Originally intended to document my experience of DeLorean ownership, focus is often radical and strange, boring and obtuse.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Disney World Halloween Party 2009

Great Scott! The Haunted Mansion is-is-is.... haunted!My entire life I've been haunted by a memory which I couldn't place. I was in a round room, without doors or windows. Above me were paintings, or portraits of people. Slowly, the room began to stretch and the portraits with it, revealing that the people were sitting on things: barrels of TNT, tombstones, etc. Whenever I explained the memory to people, they all thought it was a mad hallucination.

When Suz and I arrived at the Magic Kingdom early Tuesday morning, we bee-lined it straight to Disney's Haunted Mansion. I had been dying to go on this ride for as long as I can possibly remember, pardon the pun. Sitting on a slight hill, the creeptacular mansion beckoned me. I was meant to be inside that house.

And you can all guess what happened.

I screamed (with bloodcurdling joy) when our group gathered in the round, windowless, doorless room. I had been here before and I didn't even know it. I had no idea I'd been to the Magic Kingdom before, but my parents confirmed that I was about 6 when I was there.

We rode it first at 9:30 a.m., followed by a second ride just after lunch. I was saving the final ride for the Disney Halloween bash known as Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.

Not all the graves are still. Watch out!At five p.m. Suz and I changed into our costumes, which Disney encourages. The park was closing and when 7 p.m. hit, only those who purchased Halloween Party tickets were allowed to stay and trick-or-treat until midnight. Everyone else got the royal boot, and were not permitted to have any more fun as they were bussed back to their respective Disney resorts.

The Doc Brown in me wanted to put a flux capacitor on the train, but Disney employees wouldn't let me.We re-entered the park in full costume. The train station, armed with hundreds of fog machines, had taken on an eerie transformation. As we walked down Main Street USA, decorated with scarecrows, jack-o-lanterns and other 'ween paraphernalia, I was greeted regularly with variations of "Hey Doc!" My homemade Doc Brown costume was a tremendous hit. Even Disney employees were coming up to me to comment on my handiwork.

After a few guests stopped me and asked if they could take my picture, my Doc Brown costume caught the eye of a Disney employee in one of the parades. The stilt-walking employee stopped in the middle of the street, waving and calling to me emphatically. Suz snapped his picture and I gave him a Martini style thumbs up before he ran back to his position. I'll have to remind myself to thank Christopher Lloyd for all the attention!

Suz and I spent the night trick-or-treating through the park and hopping on the odd ride. (Wait times were usually 5 minutes or less!) It was just as exciting to talk to the people who loved Doc Brown as it was to see the vast, spooky changes made to the park after sunset. It's truly incredible how the Disney engineers use flood lights and ultraviolet lights to change the appearance of nearly every major building. Most notable is Cinderella's castle, which is transformed, essentially, into a foreboding >Castle Dracula!

Around 11 p.m. we sat in the doom buggies for our third and final trip through the Haunted Mansion, which is hands-down the most phenomenal and engrossing ride in the park. In the end I was so dehydrated from the 95 degree weather, the costume, and hauling the heavy bags of candy around that I woke up with the worst "hangover" since last October, making it a true Halloween party.

And for those who want to know what they give out at the Disney Halloween Party 2009, we had really decent stuff: Hershey bars, O'Henry, Three Musketeers, Nestle Crunch, Reese Peanut Butter Cups, 100 Grand bars, Necco wafers, Bottle Caps, Kraft caramels, Laffy Taffy, Airheads, Bit o' Honey, Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Pops, Lollipops, Giant Now & Later, Atkinson Peanut Butter Bars, SweetTarts, Starburst, Dumdums, Sassy Sours and raisin boxes.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Doc Brown Doesn't Drive A F*cking Mustang!

Marty (McFly?) and Bob Gale, writer & producer of Back To The Future.

As soon as I saw him at DCS 2008 I said to Suz, "I think that's Bob Gale!" I remember that when I said it, I felt stupid and nervous. I was nervous that somebody may have overheard me and if I were wrong, I would have felt extremely stupid.

Suz didn't know who he was. In fact, I'm embarrassed to admit, I didn't really know either. I told her that Bob Gale was either the man who wrote Back To The Future, or the man who Produced it, or possibly both.

Turns out 'both' was correct.

At my first opportunity, I approached Mr. Gale, held my Back To The Future trilogy in my outstretched hand, and practically humiliated myself with my phrasing blunder, "I'd love you if you'd sign this for me." This verbal goofage was ironically reminiscent of Marty McFly waking up in 1955 only to have an awkward conversation with his own mother.

Bob Gale signed my trilogy as well as a replica poster of the first Back To The Future movie. He explained to me that, "With a name like Marty, I just had to sign it 'Great Scott!' That's how Christopher Lloyd signs things at these meets." And Bob, if you ever read this, please accept my apology for the slight paraphrasing there. And also for that "love you" thing. Yeah.

But Bob wasn't the only celebrity attending DeLorean Car Show 2008. There was a surprise for all of us: Lee Meriwether, famous for so many things that I can't even possibly hazard a guess as to which she is most known for, also attended, looking absolutely fantastic. Lee MeriwetherLee Meriwether - who would've thought? The winner of the first televised Miss America pageant in 1954; Catwoman, in the 1966 "Batman" movie; an actress who has been on countless classic television shows such as Star Trek, Mission Impossible, The Love Boat and who currently plays a character on All My Children.

