I missed out on a lot of news and opportunities to post lately but I just have trouble finding the motivation most of the time. For some reason death is always a motivating factor to do stuff. The death of a family member to a heart attack makes us want to improve our health, until we remember how much we really like bacon wrapped around things and deep fried pastries. Friends passing on without reaching their dreams makes us want to go back to school, start a business (or at the very least, hit on the new widow). Or in the case of this blog I get motivated to write when someone I admired for years loses their battle with disease, time or tasty Mr Gunbarrel. I've had plenty of chances this year. The great Paul Newman added his name this week, an actor who was easy to admire and talented beyond reason.

Newman entered my consciousness as a kid in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". He was an actor I always liked but never truly respected until he starred with Tom Cruise in Martin Scorsese's "The Color of Money". There, playing "Fast" Eddie Felson, a character he originated in "The Hustler", Newman was at home. Felson was a career triumph that earned him an Oscar and along with Newman's "Nobody's Fool" is one of my all-time favorite films. If you want to know more trivia about him, plenty of people have written obituaries. If you really want to know more about who he was as an actor, watch his films.

Recommended:

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - 1958

The Hustler - 1961

Cool Hand Luke - 1967

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - 1969

The Sting - 1973

Slap Shot - 1977

Fort Apache the Bronx - 1981

The Verdict - 1982

Harry and Son - 1984

The Color of Money - 1986

Fat Man and Little Boy - 1989

Nobody's Fool - 1994

Twilight - 1998

Road to Perdition - 2002

Cars - 2006

There were plenty of others so far this year, three I mentioned before.

George Carlin, an awe-inspiring figure in stand-up comedy circles and hero to doubters of faith like me. I posted a quick note about him after his death, followed by a 9 paragraph eulogy that this blog service accidentaly erased. (Grrrrrr)

Roy Scheider and Stan Winston, two men from similar backgrounds who found a life in genre pictures (one as an actor and one behind the scenes) and a special place in the life of tiny movie geek me.

...and one I didn't

Heath Ledger. You can say The Dark Knight is overrated (you are wrong). You can say it never would have made so much money without the circus of his death (you may be right). You can say his death was his own fault (no excuses made for him here). You can say all that and more but no-one will convince me that the character of the Joker was ever played better or likely ever will be. Jonathan and Christopher Nolan wrote a character that few could flesh out in such a believably enthralling maniac. His Joker is part cult leader, part "agent of chaos" and impossible not to watch. That he was able to create a persona so unlike anything we had ever seen from him (or even imagined he was capable of) is a credit to his talent and makes one wonder what else we might have seen.

Lastly, the death of my company name is detailed a bit below. The three of you that read this blog will be relieved to know it won't affect anything here. I'll still go on, posting every three months or so, don't worry.

Atomic Monkey Films

Four years ago I started this little thing called Atomic Monkey Films with a video I made for my family about our trip to Alaska. While editing the vacation footage together I started to joke with a friend about what my "big Hollywood production company" name should be. The name was picked because it sounded funny and was quirky enough to almost resemble a real business. When I was registering this domain I found that, as often happens in a country of 300 million, a business with an almost identical name existed. I considered changing the name but couldn't fathom anyone would care much considering our distance apart and the fact that we sold completely unrelated products to equally unrelated customers.

You can probably guess that I'm writing this because someone decided to care. Legal council for said company has informed me that I am the little fish and I can give up the name and the site to the big fish or wind up gasping for air on the dock. I'd prefer to fight, but just don't have the means and I'm sure they are counting on that. So at the end of this year the site will be theirs and AMF will be called something else. It's not something I look forward to. Most customers are more familiar with the name of our DVD series than our company name, but I've become attached to it. My family and friends talk about it and the title page is still used when I make videos for them.

It's a bummer to lose a bit more innocence every day but that is the world we live in. Some just make it their profession to take it from you.

Randall - owner of "?"

George Carlin 5/12/1937 - 6/22/2008

To bummed to write much about this now. Maybe later...

News link.

The Winston Effect

Creature artist Stan Winston passed away June 15th after an long battle with multiple myeloma. In a career spanning nearly four decades, Winston was a make-up designer, special effects artist, director, producer and overall master of his profession, a creature creator. In his own words "I don't do special effects. I do characters. I do creatures."

