Good Job, Brain! - 36: Happiest Podcast On Earth

Episode Date: November 6, 2012

Zippadeedoodah! Our mind-blowing offbeat Disney episode: the tale behind early Lucas/Disney collaboration, the secret psychology of waiting in lines in Disney parks, Disney song quiz, Walt Disney's lesser-known roots, Michael Jackson, and.... A REAL-LIFE VIDEOGAME ISLAND?! ALSO: Album art music challenge, CSI: GJB! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Previously on Good Job Brain. We need you to come out of retirement for one last puzzle. I told you I don't do that no more. I need that solution. Stap! What's that on the monitor? Zoom in.

Enhance. Whoa, whoa, too much. De-enhanced. What color wire do I cut? Um, the purple one. Uh, actually, purple is not a color. Technically, it's a range of, colors and

Hello, Hello, rambunctious, Regal Riddlers and Rattlers, welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 36, and of course, I'm your humble host,

Karen, and we are your gaggle of gangly, giggling, Googlers. I'm Colin I'm Dana and I'm Chris We have some good news Which is that we have just opened up Our first good job brain swag shop

So we have been lucky enough to partner up with some cool artists Who are also fans of the show And they've created some really cool limited edition Good Job Brain merch We've got some mugs and some cool t-shirts They're prints for sale And you guys should go check it out It is a limited edition store

So when things are gone, they're gone. So if you want to order your stuff, go check it out now. I better get a mug. And that is at goodjobbrain.com slash store. Some really cool t-shirts. Those mugs are going out fast. Yes. Can I have a mug?

Yes. We're all going to get a mug. Yeah, can we get a free one? Free one. They also go out of the house. Yeah. The mugs are great, and they're also in SF Giants colors. Yes.

So if you were a Giants fan. All right. Without further ado, let's jump into our general trivia segment. Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. I have here a random trivial pursuit card and get your barnyard buzzers ready. Here we go. Blue Edge Geography. What country do you enter if you leave Sweden via the Orson Bridge?

I actually know this one. Yeah, I know. I was like, man, I wish Karen could help with it. I'm about to embarrass myself with my lack of geographical view. Go for it. Denmark? Yes. Oh, of course, Karen. Because I lived in Denmark.

And, yeah, the bridge is actually very cool. Pink Wedge. Who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger all about? Oh, oh. That is Top Cat, right? No. Shaft. Yes.

I was going to one level beyond it, yeah. I was thinking of cats, too. Yeah, it was like Heapcliff. I don't think that's, that was right. Is it normal? Right, yellow wedge. Which president was sometimes referred to? you as the human iceberg for being cold and aloof.

And it's multiple choice, but you buzzed in, so why don't you tell me? Is it Calvin Coolidge? No. Is it another double letter? Is it Woodrow Wilson? No, but there is a double letter. Really? Herbert Hoover?

It is Benjamin Harrison. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Hater's going to hate. I know. Purple Wedge. By what name are the Antoine

Perry Awards for Excellence in Theater, better known. The Tonys. Yes, the Tony Awards. I did not know they were the Antoinette Perry. Antoinette Perry. Not Tony Danza. Green Wedge for Science. The heart, lung, and what other organ were involved in the first triple transplant operation in 1986?

Heart lung and... Heart lung and... Liver? Correct. It is liver. Wow, that is nuts. To have all three of your organs replaced at the same time? Well, you've got to fill up that punch card somehow.

He'd get the fourth organ free. Oh, yeah, he got a free pancreas. He got a big sandwich. Oh, it's not another organ free. No, it's to get a hoagy. Orange Wedge, last question. What arcade game was inspired by a pizza with a slice missing from it? Pac-Man.

Yes, it is Pac-Man. Pizza Pie Man. Pizza Pie Man. That is sort of true. It's sort of true and not true. In recent years, when they asked the creator of Pac-Man, he's like, well, that is what I said. So let's just go ahead and say that that's what it was. That's so fine.

And Pac-Man was originally called... Puckman. Puck-Man. Yes. Yes. Very fortunate they change it to Pac-Man. Yes. Test those pop filters.

That is, that urban legend is absolutely true. I mean, the American company was like, no, no, no, you have to change it because vandals are going to erase part of the P and change it to a different letter. Buckman. Buckman. So today, we are going to talk about something very special to my heart, very special to Chris's heart as well, and Dana. Not Collins.

Although that's changed in the last week. So we're going to be talking about Disney. I want to do. I want to be like you. I want to walk like you. You'll see it's true Someone like me Can I like to be like someone like you

Yes Well as I just alluded to there Disney has become a lot more special for me In the last week Because if you have been anywhere near the internet Or a nerd at all You have probably heard that Disney bought Lucas film from George Lucas

Which essentially includes Star Wars And not much else of concern Disney was very clear they bought Star Wars. Right. And let's, yeah, make no bones about it. That is the right thing to do. And they've already announced that Star Wars 7 is going to be out in 2015, I believe, and on from there. So that was my avenue into the Disney angle here. So this isn't the first time that George Lucas and Lucasfilm and Disney have been involved. Most people know Star Tours, of course, is one of the motion rides at Disneyland and Disney World.

