March Magic! "Selection Saturday"

Hello Disney Fans, and welcome to the first Disney Character Tournament, or as we here at WDTV affectionately call it "March Magic!".

I'm your host, founder, and judge the Beefy Muchacho.

Before we get to announcing our brackets, let me take a minute to bring all you fans up to speed on this event.

Not long ago I read a tweet from FOTB (Friend of the Blog) @DJPhob , who suggested a Heros vs. Villains Tournament. Having never seen an idea I couldn't make almost too unwieldy, I decided to expand  this idea into a "Greatest Disney Character" tournament, which brings us to TONIGHT!

Much like a certain basketball tournament that shares this same magical month, our bracket is divided into four regions of 16 contestants each. All of them itching to carve out their own Cinderella Story. (See what I did there?)

Those four regions are:
Heroines: A region where all of our favorite Disney leading ladies, Heroines, and Princesses will duke it out for a chance to compete in our Fantasy Four.

Heroes: The bracket where all of the famous dudes in our Disney universe battle to make their way to outshine those princesses for once.

Sidekicks: All of these side-kicks, or side-kick duos have dreamed for years of taking the spotlight for their own, and now they have their chance. Which Second Banana will rise above the rest?

Villains: The Duke Universities and New York Yankees of our little melee, which Villain will have a shot at taking down all of these do-gooders once and for all?

Unlike that other tournament in March, we don't have seeds. The matchups are selected at random from our fields of 16 competitors per region. Oh, and it should be mentioned that original legends like Mickey, Donald, Goofy and other stars of shorts and compilations like Chip and Dale, the Three Pigs, and other stars are not eligible this year. This tournament is for Animated Feature stars only..

Each match-up will be judged by me, based on entirely arbitrary and inconsistent criteria, so we all can be sure there'll be plenty of dissent, and I wel.... Wait! I'm getting word in my ear piece that the selection committee has emerged from the ready room and are about to announce our first region, the Heroines!

In the Heroines Region, the first round match-ups will be:

Ariel vs. Wendy Lady

Belle vs. Lilo

Lady vs. Jasmine


Cinderella vs. Princess Atta

Rapunzel vs. Snow White

Merida vs. Vanellope Von Shweetz

Tiana vs. Alice

Aurora vs. Mulan

Wow... Those are some truly interesting match-ups here. To imagine that one of Wendy or Ariel won't make it out of the first round! Young superstar Rapunzel has to go up against the legend Snow White herself! What a rough draw..

Oooohhhh I'm hearing some of the ladies who weren't selected are pretttttty upset at their exclusion from thsi year's tournament. Let's throw it to our affiliate Donald Duck who's standing by with Pocahontas.

Donald: &#)D*((&&@##

Pocahontas: Man... this is Bull#%!t.

Whooaaa now, we're sorry you're taking it so badly Princess. We have nothing but respect for you. I'm sure that EVE, Bianca, and Duchess are all pretty mad too, but we don't have time for that now. We've got to get on with the next bracket.

Our next bracket is for the Heroes... The first round match-ups will be..

Hercules vs. Aladdin

Peter Pan vs Flik

Simba vs. Jack Skellington

Ralph vs. Robin Hood

Mowgli vs. Dumbo

Pinocchio vs. Buzz Lightyear

Marlin vs Carl Fredrickson

Woody vs. Wall-E

Wow folks! What an incredible set of match-ups we have in store for you. It's a real shame we can't include everyone, because there are some truly shocking "outs" from the list. Heroes I believe could have done real damage in this tournament. After Pocahontas' outburst, let's not bounce to Goofy who's with Tom O'Malley and Tarzan at a local bar. Just know that they're not pleased.

This is so exciting folks! We're halfway done with our bracket and we have another 2 regions to go... Right after these words from our sponsor...


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If you love delicious pizza and convenient, fast delivery than Pizza Planet is the pizza for you! We've got new locations popping up all over. In fact, we're literally EVERYWHERE!

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Aaaaaand we're back, folks. Man, that pizza from Pizza Planet sure is the best, isn't it?

Anyway, we're halfway through the announcement of the March Magic Bracket and we've made our way to the unsung region... The Sidekicks. So many of our favorite Disney movies wouldn't be half of what they are without these plucky folks to do the dirty work. What's really great about this region is that we can have side-kick teams!

