Aug 23, 2016 Disneyland in B&W
If I stuck around and worked at the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland for more than one summer and a couple of breaks, I probably would have been trained to operate the Enchanted Tiki Room next. While the former is probably the most fun place to work at in the Magic Kingdom when you’re a teenager–with chances to ad lib, wear shorts during the hot weather, and pack a real gun–the latter is my longtime favorite attraction. The Hawaiian-esque music is right up there with Martin Denny’s “Quiet Forest” as far as the Exotica subculture goes, and the hosting birds’ foreign accents could have flown right out of Hogan’s Heroes. What a perfectly weird time capsule that looks great in B&W.
When I go back to Disneyland, as I did on Saturday, I not only recall the time I worked there (which was a lot of fun because I was surrounded by a lot of other college students on their breaks) but my childhood growing up behind the Orange Curtain. When we kids, my family went to the Magic Kingdom on special occasions and my brother and I could even see the 9:30 fireworks from our bedroom window. We moved during fourth grade, but when did the baboons move off the rock formation leading to the African veldt?
But even though I recall A, B, C, D, and E Tickets as well as I do the Jungle Cruise spiel (which has been burned into my brain forever after reciting it three times an hour, six hours a day, six days a week), I’m no purist who gets hung up on the good ol’ days. It’s pretty lame that women weren’t allowed to be skippers on the Jungle Cruise and the ride itself sends dated messages about exploring, cultural imperialism, and the White Man’s Burden. Hm, does the much newer Indiana Jones ride send an updated message? (I enjoy it anyway and my eight-year-old daughter went on it for the first time.)
I’m actually okay with original attractions being tweaked over the years. Pirates of the Caribbean might have parts based on the Johnny Depp movies, but the action trilogy was based on the ride to begin with! How meta is that? Thankfully, the Haunted Mansion is modeled after Tim Burton’s gothtastic Nightmare Before Christmas animated feature instead of the Eddie Murphy vehicle… Both are dark and in constant motion, but I managed to capture some strobe lights on the ghost ship and our Doom Buggy took a pit stop by the ghoul with the disappearing head when unruly spirits were acting up.
There are layers of reflection and mixing up at Splash Mountain, too, where the animatronic animals from America Sings! have been reincarnated in the setting of Song of the South. And how interesting for the ride to be based on a feature that Disney has pretty much disowned for its idyllic portrayal of plantation life after the Civil War. Fittingly, it looks downright chilling in black and white. This is one of the most fun yet harsh rides for so many reasons.
When I was a kid, it was a big deal when yeti were added to the Matterhorn. Now there are new, improved creatures on the Swiss Alp that move around and yelp in stereo. Pretty cool, and Eloise was brave enough to ride on the bobsled ride for the first time, but still geographically incorrect since everyone knows the Abominable Snowman lives in the Himalayas. There was a time when the Skyway to Tomorrowland went right through the peak, but we visitors are better off walking across the park and (1) we are less likely to get spit on and (2) it makes for a better picture.
It’s a Small World was famously made as a UNICEF fundraiser for the New York World’s Fair in 1964 and today it is one of the park’s most popular rides as well as one of its most famously haunted ones. The music and movements mysteriously and randomly start up after closing hours. Dolls change places or vanish. Mary Blair originals are flanked by odd mutations from Precious Moments… The only thing creepier than ghosts is ghosts of children.
Space Mountain has been converted into Hyperspace Mountain, and I’m glad that the outside hasn’t been adjusted to look more like something from the Star Wars movies. The 1977 addition’s aesthetic was already and similarly ahead of its time mixing midcentury angles and spires and the low center of gravity of a Trans Am. So much cooler looking than the Star Tours architecture, which used to be Journey Thru Inner Space but that’s another story that entails the excellent, dark voice acting of Paul Frees, real-life villainy of Monsanto, and one of the park’s great makeout spots of lore.
I’ve never been to Bryce Canyon National Park but I know the profile of Thunder Mountain like the back of my hand. I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a ghost train rolling through a deserted mining town, though. No wonder it’s so fun to ride in the dark–which my family and I did three times between 11:45 and midnight, closing time. Who knows when we’ll return?
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