Disney: Equal Opportunity Employers (unless you are a hairy Asian)

(A quick note... you can enlarge the scans to read them if you like.)


With the recent news that Disney is now allowing hippies, beatniks and general good for nothing hooligans to run rampant while employed at the Disney parks, Parkeology thought we would take a look back at the salad days of the mid eighties.

Welcome to Dizneeeee World Man!

You see, we have always taken a Walt Disney World centered approach to things around here.  Yes, Disneyland is the original, yes Tokyo does everything better, yes the Florida management seems to be made up mostly of blind squirrel monkeys, but still, Walt Disney World is OUR park damn it!

Ahhhhh, he is cute... can't run a park worth squat, but cute for sure.

So while we could have gone back to the Magna Carta of Disney employee guides--Disneyland circa 1955--we instead decided to look at what we consider to be Walt Disney World's golden era, the mid 1980s. This was a time of great excitement for the Florida parks.  Sure, behind the scenes EPCOT CENTER was tanking and bringing down the company with it. Yeah, the company was almost the victim of a hostile take over and all of that, but from a guest's point of view--especially a kids point of view--this was the magic hour.  The Magic Kingdom had been established and built out, EPCOT CENTER was a wonder, Eisner had taken control and started pouring money into the place and there were just vague rumors of new parks and resorts to come… it was all optimism and joy… the future was so bright we needed to wear shades.

Rules?  We don't need no stinking rules!

There have been a lot of local news reports spouting off misinformation about why the rules have just been changed, not unlike a decade or so ago when they were relaxed for the first time, but who knows the truth? Maybe Disney is fearful of discrimination lawsuits, maybe they need to expand the work force pool of possible employees, maybe Iger just decided to grow a sweet Fu-Man-Chu… I have no idea.  But I do know that in 1986 times were different.

Notice the hidden Mickey made up from Spaceship Earth, the smiling cast member's hair and
Mitt Romney's head.... nice! But also a beer right on the cover of a new employee manual... interesting.

We hit up the vast Parkeology archives and pulled the following manual to take a trip back in time. This is “The Disney look” a brochure given to all employees to teach them the do's and don’t's about how to groom and present yourself in the Disney manner. I'm not sure that this would still be relevant today, truthfully, but it is a time capsule of another era.

Young, older, in goofy costumes or not--but all white and preferably dimpled, thank you very much.

 They don’t make a big deal of the rules on beards and mustaches… one short paragraph that reads:

“Moustaches and beards are not permitted.  The exception to this rule is where an individual was hired before the establishment of this standard.” I bet Roy had them drop that last line in there.

But the manual is interesting for a number of reasons… First of all check out a young Mitt Romney on the cover… Now notice the odd lack of any Asians.

White guys… no problem, you are covered. White girls... check, mostly cute of course.  But we have a nice sampling of other ethnicities… remember this is a mega conservative, big (even then) company presenting an All-American slice of diversity.  So we have African Americans, Hispanics, men and woman, old and young… and yet you have to get to the last page before you see ONE Asian person, and even then she maybe sort of could be Hispanic and not Asian at all!

Couldn't they have hit up the China Pavilion or something?

So clearly Disney of the mid 80s had something against hairy Asian people… I smell a class action lawsuit.  I’m not sure if Kevin Yee was working at Disney at this time, and he does not seem all that hairy to me, but let's get him involved… maybe he can write a quick book about it to get the ball moving.

Bonus points if anyone can tell me where this photo was taken.

I don't want to make a huge deal of this but after all, Asians are the fourth biggest ethnic group in the country, making up roughly 5% of the population.  Come on guys... this is supposed to be all-inclusive, the Benetton of family getaways... what gives?

FINALLY... I think she is Asian right? I mean we have the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders down there,
I think that might be Scott Baio in the yellow shirt, but top left.... Asian or maybe Hispanic or possibly
South Pacific Islander or Native American, but 6 nice white girls and an ex Happy Days star to balance
things out.

Honestly even at the time and I am sure much earlier the Disney Look was considered a bit of a relic.  It's amazing that it has lasted this long... but it is that very lack of hipness, that square old fashioned sensibility that works for Disney and has always worked for them.  When they try to be cool things go sideways... so get ready for the hipster facial hair to decend on the parks and think back to an older, slightly better time when hair and those pesky Asians were kept in check.

(BTW, for the record I am not Asian... but my daughter is. Her moustache is spectacular.)

Match Game 3

One of the cool things about doing this site is that there are so many other people out there who are just as weird and obsessed about crazy Walt Disney World stuff as we are. Also, they are apparently deranged pyromaniacs.