Here we go...

Timothy Mouse vs Tinkerbell

Seven Dwarves vs Rhino

Jiminy Crickett vs Baloo

Little John vs. Dori

Flounder & Sebastian vs. Iago

Lumiere &Cogsworth vs. Bugs from A Bugs Life

Timon & Pumbaa vs. Mushu

Stitch vs. Flotsam & Jetsam

Amazing matchups! The sidekick bracket is just absolutely loaded with legends. So many great characters going up against each other early on in the tournament! Timon and Pumbaa vs Mushu! I mean COME ON!! There are so many great characters who didn't make the cut. Our sources tell us that this region gave us two of the toughest exclusions in Rhino, the incredibly funny hamster from 'Bolt' and Dug & Russell from 'Up'. What a tough job the selection committee had! Goodness!

Alright folks... one more region to announce, and for many it's going to produce some of the most intriguing of match-ups! The guilty pleasures that are Villains... or at least Guilty, am I right?  Let's get to it, huh?

Starting us off are:

Evil Queen vs. Dr. Facilier

Maleficent vs. Hades

Cruella vs. Lotso

Captain Hook vs. Shere Khan

Queen of Hearts vs. Prince John

Ursula vs. Syndrome

Jafar vs. King Candy

Hopper vs. Gaston

What an exciting tournament this is shaping up to be! So many fantastic characters... What's that? I hear that our colleague Mickey Mouse himself has mustered up all of his courage and is waiting in the Villains waiting room where some of the ousted Villains are steaming!

Mickey - "Huh-ha! Well there Darla. How do you feel about not being included in this year's tournament?"
Darla- FISHIES!!!! I want FISHIES!!
Mickey - There ya have it Muchacho! Darla's doing just fine! Huh-ha!

Thanks Mickey! I have a feeling you're lucky that Shan-Yu and Bruce the Great White Shark weren't available for comment.

So there ya go folks, that concludes our WDTV telecast of Selection Saturday for this year's March Magic Tournament!

Stay tuned as we work through the match-ups in each region and determine our regional champions before making our way all the way to our Fantasy Four!

Going to the Promised Land: Part Two

Night at Splash Mountain

Let me tell you a little insider secret.

Turns out, Disneyland, far more than WDW is often crowded with local teens with too much time on their hands. Nothing keeps the hoards of emo, skinny-jeaned children at bay like pending rain. It was amazing.

My visit to Disneyland started a tad unceremoniously, I suppose. Especially considering how much I'd built up the momentous occasion in my head. I was talking on the phone with the Tofu Muchacha and the cab driver dumped me in this weird side drop-off area. As I walked the same direction as a couple of other folks, and suddenly there I was. At the main gates of Disneyland. There were no trumpets, there was no fanfare, but there it was. Walt's very own creation.

Maybe it's that it was dark and rainy, when I'm usually accustomed to entering the parks at opening, in the bright of day, and with all the accompanying music and celebrations.

Turns out, it didn't matter, because I was confronted with one of the iconic images in all of Disneydom.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

I was aware that the Disneyland castle was smaller than its Floridian counterpart, though the extent to that it was smaller was not something I was prepared for. It is small in comparison, but that didn't stop me from standing there, in front of the Walt and Mickey “Partners” statue, and just staring at it. There was the castle I'd seen a million on TV and in pictures, and with Walt riding a trolley in front of it. It was an exceptional sight.

 

This is where I had a choice to make. What do I hit first? I knew I wanted to start with something I couldn't experience in Florida, and as far as I was concerned, there were two main choices:

The Matterhorn, the classic bobsled coaster, was the most obvious. It's been there since 1959, and is the first of the many “mountains” of the Disney Universe. Expedition Everest is basically The Matterhorn's younger, slicker, scarier sister. Not only that, but The Matterhorn is the most visible physical feature of Disneyland from outside the park. It's an excellent choice for my very first ride at Disneyland. The downside to choosing The Matterhorn first was that I felt that one of the great features of The Matterhorn is that from her heights, seeing the rest of the park is possible, and I wanted to do that during the day.

