Keep Calm And...

You've all seen versions of this floating around, so I thought I would make my version of it. Grab a copy and enjoy- just remember you saw it here first!

Keep Calm And...

Walt Story

Earlier this summer my Dad asked me if he'd ever told me the story of where he was when Walt had died. For some reason that story had slipped through the cracks. It's a very picturesque story, I had never thought about the effect Walt's passing would have on the generation that grew up with him as a persona first hand. My Dad has been kind enough to retell it again and I thought it fitting for today.

"As you know, my family moved to Anaheim when I was in the second grade (about 1952). Our little house was only a couple of miles from where they built Disneyland. We went to the park fairly often. Getting in the gate wasn’t a big expense (the original gate price was a buck!), because each ride required a separate ticket. From an A ticket to an E-ticket the coupon books were a passport to what was for me, indeed, a magic kingdom. One advantage of being a local kid was that we would often end our day hanging out near the exit gate, where people from out of town, or out of state, would often look into our little waif-like eyes and give us their left over cupon books! Tom Sawyer’s Island was a “cheap ticket” (I don’t remember which, but near the bottom in value) and so for a buck and one ticket we could spend the day playing on Tom’s Island! There was even a way to sneak into the park – but I’ll go to my grave with that secret! I’m sure the security is much improved these days, and I’m too old to climb fences.

I grew up as pretty much a poster-kid for the generation that “lived” the Mickey Mouse Club, the Disneyland TV show on Sunday nights, and “The Wonderful World of Color” a little later on. Spin and Marty, Davy Crocket, Mike Fink and his keel boats, and the Hardy Boys were my after-school fare. And while going to Disneyland was always special – it was also a normal part of my kid-context.

For my entire growing-up life, Walt Disney was there and a major influence in what I did, watched and loved. He was in institution, even though at that age I didn’t know what an institution was. He was an ever-present good thing in my life that I pretty much took for granted.

I shipped out to Viet Nam on November 3, 1966. Our troop ship arrived later that month and from going ashore through early December we pushed further north into the northern half of South Viet Nam. Needless to say, the adjustment from civilian life to a wartime environment, from American culture to a starkly primitive (where I was located) Asian culture, was a HUGE shift in my reality. We were also in the monsoon season and it was humid, wet, mud-up-to-your-butt, nasty weather conditions. Add to that my being assigned to a unit were all of the others were from Chicago and Philly and New Jersey! My southern-California-self felt as though I were a foreigner in my own “American” Army unit; in a strange land; with strange weather; with people trying to kill me. Not a real high point in my life. (Smile) There was a lot of adjusting, questioning, and wondering going on internally as I worked hard to do well externally.

As the Christmas holiday approached the weather worsened, the general conditions deteriorated, and “interior ponderings” deepened.

The military publishes a news rag called “Stars and Stripes,” that was delivered along with sundries packages (tooth paste, shaving cream, candy – that kind of stuff) that were air lifted in to us, or dropped from planes overhead if the landing conditions were non-existent.

That sets the stage.

It was getting dark one evening, I was literally up to my knees in stinking mud, soaking wet, dog-tired. Doing OK, but not especially great, and doing my best to make that adjustment to a world turned upside-down in general. It was Christmas Eve. Someone in our compound had put a couple of home-made Christmas ornaments on a very pathetic looking Charlie Brown, three foot tall palm-Christmas tree. It was more sad than either funny or cheerful. It was then that someone handed me the latest issue of “Stars and Stripes," and in it was the announcement of Walt’s death. I can still remember exactly where I was standing (rare for me) and how I felt. It was like someone had said that Santa Claus had died. Impossible to contemplate on the one hand, and tragic in a “deep place” on the other hand. It didn’t seem possible. I can remember thinking distinctly that, given the circumstances this was just about the bottom of life’s barrel. I was deeply sad for a couple of weeks. I’m still sad when I think of it . . . I had never really thought much about the man. I had always taken what he had provided to enrich my life for granted. And now he was gone. I felt as though I had known him personally, somehow, and the loss was very real. I suspect the same is true for many of my age."

