...And Now A Public Service Announcement From Disney - Vote

Election Day, come tomorrow we won't have to listen another commercial on why the other candidate is a liar and not a real American. But before Election Day comes to a close, a vintage public service video from the Walt Disney Archives (from Disney Posts Blog) gives us Donald Duck and one final reminder.

Funny thing is if I showed up to my polling place without pants, I might be asked leave before ever casting my vote for my preferred candidate.

Where George Lucas Went Wrong (And Disney Can Make Right)

The original Star Wars movie (Episode 4: A New Hope) is considered a cinematic masterpiece almost universally. The story was the perfect combination of heroes vs. villains, good vs. evil, hope vs. darkness. The technical achievements were a marvel to behold in the days before all the current digital trickery. And while Star Wars is considered a classic, and rightfully so, the second movie of the original trilogy - The Empire Strikes Back - may have been even a better movie (even if it didn't actually have an ending).

With two great movies in his hip pocket, George Lucas had the Star Wars universe open to him, and beginning with Return of the Jedi, he began to take Star Wars in the wrong direction, a direction in which he could never quite recover from the misstep. His miscalculation was simple - instead of focusing on the human element of the first two Star Wars movies, actual people supported by robotics and creatures that had traits and personalities that you could actually care about, George began filling his movies with creatures that really held little interest for the movie audience. It started with the Ewoks. If only Return of the Jedi had more Luke and Darth with their incredible story to tell and fewer fury little munchkins running around, the movie would have been so much better.

There was forshadowing to Lucas's infatuation with absurd characters in both Star Wars and The Emprie Strikes Back. I never cared for the bar scene in the original Star Wars as creature after creature appeared with each just seeming like an exercise of imagination rather than a true character that added value to the movie. The Empire Strikes Back, gave us the first of Lucas's characters that fed off the grotesque and obnoxious rather than a fully developed character - Jaba the Hut. The character of the absurd manifested itself to completeness to the ridiuclous Jar Jar Binks who took up far too much time and space in the second trilogy.

As for the first trilogy, here is my story. Return of the Jedi, while fascniating with the revealing of the relationship of Luke and Darth Vader, left a bad taste in my mouth with endless shots of Ewoks that I couldn't give a rip about. Jedi left such a poor impression that I had no desire to see any of the Star Wars prequels, especially after those movies began to get ripped by true fans of the series.

Last Christmas, the Boy gave me the Star Wars prequel set on Blu-Ray. It took several weeks, but I finally watched the first movie. It was OK, but certainly not Star Wars worthy. The stage was set for the future movies but I found the kid horribly obnoxious and that Jar Jar Binks character just plain annoying. Again, fine performances by Liam Neesom and Natalie Portman were left unsupported in George Lucas's never ending quest to fill the screen with characters and creatures people really have no rooting interest in. It's almost Christmas again and I have yet to see the 2nd or 3rd movies of the trilogy.

But Star Wars is such a great franchise that it can be easily fixed if the Disney produced Star Wars 7 in 2015 is put back into the hands of someone who really understands and cares about what made the original concept great and keeps the meddlesome mind of George Lucas as far away as possible. What made Star Wars great - start with humans that you can care about like Luke, Hans, and Leia. Add some robotics who pretty much act like humans like C3PO and R2D2. Add if you do have to add alien characters, make them count like Chewbacca and Yoda. And start to turn Darth Vader back into his old self, the movie bad guy to end all all movie bad guys, and not some comedic shill for a franchise gone wrong.

Disney is perfectly capable of bringing the Star Wars franchise back to its glory. They did it with Marvel's The Avengers. It all starts with a director and we should hear who that is going to be within the next few months.

Don't get me started on what George Lucas did to Indiana Jones. I'll save that for another day. Really? Aliens? Surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a refrigerator? 

Revamping The French Market Menu

French Market's Red Beans & Rice with Sausage
A Disney Parks Blog Photo

Disney Parks Blogs (link) posted last week that the menu of the lovely French Market cafeteria style dining facility in New Orleans Square has been updated to give a little bit more of the Big Easy vibe and authenticity. It needed it. Over the years, Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and my own experiences with the French Market have been kind of hit and miss,

The hits have come when we stuck with the basics and had them serve up the roast beef or citrus marinated chicken. The misses came when we went the more adventurous route and had the pasta and vegetable gratin or the chicken & seafood jambalaya. These turned out to be disappointing. The gratin dish was so loaded with the dreaded mushroom that Mrs. DLT would have exchanged it with me if I had been eating a bowl of cream of wheat (instead she got my chicken).

