Disneyland announced yesterday that the Alice in Wonderland attraction would be closed for a few days so that they could install handrails on the recommendation of OSHA (which, according to a tearful blond child in a blue dress who was on the scene, stands for Overlords of Satan’s Hateful Anklebiters). Apparently, there was a complaint filed by the mother of a young girl who, while walking up the winding path of “leaves” outside the attraction in pursuit of a rabbit, fell down a rabbit hole and (likely due to a blow to the head) suffered from delusions of fighting living cards and chess pieces and meeting Johnny Depp. Later the mother admitted that her daughter had often dreamed about Johnny Depp before the accident as well, but Disney decided to go ahead and install some hand rails, just in case.
Archive for the ‘Disneyland’ Category
Making life safe for Alice
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010Beat the Disneyland Heat
Friday, July 16th, 2010Disneyland Resort may experience record temperatures this summer — some of them expected to drive the Toontown thermometer all the way up to “Volcano Heat.” To help you avoid ruining your vacation by falling over dead, DisneyLies offers a few tips for keeping cool at Disneyland.
- Don’t forget sunscreen! And when you remember it, don’t forget to use it! And when you remember to use it, don’t forget to use it on yourself! And when you remember to use it on yourself, don’t forget to use it on areas that are exposed to the sun! (Filling your t-shirt with sunscreen may be fun, but it offers little solar protection.)
- Drink plenty of water. Water may be purchased throughout the park, but you can also bring a bottle of your own and refill it from drinking fountains or, if you are immune to all disease, the Rivers of America.
- At Disney California Adventure, stop by Guest Services and see if you can arrange for them to run the World of Color show a couple of times while the sun is still high. Then stand on Paradise Pier and run for stray water sprays.
- Take the inner tube out of one of your car’s tires, inflate it, and go on Grizzly River Run by yourself. If you’re at Disneyland, stand in line for Finding Nemo, and when a cast member says it’s your turn to get on the submarine, tell them you’d rather walk. For a more leisurely splashing, ride the Jungle Cruise and taunt the elephants until they squirt you in the face.
- Avoid large fires. Whether it’s a flame blast from Mara or a fire started in a trash can by one of Main Street’s charming turn-of-the-century “hobos,” you should stay away. You probably don’t want to go in any settlers’ cabins — they may look fine now, but have burst into flames in the past. And definitely avoid setting yourself on fire. Sure, Disney now owns Marvel, but this is no time to be playing “Human Torch!”
- If you tell cast members that you are a student doing intense research on American history, they will let you sit in the Main Street Opera House for many, many showings of wonderfully air-conditioned Lincoln.
- Stop by a vendor selling bottled soda and ask politely if you can stick your face in their ice bucket.
- Visit the enormous refrigerated room where Walt is kept.
- Remember that nobody can see you when you’re in an omnimover vehicle. There’s no reason not to take off your shirt, shoes, and pants on the Haunted Mansion. (Well, aside from legal reasons.)
- Run amok on Main Street. When security apprehends you, ask to be put in the “cooler.”
- If you have a job as a costumed character who is required to stand in the sun and sign autographs, consider early retirement.
- For maximum heat avoidance, get to the park early, fide a shady spot to sit, and don’t move until dark.
Go Away Green
Thursday, July 15th, 2010According to a recent article by an unimpeachable source, Disneyland uses a certain color of paint called “go away green” or “noseeum green” to hide things from guests. The door to Club 33, the Indiana Jones show building, and the Main Street recycling and composting facility are all examples of things that Disney has painted green in the hope that guests won’t notice them.
Is it true that Disney attempts to deceive guests so nefariously? According to a message we recently received over covert Disney radio channels, yes! “After carefully examining every part of the spectrum angstrom by angstrom,” says one of Disneyland’s crack team of research chemists, “we discovered a particular shade of green that people tend not to notice. This is the color the army uses to hide soldiers. It’s the color of the Loch Ness monster.”
Have you noticed anything at Disneyland that’s painted Go Away Green? No, you haven’t. That’s the point.
Towel Day!
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010Happy Towel Day, everyone! As per park tradition, anyone who jumps into Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom’s or Disneyland’s Rivers of America and goes in over their head at any time during normal park daylight operating hours today will receive a free commemorative towel to wear as they are escorted from the park. (Those who jump in after dark may receive their towel posthumously.)
Enjoy!
Lost peition lost
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010The Around Disney blog has an article looking at the recent online petition to have Disneyland’s Frontierland converted into “Lostland” as a tribute to the soon-to-be-defunct television show. Quoting (very) loosely from the post, “The petition gained a lot of signatures, but ultimately went nowhere. It broke up while in the air, never to be seen again, possibly eaten by a smog monster or polar bear or something.”
