"Positive Attitude Reflects Todays Youth" - Let's Watch "The Party In Concert"

Goodness, I can't wait to experience (vicariously, through Disney Blog People who can actually afford this thing) the Galactic Starcruiser Interactive Experience can you?  In the meantime, let's travel back to the early days of Disney Hollywood Studios, especially for those of you who were longing for a weird vintage Disney special the past few weeks.

The audio quality on this one is kind of bad but it's pretty fascinating.  This is "The Party In Concert" from 1990, and early-90's Disney Channel doesn't get much more pure than this.  (Like, look at the schedule for the rest of the evening right at the beginning of the video.  Late-night Disney Channel was basically uncharted space back then, and you could tune in and see anything.  Classic movies, a documentary, a concert, maybe even an actual vintage Disney thing, or a combination of two or more of these!)

I'm not even sure if the special itself is as interesting as The Party itself as an entity.  The Party (and yes, it does stand for "Positive Attitude Reflects Today's Youth, and that's maybe the funniest aspect of the whole thing) was composed of five particularly popular and talented teenagers with Disney sanctioned attitude plucked from the ranks of the 90's Mickey Mouse Club: Albert Fields, Tiffini Hale, Chase Hampton, Damon Pampolina, and future Pearl voice actress Deedee Magno.  They were pitched to us kids as our new favorite band ever and promoted as such, starring in specials and on a regular segment on the Mickey Mouse Club and recording a cover of a Rubinoos song (one which would be the center of a small controversy later) which was the style at the time.

Now even at the time, I thought, "Clearly Disney saw how popular New Kids On The Block were so they made their own pop group.  I am sorry for The Party, but I am already too much of a fan of NKOTB!  And by 'a fan' I mean, given my as-yet-undiagnosed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, 'I start vibrating through several formes and dimensions with an intensity that could shatter glass when I see that one Magic Can commercial.'  Anyway.  I am not falling for this."

Now as an adult, I wondered if that really was The Party's origin story.  Surely there's more to it?  Well, not really.  Disney really did see how insanely lucrative NKOTB were, so they reverse-engineered their own even more wholesome group (and later created an even squeakier clean, no reckless use of the word "Hell" version of them with the MMC group).  They lasted into 1993, releasing a final album ominously, wonderfully titled "The Party Is Over", and reunited a few years ago.  Last I checked, they're scheduled to perform for Walt Disney World's 50'th Anniversary at Disney Springs.

So that's The Party.  A weird Disney moment from the weird 90's.  More dinosaurs and/or animation next week, I promise.

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Art!  A beautiful fellow who visits the Cornell Panama Fruit Feeder sometimes.  Lizards really are the best live models:

A Happy Holiday To All!

Here at the Blog, we've explored all kinds of holiday specials, the good, the bad, and the weird.  In all those years, one special evaded me.  It was a Christmas special I only saw once ever and remembered... not fondly.  Not fondly at all really.  In fact, I remember it being pretty bad.  The thing is, how bad was it, really?  It seemed this would forever remain a mystery.

Until this year.  The YouTube search finally came through.  Some wonderful crazy person (screennamed Ram Jam) finally uploaded it.  Cue the jingle bells and popcorn drum machine and sparkly synths, and journey back to 1990 with me, cause it's time for "Merry Merry Christmas".  It's time for the New Kids on the Block cartoon Christmas Episode!



So.  It's not just that this is as bad and weird as I remember from the one ever time I saw this during the one ever time it aired.  It's worse and weirder.  It's like they purposefully went out of there way to make a "Star Wars Holiday Special" for boy bands.  My favorite WTF moment is that moving "Biscuit in a Santa Claus suit stares out the car window contemplating the magic of a Christmas night in New York City as Jordan Knight falsettos the sh*t out of a sad/inanely cheesy Christmas song" scene.  All the songs are from the "Merry Merry Christmas" album which... is a Christmas album that exists.

I also think we can all agree that this is a (very very distant) second-best ever production involving Donnie Wahlberg where there is a sad weird kid and mystery everywhere and a character who turns out to be a ghost in the end.

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Since I know maybe three of you here are as thrilled about this crappy decades-old cartoon as I am, here is another present.  Over the summer my aunt, cousins, and friends all got puppies.  One day the three little sweeties all came over for a puppy party, and how could I resist?  So here are cute drawings of cute dogs!  Happy, merry, holly, jolly season's greetings here!

The New Coke Experience

Today I'm going to take you on a journey.  A journey involving music and advertising, brand loyalty, nightmares of late-stage capitalism, and, most of all, high-fructose corn syrup.  Lots of it.

