Authors: Leslie Le Mon
Paradoxically, as the park became more and more a place that
Walt
would’ve been proud to call his own, the park name was changed to link it more to
Disney
as a corporation than to
Walt Disney
as a person. The park opened in February 2001 as
Disney’s California Adventure
(note the possessive apostrophe); in June 2010, as the resort celebrated its second annual
Summer Nightastic!
and
DCA
unveiled its
Silly Symphony Swings
and
World of Color
, the park changed its name from
Disney’s California Adventure
to
Disney California Adventure
.
In preparation for the rebranding, during the weeks leading up to the name change it was difficult to find postcards or other merchandise with
Disney’s California Adventure
printed on it. They’d been pulled and were being replaced with new
Disney California Adventure
-branded products.
Construc
tion. Heavy equipment. Fences. Tarps. Restocking. It was all to be expected with
DCA
in the throes of a vibrant
Disney Theme Parks
renaissance. And the payoffs were big, every year during the park’s transformation. Over time,
DCA
became more coherent and dazzling. Local Guests lucky enough to make frequent visits were witnessing history.
Mickey’s Fun Wheel
and
Games of the Boardwalk
were unveiled. The
Orange Stinger
was transformed into the whimsical
Silly Symphony Swings
.
World of Color
enchanted.
Goofy’s Sky School
and
Paradise Bay Gardens
delighted.
Ghirardelli
began crafting sundaes on
Pacific Wharf
.
Golden State
was organized into three focused lands.
The Mad T Party
re-energized
Hollywood Land
.
Cars Land
rose majestically on the site of the
Timon Lot
. And beautiful, shaded, optimistic
Buena Vista Street
rose triumphantly on the razed kitsch of
Sunshine Plaza
.
B
y the time
Buena Vista Street
and
Cars Land
opened in June 2012, and
Bob Iger
rededicated
DCA
, Guests knew it had all been worth it.
DCA
had finally got it right.
Disney
spent lavishly, nailed the details, told
magical
stories, conjured
Walt
, and put Guests front-and-center. The reimagined
DCA
has claimed its rightful place as a jewel in the
Disney park
’s crown.
The new park is even accruing its own mysteries and urban legends, like its sister park
Disneyland
. Some of them are covered in the pages below. One “for instance” to start the ball rolling: In early August 2013, websites from laughingplace.com to ocweekly.com reported that
DCA
Cast Members allegedly saw a spider-like drone flying low (40 feet high) over
DCA
in the early morning hours, before the park opened to Guests.
Local police, a
Disney
spokeswoman, and even the FAA apparently claimed they knew nothing of any drones over the park—in other words,
if
it happened, it wasn’t an
authorized
flight. Some companies are now using light, inexpensive, remote-controlled drones to film marketing, advertising, real estate, or entertainment footage, but the park denies that was the case here.
The author’s best guess is that if a drone buzzed
DCA
, it was remotely piloted by a prankish Cast Member or Guest (neither of whom would want to take credit for or be caught after the event). The
Grand Californian Hotel
has many Guest room balconies facing into the park, and drone kits are now cheap and plentiful, easy to assemble and pilot. So ... Keep your eyes on the skies when you visit
DCA
.
And now, without further ado, here is all the fun, the history, the glamor, and the mystery that is
Disney California Adventure Park
at the
Disneyland Resort
.
Enjoy!
DCA
Park
: Sketches of Attractions, Gear, Grub and Characters by Land
“a
bug’s land”
“a bug’s land”
At-a-Glance
Attractions:
Bountiful Valley Farm
(Closed Autumn 2010)
,
Flik’s Fun Fair
:
Flik’s Flyers
,
Four Leaf Clover
,
Francis’ Ladybug Boogie
,
Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train
,
Princess Dot Puddle Park
, and
Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘Em Buggies
,
It’s Tough to be a Bug!
Gear:
P.T. Flea Market
(Closed Autumn 2010)
Grub:
Bountiful Valley Farmers Market
(L, D, S),
Farmer’s Market Fruit Cart
(S),
Sam Andreas Shakes
(S) (All restaurants Closed Autumn 2010)
“a bug’s land” Introduction
A kid-friendly
district that opened on October 7, 2002,
“a bug’s land”
was crafted in direct response to Guests’ complaints that
DCA
didn’t offer enough activities for children and families.
One of the fascinating things about
Disney
, and the root of some people’s ambivalence toward the company, is that it’s a unique hybrid of the dreamy and the pragmatic, the nurturing and the self-interested. It’s at once the creator of high-quality, warm, optimistic entertainment, a purveyor of superlative customer service, and an extremely successful and shrewd corporate empire.
