Monthly Archives: April 2012

Sorcerer’s Workshop

1 Comment Posted by on April 6, 2012

Over in the Disney Animation building, home of Turtle Talk with Crush, is the Sorcerer’s Workshop. Now lest you missed it before, I really think the Animation Building is a hidden gem of the Mouse-Next-Door. Along with Monsters, Inc.

The Sorcerer’s Workshop is really a tribute to the zoetrope, and a place to draw your own animation. That animates. If you’re good at it.

You enter the Sorcerer’s Workshop past an eerily-glowing sign

Not quite this glowing in person

 

The room is like this extremely awesome, sheltered area with cool wall decorations and spinning thingies everywhere.

The spinning thingies are zoetropes

 

It’s kind of like Indiana Jones meets Awesome. If you know what I mean.

The wall art is very cool.

You want to touch it, but then you feel like you shouldn't touch it, but then you touch it anyway

 

Can anyone translate this?

It's Mushu!

 

The various zoetropes demonstrate different optical illusions to create animation. For example, just look in the mirrors for Donald to get all huffy about something. Dude has anger issues or something.

Perhaps Donald should try some meditation?

 

There’s also flippy things

Looks kind of like a Bingo ball globe

 

When you spin it, it combines two images into one. For example, this is Gaston admiring himself in the mirror.

No one's got a swell cleft in his chin like Gaston!

 

And speaking of mirrors, there’s the mirror mirror on the wall…

That starts out like this, except less fuzzy

And then...whoa!

 

It’s all delightfully creepy.

Plus there’s audience participation! There are long counters like this:

Mickey balloon?

 

And inside that box are long strips of paper and pencils–the miniature kind, like you get at a golf course if you happen to golf–and you lay them out along the guide and draw your own comic strip, as it were. The Mickey balloon is a guide, although of course you can draw whatever you like.

Paying attention to detail is my strong suit. Clearly I’m a shoo-in for Disney animation:

Nailed it!

 

You then place your strip into a spinner like such:

It looks better in here

 

And then you give it a spin!

Okaaaaayyyyyyy

 

As you can clearly see, by looking through the slots, my Mickey balloon takes flight!

Or it’s supposed to anyway. The picture isn’t very good. So let’s just pretend that it worked,okay?

The Sorcerer’s Workshop is especially good for elementary school-age and up kids experimenting with animation. Who knows–maybe your child can get his or her Disney animation start right here on your vacation!

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Monsters, Inc. Mike And Sully To The Rescue!

2 Comments Posted by on April 4, 2012

Lately Theo has decided that there are “happy monsters” in the world. I don’t know if this is his way of  dealing with his subconscious fears or what, but if ever there were happy monsters, you can find them in Monstropolis.

So it’s with this in mind that he and I headed to Monsters, Inc. Mike and Sully to the Rescue!

Yeah, I took this during ElecTRONica so it's not a very good representation of what Monsters, Inc. actually looks like.

 

It’s over there on the right.

Monsters, Inc. replaced one of the Mouse-Next-Door’s strangest opening rides, the Superstar Limo. I won’t go on about Superstar Limo except to say that it was truly strange and you should go look it up on Youtube if you never experienced it for yourself.

Anyway, Monsters, Inc. is hidden back in the Hollywood Backlot area, which I think is a wonderful little part of the park that gets easily overlooked.

You’re about to take a taxi through Monstropolis, so be sure to follow the signs for tickets and departures.

Right this way!

 

I totally love the Monstropolis theming, including the adorable logo.

Keep your eye out for human children! Here comes one now!

 

The queue was designed to hold a number of people but when we went it was a walk-on.

This would be a nice place to wait, though.

 

Inside the building, mysteriously, the ticket window is closed.

Was it something I said?

 

There are tons of great visuals while you wait. I particularly liked the vending machine.

"Sugar, Salt & Fat"? Now THERE'S truth in advertising!

 

I’m going to wash that down with a Blort. Actually I’m just going to say the word Blort. It’s funny. You try.

See?

Funny.

Fully refreshed, we approached our taxi.

