Say It Fast

A great detail from the amazing queue of Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin at Disneyland...

You know the drill:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled pepper?
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper,
Where's the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?

and

Toy boat. Toy boat. Toy boat.

Repeat them three times and click here again in the morning!

Postosaurus

Andrew and I were introduced to Restaurantosaurus at the Animal Kingdom by Jeff and Jessica during MouseFest 2007.

We were completely bowled over. The backstory is that the restaurant is really the dormitory for the graduate students at the Dino Institute. Being a raucous and rowdy group of paleontology students, they decorated their new home with found items and a wry sense of humor.

Naturally, since they are surrounded by dinosaurs all day, the brought some of their work home with them. Some items lent themselves quite naturally to the dinosaur theme.

Juneosaurus

Exitosaurus

Arctic Boyosaurus

Automobileosaurus

Fragileosaurus

The trend also continues over at the Boneyard play area:

Personnelosaurus

Pictures taken by Georgeosaurus and Andrewosaurus.

Eye In the Sky

On our last trip, we spent a lot of time waiting on the parking lot trams since we drove down and had access to our vehicle. I had noticed these funny crane-looking contraptions when Andy and I were down for MouseFest. Andy and I saw a lot of them in the Epcot parking lot. I wondered what it was until I saw one in all of its glory at the Transportation and Ticket Center parking lot. This was the first time that I had seen the cab extended.


At Disneyland, the parking lot was one of the more theft-prone areas. The Disney Security force used the top of the Disneyland Hotel, the Pirates and Indiana Jones show buildings to keep an eye on the parking lots. They could spot car-jackers, muggers and people having vehicle problems (Koenig, Mouse Tales).


With the scale of the Walt Disney World property and the lack of large buildings near and around the parking lots, Disney uses another way to keep an eye on the parking areas. Besides the white Disney Security vans, these Eyes In the Sky help keep you safe, locate your car and call for automotive assistance if needed.


Oh yeah, don't forget to look up the next time you are at Disney!

We Wants the Redhead...

One of my favorites scenes in the Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean is the Crew's Quarters in the Haunted Grotto. Once you dig a little deeper into the history of the attraction, you'll see that the Haunted Grotto was not supposed to be what we have today.

In Walt's People, Volume 1 (Edited by Didier Ghez), Disney Legend John Hench is interviewed by Alain Littaye. Alain asks Mr. Hench what his specialty is:

Well, I suppose that I was a kind of consultant for taste. Is it good taste? Or bad taste? I had an attention to detail, to what would best tell the story. Because many people get excited about the work and drift off from the story.

Like Pirates of the Caribbean, for instance. When you get in, you see on the door: Pirates of the Caribbean. So you expect to see pirates. Then you get on the boat, so you think: "This is okay. We're going to see pirates." The boat goes out and the first scene that you see is the restaurant. So people think: "Hey, these are not pirates. These are people having lunch. What happen to the pirates we are supposed to see?" Then we go down the chutes, and it's where the pirates were. But they're all gone. There is nothing but skeletons down here!

Well, it was never supposed to be like that. Walt died before we had finished it. The original idea of Walt was that you came down there, into the caves, and there were no pirates ... But they had been there just seconds before! There was a hot meal on the table, steaming. There was no jewelry. Walt wanted this atmosphere: They were supposed to live here, they've gone outside somewhere, but they could come back at any minute and catch us ...

Then you were supposed to discover the city, where they were. But because somebody liked skeletons and discovered that they were available at a cheap price, we used too many skeletons all over the place, and the public got the wrong message. Now people didn't know what it was and what was going on ...

--pp. 162-163, Walt's People Volume 1: Talking Disney With The Artists Who Knew Him

Mr. Hench is discussing the fact that the grotto was supposed to be presented as is; you were just passing through their home as they began looting, pillaging and doing what pirates do best. Moving on to the Crew's Quarters, there is a beautiful Marc Davis painting hanging above the bar while the two pirates enjoy their libations. It is a great tie-in to a later scene. It is one of my favorite parts of any Disney attraction.

Image courtesy http://davelandwebpotc.blogspot.com/

From Jason Surrell's Pirates of the Caribbean book:

Hanging above the bar is a painting of a lady buccaneer enjoying her own interpretation of the high life. The color of the wench's hair is no coincidence. In the concept sketch on which the painting is based, Marc Davis portrayed the ever popular "Redhead" from the upcoming Auction scene as she might appear after many years of presumably happy marriage to the pirates. A pirate's life for her, indeed.

