The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

[Parteecia]

Butterscotch squares and California brittle are my go-to’s. Rum nougat, marzipan, Boudreaux, and molasses chip are also all on my list.

Milk peanut crunch for me!

 

[Distorian]

Fun Fact: When DCA was in the initial planning stages in 1996-97, after being drastically downgraded in scale and budget from its Westcot foundation just a few years earlier, there was a concept for a "California Workplace" area on what is now the World of Color viewing amphitheater.

They had a rendering of it in early WDI artwork for DCA circa 1997. It was to have several sponsored exhibits and small pavilions hosted by California companies. A computer company (Apple?) was being sought, a surfboard maker, and other similar types of stereotypical California commerce and industry. One of the exhibit areas shown in early WDI artwork was a chocolate kitchen and sales counter, and the WDI artwork used the classic See's black-and-white checkerboard theme. Thus heavily implying that See's would have a chocolate demonstration kitchen and sales space in the California Workplace mini-land.

The California Workplace concept floundered, and Paul Pressler's stewardship of the DCA concept in the late 1990's didn't help win over enough new sponsors. The concept was downsized, and on opening day 2001 became solely the Boudin Bakery exhibit and the Mission Tortilla factory tour in the Pacific Wharf area. The San Francisco row houses across from Golden Dreams that were designed to host some of the California Workplace were left empty, and the main area for showrooms and work spaces of the California Workplace along Paradise Bay was turned into a bland cement amphitheater.

But for a brief period circa 1996, someone smart at WDI thought they should try and get See's Candy into DCA!

An opening day DCA with a See's Candy would never have produced Mission Breakout. Ghiradelli could never accomplish that.

 

[mickEblu]

Wow apparently when BTMRR reopens at MK it will have a lower height requirement. 38 inches. This would have been really helpful for me at DL last year. This is the first I think a Disney height requirement for an attraction has been changed that I can recall.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

I wish Disney would build a park in Texas. Unfortunately I know that if they did, it would suck. Shanghai, DCA, Disney Adventure World, and the planned Abu Dhabi all exhibit Disney's preference for departing from the formula that made Disneyland and other Disney Parks work. There is a rejection at WDI of true themed environments. Instead of a park receiving a central theme, they're amorphous and allowed to add any IP they desire. This is best exemplified with such hit lands as Mickey Avenue, Gardens of Imagination, Adventure Way, and, the greatest example, Performance Corridor. These are non specific lands with no time period, no story, no place, all so that they can be shaped and changed in whatever way Disney chooses. An anarchic model of theme park design. If Disney built a park in Texas, I'm confident that's what we would receive, not the kind of park that makes Disneyland, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, or Disney Sea special and good.

Shanghai’s a wonderful park that is chock full of truly interesting twists on the formula. They shouldn’t just keep rebuilding Disneyland with every castle park, they SHOULD experiment and try new things and Shanghai does that remarkably well. Hong Kong is living proof that they shouldn’t ever try to one to one an old formula again.

 

[Distorian]

Shanghai’s a wonderful park that is chock full of truly interesting twists on the formula. They shouldn’t just keep rebuilding Disneyland with every castle park, they SHOULD experiment and try new things and Shanghai does that remarkably well. Hong Kong is living proof that they shouldn’t ever try to one to one an old formula again.

Shanghai was built for the Chinese. I am not Chinese. I have no interest in Shanghai.

Disneyland was built for Americans. I am American. I like Disneyland.

The best "twists" on the original castle park are found at Disneyland Paris, which still honors all the American centric ideals that makes Disneyland great. Those core tenets are not found in Shanghai. If Disney wants to ever build a park in Texas, they need to embrace those American centric ideals.

 

[DLR92]

I really don’t like aesthetic of Shanghai Disneyland. However their castle is nice and realistic of the bunch. I hate how none of the lands really flow. Hodgepodge of ideas and IP slap in the parks. For that reason, I absolutely have no desire to visit. I rather just see Shanghai itself.

 

[J4546]

Shanghai looks awesome imo, I def wanna go to that park! As far as a hodgepodge of ideas, the spiderman ride def sticks out but everything else seems fine? The area behind the castle looks sooo good with the rivers and boat ride imo. Tomorrowland is the great, and the pirates/adventure cove area looks amazing. All in all seems like a well built park imo.

 

[Distorian]

I really don’t like aesthetic of Shanghai Disneyland. However their castle is nice and realistic of the bunch. I hate how none of the lands really flow. Hodgepodge of ideas and IP slap in the parks. For that reason, I absolutely have no desire to visit. I rather just see Shanghai itself.

Shanghai's layout is certainly bizarre. It really just appears as if it's a park of several wienies with little else. There's the castle, Tron, and Adventureland rapids, but other than that the park is very sparse and open. Mickey Ave and Pirate's Cove are really the only part of the park that actually resembles a land. Where are all the buildings in the park? How can you create a themed environment with just one flagship attraction? Shanghai's Tomorrowland is certainly the most egregious in this as there really is nothing to sell the theme besides Tron's overwhelming presence. I don't see how these places could ever feel transportive when there is just nothing to go off of. Grizzly Gulch and Mystic Point in Hong Kong have the same problem. It’s like if Frontierland was just Big Thunder, a saloon, and a wagon. That’s just not how theme parks are supposed to work. That’s not immersive.

 

[TP2000]

Thank you!!!!

And, yes, we are absolutely so lucky! I have memberships to just about everything. For as much as the folks who live here complain, the membership benefits to the museums and gardens cannot be beat.

The WDFM is a very special place to me, not just because of the Disney factor, but because the Presidio is a huge part of my family history (my great grandparents are buried in the National Cemetery, my grandfather walked across the Golden Gate Bridge the day it opened ). The WDFM always has these wonderful talks and events with lots of Disney royalty. I think the Jungle Book exhibition gala with Andreas Deja and some of the living cast members and artists who worked on it was my all time most treasured.

I have to tell you, I was devastated when Beach Blanket Babylon ended its 50-ish year run in 2020, just before Covid hit.

Every visit I made to San Francisco from the 1980's onward always included two tickets to Beach Blanket Babylon. I think the peak for me was in 1998, when I went with a rather dashing and notably younger (ahem) man who I went up there with so he could attend a Dentist's Convention at the Moscone Center, as that was when Bill Clinton's involvement with Miss Monica Lewinsky and her blue dress was in full media spotlight. The Beach Blanket Babylon season that year was sinfully hilarious!

I also used to make a point of going to Gump's every visit, as that was my Mother's go-to store for Christmas presents. I always bought a little bauble or bling or something, and thought of my Mom. My last visit to Gump's in the late 2010's I bought a beautiful leather-bound edition of Julia Child's The Art Of French Cooking, circa 1961.

Another visit around 2010 was memorable, as we did a full museum day; starting at the Walt Disney Family Museum, going on to the Legion of Honor, then the de Young, and then the California Academy of Sciences. And then a great dinner in Little Italy.

But without Beach Blanket Babylon? It's harder for me to make that trip now. Call me old fashioned.