Simpsons taking shots at Disney again

And it's called Soarin' Over California. Not that Cali Screamin' and Grizzly River Rapids aren't spectacular E-tickets.

-Danny
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Coaster Insomniacs- The Other Ride Meat
Coasterer Member #2... Just grab it* and ride!
*handling charges may apply

The park is a lot of fun. It just needs to expand into the southeast corner and add about 2-3 large rides. It's a beautiful place. It's just that Disneyland had a 45 year head start.

Either that or slap a monorail station inside the park and allow guests to spend time in both parks for one price. It would even out the crowds, and would provide too much stuff to do in a single day for touristas.

Heck, I went to both parks in a single day with a hopper once. Phwew! Fugeddaboudit!
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"I go out at 3 o' clock for a quart of milk and come home to my son treating his body like an amusement park!" - Estelle Costanza

Wrapping up a few points here...

DCA was built next to Dland to try and turn the area into a 'Resort Destination', which would require several days and at least a few nights in a Disney owned hotel... basically they wanted a mini Walt Disney World. I have heard the story told that in a brainstorming retreat they were lamenting the fact that all these tourists came from all over the country/world, spent one day at Dland, then abandoned Disney to see 'the rest of California'. The idea, as lame as it sounds to us, was to literally create a park so that tourists wouldn't feel the need to go off and see the rest of the state while on vacation. Unfortunately, they didn't count on the fact that 1) due to neglect and lack of new rides or effective marketing Dland itself was rapidly turning into a regional theme park and 2) those same regional tourists would create a significant backlash against both the lack of content and the lame California theme which they thought would keep people a few extra nights, creating a situtation where if people had heard about DCA, it was probably in a negative context.

As for Disney's America, it would've been a year-round park. The MD location was a fall back after they were kicked out of Virginia... their land was too close to civil war battlefields and rich yuppies with horse farms. What's really interesting is that many of the concepts created for Disney's America ended up being re-used in DCA...

Victory Fields was to be an Air hanger themed area=Condor Flats

There was a Lewis & Clark river raft ride=Grizzly Peak

At one point they had also proposed a 'State Fair' area with, guess what, a looping steel roller coaster themed to look like a wooden one.

Al Lutz (www.miceage.com) has even suggested that they were toying with the idea of turning DCA into Disney's America... which wouldn't be a huge stretch. I would actually be all for it.
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What is the eleven letter word that all smart people spell incorrectly

Am I the only one who absolutely loves DCA?

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- John
Homepark: CP Home-away-from-homepark: PKI
My Campusfish Blog

Not to put this anywhere near back on track... After watching the Simpson's episode last night I watched a few more episodes from the third season.(They are well past season 10 now) The Simpson's have been taking cracks at or mentioning Disney/Disneyland for years.

This particular episode, Homer gets in a fight with Marge and sleeps in Bart's bed crying. Bart says he has to repress another unwanted memory and starts thinking about Disneyland.

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Chris Tyson
Photographer
www.pkiunlimited.com

Anyone else catch the "Flash Mountain" reference?

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- "I used to be in the audio/visual club, but I was kicked out because of my views on Vietnam........and I was stealing projectors" - Homer Simpson

I don´t know how old the episode is where they visit Itchy and Scratchy Land, anyway, at the end there is a short scene where another I&S Land is opened in FRANCE which is of course empty. You hear a voice shouting: "´Allo, ´allo where eez anyone?" Its soo funny, and was one of those reasons why the Simpsons used to be so great. It was always full of obscure inside jokes and they never cared if everybody got them. Sadly, I think they lost that bite in the last seasons, or am I getting too old? (I think we are still one or two seasons behind in germany.)

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Krusty´s Komedy Klassiks

DCA has been open less than three years...it's a bit early to call it a failure. Give it time to grow and find it's audience.

mOOSH

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The only 2004 Wood Coaster Calendar still available, plus holiday & all-occasion cards. All at S&D Greetings.

That Flash Mountain bit cracked me up.

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--Greg, aka Oat Boy
My page
"Friendship -- more lasting than love, more legal than stalking."

My family and I are spending a week behind the Orange Curtain this winter; I'm looking forward to visiting DCA, and expect I'll enjoy it immensely. DCA seems to fill much of the same niche that MGM Studios does at WDW---by all accounts, a nice place.

