Kelly: 0:54

Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a podcast where we look at everyone's favorite theme park attractions, lands, textures, and novelties. We talk in, over, about, and through our week's topic, and then, with literally no concern for practicality, safety, or economic viability, we come up with ways to make them better. My name is Kelly McCubbin, columnist for the theme park website Boardwalk Times, and with me as always is Peter Overstreet, University Professor of Animation and Film History in Northern California. Hey Pete. Yeah. What are we talking about today?

Pete: 1:41

Well, today we're going to take a lazy little trip down the river. As it were, we're going to be going down the rivers of America.

Kelly: 1:47

The rivers of America. But even bigger, we're going to be talking about the Disneyland dark water system.

Pete: 1:55

Yes, indeed. Yes, which is connected heavily to the rivers of America. So this episode is actually kind of a mishmash of a couple of concepts. We're going to be talking, and we figured we'd centered around the rivers of America because it plays such a vital part of the dark waters system at Disneyland. That's where it ends. And that's where it ends. Or smarts, depending on that. And I had no clue about any of this until Kelly and I went on our first road trip together to Disneyland. And he started pointing out, oh, Pete, this is where the water comes out through here and it's filtered through this. I go, what are you talking about? What is going on here? And the more he talked about it, the more I actually did become fascinated with the engineering and the thought process that went into the system. So unlike a lot of other Disney adults who run their own podcasts and talk about all the usual suspects of Bob Gurr and Rolly Crump and all these other things, we're gonna talk about water.

Kelly: 2:52

Water. He's a devil, not a man. Pool clear. Hey, I think before we get into this, let's uh take a moment. We had a there's been a lot of people that have passed away, especially over the last couple of weeks, and it's been quite quite tragic.

Pete: 3:15

Yeah, this well, this especially this whole one week that we're re recording this on a Saturday. Yeah. A week ago, we we lost tragically the Reiners.

Kelly: 3:25

Rob Reiner was someone that that has been around through my entire life. Yep. Like I I've I've been back when he was Meathead on All in the Family. He taught us about politics and he taught us about compassion, and then he moved into movies. And his movies are a map of pop culture in the 80s and 90s.

Pete: 3:45

Absolutely. He introduced frankly more pop culture reference one-liners than any other filmmaker. Yeah. You can't handle the truth. That's right. I'll have what she's having. Inconceivable from Princess Bride, and just about anything from Stand By Me. Turn the volume to eleven. Yep. And this is Spinal Tap. It's just amazing the breadth and scope of his work. And he was, I think the thing that made Rob, especially his contributions to pop culture so powerful, is he was just so genuine. Yeah, that's right. He he once said he didn't like to do like science fiction or super supernatural stuff. He directed two Stephen King movies, but they were not Stephen King movies centered on anything supernatural. They were about one of them's the best. Oh amongst the best Stephen King. Oh, yeah. Right at the top. Yeah, misery well, yeah, both of them. Misery and Stand By Me. They were just right, Stand By Me. He wasn't even thinking of that. Yeah, they're both they're both phenomenal. And and that's because he understood human beings. That's the one thing that he was pure empathy. That's right. And yeah, but rest in peace, Bob, and Rob, sorry. And then we also lost Gil Gerard. The 80s Buck Rogers.

Kelly: 5:00

And we're under no illusions that that show was any good. It's not. No. But but it was part of our childhood.

Pete: 5:07

Yeah. More so than others, because I did go to church with Tweaky the Robot.

Kelly: 5:10

That's right. That's right. Yeah.

Pete: 5:12

So yeah. How you doing, Buck? And let me be clear, not Mel Blank. No, no, no. No, no. The little physical actor, Felix Silla, who was inside the suit. He went to church with my grandparents, and I got to meet him a lot of times. I think I mentioned this in a previous episode where I actually did a an Easter Easter egg hunt with his son, and they brought a guest who was Ted Cassidy. You missed one over there. Like lurch is telling me where Easter eggs are, and I'm like three years old, going, What? Yeah. Anyway, name dropping aside. But yeah, Gil Gerard, it was not a surprise. He knew that it was pretty much coming. Yeah. And actually sent out a beautiful little letter out to all of his fans. A nice farewell. A nice farewell from Buck Rogers. Hopefully he's he's finding peace in the 25th century.

Kelly: 5:59

Yeah. There's a nice tie-in to one of our previous episodes. Um James Cawley, who runs the Star Trek original set tour, for a period actually owned the film rights to Buck Rogers. Right. And made a preview of what he wanted his Buck Rogers to look like. And Gilgerard and Aaron Gray were both in it. And it's it's very sweet.

Pete: 6:20

Yeah, they play Buck's parents. They play Buck's parents. Yeah, it's a beautiful little ch teaser. Yeah. And I really wanted to tone. I know, I really wish they had actually it had the feeling of the Rocketeer. Yeah. And I really wish they had followed through on it. But it is what it is. Like if all we got was that, I'm okay with it. Yeah. For me, it was like watching the Fantastic Four and then seeing the entire Roger Corman Fantastic Four in the background. Right. Yeah. It was like this nice little nice. Yeah. You're acknowledging this. This is great. Yeah. Another passing that we suffered was Bob Burns. Bob Burns the Third. Bob Burns the Third. We talked about him with some of our previous episodes. We have mentioned him in the past. Yeah. Bob was the Uber Geek. And um I suspect we talked about him in the not scary farm episode. Briefly, yeah. At least in the the offshoot that you did of when I went off on a tangent. Yeah, right. But yeah, Bob Burns is really, really important because he was a curator of a lot of uh Hollywood props that are of great significance, like the Time Machine from the 1960 film, a lot of props from Alien and Alien. He owns the original Superman suit that was worn in the serial era. He owns one of the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon outfits run by Buster Crab, Lily Munster's outfit. He had tons and tons of stuff, but he didn't keep it, he shared it with everybody. You could get tours of his house in Burbank. And he and his wife Kathy would show you around and it was a lot of fun, and he was just this big goofy guy. I think he donated a bunch of it to the science fiction museum. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about him when I mentioned Kogar. That's right. At Six Flex. He was Cogar. This is the same guy. This is the mighty Kogar. But Bob's important because of his contributions to the haunted house market because he did these home haunts that were way over the top. Starlog, the magazine, actually did an article about him that spread far and wide and actually caused his numbers to triple attendance. So he actually had to shut down the show because he got too popular. But it was a lot of people got their start with Bob. Rick Baker. Rick Baker Monster Maker, Dennis Murin. They were all local kids who were helping him out with his Halloween shows, and they go on to become Academy Award-winning people in these films.

Kelly: 8:26

And it's really like his passing is the real end of an era. He's he's of that first age of science fiction fans. He's both involved in the industry like Ray Bradbury was, to an extent Forey Ackerman was. But they they were that first generation that kind of staked their flag and they were like, we are the fans.

Pete: 8:49

Yeah, we're geeks and we're not when we're proud of it. Not only are we proud of it, we think it should be celebrated.

Kelly: 8:54

Yeah.

Pete: 8:55

And we think we have a method of coming up with ways for people to dress their fandom that no one ever thought of. I mean, with Ackerman kind of inventing cosplay and Bob Burns doing these recreation shows that you would see at a lot of science fiction and comic book shows, even to this day, in which fans will make these perfect replicas of the robots or the sets or whatever, and do their own little fan films. He was a fan film, Super 8 fan film guy. One of my favorites is he did one called The Alien, in which he played he literally just glued on some big eyebrows. But he also did a Frankenstein movie where like the Frankenstein's monster was literally lettuce glued to his friend's face to look like a monster. It was black and white, man. What are you gonna tell? But yeah, Bob, Bob was 90 years old, and he and Rob Reiner and all of them are gonna be sorely missed by all their friends. My condolences to everybody. But we have one more person we want to talk about.

Kelly: 9:47

We have one more, and this might be the most relevant to uh what we do on this podcast, which is Imagineer Eddie Sado passed away. I I gather unexpectedly he was in his 70s. Oh no, I'm sorry, he was 67, so far too young. Eddie Sato worked in a lot of different places, but he was most famous for working for the Disney Company. Uh if you walk down Main Street USA at Disneyland today and hear the voices that are uh going on up in those windows, one of them's Eddie Sado.

Pete: 10:19

Isn't he the one who's taking a shower and like the I think he might be, yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Kelly: 10:27

Concept design for the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. He uh did renovation at s for Adventureland and for Main Street in Disneyland, and also designed Main Street at Disneyland Paris.

Pete: 10:41

Mm-hmm.

Kelly: 10:41

Did all sorts of things. He worked on Phantasmic, he worked on Flash Mountain, he Whose Honey Hunt in Tokyo. That's right, yeah. Videopolis and Disney World. He just he he was he was a a a si super significant imagineer, by all accounts a very nice man, and he'll be missed.

Pete: 11:02

Yep. And he also founded uh Future Proof Experiences back during the pandemic.

Kelly: 11:06

That's right, yeah. I I was reading about that and I thought it was really interesting. It's a a company that is what it sounds like. It is a company that's helped to design sort of experiential things like theme parks or or whatever to survive pandemics. Yep. Like specifically pandemics.

Pete: 11:26

Yeah, because we didn't know he started it very early on. Yeah. And it was a very gr big groundbreaker because, like we like we said, we didn't know how long this was going to go on. It was actually very forward-thinking, and who knows, it may actually pay off in the long term. But uh so Eddie, our hats off to you, and thank you very much for everything. Yeah for all your contributions. It's it's been a lot of fun. Yeah.

Kelly: 11:46

So let's talk about water now. Let's talk about water. You're finally humoring me and letting me get this out of my system.

