The Happiest Potties on Earth.

Toiletaanduidingen in De Efteling.

Disneyland cast members held hostage during Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl premiere.

Mr. Gone Gasser used to be the only entertaining thing at alt.disney.disneyland, and then he left, the fink.

Alt.disney.disneyland is where the Imaginerds and Passholes hang out. It is way scary.

Proteinspill.com is a forum for Walt Disney World cast members, but it's neither very populated nor very frequently updated. I did like these Speedway Haiku though.

(Note: "Protein Spill" is DisneySpeak for vomit. Other phrases here, my favorite being “Overwhelmed by the Magic” -- meaning “Lost”.)

This album...



...has the funniest comedy routine about an amusement park ever recorded, Bé-Bé's Kids (To Disneyland).

It was so good, that someone made it into an animated movie with Disneyland thinly disguised as "Fun World". ("Please familiarize and observe the rules while in Fun World. No running, no jumping, no yelling, no cutting in line, no grumbling, no stealing. That means you. No breaking things and putting them back like nothing happened. No sad faces, bad attitudes, introspective moments, irritation at the mindless happiness of the masses, and--no littering. Is that clear? Enjoy your stay.") While the movie couldn't possibly measure up to the vulgar hilarity of the original Robin Harris routine (at least partly because Harris died before the movie went into production, and someone named Faizon Love did his voice), it was still pretty good, and got decent reviews. You can watch a two short clips here.

Then it got made into a video game that nobody liked.

The original Imagineers, Messmore & Damon.

Paris, 2003.

Paris, 1900.

Dollywood è parco di divertimento favorito di Laurie Anderson.

The Extinct Attractions Club has DVDs of Lost Disneylantis.

(UPDATED 8/17/03 -- CAVEAT EMPTOR: You might want to read this and this and this before you send EAC any money. Danny's Land apologizes if anyone got burnt after following our link.)

The terror that is Maynard !

The results of this poll may not be scientific, but they beg the question, who is Jeff?

Who is your least favorite employee? [547 responses]

Maynard - Haunted Mansion (170) 31%
Maynard - Astro Orbiter (48) 9%
Maynard - Jungle Cruise (42) 8%
Maynard - Honey I Shrunk the Audience (30) 5%
Maynard - Indiana Jones (22) 4%
Jeff from Innoventions (235) 43%

I have been Maynard'ed twice: once on the opening day of Indiana Jones: Temple of the Forbidden Eye, when he was running around the queue acting like a jackass, and once around Halloween in The Haunted Mansion. Both times ruined the mood of the show.

Beloved by His Fellow Cast Members: I recall a very droll Jungle Cruise skipper who got to the end of the ride and thanked us all, saying, "If you liked me, my name is Bill, and I usually work right here on the Jungle Cruise. If you didn't like me, my name is Maynard, and I usually work at The Haunted Mansion." I had to explain the joke to my date.

I am so glad I never got Maynard as a Jungle Cruise skipper...

Then again, some people think Maynard is the shit. People who buy WWWD pins...

UPDATE 06/29/04: Maynard's Homepage is now defunct and it's not on archive.org's Wayback Machine because, "...access to http://maynardhomepage.com has been blocked by the site owner."

A nice little paper model of an amusement park. You know, for kids!

A somewhat more complex model of mad King Ludwig's castle, upon which the Disneyland castle is based.

You need Adobe Acrobat with Japanese characters to make those links work. Once you have that, go back and click on the floppy disk.

Skip the bother and skip the fuss,
(HONK HONK)
Take a public service bus,
Public service sure is great,
It takes you right up to the gate !

Defunct Parks is a database of... er... defunct amusement parks.

An amateur film of Boy Scouts at Disneyland in the early 1960s here. I love the Prelinger Archives!

“Last remaining Club 55 employee retires, gets stupid Silver Pass.”

(Thanks to Chris G for the link.)

Laff in the Dark features articles on old dark rides. Once you get past the visually busy splash page, most of the individual articles have a very nice gaudy Art Deco feel -- here's one example.

A great fan site for Disneyland's Adventure thru Inner Space is Atommobiles.com. Check out his ongoing project to reproduce the ride in computer animation.

For a little real-world re-creation, check out this ATIS diorama.

Six hours of amateur movies of the 1939 New York World's Fair here. Damn!

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a sci-fi novel set at Walt Disney World, with lots of internacine struggles and intrigue among Imagineers. You can download it for free if you're curious.

Minsk World is an amusement park built in a decommissioned Russian aircraft carrier. My favorite quote on this page, "Oddly enough each shuttle ride had the name 'Challenger' stenciled on the side."

(You would think they might have stenciled MIR on 'em.)

My pal Ian keeps me informed of the Ride Theoretical doings in England. One effort he supports is the Save Dreamland campaign, to preserve the amusement park in his hometown. Here are two articles he's written for the Guardian newspaper, the first about the Margate roller coaster being officially listed as a historical building, and the second, an interview with controversial artist Tracey Emin, conducted in her old Margate stomping grounds.

What Would Walt Do?

The WWWD? campaign is a way for fans to reward Disney employees for good service by giving them a cheap pin. Imaginerds love pins.

WWWD? is particularly funny, not just because of the obvious reference to WWJD?, but because in the period between Walt Disney's death until around when Eisner took over, the company was hobbled by an attitude insiders called "What would Walt have done?" They were all trying to please a dead guy, and as a result, we got godawful stuff like America Sings.

The Roller Coaster Database contains statistics on 2260 roller coasters from 924 parks located in 70 countries. You can even search by location and distance. Ghostrider is 843 miles away (161° South by Southeast), and the Cyclone is 2443 miles (80° East) from me.

(Oops, now they can triangulate my location!)

Lost Disneylantis at...

...Yesterland!

Great Moments in Animatronics History
(that never happened)

1982: Andy Warhol: A No Man Show.

(Another Danny's Land post on the subject here.)

Goat Riders in the Sky: The same level of fannish devotion that Disneyland geeks display for The Haunted Mansion is reflected in Holland by fans of the De Efteling amusement park attraction Villa Volta. The show is a "haunted swing" illusion, which creates the impression that the spectator is spinning upside down when it's actually the room that spins.

The backstory: Hugo van den Loonsche Duynen was an 18th century Dutch robber who terrorized the countryside with the Bokkeryders, or Goat Riders. (People were smaller in those days. Or maybe goats were bigger.) One night, he decided to rob an Abbey, when a ghostly woman appeared and put a curse on him. When he returned home, there was a new addition to the roof of his house: a sculpture of the woman with her arms spinning. Now he is condemned to live in the house which constantly turns until someone of pure heart enters. (Which apparently hasn't happened yet, though the show has been open quite a few years now.)

The Villa Volta Website has a lot of information in the Dutch version, and they promise an English version soon. You'll find video in the Dutch version, under the "Attractiefilmpjes" link, but no Mac versions, dang it!

Some Haunted Mansion fan pages:
Doombuggies.com is the most comprehensive, with irksome "Look At ME!" graphics and web design.
Arooo, focused on the Disneyland Paris Phantom Manor, with great sound files.
Better Haunts and Graveyards.
Ravenswood Manor, again focusing on Phantom Manor. Elegant design.
Video from Haunted Mansion Holiday, the Haunted Mansion / Nightmare Before Christmas crossover.

More to follow. I got a million of 'em.

Thunderpig is a hot rod (kinda) built out of a 1947 Dodgem bumper car. It'll soon be available as a resin model kit