If there's one thing you can guarantee a Disney geek will be proud of, it's his or her profound knowledge of all things Disney. And one of the best ways to put that trivia knowledge to an extreme test is to compete in one of the craziest, funnest, uniquely Disney geekiest events out there: MouseAdventure!

MouseAdventure is produced by the Disney fan and news site MousePlanet, and on their website, MouseAdventure is described as...

I discovered MousePlanet about eight years ago, in the time leading up to Disneyland's 50th Anniversary Celebration. I was searching the Internet for all kinds of info about the park's events, its history and goings on that year. They have a discussion board, MousePad, and for a few months I lurked through the Disneyland threads discovering a lively community of fans like me, before ultimately registering and joining in the discussion. (I go by user name Gone2Disneyland.)

Eventually, I learned about their little scavenger hunt game and finally got the courage to form a team with some fellow Disney friends and register to play. My first MouseAdventure was played in the Spring of 2007. Our team, It's All About ME! And Frank, placed 6th in the Basic Division out of 83 teams. So close to the Top Three and having so much fun embracing the challenge of the quests we had to tackle, it was a no-brainer we'd return to play again.

Alas, after many twice-a-year MouseAdventures and a variety of team members shuffling up the line up, placing in the top three remained elusive. But after a time, it just became more about being challenged and having some fun going through it than needing to win. I was fine with that.

Then of course, that's when things turned around.

After five years of MouseAdventure with different iterations of the team I started, I dropped out of my own team to play for another. I needed a change.

The new team I joined called themselves the Naboombu All-Stars, and they were made up of other local theatre friends. And in an ironic twist, I had no clue what relevance their team name had to Disney history. I've since amended that lack of knowledge.

They learned about MouseAdventure from me too, and they had played the last few games, getting the hang of the game and after placing 4th in the previous MouseAdventure, were getting hungry to break into the top three. And truth be told when they had a spot to fill on their team, they figured having me on their team wouldn't hurt. As it turned out, our first time playing together was the first time any of us had placed in MouseAdventure at all. Not only that, we won First Place in Basic division! For all my yapping that I wasn't playing to win anymore, it was a pretty welcome surprise that reach that feat!

We played again in the next two MouseAdventures. With expectations distractingly high after our first win, playing MouseAdventure Road Games at DCA was challenging, especially under the 100° heat on game day. We placed 7th overall, but in a game that included Advanced teams with the Basic ones. So we played against teams that had been above our level. Returning this past Sunday for our second MouseAdventure together in MouseAdventure Musical, with the divisions separated as usual, we pulled out our second First Place/Basic win!

MouseAdventure teams who earn three First Place wins are retired from the games, earning the title of Masters. Masters teams can still play, but only non-competitively and many Masters team members also decide to help with Beta testing new quests and work as volunteers during game day. We've discussed it, and we think the next time the Naboombus play, we'll register for the Advanced division. With only one more chance to place first before being retired, we figured it was finally a good time to play with the big boys!

Here's a link to the recap of MouseAdventure Musical, the one we just played, to get an idea of the kinds of activities, puzzles and quests you'd face if you participated. There are also links in the paragraphs above to past MouseAdventure recaps to look through as well.

Included with every MouseAdventure game I've played are trivia questions. Each question is worth 2 points, and I've included the ones we had to answer this last game at the end of this blog. Feel free test yourself to see how you'd do with actual trivia questions from a MouseAdventure. Answers are at the very end.

Here's the official page for MouseAdventure, and here's the MouseAdventure discussion board. Take a look through them for more info. Then, if you're interested in forming a team and playing yourself, be sure to sign up to their newsletter at MousePlanet.com to learn when registration begins. The next games are in the Fall.

