THINKING ABOUT DISNEYLAND

Disneyland (LA) is an amazing place. It's corporate and wrong in so many ways, yet it still manages to do a bunch of things right. I just went there today and walked away with bagloads of ideas. I thought I'd talk about a few of them here.

Everybody who's seen the Peter Pan ride is familiar with the outdoor entrance, which is a sweep of rooftops that leads to an open children's room window. Now let that sink in ...you're not even inside the ride yet, and you're already confronted with a major architectural idea: a huge floor-to-ceiling, barn door of an open window overlooking complex and interesting rooftops! I don't know about you, but I'd kill to have a real window like that.






And the window overlooks beautiful rooftops (above)...that's so rational. Real-life rooftops are sometimes the most beautiful part of a building. You don't want to waste that. You want windows overlooking it, as in the Dulac painting above (Thanks to Steve Worth and the ASIFA archive), or maybe a whole gallery overlooking it, as in the Hungarian castle above. Who would benefit most from such windows? Kids of course, they have the imagination to appreciate it. If they somehow managed to avoid falling to their deaths, they'd surely grow up to be geniuses with visual stimulation like that! ....Just kidding of course, but it's fun to free associate.





There are a few unsettling misfires on the rides. Alice's forest and signs (above) were far more interesting in the film. Oh well, let's not dwell on negatives.




The Pinnochio ride reproduces Ghepetto's workshop, and specifically the brilliant toy shelf conceived by Gustav Tenggren (above). It's great to be reminded of that. If you're an artist, you see something like that and you want to drop everything and sculpt toys. Tenggren's best work is full of charisma...he creates environments that you want to walk around in and touch.



Here's a ride (above) that jaded people hold in contempt: the Casey Jr. ride from Storybook Land. It looks lame so lots of people never give it a try. Actually it's one of the most stimulating rides in the park. That train really tears along and the perspective and volume contrasts along the way are always unexpected and shocking. Ride the open car, second to the last from the back. Always ride in the back when you're on small train rides...that's where you experience the the most centrifugal force. It's also good for people watching.



Here's (above) the Mad Tea Party ride. The Mary Blair-type colors are awe-inspiring, and the action takes place on a broad, sweeping plain slightly below ground level, and under a canopy of beautiful but menacing lanterns. The hedges that surround it are dark to set off the color. The effect is that of a Witch's Sabbath where cups spin madly under a canopy of hovering demons. The fact that half the people in the spinning cups are on the verge of vomiting adds to the wonderful weirdness of it all.



Here's (above) what looks like an outdoor puppet theater above the entrance to a building. Could this be accurate? Did the Swiss ever stage puppet shows above the entrance of puppet theaters, just to lure the public inside? It's a great idea, even if the Disney people made it up.



Here's (above) a model of Mr. Toad's car. I've sat in similar life-size cars in Toon Town and I can testify that these are fun designs that would be worth adapting to real, working automobiles. The car is essentially a high sofa with wheels, which in my opinion is the design that's most fun to drive in real life. You have the wind in your face, the comfort of a sofa, and the airy freedom of driving without restraining walls on the side. it's the closest thing to a magic carpet ride. I sat in a real car like that (owned by Jay Leno) and the experience was thrilling, even when the car was standing still.

DANCIN' (WITH LAURA HILLIAR)

As I write this I still haven't seen these videos together. I have no idea if this is going to work. Maybe I'm about to publish the worst blog post ever. I have a feeling the music (a gift from Mike F) might not fit. Oh well, If my part sucks you can still enjoy Laura Hilliar's legs.

Oh, yes! Start the two videos at the same time, starting with the top one. The idea is to see both videos playing at the same time. Make sure both are in frame at the same time before you begin. If they seem out of sync try starting them at different times.

Sometimes double clicking the images will take you to YouTube, which is a mistake (to get the effect the videos have to play at the same time on Blogger). If you end up on YouTube, just go back to Blogger and start over again. Keep fooling with it...you'll get it.

THANK YOU GEORGE WASHINGTON!!!!

Just a brief Fourth of July message, lasting less than a minute. I want to post something later tonight or tomorrow (the fourth) that has nothing to do with this, but I don't want the holiday to go without comment.

RAY BRADBURY ON "ACRES OF BOOKS"

Many thanks to Jenny for letting me know that the city of Long Beach is going to bulldoze Acres of Books to make way for yet another stupid shopping mall. Acres of Books is the largest used book store in California, and is one of the largest in the world. I've gotten dozens of hard-to-find books there, books I'd never have known about if I hadn't seen them on the shelf at Acres. I can't believe Long Beach could have let this treasure slip through their hands!





Used book stores are completely disappearing from American cities and the few that remain tend to favor the better quality books, the ones that have their original covers. That's a shame because some of the best and most hard to find old books survive only in coverless editions, and the lack of covers made the rare books affordable.

I'm always shocked when I hear people say, "You can find anything on the internet." No you can't! That's ridiculous! What you find on the internet is what the mass culture puts there. Not much that's select and special. The other day I searched for Rube Goldberg and found very,very little, and part of that was what I put up myself. Goldberg is one of the most original cartoonists ever, but you'd never know it from the net. When I wrote the blog about Blackstone I tried to look up something that would explain the theory of monarchy to me. No way. Look up monarchy and you'll turn up a lot of drivel about Princess Di. I could name dozens of examples like that!

Even libraries aren't very good at preserving the past. They have to make room for the latest best sellers. Used bookstores are vital custodians of the past, and their passing is a national catastrophe. Hooray for Ray Bradbury who took the trouble to try to do something about it!

"THE BIG STORY" AND "BOB'S BIRTHDAY"

Here's the best stop motion short done in the last twenty years, the best I know of, anyway. it's by Tim Watts ("Corpse Bride") and Dave Soten, with voices by Frank Gorshin. It spawned a few great commercials and nearly won an Acadamy Award in the mid-nineties, but I'm surprised that it didn't do even better than that.

The style easily lends itself to computer animation and demonstrates that 3D features needn't have confined themselves to kiddie subjects like penguins. Imagine what a Kirk Douglas enthusiast like John Kricfalusi could have done with a look like this!!!! Imagine, of course, what Tim and Dave could have done!





I was curious to see what animated short beat this film for the Oscar. Somebody speculated that it was "Bob's Birthday." I just watched it, and it's not horrible. What do you think?

VINTAGE MUPPET COMMERCIALS!

Wow! Mike Fontanelli sent me some Jim Hensen commercials for Wilkin's Coffee! Whaddaya think?









I threw this one in for good measure. Boy, the Muppets sure had a way with monsters! Here's (above) a collection of the best monsters-eating-people scenes.

ROMANTIC INTERLEWD

This was done really quick and dirty, just for fun. It's a minute and forty seconds long.

Boy, how did I ever get along without an isight camera?