He worked in TV, Film and amusement park attractions and had a hand in some of the most groundbreaking and influential movies in history. He was, like Rick Baker, Dick Smith and George Lucas' ILM, a brand name. Films could be promoted in movie geek circles based on his involvement alone and he always raised the bar for projects he was involved with.

Like many I was aware of his work before I knew who he was. Winston worked in TV with the FX heavy series "Manimal", did costumes for the wookie family in the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special" and worked with Rick Baker on the film "The Thing" (for which Baker won an Oscar).

Winston came to fame with a one-two punch in the early eighties with the "The Terminator" in 1984 and "Aliens" in 1986. The former would become a hallmark of his career which he would revisit four times (in 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgement Day", 1996's "T2 3D: Battle Across Time" for the Universal Studios Theme Parks, 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and as a supervisor on the upcoming "Terminator: Salvation"). He also forged a lasting friendship on set with star Arnold Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron. His relationship with Cameron continued into the "Aliens" shoot where Winston was asked to continue the original nightmarish alien designs by HR Giger with a bigger, badder alien queen. He delivered. With an imposing mix of scale and insect inspired creepiness, the alien queen was the perfect adversary for Sigorney Weaver's character Ellen Ripley. Their cargo bay showdown was the stuff of legend and showed how well the practical, large scale hydraulic effects by Winston could work. He was honored for his work on "Aliens" with an Oscar for Visual Effects as well as two for "T2: Judgement Day", one for Best Make-up and another for Best Visual Effects (which he shared with ILM's Dennis Muren).

His resume continued to grow with films like "Monster Squad", "The Leviathan" and the "Predator" series before joining Steven Speilberg for "Jurassic Park". There, in a film filled with the latest in computer generated imagery, Winston showed that there was still a place for the life size practical effects. These latex covered, hydraulic powered machines were like living, breathing things that the actors could work with and react to. Once again he shared the stage with Industrial Light and Magic's Dennis Muren as they received another Oscar for Visual Effects.

Winston would be nominated by the Academy of Arts and Sciences two more times for his Visual Effects work. Once for "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and again for "Artificial Intelligence: A.I." but "Jurassic Park" would be his last win. The attention getting cgi effects of the last ten years took some of the spotlight away from his profession but he still remained an integral part of many blockbuster films including "Big Fish", "Constantine" and this summer's smash hit "Iron Man". He founded Digital Domain, Stan Winston Studios and Stan Winston Digital and was one of only two SFX artists to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In a profession filled with giant stars he created bigger ones. He took pen and paper, paint and clay, latex and steel and turned them into graceful, sometimes fearsome, moving works of art. He was an inspiration for many like myself to appreciate not only the film and the actors, but the hard work done by the men and women behind the camera. He died Sunday at his home in Malibu at age 62.

"There's nothing more important to me in my life than my family, and nothing will ever take over. I believe that's why the work shows as well as it is because my work is not a sacrifice. My work is a joy. I'm not sacrificing my family for my work. I go in and I love what I do."

We love what you do to. Thanks Stan.

But will it have construction walls?

Starting tuesday Disney's website and Google Earth will release a 3-D map feature for the parks. This new whiz-bang time waster will give people like me yet another excuse to skip weddings, graduations and funerals. The interactive map will allow users to travel through a virtual park, getting info on all kinds of attractions, dining and hotels, Eventualy, developers say visitors will be able to watch videos of rides, shows and visit rooms in the resorts.

It's nice to see a company like Disney Parks embrace free pub for their resorts, unlike Universal who go to great lengths to keep guests from using photo or video anywhere near a ride.

You can read about the map feature for yourself here.

The Art of Pixar-Disney

The upcoming release of Pixar's film "WALL-E" and the opening of the Toy Story Mania attraction on both coasts led me to revisit "The Pixar Story" on Starz tonight. If you haven't had the chance, find time to check it out. It will give any fan of not only their films but fans of animation and traditional, good ole' storytelling a new found appreciation for what they have accomplished. In an age when the dreams of our childhood seem to have been robbed by corporate giants, it's somewhat heartwarming to find that a company like Pixar can still exist.