Yes, friends, it is time to talk about New Coke!  Before I do, enjoy this traditional song of my people ("my people" being "people who were preteen girls in the '90's").  I have had it in my head all week and now you will too: 



I... might have to talk about this lesser-known Coke fiasco as well, so hold that thought.  In the meantime, have a somewhat more immediately relevant song from a Maurice Starr-involved group from Boston:



In one of the weirder cross-promotions in recent memory, to celebrate the upcoming third season of "Stranger Things", Coke has brought back the notorious 1985 New Coke recipe for a limited run.  Normally, if you want to try New Coke here in the future, you'll either have to order the stuff from their website or go to an event.  But recently, Dinosaur Dracula ran a contest to win one of the cans of New Coke.  I entered on a whim because hey, why not me?

And I won!  As I held the can in my hand, a can that had already been on a heck of an adventure, I could not help but feel a wondrous sense of destiny.  First, enjoy this documentary about the New Coke fiasco:



That was a Lot.  On the one hand, I couldn't help but wonder if this is where we, as a culture, learned that big corporations will bend to our will if we scream at them loud enough.  Which, let's be clear, is a terrible terrible thing.

Except in this one case.

See, imagine if, when Disney Presents Real People "Aladdin" was released last week, somehow all our copies of the animated "Aladdin" vanished.  Unbelievable, and that's essentially what Coke did.  The change lasted a couple months and was such a spectacular debacle that to this day, Coke cans must assure us that they have the "Original Taste".  Behold:

This of course gave me a chance to taste-test, uh, Not-New Coke.  Which brings me to the thing with me and New Coke.  I have read about it.  I have heard about it.  It has been a go-to “Hey, remember that weird thing that happened in the 80’s” reference nearly my entire life.

And it is one of the very rare generation-defining pop culture events that I completely missed out on.  To be fair, I was seven at the time.  New Coke wouldn't have registered to me because, well, everything was new to me.  I might have even drank it back then, I wouldn't know.  In any case, now was my chance as a (mostly) fully-aware adult person to taste New Coke.

Two things before I give my verdict.  First, and most important, if you were about to scream at me for cracking open a can of soda and drinking it instead of leaving it in a display case or preserving it in amber or something because it is a ~*~Limited Edition~*~ or whatever, please don't.  On the one hand, full soda cans don't preserve well as evidenced by my friend whose shelf was obliterated in an incident involving OK Soda.  Also, I (barely) survived Beanie Babies and the very idea of ~*~Limited Edition~*~ anything is, as the kids say, Maximum Cringe.

Second and more important, fellow long-time fans of Matt's writing will probably have already realized something amusing.  And it's that he would have had to send this dear little can of Coke deep in the heart of Pepsi territory:

(Sadly, the old X-Entertainment Bar Harbor adventure seems to be lost to the mists of time.  I didn't have any Pepsi to compare anyway.  Nor Moxie or Captain Eli for that matter.)

So, after all this, how did it taste?!?

Um, well, hmm...

It's... okay.  Not great, certainly not changing a hundred-year-old recipe for, but not the malted battery acid I had been left to expect all these years.  For the very curious, good luck in acquiring a can.  For the mildly curious, it's not worth it.

Now about the Coke-involving fiasco I do remember:



How cool would it be to pop open a can of soda and have money pop out instead?  Well, turns out this was a good idea in theory, because many of these Magic Cans malfunctioned.  You wouldn't know you had a winning can until you'd drank your Coke.  Which would be fine... if Coke had not decided, for reasons unknown, that foul-smelling chlorinated water was the right thing to fill these Magic Cans with.  And so the Magic Summer lasted about a month.  Would I have known about this, or even cared, if New Kids on the Block weren't involved?  Probably not.

Anyway, I think I'm going to drink some water.

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Art!  A little landscape.  Or Lake-scape.

"Ah, man, I heard about this thing..." - Let's watch "The Dream is Alive"!

I reiterate: I like to watch vintage Disney Park specials before heading down to The World.  I like to see what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what I missed out on that I honestly wouldn't believe actually happened unless they were documented on film for posterity.

"Walt Disney World's 20'th Anniversary: The Dream is Alive" does not preserve much of the latter (save for a brief glimpse of a Pleasure Island marquee).  In fact, this Disney Park Anniversary Special contains almost NO footage of Walt Disney World at all.  What it gives us instead is Michael Eisner -a LOT of Michael Eisner- struggling to be as charismatic as possible.

Whew, they really don't make them like this anymore.  Look for Eddie Murphy's expression at about the seven minute mark, because I had a similar one watching this.



Side note: Me having to pause and rub my temples at the sight of Michael Eisner's credit in "Bojack Horseman" is the new me having to pause and rub my temples at the sight of Seth MacFarlane's credit in "Cosmos". 

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Art of the Day!

Speaking of Especially Weird Disney Things, we recently got a look at "Kingdom Hearts 3" and...

Oh no...

Oh nooooo...

