My Year With The Mouse

Have you ever walked around the Disneyland Resort and thought, “Man, I wish I could party like it’s 1999”?

Well you can!

Yep, I’m once again referring to the Mad T Party, as you no doubt deduced from the clever title of this entry and/or have read Mad T Party (Part I) and Mad T Party House of Cards. (the House of Cards entry really should have been Mad T Party Part II, but I’m just full of contradictory continuity errors)

But what makes this part of the Mad T Party most like 1999 is the arcade.

Come on in

It’s like my mother always said–it’s not a party until someone busts out the Skee-Ball machine

My mother didn’t actually say that

Once upon a time, I was very good at Skee-Ball, or as it’s known in Mad T Land, Queen’s Croquet. I’m still decent at it, but in my younger days, I was a Skee-Ball champion of epic proportions.

Like many retired athletes, I peaked too soon.

Anyway, the Mad Arcade is where you want to go when you love the vibe of the Mad T Party but are tired of dancing, or maybe you just have a bunch of quarters weighing you down with a need to play Skee-Ball and win  nothing.

There’s also the Smile Smash, where you shoot balls at the creepy-looking Cheshire Cat

If you can’t get enough of the Lewis Carroll references, here’s a Jabberwocky game

Callooh! Callay!

Shoot the thingies!

The children’s writer in me wants to take a moment to point out that some of what the public has come to believe as a part of the original text of Alice in Wonderland (since I’m being really picky, properly-titled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) is really just Disney’s mishmash of the original book and its follow-up, Through the Looking-Glass (properly-titled Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There) (told you I was picky). Jabberwocky is one of the things found in Looking-Glass but not in Wonderland. Most notably, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are also in Looking-Glass and not Wonderland.

Incidentally, while I’m being snobbish, Tigger was a very minor character in the Winnie the Pooh series. In fact, he didn’t even show up until the second book. His Disney-elevated sense of importance remains a mild irritation to me.

There’s also one of those electronic jump-roping games. I once had a co-worker who was INSANELY good at these.

By this time of the night, my photography skills had started to wane. For example,

I AM AN AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHER!!!

That, like, literally hurts my eyes looking at it.

Did I mention you can also play Sony Kinect?

Because you can.

Outside of the arcade, there are Cast Members in funny outfits

Like this

A snack and drink cart/window/thing

This

And face painting.

This

Here is a picture I took of the projections on one of the walls outside of the Mad Arcade

They move. It’s cool.

So that wraps up my 3-part series of the Mad T Party. If you’re wondering about whether or not the Mad T Party is for you, here’s a handy quiz.

The Mad T Party is for you if:

• You’re in California Adventure and it’s night and you’re looking for something to do.
• You really, really like neon. REALLY like it.
• You love to dance and would love an excuse to dance except you’re old, like too old for clubbing, and all of your friends have gotten married except for the ones who aren’t going to throw big weddings anyway and when else do you get a chance to just dance?
• You like Alice in Wonderland (and Through the Looking-Glass)
• You own a pair of Glow with the Show mouse ears and want to hang out somewhere they actually do something
• You’re thirsty and the idea of drinking alcohol inside a Disney park is so appealing you’ll pay a LOT of money to do it
• You wanna wanna wanna have fun fun fun!