The DisGeek Podcast

Your Guide to the Happiest Place on Earth

Tiana’s Mardi Gras Procession — FULL AUDIO

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

On the weekend we had an opportunity to visit Disneyland and enjoy the New Orleans Bayou Blast which was filled with lively excitement, jazzy music, street performers and the sensational food of New Orleans.

I was front and (almost) center when Tiana’s Mardi Gras Procession,  featuring Princess Tiana, Louis and Naveen, kicked off. I was able to snap some photos and capture full audio of this vibrant, musical performance in the streets of New Orleans Square and the Rivers of America.

It’s a fun show, so take a couple minutes to give it a listen and enjoy our photos of this lively event, which only occurs during the Mardi Gras celebration at Disneyland! 😀

Farewell ElecTRONica

By

Everyone who listens to the Podcast knows how I feel about ElecTRONica. But still, I won’t balk too much.

Mad T Party looks like mad fun, but I really, really, loved ElecTRONica so my default emotion here has to be disappointment.

Why do the powers that be at Disneyland have to mess up a good thing? Some, like my brother Daniel, think that ElecTRONica was getting “long in the tooth”. Some thought that ElecTRONica is not kid friendly. Some think that the film “TRON Legacy” was a ginormous flop and didn’t deserve such an awesome tribute. I say different.

The appeal of ElecTRONica is that, yes, it does seem to cater to teens, college kids and some grownups that still have a sense of fun. Why must you hard-core DLR fans think the place has to be all about your toddlers or about looking back on when you were a toddler? Why can’t teens and young adults have memories made?

Disneyland and Disney California Adventure are both safe places. Speaking for myself, when my kid reaches his teen years I would rather have something at the Disneyland Resort that will attract him, rather than have him scoffing at DLR as a place for babies and then getting himself shanked at Six Flags Magic Mountain by some gangbanger who got through the metal detector with a sharpened toothbrush.

I have a simple rubuttal for the people who think ElecTRONica is not good for kids. Observe:

If the programs in the TRON universe are so unfriendly to kids, why is this one playing I.D. Disc Frisbee with one  instead of derezzing him with an evil grin? I have a so many photos of kids having a blast at ElecTRONica, I have to laugh at any parent who thinks that young kids weren’t safe.

And for those of you who think that ElecTRONica was some kind of bad influence on them… the MOVIE was rated PG, so was ElecTRONica.

We Are Heroes ElecTRONica Performance 2-11-11

I have to admit I am biased. Many will disagree, but I think TRON is one of the best films Disney ever made. It was pioneering. It was groundbreaking. It pushed some real limits, and I imagine Walt would have been proud of it for those reasons.

When I hear that they were making TRON Legacy, I became very excited. When I saw the movie, well, it’s just not TRON. It did not push the limits, it was right inside the parameters of today’s film-making standards. None of that made it a bad movie. It wasn’t great either. It was what it was.

When DCA started ElecTRONica, I was blown away by it. To be transported into that world touched me in a way I think few could have been touched because I am such a huge advocate of the original TRON.

To answer the “long in the tooth” argument– those who think that ElecTRONica has run its course:

Some pass-holders think that everything that DLR offers is about them– their likes and dislikes. Just because they go to DLR once a week and burned out on ElecTRONica doesn’t make it long in the tooth or tired. Those people should go across the way to Carnation Plaza and swing dance, or go watch “Fantasmic!” for the billionth time. Go have a Dole Whip, or a Corn Dog and let the tourists who have NEVER seen it and the cool people who LOVE it enjoy the TRONness.

I can admit, that the pictures Daniel posted of the concept of the Mad T Party is curious. But it’s just a picture, and frankly it looks like it belongs in Mickey’s Toon Town. However,  I’m sure there will be plenty of goths and emos, you know, those peeps who will swallow any piece of crap Tim Burton does, to fill the place.

You think ElecTRONica is a bad environment for kids? Wait till those monumentally depressed Tim Burton fans cram up in there and start cutting themselves. You’ll wish you had ElecTRONica back!

I suspect that this Mad T Party will burn out and loose its allure far faster than ElecTRONICa would have. You want to talk about a movie that sucked hard? I think most of us would point the finger at “Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland” long before “TRON Legacy”.

