Blogs We Love

Alright, this week we're taking time to show some love to the blogs and pages we love most, and giving you guys some links to check out some other great Disney places online. Austen and I have been the types who have been on the fan forums, and realized that a lot of them have the mentality that they're the only ones out there and don't care about anyone else but themselves. We like to think that we're not some site that needs everyone's clicks and your clicks only. We want to share the love of Disney, and get the word out about other places online we love to read up on. Sharing is caring after all, right?

So here's a quick description of the pages we love, and hopefully you can check them out and love them too.

Magic Eye - Mint Crocodile. He's elusive and very little actually know who this photographer of park updates is. We don't know either. But what we do know is we love his very unbiased "here's what's being updated/changed in the parks" site. None of that "OMG THEY CHANGED MY FAVORITE PARK BENCH'S LOCATION!". Check it out here: Magic Eye

Yesterland - Disneyland isn't what your grandparents remember it as. Things change, but unlike other sites, this is all on what was there. Lots of photos and descriptions of past attractions and shows that graced Disneyland's wonderful history. Link: Yesterland

Fan Forums.

The two we really check out a lot are well worth a visit.

Westcoaster - Jim, a personal friend of ours runs this crazy train. Read through the forums for some great laughs, and even better sarcastically hilarious updates. His hobby of theme park loving shows through with his baby of Westcoaster. Check it here: Westcoaster

Disney Fan Addicts - This one's really cool, because it's facebook only. It's just a group page of nearly 13,000 fans who chat Disney. Some know others more than most, but go like the page, make some friends, and have fun chatting with them! Even add a few friends after you get to know them. They're a great page to read up on. Link: Disney Fan Addicts


Photoblogs

Albert. This dude has some awesome shots of the park. He's a great photographer that's got a great eye for Disney shots. Use them as your wallpapers for your computer. We do.
Link: Disney Photoblography

Hundred Acres of Country Bears

This site at times can be difficult to write for, when you write about the secrets of the park that are 'onstage', because often times we have to dive into the history of the park to explain things. There's a big site we look at for reference called "Yesterland". They do a wonderful job at maintaining the past 'lives' of Disneyland attractions, shows, restaurants, etc. But for this post, before we take a walk back to New Orleans Square for now, we're going to look at a really cool nod to a cult favorite attraction.

Originally in this location was the Country Bear Jamboree. A hick-ish attraction of sorts that was an audio animatronic show of a group of bears singing out country songs, and during the Christmas season, their favorite Christmas songs as well. However, just like Walt himself said, the park is never going to be completed. So when it came time for the bears to say their final goodbye back in 2001, a new attraction took it's place of Winnie The Pooh. A dark ride adventure through the Hundred Acre Woods going through a very blustery day, and even celebrating Pooh Bear's birthday. But three guys still remain to this day inside the attraction....

That's right. For those that once saw the Country Bear Jamboree or the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown, you'll remember Max, Buff and Melvin. Yes, the deer, bison and moose trio are still up on the wall inside pooh's hunny-filled dream. Where can you find them? Well, once you exit the room with the heffalumps and woozels, and Pooh in a hot air balloon, look behind you, and up. They're right there, still hanging out, almost waiting for their turn to hopefully return to singing and joking..

Double Dipping Splashes

This isn't necessarily a secret, but definitely interesting to hear about. During the construction of Splash Mountain, just like every attraction, they go through test and adjust phases where they have to make sure things look right, or need to be altered in any way. It's all just apart of making the magic look as good as possible for all of the guests.

Well, one of the biggest test and adjusts came with one of the drops inside the attraction, actually. If you've been on the attraction, you know that there's a hill inside the mountain that has Brer Bear's..ehem, rear end sticking out of a hole as you dive under it, and slide back up a hill, then splash down into water. During construction, that first drop was actually filled with water, and not 'dry' like it is today. Why is it the way it is now?

Simple. When you go down a hill and hit water, it slows down the log's speed, and dumps a ton of water into the log. Usually that's good, but not this case. When the logs first went down the hill, they retained so much water, they couldn't make it up the next one! So the imagineers had to figure out a way to get those sleds back up the hill. Eventually they created a drain in the flume at the bottom of the hill, and also adding a drain to the logs so the water wouldn't sit and slow down the log and allow them to make it back up the hill and finish the ride out.

So next time you take a ride to the laughing place, remember how you're making it out of the Briar Patch! 

Beyond the Laughing Sky

Some of the best and well known Disney songs are those from the original movies, such as the Lion King, Aladdin, the Little Mermaid, and for our example today- Alice in Wonderland.