I believe it's also in Tokyo, Disney. I mean, it's around the world. And it's been retooled over the years, I think. And as I did a little bit of research into Star Tours, I found out it really has a interesting relationship with another one of Disney's combination ride movies, Captain E.O. Huh. So now, here's I have to admit, I have never actually seen Captain Eo. Really?

Yeah, I know that it involves Michael Jackson and it's space and there's a weird little furry creature and it involved smoke and motion. It was really just a 3D movie. It's a 15-minute 3D movie. starring Michael Jackson as the captain of this ship of rag-tag band of misfits that clean up space, and they have to go on a mission and make a delivery to an alien queen, and it turns out the delivery is a big old song and dance now, as you might imagine. And that's basically kind of what it is.

There's some really cool stuff in there, but mostly it's just sort of like 3D men are poking spears in your face. I don't remember the plot. And the theater itself incorporates 4D, what they call now 4D effects. I was just because it was 3D plus smoke and lasers and things like that. Puffs of air in your face that come out of the back of the seat in front of you, that kind of thing. So do you guys know which one opened first, Captain EO or Star Tours? EO did open first. Not by much, but Star Tours was actually in development first.

So it goes back to the 80s when Michael Eisner came on board Disney, the new chairman of Disney in 1984. One of the first things that he did was he reached out to George Lucas and brought him in, sort of with the idea. of, hey, wouldn't you like to maybe help us build some rides or build some attractions? You know, most likely something that would go in Tomorrowland. And he really, Eisner really wanted Lucas to build something, you know, based on one of the Star Wars properties and sort of had in his mind the idea of a motion ride, something along those lines. And this was a big deal at the time because Star Tours was, it was the first ride at Disneyland

that was based on a non-Disney movie. So for them to kind of go outside the Disney family movies specifically and build a ride on it, You know, they really had to be sure this was going to be a hit, and Star Wars is a pretty good property to go with. So they were working with George Lucas for a few years. At the same time this happened, Jeffrey Katzenberg. Now is that DreamWorks, right? That's right.

He's the K and DreamWorks S-KG. So he was friends with David Geffen, who's the G as well. They knew Michael Jackson, and they were trying to bring Michael Jackson in to do a project at Disneyland. Something, just sort of nebulous. We want you to do something because you're a big name. And again, keep in mind, this is 1984 or 1985. We'll just got slap names on everything. I mean, just at the peak of.

of Michael Jackson's appeal, I would say. Michael Jackson was a little bit skittish about doing something like this. He really wanted it to be a success. He didn't want to attach his name to something that was a failure. And so the story goes that Michael Jackson said, all right, well, I'll do this sort of combination movie attraction as long as Stephen Spielberg or George Lucas are involved. Oh, wow. You know, he's like, I want to make sure there's some A-list talent directing me.

This is so wheeling and dealing and dealing. It is wheeling and dealing. So you got Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg and George Lucas and, you know, he's like, Michael Jackson. I mean, these are power players in the entertainment industry. They start developing a few concepts for Captain E.O. Or what would become Captain EO. Spilberg at the time was busy shooting the color purple. And so Disney essentially like, well, we're already working with George Lucas on this other project. Let's bring him over and work on this project with Michael Jackson. So I had always known that Francis Ford Coppola directed Captain EO. I did not know that George Lucas

was the executive producer. And Lucas brought in Francis Ford Coppola. Because, you know, as Star Wars nerds may know, they have this weird relationship where Lucas always looked up to Francis Ford Coppola and considered him like this badass rebel who can do whatever he want. And Han Solo, he has said many times Han Solo is based on Francis Ford Coppola. They were in film school together at USC, and Lucas always kind of looked up to him because he didn't play by the rules. Star Tours at this time was running behind schedule over budget. And there are, there are, yeah, because, you know, George Lucas is a perfectionist. And there are stories that there was a lot of friction at the park at the time that a lot of the Disney imaginers and workers really kind of felt like, who are these outsiders coming in? You know, this is our show.

Why is George Lucas here? They're like, oh, we wanted A-list talent, and they're like, hmm. I thought that's what I was. It was by far the most expensive attraction. They ever built at Disneyland. They said it cost more than twice as much to build the entire park itself did when they opened the park. Well, I'm sure because it's dealing with a business partner outside of the Disney family. Right.

And Lucas, of course, had access to ILM and all of his effects people. And they kind of told him, spend what you want to make it what it is. Eisner, I guess, wanted to call it Star Rides. And like almost right up until the day it opened, he was fixed on Star Rides, Star Rides, Star Rides. But Lucas, I guess, won out in the end and went with Star Tours, which I think is probably a better name. Well, yeah, which makes sense because the whole premise is it's a touring spaceship company, right? You're on commercial aircraft traveling somewhere. And I guess originally the idea was that they would replace it with new content every few years.

