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: 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.)

After-Action Report: So How Is It? (PotC Changes)

So it's happened. Pirates of the Caribbean, the Anaheim original, the bestest theme park ride ever made, has been altered. Forever.

I mean, it's not the first time or anything, but this renovation seems to have gotten people hotter under the collar than earlier ones. The 1997 revamp—the one that changed the post-auction scene so that the pirates were after food rather than...um...romance—garnered a lot of eye-rolling,* but I don't remember much in the way of sackcloth and ashes. Even the addition of all the movie franchise stuff in 2006 didn't have theme park fans tearing their hair out to quite the same extent. Was the original auction scene just that beloved? Did the fact that feminism (boogie boogie!) was involved get people's hackles up?

Regardless, what's done is done. And now that I've seen it, I can share some informed thoughts on the matter.

First, it must be noted that the redesign of the auction scene was not the only big change made to the ride. There were others...but they didn't involve feminism (boogie boogie!) and so attracted much less controversy. (Also one of them was uncontroversial to begin with because it's inarguably a net positive.)

Blogiversary Special!!! The Last Three Years in (Brief) Review

Today marks the third anniversary of the launch of the Disneyland Dilettante. I know, right? Looking back, this blog has certainly had its ups and downs…but then so has the Disneyland Resort.

Is it time to go year by year? I think it’s time to go year by year.

2015

The big deal in 2015 was, of course, Disneyland’s Diamond Anniversary, which this blog celebrated with the 60 Diamonds project. My aim back then was to find something enjoyable that began at Disneyland each year it had been in operation, and—crucially—that was still there to be enjoyed in the present. I made it, even if I had to fudge the definition of “began” from time to time…but in pretty short order, some of my Diamonds started dropping off the map. Looking through the list now is a pretty sobering experience.

The Diamond Anniversary itself was…fine, I guess. I can give—no pun intended—glowing reviews to the Paint the Night parade and the new iteration of World of Color…but on the whole, it paled in comparison to the 50th Anniversary. It just didn’t get anywhere near the same level of celebratory spectacle. I was particularly disappointed with the new fireworks show, Disneyland Forever, which hardly had anything to do with Disneyland per se and deserved neither the title nor the auspicious release timing.

It’s worth noting, of course, that the Diamond Anniversary wasn’t the only thing going on in 2015. Two important rides received important upgrades. The Matterhorn’s Yeti was turbo-charged into a more state-of-the-art, scarier monster, complete with a sense of backstory. Even more momentous, the Haunted Mansion saw the re-introduction of its long-lost Hatbox Ghost…now with technology that, you know, works!

Sadly, at the end of the year, the wheels were set in motion for the construction of the Star Wars themed area (still in progress). I have made my peace with the fact that Galaxy’s Edge is going to be a thing, and I will even allow that it’s probably going to be a very cool thing. But dangit, the loss of Big Thunder Ranch still stings.

2016

I'm going to go ahead and call 2016 The Year of Star Wars Harshing Our Disneyland Buzz. Not only did the aforementioned start of construction result in half of Frontierland shutting down and the Disneyland Railroad going on a long hiatus, but the supposedly temporary Season of the Force overlay in Tomorrowland just hung around for the entire year. Space Mountain became an X-Wing battle adventure, the Carousel Theater became a museum, the Magic Eye Theater started showing something called Path of the Jedi,* and the Jedi Training Academy...continued.

I didn't spend much time in Tomorrowland that year.

The Resort as a whole mostly just chugged along in 2016, but California Adventure finished strong by introducing the Festival of Holidays and World of Color: Season of Light, both of which came back for a second round this past holiday season.

And then they closed the Tower of Terror. It was as if millions of palms suddenly hit millions of faces in exasperation, and were just as suddenly ignored.

2017

If 2015 was a net positive and 2016 an overall holding pattern, 2017 was a mixed bag. Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakfast Breakdance Breakout opened where the Tower of Terror once had been, and was an instant smash hit despite being one of the most pointless attraction revamps in theme park history. Also, John Lasseter announced plans to plaster Pixar characters over the entirety of Paradise Pier and pretend it's a “theme.”

But on the other hand, the Rivers of America and Disneyland Railroad re-opened, all shiny and new and not half bad considering the changes that had to be made to make room for Star Wars. And speaking of shiny...

NO

...they brought back the actual, legitimate Main Street Electrical Parade for several months. As gifts to fans go, that's a pretty sweet one.

On the other other hand...Pirates. Ordinarily, the announcement that Pirates of the Caribbean's infamous wench auction scene would be redesigned to be less, um, human trafficky, would have me thinking “Well, let's wait and see.” But the changes have already taken place in Paris, and reports from discerning guests are that the new version is not only boring and nonsensical, but defeats its own purpose—sure, the redhead is no longer being sold at auction, but neither is she subtly, smugly in control of the situation. I have mixed feelings about the prospect of changing the scene to begin with, but...they damn well better figure out how to reconcile contemporary values with the needs of art before the finest theme park attraction ever built is irrevocably altered for the worse.