Pete: 11:54

Okay, so just so you know, Kelly is verboten talk about this when he goes with his wife and his stepchild when they go to Disneyland. So you guys listening to this wherever you are, feel privileged. Yeah. Because this is this is verboten territory we're about to tread upon. But I also figured, like, because rather than just letting Kelly just steer the whole boat, because otherwise he would have no need for me here, we also agreed that because of the connection to the dark water systems, we're gonna talk also a little bit about the rivers of America and the Mark Twain and the area around it. So we're gonna kind of weave in and out of the water system and in and out of this so that way for those of you who are going out, they're gonna be talking about plumbing the whole time. Don't worry, we've got some other stuff on here that's totally fine and and culturally relevant and all supporting or supported by the water system. That's right. So we found a way how to actually make this not just about plumbing. We may and I'm not gonna say we found a way to make this interesting because actually where Kelly's coming from is actually very interesting, I swear to God. But it's not just about plumbing.

Kelly: 13:00

We may even talk about the bathroom of the future, which yes was a thing. It was. It was a thing. It was. I still have to go. Well, you got another 25 years. Hope you can hold it. So when we talk about the water system at Disneyland, um and Disney World's a whole other can of worms. Yeah. So we're not going to talk about that today.

Pete: 13:25

Yes. Sadly, let's just get it out of the way. Yeah. At the time of this recording, it is being torn apart.

Kelly: 13:30

That's right. And and and uh things are being done, and Disney World's very complicated because there were swamps there. We we Disneyland's built not in the desert. It's it there's farms there, but there's not a ton of river water in the area. There's not a lot of naturally occurring water. There is a lot of well water, which is how the farmers are are irrigating their walnuts and oranges in the area. Yeah. But Florida's a whole different deal. They had to get rid of all the water. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Pete: 13:58

Yes, they actually probably found some actual river boats buried away there, something like that.

Kelly: 14:03

It's crazy. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But when we talk about the Disneyland water, we we have to kind of separate it into th three categories. And the third one's the one we're really going to talk about today. First one's just the potable water, the stuff that you can drink.

Pete: 14:15

Well, we can. We can. But does the park want us to? Yeah, right. If they drink that, how are we going to make our Coca-Cola sales? Yeah. Okay. That being said.

Kelly: 14:29

Notably when Disneyland first opened on the first day, they were a little bit behind. There was some expense stuff coming, and they had to decide whether to make the water fountains work or the bathrooms work. I mean, they had some bathrooms, clearly. Walt chose the water fountains. So well they had to fill up the rivers of America somehow. The story is that on opening day, someone came running up to him and said, Walt, there's kids peeing in the streets, and he laughed and just said, Let them pee. Yeah, I can see that. But so there's the potable water system. There's the clear water system, which is a little bit disingenuous because it's not really a system. It is all of the attractions that need see-through water. Primarily, you're talking about things like the submarine voyage, where you have to treat the water so that you can see through it, or you couldn't see the show.

Pete: 15:25

Well, in the submarine both cases, I would actually argue that that would actually make it a better ride. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, maybe. It's just pitch black out there. Is that a sea monster or is that Mark Davis? I can't tell.

Kelly: 15:40

And there's things like it's a small world or Pirates of the Caribbean. Those they don't necessarily have to be clear, but there's there's no reason that they need to be muddy. Sure. Right. So those are all just treated to be safe. The reason that you the reason that you have that smell that's associated with Pirates of the Caribbean that everyone knows about is because they use a kind of bromine to treat that water to keep it from molding. That's what you're smelling, is bromine.

Pete: 16:07

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And what else you're smelling is all the uh methane emerged from all the cockroaches down there. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Sorry, Disney, but that is a thing.

Kelly: 16:19

But the thing that we're we're really gonna talk about, and this is this is the thing that spans the entire park, is the dark water system. Now, this when I say system, it is not disingenuous. It is an entire system that spans from the northeast corner of, or mostly to the northeast corner of the park, all the way to the southwest corner of the park, and then back up. That is the dark water system. It is called the dark water system because they need you not to be able to see through it. The reason they need you not to be able to see through it is they don't want you to see that the Mark Twain is on tracks. Right. Or that rivers of America is really only about five and a half feet deep.

Pete: 17:01

They don't need you to see, they need you to see that one uh Peter Pan that fell off of the boat during Phantasmic the other day. Still trapped underneath there.

Kelly: 17:09

Have I told you my weird little mermaid during Phantasmic story? No. So in in Phantasmic at Disneyland, the actor that plays the Little Mermaid that plays Ariel gets extra pay on top of all of the other actors that are on the Mark Twain. Okay. Reason being she has no she can't run. So what happens is when the fireworks really start going off, everybody else gets to retreat internally into the Mark Twain to stay away from the fire. She can't. Oh God. So what happens is that whoever's near her throws a flame retardant blanket over her and then runs into the Mark Twain.

Pete: 17:59

Here, here, here, Ariel, have some asbestos.

Kelly: 18:12

So, and this is absolutely true. She gets paid hazard pay for that. Wow. Yeah.

Pete: 18:22

Let's suffocate her. Sorry.

Kelly: 18:26

Yeah, we're doing to give her like a snorkel or something. Maybe. The irony.

Pete: 18:31

She says she's out there with like one of those volcanic explorer outfits, those tinfoil outfits with the little visor and everything.

Kelly: 18:38

It's aerial. So when when we talk about the dark water system, it is actually dyed.

Pete: 18:44

Yeah, and we're not talking gray water. Let's be clear. This is not the sewage system. Yeah. So for those who are going like, they're going to talk about the poop water? Well, I wouldn't put it past us. I just said it. There you go. No, we're not talking about that. We're talking about this kind of dye that they put in the water to make sure that you cannot see the functions of some of the attractions at the at the and it maintains the illusion of deeper water or the fact that the tracks are not visible.

Kelly: 19:12

Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. So they have certain there's a few places along the uh the water system that they can inject more dye if they need to. It's a pretty clever system. Yeah. So when when they first started filling the rivers of America, which is so there are like I said, they're all attached. When they first started filling the rivers of America, evidently they looked at surveyors' maps. So they're they're filling them all from wells. That's because that's the only water they have. There's there's very little Anaheim municipal water at that point. So they're filling them all from wells. There's enough. There's a there's a significant amount of groundwater there. So they they keep telling Walt that he's going to have to build all of these mechanisms to pump the water up from the wells, and he keeps telling the water. Telling them, no, you don't. You just have to dig a channel. Like get it up out of the well and dig a channel, a little flow there. And they're like, no, no, no, look, we have all these designs. And he said, nope, you're trust me, do it my way. They dug these channels and thought, oh man, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. But it worked. What? And here's why. It's because Walt had been there before and saw what the farmers were doing. Oh, okay. Watched their irrigation going, and he knew that the surveyors' maps were wrong. Uh-huh. So sure enough, like they pumped and and one of these wells that they pumped from is still there and it's still in use. Uh it's called well number one, and we'll get to that in a minute because there's a controversy about this. But um they they brought the water up, it flowed down these channels and filled the rivers of America. Now they had to fill the rivers of America a few times because it kept sinking into the into the ground until they figured out they could line it with clay and it would be all right. People keep stealing our water. Those bastards. But that's the initial, they filled that and the jungle crews separately, even though they are connected, just to kind of get the levels right before they open the connection.

Pete: 21:15

I'm just imagining Harper Goff out there with a guard nose. Okay. Well, I'm gonna be here for a while. I'll bet you there is, yeah. It's just more little do do do do. And it's just like this little We'll be here for a while. He's got like a beach chair. Yeah. He's out there, the hose just going.

Kelly: 21:34

Someone get Harper a corn dog?

Pete: 21:36

Yeah. Walt said to fill it, so I'm filling it. It's gonna take a while, Walt. I'm doing what the old man tells me to do. Saying, we get you a bigger host, I'm fine.

Kelly: 21:48

This will do it. So let's not, I won't get ahead of myself because the rivers of America, even though that's where it was first filled from, that is not where the water flow starts.

Pete: 22:02

Okay, where does the water flow start?

Kelly: 22:04

I'm glad you asked. So the the water flow starts. People will tell you that it starts at the storybook land canal boats, and that's not exactly true. Where it starts is a spot just a little bit t north and east of the storybook land canal boats underground. Like if you walk from the canal boats kind of towards it's a small world, in about twenty feet you're there. Okay. And you can feel it under your feet if you're looking for it. It the it's sort of sloped up on the concrete there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What happens there is that the water is pumped to that point and then it splits in two. And one side of it goes to the storybook land canal boats. And that water doesn't leave, doesn't uh go flow any further. That's just a side channel. Now it can boy howdy does it show with all the duck crap in it. Sorry. And you could and the water can go back and forth to that pumps to even out the levels. You'll also see that waterfall there that keeps that water churning so it doesn't stagnate.

Pete: 23:19

Was any of that water system connected to where the phantom boats were?

Kelly: 23:23

So the phantom kinda. So the phantom boats were in Tomorrowland. Yeah. Those were over next to the submarine voyage. Okay. That was a separate system.

Pete: 23:33

Okay.

Kelly: 23:34

But the motorboat cruise, which is different, is is absolutely the real start of what we can see of the water system.

Pete: 23:44

Okay. So my smart ass little comet actually turned into something that was worth some gold. Thank you.

Kelly: 23:51

The motor the other channel, the way the one that doesn't go to Storybook Land flows down to where the motorboat cruise used to be, or as we knew it in the 80s, the motorboat cruise to Gummy Glen.

Pete: 24:06

Gummy bears floating on boats for no other reason but licensing.

Kelly: 24:13

I just remember that like that, like that was like the Disney afternoon was such a big deal. And people just loved it. And I loved a lot of it too. I loved a lot of it too. Yeah. And so they were like, we're setting up a whole Disney afternoon area. And you got there and it was like, you you just painted some cardboard and just set it here.

