First Audio Clips

We finally got around to capturing our audio collection!

Keep in mind that these are live recordings. There are great studio tracks out there but these are unique in that you'll get the feeling of being in the ride at a certain place.

1998 is long gone so close your eyes and imagine you're inside Horizons.

This first batch contains the three tracks from the "Travel Posters" which were on your left just before you entered the load area.

Sea Castle

Mesa Verde

Brava

Thanks again to the boys at Cartoon Basement for hosting these. Much more to come!

20,000 Leagues Under the Gun -part two

When we last left our brave heroes they were in a jam! Forced to take refuge behind a rock, in which a blinking octopus stood guard, Hoot and Chief waited.....

The hiding space wasn't very big and didn't provide a much needed view of the oncoming ride vehicles.

Hoot took a peek.

No empty cars!

Just then the unthinkable happened. The ride stopped running!

They waited......

They could hear some little kid talking to his dad.

Just then the little cuss saw something...

The kid actually spotted Hoot!

Hoot pulled himself in tighter. This must have been the longest breakdown in history. Minutes turned into tens of minutes. There was simply no way out.

Eventually hunger set in and poor Chief, with no "Hot Pockets" on hand, snapped.

Human beings stand little chance of surviving under these conditions.

Hoot started to look mighty tasty! Chief was going for the breast meat. (he doesn't like chicken on the bone)

Suddenly the ride started up again!

It was time to get out of there.

Chances were slim that they'd get an empty car without being seen.

Success!

Final Bits with Fonzi

Here are the final bits of film we have with Bionic Fonzi, remember we did three "rides" with him in one night. Most of this clip is in the Sea Castle Resort area. On one of the rides Hoot gets a couple closeups of the scuba classroom and then on the last one he gets some good video of the restaurant. And then of course how could a Mesa Verde Times video be complete without me making a fool of myself in it. You will see what I mean around 6:30 mark, I put an annotation in the video to kinda mark the spot. Heh :) And sorry to say folks, I have never gotten professional help to figure out my obsession with wanting to dry hump animatronic figures and other inanimate objects in a Disney ride. Luckily for me, not all of them were caught on film. ;)

Towards the end of this video, Hoot gets a quick shot of the animatronics for the hologram birthday calls, same peppers ghost effect. We have some decent still shots of these, taken from up on the catwalks. We will get to those sometime in the future. These three rides with Fonzi were still during the pre-staying inside the ride timeframe.

Also towards the end, even though the video doesnt come out well (being a pretty dark room an all), you can hear us getting all excited standing out in the starfield room/corner that you saw right before the choose your own future projection screens. It really was a neat feeling standing out in that room and looking back at the ride vehicles slowly going by, its just too bad it was a hard experience to capture on film. Anyways, hope you enjoy! And dont worry, we still have plenty of video clips coming, this is not the end, just the final pieces I hadnt shown yet from the Fonzi rides.

Broken kid

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.

Diving Class Patch

What DID that patch look like on the wetsuits? I must have a better picture somewhere. This is an ok start but let me keep digging.

More Models

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!

Wish you were here

Hey! Hoot Gibson here almost live from Key West! Thanks for posting while I'm gone, chief:)

I was snorkling today while I pretended I was at Sea Castle Resort. I even saw an octopus (but he didn't blink at me).

The duo

Here they are clearly ignoring the safety bar. The entire Sea Castle could be destroyed by ONE kid falling into the glass hemisphere!

More Wierd Angles

Here are the trio from the catwalk. Nice shot huh? The set exterior was very tall giving the riders the feeling that they were deep under the sea. There's no way you could see the top from your omnimover car which created a very tranquil, deep sea, effect.
The Kelp plants were attached to motors that made them rise up and down with the "current" and a Gobo in front of a spotlight created the water effects. Notice the tension springs on the Kelp strands. They could be adjusted to the right setting for the effect.

I like it here

Let's stay in the restaurant for a little while. The middle window, the previous blogs being the last and highest window, had an Asian mother and daughter looking at a playful seal. ............................. I'm trying really hard to be "PC" here folks. (deep breathe) I ASSUME they are Asian. OK? I'd say they were Asian American but they might not be from America. I'm NOT going to say that they are actually Eskimos who are choosing their next meal. I'm not going to say it so forget it.

Now I've done it. Damn!

The Kick Ass Menu

There's more detail on this menu than in the entire "Soarin'" ride! It's a clear plastic touch screen wonder! Check out the buttons which are connected to some printed circuitry! Perhaps you order right from your table eliminating that pesky "human" interaction.

I don't have a better pic of the wording but it looks like Latin to me. Am I right? Some of the text repeats so maybe together we can decipher it.

The logo is early 80's greatness. It looks like an Ocean Pacific shirt. Who...oh who... will upload this to cafepress.com so we can all buy t-shirts??

One of you must be wondering what the China pattern is because you'd like to have your own. The answer is.....I don't know! If you figure it out please share with the rest of us.

I'll have the lobster!

Dinner for one

It was hard to get good pics of the restaurant patrons of Sea Castle. It was even harder to get in and out of this scene without being spotted. Again, there was so MUCH rich detail. Look at the blue overhead "thing", the table ware, the art piece next to the window. Stunning! Let's see what's for dinner. "HEY, PAW, WHAT'S FER SUPPER!??"