Funny how, as i gather snippets of nothingness for this blog, i noticed that i did my first 'Meanderings' a year ago (almost to the day). Since i started writing, i found that i was coming up with tidbits of behind the scenes happenings that didn't really go with anything else. So. . . .
Back in the day, each of the cash handling locations had a version of a mini bank, complete with bullet proof glass and bank style vaults. Then in the early 2000's the cash control folks were slowly replaced with machines. . . cranky, tempermental, money eating machines. ANYWAY, the older resorts still have survelince cameras and other little known, but still working safety features. My manager, bless his soul, had no idea what the little white button in the money room was for, so he pushed it. . . several times. Nothing happened, so he left. In walks an unsuspecting cast member to count her bank and she is over run by security. Come to find out the little white button was and irreversable security alert. Lesson learned, if you don't know what it is, don't push it.
The quickest way to get someone's attention is to make them think there is some juicy gossip to be had. I was working on a story one day on my lunch break and didn't know how to spell 'conniving'. I called the main building thinking, that if anyone had a dictionary, they would. They didn't. So I hung up the phone. Two seconds later, the phone rings and someone answered my question. Her next comment was "Who ya writing about ???" I hated to dissappoint her, but it wasn't a co-worker.
Disney is all about story telling. One of our entertainment tech leads could make a story out of any thing. For JM (won't use real names to protect the innocent. . .) every thing included a story. There was no such thing as " Hey I have a quick question for you." In fact it was said, if you Asked JM about one plus one equals two. . . he'd start talking about the theroy of TWO.
I have yet to go check it out, but i have been told that in the Muppets 3D movie at the studios, the imagineers were playing around. If you look at the ceiling you will see 'a net full of jello' (work with me here, and say it all together) . . . Annette Funacello. If your still lost, your home work assignment is to go home and watch all of the original Mickey Mouse Club episodes.
During the run of the Aladdin parade, for one of the anniversaries the stage managers got us a cake shaped like Genie. Bright BLUE Genie cake and as we all know yellow and blue make green. No one wanted to admit it out loud, but the next day I kept hearing whisperings in the corners of the greenroom "What color was your poop?" I can answer that, it was green, neon green. Amusing ? . . . Now, but it was a bit disturbing at the time.
I had a guest come the the desk and wanted to let us know that there was no longer a service animal in thier room. Apparently her father stormed out of the resort and took his dog with him. "It was nothing we had done," she said. "He has anger management issues." What I found amusing was the 'service animal' was supposed to help with his anger issues. I'm thinking the dog didn't work very well.
Speaking of service animals, one of the techs told me he was cutting through the backstage area and there was a group of special needs kids with a variety of service animals. . . including a horse. We see a bit of everything working for the mouse, but a service horse kind of caught him off guard.
The actress Betty White came to the studios in the nineties on a book signing stop with a friend of hers. He was blind and the book 'Dina's Story' was about his first seeing eye dog. After their meet and greet with the guests, she offered to spend a little time back stage taking with us. Belle and Beast, who were doing a meet and greet with some guests, were coming back to the green room at this time as well. The gentleman's new seeing eye dog saw Beast. It's hair bristled up. We thought "Oh no." Beast slowly approached and sat on the steps, so he wouldn't freak out the dog. This dog totally forgot about it's master. It ran to Beast and curled up in his lap and just melted. We were all speachless, including Betty who said she had never seen the dog react like that. It was truly a priceless moment.
On a lighter note, we had guests check into a room with a baby monkey. We didn't know about it, but the house keepers sure found out about it. Disney resorts have a strict no animals policy (except of course service animals). They were asked to leave or take the monkey to the kennel. They left. On our dry erase board in the back office, someone drew a picture of a monkey holding a sign 'No Monkeys Allowed'. Over the course of the next several days it was changed to 'No Elephants Allowed' and a few other animals. Yes we amuse ourselves in the most childish ways at times.
