Freaky Friday

Freaky Fridays

Freaky Fridays: Parking Lot Tram- The Movie!

Freaky Fridays

Freaky Fridays

Freaky Fridays: Ringo in DISNEYLAND

Freaky Fridays: Burt Meets The Girls

Rest In Peace, Barbara Harris

Freaky Fridays: The Haunted Mansion Awaits!

Unrealized Dreams Week: Disney’s Newport Unadventure

The Disney Vacation Club is Disney’s version of a timeshare program. It was started in Florida as a way for the company to quickly finance hotels after it realized that demand far outstripped its supply of rooms. In 2010, the Disney Vacation Club finally opened its first West Coast operation at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel.

Offering wondrous views of Disney California Adventure, the exclusive rooms were an instant hit with Disney guests, quickly selling out.

The hotel wing wasn’t originally supposed to be Disney Vacation Club’s first west coast location. In the mid 1990’s, Disney had announced that its first west coast DVC Hotel would be Disney’s Newport Coast Hotel, located on a scenic cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Newport Beach.

It would have been a marvelous property located just a few miles south of DISNEYLAND. Despite its planned proximity to DISNEYLAND, the company considered it to be a freestanding Resort, the third such resort built after Disney’s Vero Beach and Disney’s Hilton Head resorts. The two freestanding resorts proved to be difficult to sell. The company had to offer discounts and heavily promote the fact that ownership points purchased at the two locations could be used for stays at DISNEYLAND and Walt Disney World resorts. Despite Newport Beach’s nicer location and premium views, Disney grew skittish about opening up freestanding resorts. The Newport Beach property was sold to Marriott Hotels, who opened up Marriott’s Newport Coast Hotel.

Freaky Fridays: Roger Rabbit is 30!

It seemed like a can’t miss project- a family film produced by a re-invigorated Disney partnered with Steven Spielberg, directed by Robert Zemeckis and featuring state of the art technology. The highly anticipated film based on the genre bending book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? had the greatest of pedigrees and seemed like a surefire hit. That was before George Lucas decided to produce one of the first major films based on a Marvel comic book- Howard the Duck which similarly appeared to be a project destined for success. Of course, the film became a legendary disaster, sullying George Lucas’ reputation and losing tons of money. Through no fault of its own, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? already had one strike against it because it was seen as being a similar film.

Prior to the beginning of the film’s production, Disney thought it had already jumped over the production’s biggest hurdle by convincing Warner Brothers to loan the use of its Looney Tunes characters to the film. Despite industry gossip about the film being the next Howard the Duck, Disney pushed ahead with the production. The studio’s biggest worry at the time was that filming for the live action sequences had to push forward before anyone could see if the special effects looked realistic. Would filmgoers be dazzled by this fantasy Hollywood where cartoon characters interacted with humans or would they laugh the film out of theaters? 

As production started to wrap up, the company began promoting the film as a Walt Disney Pictures release in early trailers. The film’s more adult themes and the risk of the movie becoming another disaster like Howard the Duck made the studio skittish. The Disney name was removed from the film and it became a Touchstone Pictures release. The studio still put its promotional might behind the film though its licensing partners were annoyed that the movie would be released under the Touchstone banner. For better or worse, the film would be released June 22, 1988.

It turns out that the surefire hit actually was a surefire hit. Audiences fell in love with Roger, Jessica and Eddie. The special effects dazzled filmgoers who made the picture the number one movie of the year. The company quickly regretted not putting the Disney name on the film and Roger Rabbit spawned a licensing bonanza. The biggest honor given to the film was making its attraction the centerpiece of DISNEYLAND’s Mickey’s Toontown. A series of shorts were produced, though dissension between Disney and Spielberg made Roger Rabbit projects near impossibilities. With the current warming of relations between the two organizations, Roger Rabbit might just defy the odds and make his way back to the big screen.

Freaky Fridays

Freaky Fridays: Whatever Happened To The Main Street Shooting Gallery

In the late 1950’s there were three shooting galleries at DISNEYLAND- in Frontierland, Adventureland and Main Street. (Record Scratch) Main Street had a Shooting Gallery? Yes it did! While numerous pictures exist of both the Frontierland (which still exists) and the Adventureland shooting galleries, no such photos seem to exist for the one located on Main Street. How do we know it existed? Old C Tickets mention it as an attraction:

It was also mentioned on park maps:

It is because of old park maps that we know where the Shooting Gallery was located. It waslocated between the Coca-Cola Refreshment corner and the Penny Arcade marquee as shown below:

Today only the Shooting Gallery in Frontierland remains open. The Adventureland Shooting Gallery became a Sunkist juice stand and the Main Street Shooting Gallery disappeared to become the stuff of legend.

Freaky Friday

Freaky Fridays: Walt Disney Week

Walt and Lillian Disney had a special relationship. She chose to keep the home fires burning while he chased his latest and greatest dream. While she often had misgivings about some of his riskier projects, she would be his biggest supporter through it all. That doesn’t mean that she tolerated all of his eccentricities or the baggage that came from his Hollywood career. She required that he leave his stress at the office and shunned most of the trappings of Hollywood life.

One particular annoyance of hers were the raggedy hats he used to wear. In fact, she once tried to get rid of a particularly raggedy one by throwing it into a ring after they attended a bullfight on vacation. Walt thought fast and snagged it before it was lost forever.

Lillian had nearly forgotten about the hat by the next Valentine’s Day when she was presented with a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a very unique vase. Walt had the hat bronzed, its brim formed into a heart. A very special gift indeed.

Freaky Fridays: Space Mountain

Freaky Fridays: No Mustaches at DISNEYLAND.

One of the earliest rules for working at DISNEYLAND was that Mustaches and beards were forbidden. 

Who put this rule into place? It was Walt Disney himself, who felt that Mustaches would make his employees look like “city slickers” instead of the more rural and wholesome look he was going for at the Magic Kingdom. Despite having one himself.

Freaky Fridays: Fantasia in the 1960’s

Fantasia was considered to be ahead of its time when it was released in 1940. The expensive, revolutionary film would find an audience and acclaim over twenty years later- in the 1960’s. The psychedelic generation would find much to like about the film and often showed up at theaters having enjoyed various hallucinogens. While the normally staid and square Disney Organization never encouraged such indulgences, its publicity department promoted both Fantasia and the similarly trippy film Alice in Wonderland with psychedelic imagery and posters. While it is possible that the company’s art department cluelessly put together the trippy promotional materials, they must have had some idea of what they doing.

Freaky Fridays: A Minnie Mouse Week FactPic

Freaky Fridays: A Disney FactPic