My Year With The Mouse

So talk about an attraction I haven’t done in the last 3 decades, it’s Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

And I mean GREAT moments!

To be fair, this particular incarnation has only been around since 2009. Immediately prior to that was “Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years,” a movie made for the 50th anniversary staring Steve Martin and Donald, the duck who wears no pants.

Apparently Walt just loved Lincoln and this was created for a World’s Fair before being built at Disneyland. The audio-animatronic human was the first of its kind.

But before you get to see Mr. Lincoln, you start by checking out Great Moments in Disneyland. It’s a whole display of things like scale versions and pictures and a ticket book collection.

Splash Mountain

You’re treated to picture collages, a tribute to Imagineers past

The originals

and present

Imagineers: The Next Generation

And exciting

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

You entertain yourself there for a few minutes before the next showing of Great Moments.

There’s this entrance to the stage doorway area

In case you forgot why you were there

There’s also a completely scale model of the Capitol

It's very white

I think it’s made out of marble or something but I didn’t get a closeup of the plaque and I can’t remember now. At any rate, it’s a little weird since Mr. Lincoln himself didn’t see this version of the Capitol. But it’s there.

Behind the Capitol is a screen that shows both an explanation of the Disney version of Mr. Lincoln along with some footage of the Disney version of Mr. Lincoln.

Kind of weird

There’s even a whole thing about the actor who played Mr. Lincoln and why he was a perfect Mr. Lincoln, and also a bit about the creation of the fake Mr. Lincoln from a mold of the real Mr. Lincoln’s face. Which is a little unsettling, in my opinion.

Finally the theater doors open and you are all ushered in in a “grab any seat” fashion. I suspect at one point all seats were filled, but there were only about 10 of us there.

It's the image of Mr. Lincoln

And that’s where they tell you to put the cameras away. I don’t know why–is animated Mr. Lincoln some kind of trade secret they’re trying to protect? First off you get a movie screen and it shows this rather extensive history lesson of Mr. Lincoln (who apparently had about 1 year of formal school before he went to law school) and the civil war. This gets kind of boring but just when you’re ready to bug out, the crimson curtains rise and there’s Mr. Lincoln himself, sitting on a chair.

I think it’s supposed to look like Mr. Lincoln is alive, but that’s not really the effect. One the not-quite-Mr. Lincoln sits there for a minute or so, he stands up. Except he doesn’t stand up like a real person would. It looks like he kind of levitates on two very, very skinny legs. Then he gives this speech that’s apparently an amalgam of several speeches. His face is supposed to reflect emotion but it just ends up looking flat.

I mean basically my friend summed it up at the end when she turned to me and said, “that was kind of creepy.”