They have made their reputation on doing simple stories that, to paraphrase Walt, are aimed not specifically at children or adults, but a place inside us all. The films released so far have drawn on the ideals and dreams of their Disney predecessors and found a wonderful balance of art and computer magic. Simultaneously keeping adults entertained without talking down to or pandering to kids, they have forged an unprecedented streak of both critically and financially successful films. There is an honesty and heart to the stories they tell and a strength of character in the people telling it that gives traditional 2D animation and theme park fans hope that the mighty Disney empire can find it's way with a little help from it's friends.

Epcot Camera Back Online

Good news for the Disney geeks out there (like me). The WeatherBug.com Epcot cam from the Swan and Dolphin Hotel is up and running again. The full day view is a cool way to watch a day at the park go by in a flash.

See it here.

Tinsletown to Rockit in Orlando

Forums have been abuzz for weeks with speculation that the Universal Studios Japan attraction "Hollywood Dream: The Ride" would make it's way to Florida soon. This Wednesday Universal (sorta) confirmed the story, announcing the construction of "Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit", a high-tech rollercoaster combining near-miss thrills with music and special effects.

Fears that the ride would follow the same sort of intrusive path through the park as found in Japan were unfounded as the park made clear the route would travel the southern edge of the property from Jimmy Neutron to the Citywalk lagoon and back. You can read the press release here. Much of the success of HRRR may depend largely on something Universal has been unable or unwilling to do much in their parks: technical upkeep. Too many attractions at the Universal parks fail at the little things after very strong starts. Broken animatronics (Revenge of the Mummy), broken effects (RotM, Spiderman), and a tendency to rely heavily on the use of television screens and projections that they fail to maintain. HRRR promises thrills and chills with a soundtrack you select and stage show lights and effects but what kind of experience do you have when they fail like the animatronic in the first scene of Mummy that hasn't come out of his sarcophacus in years?

I guess you just have a rollercoaster, so it better be good. I look forward to finding out.

We Don't Need Another Hero

When we last saw Max Rockatansky he was staggering in the desert, abandoned by enemies no longer interested in his death, watching the plane full of children he saved soar off towards salvation.

All that with a busted head and no ride.

Flash forward 23 years. Director George Miller recently made public plans to not only revive the Mad Max franchise with a fourth film but also with a videogame that he will co-create with God of War II director Cory Barlog.

Now for the bad news.....

Miller also made it known that unlike the delayed "Mad Max 4: Fury Road" started in 2003, this production will not star Mel Gibson. He stated in an article with Level Up blogger and Newsweek.com general editor N'Gai Croal that "He's in his 50s now--it's too old.". This is the same article in which he also reveals that a lot of CG will be used in the film too.

Ahem.......what the F? Did Miller lose his mind along with his credibility? He claims to be using a story in which Max is decades older, a story that could be infinitely more interesting than those told in recent franchise revivals, so why not use Mel? Has Miller's time spent developing the joke of a Justice League movie and it's barely legal cast convinced him that a fresher and cheaper lead is the way to go?

What about that CG? Does a Mad Max film need the slick, $100 million soul-less Hollywood treatent? What the hell is wrong with a well-made, personal story with a character we know played by the original actor and a lot of real stuntmen doing real stunts? Did we learn nothing from the incredible Death Proof car-chase? It's the actor and the story, by the way, that we are putting our money down to see. Not George f-ing Miller.

Also George, while we are on the subject of your current plans, I could care less about how good the video game tie-in turns out if this is the movie that goes with it. This comes from an every day gamer and huge fan of the first three films. What people get mad at George Lucas for doing with the Star Wars prequels and special editions is nothing compared to what you and John Carpenter are doing to your film legacies.

If the current revival of several film franchises with their original stars (John Rambo, Rocky Balboa, Indy 4) and the success they've had doesn't convince you then I'm suspicious of your motives. Kurt Russell was nice enough to be much more honest than most expected and originaly blasted the recasting of his icon Snake Plisken for the Escape From New York remake (excuse me, re-imagining --vomit--) and I applauded him for it. These characters are a part of our collective film experience and were never meant to shared or interpreted like Hamlet, Macbeth or Willy Loman. Kurt Russell is Snake Pliskin, just like Sylvester Stallone is John Rambo and Rocky Balboa, Mel Gibson is Mad Max and Martin Riggs, and Harrison Ford is Solo, Indy and Deckard.

