Quick Bits

small world earlier this month, photo
by Mr. Isaac

Disneyland’s it’s a small world is about to reopen after a lengthy
rehab and — at least on the inside — may have never looked better.
“I was in Small World and all I can say is WOW!” reports one
maintenance man. “Almost the entire interior of the ride sets have
been repainted and re-glittered by the sign shop. The difference will
amaze you. Too bad the exterior was not touched, but there are plans for
that in the future.”

Facilities has been cycling boats through the attraction and began
testing the animation. “There was a worry that with the dolls off so
long that the skins might have hardened but I guess they are all
right,” the crewman adds.

For the last 10 months, cast members working the Walt Disney
Story/Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln have been telling guests that Walt’s
informal office was “on loan” to Florida’s Magic Kingdom for its
“100 Years of Magic” celebration. Well, cast members have just
been informed that the office will be staying in Orlando permanently and
not returning to Disneyland.

The former office location

An employee notes: “Considering the amount of money spent to
catalogue, and ship the office to Florida, the company would rather not
spend the money to have it sent back to Disneyland.”

Finally, the merchandise department has made some changes at the
Pioneer Mercantile, which switched to a Pocahontas motif about
seven years ago and has changed little since. A merchandise hostess
reports: “I think someone was paying attention to your last few
columns. Pioneer Mercantile got rid of the old Pocahontas laser
disc and replaced it with a DVD system. It now features a new DVD with
some Toy Story clips, Davy Crockett stuff, etc. Pocahontas is still there,
but at least some other tunes accompany ‘Colors of the Wind’ now.”

In addition, the former Tinker Bell’s Toy Shop underwent a small rehab
and reopened Saturday July 20 as Once Upon a Time. “A more extensive
rehab is supposed to follow this fall,” she notes. “Let’s hope
that they also re-do poor Villain’s Lair and the former Castle Princess
shop. I’m excited!”

Promotional art © Disney

Check out the “Drawn to Animation” exhibit at DCA’s Animation
building. Following the release of Lilo and Stitch, the exhibit now
runs a preview of Treasure Planet at the end of the show.
“However,” notes a source, “it is not the trailer. It has
clips from the feature and has one of the directors explaining and showing
the work in progress.”

Hopefully, the curvy couches have been returned to the Animation
building’s central lobby. The sofas provided a wonderful place to relax
and watch the room’s multimedia display, but were removed early this month
(except one, which was pushed against the wall). Sans sofas, the room also
looks less inviting and more industrial. The reasoning, explained one
hostess, was to make the room less crowded when the hordes of guests
showed up for the summer.

Disneyland has bats. Evidently, the creatures occasionally fall from
the trees, land on the ground, and appear to be in distress. Cast members
that try to help them out are in danger of being bitten — and, according
to Animal Control, bats often carry rabies.

Several weeks ago, Circle D issued a warning that cast members not to
pick up or touch any bats that they might find. Guests walking the back
trails of Frontierland should heed the same warning.

Two weeks ago, the Indiana Jones Adventure suffered an hour-long
emergency shutdown when a child jumped onto the tracks.

“The car was idle at the belt check portion on the south side of
the station (the part furthest from the queue),” reveals a ride
operator. “The seatbelt was never on to begin with, the cast member
was in the process of checking seatbelts when the child dropped something
and jumped in and out of the vehicle to get the item.”

Promotional photo © Disney

Although unlikely that the jeep would have been dispatched without the
child, the cast member, remembering the Roger Rabbit tragedy, reacted
instantly. “The child was physically on the track for a few moments,
but the cast member had already pressed the E-Stop,” the employee
continues. “The only reason the ride was closed was that we had to
evacuate the attraction (which is Standard Operating Procedure), and then
power down and then power up the ride, reset the five zones and creep all
15 vehicles, which takes just over an hour. Rumor has it that Facilities
was griping about the situation because this downtime came right out of
their budget, rather than the attractions budget.”

Fantasmic! may be a terribly expensive production to stage, but
Disneyland has devised a new method for cutting costs: reducing the number
of cast members working guest control. “They schedule a total number
of hours per night for Fantasmic for crowd control,” explains a cast
member. “Originally, it was something around 360 hours of labor for
guest control allotted per night. Last summer, 90 hours a night were cut.
Now it looks like another 90 are going to get cut yet again. That means
that Fantasmic will be about half as staffed as it was when it first
opened.”

Similarly, reports a co-worker, “Just this past week, in an effort
to cut the guest control shifts on the closed section of Tom Sawyer
Island, actual wooden fences with netting were supposed to be put up to
prevent guests from going in. From sources, the closed off sections of the
island will not reopen until after the River rehab next year. The Island’s
rehab itself is scheduled from January to March.”

Finally, a Universal Studios-Hollywood employee corrected his
co-workers, who told me that the park’s “Spider-man Rocks!” is
more commonly referred to as “Rent, starring Spider-man” and the
“The Rocky Horror Spider-man Show.”

“Actually,” he says, “the most common employee euphemism
for the show is ‘Spider-man Sucks!'”