Greetings and Salutations!
There's a new game in town

and it's called "Toy Story Midway Mania" over at
Disney's California Adventure. The "grand opening" event will be next Tuesday morning, but
I was lucky enough to have been invited by one of my very good friends to experience the ride
during the Annual Passholder preview days. You had to register in a drawing for an invitation, and
while I registered, my name was not chosen. Well, "I've always relied on the kindness of strangers"
and friends...

So it was with great anticipation that I headed to the parks this past Monday morning. I was so excited,
I got there early! So I went on in to Disneyland's Main Street area just to see if they'd bulldozed any
of the buildings, and to see if the castle was still standing after my long absence (it's a long, sad story
that's still unfolding ).

Here's who I saw...

The lovely Queen of Hearts, ready to chop off some heads

Alice and the Mad Hatter always enjoying each other's company. This Alice has been around for some
time and she's gotten quite good at ad libbing and being ever so gentle and kind to little children.

I've also seen this Cruella De Ville in the parks for a while now, too. I don't think I've ever seen anyone
quite get the true essence of either the animated or live action (Glen Close) Cruellas. I suppose they
can't be TOO rotten in the parks or folks would complain, but still.

I don't intend to complain about this actor's portrayal of Cruella. She's as good as any I've ever seen.
It's just that she's really not close to the over-the-top manic (perhaps even Bi-Polar) Cruella's we
all know and love to hate.

Main Street is looking pretty stinking busy, but the park just opened up about 20 minutes before
I arrived, and you'd expect this many people on Main Street ANY day just a short while after Disney
starts letting people into the park.

I had to meet my friends over in the Picnic area, but realized I didn't have a desktop of the Tinkerbell
that stands over the Mickey floral piece at the entryway to Disneyland. I thought it'd make a good
desktop, but I removed the wires that protrude out of the end of her wand to clean the image up a bit.

Let me ask you.... why does Tinkerbell need a wand?

I suppose if the Fairy Godmother needed a wand, Tinkerbell should get one too.

I just never thought that bit through before.

Over in California Adventure now, I noticed the cactus along the rocks of Condor Flats were blooming.
I was hoping for something more spectacular, but these are ok.

I think if they're still around next week when I am there for the grand opening ceremonies of the ride,
I'll try a different F-stop on my camera to get the rocks into focus behind the flowers. There's a good
flower shot there somewhere, I can just feel it. Unfortunately, I just didn't TAKE it.

Over in the entryway to Bountiful Harvest Farms, there are always plenty of flowers and trees to shoot.
Our little group of five had four amateur photographers and flower lovers in it, so we just kinda lost
ourselves for a bit.

Dew or Sprinklers, flowers with water on 'em sure are pretty!

I love this shot! The needles of the pine tree just make this crazy kinetic statement to the photo.
The tiny pine cone buds signify "new life" and "Spring" to me.

And you can never go wrong shooting a picture of a daisy with some water droplets on it.

My friends Don (who invited me) and Jeff give their approval for FINALLY heading over to the boardwalk
area to the main attraction for the day .

There it is! Tucked underneath "California Screamin'".
Toy Story Midway Mania!

The quintessential, oft-taken shot of the runway for California Screamin' with
the Sun Wheel in the background. How many times has this shot been taken?

How many times have I taken this shot?

It was pretty evident that Disney's totally ready for some MASSIVE crowds this summer. There is even
extended (and covered!) queue area along the railing of the lagoon in front of the ride building.

Don't forget it was only a year ago that "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage" opened up and had four
hour lines (and longer) when it first opened. I think Disney is expecting something like that here.

I honestly hope they'll have some sun covering for the poor folks on this side of the queue too though!
It's going to get hot this summer!

This area is set up like a toy box with an electronic Mr. Potato Head in it. You don't see in this picture
the big red button on the top right that says "Push here to try!"... the idea is that

YOU

ARE

A

TOY!!!
(size)

Mr. Potato Head tells corny jokes and interacts (somewhat) with the crowd standing in the Queue.
He even may pull off his ear!

This is the "back" of Mr. Potato Head's box.

Here's the actual entrance to the ride, and an empty ride vehicle.

I want to advise future guests that it is VERY important to read the signs that are in
the queue. It's very easy to ignore them as just more decoration, but they actually tell
you what's going to be coming in the ride, and what to expect... even strategies for
how to play!

