The Second Sense: The Townsfolk of Main Street, USA

Main Street, USA is themed as an idealized 1900s American small town, where everyone knows everyone else, children respect their elders, and folks are happy to help each other out in a time of need. You know...the kind that probably never really existed, at least not to the extent our national nostalgia supposes. But either way, you can't have such a town without the townsfolk.

Who are the residents of Main Street, USA? Are they just the Cast Members that we see manning the shops and eateries? You could take that assumption for granted and stop there, but if you did, you'd be missing the fascinating meat of the story. There are a number of small (but highly important to those involved) dramas playing out right under our noses in this town. You'll never find them if you merely look for them.

You have to listen for them instead.

Your two main sources are the party line telephones in the Market House, and the second-story windows of East Center Street. Pay attention, note the instances of recurring names and concepts, and you can get...not a complete picture, by any means, but some interesting—and potentially alarming—connections start to crop up...

Beyond Blue Sky – Four Disneyland Headcanons

Disneyland tells a lot of stories...a lot of extremely incomplete stories. Even the longest, most intricately designed ride hasn't enough time and space to give us all the details. We're left with a sharply abridged narrative, or perhaps even just a series of vignettes with no explicit “plot” to connect them.

It's like I keep saying: this park is awesome.

A story told piecemeal is practically an engraved invitation to fill in the gaps with your own interpretations, speculations, and headcanons.* These bits of fanfiction might be as simple as names assigned to animatronic characters who don't have official ones, or as elaborate as a “how they met” story for all 17 Country Bears. The vast majority will probably fall somewhere in the middle.

Here are four of mine.