Our close personal friend Jess M. was kind enough to email some more pictures of vintage Walt Disney World matchbooks. Teevtee has already posted on two separate occasions (here and here) of his vast collection, but as you can see, even that was incomplete.

How about we start off with a little barbeque?

True park fans will remember this as the predecessor to Cinderella's Royal Table, where all the princesses met in the top half of the castle during Fantasy in the Sky and enjoyed a barbeque feast of ribs, pulled pork, and beef brisket, complete with checkered table clothes, stained bibs, and all the sauce that's fit for eatin'.

Or maybe it was a restaurant at Pleasure Island, I don't know.

Or how about a cover from Disney's third theme park? Everyone who's anyone in Hollywood smokes. They also drink. And do drugs. We're still waiting to get our hands on some vintage WDW drug paraphernalia.

This next one has to be my favorite, from the Top of the World restaurant / dinner theater / bar / illegal gambling casino, high atop the Contemporary Resort.

Is it just me, or is this evidence of the Dharma Initiative's early involvement with the property? I'm telling you, Discovery Island is the same island from Lost. And if you believe the rumors, The Others still live there among the rotting boardwalks and a vast amount of bird dung.

I think we can now safely put the argument to rest as to which site provides you with the latest, greatest, hard hitting theme park matchbook news. And the internet heaves a vast sigh of relief.

Thanks again to Jess M. for the pictures!

Indiana Jones and the Wardrobe Malfunction

It is hard to be a bigger Indiana Jones geek than me. I'm not sure it's possible. Raiders of the Lost Ark is my all time favorite movie. Unless I'm in an Empire Strikes Back mood. But no really, it's Raiders. Today, at least.

As a true Indiana Jones fan, I possess secret knowledge that is apparently unavailable to the people in charge of things such as Imagineering great Disney attractions. For instance, I know for a fact that Temple of Doom is the second best Indy movie (you probably think it's Last Crusade, but you're wrong. I won't hold it against you). I know that Karen Allen holds the distinction of being both the best (Raiders) and the worst (Crystal Skull) leading lady. I know that Belloq really did swallow a fly (google it). I don't know why he swallowed a fly.

I guess he'll die.

Indiana Jones is the greatest action hero of all time and it's not even close. A lot of this is due to Harrison Ford, but you have to give solid credit to the costume. That costume is an icon. Go to any decent Halloween party, and I guarantee you will see at least two or three dudes wearing it. I think at the Magic Kingdom Not-So-Scary party, it's probably the third most popular, behind (regrettably) Jack Sparrow and Other Random Pirate.

So it ticks me off to no end that the so-called geniuses who dreamt up the Great Movie Ride can manage to botch things for us true Indy fans. Take a look at this scene from the ride:

Now here's the scene from the movie. Camera angle is reversed from the ride's point-of-view, but the positions of Indy and Sallah are the same.

Spot the problem? It's the whip! Indy's trusty, iconic, never-leave-home-without-it whip! The ride gets scene-specific details right (such as Indy's gloves, which only appear in a couple scenes), but his whip and ever-present shoulder satchel are on the wrong hip.

In the movies, Indy wears the whip and the satchel on his left hip, so the strap is on his right shoulder. His gun holster is always on the right hip. Indy is right handed, so he quick-draws from the right hip (to shoot random Arabs). He cross-draws his whip from his left hip, which makes sense, as it allows the whip to unfurl as he swings his arm back.

For some crazy reason, the Great Movie Ride gets the costume wrong. And in case you're wondering whether Indy switches it up in the movie, he doesn't.

"You said their headpiece only had markings on one side?" -- Indiana Jones

Nor does he in Temple of Doom...

"Take the left tunnel, Indy!" -- Short Round

Or in Last Crusade...

"You left just when you were becoming interesting." -- Henry Jones, Sr.

Or in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...

"Your gun is digging into my hip." --Ace Ventura (way more quotable than anything in Crystal Skull)

For that matter, his costume is correct in Temple of the Forbidden Eye out at Disneyland.

Photo by Loren Javier from Flickr

And it's even right in the sign on the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, just scant yards from the Great Movie Ride! Though to be fair, the stunt performers might individually switch from left to right, depending on which is their dominant hand.

This sign is right-handed.

Is there any logical reason why GMR botched the costume? Maybe in the age of political correctness they were worried about showing the gun on Indy's hip, but that seems ludicrous in a ride which includes a full-on gangland shootout and even your temporary tour guide is packing heat.