The other major attraction I had in mind was one that is significantly newer. That was Indiana Jones Adventure. No Spring chicken, by any means, it's been around since 1995, but unlike some of the other major attractions, it's not particularly well-known outside of the theme park fan circles. The biggest reason I was intrigued by the ride is that it is regularly rated as the “best” ride at Disneyland by various theme park websites that aren't affiliated with Disney.

So it was toward Adventureland, and Indy, I went...

This is where I mention that the “Single Rider” option is maybe the greatest theme park invention ever. Far better than a fast pass. It's awesome. The TM and I even do it to avoid longer waits when we're together. Sure, if you wanna get one of those ride pictures, you may wanna sit next to your companions, or if you have kids, but for the most part you're riding a ride, you're not having a deep conversation. Seriously... consider Single Rider.

Wait...

What I mean is DON'T do Single Rider. Ever. It's horrible. (yeah... that's the ticket).

Seriously, though, Single Rider is awesome, and I used it several times. The first was on Indy. I walked all the way up to where they were showing the pre-show screening, and I waited maybe a total of 15 minutes. That includes the very long walk through the queue.

So the ride itself is excellent. For those of you who've been to WDW and ridden 'Dinosaur' at Animal Kingdom, the mechanics are very similar. The ride cars are basically the same technology, where the car feels like it's going on bumpy roads and dipping into ditches and holes and cutting corners. I actually liked it a lot better than 'Dinosaur' in just about every respect. The ride felt smoother, while still being exciting. The theme is incredibly well conceived and carried out. The ride FEELS long, too, which is awesome. You know how you sometimes you wait for an hour for a ride, and it's over so quickly that no matter how exciting, it just feels like you wasted time? I felt the opposite about Indy. I would have gladly waited an hour to ride. (Incidentally, I know it's blasphemy, but I feel that way about Peter Pan's Flight. Even though Peter Pan is among my favorite movies of all time, and that ride is a classic, it's too short to wait more than 15 minutes.)

After riding it, I came to this realization that being an Imagineer is maybe not the unreachable star I've always believed. Not to say that I have a chance of being one, or even that I've got the compulsion to try, but maybe for the first time I noticed patterns. Rides being different versions of other rides. Technology from one thing being used with a new overlay on another thing. It becomes a little more accessible once you start to see the nuts and bolts a little more clearly.

But I digress...

Once I rolled out of Indy, I was exhilarated, and ready for more. I'd entered the park only 2 hours before closing, and I'd thought I'd only have the chance to ride one or two things in that time. The crowds were so light, my whole structure changed. I walked toward New Orleans Square.

New Orleans Square is a little bizarre, because I'm not sure it totally makes sense that it's there... you know... theme-wise. Not that it isn't cool, but I just don't totally get why Walt chose New Orleans. All of the other “Lands” are a bit more universal. Frontier. Fantasy. Tomorrow. And... New Orleans. I just feels oddly specific.

Anyway, there are basically a bunch of shops and restaurants in New Orleans Square, Club 33 is there (I'll talk about that more in a minute), and most importantly two of the great rides in all of the Disney Universe.... Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion.

I realize that both of those rides appear in just about every Disney around the world, so I wasn't sticking strictly to my plan of those rides only unique to Disneyland, but I'd also heard so many times how much better the Pirates at Disneyland was than its WDW brother. I was skeptical. Pirates is probably my favorite ride at Magic Kingdom, and I had a hard time imagining a “Pirates” iteration much better, or even much different.

Friends... I don't want to alarm anyone here, but all of us who are used to the WDW Pirates have been conned. Bamboozled. Scammed. Gypped. You get me?

It's been over a week since my first (and 2^nd) rides of Pirates, and I still can't get over how much better the Disneyland version is. It's a significant disparity.

The most obvious difference is that the DL version has got to be a solid 5 minutes longer. This alone would be enough to make me choose the DL Pirates, because how awesome is 5 extra minutes of Pirates? Exactly.

Of course you're wondering what they did with that extra 5 minutes, and the answer is that they stuffed it chock-full of scenes that don't occur in the Florida version. The middle section of the ride is essentially the same. From when you drop down the 2^nd slope and find yourself outside of the Fort where Barbossa is attacking, all the way through the scene where the dog is holding the keys. On either side of it, though, you have so much more meat. There's this great scene at the beginning where you have this abandoned saloon where skeleton pirates are totally partying, and on the other side, you havee the skeleton of the Pirate King in his bed. This reminded me a lot of the scene in the 4^th Pirates Movie (which you'll recall I rated as the worst movie of 2011). It actually made me like the movie slightly more. At the end of the ride there's this GREAT scene where these pirates are precariously hanging out in this room with all these explosives, while the room is “burning down”. It might actually be my favorite scene of all.

