The Fabulous Disney Babe
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So, Fab!

What happened at the rest of the Press Event? You said you were going to see Harry Potter at midnight, then left us hanging!

Well, it's pretty funny, actually. The interviews will continue, I promise. Just not today. After Innoventions, I went over to Haunted Mansion Holiday, where Jack and Sally, as well as a macabre band of musicians, greeted guests in front of the Mansion. I met a family on the train: mom, two kids, and 65-year-old grandma. Guess who jumped off the train and started running toward the Mansion when we stopped? Grandma. I saw them afterward, and Grandma said the ride was worth the run.

We visited Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play It! Next. It's been open all this time, and I'd never been inside the building until now. I did the kitten-over-glass balk when hitting the main floor. Man, is that a jarring effect! (For those who have not been there: parts of the main floor are transparent, with a space between the floor and a level underneath, decorated with mirror fragments. If you're not expecting it, it can fool your reflexes into snapping into a "don't fall" reaction. Cool.) One of the three audience sections had the forward section of the chairs removed so that the press could set up cameras; the keypads with the A-B-C-D buttons were lowered to about eighteen inches from the floor. I sat in front of one of them and answered along with the crowd. Unfortunately, I have one of the slowest fingers in the known universe, and was putting the third of the fourth named presidents in backwards order when time ran out.

Millionaire - Play It! and the scary floor

After the first contestant left the hot seat to claim her baseball cap and pins, the points were cleared, and the audience continued to answer along. When time ran out, the top ten scores were flashed onscreen. A CM friend of mine was number one, and I was number three. From Regis Reject to not quite good enough for the hot seat...I'm so proud.

The Media Center was set up in the closed-to-the-public Hollywood and Dine, with video bays on the left as you entered, media table in the middle, and a bank of computers, linked to the Internet, to the right (this is exposition, pay attention. Like Scabbers and Mrs. Figg, it will only mean something later.) I got my press kit and some bios with which to work, then headed over to preview The Power of Blast! at the Hyperion Theatre.

Wow.

The Power of Blast!

The one number we saw was fresh and exciting, and this is coming from someone who usually has to have bright shiny things waved in front of her to keep her attention. Malaguena  was the perfect number to represent the color red, as Jim Mason explained; different sections of the show represented different colors. Having seen the finished product last weekend, I think it works very well, and Malagania took my breath away yet again. Jim explained that the group was still in rehearsals, and that this would probably be their first performance in costume. You couldn't tell; look at the footage Doobie took - the whole show is spectacular.