So where does all this leave us, as of 2018? Based on the reactions of some fans to the above plans for the parks...nowhere good. People are outright leaving the Disney theme park fandom over stuff like this. Once-prolific blogs are falling by the wayside. I don't want the Disneyland Dilettante to be one of them, but I have to admit that maintaining a weekly posting schedule is nowhere near as effortless as it once was.

That's why I am announcing a new offshoot of this blog: The Disneyland Dilettante on Tumblr! I will still do my best to bring you new content here every week, but whether I succeed or not, I'll be maintaining the conversation with other theme park fans over there.

Here's to the future!

* A retrospective on the film franchise, I think?

Flipping the Script: Up Until This Point

They haven't been talking about it much, but from what I can tell, the Jungle Cruise movie starring Dwayne “The Rock” “Maui” Johnson is still going to be a thing. And that's pretty cool. There have been what, half a dozen Disney theme park attraction IPs adapted into movies at this point, of which only one has been financially successful (and boy howdy has it ever), yet they're still willing to tap this well for inspiration. That's actually...a bit heartening. It means the decision-makers actually recognize that a ride or attraction doesn't have to be based on a movie to be worthwhile in its own right. Here's hoping the Jungle Cruise flick is good enough to be enjoyable, but not so successful that they install a bunch of Dwayne Johnson animatronics in the actual Jungle.

But that gets me thinking...where to next for the ultimate trend in flipping the theme park script? What other attractions have decent film potential? Hence this new post category: Flipping the Script,* wherein I explore the possibilities! For this first installment, however, I'm going to briefly review the existing “theme park movies” and see if I can tease out a) Disney's methodology for producing them and b) patterns of success and failure in said methodology. How do ride concepts map onto things like film genre and themes? How much does the existing structure of a ride constrain its film adaptation? How much should it constrain it? And so on.

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.

Bonus Post: Okay, So, About Pirates...

Okay, kids fellow adults, we have to talk about Pirates of the Caribbean.

The internet has been losing its collective mind over the past several days concerning the announcement that major changes are planned for Pirates in no fewer than three parks—Paris, Orlando, and our own Anaheim. The one garnering the most attention is a proposed overhaul of the Auction scene, where instead of male pirates auctioning off women as “brides,” including a very sultry (and suspiciously cooperative) redhead, the redhead herself will be a pirate auctioning off inanimate loot such as luxury furniture.

The announcement has garnered two basic flavors of reaction. Long-term fans of Disney theme parks are deep in mourning over the imminent demise of one of the most iconic scenes in the single greatest theme park ride every constructed. On the other hand, many feminists are celebrating the fact that a chronically objectified female character is finally being empowered and made the captain* of her own destiny.

As a long-term fan of Disneyland who is also a feminist, I can see both sides. As I suspect most of my readers are more familiar with (and in accordance with) the theme park fan arguments, I am going to play a bit of devil's advocate and explain the feminist point of view, as well as addressing some of the common complaints from the fans.

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.

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: Talk Like a Pirate of the Caribbean Day

September is here at last, bringing with it (hopefully) cooler weather, quieter households...and on the 19^th of the month, the most beloved holiday that never got its own section in a Hallmark store: International Talk Like a Pirate Day! It's not hard to see why this “holiday” took off the way it did—it asks so little of you. You don't have to buy anyone a gift or a card, or spend hours decorating your house, or sit through a long church service. All you have to do is alter your speech patterns in accordance with a well-known pop-cultural archetype.

But why stop there? Talking Like a (Hollywood) Pirate is fun and all, but maybe a little too easy. The name hasn't changed, but for many people, Talk Like a Pirate Day is also Dress Like a Pirate Day, Fly the Jolly Roger Like a Pirate Day, and Watch Pirate Movies* Day.

Even...perhaps...Throw a Pirate-Themed Party Day! And when it comes to pirate theming, nobody has more vivid mental images than devotees of Disney parks. This is probably because the original version of Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride, installed at Disneyland in 1967, is the best theme park attraction ever built. As an iconic fantasy depiction of piracy in the Age of Sail, it's second only to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. As a first-person experience, it's simply incomparable. It's got its own specific imagery, its own instantly recognizable soundtrack, its own unique smell. If you want your Talk Like a Pirate Day party to take its cues from the ride—and if you consider yourself a Disneyland fan, then you do, no two ways about it—then you have plenty of material to work with that will make your guests go “Hey...this is that ride!”

What you don't have a lot of is convenient shortcuts. Make no mistake—“Pirate” is one of the big themes in your average party store, and you can even find Pirates of the Caribbean branded items...but naturally it's all to do with the film franchise. Use it anyway if you like; these days Jack Sparrow is on the ride, after all. But if you really want to evoke the ride itself, Party City and its brethren will be of very little help. And nor will much of anything else in the retail arena. It's just that unique.

So what can you do?

You can do what brought us the marvels of Pirates of the Caribbean to begin with. You can Imagineer.

This isn't going to be like my other Disneyland party ideas, where I take you through all the major facets of party planning including ideas for food, games, and music. The food should be sumptuous, the games should revolve around treasure maps, and if you follow this blog but can't think of any music that reminds you of Pirates of the Caribbean, then there's simply no help for you. Rather, this post is going to highlight some specific things you can do to create a Pirates of the Caribbean-style atmosphere...be it for a party or any other reason!

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!