Alice in Wonderland had 14 songs originally, the most songs for any Disney movie at the time. But not all of these songs made it into the movie. One of those that didn't make it was Beyond the Laughing Sky- Or should we say, The Second Star to the Right.

Check out this short video explaining why this song was cut and the lyrics changed.

What other songs are out there that Disney never used? Well, there's actually quite a few. If you're a Disney music lover like us, we highly suggest you go to Itunes or Spotify and search for the albums: The Lost Chords. These short albums (released by Disney) contain the original songs sung by the Sherman Brothers, and then the same song sung by the artist.


This is truly musical gold for us Disney fans, and an awesome look and history lesson that makes our passion grow that much more. 

Splash Mountain's Laughing Place

Splash mountain. One of three water rides in Disneyland, and inarguably the most intense. Based off the film that is quite difficult to find - thanks be to protesters, Song Of The South, your log travels you through the pranks and Hijinks of Brer Rabbit.

It's all fun and games, until you're somebody's Tar Baby...

This attraction was built in the late 80's, but opened on July 17th, 1989. The concept stemmed from Tony Baxter, as he was trying to find a way to draw guests into the back corner of the Struggling Bear Country. It was argued that a log flume attraction was too generic for other amusement parks, but the other imagineer, Dick Nunis, who insisted on the type of attraction being used for the land to draw attention from the guests. When the attraction was being built, it went well over budget, and they had to cut some corners, respectively. We'll cover a bit of this attraction when we reach TomorrowLand, but America Sings was getting low attendance numbers, so they decided to close America Sings, and use the majority of the Animatronics from there, over in the new Splash Mountain.

Looks a bit like Pride Rock from this angle, doesn't it? It's an unconfirmed myth, and doubtful to be intentional, but it's always good to notice different angles of things. 

Once opened, Splash Mountain finished with a solid $75,000,000 price tag - one of the most expensive projects WDI has ever done. Since 1990, guests have been filling the queue on hot summer days to take a fall down into the Briar Patch, always finding their laughing places.

A Look Around The Critter's Country

Welcome to all you critters! 

Good Tuesday Morning to everyone! Today we're going to be looking around at the general area of Critter Country as it stands today. There isn't many secrets to this land that we know of, but there are definite nods to the past attractions around the woods.

This way to the rest of the land! 

With this small amount of land added into the Magic Kingdom, there's not a lot of room for a lot of attractions as other lands in the park. Currently, there are only three attractions here: Splash Mountain, Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes, and The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh. Originally before Splash Mountain and Winnie The Pooh, there was the Mile Long Bar, a simple soda shop, and Teddy Berra's Swingin' Arcade, with some custom arcade games themed after the Country Bear Jamboree, the biggest attraction at the time. 

Over time, these attractions faded into Yesterland (one of our favorite sites, by the way), and have made way to new attractions and shops, meet and greets, all with some thematic nods to the past, like the sign above the current Winnie The Pooh store that now stands where Teddy Berra's Arcade and Mile Long Bar once stood:

Country Critters and Bears

Onward and forward to Critter Country! This land is a fun quiet corner of the park that was expanded upon in 1972. Originally it was called 'Indian Village', later renamed to 'Bear Country', and finally to broaden the species a bit, they renamed the land to 'Critter Country' when Splash Mountain (based on the film 'Song of the South') made its 1989 debut to the land.

When it first opened, it was themed merely to the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States, with deep woodsy themes and concepts. The Country Bears were the main attraction back here, along with Davy Crockett's Explorer Canoes. Back in the day, you also boarded the old Mike Fink Keelboats here as well. However, a current nod to the original attractions can be seen along the Rivers of America, next to the cabin that Davy Crockett now resides in.

What is now the Pooh Corner store, once stood the Teddy Berra's Swinging Arcade and Mile Long Bar. Oh, and that Winnie The Pooh Attraction your children love? That once stood a cult-fan favorite, the Country Bear Jamboree: a audio animatronic show about bears and country music adventures. During Christmas, this was one of the few attractions that had its own show overlay for the holidays as well. 

Finally, Splash Mountain made it's laughing place debut in January of 1989. The fourth and final mountain installment to the Magic Kingdom, it's themed flume ride is a journey through the film's story of Brer Rabbit, Fox and Bear, all getting at each other through a series of pranks and gags. But we'll go into more details of the Chickapin Hill later.

Well, this sums up a bit of the history and a few tidbits of secrets about the Northwest corner of the park's second expansion (the first was New Orleans Square). We'll be diving into a weekly post about this land until we're completely finished before making our way back over to New Orleans Square, and over to Frontierland. As always, please share with your friends, and get the word out about the site if you've enjoyed reading this! 

