Many
moons ago, I outlined a vision for a Disneyland Park going as
hard (if not harder) for Halloween as it typically does for
Christmas—unique decorations throughout every land, seasonal area
music loops, nighttime attraction overlays, live entertainment, the
works. None of it has actually come to pass, of course, but Halloween
remains a highlight of the year, both at the Disneyland Resort and in
the larger culture.
So
now it’s the other park’s turn.
Like
its older sister, California Adventure does a fair amount for Spoopy
Day already, but there is tons
of room for improvement, in terms of both refining what is there and
adding more. One interesting aspect here is that the Halloween
offerings only really kick in at nightfall, which is...certainly
thematically appropriate! I might just let that stand.
Conversely,
the one thing I find pretty irritating is the designation of Oogie
Boogie as the park's official Halloween mascot. There's nothing wrong
with a Halloween mascot per se,* but not only are there no specific
links between California Adventure and The Nightmare Before
Christmas or its characters,
they don't actually do
anything with this supposed mascot. His silhouette appears over the
entrance gates and there are occasionally booming announcements in
Ken Page's fabulous voice. That's it. There's no Oogie meet-and-greet
tucked into an unassuming corner, no Oogie-based attraction overlay
or stage skit.
So
if we must have a mascot, then a) it should be a character with some
legitimate connection to the park (such
as perhaps?) and b) you should be able to tell
that they're the mascot.
Anyway,
let's get to the land-by-land breakdown. I admittedly have fewer
solid ideas for this park than for the other one, mostly because...I
was already an adult when California Adventure opened. I didn't grow up
thinking about it; it doesn't live in my bones the way Disneyland
does.
But
let's see what I can do.
Buena
Vista Street
This is one of the key areas for
Halloween as it is, even if it doesn't really get going until it's
dark enough for the purple lights to turn on.
Unfortunately, the Halloween décor,
including the music loop, is at odds with the regular 1920s theming.
Here's what I'd use to make it pop:
- Vintage Halloween decorations, including lots of Art Deco influences. Stuff like this. There's some of that in use already, but I think it gets overshadowed by the purple lights, bat silhouettes, and Headless Horseman statue (which is, by the way, too cool to get rid of).
- Plenty of references to vintage spooky cartoons such as “Skeleton Dance,” “The Haunted House,” and “The Mad Doctor.”
- An area music loop consisting of vintage Halloween songs. I mentioned last year that there are far more of these than you might assume.
- Building on the Carthay Circle Restaurant and its connection to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I'd like to see the area planters filled with “haunted forest” trees, and possibly a meet-and-greet with the Evil Witch!
Hollywood
Land
The
method for mixing a Hollywood theme with Halloween is pretty obvious,
isn't it? Go hard with the scary movies. The main problem is that
Disney doesn't have
much of a portfolio of successful scary movies, and even if they did,
Universal Studios beat them to the punch by, like, decades.
So
what do they have? Well, as it stands, they have a continuation of
the Buena Vista Street decorating scheme—simple bat silhouettes and
the same nighttime music loop. Said
loop, consisting of score tracks from various spooky movies,
actually fits Hollywood Land pretty well, because, y'know, movies.
Oddly enough, only one of them (I think) is a Disney
movie, that being Frankenweenie—yeah,
they couldn't even manage to tap The
Nightmare Before Christmas
for this—and I think if it were up to me, I might try harder to
showcase the brand.**
They
also have Guardians of the Galaxy—Monsters After Dark, which
is...fine, I guess. I mean, it's kind of clever that they frame it as
a literal sequel to Mission: Breakout, but it's still unpredictable
drops combined with intermittent images of ferocious space creatures,
so...yay? Don't mind me, I'm still salty over the fact that they
ditched the Tower of Terror. Now there
was the perfect Halloween ride for Hollywood Land, and you didn't
even have to wait for fall to ride it.
You
know what else they have in this area that often gets overlooked when
people draw the Venn diagram of Disney and Halloween? Monsters,
Inc.
If they really wanted to go for broke, they could probably come up
with a Halloween overlay for the dark ride. There's a good chance it
would even make it more interesting than the version that's there
now.
Marvel
Land
It's
coming. The Stark Industries construction barriers have gone up.
Might as well start factoring it into these sorts of calculations.
