfortunately they were removed a few weeks after attraction opening due to technical issues.”

The internet is rife with rampant rumors about the closure. Some are blaming Obamacare or feminist criticism of video games, while others say it’s related to an unfortunate incident that occurred near the end of 2014 during which a woman was caught throwing the ashes of her beloved former Ford Fiesta about the attraction to commemorate its passing after its engine seized up and she had it incinerated. But, as is often the case, the truth is far more mundane. Said a relative of a person who claims to know things:

Disney never anticipated that the Monster Truck Racing Association would want their tires back so soon. In retrospect, they really should have signed a longer contract, but nobody anticipated that there would be any difficulty in getting them to renew every three years. It turns out that some MTRA brass was really upset that guests entering attraction vehicles tended to step on the giant tires, getting footprints on them and leaving them all scuffed up at the end of the day. In MTRA management’s mind, that made the MTRA look unprofessional. They complained to Disney, and the park did try to modify guest behavior, but in the end it just couldn’t be done.

RIP Luigi’s Flying Tires: 6/15/2012 – 2/16/2015

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

It’s nice to see that Disney made a few subtle changes to some of their attractions for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month mermaid

Mickey’s Fun Wheel madness!

Friday, October 3rd, 2014

Disney loves to surprise and delight its guests, and yesterday dozens of Disney California Adventure visitors got an unexpected something extra.

“It was awesome!” said Erica Highflurf, a teenager who agreed to be quoted but not fact checked. “I love Mickey’s Fun Wheel, and it was really neat that they let us stay on an extra long time as a surprise.”

“We were there for like ten times the normal ride time,” sad Tiffany “Princess” Eggdaws, friend of Highflurf. “Every minute, we were like ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this!”

Steve “Just Steve” Stevenson, Highflurf’s cynical boyfriend, added, “Maybe if the thing was moving or if we hadn’t been just one car from the ground it would have been okay, but whatever.”

“He’s mad because he had just drank like six beers,” Higflurf added.

Asked for details, a bystander claiming to speak authoritatively for the company said, “Disney has been testing these ‘Extended Experiences’ or ‘Attraction Residencies’ for years. Interestingly, the reaction from guests varies quite a bit depending on what the attraction is. The Jungle Cruise isn’t that popular for Extended Experiences because after an hour or so most skippers have run through the bulk of their A-list material. ‘it’s a small world’ is a different story all together. We’ve spoken to guests who have had ‘small world’ EEs that said the experience impacted them so much that they practically couldn’t get the attraction’s famous theme song out of their head, sometimes to the point of requiring medical assistance.”

Midway Movie Mania

Thursday, October 2nd, 2014

What a surprise! With no prior announcement, Disney California Adventure today held a preview of a new limited-time attraction — an overlay of Toy Story Midway Mania featuring Marvel theatrical films!

Marvel Midway Mania

Guests boarded the attraction vehicles as usual, but instead of playing the usual game they were whisked away for a private showing of a popular Marvel feature film in glorious, high-quality 3D!

Given that this is an entirely new concept for the park, there were both positive and negative aspects of the attraction.

Positive

  • You get to see four full-length Marvel films (after the first finishes, you are whisked to a different screen to see another).
  • Films are randomly chosen, so it’s a big surprise!
  • Some films let you use the attraction vehicle’s gun to, for example, shoot cream pies at the Red Skull!
  • Free (virtual) popcorn!

Negative

  • Because the movies are randomly chosen, if you have bad luck, you might end up seeing films in the wrong order (e.g., Iron Man 3 before Iron Man 2) or the same movie more than once (e.g., The Hulk four times in a row).
  • It’s rather a long time to go without access for a restroom.
  • Lines for the attraction were lengthy (estimated weight times were generally in the 45 to 60 hour range).

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!

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!)

Tree Talk

Wednesday, August 6th, 2014

Tomorrow, Disney California Adventure’s Turtle Talk with Crush attraction will be closed for a two-week refurbishment. The attraction will reopen August 21 with a completely new show, Tree Talk with Groot. According to a park spokesperson who spoke to us on the condition that we remain anonymous:

Tree Talk with Groot will bring the famous Guardians of the Galaxy character to life through interactive real-time cartoonography. Guests will be able to ask Groot questions about his friends, 1970s dance music, techniques for mass annihilation of enemies, the morality of whittling, or anything else they like!

Very little change is needed to convert the theater from a Crush to a Groot theme. In fact, the bulk of the attraction’s down time is not due to construction, but due to the large amount of time needed for the cast member portraying Groot to memorize the character’s extensive dialogue.

Disney California Christmas Attractions

Monday, December 23rd, 2013

Disneyland is well known for its holiday attraction overlays, but Disney California Adventure is poised to take some of the holiday spotlight away from its older sibling. We’re going to have to wait until 2014 for “Santa Soarin’ Over California” and the much-rumored “Tower of Tinsel,” but several more subtle Christmas additions have been made to attractions this year.

The ornament-firing game in Midway Mania is probably the most high-profile overlay, and the hint of jingle bells in the California Screamin’ launch noise the most subtle. Our favorite, though, is pictured below.

Holiday Mike

Christmas Car News Boys

Friday, December 13th, 2013

For Christmas, the Red Car News Boys at Disney California Adventure have a whole new show, and we have to admit it was a laugh-out-loud tear-jerking celebration of newspaper-themed holiday goodness!

The show starts out with the usual dancing and singing about “current” new items (“Santa Seen at Macys,” “Baby Lindbergh, Home for Christmas?” etc.). They’re joined by Mickey Mouse who’s traveling home to Toontown to spend the holidays with Minnie and all of their friends.

Then things take a dramatic turn. One of the News Boys puts on a Christmas hat, stands on a box, and begins to give a little speech (the same one written for Linus in the old Charlie Brown Christmas special).

Red Car News Boys Christmas 1

He’s only a few sentences in when another News Boy declares that Christmas is a time for joy and fun, not speeches. Then he grabs the speaker’s hat and runs about singing joyous holiday celebratory songs!

Red Car News Boys Christmas 3

In the grand finale, Mickey starts to wonder if there’s really a point to him going home. “I mean,” he squeaks, “with all the holiday cheer, everyone seems so happy whether or not I’m here.”

Red Car News Boys Christmas 3

That’s when the show takes a page right out of  the script for It’s a Wonderful Life. Mickey and the News Boys disappear, and for ten minutes the audience is left to contemplate what the world would be like without them.

It’s an awesome show with a very original punch at the end. Don’t miss it!

Under the DCA tree

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

We are very impressed with the new holiday decorations in Disney California Adventure. The attention to detail is something we haven’t seen since the old days when they used to make Country Bears anatomically correct down to the last tick.

By way of illustration, take a look at just some of the many interesting items on and beneath DCA’s Christmas tree:

In just this one image you can see a number of Disney and Disneyland references, including (clockwise from top left):

  • The Red Car Trolley
  • The poll from the old Main Street Barber Shop
  • One of the title characters from Angels in the Outfield
  • The farm from Home on the Range
  • Donald Duck (squashed almost flat from the iconic falling-piano scene in The Music Box)
  • Thomas the Tank Engine

Mighty impressive, isn’t it?