Amoeba in the Sky

"The big thing is “ yes if ” consulting—the “ yes, if ” message and not “no, because.” “Yes, if ” tells you what you can do with a project if you make changes—“no, because” just kills it."   

Harrison "Buzz" Price     

Buzz Price was a pioneer.   He was a numbers man, an economist, and an unlikely contributor to Walt Disney's dreamy scheme for a family-friendly amusement park.  But just like the artists and craftspeople that Walt challenged his entire career, Buzz Price wasn't hamstrung by silly things like "job descriptions" and deference to purported experts and specialists.   The people busy devising this happy place knew they were inventing something decidedly different.   Even in those nascent Disneyland days, it was clear that they were the only experts, learning what they knew on the fly.

There's nothing I can say about Buzz Price that hasn't been said.  I met the guy precisely once.  It was brief and good natured, but nothing remarkable (actually, it was really remarkable for me). 

But Buzz's story, his "quick and dirty" analysis, and his "yes if" approach to a project's challenges have been a real inspiration, ever since I read his autobiography, Walt's Revolution: By the Numbers.   It's a sweeping story, one you owe yourself a couple of passes through.  Buzz craftily stitches seemingly-disconnected events, changing market forces, and a cast of hundreds into a single, very human story about an unlikely guy with a quick brain, a thirst for knowledge, and an amazing work ethic.  

Buzz brought meaning to a world of random dynamics.  He created tools, processes, and a new vocabulary to filter and share all of this. 

It's a testament to the quality and the foresight of Buzz's work that the concepts he invented and employed are used by theme park developers just as frequently as other innovations--like animatronics, high-capacity ride systems, and single-ticket attractions--that sprouted up at the same time.   Actually, the work Buzz did is far more influential and pervasive.  It long ago extended beyond theme parks.   Zoos, museums, retail, dining destinations, and countless other forms of "dimensional entertainment" have all put Buzz's good work to use.

Thanks for everything you created, Buzz.  And, especially, thanks for taking the time to reflect on what it meant and writing that down for shlubs like me to learn from.  Farewell.


 

Princess Theory

Breakfast with my son in Cinderella Castle.  Someone share this picture with the Disney guys next time the Fantasyland Forest project comes up.

Baxter was watching Return of the Jedi on my phone. It has a princess, too.
But she was dressed as a slave girl and coked out.

I Just Peed in my Pants a Little...

Supercal-atrocious

You ever go into something believing you're going to be disappointed?   And so you compensate by dialing your expectations way down.

It's something I do quite often. And it usually works. Some of my fondest experiences--the best films I've seen, the best meals I have eaten, my favorite family events--have been a result of artifically-deflated anticipation. I call it the Law of Dimished Expectations.

I mention this because yesterday, my youngest kid and I did a little dad-and-son outing to catch the touring version of Disney Theatrical's Mary Poppins. Being that Mary Poppins is my favorite film EVER, and given the mixed reviews I'd read since the show made its West End debut in 2004, I knew that this was a job for The Law of Diminished Expectations.

Somehow, I was still let down.

The poster is nice...

Mary Poppins, the Broadway musical, is lavish. It has some stunning set pieces. The YMCA-on-crack choreography in the "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is amazingly frenetic. Bert's upside down tap dance as he goes "over the rooftops" during the "Step in Time" number is riciculously delicious.  And Mary Poppins' final flight over the audience is, honestly, magical.

But those good points have a hard time outweighing the negatives. Because this is a show that is miserable in its pointlessness. It's all over the place, dabbling in borrowed elements from the Disney film, elements that I presume to be gleaned from PL Travers' original work, and newly contrived sequences that detract from the whole affair.

In this Cameron Mackintosh Poppins, we find a lot of familiar elements.   Mary Poppins looks like you remember her from the film.   Bert too, albeit maybe a slighter version than Dick Van Dyke's lanky jack-of-all-trades.   And many of the film's most recognizable songs are woven throughout.  The show's producers had no problem mining the film for those hooks that audiences would know.

Sadly, the same team decided to put their own creative stamp on Poppins.  Jane and Michael Banks are an inexcusably shrill pair of children, doomed to live in an "Upstairs/Downstairs" world complete with servant-angst, a heart-broken mother, and a spineless father. The audience is forced to contend with useless information about all these characters, sorting through exposition that does nothing to enhance the experience. Who cares that Mrs. Banks is a former actress, or that Mr. Banks faces hard decisions in his work life, or that Miss Brill dusts an expensive vase?

Mary Poppins is only a practically perfect film. It is a little too long, it meanders at times, and its visual effects are uneven at times. But what the film Poppins has is two things that transcend its flaws: clarity and heart.

It's a shame that the Broadway Poppins is a complicated mess.   And worse, it is too cool for sincerity.  

Walt knew that audiences are not afraid of emotion.  Too bad Broadway couldn't figure that one out when they went monkeying with one of his greatest productions.

Practically perfect

Happy Birthday (to me)

What better way to celebrate 38 years on Earth than with a karaoke party and some hard drinking pals!

Thanks, gang.   (And thanks for the picture, Holy Juan)

Lia, me, and those vagabond blues...

BEACHED MERMAIDS

Dateline Disneyland: 1965-1967. Young "maidens" were recruited to perform as mermaids in Disneyland's Submarine Lagoon.

Today, this kind of public display might generate some pretty intense reactions.  You'd have your fundamentalist furor.  You'd also get guys folding up singles longways, standing at the lagoon railing waiting for a lap dance.

Maybe things weren't all that different forty years ago. Legend has it that the mermaids were flushed down Disneyland's drain after one-too-many male guests fell victim to the sirens' song.  Those poor men lept into the lagoon, looking for love in all the wrong places.

(Of course, there are other accounts that suggest that the mermaids' extinction was caused by the intense amount of chlorine used in the Submarine Lagoon.  Seems these poor fish-girls got all dried out. Ewwww.)

Living here the future, there's something very innocent and playful about the whole affair. And sexy, too.

Walt, you were a genius!