We took the kids, oh, crap, 8 years ago to Disneyland. I made some notes to optimistically make a blog post about it in a timely manner. Well, in a manner, anyways. I present the notes, with , uh, more notes? 8 years later, certain to be accurate.
"This rocket ship ride, while being quaintly pulp sci-fi circa 1950's inspired, goes I Think I Saw This Machine In "The Right Stuff" too fast." Yes, yes, it was entirely too fast, and gave the controls over to the children, the children! I guess if low brain trauma is self-induced we can't sue? It must have been the combination of being a little bit too fast and my kids being the right combination of far too frail and little and little to less than little sense of danger.
I guess we saw one of the last runs of Captain EO, which was much cringier than I remember. Two things: "Captain Eo has the power to turn all Borg soldiers into Solid Gold dancers; and ANGELICA HUSTON?! #pullingOutAllTheStops"
"The (from my childhood memory) pretty spooky Haunted house. Quake with fear kids as a traditional, original classic Disney ride is contorted with the power of vertical market integration and right-size co-synergestic marketing with Nightmare Before Christmas. OooooOooOoOOOo!" It was pretty ham-fisted how everything was shoe-horned. I mean, I guess us nerdy types are supposed to near-worship Imagineers, but, yeah, this looks like a soulless redesign.
"Pinnochio is old school Disney ride made for children who grew up with more than a passing familiarity with starvation or burying close relations because boy HOWDY there is some grade A nightmare fuel in there." It was amazing what they accomplished with paint, darklights, and what I assume are repurposed child sized rails from an era when 5 year olds would put in a honest days work. Back of the napkin, this ride was likely made in the 50's? So the designers for sure saw at least one world war and the Depression. Nobody growing up on Def Leppard and Back To the Future would make this ride, is what I'm saying.
"Splashdown mountain. Adorable animatronics, delightful story, scampy Brer rabbit OH MY GOD FEAR FOR YOUR LIFE relaxing boat ride, enchanting scenery, end." Perfect note.
"Mater ride must really annoy southerners with his over the top relentlesss hokey hick accent , OH WAIT here's a Luigi ride and Italians don't fair horribly well either."
"The only time my children clapped in this multi billion dollar exercise in merchandising and proprietery fairground entertainment? When I bought them lollipops. "
"Jj on rides "I hate that ride, I love that ride, I dont want to ever ride that again, why arent we going on that ride, I hate disney can I go on that ride!?" About the same ride. All within about a minute." The ride was Star Wars. Now he sneaks in prequel memes during normal conversation like an animal.
"Stone cold ride attendant approaches screaming near hysterical toddler in chair swing pre-start. Doesn't mention to dad that, hey, maybe kid doesn't wanna be there. Simply double checks safety belts are in place, moves on. Disney is GANGSTA."
"It's not the chipped fuselage paint or the out of date magazines that had me worried. It's that the bathroom sink sounds like a thermite bomb after use." I have no idea where this note is about or from. But there was always something I appreciated about Disneyland. How everything was meant to run forever. Everything seemed to be made of some form of concrete or an exotic plastic 007 would use in his bullet proof sunglasses. Fun on a neverending hamster wheel of durability.
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