printersdevil78

As quite possibly the biggest, geekiest "Futurama" fan on this board/in the world, I can attest that "Bender's Big Score" is one huge slice of awesomeness! If you haven't yet seen it, run, don't walk, to your nearest Wal-Mart/Target/Barnes & Noble/(insert store where DVDs are sold here) and buy it. Or borrow it from a friend. As if anyone would ever give up their copy! Billy West is my hero! I mean, he's right up there with Mel Blanc, Paul Frees, Daws Butler and June Foray as far as I'm concerned. Among the very best in the voiceover business. So yeah, I'm kind of excited about the move to Comedy Central and the three other upcoming DVD movies....

And Dale's the one on the right because (s)he has two teeth! <--Just proving to Elissa that I know my chipmunks

Fixed! No worries. Usually I'm the one annoying people by pointing out the "correct" differences between Chip and Dale (not to mention Goofy and Pluto). Guess that goes to show what a little too much eggnog will do! Also, Nrthwnd, don't worry about the confusion. I only wish I had Shane's awesome collection! I searched for my early '80s Kings Dominion souvenir booklet, which I'm sure has lots of good "company-approved" photos to share. Unfortunately, I think it's in a box somewhere in my parents' attic, which I believe was George Lucas' inspiration for the final scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Are your parents looking to adopt? Because if so, I'm available!

Well, here's some good news: While the 31st is on the last weekend in May, you won't be going on Memorial Day Weekend. Because the last Monday in May falls before the last weekend in May, Memorial Day Weekend actually is the second-to-last weekend in May next year. My advice: Be sure to ride the chocolate factory ride. It's the only attraction in the world that gives you free chocolate at the end!

My total "take": --$350 toward my annual national Jaycees convention trip (Memphis in '08 ) --Two work shirts --Pair of pants --Two early 1900s tri-fold postcards for a long-defunct Baltimore amusement park --Five vintage postcards from Frontier Town in Ocean City, MD --Early 1980s pictorial history of my home county --"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" DVD --"Welcome Back, Kotter" DVD --"Rescue from Gilligan's Island" DVD --"Pixar Shorts" DVD --A near-complete set of the latest series of Mattel die-cast "Cars" --"Fun Land USA" amusement park guide (vintage 1978) --Ghirardelli hot chocolate set --1 lb. of Asher's chocolate-covered pretzels --Sweatshirt --"Welcome Foolish Mortals" biography of Paul Frees --"Imagineering Field Guide to Epcot" --"Imagineering Field Guide to Disney's Animal Kingdom" --"Walt's People" Volume 4 --"Encyclopedia of Non-Sports Cards 1985-Present" --First season of "CHiPs" on DVD --"Disneyland: Secrets, Stories and Magic" DVD --Lennox candleholder --"Pirates of the Caribbean" wall clock, flag and temporary tattoo set --Hot Wheels display poster and Yu-Gi-Oh pin (gag gift) --Disneyland bank --Gift cards to Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Wal-Mart, Subway, Starbucks, two local restaurants and the local mall And to all a good night!