Pete: 24:34

Thanks, Eisner.

Kelly: 24:36

Yeah.

Pete: 24:37

Yeah. I wanted like a curse of the golden monkey adventure with tail spinners. Yes. Like, now you're talking planes that can come in and out of water and splash people. Like, I'd be all over that. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Kelly: 24:49

So the the motorboat cruise was gone not long after that. Sure. But the dock's still there. Yes, it is. As I recall, it was one of the last smoking areas in Disneyland. But it's not anymore. Because nobody went there. Yeah, right. Yeah. This is actually why it's an area I really love. Because you can go to that dock, there's seats, there's tables with umbrellas, and there's not they're not selling you anything.

Pete: 25:13

Nope. Except the only thing is that you you really have to be a fan of the monorail. It's true, yeah. Because unfortunately, that is the one spot where the monorail, every time you'll be sitting there trying to eat your dis Mickey pretzel or whatever, and you're like, oh God, it's right overhead. You're like, I thought this was just shade. Oh, right, the monorail. Thanks. Thanks for letting me know you're there. Yeah. Thank God the dark water system is there. I just peed my pants. No one will know. No one will know, yeah.

Kelly: 25:43

Walt. So that that water. And I love that area. So it's a beautiful, quiet little area. I also love Storybook Land, as you know. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We love torturing our friends at Storybookland. It's just a sweet, quiet, early, like some something that was like an opening day thing.

Pete: 26:04

It is it is a quaint, it's almost like what I love about Storybook Land. We'll do a whole episode at some point about Storybook Land.

Kelly: 26:12

Trevor Burrus, Ed Eddie Sado worked on Storybook Land quite a bit later after U went.

Pete: 26:16

Yeah, absolutely. But what I love about it, it's kind of like it it totally is a throwback to Walt's love of miniatures. Yeah. And it re it makes me think of all the fanboys out there. And I say that with love, guys. I'm not saying fanboy derogatory. Disney fans who put their time and effort to make little backyard railroads and their own little monorail in their backyard or whatever. So they're recreated through miniature. Well, of course they are, because that's what Walt was doing with his Disneyna in there in the storybook land. Yeah. It's really charming. So but that it's very evident that it's the same water.

Kelly: 26:49

Yeah.

Pete: 26:50

You can see it. Aha. Yeah. Aha. Now, just a little side, a little personal note. When when our respective significant others kicked us out of the house and we were on the road for five days to check out everything. It was a great trip. Bindles. Yeah, with our bindles. Well, we went to yeah, we went down to we went down to Disneyland and and I I was made aware of this. I started scrutinizing the water, going, that's a different system. It's gotta be. Yeah. And you start seeing it. You start seeing the geography of it. Yeah. And I start going, oh, wait a minute. This no, that's definitely gonna be the same. Like I could recognize that brown and green dye.

Kelly: 27:27

It's it's super interesting because when you get a little farther down the system, you're you get kind of close to the area that's kind of pixie hollow now. It used to be an aerial meet and greet thing. There's water there that looks like part of the same system, but it's not. But it's designed beautifully because you can't, it's hard to tell.

Pete: 27:45

Right. It's enough of a transition there, they get away with it.

Kelly: 27:48

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. This is and now I'll break the mystique of Storybook Land. There's a sump pump back there. Built underneath Acrobat. So it's kind of behind that waterfall that works a little bit like a pool skimmer.

Pete: 28:00

Yep. Well, we're sorry. The underwater world of Ariel. Sorry. So sorry. Sorry to break the illusion of miniature worlds.

Kelly: 28:14

Yeah, we're setting Ariel on fire and putting her in a sump pump. What's going on?

Pete: 28:20

Yeah, this is this is Ariel's tale. And the rest of her is over in Storybook Land. Anyway. Sorry.

Kelly: 28:32

So you you leave the the area of where the motorboat crews used to be, and you you can walk there on on the loading dock, and uh it's lovely. There's usually ducks there. It flows down towards the Matterhorn on if you if you walk from there and you're on the left side of the Matterhorn, you are walking over the water. Yep. Yeah. Right under your feet. So you're on the east side of the Matterhorn. Oh, okay. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you you never actually go through Fantasyland. The motorboat cruise was ostensibly Fantasyland and and storybook land is fantasyland, but it's that edge. Okay. That's as much fantasyland as you hit. You so you go around the Matterhorn, sort of on the Tomorrowland Main Street side. Yeah. And you head in, and the next place you can actually see the water is another one of my absolute favorite places in the park, the Snow White Grotto. Ah, yes. I I And and we we should absolutely get into the Snow White Grotto at some point. And there's a waterfall there, and this is a recurring theme with the dark water system. Yeah. They need to keep it churning and flowing. Yes. So there are several points where you will see different elements that keep the water moving. That waterfall is part of it. Well, and that water then flows through the moat, right? That's right. So that's that's the next place it goes. Uh-huh. Is it goes through the moat under the drawbridge. Taking all the popcorn boxes with it. All the popcorn boxes with it.

Pete: 30:09

Right. And then the ducks. Yeah. And the ducks.

Kelly: 30:14

And then heads over to what used to be the Carnation Plaza Garden. Right. The Carnation Plaza Garden, so that's a little so I if it's if it helps people, Disneyland is is pretty easy to figure out as far as navigation. You come in on the south, and the castle is directly north.

Pete: 30:33

So well, there's a compass literally right in front of the castle. Right in front of the castle. If you don't get that, just Google Earth it. You can see it from space. It's a compass you can see from space. I know I'm looking at it right now.

Kelly: 30:48

And it um the Carnation Plaza Gardens, which is now the Royal Fair, Fantasy Fair, it's a weird mishmash of stuff. Sure. There's there they used to do storytelling things there. There's a princess meet and greet there. The Osmonds once performed there. Yeah. Well, so it used to be I'm sorry. It used to be if you go back and watch Disneyland specials from the 50s and 60s, you will see specials that feature like big bands playing at Disneyland. Oh yeah. And where they're playing is 90% of the times at the Carnation Plaza Gardens. Mm-hmm. They kept that going for quite some time. A lot of interesting bands played there. There's there's also a little bit of mythology about who some of the people who played there that is a little overstated. Like Louis Armstrong never played on that stage, but a band of his after he had gone might have. Same thing with Count Basie. Count Basie was never on that stage, but the later Count Basie band did play on that stage. But it was it was a super cool place. Like they they had these cool bands. They had swing dancing often every Friday night.

Pete: 32:01

It was neat. Well, we're gonna get to Louis Armstrong again because he did perform in the park. He certainly did. Just not and we're heading towards it. And we're heading towards it. The water's just taking us there. So once we get past the Carnation Plaza, then where does the water go? So I'm glad you asked.

Kelly: 32:20

So where it goes from there is is a channel that is called the Carnation Creek. Okay. The Carnation Creek basically goes around the hub on the west side. So the left as you're looking at the castle. It goes through it goes past the Frontierland entrance. Past westward hoe. Past westward hoe.

Pete: 32:45

Uh-huh. Underneath the Frontierland Bridge. Underneath I'm I'm literally looking at it from an aerial shot on Google Maps here. Yeah, right. So you can see this from space. This dark water space which you never would have said that in 55. Right. Hey, Walt, we're looking at your park from space. You would have called you a communist. We probably would have. Interested. I know. I I turned you into HUAC. I w He would have. Yeah, he would have. Because I'd be working a UPA. Thank you very much.

Kelly: 33:27

Belowdown on the Plus Up is a Boardwalk Times podcast. At Boardwalk Times.net, you'll find some of the most well-considered and insightful writing about the Walt Disney Company, Disney history, and the universe of theme parks available anywhere. Come join us at BoardwalkTimes.net.

Pete: 33:58

So anyway, uh, but yeah, and then straight right underneath that bridge. That's usually where everybody goes, look at all the ducks and Main Street. All the ducks, pretty much, because it is probably one of the calmest and also one of the most accessible points for waterfowl, apart from the storybook land, yeah, for them to settle in. So that's where a lot of the Disney ducks actually hang out is this this creek, the Carnation Creek that runs all the way from the moat past the Disneyland ticket counter, the whole nine yards, all the way to the gates of Adventureland. Right.

Kelly: 34:28

And and it's and I and I urge people, like if you're at Disneyland, take a second. And everyone's rushing from attraction to attraction, trying to get get their stuff done. I get it. But take a second and like stop at the grotto, stop on that frontierland bridge and look at both sides at the water and all the beautiful plants and the ducks that are growing there, and you'll see how great the design of this place was. Did you just say where all the ducks are growing there? Did I say that?

Pete: 34:56

I'm imagining like these mutant ducks, like I said too much. The ducks are growing. I'm joking. I should make fun of people's words. Anyway. But yeah, then the water vanishes.

Kelly: 35:10

It kind of vanishes and then bubbles out weirdly, right under the Adventureland entrance. Mm-hmm. And it goes under the tiki room. So this is this is an interesting thing about the tiki room. And our friend Ken Bruce will know a lot more about this than us. Oh, yeah. But go get his book before the bird sang words because it's great. Yeah. It's the the back side of the tiki room was was built out over the water. Yes. So if you look from the Adventureland entrance under there, you can see like the water literally going under the building.

Pete: 35:47

Yeah, the building is built on pylons. Yes. First off, it carries on the theme of the Polynesian architecture. Yeah, really effectively. Yeah, absolutely. But then, and also part of that the housing there, for those who forget, it's the the tiki room is literally butted right up against the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe. Yeah, right. So the water is flowing underneath that as well. Yeah. And then it gets spit out right underneath the tropical hideaway. Yeah. But is now the tropical hideaway.