Stay Tuned

It's been a crazy year! Work, family, kids, commute... I'm in total denial it's November already.

I plan to get back in the saddle a bit more, so for the one or two of you who still drop by- stay tuned. I have handful of posts that I never managed to finish (it's literally been years) as well as many ideas and thoughts I've yet to cover.

There's a great big beautiful tomorrow...

Oh Dear!

Tomorrow Disney releases the latest Winnie the Pooh movie. Now don't get me wrong, I love 2D, I love old school, and I will see this movie but I have to predict this thing is dead on arrival. It's almost as if there is a death wish for Disney 2D animation.

Winnie the Pooh vs HP7

Princess and the Frog vs Avatar

Oh dear!

Of all the movies you would want to avoid with in the last 10 years I can't think of anything worse to release against. Who in their right mind decides to put out Winnie the Pooh, a DVD offering as far as the public is concerned, the same weekend as Harry Potter? The idea that families will see this as an alternative is asinine for many reasons and so is the myth that it has to with maintaining the rights.

Designer Land-Tiki Room Sound Board

If you haven't jumped over and and taken a look at Richard's DesignerLand site- do it!

He has a line called Retro 71' with all kinds of cool designs based around retro Disney World apparel. He does amazing case studies on the typography of all the parks and rides and he has soundboards for certain rides- something I've been wishing Disney would do for a long time. This is the exact type of thing Disney needs to start getting on board with.

Hey Disney hire this guy!! And have him redo your parks website while you're at it.

Hipsta-Magic

Hipstamatic is one of the most fun camera apps available. It makes taking photos almost addicting. With the square format it's almost hard to take a bad picture, and it makes your photo look old school- what's not to love. Here are a few from Disneyland, I'll post some WDW ones later in the week...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year!

The Glorious Mr. Lincoln

It's time to catch up on a bit of news that I haven't had time to post about...

Mr. Lincoln is back in his rightful home! Out with Mr. Martin and in with the Mr. Lincoln. The world seems to be back in its proper order now. It is as if we had been rotating off axis ever since a certain little birthday celebration. Things are now back to the way they should be.

I take it as a reassuring sign, in these days where I disagree with almost everything that is going on in the parks, that there are some within the bowels of WDI that still get it, still care, and that they have some degree of clout to pull off the preservation of these little things.

My "top hats" off to the team that put my Mr. Lincoln back where he belongs. He looks better than ever. Now- just don't touch him. Leave him alone. Don't change a gesture, a brow shape, a blink! Just leave a good thing be- for a long, long time to come!

Set It In The Past!

I'm sure it's not news to anyone by now, but Mr. Guillermo Del Toro is set to direct a new incarnation of Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Given how hard the first attempt was botched, and lets not forget how it bad it was, heads should have rolled with some of the basic bad decisions that were made before it left development. I'm sure after the Pirates films hit there were many a Disney exec that had a severe bout of the shoulda-coulda-woulda's in regard to the franchise that Mansion could have been. Time has passed, transgessions and blasphemies have been learned from and the second go around seems to have the deck stacked!

The main character will be the Hot Box Ghost- slam dunk! The other thing I know Mr. Del Toro will not miss (besides not involving Eddie Murhpey) is to set the film in the past! It should be a cardinal rule that any classic Disney ride that is developed into a film be set in the past.

The rumors of Jungle Cruise movie still linger and I'm sure if Del Toro's HM is a hit it, the likely hood will dramatically increase. If that ever comes to light, please guys, set it in the past!! And get Christopher Walken as the skipper... oh and make sure Shrunken Ned gets in the script too! That's just gold.

“Dispatch from Disneyland"

One of the first things I noticed when I started this blog was how kind and friendly everyone was in the Disney Blog community. People have been so helpful with sharing information linking posts etc it really is a fun little community of us geeks!

