Disney – Page 8 – Spectre Collie

Manos, brazos, pies, y piernas

I went to Disneyland over the weekend, and it was fun. There’s not a ton of new stuff going on at the park, and we’ve gotten pretty ritualistic with our trips — get up ass-early, drive down, eat at the Apricot Tree, check in at the hotel, sleep, get up and drink, get up ass-early, go to Disneyland, ride everything, take pictures, eat a big-ass steak, get up slightly later, ride everything else, go home, write about it on the internets. So you might think that it’s just a chance to have fun and relax with friends, and there’s no way to get any self-obsessed blog material out of it.

Not so! I’ve got not one, but two observations:

1. I think I might be insane. Since I live alone and work from home, this weekend was the first time in a long while I’ve been expected to actually make conversation for an extended period of time. And I was forced for the first time to actually listen to myself. From my experience with mentally unstable people — in the city and on the buses, and that documentary I saw that one time about the schizophrenic — they have a particular speech pattern. It’s a lot of mumbling, with obsession on decades-old grievances or a single memorable experience, along with plenty of totally non-sequitur pop culture references.

In a news report I saw one time about a panhandling ban somewhere in the south bay, they interviewed a homeless guy on camera. In about 30 seconds of talking, he mentioned his time in Vietnam twice, and started a statement about how the ban was unfair that ended with: “I’m just a good old boy, never meanin’ no harm. Beats all you ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day I was born.” In two days, I mentioned my trip to Japan at least 20 times, and ended about every other sentence with a random quote from Achewood or a sitcom. Not even voluntarily, half the time; it’s like post-modern pop-culture Turette’s.

On the bright side, though, I’m pretty sure I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. So if they are signs of insanity, I’ve been insane for a very long time.

2. Riding Big Thunder Mountain during the fireworks is one of the most awesome things a human can do. I’m a sucker for fireworks shows, and Disney does the best. I can go to the appointed optimal viewing area at the designated 15 minutes before the show starts, stand with thousands of strangers, and watch the show with its accompanying soundtrack, and enjoy it perfectly. But one trip, we skipped the fireworks and rode the roller coaster instead, and by accident happened to be on it just as the show’s finale was happening. It was cool enough to do it on purpose.

And riding what’s already a brilliantly-designed coaster, and coming out of a dark tunnel just as a huge bloom of fireworks is going off overhead, is such a cool combination that it couldn’t possibly be topped by any pre-orchestrated Disney presentation.

I was wondering about this on the long drive home — would it be practical or even possible to design a roller coaster so that you see fireworks blasts every time? It’d be expensive, sure, but barring the cost, how would it work? At this point, Disney’s got pyrotechnics down to the point where they can shoot off an explosive finale at will and have it work perfectly every time, night after night. At one of the dance clubs at Pleasure Island, they fire a blast at the stroke of midnight, every night, right in sync with whatever song is being played by the DJ. (At least, they did several years ago, back when I was young enough to be at Downtown Disney around midnight).

I’m convinced they could do it, and I think they could even work out a way to make it feasible for something as high-volume as a coaster. But it just wouldn’t be cool. A lot of the awesomeness of it is knowing that it just happened, and there wasn’t a team of people working behind the scenes to get it to happen perfectly, exactly on cue.

Most Disney critics — the normal people looking in from the outside, not the jaded and embittered people so mired under theme park obsession that their only link with the real world is criticizing every move that corporate management makes — fault the company for being too orchestrated, saccharine, and fake. The company has to innovate within the bounds of catering to an inconceivably large and wide audience (and that’s not a crack about obesity of Orlando park-goers), and as a result, they have to design experiences that injure no one, offend no one, and play exactly the same way for every person, every minute of every day.

Therefore, in the real woods of Tom Sawyer Island, for example, you get plastic tree stumps designed to look like real tree stumps, housing speakers playing bird calls and other nature sounds. It’s an experience so far removed from nature that it feels even less real than Tomorrowland.

That’s the core of why Disneyland is more appealing than the parks in Florida, Tokyo, and Paris, even though the others are more impressive in size, engineering, and overall spectacle. Even today, Disneyland still feels less orchestrated and more spontaneous and random. The live entertainment is more accessible and feels less scripted (even though it’s definitely not). There are just too many people now not to have designated character greeting times, with an orderly line for each, but you can still manage to see characters wandering around the park, having random interactions with guests. Somehow the park still manages to feel more casual, more like a bunch of people getting together to have a good time, instead of being admitted to an enormous, orderly, well-maintained and meticulously organized, but ultimately a little cold and sterile, machine.