MOUSEADVENTURE MUSICAL TRIVIA QUESTIONS

1. Music in the queue of Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is from this decade:
A 1920s
B 1930s
C 1940s
D 1950s 
E 1990s

2. What song do guests hear while waiting to disembark from Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage?
A Under the Sea
B Sea Cruise
C Beyond the Sea
D Sea of Love
E Too Many Fish in the Sea

3. Which of these musicals did not run at Disneyland's Videopolis/Fantasyland Theater? 
A Dick Tracy starring in Diamond Double Cross 
B Mickey's Nutcracker 
C The Spirit of Pocahontas 
D Snow White: An Enchanting Musical 
E Twice Charmed: A Cinderella Story

4. This band provided the song for the Rockin Space Mountain makeover at Disneyland:
A Aerosmith 
B Van Halen 
C Red Hot Chili Peppers
D One Direction 
E Bon Jovi

5. This Disney actor voiced Sam, the host of America Sings:
A Fred MacMurray 
B Burl Ives
C Kurt Russell
D Ed Wynn 
E Sterling Holloway

6 The Main Street Window in honor of The Musical Quill is for this person: 
A X Atencio
B Marv Davis 
C Marc Davis
D Ken Anderson 
E Claude Coats

7 The Silly Symphony Swings, based on The Band Concert, operates to this well-known song: 
A 1812 Overture 
B The William Tell Overture
C Yankee Doodle 
D The Stars and Stripes Forever
E Turkey in the Straw

8 On the show Disneyland Showtime, this famous musical family gets to ride the Haunted Mansion with EJ Peaker and Kurt Russell:
A The Jacksons
B The Carpenters
C The Osmonds
D The Carters
E The Cowsills

9 If you go to the Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland, don't try to find this song; it was cut several years ago:
A Rockin Robin
B Offenbach's Barcarolle
C Birdland
D Tiny Bubbles
E Pachelbel's Canon in D

10 Whats the name of the show on the Disney Wonder cruise ship that gives awards to Disney films and characters?
A Golden Mickeys
B Golden Walts 
C Golden Disneys
D Golden Minnies 
E Golden Dreams

11 Swisskapolka could be heard in an attraction in this land:
A Fantasyland 
B New Orleans Square
C Critter Country 
D Adventureland
E Tomorrowland

12 Who conducts the Just Add Water concert on the Paradise Pier lagoon?
A Mickey
B Donald 
C Goofy
D Stitch 
E Dopey

13 This TV special aired when Disneyland opened Mickey's Toontown:
A Toontown Rocks
B Party in Toontown
C Toontown Tonight
D Rock N Toontown
E Rock n Roll at Mickey's House

14 Fill in the blanks to this Sherman Brothers song from Adventures Thru Innerspace: A world of __________ , of endless __________, with treasures more than man can ever spend!
A mystery, energy
B energy, mystery
C molecules, possibilities
D possibilities, energy
E mystery, possibilities

15 Are we on our way to Nottingham, to Brittingham, to Buckingham or any hammy hamlet by the sea? No! We're on our way to hang out with this character:
A Peter Pan
B Alice in Wonderland
C Roger Rabbit
D Pinocchio
E Mr. Toad

16 In Muppet Vision 3-D, Sam's Salute to All Nations, but Mostly America includes this classic Disney tune:
A Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah
B it's a small world
C When You Wish Upon a Star
D A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes
E The Mickey Mouse Club March

17 Disney's All-Star Music Resort at Walt Disney World is considered to be this type of resort:
A Deluxe
B Moderate
C Home Away From Home
D Value
E Military

18 Which name is not part of Thomas O'Malley's full name based on the song he sings?
A Giussepe
B Abraham
C Casey
D Delacy
E Augustus

19 The Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy horns can play all of these songs, except:
A Be Our Guest 
B
A Whole New World
C When You Wish Upon A Star
D A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes
E Yo Ho (A Pirates Life For Me)

20 Why Don't You Do Right? is sung by this character who appears in Roger Rabbits Cartoon Spin:
A Roger Rabbit
B Benny the Cab
C The Weasels
D Jessica Rabbit
E Bongo the Gorilla Bouncer

