Throwback Thursday: ElecTRONica!

It seems that more and more frequently lately (or maybe I'm just noticing it more) I'm seeing the question, "Which do you prefer; ElecTRONica or Mad T Party?".  I'm not even going to attempt to answer the question myself or turn this into some sort of debate, other than to say that I did enjoy ElecTRONica, but I love the Mad T Party.

However, it did make me nostalgic for ElecTRONica to a certain degree, so I thought it would make a great Throwback Thursday picture.  So I went back through my pictures from 2010 and found this picture taken at the entrance to The Grid from one of the very first (if not the first) nights I ever went to ElecTRONica.

Hope you all enjoy!

Leaving The Grid on Flying Tires - ParkCast #10

In this episode, we’re going back in time and revisiting some character information from a previous episode as Mark got to meet one of his “goofy” heroes.  We’re also bidding a fond farewell to some of our favorite Disneyland spots, and looking FORWARD to a few more.  And the debate over the Dole Whip and the Mint Julep rages on as we discuss that timeless question: “Can a beverage be an attraction”?  Lastly, Mark gets his day in the spotlight as we finally reveal one of his favorite, and a very personal, Mickey in our Hidden Mickey segment.  So pull up your chair and sit a spell; we’ll all be happy that you did!

You can listen to our show, the Days in the ParkCast, on our podcast website at http://www.daysintheparkcast.com, or in the iTunes store! 

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Originally recorded: 4/29/12
Final Edits and Release: 5/4/12
Hosted by: Chad Elliott & Mark Treiger

Contact us about the Days in the ParkCast!
-Email us at parkcast@daysinthepark.com
-or call us on Voicemail at 520-DAYS-CST (329-7278)

Review our show for us in iTunes!

Flynn's Arcade - Nerd "D"

Well it's that time of the week again; time to get your "Nerd" senses rolling!  I figure what better way than to talk about a video game arcade!  And I'm not talking about just any kind of arcade either, but an arcade that epitomizes and could easily define the atmosphere of everyone's favorite decade, The 80's!  That's right, since this is a Nerd "D" article, I'm talking about Flynn's!

Summary: Flynn's Arcade was founded by video game designer Kevin Flynn and made its first appearance (how cool is that?  An arcade making an appearance!) in the 1982 Disney classic film, TRON.  It was shown early in the film as a raging hot spot, with some fantastic tunes, for anyone who loved video games.  Flynn's resurfaces and reappears later, in TRON: Legacy of course.  Kevin's son, Sam, following up on a beeper page from the arcade, wanders in and powers everything up again one last time, complete with Journey's "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" blaring in the background.  Oh, and we also learn that it was home to a super-secret lab that Kevin Flynn used to enter and exit the high-tech world of the Grid.  Super-secret lab?  Sold!

Yeah, we know it's 80s cheese, but it's Journey and Steve Perry. Color us nerDs!

Why Flynn's was a GREAT addition at Disneyland: Recently, it's hard to find a good video arcade around.  Because of the home video game market and its soaring over the past couple of decades, and the way video games have evolved, no-one even needs to leave their house anymore to get their video game fix.  But for hardcore nerDs like us, there will always be that key factor we'll forever miss about going into arcades; the atmosphere.  And Disney did a great job bringing that into Flynn's.  What could be better than a group of people coming together, milling about, and playing old-school video games?  Think it can't get any better?  Well it can!  They've also done a fantastic job of matching up Flynn's with it's big-screen counterpart by giving it a kickin' playlist of great music.  We've heard Journey, Boston, Foreigner, Michael Jackson, and many more while hanging around inside Flynn's.  Heck, even a-ha's "Take On Me" sounds awesome while you're eating power pellets and chomping on ghosts!  The awesome tunes just make me want to hang around and stay inside as long as I can, whether I'm playing video games or not!

What games do they have?: Tons, and they're all classics!  Punch-Out and Galaga.  Donkey Kong and Centipede.  Dig Dug and Red Baron.  Pac Man and the Missus... need more?  Okay.  How about the big bad game itself, TRON?  Not enough?  They even have a copy of Kevin Flynn's Space Paranoids from the flipping movie!  NerDing out is not even an option at this point.  And that's barely scratching the surface; not even half way done!  In fact, how about I keep the rest a secret so you can go check it out for yourself?

