Innoventions, Part the Second

20 Comments Posted by on April 26, 2011

Yesterday I covered the second floor of Innoventions (why the second floor? Because that’s where you go in now) and so today I’m going to cover the first floor.

But I do want to put in that Kristin, my friend who caused all the trouble at Soarin’ Over California, lambasted me for saying that I had no interest in seeing Asimo the robot, as he is her son’s favorite character after Mickey. And then Kelli, also of Mothers in the Mouseland fame, jumped on the dogpile to chastise me as well. SO, ladies, I will go in and see the Asimo show, okay? OKAY??? HAPPY NOW???

Good.

Anyway, as I was saying yesterday, Innoventions is supposed to introduce us to the wonders of the future, but the unfortunate thing is that the future has changed faster than Innoventions and now the only good thing about it is that it’s air-conditioned (and yes, Kristin and Kelli, Asimo the robot). I think this is the only attraction at Disneyland where it actually says on the sign “Strollers Welcomed.” I mean, strollers are generally tolerated just about everywhere, and also allowed on some attractions, but “welcomed” just seems a little desperate.

Wait Time 0 minutes! Strollers welcomed! Everyone welcomed! Just please, please, please come in!

Formerly you entered on the first level and waited until the magic doors opened–oh, did I mention that the building rotates? The building rotates. So you formerly waited for the building to rotate to you and joined a group at the magic door until it opened and you met your tour guide. You walked around with a group, which made a fast escape much more difficult.

Now that you start on the second level, the group tour sections are sad and lonely. Like you used to start your tour here:

The magic doors, now known as the exit

It's just an everyday neighborhood

And you were going to get a tour of the House of the Future, which had all kinds of cool things that we could totally expect to find in the distant future, the year 2000. For some reason, the tour guides wear soccer uniforms, like they’re supposed to be kids in this future family or Disney is all hip and into soccer, or maybe they’re trying to woo the non-Americans who call soccer “football.” I don’t know. Anyway, now that you wander to the first floor on your own, the days of the actual tour are gone and instead you just have tour guides who stand around saying things like, “I’m about to give a tour of the house of the future! Come join me!” and very few people do.

This cast member wasn't getting any takers for his tour of the living room, but he was so friendly and cool nonetheless

The cast members are all really nice too, but I’d consider putting in a transfer or something.

Back in the day, the rotating part had several different segments that your tour group visited. Each had a cast member to explain the segment. The one time I visited Innoventions prior to the entrance/exit switch, I thought the best segment was the music one.

This cast member was actually really awesome

I was the only one there, but she gave her whole spiel with enthusiasm anyway. And I gotta say, kudos to the Innoventions cast members who try really hard and with great attitudes even though the tours aren’t there anymore. You have to respect that, and I do. In all seriousness, I will be the first to praise Disneyland’s cast members. They work so hard and really make the magic–making the experience special enough for me to want to blog about it. Yay cast members! It wouldn’t be such a great park without you.

Anyway, the music section has electronic instruments that have all kinds of cool effects, and in the old tour different people (and by people I mean kids) were invited up to sample the instruments. This cast member actually let Theo play the guitar while he was still in the stroller. Talk about above and beyond!

Strollers were welcomed, so I wasn't about to take him out. If you own a toddler, you understand why.

And then there’s always the teenager who just wants to show off, so he says “can’t you program the drums to be exactly like a regular drum set?” and to her immense credit, the cast member does and gives the teen his 2 minutes of fame or whatever. We were still the only ones standing there–us and his two friends.

I can play the drums!

The other segments used to have a cast member explaining what they were all about, but now none of them do except for the futuristic kitchen.

This is supposed to be a tv studio or something, I guess. No cast member there.

Shiny car. Why is it here? No clue.

Apparently in the living room of the future, you're going to have a flat screen tv. NO WAY!!!

You will also have a television in your dining room. My mind, she is blown.

