I have been using the app Dubsmash a lot lately with some other Disneyland fans. For those that don’t know, Dubsmash is an app full of movie and song quotes and you can lip sync to them and send them to your friends.
We noticed there were NO Walt Disney or Disneyland quotes so we started uploading them — a LOT of them. Maybe I’ll share them here one day, but while looking for famous Walt Disney quotes to add to the site, I came across this gem:
Not sure if this is well-known in the Disney community, but this is Walt’s last interview and it was in September of 1966 just as he was preparing production of “The Happiest Millionaire.” He sounds great here! It’s from a South African radio program and Walt’s interview starts after the musical introduction at 6:25.
They talk about Mary Poppins, The Sherman Brothers, and even a little about Disneyland in this short but fun interview. It’s terrible that this was his last interview and he would pass away not 3 months later. He was a legend of not only his day but into today and beyond.
Take a listen to this interview sometime and imagine a world where radio programs sounded like this, Walt Disney was still a living legend, and the Disney company, while a mega-giant in its time, was relatively new and still finding its place in the world.
What a guy!
For fun, here’s one of our Dubsmash clips:
Pardon the audio quality, it’s the best version of the clip I could find.
For “Throwback Thursday” this week, we decided to go WAY back to 2010!
In 2010, we got to visit Club 33 — FINALLY! We are so glad we did, looking back, because we were able to see the game room and the original entry way from when it opened. Both are now gone with last year’s refurbishment.
Take a look at our photos from that trip here. Do you have some favorite photos? Let’s seem them below!
Here is a new thing we are going to try out. Over the years, I have collected tons and tons of Disney photos from the internet, books, thrift shops, antique stores, ebay… So I thought that every week, I would post a picture I have collected.
Ready for the first photo? Here we go!
It All Started With a Mouse.
If you want to request that we post a photo of a certain attraction, character, film, or what have you, please let us know and we’ll do our best to please you.
Today was the day I was to finally ride the original Tower of Terror. I was SUPER excited!
At last!
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is a smaller park that’s more focused on shows and entertainment than attractions but the few attractions they do have really pack a punch and the shows are among the best I have seen at a Disney park. Orlando seems to be a haven for film and stage hopefuls with plenty of roles to go around. Really top notch stuff coming out of these parks!
So we entered through some familiar looking gates — the new Disney California Adventure Park gates, while modeled after the Pan Pacific park theatre are actually modeled after Disney’s own Hollywood Studios park. I had no idea until DCA’s walls were about to come down in front of the new gates and a buddy of mine showed me a picture of the Hollywood Studios gate. I was surprised and thought that DCA’s walls had come down early. It’s striking how similar these parks look from the front!
And that’s not all. There’s even a Carthay Circle Theatre (which is a shop rather than a restaurant) and a lot of the same building replicas DCA has in it’s Hollywood Blvd. area. Even the gas station looks a lot like Oswald’s at DCA. I went to high school in Hollywood and lived there for about 5 years and they really nailed a lot of the tiny details. Their Crossroads of the World replica (information station at the park) is uncanny and their Max Factor building (a shopping plaza) is spot on.
Hollywood Studios’ Carthay Circle TheatreLooking back toward the main gate.
After taking in the main drag Hollywood Blvd., we took a right and headed down Sunset Boulevard toward the Hollywood Tower Hotel known as Tower of Terror.
A beacon for the show business elite!
We took tons of photos of this attraction which seems to house more homages to the show than our DCA counterpart. Traveling through the 5th dimension caused me to laugh out loud in glee the first time the doors opened and we moved forward. It’s really neat and almost too stimulating upon the first ride. There’s just no way to sell how incredibly detailed and awesome this ride is. The day we came home we went to DLR and rode Tower and while it’s still a great ride and superior in a few areas, as a whole, I would have to say that Hollywood Studios’ version of the ride is in a completely different league.
Awesome!A hidden Mickey!
Next it was onto Rockin’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith. We had done this at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Paris and I remembered really enjoying it. The queue in Paris seemed a little more detailed but the facade was much better at Walt Disney World.
Huge guitar here!
This ride has some great holograms for the pre-show and a nice story and great theming. We are granted backstage passes to a concert that’s happening in 10 minutes and Aerosmith has demanded that their manager sense a limo our way to get us there. Unfortunately there’s traffic but our “driver” seems to know some back-alley shortcuts. We take off into the dark night past some hollywood landmarks along with some rockin’ tunes. It’s a whirlwind thrill and if I had to compare it to something, it would be a mix of Space Mountain and California Screamin’ at DCA.
We grabbed a quick bite at the farmer’s market area. What was nice was the even though this was standard theme park fare, it’s pretty regional so BBQ baked beans and cole slaw are common hot dog toppings. I loved it! They also had bacon macaroni and cheese toppings. A great treat I have yet to discover at our 3rd and Fairfax farmer’s market.
This walking magician puts on a great show!More magic at Hollywood Studios!
Our first new-to-us attraction at this park was The Great Movie Ride. While it’s a great ride, it seems to be a lot like Jungle Cruise in the way that your “skipper” can make or break the ride, and you have multiple ones so landing multiple good hosts can be difficult. We had two pretty bad ones but there are some great things to look at. I liked how large the ride vehicles were. They really move a lot of people in there!
