Next we'll take a look at some small details here in the "house of sexy". Did I just type that??!! Sorry, folks, I can't help myself when I gaze upon her red hair and blue sockey feet.
Are those videos on the shelf? Do they have titles? What about the knicknacks? What are they? The computer is small but what are those cartridges? Is that the TV control that sends 16mm film directly to your home as though it's in real time? WE WANT ANSWERS!
Here's a nice cockpit shot. See the speaker? The cool thing was that I was able to leave my audio recorder in the seat. I got several loops of audio and came back later to get it.
This hoverlift shell may still be at Hollywood Studios. It was either a quick mold or a plug of some kind. Not sure. This was taken at that shitty restaurant that was made to look like some sort of production facility. Did I ever mention how much I hate the studios? Yuck.
This one was taken from the ride vehicle but luckily I had the camera on "panorama". It's a great view of the landing gear for those of you who want to build a model Hoverlift.
The common question is "Why don't we have flying cars today". Come on people! Humans can't drive on a flat plain without killing each other. Imagine what would happen in 3 Dimensional space! Teenage girls on cell phones, drunks leaving the bar, old people....... It would be a constant shower of glass, plastic, metal, and body parts. Humanity has a lot of advancing to do.
Chief and I mourn the loss of Michael Jackson, the King of pop and longtime Horizons fan. In a 1989 interview about his love for Disney, the King cited his favorite attractions as Pirates, Horizons, and Space Mountain. He was too humble and kind to mention the attraction in which he starred.
Here are two more segments from two different adventures. Both are primarily from behind the ride vehicles, but then also venture onto the set a little. So I know the majority of this video is dark and kinda hard to see where we are and stuff, but I think its still fun to listen too the ride audio and hear our conversations about what we are doing.
The first segment is us trying to find the IMAX projector room(s). Again, the goal here was to get a decent gap when we got on the ride so we could jump off early, but this time instead of going down the stairs at the clouds and running to Easy Living under the track, we would climb out and squeeze between the cars to get to the walkway behind them. So this video starts out with us walking behind the cars, Hoot is filming and I am walking with a flash light. Ohh, and this again is before we started staying in the ride, so we knew we only had a limited amount of time to explore behind the cars before we had to make it back to our gap and get back into 'our' car. In the beginning we were always worried about getting back into the exact car we started the ride in, for fear that somehow the cast member at unload would know we were in the wrong car, heh. :)
Anyways, back to us walking behind the cars heading for the IMAX theatre stairwell. There are a couple places in the video where you can easily make out the back of the ride vehicles, and I very quickly shine the flashlight on the elevator that was in the middle of the IMAX theatre area. Its funny now to see how quiet we were in the stairwell, but needless to say, we didnt find what we were looking for and I dont remember going back to that stairwell many times after this. These backstage areas with the lights on always spooked us, so we didnt spend much time in them. For some reason it always felt more comfortable 'in' the ride, in the dark, being able to hear the audio, and all the other ambient noise from the ride vehicles and animatronics moving etc... So after we leave the stairwell, we know we still have some time to explore before having to find our car and get back in. So we film the control cabinets for the Urban Habitat and the Desert Habitat, which just happened to be in a larger area just behind the vehicles. And then its time to get back 'on' the ride, and again its funny to hear us freak out about what car we are supposed to be in. Notice the single boot in the 'girlfriends' room. We had mentioned this in an earlier post, we always noticed that sometimes the boots would be missing or there would only be one. I swear, none of the boots were taken by myself or Hoot.
Ok, second segment, we are on the ride in the neon city when we decide we are going to jump out and run ahead all the way to the cave. This is a segment from one of the rides we did with Bionic Fonzi. We do a quick run into the cave to get another photo from behind (or the side) of the kitchen. Then we hurry back out and walk around to the 'girlfriends' room and Hoot gets a little video of her computer station/desk. And you will notice, that on this trip there were indeed two boots on the floor. I would love to hear from one of the EPCOT artist preps about how many times they had to replace those boots.
How awesome is that!????! This thing that we rode past time and again had a name! You couldn't see it from your seated position but it was there!
But wait there's more. The movie "Clash of the Titans" came out in 1981. Pegasus, the flying horse, was beautifully done in that movie. Was someone inspired? If not then way didn't they just call it "Hoverlift"? Hmmmmmm.............
Can't guess the name? Well it wasn't visible from your ride vehicle but it was there. Another testament to the rich detail of Horizons. So what was it called?
Here's my old pal Spike Tripper! He came along on a few adventures back in the day. In this pic he's clearly showing farm girl HOW to operate the weather scan monitor.
Spike is a handsome cuss but the farm girl looks out of wack in this shot. There's a gap on her neck and she looks frail. maybe she had a cold that day.