French Market's Shrimp Po' Boy
A Disney Parks Blog Photo

So anyway, though I haven't seen the complete new menu lineup yet, the new selections do away with a few of the older selections and add some new ones like red beans and rice with andouille sausage, a shrimp po' boy sandwich served during lunch, and panko crusted red snapper served during dinner hours. I would be on board with any of these selections though I'm not so sure with Mrs. DLT who lacks the taste for regional or exotic cuisines.

French Market's Panko Crusted Snapper
A Disney Parks Blog Photo

I would be interested in Disney's approach to the Cajun / Creole classic red beans & rice. The dish is steeped in history and lore dating back to the times of slavery. Red beans & rice is a cheap dish to make. I don't know what Disney's take on it will be but slap a $12 or $13 price tag on something that is essentially beans and rice and let's see the public reaction. 

But if nothing else, the French Market is a fine setting to enjoy a meal. Either listening to the live jazz or gazing out on the activity of the Rivers of America, its one Disneyland's better spots to eat. Hopefully the new menu punctuates the setting rather than detract from it.

The Earl of Sandwich Opens in Downtown Disney Anaheim

The Disneyland Traveler is a sandwich kind of guy. I like sandwiches a lot. It may stem back to childhood days when my mom would send me off to school with a sandwich in my lunch bag (the brown paper lunch sack, I was never the metal cartoon lunch box type). It was usually the routine stuff - peanut butter and jelly, bologna, tuna, but every once in awhile I would get surprised and get a sandwich made from the previous day's dinner leftovers like pot roast, or pork roast.

Last Friday, the Earl of Sandwich opened in Downtown Disney in the old Compass Books spot across from the ESPN Zone. With a dumb name like Earl of Sandwich, you know this has to be a chain and it is but not really established out here in the west. I guess there is an Earl in Las Vegas. But there is an Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney in Walt Disney World and people swear by the place both with the price (all sandwiches are $6.99) and the quality.

So the Earl of Sandwich is now on the list of must places to go on our next visit to the Disneyland Resort. Goodness knows the Disney parks struggle with making a good sandwich with your best bet probably being the Pacific Wharf Cafe in DCA so the Earl is a welcomed addition. Hopefully it will become a regular stop on all of our visits. 

So far the reports are quite good with the sandwiches. There have have been some comments that the side small side accompaniments aren't worth the money but the sandwiches themselves have been getting very good reviews. The biggest complaint to this point, as one would suspect - long lines.

What would be my worst fear about the Earl of Sandwich? That it ends being something similar to my least favorite sandwich place - Subway. Hopefully not.

Mickey Says - Set Your Clocks Back 1 Hr. Tonight.

We can all use an extra hour of sleep. How about tonight? Daylight Savings Time ends in most (but not all) of the good ol' USA. Set your clocks back 1 hour before you go to bed and all will be fine. For you smartphone and computer users, don't worry about the time. They are smarter than you are.

Star Wars Meets the Mouse

Still a lot to digest with the Walt Disney Company buying Lucafilm and its Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. That only fueled internet creative artists and Photoshop mavens to get to work and bringing some much needed humor to the landmark purchase.

Disneyland Resort A to Z - Enchanted Tiki Room

My best thoughts about Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room have already been written in this blog. It's one of my favorite pieces of writing since I started this thing. You can read it from the link below....

The Tiki Room Is Not An Excuse To Eat Ice Cream

For me, the Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland is what Disneyland is all about. It's what Walt Disney was all about - a thousand details working in harmony to provide entertainment and magic to all who see and hear. The Enchanted Tiki Room is the sound of innocence in an age of complexities. It's decades worth of joy and fond memories.

Should Disney ever make the ill-fated decision of removing the Tiki Room as some people who have grown tired of the attraction have suggested, then that will be the day Disneyland really dies. WDW made the ill-fated decision of updating their Tiki Room for a new generation with the - Under New Management idea. It's pretty much universally hated for what they did to the original attraction, a poster child for imagineer's over thinking and "don't let this happen again"

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The Enchanted Tiki Room is not an attraction with the "wow" factor. It's an attraction for the heart and soul. Not every attraction has to tie into a movie or whatever else Disney may be promoting at the time. Sometimes it's just nice to hear the birds sing.