Or maybe they felt like the whip needed to be seen in order for people to be happy with Indiana Jones? But it's barely seen anyway, since his jacket is covering part of it. It has to be an accident, right? But nevertheless, the fanboy in me is unreasonably offended.

It wouldn't be the first time parkeology has caught Disney red-handed with hand problems. But this seems like an easy thing to correct. Hopefully somebody who works GMR will see this and pass the word on to the costuming people.

Chasing the Moon

I never bought a pair of Mouse Ears, though I did receive one as a gift.

I own very few collectible pins, most of which were won during a couple stints on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire Play It, and the rest as perks from various races and events and things.

During an unfortunate episode in the 90s, I once bought a couple of Walt Disney Classics Collection figurines, until I figured out that for the price of a dozen, I could buy a decent used car.

But I have to admit, I dig the Vinylmation.

Now I try to be very restrained in my purchases, because this could spiral out of control quickly, but have you seen these new Park Starz figures? They are Vinylmations without the traditional Mickey shape, each one custom molded to a very abstract representation of something from the parks. And incidentally, there is a Vinylmation spoiler below, so tread lightly.

For those of you that don't know, Vinylmations are bought sight unseen. You never know which one you're going to get (hopefully one you don't already own). And to make things even more interesting, there is also a secret "chaser" figure in every set, that is not shown on the display.

I already owned a Tiki Bird, a Small World dude, and a Horizons Robot (and I am seriously considering starring them in a youtube sitcom sort of like Three's Company). But check out the one I got recently.

Is it hot in here, or is it just you, baby?

Blue leisure suit disco pose. Disturbingly-shaped nose. Bushy painted eyebrows. Yes, that is none other than the Funmeister!

The eponymous mascot of Pleasure Island's nightly New Year's Eve party is the chaser for the Park Starz set, and frankly, I couldn't be happier. That is a nice, obscure reference that rewards the true fan, and is one of the things I love about the Vinylmation series. This is the first chaser I have ever owned, and I'm proud to say I got him legitimately (no ebay or trading -- just a lucky pick from the box).

It seemed very serendipitous, this being New Year's week and all. And Funmeister is rapidly becoming something of a parkeology mascot. I'm seriously thinking of starting another youtube sitcom called "Famed Naturalist John Muir and the Funmeister." They would live in an apartment in New York and John would be the stuffy roommate, but the Funmeister would always be getting them into hilarious hijinks. And maybe a Country Bear lives across the hall as an annoying neighbor or something.

Anyway, I kind of just wanted to post this to make Teevtee jealous, since he was the original Funmeister champion.

Have a Happy New Year!

One Golden Sun

Will someone please call the fire department? I don't mean to cause any panic, but one Richard Morton Sherman's pants are on fire.

I've always been taught that there's just one moon and one golden sun. And a smile means friendship to everyone, unless you're a mentally unstable Batman villain or a crocodile.

Or in some cases, both.

But let's take a little trip, shall we? It's a Small World, very first room, right when you enter:

Hey, One Golden Sun! Or possibly a ninja star being thrown by reindeer. Now let's just circle around Scandinavia for a second...

"I'm from Holland! Isn't that vierd?"

A sun wearing a hat, which is how fashionable yellow dwarf stars like to be seen in public. The windmill in the foreground is being pursued by Don Quixote, who you can see here:

He's blurry because he's crazy.

That's like a whole 'nother sun on the other side of the windmill. For those of you keeping score at home, we still haven't left the first room of It's a Small World, and already we have more suns than Tatooine.

But fewer womp rats.

Leaving the first room, we sail into India.

Where the sun is about to stick up a train.

And from India, it is only natural to go to China.

As if we were Nixon. Oh, just google it.

Sailing out of China into Egypt, because I'm pretty sure they share a border. Note that here we get the first animated sun effect, a series of swirling light patterns. This is also what happens to your vision if you try to watch a solar eclipse without looking through that little hole in the cardboard box.

Also note the rare palm dwelling camel, the only camel to spend its entire life without ever touching the ground.

It's just a hop, skip and a jump to Latin America, home of the creepiest singing scarecrows this side of Oz. Note that we finally have a truly animated sun, with beams rotating behind other beams in a pulsating pattern, which I find kind of hypnotic.

Mariachi cactus!

And then on to Polynesia, home of my favorite Small World sun. I like how truly evil it looks. Clearly it is upset about the hula-dancing witches being burned at stake.

And finally the last room, which I always think of as Antarctica, mainly because of the cool color palette, and also because Antarctica is home to seven of the world's top ten roller coasters.

As well as stunning hot air balloon tours with clowns.