Merry Christmas! While home celebrating the holidays with my parents today, I raided their old photo albums and came up with a handful of pictures I thought a few people might enjoy (and not just because many of them feature me). My apologies in advance for the 1970s Kodak color (look at that green Florida sky!) and occasional glue marks that have seeped through the photos in the past 20-30 years. And we end with clams! Were the Aristocats really this popular in '76? Who cluttered up Fantasyland with all those dang Skyway supports? The Walrus is pissed because @#$#% Pluto stole his spot on the float with the White Rabbit. ...That is, until Mickey Mouse joins in, too! Nothing like a jumpin' pop music stage show featuring Chip and Dale with an Aristocat on the drums! What do Goofy, Pluto and the White Rabbit all have in common? Seriously, if you know, tell me! Don't forget those Donald Duck "squeaker" hats they used to sell. They get a float, too! Sure, Captain Hook and Mr. Smee get all the attention. But check out Robin Hood at the bottom left. He was practically still in theaters then! You think Disney is too commercial today? At least they don't make Chip sell balloons anymore. However, Goofy still works the churro cart sometimes. Because he wants to, not because he has to. OK, so here's a can't-miss idea for the new parade: Take those Mickey Mouse ears that everyone buys, but blow them up by like 1,000 percent. And paint them in mod '60s day-glo colors. Because we only have one other idea, and it's too far ahead of its time. We call it "Light Magic." Sorry, kids. Mickey's feeling a little purple today. Try back tomorrow. Shamu? Check! Sea World in its third year of operation. More Marineland. Jump, Flipper! The rest are from my parents' honeymoon trip to Florida in 1976. Here's my dad at the entrance to Marineland. Gratuitious close-up of Minnie Mouse taken by my grandmother at Walt Disney World circa 1984. La-la-la-la-la-la. If you look closely, Gargamel has infected the Smurfs with some kind of disease that causes green spots to cover their faces. Now that's entertainment! Hong Kong Phooey--No. 1 super guy! My dad and sister aboard the Parrot Troopers. Doubt there was much "snapping" going on. Yogi Bear and a Kings staffer wearing one of those groovy mid-'80s park uniforms. Quick Draw McGraw and me. Space Kid-ettes helicopters and the Scooby Doo (before "Ghoster Coasater" was added to the name) at Kings Dominion. My sister on some sort of dinosaur ride at Kings Dominion. Moving on to 1986 for the next few, here's my sister and I on the turnpike in Kings Dominion. And what early '80s theme park experience would be complete without a dolphin show--like this one at Kings Dominion? Good stuff here, too. King Cobra is the coaster at the left, while I believe the one to the right is the Rebel Yell. Still 1983. Lots of cool stuff going on here. That's the 1983 version of Kings Dominion's centerpiece Magic Mountain, years before it was converted into the Volcano coaster. If you split the mountain into thirds, the Land of Dooz (soon to become Smurf Mountain) was on the left, Haunted River (where you can see the flume in this photo) was in the center, and the Time Shaft (Rotor plus trippy light show) was on the right. The Kings Dominion carousel in '83. Me again at Kings Dominion in 1983. The train looks a lot happier than I do. My sister and I with Kings Dominion's singing toadstools in 1983, six years after they became famous for their role in "Rollercoaster."

I'll trade a tin of spiced pecans for a visit to the Waffle House any day! Closest one is about an hour and a half away from me. Last time I had the pleasure was during a convention in Myrtle Beach a couple years ago. I shed a little tear when I saw it crop up in the Midwest Trip report last summer. But I got freshly ground sausage for breakfast this morning and am T-minus five hours away from ham, sweet potatoes and made-from-scratch cherry cheese pie, so I guess that'll have to do in the meantime

So, am I the only one who's wondering why Donald's wearing a Pilgrim hat in the Matterhorn ad? I'm sure I have some stuff like this somewhere in my archives from Kings Dominion and/or Busch Gardens Williamsburg. I'll have to search for it and see if we can't get some east coast representation here, too! "The Abominable Snowman is coming!" shout Normal Goofy, Sherlock Holmes Mickey and Pilgrim Donald.

It's Christmas Eve, and my cupboards are far from bare thanks to friends, family, neighbors and co-workers who have supplied me with enough sugary treats to feed every elf at the North Pole! Since all the parks where I live are closed for the season, I thought it might be fun to start a thread where we could all share our Christmas cookies and other assorted holiday goodness. And finally, a nice six-pack of holiday Coke to wash everything down with. OK, so it's just regular Coke, but the 19th century reproduction bottles are really fun. My dad, the bottle collector, has some of the originals from the late 1800s (though I wouldn't want to drink out of them). OK, it may look like Puppy Chow, but this stuff is absolutely amazing! It's a container of spiced (cinnamon-sugar glazed) pecans left over from my Jaycees board of directors Christmas party, made using my aunt's recipe. Thanks, Aunt Barbara! A tray of chocolate chip cookies from my friend Kristin. Holiday cheer from a co-worker. There are four kinds of cookies in here--sugar cookies with sprinkles, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip and peanut butter. Because we are both big dorky fans of "The Office" and Dwight Schrute in particular, I expressed mock regret at the lack of beet cookies in the assortment. Cookies left over from our division party at work. Sprinkles on the front, chocolate on the back. We also got to take home leftover hot wings and pork barbecue... but they didn't exactly last long enough for photos! My office manager made everyone at work a tin of this candy. It's basically crackers covered with a toffee-like cinnamon-sugar mixture covered with chocolate covered with nuts covered with deliciousness! My girlfriend made these sprinkled cupcakes for my roommate and me as part of our Christmas together on Saturday.

It's a little overcast here, about 50 degrees. But in my mind it's sunny with clear blue skies because I don't have to go back to work until January 2!