And that’s why I think their new “year of a million dreams” promotion — where prizes are given out not for going through a turnstile or having a raffle ticket or entering a drawing; but randomly and spontaneously, no matter where you are at the time — is such a great idea. No long lists of rules presented by armies of lawyers, or angry, tired guests jockeying for position to be the big winner. It’s an ingenious way to tell guests that they are special, just like the millions of people in the parks with them at the same time, and make it actually work.

Take a wild ride with hot, screaming teens

The Disney Blog posted links to two videos recreating the Test Track ride at Epcot using the game Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.

My favorite of the two is below. Test Track isn’t a roller coaster, and the other video looks a little bit more like the actual ride. But this one gets my vote for including the original soundtrack and for doing the whole thing from the queue to the final photo:

As far as I’m concerned, Test Track is the quintessential Epcot ride, and possibly the most solid Disney ride there is. I really wish “works well within its constraints” didn’t sound like damming with faint praise, because it’s really tough to do, and no other ride I can think of manages to do it as well. This attraction had to:

Bring a thrill ride to Epcot, which had gotten a reputation (only partially deserved) for being too dry and educational.
Still be educational.
Replace a beloved attraction with Marc Davis designs, one that was still cool but definitely showing its age and no longer a big stand-out.
Use a corporate sponsorship without seeming like heavy-handed advertising.
Be a Disney thrill ride, which means being exciting while still supporting as wide an audience as possible.
Support a ton of riders, as it was on Test Track’s shoulders to be the new main attraction for the entire park.

And it manages to do all that, and be a fun and entertaining ride on top of everything. I don’t know if I’d put it in my list of top 5 Disney attractions (and yeah, I do have such a list; several, in fact), but it’s one of my favorites. From the excellent pre-show movie — which has one of the most clever “little touches” Disney has ever done (the “surprise tests” gag) — to the final loop, it just all works. (Plus, the show and ride have John Michael Higgins, who I always remember as “Bill MacKim” because of the ride). A definite classic.

Best sign of the staying power of the ride: last summer I drove underneath Test Track on my way to work every morning (did I mention how cool that job was?). And because it has a single rider line, it was one of the only rides I could go on during my lunch break, so I rode it at least once every other day for a month. And I never got tired of it.

Are you seeing an increase in lateral forces? Sure am!

Update: This YouTube video has shaky footage of the entire ride, if you don’t mind getting spoiled. Watching it makes me want to ride it again right now!

Devils, black sheep, really bad eggs

Here’s a post from the blog of C Martin Croker (TV’s Zorak from “Space Ghost” and “The Brak Show”) from a little over a month ago, about the changes recently made to Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

I haven’t seen Disneyland’s new version yet, but I have ridden Walt Disney World’s, and I agree with him on just about every single point he makes. It’s kind of frustrating, because to me it seems like the whole thing is the best of a bad situation.

Technically, they did a great job. The new animatronics are very well done, the best I’ve ever seen of trying to emulate a real person. They’re integrated well into the scenes without overpowering them. (In the Florida version, the end scene is completely replaced, but that was always an anti-climactic and weak scene).

And I’d even say that as a concept, it made sense — the movies have been huge successes, and the first was genuinely an “instant classic.” (I didn’t like the second one as much, but it could still work if the third one delivers the pay-off).

But it just doesn’t fit all that well. As the blog says, you’re left wondering “who’s that guy wandering around the Pirates ride?” But if they’d tried to do a Marc Davis-style characterization of Capt. Jack Sparrow, I can guarantee you it would’ve just come across as a failed animatronic of Johnny Depp. So you’re stuck with never touching the ride except for refurbishments, or trying something new and getting criticized for not being “true to the original vision” or only being out for cheap marketing tie-ins. It’s not a position I’d want to be in.

Like I said, I haven’t been on Disneyland’s version yet. According to Croker’s blog, the bits voiced by Paul Frees got the boot, which worries me. That was my favorite aspect of the ride.

P.S. I just saw in that Wikipedia entry that Paul Frees was the voice of K.A.R.R. in Knight Rider. Which is so unbelievably awesome.

A Funny Thing Happened in my Pants

I finally started to dig through all the shaky video I took at Disney World, finally taking advantage of all the iMovie and iDVD and iWhateverElse I’ve been paying for with every OS X update.