The Magic Castle on the mural?Singin’ in the Rain!
The Voyage of the Little Mermaid was a fun show with some cool laser effects and some great puppetry. However, there’s a whole scene where Ariel is live on stage singing a song and animated Ariel is singing and swimming on a projection right next to her. Seemed like a mixed message. It’s also a very truncated version of the film’s story. You should go into this having already seen the film.
The Voyage of the Little MermaidGreat Ursula!
Star Tours! While exactly the same as ours in almost every way including the queue (minus a few things), the exterior of this one is superior to Disneyland’s. There’s an AT-AT out front walking through the Endor Moon terrain. Super fun to look at and walk through!
The Endor Moon!
Walking straight into the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, we had no idea what to expect. We walked into a very large set so we figured there’d be a lot of col stuff to see while the actors made their way from section to section in what may be a 15 minute show, or so. However, after the entire set gets used in the first scene, I was worried there wasn’t going to be much more to see. Then, the set change happened. This has to be some of the most incredible set design I have seen at any Disney park! The scenes are HUGE and the stunts are great. I highly recommend this show!
So awesome!
On our way back to Tower (I know, I know…), we stopped into the Beauty and the Beast show. Yet again, if you’re an out of work actor, make your way to Orlando because these shows are just top notch! Absolutely terrific performances all around and this show is a little longer than The Little Mermaid show although there’s still some plot holes if you have not seen the film.
Tale as old as time…We were in the area!
Next was more of a showcase of all things Walt. Put together by D23, One Man’s Dream is a huge love letter to Walt with props from his boyhood desk with his name etched into the wood to his Glendale, CA office as it would have been seen on the lot. It’s a wonderful museum of Walt Disney treasures with an amazing film at the end that’s sure to bring tears to your eyes. Well done!
Bring a tissue or 5!Walt’s Office
After this, we wandered the park awaiting Fantasmic! at 7pm. We planned on grabbing good seats at the amphitheater so a 5:30 arrival was key. We walked thru the Pixar area where their Toy Story Midway Mania was. We skipped it as the lines were just outlandish and we aren’t huge fans of the DCA version so we figured we weren’t missing anything. We saw Pizza Planet (having my birthday there next year for SURE! (I kid…)), a huge Muppet store (we skipped MuppetVision 3D), the backlot area (the backlot tour was down for the duration of our trip there), and skipped the Lights! Motor! Action! stunt show as we had seen it in Paris. After some sightseeing, it was time to go see the East Coast version of the Disneyland classic.
It sure is different!
I took a little nap while waiting for the show but we certainly had GREAT seats! While it’s different, it was cool to see some added scenes with rarely seen characters like Pocahontas. Their dragon is like our old dragon and they have a smaller and sort of dinky version of the Mark Twain for the finale. All in all, it’s still a magical show but in the amphitheater setting, it seems a little too far away. I was still able to grab some awesome pictures. See if you can spot the Mickey with the weird eyes. What’s THAT about?
NO!Mickey encounters the snake!DragonSlaying the dragon
Tons more Fantasmic! pictures below! After leaving Hollywood Studios for the night, we headed over to The Magic Kingdom to take advantage of the extra magic hours. We headed over to the Tiki Room but they closed early so we went to Tomorrowland to check out Space Mountain which wasn’t bad. It’s very different and more like the pre-1998 DLR version. I really liked the star effect inside the queue — it was very convincing. Unfortunately we were not able to play with the interactive queue. Has anyone done it? Is it any good?
En Route to the Magic KingdomThe Mountain!Great end-queue visuals
Before we left for the night, we went on TTA’s Peoplemover. It moved a lot faster than I expected and was visually different from our old Disneyland version but it was still a great ride with some incredible park views!
TTA: Peoplemover
Another perfect day at WDW in the books! Nice touch upon exiting the Magic Kingdom for the night and retiring to our hotel room once again.
On this day in 1901, Walter Elias Disney was born. Little did anyone know the contribution he would have to the world. Without Walt, what would our world be like?
Happy Birthday Walt!
What would the world of animation be today without Walt?
Walt and Steamboat Willie
How would theme parks be designed today without Walt?
Walt and Jose!
On this day, let’s look back and think about how Walt made a difference in our lives. Whether it’s being 5 years old and watching Peter Pan for the first time or your first ride on the Tea Cups at Disneyland, we all have amazing childhood memories thanks to one man: Walt Disney.
Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse
Happy Birthday and Thank You!
All pictures are property of the Walt Disney Company.
A co-worker of mine showed me these videos and they were too awesome not to share with you all! Walt Disney is known as being the innovative force behind modern animation and porting that medium to feature films, but he was also a business man who knew how to tell a story.
With the help of corporate sponsors and his crack creative and animation departments, these little gems were produced by the Mouse and Co. to help prevent malaria, ease little girls’ fears about menstruation, and warn about the dangers of smoking. Pretty entertaining stuff — and ahead of its time, in some ways!
What are your favorite Disney educational videos? My favorite are the Goofy “How to…” series — even though they don’t really count as educational, per-se, I feel like I learned a lot about what not to do!
