Category Archives: In General

Voices of Disney – Remembering Eleanor Audley (1905-1991)

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IMG_2518Two of the most wicked, scariest Disney villains of all time have got to be Lady Tremaine and Maleficent.  These two were just perfectly evil!  Devious?  Check.  Arrogant?  Check.  Self-serving, power-hungry schemers?  Double-check!  Long before it was fashionable to be a snarky baddie with comedic one-liners (Scar, Ursula and Hades, for example) – the classic Disney villains were just plain rotten.

How wonderfully perfect that both Lady Tremaine and Maleficent were both voiced by Eleanor Audley.  It says a lot, I think, about what a fantastic job Mrs. Audley did in Cinderella that she got the job voicing a second, dare I say scarier, Disney villain nine years later.  Lady Tremaine and Maleficent have a lot in common, but were completely different in the skills they used to pursue their own agendas.  Both characters inspired such dislike in viewers, their influence and fame live on today in more places than the original films.

Personally, I’m excited to see Maleficent (the movie) in May – I’ll be curious to see how true to the original character this version portrays Sleeping Beauty’s nemesis.  I’m also excited to see, also in May, Lady Tremaine and her darling daughters, Anastasia and Drizella  at 1900 Park Fare’s character dining experience (at Disney’s Grand Floridian).  These memorable (if not beloved) characters would not be so famous and so Maleficent on Sleeping Beauty movie coverpresent today had Eleanor Audley not done such a tremendous job on their first appearances.  The facial features of both villains were based on Mrs. Audley as drawn by Marc Davis.

So, we know that Eleanor Audley did sinister really well – she even voiced Madam Leota (originally) for the Haunted Mansions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but did you know she also appeared in many well-known TV shows of the 50’s and 60’s?  I won’t bore you with an exhaustive list, but the number of different shows for which Mrs. Audley appeared as a recurring (or one-time) character is mind-blowing!  Here are the ones that surprised me the most:

  • Father Knows Best (1956) – bit parts in several episodes
  • I Love Lucy (1957) – two episodes, different characters
  • The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1956-1958) – Four appearances as different characters
  • Dennis the Menace (1960) – One episode
  • Perry Mason (1958-1960) – Two episodes
  • The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1963) – Bit part, one episode, Mrs. Billings in three episodes.
  • The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1964) – Three episodes as Mrs. Millicent Schuyler-Potts
  • The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1965) – One episode
  • Hazel (1961-1965) – Different characters in four episodes
  • Green Acres (1965-1969) – Played Mother Douglas in 14 episodes – Isn’t this GREAT?!!! Awesome!
  • My Three Sons (1969-1970) – Mrs. Vincent in 9 episodes

Well, there you go!  If you grew up on reruns of these shows like I did, isn’t it unbelievable that the lady who voiced Lady Tremaine and Maleficent appeared in so many of these programs?  Did Eleanor Audley’s appearance in any of these surprise you?

 

Muppets Most Wanted – Mostly Great!

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Muppets Most Wanted Movie PosterAfter all the many previews over the months (years?) leading up to the theatrical release of Muppets Most Wanted, it’d be pretty hard to write a review that contains many, if any, spoilers.  All the previews pretty much show what the movie is all about.  I couldn’t wait to see it anyway.  So we caught a Sunday matinee – The Fam plus Meg’s boyfriend, Grant.  Personally, the movie was what I expected.  No more, no less.  A little longer than necessary with a superfluous musical number thrown in here and there, Muppets Most Wanted was exactly as promised – a sequel maybe not as good as the first.  IF the “first” we’re talking about is the original movie debut of the Muppets way back in the 70’s and not the gang’s 2011 picture.