Kelly: 36:17

And I believe is it is it the Jolly Holiday, well what's now the Jolly Holiday, the one that was a was originally connected both on Main Street and in Adventureland. There's one building that what like for a long time, if you looked at it from the side, towards the left you would see it looking like a building from 1918. And from the right, it would be all thatched and the roof was literally split in half.

Pete: 36:42

Yeah, and and it and it's actually aged. If you actually look, the whites that are used on the gingerbread on that kind of Main Street America, it's a different tone of white. Oh, interesting. On one face. So that way, if you're looking at it, it carries through that theming. So it just looks like a Victorian building and it's in the jungle, and then you're fully Polynesian at that point. So it's this beautiful fade from one to the other.

Kelly: 37:05

That's interesting.

Pete: 37:06

Yeah, but that's that's the building. The that's that's really where that that's one of the weirdest buildings.

Kelly: 37:11

It's it's really it really is. It's like it used to be like stofers operated the kitchens in there. Yep. And they they would supply food for both sides. So they would supply the food for the Main Street side, and they also would supply the food for what at that time was the Tahitian Terrace. Right. And that and used to, the Tahitian Terrace used to have like shows, like like like shows of like Polynesian dancing and fire throwing and stuff. Oh, yeah. Super cool.

Pete: 37:40

Hadn't for a while, but I'm well then it became Aladdin's hideaway or whatever that was. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then it became what is now the tropical hideaway, which is a nice. It's a nice compromise. I like it.

Kelly: 37:54

I do too. And and there's a lot of if you spend some time there, there's a lot of interesting like jungle cruise and tiki room mythology that's packed in there and sales.

Pete: 38:03

And you finally get to meet Rosita. You meet Rosita. I love Rosita.

Kelly: 38:07

Yeah, she's just like sitting out there talking to people. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. A nice uh almost sort of tribute to Wally Bogue's Barker Bird. Absolutely.

Pete: 38:16

Yeah. Yeah. And I want to pause here because at this point on our journey here, this is the spot where Kelly first, like, we were having lunch. He goes, so funny thing about the water. That was the whole lunch of him doing this episode. Which was great because I started like, oh, and I I will totally admit it. My like the first two minutes, I'm like, are you are you joking with me? Are you messing with me here? Are you making fun of like my Disney adulthood? What's going on here? And then I realized he was serious. And then he got more scared. No, I got I got more fascinated by this because I realized the the sheer engineering and planning that they had to build the park around this to make it work.

Kelly: 39:04

And this and this system, there's been some slight adjustments along the way, but uh for the most part, this system was there in 1955. Yep, absolutely. Like they had to be prepared, like, hey, we need to build something that is going to service this park in in this really odd way for now 70 years.

Pete: 39:29

Yeah. And through the Tahitian Terrace, which is actually a weird conduit to spill it through. It is, yeah. Okay, it seems like quite a bottleneck to get that water through there. Yeah. But somehow it works. But the good news is that they work with the Orange County Department of Health for mosquito abatement. Let's just say that right now. They they do things, don't want to talk about what it is, because that's government work, and as long as it keeps Don't ask notel. Yeah, don't ask Hotel. But they do do mosquito abatement just because there are parts where the water just sits. Yes. Yeah. And it does flow, but it's just the wet nature of water. It's going to sit in some areas and move in others. But that's when you enter from the Tahitian terrace slash the tropical hideway into one of the two big rivers of Disneyland, and which is the Jungle Cruise.

Kelly: 40:16

Yeah, that's right. And and the the Jungle Cruise and the subsequent rivers rivers of America, in some ways, are almost really one body of water. They there is give and take there. Yeah. Like the rest of the system just flows and it's heading downhill. Though though that's part of the system, I mean there is there is a downhill, but it can also kind of pump back up depending on the water levels. And it so yes, it heads into the jungle cruise, does its jungle cruise thing.

Pete: 40:47

And and if you have not, for those of you who are new to this podcast, if you have not heard our two episodes, we've done two. Two episodes on the jungle cruise. The reason is because we split it. One is pre-Indiana Jones, so it's the classic uh jungle cruise, and then we did a post-Indiana Jones jungle. Yeah, Jungle Cruise 2, The Heretic. Yep. And believe me, it's better than that Exorcist movie, let me tell you.

Kelly: 41:09

So Richard Burton talking about Pazuzu. I don't know.

Pete: 41:14

There's there's less bees.

Kelly: 41:15

Yeah, less bees. I just read The Exorcist, by the way. I've never read it before. I just read it. And uh that whole Pazuzu stuff, it's actually in the book.

Pete: 41:24

Oh yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. Like, wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. And Pazuzu is actually in the jungle cruise. What? No. Joking. That would be cool. That would be your mother likes the backside of water. Linda Blair on the Jungle Cruise.

Kelly: 41:44

Well, and speaking of, as as we mentioned, not Linda Blair, but the Backside of the Water. Yeah. Sorry. Hey, Alex and Freddie and Annie from the Backside of Water podcast. You guys are good guys. Take a breath. So again, we talked about how we they need to keep water churning. Yes. Some of it has to do with that mosquito abatement that we're talking about. Yep. Some of it has to do with keeping the water flowing in the right direction. And Schweitzer Falls in the Jungle Cruise is another instance of how they churn the water. Yep.

Pete: 42:16

Big time. Yeah, big time. It's one of the biggest waterfalls in the park. Yeah. In this particular park. There are bigger waterfalls, obviously, like Grizzly Falls fourth over in DCA, but still, this is like the big one. Yeah. And the Jungle Cruise is very interesting as is because it is its own ecosystem, as we talked about in the previous episode. Right. Where it is a functioning rainforest. That's right. Because of the foliage.

Kelly: 42:40

It was it literally is at this point considered a uh self-uh perpetuating jungle. Yeah. It is, it is like like people who make these sorts of decisions say this is an actual jungle now.

Pete: 42:52

Oh, yeah.

Kelly: 42:52

Yeah.

Pete: 42:53

And you pointed something out to me which was really, really interesting here. Because you go through the jungle cruise, but then we go to the Swiss family tree house. Yeah. And I'm not going to call it anything else but that because I I Yes, it's the Adventureland Treehouse. It's the Swiss family treehouse.

Kelly: 43:10

Yeah. Inspired by Swiss Family Robinson. I was like, why don't you just call continue to call it the Swiss Family Treehouse? Nobody cares. Yeah. Yeah.

Pete: 43:16

It's just what it is. The Jungle Tree House. Fine, whatever. But the Treehouse. It's lovely, by the way, what they've done to it. Oh, yeah. I like the compromises that they have made to it. And don't get me wrong, there were elements of the of the Tarzan thing that I liked.

Kelly: 43:29

It was okay.

Pete: 43:30

Yeah, it was all right. But I like that they've brought it back to kind of what it was kind of like when it first opened. Yeah. However, when you go around the front of this thing, it does have water that is not part of the dark water system. Yes. And this is where Kelly hooked me, where he's like, guess what? This is not the same water.

Kelly: 43:49

Yeah. It's not. Yeah. It is a completely different self-contained system. Part of me wonders why. I'm not sure why they wouldn't just use the dark water, except for maybe they were worried about that uh mechanism that carries the water up and down the windmill thing to uh maybe getting stained. I don't know.

Pete: 44:08

Maybe. Maybe they didn't want Lisa Simpson to drink the water. But it's I think it's because they wanted the tropical look of Hawaiian water. Because it's supposed to be this clear jungle stream going by the treehouse that's being harnessed by Papa with the wheel and all that. So they wanted that nice clear blue tropical water look to it. Yeah. But it poops out that's a technical term. It poops out in the area that is between the uh treehouse and Pirates of the Caribbean's queue line. Yeah. Where the elevator is.

Kelly: 44:39

Yeah, if you kind of come out of the treehouse and walk a little bit, just a little bit, towards Pirates of the Caribbean, and kind of look to your left, you'll see a stone lion there. Yep. That's about where the underground channel is. Now, what's interesting about this is that it was not always underground. That used to be open. And you could see the water flow from the jungle cruise to the rivers of America. There was a small bridge that lit that went over it. Wow. Only for a few years it opened. But there's pictures of it. You can you can find them. And yeah, that used to be just free-flowing water that went from the jungle cruise straight into the rivers of America, and you could watch it happen. That's cool. Yeah. No longer is that the case. Pretty much it's in covered up by those those paths that go either up or down around the pirates.

Pete: 45:32

Oh, I see. So the bri the pirates bridge that you go underneath, that's pretty much where it would flow through. Yeah. That makes sense because that was not the original cue for the pirates. Oh, okay, that makes sense.

Kelly: 45:41

Yeah. That that water flows to the rivers of America. It's a pretty straight shot, so you can't really see where the water comes out, but you can you can figure it. If you go up to the Swiss family treehouse and look down, how do I know this? I did it. I know because I was there. You can see, and I'm afraid of heights, so that's a thing. So you Which is really weird because he's taller than I am, folks. That's right. So you can see the water, like where kind of the two points of the bodies of water are closest. You just look back and forth and can see it. And that's clearly the channel. Sure. Absolutely. So that but that water can flow back to the jungle cruise. The uh the rivers of America needs to stay at about five and a half feet. Right. Just about. Right. If it gets too much higher, the Mark Twain and the Columbia can come off their tracks. Really? So this is a concern, right? Yeah.

Pete: 46:41

Now this is which it does explain to me why when we have heavy rains they shut it down.

Kelly: 46:46

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And and this is all monitored from the Fowler's Harbor building, which is also kind of attached to the Columbia boat dock. Yeah. Uh the boat dock for both of them. But that building is where all the water levels are monitored and the pumps are monitored for those two bodies of water. They can send the water back and forth as needed. If it gets way too big, they can send it back to the city of Anaheim. Huh. Now, what used to happen is that the water would just be dumped back into the groundwater. Sure. But we have gotten wiser and more ecologically uh minded. So what happens now is if the water gets too high, they s do send it back to Anaheim and it sits in their Anaheim treatment plants. Anaheim actually checks it at that point, just make sure everything's cool with it. Right. And as soon as the water goes back down, they ship it back to Disneyland. So it's much more efficient now.

