UPDATE:
It’s Pumpkin season and I’m hip deep on my east coast tour. October 3rd. was the kick off as I was a featured guest at a fundraiser for the NO Bull Music Gala Charity Event in Springfield, Indiana to support nobullchallenge.org. 

They empower teens and young adults to create a YouTube video about their own personal experience or short film about stopping bullying. Top films are then invited to attend an awards gala in Hollywood, California were many receive trophies for their work. This is the brainchild of Scott and Tyler two amazing young men with hearts of gold. These guys are awesome role models for today’s youth. It was a fascinating event and if you’re a young filmmaker I urge you to check it out at No Bull Challenge.  

I’m writing this article as I sit in what is called “The Cave.” It’s a fun little room at the top of a farmhouse. The bed sits in a little alcove and I can hear the wind outside as we prepare for a thunderstorm, ahhh, a thunderstorm, I remember those. There’s wood in the woodstove and a cup of cocoa next to my computer.

Perfect Halloween weather and the best for writing, I’m ready.

I’m here at Crazy Acres a 35 acre farm in Connersville, Indiana. Crazy Acres has a haunted corn maze that expands over 7 acres. It’s the scariest maze you’ll ever experience. It haunts you but it doesn’t gross you out with blood and guts. Instead, it uses suspense to create terror.

You get the feeling that something is lurking, hiding in the shadows, following you as you try to navigate the twists and turns of the maze. Beware as you can get lost as it’s a huge maze and easy to get turned around. This adds to the pending terror as you heart beats faster and faster and panic begins to set in. If you are near Indiana and you’re up for the challenge, go to cornyfunmaze.com for more information.

I’ll be there teaching pumpkin carving classes this weekend and or doing demos. I refuse to go inside the maze as I’m a big chicken. So I’ll be chatting and sharing stories around the campfire for those who prefer not to go into such a scary maze. Lots of other great things to do as well, like an amazing hayride around the scary maze. The hayride isn’t haunted and its fun to hear the screams. It’s good ol’ country fun! So come on down and see me.

AN IMAGINEERING PUMPKIN STORY: To Kick off Halloween.

Walt Disney Imagineering just about closes down for the day on Halloween. This was the way it was when I worked there. All the work just seems to get put on hold. It’s not too hard to imagine as Imagineering is full of artists of course and Disney creates a day full of exciting activities.

Costume contests, Pumpkin carving contests, Mask making and so much more.

This is another reason you want to become an Imagineer. Holidays allow Imagineers to pull out all the stops and show off their talents outside of their job description, and Halloween is their favorite Holiday.

Everyone participates, Animation, MAPO, Archives, and sometimes Disney Studios, however the studio usually puts on its own activities.

One year I was approached by a committee in charge of organizing the festivities for the day, they had seen my pumpkins and had a 135 lb. pumpkin they wanted me to carve. I was more than happy to do so.

The idea was that I’d carve it and it would then be displayed and employees compete to guess the weight. The winner who guesses its weight correctly, would get to take the carved pumpkin home as their prize.

I was given the day before to carve the pumpkin in the back corner of the sculpture dept. My supervisor Rick would pop in and out to see how I was doing then finally sat fascinated chatting with me as I finished up.

Rick and I then rolled my giant finished pumpkin into the cafeteria and set it up for the contest the next day. He kept saying how amazed he was at my work.

The big day had arrived. Halloween at Walt Disney Imagineering! I got up early and put on the costume I had designed, the Ice Fairy from Fantasia. My best friend had helped me with its construction, which included an amazing pair of wings that would move as I shifted my body.

The final touch was that I wore a pair of roller blades so that I appeared to be floating just like in the film. I flew thru the Halls of Walt Disney Imagineering. There were so many clever costumes as I floated from dept. to dept. I remember seeing a guy dressed as a wolf. He looked just like a wolf standing on its hind legs.

Those legs were amazing and they were so skinny. I floated to him and asked him how he had created such an effect. He told me he was a double amputee and that he had constructed these extensions for his legs that were amputated at the knees. He had a staff and this allowed him to walk effortlessly as this wolf character he created.

