Counting to the Magic: 3 Days

3 Days to go....So Close, I can almost taste the Dole Whip Float!!!

Sadly, the food is one thing that I cannot share with you, my blog and twitter friends while I am on my trip. I can though send you updates and pictures to try to bring the experience to you! I also enjoy interacting during a popular twitter game called Spaceship Earth Roulette. Haunted Mansion Roulette is not as well known, but I do play this as well.  The rules for SSE and HM Roulette are this: I announce when we are going on the attraction and you place your "bets" on which room our car will stop in!  These two attractions are omnimovers, a type of car that is in constant motion to accommodate a steady pace and more visitors.  This steady movement is occasionally interrupted when someone who needs extra assistance getting on a car is getting on the ride. Because of the frequency of this at times, this game was invented to see when you would slow down or stop in the attraction. It is a fun way to get your friends online involved in your vacation!

Splash Mountain Roulette is a more simple game: As you climb the final hill, before the large drop, you hear Brer Fox threaten Brer Rabbit with some kind of death, right before Brer Rabbit convinces him to throw him into the briar patch.  There are four threats that Fox can say and you have to guess which one he will say on your ride.

Here are the choices for each game so that you can play along when I call the game on twitter! Don't follow me on twitter, give me a follow at twitter.com/lady_aurora for all my trip updates!

Spaceship Earth Roulette: Vortex (Climbing up), Cave Men, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Rome Empire, Rome Burning, Jewish Scholars (Backup system and sleeping monk), Printing Press, Renaissance, Sistine Chapel, Civil War Paper Boy, Telegraph, Telephones, Movie Theater and Radio, Moon Landing, Large Computer room, Computer Garage guy, Globe Room, Descent (backwards)


Haunted Mansion Roulette: Picture Hallway, Library, Eyes on the Wall, Noisy Hallway and Coffin, Madame Leota's Room, Ballroom, Attic, Descending out of the Attic, Graveyard, Hitchhiking Ghosts

Splash Mountain Roulette: Cook Ya, Skin Ya, Roast Ya, Hang Ya

Counting to the Magic: 42 Days

While not being in Disney, I hear all these cool things happening in Disney and can't wait to go again! One of these cool things that I am looking forward to is exploring the Haunted Mansion queue.  I love the idea of the interactive Queue and can't wait to see how it works!

Here is the preview video that Disney made for it:

Weekly DDL Post

This week on the Disney Driven Life, I talk about the new additions that have been made to Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion queue. There is a lot in this new interactive queue, so click here to read all about it and to watch a video of the area made by WDI.

Interactive Queue Ideas: Magic Kingdom

In the last few days, pictures have started to surface of the new Interactive Queue at Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion and WOW does it look cool!! They have kept the theme to it and yet they have made it fun for everyone! I am really liking these photos that are being posted and am so excited to try this in July!

I have noticed that Interactive Queues are becoming steadily more popular in the parks and people are really enjoying them! We have Soarin, Space Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, and now Haunted Mansion, with Dumbo in the future! These rides all needed this update and they have even made the ride experience more enjoyable! People don't use the fast passes as much anymore because they would rather go through the awesome queues and explore!

This got me thinking.....What other rides could use an interactive queue?  So I have decided to go through the parks and look at each ride and decide what rides would benefit from this experience and maybe even throw out an idea or two!  All of the parks will be covered, but in this post, we are going to just look at Magic Kingdom.

The old Skyway building

Peter Pan's Flight- PLEASE!!!!!! I mean, the ride is cute and all, but the line is RIDICULOUS!!! They need something in that queue to make me more motivated to get into that line.  Good news about this is that there has already been talks about this one! According to rumors, there have been permits out for work to be done in that area.  The supposed plan: Expand into the bathroom area next to the ride and make an interactive queue.  The bathrooms will be moved across the path where the stroller parking and old Skyway building currently are.