There was some kids board game back in the 60's or 70's that was comprised of
little midway games that you had to compete to win the game. It was sort of in the
vein of "Mouse Trap". I can't for the life of me think of the name of it, but these posters
really remind me of that game.


THANKS TO READER DAVE CASTRO FOR EMAILING ME THE NAME OF THE GAME
I WAS LOOKING FOR:

I thought it was based on a TV show, but wasn't sure of myself enough to include that info.
Turns out it WAS based on a TV game show!

anywho, now that that's settled...

Notice that even though it's a VIRTUAL game, they still only use "sticky darts".

They're my friends.

No one else would claim 'em.

Uh, didn't they think about what this might mean to British guests?
I can hear the childish snickering now.

Expect a name change in the coming weeks.

Shooting eggs at targets!

Notice the little Woody on the left. He was a cutie!

Your "gun" shoots baseballs and you get to break your mom's dishes!

Here's our little buckaroo entertainer again. This is one of those really important signs to read, though.

a quick commercial break:

After donating, you will receive a "Thank You" email from me with the link to a special

"thank you" download page

I thought about bringing my Captain EO glasses that I have somewhere... but that'd just be too dorky.

The control board for the ride.

ooooooh... technical stuff that we're not supposed to notice.
I love the map of the ride on it!

But who could follow those squiggly lines?

It's worse than "Family Circus" in the Sunday comics!

I gotta start holding my hand steadier when I'm sneaking these pictures.

This is the largest mural painted by imagineers since the opening of DCA.

This is what the ride vehicle looks like, and what YOU look like when you've got your 3D glasses on
and you are behind the "gun".

It's little wonder they do NOT offer an in-ride photo at the end of the attraction. Everyone pretty
much looks dorky in these glasses, and I don't know how many photos they'd sell!

Looks like the green gun here is tagged for being non-functional.
I didn't take a decent photo of the attraction's "spring action shooters", so I'll just blow up the yellow
shooter in the next photo.

You see the dangling string with the wooden ball at the end? Pulling on that is how you fire your shooter.
The quicker you pull and release, the faster the eggs, rings, baseballs, etc appear to fire out of your
shooter on the screen.

Understand that NOTHING actually comes out of the end of the shooter. It is all displayed on the huge
projection screen in front of you on the ride.

So we finally enter the attraction!

Everything is scaled here like you've shrunken to toy size.

Whoops... gotta' get your 3d glasses on, or else everything looks like this!

***note***
I was really worried because (as some of you who have met me may have guessed) I only have
one good eye, and generally 3d shows don't work for me. I don't even SEE in 3d in real life!
But this is different than the old "One blue line, one red line" 3d, and with the glasses on,
I completely forgot that this was anything different than a video projection screen.
It still wasn't 3D for me obviously, but it was still nice and clear.

So for those of you with one working eye, have no fear. This is still a great ride and will work for you.

Now I'm going to post a couple of artist conceptions of the rides that were distributed by
Disney's media folks as far back as a couple years ago...

Not only does this ride look dangerous, but probably pretty messy.

This later one, rendered on a computer, is only marginally better.

I mean, you get the impression that the darts aren't real... but then again, you don't really "get"
that there aren't really balloons in front of you to pop either.

At least the riders are obviously wearing 3D glasses (at least it's obvious if you've ever done
any kind of 3D attraction before in your life).

I do not fault Disney at all in falling short in conveying what the ride is actually like. First you want
to leave some mystery to the ride in order to build up a level of interest and hype. Secondly, it would
be almost impossible at the stage of the design that these images were released to come close to what
it really looks like and what riders are actually experiencing in the attraction.

What happens is you look more like this:

Sitting in front of a projection TV screen shooting a fake gun at targets.
It doesn't sound that much different than the classic nintendo game "Duck Hunt", does it?
I mean, many of my readers may be wondering what "Duck Hunt" is, it's so old!

But "TSM" as it's being abbreviated is really MUCH MUCH better than that old Nintendo game, and
is MUCH MUCH more fun.

So I totally understand why Disney's conceptual art falls "flat"... because even the photo falls flat.
I enjoyed this ride tremendously, as did all my friends, and not once did the words
"Duck Hunt" come up in conversation as we were discussing it.