Next time try adding bacon bits to the eggnog. The great taste of crunchy pesudo-pork and the frothy goodness of sweet dairy egg drink together in one! I think that's how the Reese's Cup got started.

I think I stayed at that exact same hotel when I went to Dollywood 17 years ago! The pool looks familiar, anyway, and I know it was a Holiday Inn. Is Haunted Golf still open in Pigeon Forge? That place, cheesy though it may have been, cemented my life-long love of miniature golfing.

Love that train! Great job! The multi-color versus white lights discussion is a hot topic of debate in the "letters to the editor" section of my local paper each December. It's kind of a moot point, really. My co-worker and I were just discussing today how everyone around here seems to use blue lights. Because, you know, that just screams "Christmas." My dad decided not to put up lights this year (and I never do, apartment living and whatnot), but in past years he's tried to incorporate some sort of "theme"--which none of the rest of us really ever understood. Basically all the bushes got colored lights. Then white icicle lights hung from the porch. Then rows of evenly spaced blue lights covered the ground under the bushes. The white lights, he said, were supposed to represent snow. The blue lights were water. Why the multi-colored bushes were floating on the blue light "water" is anyone's guess. But somehow it made sense to him.

I always love hearing about how meetings and such take place in actual attractions. Like when they have management briefings at Lincoln Theater. I just can't imagine going into a building like the Carousel of Progress (OK, America Sings) and doing business. I'm lucky if the rooms I end up having meetings in have windows. Yours had Audio-Animatronics!

No idea how long these attractions sat intact inside their buildings before being gutted; however, I assume America Sings was gone fairly quickly, as many of its Audio-Animatronics were repurposed for Splash Mountain, which opened in 1989, one year after America Sings was shuttered. The only ATIS Easter egg I'm aware of in Star Tours is the microscope used in the Inner Space attraction appearing on screen as an item being moved by a space-age crane just before your shuttle leaves the launch site. Speaking of Star Tours and America Sings, maybe someone "in the know" on here can shed some light on what I believe was a misnomer on my tour guide's part during the "Walk in Walt's Footsteps" tour I took a few years ago. I had always heard that the two work droids in Star Tours were originally geese in America Sings. I've even seen photos where two of the geese were removed from America Sings. However, the tour guide said the AA droids actually were originally the two hosts from America Sings, the eagle and the owl (fuzzy on their names; America Sings closed a couple years prior to my first trip to Disneyland). I'm thinking the guide was just misinformed, as A) Star Tours opened in 1987, a year before America Sings closed, so it would have been difficult to remove the host AAs without installing replacements, and B) the guide also told us that the final construction cost for Disneyland in 1955 was (switching to Dr. Evil voice) "one MIIIIIIIIIIILION dollars." I asked if he hadn't meant $17 million and was told no, he was pretty sure it was only $1 million The cornbread chili included with the tour was good, though. And the guide let me have his cheesecake since he didn't want it!

I'm a part-time author with a full-time job in public relations. I didn't need engineering courses for my career path, but some part-time classes might have been nice in helping me design a structurally sound brick wall against which to bang my head some days....

All my baseball cards from when I was a kid are at my parents' house, but the name sounds vaguely familiar. I'll have to check when I go back home for Christmas. In the meantime, here are a few Camden Yards shots from earlier this year. The old lettering from the front of Memorial Stadium (R.I.P.) is now part of a memorial to war veterans at the entrance to Camden Yards. I actually got one of the old seats from Memorial when they tore down the stadium. Miguel Tejada The Oriole Bird's real name is Feathersby, but there probably are only a half dozen or so people who know (or care about) that. I happened to read it once in an old newspaper article about the day they retired Brooks Robinson's number.

