Passamaquoddy

Today we’re taken another glimpse at some of the works in the Ellenshaw Museum located near Sand Dollar Ella’s castle.

In film, an establishing shot tells the “where and when” the remainder of the scene takes place. But if your scene takes place in a long gone time in a village that never existed, you’ve got a task ahead of you. You could spend a fortune building the village and settling for whatever you can get in a brief time. Disney’s workaround was hiring Peter Ellenshaw to create the location on glass, leaving certain areas unpainted so live action materials can be seamlessly combined.

In the image above, the lower left corner is obviously live action footage combined with the painted village and lush greenery dominating the rest of the frame.

Treasure Island was Peter’s first picture with Walt Disney. It began a professional relationship that would carry through generations. Peter’s son Harrison continued the matte painting for several years.

You can see more mattes from the Ellenshaw Museum by searching for “Ellenshaw” in the right menu search engine.

A little more than 25 years ago, the Passamaquoddy Designers (Quoddesigners) came out with a new attraction.  It opened along with and was located near the “Come Unicorn” attraction.  Of course, I’m talking about the “Kickin’ Krabaret”.  This was a whimsical look at our second favorite crustaceon.  (We honored our favorite with the “Rockin’ Lobster Coaster”)

The Kickin Krabaret was a fifteen minute stage production that was performed in side a small theatre that could hold three (or one comfortably).  The lights would dim and the audience would get introduced to “Sandy Crabs”, a homemaker who cooks up a heck of a crab feast.  But before eating the crabs up she makes them sing a song or two.  Sort of a reverse “sing for your supper”.

Songs included:

• the “Boogie Woogie Beluga Boy” sung by the Andrew Sisters-like trio “Canned Tuna Sisters”…
• A vaudeville act performed by Clam and Eggs (who insisted on being called “Caviar”)
• “Wedgie Wedgie” “Brute Brute” is a song performed by feuding gangs a la West Side Story, the Sharks and the Nets…

Then Sandy Crabs finishes off with the entire cast returning to sing the finale.

The attraction closed a few years later to be replaced by “Coral Rocks” - which in itself fell into the sea when a helicopter knocked into it while filming “Soarin’ over Passamaquoddy”.

But while it lasted, kids loved the attraction, especially the many animatronic crabs performing period music,  And the songs were catchy too, many of them still are heard on KWDY.

Bad news for our little fishing village. As you all know, our local community theatre has put together a rousing musical production of HOOKING NEMO. It’s a story of a slippery clown fish who spends the story outwitting the poor fisherman up above. There is an eventual happy ending as a local fisherman who needs just one more fish to make his quota, catches the little bugger in his net.

As you remember, the story is also presented in a wonderful musical with such songs as “Big Blue Bobber” and “get with the net”.

But now it seems we’ve had a couple strangers in town who have issues with the ending. I tried to point out that we consider the lucky fisherman the hero. They are flying me down to Orlando Florida to see a similar musical called FINDING NEMO. In the meantime, Hooking Nemo is being closed while we look at this other musical.

We will keep you informed.

I’ve had just about enough of this. In 1997, illusionist David Copperfield promised the town of Passamaquoddy he would open the most exciting restaurant in the tri-county area. By 1998, work had hardly been done other than putting up the billboard. I remember running into Copperfield in 2004 and asked him what was up… He said “Oh, I’ll have to tell you later, I gotta catch my bus.” It wasn’t til later that I realized Passamaquoddy doesn’t have a bus anywhere near where he was.

Now, ten years later the signs still up, and COPPERFIELD’S MAGIC UNDERGROUND still hasn’t broken ground. I know we all bought into the magical elevator that was to bring people into the restaurant, appearing out of nowhere… And I know we bought into the illusions with the server, but I think we have to have a reality check here. I mean we are not a stupid hick town here in Passamaquoddy so I think it is important that we face facts: 10 years on and absolutely no construction, COPPERFIELDS MAGIC UNDERGROUND restaurant is not going to be open until August at the earliest.

Recently, I had read and reviewed Charlie Ridgway’s book “Spinning Disney’s World”. That book examined many Disney experiences and explored how the situation was resolved through Public Relations. That book seemed to hop around, sometimes decades as Ridgway ‘remembered’ items of interest.

I have just finished reading David Koenig’s ambitious book REALITYLAND. It too explores experiences and stories, but this time it’s well organized, and thoroughly chronological. And most importantly for the “spin” on this book… devoid of Disney’s Public Relations spin.

I enjoyed the book in very much the same way as Koenig’s earlier offerings MouseTales and More MouseTales. All are unauthorized and live up to it. The read is fun, especially if you are into the sort of back alley stories that Koenig slyly relates.

There is plenty of behind the scenes gossip and dirty dealings. After reading some chapters, I actually felt dirty. The worst is reserved for former CEO Michael Eisner and here is where I felt Koenig gave in to a lot of the anti-hype. At no other time in the book did the information delivery become emotional. Statements along the lines of “Eisner arrogantly dismissed” or that Eisner was an “egotistical bully” that are not quoted to someone else seem out of place in a book so thorough in researched material. Especially after giving a pass to previous administrations whose issues were even more flagrant.

Koenig knows his stuff and knows how to deliver it. Capitalizing on a pre-ordained villain helps bring just enough of a soap opera to keep cynics grumbling for another decade. He’s also a bright enough individual to end the book on an equalizing tone, validating both the cynical and optimistic point of view of the Disney Corporation.

As readers and Disney fans, you will know if this book is for you only if you can stomach a telling with a negative lean… scraping away that pixie dust.

 

Many other book reviews are available by searching for “Bookworm” in the search engine in the right menu box.

This time around, the toys were involved in a huge chase that took them all the way to the airport - where the story is wrapped up. But now they have to get the toys back to Andy’s bedroom without wasting any time explaning how.  So, they threw this out the window…

Unless you’ve been living under a rock of late, you’re familiar with the new BassPass system used throughout Passamaquoddy. But since the Peterson’s have literally been living under a rock for the past several months, I’ll go into a bit more detail.

The Basspass is a reservation of sorts. When you collect a BassPass, you can push and shove to the front of the line.

Albert and Victoria have suggested an additional perk that BassPass holders are allowed to take non-BassPass holders and throw them to the ground as long as they are under the age of ten. We’ll keep you informed if that passes into law.

Here’s a shot of a basspass user. Notice the new red jumpsuit on the ticket taker…

After years of arguing amongst the city council of Passamaquoddy, we finally have a fully operational monorail for transport around town.

You probably remember the argument over pursuing the “Monorail”, or the more commonly considered “Octorail”. While the monorail supporters pushed for one track to support the train, the octorail supporters felt eight tracks per train would be more efficient, using an eight legged rock crab to prove their point. Of course, we all remember the octorail winning out but proved useless after installation as the crablike octorail could only travel sideways.

The 8 tracks traversed the town for awhile, but were mostly an eyesore. It was never really used. “They went the way of the rocket rods!” visitor Paul Barrie observed. None of us have any idea what he is talking about, but he had a cool hat on so we’re gonna quote him.

Now, the monorail has arrived and helps Passamaquoddy head into the future.