Movie Review: Street Fighter

Posted by robbposch on September 17, 2004
Posted in: Movie Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

There have been so many movies I have considered talking about, due to how amazingly bad they are.  However, it really isn’t interesting to read only about how bad something is.  This is why I only talk about the best kind of movies, movies that are the perfect blend of total awfulness and total awesomeness.

This brings us to the topic at hand: “Street Fighter” the movie.  I have always loved this movie, but was never quite sure of a few things.  Is the movie supposed to be like this on purpose, or was it simply a wonderful accident that it turned out so terribly?  Do the majority of the people who like this movie enjoy it because they think it is a legitimately good movie, or because it is an astoundingly entertaining bad movie?  And, somewhat tastelessly, but it must be addressed, is Raul Julia buried in the M. Bison uniform?  These are questions that need to be answered.  And since most people can’t be bothered to devote the free time needed to answer these questions, I guess I will be the one to do it.

As far as the story behind the movie, it’s based on the video game Street Fighter 2.  It was a fun game with good graphics for the time, where the basic premise is two opponents beat the hell out of each other.  It was strange that the name of the movie itself wasn’t Street Fighter 2, since the original game Street Fighter was awful and no one liked it.  I guess if the movie was given the out of nowhere “2” suffix, it would have seemed like a blatant rip off of Leonard Part 6; except, of course, for the fact that Leonard Part 6 is missing one important factor that Street Fighter has.  That factor being, of course, the previously mentioned total awesomeness.

I really don’t want to give any more of an introduction, because I want to jump right into action.

The story starts out in the made up country of Shadaloo.  It is in the middle of a civil war, with General M. Bison on one side, and something else on the other side.

As you can tell from the art based on the video game, the casting of Raul Julia as Bison is nothing short of genius.

A reporter named Chun Li is talking about the battle between Bison and the Allied Nations army, which I assume is like the European Union for poor people.  Bison has taken sixty people hostage, both civilians and from the army.  His demand for their release is twenty billion dollars.  What?  If you’re asking for something like that for only sixty people, you might as well load the executing guns right away, because there is no way in hell any government is going to pay $20 billion for sixty people.  They might spend $20 billion to kill sixty people, but definitely not to save them.

The leader of the Allied Nations (AN) army, Colonel (pronounced “kernel,” not “colon-al” as I originally thought it was,) Guile arrives on the scene Chun Li is reporting from.  Guile refuses to comment about the war, but decides to address Bison instead.  Keep in mind, this part actually happens; it was scripted, filmed, released to the public, and everything.  Facing the camera, Guile says, “I know you like to look at yourself on television, you sick son of a bitch, so take a look at THIS, HI YAH!”  Then he makes a karate chop arm muscle pose.  ON INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION.

Also, since Guile is played by everyone’s favorite All American, Jean Claude Van Damme, none of his lines are spoken clearly.  “Son of a bitch” becomes “sunuffbeach.”  And so on.

Guile also decides to totally screw up his friend Carlos Blanka’s life by yelling that they were “coming to save Charlie.”  So, of course, Bison figures out who Charlie is and decides to make him the subject of a genetic experiment.  Good grief.

We then go on to meet the next of the main characters, Ryu and Ken.  They arrive in a giant warehouse type building, where some hardcore street fighting is going on.  Except it’s indoors, not in the street.  Also, it’s in a cage.  We then go on to meet the next of the main characters, Ryu and Ken.  They arrive in a giant warehouse type building, where some hardcore cage fighting is going on.

They are going to meet Sagat, who is in charge of a local gun running organization.  They are doing this, because they are selling guns to Sagat, which makes sense.  That is a good reason for someone to meet with a gun runner.  See, this movie has a great plot.  Ryu and Ken were trying to screw over Sagat; however Sagat pulled the ol’ switcheroo and screwed them over.  The ol’ switcheroo meaning Ken and Ryu get jumped by a gang.  They are able to beat up the gang, and seem ready to make their escape.  However, they are surprised when the gang subdues them with some guns that the gun runner Sagat had lying around.

Back in Bison’s fortress, we learn that Charlie is currently undergoing some mind warping, courtesy of some Clockwork Orange-esque video watching.  They are trying to turn him into the perfect soldier, first by showing him looped clips of random violence.  I guess that is supposed to screw up his mind, to make him want to kill.  I’ve never tried it, so I don’t know if that actually works.  They are then going to mutate him, using some Kool Aid looking liquids, which are actually DNA Mutagens and Anabolic Plasma.  Don’t ask me how I know what they are, it’s a secret.

Back at the fighting warehouse, Sagat is making Ryu fight the local champion, Vega.

Vega would be a pretty badass fighter, since he wears a mask, has long metal claws on one of his hands, and has a giant snake tattoo.  The badass factor is somewhat dimmed by the fact that Vega appears to be either a flaming homosexual, an extremely effeminate straight man, or a buff woman.  Vega, incidentally, was always my favorite character in the video game.  This might have been the first in a long line of effeminate people that I am interested in, including Davey Havok and Morrissey.

The fight is interrupted by Guile driving a tank into the warehouse.  This also serves as a good analogy of the subtleness of Van Damme’s acting ability.  He arrests everyone in the warehouse, which results, as arrests sometimes do, with everyone in jail.

Sagat has wasted no time taking charge of the prison.  And judging by the way they are standing together, he also has wasted no time making Vega his prison boyfriend.  Ken and Ryu get jumped again, this time by literally every single prisoner, except Sagat.  They also manage to beat up every single prisoner, except Sagat.

Guile gets the idea to infiltrate Sagat’s organization, in order to follow Sagat to Bison.  He solicits Ken and Ryu to help him out, but they don’t want anything to do with it.  Ryu asks to leave, and Guile replies with a big grin that the only way they are leaving is over his dead body.  Ryu and Ken then give each other one of those confused sitcom “Whaaaa?” stares, and the scene awkwardly ends.

The next day, while being transported, Ryu and Ken initiate a prison break by hijacking the prison truck.  Sagat and Vega come along for the ride, along with some of the movie’s extras.  Guile attempts to stop the prison break, but Ken shoots him.  Chun Li, who is allowed to be on the scene for some reason, plants a homing device on the getaway truck, in hopes of catching it later.  She then reports the tragic news that Guile has died.  Bison sees this, and gets all emotional about it, saying how he wanted to meet Guile on the battlefield.   He also bugs his eyes out a lot, and sticks his ears out as well.  Although the ears are more of a biological thing than acting; I can’t tell about the eyes.

After noticing that the getaway truck has two homing devices planted on it, Chun Li, E. Honda and Balrog, get suspicious.  So Chun Li does what anyone would do in her situation, she breaks into the AN headquarters.

After sneaking inside, she makes her way to the morgue, and tries to cop a feel off of Guile’s corpse.  Guile sits up, makes an awful joke, and reveals to Chun Li what had happened.  He had recruited Ken and Ryu, and staged the whole getaway and shooting, with the help of some prop blood packs to simulate his bullet wounds.

Guile then attempts to arrest Chun Li, but she escapes and goes with her team to find Bison.  They arrive at Bison’s camp, somehow learn how to put on a magic show, somehow introduce themselves to Bison, and then put on said magic show.  Chun Li’s plans go awry when she sees Ken and Ryu, and realize that she can’t blow up the camp with them inside it.  Oh yeah, Chun Li plans to blow up the camp.

While Chun Li is off trying to get Ken and Ryu out of there, Bison and Sagat talk business.  When Sagat opens the briefcase that contains his payment, he is less than pleased.  That is because he is being paid in Bison dollars, which is something of a more liquid form of Disney Dollars.  Sagat starts arguing with Bison, which leads to the crowd being split into two sides, Bison’s and Sagat’s, ready to fight.  They stand there, ready to go at each other, until they hear noise coming from a closet.  This noise is a prerecorded video of Chun Li explaining to Bison that his weapons are about to get blown up.  Because when you are destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise belonging to someone who could have you and anyone that looks like you murdered, you want to give him a video of yourself declaring that you did it.  And if you are going to do that, you might want to, you know, leave first.

During this part, another legitimately funny line is given by Bison’s Russian henchman Zangief.  When they are watching the video of the explosive truck coming towards their camp, Zangief yells, “Quick, change the channel!”  At least the writer of the movie knew one recipe for guaranteed laughs: stupid foreign people.

So, Chun Li and her team are taken prisoner, thanks partly to the fact that Ken ratted them out.  They all leave the camp, and go to Bison’s fortress.  Apparently Bison and Sagat have kissed and made up, possibly literally, which would explain why Vega appears to be in such a bad mood.

From there, we move to the AN headquarters, where the army is planning an attack on the fortress.  The plan is to drive a single boat “with the latest in stealth technology” to sneak in.  This scene is extra awesome because the only two people who have dialogue in it are Guile and someone named Charlie, neither of who can speak any sort of clear English.  Guile of course has the Van Damme effect going, where what he speaks sounds like the English language going through the Ronco Food Dehydrator, then soaked in bourbon, then being spit out.  Charlie, on the other hand, has no problematic accent, he just really seems to not be able to remember his lines.

When the army is about to leave, Guile is told by a government agent that the attack is off.  The government is planning on paying off Bison.  Huh.  I guess I was wrong about that.  Anyway, Guile doesn’t seem too happy about giving up on the attack, and letting Bison get away with it.  He then steps up to the podium, which is always a recipe for excellence with Van Damme, and goes on to deliver the most emotionally charged, inspirational speech ever.  It’s true.

So, the attack is back on.

Back in Bison’s fortress, Ken and Ryu are given their trademark red and white outfits by Zangief.  We then learn why Chun Li hates Bison so much.  She gives a ten minute story about how when Bison was just a petty drug dealer, he and his gang were driven out of Chun Li’s town by her father and a bunch of farmers.  On the way out of town, Bison shot Chun Li’s father.

After this dramatic speech, Bison begins one of the more excellent bits of dialogue in the movie:

Chun Li: (long, emotional story)

Bison: “I’m sorry, I don’t remember any of it.”

Chun Li:  (very shocked) “You don’t remember?”

Bison:  “For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life.  But for me… it was Tuesday.”

Nice.

E. Honda and Balrog are able to escape from their cell, and jump Ken and Ryu.  This doesn’t bother them too much, since they’ve been getting jumped the whole movie.  But I guess that is to be expected when you appear in a movie with the word “fighter” in it.  However, they reconcile pretty quickly, and decide it’s time to start the climax of the movie.

Bison and Chun Li keep talking, until Chun Li breaks out of her handcuffs and then begins beating the crap out of Bison.  She gets distracted when the four guys come running in, and Bison is able to escape to some secret chamber.  He then gasses the five of them, and bugs his eyes out extra far in celebration.

By now, the experiments done to Charlie have made him unrecognizable.  He is now huge, with green skin and a giant mane of orange hair.  This is the version of Blanka that is familiar to those that have played the game, except for the fact that in the game he looked cool, but looks ridiculously stupid in the movie.  The head doctor working on Blanka, whose name is Dhalism, finally decides to man up and halt the experiment.  Then, instead of feeding him images of violence and war, he switches the feed to show Blanka images of weddings, dolphins, and babies.  Apparently Dhalsim is trying to turn Blanka into the strongest unwed thirty five year old woman ever.

We then go to the river, where Guile is knocking out the radars, so the rest of the boats can attack.  That is, until Bison starts releasing mines into the water, thanks to the help of his Street Fighter II arcade joystick.   Guile realizes the situation isn’t looking too good, so he decides they should abandon ship.  No one in Bison’s fortress notices this, so when the boat blows up, they all think they died.  This results in a vulgar lack of subtlety by Bison, who shouts “Game over!”

One of Bison’s henchmen discovers what Dhalsim is up to, and attacks him.  This results in one of my favorite movie lines ever.  The goon says to Dhalsim, “So you think you’re smart, eh?  Let’s see how smart you are when you’re not breathing!”  Dhalsim gets knocked around, and winds up getting the mutagens spilled on him.  Blanka then escapes, and tosses the henchman around.

After breaking in, Guile gets attacked by Blanka.  Guile somehow recognizes him, and convinces him that he is his friend.  Blanka asks Guile to help him, and Guile says he will.  So, naturally, Guile picks up his gun and is about to shoot Blanka in the head.  Gee, thanks for the help, jackass.  Guile doesn’t get to finish “helping” Blanka, because Dhalsim interrupts him.

Since Bison never received his $20 billion, he is going to execute his hostages.  However, instead of executing them normally, he is going to have “his creation” Blanka do it.  But when Blanka’s chamber is raised, it isn’t Blanka who comes out of it, it is Guile.  Actually, let me be more specific.  It is Guile, who comes out doing flying karate kicks at Bison.

As soon as this happens, the Street Fighter really hits the fan.  Bison’s guards, who look like the love children of the Imperial Guards from Star Wars and HISS Drivers from GI Joe, start firing everywhere.  Bison commands them to shoot the hostages, but they are thwarted by Guile’s closing of the hostages’ prison door.

All of the important prisoners, the ones who have already had speaking lines in the movie, escape, and start to fight the HISS Guards.  Everyone either punches or kicks at other people, or they shoot at other people.  That sentence covers about twenty minutes of screen time.

Eventually, the two sides come to a standstill, and their respective leaders begin trash talking each other.  I discovered that the trash talk lines that are used in the video game sound cool only when used within the context of a video game.  When the lines are spoken by human beings, they sound ridiculous.

Another poor video game to movie translations is the characters’ special moves.  Guile starts doing flash kicks, which are essentially kicks in a back flip, Ryu is throwing fireballs, and Bison is doing a horizontal flying attack.  In the game, all of these moves are impressive and deadly.  In real life, they look kind of odd.  Ryu’s fireball, besides being completely random in the context of the movie, looks more like he’s taking a flash picture with his hands than shooting anything out.  When attempting to take a screen cap of his fireball, I discovered that the special effects were even more special than I had thought.  Instead of using ANY type of computer animation for the fireball, all that happens is the entire screen goes white.  That’s it.  This is his fireball, frame by frame:

Bison’s flying attack in the game moves quickly, which makes it a good attack.  In the movie, he sort of hovers towards Guile;  the speed at which Bison flies would give Guile enough time to go online to a video game web site and read up on how to win the fight.  And Guile’s flash kick is, well actually it’s pretty cool.  So we’ll leave that one alone.

Meanwhile, Ken and Ryu proceed to kick Vega and Sagat’s asses mercilessly.