The original (epic, fantastic, classic), 1979 The Muppet Movie, created the perfect mix of humor, sentimentality, music, and the very best in cameo appearances – all in precise balance Muppets Most Wanted Ticket Stubbetween Muppet and human characters.  At 95 minutes, The Muppet Movie told a very basic story about how the actual movie itself came into existence.  By contrast, Muppets Most Wanted, which also tells an excellent story and makes even better use (to me) of cameo appearances, is a little less precise in accomplishing the same goal – using humor, sentimentality, and music less effectively during its 112 minute runtime.  The balance between Muppet and human characters is as perfect as can be, though.

The plot involving the double characters of Kermit and Constantine works very well – Constantine’s selfishness and ego are in perfect opposition to Kermit’s generosity and humility.  The heart of each character from Piggy to Scooter, Walter, and Gonzo (and the rest) remains true to previous movies and TV shows.  They act the way we expect them to in the manner we’ve grown to love over the years.  Surprisingly, many of the original, early Muppets are nearly left out completely, which I found disappointing.  Perhaps this was necessary in order to beef up the cameos – in that case, it was worth it.

Fozzie the Bear Disney PinTo sum it all up – I thought Muppets Most Wanted was entertaining and true to the heart and soul of previous Muppet movies.  I liked it a little more than The Muppets (2011) and a lot less than The Muppet Movie (1979).  There are some clever, wonderfully unforgettable scenes in this newest installment in the Muppet movie lineup.  I can’t help but feel that if the director had tightened it up by dropping a couple of unnecessary scenes and musical numbers, it would have been perfection.  No, it’s not doing well at the box office, but I don’t care.  I’m a Muppet fan like I’m a Disney fan and that means I’m loyal no matter what.

Did you see Muppets Most Wanted this weekend?  What did you think?

 

 

Disney Vacation Planning – Using a Travel Agent

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IMG_3280Hello Fellow Disney Vacation Fans!  Recently I was talking about our upcoming Disney vacation plans with some coworkers – In my excitement I was passionately describing our ADR’s (Advance Dining Reservations) and how we were going to decide what park(s) to visit each day and what rides would receive our precious allotment of FastPass+ choices.  I was enthusiastically weighing the pros and cons of crowd levels based on Extra Magic Hours….when I noticed my friends’ expressions!  The emotions clearly on their faces ranged from confusion to horror – finally one spoke what they’d all been thinking – How on Earth would anyone vacation at Disney World successfully if they didn’t know what all that “stuff” was and how to use it?

I’m a veteran of many, many Disney vacations…plus I love (madly, passionately) vacation planning, researching, studying, debating; you get the idea.  Not everyone has the desire or the time to devote to squeezing every drop of potential vacation fun into the weeks, months, and yes, even years of planning leading up to a vacation to the Happiest Place on Earth.  This DSCN3118realization prompted me to invite a very special guest contributor to my blog today.

Please welcome my dear friend Rebecca Kelly.  Rebecca is a Disney travel expert – a travel agent with an Earmarked agency, Fairytale Journeys – who is here today to share with you the advantages of booking your Disney vacation through an agent.  Travel agents do not make money directly from their clients – they make money by booking travel.  Their services are absolutely free to their clients – yes that means it costs you nothing extra to use an agent.  It’s in your travel agent’s best interest to book you the best vacation you can have within your vacation budget – they thrive on repeat business and pour their hearts into making sure your vacation dollars and time give you the very best possible return on your investment.  You can find Rebecca on Twitter @rkellyWDW and on Facebook at Fairytale Journeys by Rebecca Kelly (be sure to “Like” her page – she shares great info!).  Rebecca also has a great Disney blog of her own called Disney With Me – You’ll want to check that out, too.

Advice on Using a Disney Travel Expert – by Rebecca Kelly

Prior to becoming a travel agent myself, I booked two smaller trips on my own and two bigger trips with an agent (alternating each). I actually enjoyed it both ways, but there was something really genuinely neat, an extra element of fun, that went into the two trips with the agents… A shared sense of enjoyment, and an added peace of mind.