You couldn't walk around a corner without bumping into someone famous. On Friday afternoon Suz and I boarded the Gettysburg Battlefield tour bus. And who sat on the seat behind us? That's right, Lee Meriwether. Not only that, but the back of the bus was loaded with Jeff Weissman, aka George McFly from Back To The Future II and III. Yes, even celebrities enjoy a little bit of history.

And the excitement didn't stop there. Lee even joined us for the aerial group photo, where us goofball DeLorean owners stood on a grassy field, using our nerdy bodies to spell out the word 'DELOREAN'. Sandwiched between Lee and yours truly were the rest of the dorks whose duty it was to form the letter L.

On the final night of DCS 2008, the celebrities took to the stage while we rammed tasty food into our mouths. Bob Gale recounted a number of stories regarding the making of the Back To The Future movies, both the troubles, and the joys. During his speech, someone asked him to explain the shirt he was wearing - and he regaled us with the famous story (among BTTF fans anyway) which went a little bit like this.

Product placement (think Pepsi) was big in the Back To The Future movies and someone was hired to manage that aspect of the film. However, according to Mr. Gale, she didn't have a clue what she was doing and ended up subcontracting the job to a shyster. As a prime example of his shadiness, he acquired a large sum of money from Sherwin-Williams, telling them that for (approx.) $10K, he'd ensure the main character walks into a Sherwin-Williams paint store in 1955. When Bob got wind of this, he confronted the shyster and reminded him there is no such scene in the movie. The shyster explained, "I'll just tell them the paint store scene ended up on the cutting room floor."

Week after week this guy's behaviour was grating on Bob and the rest of the team. Finally, he entered Bob's office one day exclaming he had great news. Bob listened nervously while he explained that Ford promised them 50 grand if they changed the Time Machine from a DeLorean to a Mustang. Bob had had enough. The only words to escape his mouth at that meeting were, "Doc Brown Doesn't Drive A Fucking Mustang!" and the rest is well, history. So to speak.

DCS 2006

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

88 Miles Per Hour!

Great Scot! I've gone 22 years into the future! It's Halloween 2007!

Look closely at this picture, and you'll notice that I not only dressed up as Doc Brown for Halloween, but I dressed up my DeLorean as well. Those two black things on the back of the car are the 3rd most awesome feature about the Time Machine from Back To The Future - the cooling towers.

Of course the coolest and second coolest features are Mr. Fusion and the Flux Capacitor, respectively.

I know it's not the most original idea, Doc's radiation suit, but I knew I could make it entertaining for the night of our party. I lost the shots of me actually making the costume, but here's the breakdown: Doc's suit consisted of painter's coveralls purchased at Home Depot for about 8 bucks. I had to spray the wig white for an additional $2.99 Doc puts the 'rad' in rad-iation.Then I painted the neon orange strips with fabric paint from Michael's for about $1.59. I cut the hood off and sewed the collar. The pattern on the back required me to make a stencil, then dab it with black paint until it looked like this. Pardon the wrinkles.

I decided that I really had to go all out with my Back To The Future-themed costume this year, and transform the car as well. Yes, the car would look rather cool by itself. And yes, stepping out of it dressed as Doc Brown would be pretty radical also. But what would make it even better? Cooling towers.

First I needed to see if I could make the cooling towers. I grabbed some cardboard I had lying around since June 2006 and got to work. After almost 2 hours of trial and error cutting and fitting, I had them.

Yep, the cooling towers on the DeLorean looked nifty for sure. But I still needed that wow factor. So I asked myself - what would make the cooling towers even better? Answer - If they worked.

The remnants of so much cleaned-up poop.I asked my friends and family for their used toilet paper rolls and began constructing a smoke-delivery-device. Using the greatest invention of all time, Duct Tape, I fashioned a bendy tubing system that would lead from my fog machine up into the cooling towers.

But I was worried that the smoke would just blow any which way, so I had to think up a way to direct it out of the cooling towers. The answer was easy. Nozzles.

If didn't work, I could use it as some lame gun with next year's 'lame gunman' costume.I grabbed some more duct tape and more cardboard tubes and slapped together a pair of nozzles. I tapered the ends so the smoke would be pushed out with some amount of force. Otherwise, it would just float slowly and carefree. The real Doc Brown would disapprove.

Assembling everything on the car was easier than I thought it would be. I had enough room to practically climb inside the cooling towers. The nozzles were securely fastened to the tubing with more sturdy duct tape. Click here to see an interior shot of the first attached nozzle.

Once the second nozzle was in place, I connected the tubing to my fog machine and gave it a test run. I've never made anything like this before, and did not know what to expect. *Here* is what the fog machine setup looked like.

The night of our party I was very nervous. The fog machine worked, but the smallest amount of wind blew it all over the place - and it was a very windy night! On top of that, it started to rain. I knew the cardboard wouldn't hold up well, and crossed my fingers that the rain stopped. Back here in 2007, we're still 8 years away from 2015's Weather Service.

But luck was on my side as the rain stopped and I was able to entertain friends as they came to the door. The Time Machine was a hit! Here, Braveheart and... Cleopatra? check out the car. Successfully completing this costume brings back such good memories of last year's Duffman.

Update: I've been entered into Rob Cockerham's costume contest at Cockeyed.com! The exact link is here!

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