If you're a nerD like us, and love video games and The 80's, there's simply no way you can say "no" to Flynn's.  It has everything that made The 80's awesome inside it's walls, and it's bar-none one of our favorite hangout spots at The Disneyland Resort.  It comes with our highest Nerd "D" recommendation.  Be sure and check it out on your next trip if you haven't already.  And if you have already been, it's about time to head on back, don't you think?

Odds and Ends: Weekly Cap-Off (6/6 - 6/12)

Visits to the Park this week:  1

It's been a down week for us!  After all the excitement of the new attractions opening up this week, only Chad made it into The Park this week on Thursday to ride a few attractions and take some pictures.

Still, any week with a visit is a good week, and we always enjoy our Days In The Park, whether they come in singles or great big batches!  

Last Week on Days In The Park:

On Monday, we treated you to a "Magical Mystery Monday" location featuring Innoventions

It was our usual Park picture randomness on Wednesday with our "Almost" Wordless Wednesday

Friday, we hopped back on board the Magical Blogorail Blue Line and gave you our "Must-Do" attraction if you are ever in The Park

And lastly on Saturday we gave your our weekly Vinlymation Domination article with not one but two Vinyl of the Week: Kevin Flynn

This Week At The Parks:

With "Soundsational Summer" already here and this month's big openings (Star Tours and The Little Mermaid) happening last weekend, the next couple of weeks are going to be the status quo around The Parks.  With summer finally officially here, and the last of the nation's schools finally closing down for the break, we expect the crowds to really start flying high.  And speaking of flying high, it's less than three weeks until the all new Paradise Pier opens up in Disney California Adventure.  We can't wait to see how it all shakes out with the new restaurants and park.  Two new restaurants, Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta and Paradise Garden Grill will be opening.  New food to sample is always a good thing to us.  Not only that, but the all-new Goofy's Sky School (where Mulholland Madness once resided) is set to open on the same day.  It should be another big one as the construction around this Park continues hurtling towards the debut of Cars Land, now officially set for Summer 2012. 

A couple of big announcements were also made this week regarding ElectTRONica.  The Resort announced this week that the weekend show that has proven so popular since last fall (when it opened to highlight and pump up interest in "TRON: Legacy") will remain open until Spring of 2012.  Also, one of its most popular denizens, Laserman, will have an all-new show debuting this Friday, June 17th.  His show has proven very popular up to this point, and it's awesome to see him bringing all new material to the party.

Video of the Week:
As noted on the Disney Parks Blog this week, World of Color, the nighttime show and extravaganza which has to this point had more than 700 performances and 3 million guests in attendance, turned one year old yesterday.

World of Color has been one of our favorites since the first time we saw it (we've seen it several times at this point, of course), and as such we felt it deserved a place in our Video of the Week segment this week.

We hope you enjoy this snippet as much as we did!

Here At Days In The Park:

We're always kicking around ideas here at our offices in suburban Rancho Cucamonga, and we think we have some pretty exciting and fun things lined up for all of our readers during the summer.  We can't blow the whistle on all of it (what would be the fun in that?), but we can tell you that we're working on a new "Pathing Around The Park" article for you, we plan on giving you a little Disneyland History lesson of sorts, and we ate at Tangaroa Terrace (one of the new eateries at the Disneyland Hotel) this week so we're anxious to report back on that.  We're also anxious to write our perspectives on both of the new attractions (The Little Mermaid and Star Tours) so those should be coming in the very near future, as well.

We'll also have our usual weekly articles like "Magical Mystery Mondays", "Almost Wordless Wednesday", and "Vinylmation Domination" all ready to go.

And no, we haven't forgotten that we also have a podcast here at Days In The Park!  We're also hard at work on a new Days In The Parkcast which we plan on recording at some point this week, so we all have that to look forward.  Some fun things to do and write about are coming, and we can't wait to share them all with you!

We hope that you'll keep coming by and spending an occasional Day with us.  We love having you around!

The Tuesday Toss-Up: Children At Play

Here at Days In The Park, we firmly believe in the old adage that there's a child inside each and every one of us trying to get out.  Our problem isn't letting the kid out, it's getting him (or her) back inside!

We spent some time over the weekend just playing at and enjoying Disney California Adventure (some place we haven't spent a lot of time in as of late) before heading over to Disneyland Park to close out our night.  This is some of the randomness that transpired in picture form.

Enjoy!

