Wordless Wednesday: Going Green

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Related Links:
* Wordless Wednesday: A Change in the Winds
* Wordless Wednesday: Sweet Tooth
* Wordless Wednesday: Main Street USA

Smile of the Day - Pixar Edition

Last night, the fabulous Lee Unkrich tweeted this image that Pixar recently created for Vanity Fair ... and I'm head over heels in love with it:

 Peas in a Pod! Tiny Nemo glasses! Some things are just too good not to share, amiright?

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Related Links:
* Can Wall-E Really Win an Oscar?
* Up Up and Away - Movie Review
* Toy Story 3 Behind the Scenes Concept Art

Things to be Excited About: A New Tiki Room

Are you annoyed by Iago? Over Zazu? Ready to sacrifice yourself to the Tiki Gods because you can't stand listening to any more bird puns? Good news - help is on the way!

Disney recently announced that The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management) is indeed under new management and will be renovated to "reshape the attraction into a version reminiscent of the original show." Oh. Em. Gee! Details are sparse at this point, but maybe the time spent racial stereotyping will be chorter and chorter.

What's more exciting to me is that Disney is returning a busted attraction to its roots, in the hopes of finding success with a new generation. To quote Steven Tyler: waitaminute waitaminute, I love that idea.

Please, dear Tiki Gods, let's continue this trend and resurrect other long-lost favorites like Cranium Command, Horizons and ... pleasepleaseplease Journey Into Imagination. Because as they say, if it ain't broke don't fix it. But if you fixed it and then broke it because you tried to fix it, at least have the good sense to get some superglue and put the pieces back together.While we're at it, let's just dump the whole resort in the Way Back Machine and party like it's 1989. Admit it, that would be awesome. I mean, The Dreamfinder made an appearance at Destination D. That has to be a sign that Dr. Nigel Channing has just been a bad dream, right?

Right?

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Related Links:
* Thoughts on the Fantasyland Expansion
* Segway Tours in WDW: This is How I Roll
* What Do Your Disney Maps Say About You?

Book Review: The Epcot Explorer’s Encyclopedia by R. A. Pedersen

I don’t know if I’ve ever explicitly stated this before, but Epcot is my favorite Disney park. And even though the EPCOT Center I remember loving as a kid bears little resemblance to the Epcot that exists today, that geodesic sphere will always have a special place in my heart.

And so, I was excited to read The Epcot Explorer's Encyclopedia – a book that’s devoted entirely to Epcot. No Millennium tile is left unturned. No renovation is left undescribed. There’s even a section that talks about the parking lot in great detail. This is a book for Epcot fans, by a true Epcot expert, and it’s a must-read for any Epcot geek.

The book is structured like a guidebook – each pavilion gets its own chapter, and within those chapters the history of the attractions, shops, restaurants, and design of said pavilion is described, along with the any renovations, changes, additions, or closures. The majority of the book is devoted to Future World, largely because the World Showcase hasn’t changed all that much over the years (a good thing). There’s also a conversational introduction that reads like one of the author’s blog posts (a must-add for your Google Reader), but the book doesn’t have a conclusion, which I was kind of hoping for (maybe because the future of Epcot is hard to define, since these days the park seems to change based on whatever Disney decides is popular that week).

For me, my favorite thing about reading The Epcot Explorer’s Encyclopedia was that it allowed me to take a stroll down memory lane and really remember in vivid detail all the things that made me fall in love with EPCOT Center in the first place. Because over time, our memories fade. For example, I remember loving Body Wars as a kid – I remember riding it for the first time, I remember the movie and the splinters and waiting for two hours in line. But I completely forgot that guests were “sanitized” with air puffs while in the queue. And I remember going to Epcot in 2000 and being horrified/emotionally destroyed when I rode the “new and improved” Journey into YOUR Imagination. But I repressed exactly how painful that version of the ride was. Thank you, Epcot Explorer’s Encyclopedia – I’m now having nightmares about being stuck on that ride, forced to listen to Dr. Nigel Channing for all eternity.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves Epcot or is interested in learning more about WDW history. Read it before your next trip, and impress your fellow travelers and cast members with all your new knowledge … then ask them if they know who General Knowledge is.

The Epcot Explorer’s Encyclopedia is available for purchase on Amazon.

Disclosure: I received an electronic copy of the book for this post. 

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Related Links:
* Project Future: The Inside story Behind the Creation of WDW
* The Dorkiest Disney Mind Meld Ever
* One of These Things is Not Like the Others