Unlike Batman, Jason Bourne or even James Bond, these characters are forever linked to one person, one (sometimes career-making) performance. They are the combined good fortune and creative will of an actor connecting with his character and the audience. In marketing departments, toy company drawing boards and lunch box companies they may only be commerce, but for that two hours in the dark they are flesh and blood.

So what is it then? Have Gibson's recent controversial moves put him out of favor with Miller or his producers? Does Miller intend on changing the story to suit a younger actor? Do I care? Not really. Without Gibson this isn't Mad Max, it may as well be a Megaforce sequel. It is cinema-non-grata.

Special note to Ridley Scott: recast or remake Blade Runner and I will find you.

Who Needs the Kwik-E Mart? I Do.

Universal Orlando seems to be putting the finishing touches on it's Simpsons Ride. Krusty the Clown's likeness which will adorn the building's facade is on site and looks like it will be in place soon.

The ride takes the place of the Back to the Future attraction and while it's a bitter pill to lose a favorite of mine...hey, it's the Simpsons. BTTF was a fun, motion simulator style attraction that was starting to show it's age. In it's place (the rumors say) is a high-tech makeover complete with new ride vehicles, a state-of-the-art HD screen and ride system. The attraction promises to take visitors into unexplored areas of Springfield as you travel to Krusty's theme park. Expect high doses of amusement park spoofs (and maybe a few shots at Disney).

Check out IOA Central's story here.

Disney Plans for 2011

Rumors at AICN have Disney planning a batch of sequels for 2011. Some suprising, some obvious and some dubious.



Tron 2 - 3D: Oh please let this be true (says the 9 year old inside of me). Disney has been flirting with a follow-up to the film Tron for years but only a videogame came out of it. Let's get Jeff Bridges and do it right.

















Cars 2: This sounds like a dream for Disney and highly unlikely for Pixar, who has so far been very much against sequels. It was a nice retelling of Doc Hollywood but the story and character arc was told. Let it go.


National Treasure 3: The duh of the group. As long as Cage will do these, Disney will pay for them. It's a fun series but a little....empty. Here's hoping something more interesting than Jim Hill's Atlantis theory proves true.


Pirates of the Caribbean 4: As mich as I love Depp and Jack, the Captain was wearing a bit thin on me the last time out. Maybe he just needs a new crew and a story all his own. At least that's what Disney hopes. That way they can tell a more intimate story and not spend as much (POTC3 was rumored to cost close to 300 mil after marketing). Look for the usual adventure story suspects....maybe atlantis, fountain of youth...yada yada. Who needs those? Keep it simple and original.

Pixar Going to 1906

Incredibles and Ratatouille director Brad Bird has yet again set his sights on "1906" according to an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. The story of the San Fransico earthquake was sidetracked in favor of Ratatouille but will resume as a live action film. Bird says Pixar will distribute through a new in-house division or with a partner such as Disney. CGI effects work on the disaster pic are expected to be handled primarily by Pixar.

Is "Night" upon us?

The lastest 5th gate rumor is in full swing now thanks to Jim Hill. You can read his story here on Disney's Night Kingdom. DNK is either Disney's answer to Sea World's Discovery Cove or yet another in a long line of beloved "blue sky" projects that never see the light of day.

As far as I'm concerned this is as much of a 5th gate as Typhoon Lagoon or Disney Quest. It's an interesting concept but so far seems so limited as to almost be an offshoot of Animal Kingdom. Up close visits with animals, gourmet meals and.....rock climbing? Just rumored activities sure but nothing that gets my blood racing much. Add in the lack of any real rides or traditional attractions, limited capacity (2000 guests a day) and a staggering admission price of $300 and you have to wonder what would prompt Disney to build this. With a struggling economy, an ongoing investment of nearly 3 billion dollars in DCA, the new cruise ships and the Hawaii resort, can Disney afford to gamble a half a billion for this niche park? Who knows, we may be talking about this for years.... just like Discovery Bay, Beastly Kingdome, the Villans Park, Mt Fuji, etc, etc......

Only time will tell.

Mouse-rathon (ok, that was a stretch)

Read a short blurb in the Orlando Business Journal here about the January WDW marathon. We passed it on the way to the Animal Kingdom that weekend. A big congrats to everyone involved!

