It Came From the Fandom: Disneyland Halloween Costumes

Anyone remember this post? No? Fair enough; it was an awfully long time ago by blog standards. I guess that means I'm not repeating myself too badly if I do another post about Disneyland-themed costumes!

First, I should probably go ahead and re-post my photo collage from...jeez Louise, five years ago at this point. AKA “That Time I Was the Small World Clock Tower For Halloween”:

Not pictured: my dignity

(If you're wondering, how did she do that?, please follow the link above. If on the other hand you're wondering, why did she do that?, I'm afraid I can't help you. Who knows why wackos like me do anything?)

In sharing the above with the internet, I have definitely outed myself as one of the geekiest of the Disneyland geeks. Disney Halloween costumes are thoroughly mainstream (and sold in the parks in children's sizes), but Disneyland Halloween costumes are the domain of the truly obsessed and, with very few exceptions, require DIY skills to achieve. So when you see someone walking around dressed as an iconic character from the parks—or even worse, an iconic structure (*cough*)—you know you're witnessing a True Believer at work.

We're rare, but we're out there. For this week's post, I'll share some of the ones I found perusing Google.*

(Disclaimer: Not all of these people are celebrating Halloween. Some of them are at conventions, including D23.)

The 5 Scariest Disneyland Resort Attractions (That Aren't the Haunted Mansion)

There is a school of thought, concerning theme park attractions, that says: Scarier = Better. (It often overlaps with the related Faster = Better school.) Naturally, it comes to the fore during the fall season, when temporary Halloween attractions pop up everywhere and try their best to scare the pants off everyone who pays good money to experience them, and occasionally succeed.

Disney theme parks don't usually fare too well on the Scarier = Better scale. WDI tends to take a middle-of-the-road approach with attraction content, avoiding both the too-saccharine and the too-horrific. Exceptions, especially on the too-horrific end of the scale, come across as “not Disney enough” and may not last as long as they probably would in someone else's park. It's something of a pity—it would be nice if the world's finest attraction builders got to stretch themselves a little more, instead of having to stick within the bounds of a PG/soft PG-13 rating.

Regardless, Disney rides are not scary. At least, they don't have a reputation for being scary. Depending on the guest, they can be quite scary indeed...not always on purpose! The Haunted Mansion is the obvious example of a Disney attraction that is considered at least mildly spooky—so obvious that for this post, I decided it would be more fruitful to set it aside and talk about others instead.*

So here are—in my estimation—the five scariest non-Haunted Mansion Disneyland Resort attractions!

(Disclaimer: None of them actually scare me, nor ever have. Even when I was little, I think I had too firm a grasp of reality to be actually frightened by Disneyland. I knew it was all pretend and couldn't really hurt me.)

After-Action Report: Disabled at Disneyland

Yes, the blog is still on hiatus due to Yours Truly's knee injury, but this topic intimately concerns said injury, so I figured I'd throw you a bone. (All, what, three of you?) I may do this from time to time until I'm properly back in the saddle and can commit to a weekly schedule again. The point is, a torn ACL, etc. is no excuse to cancel previously existing theme park plans, so the other day I got to undergo the Disneyland Wheelchair Experience.

My challenge was in fact twofold: 1) a complete inability to put weight on my left leg, and 2) this big honking immobilizing brace they're having me wear until further notice, additionally preventing me from bending said leg...unless I take it off, which is technically an option, but one I want to avoid as much as possible. I mention this because it serves as a contrast with my previous secondhand glimpses of the Disneyland Wheelchair Experience, with a party member who could walk, just not for hours at a time. No ride or attraction need be off-limits to such an individual. I knew from the outset that my situation was going to be a bit more dire than that.

So how did it work out? Here are some of the highlights. And lowlights.