During Guile and Bison’s battle, Bison starts doing all kind of random things.  He starts flying everywhere, with his glowing boots.  He also shoots lightning out of his hand, in either a nod to the Emperor from Star Wars or a complete rip off of it.  When Bison does another one of his “flying at the speed of public transportation” attacks at Guile, he winds up getting spin kicked in the face.  This results in Bison flying into a group of TV screens and blowing up.  Guile, of course is ready with another Van Damme gem, “Bison, you’re off the air.”

By the way, Honda and Zangief have been fighting.  Honda stops fighting to help get the hostages out, which leaves Zangief to talk to another one of Bison’s goons, the Jamaican Dee Jay.  Zangief yells at Dee Jay for running away, to which Dee Jay explains that Bison is actually a complete jerk.  Dee Jay tries to explain that Bison had been paying him a ton of money to stick around, but now that Bison was gone, so was he.  To this, Zangief replies, “You got… paid?”  I told you, he’s awesome.

While this is going on, the army is trying to help the hostages escape before the building blows up.  Oh yeah, when Bison blew up, it screwed something up which means everything is going to blow up soon.  Anyway, the emergency exit gate is rapidly closing, and it becomes apparent that the army and the hostages aren’t going to make it out on time.  That is, until Zangief comes and saves the day, by holding the door open for them.

Guile tries to rescue Blanka and Dhalsim, but they aren’t going anywhere.  Blanka doesn’t want to go back to society looking like a freak, which is understandable.  Dhalsim is going to stay with Blanka, as some sort of self-inflicted punishment upon himself.  Guile questions this, since Dhalsim said he didn’t do anything to hurt Blanka, and that it was Bison’s forces that did it.  To this, Dhalsim replies “If good men do nothing, that is evil enough.”  Awwwww.  That’s one Oscar Wilde – type refrigerator magnet quote right there

Outside the fortress, everyone has gathered to escape the explosion.  Everyone, that is, except for Guile.  When the fortress explodes, everyone gets concerned, since Guile is their ride home.

Sagat and Dee Jay have made their way outside, carting a giant crate full of money.  However, when they open the crate, they discover it is full of Bison dollars.  That’ll teach you to think crime pays.  Sagat can’t even sell them on eBay to collectors of memorabilia from the movie, since there are probably only three of them.

Then, back at the army’s gathering point, Guile has returned!  YAY!  He gets mad props from all his main men and women, and delivers a few more jokes that are more painful than crotch punches.

Then suddenly, the fortress explodes, which prompts all of the characters to jump up and do their victory pose from the video game.  I know I’ve mentioned other examples of this, and I KNOW I shouldn’t have to point it out in this instance, but this is just another tragic example of the video game translating poorly to live action.

So, there you have it: Street Fighter the movie.  That wasn’t so bad, was it?  No, it wasn’t so bad.  In fact, it was great.  Despite the fact that everything associated with it is awful, the movie stands strong.  I have already discussed the intricacies of the game based on the movie, way over there.

When I was looking online for merchandise based on the movie besides the game and the action figures, I found some eBay auctions for the video game.  I knew the game came out in the arcade, but I forgot which consoles it came out for.  Apparently, it came out for the Sega Saturn.  This has to be something of a tough sell.  First of all, I can’t imagine the demand for the game itself to be too great, even with all of the kitsch demand.  More importantly, who the hell owns a Saturn?  It sold about a hundred units when it was first introduced, and I would assume the majority of those have stopped working by now.

There were also GI Joe figures made based on the movie.  There were also ones made that were based on the game, and not the movie, so I don’t really know what’s going on with that.  The only other cool merchandise I found was a trading card set, with a full ninety cards.  It was $10 on eBay, and normally that would be a slam dunk purchase for me, but something told me not to buy it.  I feel that if I bought it, and made someone else lose, that I would be acting very selfish.  I know that if I bought it, I wouldn’t use it to wallpaper my room, and that would be wrong.  So, hopefully someone more deserving will win that auction.

My advice to everyone is to go to their local Best Buy and pick this up on DVD for $5.99.  Or you can also go on Amazon and buy it for $10, which is what I recommend doing.  If you pay four dollars and one cent more for it, it means you will get that much more out of the movie.  Of course, I’d probably also recommend dying your skin green and your hair orange, so take what you will from my advice.

Movie Review: Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park

Posted by robbposch on September 17, 2004
Posted in: Movie Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

I was going to make the opening sentence to this, “I hate KISS.”  But then it got me wondering if I really do.  I mean, obviously the music is terrible; that goes without saying.  However, KISS does wind up being associated with some great things, like Beavis and Butthead video clips.  Actually, I think that is the only good thing they are associated with.

Ahem.

I hate KISS.

Actually, is it “KISS” or just “Kiss”?  The big neon signs at their concerts always spell it with capital letters, but nothing else seems to spell it that way.  Normally, I would think that anything giant and glowing would have to be correct, but given the fact that holding down the shift key for four letters is annoying, I am going to go with Kiss.

Kiss always seemed cool when I was a kid.  There were the costumes, which looked cool to a child.  So basically, they were these evil warrior guys playing heavy metal.  Kiss also had a bad ass reputation, because when I was younger, my parents were big into how music was evil.  They read up on back masking, and all of that stuff.  One thing that caused a big controversy was that Kiss supposedly stood for “Knights in Satin’s Service.”  You have to understand, this was a time when it was not acceptable for men to display effeminate traits, so dressing in women’s fabrics was viewed as being evil.

I remember the first time I heard a Kiss song.  It was during Beavis and Butthead, the one where Butthead goes, “Whoa, that dude’s got a comb in his back pocket.”  The video was for that I love it loud song.  Needless to say, any preconceived opinions I had of the band went out the window.  They went from being metal warriors to soldiers in the army of fruit rock.

My fascination with Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park  goes back a while.  I was watching TV with my goth friend Dersh, when something came on VH1 about the movie.  I don’t know why we were watching VH1, maybe this was back when Pop Up Video was still on.  Anyway, I don’t remember anything about the show, except when they showed a certain clip from the movie.  Gene Simmons yells, “STAR CHILD,” which is followed up by Paul Stanley shooting an orange star beam from his eye.

Since that fateful night, there has been something of a void inside me.  My inability to fully understand what was going on in that scene left me feeling empty.  Are Kiss (or is it “Is Kiss”?) supposed to have magic powers in real life, or was this something that was made up for the movie with no explanation?  Or, even worse, were their magic powers EXPLAINED in the movie, and I am left out of the loop?

My fascination with the scene faded in time, save for the occasional outburst of “STAR CHILD!” at random points.  Then, while perusing a site that lists multimedia files that, theoretically, are available for download, I came across the movie.  My reaction to seeing it listed was similar to the reaction you would get if you saw a dinosaur on your front lawn.  At first you see it, and might just think, huh, a dinosaur.  Then the double take occurs, where you realize just what you are seeing, then the mixed reactions of excitement and fear.

Yes, fear.  I was worried, what if the movie wasn’t totally awesome?  What if “STAR CHILD!” was taken completely out of context, and it was part of a lame dream sequence?  What if, for some horrible reason, “STAR CHILD!” wasn’t even in the movie at all?????

So while I waited for the movie to download, I pondered these possibilities.  I also wondered about the really important question: would the movie be just bad, or would it be bad in the best possible way?

So here it is.  No more introductions, no more beating around the bush:  Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.

The movie starts off with a montage of amusement park rides and Kiss playing their instruments.  They are playing the only Kiss song that I know about half of the words to, “I Want to Rock And Roll All Night And Party Every Day.”  I don’t know when the song title ends.

This is also the first time I can remember hearing the studio version of this song in a long time, and it serves as a reminder that Kiss is not good at making music.  Gene Simmons (bass/vocals/”The Demon”) doesn’t have a bad ass voice to go with his image.  Paul Stanley (guitar/vocals/”Star Child”ß-YES!) at least looks like a fruit, so his womanly singing isn’t such a strange juxtaposition.  But Gene should have a voice like the guy from Pantera, so it’s something of a letdown to hear him sing.

Also, my spell check suggested that Pantera should be spelled Pant era, which would have made a much more awesome name for the band.

 

After the intro, it cuts to a parade of some sort, and we learn that Kiss will be playing concerts at this amusement park, which happens to be Magic Mountain, for three nights in a row.  The management is talking with security, about concerns over safety.  Some are worried that their will be a riot, while the others assure them that the kids are only there to see their heroes.  When I say, “which happens to be Magic Mountain,” it makes it seem like that is of some importance.  It’s actually not.

The next five minutes consist solely of watching a couple on a roller coaster.

 

We then discover that this couple will probably be central characters, since they are given speaking lines, and more screen time in the opening ten minutes than Kiss.  The guy works at the park, and the girl is his girlfriend.  Or they just have a very cool friendship, going by their opened mouth kiss.

 

Then, the real stars of the movie are introduced; the denim clad, white trash biker comedy relief.  They decide that the line for a ride is too long, so they just walk right to the front of it, and cut the line.  They are forced out, so they console themselves by taking a beverage right from someone’s hand, and drinking it.  Awesome.

 

Next, we see a group of teenagers making a human pyramid in the park, for no apparent reason.  I have about a hundred things in my head that I could say about this, but I can’t narrow it down to just one.  So I will just say that right after they get the pyramid set up, the previously mentioned denim trio walks over, and kicks the arm out of the lowest pyramid guy, causing the entire thing to collapse.  I don’t know how wise it was of Kiss to have this trio in their movie, since they have already shown themselves to be infinitely more entertaining than the band itself.

The trio is then scolded by a creepy man.  When they ask who he is, the owner of the park comes up and explains that the creepy man built the entire park.  And if they can’t behave themselves, he threatens “You’ll be out of this park before you get in.”  Despite the fact that they’re standing… in the middle of the park.  Oh well, chalk that up to minor editing glitch.

 

In the meantime, the boyfriend from before, whose name is probably Tom, wanders onto what appears to be the set of the movie The Black Hole, a movie I’m never actually sure existed or not.  He bumbles around, and eventually falls through a trap door.  Followed by an amazing segue featuring a log flume.

Creepy Guy and the owner of the park then walk around discussing budgets for the park.  Creepy Guy complains he needs more money for research and development of his rides, while the owner says he doesn’t have enough money to give him.  This goes on for a few minutes, but I’m actually surprised this scene didn’t go on for longer.  Because if there is one thing the average Kiss fan can’t get enough of, it’s budget discussions.

 

Creepy Guy keeps referring to “his work,” and old guy continues to call Kiss “the biggest band in the world.”  These two phrases are repeated about three hundred times in the movie.  From this conversation, we learn that the rides that Creepy Guy has recently developed have been malfunctioning.  Creepy Guy refutes this, whining that you should never argue science with a book keeper.  Apparently you should also never argue against tourists’ deaths with a ride designer.

 

Denim trio continue to cause havoc in the park.  This time the main denim man, Chopper, is dry humping an animatronic gorilla, and then proceeds to punch the gorilla in the stomach.  And for anyone that knows me more personally, it now becomes evident where I learn all my love techniques from.

Soon, a Scrambler type ride begins to spin out of control.  The ride is going about eighty miles per hour, as you can tell from the sped up film.  This malfunction is due to, you guessed it, Creepy Guy trying out experimental engines in the rides.

The girlfriend mentioned earlier eventually arrives at Creepy Guy’s office, looking for her boyfriend, who has gone missing.  He allows her to enter his totally scientific office by activating the “elevator mechanism” which is an, uh, elevator.  Creepy Guy then shows her around his lab / office / movie set.  He introduces her to the androids he has created, which are clearly humans standing as still as they can.  There is then an inexplicable barbershop quartet song.

Finally, Creepy Guy makes her leave, because he notices that the denim trio is making their way into the fun house that he designed.  He then announces that the denim trio has arrived, to his army of people standing very still.  He also announces this to the missing boyfriend, who is under the control of Creepy Guy, thanks to a conspicuously bleeping and flashing device attached to his neck.

Chopper is wandering around the fun house, smoking a cigarette.  A family is unhappy with this, and tells him that he isn’t allowed to smoke in there.  To which Chopper replies with the most amazing comeback ever: “I’ll smoke you!”  Then, one by one, the gang is captured by Creepy Guy, and they are sent through a tube while a “blooooooodododooop“ sound effect plays.

 

At this point, since we all have seen how well balanced Creepy Guy is, the worst possible thing to happen to the park would be if they upset him.  And, of course, Creepy Guy is fired ten minutes later.  Despite his protests of “What about my work?” mentioning his “creations” about eleven times, the owner of the park remains steadfast in his decision.  Bye bye, Creepy Guy.  Luckily, they are able to part on good terms.  “You will regret this day,” Creepy Guy says on his way out.

 

By this point, it has become rather obvious that Creepy Guy is the titular Phantom, so from now on, he will be referred to as the Phantom, since it requires less typing.  So, we have been introduced to the Phantom, now where the hell is Kiss?

Oh, what’s that coming over the park’s PA system?  MEAN GUITAR LICKS!  That can only mean one thing… Kiss is getting ready.  According to the announcement, all the generators are running, and the stage is at full power.  Because pumping the music of Kiss at anything short of full power would be unacceptable.

And, just in case you were wondering what the Phantom was up to, he is back in his lab.  Apparently being fired doesn’t mean having to go home right away.  I remember the last time I got fired from a job, they wouldn’t even let me punch in that day.  Granted, on a job satisfaction survey that was sent to the top management, I said that I hated customers, but come on.  At least I didn’t sit in the security booth, watching the customers on the monitors, yelling “I will destroy you, all of you!”

 

Finally, after a full half hour into the movie, Kiss decides to make an appearance.  They are playing a concert at the amusement park.  They open with some song that I have never heard before.  I would write down some of the lyrics, but I can’t remember any of them.  I was too entranced by Paul Stanley’s chest hair.

Actually, I think I have heard this song before.  It’s that “Shout it out loud” song.  I’d probably recognize a good amount of Kiss’s songs by their choruses.  During the verses, however, I have no idea.  I also wish Gene Simmons didn’t have giant holes cut out of the thighs of his pants.

As Kiss is leaving the stage, towards a huge crowd, the Phantom sends the kidnapped boyfriend, whose name turned out to be Sam (I was close) to take pictures of Kiss.  The security is holding back the crowd, insisting that only press people are allowed in.  I guess “press” means “holding a camera,” since Sam has no problem getting up close to the band.

