A Cranky Journal of Themed Design and Development

On Death and Designing: "Five Stages of Grief / Concept Development"

Denial -- Interior Monologue: "Geez, I can't believe that I just said that! What an awful idea! And this little slip of the brain is getting serious consideration! No, no, no! Don't write it down on a 5X7 card! Don't pin it to the storyboard! Oh . . . hell. All right, fine. I gotta get out of this somehow! My career is at stake!! I mean, that has to be the worst idea of my life!!!" Spoken Aloud: "OK, well, you know, "blue sky" and all that, right? I mean, I'm not sure that everything has to go up on the . . . uh . . . more of an "idea for an idea," as the saying goes, you know? Uh, yeah, that's how we're spelling "virtual" these days, yeah. (sotto voce) Oh, Gawd . . ."

Confusion

For staffers: Confusion means your job is in danger. For consultants: Confusion means money . . . .

The Usual "Monkey Funeral Shot"

The scene is the chapel of a decaying Tinsel-Town mansion, just off of Hollywood's star-studded Sunset Boulevard. Hiding out from repo men, Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful screenwriter (soon to become a successful corpse floating in a leaf-filled swimming pool) happens upon what appears to be a funeral service: at the altar, perfectly lit by the dusty sunlight filtering through dirty windows, is a body draped by a white shroud. An eerie, gloomy scene, made all the more so by the fact that the corpse is very short -- a child? -- and just very slightly . . . misshapen . . .

Creative Recycling

It's Friday, mid-morning and crisis is about to strike. The creative director of your small to mid-sized design group failed to mention to you yesterday that your biggest client's marketing people are showing up today to have an "informal" charette about new and exciting concepts to assist the further branding of said client and/or their product. It's show time, folks! No big deal, right? Done this a thousand times before. Except, you stayed up until 3:45 pretending to be a 20 year-old farm state college girl who has been experiencing strange "yearnings" of late and who just happened to "accidentally" wander into a "Vampire Lesbian" online chat room. It's now six hours later and you are at work and brain-dead. . . .

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The Resistible Rise of Mickey Mouse, Swampland Socialist

A Quick Socialist Fun Fact Walter Elias Disney, born December 5, 1901, died December 15, 1966, was decedent of good, solid, God-fearing American Agrarian Socialist stock. Just thought I'd mention it. Did the members of The Firesign Theatre know of Walt's familial Marxist connections? One never knows, but it's doubtful. In the mid-1960s, did they know what Walt and his merry band of Imagineers where doing vis-à-vis EPCOT and the capitalist / technocratic / socialist / golf fanatic post-swamp wonderland that was being planned in their converted perfume factory in Glendale? Again, one never knows, but it's more doubtful still . . .

The Firesign Theater's "I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus" as Preemptive Satire of Themed Design and Development (Among Other Things)

In 1971, the Firesign Theatre released their third big 12-inch, long-playing, stereo-HiFi record album I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus. Bozos was a satire on the uncomfortable closeness of the conservative / revisionist social "vision" of history and society that so much of Disneyland represented, especially as presented by that refugee from the 1964 New York World's Fair, the nascent human A-A figure of Abe Lincoln in Great moments With Mr. Lincoln . . .

"Muntzing"

Often the creative development process runs up against a developmental Gordian Knot, a seemingly unsolvable problem that, often, is the unintentional product of that same development. It sometimes takes a bit of judicial "snipping" away of superfluous elements through a creative reexamination of the "what, why, when, where, and how" of what's being done to hack through that Knot and keep the creative process going while maintaining the core idea. Yes, this seems to be a basic part of the creative design and development process, but many are the times that inadvertently created stumbling blocks have tripped up even the most creative of teams . . .

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Request for Proposals: The George W. Bush Presidnetial Museum

Every other Presidential Library is this big ol' sumbitch that has all kinds of displays and exhibits and movies and shit like that for the public, and then this li'l ol' itty-bitty lounge area in the back for the good folks who help build the place with their generous contributions. Well, I'm gonna change all that, bet your ass. Instead of 90% public museum space, 10% Corporate Contributors Lounge, I say we flip-flop 'em -- my Library's gonna be a 90% Corporate Contributor's Meet, Greet and Eat Suite, and 10% museum. Hell, I am goddamn sick and tired with the whole idea of a bunch of "hand full o' gimme, mouth full o' much obliged" loud-mouth yokels gettin' in here for free (or for $13.50, like my daddy's museum) when they didn't pay squat to put up the place! Here's how I see it . . .