The last major change is that the ride starts very much like the boat ride does in Mexico at Epcot, where riders float through this bayou scene, but there's a nice restaurant with diners on the other side. It sounds weird, but the atmosphere in there is spectacular.

I just... I loved it so much, and additional scenes, the “Bayou” overlay, and the additional time just pushes it so far past the Florida version, that you start feeling like you got robbed if you've only been to the one in WDW.

As I excited the ride, I ended up on this street in New Orleans Square right by The Blue Bayou, which is the expensive restaurant you go past on the boats. Immediately next door to that is Club 33.

The Entrance to Club 33

I can't really talk in detail about Club 33, because I don't know that much about it. It's a special, very exclusive club, at Disneyland that has been around for years. Has a long waiting list, and a high entry fee. You can't get in unless you're a member. And I gotta get in there. I must. (Read more about it here)

So anyway, giddy from my time on Pirates, and with just over an hour still to go, I walked over to check out The Haunted Mansion, only to find that they were having technical difficulties, and it was closed for the night.

I took this as my cue to head over to Splash Mountain, which I discovered was... Closed for the night.

So, after much walking and much wandering into corners and alleys and dead-ends... OH, by the way... People who say that The Magic Kingdom is the same layout as DL are just plain wrong. I could find my way through Magic Kingdom in the dead of night with just the sounds and smells to guide me. In Disneyland, I kept finding myself turning the wrong way and ending up at a service entrance or restrooms.

Eventually I found my way to Fantasyland, and sort of accidentally in front of another Disneyland-only attraction that I'd not even realized was still there... Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

I didn't ride Mr. Toad on my first visit to WDW, and he was gone by my second. All he left behind was the seething rage leveled by just about everyone that this “Classic” was being replaced. This was the first of two giant kerfuffles I can recall about rides at WDW, the other being the far more successful fit everyone had about Figment and Journey into Imagination, though some would argue the “New” version is so bad they may as well have left it gone.

Anyway, I figured I may as well see what all the fuss was over, and yeah.. it was pretty fun, and definitely dark for a Disney attraction (that whole bit about going to Hell is totally true), but all in all I was hoping for more. It's a really good dark-ride, and certainly better than the Winnie the Pooh ride that replaced it, but I mean... I guess it's only a classic due to its age.

After riding, I started making my way toward the exit. I was really tired, the park was closing in 15 minutes, and I knew that the next day would be a long and exhausting one. Still... I couldn't resist stopping in to Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, which is (as far as I can tell) no different than Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. Still, it's a super fun ride and even though I'm patently awful at shooting those dumb targets, it's silly and loud and very enjoyable. They did have this awesome, and HUGE Buzz animatronic figure that, I guess, runs on the same technology as the Mr. Potato Head at Toy Story Mania. He was heckling the crowd, and his face was actually animated.

Once I was done with Buzz, I headed toward the exit, stopping in a couple shops on the way.

All in all, it was an amazing start to my weekend. Incredibly memorable, and exciting. I got to walk the roads Walt walked, and see Sleeping Beauty's castle. I rode the excellent Indiana Jones, and I forever changed my view of Pirates of the Caribbean.

A great start.

Stay tuned for Part 3, covering the highlights of my first full day at Disneyland.

Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Castle

For my third day of my challenge, the TM selected “Favorite Castle” for me to write about...

I guess I've never really thought about it much, and it's certainly vague...

Do they mean my favorite Disney Parks Castle, which is pretty limiting. There's Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland (which I've just seen in person for the first time), and there's Cinderella's castle at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. You can also find Sleeping Beauty's castle in Paris and Hong Kong, and Cinderella's in Tokyo.

I suppose I could expand the park castles to include the new ones featured in the Fantasyland expansion, but they are hardly official.

I think they MUST mean just in general, from the Disney Universe “Favorite Castle”, because otherwise, you're either a fan of tradition (Sleeping Beauty) or scale (Cinderella).

