Finally convinced my daughter to go on Pirates and the Mansion, insisting (again) they are not scary in the give-you-nightmares senseā¦ she was blown away by the magic of the rides - the same magic that has captivated me for almost 40 years since my first visitā¦
One passage in this article stands out above the others: that the Imagineers would have been a part of Maker culture. Such truth, yes, but I think they WERE - at least, they were instrumental in, well, MAKING Makers.
And is there any other theme park out there that inspires that?
One of the scariest dark āridesā was the extraterrorestrial alien encounter before they toned it down.
Youāre strapped in a chair seeing a teleporation demo when they beam in a flying HR Giger type alien.
The Alien breaks out of itās containment cylinder and then the lights go out. Almost total darkness. You hear it flying around you and feel the air from itās wings, you feel the floor compress under itās weight as itās behind you breathing hot air on your neckā¦a flick of itās tongue on your neck.
Up stairs on the cat walk a technician with a flashlight is trying to restore power and he gets killedā dripping a warm liquid on you.
I still have marks on my arms when I took our 9 yo nephew to that one. They did a great job of giving an unseen entity realistic sense of presense and weight.
They had a lot of complaints about it and refurbished it with a comical Sitches Great Escape thing which I havenāt seen.
āEdit: I had to look this up to see if my recall was correct. Yupā¦right down to the hand crushing. http://www.mickeymutineers.com/2013/02/the-extraterrorestrial-alien-encounter.html
We went on the Stitches version last year. You can still see the bones of the old versionāthe seats look like the ones from the dropship in āAliensā and so forthāand even though itās supposed to be amusing itās still sort of unsettling when the lights all go out. (Stitch does things like āburpā and you get a blast of chili-dog-scented hot breath from right behind you.) I can definitely see how it would be pants-wettingly terrifying with the Alien theme.
No mention of the Museum Of The Weird? Whateverā¦
One of the things about Stitch is that heās Experiment 626.
Which was a Gill Scott Herron song that was popular in the late 78. Tuskeege 626 --the code for an experiment about Syphilis.
My new book covers the Museum of the Weird, of course - in fact, my extensive interview with Rolly Crump works its way through the entire book. This bit is simply an excerpt from the introduction.
This ride is about as ādarkā as an episode of Scooby Doo.
The ādarkā in dark ride is in reference to literal light, not to tone.
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