That's a lot of suns. Nine of them, to be exact -- more than there are planets in our solar system (since Pluto recently got sacked). So thanks for all the ruined dreams of childhood, Dick Sherman. Why don't you go back to swimming in your big pool full of hundred dollar bills?

Hey, at least you got the "just one moon" part right.

Shades of the Funmeister.

T-Shirt Correction League

So I was browsing through a shop at the Magic Kingdom. I think it was Sir Mickey's (a.k.a. the best shop in Fantasyland), and I came across a t-shirt.

I think this is a new line of interactive clothing from the makers of fine Disney threads. The goal is to look at the picture and see if you can spot all the things wrong with it.

Let's see how I do...

• The real Main Street U.S.A. is in color, and the picture is in black and white.
• Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character, not a real person.
• The trolley tracks don't end suddenly into a great white void
• Main Street usually has people on it.
• It's not raining right now, so the street shouldn't be wet.
• Walt Disney is dead, but the picture shows him as alive.

Let's see, am I missing anything?

Oh yeah. That ain't the Magic Kingdom. Nice try, Disney Merchandisers.

Walt Disney: Junior Time Traveller

Disney California Adventure is sort of like an alcoholic that has managed to stay sober for over a year now. We're all very proud. Doesn't mean we trust it to drive the kids home from the New Year's party, but we're glad it has turned its life around.

A lot of this progress is due to a clever approach in show development, and this approach is called: Don't be a mall. If you're going to steal, steal from the best, and DCA is stealing everything it can from its sister park next door: nighttime spectaculars, Fantasyland dark rides,  exclusive membership clubs, themed main streets. Don't be surprised if Disney soon announces the opening of Walt's private apartment, where he used to stay when dreaming up his ideal ferris wheels and rotating swing rides.

Also, there's this new statue being planned for DCA's Buena Vista Street. I'm sure you've heard of it. Disney has put forth several official statements about this statue, how it is supposed to represent Walt as he just stepped off the train from Kansas City, ready to embark on his own California Adventure. It's a bookend to the story that concludes with the Partners statue in Disneyland, which shows Walt as king of the Magic Kingdom. This is fresh-faced Walt, before the smoker's cough, before Mickey, before even Oswald. All he has are his dreams. And his luggage.

This is a "study maquette" displayed at DCA's Blue Sky gallery. Procrastinating students with no time to study may be interested in the Cliff Notes Maquette. Am I right?

Unlike the Partners statue, there is no pedestal for this version of Walt. The official explanation goes something like "Here he is just a commoner like us, he hasn't been elevated above us." It's a little insulting and reeks of vague cost-saving measures. But I'll forgive it.

I do tend to go a bit ballistic over all the luggage. What's he doing with an engraved trunk? Is this canon? I thought the lore was Walt had only a beat up old suitcase when he stepped off the train from Kansas City. Sort of like what Mickey has. What's Mickey even doing in the statue? He wasn't created yet. Oh, but he was in Walt's head and heart, he just wasn't a star yet. The old Roger Rabbit explanation for anachronisms. Fine, I'll buy it. Mickey wasn't a star, he lived in Kansas City, and one day he happened to hook up with commoner Walt Disney as they both stepped off the train on their way to seek their fortunes.

And then I saw this picture.

Do you spot anything here? I'll give you a hint. Look at the fingers. That's a wedding ring, if I'm not mistaken. The only problem is that Walt didn't get married until a couple years after he moved to L.A. Did Lilly know about his first wife? Because Mickey sure did.

Look, I don't expect Imagineers to be experts on every single tidbit of Walt's life, but I would expect them to have the basic timeline straight.

Anyway, I suppose I'm being too harsh. These pictures are all from the Blue Sky Cellar, and were probably conceptual anyway. Other versions of the statue do not seem to have the wedding ring. So maybe it's a detail that was caught and fixed. But it certainly felt good to rant for a bit. Especially following a holiday that is all about being thankful.

Special thanks to Andy Castro, who runs the absolutely phenomenal Dateline Disneyland blog over at miceage. The pics are all his.

The Two Faces of Teddi Berra

You say "Two Faces of Teddi Berra" in public, and the connotation is you've got a bear with some serious mental problems. Like maybe one day she's the quiet neighbor upstairs. The next day she's on trial for beheading a deer, a moose, and a buffalo. Like a twist ending to the Goldilocks story, where we find out all three bears were really just one. The kind of bear who needs a tacked on Alfred Hitchcock ending to explain just what caused her to go a little mad.

Do you still hear the swings creaking, Clarice?

