Planes

 In August I went along to see the latest release from Disney Pixar Planes. I expected it to be alot like Cars and in a way I wasn't wrong but I was still excited to see it because hey it's Disney. So I went along to the cinema on a Monday night when I had no work and I was the only person in the entire theatre. I was hoping that was just because it was a week night and that it didn't reflect how good the movie was or indeed it's popularity. 

It’s the typical rookie enters big race and wins story. A Dust cropping plane called Dusty (voiced by Dane Cook) with a fear of heights has big dreams of competing in an around the world aerial race.Dusty gets training from an old Veteran fighter plane and miraculously qualifies for the Wings around the World race. Like Cars there is the one plane, Ripslinger, who is cocky and arrogant and believes that he is better than all the others and will of course win and tries everything in his power to make sure he gets one step ahead of his competitors. What Ripslinger doesn’t expect is Dusty’s determination to complete the race no matter what is thrown at him. Of course with a little help from his friends the unlikely hero succeeds in the end as well but hey it wouldn't be Disney if he didn't!

The movie is colourful with many high-flying characters to fall in love with. It has some funny moments and even though I’ve read many reviews dissing the movie for being to similar to Cars my opinion is so what. Yes it is similar but that doesn't meant it's any less enjoyable and the fact that I was the only one in the movie theatre the night I went to see it meant nothing to me in the end because I still thought it was great.

Retro Disney

The great thing about having a semi-hoarding mother is that when you grow up to be a bigger Disney fan as an adult than you were as a child your mother is able to hand you things like the park maps from your first trip to Disney in 1995.

At that time there was no Animal Kingdom, that didn't open until 1998. We went to Florida that year for 3 weeks. I remember very little about that trip. I remember funny little things though like sleeping on a bench under Splash Mountain while my father conquered all three mountains. My parents made me go on the Haunted Mansion and I didn't want to so I put my head down and feel asleep.
  I also remember my parents had bought me an invisible dog lead and one of the CM's stopped us and said that I would have to leave the park as they didn't allow dogs in the park. Being a gullible child I thought he was serious and that my parents would be allowed stay but I would have to leave. The CM held the lead in the air and said I could stay if I carried it that way as there was no rule about invisible giraffe's!
While we were there as well in the Magic Kingdom they held an election to get a new mayor of Main Street and it was between Winnie the Pooh and Captain Hook. They gave everyone a voting slip and you put whoever you wanted to vote for in a box. Pooh bear won. 

I think it's interesting looking at the pictures from that trip of shows that are no longer running in the parks. Like there was a show with the characters from the Goof Troop and characters from Disney Afternoons:

 

There was a Lion King Show.:

I remember in that show they had announced that nobody was to take pictures during the show but there was loads of flashing so my mother snapped that. If other people were doing it why shouldn't she like!
In Toontown at the time there was loads of little mini shop fronts as well with Disney character themed names:

It's interesting to look back at what the merchandise looked like back then as well:

I particularly love the Huey, Dewey and Louie plushies in the bottom of that picture. Of course there were some things in the parks then that are still there now like the boat in Hollywood Studios:

The background has changed a little as American Idol is there now but it's interesting that the boat is still there from 1995.
The backlot tour was in MGM studios at the time as well and while I'm sure the props might have been a little different Catastrophe Canon looks the same. 

Something else I find interesting looking at the pictures is that this year they have Limited time magic running in the parks and as park of that there are a number of retired characters being brought out every so often as park of "long lost friends" weeks. One of these is Brer Fox but I met him back in 1995:

Then we've loads of parade pictures. The parade seems to be Spectromagic and we had gone up to the train station on Main Street USA to sit and watch it. I think at the time someone had advised us to sit the, that the view would be best from there. Nowadays I prefer to be down on the street watching it.  I love the fact that Rodger Rabbit was in the parade back then as well though.