Source Materials: The Wildlife of Primeval World

If you enjoy my Sentimental Paleontology posts, you'll love this one—it's about actual paleontology! Dinosaurs, man! Who doesn't love dinosaurs?

I love dinosaurs. And that's why I've always had a special place in my heart for the Primeval World Diorama. You can keep your Fun Facts^TM about the New York World's Fair and the Ford Magic Skyway and the world record for the longest diorama display. All that stuff is important, but it pales in comparison to the simple fact that: Dinosaurs.

But are they...accurate dinosaurs? No. No they are not. We can get that out of the way right off the bat. The Primeval World diorama contains animatronic figures built in the mid-60s, many of them riffing off an animated movie that came out in 1940. At best, they reflect the paleontological consensus of the times, filtered through the sensibilities of animators and other artists who were not necessarily scientifically literate, let alone scientists.

So just how bad is it? Let's find out. While grinning like an eight-year-old at the Natural History Museum, because dinosaurs.

Source Materials: The Shape of Land

Before we begin, I would like to note that I titled this post before The Shape of Water won Best Picture. That is all.

Let's talk for a bit about theme park layouts.

One of the often-praised aspects of Disneyland, especially in terms of its innovation when it was new, is the hub-and-spoke design plan that makes navigating from theme to theme so intuitive. (It also has potential mystical significance, but that's literally a topic for another post.) This model is so successful that it became iconic and has been re-used for every “Kingdom” park built since.

Of course, it's not the only way to organize a theme park. For example, Epcot's World Showcase and Universal Islands of Adventure both arrange their attractions around a central body of water, with the main pathway a long loop. The result is picturesque, but a bit more tiresome to traverse than a hub-and-spoke since there's (usually) no way to cut across the middle. I don't know of any examples, but a park could be built in a fan shape, with the themed areas radiating directly from the entrance. A park emphasizing exploration and discovery could use winding paths that branch and intersect.

And then there are the parks that are...how to put this nicely...not really organized at all. Universal Studios Hollywood* is a big offender here. There are all kinds of logical ways to subdivide a theme based on the glamor and excitement of the movies, and USH uses none of them, slapping down whatever, wherever. But I can't be too hard on its designers—the place is built into the side of a hill. A steep hill. With major streets and freeways wrapped around the base. They gotta work within the limitations imposed by the local topography.

You know which park's designers I might criticize for their slapdash approach? California Adventure. They had complete freedom to work within a parcel of flat land that was comparable in size to Disneyland itself and preconditioned for construction. And what did they give us with that freedom? An irregular elongated blob, grossly lopsided with the respect to the location of the entrance, with little sense of “flow” between the various themes.

Is there any sense to this layout at all? The strange thing is...there might be. 

Source Materials: The Wildest Life in the Wilderness

Gather 'round, boys and girls, and I'll tell you a True Anecdote^TM from the life of the Disneyland Dilettante.

I think most children discover the joy of roller coasters as soon as they're tall enough to get on one, pretty much. Call it age four. But I? I was a bit of a coward during my early childhood. I wasn't afraid of being thrown from a roller coaster car—I was bright enough to know that wasn't a real risk—but of being scared, of finding the bumpy motion too much for my peace of mind. I had nothing to fear but fear itself.

When I was about eight years old, I finally mustered up the courage to try out Disneyland's coasters. And loved them, of course. But there was a snag: I had a little sister who looked up to me. I had convinced her that roller coasters were too scary, and she didn't trust the sudden turnaround. “It's okay,” I told her. “They're actually not scary,” I opined. Nope. No sell.

“At least try this one,” I said finally. “You'll like it...it has animals on it.”

That did the trick. Roller coasters became, finally, fun for our whole family, because one coaster had the right carrot for the youngest member thereof. The ride in question? Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

The wildlife presence on this ride is probably part of the draw for a lot of people. One of the main reasons people visit real wilderness areas is the hope of encountering animals they don't get to see every day. Big Thunder is far from the only ride at Disneyland to heavily feature wild animals, but it's one of the only ones to offer a mostly realistic, straightforward take on them. These animals are not cartoon characters, they're not space aliens, and they're not being pointed out to us by a sarcastic college student. They're just...present, adding interest to an already exciting landscape.

But you know, it is a fast, bumpy ride, and some of the critters are more noticeable than others. It's entirely possible that you've missed some of them, reducing the quality of your experience.

But that's why I introduced Source Materials to this blog—to catalog and perhaps provide an explanatory look at these details from the outside world that add detail to the world inside Disneyland.

So let's talk animals!

Source Materials: Ghoul Love

As part of last week's criticism of Haunted Mansion Holiday, I mentioned the Séance Circle's weird grab bag of themes and imagery, to wit: Madam Leota recites an occult-themed, thirteen-verse spinoff of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” wherein divinatory tools have romantic functions, while giant Tarot-esque cards featuring characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas swirl around the room. It's three or four completely disparate things just mashed together because they needed to give Leota something Christmas-y to do and include more of of the Burton characters. The scene is appropos of nothing.

Or is it?

Readers, I have a confession to make. I may have—may have—misrepresented that scene. It may actually make more sense than I originally gave it credit for. See, I was thinking of it as a Christmas-related scene, but if we consider that the invading characters see everything through the lens of Halloween, it's possible that the Imagineers who designed it were alluding to some genuine, if nearly forgotten, old traditions.

Possible, not definite. It could be a coincidence. Then again, even Disneyland's coincidental design choices sometimes end up being profound.

Source Materials: A Few Excellent Moves by the Horticulture Department

Source Materials is my new label for posts about things from outside Disney theme parks that influence decisions about what to include inside the parks. For instance, I have retroactively re-classified my two-part post about heraldry in Fantasyland as a Source Materials post. There probably won't be too many of these; most of the stuff that would qualify has been gone over, extensively and in more depth than I think I would muster, by other bloggers. (Check out the sidebar for some of them!)

It's June now. What can I write about that goes well with June?

Gardening? Did I hear gardening? Gardening it is. It turns out to be a fertile* subject where Disneyland is concerned. The park's Horticulture Department is quite the unsung hero, producing magnificent work pretty much across the board, from the obvious:

to the subtle:

People certainly notice the lovely trees and garden beds throughout Disneyland, but only rarely is attention deliberately drawn toward them. It's even rarer that the specific choices made by the Horticulture Department get any focus, even though they're often brilliantly on-the-nose. Magnolia trees in New Orleans Square and edelweiss around the base of the Matterhorn are just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce).** In many cases, the appropriateness is more than just geographic.

Here are a few of my favorites.

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!