Pete: 47:51

Okay. Okay. So we are now in the rivers of America at this point.

Kelly: 47:56

So we have a couple of different ways that we still churn water here. Uh-huh. One is the paddle wheel of the Mark Twain. Yes, it is. Because when the Mark Twain is docked, that wheel is still going. The reason is they want to keep the water moving. The other one, and and a lot of these are not there anymore, but there used to be a number of waterfalls on Tom Sawyer's Island. Yes, there were.

Pete: 48:18

And there's a couple still there.

Kelly: 48:19

There's a couple still there. Little little ones. Yeah.

Pete: 48:21

Like little guys over by the beavers.

Kelly: 48:23

Right. And and I my guess is that the main reason that they're still there is because they still need uh engineering-wise to keep churning the water.

Pete: 48:32

Mm-hmm.

Kelly: 48:33

So so there's a few still there. There used to be a lot more, and I miss them. I do too. And and also Rivers of America is shorter now. Yeah. Well, this actually comes into play because our next spot is the the end of the road for the water. Right. And it is over near. So it used to be kind of near that first set of moose that you that you ran into.

Pete: 48:58

The meese. Yeah. The meese. Yeah.

Kelly: 49:01

That you ran into when you were going around on the Mark Twain. Yes. Now it's it got moved because the rivers got shifted.

Pete: 49:07

Mm-hmm.

Kelly: 49:08

And now it is somewhere close to the Native American storyteller. Yes.

Pete: 49:14

There's a cul-de-sac in there. That's right. And if you look at it from space, you can actually see the time right now on Google Earth, if you're listening to this, load it up. Because if you check it out, you can actually see ripples in the water from the satellite view of certain areas where the water is being circulated. So you could see it right in front of the dock on Tom Sawyer's Island. So you can see a little bit of that there. The riverboat, the Mark Twain, is docked in this photograph. You can see some of the canoes on the Davy Crockett canoes, otherwise known as the Indian War canoes. But we'll go to that in a minute. You can see one of the smaller waterfalls, which is it's close to if uh literally on the other side of all the rock work is where the X-Wing is in the Galaxy's Edge. Yeah. Then you have the big waterfalls, which I guess is supposed to be like the Colorado River or something like that representation. This is where the beaver is gnawing away at the at the trellis of the train. Yeah. And then you can see the rivers of America, you could see the Native American village and the storyteller. You see his rock for all the rock formations, you could see the canoes, and you could see this flow of water dipping into this pit area, and it's almost a perfect way for it to circle around and then go back down into the system.

Kelly: 50:32

Yeah. And if if you're there or someone's taking a really good picture of it, you can see how there's a spot where the water seems a lot darker. Yep. And that's because it's going down.

Pete: 50:41

Mm-hmm.

Kelly: 50:41

And it's one of the deeper parts. Yeah, it is one of the deeper parts, and that's that's literally where the water's being sucked out of the system. Right.

Pete: 50:48

And it's uh the the the depth of this river, despite the fact that there are tracks there. Yeah. The depth of this river go r runs anywhere from about four feet to eight feet. Yeah. In certain parts. And that is one of the deeper parts where the water gets sucked in because they need to be able to have to sustain that type without developing a whirlpool. Yeah. Which would not be good for the canoeers.

Kelly: 51:10

Well, and that and that is that is where the yeah, that'd be hilarious.

Pete: 51:17

This is the best ride ever. No, it's not.

Kelly: 51:20

Not supposed to happen this way. But and that's that is the point right near the storyteller where the water begins its journey back up to the top of the system. But there's a couple of interesting things here. One of them is I'll I'll back up. A lot of us learned about this, about the water system, from the Jansen brothers in the e-Ticket magazine. Okay, here we go. Folks, you're about to have a brag. So if you can find it, e-ticket magazine number 18, where Jeff Jansen and Leon Jansen tell us about this system. And and they they pretty much got it. They they understand it. They and they've drawn this beautiful diagram that's just delightful.

Pete: 52:07

It is it's really cute. It's like a theme park map. It's really it's it is a theme park map. Yeah. But it's for the public. Right. It's it's great.

Kelly: 52:15

Yeah. And and these guys are kind of I'm sorry, Jack Jansen, not Jeff. But these guys are we can call them sort of secondary sources. Okay. So they're they're pretty authoritative. When when the e-ticket started, there this was still at a time when imagineers were just guys who worked. So they weren't they didn't have that mystique about them like they do now. Yeah. They were just dudes who had a cool nickname. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. And and and the Jansens who got interested in this stuff in the eighties, just brothers that lived down in the area, and started producing this little fanzine, the e-ticket, they just started calling them up and saying, Hey, can you do you interested in talking about this? So they got first-hand stories from a lot of the people that built this stuff. A lot of the Disneyland stories, particularly that we still tell each other, are kind of derivations from what the Jansens did in the 80s. Yeah. We've learned some things that are like that's not quite right, and some of the stories have gotten mushed up a little in ways since then. And this is one of those. So well number one, we were talking about earlier. Yes. It's the it's the one, as as far as we know now, the one uh groundwater well that was there prior to the construction of Disneyland that is still there and in use. Okay. It is um it used to be actually just where the big Big Thunder Mountain Ranch was. Oh, okay. Uh which is gone now, that's where the Galaxy's Edge is now, but it's still under there. And well number one is used to occasionally feed water back into the system if they need to. Okay. There is a mistake that a lot of people have quoted and quoted and and re-quoted that that well is 1,300 feet deep. It is not. But I know where it came from. I know where the case is. But there are no windows and no doors. No, go ahead. It it the the error came from because we all start when we when we're interested in this system, we all start with this magazine. Of course. Particular issue of this magazine. Right. And in this magazine, the Jansen brothers talk about well number one because they've talked to engineers that work on it, and they say the well is 137 feet and four inches deep. Now this is this is actually a very reasonable, this is about the I did some research. This is about the size uh the depth of a normal agricultural well in the farming areas of Anaheim around that time.

Pete: 55:07

Sure. Okay.

Kelly: 55:08

Somewhere along the way, and I think I think I know where it happened, but I I'm not going to mention. Somewhere along the way, 137 feet and four inches got misinterpreted to 1,374 feet.

Pete: 55:26

Uh-huh. Okay.

Kelly: 55:28

People consider this kind of astronomical well underneath galaxies.

Pete: 55:35

Speaking of Rob Reiner. It's not your job to be as confused as Nigel, is it? They put in inches instead of feet, right? Confused. What? Where'd you put where'd you put the water? What? I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? I don't know where I put the water. How deep is the well? I don't know.

Kelly: 55:59

So so yeah, if if you if you see somewhere that someone's like, oh, there's a 1300-foot well underneath Galaxy's Edge, you can tell them safely that there is not. There is a 137-foot four-inch well underneath Galaxy's Edge. But the it is still part of the system. Yes. It is it was there before Disneyland was built. It is still there now. Yep. And this is where the water hits the pump and starts heading back uphill towards Fantasyland. Uh-huh. And goes all the way back up to that spot that we talked about at the beginning, where it's just a little bit north of the motorboat cruise loading dock and storybook land. Yep. And that is the entirety of the system. It's incredible.

Pete: 56:47

It's incredible. And now here's and here's a little interesting thing to note. If you go on Google Earth and you take a look at the map of Disneyland as it is today, most of the park's greenery is built on or around this dark water system.

Kelly: 57:06

Yeah, isn't that interesting?

Pete: 57:07

So you can see where the dark water system is just by looking where all the trees are. Yeah. As opposed to the areas where it is not, like all of Tomorrowland, most of Main Street, the hub, a lot of fantasy land, the Matterhorn. Yeah. All and now Galaxy's Edge. Right. But it's a small world that's all kind of gray. When you look at it, gray and bright blue, because you can see the lagoon from space, which has blue dye in it, but still it's clear water. But then you also have all this greenery around it. So you can really see the map of where this system is very clearly with where all the foliage is.

Kelly: 57:44

Yeah.

Pete: 57:45

I find that fascinating.

Kelly: 57:46

I do too. I I think it's really interesting, and it speaks to the genius of Mr. Bill Evans, who we talked about before.

Pete: 57:53

Bill Evans, baby.

Kelly: 57:55

Yep. Bill Evans, who designed most of the foliage for the park when it opened and continued to do so for a long time. I think we talked about him in our first Jungle Cruise episode quite a bit. Yes, yes, we did.

Pete: 58:07

Um so now we figured out where all the water is.

Kelly: 58:20

Pete and I just want to take a moment to wish you and your loved ones happy holidays, and to thank all of you for the kind comments and well wishes throughout the year. We're glad you're there, and we don't take your time and attention for granted. It means a lot to us. See ya in the new year.

Pete: 59:02

And we've talked about that with a jungle cruise, but let's actually take a minute. I I also know this is another one of Kelly's favorite subjects. Yeah. Because I'm a big haunted mansion fan, big jungle cruise fan. Yeah. I'm a New Orleans Square Adventureland guy. Yeah. And a little bit of Frontierland because I love Big Thunder. Sure. But uh Kelly surprised me. He says, this is my absolute favorite ride. And it's the Mark Twain. It is. Yeah. And I I he reintroduced me to the peaceful joy of riding the Mark Twain. Yeah. Even though it has gone through some transformations. Yes. Many, many transformations. Oh, we got onto this thing and it was a ball. It was a really, really fun experience of riding on this thing and just taking a deep breath and just soak it in for a minute.

Kelly: 59:50

Yeah. I think it's really notable that a lot of these spots that we've talked about where we can see the water on the system are peaceful spots.