It’s reasonably fun, but it sure takes a hell of a lot of time. And I’ve learned it’s crucial to save early and save often — the files are so huge it took 30-45 minutes just to make a back-up, and one crash of iMovie wiped out everything.

I started with the video I took of the Team Possible game at Epcot. I somehow managed to make it seem a lot more dull than it really was — I suppose I’d gotten numb to all the sights around Epcot by that time, so I ended up just videotaping the phone’s screen. You didn’t spend as much time staring at the screen in the real game, I swear.

Another funny thing: when I was looking through the video, right at a really cool point in the game, it cuts to an extended shot of my stomach. Then it cuts to the inside of my pants pocket. For like 10 minutes. I’d managed to get the record/don’t record mixed up, and missed a big chunk of the game. I could say that I finally know what it’s like to be in my pocket when I’m walking around, but I don’t know that that’s such a good thing.

Anyway, here are the videos I’ve put up so far. I can put up the others if anyone’s interested.

Prologue: Head to Canada, get your Kimmunicator, watch the briefing video.
UK Briefing: Head to the UK and find your secret contact in the window of the Toy Soldier store.
UK Plans Phone Booth: Receive a mysterious call from the Ministry of Meterology, who’ll help you’ll find the secret plans to Duff Killigan’s weather machine.
France Hideout Gargoyle: Plant a tiny bug on the gargoyle inside the lobby of the cinema in France, use it to eavesdrop on Senor Senior, Sr. and Senor Senior, Jr.
Finale: Final showdown with Dr. Drakken.

Wet

I got this weekend off, so I’m cramming into two days all the stuff I imagined I’d be doing when I first heard I was going to be spending a month at Disney World.

Even though I’ve been to Disney World more times than a normal person would admit to, I still see something new every trip. This time (as a guest, anyway), it’s been the water parks. Today I started at Typhoon Lagoon and found my new hands-down favorite thing to do in the entire resort. It’s called Castaway Creek, and it’s a river that runs around the entire park with various places you can get in or out. You get on one of the inner tubes and let the current take you gradually around the entire length of the river, under bridges, past waterfalls, through caves, and into a misty rain forest area.

It’s awesome. From now on, whenever anyone asks what I’d rather be doing, my answer is “lying and floating.” I intentionally left my watch and cell phone back at the hotel, but I estimate that an entire circuit around the river takes thirty minutes, and I must’ve gone around two and a half times at least.

I also rode the new “Crush’n Gusher” water coaster they’ve installed, and it was fun enough but no big deal. I would’ve hit the other slides and then taken another couple of hours in the river, but they closed the park on account of approaching thunderstorms.

The thunderstorms finally hit once I was on Big Thunder Mountain at the Magic Kingdom. (I’d stopped by Epcot and rode Mission: Space, and it was every bit as headache-inducing and uncomfortable and anti-climactic as I’d remembered). The rain washed out any hope of riding anything else, since it drove all the people into the ride queues and I didn’t feel like waiting, but it cleared up long enough for the fireworks. All totaled it was a pretty good day. Still not as fun as going to the parks with other people, but there’s something to be said for doing whatever you feel like doing on your own schedule without having to wait (or make them wait for you to finish smoking).

Tomorrow I’m planning on riding Expedition Everest again, then heading to the other water park Blizzard Beach. At the moment, I’ve got the kind of tired that comes only after a day filled with age-inappropriate activities, so I’m going to dream about fireworks and inner tubes and Gary Sinise spinning me at 4Gs.

You Still Know What I Did Last Summer

The Orlando Sentinel put up a video covering the Team Possible game at Epcot, and it came out pretty good. You can watch it here (assuming you’re running Windows; I can’t figure out how to get it to play in Safari).

The video has a lot of interviews with the VP of Imagineering R&D talking about the game, interspersed with shots of kids playing it and of several of the effects in action. I’m still planning on going through the game with a video camera sometime next week, but I doubt I’ll do as good a job capturing the effects as the professionals did.

Tropical Depression

When I’ve been to Disney World before, the trips have never been quite long enough, and I’ve wondered how long it would take for me to get tired of all of it. It turns out the answer is two and a half weeks.

Entering week three here, I can say that this is the most surreal business trip I’ve ever been on. Last week I took off a couple of hours in the middle of the day to get my hair cut. That involved taking a monorail and boat ride to the Magic Kingdom, going to the barber shop on Main Street to find a long line of little girls waiting to get their hair done up like princesses, riding Pirates of the Caribbean until the crowds died down, then having two children stare directly at me the entire time I had my own hair cut. (I opted out of the princess glitter or colored hair gel).