Next up I have the complete record of her flying vehicle. This is your last chance to tell me the name of that three fanned flying wonder before I post!
We've have some questions on things that I posted earlier. The question asked most is "did we do this on any other attraction?" The answer is hard to fathom, for us anyway, but....yes we did.
Chief and I met in 1986. The third day I knew him we were knee deep in Disney attractions.
I guess this phase, which is the preservation of Horizons, was only one adventure in a long string that spans some 23 years.
The more we think about this blog the more we realize that we pulled off some amazing shit and this blog is one small piece.
I thought since we were recently talking about the "bathtub girl", I would cut together the Easy Living portions of the three rides we did with our old friend Bionic Fonzi.
These rides are pretty neat, they show how we used to jump off right at the beginning and run ahead to the stairway up to the Easy Living set. We did this to try and make it as far ahead to the beginning of our "empty car gap", so we would have more time. The second ride shows Hoot running up the spiral staircase to the bathtub girl with video camera in hand, very cool. Also on the second ride, you can see us getting nervous about the ride slowing down and then stopping with the "e-stop" spiel going off. We were fairly certain this was for a wheelchair guest, but we were always scared we had been caught when that would happen. :)
Then we decide we have time for a third ride. This shows us in the load area counting cars for our gap. You get a pretty neat shot of under the ride platform, where you can see the pipes and stuff painted a fluorescent orange. Hoot also films me up on the bathtub platform taking a picture.
Wow, watching these again just brings back so many fun memories, Enjoy! :)
I am back from vacation, so on with the show! :) Here is the next part in my holo-girl series. Some of these are quite blurry and out of focus, but I still think they are worthy of posting.
Here is that broken mirror again (that I pointed out in part 2). For some reason I really like this shot, seeing the little farmer girl doll reflection there, on a broken mirror, in the dark, kinda sad yet cool at the same time. Yeah, so I am wierd. :)
Ohh, and I am glad to see Sunnycide finally making an apperance here on Mesa Verde Times, great job Hoot.
During this adventure I had a HOT girlfriend called Sunnycide. She didn't really care for Disney rides but she came along once or twice just to be bad. She was into black magic and art shows in which people got naked and did drugs. She put up with my strange obsession for future living
and I her naked witch moon gatherings. We were a match made in heaven for sure!
Ahhhhhh...... so long ago.
Today, we've been married for almost 12 years. I never get tired of her smile and the way she watches me obsess about the future again:)
Here's a shot from the star field behind the shuttle scene. I accidentally had my camera on "panorama" but it made for some cool pics. <--------- See these two grey boxes? They controlled the speed of the two motors that made the kid float. If you thought he looked too much like the vampire boy in "Salem's Lot" you could just turn up the speed to "Kid in the dryer"!
Remember when Pooh Bear was floating around in there too?
Wow! We made it to 50! Honestly I never thought we'd get two or three. I mean, this long after Horizons closed? I never thought there were so many hardcore fans out there. I love this blog:) Thanks, Horizons fans for everything you do.
tanyeshka was our 50th follower! Tell her what she won, Johnny!
"tanyeshka wins a new washer dryer combo! Not only that, she wins a brand new Laser Chef "Laser Oven"!" She also wins an all expense paid trip to.................SEA CASTLE! Yes tanyeshka and a guest will experience life under the waves! Dinning, Romance, and leisure! This could all be yours if the price is right!
Rock on! Chief is going on vacation so you people are all MINE for the next week!
Here is another early run, with us testing different strategies for running ahead to get a 'larger gap' of cars to allow us more time in a set. As you can see in Easy Living not all of our ideas worked out very well. :) In this clip we test our timing again trying to reach the Holo-Girl. We also take a quick trip down the cave and look behind 'the Grove' and 'the Kitchen'.
Ok, so here we are, up on the catwalk looking back down into the 'living room'. We are basically right above the ride track, looking to the 'left' if you will.
And now I am looking to the 'right', and if you look real close at this picture, in the upper right hand corner, you can see someones elbow, hrmm, I wonder who that is? :) Also in this picture, pay attention to the gray box, with some electrical connection coming out of it. It will help put the next photo into perspective.
Why, it is none other than your captain, Hoot Gibson! hehe This is the photo being used in his profile currently. Again, notice the gray box in the lower left corner. Also in this photo, notice the mirror just below Hoot, it looks like a corner is broken off, you will see this mirror again in a couple photos I have coming up in a future part of my Holo-Girl posts. And I have no idea how/why the corner is broken off, just pointing it out because it makes it easy to remember and recognise.
It was pretty funny to see this seal kissin' kid completely broken. He was stuck in that pose while the seal attacked him. The other kids were laughing.