During the week I wear a suit and tie (well, a tie, anyway). But two days a year I wear a suit and beard. Red suit, that is. As in Santa Claus. I've been my hometown chamber of commerce's official Santa since 2001 for the town's annual Breakfast With Santa and Christmas parade. Since 2005, I've also been the official Santa for my local Jaycees chapter's annual Children's Christmas Shopping Tour, during which we take some 200 underprivileged children Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart on our dime, complete with snacks, kids' movies, etc. It's a real community event, complete with volunteers from nearby high schools, local colleges and Wal-Mart itself. This year the chamber canceled the breakfast, but both other events were still on--and on the same day! From 4 a.m. (the requisite time to squeeze into the suit for the 4:45 a.m. shopping tour--held early so as to disturb as few Wal-Mart shoppers as possible) to helping my dad (who's chaired the parade the past two years) pick up parade markers at 10 p.m., it was a full day to say the least! I thought it might be fun to share what Santa does in a day (or at least on my day). One sentence of clarification before the good stuff: For obvious reasons, I made sure to crop out any faces of underprivileged children who may have appeared in the shopping tour photos or delete those pictures altogether (which is why there are no photos of them with Santa). But rest assured, when you're there in person and see the faces of those 200 kids and dozens of community volunteers who turn out before dawn to make sure those children and their families get a Christmas each year, it really is an amazing experience! The judges' stand in front of City Hall was elaborately themed. Inmates painted the maritime scene in the background, while a local paint shop designed and donated the 2-D flats in the foreground. The bi-plane also included interior detailing the parade viewers would never see, including this cockpit. In addition, they designed the wings to fold back onto the roof of the plane for easy storage in case the local chamber of commerce wants to use this for additional parades in the future. More detailing. The inmates designed and built four of the floats used in the parade this year, including one for the local Girl Scouts chapter and one for a nearby Christian school. Sadly, I didn't get photos of either of those two. Back to this year's float, here's some of the detailing. The inmates really do an amazing job. My dad, who works at the prison (as does half or more of the town), actually founded the parade float program as a rehabilitation option in 2000. It's the only one of its kind in the nation that I'm aware of. The big green thing on the back is a crab dressed as an elf, as seen in this picture. Since my hometown is known as the "Crab Capital of the World" (yeah, we didn't make jokes about that in high school or anything), it makes sense. Even the local beauty queen is named Miss Crustacean! The kiddie pageant winners are similarly dubbed Little Miss and Mr. Crustacean. By comparison, last year's float was a motorboat (which made sense since this is a maritime community). That's me in the front! Three hours later I was in my hometown, checking out my ride for that night's parade. It's a different float each year, made by inmates at the local state prison. This year we had a bi-plane theme (obviously). The chimney on the front hid the generator that powered the lights, and the propellor actually spun! We stayed so long that we actually hit the change-over from breakfast to lunch. Travis went back and got lunch from the buffet, too... just because he could! ...while the rest of us went down the street to the Golden Corral buffet. Wal-Mart manager (and fellow Jaycee) Kevin enjoyed a bowl of cheese balls for breakfast... Snack time! Nothing says 6 a.m. dining like cheese balls and Sunny Delight. And this would be the wrapping area. Each child has the option of having two gifts wrapped (many buy presents for their families as well as themselves). Wal-Mart donates all the wrapping paper, and employees volunteer as wrappers. The biggest hazard in this area is getting run over by the kids who are so eager to try out their new bikes, they try to ride them to the wrapping stations! These would be those buses. Trucks from a local appliance store follow behind on the return trip to deliver the kids' purchases. For anyone who's never seen the inside of a Wal-Mart employee break room, now's your chance! On shopping tour morning, it's transformed into the kids' party room, complete with snacks, movies and Christmas cards to color. Chaperones Kristin and Matt prepare to board the buses that will take the kids back to their parents. But the best part of all: Little Miss and Mr. Crustacean voted me the best entry in the parade, so I got this cool trophy (with a crab medallion on top, naturally)! I had already left by the time the announced they winners (three and a half hours sitting in an open-air float in 40-degree weather is enough--not to mention the santa pants don't have a zipper...), so they convinced the kids my mom, overseeing the judges' stand, was Santa's wife and presented it to her in my honor. I think she was a little offended that the kids thought she looked old enough to pass for Mrs. Claus! My chariot arrives on the parade route! I even had a costumed Rudolph as my pilot. Between the two of us and our driver, we threw $115 worth of candy and small toys to kids along the street. Money well spent. And this section brought up the rear. This section blew Disneyland-style "snow" over the crowd on both sides. The highlight of any parade in this region is the float sponsored by the prison itself. The inmates worked a combined 1,100 hours on this year's three-part entry, representing the movie "Happy Feet." (Also a cheat since it's from another daytime parade--but at least it was a parade from this year!) This one's kind of a cheat since the picture is from a different parade (from last year, as the gas prices on the sign in the background attest), but he was in the parade, and it's kind of a neat addition--the Lone Ranger. Re-enactors played Lord Calvert and Lady Somerset. The Jaycees were here, too! Instead of throwing candy like everyone else, though, they gave out free glow necklaces.

Jojo19799, that's awesome! What was your principal's name? If he played for the O's at any time from 1954 to the mid-'90s, there's a better-than-average chance I have his baseball card.