Never mind Irene, let's watch this Amazing Disney Special Montage and InnerTube TV!

But before we do that, I got the kind of comment I write this blog for which prompted a major, major update on the Ranger Rick article, so go read it and see.

Alright, back to the subject at hand. Everything Is Terrible, you're my hero.





So this is thirty late-70's through early-90's Walt Disney World specials in thirty minutes. I remember SO many of these from when I was a kid. It felt like Disney made two of these specials every year (I don't even think they still do the yearly Christmas parade special these days).

One of the specials is a whole hour-long production with random celebrity guests and musical numbers dedicated entirely to the opening of Splash Mountain. A whole television special for the opening of one ride! Hell, Disney can't even get that excited about the Fantasyland expansion project these days.

More thoughts:

* - Let me guess. Little potential future robotics engineer who could have invented something that changes the world for the better instead learns the Power of Disney Magic! (Spoiler: Not quite, but close.)

* - They didn't know what the heck they were doing with Pleasure Island even back then.

* - For the 15 year anniversary of Walt Disney World, a random prize was given out at the ticket gate every fifteen seconds. You could randomly get anything from a pin to a free hat to free park tickets to a free Thunderbird! Holy sh*t! Right now the best WDW prize you could hope for is to be locked in a small room inside Cinderella Castle all night for one night. I don't even know if they're doing anything special for their 40'th anniversary.

* - Never mind that now: Two generations of Mouseketeers! Say, aren't today's kids long overdue for a Mickey Mouse Club of their own?

* - Totally Minnie: here to compete with Barbie and Jem. Yup.

* - Jeez, that free-roaming robot is terrifying!

* - But not as much as the "Too Smart for Strangers" clip they sneaked in.


* - I wish I could get excited about anything as much as the "Fantasia" crocodiles get about pizza.

* - My God, the Gepetto song is chilling...

* - I could swear I saw that "Spirit of America" parade as a kid. Now I've got the song back in my head. Great.

* - Giant. Babies.


* - That vulture is so ashamed to be with Chicago Taio Cruise Pablo Cruise instead of soaring over the Serengeti.

* - Anyone know who the weird singing redheaded Justin Bieber lookalike and the really lanky guy who falls down the manhole are? (EDIT: Thanks Anonymous Commenter Person!)

Speaking of Weird Disney Things, I am so very happy to learn, right from the Mouse's mouth, that I didn't imagine this. Somewhere, Xzibit is shedding a single tear at it's beauty.

And then, on a totally different note that is too cool not to share, there's "InnerTube TV":



I had a fever dream on the morning I wrote this post. It wasn't nearly as awesome and random as "InnerTube TV". This was a very early and very weird pilot for what would eventually become "The Jim Henson Hour". Note the strange early versions of characters who'd be modified for "Hour". You can also spot characters in the house band who'd be modified and eventually show up in the equally all-but-forgotten Jim Henson production, "Faffner Hall". I like the incredibly catchy songs -- and the fact that Kermit is fully aware that this version of the show doesn't have a chance clicking with people.

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Sketch of the Day!

My new Sketchbook is huge...



The book (which I cannot wait to read) and Carnegie Collection Parasaurolophus are there for scale. It's a little tiny bit awkward carrying this size Sketchbook around, and it will fit no scanner there is, but I have been drawing more so that's good.



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Important: So... I might not have power or internet access by the time this publishes. Please be patient with regards to comment moderation, ect. Thursday's scheduled feature will hopefully make everything all better.

Yet Again with the Links of Interest!

Because it's been a wacky Memorial Day Weekend! And that means we're on a two-posts-per-week summer schedule! Here is some news I managed to read in time to regurgitate here:

I should save this one for last, but here is a review, on Comics Alliance, of what just might be the greatest ever work of western literature. That was written by a nine-year-old girl. Circa 1990. It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

Maybe this is old news for most of you, but Darren Naish found a thing.

TetZoo also posted an article on one of the strangest animals you'll ever see.

Speaking of animals, turns out reindeer may be able to perceive ultraviolet light. I got a new theory about Rudolph's nose.

There's another new teaser trailer for "Muppets Legacy" (hee hee) and, as Tough Pigs demonstrates, it's basically incomprehensible if you managed to never see the teaser for "Hangover 2". I still don't know if I'm sold on New Guy Walter.

Speaking of teaser trailers. When I reviewed "Happy Feet" back when this blog was young, I said that nothing in the world could be as deeply surreal as the in-film sight of a cute little newly hatched baby Emperor Penguin singing "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. Suffice it to say that in the new teaser for "Happy Feet Two: Penguin in the City", George Miller has outdone that scene. Twice.

Speaking of movies that may scar you for life, Pajiba has a terrific list with clips, and half the films on the list are wonderfully obscure.