Pete: 59:58

Uh huh. Yeah. That is another that's another great way to put it. Yeah. Up the lazy river. As much as I I I I I love this, let's talk about Peter Reneday. Sure. Pete Reneday. Always happy to talk about Peter Reneda. Yes. Pierre Laurent Renaudet. Yeah. He was actually, I think it was was he French Canadian? It was Louisiana. Ah. He's from Louisiana, man. He was born in New Iberia in 1935. He passed away in 2024. Yes, very recently. Yeah, very recently, at the age of 89 years old. He uh first showed up in a TV show called Combat in 1965. He was on TV a lot in the 80s as well. Renedae was cast as the first animated television adaption of the teenage Mute Ninja Turtles. He was Splinter, right? He was Splintered. That's right. So all you TMNT fans out there, he was the original Splinter. He also came back for some of the spoken parts for TMNT coming out of their shells concert event. So at the Radio City Music Hall of all places. The cowabunga dudes. Yeah. But he was married to Florence Flo June Daniel. She was the head of the Walt Disney Studios music department. Oh, okay. For 35 years until she passed away in 2011. She was basically the executive secretary. Sorry, she wasn't the head of it. She was the secretary of the music department. I'm I apologize. But she was the head secretary of that department. Yeah. And she was also a soprano. Okay. And she was featured as a vocalist in The Sounds of Christmas, produced by Disneyland Records in 1973. Alongside of Pierre LaRon. So he was also a singer on there. He died in Burbank at the age of 89 from natural causes. He just kind of didn't wake up. But he is in some of the uh a lot of Disney features. He's in The Aristocats, he's the uh French milkman. Uh, he's also the truck mover, uh, Le Petit Cafe cook in uh The Aristocats. He's in The Million Dollar Duck as Mr. Beckert. Uh-huh. He's in the Love Bug as the Policeman on the Bridge. He's the narrator in the film Cats Don't Dance. Oh, I like that film a lot.

Kelly: 1:02:04

Yeah. Yeah. Peter Renedae was also the first ghost host, was he not? You're absolutely correct. Peter Renedae was the original ghost host.

Pete: 1:02:14

Peter was the original ghost host. Yeah. On The Haunted Mansion.

Kelly: 1:02:18

Yeah, on the on the album that came out before the attraction opened.

Pete: 1:02:22

And before Paul Freeze was even thought of as a potential voice candidate. Yes. They found his voice to be too nice. And actually, no offense to Paul Freeze, but I actually like Peter Reneday's voice as the ghost host almost better.

Kelly: 1:02:42

A lot of people grew up with that and heard that far more than they actually heard the ride. When we were growing up, there was no way to hear the attraction unless you were on the attraction.

Pete: 1:02:54

Granted, he does sound like the supreme being from Time Bandits called the reverb. I have no problem with that. Yeah, but it works, right? So yeah, he he he plays this kind of it it comes off as a lot more smooth and creepy. He just had this really good, smooth sounding voice to him. Yeah. I got to meet Pete Renaday. Oh, wow. And I've always heard he's was the sweetest. So and it was by complete accident. Here's how it happened. I was the director of the Winchester Mystery House Candlelight Tours. Yeah. And our and at the time it was being produced by our old pal Tim O'Day. Hello, Tim. Yeah. And this is how I met Tim, actually. Tim knew that I was a big fan of this stuff. We would talk about all this, you know, we would Disney adult trivia up with each other all the time. He knew I was a fan. He kind of is, yeah. And bless him, he has managed to introduce me to a lot of very, very neat people from Disney. Pete Renaday was a guest at the anniversary of the LP, the songs and stories of the Haunted Mansion, and they were having an anniversary celebration that was not attached to my haunt. Yeah. It just happened to be there in this special little room that they would rent out for events. Oh. And I forget for which organization, maybe Mice Chat, maybe something. But it was these people that were really into this record, and they had a replica of the record album cover that you could stand in and get photo ops with.

Kelly: 1:04:25

I would I would guess it's either Mice Chat with Dusty Sage with his big mustache and uh very or it was nostalgia with it's one of those.

Pete: 1:04:33

I I one of them I'm sure will comment and and correct, but it was one of those organizations. So I was just like, I was I was running the haunt. I I literally went down to talk to the office and I'm on my way back up because I have paychecks for everybody. Yeah. And I'm about to make my paycheck run. I'm not in any costume, I'm wearing my director's outfit, which is all black, and a big radio on my shoulder. Yep. And there's this old guy with a goatee sitting in the back. And he shakes his and he's he's waiting for his turn to go up. He's waiting, but people are doing what we're doing right now. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So as he's waiting, I said, Is this for wait a minute, what is this for? He goes, Oh, it's for the haunted mansion. And I recognize the voice. And I went, Oh my God. Are you the guy who did the voice on it? He smiled. He goes, Yes. And I go, You're Pete Renaday? He goes, Yes. I go, I wish I had known you were here. I would have brought my record. I would have had you sign it. Oh my gosh. It's so cool to meet you. Yeah. You are my ghost host. Yeah. Just FYI. He goes, really? I go, yeah. Maybe, maybe next year I'll have you narrate my show. And he smiled. He goes, Maybe. I don't know if you can afford me. It was great. You might not be. No, I could not. But it was really nice. And he was very sweet, very generous. Yeah. But he still had that voice. Yeah. It just, it was just him. That was Pete. He had this very smooth kind of voice. Yeah. And he looks he looks like a magician. Yeah. You look look at pictures of him. He's he's like a 1950s Doctor Strange. Yes. Really kind of cool. Very Louisiana. Yeah. Gentry. Anyway, so he did a lot of this kind of stuff. But he's also from Mark Twain, the on the Mark Twain. He is the voice of Mark Twain. That's right. The original voice. The original Mark Twain. And welcome aboard my riverboat. I remember. Oh. It's just a sleepy rendition. And I actually feel like we kind of don't get the benefit of the Mark Twain anymore. Pete Renaday, when you get on board the Mark Twain, first off, you've got the caller, right? Yeah. Mark one, Mark Two, Mark Two and a half, Mark 5, 16, Ocean Deep. And then they start the narration. Oh no, we're setting on off, folks. Let's let's keep going. As a matter of fact, I have a friend on here who knows more about this river than anybody else. Yeah. Yeah, Mark Twain. And I'm I'm totally insulting Pete by doing this, but his portrayal of Mark Twain is so sleepy and a little disconnected. Yeah. Like I kind of wish they would they had kept just him narrating the whole thing. Oh, I know. And over there, there's a rock I liked. Like he could have totally played off where he's kind of like this geriatric author who's like totally rambling at you going down the river. And I wouldn't care because it would be great anyway. Yeah. Look over there, there's a beaver. Oh, looks like Mike Fink has been careless with fire again. That's what he gets for smoking in bed.

Kelly: 1:07:44

Yeah, and and I there was something about that that was just hypnotizing. It was just beautiful and calming. And there's a lot of things about the current narration I like. One thing I really appreciate that they are now no longer just Indians. They are they are referred to by their tribal names and specified like customs that are related to those tribes. I appreciate that.

Pete: 1:08:09

Yeah, it is a it is a long road that they have traversed in order to do proper Native American representation. And this might garner a longer episode at some point, because there's a lot to this. Yeah. But it started off with the quote unquote need to have Indians if you're going to have cowboys, if you're going to have Frontierland. Yeah. Because of the popularity of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and all those other kind of things, all the Fest Parker shows. Yeah. You gotta have you gotta have engines. Yeah. You gotta have engines. So it started off with actually having a village where they would actually have real people over in Big Thunder Ranch near the Big Thunder Ranch and over close to Nature's Wonderland.

Kelly: 1:08:53

Yeah. Yeah, kind of up near where the just past the explorer canoes.

Pete: 1:08:57

Yep. And and and also the mule ride, the mule, the mule train. Yeah. Now, even back then, it received a lot of flack for its placement and for the treatment of where it was. Not because of any overt racism. Yeah. There's fifties, there's fifties centric racism going on like crazy. Yeah. But the the the subtle thing that people were picking up on is hey, how come the Indians have to go over like dirt paths that are like rained out in mud and shit like that, and they're totally away from everything else in the park? Yeah. And they're over here. You're literally segregating them from the rest of the park with this butte that they have to walk through to get to. Yeah. Like, what is that about? And the intention there was originally like, oh, it's their sacred ground. You're entering into this sacred area that is theirs. It's their can't go over there. That's Indian territory. It's that kind of thing. But actually it it got flak even in 1957.

Kelly: 1:09:50

Yeah. It's it's super interesting. There's like none of this is is cut and dried. There there are things about what they did in that village that are kind of cool. They invited Native Americans in and did not tell them what they had to do. They just said, what do you want to show people? And and they did that. There are things that are not cool. One is that they you know more and this happened in the 50s, but they were calling them Indians. That is something that we call them.

Pete: 1:10:23

Yeah. They would do uh dancing. Yeah. Navajo, uh Choctaw, Comanche, Pima, Crow, Pawnee, Hopi, Winnebago, Winnebago, sorry, Shawnee, and Apache would be represented with all the different cultures. But they also did, they would have a thing where they were doing a dance and someone would narrate it. One of the elders would say, This is the meaning of the dance, this is what's going on. Hi, everybody, this is what we're going to be doing. Yeah. There were demonstrations of archery. It was the Pawnee arrow game, is what it was called. Yeah. See that? See that wooden cutout of Custer over there?

Kelly: 1:11:02

Actually, it would have been great.