I lost 50 pounds in four months during my freshman year of college, but that's nothing compared to this! You da man, Robb! Da man with the socks.

Agreed! When I was 15 (back before ANY of us had cell phone cameras--or cell phones, for that matter), I got to take a special tour of the park during its first season as part of an academic achievement program for Maryland high school students. It was amazing! I still remember the turkey dinner they served us in the normally restricted Camden Club (their version of Club 33). Years later, when I was in college, I attended Orioles Fan Fest and got to take pictures from the dugout, in the locker room, in the training room, etc. Even in the areas normally open to the public, Camden Yards is a great park. I have some nice pictures somewhere of the scoreboard, some of the outside areas and the on-field festivities during Eddie Murray Day, when they officially retired his number. I was also in a couple of the crowd scenes when they filmed "Major League II" there in the early '90s (with a temporary blue paint job, it served as a stand-in for Municipal Stadium--you can see Baltimore's iconic Bromoseltzer tower and an ad for the Sheraton Inner Harbor in some scenes). If I ever get an HDTV, maybe I'll buy the DVD and see if I can catch myself on freeze frame!

Cool! So now that your fame is confirmed, if I send an SASE, will your assistant send me an autographed photo? Or do I have to wait in line for an hour and pay $75 like I had to do for Hank Aaron?

Oh, the things that keep me up at night.... I recently treated myself to an early Christmas present (er, "holiday" present; I'm not sure state employees are allowed to say "Christmas" anymore) and bought the preview edition of Kevin Yee's new book, "Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member 1987-2002." So tonight I get to page 157 and find: "No discussion of CM shenanigans is complete without mentioning one of the most common forms of Cast Member tomfoolery: sneaking around locations other than one's own. Robb bravely infiltrated the Matterhorn and took his picture next to the Abominable Snowman, and also made it into closed attractions America Sings and Mission to Mars." Suddenly I find myself thinking, "Hmmm... I've seen a picture of Robb with the Abominable Snowman, wearing what appears to be a Disneyland CM costume, no less." So 'fess up, Robb: Are you the aforementioned infiltrator, or is Kevin writing about some other former Disneyland employee who happens to spell his name with a cool double-B? Jason "Inquiring Minds Want to Know" Rhodes

Wow! These are absolutely amazing! I've seen the Flintstone Freeway art before, but I can't recall where. The rest are new to me. I think the one with the mushrooms, though, is of the Gulliver's Adventures birthday area referenced in the first image and not of Smurf Village. Also looks like they had a potential franchise in mind for the Yogi Bear Picnic Restaurant--not just for theme park use. I wonder who the character cut-outs on the roof would have been. Cindy Bear and Ranger Smith, obviously, but who else? I remember Hanna-Barbara Land at Kings Dominion (before Smurf Mountain was even there). Of course, I also remember back when "theming" meant actually building something out of fiberglass and not just painting a picture of the "character of the day" (i.e. Fairly Odd Coaster) on the signs. The standards were there--Scooby Doo's Ghoster Coaster (my first credit at about age 7), Boulder Bumpers (Flintstones-themed bumper cars) and Yogi's Cave (re-themed to Treasure Cave the last time I was there)--but they also had a number of rides based on "lesser" cartoons. I specifically remember a kiddie helicopter spinner themed to the Space Kid-ettes. In addition to the traditional characters (Yogi, Scooby, Quick Draw McGraw, etc.), they also had a Hong Kong Phooey walk-around character. From the looks of this concept art, the desire to base attractions on lesser cartoons was in full force with everything from Space Ghost and Sea Lab 2020 (if that’s what it is—I can’t decide whether the background is supposed to be space or ocean) to Winsome Witch, Moby Dick and Precious Pupp (I'll bet most people on this site have never even heard of those last three). I wonder what the process was to choose which themes to use back then. Was it “Here’s the entire Hanna-Barbara catalog. Have fun” or “This is our new Saturday morning lineup. See what you can do to promote it”? If the latter is true, it seems incredibly short-sighted. But they had to know what the most popular characters and cartoons were. Why waste time on the ones that had only 13 episodes instead of focusing mostly on the Scoobys and Yogis of the H-B universe? I guess the Hillbilly Bears shooting gallery was never built, but at least they had some small representation at Kings Dominion. A parking area was named in their honor. I remember wondering who they were at the time. Anyone know what cartoon that moon buggy ride was based on?