My Month in Movies - October Wrap Up

After cramming 30 movies into as many days in September, I cooled off from the flicks quite a bit this past month. First, there was the 11 days we were on vacation followed by an exhausting experience with some contractors we hired to do some work on our kitchen. Long story short: I only got to 10 films in October - and I didn't do too many Halloween or scary pictures as I would have hoped to. In fact, the majority of my film watching last month was made up of Disney movies.

I stocked up on quite a bit of Disney this month. Some of it in preparation for going to Walt Disney World, others trying to hold on to that Disney Magic after we returned to the "real world". My kids and I watched a bunch of classics. Lady and the Tramp (1955) is one of our families favorites. We ate at Tony's Town Square Restaurant in the Magic Kingdom, which is inspired by the eatery in the film, so this was some prep work to get the kids excited about going to the restaurant. It certainly enhanced our visit, having just seen the movie.

 

Dumbo (1941) is one of my personal favorites, short and sweet at 64 minutes - it's alot of fun for such a quick movie. I wanted the kids to see this because so much of the new revamped New Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom takes it cue from the circus theme of Dumbo. The classic Dumbo ride has recently been enhanced as well as the addition of a Casey Jr. water playground and a Dumbo gift shop. Great movie!

 

We watched Alice in Wonderland (1951) which was never one of my favorites, but it's certainly grown on me over the last few years. Perhaps in comparison to the dark Tim Burton take on the tale, I find this cheerful and silly Walt Disney version quite enjoyable now.

 

And my kids didn't have to ask twice the night they suggested we watch The Little Mermaid (1989), one of my all-time favorite movies. Having had the Mermaid shoved down their throats for a week at Disney World, it wasn't surprising they wanted to see it again. Plus, that night we had just come back from a costume party where I was dressed as Ariel's father - King Triton. I looked pretty good if I do say so myself.

 

Without the kids, I watched So Dear To My Heart (1948) which is just about the most obscure animated film in the Disney library. A story about a young boy at the turn of the century who dreams of raising a prize winning sheep for the county fair. It's a mix of live action and animation, similar to Song Of The South which came out a few years earlier. There are no classic Disney characters to be found in this film, just a ditty called Lavender Blue, which had become somewhat of a Disney standard nowadays. It's good nostalgic entertainment even if it's not nearly one of Disney's best. It is said to have been Walt Disney's personal favorite.

 

Two more I watched without the kids, the creepy and well-done The Watcher in the Woods (1980). Disney's only foray into horror, this came out a time when the directionless Disney Studios was really trying to figure out they were going to fit into the changing landscape of movies. There's some genuine scares tucked in this picture along with alot of creepiness. For someone who doesn't like horror movie, I really enjoyed it.

 

As always, I also enjoyed Disney's The Million Dollar Duck (1971). You can't go wrong with a madcap comedy about the Federal Reserve chasing after a kid and a duck that lays golden eggs!

 

Another Disney World prep film the kids and I watched was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). My little guys had never seen the original, which I remembered as being much better than the other films in the series. However, after seeing it again for the first time in at least 7 years - it's pretty much just as boring as the other three except for a few references to the Disneyland attraction it's based on.

 

And the only two non-Disney movie I saw in October were: L!fe Happens (2011), a horrible comedy about a girl trying to raise a kid on her own while all her friends keep partying and living the single lifestyle. It stars Kristen Ritter and Kate Bosworth, both who I really like alot, but this direct-to-everything-but-a-movie-theater film was a real bore! The Magic of Belle Isle (2012) is another movie that seems to have bypassed theaters, however it is a really nice little movie about a slightly odd-relationship between older than dirt Morgan Freeman and 50 year old Virginia Madisen and her daughters. The nice surprise is it's a well-told, mature story that is done without anything inappropriate for children to watch. It's a bit over the top in the sappy department, but it's worth a watch!

 

 

 

October Movie Count: 10

Best New Movie: The Watcher In The Woods

Worst New Movie: L!fe Happens

Best Rewatch: The Little Mermaid

2012 Movie Count: 201

 

 

Photo: Ke$ha at Walt Disney World

Ke$ha at Disney World
( GENE DUNCAN, THE WALT DISNEY CO. / April 21, 2011 )
Pop singer Kesha Sebert, known professionally as Ke$ha, poses with the White Rabbit from "Alice in Wonderland" at Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista.

Classic Commercial Sunday in Wonderland

Mickey in Wonderland

From 1936...

Jersey Wonderland

Last summer I shared quite a few pictures from my trip to Storybook Land in Egg Harbor Township, NJ. I did a post about the park in general, which you can read here. I also did a separate article on Storybook Land's really neat Alice In Wonderland walk-through attraction, which you can revisit by clicking here. Today I'm including a handful of pictures that I took but didn't use in my original post. The picture on the right is a shot of the "underground" portion of the Alice in Wonderland attraction. This igloo-like tunnel if fairly visible from within the park, but you don't really notice it when entering the Alice attraction from it's entrance.

Recently, Storybook Land added a Tea Cups ride which they installed directly across from their Alice in Wonderland walk-through. The park has themed the mini-area into a Wonderland of it's own. Here's the funky caterpillar sitting atop his mushroom in the gardens surrounding the Tea Cups ride.

In the Alice attraction, kids slide down the rabbit hole via a sliding board. As you can see from the art work on the wall, Disney's Alice movie was a HEAVY influence on this show.