Pete: 1:11:03

Yeah, it would have been, yeah, it would have been that would be fantastic. Are you kidding me? There were displays and demonstrations of arts and crafts like weaving and beadwork and kachina carving and all that kind of stuff. Walt wanted there to be, as he called it, a preservation of all American heritage. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Kelly: 1:11:19

Yeah. There's there's an So there's something interesting that happens with Walt and Native American representation in the 50s and early 60s. There's something interesting that happens with American culture with that representation around that time. And if anyone's interested, I wrote an elaborate article about the frontier line and this Harvard professor named uh Frederick Jackson Turner, who basically invented the myth of the American West and how it wasn't true, but we all bought into it. Yeah. That would have been what Walt would have been taught was about the frontier line. And some some interesting things came al happened along the way. One of the things that I find really interesting is and I I I don't want to excuse institutional racism. I'm not trying to do the one of the things that happened that I found really interesting is that there is a point in the Davy Crockett series. The Davy Crockett series was huge. Like really huge. It was a cultural phenomenon in a world that Disney had not seen since the advent of Mickey Mouse. Oh, yeah. There's a point in it where Davy Crockett goes to challenge President Andrew Jackson to try and get him to stop his campaign against the Native Americans. Now that's interesting.

Pete: 1:12:40

I remember that episode.

Kelly: 1:12:41

Yeah.

Pete: 1:12:46

Like Lawrence of Arabia, but with Native American. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Kelly: 1:12:50

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Horrible. So Walt knew enough to understand that this was wrong. Or or his writers knew enough and Waltz thought that was okay. Yeah. But one of the things I find really interesting about this is that when Tom Sawyer's Island opened and and the fort on Tom Sawyer's Island opened, they used to have little sort of mannequined dioramas inside buildings. Yeah. One of those was Davey Crockett arguing with Andrew Jackson. So there's something going on there. Almost like there's a waking up happening. Like, hey, maybe maybe we need to fix this.

Pete: 1:13:32

There's some interesting stuff to this. And and this goes along with my complicated relationship with Walt Disney as a person.

Kelly: 1:13:42

I I think if if someone's relationship with Walt Disney is not complicated, then they don't understand why.

Pete: 1:13:48

Yeah. Um Floyd Norman famously defends Walt saying, no, he was not racist. I disagree. I do think that there was cultural context racism where it's not an overt thing like Andrew Jackson. Yeah. But he's just kind of like, well, that's how we talk about this. Oh, oh, oh. And when people called him on it at times, he would straighten up. Yeah. Now, there was a lot of other things about Walt that I don't like. The fact that he went after his labor relations were like abysmal. Yeah. But here's what's interesting. Yeah. I read an article, this is on Mouse Planet, and it was written by Jim Corcus about Disneyland's Indian village. It's a very fascinating article, goes in the whole history of it. Oh, I should read that. It's worth it. They talk about there was a woman named she was Navajo, her name was Vivian uh Arviso, and she was Miss Indian America 1960. It's much more of a public relations position. Her year of service included a stint answering tourist questions at Disneyland's Indian village that she said helped boost her confidence, and she was dressed in her native costume. Huh. So she was she was like Julie Ream, but she's in full Navajo attire. Interesting. And she's like, I am Navajo, and this is I'm gonna answer questions directly off of this. Yeah. So it was it's a cheesy white man's marketing ploy. Absolutely. But at the same time, it's beneficial for her. The writer of this article actually makes a very good point. Yeah. There was the Chippewa Longhouse that was actually built by members of the First Nations. Uh it was actually built by Alexander Matthews Bubby Dosh. Please forgive me for any any Chippewa who are listening to this if I'm mispronouncing that. With all due respect, but he was a member of the tribal council of the Chippewa, and it was a member of the First Nations, and the structure was sewn birch and had a white ash roof. It was beautiful. It also had a fact similarly of a burial ground. There was a stuffed bison, something most most Americans had never seen, and a Navajo sand painting exhibit, which is pretty great. Yeah. And a lot of people don't know, don't know this, but Walt felt that the Indian village was a celebration. I'm just reading this from the article. So from the article says, Walt felt that the Indian village was a celebration of the cultural heritage of American Indians, especially since his wife Lillian was born on an Indian reservation and grew up in Lapwai, Idaho, on the Nez Pierce Indian Reservation. Lillian's mother enthralled Walt with stories of coming to the West at a covered wagon, including the Native American she encounter during that time.

Kelly: 1:16:19

Yeah. Yeah. And Lillian Disney was not Native American, but she was born on a Native American reservation and lived there for some time.

Pete: 1:16:27

And in 1996, she donated $100,000 to the Nez Perce Indians who were trying to buy some ancient tribal artifacts. Yeah. Yeah. So there's definitely a family love, even though it's coming through this cultural filter of institutional racism. So you can't ignore that. But they're coming at it with love. They're just going about it wrong.

Kelly: 1:16:49

There's this thing, and and we could go super deep into this, but there's this thing that uh a couple of election cycles back, it was the 2016 election, and I think it was NPR sent Tanahasie Coates to report on the Republican National Convention. Yep. Which seemed to me like a really mean thing to do.

Pete: 1:17:07

But they did.

Kelly: 1:17:08

And Tanahasi Coates being who he is was brilliant. Someone asked him as at the end of whatever his reporting that day was doing, they said, How do you feel being on the floor because there's all of these good people and there's all of these racists. And he said there are good people who are also racists. And and I found that really interesting. He's not saying there that racism's okay. No, no. He's saying that we all have it. Yeah. We we're we're Americans. We it's part of our DNA that we have racism. What you do with it is is what's important. If if there were a quote unquote Indian village in Disneyland right now, it would be disgusting. Yeah. Yeah. In 1955, it's it's more understandable.

Pete: 1:18:14

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I agree. Well, the Mark Twain is the first functional paddle wheeler built in the United States within 50 years of when it first opened. They went through great extensive research to build it the way that the original riverboats were built. Yeah. Well, complete with all of the steam-powered uh mechanisms, etc. The design was by a guy named D.M. Callis. Okay. It was a naval architect and a former naval architect for Todd Pacific Shipyards. Yeah. And the decks were assembled at the Disney Studios in Burbank while they were working on one stage over 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Kelly: 1:18:50

It is it's really interesting when you do research about this period of Disneyland how often 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea comes up. Because there's basically the crews are the same. They're just shifting back and forth. And also, if 20,000 Leagues fails, they're in trouble. Well, yes, absolutely.

Pete: 1:19:08

They bet the farm on this thing. Yeah. Well, it's funny you mentioned that. Like the jungle crews, there is uh animals on the rivers of America. Yeah. Besides the ducks, and besides the Disneyland odd cat who winds up on a Mike Fink riverboat and manages to get out to Tom Sawyer Island. I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened, but one time I did see a cat out on Tom Sawyer's Island. Excuse me, there are a lot of animals out there. Yeah. Let's see here. There they are. A lot of these signs were, of course, Wathel Rogers doing early audio animatronics with these animals. Yeah. The Native American on his horse waving at the train as you're passing by. Yeah. The burning cabin, right? Which is just anxiety making when you're a kid. But when you're riding at night, it's cool. It is cool. Man, give me more of that.

Kelly: 1:19:55

And I just want to say one of the great tragedies of Disneyland is that you can no longer ride. That at night. It's so such a shame. I Phantasmic's great, but man, I miss being able to ride that at night. I when I was at Disney World a couple of years ago, I specifically was like, I can ride the Lily Bell, which is their steamboat at night. And I was like, I'm doing this.

Pete: 1:20:19

It's interesting. Yeah. And we'll get to the nighttime rides in just a second here. There is a documentary about the making of Pirates of the Caribbean, in which Alice Davis talks about a Western log ride that they were going to do that never came about, and boy howdy, am I glad it didn't. That was the one that was going to go in Disney World, right? Yes. And there were like drunk Indians and all this other kind of stuff. Okay, Mark, get it all out of your system because this is terrible.

Kelly: 1:20:45

Well, and that was that was I know what you're talking about, is the Western River expedition. Yep. And that was a Tony Baxter thing. Mark Davis, I believe, was mentoring Baxter at that time. Yes. Yep. But that was a big Tony Baxter thing. And it might have gotten built, and boy, would they have problems now if they had. Oh yeah. But it might have gotten built except for that the people of Florida were like, where's our pirate ride? Yep, that's it. And they were like, well, we have money for one or the other.

Pete: 1:21:15

Yep. And when we finally do when we finally get to our Pirates of the Caribbean episodes, which trust me, folks, we'll get there. We'll get there. But we're doling this out. We can only got we can only do so many of these parks though. We've been talking about w walking an hour and a half. By the way, this is an excellent moment to recommend that if you enjoy our program, please share, subscribe, please share links to our Spotify account, to our YouTube channel, wherever it is that you download your local podcast, and share it with your friends. Yeah, we'd appreciate it. We really would appreciate it. And for all of our international listeners out there, thank you so much for sticking it out with us. Yeah. We're absolutely thrilled that we have listeners in Russia and Brazil and Paulo, Dubai, and a whole bunch of other places. Yeah. Thank you so much. So at night, I would kill to go back in time. This is one of those moments I would love to go back in time. Yeah. To ride on the Mark Twain at night. Yeah. And and I remember being a kid riding it on at night. Yeah. It was delightful. Wonderful. Those warm colored dim lights and all the gas lamp fixtures on her, and they would light the trees and the animals and the forest around the rivers of America. And it was a nice way to get away from the madness of the fireworks in the center of the park and the crowds that were trying to cram into Haunted Mansion for one more ride. You're just like, I just don't want to deal right now. It's a great way to chill. Yeah. And it was a nice relaxing thing. I remember my grandparents would do this all the time. They would get on Mark Twain and go, okay, it's time to go. Unless you want to do Haunted Mansion one more time, which we'll do. After this, we're getting on the train and we're going home. Yeah. Because that was to them, it was a palate cleanser. It was enough of a ride that it wouldn't overwhelm you. And in retrospect, I think my grandparents were neurospicy. So they hit overwhelm very easily. Well, so do I. Hey, well, I mean, overwhelm now. Yeah. Um the guinea pigs. Yeah, it is. The guinea pigs are staring at we have guinea pigs right next to me, and they're they're staring at me with great hatred. Yeah, this malice. Yeah. You and the horse you rode in on, little buddy. He's like, what? So the Mark Twain at The Mark Twain at night. I would kill to go back in time to ride it again at night. And also to be there when Louis Armstrong and his band performed on it. Yeah. Which absolutely happened a few times. There's there's a video of it happening once. Wonderful World of Disney. They do a marvelous video of it, and it just makes you go, why don't they do that more? Why don't they actually have like live musicians doing that kind of stuff on the Mark Twain at night? Yeah. I want that more than I want Phantasmic. Phantasmic. Sure. I really and no offense, Phantasmic. That's great. It's a fun little show, but it came at a cost that I don't think we've ever recovered from.