So let's think about the candidates... Obviously the ones we've already discussed exist in the movies as well..

Other possible castle choices are
Prince Adam's(The Beast) castle in Beauty and the Beast
Prince Eric's castle in The Little Mermaid
The Sultan's Palace in Aladdin
Rapunzel's parents' castle in Tangled
Castle from The Sword in the Stone
Castle from Snow White
and...
I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of, but really... how many of them played major roles in the stories?

So, I guess my criteria is two-fold...

1) Which of the castles played a major part, or was even a major setting in the movie it's set in?
The clear answer and front runner to this is The Beast's Castle from Beauty and the Beast. That castle was amazing! It was vast, and had crazy rooms and dungeons, and a huge amount of the action takes place there, AND! It was enchanted.

2) Which is the most architecturally interesting? 

For me, it's a toss-up. First, we have Eric's castle from The Little Mermaid:

 

Eric's castle is a pretty darn different. It doesn't rely on the height and the impressive spires and towers of many of the other castles. It's still got the size you look for in a castle, but it's a castle built on a cliff by the ocean, and I feel like it's one of the few castles I always wanted to explore when I watched as a kid. It just seems cool. By the way.. does anyone know where The Little Mermaid takes place? Eric has an American accent. There are British accents elsewhere. Sebastian the crab has a Crab accent. Ursula sounds like a drag queen..

The other candidate is The Sultan's Palace in Aladdin:

 

I admit that I'm a sucker for this style of architecture. In fact, if I had all the money in the world, I'd probably build a mansion with a lot of Middle-Eastern accent to it. I love tile, I love the minarets, I love the fountains. It just seems awesome. I love how so much of it is open air. I love the amazingly high ceilings. It's pretty tough to beat...

So... The winner for me, provides the best combination of story and style, and... for that, I have to go with:

 

The Beast's Castle. It's got that sort of cool, woodland feel to it. I love how it just seems totally endless. Like there are whole sections of the castle where people (or Candelabras) forgot they existed at all. The towers are impossibly tall, and the spans connecting them are really cool.  When you factor in the huge role it plays in the story... It's gotta be the Beast.

 

Going to The Promised Land; Part One

One of the first things I thought when the Tofu Muchacha finally told me where we were moving, after months of uncertainty, was “California? That's where Disneyland is!!”

I'm not kidding. She was there, and she can attest.

You see... As many of you know if you've been reading this blog is that I've been to Walt Disney World in Florida many times. I consider it my favorite place. My happy place. My... ehem.. “Laughing Place”. Still, I'd never been to Disneyland. Before moving here, I'd only been to California twice at all, and one of those was for work, and the other was on the Great Piano Adventure (LINK). It was always my secret shame as a Disney Fan. A Disney lunatic who'd never been to where it all started? To some degree I felt like a fraud.

At the same time, I was longing to go there. To see, first hand, the places Walt Disney himself conceived. To walk the roads he walked. To touch the doors he touched. More than anything in my fandom of "Disney", Walt was my favorite part. He's inspired me with his creations for my whole life, and I always felt incomplete as an acolyte without having visited, witness, his great creation. The movies can come to you. Disneyland is a pilgrimage.

Sounds dramatic, probably, and it is. I take this very seriously.

I moved to California on December 7^th and from that point I started plotting my first trip down the state to Disneyland.

First off... I should mention for those of you not from California... Sacramento and Anaheim are not close. It's 415 miles from my house to Disneyland. That's a SOLID drive. Even going 70 the whole way (fat chance), it's 6 hours, and that's not taking into account the god-awful Los Angeles traffic. Google Maps calls it 6 and a half hours. Every person I spoke to estimated closer to 8. For whatever reason that 90 minute difference just seems like a lot to me. It's the difference between driving from Cincinnati to Detroit and Cincinnati to Atlanta. Detroit just seems closer. (All together: “That's because it is!”)

So my point is.. whether the drive is six or eight hours, it's not a “go on a whim for an afternoon” kind of distance. It does require at least a little planning, and basically a whole day for travel if you're driving.

