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Ghoulish Delight
11-19-2003, 08:54 AM
Side Note: I think there should be the option of the straight-faced smiley for the message icon

Did anyone besides myself and RStar attend the surprise party for Mickey yesterday in Toon Town? Here's my rundown.

It was hot. Blazin' stinkin' hot. And Toon Town is NOT the place to be at noon on a warm, clear day. Ugh, 40 minutes standing around in the sun.

Okay, enough griping about the heat. The blazing, opressive heat. Why can't they get some shade in that place!? It was so hot....

Ooops, back to the party. So here was the setup. TT opened at 11AM (there was some sort of private event at 10, anyone know what it was?). They had roped off the area in front of Mickey's house. Basically, everyone was kept behind the fountain. There was a large red rug with a Mickey head on it placed in front of the house. About 10 minutes before the festivities began, they invited children to come sit on it. There was a large banner that said Happy Birthday attached to the front of the house, signed by the characters, and balloons.

About a half hour before noon, they started playing music over the speakers they had set up. It was...umm...bad. A very corny song with the chorus "It all started with a mouse." The old Mickey's Toon Town theme song (anyone remember the Saturday Morning cartoon show where they shot bits in Toon Town?). A Mickey Mouse rap. :rolleyes: And this repeated about 3 times. So much fun. Did I mention I was baking in the sun while listening to this?

A few minutes before noon, the other characters (Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Chip and Dale) were seen sneaking around behind the houses wearing party gear and carting a cake around.

At noon, four CMs came out, two men, two women. The women were wearing a one strap Minnie-styled dress. The men were wearing red suspendered Mickey pants. Very flattering. They proceeded to badly act a little intro about how exciting the birthday was and all (I know, I'm being very critical for this sort of thing...but I call it like I see it). Then they announced the Disneyland Ambassador (whose name I can't recall) who came out with the characters. After a short something by the ambassador, Minnie took over. She told everyone to keep quiet for the surprise, had us quietly practice yelling surprise, then went and rang Mickey's doorbell. This was all prerecorded dialog from Minnie. It was pretty well done.

Mickey was heard inside fumbling around to the door. He gets to the door, opens, and "Surprise!!!" How exactly he was surprised with 150 people camped infront of his door for an hour and terrible music blasting from speakers next to his house, I'm not quite sure. But he was. :D

He said thank you and such. They brought him the cake. That led to the cutest moment of the whole thing. When they wheeled the cake over (which appeared to look like the cake that is in Minnie's oven, a nice touch), a young kid sitting up front on the rug said, loud enough to be picked up by one of the CM's mics, "Is it cheese cake?" Very cute.

Then the four CMs that came out originally sang him a special birthday song. I'd recount it, but I believe I my brain has blocked it in some sort of self preservation. Song finished, confetti was spewed, hooray!

The ambassador then made a final speach, which led to the tackiest, most shameless part of the whole thing. The speach ended with a line that went something like [everythig is paraphrased but the words in bold...those were the exact words], "Thanks for making Mickey's birthday so special, and enjoy your day at the park. And feel free to enjoy the Merchandising Even at World of Disney." Merchandising event?!?! What a tacky place to be plugging merch. I thought that was pretty uncalled for.

And it was hot.

All in all, it was what it needed to be. Short, cute, sweet. I have pcitures, but I managed to leave my digital at home, so I had to buy a one-use film camera. I'll post pics as soon as they're developed and scanned.

KarenW2
11-19-2003, 09:32 AM
Thanks for the play-by-play, GD. After reading it, I was glad we weren't there. Heat, sun, crowds, cramped conditions and waiting forever for something to start aren't my favorite things to do.

I saw photos of this "event" on www.mouseinfo.com and was surprised to see the outfits worn by the women CMs in the show. The off-the-shoulder tops certainly wouldn't have been something Walt would've picked out and not what I would expect to see in Disneyland. DCA maybe, you know, because it's so "hip and edgy", but I still wouldn't have cared for them there either. I noticed the guys' outfits offered plenty of coverage for them and were not revealing in any way.