Today as I was eating lunch, a fife and drum corps marched through the restaurant. Most days during my lunch break I stroll around to see lute players or taiko drummers or belly dancers. Breakfast meetings are interrupted by Minnie Mouse or Goofy coming out of nowhere and patting you on the shoulder. I’ve picked up a bad cookie-sandwich-a-day ice cream habit, and I’ve got the gut to show for it.

Yesterday I got off work a little early to come back to the hotel and do laundry. On the way in, I saw the hotel’s waterslide, which I’ve seen for years but never had the guts to try (I’m not that strong a swimmer — I wasn’t afraid of drowning, just of looking like a total idiot flaling around in a kiddie pool). So I went and tried it, and it was a blast. And I fell asleep as soon as I got back to the room, then ended up having to stay up until 2 AM to get all my laundry done. (With temperatures and humidity in the high 90s, I’m going through laundry really quickly).

I get the feeling the entire remainder of the trip is going to be like that — struggling to get the most mundane tasks done, being pulled in opposite directions by my innate impulse to always get my life into the most boring routine possible versus my brain’s built-in short-circuit that keeps freaking out that I’m in a theme park and not riding more stuff. The end result is that all the people on vacation are the normal ones, and I’m some alien floating through them trapped halfway in some dimensional rift.

Hurricane Ernesto is supposed to come through tomorrow, and try as I might I can’t seem to work it into a metaphor. I’m homesick and desperately want to sleep in my own bed and see my friends and eat some non-theme-park-or-fast-food, but that doesn’t quite count as “depression.” And I am wondering exactly what I’m going to do when this project finishes in a couple of weeks, but I can’t say that’s “a storm brewing” or anything that dramatic. I guess my mood is hitting central Florida and fizzling out into general surliness.

I put up pictures from the second half of the game, that’s pretty much it except for the finale and prologue. Be forewarned that if you were planning on coming to Disney World and playing the game, you shouldn’t look at the pictures, because they give away the whole thing.

Last week, a former coworker from LucasArts came down with his girlfriend to visit the other programmer on this project, and they all invited me to tag along to stuff after work. It was a lot of fun; it makes all the difference going to the parks with people who just seem to get why Disney is cool. You can read about their trip and see a lot of great pictures of the Polynesian Resort on her blog.

And although I’m definitely on the tail end of this trip, there’s still some stuff here I want to try. I haven’t been to either of the water parks yet, and I’m hoping to get some time in before I go. My kiddie pool water slide experience has given me false courage to go to a water park without fear of looking like a total spaz. Plus, I’ve got a savage farmer’s tan going on, and I really want to even it out.

And someday further out, I want to save up enough money to come back and stay at the Polynesian. I’d dropped by before but never appreciated it; now I see that it’s as if they took Disneyland’s Tiki Room and built a huge hotel out of it. It’s still got just enough of the early-70s vibe around it, too, with the Atari 2600-esque colored stripes around the wooden roof. Also, the pool has a volcano water slide. The place ain’t cheap, but ever since I started going to Disney World 35 years ago, I would look at the Contemporary or the Polynesian and say, “someday we’re going to have enough money to stay there.”

You Know What I Did Last Summer

It looks like it’s finally safe to talk about what I’ve been working on for the past year. (With the reminder that this is a personal blog and neither I nor this website is a representative of the Disney company. I don’t speak for them, they don’t speak for me, etc.)

It’s a playtest for an adventure game in Epcot’s World Showcase based on the Kim Possible series, using wireless devices to give you the next clue to solve your mission. This Disney fan site has a description of the game with pictures (and yes, the creepy guy standing in front of the Kim Possible logo is yours truly). I’ve taken my own pictures of the first half of the game; the next half will come whenever I get a chance to play through it as a guest again.

As a fan of the Disney parks (and, yes, of the Kim Possible show), I think it’s just a brilliant idea, and I was sold as soon as I first heard the concept. The playtest is going on for the next two and a half weeks, and the results are still being analyzed by all the different divisions of the company. But on a personal note, I think it turned out pretty cool, the work that the guys at Imagineering R&D put into it is amazing, and it’s one of the two projects I’m proudest to have worked on.

The coolest is seeing kids around the park playing it and getting excited about it. And the family who was leaving the finale, and the dad came back upstairs to give the whole team the thumbs-up sign. Working in “normal” videogames, you never get that kind of instant feedback, and wherever the project goes after the playtest ends, it’s just cool seeing something in the park and working and seeing people enjoy it.