And on the same subject, the very funny "How Did This Get Made?" podcast discussed the notorious super-long McDonald's commercial/"E.T." rip-off "Mac and Me", and tried to determine exactly what the message of the movie was supposed to be.

And yet more things that might scar a child for life! While we're stuck with the incredibly stupid "Hey we should sue ourselves for stealing our own taste" campaign, Bogleech showed us that the way they advertise Coke Zero in the UK is... different.

There's a nifty new website called Living Lines Library with a ton of animation production art to sift through.

If you needed proof that the well-loved and familiar American Robin has no {censored}s to give, the Urban Pantheist has found some.

So... this is what goes down during Walt Disney World's Star Wars Weekends. Holy cow the thing that happens at the 1:07 mark.

This is evidently concept art from "Dinosaurs vs. Aliens". It's almost exactly what I expected.

Disney is apparently planning to release "The Lion King" to theaters this autumn in 3D. While I do want to see "TLK" on the big screen again, I have no idea how that's going to look.

i09 shared this whimsical animated short.

I can't express how deeply disappointed I am to learn that we may indeed be getting a "Fantasia"-Style History of the Earth (tm) in "Tree of Life" (first the Earth forms, then suddenly there are dinosaurs, then they conveniently go extinct to make way for YAY HUMANS WOO!!!). However, all is not lost. We've got "The Voyage of Time" to look forward to now.

And there's a new teaser image from "Brave"! Woo-hoo!

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Sketch of the Day! Another thing I need to bring to finish:

Nobody Doesn't Like Therizinosaurs!

In which I describe the step-by-step* process by which I made a picture for the Therizinosaur Gallery, which will appear at the ART Evolved website in March.
* - You're going to get the song in your head anyway, you might as well listen to it now. :)
Step One: Where we can have lots of fun.
I can't show you the real Step One, coming up with an idea. I hit upon a concept that has to do with one of the reasons why Therizinosaurs are among my favorite animals: paleoartists had such a hard time trying to work out what these animals *were* -never mind what they looked like- throughout the years.
So I sketched out a drawing of a modern, accurate-as-far-as-we-know Therizinosaur (on the bottom here) looking in confused disgust at some earlier interpretations. Then I scanned it.

And here's the scan as it appeared when I opened it up in Photoshop.

Step Two: Where there's so much we can do!

I rotated the image and saved it. Now the "Therizinosaur" on the far left is based on an old shame in Gregory S. Paul's otherwise excellent book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. He thought they were some kind of "predatory prosauropod", or even a mishmash of bones from random animals!
The guy in the middle is a happy character from the video game "Dino Crisis" (shows up at the 6.50 mark) - though I know I've seen this "look" before. Seems to be based on the assumption, "well golly, they got big gigantic claws, they MUST have eaten meat!" Of course.
Before inking the sketch, I got out my copy of Predatory Dinosaurs and looked for a drawing of an actual Therizinosaur skeleton online. Turns out the proportions were a little off - generally, these animals are more awkward than you think they are.

So I sketched out their longer necks in blue. (I love my Wacom tablet.) I'll use this as a guide in the next step.

Step Three: Where it's just you an' me-e-ee!!!

Here's the inking halfway finished. I do each figure on a different layer. That way, I can move them around and make sure they're all standing on the same "floor" when I'm done. I can also shift the two long-necks around so I can trace their original heads, then move them to where they should be according to the blue sketch.
Since I got my Mac, I've fallen in love with some of the stranger brushes in Photoshop CS4. Now I usually ink with a calligraphy pen brush. This keeps the drawing from looking "too neat".
Here's the inking all finished:


Step Four: Where I can give you more!

The "Predatory Prosauropod" is now in glorious extra-color. Note the gray background, which helps me not forget to paint in the white areas. This step usually takes the longest depending on what coloring method I use. (This time, I used a variation on the method detailed by illustrator Tony Cliff in this tutorial.) This is most often the step where I say, "Thank God for layers".

Step Five: Doncha know that the time has arrived!
And here is the final piece!

Is the "Dino Crisis" guy too gory? Nah.

My Little Pwny - A Girl and her Quest for a Fleet of Fuzzy Fliers

I am still recovering from this past weekend. But I have also just listed my very first group of items up for auction on Ebay. Do have a look, won't you? And you know, it's high time I write about this My Little Pony thing. There will certainly be more about this later.

Some weeks ago, I was working on some Photoshoppery when I started getting very hungry. I checked the mailbox on the way to the kitchen and --
Bouncy and her baby! This was a deal on Ebay that I just could not pass on. They seriously needed a bath, but afterward, they looked lovely. They were ready to stand among my growing army of So-Soft Pegasuses.

Aren't they lovely? I have more on the way from the "worldwide garage sale". Click for a bigger picture and the surprisingly sweet story behind Northstar and her kid.