Every year we are given Cast Christmas gifts. It's a gift. You take it and move on. In years past they have been decent little memorbilia items. Picture frames. Laser cut paper weights. Pin sets. Well in 2008. . .we got a little hanging thing with a plastic 'Celebrate' sign and a small tin bell. They said it was a wind chime. . .ooookay. Needless to say we all looked at it and said "What the-". Most of them in my area ended up being hung from the ceiling tiles in the back office. Nothing Says Your Important than plastic and tin.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
DISNEY AND WASHINGTON D.C.
It's always been interesting to me how well connected the Disney Corporation is with the government. Way back in the 1940's, when Walt's animation career was cranking right along, the government asked him to make war propaganda films to help combat WWII. As the red-blooded American that he was, he made a series of anti-german and anti-japanese film like Der Fueher's Face - 1942 / Education for Death - 1943 / Comando Duck - 1944. . . you know, your typical light and fluffy Walt Disney fare. (I'm thinking none of those ever showed in Tokyo Disneyland) He also approached by the military to make instructional films for the troops. Though the Navy was the first, soon the Army, Air Force, Department of Agriculture and Department of Treasury all wanted to tap into Walt's creativity. For the Treasury, in 1942 and 1943, Walt made films that encouraged Americans to pay thier taxes to help the war effort and published a book to teach children about purchasing War Savings stamps.
Jump ahead a couple decades and in the nineteen sixties, when Walt was amassing huge chunks of FLorida swamp land and citrus groves for what would later become Walt Disney World, Orange county Florida pretty much gave the company free reign. Reedy Creek improvement district was created as a special government agency by the state legislature in order to lure Walt to the state. It regulates building codes and can even levy taxes. Guess who the largest tax payer is. . . .. A little side trivia note. The Swan and Dolphin hotels are the second largest tax payers. Don't get me wrong, now a days, the Reedy Creek fire marshalls patrol every inch of the property and I've heard of areas that get busted for breaking the rules. They also provide emergency services for the entire property.
After a relatively short run as The Disney Golf Resort which later turned into the Disney Inn in 1986, the facility was renamed again. Shades of Green (1994) was leased by the government as a military only resort. In 1996, Uncle Sam bought it outright and it became a retreat for US military personel only. Since then, on many occasions i've seen see military helicopters fly over. These weren't the run of the mill police or television crew size helicopters, I'm talking the Huge, Shake the Building, loud helicopters. The only thing that could top seeing them was in 2008, when we heard about a fighter aircraft fly over for some big wig at Shades of Green. The word was let out to the guests. We spent the whole day looking at the sky. Of course it happened after i had left for the day. (dang Murphy's luck)
Every so often Disney manages to do something that makes me say 'That is Sooo Cool." In 2007 and 2009 in July Magic Kingdom's Mainstreet was the site of a US Citizenship Naturalization Swearing in Ceremony for 1000 new Americans immigrants. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . . and we'll send them to Disney World !!!!"
Talk about going 'to infinity and beyond', in 2008 NASA sent Buzz Lightyeaar to the international spacestation for a several months. The actual doll / action figure flew into space as part of a kids educational program. There were pictures of him standing infront of the crawler as the shuttle was being rolled out to the launch pad. What I find hysterical is that when he was brought back, they had a ticker tape parade down mainstreet complete with Buzz Aldrin. . . the real astronaut.
One more thing about NASA, I was told that when Disney was testing Mission Space, that they had astronauts from the cape come test it. Their assessment was that it was the closest thing to a real shuttle launch a civilian to experience.
Since 2005 Disney World and Disneyland has been home to the Presidential pardoned Thanksgiving Turkeys. The US President pardons them, they are wisked away to the airport and flown, first class mind you, to Florida or Califronia where they are the grand marshals in the holiday parade, then they live out thier days at the park. Although for marshmallow and yam (2005) thiers days ended of natural causes eighteen months later. A little side note to this story: Disney sent them a CD with the song Happiest Place on Earth to them so the turkeys would get acclaimated to it.
When I worked at Epic (indiana jones stunt show)in the ninety's, we were told they were holding the show for a VIP. Fine, we thought, let's get them in here, get the show on the road so we could get to lunch. Well, we waited, and waited and waited. FINALLY, we saw Men in Black walking onto the stage as they escorted an older gentleman to his seat. It was Jimmy Carter and he was surrounded by Secret Service men. Can I just say, Secret Service men are scary. The final scene of the show, Indy fires a pistol. It will only shoot blanks, but the secret service men still watched Indy like a hawk untill the tech locked it up. Jimmy Carter was cool. He came out on atage and shook hands with the cast and crew while his body guards glared at us all.