Right, because it's a motion simulation ride. You're in this, you know, fake vehicle that's on hydraulics, but you're not going anywhere. You're watching the screen, and it looks like you're moving forward. You feel like you're moving forward. Apparently the guts of the ride are actually Air Force flight simulators or like military quality flight simulators that they repurpose to build the riot out. Sounds about right. You know, yeah. I've got to use it, you know, many, many, many times a day for, you know, decades.

I'm going to date myself a little bit here because I actually remember what the ride was before it was Star Tours. Do you guys know as a matter of trivia what the ride was? So as Disney often does, they'll repurpose, you know, the guts of one attraction and turn it into another attraction. Oh. It was another motion ride. Not Mission of Mars. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Well, it would have been Tomorrowland.

Body war. Karen's sort of in the right area. It was scientific. It was called Adventure Through Inner Space. Oh, okay. And the premise was you're going through and being shrunk down through this mighty microscope, and you travel into atoms and molecules, and you get progressively smaller and smaller, and the world around you is opening up.

Tomorrowland used to be all about learning. Right. Now it's pretty much just Star Wars Land, which is really for the best. Well, and expect it to only get more so. Oh, I believe. Back to Adventure Through Inner Space. I really remember as a kid, you know, growing up in L.A. It was a lot easier for me to go to Disneyland than it is now.

And I remember traveling through there, and it really kind of tickled me. I enjoyed it. Originally, it was sponsored by Monsanto, the agriculture. Tomorrowland was very late and very over budget. And when they opened Disneyland, they did not have everything in there that they wanted to have. And it actually ended up being very corporate sponsored. And it was like they would have companies come in. and set up, like, the house of the future and that kind of stuff,

and they'd show off their cutting-edge products. So you would travel through the Monsanto, Mighty Microscope. And one of the distinctions of the adventure through Inner Space was it was the first Omnibuver ride. And if you were a big Disney Parks fan, the Omni Mover is that you get in a little car, and it moves you around and turns you in the Haunted Mansion is a great example of one. So this was the first one that had that technology. It moves you on a track, but it can also spin you.

Exactly. And they can put your attention wherever they want it. Yeah. So to tie this all together, Adventure Through Inner Space closed in 1985. There is an Easter egg in Star Tours paying homage to Adventure Through Interspace. So at the start of the Star Tours video or ride, you go into a maintenance bay. And if you look at the very bottom of the maintenance bay, you can see the Mighty Microscope is in there. That's great.

And again, so the sequel to the Star Tours, or the next chapter, I guess, is The Adventures Continue. There's a scene where you're... That's the current iteration of it. And there's a scene where you're escaping the Death Star above Geonosis, and you can also see the Mighty Microscope, and as you're escaping through the ducks and the Death Star. Oh, that's cute. So I love that they kind of tie that history together.

Disney and especially Disneyland designers really love adding Easter eggs and things like that. Even when you wait in line for the new Star Tours, like you said, it's kind of like done as a commercial airline airport kind of feel. So they have these luggage x-rays, these fake ones, and it's like, oh, see all the crazy things that aliens put in their luggage. Yeah. One of them is Wally. Yeah.

Ah, nice, nice. As a Star Wars collector, they came out with all the droids, all the droids that are featured in Star Tours. Oh, yeah. And I was really torn like, well, do I buy these? Are these part of the official canon or not? Like, where do I draw the line? Well, yeah, so I did.

And so, of course, now everything Star Wars is fully Disney licensed and Disney owned. And so it's kind of come back into the fold now. And as I say, you know, they have been very clear. They've been very clear that they're going to be aggressive with expanding into Star Wars. War's IP, yeah. Yep. Well, so Star Wars is the new Disney, so let's take it back. Let's take it way, way, way, way, way back to the earliest, earliest origins of Disney.

Some good trivia here. This is the sort of stuff that may actually come up on your pub trivia and other such things. Walt Disney was born in Chicago, but family moved out of Chicago very early in his life and moved to Marcelline, Missouri. But then the family, after that, moved to Kansas City. That is where the animation career started. He was an illustrator.

He did stuff for his school newspapers, things like that. You know, great cartoonist. He read this very early book on animation, like how to make cartoons. And he's like, I'm going to do that. So in Kansas City, he started a company called Lafogram. Oh, that's cute name. That was his first animation company. And some of the employees were people whose names you will have seen, like, well, there's

of IWorks who we've talked about in the previous episode. But also Frizz Freelang. And some of the other guys who would go on to start the other major animation studios in America were Disney's employees at Lafogram. They kind of split off with the whole, again, as we've talked about, one of Disney's first animated creations was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. We made a couple of Oswald cartoons, but then the distributor of that Universal kind of claimed all the rights to that

and got a lot of his guys under contract. What Disney had actually done before the Oswald shorts was the Alice comedies, which were basically... Never heard of them. They were combinations of real-life films, and animation. So it was about a girl named Alice. The first one was called Alice's Wonderland.