-- p. 81, Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies.

Just another great detail.

Thanks to Daveland for letting me borrow his most recent shot of the Redhead painting in the Haunted Grotto. If you're not a regular visitor to his blog, you are missing a lot of great pictures (and commentary).

We wants the redhead!

Need Any Rocks Painted?

Caught this on our Kilimanjaro Safari last week. Yeah, I know...I should have been looking at the animals, right?


Zamani Rock Painting
150 Meters

So, is this a random act of rock painting, an ad or just a typical Imagineering joke? Was it someone who worked on the attraction?

Doing a quick search, Zamani (in Central and Eastern African Cultures) is one of the two stages of death. The Zamani are spirits that are currently not known by anyone alive, while the Sasha are spirits of the recently departed that are still known to the living.

And I thought it was just a great detail!

Anyone else have any thoughts about it?

Look! Up In the Sky!

We tend to talk about the details...whether they are in the parks, hotels, books or on a roof. Andy captured this great detail of a lightning rod on top of a roof in Adventureland in the Magic Kingdom.

Not-So-Hidden Mickey

We captured this Mickey icon in the hallway of the Disney Vacation Club Villas at the Wilderness Lodge.

After a long day in the park--or right before you head out--it is another reminder of why we do what we do!

I'm not sure is Steve Barrett from Hidden Mickeys Guide would count this one or not.

When I checked the catalog for the Magic Kingdom Resort Hotels, this one wasn't listed.

Could this be my claim to fame?

ADDENDUM: Mike Scott left us a comment and linked to his post about decorative Mickey's. He has some great photos from the hallway and a few other examples. Thanks, Mike!

Detailin' the Details!

An example of an Imaginerd at work:

In this shot, Andy is getting close to the subject at hand to capture a hidden detail.

How many times have you walked by the building between the Rivers of America and the Country Bear Jamboree on your way to Splash Mountain or Big Thunder Mountain?

We took a moment on our way to Splash and checked out the building. While looking through the window, Andy noticed that the Imagineers had stocked the building with supplies. He managed to grab a photo of it while I immortalized the event! (And, yes...he is wearing a Splash Mountain shirt!)

Once again, it shows you level of detail that the Imagineers have crafted throughout the parks!

ADDENDUM: Disney Park PhD. Foxxfur from Passport2Dreams let me know that the building in questions is called the Frontierland Shed. Thanks, Foxx!

Daily Figment 167: Big Willie Style!

This week we are taking a closer look at Disney Villains at Imaginerding.

One of our favorite villain details is also located in one of our favorite shops at the Magic Kingdom--Sir Mickey's. It looks quite normal from the outside and fits in very well with the architecture of Fantasyland. Notice the beanstalk coming out of the building?

You expect the theming of the store to be Mickey and The Beanstalk. I mean, Sir Mickey's is a pretty standard name for a shop and doesn't lead you to think of any animated film in particular. It is when you venture further into the store that discrepancies start to show up. You can see our favorite mouse (in the photo at the right) standing on the beanstalk. But what is he wearing? That's the outfit from The Brave Little Tailor.

So, what is going on here?

For more behind this uniquely themed environment, check out 2719 Hyperion. Jeff Pepper did an excellent post about Sir Mickey's back in June 2007. He talks about the two animated films that the store is based upon and some of the great details you'll find there.

The funniest reference, by far, is Willie the Giant peeking through the roof. How many times have you missed that? It is an amazing detail that goes missed. When Andy and I were taking pictures of it, many of the people in the store were shocked and amazed that they had never noticed it before.

Daily Figment 165: Time Enough At Last

Submitted For Your Approval...

Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He'll have a world all to himself, without anyone.

So begins one of the more famous episodes of the Twilight Zone: Time Enough At Last. Meredith Burgess plays Henry Bemis who wants nothing more in life than to lose himself in a book. After a day fraught with a demanding boss and wife who both bemoan reading, Henry locks himself in the vault of the bank at which he works. After seeing an article about the the destructive power of the H-bomb, he hears explosions outside the vault and is knocked unconscious. After awakening, he ventures outside to discover that he is the only human left alive.

Although there is plenty of food available to him, Bemis decides to kill himself until he runs into the ruins of a public library. The books were perfectly preserved! Enough books to last him a lifetime. As he is sorting the books, he trips and his glasses fall from his face. They shatter.

He cries:

That's–that's not fair. That's not fair at all. There was time now. There was, was all the time I needed... ! It's not fair!