On the other side of the segments, you can play this awesome game on stage, where you can play either the drums or guitar, or you can sing. It’s like karaoke but there’s lights for instruments. If I were to invent this game for play at home on your Xbox or Wii, I’d call it “Rock Band.”

These three are singing a Queen song.

I mistakenly thought that this trio was a family–a dad with two of his kids. I was wrong. The adult was on his own and the kids had established themselves as permanent features. I mean, they could play the game and all, but they were on their third song by the time I left, and really? You come to Disneyland to play Rock Band? At least they aren’t High School Musical songs anymore, but if this were my child I’d be dragging them onto Autopia or something and ordering them to have a freakin’ good time because Rock Band is significantly cheaper than this annual pass I bought you, so you better make the best of it.

But maybe that’s just me.

Next, I moved to the house of the future. There was a piano (electric, of course), and on top of the piano were these totally cool picture frames that had digital pictures that changed.

C'mon, Disney. Nobody's ever going to make these things for 30 bucks.

There’s also this amazing video game that you don’t even need a controller for. You just move your body.

Wouldn't it be amazing if someone like Sony invented this one day?

I did learn, however, that the house of the future is apparently one of the best places to take a nap.

You fall asleep at Disneyland, you end up on someone's blog. Just sayin'.

The funniest part is, see that screen above the woman’s head? This is what it says:

Going into energy saving mode indeed!

In the future we will also have coffee tables that have books inside them that you can just flick with your fingers to turn the page. It’s like a Nook, except it’s in your coffee table and it’s also part of the future.

For God's sake--use a coaster for that drink!!!

Man, that lady in the picture looks like she could go into energy saving mode at any moment.

I did like the prototype children’s room.

Some kids sleep in a race car bed, others shoot cannons all night.

They did have a detail that everyone should have in their homes–a model railroad!

I'm pretty sure that if I let him, Kevin would drill holes in all of the walls below the ceiling and install a whole-house elevated model railroad

And finally, you wake up from your nap and exit through the former entrance.

Back to the world of today, kind of like the home of the future/today

The weird thing is, you can kill a massive amount of time in Innoventions. We spent a good 45 minutes there and all I was really doing was walking around taking pictures. You could easily spend the whole day in there and not realize it.

But at least you wouldn’t be hot.

Tomorrowland ,

Innoventions Part 1

15 Comments Posted by on April 25, 2011

Once upon a time, there was an attraction called the Carousel of Progress. The CoP was built by Walt and featured at the 1964 World’s Fair, and then moved to Disneyland. It was a big, round building. It was also discontinued at Disneyland the year I was born (1973). Apparently Walt liked the CoP.

Replacing the CoP was America Sings. As I recall, this exhibition had a great deal of animatronic animals singing songs about America. It was lame, and it closed and many of the animals moved to Splash Mountain where they now sing songs from a movie that has never been released on home video (and I mean video, like VHS, or Beta if you unfortunately chose the wrong format) because it’s completely racist. Yet despite this racism, Disney used Song of the South to create Splash Mountain and invited some of America Sings’s animals to the party. Go figure.

Anyway, replacing America Sings was Innoventions. Let me just make something clear first. The best part of Innoventions is the fact that it’s air-conditioned. The worst part is, like, everything else. Innoventions has two floors. Originally you entered on the first floor, but they have recently switched it and you now enter in what used to be the exit.

Doesn't this look like an exit? That's because it was.

Innoventions is supposed to be a huge display introducing us to the wonders of the future. This has become problematic, since the wonders it is introducing have already come to pass, and in some cases, have been surpassed by more modern technology.

Oops.

Since you’re entering through the former exit, you have to climb a lot to get to the top. However, the climb does lead to some nice park views.

It's the Matterhorn. How beautiful.

It also gives you a fantastic view of something that is long obsolete, yet still very visible in an un-Disney-like fashion. I’m talking about the Peoplemover tracks.