When
Disney
hears complaints about its parks, it listens with at least three sets of ears. The creative division wonders where it went wrong from an entertainment perspective, and wants to
plus
the experience. The customer service division feels for the disappointed Guests, and wants to
plus
the experience. The business division smarts under the sting of reduced profits, and wants to
plus
the experience. For these different reasons, and more, every unit of
Disney
considers Guest complaints seriously, and takes swift action to redress them.
Early Guests who lamented the lack of kid-and-family-friendly attractions were heard loud and clear, via Guest surveys, critical feedback
, and lighter-than-expected attendance and gate receipts.
Imagineers
were tasked with crafting an imaginative land that would appeal to children and their parents and guardians. The first substantive result was
“a bug’s land.”
Interestingly,
“a bug’s land”
attractions
Bountiful Valley Farm
and
It’s Tough to be a Bug!
were
Opening Day
attractions. They pre-dated the full, cohesive
“a bug’s land”
and its heart,
Flik’s Fun Fair
. Both
It’s Tough to be a Bug
, an at-times-frightening 3D film imported from
Walt Disney World
’s
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
, and the now-defunct
Bountiful Valley Farm
water play area, were originally part of
DCA
’s
Golden State
; they served as its “agricultural district”. While appealing to many children, these attractions just weren’t enough.
The
“a bug’s land”
district was based on the popular 1998
Disney-Pixar
computer-animated movie
A Bug’s Life
, directed and written by
Pixar
geniuses
John Lasseter
and
Andrew Stanton
. With a voice cast that featured
Dave Foley
, Emmy-winner
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
, and
Kevin Spacey
and supporting work from
Phyllis Diller
,
Brad Garrett
,
Bonnie Hunt
,
David Hyde Pierce
,
Madeline Kahn
, a young
Hayden Panettiere
, and
Pixar
“lucky charm”
John Ratzenberger
,
A Bug’s Life
explored an ant colony under attack by grasshoppers, and the eclectic band of circus bugs that team with heroic inventor ant
Flik
and
Princess Atta
to defeat the hoppers.
This was
Disney-Pixar
’s second feature, following the success of
Toy Story
in 1995.
A Bug’s Life
was a box office hit in 1998, grossing over $360 million worldwide, and immediately spawned a well-received video game which many kids (including the author’s then nine or ten year old nephew) enjoyed playing. The film was released on DVD in 1999. The
Bug’s Life
characters and their world were therefore still fresh in Guests’ minds when
“a bug’s land”
opened in fall of 2002.
When
Imagineers
craft park lands, they seek stories with immersive environments, because the ultimate goal is to submerge Guests in an entertaining plot and
magical
landscape sometimes based on reality and sometimes constructed wholly from the
Imagineers
’ imaginations. Over in
Disneyland
, for example,
Main Street
is a hyperreal evocation of a Midwestern town in the early 1900’s,
New Orleans Square
is a
magical
slice of the Crescent City’s French Quarter, and
Mickey’s Toontown
is a concretized dream of what would happen if
Disney
cartoon characters and humans shared the world.
A Bug’s Life
, with its painstakingly realized bug’s-eye perspective of the world, lent itself nicely to development as a park district. How charming it would be for Guests, particularly for young children, to step into a swath of the everyday world as it appears to ants!
It’s Tough to be a Bug
and
Bountiful Valley Farm
were retained, but a delightful little fun fair that seemed to shrink Guests down to bug size was added as the land’s centerpiece.
Imagineers
studied the film
A Bug’s Life
and selected landscape elements and characters whose personalities and quirks would inspire fun attractions.
Imagineers
had a limited budget and a limited landscape at their disposal. However, they made the most out of their resources. Funds and space dictated that
Flik’s Fun Fair
would be a modest little fun park, with attractions as small in scope as the traveling carnival rides Guests could see in their home towns. But if the size of the rides had to be small, their execution and entertainment value didn’t.
Disney-Pixar
often cross-pollinates its films, planting images of one film and its characters in another film. This is part of the
Disney
universe. It’s clever marketing, but also entertaining, and fans have fun seeking and spotting these cross-over references. In that spirit,
Imagineers
hit upon the idea of having Guests enter
“a bug’s land”
via a rectangular corridor that on closer inspection proves to be an overturned box of
Cowboy Crunchies
, the fictional cereal that
Toy Story
character
Woody
sponsored.