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Tales From The College Program: The Christmas Parade (Part 2)

Day 2: There was one thing I did not mention in my previous post, the first day of Christmas Parade taping was hot. The funny thing about day two was the temperature dropped significantly.  I went from jeans and a t-shirt to a coat and hat, so did the rest of the crowd. Day two started off with Clay Aiken singing at the Main Street train station with a bunch of the characters.  He started at the top of the stairs then walked down towards Main Street.  After the first take the director picked up his bullhorn.  "I'm going to have to ask you guys to take your coats off, you see, when we filmed yesterday everyone was in shorts, it's going to look weird if the people at the train station are in coats and everyone on Main Street is in shorts."  No one listened, it was too cold to stand there and pretend you weren't freezing.  Clay finished his song and my roommates and I decided it was too cold to stand around so we headed back to Vista Way. Day 3: Another early

Tales From The College Program: The Christmas Parade (Part 1)

Since we are getting into the Holiday season, I suppose it's about time I talked about the Disney Christmas Parade.  When I was accepted into the College Program one of the things I was most excited abut was going to The Magic Kingdom on Christmas Day.  As a kid I always watched the Disney Christmas Parade and thought about how great it would be to see it live.  You can imagine my shock when the first week in December the CP Newsletter announced they needed extras for the parade taping.  That's when I realized....They don't actually film the parade of Christmas Day. This was 2003 before the boom of social media, I didn't get my news from the internet, so there was really no reason for me to think the parade was filmed on any day but Christmas.  Anyway, back to the story. The taping was done over 3 days.  The first was an early day when only Cast Members could sign up.  We met at the Magic Kingdom before the park opened and were taken to Exhibition Hall where they pu

Tales From The College Program: No Seatbelt

When you're a CP without a car the parks are pretty much your only day off destination (not that I had a problem with that).  The downside of that being, after riding the Tower of Terror multiple times a week, the thrill is gone.  My roommates and I came up with a solution to this and we called it the Seat Belt Scam. What we did was this; when we sat in our row we would pull out all the slack from our seat belts.  We would then buckle them and sit on the slack.  After the doors closed and the ride started we would wait till we reached the first drop and get off the slack.  When the ride dropped we would hold the seat belt out as far as it would go and jump off the seat, this way we would fly out of the seat as high as the seatbelt.  When the ride was over we would let go of the slack and the seatbelt would retract back in to the appropriate level of restraint.  This was enough thrill for us, until my friend Steven came to visit and gave a whole new meaning to "Seat Belt Scam

Walt Disney's FBI File: Part 2

Last time we looked at documents from Walt's FBI file that dealt with the various film and television specials.  Today we will look at correspondences between the Disney family and J. Edgar Hoover. The first is one Walt sent to Hoover after receiving a congratulatory  letter about his Milestone Award. Here is an exchange between Walt and Hoover discussing the FBI's cooperation with Walt's news reels. Here is an interesting one where someone suggests that Hoover send an autographed copy of his book Master of Deceit  to Walt. Hoover listened, because here is Walt's reply. The FBI took great interest in Walt's death.  They clipped his obituary and Hoover even sent a sympathy letter to Lillian (not before a memo requested he do so first). The letter suggesting Hoover contact Lillian. The letter. I find the letter to Lillian very interesting, especially the note at the bottom.  Walt being a Special Corr

Walt Disney's FBI File: Part 1

About six years ago I read Hollywood's Dark Prince , the most ridiculous of all Walt Disney biographies.  It's actually worth reading just for the outrageous claims Marc Eliot makes.  Just to give you an idea, the book says Flora was not Walt's mother, he was the illegitimate child of Elias and a mexican woman. Walt hid this whole life by hiring her as his house keeper.  One of the biggest "revelations" though is that Walt secretly worked for the FBI giving them names of communists in Hollywood.  The book has a few photos from pages of Walt's FBI file to back up the claim.  Well, after reading the book I decided to get a copy of his FBI file myself. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) getting a copy of a persons FBI file is pretty easy.  I made the request with FOIA and explained why I wanted to see the file.  About 3 months later they replied saying that my request was approved; all I needed to do was pay them $15.  Another 3 months went by, the

MGM Studios Ninja Turtles Show.

Nickelodeon recently rebooted the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise, so what better time to share the pictures I found of the TMNT show at MGM.  These are from the summer of 1990. I'd love to know where this Turtle Van is now. I know there is a picture of me somewhere with April, but I'm 99% sure I was wearing a fanny pack, so that one will probably never see the light of day (cut me some slack I was 8).

Jumanji Film Locations

While I was in New Hampshire last week, I stopped in Keene to take some Jumanji comparison shots. Let's start at the beginning of the film. In the opening scene Alan Parrish rides his bike past a statue of his ancestor, Angus Parrish.  I had been to Keene once before and knew there was a statue in this square, so I assumed they just attached a fake plaque to it, I was wrong. They  built the prop statue on top of this rock fountain.  Why not just use the existing one? Here's another statue screen shot. It almost looks like they tried to brush out the actual statue in the opening shot from the film. . This Parrish shoes ad can be seen briefly in the film and appears in the back ground of the second statue picture I posted.  Here it is today. Moving onto the stampede scenes. Turns out Frank's Barber Shop is still there too. So is this old coke mural Run Kirsten! Stampede!

The Blank Check House

After the success of Home Alone movie studios did not waste anytime copying the formula (kid outsmarts bad guys).  While the worst offender was probably Three Ninjas, Disney was also guilty with Blank Check.  They even used it as a selling point! I saw Blank Check in the theater, I remember because it was the only time in my movie going life that the theater manager came out and talked to us about how the movie was filmed in Texas (which is where I live).  So, on a recent trip to Austin, I stopped by the Blank Check house. Here is how it appeared in the film: And today: As you can see, they've done quite a bit of remodeling. Not to mention the heavy plant growth which makes it almost unrecognizable. The old garage door is now a window The original entry way has been completely removed. This is the front door now: I drove around to the side and found the back gate open.  In the film, the back yard had a pool, go cart t