The Brave Little Barfly

Today was the first day I’ve had off in a couple of weeks. I spent the bulk of it napping, interspersed with rides on the Tower of Terror.

After being awakened (awoken?) by fireworks, I headed to Downtown Disney to the Adventurers Club. Full disclosure: this was my second night in a row there, and I went alone, and I did get a little tipsy. Still, I can be smug and sanctimonious enough to point out the people there who were messed up.

I’ve never been consistent enough in my bar-going to spot the regulars, but I know they’re out there. They have their routine, and their regular drinks, and their awkward conversations with the barstaff, and in the most uncomfortable of situations, they prey on younger bar-goers. Combine the sadness of the barfly with the loneliness of the Disney “That Guy,” and you end up with the Disney Drunk, a sight so melancholy it’s like the saddest song played on the black keys of the world’s most depressing piano.

The Adventurers Club, in case you don’t know, is on Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney, and is actually an extremely cool concept. It’s kind of a dinner theater thing without the dinner, set in an adventurer’s club in the 1930s. The cast of characters roams throughout interacting with the drunk guests, and there’s lots of stuff on the walls that talks. Disney plus improv comedians means some of the corniest innuendo you’d ever want to hear, but somehow it all ends up working. Tonight during one of the bits the guys launched into a rendition of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” from Young Frankenstein that was pretty hilarious.

The place has its own slogans and in-jokes and cheers and such, so you get a lot of repeat guests. In addition to the hairy guy wearing the tropical shirt (me, who was referred to as “mustache man” for much of the night), there was:

A good-looking and very well-dressed man in a suit with Adventurers’ Club pins in his lapel. He did all the cheers and would go from group to group, chatting with anyone who made eye contact.
An older gentleman in a black T-shirt and shorts, who went from room to room just before the show would start, like clockwork, and occasionally chatted with
A young woman dressed in black, wearing make-up much like a woman who learned to wear make-up when she was in her Goth phase in high school and outgrew that but never had anything to fall back on.

The latter two told me to avoid sitting in a corner seat I’d picked out, because I’d be hit when the door of a cabinet flew open during the show. (I did, and I almost was). They chatted amongst themselves about which actor was playing which part this evening, calling both by name and referring to the club’s different shows in some kind of code (e.g. “Bob’s doing Hathaway tonight in the 11:50 Mask Room.”) In other words, they’re insiders.

It was all fascinating, and became even more fascinating the more I drank. It was like its own little ecosystem in the middle of the gigantic entertainment megalopolis of Walt Disney World. The only barfly I’ve encountered at Disneyland — the “Velvet Misery” — was a lot more depressing, because it seemed more personal. Everything at Disney World is on a much grander scale, which makes it all seem like a giant social studies experiment. Including the absolutely shitfaced young woman who kept telling the cast that it was her boyfriend’s birthday, and how they ended up with several members of the cast giving him a spanking with a tennis racket while onlookers laughed somewhat nervously, and how we all knew that they deal with this kind of thing every night and that there’s probably some Operations Manual written down somewhere telling them that spanking a young drunk man with a tennis racket is acceptable behavior and where exactly that line is drawn.

Also, I overheard one of the cast talking to a group of people about the project I’m working on. That was cool.

Living at Disney World

Is she still there? Today I moved into what’s going to be my new home for the next month. It’s one of Disney’s timeshares, with a nice tree-obstructed view of Spaceship Earth at Epcot and fireworks visible from my balcony. Even though I didn’t get to sleep last night until around 2, I suddenly woke up at 7am — even if it’s for work and not vacation, I’m hard-wired to wake up early the morning of a Disney trip.

When I got off at the airport, my bag came out almost immediately. At the rental car place, I managed to snag a Volkswagen Beetle convertible that someone had just returned; driving around Disney World in the sunshine in a convertible bug is like the world’s biggest autopia. Tonight I had a chili dog and a hot fudge sundae for dinner.

I’m not going to lie; it’s pretty sweet. If I were here with Kim Deal and had flown in on the Millenium Falcon, I could’ve taken care of about 98% of my lifelong fantasies all in one go.

But since it’s in my nature to find the dark side of everything, there are some downsides:

1. Damn is it ever hot. Who’d’ve thunkit, Florida in August and it’s hot and humid. I wasn’t even outside all that much today, all things considered, and still by the time I got back to the hotel I was ripe. Luckily, the hotel has a laundromat.