Inside the Library of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney's Hollywood Studios, we find a nod to Time Enough At Last.

The best laid plans of mice and men and Henry Bemis, the small man in the glasses who wanted nothing but time. Henry Bemis, now just a part of a smashed landscape, just a piece of the rubble, just a fragment of what man has deeded to himself. Mr. Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone.

Post Addendum (2/16/2008): Matt Hochberg, from StudiosCentral and the WDW Today podcast, sent me the link to his Tower of Terror site. He has provided a cool page with links to all of the Twilight Zone television show references in the ride. Thanks, Matt!

Daily Figment 164: The Greatest Second Assistant Director of All Time Is....

....Arthur J Vitarelli

Yeah, we've never heard of him either. We have heard of the movies he helped make, as Arthur Vitarelli had a career in the film industry spanning over four decades. He worked with the actors and actresses we grew up loving and helped make the movies that defined Disney live action in the 50's and 60's. That's why Mr. Vitarelli is Imaginerding's first inductee into the International Brotherhood of Second Assistant Directors.

Imaginerding welcomes Mr. Vitarelli into IBSAD with a mention of a few films he served on as the second assistant director for Disney:

• The Shaggy Dog (1959)
• The Absent Minded Professor (1961)
• Mary Poppins (1964)
• The Love Bug (1968)
• Disneyland TV Show (6 episodes from 1959-1969)
• Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

In addition to Second AD'ing over a dozen films for Disney, he also managed to fit in Assistant Director and Second Assistant Director credits in over forty other films and television shows. His earliest credit is for Unit Director (same as an Assistant Director) on Lake Placid Serenade in 1944. His final credit is the holy grail of film credits, pun intended, as Second Unit Camera on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984.

The IBSAD window on Sunset Boulevard in Disney's Hollywood Studios is a tribute to the many capable and talented, yet unrecognized, Second Assistant Directors who have carried out the orders of the Assistant Directors and oversaw the Second Second Assistant Directors and Third Assistant Directors and Additional Assistant Directors and...well, you get the picture.

Daily Figment 148: Restaurantosaurus Book Update 03

We continue our look at the books that we found at Restaurantosaurus at the Animal Kingdom. You can find the book updates we did for part 1 and part 2 from last week. We happened to catch more of these not so real titles on another shelf.

• Captains Cretaceous
  
• Dinos In Love
• A Dino for All Seasons
• 1984 B.C.

Once again, we point you to some of the smaller details that go into the parks. Keep your eyes open. You never know what you will find. For me, I am amazed that the Imagineers were able to pour so many details into Restaurantosaurus. Someone had to make the book covers, in addition to creating the titles. Wow.

For those interested in the smaller details, we believe the shot glasses were probably brought by some of the Grad students working at the Dino Institute. There are two from Utah and one from Niagara Falls, Charleston and New Mexico.

Daily Figment 146: Look Out!!!!

It's easy to miss the details at the Disney parks when you are running around dehydrated, fighting lines, battling the heat and attempting to squeeze magic out of every moment. Remember that the real magic is in those details we so often write about, here at Imaginerding.

The following scene in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is easily overlooked. Although it is crucial to building dramatic tension in the pre-ride show, it is easily missed from the stand-by queue since that line wraps around the inside of the building. However, from the FastPass line you have an outside path to the train, so your view of the impending doom is first class. The rub is that most FastPassers scoot through the line expeditiously and overlook the scene developing to their left. If you take a moment to stop and look, you will see that the Imagineers carefully crafted a very foreboding scene: a broken bridge falling into disrepair, about to end someones train ride tout de suite, awaits the next train. If that one survives the rickety structure, then surely the next one will plummet. That is a spectacular detail that can be easily overlooked and is often not far from your field of view. Our suggestion? Let a few people pass you and take a good, thorough look around. The few people you let scurry past will lose more than they gain.

Daily Figment 144: Restaurantosaurus Book Update Part 02

We shared a few of the selections of the titles we found on a shelf at Restaurantorous in yesterday's post. There were a few more books on the next side of the same shelf.

Just as a reminder, Restaurantosaurus is in theDinoland, USA section of the Animal Kingdom park. A majority of the books we found were yard sale finds or library discards. They all shared the same themes of dinosaurs (go figure) and science.

Enjoy...and don't try to find any of these titles at your local public library.


