Hey FreeJammers! Freejams? FreeMamas? I don’t know what to call you guys. I’ll workshop it.
Rather than give you your weekly roundup of miscellany, I’m going to take you on a tour of one of my favorite places in the world, and also a place that I’m deeply conflicted about: Disneyland
Disneyland is an important place to me. Unlike a lot of California kids, I don’t have misty memories of going when I was a child. The Great Mouse Land in the South was vastly out of our price range for a family for whom “vacation” meant “camping within 30 miles.” My brother, however, went for his high school senior trip when I was four, and he brought me back a coloring book of the attractions, hidden in an orange paper bag with scenes of Disneyland printed on it.
I savored that bag; I poured over it. I traced each repeated scene. And the coloring book! Words couldn’t describe how enraptured I was by it. Hippos from the Jungle Cruise graced one page; on another, the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse beckoned. I was hooked, from 400 miles away. This place must be heaven, I believed, staring at the pages like Shoeless Joe Jackson in an Iowa cornfield.
When I finally went to Disneyland at the age of 18, all my dreams were bourne out. I rode Space Mountain three times. I jumped into a classmates lap during a scary bit in Pirates of the Caribbean. I wept walking through the Castle. After I moved to LA in 2004, I started going every chance I could. It was the first thing I loved about Southern California, and the most vivid.
Which isn’t to say I wasn’t aware of the catastrophic consequences of the park and its legacy. Throughout the 2000s, I watched as park standards plummeted and employee care went fully out the window. The further we got into the new century, the more blatant the grossest levels of capitalism seemed in the Happiest Place On Earth. When I started going, I met employees who had worked at the park for 40 years and proclaimed such love of the park they wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else. Today, the wages are so poor and working conditions so unpleasant, turnover rates have skyrocketed, and more than 68% are food insecure. 10% of park employees have been homeless in the last two years.
Though certainly not worse than those awful facts of capitalism, another worrying trend hits me right in the places my Disneyland adoration comes from. Since the late 2000s, a passel of managers have come in and made decision after decision based on money over legacy. They’ve demolished beloved landmarks to make way for exclusive VIP experiences, they’ve cut back on live entertainment, maintenance, and employee training. Rides can feature broken animatronics and features for months before their addressed. What set Disneyland apart from the rest of theme parks is its intense commitment to immersion and theme. Watching that getting chipped away at, as a Disneyland purist, is a sad thing.
BUT, because it had many decades of being so beautifully themed, there’s still a lot to love about Disneyland. You all know how cool The Haunted Mansion is and how exciting it is to come face to face with Sleeping Beauty’s castle, but I wanted to take you on a tour beyond those things. Here’s five of my favorite Disneyland details that still make the park (occasionally, when I can afford it) worth the trip to Wonderland.
The Secret Ride
There’s no queue leading into this tiny attraction, just an open door next to a pretty little statue. Most people never even see it when they pass into Fantasyland, and it’s relative emptiness makes it feel like you’ve discovered something special.
But go up the stairs and you’ll find wonderfully rendered dioramas of scenes from Sleeping Beauty, one of the most beautifully animated Disney films ever made.
The dioramas would be one thing, but the space is beautifully rendered with music, sounds, and even a few Easter egg effects (touch the second dungeon door frame for a surprise.) As you pass through a patch of green light at the end, pause a few minutes, to see Malificent’s malevolent shadow loom over you.
The Sleeping Beauty Walkthrough is one of those treasures where it’s hard to feel the rampant commercialism of the park. It’s beautiful because it can be, not because it needs to be to attract crowds.
The Secret Dinosaurs
After being to Disneyland a dozen times, my brother asked me if I liked the dinosaurs. He’s an unsurpressable jokester, so I assumed his was kidding. There’s no dinosaurs in Disneyland. And unless you take the Disney railroad through it’s least-used stretch, from Tomorrowland to Main Street, you’ll never see them either! But buried deep in a tunnel is an incredible diorama of the Grand Canyon, first in modern times, then in, as they boom at you, “THE PRIMEVAL WORLD.”
The dinosaur exhibit was originally built as a World’s Fair exhibit in the 1960s, to show off the incredible capabilities of animatronics. There’s really no reason it still exists, except that it’s wonderful.
There are a million tiny details embedded in the scenes, and you won’t be able to see all the animals in one go, I promise you.
The Secret Ship
Sometimes, Disneyland is so good at creating atmosphere you don’t even realize it’s happening. We all know about the Sailing Ship Columbia and the Mark Twain Riverboat, but did you know that New Orleans Square harbors a third boat? Or part of one? Check out this beautiful video below to find out exactly where to see the hidden ship; you’ll never not see it again!
Tomorrowland At Night
Tomorrowland is a land with problems, namely they can’t decide whether by “Tomorrow” they mean the Jetsons-like dreams of the 60s or the rather bleaker future of today. There’s a confusing, mixed-time-period feeling to the area today, which is now anchored by four bizarrely disparate rides: Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters (okay, an astronaut toy), Star Tours (from a long time ago and far far away??), Autopia (ah, gas guzzling cars of the future if you were in 1902,) and Space Mountain (1970s space travel!)
But at night, oh man. Here’s what you do. Wind your way through the crowds and stand between the giant central tower and Space Mountain. Just stand there. Let the soundscape - which is absolutely beautifully composed “space” music, wash over you.
The kinetic movement of the area is intoxicating. Neon is beaming around you, people are rushing in and out of the line for Space Mountain, To your right, the Astro Orbiter is spinning in a dizzy whirl. For me, this is the place. I recognize the wild, destructive commercialism of Disney, I really do.
But I stand there and think about the Imagineers who thought these details and this atmosphere up, the people who knew it would have this enrapturing effect and made it come to life, and I’m just staggered by the artistry and the empathy.
Disneyland’s Secret Weapon: Lighting
In every single land, lighting is the most under-celebrated vital element to immersion. If you drop generic street lights in a theme park, your theme is doomed. We react to lighting as an expected part of our environment; we often take in the level of light and where it’s coming from without even realizing it. For many people, it’s a throwaway.
But Every.
Light.
In Disneyland.
Is incredible.
These are the details that make Disneyland like no other park in the world, to me. Unique, dramatic, perfectly in theme. You don’t even notice them unless you’re really looking. And then when you look, they are astonishingly beautiful, and you realize you were filtering them into your perspective the entire time.
That one is in a STARBUCKS, for heaven’s sake. The lighting fixtures are really the magic people are talking about when they talk dreamily about Disneyland, in spite of all its troubles.
Commerce is a dicey thing, we all know this. A little makes the world go round, a lot makes problems. And it’s very difficult to separate something like Disneyland from its overwhelming commercial success (especially when one is paying $6 for a churro.)
But commerce has always been the sneaky tunnel of artists, the way they funnel imagination and inspiration into the world, and don’t starve to death on the streets of Rouen. Is the art and artistry of Disneyland inseparable from its questionable multi-billion dollar Money Daddy? Yes. But is that art still breathtaking in its own right, still the thing that carries the legacy of imagination?
Well. I seem to think so.
As always, thanks for reading!