Sam’s girlfriend, who I think is named Melissa, although IMDB is very cryptic about it, spots Sam taking pictures, and tries to run over to him.  Since she doesn’t appear to be holding a camera, security rushes to stop her.  She protests, saying she needs to talk to him.  Kiss notices her distress, and Gene Simmons utters the aforementioned line, which is sure to go down in history as one of the most awesome movie lines ever… “STAR CHILD!”

Paul Stanley then blasts eye lasers at the girl, projecting a giant star onto her.  In just the last five seconds, the movie has already gotten a hundred times more amazing.  She then walks over to the band, and is told by Gene, “Your mind speaks to us.”  Meanwhile, Paul’s eye continues to glow.  So apparently the band has both physical and mental super powers.  Huh.  Later that night, some security guards are attacked by Gene Simmons.  He breaks through a brick wall, breathes cartoon fire, and proceeds to throw all of them around.

 

The next day, security finds Kiss sitting in lifeguard’s chairs around the pool, inexplicably wearing cloaks.  Security questions them, while Ace Frehley (Space Ace) and Peter Criss (Cat Man) crack wise.  Apparently, Peter Criss was so drugged out of his mind while making the movie, they had to dub over his voice with a studio actor reading his lines.  The voice of Peter Criss was done by the same guy who did the voice of Aquaman on Super Friends.  This makes sense, since both characters are the lamest one in the group.  The dubbing of the voice is somewhat surprising though, since Peter looks fairly normal, or at least as normal as one can look while wearing cat face paint.  Ace is the one who I would assume was stoned the whole time, every line he says is squeaked out in a ridiculous falsetto.

 

Kiss also refers to each other by their stage persona names while talking to each other, even when no one else is around.  In regards to the security questioning, the following dialogue actually occurs:

Peter: “I wonder who could have done it.”

Paul: “Good question, Cat Man.  What do you compute, Space Ace?”

Ace: “Insufficient data at the moment Star Child.”

Peter: “We better look into it.”

Gene: growl

Gene growls a lot in the movie, because he is “The Demon,” and demons are apparently known for growling.  Also, every time he speaks, his words are accompanied by more blooping noises, which makes it almost impossible to understand what he is saying half the time.

 

The band then takes Melissa to their swinging pad, to show her their talismans.  These are objects that give the band their powers, otherwise they would just be “ordinary human beings.”  To which Gene replies, “Not quite ordinary,”  Uh, alright.  At least he went one scene without growling.

 

Kiss then has their nightly concert, only this time I definitely have never heard this song before.  After the concert, the band sits around a fountain, serenading Melissa with a performance of “Beth,” which is a Kiss song I actually have heard before.  I remember this mostly because it is one of the worst songs I have ever heard.  It is an acoustic song, sung by Peter.  It really sounds like one of those songs you would hear being recorded at Six Flags, in the booth where you can make your own music video.  The song is so bad, even Melissa gets up and leaves.  The band finishes the song, because I guess they still like performing it even after playing it at the past hundred or so concerts.  I’m sure Peter is just glad he has the opportunity to sing in public, given his lack of “being born with a good voice.”

While Kiss is singing around the fountain, Sam is rummaging through Kiss’s room, looking for the talismans.  He tries to take them, but gets shocked when he tries to pick one up.  Kiss returns and discovers than someone has been trying to take the talismans, so they leave in search of the culprit.

 The band then proceeds to get into a terribly uninteresting fight with a bunch of animatronic animal people.  Paul Stanley makes a lot of faces like these:

 

Then, after this fight, they get into a fight with animatronic karate fighters.  These two scenes make up two of the least interesting fight scenes ever.  The biggest downside to the action is that there is less of the awesome dialogue.

 

We then cut to the Phantom ordering Sam to return to get the talisman (talismans?) He gives Sam a hair dryer-resembling ray gun to use “in case,” and demonstrates its awesome power by using it to blow up an object on a desk.  Sam then goes back to Kiss’s room, and uses the ray gun to neutralize the protective force field.  Huh?  Why didn’t the gun blow up the talisman like it did to the desk?  Bah.

Kiss, meanwhile, take a breather while sitting on a carousel.  Suddenly, the carousel starts, which freaks out the band, because who would ever expect a carousel to start spinning around?  They get off the carousel, and head to the Chamber of Horrors.  And that, hopefully, is the ideal location for the CLIMAX.

The band gets jumped by a bunch of movie monsters, which leads to more growling and cartoon fire breathing from Gene.  UNTIL, that is, the Phantom uses his ray gun to destroy the talisman, and stop the animation of Gene’s fire from working.  Kiss then proceeds to get their collective asses handed to them, which leads Gene to shout threatening remarks to the Phantom.  Which, in return, leads the Phantom to say this.  We all win when things like this happen.

The movie continues, which leads me to believe that the last scene wasn’t the climax.  The next day, the crowd is on the verge of rioting, since there has been no appearance from the band so far.  Oh, this is why:  they’re locked in a cell made of, you guessed it, animated laser bars.

 

The reason the Phantom had Sam take all of those pictures of the band before was so that he could make animatronic versions of Kiss.  The fake band members then take the stage for the evening’s concert.  The band comes out and sings a song, typical Kiss music.  Something, however, is wrong.  The crowd is booing, and appears very unhappy with the performance.  It’s either because of how it’s being performed, or lyrics being changed, or something.  The odd thing is, until the crowd’s reaction, I had no idea this bad performance was out of the ordinary for Kiss.  I figured this is how they normally sounded.

 

Anyway, the Phantom had the fake Kiss change the lyrics to one of their songs to try to make the crowd tear the park apart.  And, since Kiss suggested it, the crowd begins to do just that.  “Let’s tear this place down,” one crowd member declares.

 

Meanwhile, Kiss apparently still has magic powers, as they are able to levitate the box containing their talisman into the cage with them.  I guess the ray gun didn’t destroy them.  Hm.

Outside, the crowd is going insane, threatening to destroy the entire park.  That is, until the REAL Kiss flies out of the sky to attack the fake Kiss.  The crowd doesn’t seem confused in the least by this, and just cheers the fight on.

The fight, like all of the other fights in the movie, sucks.  For some reason, fake Kiss explodes, which leaves just the real Kiss on stage.  And, after all that fighting, there is still one important task left: ROCKING OUT.

 

“Are you ready for the real Kiss,” Paul asks.

Hell yes.

Kiss then plays the Rock and Roll All Night song.  After the show, Kiss, Melissa, and the park owner go to the Phantom’s lab, to try to turn Sam back to normal.  Paul uses his magic talisman powers to spot the flashing metal object on Sam’s neck, and uses his magic talisman powers to realize that this isn’t something that is normally on one’s neck.  After it is taken off, Sam wakes up and there is much happiness.

 

The Phantom’s fate is then revealed: he has frozen himself into one of his own robot creations.  Although this effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that he is clearly blinking.  “He created Kiss to destroy Kiss, and he lost,” the park owner declares.

 

If there is one lesson to take away from this movie, that is it.  Do not try to create Kiss.  Do not try to destroy Kiss.  And, most important of all, never try to create Kiss in order to destroy Kiss… because you will lose.

Food Review: Frosty Paws

Posted by robbposch on July 21, 2004
Posted in: Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , . Leave a comment

There are few things as amazing as being in a supermarket at 2 AM.  I should clarify that by specifying that I am talking about your typical 24 hour supermarket.  These are the types of stores that when you go in the middle of the night, are very quiet and empty.  There are a few customers, some wandering in basically pajamas, coming in just to grab some forgotten essential.  Beyond them, there is pretty much no one in the store.  So if I happen to go there with a friend in the middle of the night, we are pretty much by ourselves, free to reenact Career Opportunities.  Ideally, that friend would be female.

Luckily, I do not live near any of those types of 24 hour supermarkets.  They can be useful, but they are a bit too bland.  Luckily, I live near a 24 hour supermarket where the environment is less similar to a supermarket, and more similar to Tijuana.  Luckily, I live near Pathmark.

Since this site, for some reason, is read by people around the country, I should explain Pathmark’s story.  As there are always a few exceptions to anything, I’m sure some Pathmarks that are actually very nice supermarkets.  That being said, the one near me is definitely not one of them.  I’m sure there is something like this near you.  Be it a Piggly Wiggly, a Kroger, or whatever the hell it is you non-New Yorkers shop at, there are rogue supermarkets everywhere.

Nobody expects a supermarket to be perfect.  All day long, brown boxes full of products ready to be placed on shelves sit in the middle of an aisle.  Normally, this happens in only a few aisles, and employees do their best to keep the boxes out of the customers’ way.  And, unfortunately, there aren’t always enough registers open to keep up with the crowd.

None of this applies to Pathmark.

First of all, any time after midnight, there will almost never be more than one cashier open.  Whether you have two items or a shopping cart full of them, you are waiting on the same line.  And don’t expect to have the shopping cart people let you go ahead of them if you only have a few things.  These are hardcore veterans, who know that if they let one person ahead of them, everyone behind them will want the same treatment.  Or they’re just jerks.

And forget about a few isolated boxes.  At night, the store turns into an Indiana Jones adventure.  Cardboard boxes are strewn everywhere; no aisle is safe.  It’s the most organized garage sale you will ever see.

Given all of that, every time I go to Pathmark late at night, I know something awesome is going to happen.  And by awesome, I mean terrifically unfortunate at the time, but funny in retrospect.  I had come home from a hockey game to discover that I had no milk; which, of course, won’t do.  So I decided to make the five mile round trip journey to Pathmark, unshowered and disgusting.  I figured it would be good camouflage; no one would bother me since they would see that I was one of them.

Since I only planned on getting a couple things, I didn’t grab a cart or a basket.  Eventually, arms filled with items that I hadn’t planned on getting, I made my way to the register.  Of course someone with a full cart was ahead of me, in the midst of being checked out.  Somewhat unexpected was the fact that this person had neglected to bring any sort of payment.  What this meant was that each item the man had, an entire shopping cart, needed to be voided off, item by item.  This is no simple process, either.  This involves scanning the item, then entering a piece of paper in the register every time.  And of course, there was only one register available.

Since I had plenty of time before I would be rung up again, and my arms were growing tired from holding my awkwardly stacked mountain of food, I decided to wander around.  It was then that I found this.

 

Frosty Paws, an ice cream for dogs.

I had actually purchased a box of these a long time ago, however they disappeared from my freezer.  So this time I put them in a Ziploc bag with “DO NOT EAT” written on it.  The fact that I have to write “do not eat” on a box of dog ice cream should speak volumes about the household that I live in, although that is beside the point.

The box describes it as a healthy replacement for ice cream. I am not a dog owner, so I am speaking with a bit of ignorance when I say this, but what the hell?  Why does a dog alternative to ice cream need to exist?  The box claims that dogs love Frosty Paws because it is cold, like real ice cream.  Again, my lack of dog knowledge might be showing, but I don’t think dogs like ice cream because it is cold.  I have a feeling it has to do more with the fact that it doesn’t taste like dog food.  A dog will eat a cold steak or a warm fruit salad; it doesn’t give a damn about temperature, just so long as it is a change of pace from dog food.

And apparently dairy is bad for dogs.  I knew cats were lactose intolerant, but I did not know that about dogs.  This is because I have grown up on the image of milk being enjoyed by cats and dogs alike.  You feed a kitten a saucer of milk, you give a dog a Milk Bone, so what’s going on?  Campbell’s doesn’t name a soup Cream of Arsenic, so why name a product Milk Bone when the intended recipient can’t even drink milk?

The whole thing with dairy being bad for dogs is just strange.  Even stranger is when I looked up Frosty Paws on Google.  I got a bunch of sites with a “home made” recipe for it, and almost all of them invariably included vanilla yogurt as the main ingredient.  Huh?  One site listed the ingredients as honey, chicken broth, raisins, and peanut butter.  Gross, yes, but at least that fits into the whole “dairy is bad” scheme. Although the site I got it from was written from the dog’s perspective, so I don’t know if I can trust a dog’s knowledge of the recipe.

Talking about the concept of Frosty Paws is one thing, but I had to know how they tasted.  Stupid and disgusting, yes; but I knew avoiding it would compromise my journalistic integrity.  So I sat down with a cup of it, favorite ice cream spoon in hand.  Yes, I have a favorite ice cream spoon.

The thought entered my mind that it would be just as easy to throw some of it out, and take a picture of an empty cup, without ever having actually eaten it.  But no, I had to.  I had to know as much for my sake as yours.

 

Opening the cup, I had only one hope: that it doesn’t taste like dog food.  I’ve never actually eaten dog food, but the smell is just so horrifying that I assume the taste is on par with it.  I have eaten dog biscuits before, which really aren’t bad.  I wouldn’t eat them as a snack, but if someone pays me a dollar to eat one, or has a dog biscuit eating contest, hell yeah, I’m in.

The ice cream didn’t smell like anything.  Ice cream normally doesn’t really smell like anything, but the fact that there was no pungent or even faint dog food aroma was a good sign.  I took the first bite, and braced for the worst.  Luckily, it wasn’t bad at first; it just tasted like a dog biscuit.  It’s not exactly Breyers, but it could be worse.  Then, once the ice cream actually melts in your mouth, it starts to get worse.  The initial cold temperature masks the flavor well; all you really taste is cold.  Then, once the heat of your mouth warms it, it gets pretty bad.  It tasted like what I would imagine a mother dog’s milk to taste like.  Although I don’t spend too much time imagine what that would taste like, so that could be an inaccurate description.

 

I made it a few more bites in, but had to stop.  I wanted to eat the whole thing, just to say I did, but couldn’t do it. The more bites I took, the stronger the aftertaste was getting.  I also hadn’t thought to have a beverage in my room, so I had to leave and get some orange juice.  Unfortunately, orange juice wasn’t the best follow up; it was kind of like the gross taste you get when you drink orange juice after brushing your teeth, only creamier.

 

The nutrition facts for each cup are seven grams of fat, 128 calories, 196 mg of sodium, and 9 grams of sugars.  I couldn’t find the carb count for it, so I don’t know if Frosty Paws are Atkins approved.  They do, however, have plenty of “Crude Protein.”

As a snack, I can not give Frosty Paws my seal approval.  It is a shame, since I am a big fan of novelty foods.  I also wish it tasted better, since it would be entertaining to eat dog ice cream at a party.  Although this line of thinking is probably why I don’t get invited to many parties.

 

Even though I wasn’t a big fan of it, my cat seemed to somewhat like it.  She took a few bites, and then ultimately decided that ice cream wasn’t her scene.  I have ultimately decided that cats do not like food that isn’t room temperature.  I once microwaved my cat’s food, and he was not pleased whatsoever.

