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A Whole New World

It was the first time you saw "Pinocchio" on the big screen, and realized how much better a cartoon at the movies was compared to the cartoons you watched on Saturday morning.

It was when you strolled down the block, humming "Zip a Dee Doo Dah" to yourself.

It was the first moment your parents parked you in "Dopey" and strolled you in to meet Mickey Mouse.

It was when you didn't mind waiting a hour in line, as long as you could take a flight with Peter Pan.

It was the first time you tried to spell a long word: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

It was when you became a Disney fan.

To those who are still a child at heart and believe you never have to completely grow up, or to those still working their way up, I'm hoping to give you a few blurbs into the world of Disney, which has become a world in itself.

I am your host, your ghost host … or wasn't that somebody else's line?

A Perfect Kingdom: For a lot of us, going to Disneyland is a way of escaping the real world.

The world isn't perfect. Thus, we expect Disneyland to be.

Peeling paint and more food carts than attraction should irk anybody. Lord knows, it’s a surprise that the McDonalds stagecoach near Big Thunder doesn't have a flaming arrow going through its roof.

Sometimes, though, people react a little too strongly when it comes to change at the original Magic Kingdom. These are the folks who grimace if they paint the Penny Arcade a different color.

Part of Walt Disney's premise for the patch of happiness in Anaheim was for it to be a place that was never finished. Part of the fun of going again and again is not only to relive the memories of the past, but also to see what's new.

If there wasn't change in Disneyland, we would still be waiting in a line to Main Street for a four-passenger Matterhorn and riding on the little Flying Saucers instead of on Space Mountain.

Change isn't bad for Disneyland, but there is good change, and bad change.

Good change was Tarzan's Treehouse. Face it, once you climbed through the Swiss Family Treehouse once or twice, it wasn't really worth climbing through again. The best thing it did for the park was add that polka music to Adventureland.

The new treehouse resident has a lot more to look at, and, most importantly, a lot more to do. Tarzan's Treehouse shows that the key to Disneyland change is not completely getting rid of an old idea, but making it a better idea.

Bad change was Light Magic. People used to the spectacular that was the Electrical Parade couldn't put up with four floats and fiber optics in its place. A great idea was replaced by a bad one.

A lot of it comes down to what a new attraction replaces. Light Magic probably wouldn't have been panned as much if it wasn't touted as the replacement to the Electrical Parade. In the same sense, we wouldn't have been excited about Tarzan's Treehouse if it was a smaller tree with no walk-through.

It's all in the idea.

It's Ears Will Go On: The Disney Wonder made its debut this week, making its first appearance at the British port of Southampton.

On the other hand, wasn't Southampton where the Titanic set off on its fateful voyage? I'm no expert in shipbuilding, but I would think that Southampton doesn't have that much luck in terms of passenger ships.

But then, the Disney Wonder probably won't run into any icebergs sailing to the Bahamas.

Something Disney Fans Would Like to See: More of a Disney feel on Disney-owned ABC.

Something Disney Fans Would Not Like to See: The "Fire Mountain" rumor for Disneyland and Walt Disney World finally come to fruition … Only to find out it's only another version of the Rock & Roll Coaster featuring a washed up R&B band called "Earth, Wind and Fire Mountain."

Walk This Way: The new Rock & Roll Roller Coaster at Disney World features Aerosmith.

Thankfully, it doesn't feature Britney Spears.

Word on Microsoft: There's talk that Disney is ready to bring Tron back for a sequel.

No word on if in the new movie, Sark will be revealed to be Bill Gates and the Master Control Program is really just a fancy version of Windows 95.

Tron apparently wins the day when the MCP 95 crashes again.

What if It Was a Disney Movie: In a Disney guise, "The Blair Witch Project" would be known as "The Blair Witch Mountain Project."

Two teenage filmmakers would wander aimlessly for the whole of the two-hour movie, fearing that they're being chased by the ghost of Bette Davis.

At the end of the movie, they're rescued at the last minute by a flying saucer with Eddie Albert in it.

Until next time …

-- Chris Reed