Sad that this ended up being a big plug for the "Merchandising Event"! Was there any birthday cake for the guests in the crowd? That would've been a nice thing to do, after having to wait in the hot sun all that time.

blusilva
11-19-2003, 10:01 AM
I wonder if Mickey went over to DCA afterwards and got his bag of birthday tortillas.

Thanks for the report! Sounds like it was....er...hot. :)

MouseWife
11-19-2003, 10:17 AM
Thanks for the rundown.

Yes, it was hot yesterday. I didn't like it either and I wasn't standing out in the sun.

But, I saw the photos from the link {thank you KarenW2!} and I think I want that Mickey Mouse confetti thrown at my next shindig. I don't know what that is but I think it will be fitting, either way. :D

I am curious, they didn't share the cake? What is up with that???

RStar
11-19-2003, 11:05 AM
Well, first of all the cake was fake and I didn't-it was hot and I'm sunburned- feel like eating foam anyway-because it was so hot .

Hey GD, it looks like from the angle that the MouseInfo person taking the pictures must have been that guy standing next to us. In fact-BOY WAS IT HOT- I think that's your hand taking a picture in the edge of his picture.

The one thing I have to say about the event-Other than I got sunburned and I need to remember to use sunscreen before I go to these things!- is that it was pretty well rehursed. I liked how Mickey and Minnie were prerecorded and the Mickey inside the house and comming to the door was good. It was-Hot, but you know that already- a bit cheesey (pun intended) but cute.

I just wish they'd not have these things at high noon when the sun beats down and no chance for the surrounding trees to shade you. But Steamboat Mickey was first shown at noon-on a cooler day I bet!- So I can understand why.

Ghoulish Delight
11-19-2003, 12:01 PM
Originally posted by RStar
Hey GD, it looks like from the angle that the MouseInfo person taking the pictures must have been that guy standing next to us. In fact-BOY WAS IT HOT- I think that's your hand taking a picture in the edge of his picture. Hrmm, I think the angle is a little bit further to the right than that. We had much more of a side view of the sea of children than that. When I my photos developed, I'll compare. I don't suspect my photos will be quite that good considering I was using the one-use thing, no zoom, and had someone directly in front of me that was very good at getting in my way.

Andrew
11-19-2003, 12:17 PM
I feel sorry for the two female singers in those off-the-shoulder outfits. It looks like they were getting burned pretty badly standing there.

Who'd have thought it would be that hot in the middle of November? Almost as if we were having a MouseAdventure or something.

cstephens
11-19-2003, 12:19 PM
Originally posted by RStar
I just wish they'd not have these things at high noon when the sun beats down and no chance for the surrounding trees to shade you.

On something like DL's birthday in July, I can certainly understand their hopefully planning ahead of time and not doing any ceremony at noon, but considering it's mid-November, there's no way they'd know it would be that hot at noon, even though it's SoCal.

Ghoulish Delight
11-19-2003, 01:32 PM
Grr, well, I've learned my lesson. Don't bother spending money on those one-use cameras, espeically at DL prices :rolleyes:

Nothing worth scanning, the MouseInfo shots are definitely better. And I'm especially annoyed because the stupid camera insisted on flashing. There was no way I could take a picture without it flashing. So all the pictures I took that evening of fireworks are washed out and horrible. I might still have the receit, maybe I should go complain and get my money back? I don't know.

MonorailMan
11-22-2003, 09:41 PM
Originally posted by Ghoulish Delight
The old Mickey's Toon Town theme song (anyone remember the Saturday Morning cartoon show where they shot bits in Toon Town?). A Mickey Mouse rap. :rolleyes: And this repeated about 3 times. So much fun.


Oh! Oh! I do! For some odd reason, I remember this way too clearly. It was late 92, and TT had just opened, so that show was made. It has a boy and a girl on it, both were about 12-13. While the theme song escapes my mind right now, I always have this habit of rembering it as I enter TT.

Ahh, sweet childhood memories, of a Disneyland addict, who didn't know it. :D

(We now exit the siding, and set this thread back on the main line!) ;)