And if “TRON Legacy” sucked, so hard, why is Disney making a 3rd TRON movie? Why is there an animated series coming to the Disney XD Channel. Observe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sakyg8srKU

 

While the Mad T Party, the pictures any way, looks like it might be a lot of fun too, there is something that ElectTRONica had that this simply won’t. I will miss the dark, futuristic feel of it. I’ll miss Flynn’s Arcade where they kept all the old video games I used to play as a kid. I’ll miss sitting at the End of Line Lounge, listing to the beat, watching the dancing and drinking a beer at a Disney park.

I’m sure the Mad T Party will have a lot to offer. I’m just venting. Losing ElecTRONica upsets me and what upsets me more is that Tim Burton is one of the least original, very worst storytellers walking the earth, and his “Johnny Depp  in Won–” oops… I mean “Alice In Wonderland” — the ridiculous failure that it is — is replacing something truly original and awe inspiring.

That they’re replacing a tribute to a film with a true legacy for one that simply sucked just creams my corn a little.

Farewell ElecTRONica, you were great while you lasted.

The Wizarding World Makes MORE Magic at Disneyland

By

I’m not what one would call a dedicated Disney Blogger. Daniel and I— we’re Podcasters. Speaking for myself, I don’t follow events, or news, or pretty much anything. It’s not that I am not interested. I’m just lazy.

So, knowing about events and stuff, all of the to-dos at the Disneyland Resort… That’s all Daniel and Tommy— and thank goodness for both of them.

Me? I just go to Disneyland.

Well… Today my wife, her sisters and I went to Disneyland. We just went. Why? We have Annual Passes, it was raining and we figured the crowds would be light. It was all the reason one with an Annual Pass needs, really. Not that we need one.

Crowds were light, but stuff was happening.

So MANY people were dressed for Christmas. It’s November 6th, so I’m I’m thinking that this must have been a really crappy year for a lot of people. So many are rushing to Christmas time as if cheer is a long lost cousin or something.

When we reached the hub, we came to discover that Disney was taping a part of their Christmas Day Parade for television.

That’s cool… I guess. But it bugged me, because there was NO way to approach the castle.

The circular hub with the “Partners” statue was barricaded with benches, roped off and guarded by people who couldn’t have been cast members judging by how snippy they were about keeping us out of there.

I live down the street from Studio City. My family has been part of the Universal company one way or another for most of my life, so seeing all of that taping junk all around did not impress me as much as it annoyed me, but I get it.

If there was a family from Iowa, or pretty much anywhere besides L.A. and New York it may have been a new and interesting experience. Still, now guests from out of town can’t get awesome pics with the castle, and to get to Fantasyland one had to go around rather than through the castle.

Passing through the gates of Sleeping Beauty castle into Fantasyland is a magical moment for those of us who don’t often get to visit the park. Now that wasn’t going to happen for a lot of people, which sucks.

The good news is that it was a somewhat rainy and very cold day, so there wasn’t a lot of people to disappoint.

I was there to get photos of the new Christmas décor—and the castle? That’s kind of important. That’s the shot to get, really. One could see the castle, but I don’t need pictures of a lot of recording equipment in my shots (though I did get some), and on TV I’m sure the set won’t be nearly as impressive as it was to stand in front of it, but it was quite impressive.

These two celebrities, who I have no idea who they are and can’t remember their names, were singing a Christmas Carol in front of a crowd (they were pretty good). There were lights, way up, on elevated platforms. Cameras were everywhere.

The only star I recognized was Nick Cannon. And yeah, okay, it was kinda neat to see these guys sing halfway through a song and be told to start over… three times. It WAS Christmassy, though that Christmassy feeling was kind of dampened when I heard someone mention that Nick Cannon was going to be Santa Claus in the parade.

What?

No kid is EVER going to believe that Nick Cannon is Santa! He’s WAY too young!

But moving right along…

Something else was happening at Disneyland today—something cooler—something flying far underneath my lazy radar (on broomsticks, no less) and had I not experienced it, this thing would have come and gone and I would have never known.

As my party and I travel through the park, doing our thing, taking our pictures, eating our soup bowls, riding attractions— I see these young people wearing a Hogwarts School robe, one has a maroon and mustard striped scarf proudly proclaiming herself as a student in Gryffindor House.

I’m thinking, “Cute, but wrong theme park, guys.”