Think about this, as this is what I’m speaking of when I speak of being an Imagineer. This guy could have easily thrown a pity party for himself, but he didn’t. Instead he delighted in having this unique advantage. His situation allowed him so many wonderful options when it came to costume design. (Cos-play in today’s language).

I was scheduled to teach a class in pumpkin sculpting early that morning (yes, dressed as the ice fairy). It was a basic class designed to teach Imagineers the techniques and then send them off to finish in time to enter a contest held later that day. As the class began, to my surprise, there was Rick sitting in the front row eager and ready to go.

I showed everyone how to look at ugly pumpkins and simply pull from their crazy distortions the character within. Rick grabbed a pumpkin that was smallish at the top and bulged out at the bottom like a bell. We discussed a few ideas on what he could carve and he decided on an old straggly prospector. When it was done, it had the funniest under-bite.

Then, instead of entering it in the contest, Rick took his pumpkin back to his office. He was very proud of it.

The grand Halloween event happens around lunchtime, so even those who were really working could still come down and join in the festivities. Every contest happens then and everyone is there.

At the time I was an Imagineer, 7 of the 9 old men were still with us and they were all lined up as the official judges. This was the ideal time to meet them. My heart pounded as I looked over and saw the row of superstars waiting to judge what all of us had been working so hard to create.

The prizes were actual animation cells from many Disney films, another fantastic amazing heart-stopping perk.

First, I entered my pumpkin, but to my surprise and delight, my entry didn’t even get close to first prize. My students who had just taken my class ran away with the prizes. I was shocked and I was so proud.

This is the way a teacher should be. After all, when a student excels, doesn’t this just prove how good the teacher is? They stomped my entry, I must be a rockstar teacher.

The tables shifted in the costume contest. Gasps were heard as I glided into position and did a little twirl as Fantasia’s Ice Fairy. I flew away with first prize. That was not the best part of my day however. . .

The best part of my day came when, after all the contests where done and the awards given out, I was asked to join the judges at a nearby table.

Imagine yourself in this position. You start to walk over and you begin to register just who you’re getting to sit with. Your head begins to explode with fireworks.

“Look its Ken Anderson the designer of Share Kahn from Jungle Book, my favorite character! Look, it’s Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnson and Marc Davis! Holy ##*! What could they want with me?!”

My heart pounding, I muttered hello and waited for the shoe to fall. They all began smiling and asking me questions about my costume. Seems that my roller blade idea was a good one and they wanted to know all the details. I felt like I was dreaming.

Day turned into night and the next day everything returned to business as usual.

Except….

The next day while I was working on my project, my supervisor Rick bounced into my studio. He had to tell me how excited he was to continually look at the pumpkin he’d created. He simply couldn’t believe that he’d done it all by himself.

“Come see what I’ve done with my prospector.”

I followed him to his office and there atop the filing cabinet set the straggly-toothed prospector. He now had a big floppy hat. Rick decided this was the perfect finishing touch.

“That’s awesome!” I said.

Then I noticed that his pumpkin was sitting on a stack of papers on top of the file cabinet.

“Rick if your going to leave you prospector there I suggest you remove those papers and place a cake pan with a 2 “ depth underneath him just in case he goes to juice.”

He nodded. “Isn’t he so cool?”

Pumpkins contain a lot of water, and the ones I had gotten for my class were a special larger variety and when they go to juice, as I call it, they literally go liquid.

It can happen so fast and without warning.

A couple of days later I returned to Rick’s office to get something approved and I saw that he still had his pumpkin on the shelf, except now it was beginning to show signs of decay.

“Rick, you don’t have a tray under your pumpkin man.”

“Sure, I know. He just gets better looking every day, doesn’t he?”

It’s true, Rick’s pumpkin did look much scarier as the top of his face was beginning to sink into the over bite so that the lower jaw was even with the nose now and the upper teeth were completely covered. The black rot had begun to take shape creating the look of stubble further adding to the effect.

