More from the NFFC Kickoff

But FIRST:

Thanks to those of you whom I asked privately to send me your Desert Island Disney Disks. The first installment, the top ten fave Disney songs (and why) of my Unca Donald in Seattle, will debut today, Friday the eighth. (See LaughingPlace.com/Radio)

If you want to send me your Desert Island Disney Disk choices, email the titles (they have to be actually released for me to play them, remember - I'm not going to sing them no matter how nicely you ask ) from ten to one, and, most importantly, why each individual song is important to you. Thanks!

Brad Card and Dennis Tanida had the audience entranced with their painstaking description and great pictures of Tokyo DisneySea. Brad attended opening day, and had one of the little blue flags that everyone waved to prove it. Tokyo DisneySea opened with great ceremony - and a boat parade. The flags were "better than a pin" said Brad. There was so much joy, he noted, ten thousand excited, happy people ready to see Disney's newest theme park. Lindsay and Lee (xoxox) were there, as well as Brad's Japanese host. The host's wife, however, was not there. She was being "dutiful" and standing in line for Fastpass for the Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea attraction. There was a two hour wait for Fastpass that day.

Dennis told the story of how he got on to the DisneySea project. Dennis has in his possession a collection of Walt Disney Imagineering rejection letters - and they're all his. In 1988, he received a two-page-long rejection letter, which essentially said: "Thank you, we've reviewed your file, which is now about ten letters thick. You are very persistent. Don't call us, we'll call you." Dennis kept plugging away at his architectural job, and his company finally had the chance to bid on the American Waterfront for Tokyo DisneySea. They didn't get it.

His boss told him: "It's your fault we didn't get it!" and sent him to WDI to try to get them to "throw them a bone". It was 10:00 A.M. Friday, and he went to get something for his company from Disney - ticket booths and dog kennels!

They then loaned a staff member to the Disney's Animal Kingdom project, but soon afterward, he moved to Sacramento, and panic ensued.  

The Boss said, "Dennis, can do that!" 

Dennis: "No, I can't. I have tons of other stuff to work on."  

The WDI people: "Are you a citizen? Do you have a passport? Can you go to Spain Friday?"

Boss: "Yes."

Dennis: "...."

That trip to Spain was the last research trip, says Dennis, that WDI did for any project.

Dennis and the other Imagineers took about ten-thousand pictures (That's about how many most of us take on trips to Walt Disney World, isn't it? ~Fab) of different buildings, facades, and castles. The Fortress, Tokyo DisneySeas' Castle, has a five-star Club 33-type restaurant (except it's open to the public) called Magellan's inside - ask to dine in the wine cellar dining room and you'll be taken behind a secret bookcase! He showed some of the edifices he'd studied, then the places he build inside Tokyo DisneySea where he'd carried that lesson over. 

In Portugal he discovered that a majority of their art was centered around sea creatures, as the Portuguese are seafaring people.  

The other project he worked on was the galleon in front of the fortress. It's actually a building, not a ship! The art director didn't believe that they could do it realistically and it could still be a building. They debated back and forth how to design the galleon, and studied the work of Ray Wallace, who had designed Disneyland's Sailing Ship Columbia and was a well-known Naval architect. Dennis had a great idea, which Disney, unfortunately, said no to: build the ship as a ship in Long Beach, and have Roy Disney sail it to Tokyo for the opening. (Roy is a world-class Yachtsman, his Pyewacket is one of the fastest around.) "You've got to be crazy!" the Project Manager said.

A couple of months ago, Dennis continued, he'd gone to Walt Disney World for the launch of the 100 Years of Magic celebration. There were lots of models and renderings there, icons from every park, and - a dream come true for anyone who ever dreamed of becoming an Imagineer - "my project was there". There was no photography allowed, however, so he hung around, hoping the CM would go inside the theatre so that he could sneak a photograph. No dice. However, the CM did chat with him a while, asking him if he was interested in the project, as the CM had quite a juicy secret about it.  

"Really?" Dennis asked.

The CM shared that the Fortress was the site of the World's Largest Hidden Mickey. You can apparently see it via satellite, but, unfortunately, Microsoft Terraserver isn't showing it. 

Brad and Dennis then thanked all of the contributors to the presentation, including LaughingPlace.com and Marc Borelli, and Brad thanked the Ambassador hotel and Singapore Air!

Next: Jeff Kurtti - twice!

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-- Michelle Smith