"Oh dear God, what is that flashing light?!" *insert screams here*

Ah, good times aboard our favorite maintenance service elevator.  Sarah from Magical Days With The Mouse (2nd row, middle right) looks rather bored with the paranormal shenanigans, Jen Tucker from Overheard at Disneyland (2nd row, far right) is holding on as we prepare to drop (what? holding on?!), and Days In The Park (back row, right) looks absolutely petrified.  When can we ride again?!

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We spent some time hanging around Flynn's Arcade and the End Of Line Club in the Hollywood Backlot around the time that ElecTRONica got started.  It's been a while since we've been back here, and it was good to hear the techno music hasn't gotten any quieter in our absence.  Maybe next time we'll enjoy a tasty beverage with one of those little flashy ice-cube thingies they include.

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Oh so pink

One of Chad's favorite segments of the entire show.  Just don't tell anyone.

"The seaweed is always greenah..."

California Screamin' looked absolutely awesome

"Light Cycles In The Mist"

It had been quite some time since we had actually seen World Of Color.  Not sure about Amy, but Mark had only seen the show once before (right after it opened) and Chad hadn't seen it since September.  On a whim (and a quick tweet or two) our site, Magical Days With The Mouse, and FindingMickey.com got our FastPasses Sunday afternoon for the 9:15 show.  It was every bit as gorgeous and amazing as we remembered it.  The new TRON bits didn't hurt one bit, either.  These are just a few of the dozens of shots we all snapped off between us, and some of our site's personal favorites from the evening.

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On tonight's episode of "Nights In The Park", "When Twinkling Lights Fail!"

And lastly, an entirely new attraction in the Park that we had never seen before.  You just never know what these wonderful Imagineers are going to come up with.  Slipped it in right under our noses, they did!  It did remind us an awful lot of Space Mountain, though.

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"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: Flynn's

Do we really need to say anything?

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: TRON Is Almost Here!

We liked the look of the poster, with Chad taking the photo, and the Muppet*Vision 3D theater in the background.  Kinda cheesy, but we thought it turned out pretty cool.

One day to go!

Darn my reflection!

"Almost" Wordless Wednesday: ElecTRONica!!!

Yes, we think that TRON will rock too!

It Was The Weekend... And The Weekend Meant ElecTRONica!

We've been waiting a while now to experience THE phenomenon, called ElecTRONica, at Disney California Adventure.  Okay, maybe we're overselling it a bit, but there's no denying we've been excited to see what all the commotion has been about.  And unfortunately, up to this point, the closest we can say we've been is that we were in The Parks, and took some pictures of much of the setup, the day that it officially began.

So over the weekend we decided it was high time we made our way out to DCA to check and see just what went on when the lights went down and evening fell in the Hollywood Backlot.  

There's no doubt whatsoever that ElecTRONica is doing a very good job bringing people into The Park.  In point of fact, they begin selling you on the idea before you even get into The Park.  We were given the following pamphlet with our Parking Pass:

© Disney

© Disney

As can be seen on the pamphlet, the show itself doesn't actually begin until 6pm, so we wandered around The Parks for a while just checking stuff out, before finally making our way over into Sunshine Plaza (although the sun is almost gone, it'll always be Sunshine Plaza to us) to find our camping spot for the beginning of the show.

We could see the Cast Members walking out the back towards the stage so we knew the show was about to begin, and camera in hand, we started snapping.

The faux arcade effect seemed pretty cool

You there.  No, you.  No, not you; the one standing next to you.  No, the other you.

For the next 15 minutes or so, the dancers and the music took center stage.  Close to the end of the set, TRON-boy (no idea who he is, but the name sounded about as good as any) came out to extol the joys of spending the evening in the Backlot.  A lot of pointing his white baton at us, calling us all "programs" over and over again, and threatening us with "de-resolution" should we enter "The Grid" too early seemed to be the theme of the evening.

We were a bit surprised, though, when we found out that what we thought was the pre-show, was in fact the pre-show to the pre-show.  TRON-boy then told us to come back a bit later (picture The Wizard of Oz) for the final act, and the real opening of the "The Grid".  Then, they all left.  Well, not all of them.  A few of them seemed to be playing with light-brite hula hoops with kids in the audience.  Hmmmm... okay.  So with little else to do, we hit A Bug's Land like a hurricane and then came back later.

Guess who was back for more baton pointing and extoling

The use of flash made them all sparkly glowy like Jar Jar in Robot Chicken:  Star Wars

Dance to MORE music until "The Grid" opens?  Okay, let's do this!