21 True or False: You can hear the theme song to Blazing Saddles as you walk through Frontierland.
A True
B False


22 In the song “Grim, Grinning Ghosts,” what kind of wake is it?
A Scary
B Spooky
C Splendid
D Swinging
E Somber

23 “ The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” which was also sung by the characters Henry and Sammy in the Country Bear Jamboree, came out first in this year:
A 1953
B 1954
C 1955
D 1956
E 1957

24 This song from Newsies can be heard in the Red Car News Boys show at Disney California Adventure:
A “Carrying the Banner”
B “Santa Fe”
C “The World Will Know”
D “High Times, Hard Times”
E “Seize the Day”

25 “Fortuosity” is not only a store on Main Street, but also a song from this Disney movie:
A Pete’s Dragon
B The Happiest Millionaire
C Summer Magic
D The Parent Trap
E The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

26 The new full-service restaurant in Walt Disney World’s Fantasyland is named for this song in Beauty and the Beast:
A “Something There”
B “Be Our Guest”
C “Beauty and the Beast”
D “Human Again”
E “Belle”

27 This Sherman Brothers song, from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, makes inanimate objects move:
A “Higitus Figitus”
B “Bye-Yum-Pum-Pum”
C “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” 
D “Substitutiary Locomotion”
E “Ooo-de-Lally”

28 What is the name of the a capella group that performed in the lobby of Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln?
A Voices of Liberty
B Songs of Freedom
C Voices of Freedom
D Songs of Liberty
E Red, White and Blue Baladeers

29 “A Lady Has to Mind Her Ps and Qs” could be heard in this Disneyland attraction:
A The Disneyland Railroa
B Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
C Splash Mountain
D Mine Train Thru Nature’s Wonderland
E The Golden Horseshoe

30 What is the name of the “gift” that Captain EO and his team have to give the Supreme Leader?
A “We Are Here to Change the World”
B “Billie Jean”
C “Rock With You”
D “Just Another Part of Me”
E “When You Believe”

31 Casey Jr. has its own attraction in Fantasyland, and its own song in this Disney film. Do you remember which?
A “Make Mine Music”
B “Melody Time”
C “Dumbo”
D “Fantasia”
E “Saludos Amigos”

32 This Disney attraction got its own version of “Macarena” in the 1990s:
A The Jungle Cruise
B Star Tours
C “it’s a small world”
D The Enchanted Tiki Room
E The Matterhorn Bobsleds

33 Peter Pan’s “The Second Star to the Right” was originally written for another Fantasyland attraction based on this film:
A Dumbo
B Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
C Pinocchio
D Sleeping Beauty
E Alice in Wonderland

34 What’s the name of the band in The Country Bear Jamboree?
A Bear Cave Five Plus Two
B Bearly There
C The Five Bear Rugs
D The Sun Bonnet Trio
E Henry and the Hibernators

35 According to the Sherman Brothers (and Disney lore), this was Walt’s favorite song:
A “It’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”
B “Feed the Birds”
C “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius”
D “Fly A Kite”
E “it’s a small world”

36 If you are in Toontown, you can sing this line appropriate to Gadget’s Go-Coaster:
A “ Gummi Bears! Bouncing here and there and everywhere.”
B “ Life is like a hurricane here in Duckburg!”
C “ Ch-ch-ch-Chip ‘N Dale’s Rescue Rangers”
D “ Friends for life, through thick and thin … With another tale to spin”
E “ Darkwing Duck (Better watch out, you bad boys)”

37 According to the song “Date Night at Disneyland,” what time does “the sky light up each night”?
A 7 p.m.
B 8 p.m.
C Half past 8 p.m.
D Quarter to 9 p.m.
E 9 p.m.