Pirates of the Caribbean - When this question was posed on twitter, this was a very popular answer, and I agree to an extent.  I believe there are some great interactive things that could be added to this queue, such as an interactive cannon that makes noise like the cannon went off when you pull the string.  I also believe that the queue has some unique parts that should not be tampered with, such as the stalemate chess game in the dungeons.  As long as they are careful with this one, I do think an interactive experience could be beneficial.

Jungle Cruise - I am saying no to this one and I will tell you why; the theming in this queue is already so vast and there are so many hidden gems such as the cheezy puns that an interactive queue would take away from all of the visual exploring.  Plus, having tech stuff in that area kind of defeats the idea of it being separate from everything and in its own world, which plays into the theme of the attraction.

Splash Mountain - There is so much space here and so many fun things they could do!! Create a bog scene, have jumping fountains and animals popping out of holes! This could be such a huge playground, let your imagination go wild!

Big Thunder Mountain - I go cross-eyed in this place with all of the switchbacks! This queue needs something, anything really!! I would like it to tell some of the story of Big Thunder, not too many people know the story behind this attraction and it deserves to be told in some fashion! (If you want to find out about Big Thunder, check out Issue 8 of Celebrations Magazine, it was the featured attraction)

it's a small world - for interactive fun for this ride's queue, put touch screens along the switchbacks that tell short fun facts about different countries around the world and what children do in those countries.  It could be a precursor to what is inside the attraction and help kids understand more of what they see during their ride.

Tomorrowland Indy Speedway - This is a long, hot wait and it needs some kind of boost! For race fans, screens with car facts may be good, but that is not something everyone will want to flock to.  Some kind of interactive race game would be fun, a game that allowed competitive play between people in the queue, similar to the Space Mountain queue. 

Astro Orbiter - This line is long even at 2:30 in the morning! (Chris and I can vouch for that!) It is quite a boring line too, I am not sure what could be done for this line, but it could really benefit from something!

Taken in the queue cuz I was SO bored!

 

 

That is my list for Magic Kingdom.  If you agree or disagree with my suggestions, leave a comment and let me know! If you have any ideas of your own, I would love to hear from you also!  In the next post, we will take a look at Hollywood Studios Queues.

unKNOWN Actors: Paul Frees

The actor we are highlighting today is a name that many people probably do know, but the unKNOWN comes in when you see just how much you may know this man from! Paul Frees, Born June 22, 1920 in Chicago and died November 2, 1986, had an amazing voice that brought to life such characters as Ludwig Von Drake, Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle and Morocco Mole and Squiddily Diddly in The Secret Squirrel Show. 

I am doing Paul this time of year for a very specific reason; he is known for being a voice actor for some of the most popular and classic Christmas Specials in the history of Christmas specials! All of those stop-motion classics that we love to watch every Christmas, Paul had a big hand in several of them. Before we get to his Disney feats, lets take a quick look at his Christmas special history, since it is the season for it!

His first Christmas special was in 1968 in The Little Drummer Boy, providing the voices for Aaron’s father and the Magi.

The following year, Paul was the voice of Santa, the Traffic Cop and other additional voices in the cartoon classic Frosty the Snowman.

1970 brought his next hit, and one of my personal favorites, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.  Paul was the voice of the villain Burgermeister Meisterburger, Grimsby, and the soldiers and some townspeople. Oh, and why is this my favorite do you ask? Next time you watch it, pay attention to the school teacher’s name, the one who eventually becomes Mrs. Claus.

After a few years, Paul came back in 1976 for Frosty’s Winter Wonderland to provide the voice for Jack Frost.  The same year, he did several characters in Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, including Santa Claus, Eon, General Ticker, and Seventeen Seventy Six, aka “Sev”.

The next year brought his next Christmas classic, Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, where Paul voiced Olaf and the Donkey Dealer.

His last two Christmas Specials came in 1979.  The first was Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July for which he was the voice for Winterbolt, Jack Frost and a policeman.  His final special was Jack Frost where, surprisingly, he was not the voice for Jack himself, even after portraying him a couple times in past shows.  In this Jack Frost, he was the voice of the villain Kubla Kraus and for Father Winter.