Here are the titles in question:

• Count Dracopelta
• The Ice Age Cometh
• Don Gone
• Buried Treasure Island
• Dinosaur Farm
• Atlas Coposaurus Shrugged
• The Lizard of Oz
  
• Gunga Dig
• Driving Miss Daspletosaurus

If the real titles the Imagineers allude to don't ring a bell, let me know and I can help!

Daily Figment 138: Disney's Hollywood Studios

Some things just have to go. Apparently, the name at the Disney-MGM Studios is one of them.

In honor of the name change from Disney-MGM Studios to Disney's Hollywood Studios, we thought we would post these pictures of where people go when they have to go at MGM…er, strike that…I mean, Disney's Hollywood Studios. My personal fave is the baby change sign from Rock’n Rollercoaster. Where does a baby go when they have to go? Depends……

Daily Figment 125 - Details: Splashdown Photos

For our first details post, we wanted to call your attention to the Disney Geeks favorite ride: Splash Mountain.

After riding Splash Mountain for the second time on the first day of MouseFest and after meeting two Canadian podcasters (you can do the math), we spent a lot of time checking out the details of the queue. Both the entrance and the exit. Although we did take a lot of pictures of undocumented Splash Mountain crates, we found some really great details near the exit of the ride. I can only imagine the looks that Andy and I got as we took pictures of walls, boxes, crates and light fixtures.

Everyone stops at Splashdown Photos to see the picture of themselves after being tossed down Chickapin' Hill into the briar patch. While most people blew by us to get to another attraction, Andy and I took a few moments to stop, look around and savor the details. I was amazed at the intricate theming that took place in the Splashdown Photos area. Most people would have just seen a cattle line with slightly wet people waiting to pick up their picture.

The walls are covered with odes to the art of developing pictures. There are bottles of glycin, bicarbonite of soda, developer fixitive fluid, potassium bromide, photographic paper and old cameras. Of course, there were also some books scattered throughout the shelves.

One of the tongue-in-cheek details that I discovered was the bottle in the picture on the left. It is on the shelf in the first picture.

The label reads:

He He
Laughing
105
Gasous

There are some obvious ties to Splash Mountain on the label. He He and Laughing Gasous relate to the Laughing Place.

But what about the 105? It doesn't match helium or nitrous oxide with a wikipedia search. Any thoughts?

Once again, we implore you to take a moment and look around while you are in the theme parks. You will be amazed at what you can see.

Speaking of noticing the little details, our blogging friend Richard Harrison, over at Photos From the Parks, has done a great series on the Tiki Gods. Make sure to stop by his site and leave him some Disney Geek love (comments, baby!):

• Pele
• Wind and Rain, and
  Rongo

Addendum: Richard has added a Tiki Room tag to his series to make it easier to pull them up!

Thanks go to Jeff Pepper for the inspiration for this series. By the way, he did our logo. Awesome, ain't it?

Waste Not; Want Not

Check out Jessica's blog, If We Can Dream It...

She has some wonderful posts and photo's looking at some of the finer details of Walt Disney World.

One of her recent posts is near and dear to this Disney Geek's heart: The Wonderful World of Trash Cans.

Where else can you get such a feel for your surroundings in something so mundane?

On the left is a shot I took in December of 2006 at the Polynesian Resort.

The guy on the garbage can is known as the Tiki Guy.

Of course, Mahalo means thank you.

If you're looking for more info about the Polynesian Resort, check out Steven Siefert's Tikiman Unofficial Guide to the Polynesian Resort.

Mahalo!

Haunted Mansion Detail

Haunted Mansion Detail
Originally uploaded by biblioadonis.

I love the Haunted Mansion.

Every time that I visit the Magic Kingdom, I ride the Haunted Mansion. It was actually my first Disney ride. Back in 1994, after a delicious meal at the Liberty Tree Tavern.

I remember the first time I had ever heard of the Haunted Mansion. A friend went to WDW and brought back viewmaster slides of the Vacation Kingdom. I vividly remember the slides of the ballroom. I knew at that moment that I needed to ride the Haunted Mansion. Fast forward twenty years. It completely lived up to it's reputation.

Check out the details in the photo. Is it a person? What is the other object?

There are so many myths and legends about the Haunted Mansion.

What is your favorite tale?

In the meantime, check out Doombuggies.com.

Have a lot of spare time and want to impress the Disney Geeks? Do this.

Also, check out the Haunted Mansion Wikipedia article.

Postscript:

After doing some more searching, I came across HauntedPortraits.com. On the blueprints page, I ran across an architectural detail for the Liberty Square Haunted Mansion Cresting Detail on the Colonnade.