Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure, Norway:Completed

On our trip down to WDW this past January we had the chance to try out the new Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure. This was fantastic. A truly interactive, I can’t wait to see what happens next, kind of activity. It is a great way to give kids, big and small, a new experience in the World Showcase at EPCOT. I am going to go through the experience in detail, so there might be spoilers(Pssst, pssst, there will be spoilers...and pictures...and video). But, since this is only for Norway and since there is suppose to be 6-7 more adventures, you could read this one and plan on doing all the other Adventures first. I’ll also not tell the exact story so that will be kinda new when you do this. This was really fun.
I had heard about this from the various podcasts I listen to, but had really forgotten about it until we saw the Kim Possible sign recruiting to ‘Save the World’ directing us into Inoventions West. Right inside the door to the left is a Kim Possible (KP) Wall with various stations with a monitor at each. They are touch sensitive and you read through a number of screens asking about your party and telling you the beginnings of a story about Kim and Ron not being available and could you help out. Next to the machine is a slot that spit out a Fastpass looking card that had a country name (Norway) and a time that our Adventure would begin. I think we started at 12:45. We had some time so we hit Club Cool. Got the 8 year old with Beverly, but that’s another story, and strolled through Mexico. The KP stand was easy to spot as were the Cast Members. Nice Ron stoppable looking Purple shirts. We handed over our pass and were given a cell phone looking device. We were told how to use them and then we were directed to get about 100 feet away from the cart. Even though there were specific times to start the adventure, you did not have to be there at the time that was on your ticket, so there was a little bit of sound over-lap between our team and others. We listened to Wade describe a World Class disaster in the making and we need follow clues through Norway to solve the mission. I have never been in the Stave Church in all my times down to Epcot and that’s the first place the game took us. Wade directs you to a place and then asks a question that can be answered by reading or looking around where you are sent. Here is one example. In the Stave Church there is a replica of a famous Norwegian boat, can’t remember the name. Wade’s question, that will help us catch the villain, was how long was the boat. The question has four possible answers and you pick the right one to continue the adventure. SPOILERS: The interactivity was great. At one point Wade had us look at Japan and smile. A picture of us from a hidden camera was then sent to our phone/device. Again, the interactivty with the Norway pavailion was great. We caused smoke to rise out of one of the chimmneys near the Maelstrom. We lit lanterns for signals and had flags raised

over a Dragon as an answer to a vital question and even talked to a famous norwegian marathon runner's statue. There was a great finale which you'll need to see and then you dumpedthe device into a trunk near the entrance to the Maelstrom. This was great. I saw parts of Norway I have never seen before. The Stave Church and Perrin's Roost and just the general details of Norway. It took about 40 minutes and I can see us doing this at least once or twice on our next trip. I can't wait to do China or Japan next. Let me know if you've done any other countries.

New Hidden Mickeys...at least new to us.

The Walt Disney Park Imagineers are men and women who have created rides and attractions both big and small. However, one of their best creations is something that started small but has become a fun obsession for the family and I. Hidden Mickeys. For those that don't know, "...a hidden Mickey is a partial or complete impression of Mickey Mouse placed by the Imagineers and artists to blend into the designs of Disney attractions, hotels, restaurants, and other areas. " That quote came from the number one expert on Hidden Mickeys(HM), Steve Barrett and his Hidden Mickey Guide and website. You can even buy his book in the parks. Steve has a couple of Disney travel books, but the HM's are the most fun.

We are always looking for more. This past trip in Jan. we spotted three new HM's. At least they were new to us, when we got home and checked Steve's site, they were all already reported. It was still fun spotting them though. The first two were at Epcot. First in the Living Seas with Nemo. As we walked down to the aquarium section of the pavilion, we saw this very obvious HM on the seabed. Next on Spaceship Earth. We always screw our heads around trying to find a new one in here. Well, we thought we had done it, found a new one. In the scene with the Jewish Library, as you see the one guy sleeping, behind him on the shelf, there are three scrolls that are next to each other. Here is a LINK to Steve's site and a picture of this one. My pictures in Spaceship Earth never look good. The last one for this trip was found while we were on line for the Jungle Cruise. We were in the Fastpass line on the left side of the dock as you face the water. We were moving in line to the right and saw this jar with what looked like walnuts in it or ping pong balls. But there it was, the classic hidden mickey shape. When I was down in September I had a really novel HM pointed out to me. Novel in that it was always there in front of us. Too bad my picture was not that great. But it You can get the general idea of what it looks like. These plates are on the table in the Dancing room. So next time you head out to a Disney park, Hotel or Restaurant, keep your eyes open for those hidden extras the imagineers have left for you to find.