I love the idea of crowd funding and have seen it in action with animators getting their own short films funded, produced, and distributed. It's an amazing way of directly supporting unique projects. Which is why we need to support one of our own. John Frost over at the Disney Blog is crowd funding his new book "Dispatch from Disneyland: The Fireworks Spot and Other Tales.”

Jump over to John's post here for more info... or you can donate directly here. The best part is if you already have an Amazon account you can sign in and donate in about 1 second using your Amazon info.

Land of the Broken Yeti

I’ve recently returned from the land of the broken Yeti- aka Animal Kingdom. It had been 8 years since I'd last been to WDW. There were a handful of new attractions I was very eager to see. And there were some attractions I found disappointingly still in existence. One of the biggest things I had been looking forward to was Expedition Everest.

The country regions of Animal Kingdom I find absolutely amazing. To me it hearkens back to the core feeling that Walt Disney intended in his parks -a wonderment of the world about us, of times and far reaching places that don’t need brands and tie-ins to justify their marketability. I’m sure there were some within WDI that would have much rather seen this:


But alas Joe Rhode’s vision was left alone and an unbranded creative vision emerged -the likes we have not really seen since!. An E-ticket ride with no tie-in, with no Pixar characters, with no 3d technology, no game element. A simple idea based on a mythical legend set in an intriguing local.... So you can imagine I was very enthused to get strapped in and take a whirl through the land of the ferocious Yeti. The ride, the surroundings, the detail were all exquisite- the structure and the line itself were a true reassurance that Imagineer’s, unobstructed, left to do what they do best- do their best!

The ride was absolutely amazing except for the fact that I never saw the alleged Yeti! I assume since the allusive Yeti wasn’t working the lights were kept off him? I did see his elbow one time when someone’s flash went off as they were taking a picture. I went on it three times and on three different days and he was never working. Talk about a disappointment. The Yeti is the star of the show, his size and ferocity is inferred with the destruction of the tracks and fleeting footprints, his silhouette is hinted at for a brief moment, you hear him grumbling around certain turns, and then… nothing! Maybe an elbow if you’re lucky.

So I asked around only to hear my Yeti is “…usually broken, more often than not!” How disappointing.

After the third and last time I gave the Yeti to show himself, to no avail, we headed around the back of the attraction. It was so frustrating to walk around a corner and see a giant jarring Cal-Trans orange Dinosaur and cheesy carnival game after cheesy carnival game with the mountebank like employee’s huckstering you over to play over load speakers. That corner transported me from the Himalayas to Camp Snoopy in 2.2 seconds.

It's no wonder it looked like a ghost town. I couldn’t help but think that the cost of design, construction, and day-to-day pay roll for this "land" could pay to fix the Yeti that people were waiting 2+ hours to not see. This is precisely the garbage Walt reacted to while sitting on that bench with his daughters that inspired him to make something better.







It’s a shame that one of Disney’s best additions runs broken most of the time. The Yeti needs to be fixed. "Fix the Yeti Campaign" anyone?

Change

I was at the park this past weekend and I noticed a handful of recent changes. Some of the changes were a nice sign of things to come and others a not so nice sign of things to come.

-There are new gates/doors on the trams! Yeah! I don't know how so many people survived without these for so many years. They are really fun with strollers too since the doors don't stay open.

-The rails for the red cars are slowly being dropped into California Adventure. I'm utterly blah about the changes on the backside of DCA but the new Hollywood area I have high hopes for. Definitely a good sign.

-And there are Marvel toys on the shelves inside the parks. That didn't take long did it? This was not surprising but still disappointing to see. I wouldn't mind if they were in a store in Downtown-Not-So-Disney. But in the parks is a whole new can of worms!

The Sound of Music?

This post is a little off the usual topic but...

I'm very excited to see The Princess and the Frog. It is Disney's return to 2D, to fairytales, and to musicals, which are the three main ingredients of the classic Disney films (assuming a good story). In essence, this is Disney's “return to Disney.”