This is a problem I battle. As pumpkins begin to rot the fungus that takes over is black, often making your creations look a lot creepier then when you first created them. You get so fascinated with this evolution that you just don’t want to throw the pumpkin out.

This is why I explain to my students that it’s a good idea to place the pumpkin outside in a garden bed so that if it should go to juice you haven’t ruined anything valuable.

Rick stood there grinning ear-to-ear.
“Please, will you put a pan under that guy?”

Rick promised to place the pan underneath as soon as he got back from lunch. I returned to work.

One hour later I heard a blood-curdling scream. I ran from my studio and into the hall.

There at the doorway stood my supervisor with a pained look on his face. He had the cake-pan in his hand and he sheepishly turned to me.

“I’m, I’m too late.” His voice trailed off and I could barely hear the last part of his sentence.
“Oh No!”

My heart was in my throat as I went to look into the office. There on the filing cabinet sat the hat. No more pumpkin, just the hat and a squished mess that was dripping all over the papers, and inside the cabinet and onto the floor turning all that it touched into a sticky blob of muck. The only part left of the pumpkin lay on the floor, the lower jaw.

Rick can laugh about it now, but on that day he had to spend 4 hours cleaning and laying out his paperwork to dry. I would have liked to have been a mouse in his pocket as he explained to the executives why their documents smelled like old pumpkin.

Rick had learned his lesson, and from that day forward he made sure he had a pan and plastic covering his cabinet whenever he displayed another masterpiece.

READER FEEDBACK

This week’s feedback section is a bit longer then usual. You posted comments that were so insightful that I decided to take a bit more space to respond to them.

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To Jabroniville: Thank you for your post. We often get wrapped up in our own stories and forget that someone we believe is stuck-up or a snob is simply shy.

My husband tends to be shy. He really couldn’t see why a person wouldn’t just walk up and find out what kind of person he is instead of just making something up in their head. I walked up and introduced myself to him. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons he married me.

I’d encourage everyone reading to think about this the next time they think someone is being a snobby. They might just be shy.

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To Kimkatkim: Thank you and right back at you fellow dreamer. Please continue to keep up your good positive attitude as it really affects all those around you.

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To rstar: Thanks and yes, I did create the original chickens puppets for the Foster Farms Chicken Campaign. I promise to tell you all about this soon. I’ll say one thing about the chickens. We never thought it would last as long as it has. I’ve played the Foster Farms Chicken Passenger for over 20 years. You can view these commercials on YouTube.

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To Mandrini, Mr. Disney, hockeyland, Brack Daddy, HT77 and thejonesman:

I agree that we’re all kindred sprits. You can do anything you put you mind to. You CAN be an Imagineer. However, you’ll be tested as we often are. Your dreams are worth fighting for, as what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. So keep going and when you need a word of encouragement, come here to MiceChat. We’ll keep you inspired.

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To CaptainAction: It is a shame an Imagineer is often forced to work with a small budget. It’s best however to consider this a challenge and to creatively do something that looks amazing, so that it appears to be more expensive. That’s what being an Imagineer is all about, doing what seems impossible to others. However, if the budget keeps getting cut, that could be a challenge in itself which may have been what happened in the example you posted.

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To tooncity and Dan Bieranowski:  I agree with you as far as outside influences and Disney Parks. Walt Disney took his inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s Castle from the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. I’m not sure why your Imagineer decided to take the position he did, but you’re correct that it’s a shame he hadn’t done his research. I want to point out, that you might want to work on not getting so upset when someone wishes to comment on something you bring up here at MiceChat. Dan Bieranowski was agreeing with you as to the use of outside sources, but found that most of the Imagineers he spoke with were knowledgeable. This is an open forum. Anyone can comment and please don’t take offense when they do. It’s truly not personal and there’s nothing like a good debate. So try not to make it personal. I hope you both will continue to comment, as I enjoy the passion I see in all who post.

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Please continue to comment and post. Your passion and love for all things Disney is inspiring…….See you all again soon!

 

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