Posts Tagged ‘Halloween’

Billy ghosts gaff

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

Here’s a neat addition to Halloweentime at Disneyland this year — a special “haunted” version of Billy Hill and the Hillbillies!

Billy Hill and the Haunted Hillbillies

The “Ghost Billys” effect makes use of a very large-scale “Pepper’s ghost” effect (similar to the ballroom scene in the Haunted Mansion and, outside Disneyland, in Knott’s Berry Farm’s Mystery Lodge where clever reflections are used to make it appear that the show is playing to a large audience). The trick involves a gigantic angled pane of perfectly clear glass and requires the Billys to do the entire show lying on their backs in a pit below stage level.

Halloween favorites

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

This year’s Halloween party at Disneyland is a big success, and the DisneyLies team enjoyed it thoroughly. Our five favorite things that were new for the party this year are:

  • Rotating Innoventions building full of treat stations so guests can just stand still and collect candy as it passes by
  • Many Disney characters in their Halloween costumes (Count Donald Duckula, Goofy Bane, Bambi the Vampire Slayer, etc.)
  • Frontierland’s Flaming Pumpkin-Head Trebuchet
  • Pitch-dark Jungle Cruise
  • Tarzan’s Treathouse

A pumpkin on Main Street

Saturday, October 1st, 2011

A pumpkin on Main Street

Pumpkins like these line Disneyland’s Main Street as part of the Halloweentime celebration. They’re nice and all, but did you know that they are more than just jolly seasonal decorations?

Each and every Main Street pumpkin is a caricature of a prominent person from Disneyland’s past, placed as a tribute to their contribution. It is considered a great honor to receive a “pumpkin on Main Street,” and every September Disneyland has a little ceremony in which new “pumpkinheads” are inducted.

Guests aren’t expected to recognize all the faces (although X. Atencio, Mary Blair, Wally Boag, and Carl “Cubby” O’Brien are pretty obvious in the above photo), but a handy guide is available at no charge at City Hall.

Cheatin’ punkins

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

The cabin at Big Thunder Ranch has been nicely decorated for Halloween. Inside are a number of vintage seasonal posters and doodads, as well as a few little scenes. Now, Disneyland generally does a  very good job of decorating, paying attention to all those little details that make everything there so magical. But, in this case — well, just take a look:

Cheating pumpkins

Okay, we get that the pumpkin guys are playing cards, and that the guy on the left is a cheater (as indicated by the card poking out from beneath his hat). But it all falls apart when you notice what he’s holding in his left hand. Here, take a look:

 

Cheating pumpkin details

The idea, we can only assume, is that the cheatin’ punkin’ is using a mirror to look at his companion’s cards. Well then, why the heck is he pointing the powder-holding portion of the compact at the other guy’s hand instead of pointing the mirror there? And, even more important, what the heck is a male pumpkin doing with a woman’s compact??? Seriously — you don’t think the other pumpkin would notice something was out of place? Particularly since, as everyone knows, pumpkins don’t wear makeup in the first place!!!

Come on, Disneyland, you’re better than this. The least you can do is close the park down for a few hours — you know, on an emergency basis — and get this taken care of before you embarrass yourself any further. While you’re at it, we’d like to know where the rest of the deck of cards is, too.

If we had time, we could say a whole lot more about the little Halloween area’s minor shortcomings. Those pumpkins that the guy is spending so much time carving taste terrible. Also, that “cow” is totally fake. And don’t even get us started on the goats wearing bandanas, as if goats know how to tie square knots!

Cthulhu at Disneyland?

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

We needed to do a little further research before we continued the Disneyland Tour that we began some months ago and then abruptly abandoned like a duckling the day after Easter, so we have spent a few days at Disneyland over the past few weeks, getting the latest baloney on many tems.

While there, we noticed a number of interesting things which we will post about for a day or two.

One of the interesting things we noticed was in the Halloween-themed area of Big Thunder Ranch. In a pumpkin-carving area, we noticed this particular bit of artwork:

Cthulhu at Disneyland

Upon seeing this, we had to ask ourselves, “What is a carving of Cthulhu doing at Disneyland?” And having asked ourselves this, we had to ask the pumpkin-carving castmember about it. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then made some sorry excuse about it being a carving of a pirate! Since when is Cthulhu a pirate?

Given this evidence (combined with Disney’s well-known avoidance of trademark/copyright violation), I think it is more than safe to assume that Disneyland has obtained the rights to all of H.P. Lovecraft’s literary works and will be building some kind of Lovecraft-themed extension to either Disneyland or Disney California Adventure.

Lovecraft land will definitely be an awesome addition to the resort. We look forward to riding the Madness Mountain rollercoaster (safety spiel: “Remain seated please; ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”) and drinking a glass of Miska-tonic with our Dunwich Sandwich at the Innsmouth Inn!

Antimatterhorn

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Disneyland antimatterhorn test

After sneaking into Disneyland more than an hour before opening (it’s amazing what you can do when you’re disguised as a planter), our Official DisneyLies Photographer managed to snap a picture of an Imagineering test of the new Antimatterhorn.

This Matterhorn overlay — accomplished in minutes thanks to billions of carefully installed, computer-controlled black-light LEDs — is intended for use during this year’s Halloween festivities. Rumor has it that, when the Matterhorn is in “evil” mode, the mountain will not only look evil, but the cars will also be fitted with super-bumpy wheels and the Yeti will have a really, really bad haircut (sort of an “abominable mullet,” according to an Imagineer).