Happy 10th Birthday Big Pile of Stuff!

Hollywod Tower Hotel Evicted from DCA

The Awesome Hollywood Tower Hotel at Disney's DCA

Like something from a schlocky Saturday afternoon horror movie, Disney announced at the San Diego Comic Con that they were removing the best ride in Disney's California Adventure to replace it with a ride based on that Guardians of the Galaxy movie from a few years ago.
At DCA many of their attractions are close to off the shelve rides with little to no real theming. But there is the Radiator Springs Racers and the Hollywood Tower of Terror attractions which have some of the best immersive theming Disney has ever done. The theming, the build up and the actual ride for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is spot on perfect. How you could decide to give it an unnecessary make over which most likely will not live up to what we currently have makes no sense. Whats next, change the Radiator Springs Racers into the Marvel Iron Man Road Rally once the next Iron Man movie does really well?
I don't mind if they want to add Guardians into the park, but removing something amazing just to shoehorn in some recent IP you hope to shove down peoples throats is not the way to do it.
Could they not just add this new attraction to Star Wars land and say they are expanding the world of Star Wars to include the Guardians of the Galaxy. Or, once Star Wars land opens, why not stuff the Guardians into the space (haha, that's funny) where Star Tours is now.
A HUGE BOO to Disney for this one!

The very silly looking, out of place thing to replace Tower of Terror

Head on over to Save the Tower! and sign the petition against the removal of the Tower of Terror. Not that Disney will change their mind, but as of writing this post they have 29,717 supporters.

Stuck on Gilligan's Island!

Below are scans of the membership form I received in the mail when I first wrote to The Original Gilligan's Island Fan Club back in the 90's. As you can see from the form they sent me, for just $15 you received a subscription to the quarterly newsletter "Island News" a membership card and a "Stuck on Gilligan's Island" t-shirt. I wore my shirt until just recently when it finally started falling apart beyond repair. I decided to take a few photos before I shoved it into a bottle and sent it out to sea (OK, I actually folded it up and put it into a box with a bunch of my other Gilligan's Island collection).
My actual shirt is in pretty rough shape, with a few holes, a really worn out collar and lots of fading, but with a little Photoshop magic, I was able to take the logo that I photographed from my ratty old shirt and add it to a brand new shirt that looks just like it did when it showed up in my mailbox over 20 years ago.

At some point this summer I might finally get around to scanning in a few of the Island News newsletters to post here on my blog.

Fun at the San Diego Comic Con

Its almost time for San Diego Comic-Con again and as every other year, I won't be there. But at least I can comb the internet looking for great Comic-Con photos. Here are two of my favorites from previous years.

Space Ghost makes a landline call to his pal Zorak for a ride home

Peter Parker runs outta web fluid and must resort to alternative travel methods

Disneyland Atlantean Encounter Sub Voyage

Back in 2008 I posted a faux poster I created in photoshop for Atlantis Expedition an attraction I dearly wanted to see at Disneyland in the submarine lagoon where the original sub attraction had been closed since 1998. Some time later I came across a blog Disneyland Nomenclature where they posted a great story about Atlantean Encounter, a proposed attraction that some Imagineers at Disney were working on. If you have any interest in seeing what we could have gotten instead of the Finding Nemo Submarine Ride, check out their post. In that post they showed an proposed attraction poster for the Atlantean Encounter. My head still spins thinking about how incredible a sub attraction themed to Atlantis could have been. Sadly the movie sank at the box office and the Atlantean Encounter never came to be.