“What’s that clicking noise?” Geoff asked.
“That,” Greg intoned darkly, “is their mouths moving.”
“Oh, shit.” We looked around. We were floating on a rudderless craft through a chamber of creaking robotic dolls, all singing the same song. Incessantly. Their torsos pivoted back and forth. Their eyelids lurched up and down.
“It’s a small world after all…”
“I wouldn’t come in here after dark,” Geoff made sure we knew.
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The plaques on the double archways into Disneyland say, “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.”
It’s an inspiring message: I can’t pass through those brick tunnels without getting a giddy spring in my step. I would, however, like to amend the statement to: “Here you leave normalcy, and enter the realm of scent-sprayers, green-dyed water, and Robot Lincoln.”
Many of my best memories, childhood and otherwise, were made at Disneyland. There was the time I took the “What Disney character are you most like?” quiz, and learned that, while I most resemble the bookish Belle from Beauty and the Beast, Greg is most like that same film’s hairy-chested, narcissistic, scheming antagonist, Gaston. There was the time, waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion, that Mom kept insisting the crow on top of the building was a “Disney crow”—meaning an animatronic figurine. She was adamant about it, up until the bird took off into the sky.
Writing this, I was searching for a way to describe how much my parents like Disneyland. Greg stared at me, jaw agape. It’s true: examples aren’t exactly scarce. My parents own Disney key chains, Disney refrigerator magnets, Disney potholders, Disney soup spoons, Disney coffee mugs, Disney music, Disney jackets, Disney ponchos, and Disney Trivial Pursuit. I’ve suspected for a while that, whenever either of them needs a new sweatshirt, they wait to buy it until their next trip to the domain of Mickey Mouse.
I’ve been down all the alleys of Main Street. I’ve ridden in the Captain’s Quarters of the Mark Twain riverboat. I even went to the elusive and overpriced Club 33—but you’ll have to wait for Part 2 of this post to learn about that.
That withered fellow who plays the banjo at the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, rocking on the porch of his swamp-shanty for eternity? I greet him like an old friend.
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My parents have been to Disneyland so many times that Dad has staked out spots where he can take midday naps. The first of these is the Enchanted Tiki Room (it’s not exactly a thrill ride), and the second is “It’s a Small World After All.”
Or, as I call it, the Hall of Stereotypes.
Don’t get me wrong: when I was a kid, I thought the ride was delightful. The famous title ditty was written in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s the only Disney tune never copyrighted, intended as “a gift to the children of the world.” I loved the colorful, bobble-headed creatures that pass for juveniles in Small World, and I loved learning which dolls represented which areas of Earth.
In 2009, though, Disneyland revamped its crown jewel. Now, Ireland is represented by little jigging leprechauns, complete with four-leaf clovers on their hats. There’s a barn where blonde, corn-fed Americans stack hay, across from Woody and Buzz Lightyear. The entire Hawaii section has been reduced to the characters Lilo and Stitch, riding a surfboard. Pinocchio grins in Italy, Cinderella hangs out in France (which is odd, because I have no recollection of that movie being set in France), and Alice, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbell dominate what used to be an impressive reproduction of London’s Big Ben.
Okay—so Small World was never free from ethnic stereotyping. But at least it didn’t lump Australia, Polynesia, and the Caribbean into one room, presided over by Ariel, the little mermaid.
Until now.
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Carmen taught me a perfect word to describe what I love most about Disneyland: “retro-futurism.”
The word seems pretty self-explanatory: retro-futurism refers to people of the past’s notions of the future. It’s important to remember that, at the time it was founded, Disneyland was a manifestation of how Americans envisioned the glorious technological age to come. One former Disneyland attraction was called the “The Carousel of Progress.” Another was (I kid you not) “The Bathroom of Tomorrow.” Yet another once-upon-a-time ride was a completely plastic house, which displayed such outlandish modern machines as, say, dishwashers.
Hints of the Golden Age of science fiction are everywhere in the park. Example: the train ride announces its destinations in the voice of Robbie the Robot, from the kitschy SF classic Forbidden Planet.
And yes, Disney’s idea of the future bears a keen resemblance to the world of the Jetsons… But I’m completely certain that my lifelong passion for robots (not to mention time machines) started right there, in Tomorrowland.
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Last Spring, when Greg and I went with our friends Geoff and Evan (and after we discovered Geoff’s nascent fear of partially-humanized mechanics), we decided, at the end of the day, to slip over to the neighboring park of California Adventure. We were a little flummoxed by the huge line of people waiting to get through the gates: as Greg says, California Adventure is Disneyland’s “half-constructed backyard.” Anaheim’s tribute to the Golden State is kind of like the magazine rack in the dentist’s office: you go there because you can, and, well, what the heck. Nothing else is taking your time.
We moseyed, shuffle by shuffle, into the park. Finally through the turnstiles, I was brought up short by a crowd of women with strollers, all facing different directions and looking confused. Greg stopped beside me, and together, we looked up.
That day, we learned of the wonder that is “elecTRONica.”
A central platform, with DJs surrounded by club-style dancers in flashing white or black body suits. Throbbing rave music. $12 cups of (glowing) mojitos. Strobe lights. Mixed signals.
Sandwiched between a Monsters, Inc. ride and an attraction based on the Muppets, elecTRONica is a huge and nightly event stemming from Disney’s remake of the film Tron. Considering the dubious merits of Tron, I almost think that Disney remade the movie just so it could host the flashy shindig. ElecTRONica is wonderfully innocent. Anachronistic. Confounding.
I danced.
To be continued…
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