So I give Frosty Paws a hesitant thumbs down, and I can’t really tell what the cat’s rating of it was.  She did take a few bites, but that doesn’t indicate much.  One of the other cats has eaten half of an almond joy bar, which indicates that this cat is much smarter, also because he was nowhere to be found when I was taste testing the Frosty Paws.

 

In conclusion, pass on the Frosty Paws, and cats are way better than dogs.

Florida 2003: Part 6 – Sea World

Posted by robbposch on June 23, 2004
Posted in: Florida. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Sea World was always one of those places I really never had any interest in going to.  I think that is because every commercial and ad that I have seen gives the impression that the park’s theme is, “Hey, look at fish for twelve hours.”

Then my family went, and it got good reviews.  At some point, they even added legitimate rides.  When I was last in Orlando, we drove by the park and the roller coaster look very impressive.  So when Amy suggested going there, I figured why not.

This was another one of the parks we wound up getting to about an hour early, due to the terrible shuttle schedule.  After sitting on a ticket line that, for some reason, stalled for about twenty minutes, we finally got in.  There was a sign at the entrance, announcing Sea World’s Halloween event.  However, judging by the sign, it was going to be a half assed event at best.

 

We made it about fifty feet into the park, and got stopped again.  Apparently the park opening was merely a formality, or maybe they just open the park one section at a time.  Eventually, we were allowed further into the park.

We decided to hit the two main rides in the park right away, in order to beat the crowds.  First off was Kraken, the roller coaster.

 

I have been in plenty of amusement parks when they are just opening, and it’s always fairly weird.  The huge, popular rides are empty.  As a result, they lose some of their appeal.  Even if I know the ride is good, the fact that no one is around makes it seem like the ride is unwanted.

 

This was my first impression of Kraken; there was no one on line.  The employees running the ride looked about as awake as I was.  And, when they are in charge of making sure you are properly strapped in and don’t die on a loop, that is pretty scary.

The ride itself was the epitome of mediocrity.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, either.  Immediately upon leaving the ride, I had forgotten everything that had happened on it.

 

Since Kraken looked so appealing the year before, it was a pretty big letdown.  One of the two main rides in the park got the thumbs down, so they day was off to a rocky start.

Even before going into the park, I was very familiar with the name of the Journey to Atlantis ride.  This was due to the fact that my brother had worn the same Journey to Atlantis shirt for about six days a week for an entire year.  As for the ride itself, I just knew it was a Splash Mountain type log flume ride.

The line was the same as Kraken’s: empty.  The real, rational reason for this was that all of the smart people were still asleep.  But no matter what the reason for a ride being empty is, the first impression is that the ride sucks.

A common phrase used when describing bad things is, “It started off so promisingly, but…”  There’s no need to worry about that here.  Right from the very beginning, no mistake can be made, Journey to Atlantis is crap.

I can’t recall what the setup for the ride was about.  I was in such shock and awe over the ride’s carnival haunted house level of production.  The plot involved a magic sea horse.  Normally that is a surefire recipe for success, but it just doesn’t work this time.

I have absolutely no idea what happened on the ride.  Eventually the boat drops down, the ride ends, and you are offered the opportunity to purchase Journey to Atlantis merchandise.

After the Journey to Atlantis debacle, it was time for the first animal show of the day.  The shows were all good, but not very interesting to write or read about.  So since I care very deeply about your enjoyment, I will skip over them.  Also, I’m lazy.

The one thing that I will mention is how absolutely blinding the sun was early in the morning.  I kept saying I would buy a pair of sunglasses, but never actually did.  Instead, I spent every morning squinting.  This partial blindness might explain how I chose my seat for the dolphin show, and then noticed I was sitting in the “Soak Zone.”

 

One of the more popular areas was the attraction where you could feed the sea lions.  Sea lions are the same as seals, except for a few differences of which I am not aware. For the bargain price of about $5, you could buy a basket of tiny fish.  These fish also offered challenge and excitement, because if you spilled even a drop of the fish juice on you, you would spend the rest of the day smelling like low tide.

The feeding station really is a win – win situation for Sea World.  The people in the park are entertained by watching the sea lions, and getting to interact with them.  The park also benefits because the tourists are being suckered into paying to feed the park’s animals, something the park would need to do anyway.

I don’t know where Sea World is getting all of these little fish from, although I assume it’s from the ocean.  Between using the fish as rewards for the animals in the shows, and all of the fish being sold for feeding, the park must go through thousands a day.  I don’t know much about fish, but it doesn’t seem like these little fish can breed fast enough to keep up with the demand.  If the fish were more attractive, I could fathom them mating a lot.  But these fish aren’t very sexy at all.  If it were one of the more erotic fish, like a Grouper, it would be understandable.  But these fish just don’t do it for me.

So I have no idea where the hell they’re getting all of these fish from.

Despite the fact that I saw them after it was too late, these warning signs are right on the money.  When tossing a fish to one of the sea lions, you better have good aim; because if you miss its mouth by even a little, the sea lion isn’t getting that fish.  These birds will swoop down on the fish in an instant, pissing off tourists and sea lions all day long.

 

The bird themselves are absolutely hideous.  They look like some sort of DNA spliced cross breed between a vulture and a seagull.  It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Sea World is doing genetic experiments.  That might explain where all the little fish are coming from.

 

Since it had been almost two days since it last rained, it was time for some more showers. So, we went to the nearest indoor attraction, which was the penguin exhibition.  Which really isn’t very interesting to talk about.

 

As it was about time to eat, we looked into eating at Sharks Underwater Grill, which I think was the only real restaurant in the park.  There might be others, but I don’t want to check.  The menu seemed rather pedestrian, and kind of pricey.  Regardless, the atmosphere seemed interesting, so we figured it was worth a shot.  We then found out that the wait to sit down was about two hours.  Forget that.  For the price of a meal there, I could get six churros, and get them right away.

 

So as you might assume, we decided to eat elsewhere.  Before that, we checked out the shark exhibit.  This was really cool; you walk through a glass-ceiling hallway, with a shark tank all around you.  Outside, there was an open pool with various other types of similar fish, such as sting rays.  It is interesting at first, since they are so close to you; you could reach out and touch them and harm yourself if you really wanted to.  Then is seems kind of disappointing.  If I was swimming in the ocean and I saw one of these come near me, I would fill the surrounding water with copious amounts of urine.  But here, whatever, I could step on them if I wanted to.

Soon, it was time for the most popular event in the park, the Shamu show.  I forget what the deal with the current Shamu is, whether Shamu is a single whale, the general name for all the killer whales, or what.  I think the original Shamu is dead.

 

The arena was packed, which lent some sort of excitement to the show, since there were so many people there.  This is the exact opposite of my normal reaction to large crowds in an amusement park, which is immense aggravation and suppressed violent desires.

 

I was impressed by the whole setup.  The arena was huge, and the stage was attractive as well.  I suppose it’s all relative; this arena might have seemed larger and more impressive compared to the other shows’ stages, which were significantly smaller.

The show itself was good, although somewhat overrated.  It was standard fare; the whales flip around, splash, and do other similar whale activities.  Well, trained whale activities.  In the wild, killer whales engage in far less bicycle horn honking.  So the show was definitely good, but from its reputation I was expecting something a little more life changing.  But no, I’m still the same.  Same skin color (pale,) same personality (grating,) and same sexual orientation (ambiguous.)

Up to this point, the day had been going fairly well.  Despite the bad start due to the rides, everything had gone smoothly.  However, the day was about to take a turn, for the ridiculously awesome.

It is common for amusement parks to have activities that aren’t exactly within the general theme of the park.  Disneyworld, the “dreams can come true” park, has the sterile, post apocalyptic Tomorrowland.  Universal Studios, the “magic of the movies” park, has the Curious George playground.  Curious George is a book, and if you look at it carefully, you realize that a book is not a movie.  Unless the book has been adapted into a movie.  I’ve defeated my own argument, so I should probably just delete that.  I’ve already typed too much though, so forget it.  Finally, Epcot, the “we are the world – hippie nonsense – buy an electric car or the future is doomed” park, had rides like Body Wars, which is about blood cells.

So unrelated attractions aren’t too shocking anymore.  Although this is taken to a new level when the connection is attempted between “Fish are awesome,” and “Sit in an air conditioned room while drinking free beer.”

 

We were getting into the MGM / Universal situation, where the idea was that we had done almost everything there was to do, so we were stuck with the more random places in the park.  So, we headed over to the Anheuser Busch Hospitality Center, not really knowing what it was.  Inside the building, there were a fair amount of displays, as well as a bar.  Although I must admit, I didn’t pay much attention to that.  I was too busy noticing the large marquee which proclaimed one corner of the building to be “Beer School.”

 

Apparently, Beer School was the hot spot to be, judging by the pear shaped woman racing by me, walking like Butthead.

We sat down inside a room filled with tables and chairs, in the front row, which is the first time I have sat in the front row of a classroom since they stopped using assigned seating.

The moderator running the show clearly knew he was catering to the lowest common denominator, since his opening line as he stepped to the front of the room was, “Who here likes beer?”  And we, cooperative group of hooligans that we were, loudly cheered… although I wasn’t being entirely honest.

I don’t even like beer that much.  I don’t like the taste, especially those dark, milkshake-thick beers.  I don’t like those soda beers either, since they are so horrifyingly sweet.  I usually drink “light” or, preferably, “low carb” beers, since they taste as little like beer as possible.  Beer that doesn’t really taste like beer: the best of both worlds.

A film was then shown about the history of Anheuser-Busch, and how their beer is made.  I don’t remember much about this process, apparently they put bread in a vat, and it eventually turns to booze.

Then, the samples were handed out.  They were little glasses, but still had a good amount in them, maybe 6 or 8 ounces each.  There was one for Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, a soda beer, and some other beers that I couldn’t pick out in a taste test if I had a gun to my head.

One important fact to keep in mind is that we never got around to eating lunch yet.  So I wound up drinking about nine glasses of beer (including the ones that Amy didn’t want,) all on a completely empty stomach.

Even still, I was able to come through in the clutch.  Despite being mildly bombed, I was able to answer the moderator’s pop quiz of what the five ingredients of beer are: barley, hops, water, Rice a Roni, and yeast, or something to that effect.

To reward me for my courageous victory, I was given a Budweiser can cozy.  Which, currently, is somewhere under my bed, keeping my dust cold.  Even more importantly, since I passed his test, it meant the class would receive their diplomas.  These things were no joke.  They had our real names printed on them.

For some reason, the next hour or so of the day was something of a blur.

It was coming time to catch the shuttle, but we still had enough time to catch the polar animal exhibit.  This also had the third and final (I think) ride in the park.  The ride was a simulation, where you are riding in a helicopter over arctic land.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very great simulation of this.  It was, however, a great simulation of being repeatedly punched in the face and neck area by a large cretin with a roll of quarters in his fist.

I was developing a bit of a headache before the ride, but after it I was ready to buy a souvenir shark tooth necklace, so I could use it to slit my wrists and put an end to my misery.

Despite the fact that the ride sucked something terrible, the polar attraction was great.  Unfortunately, we had to rush through it, since we needed to catch the shuttle.  If I do come back here ever, I’d definitely want to spend more time in this exhibit.

On the way to the park exit, it became apparent that we overestimated the amount of time we had to get back.  We also overestimated our knowledge of how to get anywhere in the park.  I spoke of how randomly MGM was mapped out, but oh man, MGM has nothing on Sea World.

 

This is the official map, from Sea World’s web site.  If the actual business itself can’t make it any clearer than this mess, imagine actually trying to navigate it.  Even worse, imagine trying to navigate it when you are in a major rush to get somewhere.  And this map can in no way be close to scale.  That bridge over the lake had to be at least two miles long.  Since we were so inconvenienced by having to rush to catch the shuttle, knocking over any elderly people or children in our way, of course the driver was late.

So my glorious plans for the evening were delayed: gulping down about twenty Kirkland brand ibuprofens, lying down, and watching a few hours of “The Top Seven Must See Attractions in Walt Disney World.”

The End.

 

  Bigmouth Billy Bass Strikes Again.

Florida 2003: Part 5 – MGM Studios

Posted by robbposch on May 27, 2004
Posted in: Disney, Florida. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

MGM Studios sucks.

I don’t usually like to give away the ending like that, and I’m sorry for ruining the surprise.  I was just trying to figure out the best way to get started on the topic; since as interesting as reading about Tropicana breakfast smoothies are, I’m sure you could give less than half a damn about my morning routine.

So I figured I’d get to the point, and introduce the thesis.  “MGM Studios sucks,” succinct and to the point.  It might, however, not be entirely accurate.

What I am trying to get at is though MGM can be interesting at points; it’s just not worth it.  It’s not worth the $50 admission.  More importantly, it’s not worth the time.  For someone like me, with no car and no park hopper pass, you can go there, be done with everything by 2 PM, and your day is shot.

And this is because of one of MGM’s major problems.  Almost none of the rides or attractions have any re-watchability, re-rideability, or whatever the appropriate term may be.  But I’ll get into that later.

Upon entering, you are met with a giant sorcerer’s hat, which was worn by Mickey in “Fantasia.”  I don’t actually understand why this is the central focus of the park.  Fantasia seems like it would be better suited for The Magic Kingdom than MGM.  Although it is a movie, so maybe it makes sense.  I don’t know.  I don’t get how the hell anything in this park correlates.  Sure, there is the movie theme, but it is Mickey behind the camera.  I don’t even know what MGM actually is.  I think it’s the one with the lion roaring (or in some superior cases, a kitten meowing.)

Because of the vagueness of the park’s identity, the whole “movie” thing falls flat.  The theme seems to be more along the lines of “Everything else that wouldn’t make sense in Epcot or the Magic Kingdom.”

Universal owns MGM when it comes to movie magic, and considering Universal’s sub-par enjoyment factor, that’s pretty sad.

MGM should just change the theme to a giant garage sale atmosphere.  “You never know what you’re gonna get.  It will probably be trash, but you might find something worth spending money on.”  That fits rather well, actually.

 

At the base of the giant hat, people dressed as toy soldiers from “Toy Story” were wandering around.  This has to be one of the worst jobs ever.  Sure, walking around in other character costumes can’t be too comfortable.  But come on, these soldiers are walking around essentially encased in a Ziploc bag in ninety degree weather.

Of course, I could be wrong about that.