Armchair Imagineering: Plussing the Show

“Always plus the show,” Walt Disney was known to say. I have no idea if he innovated the practice of using “plus” as a transitive verb, but fans have picked it up right alongside other Disneyland insider jargon, including “weenie”* and “protein spill.”** To Walt, “plussing” meant any sort of improvement on what was already there, but as language does, the term seems to have evolved. When most people talk about “plussing,” they are definitely not referring to new attractions or even wholesale renovations of existing ones. Nor is the term used in connection with essential maintenance—fixing a broken animatronic is not plussing…more like “un-minusing.”*** Plussing, rather, is making a small improvement to the park—a new garden planter here, an array of verisimilitude-enhancing props there, an Easter egg added to a show scene to reward the sharp-eyed and/or well-read.

There is no hard bright line separating the mere plusses from more significant alterations, but we know the difference when we see it. The 2015 changes to the Matterhorn are too extensive to be considered plusses, but the revamp of Big Thunder Mountain’s climactic scene might count. The addition of a cross-country skiing troupe to A Christmas Fantasy Parade definitely counts. Here’s another great example, spotted (by yours truly) just over a week ago in the Enchanted Chamber:

Pictured: The funniest scene in any Disney movie ever. Period.

There is an infinite “possibility space” of plusses that could be made to Disneyland. Here are some I would like to see.

Kidnap the Magic: Disneyland Jack-o-Lanterns

Okay, help me out here. When did Halloween pumpkin carving become so...awesome? When I was a kid, riding my giant ground sloth to the playground, everyone I knew just drew a few triangles and circles on a pumpkin and cut them out with a kitchen knife. I felt fancy if I managed to include pupils in the eyes. I remember starting to see those specialty carving kits with the gnome-sized miter saws when I was in my teens,* and sometime between then and now, it just exploded as an artform.

Pumpkin has become a medium of sculpture in its own right—a feat all the more impressive when you remember that these globoid gourds are available only seasonally and the resulting creations are necessarily ephemeral. Despite its fragility, in the hands of an expert carver the flesh of a pumpkin can hold fine details as well as soft wood, and its translucency allows for subtle shading effects that only become apparent when the candle inside is lit. At the extreme end, we get stuff like this:

Most people probably don't have it in them to create anything that elaborate—I know I don't—but “rough image of a face” is no longer the default. Between the aforementioned carving kits and the widely available pattern templates, even the average neighborhood candy-giver is as likely to have pumpkins carved to resemble miniature scenes, or favorite media characters, as simple faces.

And occasionally, they turn to a Disney theme park for inspiration.

Disney jack-o-lanterns, per se...those are everywhere. Always quick to jump on the bandwagon of anything child-focused, Disney prints loads of pumpkin templates, in little booklets themed by character family. You've got your Mickey & Friends, your Princess, your Winnie The Pooh, your Pixar, probably your Jake and the Neverland Pirates. If you want a design specifically related to the parks, though, you're on your own. Naturally.

Nonetheless, some people pull it off, and it is my very great pleasure to show you some examples of their work. I had to work a bit harder than I anticipated (with some much appreciated help from The Sister) to collect all these...it turns out that Googling “Disneyland jack-o-lantern” doesn't bring up many examples of homemade carvings by private citizens.

So without further ado...

Beyond Blue Sky: The Building Blocks of Magic

I never expected to do another post about toys this soon, but here we are.

So this is happening:

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited for these. If there's one hobby I enjoy almost as much as Disneyland (and spend comparably on over the course of a year), it's LEGO.

Disney and LEGO have been partnered for several years now, with quite a few licensed sets based on properties like Toy Story, Cars, Pirates of the Caribbean (the movies, unfortunately, not the ride), and now an ongoing Disney Princess line. But this is the first time the partnership has been put to a purpose other than promoting a current Disney film or franchise. It makes me excited for potential new directions the team-up might take.

Because really, are a few Disney Theme Park LEGO sets too much to ask?

Armchair Imagineering: PVC Figurines

(Tip of the hat to fellow-blogger and commenter Cory Gross, whose recent post about his kitbashed Disney board game Talismouse started a conversation which led to this post.)

This is going to be a bit of a different Armchair Imagineering post than the usual. Instead of sharing my grand ideas for rides, attractions, and holiday overlays, this one is about...souvenirs. Merchandise. Swag.