Booking a trip through a travel agent may not be right for everyone, but if you’ve ever wondered about it, or been curious as to the benefits of using a travel agent, here are a few of the pro-sides – as someone who has been on both sides of the experience. 🙂

1. First of all, travel agents who work with Earmarked agencies specialize in Disney – meaningIMG_2532 that they take an extensive training course from Disney, which they are expected to stay up to date on, and they get frequent emails about new services, changes, events and more. (We even get trained on MyMagic+!) Plus, very often we’re coming from a background of vested interest – most Disney specialists in travel planning are doing it because they LOVE Disney. So we keep up to date with news and things even beyond what Disney officially sends out, because we want to!

2. This training and self-motivated research means that if you’ve got a question, there’s a good chance your travel agent has an answer. And if not, we know where to look. 🙂 So you can go to your TA for questions about pretty much anything related to your trip, instead of having to Google for your answers.

3. A step up from dealing directly with Disney when you have questions or needs is that you’ve got one person you’re working with the whole time. Your travel agent knows your background, your needs, and what’s most important to you – so you won’t be answering the “And are you going to be celebrating anything on this visit?” question every time you call or email. You can develop a good rapport with agents too – I’ve become good friends with quite a lot of my clients!

4. A good way to think of your travel agent service is as “concierge service without paying for the concierge upgrade.” If you need something done last-minute, we’ve got you.  We’ll wait on hold while you drink Diet Coke and eat peanuts in the lounge, as one friend of mine put it. 🙂  We can call the resort directly with a last-minute request while you’re flying in, or extend a reservation by a day, or whatever needs doing. All of this is free, because travel agents work on commission. There’s no markup, no fees to the client.

5. In the same vein, when you use a TA, you don’t have to worry that a better rate has comeMM+ADRs out for your trip – your travel agent keeps track of that.  Once promos are announced, we figure out what option will save you the most money and jump on it. This means you can book as soon as you’ve got the deposit ready and you know your dates – you don’t have to wait for a promotion to come out in order to be able to apply it later.

6. Your travel agent can put together the entire trip for you. Are you going someplace other than Disney? You don’t have to make multiple phone calls to get it all lined up; unlike when you work directly with the destination you’re visiting, a TA can book multiple destinations and get the whole thing lined up. Rental car, shuttle pick-up, tours, off-site hotels, dining reservations, your travel agent can put all those things together.  We can even recommend best parks for a particular day, book FastPass+, or make up a customized itinerary for you!

7. But we don’t have to. Anything that you love doing, you still get to do! If making dining reservations is your thing, but you want someone to just line up all your hotel and car reservations, not a problem. The only thing a travel agent HAS to do is be the one to put the booking through and make the subsequent payments. The TA will also be the one to call in any changes to the booking.

IMG_25318. MyMagic+ and the MyDisneyExperience.com site make it a lot easier for you and your travel agent to keep track of your planning. Once your reservation is linked in the system, you can make your own ADRs online – or your TA can. You can schedule your FastPass+ selections – or your TA can.  These are things that you have complete access to at all times, plus an informational backup (in the form of your agent) to rely on if it gets too confusing.

9. An additional little bonus about booking with a Disney specialist is that you are usually booking with a Disney fan.  This means that you’ve got someone to bounce ideas and comparisons off of, and also just someone else to get excited with over the little details of your trip! Sometimes it’s just fun to share that excitement of your upcoming trip, or the things you’ve booked, with someone else in the moment.

10. Finally, it may not seem important to you, but I can promise you it is to us: remember that with every booking, you’re helping out a Disney fan do one of their favourite things. If I can’t be planning my trips every single day, helping you plan yours is the next best thing!

 

What-if Wednesday – Disney Food Home Delivery

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What if WednesdayFellow Disney Fans!  It’s time once again for What-If Wednesday!  The game show where we use our imagination to answer Disney-specific “What-if” questions.  Contestants from Twitter and Facebook go head to head and
compete to invent the most popular answers.  Get ready to let your imagination run
wild!  And as Drew Carey would say, this is ”the show where everything’s
made up and the points don’t matter.”