We wound up in the back area of the park.  Not to avoid crowds, but because the park is terribly laid out.

While the other parks are laid out like this:

 

MGM is more like:

 

In the back alleys of the park, we went into the first attraction, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

You sit in a replica of the studio for the show.  I can’t say how accurate of a replica it is, I don’t know what it really looks like.  We thought that the whole attraction was watching people answer questions to win valuable Disney prizes.  Until we realized that we were supposed to be answering along with our remote controls.  So we didn’t do too well the first round.

When I was following along, I did rather well.  When the whole thing ended, I was at 5th out of a few hundred people.

I think was set me apart point-wise was that I got a question about the word “equinox” correct.  This would be more impressive if I didn’t know the answer because of a Beastie Boys lyric.

From there, it was on to the MGM back lot tour.  While standing on line, we were tortured with a video about the movie Pearl Harbor, and its producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

 

Audience members are then chosen to take part in a water effects part of the tour.  This involves more of the, “ha ha, now you’re wet, jerk” line of audience amusement.

 

The next part of the ride was a tram tour around the back lot of the park.  Warehouses where props are made and stored are shown.  Sets of certain shows and movies are shown as well.  I can only seem to recall them mentioning the set of the New Mickey Mouse Club.  Now that is actually some interesting stuff.

 

The Mickey Mouse Club has launched some of the biggest careers in popular music.  Of course, I am referring to The Party, a band made up of Mickey Mouse Club members.  They have released some of the greatest songs ever, as evidenced by the fact that they have a greatest hits album.

 

Then it was on to Catastrophe Canyon.

 

This is an effects show in the same vein as Twister and Earthquake at Universal.  Basically the tram stops, the ground shakes, then it’s more of that “nyah, there’s water and fire everywhere.”

After the tram, the ride lets out into a very small gallery of movie props, where the theme is movie villains.  This was a temporary show, so it might not still be there.  Which is a shame, since it was quite good.  Then (this is Disney after all,) you are lead into a gift shop.  The items for sale here are very peculiar.

Although as someone who can’t get enough of JTT, it’s nice to get the opportunity to purchase Home Improvement paraphernalia.  I haven’t seen these since Caldor went out of business.

Why would these even be for sale?  It wasn’t marked down; it was full price.  Who, in the year 2004, would buy this?  I’m not even getting into the question of why someone would buy it, based on the fact that it was a terrible show.  I guess I can imagine one or two people buying this in 1994; but ten years later, why?  It’s not even kitschy enough to be taken as a novelty shirt.  A lousy show that has bombed in syndication; yeah, dropping $22 on it sounds like a grand idea.  The only possible logic is that Disney is holding on to these shirts until the eventual 90s retro craze.

Getting back on track, it was at this point that we headed over to the Tower of Terror.  When I visited MGM for the first time, about ten years ago, Tower of Terror was not here.  It opened, oh, about a week later.  So my anticipation for this ride has been growing for a decade.  Making it better were all the ads on TV and billboards saying how the ride has been improved.

There was a channel on the TV in the hotel room which was dedicated to the top seven attractions in Walt Disney World.  This was hosted by the most upbeat person that has ever existed.  I think her name was Krissa.  It is impossible to describe her without seeing the show.  She seems to be on a combination of caffeine, cocaine, and Disney Magic.  This special (infomercial?) didn’t just air once in a while.  It looped over and over and over.  So when I was just hanging out in the room or trying to fall asleep, I would put it on.  And leave it on.

 

So after being here for a few days, I had seen this about thirty five times.  And of those top seven attractions was right here, the aforementioned Tower of Terror.  Walking across the park, it was easy to see the tower looming over everything, growing larger as we got closer.

As I approached the entrance to the ride, my anticipation was at a fever pitch.  So nothing made the day more perfect, nothing made my life more complete, than arriving at the entrance and seeing an ominous sign propped up below the entryway.

You can’t see it in the picture, but the other side of this sign simply said in large letters, “You just wasted $50, jackass!”

Could I have missed the warning signs at the park ticket booths, those signs that try to play fair by saying which rides are closed that day?  Let me check… nope.  Hmmmm.  I don’t want to force the employees to take any extreme measures, but I think it would have been a nice gesture to let people know that the most popular ride in the whole damned park was CLOSED.

 

At this point, the day might as well have been over.  The only reason I even went to the park wasn’t even operational.  Michael Eisner could have walked over and offered me a job writing the script for the upcoming “Top 8 Must See Attractions In Walk Disney World, Provided The Aren’t Closed Without Warning,” and I still would have been pissed off.

Moping over to the next attraction that I didn’t care about, suddenly a beacon of hope shone upon me.  From an umbrella covered ice cream cart.

Chocolate covered frozen bananas.

 

They are one of the most mysterious and luxurious dessert products known to man.  This tubular piece of love had arrived just in time.  When I was at my lowest, it returned to me.  MGM can still go straight to hell, just as long as they don’t drag the wonderful ice cream man down with them in their spiral of treachery.

It was now time to come crashing down to reality.  I already had a ride closed on me, and next on the schedule was a ride that I loved as a kid.  And when youthful memories meet jaded current times, the results are rarely pretty.

When I was last here, Star Tours seemed amazing.  The atmosphere was incredible, and the ride was great.

The ride still looks great.  The AT-AT (naming Star Wars vehicles by model…loser alert) outside is huge, and gets you in the mood for the ride.  The ride itself, well, it’s not so good.  Imagine being the cassette inside the Walkman of a mountain biker.

So, like Back to the Future: The Ride, Star Tours has shown me that I liked being shaken around and knocked in the head better when I was a kid.

 

In the back area, there is a large section of the park made up of city facades.  I get the point: facades, movies… clever stuff.  Even still, I must say that it feels like something of a rip off knowing that this whole part of the park is made up of fake buildings.

Eventually, we found a part of this area that was more than two dimensions.  In here is one of the more interesting parts of MGM, although I personally couldn’t take full advantage of it.

The “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” playground is pretty much just what you would expect.  Everything is giant sized, with hills, slides, and other creative obstacles making up the majority of the playground.

This is one of the best areas of the park, in that it has stood the test of time.  The movie is old, the playground is old, and yet it is still more interesting and creative than 90% of the attractions in the park.  Unfortunately, due to my age and size (not 8 and 65 lbs,) I couldn’t go on a lot of the playground.  Although getting stuck in a slide would have at least taken up some time and made the day last longer.

One thing I didn’t see was that indoor thing where you could ride on the giant bee.  But you do have to give credit to anything that has Scrabble tiles that are bigger than your torso.

We exited the fake city and headed over to the park’s central ride, the Great Movie Ride.  This was the ride I probably remember most distinctly from the last time I was here.  That’s not actually true, I really only remember the part where the alien pops out of the ceiling, but I remember that well.

 

The biggest downside to this ride is that it relies on its employees (or “cast members”) to provide a good portion of the entertainment.  It’s similar to the Jungle Cruise, where you have someone with you, narrating the ride.  The main difference is that the people on the Jungle Cruise are funny.

I don’t know if it is because of the script they have to work with, or if they just picked the bottom 10% of Orlando Community College’s drama club, but the people on the movie ride are annoying.  Or maybe it was just the one in our car.  I really didn’t feel like going on it a second time to find out.

In the ride, they take you around animatronic sets from classic movies such as Casablanca, Indiana Jones, and whatever the name of a John Wayne movie is.

Being stopped in the section with the Wizard of Oz set is a combination of creepiness and terror.  Seeing that stuff in the movie is weird enough, but having it surround you in all of its life sized horror is just too much to handle.

During a part with a gangster theme, our “captain” seemed to get shot and die, much to my own amusement.  She then turns up later on in the Indiana Jones section, to the undeserved applause from our car.

After this finally ended, we headed over to the only potentially exciting ride (that was open) in the park.

The fact that a roller coaster based on Aerosmith exists is absolutely mind boggling.  I will admit that any band writing one good song about thirty years ago and turning it into a huge, unfathomable career is pretty impressive.  That’s all well and good, except for two huge problems when it comes to the ride.  First, Aerosmith is a band, not a movie.  So why the hell is it in a movie themed park?  Secondly, Aerosmith has nothing to do with roller coasters.

I could go on, but this whole “discussing Aerosmith” thing is upsetting me.

 

We had a Fast Pass for this ride, and the line still stretched completely past the entrance.  The format they were using for the Fast Pass line was bizarre.  We stood in a huge line for about twenty minutes, and then suddenly the entire line of about a hundred people all went in at once.

Inside, you watch an introductory video from the band.  The premise (since a deep band like Aerosmith requires a plot for its ride) is that the band gives you tickets to their concert, and you need to take their roller coaster limousine to get there in time.  Makes sense.

The ride starts off promisingly, using that linear induction that propels rides such as the Hulk, which accelerates the ride from 0-60 MPH in about two seconds.  After that it’s all pretty terrible.  I assume the ride itself was okay, although I don’t remember if there were even any loops.  This is probably because I was distracted due to the ride blasting Aerosmith songs in my ear the entire time.  It’s shocking how unlistenable these songs are once you take Alicia Silverstone out of the equation.

The Drew Carey sound show is quite possibly one of the worst things that I have paid money for.  You sit in a room and watch a brief movie with headphones on.  Then the video shuts off, and all you hear are sounds.  Somehow, this pays tribute to the sound effects workers.  Although after sitting in the dark for ten minutes hearing bang and smash, I was pretty pissed off at them.

The pictures didn’t come out too well, so here is a quick summary of the Indiana Jones stunt show:

Punch, punch, jump, whip, explosion, fall, punch, punch, punch, fall while whipping, big explosion.

By now, we had done everything to do in the park, and it was only about 4 o’clock.  We took the tram back to the main Disney hub so we could catch the hotel shuttle.  Then we realized that we mixed up the shuttle times, and were about an hour and a half early.

So, we did what anyone would do in this situation.  We snuck into the Magic Kingdom.

Well, not exactly.  Since we had Disney shopping bags, we just walked in through the exit, into the area where it forks to the monorail or the ferry.

Since it was quite hot out, we hopped on the monorail to bask in the air conditioning.  We pondered trying to get into the park itself, but we decided we would rather just leave.  So we hopped on the ferry, and went back to catch the shuttle.

MGM definitely has its good points.  Unfortunately, those good points are towered (no pun intended) over by the massive amounts of horrible aspects of the park.

If anyone who works at MGM is reading this, please contact me regarding sending me free park tickets, so I can go on Tower of Terror and leave.  Thanks.

Florida 2003: Part 4 – Islands of Adventure

Posted by robbposch on May 10, 2004
Posted in: Florida. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Since Islands of Adventure is such a great theme park, there really isn’t too much to talk about.  That actually sounds pretty stupid.  What I mean is that giving commentary on the experience at the park isn’t very interesting when everything goes right for the most part.  And considering I’ve already given a pretty thorough description of the park, I have to be cautious to not delve too far into the realm of redundancy.

That being said, the day’s events can be summed up fairly easily in three steps.

One, the Triceratops Encounter was closed.  In all honesty, this was the sole reason I came back to Florida.  The upside to this was seeing a southern man trying to buy beer.  On Sunday.  At ten in the morning.  “We’re sorry sir, we can’t sell beer until noon,” the attendant told him.  “Ahl be back layter,” he replied.

Two, our final ride on Ripsaw Falls lasted about twenty minutes.  This was due to the fact that the ride got stuck twice, the first time we were stuck for only a few minutes, the second time we sat there for about ten minutes.  Finally, right as we were going up the hill leading to the final drop, the high point of the ride, it got stuck again.  And we were escorted off.  The ride is still one of the coolest looking attractions in any theme park.

Three, well, I don’t really have a third point.  But the Cat in the Hat ride is really freaking creepy.

 And there you have it, Islands of Adventure, the sequel.

But fear not.  The day’s fun might have not been very fun to read about, but the night is something different altogether.  Not different in the sense of it being any more interesting to read about, different for other reasons.  The night is filled with something not humorous at all.  The night is filled… with horror.

Halloween Horror Nights, to be precise.

So we already know that Islands of Adventure is an amazing theme park.  Well, its reputation increased tenfold with me after this.  A lot of theme parks have Halloween themed events; however most of them are mostly goofy.  Some fake cobwebs here, a fake skeleton there, and pumpkins all over the place.  I appreciate the effort, I really do.  I love Halloween, so the more of this theme I can get, the better.  I do, however, take offense to the “spooky” names that are tacked onto these events, “Fright Fest” in Six Flags being one of the worst offenders.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Fright Fest.  It’s freezing out, so no one makes you go on water rides, at least at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey.  The atmosphere is good, what with the pumpkins and cobwebs and all.  However, there is one major ingredient missing…fright.

Fun, yes; scary, no.

Islands of Adventure, on the other hand, had a very good reputation when it came to its Halloween activities.  I talked to a few people (well, one) and heard great things.

So the night I was there, Islands closed early, in order to set up for Halloween Horror Nights.  Because of this, we were forced to kill time on the City Walk for a couple of hours.  This doesn’t sound like such a problem, having to hang around a tourism oriented area, ripe with restaurants, stores, and other attractions.  However, unless you are a big fan of Jimmy Buffett, the City Walk is a horrid place to be stranded.

 

Finally, Islands was ready to reopen; and, dear God, was it packed.  Immediately upon reentry, it was obvious how much better Horror Nights was than any Halloween event I’d been to before.  Costumed characters roamed around everywhere, either harassing guests or vice versa, I couldn’t tell.

Right past the entry path to the park was a stage with dancers, towered over by a huge flaming skull.  Bad ass.  Now, I don’t know much about dancing from experience, but I assume that dancing in one spot for an extended period of time would get tiring and / or boring rather quickly.  I tried to see if the dancers were different later on, to see if they got a break, but I couldn’t tell if they were they same people or not.  The whole “chained up pirate tramp” outfits confused me.

These girls are probably new employees, who have to go through this theme park boot camp.  It could be worse, I guess.  I assume that being forced to dance is better than being beaten with soap-filled towels.  But I can’t say from experience.  The dancing, that is.  Once these dancers have been approved, they are able to move on to bigger and better things.  Such as unchained pirate tramp dancers.

We headed over to Seussville, towards the first haunted house.  Besides overhauling the park itself, the Horror Nights also included a group of haunted houses, exclusive to the event.  Certain ones were themed towards whatever island they were located on, such as a jungle themed on the Jurassic Park island.

The Seussville one was not themed.  I guess the thinking, and I totally agree, is that a Dr. Seuss themed haunted house would be way too messed up.