The Astro Orbiter rocket ship ride used to be on top of this building, and it was totally awesome. Now it's on the ground, which is not awesome.

Innoventions welcomes you to the second floor, formerly known as the second part of Innoventions.

Come on in! No, really, please come in.

Once inside, you are immediately assaulted by the Wall O’Corporate Sponsorship. Now a lot of the attractions in the park are sponsored by corporations, but I can’t think of any more shameless than Innoventions. I mean, it’s like when a company buys a sports arena and changes its name. I’m looking at you Arrowhead Pond Honda Center and Compaq Center HP Pavilion. Anyway, Innoventions is very heavily sponsored.

The future belongs to Microsoft, et al.

Now that you’re really inside, you get to your first exhibit–the jet pack.

This just does not look safe

Which would be all cool and stuff, except that now our emphasis is on green energy and I’m having a hard time coming up with something less green than individual jet packs. Hybrid jet packs? I’m not feeling the love here.

Next is Honda’s robot, Asimo. It’s Asimov without the V. I know, you didn’t notice that until I pointed it out. You’re welcome.

This is like a theater or something. I don't know. I didn't go inside. I don't go to Disneyland to watch Honda's presentation about robots, no matter how much I loved my 1987 Honda CRX. And I SERIOUSLY loved that car.

Outside of the theater are these wall decorations of carved robots, except instead of looking all futuristically cool and stuff, they actually look quite terrifying–like Skeletor meets C3-PO and instead of dying an agonizing death in private, its final fatal moments are recorded for all time on a wall in Innoventions. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have nightmares about these things. Again.

Screw you and your creepy robot skeletons, Honda. I drive a Mazda now.

After that you can see the tree house thing that’s supposed to be, well, I don’t know what it’s supposed to be.  For some reason it reminds me of Avatar, but like Avatar in purgatory.

Sorry James Cameron, but your movie kind of sucked. Although a setup like this might have made it better.

On the other side of Honda’s Asimo theater, people come out and they look all blue. This is Disney’s way of letting you know that you’re in the future.

I have seen the future, and it's blue.

Then comes the world of interactive games. You can made a body using the Body Builder, which is not a workout supplement, but rather is a 3D game where you build a body.

What's with the Asian writing at the bottom? Are Asians supposed to have their fingers on the pulse of the future? Because that's kind of racist too.

There is a part that actually looks really cool. It’s a projected image on the floor and there are these puck things that you use your stick to move around. I mean, it looks like a fun-ish game but the stick things don’t always work and people often look like they’re curling or something. Also, there’s always a line to participate. Pass.

Cruise ships all over the world are replacing their shuffleboard fields with these things.

Then there are video games, pretty much all of which you can play at home. And at first I thought “now who comes to Disneyland to play video games you can play at home?” but then I thought about how there used to be an awesome two-story arcade outside of Space Mountain with things like air hockey that I spent a lot of time playing with, but then again, very few people have air hockey tables at home. I’m so conflicted. It makes me long for the days of 25 cents Ms. Pac Man. Life was so simple when all we had to play with was a rock.

Please tell me this is not what our future will look like.

OMG, the blue is EVERYWHERE!!!

And then, for some inexplicable reason, we leave the world of blue and video games and enter what seriously reminds me of the Health section of the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, circa 1980’s, where they told you to do some revolutionary things like brush your teeth.

Strangely enough, this section is sponsored by St. Joseph’s hospital. Which really is the hospital you want to go to if you are sick or injured at Disneyland. If you ever find yourself in an ambulance leaving the Disneyland resort, which I have because I’m all weird like that, ask them to take you to St. Joseph’s.

Don't forget to brush your teeth, kiddies!

There are also some strange things in that part, like apparently in the future we’re going to have some wacky thing called “journalism.”

This ridiculous idea will never catch on.

I think the point of that exhibit is to show the “newspapers” at the bottom that actually have little screens where you can watch the news. Unfortunately, this has already been invented. It’s called television.