You know, it was sort of loosely based on Alice Wonderland. And they were single real subjects. So, like, when you went to the movies, we've probably been over this on this show before. We didn't just go and watch a movie and then leave. Right, right, right. You'd be in the theater for like three hours. Yeah. You got the cartoon and the newsreel.

You might see a short subject that's a single real kind of thing, which is these were like 10 minutes long. They actually made, according to Wikipedia, they made 57 Alice comedy. many of them are lost. So Lafogran went bankrupt. He was not a good business man. He moved to Hollywood, thinking that that would be the better place to do animation. And the first, you know, the first hit was doing all these Alice comedies. And then it was Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit, which he very quickly lost.

And it was losing, he said, it was in the Lafogram Studios in Kansas City where there was a mouse that was his, like, buddy. Like, one of the mice that was in the building, like, he'd feed him. Right. And so when he loses Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, he's like, oh, I'll do a mouse, which he was going to name, of course, Mortimer Mouse, naturally. Oh, holds off the tongue. To which his wife, Lillian, said, no, that sounds like a terrible name. So here's the question for you guys.

What was the name of the first Mickey Mouse cartoon? Wasn't it Stainboat Willie? No. Oh. Is it the one at the movies? It's not. It's called Plain Crazy. It was Mickey in an airplane.

So here's the thing. They made Plain Crazy. They made another one, which I think. It was called Galloping Gauchos. They made two silent Mickey films, and they were not distributed. No one picked them up. No one wanted to run them. Why is Steamboat Willie considered the birth of Mickey Mouse?

Because what Disney did with Steamboat Willie, which was the third one, is it was synchronized sound. Most cartoons at the time, vast majority of them were silent, and then they would just play whatever music over them. With the advent of sound, the jazz singer, the first full-length talking. motion picture had only just come out, you know, and so people were thinking about sound. Some other cartoon makers had tried to put sound into cartoons, but they couldn't

figure out how to do it. And the sound would get unsinked, and so they distributed these cartoons, but the sound was just sort of messed up. It didn't really work. With Steamboat Willie, this was the first one where somebody nailed it. And so you watch the cartoon, and Mickey is whistling, you know, that was what

opened up film distributor's eyes to what Disney was making. It was that, it was not so much the animation, but it was his combination of animation and music. Right, it was the novelty part of it. Yes, and so Steamboat Willie was the first Mickey Mouse to actually get out into theaters and from thus was born.

You know, we remember silly symphonies. Yes. Oh, my God, that's such a big part of my childhood. That was the hook of those cartoons was that they were musical. And a star is born. Star is born. Oh, quick trivia question. Yeah. What were the first words of Mickey Mouse?

It is. is hot dogs, hot dogs. Oh, really? He says, hot dogs, hot dogs. So his first talking cartoon was he was a hot dog salesman? He was at like a concession stand. Speaking of music and the musical aspect of Disney cartoons, I have a quiz here. Yay!

Call looks sad. I'm just wary. I know you guys are going to smoke me on these Disney quizzes. Go get yourself a beer and just come back in. Done. So I didn't rate this quiz. I actually found it on Sporkel. And I thought it was fantastic.

It's such a good quiz. I didn't think I could improve upon it. So I'm just going to give it to you. It's by Ben on Sporkel. So it's called, can you name the Disney Pixar movie from the songs listed below? I'll read the title of the song,

you tell me what movie. Okay. And any Disney or Pixar movie is fair game for this quiz. Yes. Okay, all right. And not just animated either. Oh, live action too?

Live action as well. All right. All right. All right. A whole new world. Karen. That is Aladdin. Yes.

You don't want to just give Colin that one. That might be the only one I get. Just for the record, I did know that. Yeah. Ever, ever after. Oh. Give up. Give up.

Cinderella. Enchanted. Oh. This is getting tricky. There's some trixie ones. Okay. All right. Amy Adams.

A lot of live action. Yep. Yep. Live action. Hacuna Matata. Collard. Lion King. Yay.

Good job, Colin. When you wish upon a star, Karen. Pinocchio. Under the sea. Karen. Little mermaid. So fast on the weather. I know, I know.

Once upon a dream, Chris. Oh. It's, I'm going to say, sleeping beauty. Yes. Be our guest. Beauty and the Beast. Sure, yes. I'm just going to jump in and grab them.

Portobello Road. Chris. Bed knobs and broomstitch. Oh, wow. Miss Angela Lansberry. Jessica Fletcher. Yeah. Colors of the winds, Karen.