Wow, this is a lot that the guy has done, and we haven’t even gotten to his Disney Contributions yet!

Paul Frees first Disney contribution started long before he was in any Christmas specials.  All the way back to 1950, where he did some voicework for some of the Disney Shorts, including the Pluto short, Primitive Pluto.

His first movie was in 1959, where he actually acted as the Narrator and J.W. Glavin, Psychiatrist in The Shaggy Dog.  The same year, he did the voice of the Narrator and the True Spirit of Adventure in the very popular short Donald in Mathmagic Land.

In 1961, One Hundred and One Dalmatians came out with Paul voicing Dirty Dawson.  He also did some voice work the same year for The Absent Minded Professor, being the Loudspeaker voice and the Air Force Dispatcher.

Paul’s next Disney roll was in Mary Poppins (1964), bringing the Barnyard Horse to life on the big screen.

Throughout his time with Disney, from 1957 to 1986, Paul did voicework for The Wonderful World of Color, doing various Narrators and at one point, doing the voice for a “Fake” Donald Duck.  His biggest part throughout this series though was giving a voice to the bubbly Professor Ludwig Von Drake.  He even sang a song about the colors, called The Spectrum Song, that was a favorite of my co host and mine on my University Disney show. 

Not only did Paul do all of this, he also did some voice work for Disney’s parks!  His first was being the Narrator for Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the very first version which was seen at the 1964-1965 World’s Fair.

One other now extinct attraction that Paul had a part of was Adventures through Inner Space, which was around from 1967 to 1985 and for which he provided the narration.

Today in the Disney parks, you can find Paul Frees voice in two distinct places.  The first is in Adventureland; he is the voice of many different pirates, including the Auctioneer in Pirates of the Caribbean.  His more known role in the parks though is the eerie voice of the ominous Ghost Host in Haunted Mansion. 

Phew! Wow did Paul do a lot in his lifetime! His being honored as a Disney Legend in 2006 is definitely a deserved honor and I hope this information will help for you to hear his vocal talents and appreciate them in all of his many roles.

If there is an actor in Disney history that you would like me to cover, send me an email and let me know, I would love to do some research on it!

Weekly DDL Post

This week on The Disney Driven Life, I talk about a new cuddly friend that arrived in Epcot this past week and some interesting construction walls in the Magic Kingdom.  To read this article, just Click Here and visit www.TheDisneyDrivenLife.com to read all of the other great articles on the site!

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion: Confused?

I know that in Disneyland, they have layovers for some of their attractions, including Haunted Mansion, which is a pretty cool concept.  I did not know that the Haunted Mansion layover, themed to The Nightmare Before Christmas, happened during Halloween. 

I heard a lot of people complain about this layover and I didn't see what the problem was with it, it was holiday themed and was only for a short time, seemed kind of neat to me.  I didn't have a problem with it because I thought it happened in December. But a Christmas layover during Halloween?? Am I the only one who is confused about this? I do not understand at all why they would put this layover now, it would fit with the Christmas theme much better. Halloween is the Haunted Mansion time, thats when it should be in it's natural form for all to enjoy.  It goes with the season, it makes sense just as it is, why would you change it with a theme for a completely different holiday?

If anyone has information about this that can clear this up, I would be most appreciative, I just do not understand it at all! What do you think?? Leave your comments below or send me an email at lady_aurora_yensid@hotmail.com and let me know.

unKNOWN Actors: Candy Candido

This time on unKNOWN Actors, we are looking at an actor with a very unique voice who played many unique characters.  Johnny Candido, known throughout his work as Candy Candido, was born on December 25, 1913 in New Orleans and died in Los Angeles on May 19, 1999.  Why was Candy so unique you may ask, besides his unique name? Candy’s voice was exceptional, he had a huge range, going from a soprano all the way to a low scratchy baritone.  You hear very few voice actors and singers who are able to do this.  You will recognize Candy’s low gruff voice from many Disney films.

