The Disney Adventurer

Back Stage Magic Day Four: Main Street, Castles and Characters

Mains Street is my favorite place in the Magic Kingdom. I could easily pull up a bench in a shady spot and be content to watch the people go by, see the Disneyland Band March by, listen to the Dapper Dans, and Watch the Parades.

Main Street by Day and by Night:

We began the day with a 7 AM entrance to the Magic Kingdom (2 hours before the park opens) and headed down Main Street toward the hub and our eventual destination, The Plaza Inn for breakfast. Every night the park gets a thorough face lift and it was interesting to see the maintenance people still cleaning and painting and the landscapers placing fresh potted flowers in all of the planters.

Even in the pre-opening stillness you can still find your character friends, if you know where to look for them.

After a few obligatory photos in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, it was over to the Plaza Inn for a Character Breakfast. Now, this writer has been around the Character buffet a few times but this one beat them all. At most Character Breakfasts the Characters quickly visit the table and pose for a few photographs. At the Plaza Inn we got a Character floor show along with our bacon and eggs. This was care of the boys from the Hundred Acre Woods, specifically Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore. They seemed to channel the Three Stooges by appropriating guest’s chairs when they got up and a very entertaining romp whereby Tigger kept tricking Pooh and Eeyore out onto the patio and locking them out.

After breakfast we were treated to a behind the scenes look at “Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Impossibly Long Line”. In this ride you and the rest of your party are packed into a large and fairly uncomfortable Land Rover vehicle and plow through the subterranean Temple looking for the presumably lost Dr. Jones. What was very interesting is that all of the bumps and swerves you feel are not a part of the road but a part of the hydraulics within the vehicle that can raise and lower as per the effect they are trying to give you.

After the demonstration we were escorted through the ride’s exit ahead of the rest of the patrons and ushered into the viewing room where Sallah provides the back story to the ride along with the safety warnings (buckle up, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle, etc.). Prior to our excursion I pleaded with the San Antonio Sisters not to look into the Eyes of Mara or they would doom our expedition. They looked, we were doomed, end of story.

After the escape and excitement from “Temple” we turned it down a notch and headed up to the “Thunder Ranch” where Goats, a mule, and a cow are kept in kind of a petting zoo. Back in the opening days of the park there were mule rides and goats were sometimes placed on the Matterhorn but those days are long, long gone. I wished I had asked why they are kept around but I failed to do so.

From the Ranch we headed over to the secret entrance to the train roundhouse just off the east side of “Small World” (which was closed for refurbishment which was good since that infernal song did not get stuck in my head…oh, no…by just mentioning it the song is now playing in an endless loop in my head). We were met by one of the men who work on the trains and I wish I could remember his name as he was certainly a dedicated and knowledgeable person. He talked about Walt’s love of the trains and how Walt partnered with the Santa Fe Railroad to bring the trains to Disneyland so Walt named the first train the E.P. Ripley in honor of Santa Fe’s president. While we were there we got to see the Ward Kimball roll out and chug off for duty in the park (Ward Kimball being one of Walt’s Nine Old Men-or original animators and a railroad enthusiast who helped fuel Walt’s passion for trains).
After the trains we took a brief tour of more of the back lot area seeing where the parades are staged and seeing the building that houses the parade floats. We finally wound up at Owen Pope’s house. This house is one of the oldest structures on the grounds. It belonged to Owen Pope the original horse trainer at Disneyland and the house was relocated from across the street into the back lot area. Behind the Pope house there were, I think, 21 (or was it 31) very beautiful horses that are used for pulling the street cars up and down Main Street. The staff there also presents the animals at local horse shows where they are very proud of the ribbons they have won. There was also another cow behind the Pope house. We also learned that there are quite a few feral cats that are on the premises to keep the rat and mice population down (Mickey and Minnie are excluded I would presume). The cats are roaming the grounds but stay out of site until night time.

From there it was lunch time and off to New Orleans Square to the Café New Orleans for a traditional servings of gumbo and Monte Cristo sandwiches which is basically a batter fried ham and cheese sandwich covered with powdered sugar and served with dark berry sauce for dipping.

In this picture McKinlie is saying:
A. Arrgh!
B. So ye be seekin’ adventure and salty old pirates, eh?
C. Dead men tell no tales.
D. I'll have another order of beignets with extra powdered sugar and chocolate sauce.

The correct answer is E: All of the above.

From lunch we were escorted over to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride either by a pirate cast member or a homeless gentleman who followed us from Hollywood Boulevard. Again we were taken in through the exit and put right on the ride. Pirates of the Caribbean was the last ride Walt worked on, but alas he did not live to see it in operation.

In 2006 the ride was closed while they updated the attraction to include characters from the popular Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise. Disney has many rides which were inspired by their movies, but this was the first time that a ride inspired a motion picture. With the success of the movie and its sequel Disney felt that they needed to incorporate some of the film’s characters into the ride as a new generation was coming up who would only know the movie, not the ride, and would expect to see some of the cast when they visited the attraction. So they added an animated projection of Davy Jones onto a cloud of mist warning us of something, added Captain Barbossa as the pirate captain bombarding the town, and added Jack Sparrow not once, not twice, but three times to the ride.

This ride is one of my favorites and, much to the embarrassment of my daughters; I love to sing along “Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me”!

After lunch we split up into three groups to take a ride in Lillian (Walt’s wife) Disney’s private touring car on the Disneyland railroad, see a flim chronicaling the history of Disneyland which was produced for the park’s 50th anniversary and playing in the Opera House in place of “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln”, and take a tour of Walt’s private Disneyland apartment.

Lillian’s private touring car was gussied up to look like a Victorian Age lounge car with red velvet covered mahogany furniture and matching curtains. It is not large as the trains are slightly scaled down at Disneyland.

The film presented at the Opera House is hosted by Steve Martin who got his start working at Disneyland a few weeks after it opened in 1955. He first worked selling maps just outside the main gate until management felt that the maps should be given away. He then wound up working in Main Street’s Magic Shop demonstrating magic tricks in order to push their sales. The film is very enjoyable and I wish it were longer (although I do have to wonder what ever happened to Mr. Lincoln?).

At this point we were allowed into Walt’s private apartment about the Main Street Fire House. The guide told us that this was originally a room with just a cot and a light so Walt could read memos or scripts and sleep there overnight during the park's construction. Eventually however, Lillian got tired of being left at home so she moved in and met with Set Designer Emile Kuri to do the interior design of the apartment. It is done in a rich red velvet Victorian style which met with Lillian’s approval and matched the style of the rest of Main Street. This was pretty easy for Emile as he was an accomplished set designer with a career reaching back to 1940 and having worked on “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, and “Mary Poppins”.
The thing that struck me was the apartment’s size. It is really small, no real beds just two foldout sofas. A small refrigerator, said to be the original and a grilled cheese press are the only appliances related to food. What I gathered from this is that Walt truly loved the Park. The Disneyland Hotel is just a short walk away and could have provided him with much more luxurious accommodations, but he wanted to be in the Park and on Main Street.
I was a little choked up at the sight of three glass ash trays in the cupboard above the refrigerator, but I guess they are leaving it the way it was. Speaking of which, the employees in the park always kept an eye on the window above the firehouse to see if the lamp was on; that was their way of knowing if the boss was on site. Well the light is left on 24/7 now as they feel that Walt’s Spirit is always in the park…and I bet it is.