WDW 1993: Wonders of Life's Forced Perspective Room

Two days ago, Estelle at This Happy Place Blog posted a wonderful look back at her family's past Epcot visits, which included a great picture of the Forced Perspective Room in Wonders of Life's Sensory Funhouse. Since a lot of Disney fans never got a chance to see that great magic trick in person, here are a couple of shots from my family's '93 vacation showing the Forced Perspective Room in action.

My brother-in-law and big sister volunteered. To make the trick work, they began by standing at opposite corners of the room. Then they switched places.

This looked even wilder live as you watched people grow or shrink as they walked. For reference, my sister is 5' tall and my brother-in-law is 6' 6".

You viewed the scene through a narrow slot, which kept you from seeing that the room was far more distorted than it seemed, forcing the viewer's eye to judge height based on completely misleading points of reference.

Between Cranium Command, Body Wars and the Sensory Funhouse, we could (and did) easily spend hours in Wonders of Life -- and that's not including time for the Pavilion's other attractions!

The place felt bright, cheerful and energetic. Wonders of Life helped make Epcot our favorite destination at Walt Disney World.

Disneyland Annual Passholders Receive a Free Book

Disneyland Annual Passholders have been finding a nice surprise freebie in the mail this week: A Celebration of a Wish Come True, an 80-page 8 1/2 x 11 1/4 souvenir book commemorating the resort's amazing summer of 2012.

Alice in Safety Land

The Alice in Wonderland ride's awful-looking safety railings and camouflage tarps have been uglifying the attraction's exterior since their unfortunate installment in 2010. The good -- very good -- news is that the fences are due to be replaced by a (hopefully) classier-looking alternative sometime in 2013.

This used to be a bright, open, whimsical fantasy garden with a graceful vine-path winding about overhead.

It's sad to realize most first-time visitors assume the fencing and tarps have always been there.

For 2010 reactions and a video of how gross the railings look on-ride, click Here.

To see how amazing this ride looked without the fencing, click Here.

Can't wait for remodel, which is also rumored to include several upgrades to the ride's interior! At least one of our crew is rooting for the Walrus and the Carpenter to get a scene this time.

Alice in Wonderland remains one of Disneyland's best rides. Fingers crossed that the exterior will soon look more like its wonderful, spectacular old self!

Fish Heads & Crumbs #6: Horse-Drawn Street Talk

First of all: HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY, EPCOT!!!

Second of all -- it being Monday -- here's Fish Heads & Crumbs. A.W. told us he speaks horse, so we sent him out to Disneyland on assignment...

Click to Enlarge

WDW 1993: World of Motion

In this installment of WDW 1993, we're back in Epcot for a look at World of Motion, one of four grand, high-capacity omnimover-style attractions operating in Future World back then -- and that's not even counting the Living Seas' seacabs!

Our group loved World of Motion's humorous approach to edutainment. In the tradition of classic Disney cartoon shorts, a mock-serious narrator (Gary Owens this time) gave a calm, jovial tour through the history of transportation, completely unaware of the chaos breaking out in the scenes he was describing.

World of Motion was a shutterbug tourist's dream, and so there are many photos on the internet of this attraction's inhabitants. My paltry collection can't compare to the amazing wealth of shots found in Disney Tourist Blog's tribute, so be sure to check it out if you haven't already. The above scene is certainly well-documented, but the world can't have enough chickens, so here's my shot of the ruckus.

Another view reveals one of my favorite gags: Manhole Guy With Vegetable on Head.

World of Motion was an incredibly good-natured adventure the whole family truly could experience together. It also had the catchy theme song, "It's Fun to be Free." Long before our trip, I'd memorized that song via the great original Music of Disneyland, Walt Disney World and Epcot Center CD (odd title, considering Epcot is part of WDW). Based on the song alone, World of Motion was a "Must-See" on that first trip, and it did not disappoint.

More WDW 1993 coming soon.

Paradise Pier Before the Makeover

Way back before the Cozy Cones existed in Cars Land, Disney California Adventure harbored another bright orange landmark. But this one didn't serve Chili Cone Queso. Epcot has Spaceship Earth, but DCA had the Orange Stinger. Insert sad trombone music here.

And right next door, you can see the now-gone towers of the Maliboomer ride, which was supposed to resemble a gigantic test-of-strength mallet game. For some strange reason, that end of Paradise Pier had a "giant" theme going on, as it also hosted the giant hamburger UFO at the long-gone McDonald's Burger Invasion (barely visible on the left there).

Appearances aside, the problem with Orange Stinger was that it contained a circular swing ride, and the ride's views were mostly blocked by the surrounding orange peel. The experience felt like spinning around inside a dockside warehouse.

Maliboomer was a fun, scary ride, but it looked tacky and too modern for the Pier's theme.

In 2012's DCA, Orange Stinger has become the open-air Silly Symphony Swings and the Maliboomer's given way to...some planters. The removal of both original structures has greatly improved the believability of Paradise Pier's old-time boardwalk atmosphere.

An Abominable Footprint

While strolling around the perimeter of Disneyland's Matterhorn, you're bound to come across this footprint casting that appeared in 1978 as the Matterhorn re-opened after a lengthy refurbishment.

The remodeling turned the mountain's interior (which previously had been one big open space with minimally-decorated beams, stairs and framework) into a maze of artificial ice caverns. The original single bobsleds were redesigned and coupled into two-car trains.

Best of all, the Abominable Snowman (unofficially dubbed "Harold") moved in, turning the unique roller coaster into a full-fledged Fantasyland adventure.

The footprint, with it's cartoon-like stylization, perfectly captures the spirit of the mountain's sole inhabitant (there are three abominable snowman figures on the ride, but they all represent the same guy pursuing you down the mountain). Unlike the Yeti in Animal Kingdom, which was designed to appear as much like a realistic beast as possible, Harold looks like a monster from a storybook -- a really good, scary storybook.

If fact, he'd look right at home stomping around Fantasyland looking fierce and reluctantly signing autographs. Come to think of it, why hasn't he ever appeared as a walk-around character?