More Disney "inspired" artwork...

Here's an additional shot of the elaborate card maze that serves as the exit to the underground walking experience.

And finally, a shot of my kids getting off the Tea Cups ride. The ride is a pretty standard model Tea Cup ride, but the park has decorated nicely to fit in with the Alice theme.

As I said last summer, Storybook Land is a true hidden jem! You would do you and your family a favor by making plans to visit this summer. Their 2010 season begins March 27!

Hanna-Barbera in Wonderland

Now, I wouldn't have done an Alice in Wonderland week here at WWoB if we couldn't find some way of working The Flintstones into the picture - so today we present the television special Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This. Hanna-Barbera produced this 1966 ABC special that presented an animated retelling of Lewis Carroll's story. This time, instead of falling down a rabbit hole, Alice takes a tumble into her TV set and meets Sammy Davis' Cheshire Cat and Zsa Zsa Gabor's Queen of Hearts. Janet Waldo provided the voice of Alice, you'd probably recognize her voice as Judy Jetson...and a million other Hanna-Barbera female characters.

Making a guest appearance on the program were Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble - together taking on the role of the caterpillar, after all in this production it's a two headed caterpillar! Fred and Barney perform the musical number "They'll Never Tear Us Apart".

It appears the show has never surfaced on VHS or DVD, making it perhaps an ideal candidate for Warner Bros. new Archives Collection DVD-R service.

Here's the very groovy opening and closing segments along with the original sponsors...

Enchanted Wonderland

Today, another theme park attraction based on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This one is gone, but not forgotten!
The super awesome Enchanted Forest, which I grew up just down the road from, was also home to a unique Alice in Wonderland ride. The Teacup Ride - as it was officially called - is pictured above. The photo was in the parks brochure along with the description: See how the adventurous Alice in Wonderland becomes ensnarled in her many fabulous adventures deep underground. Visit this subterranean fairyland when riding the Teacup Ride to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party and into the Court of the Queen of Hearts.

The Teacup Ride was essentially a train pulled by a giant teapot. Guests could sit in oversized teacups or there were also benches available for those who couldn't handle the thrill of sitting in a big cup. The tea party train would take a brief trip through the park before entering a dark tunnel. Eventually, the train would stop and guests would disembark the train and follow the story of Alice in Wonderland through a walking tour.

The walking portion of the attraction featured scenes from the story recreated in huge three dimensional dioramas. Some of the scenes you would walk right through. There were other portions where you traveled through tight cave corridors and along bridges through cavern like scenes. I remember walking through the courtroom scene which was both scary and intimidating for a kid. The huge card soldiers stood on both sides of you, and the wicked Queen of Hearts was staring down at you above the room's exit. The day-glow lighting and musty, creepy atmosphere probably didn't help things either! In all honesty, this attraction (along with a few others in the park) down right scared me and I can remember skipping it on a few visits.

The ride closed before the rest of the park met it's fate. The Teacup Ride did not pass safety inspections and was closed for the 1994 season. Most of the figures from inside the ride are lost but pieces of the Teacup Train have been restored and are now a part of Clark's Elioak Farm.

Here's a recent photo of my boys and I sitting in one of the Teacups from the ride:

And here's the Teapot, which housed the engine and the driver:
Both of these are part of The Enchanted Forest Maze attraction at the farm.

And finally, here a wonderful photograph of the teacups sitting in the closed park deteriorating. This photo was taken in 2005, shortly before or right around the time the Enchanted Forest was starting to be saved:

Reference and Photo Collage credit: Nan Sherman's Websites America
Also read: The Enchanted Forest Saga and Riding Through Wonderland.

Riding Through Wonderland

There's a big new Alice in Wonderland movie coming out this weekend. My son is really looking forward to it and I'll probably take him to see it. But besides the 1951 Walt Disney movie, I wouldn't really consider myself a fan of Wonderland. However, I did come up with enough Wonderland related ideas to hold our first theme week here at WWoB.

When it comes to amusement park rides, Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Mad Tea Party ride has been duplicated so many times at other parks, that the term "Teacups" is most often used to describe the ride at any park. At the Disney parks, the popular Scrambler ride was built with cars resembling tea cups and the whole ride was given an Alice in Wonderland theme using the Mad Hatter's Tea Party scene as it's inspiration. East Coasters who have only ever been to Disney's Florida park might be surprised to know that in Disneyland Alice is also the star a very cool dark ride.

The Alice in Wonderland ride is similar to other rides in Fantasyland but for some reason I think of all the Disney storytelling dark rides, Alice in Wonderland really hits the nail on the head! Here's a YouTube video of the ride...as with all ride videos, this video isn't perfect. These rides were built to experience first hand, but the clip does give you a feel for what the ride it like:



While searching for this video I found out about another Alice in Wonderland ride. This one stands at Pleasure Beach Blackpool in England. According to whoever posted this next video, the ride was built in 1961 by the Arrow Dynamics Company after a licencing agreement with Walt Disney Productions. I don't know if that's true or not. The Alice in Wonderland story is in the public domain, and this British ride doesn't seem to borrow much from the Disney film, actually the song playing in the ride sounds an awful lot like "I've Got a Golden Ticket" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. (???)

Again, this is an amature video - and half of it is out of focus, but it's neat to see a glimpse into this other Wonderland attraction.