Monday, March 24, 2008

Nothing to Worry About...

Have no fear, folks...WDI knows what it is doing when it comes to introducing characters to It's a Small World.

I mean, just look at this masterpiece that'll soon be going into Honky Tonk Disneyland.

Didn't McLeach shoot one of these in Rescuers Down Under?

Ick. Let's hope this atrocity won't be surfing its way to Anaheim anytime soon.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Small World hub-bub

Lots of grousing going on about these rumored additions to It's a Small World. You can read Al Lutz's original Miceage.com story here and some huffing and puffing that the Re-Imagineering guys have going on at this link.


What was Mary Blair thinking? This picture needs Stitch in a hula skirt!

My take? Well first off, the ride IS old and COULD stand for some serious reworking. But adding Disney characters isn't the fix...that's just Disney's brand-nazis at work.

In all likelihood, adding Blair-ish characters will just be ugly. Screw the trumped up stories that are already circulating about Walt considering just such a move when the show arrived at Disneyland in '65. Even if that is true, it's a skewed truth. Disney had a whole different approach to its characters in the sixties. It was certainly more restrained. Heck, I have a 1968 souvenir guide that doesn't feature a character until page 6. Imagine that today.


This is Disney's interpretation of a Mickey-tiki. If the "talents" at Disney can manage to take a playful "Polynesian" approach and churn out this gack, image how hideous their Mary Blair-inspired work could be. Yikes!

It's a Small World is a treasure, an attraction that was loved-on by some of the very best artists Disney ever employed. It doesn't deserve to be monkeyed with by punk-talents who are simply doing the bidding of their corporate masters.

Still this attraction is showing its age. No doubt if the Old Man were still running the joint, this show would have been gone a long time ago. I wonder what Walt would have done to top this classic. I wonder if anyone at WDI has the talent to answer that question.

Friday, March 21, 2008

New Ride Announced for Universal Studios!

Hats off to Lance at Screamscape.com! He's been talking up this "Project Rumble" for some time.

Who's that guy on the right waving to?

It will be interesting to see if Disney feels compelled to toss a new coaster into the fray. Between this thing and Sea World's rumored new ride, it seems to be the thing all the other kids are doing.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day...

...all you pigs, and chickens, and things!




Tarzan, Frankenstein, and Tonto have nothing on these three!

Drink green beer and behave!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Back to the drawing board

Whazzat...more of the same on this Night Kingdom? This time coming from a "real news" source (of course, most of their information comes from bloggers and unspecified employees)?

Let's hope that if anything is accurate, it's the last line in this report and that the Mouse can make something exciting out of this soggy pizza.

http://www.wftv.com/news/15592397/detail.html

Theme Park Attendance Reports

It's like the new spring catalogs arriving! The 2007 ERA/TEA annual attendance reports were released today. No surprise: Disney had the most attended parks worldwide.

What continues to confuse me is how each of Ohio's two big parks--Cedar Point and King's Island--continue to suck in 3+ million people every year. You'd think folks would get tired of dismal service, dirty grounds, and pretty thin offerings. But then again, Ohio voted George W. Bush into office TWICE.

Enjoy!

http://www.connectingindustry.com/downloads/pwteaerasupp.pdf

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Eeeek!

I am really excited to see this new Toy Story Mania ride--both at Disney's California Adventure and at Disney's Hollywood Studios. But what is it about this image that creeps me out?



Artwork (c) Disney


I can't figure if it's the claustrophobic walls-are-closing-in setwork, or the giant Woody with evil doll eyes that appears to be popping out of nowhere. What other horrors lurk behind these walls?

And what's the deal...is Hamm riding in the car with these guests? Is he gonna bust them for stealing the 3D glasses from Muppetvision?

Here's a mystery to solve: How is it that Disney can create a great attraction and then allow their Marketing folks to fool around and make it look like a wet churro. This is bad.

Still--I'm excited about this ride!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Pee #3 - PLACE


So what do we mean by Place? Consider the previous analogy, where Purpose is potency and Passion is romance. After all this sweaty-palms stuff, what do you have left?

For a lot of people, the answer is a resounding "nothing." But for others, this answer is, well, something--a relationship. It usually isn't what you'd expect. Maybe it's a lifetime of resentment and misery, or a quiet sort of contentment. For a lucky few, it's a neverending good time.