Despite the fact that this is all about the future, there are some decidedly non-futuristic elements like these retro designs.

But I thought the future was blue?

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

This machine thing asks “How will you look at your reunion?” and I think it’s supposed to take your picture and time warp you or something.

Dear Alumni Association--stop sending me mail!!!

The thing is, for many of us we just have to look in the mirror to know how we will look at our reunion. I mean, take a look at this:

Me in 1985

Me in 2011

You know, a lot of people are concerned about how they will look at their reunions (older, fatter, balder), but quite frankly, I had nowhere to go but up, so I’m pretty happy.

But back to Innoventions, there’s one more thing on the second floor

Is this awesome or what?

There used to be a section here with Segways that you could ride on. I always meant to do that, but never got around to it and now its gone. I guess I’ll have to wait for my personal jet pack.

Tomorrowland , ,

Looking Up

13 Comments Posted by on April 22, 2011

I started this blog with an idea of things I’d never done before, like riding the Main Street vehicles, or being at the rope-drop–stuff like that. But now that I’m into this, I realized there was one more really major thing I’ve never done:

Look up.

Particularly on Main Street, but elsewhere as well. Disneyland has all kinds of cool details that I really never paid attention to since I was trying to get on a ride or go see something in particular. So, here’s a post about looking up.

Main Street, U.S.A. is supposed to be a typical main street in 1908, except it would have been a very crowded main street because there’s all kinds of stuff on there. And also, Main Street is not very tall. I knew that it had been scaled down, but I couldn’t quite figure it all out because the upper windows seemed to be somehow even more scaled down than the rest of the street.

I mean, I get the idea of forced perspective and all. Like, that’s how you can take an averaged-height Elijah Wood and turn him into a hobbit by making him stand way in front of Gandalf, or maybe way in back or whatever. But then again, how tall is Elijah Wood anyway? I used my SRM (Standard Research Methodology = 3 minutes on Google), expecting to find a quick answer as to how tall Elijah Wood is. Alas, that does not appear to be definitive public information. BUT, Google did have this crazy statement at the top that said:

Best guess for Elijah Wood Height is 5′ 6″

– FeedbackIs this accurate? Yes NoThank you for your feedback.Mentioned on at least 4 websites including celebheights.com, trueknowledge.com and yahoo.com–

Which, REALLY??? I mean, when even GOOGLE has to guess, you know that’s some top secret information. And also, there’s an entire website devoted to celebrity’s heights?

Okay, I’m getting way off topic here, so let me just throw you a picture real quick.

This is a fake building with a door that doesn't open named after Walt's hometown of Marceline, MO. That's also our stroller.

So anyway, back to Disneyland and forced perspective and all, after applying my SRM to the question of Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A. height, Wikipedia told me this:

Buildings along Main Street are built at 3/4 scale on the first level, then 5/8 on the second story, and 1/2 scale on the third—reducing the scale by 1/8 each level up.

And even though I know that Wikipedia is totally the best source for reliable information of any kind, it pretty much makes sense to me.

Although neither Wikipedia nor Google has any information about Main Street’s height in relation to Elijah Wood. Somebody should write a blog entry about that. Or make a whole website. Or just take a picture of Elijah Wood standing on Main Street in Disneyland. Next to Gandalf. Because that would be awesome.

Anyway, there’s a particularly large number of looking-up things in the alley behind the fruit cart by the lockers.

Canned Fruits, Beekeeper Supplies, and Guns. Now that's what I call "one-stop shopping."

Apparently Walt used the upper windows to commemorate his friends or Disney employees or Disney employees who were also his friends, or some other people he would probably be Facebook friends with if he were still alive today, and using the internet at 110 years old. I mean, I think that might even be more awesome than a picture of Elijah Wood and Gandalf on Main Street.

Tangent: I remember a couple of years ago the news did an interview with the oldest woman in the world and when they asked her the secret to her longevity, she said, “Bacon.” Dudes, I’m totally not kidding. And thank God for that, because given the amount of bacon I eat, I’m going to live forever.