 

What if you could have any one Disney food item delivered to your door?  What would it be? 

It’s guaranteed – if the “What-if” question involves food, there will be a bunch of participants!  This time was no exception but what was surprising is that what I expected and what I got were completely different.  I asked the question and the answers were fantastic!  Early risers jumped into the game with breakfast foods, others were craving their favorite sweet tooth fix or salty snack selections, and a few were ready for some serious main course action!

So, here are the answers to this week’s round – broken down into three categories:  Breakfast foods, Snack Fix, and Meaty Main Course!

Let’s Play!

In the Breakfast Category:

Denise (Facebook) answered simply: “Dole whip for me, Mickey waffles for my son” – I slid this answer into the breakfast category because of the waffles and the fact that anytime of day is the perfect time for a Dole Whip!  Denise gets 25 bonus points for thinking of someone else’s stomach instead of just her own!

Curtis Stone (@GeekinOnWDW) “Since it’s morning, I’d like one of those large croissant egg sandwiches I’ve had at Beach Club.”  Having never visited the Beach Club, much less had one of those breakfast sandwiches, I can only speculate about their tastiness, but they do sound perfectly delicious.  And conveniently portable for a breakfast food!

Ideal breakfast EVERY morning

Photo Credit – Jenni Vander Weide

Andrea Roberts (@andpes13)   ‏This time of day I would like the puffed French toast from Crystal Palace…yum!  Then Andrea added, “It’s always a great time!  We try to go there or Boma for a breakfast every trip :)”  Puffed French toast?  Seriously – who would not want to try that?  It sounds like a little bit of heaven…with the added bonus of getting to hang out with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore while you’re feasting!

Jeanie (@jeanieblue114)  “mickey waffle with fruit. I never seem to make it to breakfast. Still have never had Tonga toast”  The Mickey waffle is absolutely a classic – the quintessential Disney breakfast food, but Jeanie knows the truth – they say Tonga Toast is the most amazingly delicious stuff on Disney property – devotees of this menu item from the Polynesian’s Kona Café swear by its perfection….which may explain why it’s been on the menu since 1971!

Snack Fix Section:

Amy (Facebook) “Beignets and a mint julep from New Orlelans Square. Mmmm…”  Initially, this started to go under the breakfast category – that’s when I eat my Beignets (with café au lait, of course) – but serving them alongside a mint julep sounded like a rockin’ afternoon snack to me.  And, as we say here in Louisiana – Amy’s answer “flung a craving on me!”  50 points to Amy for making me hungry for beignets!

Megan (Facebook) “Port Orleans River Roost lounge had these amazingly awesome pimiento cheese fritters with this delicious red pepper jelly on the side.  We ended up having them three or four times during our Disney World trip in January/February and I’ve craved them more frequently than any other snack from Disney World.”  I have stayed at Port Orleans and how these incredible-sounding perfect little combos of sweet and salty goodness escaped my notice is nearly unbelievable!  Has anyone else tried these?  I want them!!!

Ruth (Facebook) “The lemon tart from Raglan Road” – well, Ruth, I love lemon and happen to have myself a little ADR at Raglan Road coming up!  Shall I send you a picture?  ‘Cause I will certainly be giving the lemon tart a try!!

Niki (Facebook) enthusiastically answered – “SELMAS!!!”  Uhmmmm, what?  Niki had me stumped…what the heck is a Selma’s?  I’m supposed to know all about Disney stuff (I do have my own blog and all) and I’m embarrassed to say I had to Google Niki’s answer.  Selma’s is a bakery that makes cookies sold in Disney parks!  Ah, okay, so I asked Niki (pretending I knew all along what she was talking about) what kind she wanted and she answered, “At this moment in my life white chocolate raspberry.” So, Niki – 75 points for stumping me and a gift of sorts in return.  I found a blog while I was conducting my Selma’s research and they claim to have developed a white chocolate cookie recipe to duplicate your Selma’s favorite:  MyBakerLady.com – enjoy!