The first Disney film that Candy was in was Peter Pan in 1953. He provided the voice for the Indian Chief who played with the lost boys and Peter Pan.

Sleeping Beauty (1959) was the movie that I recognized his voice from, as it is one of my favorites.  He give a voice to Maleficent’s main goon or henchmen.  He tells Maleficent that they have been searching in all of the cradles looking for Princess Aurora.

Candy was next heard in Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color 10 years later as just an extra voice in the series.  A few years later, in 1973, he leant his voice to the Captain of the Guards in Robin Hood, which happened to be a crocodile.  Most of his lines are during the archery competition scene.

He kept with the animal theme for his next movie, doing the voices of Brutus and Nero, the evil Medusa’s alligators in The Rescuers (1977).

The last movie voice that Candy provided for Disney was in 1986, bringing Fidget, the bat assistant of Ratigan to life in The Great Mouse Detective.

There is one voice that Candy did for Disney theme parks; in the Haunted Mansion attraction, he does the voice of the Graveyard Executioner.

There is a controversy that is found on the internet about whether or not Candy did the noises made by the Raven in both Sleeping Beauty and the Haunted Mansion attraction.  Because of his incredible voice range and the fact that both ravens never had a voice actor listed, it is quite possible that he did do the sound effects for them, we cannot be entirely sure though. What we do know is that Candy’s unique voice can be heard in several Disney films and now you can pick out his distinctive gruffness when you next watch the films!

Is there an actor you would like me to investigate? Leave me a comment or send me an email at lady_aurora_yensid@hotmail.com.

unKNOWN Actors: Eleanor Audley

This unKNOWN actress, while she may not have had many parts in Disney, has such a memorable voice in the few parts that she does have that I just had to mention her. Eleanor Audley was born November 19, 1905 in New York City and passed away November 25, 1991 in Hollywood, California. Eleanor had this fierce and powerful voice, a voice that Disney seemed to see as an awesome villainess voice.

The first Disney character she played was the cunning Lady Tremaine in Cinderella (1950).  This is not the villainess she is known for though.

Nine years later, she is heard in Sleeping Beauty playing the dark and powerful witch, Maleficent. The sinister and commanding voice is what makes Maleficent so terrifying, putting her up in the ranks as one of the best villains in Disney movies.

The other appearance that Eleanor made for Disney was during Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. During this television series, she was on the mini-series Swamp Fox (1960) playing Mrs. Videau.

Because Eleanor’s voice can be so spooky, it even found a place in one of the spookiest attractions in Disney Theme Parks! In the Haunted Mansion, both Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s versions, you can hear Eleanor’s voice bringing Madame Leota, the woman in the crystal ball, to life!

As you can see, while Eleanor Audley did not have many appearances in Disney film, you can easily remember her for the characters she did lend her voice to.

Please feel free to send me feedback on what you think of this series so far or if you know of any actors you would like to see me cover in this series; leave a comment on this post or send me an email at lady_aurora_yensid@hotmail.com

unKNOWN Actors: Thurl Ravenscroft - Part 2

Ok, we have already talked about Thurl Ravenscroft’s incredible singing and acting career throughout the Disney films.  Now, we shall talk about his numerous appearances in the Disney Theme Parks.

There are two extinct attractions in Disneyland where Thurl’s voice could be heard. The first one being Adventures through Inner Space; the Mellomen sang the song “Miracles to Molecules”.  The second one is Submarine Voyager, on which Thurl was the Narrator.

There were several places in Disneyland in California that used to house Thurl’s voice, and while the attractions still exist, his voice on the attraction does not.  In 2001, Thurl’s Narration on the Disneyland Railroad was removed as well as his voice as the First Mate on the Mark Twain Steam Boat.

