Armchair Imagineering: Moana's Grand Voyage Parade

Remember when Disneyland used to run parades based on a single movie? It was a Nineties phenomenon—the Disney Renaissance was redefining theatrical animation, but the suits weren't quite ready to devote permanent theme park real estate to new films yet, so they went all-in on live entertainment. Some of the Renaissance movies were honored with summary stage adaptations (leaning heavily on the musical numbers, natch), others with parades, but one way or another, nearly every one of them got some sort of show all to itself.

I kinda miss that. Not just the creativity that went into spinning an entire full-length parade concept out of the imagery of just one film, but the frequency with which the parades were rotated as new movies were released. We had an average of about one new daytime parade every two years throughout the Nineties, whereas now? The last new daytime parade was rolled out in 2011—and granted, said parade is Mickey's Soundsational and I don't exactly have anything to complain about, and we've also gotten Paint the Night in the meantime, but that's still eight years without anything fresh for the daylight hours.

I sometimes think about what it would have been like if the single-film parade tradition had been maintained, or at least revived once Disney regained confidence in its animated features. It almost was—a parade was planned for The Princess and the Frog before being scaled back to just one unit* of Soundsational—and I can drive myself to distraction wondering what a Tangled parade would look like. Or a Wreck-it Ralph parade.

But by far the best 2010s candidate for adaptation into a parade is Moana. Disney Renaissance parades grew out of movies where it made some amount of sense in-universe to hold a parade or similar event. Aladdin's Royal Caravan was basically a fifteen-minute expansion of the Prince Ali sequence, the Mulan Parade was very much like a Chinese New Year parade with lion dancers, acrobats, and jugglers. Moana is a film about a personal journey wrapped up in a physical journey—how better to represent that than with an attraction that literally moves from one end of Disneyland to the other?

Board my boat and strap in while I take you through the Moana's Grand Voyage Parade!

After Action Report: Tropical Hideaway

Subtitle: In Which I Review A Restaurant For A Bit And Then Go Off About The SEA

I know you’ve been on tenterhooks waiting for this one: my in-depth review of the latest iteration of the big Adventureland eatery, the Tropical Hideaway! I’d previously meandered around the seating area and looked at stuff, but only on my most recent trip to the park did I finally take some time to enjoy the Hideaway in full.

I’ll start by saying…it’s not very well named. The phrase “tropical hideaway” is of course drawn from the lyrics of “(In the) Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” but there’s nothing hidden about this place—it’s open to view from the main walkway in a way that its immediate predecessor, Aladdin’s Oasis, was not. This isn’t really a complaint, just an ironic observation.

Despite being so very public, it's a nice little place to hang out for a while. It has a unique music loop, featuring mid-century exotica by the likes of Les Baxter and Augie Colon, and the food is garnering high praise from just about everyone who tries it. There are two snack counters in the Tropical Hideaway. The more obvious one, with a big ostentatious sign, is Dole Whip, I Presume. The name alone is a stroke of genius—it references the original Adventureland snack stand, Sunkist, I Presume (which became the Bengal Barbecue in the late Eighties), right down to the curly cursive font in which “I Presume” is written:

But the thing is, you don't have to be aware of that reference to get the name, because it's all a riff on the famous “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” incident. This is a theme park reference done right. (We'll see about some done wrong in a little while.)

Unauthorized Fun: The Stormy Weather Tour

So it's been raining, here in sunny Southern California, and we're all a little confused. It kinda makes me envy those Annual Passholders who are in college or whatever and can just jet down to the park whenevs, because Disneyland is lovely in the rain. It's cool, much of the crowd dissipates, and it's especially nice after dark, with all the lights reflecting in the wet pavement.

But if you think about it...every day at Disneyland is a stormy one, at least if you use your imagination. A surprisingly high number of attractions use storm imagery to set the mood, drive the plot, and/or shake things up. Howling winds, torrential rains, thunderbolts—all these can be found in abundance throughout the park, in the form of special and practical effects. With a little creative planning, you could spin a little “meta-story” out of some of them.

And creativity is, after all, what my Unauthorized Fun category is all about!

It does not need to be literally raining for you to take advantage of this unofficial tour; in fact, you'll have more control over the beats of the “story” if there's no real weather to contend with. On the other hand, a little real rain wont hurt you either. It's just for fun, after all.

Let's start the tour!

It Came From the Fandom: Magical Soundtracks

Here we go again. I seem to be relying on these types of posts more frequently lately. I gotta get my groove back somehow.

The fan content I choose to highlight this time around is Magical Soundtracks, a YouTube channel that posts, almost exclusively, music from the Disney theme parks. Their particular area of specialization is music loops, be they from themed areas, shops, restaurants...even hotel lobbies and special seasonal events. Here's a timely one, considering the Year of the Pig starts tomorrow:

I'm always excited to see that they've updated, especially since the quality is so high—many theme park music archivists rely on induction recordings and shotgun microphones, which tend to produce listenable but not stellar audio. Magical Soundtracks, I believe, obtains reference recordings of loops and then reconstructs them using source tracks. So there's a lot of hands-on editing work that goes into this channel as well. The results literally speak for themselves.

Here's a few more of my favorites from this channel:

Have a listen!