Roy Scheider 1932-2008

Roy Scheider lost his battle with cancer this weekend and film lost one of it's bright spots. A likeable everyman, Scheider rose to prominence in the Jane Fonda film "Klute" after a short career in B movies.

He followed that with an Oscar nominated turn as Det. Buddy Russo in "The French Connection" and as Buddy Manuchi in "The Seven-Ups".

Scheider was said to have been ready to play a hero, a character much like he had turned down in "The Omen" when he took the role of Chief Martin Brody. The troubled production of "Jaws" is legendary, as is it's place in film history. Scheider was an audience favorite because he was us. He didn't know about bite radius marks or boats or how to tie a ship-shape knot. He was an outsider called upon to buck the system and save the day. Jaws was a phenominal success and the first film to break $100 million at the box office. It solidified careers of it's stars and director, changed the way movies are released and gave Scheider the freedom to choose his roles.

He chose well with "Marathon Man" and then again with "All That Jazz". The Bob Fosse role (called Joe Gideon) earned Scheider his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actor (he lost to Dustin Hoffman). He continued his leading man roles, and returned to another police role, with "Blue Thunder". This story of an aging LA police helicopter pilot, caught up in a conspiracy involving a high tech riot control helicopter is a personal favorite and a great showcase for the types of roles Scheider played best.

He continued with "2010" and "52 Pick-Up" but seemed to fall from audiences eyes into supporting roles for most of the rest of the 1980s. In 1993 he signed on as Captain Nathan Bridger on the Steven Speilberg produced television show "SeaQuest DSV". For three seasons he commanded the ship designed by his character in this futuristic "Star Trek" of the seas.

Scheider returned to film but seldom to theatrical releases. He worked mainly in "B" pictures where he started his career, occassionaly popping up in films such as "The Rainmaker" with Matt Damon and TV movies such as HBO's "RKO 281". One of his last projects was as narrator for the "Jaws" documentary "The Shark is Still Working".

He had been fighting multiple myeloma for a couple of years and finally succumbed to a staff infection at UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas.

He will be greatly missed.

Disney signs deal with the devil

Yes, Disney Hollywood Studios is the place to be for the end times now. So long ABC theater, hello damnation. More about it here.

Good article here on Toy Story Mania and the future of California Adventure. Thanks to NY Times.

Predictions are for idiots....like me.

Well, as much as I would love to spend the day writing here there's 12 hours of pre-game coverage to keep up with. Really? Is there that much to talk about that we haven't touched on in the last two weeks? The Giants are a good team that suprised everyone but to no-one's suprise they will lose. The end. I may not like it, you may not like it, but that's as much as I really need to hear on the subject at this point.

(sigh)

I wish I was at MK today. Light crowds, no Pats fans....ahhhhhh.

edit 2/4/08 See, shows what I know.

Return to Earth

Well it's open (sorta) and the reviews are pouring in to every Disney site, so what's the verdict?

My sweetheart and I were pleased to see Spaceship Earth open for our visit last month. It's hard to imagine going only once a year and not getting to ride the flagship attraction of the park but refurbs happen. I know that from experience, going on vacation mainly in off-peak weeks we've missed Splash Mountain the last 2 years to refurbs.

Unfinished or not I was informed from the boards at wdwmagic what to expect and ready to keep an open mind about the whole experience. I love SE and I've been pleased in the past with most of the changes. The ride has always been a little bumpy but from what i've read it's unfixable, just a byproduct of the mechanisms that keep you from plummeting backwards. The narration has been first class since the beginning with Walter Cronkite and suprisingly even better with Jeremy Irons. It was grand and elegant, accompanied with one of the best ride scores anywhere. The music has had subtle changes over the years but recently ended with one of the most moving, uplifting ends of any ride.

In my eyes one of the best elements of SE has always been the animatronics. SE is, in a way, an aa showcase much like American Adventure, showing off some of the more innovative uses of audio animatronics. In the best dark rides you forget that you are watching AAs and think of them as actors, as characters.

Sadly, that's one of the only things I still like about this ride. Even that they haven't quite got right.