Pocahontas. You'll be in my heart. Oh. Tarzan. Yeah. Reflection. Moulon. Man.

A dream is a wish your heart makes. Go ahead. I'm going to guess Dumbo. No. Cinderella. Yeah. Dang. Yeah.

Someday my prince will come. Oh. Snow white. A spoonful of sugar. Mary Poppins. The bare necessities. Jungle book. Yeah.

I won't say I'm in love. Hercules. Yes. Whoa. Hercules. That's a fantastic. So a little quick backstory. So Hercules is one of those underrated Disney cartoons, but the music is inspired by a lot of gospel, kind of like 50s, kind of soul.

You can fly, you can fly, you can fly. Oh, sorry. Dumbow. Nope. Peter Pan. Yes. Oh, when elephants fly. Oh, that's what I was thinking of.

You've got a friend in me. Toy Story. Yes. God help the outcasts. The hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes. Why should I worry? Why should I worry is Oliver and Company?

Yeah. Yes. Oh, man. On my way. way. Oh my God, you've saved my marriage. Wait, is it, oh, no, no, no, no, no, sorry. I'm thinking of Princess and the Frog is almost there.

This is something different. It's brother bear. I don't like talking animals. Let's get together. The parent trap. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Best of friends.

Karen. Fox and the hound. No. Wow. If I didn't have you. Oh, uh, uh, uh, that's another Pixar one. Is that Toy Story 2? No.

I think you're thinking of that Sarah McLaughlin song. It is a Pixar one. I know it's Pixar. I know it's Pixar. I can hear Rainy Newman singing. Oh, that's right. That's right. It's the John Goodman.

That's right. Breaking Free. Breaking Free. High School Musical. Oh, good Lord. I actually know that. Oh, God. Karen can't decide if she's more embarrassed to get that one or miss that one.

Zippity doodah. Song of the South. Song of the South. Candle on the water. Old school. It's old school? It's pretty old. Pete's Dragon.

Oh, wow. I saw that movie. I love that. When you say that, I can kind of remember it, but it's like, I definitely, I loved that one as a chair, yeah. Baby mine. That is Dumbo. That makes me cry.

That's so sad. You and every other human beings. All right. Little Patch of Heaven. Going out on a very obscure one. What? Angels on the outfield. Nope.

That would have been awesome. That would have been awesome. Home on the range. Oh. Nice quiz bin. Man, thank you. Ben from Sparkle. I am amazed at your guy's knowledge of the songs.

That's incredible. I am amazed, too. Well, okay, so growing up, part of learning English for me was I would watch Disney song sing-alongs where they would have the clips, like the song numbers from the movies, and they have lyrics at the bottom with the little bouncing winky head. Yeah, so that's one of the reasons why I know a lot about this, because that's like how I kind of learned English in a way. Awesome quiz.

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in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. And we're back. Welcome to Good Job Brain. So actually, and coincidentally, I'm heading out to Orlando for Disney World this week. Is it a coincidence, Karen? So especially for me with something like Disney, just love all the movies and the shows and the music and the parks, it was really hard for me to come up with a segment or talk about something without being too specific or maybe it's something that I find it's really cool, but everybody else is like, that seems kind of dumb.

So I think I found a super awesome offbeat trivia tidbit about Walt Disney World that I'm going to share with you guys. And I want to blow your minds. All right. So be prepared. Also a Disney song. Hold your head. So a little bit of intel on the Walt Disney World in Orlando. I've mentioned this before.

I've talked about the Epcot Center. Disney World is really the equivalent of, say, like, five Disneyland's. It's really a resort. And they're separate theme parks. So there's Epcot, which is the educational park. There's Magic Kingdom, which really is kind of the Disneyland of Disney World with the characters and such. There's also the Disney World. Hollywood Studios, and there's also a zoo animal park called Animal Kingdom.

So Animal Kingdom was open in 1998. I believe that's probably the most recent park. But before Animal Kingdom was built, Disney World had another zoo-ish wildlife attraction called Discovery Island. And it really literally is an island in one of the large lakes over there in Orlando. So obviously, with the addition of Animal Kingdom, a bigger fly. Lashier Park basically rendered the dinky little Discovery Island obsolete. So what they did was, so they transferred all the animals to the new shiny Animal Kingdom

Park and closed down Discovery Island in 1999. So, do you guys know Mist, as in the video game? Yes. One of the most popular franchisee back in the day, gorgeous scenic adventure exploratory type of computer games. And great puzzles. Yeah, very, very popular. popular. So after Discovery Island closed, Disney was considering teaming up with the makers of Mist to create and use that island space, theme it to become a Mist theme park. Like a Mist

Island. And really, it's to create like a cutting edge kind of interactive scavenger honey exploratory, real life experience like what you do in the game, but in real life. And they were going to call it mist island. So guests to the island would explore locations and find artifacts and it's nonlinear and you would just unravel this mystery. And it sounds really cool. And one of the reasons why they were thinking about this is because it was an affordable way to kind of field test new ways for people to enjoy the park other than lining up for a ride.