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Photo Credit – Disney Dream Girls

Heather (Facebook) is absolutely positive, her Disney food delivery would be “cheese empanadas from the Mexico Pavilion.”  Why, Heather, do you need those?  Heather confessed,  “I dream about them. Literally.”  Dreamy food?  Oh, boy – I am going to have to try those empanadas!!!  Great review here at EatingWDW.com  I’m putting these babies in the snack section only because they don’t contain meat, disqualifying them from being among the “Meaty Main Courses”.

Disney Dream Girls (@DisDreamGirls) – The reply was simply a picture of a certain popular frozen treat and…. “need I say more?” #dolewhip #polynesianresort #delish

The WDW Blog (@theWDWblog) “hmmm right now I would have to say the kitchen sink from Beaches & Cream I’ve got a sweet tooth atm :)”  I don’t know if you’ve ever SEEN the monstrosity that is the Kitchen Sink – mother of all ice cream sundaes, but that baby is humongous!  I asked WDW Blog if they knew how much one weighed and the answer was, “Oh geez I have no idea at least 5 pounds lol (that’s without the bowl counting) lol”  I assure you – that is no joke!

Rebecca (Facebook) didn’t want to get left out of this week’s round!  She said,  “Am I too late? Right now I’m thinking Butterfinger cupcake, because that might be the only way I could get it any time soon. :D”  I’ve written an entire post on craving this particular sweet treat and I applaud Rebecca’s choice.  The Butterfinger cupcake (available DSCN2520at Disney’s Hollywood Studios) would satisfy hunger as a breakfast, dessert, or late night snack.  Excellent answer!

Dennis (@oakmanner) “Jalapeño cheese stuffed pretzel!” Okay, Dennis – haven’t had one, but I have heard they’re good.  I want mine with a cold, dark beer to wash it down.  Mmmmmm.

Meaty Main Course Cravings:

Kelley (Facebook) “Filet from LeCellier!  I would say Dole Whip float, but I’ve just about mastered that recipe.”  First – I LOVE the filet at Le Cellier – say what you want about the price or the difficulties one often encounters trying to score an ADR to eat at this table service restaurant in Epcot’s Canada pavilion – the steaks are excellent!  Second, yes, of course I asked Kelley for her Dole Whip recipe and here it is:

  • Ok, here’s the recipe I use for my small ice cream maker: Mix 2 cups Dole pineapple juice and 1 cup sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add 1 cup heavy cream, 1 tsp vanilla, splash of each – lemon juice and lime juice. Add milk to make 4 cups total. Make in ice cream maker, freeze then serve with pineapple juice. YUM!

Teresa (Facebook) “Monte Cristo sandwich!” – Once again, it’s a food item I’ve heard about repeatedly on blogs and podcasts.  It seems the Blue Bayou restaurant at Disneyland serves up a version of this battered-and-fried turkey, ham, and cheese sandwich – sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with blackberry preserves on the side- that is to die for.  Just in case we want to try this and don’t have a trip to California in our near future, here’s a recipe for it from the Disney Food Blog.

Chris Schenck (@Incage2) “ribs from flame tree!”  Now THESE I can recommend!  We love Flame Tree Barbeque at the Animal Kingdom park.  Great food.

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Photo Credit – David Hodges

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Photo Credit: David Hodges

David Hodges (@thedislife)  “Does this count as one food item?” – Like the Dream Girls, Dave answered with a picture – all I can say is Holy COW! (they used a whole cow!) – what on Earth?  Dave tells me his choice is the “Bacon wrapped meatloaf….. Wolfgang :)”  (Wolfgang Puck’s in Downtown Disney) So, I asked Dave how close he came to finishing this meat and potato monstrosity and he answered with another picture!  “I licked the plate and had this for dessert :)”  People, I believe we have a winner!  1000 points to David Hodges for his appetite!

Thank you ALL for playing!  Come back next week and find out the answer to What if……?