From the beginning the new Spaceship Earth seems promissing. With the crane-like Mickey Wand gone the sphere is clean and classic, befitting of a park icon. Also gone are the tacky Leave a Legacy carny booths that blocked the mirrored pillar at the base. The area is much more open and inviting (not as much as it will be if Legacy gets moved for good) and the new signs and lighting are tasteful and well done.

The ride also begins well with new computer graphics on the TVs letting everyone know that when your ride car begins to turn it isn't possesed, it's supposed to do that. Oh, and don't stand up jackass. This was previously followed by a bit of darkness as you were welcomed by Cronkite or Irons. You begin to ascend and as you enter a red lit tunnel your picture is taken (we'll come back to that later).

Now you immediately turn the corner to see a huge, long wall projection of early man, duking it out in the snow with a wooly mammoth. It's a well done visual, nicely indroducing us to the "time travel" element of the attraction. We are also now welcomed by new narrator Dame Judy Dench. This is painfuly one of the problems with this new incarnation. I love Dench but she never really has a chance here. Like any good theater you have to start with a good script and this one ain't it.

The writers of the refurbished ride apparently were concerned about children and idiots not understanding the old script because this one seems intended for grade schoolers and morons. When the invention of language is explained (one of the most significant events in human history) it is compared with kids learning their "ABCs". The invention of papyrus and therefore the ability to send messages all over an empire is turned into a joke about taxes and Rome's groundbreaking system of roads is called the original world wide web. It goes on and on....

Gone are some old favs like the Greek theater scene, the Roman chariot and the video phones. The last was expected as the refurb is directly related to the new sponsor Siemens, who took over from AT&T. The original story was focused on the evolution of communication while the new story focuses on computers and it's foundations in math and innovation.

The rides travels still take us through the radio, film and TV ages yet they are reduced a bit and talked over by Dench (who's voice can still be heard echoing from other cars much more than it should). Walt Disney is also strangely absent, with a livingroom scene now focused on the moon landing. That event is used to springboard us into one of the new scenes, an IBM-style computer room circa 1960-something. This huge set is impressive at first until you have a moment to see how under-utilized and empty it is. Is something else supposed to be in here? No? Hmmm...ok. How's about the woman on the left? Her outfit is kitchy '60s cute with the large afro, mini-skirt, yellow leggings and knee-high boots but come on....who could actualy get away with wearing that at a large electronics company in the 1960s. "The man" would not stand for that.

We then travel to a garage in the '70s where icons like Gates, Allen and Jobs helped bring computers home. The scene is a bit dark but well themed and pretty representitive of the era. A hippie computer programer sits hunched over his monocrome 6 inch screen and we're told this is the beginning of the age of the personal computer.

From there we are teleported to the top of the sphere through a "Matrix" style tunnel to the last vestige of the old SE. The revealing of the outer-space view of earth is still breathtaking in it's beauty and yes...still interupted by a voice telling us that the cars are, in fact, supposed to be turning around.

This is where the real problems start.

Spaceship Earth has always used most of it's room for the scenes on the ascent but it made good use of the limited room on the descent as well. Now, all we have are some hanging lights and the glow of the computer screen in our car as it comes to life. The screen uses the images taken of us at the beginning of the ride and superimposes the faces of you and your fellow passenger onto what amounts to a cheap flash animation of "the future". The future presented in "The Jetsons" 40 years ago that is. Also sorely missed is the sense of hope and grandeur brought on by the original soundtrack, now replaced by cute music accompioning the animation.

All of this not so gracefully ends and dumps you into the ride exit, where you walk to Project Tomorrow to get the bad taste out of your mouth. It's heartbreaking for loyal Epcot Center fans to see the ride reduced to this. To be frank I can't even give Project Tomorrow a honest review as I was just ready to leave both times I rode and not willing to wait for one of the few games and video displays to become available.

All in all it's nice to have the old girl spiffed up a bit, but I would gladly take the signs of age over the "progress" on display. Tomorrow's Child....indeed.

Brat.

I need more time! I don't have enough time!

Just a picture today, been too busy editing video and sleeping.

Ode to the Mickey Premium

Mickey Premium how I miss thee....

This was my last Mickey Premium on our vacation two weeks ago. I can still taste it. The cool, thin chocolate...the luscious vanilla ice cream. Quick, someone FedEx a case of them. It's a matter of life and death!

Seriously, why can't I get these at home? If more people tried them everyone would agree that we all need access to these. They're just that good.