Currently in Disneyland, you can hear Thurl on Peter Pan as a background singer.  In the Enchanted Tiki Room, he can be found in several places. During the Preshow outside, he is the voice of Tungaroa and on the inside, he is the voice of Fritz.  The Mellomen also do a bit of singing for the Enchanted Tiki Room.

In Walt Disney World, the original voice of the Railroad was Thurl.  In both versions of the Enchanted Tiki Room, Tropical Serenade and Under New Management, Thurl is the voice of Fritz.

There are a few attractions in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World that currently feature Thurl’s deep voice. The first being Pirates of the Caribbean.  Not only does he sing the main song in the background, he is the voice of a drunken pirate by a lamp post, an accordion player and, as mentioned before, a dog who is singing along with the group.  In the Country Bear Jamboree, he provides the voice for Buff, the buffalo head on the wall of the theatre.  Haunted Mansion is the only place in a Disney park where you can actually see Thurl’s face.  He is a singing bust in the graveyard scene, the one whose head has been knocked off of its pedestal.  Many who see Thurl singing as this bust mistake him for Walt Disney because of the similar mustache both men have. He is also the bass voice that you hear singing the main song, “Grim Grinning Ghosts”.

Thurl has had many features in the Disney parks in the USA and has even had a couple spots over in Tokyo Disneyland! Thurl’s voice, like in both US parks, was the original voice for the Railroad and in the version of Country Bear Jamboree, he also is kept as the voice of Buff.

Whew! There we go, the full story behind the Disney Legend, Thurl Ravenscroft! He is even a true Disney Legend, inducted in 1995 for all the work he has done for the company.  If you would like to find out more about Thurl and his work, just visit www.allaboutthurl.com and make sure to check out the section on all of his projects with Disney!

*Update* Listening to some audio from Disneyland, Thurl Ravenscroft also did the voice for the narrator of an audio version of The Jungle Cruise.

Weekly DDL Post

This week on the Disney Driven Life, I review a couple major announcements the Comic Con last week! Both are movie announcements and one could be quite spooky! Check out the article here!

The Disucator: Creepy Creeps with Eerie Eyes- A Descriptive Writing Lesson

Do your students need to practice writing descriptively? Why not use the holiday to your advantage? Follow this fun lesson plan to have the children talk about their own Haunted Mansion.

Subject: Language Arts
Grade: Can be adapted from Kindergarten through 5th Grade
Estimated Time: 40 to 50 Minutes

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to

• learn describing words
• be able to describe a haunted house
• write a paragraph about haunted houses

Materials:

• Haunted Mansion book and audio (can be found at http://www.mousevinyl.com/content/haunted-mansion-disneyland-records)
  
• Access to a computer and projector (if this is not available, the children can take turns watching it on the computer or the teacher can just read it out loud to them without showing them the pictures)

Procedure

1. Ask the students what they think a haunted house looks like. Ask them what a haunted house has in it and what makes it a haunted house.
2. Write the descriptive and key words the children say on the board
3. Show them the Haunted Mansion book
   
4. Have the children write for 15 to 20 minutes about a haunted house they visited or a haunted house they would make. Make sure they use some descriptive words that are on the board and were in the Haunted Mansion story. (For the younger grades, you can have them draw a picture of their haunted house instead of writing about it and the writing samples can be from a couple sentences to a paragraph or story. Allow the children to be creative, let the ones writing even draw a picture of their haunted mansion if there is time for them to do so.)
5. When they are done, allow the children time to share their writing/picture with the other students

This is a fun activity to work on children's writing skills and descriptive thinking, plus it gets them in the holiday spirit! Feel free to use the descriptive words that are given in other fun holiday ways, including a word search, crossword or even a Halloween themed Hangman game!

Thank you to www.mousevinyl.com for the awesome Haunted Mansion book and audio used in this lesson.

Check out www.teach-nology.com/web_tools for an excellent Word Search maker among other great teacher tools.

Until our next lesson, class dismissed! (And a Happy Halloween!)