SAVE HOOT GIBSON

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Magic Paint Brush

Remember this post I made back in May? It had a shot of a ride vehicle maintenance room we had found when we were exploring the catwalks on one of our "extended visits". Well here is a video clip of that room, I know its short, but would you really want to watch five minutes of this?

I have no idea if this was the only room that provided access to the top of the vehicles, but its the only one we found during our catwalk exploration. And if I recall correctly, I dont think we visited this room more than once, we thought it was cool when we found it, but after that we were like what is there really to see here?

23 comments:

  1. That is cool--- inside Horizons' brain. :-)
    Anything good in the binder?

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  2. still really cool, makes it really easy to work on the drive systems, just pull up a chair and start working, no sitting on a ladder or anything like that

    Nice work guys.

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  3. I guess I'm the type that could watch this kind of stuff all day, but then at times I find myself staring blankly at escalators. :) The paintbrush is cool. I like the way it pivots. It looks like it's keeping those reflective squares clean.

    So what scene are you above in this room? I can hear the show music faintly in the background...

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  4. I have no idea where we were. I think it was at the end of the ride and judging by that sharp turn it could very well be over unload.

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  5. i would agree that it looks like the paintbrush is keeping dust/debris off those white squares which probably trigger all sorts of actions via optical sensors.

    i could watch 5 minutes, or more, of this. :)

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  6. hey about what part of the ride do you think this room was over?

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  7. Kinda crazy how loud it was up there, but when riding it's pretty quiet.

    Hey, do you guys have a copy of the Engineering Manual and Prop List that Mousesurplus was selling? I know it's circulating and if you ask, I mean look hard enough for it, you could track it down.

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  8. I remember that we happened upon this room by accident. I know we had passed the Birthday scene "Hologram" and I think we came to a door on the catwalk. We didn't know what we'd find and we didn't care so we just opened it.

    Every type of documentation was in that room. Of course, we didn't take anything and left it like we'd never been there.

    I think the Mouse Surplus guide was put together as a price guide of some sort. It looks like it was compiled from older documents but later in the ride's history. My opinion is that it was used to try to sell Horizons! Hear me out here. I know for a fact that the ride system and vehicles were being shopped by foreign companies. At one time it was rumored that Sea World (Busch) was interested! What if the entire attraction was up for sale? If not, why would they list the price of everything EXCEPT the man hours used to create it? If it was an internal assesment man hours would have been there. Why would they call out the total dollar amount as if it were a car or house for sale?

    I believe Horizons was for sale, folks.

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  9. If you came to it after the Birthday scene then it's possible that it was above the Launch Tube just before you choose your own ending. The hairpin turn could be where the Starfield is.

    A price guide is certainly a necessary part of budgeting an attraction when it's being built, though it's fun to think of the possibilities of Disney planning to have a second Horizons attraction somewhere else at that time. When they demolished Horizons I had read about Disney trying to sell only the ride system, particulary to an amusement park in Mexico. Watching a Chuckie-Cheeze-style show from Horizons gondolas full of rambunctious kids with mothers yelling at them in Spanish is almost too much to bear the thought of.

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  10. I agree Omnispace, I believe the sharp turn is where the Starfield is.

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  11. A few of us from the Horizons Yahoo Group got together in June and did a group buy of the manuals. I scanned them to PDF and Tony G uploaded them to his server. If anyone is interested in downloading them, e-mail me at ryan at 37point5 dot com and I'll send you a link.

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  12. This is the stuff ride nerd's dreams are made of! You may not have been fascinated by it, but for someone like me who loves the mechanics/etc. of rides, I can watch stuff like this for hours while studying the movements, design, etc. If you have a longer video and want to post it, you can be sure that I'll watch it (over and over)!

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  13. I'm with Mike on this one. I LOVED that ride...it was long and entertaining. This video, as plain as it may seem, it pretty neat to see. Places that the average person has never seen. I'm a mechanical geek as well and find it facinating. Thanks for posting it guys!

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  14. We're ride geeks too. Enough to risk our asses getting this footage:) We may have more but remember, it was VERY risky being there and we couldn't be in one place for very long.

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  15. @Mike: yeah, sorry if my post came across wrong, but I/we were VERY fascinated with this room, as well as every other little area we discovered. But I think some folks keep forgetting, we were not cast members, and rooms like this usually scared the crap out of us, because it was an obvious area that maintenance cast members worked in, and we had no idea when they worked in there. For all we knew, someone couldve been heading to that room right as we were standing in it?

    So yeah, we are for sure ride geeks as well!

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  16. We have countless new meadows to harvest!

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  17. Yeah, that must have been very freaky to have all those noises and not be able to hear if anyone was approaching!

    @CHIEF - that clarified it - thanks!

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  18. As I mentioned previously, most maint. guys stay in the maint. break room unless a ride goes 101. Once in awhile they will do routine maint, but that's usually 3rd shift's gig. The maint break room for Horizons was in the back right hand corner near Exit point 8.

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  19. Jstone423, Just the place you wouldn't find Hoot and Chief:)

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  20. I agree. It's almost been a week. I can only watch the paintbrush so many times I tell you. How about some lobby shots?

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  21. If you're needin' a fix you can check out my Horizons photos (seated from the ride vehicle so not as cool) at allthingswdw.blogpsot.com

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  22. Do you guys remember what all the switches mounted on the wall by the manual were for?

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