Or maybe you need to be surrounded with the park for it to really work. I dunno. I'm willing to give it a shot.

While I'm wishing for park treats...someone fetch me a Pink Thing from Six Flags over Texas too.

It all started with a......monkey?

I've been telling folks over at my website for months that a blog was on the way. In the meantime my stepmother, a co-worker, my little brother, two close friends, 336 people on my favorite WDW forum and my cat have all started blogs.

So if I don't have anything to say at least you have choices.

I'll spend my time sharing what I know about the parks I suppose, but there are many more who live closer and know more details of the history than I. There are tricks to going on your WDW vacation that may come in handy for some, vacation reports that may amuse you and days when I might just wanna let something out. In that case I apologize in advance.

So, here goes. Let's get the history out of the way first. No flashback storytelling here, I'll leave that to "Lost". My dad first took me to Disneyland in the mid-to-late 70s. Back then a trip included a stay at a seedy Hollywood motel, a few minutes looking at a proper ocean view and a visit to Grauman's before it was Man's and then Grauman's again. We would stay wherever was cheap and spend most of dad's hard earned with Disney, Knotts, Universal and Magic Mountain. I loved the thrill rides and TV and movie tie-ins that the other parks served up but like most kids I was captured by the magic of Disneyland. Even the cheap bookends of sleazy motels and tourist traps along the outskirts of the park couldn't diminish my excitement. Heck, I could barely see over the dash anyway so my eyes were just focused on that wonderful Disneyland sign, the tracks of the monorail and in our last trip that first glimpse of Space Mountain.

In that time after Star Wars and before teenage cynicism set in there wasn't anything I could imagine better than Disney AND sci-fi. Of course I hadn't seen "The Black Hole" yet but that's a topic for another day. I remember the year after this dad had to go to LA without me and returned with a trip video he had recorded all over the different parks. I still watch, and offered on one of our bonus discs the video of Disneyland. Shot on a two piece Panasonic camcorder, one big camera and a separate tape deck, he captured moments I was crushed not to share but grateful to have now. It's great to see so many attractions that are gone and how little other things have changed.

As much as I love the parks now I was never that excited about seeing WDW as a kid. I saw it as some sort of upstart competitor, some new entity challenging Disneyland's claim to fame and somehow doing it better. I knew nothing about Walt's desire to do it over, do it better. I didn't get it at all until I saw it for myself.

It was in '79 that I first got a taste of what Walt really wanted all of us to experience. I was astounded by the drive to begin with. Parents have so much more to keep their kids busy now and there's a lot more to look at on the way. I'm sure dad heard "How much farther?" a time or two. If I impressed by the remote location I was absolutely floored by the size. Every part of the park was so much bigger, grander. It was the beginning for me of a lifelong appreciation of architecture, of seeing art in a building (a fake one at that).

I hope I've kept that sense of wonder as I grew older. We never got to go back to the parks with as much frequency as I would have liked. I got the opportunity to visit in '89 and again in '97, both times with groups of friends. That last visit renewed my obsession with that world. I was telling stories to the first time visitors in our party of my first visit to Epcot. The park had not yet been completed but visitors were allowed to take the monorail ride with a brief stop at the station for some promotional materials. I remember pouring over that brochure and the excitement of seeing the park for the first time. It's still a rush to see them every time and to see the faces of people who are stepping into that world on their first day.

A friend of mine took his family and later his new baby to the parks starting about 8 years ago. He was excited about showing off the parks and sharing the vacation on video with me when he returned. One year, after editing his vacation videos together for me to see, we started talking about combining our video and photo efforts together on one big park tribute video. We weren't too surprised to see that others had the same idea and were selling them and giving them away online. With that Atomic Monkey Films was born.

It's sounds much loftier than it is but we're admitted movie geeks so we like to do it big. We made a few for ourselves and some friends, then friends of friends started asking for them and offering to pay so we went online. I started the website a while later offering a four disc DVD set. A few vacations and a lot of editing later we had our second set: Magic Journeys Vol II. This 8 disc set is my baby. I learned alot about editing and DVD authoring with the first one and put everything I had to use.

So that's about it for the history lesson. I'll talk a bit next time about our last trip to the parks a couple of weeks ago and share some more pics.