Under The Mouse Ears

by Sam 11.11.21 So you're walking around World Showcase with the whole family. You've got plans set on getting a margarita from Mexico, maybe seeing how long the line is for the Gran Fiesta ride. Perhaps you'll grab a yard at the Rose and Crown or watch that cool drum show in Japan. But hey wait a minute - what's this weird, gated off blue pavilion between England and Canada? It's hard to imagine now, but rounding the millennium mark was a very odd time in this country. With Y2K fast approaching, people literally didn't know what to do. The world pre-9/11 obviously had a certain kind of innocence to it that looking back, kind of clashes with the Disney we know today - especially post pandemic. Still, the mouse wasn't going to miss an opportunity to theme things out and make a little money off it. Enter the Epcot World Showcase Millennium Village. Check this out from our friends from The Kingdom Insider: https://thekingdominsider.com/35-epcot-35-countdown-da...

by Sam. 10.30.21 As a kid, I remember walking around the OLD Epcot (i.e. Horizons, obviously World of Motion, etc) and marveling at the things us youths at the time referred to as "those Learning rides". Everything was slow and boring... a welcome AC break for parents from all those thrill rides at the Magic Kingdom. Where else could you learn about dinosaurs in the ploddy World of Energy; or ride up into the Epcot ball in Spaceship Earth.. all at the speed of a turtle? There was virtually no end other than Figment. I mean, he was of course my homey. Figment is my boy. But all that changed when the Wonders of Life pavilion opened in 1989, introducing Epcot's first thrill ride: Body Wars! So yeah. This is gonna be a Body Wars blog, right? Meh. Maybe later. How about we talk instead about the quieter, less interesting attraction in the Wonders of Life... Cranium Command! You know, that ride that you went on when the Body Wars line was too long.  The Wonders of Life in happi...

 by Sam 10/29/21 Way back when Walt bought all that Florida property, most people (including probably most of Disney's 'money people') thought it was for some amazing theme park. In reality, it was for a pretty way out there idea. Walt Disney's 'Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow' was some fairly Orwellian stuff of the future. But when everybody started to balk at it, the eastern version of Disneyland became a stark reality. In order to build Walt's EPCOT, it would take building a Magic Kingdom first. With an Epcot coming though, it's obviously important to put as many strange and bizarre means of transportation throughout. Monorails are one thing... but you need more than just that. And it's not like there was no solid precedent for Walt's wacky ways to get around. While the Disneyland monorail opened in 1959, it was beat by another, older model to get from one place to another.. The Disneyland Skyway opened on June 23, 1956. Purchased...

by Sam Terito 10.28.21    As anybody in the Disney blogosphere knows, you can't have a Disney blog without a post on Discovery Island. Many a visitor to WDW in the 70's and 80's has a fleeting childhood memory of getting on a boat and going to some island somewhere they saw parrots and other random tropical animals. The place they're likely thinking of was a rather popular attraction for a good while, open from 1974 all the way until a burgeoning new park called Disney's Animal Kingdom quietly took it's place in 1998; closing for good a year later on April 8, 1999.  Interestingly enough, the island is one of the few islands on property that isn't man made. From 1900 to 1937, the island was known as Raz Island, named after the family that lived there. In the late 1930s, it was purchased for $800 by a man named Delmar "Radio Nick" Nicholson, who renamed it "Idle Bay Isle" and lived there for 20 years with his wife and pet crane. It was late...

The Story of Disney's Once Abandoned Resort by Sam. 10.27.21 In the book Disney War by James B Stewart (which is an absolute MUST read by anyone who's a fan of 'backstage' Disney), we learn a few things about the way the company once viewed on-property resorts. There was the super expensive Magic Kingdom resorts (Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian) and then kinda just everything else. The first moderate resort built was Caribbean Beach in 1988, but then they did something interesting. Other than signing a 99 year lease for Marriott to operate the Swan and Dolphin, Disney decided to develop on-property budget resorts for people who know their plans might not include a lot of hotel-ing.. but instead, a lot more park hopping. Just get a look at that weird but oddly beautiful 1990's deco weirdness. If you look at the history of how the resorts were developed, it's clear that Disney didn't know if they wanted to be in the hotel business with both feet....

  By Sam. 10.26.21 You're going to notice a recurring theme of my blog posts are defunct rides or attractions that are no longer with us. While it's not an every day thing for me, it certainly isn't uncommon to cast Youtube to the TV and show the kids things that have been removed from the happiest place on earth. With Ellen's Energy Adventure now joining the ranks of Horizons, Communicore, and Kitchen Kabaret, there will never be an end to nostalgia in Walt Disney World as it's constantly evolving. And that brings us to one of Epcot's hottest opening day attractions waaaaaay back in 1982 - the General Motors' presented World of Motion. Thanks to Ford's participation in the 1964 New York World's Far - a pretty historic shaping event in the annals of Disney lore, GM wouldn't be denied when it came time to sponsor an attraction at Disney's newest theme park. They signed a 10 year sponsorship deal and thus began famed 9 angry men member Ward Kim...