Modify, Adjustify...

Well, we're not going to candy coat it. We're changing. Don't worry. It's not one of those "we're bored and want to fix our hair" changes. No, we're changing to make things better. It's what progress is, right? Change for the better. That's exactly what we're going to do. 

This little project has taken off pretty well for Austen and I. We never really anticipated it to, but it has. With over 26,000 page views on the blog, 620+ likes on facebook, and 400+ followers on twitter, we're slowly gaining traction with you, the Disney fan community. It's an amazing thing to be known for something you just enjoy doing as a hobby. But with that, we feel like there's some things we want to streamline to make it better for our readers here on the site. 

For one thing, we're not going to make long winded posts. Who likes reading long messages that get repetitive by the end of it? No. We're going to get to the point on what we're explaining. 

For two, we now have set days on what's coming up on the site, facebook/twitter. I feel hypocritical when I just said that we won't write long winded posts, but this is the last one. Promise.

Fact Off Monday: Mondays suck. We get it. Rude boss, bad coffee, getting caught in traffic. It's not fun. So we're keeping it light to start off. Just like a good appetizer at a fancy restaurant, this is the day we just give a few quick facts about Disneyland/California Adventure on our Facebook and Twitter pages. Links are provided below. 

New Post Tuesday: Settled into work? Better coffee? Good. Tuesdays we're dropping our weekly post on the land we're covering at the time. Starting next Tuesday, just like the current blog theme, we're going to give you the first post on Critter Country! 

Wednesday: Hard Hats and Cranes day: We really haven't done much of updates, because so many sites have updates of photos going on around the park, but this is a lazy day for us, and who doesn't like more photos of the park? So Wednesdays you can expect a in-park/resort update from us. 

Throwback Thursday: We're going to do some digging here after construction updates. We'll re-link you to old posts of ours, or if we have an occasional post on old photos or stories from the past history of the park from guest/Cast Members, this is the day you'll see that in your feed. 

Hidden Mickey Friday: Not just for hidden Mickeys. We'll cover those with a post on here, but also linking you to sites we love, and explaining why you should give THEM a visit as well. 

Share You Saturday: We aren't just here to blog about stuff we know or look up. We love to hear other people's story in the parks. Whether you work there and made a memory for someone, or were just a guest enjoying a day there, share your story on our facebook wall. The story that gets the most likes by midnight (on the westcoast, PST), we'll share on Saturday! 

Alright, that about wraps this up! Also as a final note: We're going to constantly change the way the blog looks. As soon as we finish exploring one land for a while, we'll change the background and header to fit that selected land's theme! 

If you ever have any comments or suggestions on things you'd like to see, please let us know! 

(P.S. - We now have links underneath the logo of the site for you to find posts easier by land! There will be more links as we explore more lands.)

There's Always Room For More...

As we come to a close for now on New Orleans Square, I wanted to finish with some more facts and bits on the Haunted Mansion. It's one of the most iconic attractions inside Disneyland, and there could be months spent on this attraction going into detail upon detail inside. But for now, we must keep this trail fresh and well a blaze throughout the rest of the park.

So to finish with some of the more interesting facts about the ghostly retreat with wall to wall creeps, here we go!

The lobby/elevator ceiling is what is commonly used in theaters as a scene effect change. If you notice at times, it's even used in the stage show next door at California Adventure. A skrim hangs above the guests, cleverly disguised as what looks like the top. But once you reach the bottom of the stretching room, and the ghost host laughs, the lightning cracks, the ceiling disappears to show the owner of the Mansion, who clearly hung himself some years ago. As the lights return to normal, so does the ceiling.

A snapshot of the Scrim being lit from below. 

Note the glowing lights under the stretching portraits.

A scrim, for those that don't know, is a visual trick using stage lighting. If it's lit from the front, what's hiding behind it can't be seen. Which, in the Mansions' case, shows the "ceiling". The lights that show the lightning effect are hidden above the scrim, and once it's lit from behind, you can see what's hiding there. IE: The hanging owner of the mansion.

And now after, with the lights above it. 

And with this, we'll close the doors to the mansion for only a while, as we explore the rest of the park. But we will make a return to the ghostly retreat, with it's wall to wall creeps. Next week starts up a bit of history on Critter Country. 

Hurry baaaaack......hurry baaaaack....

Atmosphere Of the Deep South 'Nawlins: Part Two

Over the weekend I snapped some shots around New Orleans Square. Hope you enjoy! We'll wrap up Haunted Mansion this week and move on to Critter Country!