My private suspicion is that the hardcore Disney faithful are upset that WDC didn't spend the kind of cash that had been rumored for a West Coast EPCOT, and so nothing done at DCA would have been viewed as anything but "penny pinching." It is humorous to see the faithful disparage "Six Flags Paradise Pier" on their forum boards, though. If you think SFI is held in at best lukewarm regard here, spend some time on a Disney forum! :)
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http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/

*** This post was edited by Brian Noble 11/10/2003 4:06:00 PM ***

I was going to mention FM back last week when there was a news item about Disney looking for "exposure" in the media. In the interests of good taste, I decided against.....but now that that wall has been breached...;)
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Are Flash Mountain and Flash Gordon related in any way?

OMG!!! You practiced restraint? Are ya feelin' ok, Bill?

I always heard that a large problem with DCA is the fact that the large majority of people who go to Disneyland are, in fact, annual passholders. This isn't to say that the only people who go there are passholders, just a large majority. While the intention may have been to let vacationers get a taste of California without leaving the property, to the passholders, its a bad theme. Think about it, how would you feel if your home park created a themed area about your state. While it would be cool the first few times, you would realize how close you are to what is being recreated, and would feel ripped off.

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Don't ever underestimate the psycho factor in my head

I wouldn't mind a themed section in my home park about New York State... considering it's like 4 different worlds in one with NYC, Niagara Falls, the Adirondacks, and a sh*t load of farm lands.... it'd be quite unique...
...as opposed to California where there's just a bunch of palm trees & beaches ;)

I also wouldn't say the majory of DL peeps are season pass holders... more like a large percentage compared to other parks, especially the likes of Disney World, Universal Studios & other theme parks.

Dawg - thank you for clarifying my point a bit at the bottom of your comment. A surprising number of people who go to DL are passholders. It is less than 50%, but of the people at DCA, approximately 50% are passholders. The people who are vacationing do not see any reason to spend the money to get into both parks. It costs $94 to visit both parks if you're an adult, and $119 for a 3 day parkhopper pass. Keep in mind that many people visiting are there for a limited time, and have many other things to go to, such as other parks and sightseeing. Once entering DL, things are not looking good right now. Many rides are down (especially in Tomorrowland), and the scenery is looking quite shabby. The park looks nothing like it did back 10 years ago. Also, while not everyone in the general public has heard of DCA, those chosing to go there most likely will get information on it, and talk to people. For some reason, the park has a bad reputation, and it will need to work on that.

Part of the reason for the reputation has to do with your comment about how a NYS themed area would be great, think how it would be if SFDL (since I see you and I share parks, and MFI isn't the best example) charged you another $16 to enter, and the main rides were Grizzly Run themed like the Falls, "Soaring over NY," and a new coaster designed to look like its at the fair. Granted, they have some theming that's pretty good, but the other stuff is relatively common rides found at other parks, but themed differently. **Edit - The rides aren't exact copies, but they are not the groundbreaking technology that we expect from the Imagineering. Look at WDW - they had Test Track, Mission:Space, Space Mountain, Rockin Rollercoaster, and Tower of Terror all when they were cutting edge technology. While still quite impressive, ToT is not as amazing technology-wise as it is theming-wise. If ToT wasn't enclosed with all the theming, it would be fun, but not as impressive. Word comes from insiders that while still impressive, their ToT has been stripped of a lot of the special features as a cost cutting technique, in the same way that M:S is not quite the ride dreamed up, nor will Projet Gemini turn out the way planned. I expect that, while new and exciting, Everest will have details cut out to save money, and the Mummy just down the street will be the ride to beat.**

Now that I look back where I added all this stuff, maybe it isn't such a bad idea. At least SFDL would get something to brag about, instead of "New for 2004 - We cleaned the bathrooms before the season began!"

Dr Hibbert, (The Boy who Knew Too Much episode) "Well, only 1 in 2,000,000 people had what we call the evil gene. Hitler had it. Walt Disney had it. And Freddy Quimby had it."

And, off topic, do a search in the Yahoo! news archive for "Simpsons." It tells about how the Simpsons and the Fox network were almost sued by the Fox News network (same company).

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Don't ever underestimate the psycho factor in my head
*** This post was edited by Evil Zucchini 11/11/2003 9:20:24 PM ***
*** This post was edited by Evil Zucchini 11/11/2003 9:21:08 PM ***

Robobob, obviously I must've been under the weather....now that the blasted evil Spyware *apparently* has been removed from the home computer, I can go back to being my deliriously, deliciously, awesomely twisted old self....;)

Posting ONLY from work meant that I needed to practice "safe posting"....;)
*** This post was edited by rollergator 11/12/2003 12:07:37 PM ***

The Simpsons have always took shots at Disney.

That crack was pretty funny, but the best crack would have to be (The Simpsons are at a prison) when they say, "Wow this place is wierd," "Ya it is, it still beats Disney's California Adventure!" "Yup!"