The Disney Songs and Academy Awards

I was working on a project the other day looking for movie songs that have won Oscars. My daughters school is having an Oscar themed event and I was asked to supply a soundtrack. As I was looking at the The Academy Awards for Best Original Songs(BOS) listed I was pleasantly shocked to find that there were 10 songs that had won Oscars for the Disney Company over the years. The Oscar for this category began in 1934. Disney’s impressive run began in 1940 with ‘When you Wish upon a Star’ from Pinocchio. There were two other Oscars for BOS from what I call the Classic Era movies of Disney. In 1947, with an Oscar for ‘Zip a Dee Doo Dah’ in Song of the South and in 1964 for Chim Chim Cher-ee. From 1964 to 1988 there was a substantial lack of Disney Oscars for BOS. But that ended in 1989 with ‘Under the Sea’ from the Little Mermaid. For the next 12 years Disney would dominate in this category at the Academy Awards. From 1989 to 2001 Disney was nominated 19 times and won 7 Oscars. When you do the math that might not make sense. Then consider that in 1991 and 1994 they had three nominated songs for the BOS in each year. The along with 'Under the Sea', the New Era Disney Oscar winners were ‘Beauty and the Beast’(1991-Beauty and the Beast), ‘A Whole New World’(1992-Aladdin), ‘Can you Feel the Love Tonight?’(1994-LionKing), ‘Colors of the Wind’(1995-Pocahontas), ‘You’ll be in my Heart’(1999-Tarzan) and ‘If I Didn’t Have You’(2001-Monster Inc.).
In addition to the Oscar winners there have been a number of songs that were nominated for the BOS Oscar and did not win for the Disney Company. With the eventual Oscar winners included, Disney has had 29 songs nominated for Best Original Song. Some of the nominees: ‘Baby Mine’(1941-Dumbo), ‘Love is a Song’(1942-Bambi), ‘Saludos Amigos’(1943-Saludos Amigos), ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’(1950-Cinderella), ‘Bare Necessities’(1967-Jungle Book), ‘Candle on the Water’(1977-Pete’s Dragon), ‘Someone’s Waiting for You’(1977-The Rescuers), ‘Kiss the Girl’(1989-Little Mermaid), ‘Be Our Guest’ and ‘Belle’(1991-Beauty and the Beast), ‘ A Friend Like Me’(1992-Aladdin), ‘Hakuna Matata’ and ‘Circle of Life’(1994-Lion King), ‘You’ve got a Friend in Me’(1995-Toy Story), ‘Go the Distance’(1997-Hercules), ‘When She Loved Me’(1999-Toy Story 2), ‘My Funny Friend and Me’(2000-Emperours New Groove), ‘Our Town’(2006-Cars) and ‘So Close’(2007-Enchanted). A lot of my favorite songs.
Disney has surely shown that they are cyclic masters of the movie song. All of the above songs are available on ITunes and my source for this article was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences web site archives. It was great listening to a lot of these songs again while writing this post.

YouTube Disney Gold: Voices behind the Characters

I've come across some more of that YouTube Disney Gold. This from the Disney Family Album that must have been taped off the Disney Channel years ago. This one is the "Voices behind the Characters" and is really good. The guy that posted it is Darthkoon and he put it up in 4 parts. Part 1 starts out with Hal Smith giving his Goofy as Jacob Marley in a Christmas Carol voice. Then we get to see the transition of the voice of Mickey from Walt down to Jimmy McDonald. It was also very cool to see Alan Young as the voice of Donald's uncle, Scrooge McDuck.
Part 2 has Kathryn Beaumont talking about her work in both Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Part 3 Has a great insight into the casting of Phil Harris as one of my favorite Disney Character, Baloo. He shaped that roll into his own choosing which worked to the benefit of all. In Part 4, John Byner and John Hurt talk about the Black Cauldron. john Byner was a great comic and voice actor from the 70's and 80's and John Hurt of Alien busting out of his chest at lunch fame did some great work on an overlooked Disney cartoon.