But, me being me, I snap a candid shot. I think it’s cool. Maybe I’ll use the picture on Facebook somehow, you know, make some wisecrack that Universal Orlando is like several thousand miles southeast of here.

But then I see another. And another.

I see students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff (“The party house!”, one of them told me) hanging out together.

Then I see teachers, and Death Eaters.

There was a man who looked just like Malfoy, who was examining his Muggle flight glasses for Star Tours as if they were as foreign to him as, I don’t know, being nice, was to the actual Malfoy.

Pretty soon, I’m taking more pictures of Harry Potter enthusiasts than of the park!

For the record, I found the densest concentration of them in Tomorrowland—you know how technology amazes folks from the Wizarding World. They were probably astounded by seeing how we get stuff done without magic.

Then I saw a couple dressed like Professor Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange.

Now I know something’s up.

But what can it be?

There has to be something going on at the park today that, once again, I knew nothing about.

Later when I asked TommyPix about this, hopeful that he took some pictures for this article to supplement my own, he said he knew about it, but had forgotten it was this day. Riiight…

I suspect that I, the lazy, lucky-if-I-visit-the-park-three-times-in-a-month DisGeek, scooped the once-a-week-in-the-park DisGeek.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 😉

Anyway, as the day moved on there were more, and more, and more of them filling the park. Wizards and Witches were everywhere I looked.

At the time my theory was that there was some kind of Harry Potter event happening—something you had to be part of some inner-circle or blog community to know (like us DisGeeks).  I credit this to the fact that the threat of rain and the cold temperature (and football) kept most pass holders at home.

But these Harry Potter guys? Nothing was going to keep them from having their day in the park, so Wizards were starting to outnumber Muggles at some point.

And the outfits got crazier and crazier.

I never expected something like this, and this kept me in the park much longer than I usually stay, just to see all of the different costumes. and while I must say most of them were pretty much the same deal—robe, tie, scarf—some with wands, some without—there were some outfits that were over-the-top and others that were simply insane.

I’m loving this so much, that I stopped getting on rides! My wife and two sisters in-law were leaving me outside to have their fun— but my bottom line is I’ve been on all of these rides a zillion times.

This Harry Potter business, I’ve never seen before and I have to people-watch. Not just how the Hogwart’s kids and the Death Eaters were dressed, but how Muggles were reacting to their presence.

Most of us were delighted, some mildly amused but, believe it or not, jerks come to Disneyland too.

On one occasion, a group of these Potter players walked past me and my party, and some bald, goateed, cretin said, loud enough to be heard by everybody including the wizards, that the Harry Potter fans were nerds, losers, pathetic. They don’t have lives and they shouldn’t have been let in the park.

Whatever.

That guy should have gone to Six Flags. Disneyland is for dreamers, not haters.

From what I observed, I can say with great confidence that they all have lives, and life is good.

It became my mission to get to the bottom of this. I must figure out what’s going on.

But I’m shy, and wizards are secretive to say the least (or so I thought). I listen in on conversations, I ask other Muggles, I even asked a Cast Member. No one knew.

I really am not the type to approach people at random. I usually look for a reason to talk to someone I don’t know (unless it’s a CM).

So I step to a group of witches (that’s what female Hogwart’s students are called in the Wizarding World, so take it easy), wanting to know what the situation here is. My reason was, I had to get their pictures for this Disney blog. Pretty clever, don’t you think?

So I ask to take their picture. They all enthusiastically agree, on the condition that I take all of their pictures, with all of their cameras.

Now, any one who listens to the Podcast knows how much I hate being approached by people to take pictures. Unless you’re a giant-sized jerk you must say yes. It’s the only thing to do, and with all of the photo equipment I carry around with me, I am often the guy to ask .

But I’m asking them and I’m no hypocrite. I was also starving for info about what was going on here, right? And it’s probably not a good idea to get on the wrong side of a bunch of witches. So I did as they commanded with great pleasure. I took two shots with my camera and two shots with each of theirs.

Look at how many of them are there and do the math. Yeah, I was there awhile, but it was worth it! My wife had to poke me on the shoulder, rather hard, to get me to stop talking to them as I remember it. 🙂

And can you imagine that all I had to do to find out the deal here was to walk up to them and ask, “what’s going on here?”