And that was really kind of one of the big problems you'd wait in line for like three hours just to be on a three-minute ride and a lot of people were kind of getting disgruntled and you know especially with big families they thought maybe hey this is a new way to kind of break up that monotony of course the development of this attraction never got beyond the concept stage I mean on paper it sounds really interesting and really cool but in reality it's a small space and then they would have to do all this crazy construction it's an island you know it would just logistical nightmare, right? To either grow the island or shrink the island and build stuff on the island.

And if you wanted it to be like an interactive nonlinear experience, like you'd kind of have to limit the amount of people there at a time, which means you'd be constantly shoveling groups back and forth. So that never happened. But Discovery Island is still there in Disney World. And even though it's defunct, Disney didn't demolish or get rid of the island. It's just still standing there. They left it there abandoned and kind of.

just let nature takes its course I don't know if you guys ever watch the show I think it's on the history channel it's called Jurassic Park because I know what happens it's called life after humans oh yeah love that and it's like what happens when there's no human and in an area and it's

kind of like that Discovery Island has just been overgrown with Florida wildlife I have seen on the internet's I've seen some pictures of this and I don't know if the guy was authorized to get on there or if he's snuck on there.

Actually, you're right. So this guy, I have his name, it's Shane Perez. He's one of those urban explorers where a lot of people trespass or break into like old abandoned factories and they take pictures and kind of like, it's like life after humans. Like what happens when all these things teary and when nature comes and kind of ravages. Yeah, and they're creepy and beautiful at the same time. It is. Very eerie because it's just totally abandoned. So this guy, Shane, he did so much research trying to get to Discovery Island.

But, you know, one of the things he did was he got a haircut, he would dress up to code and pretend he's a Disney employee at a park and then would pack all his, like, a change of clothes and all his camera equipment and, like, waterproofings. And so he eventually swam to the island with all of his stuff and he just explored it. And it's really fascinating the things that he found because it's not only, you know, you have relics of whatever was there and just nature overgrowing. They also found weird things like snakes in jars and in coke bottles. Like maybe people were squatting or crazy science experiments. We don't know. And they're also like, there were vultures on Discovery Island. Obviously, Shane Perez, because of this, got mainstream media attention.

And eventually Disney did give him a slap on the wrist. And I think he's forever banned from any of the... A blackness of every Disney property. Exactly. So we don't know. maybe Disney is keeping it for something. I guess it would be really hard to just take out an island, so they kind of just leave it there.

But maybe in the future, they'll make it into some other thing. Dude, those snakes and jars, that was Mist Island. He stumbled on Mist Island. He should have kept following the clues. So, Karen, you were talking about waiting in line. What a big part of the experience that is, for better or for worse, that sometimes the lines are really, really long sometimes. But deceptively short.

conceptively short and not by coincidence. The feelings that you experience when you're waiting in line for a Disney attraction have been so carefully considered. It is amazing. In Walt Disney World, a couple years ago, they opened the Winnie the Pooh attraction. Yeah. And one of the things about this attraction that sort of in the theme park world was a big deal was this was their next generation of Q, their next generation of waiting in line.

Meaning that what you're doing while you're waiting in line for the ride, they take as seriously as the ride itself. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. And, you know, I mean, we almost take it for granted now thinking about, well, of course, it makes sense. But, you know, go back a few years. And this was a novel idea that Walt Disney properties, Disney World and Disneyland, really kind of push forward. The idea of managing the queue. So specifically, Disney has what are called secret switchbacks and hidden switchbacks. and hidden switchbacks in the parlance of Disney park goers.

You know, what that means, you know, if you were like a hiker or a mountain biker, you know, switchback is like a cut back and forth across a mountain kind of thing. And if you're like waiting in line at a carnival, you'll have the back and forth, back and forth waiting until you get there. A zigzag, yeah. A zigzag, right, a switchback. And one of the things that Disney and his engineers and park developers really wanted to get is, how do we hide this park?

Yeah. How do we make it not obvious that I'm waiting in line? Right. And one of the things that they... Because that will just make people like antsy. You don't want the person to ever really have a good idea of exactly how many people there are ahead of them. Yes. And you want to enhance the feeling that I'm in a linear process, even though I'm curving all over the place.

And I'm almost there. Yeah. Yeah. And we're almost there. So one of the first ones to really do this, like a good example, is jungle crews, where, you know, as you're waiting in line for the jungle cruise, it's part of the environment. You're not iron bars and concrete. There's trees and leaves, and they pipe in. animal sounds and there are maybe jokey little signs. Yeah, there's posters and it's sort of like you're in a boat station. Pirates of the Caribbean, particularly the Disney World, is another great example of this, that, you know, if you were to look at the floor plan of the line, it snakes around the

scenery behind walls in and out of pieces that are parts of the ride so that wherever you are in line, you can't really see the end or the beginning, but you feel like you're moving through. And this was something really, really carefully considered. The, this is not Disney, but the, as Karen and I can both attest, the Harry Potter section of Bruce Orlando. The line for that, they actually, people will stand in line for the big ride and then not go on the ride. Because the line weaves you through all of the different sections of Hogwarts Castle, and it is fascinating. You will be in line for three hours and love it.