It's all in the Details; Epcot

Have you ever seen this scene before as you walk from England to France in Epcot's World Showcase? I have past this and taken pictures and have always loved it. This past trip I learned something that a lot of people probalbly know already, but it was a wonderful surprise to me. As I got closer I got another picture close up. With Disney, it's all in the details. After I took the close up picture I looked up and right across the river saw the scene in the painting. Without the boat, true, but the detail is really incredible. It makes sense that the artist would have been painting the scene in front of him, but to really see it for the first time was very cool. Hat's off to the Imagineers!

Happy Halloween Disney Style

Whenever you talk about the Disney Parks you can't help but talk about the way Disney plays up the details. They always go the extra yard to make your expereience that much better. It appears that is the case whether you notice it or not. Let me explain. If you have seen my Disney Legend posts, I like to show the legends window if they have one and if I can find the picture on the internet. So on this last trip to WDW I took advantage of some extra time a took a lot of pictures of the Windows on Main Street. What I did not notice was that most of the windows had a pumpkin near it for Halloween. I'm sure I noticed them but they did not stick out until I looked through the pictures after the trip. Here are some of the cropped pictures of those pumpkins. Leave it too Disney to do this. The question is, is this the Art department that decorates the park or is it Cast Members that do this for them.

And now, Back to the Blog!

Hello all! Sorry I have been away so long. It's amazing how much time getting laid off and then going to WDW for a week takes away from the blog. Well I am back and if you know anyone in the Philly area looking for an IT professional, send them my way. Nuff-said about that. The trip to WDW was great and I'm sure will fuel many posts. This is the first. Did you ever take a picture and knew you had seen it somewhere before. Here is a pic of the Snow Speeder over at the Star Tours exhibit, bottom left. Now with the 'So you wanna be a Jedi' stage over there, the final resting place of the Snow Speeder is on the Backlot Tour. It could be worse, it could be out of sight all together back stage somewhere. I went on this for the first time in a while and except for the Canyon itself, bleh. The other bright spot of the tour is the Wardrobe building. It seems to be the only true production part of the studio still working. If only for uniforms. Keep your camera handy there is a Wall-E in there on the left. That's where he's been hiding at the Studios. What a shame. Another redeeming quality is the AFI Villains exhibit at the end of the ride. Star Wars, Pirates and Narnia villains. There was also a Board of the top 50 movie villains which I'm sure I'll talk about later. They also had the AFI award winners board. Very cool stuff.

Floyd Norman's 'mr fun' Blog

I have been following Floyd Norman's Blog for about a year now. For those that might not know, Floyd has been a Disney animator and storyman for about the last 50 years working in both the Disney and Pixar studios. Floyd was made a Disney Legend in Oct. 2007. He was convinced to start a blog and it has been a treasure trove of great stories and cartoons. Today Floyd posted a story about the ins and outs of the design for Winnie the Pooh and Walt's reaction to the process. Very funny and enlightening. So check it out. The name of the Blog is Mr. Fun.

We Need to Stand Together

As we get closer to the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks I thought this was an appropriate post. This button is part of a set that were made right after the attacks in 2001 for the Epcot cast members and to be given out to guests. It was the reaction that a lot of us were going through early after that disaster. A feeling of let’s stand together against whoever had caused such destruction and loss of life. However, it was decided that it might not be sensitive enough so it was not released. My friends and I had a friend who worked and died on one of the top floors of Tower #2. There is not a day that goes by that we don’t think about or talk about Larry and how he’s missed. I look at this button, maybe a mistake at the time it was made, and only feel a sense of unity. And in a way, I miss the way we all stood together after the attacks. As we go through the election process I hope that all involved from the voters to the politicians remember that it is the UNITED States of America not the ‘Half That Think Their Right, More’ States of America.
We actually were on a trip to WDW in Nov. of 2001. We decided to keep the trip we had set-up pre 9/11. It was a very empty kind of 'forget the real world' kind of trip. Maybe that was the reason not to release the buttons. Keep the Maigc alive by keeping the real world just out of reach for those visiting the parks. (Once you got through the bag checks)
This button is not as rare as you might think. We got this one at MagicMeets this year. There are a couple of listings on Ebay right now. Have a great Labor Day and Remember those lost on 9/11.