But anyway…

More friends of Walt's, I assume. I wonder if the "Stone Mason" carved Walt's head stone, or just the ones in the Haunted Mansion queue.

I think my favorite is the Painless Dentist.

Laughing gas in 1908 from dentists in training? Sign me up!

I like the “S. E. Bitz” name. Is that really someone’s name, or a play on “Yes, he bites”? Seriously, if you know the answer, leave me a comment.

You can also buy a bicycle.

This window is one of the few with an actual colored picture.

At first I thought “Wow, renting a bicycle at Disneyland would be kind of cool,” and then I immediately thought, “Wow, renting a bicycle at Disneyland would be a freakin’ nightmare!”

Still cute, though

And here’s another interesting one. That’s all I can think of to say about this.

This is a private investigator and a "I really should take notes because I can't read it from my picture and I don't remember what it says a week later"

I think I’ll make looking up one of my new hobbies. When I’m not riding my bicycle down Main Street.

*Edited to add–a reader let me know that according to imdb.com, Elijah Wood is indeed 5’6″. But I still want to see him standing on Main Street with Gandalf.

Everything Else, Main Street , ,

Fruit Cart, Lockers, and a Surprise!

11 Comments Posted by on April 20, 2011

Main Street, U.S.A. is supposed to be a replica of a typical Midwestern main street in 1908.

About halfway down Main Street you get to the lockers, which are set back from the regular street by an entrance that is more or less blocked by a fruit cart.

The lockers are cleverly hidden by this 1908-reproduction fruit cart

I’ve always found the fruit cart to be quite interesting. I mean, obviously Disneyland put them in in response to guests asking for more healthy options, but wow

I'm pretty sure you could have purchased an entire pear tree for $1.79 back in 1908. Partridge not included.

Like okay, I know that food and stuff in the park is excessive, and I’m okay with excessive, but this just seems excessively excessive to me. I mean, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere, and for me, that line is $1.79 for a banana. Particularly since there’s a Vons grocery store 2 miles away where you can get this:

69 cents a pound

And not like I’m the person who’s all “save a ton of money by buying all of your lunches beforehand” when it’s terribly inconvenient to do so (even though you can), but if you don’t want to pay $1.79 for a banana, here you go:

Alternately, Vons delivers

There are also other foods on the fruit cart.

Shockingly, Vons has these for cheaper too

Moving past the fruit cart into what I can only assume is supposed to be an alley, you reach the lockers.

Main streets in 1908 were not known for their lockers, but one does what one can, I suppose

Also that’s a key in the lock above the doorway. How cute!

You can actually pay for your locker by credit card. Gone are the days when you just shoved your quarters into the locker’s door and then pulled out your key attached to a safety pin and hoped to God you didn’t lose it. Now it’s all high tech.

It's not an ATM, it's a locker machine

And in a very un-Disney-like fashion, the lockers actually look like a prison.

It's a mini-San Quentin for all of your stuff-holding needs

You can also find these quaint, old-fashioned things:

Yes, kiddies--these are called "pay phones." Go ask Grandma how they work.

I really never realized that there is a complete dearth of pay phones these days until a friend of mine was visiting from another country and did not have a cell phone and had to call me from pay phones to arrange a get-together.

I’m sure one day these will be replaced, like with some kind of electric visor you put over your head and then you just think about the person you’d like to call and it dials them directly. Until then, bring your quarters.

And here’s where we get to the surprise. Right next to the lockers is an ice cream window!

Well hello, delicious frozen treat vendor! Fancy meeting you here!

File that one under “things I never knew existed.”

I'll come and see you when you're open

Basically all of the buildings back here are fake with false fronts, so it never occurred to me that there might be a real, functioning thing here. Particularly since I have no need to put my stuff in jail a locker.

Surprise!

Main Street, Stuff To Eat, Things I've Never Seen Before , ,

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