It seemed that all my weekends for the first month were accounted for from the start. Christmas, then visitors, and birding, and fun. All fun, don't get me wrong. I love having visitors, and I love my new (slightly) cheaper hobby of birding. Heck... I haven't even had a chance to set up my workshop yet. It's just been busy. Then, the TM's job presented me with an opportunity to make myself scarce. She's this work event, you see, and she warned me that she'd be swamped for a whole weekend with planning.

BINGO.

Now, obviously, I'd rather have had the TM with me. In fact, she's been to Disneyland a bunch of times, though not for a while, so it'd be cool to have been on the other end of the “Park Knowledge” thing for once. Still, this was a great chance for me to go, and stay out of her hair while she worked. (Since we don't really know anyone, we've been spending a TON of time together, which is awesome, but we are also both proponents of doing our own thing from time to time.

Now that the weekend was determined, I set about planning the actual trip. I went on the Disney Parks website and priced out a stay of 2 days and it was mind-bogglingly expensive for a 2 night trip for one person in the middle of slow season. Yikes. Anyway, I ended up getting a decent deal on a hotel just off property and I bought my park hoppers separately.

Then came the big decision... On a whim, I decided to check out the cost of flights, and I found a round trip into Santa Ana (Orange County/John Wayne Airport) for about what gas would have cost me for the full round trip. I realized that with cabs to and from the airport, and airport parking, I'd still be a little in the hole, but the extra time I'd have at Disneyland was the key to my decision. I'd get into DL at 5:30pm instead of 11:30pm on Thursday, and I could stay until 5pm on Saturday instead of having to leave a noon. That's 11 additional hours in the parks. A whole extra day.

It was a no brainer. Done.

So I now knew my whole itinerary.

Fly in. Grab a few hours on Thursday night in the park. Do Disneyland the entire next day, and do California Adventure on Saturday before my flight, still having from 9am to 4pm at the park before having to leave for the airport. Sounded amazing to me.

This is the plan. And I will say that it was a good one. The first night I got there and flew into Santa Ana as the Sun was setting over Disneyland. I could see the Matterhorn from my window on the plane, and I was getting antsy already. Fortunately the lady next to me was nice.

One thing I assumed the entire time was that it'd be sunny and warm. I was wrong. It rained pretty much the entire time I was there. Turns out, this was possibly my biggest advantage. Disneyland, far more than WDW is often crowded with local teens with too much time on their hands. Nothing keeps the hoards of emo, skinny-jeaned children at bay like pending rain. The place was just about empty. It was amazing.

My goal for my trip was to start with the rides that don't exist at Walt Disney World, and then after checking those off, moving on toward old favorites.

Later this week, Part 2.

Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Prince

 

For my 2nd entry in the "Disney 30 Day Challenge", the Tofu Muchacha randomly selected #3, "Favorite Prince"

I can't say that I'm super excited about this one, even though maybe I should be since the Princesses get all the pub. The World of Animation is a Ladies World, and the Princes are usually not much more than props to dispense magical kisses, to appear out of the mist after being turned back to human, to have giant statues made in their likenesses, or to you know... ride around on horses.

There aren't truly that many interesting princes from which to choose, but finally I came up with a couple of princes I could consider...

1) Simba.
Let's face it... He's petulant, he gets his father killed (sort of), he runs off into hiding, he leaves his friends and family and his mother to a life of slavery at the hands of his evil uncle (also a Prince, I suppose). Even with all that, though, he's still kinda awesome. He grows up, becomes a man, and ultimately saves everyone. All the while singing some of the catchiest tunes, and having a super cool entourage. Simba is a strong candidate.

2) Hercules
Maybe it's a stretch, because he's more a "god" than a "prince", but he IS the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, so doesn't that make him a prince? Anyway... Hercules is one of the great, un-sung Disney movies of all time. If it had come out BEFORE The Little Mermaid, people would have been blown away, but since it came out in the wake of all those great early to mid-90s classics, it sort of gets forgotten. I'll likely revisit this later, but Hercules also sings one of the great male songs in the entirety of the Disney songbook in "Go the Distance". It's a phenomenal song. He also gets points, in my book, for never truly straying from being a "good guy". He also willingly makes one of the great sacrifices in all of the Disneysphere by offering up his own soul to save Meg's.

