Beyond Disney

• Main Street (what you see as soon as you open your second mortgage; ticket prices have gone up 66% since 1995) is loosely based on Walt Disney's vague memories of growing up in the small town of Marceline, which is in France! It is supposed to invoke nostalgia that never really existed and is now under intense high pressure retail scrutiny. More dollars are spent here because you have finally arrived.
• The Flag Pole in the center is where Buddy Ebsen smashed into (drunk of course), covered by a couple of stamps and sent to "Walt Disney, General Delivery, Hollywood" from his home town. In return, Ebsen was filmed as reference footage for a new animatronic figure
• During Desert Storm, Main Street Cinema showed some classic studio WWII propaganda and educational films (Victory Through Massive Displays of Atomic Power, Donald Gets Dysentery, Out of the Frying Pan - Onto the Beach at Normandy, PT Boat Willie, Four Methods of Flush Riveting). In the center is Captain Nemo's organ from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Usually you see continuous loops of classic B/W Disney cartoons.
• The five original stops on the rail were main Street, New Orleans Square (the message broadcast in old telegraph - NOT MORSE - code is "Help, I'm being held prisoner in an old telegraph office"), Sleeping Beauty's Castle (now eliminated to accomodate Splash Mountain), Toon Town Station (Videopolis Station when I was first there) and Tomorrow Land.
• Tomorrowland's mandate is to inform and educate about science but sticks to topics not subject to rapid change, like rollercoasters, ride simulators and Space Ranger technology. "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" is the third 3D movie to be shown there (after Magic Journeys and Captain EO). Space Mountain was reopened in July 2005 after considerable rehabilitation (some complained it was too rough, others that it was not dark enough).
• The Disneyland-Alweb Monorail system opened in June 1959. The original Mark I Monorail (0.8 mi track) is now in Vegas between Bally's and the end of the strip. All monorails (Mark i through V) are named after the inventor, Mark. In 2001, the track was extended with passage through California Adventure Park and a stop at LAX.
• Sleeping Beauty's Castle (such a Kodak moment) must be such a joke for Eurotrash tourists. After all, they have real castles where they come from and they are so much nicer and bigger. Plus, more vermin.
• "It's a Small World" ride becomes "It's a Small World Holiday" around the holidays iwth a complete holiday themes redress of the ride and - applause - a new song. Not all of the countries are shown celebrating Christmas as that would be inaccurate. Good Americans celebrate it as shown, as we are a Christian state. One of the Buddhas wears a Santa outfit. Much chanting should ensue. The ride has been shortened from the original 30 minutes to a now seemingly forever 12 minutes: most people who listen to the entire song are statistically likely to grow up to become cannibalistic serial killers.
• Peter Pan's ride was the most confusing when I first rode in it as a wee lad at the tender age of seven. You fly over scaled down models of Londontown (Big Ben! Tower Bridge!) and then you fly over Hook's ship. But your carriage IS Hook's ship - scaled down - which makes for severe disorientation. The scariest ride was Snow White's Scary Adventures (the witch offering the apple and the Forest of Monstrous Trees) and I had nightmares for months. Of course, the title warns and I was stupid enough to believe the Matterhorn was a replica of that in Anaheim. I have read extensively since then.
• More people thrown up on the Mad Tea Party ride each day than throw up all year in the city of Provo, Utah. The mechanism is a set of concentric inter-rotating disks that shared several technology patents with Spirograph Technology. Fess up, you bought a set from street vendors across the Thames a long time ago. A very long time ago.
• Toontown is not really Disneyland so I skip it entirely. I'm a purist.
• New Orlean's Square is, in fact, a perfect square. This I find extremely bizarre because Place Vosges isn't a perfect place, Circo Massimo isn't a perfect circle and Trafalgar Square is a rhomboid. Haunted Mansion in EuroDisney is known as Phantom Manor.
• Adventureland is the smallest "land" in Disneyland. The Enchanted Tiki Room was the first to use animatronic creatures (other than Abe Lincoln) and the show itself is considerably shorter than its original 90 minute insufferable length. Higher speed processors deem the show ended immediately after you adjust your shorts. The thunderstorm you hear is actual water (not computerized) but it is recycled.
• When someone needs to be transfered from a wheelchair to a ride carriage (like the Doom Buggies for Haunted Mansion), the ride does not stop but is slowed down. This was originally known as Creep Mode (then we went all PC and did not want to call the crippled Creepy) and is now known as Slow Mode. It switches to Bonus Mode soon after to make up for the cash loss. The singing busts in the Mansion are Walt Disney, Lesley Nielsen, Buddy Ebsen and James Stewart.
• People have died on the following rides/places: Matterhorn Bobsleds (multiple incidents), Monorail track, People Mover (multiple incidents), Tom Sawyer's Island, Rivers of America, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Nobody had died in Space Mountain. Yet.

Hidden Mickeys are like Easter Eggs. If you are going to enjoy a Disney park without children, you need to keep yourself stimulated. In a good way. Started as inside jokes by Disney Imagineers, they are images of the Mouse concealed in the design of a Disney Attraction (like a ride). Originally in the shape of three circles (the large with the two smaller ear circles), they take on many forms. Any Mickey that is very large, elaborate or intricate (cave, shape of a garden or the park itself) is a gimme and not an HM. The exception is the overhead google satellite picture, very inventive. An HM should be proportionate, ie., the ear circles should be equal in diameter and not too far apart from the dominant circle. They are very far apart in the Big Thunder Gear. Detection should not require too much imagination, like the Matterhorn Mickey. If you must squint your eyes, tilt your head, drink macha tea and postprocess on Photoshop, it was not meant to be.