There are a lot of people wondering how we did this so I'll try to explain again. This is how it went in the early stages:
1. Chief would hang out right near the load area and watch people get on the ride.
2. Hoot would stay back where people entered the building.
3. Chief would count empty ride vehicles, there had to be at LEAST six ahead of us.
4. Hoot would signal Chief when somebody entered the building. We had to have at LEAST six empty vehicles ahead AND behind us to not be seen.
5. Most of the time Chief would count ten to twenty empty cars before I signaled him that we had six behind us.
6. We'd get on the ride and check our ride vehicle number.
7. As soon as we rounded the corner out of the load area we'd jump out and run like hell to get as far ahead as possible.
8. By keeping count of the cars we had a precise idea of how much time we had in a scene.
We got very good at knowing how much time we had from doing this over and over.
Later, this became old hat and we just stayed in the ride for 8 hours at a time:)We ate dinner there and even washed ourselves in the Mesa Verde Kitchen scene waterfall.
Like I said, I made a list of things I wanted pics of. I was pretty sure these shoes were important because they're such a minor detail. Horizons was all about the small details in true old school Disney fashion.
WoooooooooWeeeeeeee! Full frontal nudity Audio-Animatronic style! We call this figure "Ms Easy Living" and I'm sorry but she's HOT!Did they need to sculpt her torso for this scene? Hell no. Did they anyway? HELL YES!
This rubber chick is even hotter than the Red Head in Pirates! Disagree? You're nuts.
This is not the very first video we shot, but it is one of the early ones. Definitely before we started 'staying in' the ride. Hoot is at the controls with his Super 8mm video camera. I am of course the one with the foul mouth.
While Chief takes care of the mini farmer girl I'll get back to "Easy living" bath tub chick. First, it was incredibly hard to run up the spiral staircase and get pics of her. This shot was my first and I wasn't happy with it all. REWIND.
REWIND to the time we were doing this stuff. I would take my pics to my boring desk job and scour them for any detail I wanted to see more of. I made a list based on these pics and checked them off as we got them. The list, which I still have, was really long and it seemed we would never finish it but we wanted every detail documented at all cost.
It's REALLY stupid to jump out of your ride vehicle on a Disney ride and we knew that. I suffered a fractured bone in my foot and Chief cut his head wide open once or twice. This was also pre 9/11 when things were very different.
Attractions close and that's the natural order of things. Ask Mike at Widen Your World. He knows. Somehow Horizons had such an impact on Chief and I as kids, and the time was right, that we had to do what we did at any risk.
I am going to revisit the "Holo-Phone Girl" (or whatever you want to call her, cool farmer girl doll, etc...) with a series of photos I have. Hoot posted one of our best pictures of her in an earlier post. Early on in our adventures, when we were still worried about gaps, and getting back to our car in time, etc... getting to this figure to get some decent photos almost seemed impossible.
We needed a gap of empty cars large enough ahead of us and behind us to allow us to jump out, run ahead to the living room entrance, then run thru the living room, up the stairs behind 'dad' on the organ, climb up a ladder, take a picture, then run all the way back and hope no new guests were just coming around the corner to the future living room. Phew. Needless to say, early on, we only tried this a couple times I think. But that didnt matter once we started 'staying in' the ride, then we could hang out as long as we wanted with the doll. :)
Anyways, the photo above is of course standing in the stairwell looking back down at 'dad' on the organ. And then the next one here is a little further up that stairwell, still looking down.
And then below is one of me standing on the ladder, looking back down at Hoot, who just happens to be wearing my backpack. You can see the stairs (red carpet) in the top part of the photo. I will probably post three or so pictures in each part after this, I have a total of fourteen to post from my collection, and I know Hoot has plenty more. I also plan on ending this multi-part series with a really awesome video clip that Hoot shot of the doll, from the pathway in front of the ride vehicles. Its a really quick shot, but it is still one of my favorites.
Hey, Horizons fans! I had to switch to "moderate all comments" because some Ohio guy thought I was sleeping with his wife. AS IF!
Now, I know girls dig guys who are into old EPCOT Center attractions. We all know that. Horizons knowledge was a chick magnet back in the day and still is. "Show me your pics, Hoot" and "let's watch Horizons video, Chief". We got use to it but I can't have comments like he posted on this blog.
Somebody shoot me a comment so I can see if this works. Please?
To follow Chief's lead, here's a cool model shot. This pic IS upside down as ol' chief mentioned. See the strings? It's the same effect as the models in the tunnel leading into Space Mountain. If you don't know how it's done it goes like this:
They were hung upside down with a big reflective, concave disk behind them. The reflection was cast upon the glass in front of you and the image appeared to move as you went by. Low tech but future!
Next we'll take a look at some small details here in the "house of sexy". Did I just type that??!! Sorry, folks, I can't help myself when I gaze upon her red hair and blue sockey feet.