38 This venue in Downtown Disney is known for its Sunday Gospel Brunch:
A The Earl of Sandwich
B Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen
C The House of Blues
D Napolini
E Catal

39 In Disneyland’s Fantasmic! what song is not part of the show?
A “Pink Elephants on Parade”
B “Part of Your World”
C “A Night on Bald Mountain”
D “I’ve Got No Strings”
E “Colors of the Wind”

40 The song There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow started gracing Tomorrowland in this year:
A 1964
B 1965
C 1966
D 1967
E 1968

41 The Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grof is made up of five movements but this is the one you hear on the Disneyland Railroad:
A Sunrise
B Painted Desert
C On The Trail
D Sunset
E Cloudburst

42 These days, at the end of Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln, you can hear this song first heard in the American Adventure at Epcot:
A Golden Wishes
B Golden Dream
C American Dream
D American Adventure
E America of Gold

43 This lyricist wrote both Grim, Grinning Ghosts and Yo Ho (A Pirates Life for Me):
A Alan Menkin
B Robert Sherman
C Tim Rice
D X Atencio
E George Bruns

44 When it's a small world gets a holiday makeover, you can hear this song in the attraction:
A Joy to the World
B Sleigh Ride
C Winter Wonderland
D Let It Snow
E Deck the Halls

45 Every night in Cars Land, when the lights come on, so does this song:
A Life is a Highway
B Shake, Rattle and Roll
C Our Town
D Sh-Boom
E Route 66

46 This patriotic song became the basis for a Circle-Vision 360 film that ran on and off for several years in Tomorrowland:
A America the Beautiful
B This Land Is Your Land
C God Bless America
D A Grand Old Flag
E God Bless the USA

47 Every few minutes, you hear this song playing at the Snow White Grotto:
A One Song
B Heigh Ho
C I'm Wishing
D Someday My Prince Will Come
E The Yodel Song

48 Which of these is not a float in the Soundsational Parade?
A Simba's Beastly Beats
B Pinocchio's Stringed Symphony
C Tiana's New Orleans Jazz Jubilee
D Royal Princess Romantic Melodies
E Mary Poppins Spoonful of Rhythm

49 If you are listening and watching Remember Dreams Come True Fireworks, what attraction music is the last one you hear?
A Space Mountain
B Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye
C Star Tours
D The Disneyland Railroad
E The Peoplemover

50 If you were trying to remember where you parked on your Disneyland visit, which of these songs would not help you find your car?
A Hakuna Matata
B I've Got No Strings
C Youve Got a Friend in Me
D Disco Mickey Mouse
E The Second Star to the Right

MOUSEADVENTURE MUSICAL TRIVIA QUESTION ANSWERS

1. Music in the queue of Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is from this decade:
B 1930s**

2. What song do guests hear while waiting to disembark from Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage?
C Beyond the Sea**

3. Which of these musicals did not run at Disneyland's Videopolis/Fantasyland Theater? 
E Twice Charmed: A Cinderella Story**

4. This band provided the song for the Rockin Space Mountain makeover at Disneyland:
C Red Hot Chili Peppers**

5. This Disney actor voiced Sam, the host of America Sings:
B Burl Ives** 

6 The Main Street Window in honor of The Musical Quill is for this person: 
A X Atencio** 

7 The Silly Symphony Swings, based on The Band Concert, operates to this well-known song: 
B The William Tell Overture **

8 On the show Disneyland Showtime, this famous musical family gets to ride the Haunted Mansion with EJ Peaker and Kurt Russell:
C The Osmonds**

9 If you go to the Enchanted Tiki Room in Adventureland, don't try to find this song; it was cut several years ago:
B Offenbach's Barcarolle**

10 Whats the name of the show on the Disney Wonder cruise ship that gives awards to Disney films and characters?
A Golden Mickeys**

11 Swisskapolka could be heard in an attraction in this land:
D Adventureland**

12 Who conducts the Just Add Water concert on the Paradise Pier lagoon?
C Goofy** 

13 This TV special aired when Disneyland opened Mickey's Toontown:
D Rock N Toontown** 

14 Fill in the blanks to this Sherman Brothers song from Adventures Thru Innerspace: A world of __________ , of endless __________, with treasures more than man can ever spend!
A mystery, energy**

15 Are we on our way to Nottingham, to Brittingham, to Buckingham or any hammy hamlet by the sea? No! We're on our way to hang out with this character:
E Mr. Toad**

16 In Muppet Vision 3-D, Sam's Salute to All Nations, but Mostly America includes this classic Disney tune:
B it's a small world **

