Disney Lies

Finishing off our tour of DCA’s Little Mermaid attraction…

The “Kiss the Girl” scene is nicely done but very inappropriate. Major organizations (such as No Contact Before Marriage and the Defense Against Cooties Foundation) agree that explicit depictions of smooching may border on life scarring for children below voting age.

The actual kiss is depicted in silhouette form. A bit of trivia: this gigantic animated silhouette was cut from a single piece of black construction paper by the nice lady who makes silhouettes on Main Street.

In the back, there’s a little reference to Syndrome from The Incredibles. What’s up with that?

Ariel’s dad, Neptune, is totally ripped. This kind of idealized body image is what gives feelings of inadequacy to so many adolescent mermen.

The final wedding scene is cute, but the prince shows his lack of thespian experience by always looking right at the camera.

There’s a mysterious cabinet visible near the end of the attraction. If we are interpreting the markings correctly, this is a storage space for both the original manuscript of The Little Mermaid and Hans Christian Andersen’s head.

As you exit, notice the sea chest with the gigantic lock. It’s obviously full of treasure, but they don’t let guests have any. This is grossly unfair — teasing, really — and it left a bit of a sour taste in our mouth, which was unfortunate as the attraction had otherwise been so nice. (Also notice the attraction’s final hidden Mickey. Seriously — enough already!)

The attraction has only fifteen vehicles, but they are made to look like many more through the clever use of mirrors.

The attraction is narrated by a creepy, beady-eyed musical bird for some reason. Nobody we interviewed for the compilation of facts within this expose was able to tell us why (largely because they were too busy looking at is as if we were insane).

The attraction vehicles turn around and slip below the waves, complements of a special effect that, while brilliantly executed, is crammed with far too many tiny little hidden Mickeys for our taste.

As you descend into the sea, Arial can be seen overhead, accompanied by what appears to be a chambered nautilus and carrying a purse to help remind little princesses of their responsibility to accessorize.

Within Ariel’s undersea lair can be seen many of her treasures (forks, ruined books, jugs full of seawater), cleverly scavenged from among the many survivor-less shipwrecks that have drifted down to her domain.

In the “under the sea” room, Sebastian the crab faces a row of electric eels and, with his little baton, conducts electricity.

In the grand showroom, Ariel sings, dances, and sports a hairdo modeled after the shell of the fly-specked cerith.

Why is this fish kissing the front half of an old, barnacle-covered swan statue? We don’t know.

Ursula, the villain in this little tableau, is introduced in a dark, spooky scene in which she is depicted as being larger than the water-covered video globe of the Earth. We don’t understand this either.

Tomorrow, the exciting climax to this thrilling adventure!

Now that the queue for the Little Mermaid attraction at DCA is finally averaging less than two hours, we thought it would be nice to make a little photo tour of the attraction for those of you who have neither been to the park recently nor seen any of the other photo tours, videos, or detailed reviews copiously available online and in travel guides, AAA publications, and Disney-fan magazines.

The entrance to the attraction is very attractive, although here and there we could see a little room for additional quality control.

Within the entrance is a mosaic floor in which scenes from the film have been created entirely with natural sea-sourced materials, such as seaweed, shells, and bits of the Titanic.

Here’s a little bit of trivia for you, this marker embedded in the ground at the attraction’s entrance marks the exact, precise, geographic center of Disney California Adventure.

Within the show building, we immediately spotted this lamp, which serves as a hint of the one problem this attraction has — too darned many hidden Mickeys. Sure, we love hidden Mickeys as much as the next guy so long as the next guy isn’t Michael Eisner, but in this attraction they are just ubiquitous.

The level of detail in the queue is incredible, although we can’t quite understand why the rails are decorated with these little cacti.

As the vehicle boarding area approaches, there is a large mural decorated with this lovely painting of Arial, the Little Mermaid herself. As a subtle environmental message, the LM’s mermaid face glows gently, to help make riders aware of the problems caused by dumping radioactive materials into the planet’s oceans.

Coming tomorrow — the actual attraction!