But Teddi really is a nice gal. She just happens to be one of the few Country Bears that owes an awful lot of herself to some real life influences. Like her song, for instance. Her show-stopping number, Heart We Did All That We Could isn't a CBJ original. In fact, most of the songs in the show are legit little ditties from the hillbilly dance circuit.

I'm one of those fans that has complained in the past about Disney taking the lazy way out when it comes to music, specifically Food Rocks and the Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management. It always felt cheap to take some 80s pop songs and hand them over to a cast of robotic parrots. I mean, what is this, Chuck E. Cheese? The Sherman Brothers were too busy counting their money to take a crack at it?

Yet I would give a pass to Country Bear Jamboree, mainly because I've never heard these songs before, outside of the Magic Kingdom. All this really proves is that I have limited knowledge of music. It's kind of a catch-22. When your favorite genre in iTunes is Theme Park Music, it can sometimes come as a shock when you find out Hoop De Doo was not actually written for the classic dinner show of the same name.

Also, American Adventure's Two Brothers was written in the 1950s by some guy named Irving Gordon, and a major theme from the Magic Kingdom fireworks show was apparently taken directly from an old animated movie about a wooden puppet.

At least that Fort Wilderness show had the good sense to steal its chorus from an older tune. Teddi Berra's song is surprisingly current -- or would have been in 1971. Heart We Did All That We Could was actually a Billboard Country Top 20 hit in 1967, just four years before Country Bear Jamboree opened. It was performed by Jean Shepard, a lifelong member of the Grand Ole Opry and just this year was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (and whose official website looks like it was created about the same time she was topping the charts).

Which means that if you get her to autograph a picture of Teddi Berra, the "HOF" tag will raise its eBay value considerably.

But Jean Shepard isn't Teddi's only influence. Her mannerisms and costumes are ripped off straight from one of vaudeville's (and Hollywood's) biggest stars. Mae West was a saucy, sultry performer, and blessed with two of the most desirable assets in show business: Double entendres.

She even had a famous line: "Why don't you come up sometime and see me?" from the 1933 film She Done Him Wrong. The line is usually misquoted as "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" which not so coincidentally is Teddi Berra's last line in the show (Henry follows it with "Soon as I find a ladder I'll be right up.")

But it's not just the line. It's the entire get-up. Still don't think Teddi Berra owes a lot to Mae West?

One of these women sprang from the fertile imagination of Marc Davis. The other is a robotic bear.

The Walt Disney Company apparently had a major obsession with Mae West. Mae appeared as herself in the 1933 short Mickey's Gala Premier, and was said to bear more than a passing resemblance with Clara Cluck:

... as well as Pinocchio's pet fish Cleo:

Perhaps the most fun is a dead-on caricature of West as the femme fatale Jenny Wren in Who Killed Cock Robin?

With all these bird versions of Mae, it's a wonder she didn't show up in the Enchanted Tiki Room. But I guess we can consider ourselves lucky to have the teddy bear version.

Teddi Berra photo by Loren Javier

Spiderman's Boardwalk Crawl

I believe I have good news for all you Marvel fans. While running out at the Boardwalk, I noticed what I believe to be the first major construction work being done on the new Spiderman's Boardwalk Crawl Next-Gen game that should be coming to this resort area in the very near future.

Spidey is a regular at Beaches 'n Cream

Based on what we can piece together, this game will allow youngsters to traverse a webbed wall all along the entire Boardwalk/Yacht/Beach complex, collecting SpiderStamps and solving tricky maneuvering puzzles. No word yet on whether or not there will be a corresponding mobile application for this thrilling new addition.

They have not yet finished installing it, though it has been going up piecemeal for at least a week now. The first step was to install tacky 2-inch wooden barricades along the edge of the entire boardwalk area out at the Beach Club, which was done last week. This week has seen installation of the special Spidey webbing to be used in the game. Several panels are already complete, on the section of Boardwalk nearest the Dolphin hotel.

You can see the new wall being installed on the right, with the original boardwalk railing treatment on the left.

To say that we are looking forward to this new Next-Gen experience is quite an understatement. To our knowledge, this is the first time Next-Gen has appeared in the resorts, and also the first time Marvel characters have been incorporated. Disney continues to impress with their ability to keep this project under wraps, much like the Avatar-themed lands that dropped a bombshell on the superfans a few months back.

Note that no official announcement has yet been made, and we're going to be pretty upset if we've completely misread this. I guess there's an outside shot that this is nothing more than typical lawyerly lawsuit-proofing. But until we confirm that, we'll be practicing our web slinging abilities and honing our SpiderSense.

Surely there's a good reason for this, right? Right??