The Wild West used to be a rough and tumble place. It was a hostile land, full of dark gunslingers, raging locomotives, and poisonous critters everywhere you stepped. Actually, there were buffalo chips everywhere you stepped, but sometimes poisonous critters hid under them. Cactus too. Nothing says “danger” like a fabulous serape. A man could […]
Magic Kingdom
The Four Dragon Kings of the Theme Parks
When it comes to mythical beasts, dragons are royalty. Unicorns are upper class, a little bit snooty, sort of pampered. Griffins are middle class, your sort of everyday run-of-the-mill hybrid creatures, and jackalopes are like the serfs tending to the fields and making jokes about the unicorns behind their backs. The other mythical beasts fall […]
Pitching a tent.
Camping sucks. You may catch poison ivy, be ravaged by malaria-riddled mosquitoes, or get mauled by a rabid squirrel all the while avoiding molestation by marauding hill-folk. Michael Eisner even wrote a book called “Camp” and you know that can’t be good. Where is the fun in eating canned meat and sleeping on the ground in […]
How Did Stitch’s Great Escape Teleport the Alien?
Stitch’s Great Escape (formerly Alien Encounter) at Magic Kingdom showcased secret technology to teleport an alien named Skippy. Here’s how.
Sinister Shipments From Adventureland
Or, The Bizarre Bazaar: How I Spent My Vacation Researching Morbid Death Camps. It’s always such a chore picking post headlines here in the Parkeology offices. I always like the funny, alliterative ones, but they usually aren’t very descriptive. Wouldn’t it be great if Adventureland’s Agrabah Bazaar sold brassieres? That would be a headline I […]
Bugs Bunny is Better
It’s inescapable. At some point in your life as a Disney Fan, you will bump into Captain Contrarian. You know this character. He is very easy to recognize. He is the Uncle or Lab Partner or Friend-of-a-Friend who latches on to the fact that you like Disney stuff, and then proceeds to tell you how […]
Born and Bred in a Fire Trap
Rabbits may be clever about a great many things, but the idea of open-flame cooking in a giant patch of brittle thorn brambles is probably not up there among the brightest ideas in the universe. Witness Brer Rabbit’s house, the Briar Patch, where a giant fireplace makes a nice centerpiece to their little collection of kindle. […]
Yo Ho Yo Ho Chim Chim Cheree
There’s a stupid game that my brother and I sometimes play. It’s called the Sherman Brothers Game. In this game, the idea is to come up with a new title for a Sherman Brothers song by throwing nonsensical syllables into the song title. As long as it rhymes, it’s a winner. It’s really more of […]
Indian Curses are the Least of Your Worries
Forget about flooded ghost towns, howling bobcats, avalanches, steaming geysers, runaway trains, cave-ins, or shrieking flocks of bats. If it’s grave danger you seek, you can start by looking in the loading area. Legend tells of a Big Thunder Mining Company, which struck gold in this little corner of Frontierland. They expanded operations, riddled the […]