Souvenirs are obviously a big part of Disneyland, but most of the ones available seem to revolve around Disney's film and television IPs. It's not difficult to see why this is: It's easier to sell people stuff they recognize than stuff that might be brand-new to them. Tourists are having a terrific time at the park, to be sure, but they might not be falling in love with the individual attraction characters to the extent that they're willing to blow their memorabilia budget on Hitchhiking Ghosts when that Winnie the Pooh plush is right there, promising to make them feel like a kid again. So there's a lot more of the latter than the former lining the shelves.

Then, too, most of the merchandise that specifically references the park treats Disneyland* like a holistic entity, with little attention paid to its individual components. If you had only tee-shirts and picture frames to go by, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the place consisted only of a castle with animated characters cavorting around it:

Celebrating 60 Years of Painfully Generic Branding

More specific items exist, of course...but the execution is inconsistent. There are pins, if you're into that sort of thing, and the odd plush toy. Beyond that, things start to get pretty pricey. At the low end, a handful of the popular Ear Hat Ornaments are based on rides, but they're twenty-five bucks a pop, making it a daunting task to build a collection. That, and they're Christmas tree ornaments based on Mickey Mouse ear beanies, meaning that the rides in question are not being allowed to stand on their own as souvenirs. The “purer” the attraction merchandise gets, the more expensive it gets. If you love more than one ride for its own sake, but you're not rich, it can be all but impossible to express your love via knickknacks.

Kidnap the Magic: Small World Promenade Holiday Wreath

One of the most distinctive holiday decorating schemes at Disneyland can be found on the Small World Promenade. While Chester* rocks his Santa hat and colored lights, fourteen white wreaths themed to different countries and regions as depicted on the ride line the walkway, building anticipation via their familiar central insignia and “supporting casts” of witty ornaments.

I don't know who in Imagineering is responsible for this...but I like it! So much so that several years ago, I made a set of tree ornaments based on the wreaths, using snowflakes as the base (since I couldn't find white mini-wreaths at an economical price) and variously shaped sequins for the ornaments. But this is Kidnap the Magic, and I'm going to offer you a more ambitious project: An actual wreath decorated the same way as the ones in the park, scaled down just enough to fit comfortably in the average home.

Kidnap the Magic: How to Be a Theme Park for Halloween

This is a first for this blog: a Kidnap the Magic entry about something other than a themed party! I have numerous Disneyland-related craft project ideas, some of which I've actually done, but I haven't shared any yet because I haven't yet gotten in the habit of photo-documenting my works in progress. I did get a few good pics of this one, though, and the time is definitely right!

So a couple years ago, I was fortunate enough to attend Mickey's Halloween Party, the separately ticketed event that runs at Disneyland during the Halloween season. It's pretty much the only time when adults are allowed to enter the park in full-on, unambiguous costumes, and boy, did the guests ever take advantage of the fact. Practically everyone there was in some kind of Disney character costume. Many were obviously store-bought, but quite a few more were just as obviously homemade. Some people even went as Disneyland characters, such as the Haunted Mansion's Tightrope Walker AKA Alligator Gal, or recognizable individual buccaneers from Pirates of the Caribbean.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who showed up dressed as a ride, though.

I decided at the outset that I wanted to have a costume directly related to Disneyland, and not just to Disney's film library. When I hit on the idea of going as the “it's a small world” Clock Tower...I couldn't not do it. That's the sort of inspiration that strikes maybe once a year. Suddenly my head was full of ways to translate all those blocky shapes and clock gizmos into clothing on a human figure. I knew I had a winner.

I also knew I had my work cut out for me. The problem with choosing such an offbeat, niche-interest costume as the Clock Tower—or any other Disneyland icon that didn't originate in a movie—is that there are few to no pre-existing resources to help you out. From design to execution, you have to come up with it all yourself.

Wait...did I say “problem?” I meant invigorating challenge. There's a lot of satisfaction in creating your own unique costume and wearing it in a setting where it will be appreciated. If that sort of challenge sounds like your spinning cup of tea, read on while I walk you through the phases of my own such project.