A Disneyland spokesperson speaking on condition of antimony tells us that the petition lacked the broad appeal necessary to convince Disneyland that it was worth more than the paper it wasn’t printed on. “That didn’t have to be the case,” said the spokesperson. “We’ve listened to online fans in the past, such as when we canceled plans for the ‘Rapping Abe Lincoln’ overlay on Main Street. And we’re still listening. There’s a current online petition demanding a course of action that we are in fact moving forward with (I’ll give you a hint — the oldest attraction in the park may soon be Betty White).”
Politics at Disneyland?
Friday, May 14th, 2010
Take a close look at this poster, which can be seen in a scene passed by the Disneyland Railroad.
Coincidence? Subtle pro-President propaganda? Reference to obscure figure in Western history? Can anyone explain this? Could it be that we have located Disneyland’s first “hidden Obama?”
Cupcake madness!
Thursday, May 13th, 2010
Disneyland has come a long way in recent years, and there have been many improvements, but there are still some things that need urgent attention but are somehow being ignored. For example, take a look at these cupcakes from Disneyland’s Main Street candy store. See the column of cakes second from the left? Now look at the far right at the row of cupcakes you can just make out reflected in the glass. Both of these rows feature cupcakes that do not have Mickey toppers. No problem there — or so you would think, until you realize that these two columns of thematically linked cakes are completely separated from each other by four columns of cupcakes with Mickey toppers!!!!
What the heck kind of grouping is that? Who’s in charge in this place? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from anarchy!
Seriously, we want to hear from a cast member who can reassure us that not only has this hideous situation been rectified, but that policies have been put in place to prevent its reocurrance. If you have the authority to issue such a statement, please send it to us via certified mail or leave it in this post’s comments.
New uniforms!
Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Along with the improvements to the river, Disneyland has rolled out new cast-member costumes for Pirate’s Lair on Tom Sawyer Island staff. The new pilot’s costume (seen at left) is woodsy, attractive, clean, and in keeping with the island’s rustic nature. The on-island staff (seen at right) has costumes that are rugged but also easy to spot even on the most crowded days, during torrential rainfall, or at the bottom of a cave’s bottomless pit. Great stuff!
Hiding hidden Mickeys
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010One of the most delightful “hidden Mickeys” at Disneyland is in the riverboat painting that adorns a small building beside the Mark Twain’s dock. Well, that particular Mickey is delightful no longer. Just look where it was moved during the recent river refurbishment:
Notice the difference? Now you can’t see Mickey unless you are able to levitate — and the majority of park guests are unable to do that, particularly over water, and there’s no hope at all for those in wheel chairs and strollers!
We asked Elite Mousmasta, Disneyland’s head of Imagineering’s liason department’s interface to blogs’ management’s temporary assistant, why it is that this bit of joy was removed from Disneyland guests’ grasp. “To put it simply,” said Elite, “hidden Mickeys aren’t there for guests, they’re there for cast members. If you don’t have a boat and a ladder and access to the park after closing and a flashlight, then perhaps you should just take a hint that this particular inside joke was intended for a different audience.”
It’s not the first time Disney has removed a hidden Mickey from public view. Said Elite, “When Disney/MGM studios was first built, there was a gigantic hidden Mickey that could only be seen if you hovered over the park in a helicopter. Then guests discovered it with Google maps and other satellite-imaging tools, and it just ruined the fun for the rest of us. Why go to the trouble of taking the cast-member helicopter out for a spin if everyone and their brother can just see it online anyway? So we stuck a giant hat in the middle of it and otherwise removed its hidden Mickeyness. To heck wit it. These days, all we seem to have left are the hidden Mickeys back stage and the ones on castmember underclothing. But perhaps I’ve said too much.”
Disney only recognizes corrections from little girls
Monday, May 10th, 2010A recent UPI story describes how a fourth grader spotted a grammar mistake in signage at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, prompting immediate response from management, including the shutting down of the attraction and erecting a safety perimeter until such time as corrective measures could be taken. Well goody for her.
It’s not that we’re bitter or anything, but we’ve been complaining to Disney for years, using every means of communication imaginable, about the horrible grammar mistake in their annual Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay, and we haven’t gotten so much as a “thank you” letter (and no, the restraining order doesn’t count). This revelation that Disney might have listened to us if we were a little girl is the last straw — we are sending the company an ultimatum. This year, if the grammatically obscene description of Jack’s decorations as “unlike no other” is not corrected in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion Holiday, the entire staff of DisneyLies.com pledges that we will never, again, so long as any of us shall live, dump our deceased friends’ and relatives’ cremains in the Haunted Mansion. Not even once. So there.