The sign for the house said the wait time was approximately fifteen minutes.  The estimation was… a little off.  We wound up being on line for about forty minutes in the sweltering heat.  Making matters worse was the fact that the sky was seriously threatening to rain.

Eventually, we got to the front of the line.  The house was inside a big warehouse, and was themed like… a house.  You started in the front yard, and slowly made your way in and through the house.  I loved the whole thing.  The atmosphere was very well done, and was quite scary.  Amy, well, she didn’t like it too much.

She disliked it so much that she refused to go into another one.  I didn’t want to go in them by myself.  Not out of fear, but going on a ride by yourself is like going to the movies by yourself: stupid.  I also didn’t want to stand in the long line by myself, sweating and grumbling.

So to balance out the haunted house, we headed towards the least scary, and most lame thing we could find, which was the Bill and Ted musical extravaganza.  First of all, Bill and Ted seem like a really random thing to base something like this on.  I love the movies, but they aren’t exactly very culturally relevant right now.

Basically the show was a poorly thought out combination of bad humor, music, and very bad pop culture reference, some bordering on offensive.

So that ended eventually.

I’m aware that this isn’t too interesting of a tale; like I said, it’s hard to write about things like this that were enjoyable.  Complaining is much easier and more fun.  That’s why this is going to be cut off soon, so I can get to the next day.

 

In summary, the conclusions I came to last year ring just as true: Islands of Adventure is amazing.  Halloween Horror Nights, amazing also.  Here’s a traveling tip: If you really feel the need to go to Universal Studios, buy a park hopper pass.  That way, you can spend a full day at Islands of Adventure.  The next day, go to Universal Studios.  Then, when you’re finished there by around 2 PM, you can spend the rest of the day at Islands.  Boo Yah.

 

 On our way back to the hotel, we were challenged to try new things.  Have a “Thirst Adventure” by drinking, uh, Coca Cola.  At least it’s not Goose Juice.

Florida 2003: Part 3 – The Magic Kingdom

Posted by robbposch on March 29, 2004
Posted in: Disney, Florida. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

On any given weekday morning, I wake up at 6:00 AM for work, swearing up and down that as soon as I get home from school that night, I will go right to bed.  Because every morning I wake up tired, but always seem to forget this come nighttime.  There I am at 1:00 in the morning, eating Bottle Caps and playing JT’s Blocks at Yahoo! Games.  Next morning, I wake up and promise that this time I’m going to bed very early to catch up on sleep.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

Due to this never ending cycle, every single morning seems more and more like “Groundhog Day;”  Except instead of waking up to “I Got You Babe,” I wake up to “EEE! EEE! EEE! EEE!”

Don’t fret; this actually does have something to do with the matter at hand.  This sleep depravation phenomenon explains why I know I have to be up at 7:00 AM for a long and tiring day at Disney World, yet I still don’t go to sleep.  I stay up watching a Tony Robbins infomercial.  And no, I’m not saying that as a stereotype of infomercials, it actually was Tony Robbins.  I’ve never seen one of his before, which is surprising, considering how often I watch infomercials and how often he airs them.  I found myself unable to change the channel or turn the television off, he is hypnotizing.  His energy and positive attitude are astounding.  So one would assume that buying his tape set would allow some of those qualities to rub off on you.  Also, his mouth is freaking huge.

I didn’t buy the tape set, so that was something of a small victory for me.  I think it’s because I didn’t have a credit card handy, but I will choose to believe I displayed more self control than usual.  The downside was that I wasted valuable sleeping time watching his informative commercial, so that was a big loss.

So, as always, morning rolls around.  And I’m stuck there at 9:00 AM, cursing my foolish choices.  Granted, hindsight is 20/20, but when I make the same obvious mistake night after night, it becomes apparent that I need some sort of foresight bifocals.

I’m not going to use any more metaphors for a while after that.

Standing at the shuttle bus stop with all of the tourist families, I must have looked like some sort of rock star.  Minus the fame, riches, and good looks.  Basically, I was just pale, unshaven, and unshowered, with my dark, tired eyes sunk into my head.  I could have put on the sunglasses that I had in my pocket, but at that time of day ideas like that are way too complicated.

We had the same grumpy bus driver as the day before, who yelled at us and made us throw out our food, since it wasn’t allowed on “his” bus.  If anyone had the right to be grumpy, it was us.  We were tired, and because of him, caffeine free, and paying an assload of money for the privilege.  The driver may have been just as tired, but at least he was getting paid.  I work at seven in the morning, so don’t take your bad mood out on me and my tea.  Suck it up, mustache.

Soon, we were at the park.  Yay!

Oh wait, we’re not there yet.  We were at the pre-park, where you pick whether you wanted to take the monorail or the ferry; like some sort of “Choose Your Own Adventure.”

Not getting our fill of faux-futuristic train travel at the airport, we opted for the monorail.  Since even the mighty defenses of Disney aren’t immune to terrorism, we had to go through a bag check.  They wanted to make sure we weren’t bringing in any contraband, such as guns, knives, or water bottles.

The bag check posed no problem, since I wasn’t sneaking anything in.  Even if I was, it would have been fine, since I have learned from other parks that gesturing emptily at my camera bag and mumbling “camera” is the international sign that signals security to wave you right through.

Unlike Universal Studios, we didn’t arrive before the park had opened.  Since the Disney parks are the most popular attractions in Orlando, more shuttles to the Magic Kingdom were offered.  The Magic Kingdom acted as a hub to the other parks; you go from the hotel to the Magic Kingdom, and take a Disney shuttle to MGM, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom.  See, that’s actual information; Fodor’s makes a killing filling its books with stuff like that.  Personally, I find giving useful information to be very straining and time consuming, so I avoid it as much as possible.

Since there were more shuttles offered, we went with a slightly later one.  Granted, it was only an hour later, but that early in the morning, every extra minute is worth its weight in gold.  Which I guess would add up to nothing, since time has no weight.   I don’t think I need to explain myself; anyone who has to wake up to the sonic assault of an alarm clock has all thought the same thing.  During those ungodly mornings when I think, “If I just don’t show up to work today, would they fire me?  And if they did, would I care?”  Fortunately (or unfortunately,) reason kicks in eventually, and I get up.  I don’t even have the luxury of being sluggish, since by the time I stop procrastinating in bed, I’m about twenty five minutes late.

But, as usual, I digress.

Since we took a later shuttle, the park was already open when we got there.  It was a good time to arrive, since the park wasn’t crowded, but wasn’t unsettlingly empty.

We headed for the back of the park, since by the time we worked our way back to the front, people would be heading towards the back and the crowd would have cleared out.

This strategy works just as well as any of the plans I make for vacations, which is to say, not very well.  That doesn’t mean that heading for the back didn’t work out.  The areas furthest from the gate were all but abandoned; in what is definitely a rare instance in my experiences with the park, it was like a ghost town.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last very long.  Eventually, the crowd caught up to us.  My theory was flawed; the park wasn’t quiet when we finally got back to the front of the park.  This was because I neglected to factor in the constant influx of people.  Logic would suggest that by a certain point in the day, people would stop coming in.  If it’s that late in the afternoon, they’ll wait to come back the next day, right?  Wrong.  People flock to the park all day long.

I knew how packed the park can get, especially considering it was a Saturday.  So I knew I should appreciate how quiet it was at the beginning of the day.

The first ride we headed to was Splash Mountain.  It was definitely good to do this ride when it was empty, since this can have one of the longest lines in the park.  I have never understood the massive appeal that log flumes have, especially the themed ones.  Old school log flumes basically entailed going up a lift, and dropping down into a pool, and getting soaking wet.  The newer log flumes have inserted a time consuming middleman.  Rides such as Splash Mountain, Ripsaw Falls at Islands of Adventure, Journey to Atlantis at Sea World, and plenty of others have you riding around, looking at animatronics.  While these can be mildly entertaining, they’re not usually very fun.  So the experience of modern log flumes have turned into riding around somewhat bored, anticipating the wet ending that no one really wants to be part of.

 

The most entertaining part of Splash Mountain is seeing what they left out.  The ride is based on the story “Song of the South.”  I don’t know the exact story, and I honestly can’t be bothered to look it up.  What I remember about it comes from a Book and Record based on Brer Rabbit I had when I was a kid.  It was one of those books you would follow along with, where the record would tell you, “You may turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this…”

Point being, there was a character in the story named “Tar Baby.”  So you can see why Disney would choose not to include this character in the ride.  Obviously, they feel that the US is still recovering from the Exxon-Valdez disaster.  Normally, I find Disney’s painfully politically correct actions to be off putting, but I fully support them in their decision to remove Tar Baby.  Ecological disasters such as oil spills are not to be taken lightly; so I think there should be no Tar Babies on Splash Mountain, or anywhere else in the park.  Bravo, Mr. Eisner.

 

The ride itself was completely empty, despite the fact that first thing in the morning seems like the perfect time for a stomach churning drop that gets you soaking wet.

I didn’t have any idea of just how wet I would get, since the ride was so empty I didn’t see anyone getting off.  Also, the last time I was on this ride, I was already soaking wet to begin with.

 

I don’t even remember if I got very wet.  I’m assuming I didn’t, since I would have been more likely to remember getting soaked.  The ride was good; after all it was a boat ride, which is always cool in my book.

From there, we headed over to one of the few thrill rides in the park, Big Thunder Mountain.  Despite the fact that this ride would be considered a children’s ride in most amusement parks, Big Thunder Mountain is one of the fastest rides in the park.

Something, however, was different this time.  The Mountain felt extra dangerous, extra risky.  The stench of death was all around.  This was, of course, due to the fact that about a week prior, someone was killed on this ride.  I guess that’s not funny at all, but it is quite related to the matter at hand.  It also didn’t actually happen here.  It happened at Disneyland in California, but they are the same ride.  So viewing the Big Thunder Mountain in Disney World as a certain brush with death in the unholy underworld would be an understandable assumption.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t quite know, the ride was closed.  I recall liking the ride, but my memories of Big Thunder Mountain are clouded by my experiences of hating the Runaway Train ride at Six Flags Great Adventure.  Runaway Train is the halfway point between a child’s ride and a real roller coaster, probably leaning more towards the child side of the spectrum.  The cars on the ride are also built for people with an average height of 4’5”, based on the leg room it offers.

I do have to give Runaway Train some credit, since it was on that ride that one of the greatest events that ever happened at an amusement park occurred.

A group of friends and I were waiting on line, and were about to get on.  Some of them had already gotten into a car, and I would be on the next train.  I then heard a scuffle, which turned out to be an irate park guest biting someone in the face.  The blood and, presumably, skin had to be cleaned up by throwing a salt mix, used primarily to clean up vomit, onto the mess.  Since they had been restrained by the lap bar, most of my party missed out on the gruesome face biting.  In all honesty, I didn’t see exactly what happened either, but at least I was facing the commotion and got to see some scuffling.  We never did find out what exactly prompted the face biting, although one would assume something like that has to have some sort of interesting back story.

So Big Thunder Mountain is a much better ride.  And, as far as I know, no one has been killed on the Runaway Train.  Yet Big Thunder Mountain lacks the ability to claim it was privy to violent outbursts; or more specifically, outbursts that resulted in facial gnawing.  One could argue both sides for days, but it is a moot point, since the ride was closed.  So onward we move towards the Haunted Mansion.

 

Let no mistake be made: I love this ride.  I love haunted houses in general, but this is done to perfection.  Sure, it isn’t exactly scary, but who cares?  Everything about it is great.  The outside atmosphere and appearance of the house is amazing, the elevator ride sets the mood appropriately, and even the moving sidewalk leading up to the little buggy cars is fun.  Sitting down, you attempt to lower the lap bar, just like on any other ride.  You quickly notice you are unable to move it; and just for trying you are promptly yelled at by a ghostly voice coming from within the buggy.  This is no ordinary voice either; this voice belongs to Vincent Price.  A man who, it just so happens, is dead.  This means that you are being scolded by a voice from beyond the grave.  Creepy stuff.

Okay, it isn’t actually Vincent Price.  It’s the voice of an Imagineer who happens to possess the awesomely creepy vocal qualities of Price.  But maybe he’s dead also.  So it’s still creepy.

I’ll stop there.  I could go along and mention every step of the ride, but I won’t bore you with that.  I’ll bore you with other things, instead.

After walking back out into the bright sun, which is in stark contrast to the darkness of the Mansion, we headed to arguably the most popular area of the park, Fantasyland.

 

The first ride we came across was It’s a Small World.  And oh, the luck; a 0 minute wait.  This came as a surprise since the ride, as old as it is, still tends to draw a large crowd.  This ride gets a bad rap; everyone says how much they hate it, because of the song and the overall terribleness.  Well, to those people, I have one thing to say: You’re wrong.  I have come to realize that I love this ride, but not for the same reasons I love the Haunted Mansion.

In fact, I like it so much because of how awful it actually is.  I like seeing the gears and strings that hold the puppets up and cause them to move, then looking up at the ceiling that lets you know you are just floating to a moderately elaborate warehouse.  Then there’s the song.  Ah, the song.  If there is one single thing that all visitors of the Magic Kingdom can rally against, it is the theme song to It’s a Small World.  It is gratingly annoying and, even worse, gets stuck in your head all day.  I’m fine with that.  Even at the exit, where you are waved off by a faded picture taken at what appears to be Epcot in 1982, love is everywhere in this ride.  In fact, I don’t just love It’s a Small World.  I’m in love with it.

Overall, I give the ride an F… for fun!

From one of the most upbeat rides in the park, we head to one of the darkest.  Snow White is one of the most hardcore attractions in the park.  For a ride that, based on its subject matter, is meant for kids, it’s got a lot of creepiness going on.  You are riding along in the dark forest when all of a sudden, BOO YAH, you’ve got a witch in your face.  The story of Snow White is twisted to begin with, so basing a ride on the darkest aspects is a pretty bold idea for an attraction geared towards children.  You can get a sense of how unexpected this ride actually is by looking at the happy children going in, and watching the screaming, crying children as they come out.

From the innocent fun of Fantasyland we move to the sterility of Tomorrowland.  And apparently what “tomorrow” brings is…rain.  Yes rain, my Floridian pen pal, here to greet me again.  Luckily, I was able to find shelter in a futuristic gift shop.  I consider myself fortunate to find one, because there really aren’t enough places to buy Disney paraphernalia in Disney World and in the Orlando area.