It's moved past just a painted background. I mean, you know, the earliest examples of these were just, oh, they kind of paint, you know, whatever the theme was on the walls. But no, you're right. People all agree that the fullest realization of this idea is the Harry Potter and Forbidden Journey line. Absolutely. Coming back to the poo ride, poo and friends. It always comes back to poo. I'm good job, Brain.

It's considered sort of the third generation of Q. So the first generation would be sort of lightly themed, atmospheric. Second generation would be really sort of the hidden switchbacks and secret switchbacks. And this third generation, as far as Disney concerned, is there are things to, physically do while you're waiting in line. You can stomp on a pedal and gophers pop up, or you can twist knobs and dials, or you can do something while you're waiting in line. Yeah, the Indiana Jones ride, there's a thing that's like, don't pull this lever, you know,

or don't pull the rope, and then there's like a guy who's like, ah. That's funny. Yeah, no, as soon as you start thinking about that, you start looking at the lines very differently, because they do. They sneak you around corners and you're waiting, and then you look at the line. You're like, oh, the line looks really short, and then you realize that, oh, it's like to keep me around the back. of this building.

Yeah. One of the big things, I remember when Indiana Jones, the hidden temple opened in Disneyland. I think it's only available in Disneyland. It's not in Disney World. Another thing they did was when they first opened, they had a secret alphabet and symbols that are scattered around everywhere. And as you line up, they give you a card that acts like a legend. And so as the little kids, they would, that line was probably like three plus hours.

But the little kids would try to solve the different puzzles and such. That's great. That's great. Just to give some credit, I'm drawing heavily here from some of these bits from a blog called Passport to Dreams Old and New, which you over a Disney nut, check it out. So to bring it back to Disney animation, here's a interesting piece of trivia about Walt Disney. He, and this has, I think this has come up in our trivia, or at least we've studied this, in anticipation that it might be a question one day. Walt Disney has won more Oscars than any other person. He is the person with the most Oscars.

Yes, that's right. So it all depends on how you count it. They've given Walt Disney some honorary Oscars at first, because they didn't really have Oscars for animated anything. Oh, right. And they give out a lot more honorary Oscars in those days to recognize things that didn't have a category. Right, right. Like, I believe that child actors and actresses actually got, like,

Juvenile Academy Awards, and they were, like, sort of honorary because, like, they weren't considered for... Like, baby Oscars or tinier. Happy Meal Oscars. And so Disney won 22 competitive Oscars, is more than anyone, and he won even more if you count honorary ones. But it all kind of depends on how you count it. And if you count it a certain way, he's the only person to ever win

eight Oscars at the exact same time. Wow. Here is a quote, a really fantastic quote that I found attributed to Lewis B. Meyer of Metro Goldman Meyer or MGM. Circa in 1936. Who'd pay to see a... I'm going to do it in a movie

executive voice. In blustery movie executive voice. Who'd pay to see a drawing of a fairy princess when they can watch Joan Crawford's boobs for the same price at the box office. Yikes. Wow. He was, of course, referring to the movie known as Disney's Folly, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. By the end of the

30s, Disney was just riding high on the success of Mickey Mouse, and he decided to risk it all on a crazy idea, which is, you know, nobody had made a feature-length animated movie. He's like, you know what? It cost me $20.000. It cost about $25,000 to make a single.

Oh, hey, those things were, you got to sit there and draw frames of animation. But just 25,000. I know, 25,000 to make one Mickey Mouse cartoon. And they would make their money back in spades. He figured, well, Mickey Mouse cartoon, a movie, let's just do some back of the envelope math and say that it's going to cost me about $250,000 to make a feature-length animated film. Yeah, it ended up costing him about $1.5 million in 1937 money. In 2011, it is $23 million to make Snow White.

Adjusted for inflation, as of today, Snow White and the Seven Dwarths, is the 10th biggest money-making film ever, according to Box Office Mojo. It has made tons upon tons upon tons of money because it's been re-released into theaters over and over and over again. Just Box Office. Oh, not even DVD or Lachshank. No, just Box Office. It is the 10th highest grossing film, again, adjusted for inflation. The top five, just, you know, for the record, Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, the Sound of Music, E.T, and Titanic. Yeah.

