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.

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!

Armchair Imagineering: Halloweenland

Disneyland has been in the Halloween business for less than a decade.

Oh, sure, there were bits and pieces. We've gotten a few jack-o-lanterns on Main Street for as long as I can remember. Seasonal character plush has a long history, Halloween included.* Haunted Mansion Holiday—which is treated like a Halloween overlay, even though it really isn't one—started in 2001.

But the first big, park-wide Halloween blowout wasn't until 2006.

It's kind of ironic, because other area theme parks have been doing Halloween events for a lot longer. Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights and Six Flags Magic Mountain's Fright Fest both date back to the early Nineties, and the first instance of Knott's Scary Farm was in 1973. So why was Disneyland so late to the Dead Man's Party?

Because of image, basically. Theme parks are entertainment venues. “Halloween” plus “entertainment” usually amounts to the horror genre. There are many ways of doing horror, but none of them are usually considered “family-friendly,” and since that's what Disney trades on, a typical theme park Halloween experience—strobe lights and haunted mazes and “scare-acters” leaping out at people and loud rave music—was right out. It was all part of the dichotomy that held sway throughout the Eighties and Nineties, in which Disneyland was considered “tame” and safe for families with young children, while all the other parks positioned themselves as the hip, edgy, teen-oriented alternative. Disneyland didn't need a big to-do for Halloween—in the theme park realm, it had a virtual monopoly on Christmas.

All this is so much rambling. The upshot is that Disneyland has not really been doing Halloween in a large-scale way for very long. And if you ask me (which hopefully you do, since you're reading my blog), the Powers That Be haven't really mastered it yet. Halloween Time still has a ways to go before it's really polished to Disney-caliber perfection. The seasonal decorations and themes are too sporadic throughout the park. I really think the place could benefit from a systematic, land-by-land makeover during this time. There are many dimensions to Halloween in the current era—a park as diverse as Disneyland could indulge them all.

So without further ado, here is my vision of Halloweenland!

After-Action Report: Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy

Can you believe it's October already? Bring on the Halloween-themed posts!

Space Mountain is probably the last ride you would expect to see dolled up for a holiday—any holiday. I mean...it's Space Mountain. There just aren't any major holidays where outer space is a big deal. Galaxy Day? All Comets' Eve? These are not actual things.

On the other hand, sometimes you get some interesting space motifs for Halloween. Aliens—abducting, probing, mutilating livestock, hunting us for sport, bleeding our planet dry*—are starting to take their place alongside more traditional horror monsters such as vampires and zombies and Swamp Things. Depending on whom you ask, they might be scarier than the old mainstays...after all, aliens might actually exist!

So maybe it's not too surprising that Space Mountain is the recipient of what is, in my eyes, the only proper Halloween overlay for a Disneyland attraction so far.

Source Materials: Heraldry in Fantasyland (Part 2)

Welcome back! Last week, I corrected a trifecta of misconceptions about the heraldic design located just above the arch of Sleeping Beauty Castle, and went on to explore some of the other instances of medieval heraldry used for thematic and decorative purposes in Fantasyland. This week...the latter continues!

Source Materials: Heraldry in Fantasyland (Part 1)

It's inevitable: Take an interest in Disneyland trivia, and sooner or later (probably sooner), you're bound to come across this little tidbit:

Walt Disney's family crest is on the front of Sleeping Beauty Castle.

This factoid is impressive for its sheer density of misinformation—no fewer than three errors or partial errors in only twelve words! The falsehoods are corrected as follows:

1. The design in question is not a crest (though it includes one).

2. Designs of this type do not represent families per se, at least traditionally.
3. This particular design is probably not directly associated with Walt Disney's specific family at all.

Thus we enter the often murky but always fascinating world of European heraldry!

This is Halloween – The Case Against Haunted Mansion Holiday

Let's digress from Disneyland for a bit to talk about Christmas Creep. Even if you haven't encountered the term before, you're bound to be familiar with the phenomenon: the tendency for retailers to start stocking and advertising their Christmas items earlier and earlier in the year. Is it a new phenomenon, per se? Hard to say. The Peanuts had a gag about a Christmas sale in April as far back as 1974, but when I was a kid in the Eighties, people still rolled their eyes over the fact that tree displays went up the instant Thanksgiving was over.* Now, of course, we're shocked if any store waits that long. The standard is to flip straight from Halloween to Christmas, with poor Thanksgiving relegated to an end cap display.

This is understandable, of course. Both Halloween and Christmas are much bigger moneymaking opportunities than Thanksgiving. For Halloween, people like to buy costumes, elaborate decorations, and loads of candy. For Christmas, they buy elaborate decorations,** candy, occasional costumes, and gifts gifts gifts. Unless you're a supermarket or an airline, Thanksgiving just isn't that much of a boost for you...and if you are a supermarket or an airline, Christmas might still be bigger. On the consumer side of things, Thanksgiving isn't capital-F Fun the way Halloween and Christmas are, so most people are content to let it be eclipsed by its feuding calendrical neighbors.

Halloween itself wasn't always so prominent, of course. I think my generation was the one to decisively say “Screw you, adulthood, we'll keep dressing up if we want,” turning what had previously been thought of mainly as a children's romp day into an all-ages cultural phenomenon...and honestly? In light of Christmas Creep, it's a good thing we did. The prominence of Halloween gives us a stick with which to draw our line in the sand: “No, Wal-Mart, we are not shopping for Christmas yet; we are still celebrating Halloween.” And since it's become so easy to capitalize on Halloween itself, the retailers of America aren't too inclined to fight us on the matter. Don't be fooled by the appearance of fake pine garlands on the shelves in mid-October—those are just there so the transition can be made as quickly as possible once November 1 hits.

Now we can get back to Disneyland, which turns the whole thing upside-down by installing the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay in September.