The marketing department at The Mouse has done a great job of selling the return to 2D, as well as the fact that it is a "classic," "beloved," fairytale of old. But for me they have really dropped the ball in not pushing the musical side of this film. I don't watch a ton of TV, but it is hard not to see trailers for this film. And, every one that I have seen has no clips of any of the musical/singing sequences. You see the characters dancing, etc., but you never hear any of the music!

In my humble opinion, this is a big mistake. Music has, and always will be, one of the major draws to both the Disney parks and films. I remember all the trailers of the 2nd Golden Age of Disney animated films showing little bits of all the great music scenes. Showing the ballroom sequence in Beauty and the Beast, the Genie's singing antics in “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin, and Timon and Pumba singing “Hakuna Mata” in Lion King, were great ways of getting people excited about the movies.

Marketing departments usually never miss a beat. They sell it from every possible angle, and then some, which why it seems a little surprising the music hasn't really been emphasized for The Princess and the Frog – or, maybe it's just me…?

Still Kicking

I know, I know its been awhile. I did have to think for a second about my login to do this post. But, despite emails asking "how the play was" I 'm still around and kicking. Stay tuned for some posts in the next few weeks!

Unheard Walt's Words- Money & Stockholders

"There are some people that sit and worship money as something you've got to have piled up in a big pile somewhere. I've only thought of money in one way, and that is to do something with it. You see, I don't think there is a thing that I own that I'll ever get the benefit of except through doing things with it." -Walt Disney

"Well as far as my stockholders go I've felt we'll never pay these dividends until that company is right. Because, I felt that we must build it up and we can't borrow money to pay dividends. Just what to appease some stockholder who wants his dividend. I'm building him assets. Their stock is worth a lot more today than it was. Now that's what I feel is my obligation to them. My brother and I have been right together in that right from the get-go. And we've felt that assets is the thing that we are responsible for not appeasing some stockholder. We're not afraid of the stockholder coming in to us because we know we're doing what's right for the company." -Walt Disney

(From a 1961 Interview with Peter Martin)

Unheard Walt's Words- Sequels

"That's one thing I've never believed in, is sequels to things. I've never believed in doing sequels. I didn't want to waste the time I had doing the sequel. I'd rather be using that time I had doing something new and different... they wanted me to make more (films) with the dwarfs in it, and I said no... and it worked out." -Walt Disney

(From a 1961 interview with Peter Martin)

Cryogenically Frozen

Disney appears to have realized the potential of marketing merchandise outside the "slap a character on it and sell it to the masses" mentality. Case-in-point is the emergence of a more specific, younger and stylized target audience, as manifested by the Vault 28, Tren D, and D23 retail offerings.

I'm encouraged to see that Disney has realized the huge fan base it has and that they're channeling into it with D23. I still think there is a market that is untapped...and that is the uber Disney park fans.... "Permanecer sentados por favor" ... yeah you know who you are!

Here is an example from Cryogenically Frozen on Cafe Press showing the specific fan- based merchandise. D23 would be a perfect outlet to try something like this that is so specific that only the super Disney fans will get it. Come on Disney, take a stab at it you'll be surprised!


There are a lot more designs at Cryogenically Frozen make sure to check them out, and order your favorites!

And The Survey Says?

And the Survey says... too many survey takers!

I visited Disneyland this week. After waiting a half an hour for the single tram that was operating, going through the security check point, and then finally getting through the main gate we were greeted by a swarm of survey takers. They started asking us questions about our "experience" before we had both feet in the park. 

Having the survey people literally a foot and a half from the turnstiles, almost asking you questions before your ticket is even handed back to you is tacky. Walt and the gang at WED designed the main gate very consciously, utilizing the two tunnels under the Disneyland Railroad as a method of transporting guests out of the ordinary world. Entering the parks these days is arduous enough and having these survey takers pester you the second you're finally where you want to be is a little less than magical.