Kelly: 1:23:56

Yeah, I I totally agree with that. And I I think and as much as I like Galaxy's Edge, I I really long for the longer river. It just feels so short now.

Pete: 1:24:08

And I had we do have when we were at the park last, Kelly and I had a lot of fun at the the river boat's expense. We were on the inside, the leeward side, facing Tom Sawyer's Island. There was this huge group of people. They were photographing the boat, and I was blowing my nose. And I had I have a nose rag. It's a it's a handkerchief. And I started singing at the top of my lungs. And we started waving. They started they started waving back. It's the cheap phantasmic. One man phantasmic. This is my dream.

Kelly: 1:24:51

Now that the giant dragon's gone, it's probably just as good. Which kills me.

Pete: 1:24:57

But that that's a different episode. But uh yeah, the Rivers of America has a soft spot in my heart. So I was heartbroken to hear that Disney World got rid of it. I know why they're doing that. Yeah. I get it from a business point of view and from a design point of view. I get it. It still sucks. Right. It still sucks.

Kelly: 1:25:14

I can can I uh I I I was thinking because we were talking about water today, I was looking up, I was like, dad, does any are there any like architects or uh urban planners or philosophers that talk about water in in a way that's relevant, and I found some interesting stuff. I found a couple of quotes. So this one's from Jane Jacobs. Okay. The great urban planner, the one woman to uh take on Robert Moses and win. Great. But she what she said was the waterfront isn't just something into it unto itself, it's connected to everything else, which is really relevant. Yeah. And this one I thought was really interesting. This is from Victor Gruen, who we've talked about before. Yeah, yeah. One of the like it was the only modern urban planning text that they found in Walt's office after he passed. Yeah. Was a Victor Gruen book. And he said the combination of water in ponds, basins, or fountains with sculpture and landscape is as old as man's artistic endeavors. Playing water appears to the eye, appeals to the eye and to the ear. Like fire, it holds eternal magic. He's not wrong. Yeah, he's not wrong. He's not wrong. Water is so important.

Pete: 1:26:31

Yeah. Well, and I'm gonna be very blunt. I remember me talking about looking down from space on Disneyland and saying, hey, look, there's all these areas that have all this foliage. I don't go to the other places usually. Interesting, right? I don't spend a lot of time on Main Street or Tomorrowland or Autopia. Yeah. I I like them, they're neat. It's a small world, sure. Sure. Yeah. Mickey's Toontown, okay, neat. Yeah. But I don't spend like hours and hours like I do in the wooded areas of what was once Critter Country and New Orleans Square and Adventureland, all these areas where that dark water system surrounds. It's it's the it is the lifeblood of that park in many, many ways. And it's kind of endemic of that. So yeah, they're absolutely correct.

Kelly: 1:27:20

Yeah, and think think of I'm first of all, I think it'd be interesting for any of you going to the parks, just thinking about where you like to spend time there and see if it's on the path of this dark water system. And also consider how important water is to the entire Disney mythology. I mean, it's so huge. Where do we start? Steamboat Willie. Uh-huh. We start right there. Yep. Absolutely. Right? And we're we're like Pinocchio, which ends with in Monstro and uh and under the ocean and aerial underneath an asbestos blanket.

Pete: 1:28:02

Right.

Kelly: 1:28:02

It's a little mermaid almost saving the company at that point. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Pete: 1:28:10

Well, and uh, I would propose so I think we reached a point here where we're we're we're we're waxing nostalgic, but I actually think this gives us an excellent opportunity and time-wise as well, yeah, for us to do the other part of the show in which we don't take any consideration for safety or for costs or viability or anything else, so we do our plus ups. Yeah. Kelly, what would your plus up be regarding the waters of waters of the park?

Kelly: 1:28:39

It's uh such a a broad category. And and of course, my my first plus up would be re-extend the if you have to knock through Galaxy's Edge, okay. Re-extend the river. But but that that's a little untenable, and I do like Galaxy's Edge. I would put I would extend the water system both to the southeast and northwest. I would expand the water from where it starts up around Storybook Land and the old motorboat crews, and I would send a chute to the left across through Fantasyland.

Pete: 1:29:24

Mm-hmm.

Kelly: 1:29:25

And I put some water in Fantasyland. Remember, there used to be water in Fantasyland. There used to be a skull rock. Oh, yeah. And the pirate ship and a pond. Yep. And that's all gone. It is. And but put some water back there and shoot some water down to Tomorrowland. Gosh, you could do so much.

Pete: 1:29:44

Absolutely. That's that goes with my plus up. We had our our famous Hojo episode of What to Do About Tomorrowland. Yeah. Thanks again to our friend Paul for hooking us up with that marvelous opportunity. But uh we all had the like, how do we make it more technologically sound? How do we make it more interesting? Do we go retro? Do we do this? Do we do that? But I think you're actually hitting something right on the money here by saying, What about the water? What about the water? What about the water? Now, granted, the submarine ride is one of the park's biggest headaches. Yes. Because it is constantly cracking, it is constantly needing to get fixed and refilled, and they gotta chlorinate the thing. It's a giant swimming pool, is what it is.

Kelly: 1:30:28

It is, and I and I understand the economic headaches of water. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like it it can be a real problem.

Pete: 1:30:35

Yes.

Kelly: 1:30:36

Yeah.

Pete: 1:30:36

However, if we wanted to re-theme and we wanted to bring some new life, water brings hope, bring water brings life. Why is that not part of our future? Yeah. Why is that not a part of tomorrow, the promise of tomorrow through the flow of life? Like, for heaven's sakes, tomorrow doesn't mean no trees. Right. Or I hope not. It shouldn't. It shouldn't. Let's promote that. That goes back to my my thing about bringing the hope back to tomorrowland. Yeah. So yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Like bring it closer to the southeast of the park. Have it flow that direction. Have a river of tomorrow. You have the rivers of tomorrow, and and and it's all water world, except it's not a stunt show. As much as I'd love to see a J-Bang going off in Tomorrowland, we don't need that.

Kelly: 1:31:20

And you in in Florida, at Epcot, in the future what used to be the future area, now it's world celebration. I don't know what the heck is. Water! Yeah, right. But they they not that many years ago put in an installation, which was Moana's Journey of Water. Yep. And I love it. Yeah. Absolutely love it. It was the most charming thing I saw probably my whole trip there. It was one of those things where it literally does what we're talking about, which is shows the water system. It shows how the water gets from rain to aquifers to rivers to I mean, so it's so it's educational. Yep. And it's delightful. I saw entire families squealing with delight as they played with some of these water features.

Pete: 1:32:05

Yeah. And it doesn't take much. No. Neurologically speaking, for a lot of people with autism, with ADHD, who suffer from overwhelm, or people who are even remotely anxious with anxiety, with chronic anxiety or depression, water fountains are known to calm. Yes. Water features are a relaxing thing. So it's that psychological reaction of, hey, we know we're bombarding you with fireworks and animatronics and everything. How about relaxing for a minute? And then it'll make it more palatable when you move away from it back into the fray.

Kelly: 1:32:40

I was looking at a bunch of things about this kind of line of therapy called attention restoration therapy. Yeah. I read a bunch of stuff by the people that founded it recently. And one of the things that they do is they send you out to look at water in nature. That's that's it. That's a therapeutic step. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Pete: 1:33:03

It works on me. Yeah.

Kelly: 1:33:06

And I think as we as we're kind of drawing to a close here, I just wanted to give like one more quote that I dug up from another urban planner named Christian Norberg Schultz. And he says, Water gathers the world into a meaningful whole. That's awesome. Yeah. That's a great quote. Yeah.

Pete: 1:33:22

And I think that's a great place for us to end here. Yeah, I think so too. So thanks for taking this river journey with us. Yep. We'll uh sound off here as we return to the dock and please restore your seats to an upright position. Head down to the lower deck if you've moved up to the top one. Yep, exactly. Yeah, please gather all your belongings and children. Don't dump them over the edge. Yep. I'm Peter Overstreet. I'm Kelly McGovern. And you've been listening to Lowdown on the Plus Up.

Kelly: 1:33:58

We hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Lowdown on the Plus Up. If you have, please tell your friends where you found us. And if you haven't, we can pretend this never happened and need not speak of it again. For a lot more thoughts on theme parks and related stuff, check out my writing for Boardwalk Times at Boardwalk Times.net. Feel free to reach out to Pete and I at Lowdown on the Plus Up on Blue Sky, Mastodon, Instagram, and all the other socials. Or you can send us a message directly at comments at lowdown-plus-up.com. We really want to hear about how you'd plus these attractions up and read some of your ideas on the show. Our theme music is Goblin Tinker Soldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at Incompitech.com. We'll have a new episode out real soon. Why? Because we like you.

Park Voice: 1:35:20

Engine room ahead one quarter. Redmen, sound off depth markings.