After the brief rain, crowds started to grow denser around the main pathways.  This was because, unbeknownst to me, the parade was about to begin.  Had I known this, I would have fled to the Hall of Presidents in one hell of a hurry.  But alas, it was too late.  I was like an insect in amber, stuck amongst the sweaty tourists that were giddily anticipating the parade.

The theme of the parade was Promises of the Future’s Wonderful Dreams, or something along those lines.

 

The parade consisted of the major Disney characters riding on floats, while loudspeakers broadcast dream-related dialogue.  While this was going on, various second-tier characters roamed around poking people.  The parade also contained the most effeminate Peter Pan I have ever seen; which is something, considering he has often been portrayed by women.

 

Eventually, God shone down his mercy from the heavens above, and the parade passed by.  We were weary from the exhaustive process of being aggravated for fifteen minutes, and needed to sit down.

The Tomorrowland tram, officially called “The blue train that no one is really sure what ride it is part of,” is a good way to kill some time and get to sit down.

Since I’m assuming that 95% of the people reading this have never taken the time to go on this, I’ll give a quick synopsis.  It basically takes you around Tomorrowland.  Part of it is outside, the part that you always see.  The rest of it is indoors, giving you a behind the scenes look at some of the area, including Buzz and a gift shop.  Finally, you are treated to a behind the scenes look at a broken down Space Mountain.

I have now seen Space Mountain broken down so many times, I’m actually depressed that I’ve never been stuck on it myself.  At least that would be a change from the norm.

 

After this, we were itching to go on another ride, so it was on to the Buzz Lightyear ride.  This ride is a lot of fun; you ride around in a car while shooting at the hundreds of targets around you.  The best part is the car has a lever that will violently jerk the car from left to right, and completely piss off your co-rider when it is done in repetition.

 

The biggest downside to this ride is that it isn’t much fun when your gun is broken.  I realized this about a minute in, when my score failed to go up, except for random times when it would increase, even if I was not actually shooting the gun.  When you are not able to shoot at anything, the ride is nothing more than jerking the car around while being surrounded by painfully bright neon colors.  So I guess it’s pretty fun then also.

From there, it was on to Disney’s newest attraction, PhilharMagic.  I wasn’t really expecting too much, from what I had heard and read about it, it seemed like it would be another one of the 3-D movies, with some added effects.  The biggest downside to this attraction is that the line is deceiving.  There had been a fairly long line for it all day, but for some reason we never got a Fast Pass for it (we had only wound up getting three the whole day, I think.)  Later on, the line outside looked reasonable, so we jumped on.  After a fairly brief wait, we were ready to go inside to see how good it would be.  Instead, we went inside and were met with… another line.  This line was much worse.  Well, longer, not necessarily worse.

The atmosphere was enjoyable; it’s a theatre environment with mock movie posters featuring Disney characters.  Since the movie takes place in a theatre, large groups of people were going in at a time.  A large chunk of the line would go in, and then we would wait for about ten to fifteen minutes.  We did this wait about twice, and just barely made the cut for the next group.  However, you are not lead into the theatre; you are led into, you guessed it, another waiting area.  So after three different waits, we finally got in.  The movie itself is great.  It is probably the best 3-D I have ever seen, and the extra effects such as scents and mists and such were done wonderfully.  It’s definitely a good sign for Disney World that they are still able to add attractions of this caliber to the park.

After this, we didn’t have much left to do.  This is the only logical explanation for what we did next; we went on the Mark Twain Ferryboat.  Is it still called that?  From there, we got a behind the scenes look at Big Thunder Mountain.

 

 I don’t know whether this apparently major construction began before or after the death at Disneyland, but some serious looking overhauls seem to be going on.  Nothing like a death or two to throw a monkey wrench into the whole damn operation.

We also see Native Americans in their native habitat, Orlando.

Disney didn’t see to be too active when it comes to Halloween decorations.  This Mick O’Lantern (get it?) seems to be the extent of the thematic gestures.  I could be completely forgetting other things, but I honestly didn’t even remember we went near Halloween until I saw this picture.  Although I probably shouldn’t point out we went on Halloween, since it is now about six months later, and only goes to show what a lazy jackass I am.

 

Toontown, well, it’s not very interesting; it sucks.  Although I refuse to mock anything about it, since it is clearly not aimed towards my age group.  In fact, if I was younger, I think I would definitely like it a lot, since it seems very well designed for kids, and the cartoon look is very well done.  Forget what I said earlier, Toontown is awesome.

In Toontown, we get to go inside characters’ houses.  Here, we get to peer inside Minnie’s fridge, who is apparently on the Atkins diet, and is most definitely on the toilet eighteen hours a day.

Since it was getting late, and we had to make sure we caught the shuttle bus, we made our way towards the entrance.  While Amy was playing the part of tourist with money to burn, waiting to purchase the picture the Disney employee took of us, I played a demo version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in the PC area of the gift shop.  Sample question:  Guess who paid $50 in park admission to play a game that comes free with a box of Golden Grahams?

It was when we stepped outside that I was finally able to truly understand that I like laughing at others’ misfortunes.  While we were inside the picture shop (probably spelled “Shoppe,”) there was a fireworks show going on.  This was evidently a big deal, since Main Street was absolutely packed with people waiting to watch it when we were heading towards the picture shoppe.

 

When we stepped back out, it was raining.  However, it was not only raining, it was absolutely pouring out.  There was absolutely no way to make it to the monorail without getting soaked, so I just completely gave up.  We headed back, with me making no attempt to protect myself.  It was freezing in the astoundingly air conditioned monorail, but I was fine, being kept comfortable by the warm feelings in my heart.  I was able to witness hundreds of peoples’ nights abruptly ended by the force of nature I had clashed with so many times before.  It was that night that rain and I understood each other, and formed long and meaningful friendships.

Overall, this trip to the Magic Kingdom was better than the last one.  There wasn’t more to do, but I think less went wrong this time.  And oh yeah, the sundaes they sell near the Jungle Cruise with the pineapple soft serve ice cream and pineapple juice are the most amazing things ever, and need to be made the official lunch food of the United States.

 

Florida 2003: Part 2 – Universal Studios

Posted by robbposch on January 26, 2004
Posted in: Florida. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Ah, the First day of vacation: the chance to sleep late, relax, and just unwind; far from the troubles of everyday life. 

 

Yeah, that’s an interesting theory.

 

The alarm went off at around 7:00 AM.  The specific time, I couldn’t tell you; my mind tends to be a little hazy at that time of day.  This is the time of day where I calculate how much extra time I can spend in bed if I forgo some of the usual morning routine.  No shower?  Extra fifteen minutes in bed.  No breakfast?  Another ten minutes.  Brushing teeth?  Hell, I’ve got Trident; another five minutes.  Unfortunately, when traveling with others, you have to take certain steps to make yourself  “socially presentable.”  And, unfortunately again, this comes at the expense of precious sleep.

 

And why exactly would I be waking up at this ungodly hour, when I’m supposed to be on vacation?  Because we have to catch the shuttle bus.  Remember when I said we didn’t need to rent a car, and thought it would work out for the best?  Sigh.

 

The shuttle from the hotel to the various theme parks ran on a very sparse schedule.  The Disney parks got the royal treatment, and had about four or five times to choose from, so you could get up early or sleep later, depending on when you wanted to go.  The other parks?  Not so lucky.

 

For the first day, we decided to go to Universal Studios.  This was, in part, my idea, since Universal was my least favorite park last year.  I figured we may as well do it first.  Not that I hate Universal, it just lacks some of the more redeeming qualities of the other parks.

 

One of the more glaring downsides of Universal was that the only shuttle from the hotel left at 8:00 AM.  Ugh.  Obviously, at that time of day, a sit down breakfast is out of the question.  So for my most important meal for the day, I went with a little bottle of Tropicana Fruit Smoothie; mostly due to the very small selection of products that didn’t involve being fried in butter or shrink wrapped.  The smoothie wasn’t filling or nutritious enough to be considered a diet shake, like Slim Fast.  It also didn’t have enough vitamins and fiber to be considered an old people shake, like Ensure.  It was good, basically diluted yogurt, but it really wasn’t very filling at all.  I don’t know what I was expecting, it was a little bottle; and judging by the nutritional facts, it would keep me full until, approximately, the end of the bus ride.  And it wasn’t that cheap either it… uh, wait.  This isn’t interesting at all.  I’m sorry.

 

The 8:00 AM ride to the park was about fifteen minutes long, and the park opened at 9:00.  Those of you who have a more solid background in mathematics might be seeing the somewhat significant problem about now. 

 

We wound up waiting in line outside the park for about forty minutes.  Then, promptly at 9:00 AM, it rained.  I am not joking.  Nine o’clock and 00/00 seconds on the dot. 

Rain. 

Rain.

 

I had to restrain myself from turning around,  walking to the airport, and going home.

 

Fortunately, the rain was very light and didn’t last very long.  The timing of the shower was still unsettling, given the weather in Florida’s love / HATE relationship with me.

 

Universal’s layout is fairly simple.  It is basically a large ring, surrounding some man made body of water.  Actually, pretty much all the parks have one distinct landmark in the center.  Disney World has the castle, both Universal parks have a lake, MGM Studios has a giant hat (?), and Sea World has a monstrous lake.  The more specific organization of the parks varied; the Universal parks were laid out very well, and Disney World was also easy to get around in.  MGM’s layout wasn’t so much confusing as it was aggravating.  It seemed no matter how well you planned your route, you wound up doing a ton of backtracking to get around the many dead ends.  Sea World, oh God, that place is a mess.  Nothing is in any logical order or location.  They just took all the rides, attractions, and gift shops, shook them up, and sprinkled them randomly in the park.  But I’ll get into that later.  Not later in this article; later as in, “At another time.”

 

I seem to have gotten a bit off track.  Had I written some sort of outline, I could have easily seen where I am in terms of the storytelling.  I hate outlines though; they’re just way too structured.  Which really is like saying you hate ice because it’s too cold, so I should clarify that I am more at odds with the rigidity of outlines.  They think they’re better than other forms of writing because they are the most organized.  Outlines are pricks.

 

Getting back to the actual point (Universal Studios,) the beginning of the day was possibly the best part.  Not the rain, what happened after that.  This is because the beginning is when we went on the attractions that were new since last year.

 

The first of the new attractions was Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoons Blast.  I really don’t like Jimmy Neutron.  Nearly all of the characters are blatant rip offs of Rugrats characters.  I don’t like Rugrats anymore, either.  It used to be really good; then it started winning Emmys, Cablevision awards, and such.  After that, it became self aware.  Then it got uninteresting in its weak attempts to be entertaining and relevant.  Sort of like this site.

 

The Jimmy Neutron ride replaced the Flintstones ride, which really is no loss.  I never liked the Flintstones.  Or the Jetsons, for that matter.  Although I did like “The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones” movie.  Funny how that works out.  I also thought they were called “The Flinstones” until MS Word’s scribbly red line informed me that that is incorrect. 

 

So they took a ride based on characters I don’t like, and replaced it with a ride based on characters I don’t like.  The new ride itself was better than the old one.  It was still essentially the same “sit in your seat and watch a video while your chair shakes” kind of ride.  However, the Jimmy Neutron ride had cameos by Ren and Stimpy.  Advantage:  Jimmy Neutron.

 

The slime fountain was the same as usual: uninteresting.  But I took a picture of it, so if I don’t include it, I will feel like I wasted a picture that could have been better used to capture something more interesting.

The next new attraction was right across the street.  Or path; whatever the roads inside a theme park are considered.

 

What used to be there was the Alfred Hitchcock attraction.  This was a hit or miss experience.  In the waiting area were props from his movies, which were interesting, since Hitchcock’s movies were great.  The attraction itself was divided into two parts.  First was a 3-D movie based on “The Birds.”  It sounds stupid, but having the psychotic birds faux-flying all around you was pretty creepy.  And aggravating.  The second part of the attraction was part of the set from the movie “Psycho.”  Audience members were picked to re-enact certain scenes from the movie.  I hate attractions like this.  Poorly acting out the scenes may bring no end of hilarity to your friends and family, but to everyone else you just look like a jackass.  Have your pictures taken now, while you are in the spotlight.  After your fleeting moment of minor fame, you go right back to being one of us.  Except with slightly less bitterness.

 

And I’m getting pretty sick of using the term “attraction.”  Granted, it is somewhat inaccurate to call them rides, since most of them don’t involve riding on anything.  But saying attraction so much is both annoying to you and me, and it is a lot more letters to type.  So for the rest of the Universal tale, and any other time it may seem appropriate, substitute “attraction” for the word “ride” when it appears.

 

So I guess I can understand why the Hitchcock ride would be replaced.

 

Especially when you consider what it was replaced with: Shrek 4-D.

 

Since Shrek was one of Universal’s biggest hits in a long time, it was rather obvious a ride would be built around it.  And it seemed rather obvious that the ride would be a big attraction.  Dammit.  I mean ride.

 

When we got to the ride, it was still very early in the day.  As a result, the line wasn’t bad.  Later on in the day, however, the line was ridiculous.  There was over an hour and a half wait, which is a common wait time for big name, marquee rides like Space Mountain.  What makes the wait time extra ridiculous is that Shrek holds hundreds of people at a time, so even a long line should run through it fairly quickly.  So combine the fact that the ride goes through people quickly, and the fact that the line was that long, it must mean that thousands of people must have been waiting on line.  Either that, or the posted wait time was inaccurate.  But that isn’t nearly as dramatic or interesting as the first theory, so we’re sticking with that.  Thousands!

 

While waiting on line, there are TVs everywhere playing the movie (Shrek.)  That’s a good idea for a couple of reasons.  First, it makes the time pass much more smoothly, since there is something to distract you.  Second, it’s better than talking to the people you are with.  The downside is that they only play the last ten minutes of the movie.  This makes sense, since it shows you where the movie left off, and the ride will continue the story.  The unfortunate aspect is that if you do wind up being on line for a while, along with the thousands of others, you will keep seeing the same scenes, over and over.  So by the time you actually get into the ride, you are sick to death of the movie, and want absolutely nothing to do with it.  So guess what you get to do?  Go on a ride and get another hearty serving of Shrek.

 

 

After the line comes the part that all the rides at Universal seem to have, an introduction area.  The introductions serve a variety of purposes, although each ride varies in how well it succeeds in the most important area, entertainment.  They all do a good job of another fairly important purpose, distracting you and killing time.  On the plus side, you’re not waiting on line anymore; on the negative side, you’re not on the ride.  Instead, you’re stuck in ride limbo.  Amusement park purgatory. 