3) Aladdin
The true "diamond in the rough". He's a pretty great character, and definitely the... you know... title character. I have a soft spot for Aladdin, because he's a dreamer. He wasn't born a prince, and he certainly makes some misguided choices along the way, but he's brave, and resourceful, and looks out for the little guy (who doesn't love when Aladdin gives some of that bread to those kids?). He also has to fight Jafar, and while he's pretty much unsuccessful at that, he does give it a good try, and trying does matter. Also? He's got a Monkey friend, which is awesome. And a Genie. That's pretty cool too...

So... who's my favorite prince?

Gotta go with Hercules. 

(Incidentally, the Disney Wiki does not list Hercules OR Simba as "official" princes, but I don't care.)

I should mention the Honorable Mention goes to Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. Not because he does much of anything (besides stab Ursula with a ship), but because in the long-running show at Disney World, the actor playing Eric has the best paid acting gig of all time. He runs out... says a couple of words and kisses the girl. Over and over.

I won't get another one of these done until Sunday, when I get back from Disneyland.

Oh yeah... did I mention? I'm going to Disneyland!!!!!

Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Romantic Moment

A friend on Facebook posted this (originally found on Pinterest):

I haven't been able to blog much for the past few months, since I was in the process of moving to a new side of the country, seeking a job, and just generally being crazed.

So, here I go... I'm going to write about one of these each day... I may miss a day, but I promise I will hit ALL of these.

I couldn't decide which to do first, so I had the Tofu Muchacha decide by picking a number between 1 and 30.  She chose #15, so...

#15.. My Favorite Romantic Moment

I'm sure that some other people have a whole slew of romantic Disney moments they've always loved, but "romance" hasn't ever really been a focus for me in my Disney viewing.

That said, there are definitely some great moment, and often underscored by great songs. I think I'd have a tough time thinking of a great romantic moment without one of the classic songs attached. There's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" from The Lion King.  "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid. "I See the Light" from Tangled (I could write a whole blog about how I love Tangled, and how I believe it'll grow in popularity). Sure, you can also reference some of the classics... Prince Phillip waking Aurora with a kiss, or the prince waking Snow White, or Bambi... chewing cud. (The Tofu Muchacha picked Lady and Tramp eating the spaghetti... also valid).

All of those moments are fantastic, but really is there any greater romantic moment in Disney history than this sequence from 'Up'?


I mean... right?

The romance of Ellie and Carl is one of the greatest sequences in the history of animation. It's almost impossible to think about 'Up' without thinking about this scene, which takes us through the entire lives of Ellie and Carl, where we see their love and their losses, and their dreams. We even see the pain Carl has when he loses his love to sickness and death. It doesn't sound all that romantic when I describe it, but there's such beauty and love in this sequence... it's pretty much perfect.

Best of all? The scene perfectly sets up how the audience views Carl throughout the rest of the movie. When he's cranky and bitter and holds on to his home too hard, we don't think "man... that old dude is cranky as heck." We think "if only they knew! he can't let go of his Ellieeeeee!!!" And then we all cry and become messes in the dark movie theaters.

It's possible that happened to me.

Don't even get me started with what happened when Carl gave Russell the "Grape Soda" badge at the end. I mean, good lord.

All of those moments, and that whole journey and growth for Carl... they are all set up by this sequence. It's incredibly romantic, yes, but integral to the plot, too... So it wins for me.

Tomorrow? Who knows. The Muchacha hasn't given me a number yet.

Disney + Star Wars = Best Day Ever

Apparently it takes a 4 billion dollar deal to get me blogging. That’s okay, though, because if the news of Disney buying Lucasfilms can’t do it, I may as well close up shop.

So yeah…

Disney inked a deal to buy Lucasfilms for 4.5 BILLION dollars. That purchase includes Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound. Lucasfilms, in case you don’t know, is the studio that has the creative rights to Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

As you can imagine, as a Disney fan, I believe this is the awesomest thing in the history of awesome things. Both film franchises feature original trilogies that are easily among the 5 best trilogies in film history. Not only are they awesome, but they’re also insanely profitable. In fact, maybe 4.5 billion dollars isn’t enough money to pay George Lucas.

So yeah, Disney can’t lose.

But what do I say to all of the obsessive Star Wars fans who are afraid that Disney will ruin the legacy of The Force?