2. And while we’re on the subject of heat and my personal hygiene, I’ll tell you right now that the beard’s not going to survive to the end of the month. And I was hoping to hit one of the water parks on this long trip, but I’m concerned I’ll set off a panic and frighten the children, making them think the Yeti escaped from Expedition Everest.

3. It hasn’t been a full day yet and I’m already wanting to strangle Stacy (pictured). She’s the chirpy hellbeast who hosts the “Top 7 Things To See at Walt Disney World” that runs on an infinite loop on the hotel TVs. She was abrasive the first time I came on vacation and she was there yammering on about the Rock’n’Roller Coaster in their faux Travel Channel advertising, but that was like 4 visits ago. Now I want her dead. There’s not much else on the TV, unless you like 45 variants of ABC, the Disney Channel, ESPN, and advertising for Disney’s Vacation Club.

4. I’m starting to realize that a 35-year-old man, especially one with a history of digestive problems, shouldn’t be having chili dogs and ice cream sundaes for dinner at 10pm. I’m not that interested in becoming the next Morgan Spurlock, so I’m going to have to find some way to go the next 30 days with something other than theme park food.

5. I could take advantage of the current lull for me and just goof off, but there’s this dark cloud of insanely busy crunch mode just a day or two away hanging over everything, sapping the fun out of it. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to goof off at every available opportunity, I just have to schedule it so that I work some Protestant guilt in there.) Plus it’s tough to get into the spirit of Disney Magic when I know the rest of my family’s pretty miserable at the moment.

There, that’s a pretty good block of negativity. Things already feel like they’re getting back to normal. Fact is, though, that this is just a really really cool opportunity to be at a place I love for a good long while, to see stuff I’ve never seen even after 35 years of coming here, and to get a look at what goes on behind the scenes. And to add something to it that I think is going to be pretty cool.

Whether or not it’s crazy busy, or things go bad, or people hate it, it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. And I’m excited as hell about it.

Speaking of Marketing

Speaking of the ineffable genius of marketing types:

By way of The Disney Blog, here’s Kroger’s press release for Old Yeller Chunk Style Dog Food.

You can go ahead and read that press release without fear of spoilers; for some reason, they don’t mention how the movie ends.

So look forward to a long life with your dog thanks to Old Yeller Chunk Style Dog Food. And when it comes time to put your faithful companion down, why not try Bambi’s Mom brand bullets? They’re in your local Kroger right next to Grave of the Fireflies brand fruit candies.

Walt Disney’s Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

from Amazon.com I must be all kinds of dense, because I’m having a hell of a time making it through The Odyssey. I was meaning to be reading it for pleasure but I can’t tell one name from the next and it just feels like homework.

So I switched to The Once and Future King. And it only took me 40 pages of deja vu before I realized I had seen all of it before, as The Sword in the Stone. According to Amazon, the book is actually a compilation of short stories by T.H. White, the first of which was made directly into the Disney Version (what with its being about an orphan who proves himself and all).

The reason I thought this story was interesting: the Sword in the Stone was always one of my least favorite Disney movies. I thought it was slight and pretty forgettable, like an unfinished chunk of a larger story. But what really stood out and bugged me were all the anachronisms — Merlin wearing a Hawaiian shirt and all that. Contemporary Disney movies like Jungle Book and Robin Hood handled it better. King Louie was genuinely cool (although the British Invasion vultures were kind of annoying). And I still say that having the depiction of the merry men in Robin Hood exploit all the country & western stuff that was popular at the time (with Smokey and the Bandit) was a genius move.

At the time, though, I assumed that The Sword in the Stone was an original invention. I’m not dense enough to think that Disney invented King Arthur, of course, but I just always assumed they’d done their own take on Le Morte D’Arthur or something — like they did with Mulan. And the anachronisms were just annoying Disney formula, like the Genie in Aladdin. (That wasn’t based on a re-telling, was it?)

What’s particularly odd is that in the book, I love it. I think it’s great hearing Merlin talk about electricity, and reading the narrator describe everything in contemporary terms and dialect while explaining that that’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s integral to the whole character of the book and the way it’s told, and it’s a genius move for an adaptation/re-telling.

So this is one of the rare cases where reading the original makes me appreciate the Disney version more. (While at the same time, being a little disappointed that it wasn’t as original as I’d always assumed). It also leaves me wondering if there are any other Disney movies that aren’t direct translations of a book; the only ones I can think of now are two of the most recent, Lilo & Stitch and Atlantis.