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...

Armchair Imagineering: Bambi’s

(This piece was originally written in 2009 as my entry for an amateur Imagineering contest on deviantART. I've done my best to update it to reflect the current state of California Adventure, but if anything seems awkward...that's why.)

Disneyland Resort offers its guests a broad variety of lunch and dining options, from the fine cuisine and full table service of the Blue Bayou and Ariel’s Grotto to the everyday fare at the Village Haus and Flo's Diner. However, one thing that is so far lacking is a vegetarian restaurant. Vegetarian options exist at most resort eateries, but why should guests who don’t eat meat have to scour every menu in order to find something to their tastes? How can a park resort located in California, and catering primarily to local visitors, lack something as basic to California culture as a vegetarian restaurant?

To fill this gap, I propose Bambi’s, an outdoor, meat-free eatery that not only provides vegetarian guests a place where every menu item is “safe,” but charms its patrons with immersive theming evoking one of Disney’s beloved classic films that, strangely enough, has never been prominently featured in the parks. In short, it fills two gaps at once.

Kidnap the Magic: A Haunted Mansion Halloween

I've really been looking forward to this one. Of the several Disneyland themed party ideas I've shared so far, this is the only one I've actually tried for myself, rather than merely speculating upon. So quell those doubts, readers—this stuff's been field-tested in advance by Yours Truly and my then-housemates!

Kidnap the Magic: Jungle Cruise Cookout

Can you believe it's August already? Where is the year going? Before you know it, it will be Labor Day, and then the kids will go back to school, and then you'll start seeing Halloween stuff everywhere, and The Holidays Will Be Upon Us.

But in the meantime, there's still plenty of summer left—plenty of hot weather and late sunsets and not a lot of other commitments involving school or calendar holidays. Perfect conditions, in other words, for a barbecue! You know where else the weather is hot, the demands of civilization have little to no hold on you, and people cook over open fires? The untamed jungle. So for this installment of Kidnap the Magic, I'll give suggestions for turning your cookout party into a Jungle Cruise-themed extravaganza!

Armchair Imagineering: Merlin's Magic Potions

A quick one this time, to demonstrate that not all Armchair Imagineering needs to be grandiose or E-ticket-worthy, or focused on currently popular characters/films.

This is an idea to spruce up the beverage cart that can usually be found in Disneyland’s Fantasyland, just north of King Arthur Carrousel. Odds are, it would work just as well in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, although I can’t make any detailed suggestions for its inclusion there as I am not familiar with it specifically.

Merlin’s Magic Potions would be a little larger than a standard beverage cart in order to accommodate the ingredients for its special offerings and decorative theming. It would be made to resemble a medieval market stall, made of faux wood with a striped awning and matching fronting, signage in a simplified version of the “gothic” lettering on the Carrousel sign, and a row of miniature heraldic shields around the edge of the awning.

Where it would stand out, however, is in its menu. In addition to the sodas, juices, and vitamin waters offered at all such carts, there would be the titular “potions,” made to order before the guest’s eyes. The guest chooses a flavor and a color separately, and the magic begins! First the Cast Member mixes soda water with a colorless flavored syrup and pours it over ice in a clear cup. Then, with a recitation of the magic words “Higitus Figitus,” he/she adds a “magic pill” that fizzes and dissolves in the soda water, turning it a delicate shade of pink, yellow, light green, or sky blue. But that’s just the beginning--each pill actually contains two shades of food coloring crystals in a double-layered sugar capsule. Even the Cast Member doesn’t know which bold shade--red, blue, orange, green, or purple--is hiding beneath the pastel layer. The element of surprise makes each serving a unique experience.

The same basic concept could also be used in Tomorrowland with a “chemistry” or “alien drinks” theme, or in Frontierland as the wagon of a traveling doctor selling “tonics.”