Even in Monstropolis, the taxis are yellow

 

The cast member suggested my “little monster” might have the best view from the back seat, so  we climbed in and sat down. On the left of the taxi was a little screen.

Mommy's little monster looks a little apprehensive

 

As we started our drive into Monstropolis, the screen came alive with a Special Report. Here’s a really bad picture I took of it:

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

 

Boo was on the loose! It was monster chaos! And that’s the worst kind of chaos! And what am I doing in this taxi?

All looked reasonably calm at first

There's nothing like taking pictures from a moving vehicle.

 

Theo particularly liked this anxiety-ridden monster

"Look, Mommy! Monster have Band-Aid!"

 

And then we saw those sneaky monsters–our heroes Sully and Mike, and the barely disguised Boo.

Theo called Boo the "Baby crab." Which I guess she kind of looks like in a sort of crab-like monster costume.

 

You’re treated to various scenes from the movie, including this one, which is particularly relevant since my little monster does this a lot.

"Mommy! She's singing on potty!"

 

My favorite room is the door room. You enter the big dark room and there’s all kinds of doors and reflections of doors swinging around. The optical illusion is fabulous here.

I'll take door number 3!

 

Once the crisis is averted, you and your taxi are decontaminated for your trip back to, well, not Monstropolis.

"They vacuuming!" (yes, Theo pretty much narrated the entire ride. It was very cute)

 

Oh, and this is Roz. Talk to her and see what happens!

Bye now!

 

Theo LOVED this ride. In fact, as soon as we got off he asked to go on it again, but we were right at closing so we weren’t able to. This is a fantastic dark ride for the adults and the kids, even if you haven’t seen the movie.

Happy monsters!

 

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Toy Story Zoetrope

3 Comments Posted by on April 2, 2012

The Toy Story Zoetrope is another attraction within the Disney Animation building at the mouse-next-door. You can find it in the Character Close-Up section.

I took this close-up picture of the Character Close Up. Because it's close. And up. Get it?

 

A little green man points the way.

The claw has chosen you to watch the zoetrope

 

And speaking of Little Green Men, this is completely unrelated to me or MYWTM in every way, but I absolutely love this flash mob of little green men. And they’re one of the best choreographed flash mobs I’ve seen!

I think one day I need to organize a MYWTM flash mob. What do you think? Maybe everyone could buy a churro and do an awesome dance.

Anyway, back to the zoetrope.

For starters, there’s that word. Zoetrope. How do you pronounce it? It was actually one of those words that I totally avoided saying out loud for fear of mispronouncing it. I’d just be like “Hey, have you seen that Toy Story spinner thing in CA Adventure? You know, the one that goes around?” And the other person would very clearly be trying to avoid saying the word too, like “Oh yeah! With Woody and Jessie! That flashes!”

Because really? Zoo-ee-trope? Zo-ee-trope? Zo-ee-tro-pee? Zoo-ee-trop-ah? Zo-trope?

Well ladies and gentlemice, through the power of Google I am now ready to inform you that zoetrope is pronounced:

A couple of different ways. Hey, it’s Google, okay? But most results seem to agree that it’s ZOH-uh-trope with some weighing in as ZOH-ee-trope.

So let’s just call it the Toy Story spinner thingy.

A zoetrope is a precursor to film animation in which an open-topped drum has slots in the side, and you put in a strip of paper (or whatever) with incrementally changing images, and when spun and viewed through the slots, it creates the illusion of motion.

The Toy Story zoetrope is on a grander scale. It contains disks of various Toy Story characters

Woody, Jessie, Little Green Men, etc.

 

Here’s a close-up of some of the figures

The Little Green Men bounce around at the bottom. I love that.

 

The room is darkened and the zoetrope spins rapidly, and then there’s a strobe light effect that replaces the slots found in other zoetropes, which brings the figures to action.

And also it looks like this through the camera lens:

No, I don't have one of those cool high-speed cameras.

 

To be completely honest, the full-fledged zoetrope is not for the faint of stomach. The motion and strobe lights can be a bit overwhelming if you tend to be on the nauseous side. Still, the detail is fabulous and the moving drum is actually really cool to see.

Plus the Little Green Men.

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