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It All Started With A Mouse
May. 5th, 2005 05:45 pmWent to the press day for Disneyland's 50th Anniversary yesterday -- the park was closed to the public, but a pal at Imagineering called and had a last-minute ticket, so I was off to Anaheim for the day.
I haven't been in a couple of months, and the place is shined up like a new penny -- nearly everything has been re-painted and re-landscaped, and the park hasn't looked this good in at least fifteen or twenty years. In addition to the prerequisite new attractions -- Buzz Lightyear (fun and similar to Florida's), a couple of parades (all well done) and Space Mountain redux (not open 'til July) -- there are lots of little, unheralded improvements everywhere, from revised signage to new special effects in a handful of rides (be sure to check out the really neat piranha attack in the Jungle Cruise; plus, monkeys with guns!).
It was very nice to see that the old gal actually has some people who *care* at the helm, especially after the last five or ten years of utter disappointment everywhere at the park.
I even had a nice moment in my favorite spot -- there's a curved staircase tucked away in New Orleans Square that is almost always deserted, called the "artist's patio". I stopped into enjoy the relative calm and silence there for a moment, as I always do, and closed my eyes and smiled -- realizing that even though it's turned into something that is sometimes over-marketed and over-grown, Disneyland is still a very unique place, and very special to me. It really was the first of its kind, and the fact that my childhood obsession with it has turned into an actual career is something I'm constantly amazed at and thankful for.
On a funnier note: I had three accidentdal run-ins with Michael Eisner while I was there. Three times throughout the day, I nearly ran over the man, turning a corner each time and BAM, there he was. He and his handlers laughed the first time, looked a bit concerned the second time, and were downright cranky the third. That last time, I shrugged in mock-over-the-top-frustration, and grunted "stop following me!" as I stomped off. All but one of his posse looked like I was about to pull a gun on him (the one who didn't definitely got the joke and stifled a laugh). Eisner himself looked as though I had offered a small turd for him to smell. It made the whole day worth it.
Weird industry side-note: all day, even when on camera for some of the press interviews, Eisner was wearing a baseball cap for the movie "Sahara" -- which is a Paramount film. Why? Because it was directed by his son, Breck Eisner.
I haven't been in a couple of months, and the place is shined up like a new penny -- nearly everything has been re-painted and re-landscaped, and the park hasn't looked this good in at least fifteen or twenty years. In addition to the prerequisite new attractions -- Buzz Lightyear (fun and similar to Florida's), a couple of parades (all well done) and Space Mountain redux (not open 'til July) -- there are lots of little, unheralded improvements everywhere, from revised signage to new special effects in a handful of rides (be sure to check out the really neat piranha attack in the Jungle Cruise; plus, monkeys with guns!).
It was very nice to see that the old gal actually has some people who *care* at the helm, especially after the last five or ten years of utter disappointment everywhere at the park.
I even had a nice moment in my favorite spot -- there's a curved staircase tucked away in New Orleans Square that is almost always deserted, called the "artist's patio". I stopped into enjoy the relative calm and silence there for a moment, as I always do, and closed my eyes and smiled -- realizing that even though it's turned into something that is sometimes over-marketed and over-grown, Disneyland is still a very unique place, and very special to me. It really was the first of its kind, and the fact that my childhood obsession with it has turned into an actual career is something I'm constantly amazed at and thankful for.
On a funnier note: I had three accidentdal run-ins with Michael Eisner while I was there. Three times throughout the day, I nearly ran over the man, turning a corner each time and BAM, there he was. He and his handlers laughed the first time, looked a bit concerned the second time, and were downright cranky the third. That last time, I shrugged in mock-over-the-top-frustration, and grunted "stop following me!" as I stomped off. All but one of his posse looked like I was about to pull a gun on him (the one who didn't definitely got the joke and stifled a laugh). Eisner himself looked as though I had offered a small turd for him to smell. It made the whole day worth it.
Weird industry side-note: all day, even when on camera for some of the press interviews, Eisner was wearing a baseball cap for the movie "Sahara" -- which is a Paramount film. Why? Because it was directed by his son, Breck Eisner.
