Lou Mongello strikes again with another book full of stuff you never knew
I’ve always considered myself a Disney trivia geek. Indeed, I get a lot of e-mail from friends and strangers alike, asking me about arcane bits of knowledge about Walt Disney World. But the WDW uber-geek, the one they call the “Disney World Trivia guy,” is Louis A. Mongello. Mongello is the author of The Walt Disney World Trivia Book, Secrets, History & Fun Facts Behind the Magic, and now the somewhat predictably named The Walt Disney World Trivia Book Volume 2: More Secrets, History & Fun Facts Behind the Magic (Intrepid Traveler: ISBN 1-887140-63-8).
The new volume is a great companion to the first volume, which MousePlanet columnist Mike Scopa reviewed when it came out a couple of years ago (link). Its format will be familiar to readers of that volume, but with a brand new set of questions and fun facts.
For those new to Mongello’s books, it is broken into six chapters: A general “All Around the World” chapter, followed by chapters on each of the four theme parks, and finally a “Beyond the Parks” chapter. The Magic Kingdom section is further subdivided by lands, and Epcot’s chapter is divided into Future World and World Showcase. Each chapter contains anywhere from 39 to 147 questions on that particular topic, followed by a section with that chapter’s answers. [Note: The book has about 12 percent fewer questions than the first book and is weighted much more toward the Magic Kingdom.] Additional fun trivia facts appear throughout both the question and answer sections of each chapter.
And if you’re looking to find information about a certain attraction or person, there’s a handy index at the back of the book, a feature that you wouldn’t ordinarily expect to find in a trivia book.
The questions are challenging—I was surprised at the number of questions that I answered incorrectly—but the real treasure here is the answer section. Mongello gives in-depth explanations for each answer, giving you a feel for the story behind the question.
I should also point out that some answers overlap each other, asking multiple questions about the same information (such as the introduction of Minnie’s Country House to Mickey’s Toontown Fair). There are also some questions or answers that are already outdated, either well prior to the book’s completion (such as referring to Disneyland’s Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse in the present tense in multiple locations, yet the California attraction became Tarzan’s Treehouse in 1999) or during the publication process (it is stated that since Lumiere’s Kitchen closed, it has not been replaced, but the location has recently reopened as the Village Fry Shoppe).
The incorrect information is minimal, however, and on the whole, the book is highly accurate and a great resource.
The “Did You Know?” boxes sprinkled liberally throughout the book provide for some great additional opportunities to share interesting tidbits. One of them, regarding the relationship between the addresses of the buildings in Liberty Square and the dates that their architectural styles represent, prompted my wife to exclaim, “Oh, yeah! I remember when [our Backstage Magic tour guide] told us that one!”
Despite my chagrin at not having paid enough attention to detail in order to correctly answer more questions, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. In many cases it reminded me of things that I had forgotten, and in others it helped to fill in a couple of details that I had not realized about certain attractions.
A chief technology officer and director of operations for medical imaging centers located throughout New Jersey by day, Lou Mongello has turned his passion into a Web site and two books by night. He has been collecting tidbits about Disney since he was very young, and has amassed a collection of Disney resources to tap into for this book.
From the tricky (“What type of ticket did you need in 1972 to ride If You Had Wings?”) and the obscure (“Who is the Marshall of Frontierland?”) to the easily-answered-by-Disney-trivia-fans (“What are the names of the three hitchhiking ghosts in the Haunted Mansion?”), there is fun and information for all in this book.
The one thing that the book does best is to highlight the little things at Walt Disney World—the things that you so often overlook when traveling through the parks. For example, which animal adorns the Swiss Family Robinson’s family crest? How many individual triangles make up the exterior shell of Spaceship Earth? And what’s the name of Blizzard Beach’s mascot? The answers to these and over 500 other questions are there for you to discover in this book.
With a list price of $14.95 (you should be able to get it cheaper from various outlets), it’s a great resource and bit of entertainment for the Disney lover in you. In fact, I’m planning to bring it along on my upcoming trip to Walt Disney World to provide entertainment for our group of eight while we wait in attraction queues.
While you can purchase this book from many locations, I’d like to steer you toward Mongello’s Web site (link) to buy the book. It’s not just because you can get a signed copy for $11.99 plus shipping. It’s because portions of the proceeds from the sale of all merchandise sold on DisneyWorldTrivia.com will go to the Starlight Starbright Children?s Foundation (link) to sponsor a child?s wish to visit Walt Disney World. That’s on top of the percentage of the proceeds from each book that also go to the Foundation.
Through book sales and an auction at last month’s DisMeet in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Mongello has already raised more than enough to send two children and their families to Walt Disney World.
So not only is this a fun, informative book, but buying it can help spread the magic in more ways than one.