 

The ride itself was pretty good.  The “4-D” refers to the aspects of the ride such as seat vibration, smells, mist, etc.  It goes beyond the normal 3-D of sight, sound, and… whatever the third “D” is.

 

From Shrek’s entertaining introduction, we move to the opposite end of the spectrum.  T2: The Ride’s intro is positively insufferable.  Not that my opinion of the intro represents my feelings on the ride itself.  The intro, however, pushes the limit on what is acceptable to make paying customers sit through.

 

The crowd enters a large room with multiple large monitors at one end.  Presumably, you will be watching a video; you will, however, be standing there presuming for a while.  Most of the rides get you off the line, and get the introduction started fairly quickly.  T2, well, T2 is a rebel.  It’s not hip to the whole “pleasing the customer” scene.  I can sympathize with that.  I hate customers, unless I am in the unfortunate situation of actually being one.  I still hate all of the other customers; but at the same time, give me my God damned money’s worth.

 

So the crowd stands there for about twenty minutes, anticipating that at any moment the ride will begin.  Anticipating… Anticipating… Anticipating…  Then, it starts.  And it’s terrible.

 

Eventually, the video begins.  It gives the background of Cyberdyne Systems, which is the company that results in SkyNet, which results in the Terminators, which results in nuclear holocaust, which results in the movies.  Possibly not in that order.  The video is meant to be very tongue in cheek, since it keeps talking about the great future the company can offer, when we really know what will happen.  What they fail to remember is that when keeping your tongue in cheek, don’t bite your lip.  Or something like that.  The video winds up being a little too serious, and a little too boring.

 

Suddenly, the heroes of T2, Sarah and John Connor, interrupt the broadcast.  They proceed to tell us how SkyNet will result in an apocalyptic future.  This is told to us in a painfully overacted fashion.  Now as I think I said in the Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 review, overacting can be a wonderful thing if done properly.  T2 was not done properly, just overdone. 

 

The acting isn’t the main downfall of the ride, the size of the video screens are.  The screens result in the presentation of a huge version of Edward Furlong’s ghoulish face being forced on the audience for far too long.

 

 

The next two rides, Twister and Earthquake are essentially the same thing.  The majority of Twister involves watching a fake tornado wreck a fake town.  The majority of Earthquake involves watching a fake earthquake wreck a fake subway station.  The common special effects are used, such as fire and large amounts of water rushing around. 

 

The line for Twister features a replica (in case you were wondering, the cow above is not alive) cow.  When a button is pressed it makes loud noises and plays, if I recall correctly, lines from the movie.  Or maybe it just said “Moo.”  That’s not very cinematic, though, so I am pretty sure it was movie effects.

 

Earthquake is far more interesting, since the action happens on both sides of you, and you are much closer to the action.  As opposed to Twister, which is enjoyable enough, but the excitement is sterilized by how far away you are from the action.  Both rides are fun, but nothing ground breaking.  Actually, I guess they would be considered ground breaking.  Ha ha ha.  …..

 

 

The ET ride was the same as last time, except with a MUCH longer line.  And this time he said my name, which was a cause for much concern last time, when his announcement of our names was conspicuously absent.  They make such a big deal over telling your name to the ET person, and give you this passport with your information on it.  I was expecting a firm hand shake, and an eloquently stated, “Thank you Robb.”  Clearly annunciated, and calmly paced.  Instead I was met with, “Thank yew steventhomassuzyrobchristy.”  He didn’t mention Amy’s name, but that is because she’s a xenophobe.

 

There’s nothing much to say about Back to the Future: The Ride.  It’s depressing how badly it has aged.

 

 

The biggest letdown of the day was that the Jaws ride was closed.  This is definitely my favorite part of the park, and considering how weak the day was turning out to be, this didn’t help matters one bit.  And what the hell is “Seasonal Maintenance” anyway?  Florida doesn’t have seasons.  Unless the shark pops out of the water wearing a Santa hat and spinning a dreidel when it re-opens, I’m not buying it.

 

 

The second biggest letdown was King Kong being closed.  This wasn’t a shock, since I knew that it got closed down; it still was depressing, since it was one of my all time favorite rides. 

 

Even more depressing is the fact that in its place, a ride based on the movie “The Mummy” is being built.  A movie that might have made a good episode of “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles,” but should not have been made into two major motion pictures and a spin-off.  Bah.

 

Despite all of the great possibilities, they still can’t do anything decent with Ghostbusters.  It boggles the mind.  Instead, they have an X-Treme Ghostbusters live action show, presumably involving singing and dancing.  I didn’t stick around to witness it, so I can’t give specifics.  Sorry.

 

 

The Curious George area was completely closed off.  It was undergoing “set enhancements,” which may or may not involve more foam ball firing guns.  That is just a theory, I have no proof.  It is a shame this was closed, since the sheer chaos this area offers could have provided a jarring interruption into this rather blasé day.

 

Despite all of the rain problems I had last year, I can’t tell which visit was better.  Shrek was a nice addition, but the loss of Jaws, King Kong, and Curious George was near tragic.   And the fact that Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue still exists really didn’t help matters.

 

 

Leaving the park through the City Walk, I came upon a booth that prominently displayed a teddy bear hard at work, churning a machine filled with its own innards.  Somehow, it seemed like the perfect punctuation to the day’s events.

Florida 2003: Part 1

Posted by robbposch on November 19, 2003
Posted in: Disney, Florida. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Based on the initial griping of mine, you might wonder why I would go back to Orlando, especially so soon after the previous visit.  Of course, you probably weren’t wondering that.  Instead, you were content to sit passively; simply reading what is in front of you with no response.  Would it kill you to participate once in a while?  Lazy bastards.  But yeah, if you hadbeen wondering that, you would be raising a pretty good point.

Quite simply, even though there is so much to complain about, Orlando cuts out all of the unnecessary vacation crap.  No historical monuments, no meaningful landmarks, almost nothing of substance.  It eliminates all of the foreplay, and cuts right to the fun.  Usually.

There are little to no billboards for local businesses along the sides of major roads.  This is because almost every single sign throws a bright, licensed character in your face.  The Hulk, Mickey and Donald, or a twenty five foot high wide image of Shrek’s face.  BAM.  Right there, screaming, “Look at me!  LOOK AT ME!!! AAAAAAHHH!!!!!!”  Not literally, of course, although I wonder how long it will be before ads like that come around.

So back I went.  I answered their call of “LOOK AT ME.”

I had been ready to go for a while.  Mostly because my girlfriend, Amy, was in charge of all of the planning for the trip, and feels the need to plan for things approximately ten months in advance.

The trip down was fairly uneventful.  The security at the airport seemed to be a lot less insane since the last time I had been there.  I only saw one bag being searched, as opposed to the dozen I saw on my previous airport trip.  They also didn’t give us the terrorist questionnaire:  “Did you pack your own bag?  Has the bag left your sight since you packed it?  Did any stranger ask you to carry a package on board?”  They knew not to ask me such foolishness, because if they did, I would poke fun at them and make them cry.

The flight was joyous, mostly because I had purchased the new collection from “The Onion,” and their books provide me endless amounts of happiness.  They do, however, make for awkward reading in public places, since they make me laugh out loud (LOL,) literally, on a regular basis.  I mean they make me actually laugh out loud; they don’t actually make me say the word “Lol.”  I reserve that for special occasions.  And of course, there was no ROFLing.  The pilot hadn’t turned off the fasten safety belt sign.  Awful joke.

The majestic airplane “snack” had arrived, tomato juice with lemon and biscotti (high class deluxe,) but I was still pretty full from my breakfast, which consisted of sushi and Lunchables.  The rest of the flight was spent reading and imagining the plane crash scene from “Fight Club” every ten minutes.  You know, the usual routine.

Until we arrived.

The Orlando airport is one of the more peculiar airports I have been to, mainly because it has a monorail.  That simply screams “unnecessary.”  I didn’t even notice why there was a monorail.  I think we went over water, and the airport is actually two big buildings, connected by the monorail track.  I can’t say for sure, I don’t honestly remember.  I’d like to think that is the reason, since that would lend some sense of normalcy to having a monorail, which is something considered to be tacky even when used by Disney.

They are actually building a monorail near where I live, but it does, surprisingly, come close to being useful.  It will be used to connect major train stations, at least one airport, and a few other points of interest.  Although this is being built in New York, so in order to estimate the date of completion, you would probably have to use some sort of logarithm functions.

Monorail aside, the Orlando airport was fairly normal; nice, even.  It had a full hotel inside, where the hallways and doors to the rooms were exposed to the main lobby area of the airport, which really just seems like a terrible idea.  I can understand where the architect was coming from, some sort of visual novelty approach, but I would never, ever want to stay there.  I assume most of the rooms are used by people who were bumped from the routinely overbooked flights.

Also, the reason I didn’t take a picture of the hotel is because I was still shy about picture taking in an airport, since the last time that happened, I almost went to prison.

This main area also contained a Disney Store and a Sea World store.   Alright, I’ll accept the Disney Store; Disney is everywhere, especially in Orlando.  But a Sea World store?  No.  Let me at least get out of the airport before assaulting me with theme park paraphernalia.  And speaking of leaving the airport:

We hadn’t rented a car, since before actually having to endure a week without one, not renting a car made perfect sense.  Since we weren’t renting a car, I had assumed there had would be some sort of hotel shuttle involved.  I had assumed this, rather than actually asked, because my idea of participating in trip planning involves staying out of the way and periodically asking, “So, are we all set?”

To my surprise, there was no shuttle.  Instead, there was a cab.  I hate cabs.  When the driver is rude, I sit there irritated, itching to get the hell out of the car.  When the driver is friendly, I feel guilty for making them drive me around.

I couldn’t really tell which category my driver fell into.  This is because I couldn’t make out 95% of what he was saying.  He had some sort of thick Jamaican accent, and not the “Ay mon, be cool we jammin’” type of accent.  Just the unintelligible drawl that turns the simple task of figuring out what they are trying to say into an adventure.

We drove around for a while, watching the meter run up uncomfortably fast.  Eventually we arrived, but not before Amy yelled at the driver for taking us to the wrong hotel (he hadn’t.)

Since the ridiculous cab fare was a surprise to me, my trip budget took something of a turn.  I had (very) poorly thought out how much money to bring in the first place, clearly exemplified by the fact that I didn’t really factor in paying for the hotel.  So after the cab fare and hotel bill, I was left with the startling realization that I had no money.

I am not exactly what credit card companies consider to be a “good investment.”  Therefore, if I was to have my own card, the interest rates would be approximately 65%.  As a result, nearly all of my money comes in the form of cash.  Kind of like a drug dealer, but without the whole “lots of money” aspect.

Since nearly all of my money was spent by the time I was checked into the hotel, my budgeting definitely needed to be reevaluated.  After some juggling of bills and other fiscal rearranging, I was able to have enough money to not have to eat ramen noodles for the remainder of the trip.  Unfortunately, as a result, my churro allotment took a big hit.  How adversely this would affect the trip was yet to be seen.

Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for months.

Posted by robbposch on November 3, 2003
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

 

            Alright, yeah, I admit it.  I disappeared.

            Sorry.

            I needed a break.

            All of the fame, glory, and riches that come from writing for a site like this leads to tremendous pressure.  Instead of using my new found notoriety to my advantage, by continuing to let the site grow into one of the largest and most popular internet empires in the world, I let it collapse.  Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

            There can be a great many similarities drawn between my situation and that of Bill Watterson.  As you may (and should) know, Bill Watterson is the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, one of the greatest comic strips ever.  Sure other strips may have achieved greater levels of fame and popularity, such as Peanuts, but Watterson always kept the highest level of integrity when it came to his work.  So I guess that’s one of the differences between him and me.

            Speaking of Peanuts, I am definitely not knocking that strip.  I have always admired Charles Schultz’s ability to sneak his biting cynicism and bitter social commentary into his strip, under the cover of his curiously dysfunctional characters.  There was Charlie Brown, the suicidal paternal figure of the group; Linus, the incurably dependant one, Lucy, the eternally PMSing mega-bitch; Sally the Stalker; Pig Pen, the homeless boy; and Schroeder, the homosexual who would reject the girl in favor of the arts.  Also Snoopy, who despite being an animal, was clearly the smartest of the group.  He was the only one who could teach the kids anything, especially since all of the parental figures spoke solely in trumpet noises.

            I don’t really know what the deal with Woodstock was.  His name implies he is either a hippie or a drug addict, or maybe both.  A substance abuse problem would, however, explain why Woodstock’s vocabulary consisted solely of slash marks.  How did he and Snoopy communicate?  Snoopy spoke English and Woodstock spoke, well, whatever that hell that was.  I figure Snoopy had no idea what Woodstock was saying; he was just too cool, calm, and collected to be pestered by the yellow burnout.  So yeah, Woodstock was definitely high on something other than life.  He had to have been on some sort of pills, he was insane.  Organizing a hockey game in a bird bath?  That makes no sense!  Hockey rinks are oval shaped, not circular.

            But I digress.

            I think.

            You’d probably need a good point in order to stray from it.  What was I talking about, anyway?  Hold on.

            Oh yeah, Bill Watterson.

            Bill & Me.

            Bill vs. Me.

            I’m trying to draw comparisons, so I probably don’t want to use “vs.”

            Bill Watterson was a talented artist and an amazing writer.  I, uh, write stuff also.  Watterson struggled to fit his ideas into the Sunday newspaper strips, due to the restrictive panel formats.  I struggle to make any of my ideas for this site work, due to my poor html skills.

            You know what?  Forget it.  This comparison sucks.  I don’t know why I even brought it up.

            Very long story made very short:  I was gone.  I’m back.

            I’m back, in fact, from the land of plague, pestilence, and ponchos.  That’s right, Florida.  I’m getting back to the roots of this site, back to what started it all way back when.  About four articles ago.

            The recent trip back will give me plenty to complain about, find humor in, and make deep philosophical insights into.

            There will also be new things that I didn’t already talk about, so there is a good chance it won’t all be reruns of what I have already done.  But I make no promises.

            All of that is coming very soon, as well as a few others that I already have planned out.  How about that, miracles do happen.

            So don’t delete this site from your bookmarks.  Yet.

            But ha ha, guess what?  Like I said, all of that is upcoming, this article you are reading right now it about nothing.

            You have spent the last five minutes reading nothing but filler.

            Suckers.