These lovely Hogwart’s kids, each of them very gracious and energetic, laid out the whole deal for me:

They told me that today was “The 5th annual (unofficial) Harry Potter Day” (http://potteratthepark.blogspot.com/).

This event draws Harry Potter fans from all over the place.

Now I was receiving a lot of information in a flood of words, so if I got some details wrong, I hope they forgive me, and better yet, correct me.

Along with the Hogwarts cosplay, there is a scavenger hunt, where the winning team wins “The House Cup” (which these ladies insisted they were going to win).

There are other activities, which I have no idea what they are, as I think they are announced at some meeting which I didn’t attend, seeing as I’m a Muggle.

But mostly it’s a place to meet up, make friends and share their love of Harry Potter. What’s cooler than that?

Anyway, once I got these girls to strike a pose for me, and experienced how nice they all are, I had no trouble approching other groups.

People reading this blog… some of us don’t have ready and easy access to the DLR. A lot of us go all the time. Some of us go once a week, and more.

Events like this, especially when it sneaks up on us like it did to me, takes a rather ordinary, average, and I daresay humdrum visit to the park, and makes it far more delightful and interesting than it would have been otherwise.

Had I known about this event, I would have marked it on my calendar. I LOVE stumbling across something like this at the resort. I love to see people embrace their fandom for a movie, or series of books, T.V. shows and show their love for it.

If anybody has a problem with people in costumes at Disneyland…<shrug> I don’t know. Whatever.

To see them, disregarding the temperature, unintimidated by the threat of a rainstorm, having their day, by hook or by crook, warmed my heart on a cold day.

You can get more information about Harry Potter day at: http://potteratthepark.blogspot.com/, like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter @HarryPotterDay.

I’ll be keeping an eye on them, and maybe next year, I’ll bust out a wand and join the fun. What would you say about a six-foot-two, 200 pound House Elf wearing nothing but a pillow case?

~Paul

Episode 16 – I Demand Jasmine!

By

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

Summer Season at the Disneyland Resort has officially begun with the Soundsational Summer promotion.  Of course this means the opening of Star Tours: The Adventure Continues, The Little Mermaid: Arial's Undersea Adventure, Goofy’s Sky School, and Mickey’s Soundsational parade.  While Goofy’s is not quite ready for prime time yet, everything else is and we have seen it all.  So keep on listening and hear what we think of these new attractions.  Click More for full show notes

News

Disneyland’s Wally Boag Dies at Age 90

Disneyland’s Betty Taylor at Age 91

Special Discounts for Southerns California Residents at Disneyland this Summer

New Updates Make Disneyland Hotel Better than Ever

E3 Microsoft Press Conference they announced “Disneyland Adventures” for Kinect

Mission Tortilla is Officially Closed.  Rumour has it that Ghirardelli’s (The Chocolate Company) will replace it. 

And of Course Star Tours, Little Mermaid, and Mickey Soundsational Parade now officially open.

Star Tours

On opening morning, the queue for the attraction stretched from the entrance of Tomorrowland, filled the central plaza and stretched down Main Street, U.S.A. Following the attraction's opening around noon, the line moved off Main Street, but still ranged between two to four hours throughout the day.

Little Mermaid

Also on Thursday, Disney officially opened the new Little Mermaid attraction in California Adventure. The event included a live performance by the voice of Ariel herself, Jodi Benson along with Sherie Rene Scott who portrays Ursula in Broadway's "The Little Mermaid" show. Also in attendance was the original voice of Ursula, actress Pat Carroll.

Following Thursday's grand opening, the rush to experience the new attraction was felt Friday morning as eager guests filled a massive extended queue that wound its way throughout Paradise Park, along Grizzly Trail and into the park's entryway, Sunshine Plaza.

Feature

Soundsational Summer is officially underway with Star Tours, Little Mermaid, and Mickey’s Soundsational parade now open.  We’ve seen it all and we will share our thoughts.

Paul Rode Star Tours again and Daniel got to ride 4 times.  Does the whole Multiple Destinations hold up?

Daniel and Paul's review of Little Mermaid – Arials Undersea Adventure.

Daniel and Pail’s review of Mickey Soundsational Parade.

Tip of the week with TommyPix. 

Places at the DL Resort to cool off

Twitter

Daniel – @disgeekpodcast
Paul – @disgeekpaul
Tommy – @tommypix

"Like" us on Facebook!

Listen to us on Stitcher!