But finally, at long last, the dancing was all over, and we could get to the real meat of the ElecTRONica experience; the Hollywood Backlot itself.

As the crowd moved slowly towards the entrance to the Backlot, we were forced to use our crowd-weaving skills (did you know that crowd-weaving is a superpower?) to move past many small children, large men, and zippy-carts to reach the place we most wanted to that evening, the Muppet*Vision 3D theater, which housed the 4-D sneak-peek for Disney's forthcoming film TRON: Legacy.  And thanks to said superpowers, we were among the first to see it that night.  Unfortunately, due to threats upon our lives should we try and film it for you, all we have is this picture.  We'll just have to hope that it suffices.

The sneak-peek itself is well worth the time to go see.  It really is in 4-D.  If we had hair, it no doubt would have been blowing backwards off our heads in certain parts of the show.  We highly recommend it.  Some of it is the standard fare already seen in some of the T: L trailers, but there is in fact new footage here that you can't see anywhere else, so you should check it out.  We think DCA should consider screening the movie here.  We'd love to see it in Disney 4-D.

Done with the show, it was off to the races again for the second item we were desperate to see in TRON Land, Flynn's Arcade.  But once again, as we walked out of the theater, really loud techno music and abounding dancers (not to mention dastardly survey-takers) attempted to thwart us and take us off our assigned mission (we genuinely felt bad about parents trying to take their children on Monsters, Inc. at this point; the crowds were that bad).  Ultimately, we were mesmerized by one dancer in particular, and it must have taken us a good 10 minutes to make our way past her.

  

Once past this sultry siren, we had our sights set on the backside of "The Grid" and the End of Line Club and Flynn's.  There were a ton of people participating in eating, libations, and Wii playing all around the area.

  

But if the crowds were any indication, the place to be was inside Flynn's, so that's where we headed.

Disney's done a fantastic job with this place.  Evoking memories of hanging out in arcades in our youth (including a token system) was a stroke of genius.  Games like Galaga, Pac Man, Buck Rogers (really?) and Asteroids littered the gaming area.  And of course, the one that was most important, TRON itself (including a line of people waiting to play it).

This line never got shorter while we were inside

We didn't spend much time playing anything.  In fact, we didn't play anything at all.  Expect crowds in here, big time!  But we couldn't resist plugging a dollar bill into the token machine and walking out with a token as a keepsake.

And on the way out, we stumbled on this fancy ElecTRONica Coke machine as well, complete with computer screen.  In retrospect, maybe we should've bought a drink as well.  Live and learn.

By this time, unfortunately, we had pretty much had enough, Laser Man or not (the only aspect of ElecTRONica we didn't experience; he seemed to have been delayed or something).  We'd been in the area (all told) around 2 1/2 hours, and we heard these beef Burrito Sonoras from Rancho del Zocalo at Disneyland Park calling our names, so we headed back.

Overall, we'd have to say that we enjoyed ElecTRONica.  It's certainly a worthy replacement to the Glow-Fest that Disney California Adventure had during the summer when World of Color debuted.  In terms of their reasons for doing it, to drum up interest for the movie, I'd think that they certainly have a hit on their hands (there were certainly enough survey takers outside of the theater after the sneak-peek to indicate interest on Disney's part).  And if the crowds were any indication, it's most definitely popular.

Even if you're not into dancing in the streets and loud techno music, there's certainly plenty interesting to see in other areas of the Backlot.  In fact, given the opportunity again, we'd probably enjoy just hanging out back, eating and drinking, and watching everyone else enjoy the festivities. 

If you haven't witnessed ElecTRONica for yourself yet, it's definitely recommended by Days In The Park.  Make sure you take the time to check it out!

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A Stroll With DITP: ElecTRONica

While we're usually not huge fans of blogging twice in one day, we figured we should try and lighten the somber mood that might have been produced by our last Stroll.  

We did spend some time as well last Friday in the Hollywood Backlot, checking out the new ElecTRONica setup, and what we saw left us wanting more!

Unfortunately, due to other commitments, we weren't able to be there for the actual opening of ElecTRONica.  We really can't wait to get out there and get in the middle of it all, though.  

We're not really into music and dancing (perish the thought!), but we are stoked to get out there and take a look at the 3D sneak-peek of TRON: Legacy and play some games in Flynn's.

Meantime, if you'd like more information about ElecTRONica, check out Mr. Dap's review (Twitter @mrdaps).  It's a really good, un-biased and honest view of ElecTRONica; the good and the not-so.

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