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IAAPA 2001 QUESTIONNAIRE (A look back to the "Dark Days" ealier this century)

2.) I would describe the current state of the themed entertainment business as . . .

A.) horrible
B.) abysmal
C.) catastrophic
D.) Oh the HUMANITY! . . .

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The Charlatan Design Authority: An Immodest Proposal

The World of Themed Entertainment and Design today is in a curious and enfeebled state. Once in the green fields of themed design, hardworking and dedicated individuals could take the design and business highroad to ply their trade and it was of the self-important, glory-grabbing, "well, duh!" design homely-spouting charlatans that we made sport, for the True Believers were not of them and had no reason to employ their rancid door-to-door aluminum siding salesman tactics to do their work. But that was then . . . and this is now . . .

IN DEFENSE OF DISNEY'S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

This article is a frontal assault on all the whining, bleating yelps of criticism wrongly directed at Disney's new Disney's California Adventure theme park in Anaheim. I've read these screeds, and quite frankly, they kink my garden hose. Why? Because the ivory tower, never-met-a-payroll jackals taking shots at this park are getting it COMPLETELY WRONG. The place is a masterpiece! . . .

FREELANCER'S CONFIDENTIALITY AND NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT (a less-than legally binding document)

WHEREAS, [Name as it appears in your portfolio, resume, or state prison "work release" form], hereafter referred to as "The Rube," agrees to furnish certain well-thought, original, nifty ideas, concepts, notions, juicy rumors, and confidential information relating to inventions, attractions, "state-of-the-art" plush toys, and so on to [Noted Themed Entertainment Juggernaut / Marketing / Cash Cow for It's Stockholders], hereafter referred to as "The Juggernaut," for the purposes of determining an interest in developing, manufacturing, thinking about selling, thinking about developing, possibly one day, kinda-sorta, you know, perhaps considering selling and/or joint venturing (though, let's be real, not with you, you small-potatoes looser), or just getting our stock to jump up a tenth of a percent so that we can grab a few extra dollars to cover the expense of hiring one of our over-priced charlatan design guru "friends" (just an expression . . . we have no friends) . . .

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Memories of Interstate 10 and My Meeting With "The Thing!" -- Or -- Another Reason I Ended up Doing This Wacky Themed Entertainment Design Thing

"Any similarity with 'The Thing!' mentioned therein with any real 'The Thing!' along the highway in the middle of Arizona is purely coincidental." So what? Isn't that one of the things that keeps all of this "themed entertainment design" jazz worthwhile: the memory of the experience as opposed to the facts? One of the highlights of my youth was a trip with my grandparents across Arizona. It was on that trip, on July 5th, 1968, that my life was altered forever . . .

We're Going to The Mystery Spot!

It was a toss up. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, or the Mystery Spot? Hmmm. My sister and I are grown ups. We appreciate the wonders of human advancement. We relish the creative mind. We even can drive around the Bay Area together without getting in brawls over who's looking out whose window. I am in the Museum biz, she, an executive. "We are mature!" we announce together. "We are escapees from Small Town, Middle America!" we yell. "We have sensibilities above and beyond the ordinary! We have style! We know tacky when we see it! We are going to the Mystery Spot . . ."

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Dark Rides Through My Brain: In Praise of Day-Glo Thrills and Paper-Mâché Glories

'Tis the season to blow off all of those high-faluttin' thoughts of "visitor experience," "experiential branding," "immersive retail opportunities," and "actually getting a summer vacation this year" and come to the realization that just because you have wandered into a business that survives because of tourism and vacationers and keeps you too busy during tourist vacation season to take time off yourself, you still deserve to have a little time away from the grind for what you hope will pass for fun . . .

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14 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR THEMED ENTERTAINMENT VENUE!