For the Hall of Presidents efficanados, Yes We Can get the THE real Barack Obama to record the short speach for his animatron's voice. The attraction's creators packed up a small audio studio and went to Washington DC and set up shop in a small at the White House (I think) where Barack recorded his few lines.
Nothing but the best for Our World.
Jump ahead a couple decades and in the nineteen sixties, when Walt was amassing huge chunks of FLorida swamp land and citrus groves for what would later become Walt Disney World, Orange county Florida pretty much gave the company free reign. Reedy Creek improvement district was created as a special government agency by the state legislature in order to lure Walt to the state. It regulates building codes and can even levy taxes. Guess who the largest tax payer is. . . .. A little side trivia note. The Swan and Dolphin hotels are the second largest tax payers. Don't get me wrong, now a days, the Reedy Creek fire marshalls patrol every inch of the property and I've heard of areas that get busted for breaking the rules. They also provide emergency services for the entire property.
After a relatively short run as The Disney Golf Resort which later turned into the Disney Inn in 1986, the facility was renamed again. Shades of Green (1994) was leased by the government as a military only resort. In 1996, Uncle Sam bought it outright and it became a retreat for US military personel only. Since then, on many occasions i've seen see military helicopters fly over. These weren't the run of the mill police or television crew size helicopters, I'm talking the Huge, Shake the Building, loud helicopters. The only thing that could top seeing them was in 2008, when we heard about a fighter aircraft fly over for some big wig at Shades of Green. The word was let out to the guests. We spent the whole day looking at the sky. Of course it happened after i had left for the day. (dang Murphy's luck)
Every so often Disney manages to do something that makes me say 'That is Sooo Cool." In 2007 and 2009 in July Magic Kingdom's Mainstreet was the site of a US Citizenship Naturalization Swearing in Ceremony for 1000 new Americans immigrants. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . . and we'll send them to Disney World !!!!"
Talk about going 'to infinity and beyond', in 2008 NASA sent Buzz Lightyeaar to the international spacestation for a several months. The actual doll / action figure flew into space as part of a kids educational program. There were pictures of him standing infront of the crawler as the shuttle was being rolled out to the launch pad. What I find hysterical is that when he was brought back, they had a ticker tape parade down mainstreet complete with Buzz Aldrin. . . the real astronaut.
One more thing about NASA, I was told that when Disney was testing Mission Space, that they had astronauts from the cape come test it. Their assessment was that it was the closest thing to a real shuttle launch a civilian to experience.
Since 2005 Disney World and Disneyland has been home to the Presidential pardoned Thanksgiving Turkeys. The US President pardons them, they are wisked away to the airport and flown, first class mind you, to Florida or Califronia where they are the grand marshals in the holiday parade, then they live out thier days at the park. Although for marshmallow and yam (2005) thiers days ended of natural causes eighteen months later. A little side note to this story: Disney sent them a CD with the song Happiest Place on Earth to them so the turkeys would get acclaimated to it.
When I worked at Epic (indiana jones stunt show)in the ninety's, we were told they were holding the show for a VIP. Fine, we thought, let's get them in here, get the show on the road so we could get to lunch. Well, we waited, and waited and waited. FINALLY, we saw Men in Black walking onto the stage as they escorted an older gentleman to his seat. It was Jimmy Carter and he was surrounded by Secret Service men. Can I just say, Secret Service men are scary. The final scene of the show, Indy fires a pistol. It will only shoot blanks, but the secret service men still watched Indy like a hawk untill the tech locked it up. Jimmy Carter was cool. He came out on atage and shook hands with the cast and crew while his body guards glared at us all.
For the Hall of Presidents efficanados, Yes We Can get the THE real Barack Obama to record the short speach for his animatron's voice. The attraction's creators packed up a small audio studio and went to Washington DC and set up shop in a small at the White House (I think) where Barack recorded his few lines.
Nothing but the best for Our World.
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