If you are going to be so blunt with your survey etiquette, then the survey takers should simply cut to the chase and just ask what they are really asking:

1. How little time did you spend at California Adventure?

2. How little time did you spend at Downtown Disney?

3. Do you think admission is over priced?

If you feel the need to ask these questions, you've probably already answered your own questions.

If the surveys help make the parks better, cool. But why not ask people about their experience after their experience? For example when they are exiting the park! Or better yet don't contaminate the park with them at all. Why not poll people if you must, when they are outside the gates and waiting 45 minutes for the tram to get back to their cars? 

Meet Adolfo Procopio

If you haven't checked out my link to Masked Avenger Studio by now... well you should have! Masked Avenger Studios is founded by my friend, and former supervisor, Ruben Procopio. Ruben has had a rich history with Disney Animation Studios as a sculptor, character designer, clean-up lead, animator... you name it he's done it. Ruben started working for Disney Studios at the age of 18 and was trained under Eric Larson, one of the "Nine Old Men."

I knew Ruben had a long history with Disney when I started working with him. But what I didn't know at first was that Disney is a family matter for the Procopio's. As it happens Ruben is a "chip off the old block," the proverbial "apple" that didn't fall far from the tree and Ruben's sister Vivian also worked for Disney for 16 years, first in the IRC (Information Research Library) at Imagineering and then at the ARL (Animation Research Library.)

Meet Ruben and Vivian's father Mr. Adolfo Procopio, master sculptor and Imagineer for over 35 years. The average Disney fan may not know it but Adolfo's creations have been literally staring you in the face for years. Adolfo started at Disney in the 1960's and has had a hand in the creation of Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, MGM Studios, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. Adolfo has contributed to almost every classic Disney ride that we have all come to know and love like the Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Spaceship Earth, Universe of Energy, The Great Movie Ride (Humphrey Bogart) , American Adventures, America Sings, and Pirates of the Caribbean (just to name a few).

One of the highlights of Adolfo's career at Disney is a portrait of Walt Disney himself. It was created using an old art form where a slab of black granite is taken and using specially tipped tools the surface is hit and tiny molecules are broken off creating a white effect on the marble. The result is like a negative with tens of thousands of little points, all done by hand, that form the final image. The piece was intended as a gift for Walt Disney, it took almost a year to create, but unfortunately Walt passed away before its completion. The Disney family promised to put the piece in a prominent place and it has hung in the entry way of the original Animation building on the studio lot in Burbank ever since.

Our hat's off to one of the untold legends of Imagineering history- Adolfo Procopio. Thank you Adolfo for your amazing work and dedication to all the "Happiest Places on Earth." I know your work will continue to inspire and entertain for generations to come. If you'd like to see more of Adolfo's work there is a great slide show at the Masked Avenger Studio's website.

(Please be respectful of these unique family images that have been shared for this post. No images may be copied, removed, or reused without consent of Masked Avenger Studios. All characters are property of their respective owners.)

Inspired By The Past, Optimistic For The Future

I usually don't do posts with links to other blogs, mainly because there are so many good ones and I can never keep up. But there are two posts I read this weekend, and although they are very different in content they seem oddly related. Both encapsulate many frustrations I have with the Disney Parks while also conveying optimism that things can be better.

The first post is from Cory over at Voyages Extraordinaires. It is the one year anniversary of his blog and he has a great post summarizing his goal for the site, you should give it a read:


"The loss of romance and wonder in the world is entirely a matter of perspective. We may opt to be cynical and jaded and believe that the world doesn't have a new trick to show us... or we may come to grasp the great truism that any place you have not actually been to is a blank spot on the map, any piece of information you have not learned is uncharted territory. In the words of our prophet G.K. Chesterton: "The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder."

The second is from Epcot Central it's an "off-the-cuff list of the Top 10 Changes EPCOT Central would love to see at EPCOT -- presented with a hope that you'll share your own additions, and that EPCOT will continue moving forward into a brighter, more exciting future." Go give it a read as well.