With last Sunday’s premiere, the Disneyland 60th Anniversary TV special won the evening with a robust 1.8 Nielson rating, proving once again that nobody understands Nielson ratings. Ted and I live-tweeted the entire 2-hour broadcast because anniversary specials are rare. Through the first half of Disneyland’s history, there were four. Through the second half (i.e. my entire adult life), […]
Disneyland
More Vintage Theme Park Trading Cards: Ted’s Greatest Regret
If you missed Shane’s introduction to this series click HERE! The day you realize that you are not alone in dressing up cats in tiny, homemade, hand knitted Shakespearean costumes (often adorned with glitter), and having them act out modern day retellings of The Tempest or A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a daylong remembered: It’s nice to […]
These Vintage Trading Cards Will Blow Your Little Park Geek Mind
Like all geek things, it started in the 1980s. Pop culture’s most iconic characters debuted in that decade. We got Jabba and we got Ewoks. And Indiana Jones (three times). The Ghostbusters materialized. So did Marty McFly and Biff. The Goonies were good enough. E.T. phoned home. The list is endless. Freddy, Rambo, Predator, RoboCop, John […]
The 3 Free Disneyland Tiki Room Luxuries the Rich Don’t Want You to Know
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams! The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous; an old TV show and a fun way to watch obnoxious people with more money than you drink thousand dollar bottles of wine while cruising on multi-million dollar boats. Today we call it Keeping Up with the Kardashians but it’s the same thing. […]
The Pilgrim’s Journey and the Walt Disney Family Museum
The Walt Disney Family Museum closes in just under three hours and I’m still exploring the lobby. It includes a setting from the Disneyland firehouse apartment, portraits of Walt’s two daughters by someone named Norman Rockwell, and hundreds of personal awards and trophies. The staff – dressed in red button-up sweaters that are part Walt […]
What if Disneyland Arrived 60 Years Too Late?
Try to imagine, just for a moment, a giant space monster punching Father Time right in the teeth. A punch hard enough to jar loose sixty years. A half-dozen meaningless decades. A skip on the record player of history. Now imagine that this cataclysmic punch occurred in 1901. History shrugs it off. Life finds a […]
The Secret Origins of Trader Sam’s: Has Disney Raised the Tiki Bar?
Click HERE to read part one of this series to learn all about the history of the Tiki movement and how it fits in with Disney. What is the sound of paradise? Softly crashing waves? Gentle trade winds carrying the sweet smells of hibiscus and coconut? Far off ukulele playing an exotically relaxing tune? Or […]
The Man Who Invented Paradise: The Secret History of Disney’s Tiki Room & Trader Sam’s
Don’t get ahead of yourself but part two of this series can be found HERE. Upon hitting the scene in 2011 The Disneyland Hotel’s Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar became an instant hit. How could it not be? After all, it combines several things Disney does extremely well: heavily themed environments, clever special effects and […]
Disney Animated Movies Canon – The New Regime
Well now. That was an adventure, wasn’t it? Things couldn’t be better than they are, here in the fabulous 2010s. Parkeology hit the global media market in a big way. Our faces were on seemingly every TV channel in the country. A guy named John Cameron Swayze gave us all the news. A lot of singing […]