17 Disney's All-Star Music Resort at Walt Disney World is considered to be this type of resort:
D Value**

18 Which name is not part of Thomas O'Malley's full name based on the song he sings?
E Augustus**

19 The Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy horns can play all of these songs, except:
A Whole New World **

20 Why Don't You Do Right? is sung by this character who appears in Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin:
D Jessica Rabbit**

21 True or False: You can hear the theme song to Blazing Saddles as you walk through Frontierland.
A True**

22 In the song “Grim, Grinning Ghosts,” what kind of wake is it?
D Swinging**

23 “ The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” which was also sung by the characters Henry and Sammy in the Country Bear Jamboree, came out first in this year:
B 1954**

24 This song from Newsies can be heard in the Red Car News Boys show at Disney California Adventure:
E “Seize the Day” **

25 “Fortuosity” is not only a store on Main Street, but also a song from this Disney movie:
B The Happiest Millionaire**

26 The new full-service restaurant in Walt Disney World’s Fantasyland is named for this song in Beauty and the Beast:
B “Be Our Guest” **

27 This Sherman Brothers song, from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, makes inanimate objects move:
D “Substitutiary Locomotion” **

28 What is the name of the a capella group that performed in the lobby of Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln?
A Voices of Liberty**

29 “A Lady Has to Mind Her Ps and Qs” could be heard in this Disneyland attraction:
E The Golden Horseshoe**

30 What is the name of the “gift” that Captain EO and his team have to give the Supreme Leader?
A “We Are Here to Change the World” **

31 Casey Jr. has its own attraction in Fantasyland, and its own song in this Disney film. Do you remember which?
C “Dumbo” **

32 This Disney attraction got its own version of “Macarena” in the 1990s:
D The Enchanted Tiki Room**

33 Peter Pan’s “The Second Star to the Right” was originally written for another Fantasyland attraction based on this film:
E Alice in Wonderland**

34 What’s the name of the band in The Country Bear Jamboree?
C The Five Bear Rugs**

35 According to the Sherman Brothers (and Disney lore), this was Walt’s favorite song:
B “Feed the Birds” **

36 If you are in Toontown, you can sing this line appropriate to Gadget’s Go-Coaster:
C “ Ch-ch-ch-Chip ‘N Dale’s Rescue Rangers” **

37 According to the song “Date Night at Disneyland,” what time does “the sky light up each night”?
E 9 p.m. **

38 This venue in Downtown Disney is known for its Sunday Gospel Brunch:
C The House of Blues**

39 In Disneyland’s Fantasmic! what song is not part of the show?
E “Colors of the Wind” **

40 The song There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow started gracing Tomorrowland in this year:
D 1967**

41 The Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grof is made up of five movements but this is the one you hear on the Disneyland Railroad:
C On The Trail **

42 These days, at the end of Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln, you can hear this song first heard in the American Adventure at Epcot:
B Golden Dream **

43 This lyricist wrote both Grim, Grinning Ghosts and Yo Ho (A Pirates Life for Me):
D X Atencio**

44 When it's a small world gets a holiday makeover, you can hear this song in the attraction:
E Deck the Halls **

45 Every night in Cars Land, when the lights come on, so does this song:
D Sh-Boom **

46 This patriotic song became the basis for a Circle-Vision 360 film that ran on and off for several years in Tomorrowland:
A America the Beautiful **

47 Every few minutes, you hear this song playing at the Snow White Grotto:
C I'm Wishing **

48 Which of these is not a float in the Soundsational Parade?
B Pinocchio's Stringed Symphony**

49 If you are listening and watching Remember Dreams Come True Fireworks, what attraction music is the last one you hear?
C Star Tours**

50 If you were trying to remember where you parked on your Disneyland visit, which of these songs would not help you find your car?
E The Second Star to the Right **

It was just over a year ago that I attended the event where Disneyland was open for 24 hours. That was on Leap Day 2012, and Disney named the event "One More Disney Day." Because of work, I wasn't able to go until that evening, but make it into the park I did - eventually - and it was a cool, novel experience.

