The Fabulous Disney Babe
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We asked Michael where to board the trains that were running across the site, and the directed us next door to the LA Live Steamers. After about a half-hour wait, we put a donation in the box (they run the trains every Sunday except Memorial Day weekend and the first Sunday in October. Why? I don't know.) and climbed aboard a small train with an engineer who looked a lot like Radio Disney's Zippy. We spent the next ten minutes or so chugging past miniature towns, through a setting of cool bugs that Alice adored, past Walt's barn a couple of times, through tunnels, over trestles, and finally back to the station, vowing to return next month. I can see now why Walt loved them so much. We had a ball!
Miguel Fernandez, the architect in charge of moving and restoring Walt's Barn, met me as Alice and I were admiring the citrus tree that Diane Disney Miller had requested Michael plant, because there was a citrus tree next to the barn at the Disney home on Carolwood. He showed me how the barn was at the exact same orientation as at Carolwood, so that the weathervane would be at the exact same setting. He pointed out the forced perspective used in the barn, especially with the windows, and how the control panel found its spot up front, and how the loft appeared, because Walt made changes to the original plans. You'll be reading all about Walt's Barn in a later column by someone who knows its history and structure much better than I do, so I'll leave you in suspense.
We met up with Jim and headed to visit Alice's godmother, then went home for pizza, cake and presents. Alice's favorite gift: the Walt Disney World racing game for Game Boy. You really do go through Walt Disney World attractions! ("No waterfall on Splash Mountain," mourned my seven-year-old). It's kind of cool to hear "Grim Grinning Ghosts" plinking out of your kid's Game Boy.
Alice loves Walt Disney World, but, of course, doesn't' remember spending almost every one of her earliest days there. In particular, she loves the Winnie the Pooh ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. It's Disney's worst-kept secret that Pooh is coming to Disney's Critter Country, but Whither Buzz? As Louis Prima says: "Don't you worry and don't you care, 'cause a hapa dee dooda dee hap doo dah" WDI just happens to have a spare Omnimover or two lying around, post-Future World (Omnimovers run FOREVER) and you'll see Buzz, as a spinning Omnimover ride, with no height restriction, inside the CircleVision building as soon as 2003.
Thye are building the Tokyo and Disneyland versions simultaneously. See, there was only one planned for Tokyo, but an intrepid Disneyland-loving Imagineer (don't have the name, honest, or I'd be sending him or her flowers) suggested that it would be relatively cheap to dupe the attraction for Disneyland's kind-of-disappointing New Tomorrowland. Wow! They said YES!!! The way it looks now, Disneyland Park will have this in and running first, while Tokyo won't see theirs until 2004, even though it was started first. Don't feel too sorry for them, however. They do have DisneySeas to keep themselves busy. All I ask, as the mother of The World's Biggest Jessie Freak, is that you try to manage to put her in there somewhere. Hey, it's not that far-out of an idea. In her new Disney Interactive game, tentatively titled "Jessie's Roundup", she battles aliens! There's a start, a free idea for you, gratis and all. Feel free to run with it. Now.
"Okay, Fab," you ask: "What about the Rocket Rods?" Well, let me tell you: if it's not one thing, it's another thing. Either they're promised as parts to the Test Track team, or they're pumping three million dollars into them just to keep them running as ego solvent until Buzz Lightyear opens. And the one team never knows what the other team is doing or was promised. It's a huge source of damaged pride to the executives and occasional Imagineers who were backing the Rods that they turned out to be so problematic, so they are reluctant to shut them down, even though parts have all ready been promised to the Test Track team. They need them, bad. As it stands now, they are going to renege on their promise to the Test Track team and pour the additional three million dollars into keeping the Rods running until Buzz opens.