One of the things I really like about the ride, and will greatly increase the ride's guest-per-hour quota, is
that the vehicles are double sided. So what happens is a vehicle goes down the track you see in this
picture above (no hidden tracks in California yet... like Tokyo Disney's "Pooh" ride) and enter's an
alley. The whole time you are approaching the alley, the vehicle is turning and twisting crazily all on it's own.
But as soon as you get to your spot in the alley, or shooting gallery, the vehicle stops turning at the point
so that each side is facing a screen on either side of the vehicle. Then the vehicle stops completely! That's
right, the vehicle stops the whole time that you are playing the shooting game. Completely unlike
the "Buzz Lightyear" ride where you are trying to aim at moving targets as you yourself are moving.

This gives you a good example of what it's like.

Then as the game ends, you careen off crazily spinning around again...

until you get to the next alley and the next midway game...

(normally these balloons would have amounts on them, but I took the picture during a
moment where the game ended, but the ride vehicle isn't cleared to move to the next station of the ride,
so the computers give you a free target practice, but you don't get any points (thus the "practice" part).

Here's a desktop of the ride that contributors thru the Paypal buttons here will receive as a "thank you".
Notice the child's drawings and such on the wall. Remember, you're in Andy's room!

...and the second desktop that contributors will get to choose from:

The theming is quite wonderful and chaotic and kinetic and all those other over-the-top words.

I wish they had used an older style Crayola box, but "Toy Story" is set in a pretty contemporary time
period, so this more modern crayon box would be appropriate. Small gripe, I freely admit.

I liked this game the best just for the destruction factor. Smashing plates is fun!

Buzz's "toss ers" (shudder) is probably the more difficult of the games.

I'd love to be able to ride the ride enough times to count how many different copy written games and
toys are in this ride! Disney must really have worked to get the okay to use these... "Twister",
"Hands Down", "Crayola", "Candyland"...

My kids outgrew this game way too fast.
But they won't outgrow "Toy Story Midway Mania" for years to come!

Old fashioned shooting gallery with Woody and Jesse

and then Stinky Pete the miner sends out mine carts to shoot at... again this photo was taken
when the ride vehicle was waiting to move on to the last station, so the points are all set to zero.

You get to see your tally on the big screen!

and it's also displayed on the screen in your ride vehicle... as well as your accuracy percentage.

My friends lulling me into a sense of complacency by telling me what they think of the ride...

only to shoot me down like the cold hearted varmints they really are!

There is a stairway in order to exit the ride. You get this last look though if you turn around as you exit.

Here's the room where Andy would have started setting up the midway mania game

Disney storytelling goes:
"Soon after Andy got a “Midway Games Play Set” for his birthday, the toys jumped at their first chance to open the box and set up the game booths and carnival trams so everyone could ride and play."

Why the ride is set in Andy's room, but the Midway Mania box is set in a Den/office... well I don't know.
Why there's a victorian age "Mary Poppins" style hat and umbrella near the desk, well I don't know
either. This whole thing isn't anywhere near where the movies were set.

I would have been far more excited to see a recreation of Andy's room up here... right down to the window
overlooking Sid's backyard.

oh well. 

OH!
Guess what!

The exit dumps you right into a Midway Mania gift shop!

I'm pretty sure these are a new toy created for the ride's shop.

But there was also an "Adventureland" game as well as the standard "Buzz Lightyear" toys that you'd
find in the exit shop of "Astroblasters" over at Tomorrowland.

My friend Jeff just can't get over the whole "shoot 'em up" thing.

He even has a little Woody hat

Just a quick note as I wrap up this update... Over in the Pacific Wharf area:

The Hi Seoul/Korea Troupe has their ONLY U.S. stop at Disney's California Adventure.

It's supposed to be a big deal, according to Disney, but a Google search came up with nothing for them
other than other Disneyland websites mentioning the appearance here.

They were playing to a background track, which to me brought them to a level of what you'd see
on the sidewalk along Downtown Disney almost any busy summer night.

Well, I hope that temporarily feeds your need of Toy Story Mania pictures. The grand opening will
be next Tuesday, the 17th, and I will be there! Also the day before, Disney is planning to unveil their
"Innoventions Dream House" on the first floor of the old "Carousel Of Progress" building. Sort of a
new take on the "House Of The Future" concept. That should prove to be interesting as well!

So stick around for more photos, videos, and sounds from the Disneyland Resort, by your
friends at

VISIONSFANTASTIC.COM

and of course, as always...

Love uP!
DaddyB

thanks for anything you can give to help support these updates!

I use an 8 megapixel Canon EOS Rebel XT with the superb Canon 580EX flashgun
and an assortment of fine lenses.