But what a mess getting there! Disney did not anticipate the evening traffic gridlock on the I-5 and the neighborhood streets around the park of folks deciding to go after work and on into the midnight hour, gridlock I found myself in. What usually was a forty minute drive tops trip from home to the park took me three hours that evening! So while I did make it into the park and enjoyed being there to see the sunrise over Disneyland, I wasn't entirely convinced Disney would try the same "stunt" again.

But, a year later, Disney decided to go for it. This time, at the start of this past Memorial Day weekend to kick off the summer and also promote their next theatrical Pixar release. And I was there. Again. But this time, for longer than just the "graveyard shift."

This time, instead of just one park on the west coast, Disney announced they'd have both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure open for the 24-hour event. And while rumors about a second overnighter hit Disney chatboards in March, Disney didn't officially announce it until April, and just one month before the May 24-25 date. As someone who experienced One More Disney Day, I was surprised they were giving this one more Disney shot, and on Memorial Day weekend to boot. But by announcing it so late, they assumed that by the time of their announcement, many potential attendees (i.e., local annual passholders) couldn't make it now because they'd already put deposits down to travel elsewhere that weekend.

When I talked to friends who work at the park about the event, they told me the word was that cast members were planning to arrive two or more hours before their shift, to avoid getting stuck in any potential gridlock that happened to cast members last year, and just hang out or watch a movie until they had to clock in. Also, Disney planned to use Angels Anaheim stadium for cast member parking, bussing them in, to free up more local parking for guests.

Now last year, I went solo. But this time, some friends wanted to go too, my Naboombu All-Stars teammates from MouseAdventure, a scavenger hunt-like game put on by MousePlanet that we've competed in a number of times and won twice! MousePlanet announced they were going to run a non-competititve version of MouseAdventure titled UP All Night, handing quests out during the all-nighter. No prizes but we want to play too. So we all planned to hook up there when we could. Again like last year, I was too busy to go until mid-afternoon.

I picked up a friend and we took advantage of the carpool lane, not that traffic was crazy at two in the afternoon. We got there fine and made it into DCA first. And no long lines to get in - whew! Unfortunately, the next new quest wouldn't be handed out until 6pm, so we spent the next few hours meandering the park until one more friend arrived and we could play our first quest together.

Unlike the normal conditions of playing MouseAdventure, which is that all teams randomly start any of several quests received at the start of game play, this time all the teams present (there were about four or five there at six pm) were handed the same quest and started it at the same time. So completing the quest was more like a mad dash rally race than anything else. And we felt the pressure!

How did we do? We solved the first half of the quest just fine. It involved using the DCA park guide map to locate the correct words to cross out from a provided word search, leaving the unused letters to spell out a sentence explaining what we need to find and tweet a photo of to complete the quest. Unfortunately we tweeted the wrong "Storytellers" reference. Instead of the Storytellers Cafe, the correct answer was the new Storytellers statue of young Walt and Mickey on Buena Vista Street. Dang it! On the plus side, we took pride in knowing we were just seconds behind the winning team in tweeting our photo. We were just at wrong location.

Humbled, we looked forward to playing the next quest which would be handed out around 9pm at Disneyland. We tried out the Oozma Kappa Nacho Dogs for dinner before crossing the promenade to enter Disneyland for the first time today.

The lines to enter weren't crazy during the evening hours, and while Main Street USA was pretty full of guests walking into and out of it, the rest of the park wasn't too crowded. This all-nighter was shaping up to be a pretty successful event on Disney's part.

When we picked up our first quest, we also picked up three quests that were distributed earlier in the day. We worked on the Disneyland ones to bide our time until it was time to get that next quest.

My friends and I are annual passholders, and when we visit the parks together, more often than not most of our time is spent hanging out, usually at a restaurant, rather than riding every ride with a short(-ish) line. And the same went for today. After finishing the quests, we headed for the Village Haus to chill out and also to use the outlets there to charge our iPhones.