Well…

First, let me defend my beloved Disney against all of this “Disneyfied” nonsense. I’ve seen around the internet this idea that suddenly Disney is going to somehow over-commercialize or over-cutesy the Star Wars creative property.

Um… Have these people seen the Star Wars legos, and video games, and toys and toys and toys? George Lucas was the all time greatest ever at wringing out every tidbit of cash out of literally ever corner of his kingdom. My long-time buddy, The Scary Pinecone used to collect the Star Wars figures, and there were tons of figures of characters I had no recollection of from movies I’ve seen dozens of times.

George Lucas created Ewoks. George Lucas created Jar Jar Binks (for Pete’s sake!) He forced poor little innocent Jake Lloyd to shriek “Yippee!”. Do they really want to get into this “Disney=Cutified” thing?

Anyway, here are my points in favor of the deal:

1) As many others have pointed out… There’s absolutely no risk from either side of the deal. Disney will make boatloads of cash no matter what, and they’ll also have the extremely valuable studios of ILM and Skywalker Sound. Lucasfilms risks nothing in terms of quality, because let’s face it… The last good movie to come out of Lucasfilms was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. The last good Star Wars movie was in 1983. I was 3 years old. I will be 33 in February. The recent Star Wars movies have been worse than mediocre, and my preference is to just forget that Indy 4 never happened at all. Disney can’t make it worse. There’s only one direction to go, and that’s up.

2) George Lucas conceptualized Star Wars as a 9 Part Story, and only 6 parts have been created. He’s openly said that he’d never make Episodes 7 to 9, and that’s a shame, because if they use the Timothy Zahn “Heir to the Empire” trilogy as a basis, the fans are truly missing out. Those stories are awesome, and they introduce some spectacular characters, aliens, and worlds. It could be awesome, and Lucas doesn’t have the creative juice to do it. Even if he did, let’s just be honest and admit that the biggest problems with the recent films is that he had too much control. Disney is arguably the only studio to have the bandwidth, talent, and funds to do it right. I’m excited. I say give the reins to J.J. Abrahms or Rian Johnson or Joss Whedon and sit back and enjoy the ride.

3) Disney, with their enormous scope, can offer the Star Wars fans an opportunity to love their stories for years to come in dozens of different medias. I’ve already heard talk of Star Wars themed attractions at the parks. New movies. New cartoons. It’s a way to keep the stories alive and bring them to even more audiences. I mean… who wouldn’t love to go to Disney World at ride the hot new roller coaster “The Millenium Falcon and the Kessel Run”? (That’s my idea, Disney… HIRE ME!)

4) Nobody’s really talking much about the Indy movies, and maybe that’s because Harrison Ford is old, Shia LeBouf is… unsuitable to take over the franchise, and you can’t really do “Indy” without “Indy”. That’s fair, but a buddy of mine asked me about Disney’s track record with Sci-Fi, and I have to admit, it’s not that great. Action/Adventure, however… I’d venture to say that the best Action/Adventure movie of the past 10 years is the first Pirates flick. The Avengers is pretty good too… I’d be interested to see what Disney does with a property like Indiana Jones… Can they go in a different direction without Harrison Ford in the spotlight?

5) Speaking of “The Avengers”, I think that perhaps this is the best example of why a Disneyfied Lucasfilm is going to be awesome…

Disney bought Marvel a couple of years ago, and every comic book fan boy freaked the hell out. “Oh no! The Hulk will have Mickey Ears! They’ll be “baby” versions of Iron Man and Captain America.”

That hasn’t happened. Disney’s done a great job of keeping true to the Marvel stories and characters. I realize that there’s only been a small samples size to this point, but The Avengers was stupendous. They did it right. They hired respected “Geek Insiders” like Joss Whedon to write and direct. They made sure the effects were tight. They treated their stars right, so we know they’ll be back. It was masterfully done, and nobody can complain. Maybe someone doesn’t love the plot, but all-in-all, it was an enormous success. Also they made 1.5 Billion dollars.

Look… There are no guarantees, but Disney is the one company out there that combines the technical prowess, the creative talent, and the ridiculously deep pockets to do it right.

Let me put it this way…

If we knew that Lucas wasn’t going to be available to make another Star Wars movie, but we knew there would still BE a Star Wars movie… what studio do you want taking over?

Disney is it.