1) ADD ANOTHER COASTER!!! Another big, scary one. Like, REALLY, REALLY big. And super spooky scary. This never fails. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get anyone to hire me to give them this advice. 2) GET "AMERICAN BARFBAG MANUFACTURERS GUILD" TO SPONSOR NEW COASTER. 3) START A RUMOR (VIA THE INTERNET) THAT A DRUNK GUY GOT KILLED ON YOUR NEW ROLLER COASTER. Guaranteed to increase patronage 20% in a week amongst the Bart Simpson crowd . . .

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13 Themed Entertainment Haiku

The Thrill Seeker,
Hoping no one sees,
Riding on Dumbo . . .

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Theme Park Ballyhoo! --Or-- Turning Midway Dross into Theme Park Gold for Just Pennies a Day!

. . . Low, tawdry, cheaply made, they featured lurid tales of sin! Degradation! Drug abuse! Fast cars! And strip poker! Working outside of the studio system, these exploitation filmmakers relied on drumming up huge business for these cheap-jack flix of theirs by titillating the public, by hooking into their imaginations with promises of Things That The Public Knows Is Dangerous and Shameful! So, what's all this movie history got to do with me and my theme park, amusement park, or family fun center? It can be described in just three simple little words: Theme Park Ballyhoo . . .

An Interview with Herbert W. Zoozman

I was 22 years old in 1930. The movie industry had just instituted the "Motion Picture Code," spelling out what was now forbidden -- Sex, Vice, Prostitution, Drunkenness, Gambling, Nakedness, Racketeering, Murder, and Narcotics. I took very careful notes, and spent 6,000 dollars of my own money to make a movie called Vice Racket Vixen that included each of these transgressions. I toured the movie myself, spending a week in each town. Here's how I did it . . .

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My Favorite IAPPA Seminar

My favorite IAAPA seminar from years past was called "How To Create A Themed Entertainment Venue." It featured a parade of very earnest, incredibly knowledgeable themed entertainment experts describing in excruciating detail exactly how the process of creating themed entertainment SHOULD go. Notice I say "should." I became clear almost immediately was that the title should have been "Pageant of Unjustified Optimism." Unfortunately, the process described in this IAPPA seminar bears almost no resemblance to the process of creating themed entertainment in the real world . . .

KETCHUP-LAND

"KETCHUP-LAND" will be a 971 acre theme park in Orlando, Florida that celebrates "not just ketchup itself, but the entire mythology of ketchup as a meal-enhancing family-friendly life-style experience." These are the words of Jack Pander, President of the National Ketchup Advisory Board, and the prime creative force behind the park. "The previous Board looked at ketchup, and just saw a lot of gooey red stuff you put on a cheeseburger. They lacked VISION. I came to this job with a MISSION," said Pander . . .

My Wacky Shack

One of these days I'm gonna dump the corporate theme park life -- the endless free "commemorative" T-shirts, the discount corn dogs, the name tag, the ability at the merest whim to change the way people stand in endless stanchioned queues awaiting there to enjoy 123 seconds of (nearly) complete theme park excitement. No, no, one of these days I intend to leave all this behind (hopefully the day before the IRS shows up wanting to know about $87,000 in medical deductions for my colonic irrigation therapy to help me through this terrible "black light and Day-Glo dark ride" phobia) and do the one thing in this meta-entertainment world that, in our heart of hearts, all of us in themed entertainment want to do: Run a WACKY SHACK! Yeah, Jackson! A wacky shack! A mystery spot! A Tiltin' Hilton. A whatever you wanna call it! . . .

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"How To Be A Genius!" Designer Career Makeover!

HEY LOSER! Stuck in dead-end job in the theme entertainment biz? Are you sick and tired of saying, "Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle until you're ordered to disembark" 9,000 times a day, 7 days a week? Jealous of those "real" theme park designers/creative types who jet around the world, bantering with CEO's, savoring lavish boondoggles, and pontificating before shopping-mall developers at Las Vegas seminars? Well NOW YOU CAN BE ONE TOO! Yes, YOU can be an . . . AUTHENTIC THEMED ENTERTAINMENT GENIUS . . .

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