Imagine yourself sitting under the red and white striped canopy of a Jungle Cruise boat. As the tour guide makes jokes about elephants without their trunks on, you float by an ape infested camp. Then you come upon Schweitzer Falls and as you pass by "the backside of water" you actually start to feel the water misting your face...Which is when you are awoken from your dream only to realize that you're not on the Jungle Cruise at all, but at work. The ape camp turns out to be high school kids running around screaming and grunting, the tour guide is your co-worker making what they think are funny jokes, and the water is a run away sprinkler that mists you as you drive by it in the cart you drive around your college campus.
This is the hallucination I faced a few weeks ago on what otherwise would have been an ordinary day at work. It was only later that day, while driving the same cart over a bumpy road and humming the theme song to the Indiana Jones ride, that I realized that these hallucinations were merely symptoms of a much bigger "disease," namely that of Disneyland Addiction, or as those of us who have experienced it like to call it, DA.
On the one hand, if you must be addicted to something, Disneyland is an excellent thing to be addicted to; it's non-narcotic, it involves nothing illegal, and you can probably say that you are addicted to it without your face burning in shame. On the other hand, the withdrawals you experience with this disease can be even more devastating than those faced by chocoholics or yoga addicts. Because Disneyland is, after all, the Happiest Place on Earth, it is very difficult for us DA's to be away from it. Nothing in normal life is as good as the thrill you get while screaming through the dark on Space Mountain, or seeing Sleeping Beauty's Castle for the first time as you run down Main Street. And so we Disneyland Addicts continue to suffer through everyday life, waiting for that day when we'll be back in our "Happy Place."
How then, you might ask, did I fight this recent bought of withdrawal caused by an addiction that I imagine so many of you reading this are afflicted by? Going "cold turkey" with the internet as my only connection to Disneyland didn't seem to be working, so I looked for the nearest place I could get a real taste and feel of Disneyland…The Oakland Museum of California's "Behind the Magic: 50 Years of Disneyland" exhibit.
The great thing about an exhibit like this is all the new tidbits you learn while fulfilling your need to be "in" the park. One thing I found enjoyable was a list of things that went wrong on opening day of Disneyland, July 17th, 1955. Although I could list most of them from prior knowledge, such as running out of food and water, wet cement sinking under women's heels, and people finding ways to sneak in, there was one fact I didn't know…and that was the fact that on opening day, right before he was supposed to give his dedication speech, Walt Disney got himself locked in his apartment over the firehouse, and almost missed saying those famous words, "To all who come to this happy place…welcome!"
Everything at the museum made me feel a little bit closer to Disneyland, from the Mr. Toad and Peter Pan ride vehicles to the Adventureland and Frontierland trash cans, which, as my boyfriend pointed out, "This is what I'd be leaning up against if you were in the bathroom." And, of course, what museum exhibit about Disneyland would be complete without pictures of rides that "never were," such as the "Duck Bump" bumper boats themed after Donald Duck, a giant walk-through Crocodile Aquarium featuring Captain Hook's nemesis Tic Toc, and a train ride made completely out of candy (which was ditched for obvious messy and melty reasons). And yet, even after all the beautiful artwork, postcards from Walt's real life "Main Street", Marceline, Missouri, a mouth watering Blue Bayou menu, and an inside look into how Mr. Lincoln's animatronic figure was made, my favorite part of the museum was learning a word that Walt used to describe something, such as the castle or the Matterhorn, that was larger than the rest of the park and drew people's immediate attention. In fact, I will probably never be able to go to Disneyland again without looking up at the castle in all its glory and saying to myself, "Look at that Weenie." (I'm not making that up, Walt really used the word "weenie" to describe the castle and other large structures!)
Even though this exhibit closes August 20th, don't despair, there are plenty of other things you can do to get yourself over that Disneyland Depression. Listening to the music from Remember When or Fantasmic!, always brings a smile to my face, as does watching home videos from recent trips to Disneyland. Or, if you're looking for a quieter way to get back to Disneyland, you could pick up a good book about the park, such as the one sitting on my coffee table right now, Window on Main Street, an autobiography by Imagineer Van Arsdale France. If that fails to get you in the mood, bring out some of those old trip photos and scrapbook some Disney magic, make a recipe from your favorite Disneyland restaurant, or build your very own version of the park with an interactive computer game, like the one I recently used to recreate my favorite lands, Roller Coaster Tycoon. And, if all else fails…throw a Disneyland party! Invite all the other Disneyland Addicts you know and do all of the above together. Pick your favorite Disneyland restaurant and serve the food they would serve, bust out the Disney karaoke, decorate the house with all things Disney, and have a blast!
In the end, nothing is as good as the real thing, but anything that will help transport you to the Happiest Place on Earth, even if just for a few brief seconds, is a welcome distraction from the doldrums of everyday life.
So what's next on this Disneyland Addict's agenda? Why, throwing herself a very Disney 21st birthday party of course!