When 9pm rolled around, we headed for Main Street Station where teams were handed our next quest. But the quests themselves needed players to search for images and phrases in Tomorrowland. At 9pm, not only was Main Street USA becoming crushed with guests holding spaces to watch the evening's fireworks show, but congested even further with guests arriving at Disneyland for their first time as well as those wanting to leave. Rushing to Tomorrowland was impossible! Oh, the anxiety!

Once inside Tomorrowland, we traveled to restrooms, restaurants and food carts to find the essential words that answer several questions, and those answers would somehow dictate which parts of a lightsaber we would need to assemble inside the Star Trader. Once assembled, we'd need to tweet a photo of it with the Jedi Knight associated with this particular design.

We proved to be less than well-trained Jedi Knights this evening. Ugh!!

The next quest would be handed out at midnight. But after meeting up with a cast member friend who'd just gotten off work, we decided to take the Monorail out and head to Trader Sam's for dinner and drinks. Over a period of three hours, I'd actually dropped by here twice! The first time was with this time. The next time was when our final Naboombu All-Stars teammate arrived. While my other friends took a little break, I returned to Trader Sam's for a little pick-me-up, this Irish Coffee.

After midnight, we headed back to Disneyland. Now,  remembering that this was about the same time I arrived last year for One More Disney Day, I was a tad nervous that I'd find the park gates closed with hundreds and hundreds of guests in lines all over the promenade like last year. However, I was only "a tad" nervous. Throughout the day, both parks weren't crazy crowded, and as it turned out, entering the park at one am was no problem for us at all.

Now obviously, we'd missed the hand out of the midnight quest. The next quest would be handed out at 2:45 am outside Café Orleans. So we just meandered around the park until then. I wanted to check out what was going on at Mickey's Toontown, so we headed there. It was cool what we found there. Disney characters were dressed up in their pajamas for photo ops, Disney animated shorts were projected in the dining area in the food court for families to enjoy, and karaoke was available outside Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin where we saw mainly young adults enjoying.

When it was time to head for New Orleans Square to pick up the next quest, we found Sleeping Beauty Castle flooded with lights and a portion of the front area roped off. Later that morning we saw Rachel Smith being filmed there. It was for a live feed for the east coast of Good Morning America Weekend Edition.

The next quest took some patience and extreme attention to detail. We were given the lyrics to a song. I don't have the quest with me, but I think it was to "Stay Awake." We were also given a series of numbers. What we had to do is start with the first number and count the number of letters in the supplied lyrics to reach a letter. The letter we reached was the first letter of the quest's question. Continue with each letter, using the remaining thirty-odd numbers to determine the question. Some numbers were one or two digits, but a couple were three! And counting a 143 letters to reach the next letter was a bit stressful at three in the morning. But we managed to solve it and get the question, about naming the special of the day at the Jolly Holiday Bakery. Trouble is we solved it about 30 seconds too late as someone else tweeted the correct answer before us. Stymied once again! With just one quest left to compete for before the park closed at 6 am, we decided it was time for breakfast.

As soon as I'd learned about the Bananas Foster French Toast being offered during the all-nighter, it was a goal of mine to try it, so that's where we headed. Compared to last year where it was a crowded and pretty much booked for the entire morning, Café Orleans was a walk in experience as we got seated in the patio area right away. Even getting served our French toast didn't take long at all.

Dining at four in the morning in New Orleans Square, with sea shanties performed by the Bootstrappers nearby and a peaceful calm resting over the area, was like a vacation moment. So peaceful and relaxing.

After breakfast, it was time to head for the Mad Tea Party to pick up the last quest of the UP All Night. By now, the nature of rushing through each quest as we got them was entirely different from the way the normal MouseAdventure games are played. But we couldn't not try! So we picked up the final quest.

It involved drawing a line between a list of phrases on one side of the sheet to their correct match on a list across the page. Between them were an assortment of words that the lines would intersect. Matching the columns of words correctly would intersect the correct words to form a clue telling us what to find and tweet in as our answer.

