|
|
|
DISNEY'S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE
By Ed Driscoll · September 8, 2003 11:06 AM
· Hollywood, Interrupted
We were in Anaheim for the annual California State Bar Convention (my wife's an attorney), which alternates between southern and northern California. Friday night and for much of Sunday, we toured Disneyland, or as Nina likes to call it, "Dizzy Land". She wanted to tour Disney's California Adventure, an addition to the park which opened only a few years ago. I agreed reluctantly--I thought if Disney wanted to really recreate the California Adventure, this part of the park should be filled with lawyers, government employees, social workers, and tax auditors (actually, it probably was this past weekend...). Instead, what Disney has installed is a typically Disney-esque sanitary look at the history of California--there's a stationary California Zephyr streamliner selling food and gifts, a "Taste Pilot's Restaurant" with a handsome recreation of Chuck Yeager's X-1 zooming off the roof of it, a Santa Cruz-like amusement park (now with two-thirds less drug-addled hippies stuck in a 1960s causality loop!) and other such fare. Lots of Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, and Mamas and Poppas music--and even the odd Bing Crosby song(!) about California. Because ABC is owned by Disney (or is it the other way around?), ABC was promoting its fall television lineup, and several of its celebrities there--talking on a stage, with an enormous Jumbotron TV to project them into the park. Dennis Franz was scheduled to be there, as was Jim Belushi and his blues band. On our way out of the California Adventure and into Disney proper, I saw John Ritter on the screen, using--for the first and last time I hope--the word "fart" on the giant Jumbotron. (He had been asked what he, Suzanne Summers and Joyce DeWitt would do in a Three's Company reunion by someone attending the park by a poor, confused soul who thinks that would a good thing. Fabulously out-of-date, Ritter suggested that Summers and DeWitt would need "a lot of EST" to work things out.) In order to ferry the celebrities from L.A. to Anaheim, ABC employed an enormous fleet of stretch limos. I don't think I had ever seen more black automobiles this side of Don Corleone's funeral. Lots of those limos were actually luxury black SUVs--and not an electric hybrid in sight! (Imagine that!) Next time a celebrity starts complaining about your Chevy Suburban or Toyota Land Cruiser, just remember how this person probably gets around--and smile at his Disneyland-sized hypocrisy. Dizzy Land is right--as I wandered in a sun-baked haze through Disney's California Adventure, I started riffing with my wife about how much fun David Letterman could have in a Top Ten List about this place.... The Top Ten Rejected Attractions at Disney's California Adventure! [Paul Schaffer's drummer plays obligatory drum roll] Number 10.....Annie Sprinkle's Wet & Wild Water Sports! Number 9......Gray Davis' Recall Rollercoaster! Number 8......David Crosby's House of Heroin! Number 7......Michael Jackson's Pedophilic Playhouse! Number 6......Scratch & Sniff Animatronic Johnny Depp! Number 5......Cruz Bustamante's MEChA Mania! Number 4......John Walker Lindh's Taliban Toboggan! Number 3......Robert Maplethorpe's San Francisco Safari! Number 2......Ron Jeremy's Drop The Chalupa!* And the number one rejected attraction at Disney's California Adventure.... Ride The Rolling Blackout! [/Paul Schaffer drumroll] We'll be right back after this brief commercial time out! *I have no idea what this means. But it sounded appropriately sleazy, and got a big chuckle from my wife when I was free-associating in the park, so I thought I'd include in this list.
Comments
|
Since 2002, News, Technology and Pop Culture, 24 Hours a Day, Live and in Stereo! (And every Wednesday on XM Satellite Radio.) What They're Saying
"The Internet maestro Ed Driscoll"--Mark Steyn, Mclean's Magazine, August 13, 2007 Navigation
Support the Site
Search
Archives
October 2008September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 Etcetera
![]() Bookmark Me! Blogroll Me! ![]() |
Copyright © 2002-2008 Edward B. Driscoll, Jr. All Rights Reserved |