We
can start with what we know. The land boundaries will be redrawn,
which will put the Tower of Terrible Galaxy Guardians here, instead
of in Hollywood Land. Beyond that...who knows?
Would
“decorations by Peter Parker” be too obvious?
More
seriously, the Hulk is a bona-fide monster. In fact, Bruce
Banner/Hulk has a real Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde vibe, doesn't he?***
Beyond that, I can't really offer suggestions until I know what the
place is going to look like.
Cars
Land
This
is another major hub of Halloween theming in California
Adventure...only they call it “Haul-O-Ween,” because lol, car
pun! There are car-themed decorations such as monster faces with
traffic cone teeth, the two smaller rides have Halloween overlays
with original songs, nothing too special. There are also references
to “Trunk or Treat,” which is the actual name of a recently
established tradition wherein communities who find it unsafe or
unsavory to send their kids door-to-door for candy all get together
in some parking lot and send them car-to-car instead. Whatever,
weirdos, you do you...but in this context it does call up
uncomfortable images of being served candy out of the characters'
rear ends.
It's
awkward, but I'm not sure I can improve on it. Cars Land is already
such a specific idea that there's not much for me to work with. Maybe
do something with the Ghost Light? Unless they do already and I'm
just not aware of it? I'm always willing to admit that Cars Land
looks
great, but I try not to pay attention when it gets “cute.”
Pacific
Wharf
It's
the food court. It could sell Halloween snacks. It probably does
already. We didn't go through there on our recent trip.
Pixar
Pier
Ugh,
where do I even start? Pixar Pier is such a shoddy concept to begin
with.
See,
here's the dirty secret about designing any sort of holiday overlay
for a themed area: you are basically attempting to narrow
the theme—zeroing
in on those aspects of the overall theme that also suit the holiday.
With a broad enough overall theme (and a bit of luck), you can find
enough links to keep things interesting, but it gets progressively
harder the more specific the original theme is.
And
it doesn't get much more
specific (and nonsensical) than “seaside amusement park owned and
operated by narcissistic Pixar characters.”
The
sad thing is that it did not
have to be this way. If they had just left it as Paradise Pier, they
could have gone all in on the “creepy carnival” concept that
comprises a Halloween aesthetic all on its own. As it is, they've
painted themselves into a corner where they have to use “spooky
Pixar,” which is honestly even less of a thing than spooky Disney.
What
do they really have in that corner that people will recognize?
There's “Toy Story of Terror” (perhaps the basis for a temporary
variation on Midway Mania?), the character Fear from Inside
Out,
and...
Well,
there's always Coco.
For
quite a while now, the stage in the pier area has been the usual
focus of California Adventure's Mexican cultural entertainments.
That's where you get the Elena
of Avalor
skits and where you get ¡Viva
Navidad! during the Christmas season. And naturally, that's where you
get Dia de Los Muertos performances in the fall—an ideal use of
Coco
even before they Pixared up the joint. No complaints from me on that
score.
Grizzly
Peak
I
feel I'm on firmer ground here. Wilderness camping + Halloween =
scary
stories told around the campfire.
There is no shortage of spooks that work well in a woodsy setting,
and many of them are even specific to California, such as Sasquatch
and other Native legends. Decorations could include tin cans with
cut-out jack-o-lantern faces and witch's brooms made from twigs and
twine. The Redwood Creek Challenge Trail could have the lights turned
down (not
off) or color-filtered and lots of eerie sounds playing in the
bushes.
Bonus:
Install a nighttime version of Soarin' Around the World that takes
guests on a world tour of famous haunted or supernatural locations.
Miscellaneous
I
came up with a pretty spiffy idea for a Halloween
parade in Disneyland, but I don't think I'm up to the same here.
On the other hand, a Halloween-themed version of World of Color could
work. Disney may not have many scary movies,
but it has enough scary imagery
from movies to fill out a 25-minute show.
Aaaaand...that's
about it. Like I said, California Adventure isn't a part
of me the way Disneyland is.
And
wow, does that sound creepy or what? How appropriate!
*
Although I would note that Disneyland itself manages without one.
**
Which is not to say that I'm not aware of what they were going for
with the existing loop. A solid majority of the score tracks used
were composed by Danny Elfman, giving the whole a nice stylistic
consistency that sits well within the “eerie” aesthetic.
***
They?
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