Inevitably, if there is a "relationship," the people involved find their place. In much the same way, great attractions find their Place too.

Place isn't about location, though location certainly plays a role. Take Rock City, for example. Located in Chattanooga, TN, this is one of those quintessential American establishments, a mom-and-pop roadside attraction that opened in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression.


Rock City: High Atop Lookout Mountain

Back in its early days, Rock City was a scenic stop that included a hike to the top of Lookout Mountain, where Frieda Carter (wife of Garnet Carter, inventor of Tom Thumb Golf) had created a bucolic trek through natural and contrived rock formations. From this vantage point visitors could purportedly "see seven states."

Blame Global Warming...the most I've ever seen is four!

Rock City is picturesque, idiosyncratic, and a work of love. But plenty of attractions have the same attributes. What sets Rock City apart--what gives it Place--is the way it has positioned itself as this quirky, curious stop along I-75. It seems like everyone has heard of it. For some reason Rock City rises above other highway diversions.

Why? It's hard to tell. Certainly part of it is attributable to the 70-year old campaign of painting barns across the USA with the famous "See Rock City" slogan. But as importantly, Rock City delivered the goods for all those people who ventures from the Interstate...the anxious moms, the weary dads, all those high-strung kids who had been pent up in cars for hours on end, even the grandmas looking for birdfeeders and souvenir spoons.



One of the most successful marketing campaigns: The Rock City Barn!

What does it deliver? Rock City is a sweet, almost anachronistic oasis from the stress of highway travel. As it has grown, its retained its eccentricity. Nestled among Frieda's original rock garden are caverns with weird 50's-era day-glo storybook scenes. Ladies dressed like Mother Goose greet kids and a robot gnome acts as a barker at the entrance. For the Northerners making the pilgrimage to (or from) Orlando, this is the anti-Disney, devoid of corporate artifice and brand promotion. It just feels honest.

That's the Place that Rock City occupies. It's not just that it's a welcome respite from the noise. Rock City is trusted and it delivers. Folks know going in that this place has served generations of travelers just like them.

Circling back on the "Pee #1 -Purpose" post, we have Disneyland. You can argue that the Purpose of this attraction has drifted from Walt's original family park vision and today is something less certain, less definable. To many, Disneyland appears to have consciously violated its founding principle, adding big-budget thrill rides that deliberately split the family, forcing short guests, frail guests, and timid guests into backwater attractions.

Disneyland's Grad Nite--a tame but non-family affair--appeared in 1961.

Though some folks may think that such criticism is unfair, Disneyland's Purpose isn't entirely obvious. That said, Disneyland's PLACE is cemented. It is this legacy attraction. It has entertained millions of people for almost six decades. It is safe. It is all-American. For many families with kids, it is a rite of passage. For locals, it is almost like a neighborhood attraction, a place to go with friends or on a date. For people around the world, Disneyland is a place they trust (even if they don't trust the country it is located in), a place where they expect to be entertained in ways no one else can. Disneyland is an American landmark.

Place is about the relationship an attraction has with its audience. A Great Attraction successfully defines that relationship and in the process creates its Place.

Many attractions fail because the relationship they set out to create never takes hold. Like some lovelorn teenager, their efforts go unacknowledged.

Other attractions, with a history of success and an established Place, attempt to redefine the relationship, upping the ante, showing up one afternoon with a toothbrush and asking for a key to their girlfriend's apartment.

Sometimes this works, as it did when Walt Disney World added its EPCOT Center in 1982, hoping and praying that guests would be hungry for another day of Disney theme park-ing. That gamble resulted in the Mouse's Florida property becoming a multi-day destination in the minds of folks who otherwise considered the Magic Kingdom a drop-in-for-a-day park.

It seems that just as often, an attempt to redefine Place is refused by the audience. Disney's attempt to repeat its Florida success with the addition of Disney's California Adventure is an easy example. But it can certainly happen on a more local scale.

Consider COSI from "Pee#2 - Passion." This was a joint that was loved in its community. But a high-profile move into a colossal Arata Isozaki building, a completely new collection of whiz-bang exhibits, and (perhaps most importantly) a 60% increase in admission costs resulted in a huge backlash. The folks that COSI had established a relationship with didn't know what to expect from this new thing. 9 years later, COSI is still working to regain its footing.

Establishing an attraction's Place is not easy, but it is essential to Greatness. Once that Place is found, it can still be bobbled and lost.