And so number 11 actually is 101 Dalmatians. So 101 Dalmatians and Snow White at the time made stupid, stupid, stupid money. Disney developed his famous multi-plane camera for this movie. People had worked with things kind of like this before. Disney built the mother of all multi-plane cameras. Imagine a film camera positioned on a really, really tall, like, bookshelf scaffolding kind of thing, and the camera's pointing down. And every shelf of the bookshelf is a transparent cell animation.

And they're all physically separated from each other. And then there's gears and, you know, pulleys and machinery, basically, you know, you press a button and things, everything starts moving, but at different rates of speed. The parallax. Parallax. The parallax effect. That's how this is being done. It's being done with a camera shooting down through many cells.

And this was one of the Honorary Academy Awards that Disney won. They gave him a full-size Oscar statuette, surrounded by seven tiny Oscar statues. I've seen a photo of that. That's great. I'm Chris Hadfield. I'm an astronaut, an author, a citizen of planet Earth. Join me for a six-part journey into the systems that power the world. Real conversations with real people who are shaping the future of energy.

No politics, no empty talk, just solutions-focused conversations on the challenges we must overcome and the possibilities that lie ahead. This is On Energy. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Time for our final quiz segment, and I haven't done one in a while. going to do a music trivia quiz, but it's not going to be a music round. What I'm going to do is describe to you what famous iconic album art looks like, and you have to tell me what artist. I love it. The artist meaning the recording artist, not the artist who made the album cover.

Yes, sorry, the recording artist. Hopefully I have a good range in here from old to new different genres of music. So let's see how this goes. They're buzz in as soon as you think you know it. Okay. All right. Number one, a graphic print of a banana. That is The Velvet Underground and Nico.

Yes, and it's actually by Andy Warhol. Correct. And also, I didn't know this, but in the first production release of the vinyl or of the album covers, the banana is actually a sticker that you can peel off. And what's underneath it, naked woman, is

A banana, but it's... Purple. But it's purple and pink. Oh. Yeah. Those are... The originals are quite collectibles, as you can imagine. Yeah.

The pink banana. Unpealed. Unpealed. Unpealed banana cover. All right. Number two. This cover features the tale of a Boeing 727. Wow.

I haven't even gotten into the description. What is it? You were probably going to say what the tail number was. It sounds like licensed to ill by the Beastie Boys. Yes. The tail number. number, I think, is like, if you hold it up to a mirror, it says, eat me. Yes.

It is 3M-T-A-3. When he holds to a mirror says, eat me. Of course, it also says Beastie Boys and a Def Jam logo on the, like, stickers on the tail of the plane. This cover features a subversive illustration of a man shaving and scraping his face with a rodent attached to a... Weasels ripped to my flesh by Frank Zappa. Yes. Oh, yeah. Wow.

This is my Disney quiz. Here's another one. Naked baby underwater reaching Dana. Nirvana. Yeah. So Naked Baby underwater reaching for a $1 bill attached to a fishing stream. Yes. All right.

Next one. A cherub behind two packs of cigarettes. That's Van Halen. Is it 1984? Correct. Chirab behind two packs of cigarettes stacked on a table. arm holding a grenade shaped like a heart That's Green Day, yeah

Is that American Idiot? Correct No Fleetwood Mac, Chris. I was going to say, why aren't you asking any of the albums that I know? Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nix holding a crystal ball. Oh, Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. Cowboys sitting on a fence post. John Denver's back home again.

Maybe if you'd ask some of those, I would get these questions. Black background with white topographic lines from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy. Oh, is that New Order or Joy Division? I got to pick. Joy Division. It is Joy Division. Unknown pleasures. And this is pretty famous and been parodied a lot, which is the scientific visual representation of the first pulsar, which is a pulsating star.

All right. Next one. This cover shows a man's behind in blue jeans with the red cap stuck in the first. the back pocket, Colin again. That's Bruce Springsteen's born in the USA. Correct. All right, next one. The band members are in the lineup against

a pure single blue background. Oh, this is a Colin quiz. Is that a weezer? Yeah. It's commonly called the blue album. Okay, the last one. This is really... I love this quiz. It's face you couldn't tell. The last one. Japanese anime

inspired teddy bear shooting out and up from a planet called University. This is Kanye West. Kanye West, and it is, actually, he teamed up with Takashi Merakami, very famous Japanese artist. They teamed up and worked on a lot of the art and style for that particular album, which is graduation. Oh, okay. So there you go.

I love that, goodness. That was great. Colin. And that was our show. Thank you guys for joining me. Thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn a lot. about Disney World, Disney parks, old animation, Disney songs, and album art.

You can find us in Zoom Marketplace on iTunes, on Stitcher, and also on our website, which is good job, brain.com. Check out our sponsors at bonobos.com, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. See you. Bye-bye. Bye now. Bye-bye. Spend less time staying and the know about all things gaming and more time actually watching and playing what you want with the IGN Daily Update podcast. All you need is a few minutes to hear the latest from IGN on the world of video games, movies, and television with news, previews, and reviews.

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