After-Action Report: “it's a small world” (Part 2)

“it's a small world” debuted to the world it celebrated at the New York World's Fair in 1964 and moved to Disneyland two years later. For most of its history, changes were minimal—a new color scheme here, a remastered soundtrack there, a different sponsor*—but starting in the Paul Pressler era, management decided it was okay to mess with it to a more significant extent. So how'd all that work out? Well...

After-Action Report: “it's a small world” (Part 1)

What would you say is the most overrated ride at Disneyland? That is, which one has the biggest gap between overall public acclaim and actual quality, with the quality on the low end of the equation?

I had to do some hard thinking to come up with my answer, but I think it's the Mad Tea Party.* It's an iconic ride, but iconic is not the same as impressive and if anything, it's a testament to the power of theming. Without its Wonderland morphsuit, it's just that old carnival standby, the Tilt-a-Whirl. An adorable paint job and familiar music have kept it successful for 60 years. Me, I've got better things to do with my Disneyland day than work a 90-second shift as the Amazing Human Spirograph.

Now, how about the most underrated ride? Which ride in the park is the most unjustly maligned by the public despite being in every way a classic? This one was a much clearer choice. The Mark Twain and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride both deserve longer lines than they get, but they lack the one trait a ride needs to be truly unfairly dismissed, and that is visibility. They aren't underrated so much as overlooked.

But there is one ride that has it all—an original concept, innovation, extraordinary artistic design, accessibility to all ages, an uplifting presence, and even its own theme song—yet routinely suffers outright mockery from the general public, from Disney's competitors, and from actual Cast Members.** That ride is the one, the only, “it's a small world.”

But you already knew that from the post title.

60 Disneyland Diamonds: 1966-1975

60 Disneyland Diamonds for the Diamond Anniversary continues! If this is your first time reading this blog, first of all, where have you been? Second of all, you can find the introduction to the 60 Diamonds premise here and the first ten here. And now, on to the second decade's worth!

We Name the Nameless

A couple weeks ago, I shared a tidbit about having made up my own names for the individual members of America Sings's Gander Quartet*, since they never had official ones, and teased that I might do an entire post about this weird habit I've developed of doing just that. Let it never be said that I'm content to be a tease...

Armchair Imagineering: International Land

At Disneyland Park in Anaheim, the borders of Tomorrowland and Fantasyland are occupied by a series of attractions that don’t quite fit. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, the Matterhorn, “it’s a small world”…these iconic rides were installed in their locations to take advantage of available space, or because they belonged there once, but by now the surrounding area or the ride itself has evolved in such a way as to take it out of theme. What do cartoon fish have to do with the future or even science-fiction? The growling Yeti notwithstanding, the Matterhorn Bobsleds are more contemporary than fantastic. The whimsy of “it’s a small world” seems perfectly suited to the childlike wonder of Fantasyland, but the theme of international peace and multiculturalism belongs, one would hope, firmly in the real world.

In addition, there is a large swatch of land between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland that suffers from underutilization—formerly the site of the Fantasyland Autopia and Motor Boat Cruise (neither of which was very appropriate to Fantasyland either), it currently provides extended track for the remaining Autopia in Tomorrowland…yet another ride that doesn’t do justice to the imagery of its land. It’s almost like this part of the park is rebelling against the adjacent areas and crying out for a theme of its own. Hence the proposal contained herein: International Land, where the world itself comes to Disneyland.

Imagineering Theory: The Sightlines of Fantasyland

This is an elaboration of this Micechat forum post.

In a previous post, I lamented the thematic mess that is present-day Tomorrowland (there's an ironic turn of phrase). Whatever your opinion of the individual attractions therein, there's no denying that it's a complete hodgepodge of concepts and design elements.

But the funny thing is, it's not the only area at Disneyland that has this issue. Take a look:

It's Fantasyland! What a charming little fairy tale village! But then...

Okay, getting weirder...

Wait, what?

How can all these vastly different design motifs be part of the same land? Were the planners drunk or what?

And how come we never notice how badly things clash when we're actually there?

To answer these questions: 1. Because that's how it worked out, 2. Probably not, 3. I'm getting to that.