The list on one side was filled with phrases taken from the upper floor windows on Main Street USA. The list on the other side were location names and addresses on Main Street USA. As we started connecting lines, we started to figure out the first half of the clue. Then, we managed to figure out the rest of it without needing to solve the last two matches. We needed to find a window with a specific phrase, and I knew EXACTLY where that window was! We walked speedily over to the storefront above the China Closet, found the right window and texted it...texted it before we received any text saying there was a winner yet.

We waited.

And in seconds, we got The Tweet.

 

Now that's the way to end the All-Nighter, right!

When our minds popped out of competitive mode, we noticed cast members were lining the street and hi-fiving guests on their way out of the park. That's when we realized it was five-thirty in the morning. Thirty more minutes before the park closed and this Monstrous Summer All-Nighter officially ended.

As six am neared, Mickey and his friends surprised all of us by appearing on Main Street Station, and the sight of them pumped us up again! Dressed in their PJs, they waved at us as the speakers started to play the Mickey Mouse Alma Mater. We all sang along. "Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company..."

Arriving just before three pm, I was here for fifteen of the twenty-four hours. And it was fun! The quests, while frustrating at the beginning, were something cool to look forward to, trying the exclusive food options were a treat, and being here with friends made it a lot easier to stay up all night. Can't wait to do again! And maybe next time, I'll go for twenty-four.

According to court testimony, the character "Superman" made his first appearance in comic books on April 18, 1938. It happened to be in the first issue of a title called Action Comics, a new anthology book containing several short stories about action heroes with Superman featured on the cover and in the opening story.

Also debuting in that issue were the characters of "Clark Kent", Superman's alter ego, and "Lois Lane", both reporters working for a big-city newspaper called the Daily Star. The Daily Planet, editor-in-chief Perry White, photographer Jimmy Olson, arch villain Lex Luthor, even the name of the planet "Krypton" would not appear until later, added to the Superman mythos as his popularly grew, expanding into his own featured title Superman a year later and then beyond the printed page into other entertainment media: the Fleisher Brothers' animated shorts, a radio series, the Kirk Alyn movie serials and the George Reeves television series.

So, today officially marks Superman and Lois Lane's 75th birthdays.

Happy Birthday, you two!

Perhaps not coincidentally, this week also marked the debut of the third and final official trailer of Superman's latest appearance on the big screen. This new trailer for "Man of Steel" runs three minutes long and features several new scenes including the debut of cinema's newest take on the world of Krypton and the major villain of the film, General Zod as played by Michael Shannon.

And like the trailers before it, it continues to reveal a more grounded, intimate tone to Superman's character. While we certainly get the point that there will be lots of action in the film, we find that the the man who would become Superman has been growing up as a man who fears what mankind will think of him, a boy who is told he isn't even from this planet and at first doesn't realize how he fits in to this world.

All he wants is to be his father's son.

As a result of that scene revealed in the new trailer, featuring Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, much discussion among comic book geeks around the Internet this week has been about the film's screenwriter David Goyer (Blade, the Dark Knight trilogy) and a scene from a comic book story first published in 2009. Superman: Secret Origin was written by Geoff Johns, a superstar writer who's success crafting stories with heart and action for characters such as Green Lantern, Flash and Superman among others has garnered him a huge fan following, and drawn by Gary Frank, whose model for illustrating Superman in this story was obviously inspired by an actor who inspired generations not only for his portrayal of the hero fighting for truth, justice and the American Way but for his courage in his personal life.

The next year, the six issues of Superman: Secret Origin were collected and released as a trade paperback, and Goyer wrote the foreward for it. What fans of the new movie trailer are keying in on are these words from that foreward.

He goes on to say:

And the following pages from the first issue of Secret Origin are also being circulated with acknowledgments to Goyer's quote.

Beautiful, huh.

I love sharing this because it's given me an ideal opportunity to share with folks who may not read them or who even regard comic books with little significance of the quality, artistry and heart that this medium, occasionally loftily referred to as "sequential art", is capable of.

I think it's awesome and among the reasons why I continue to read comic books enthusiastically every week that new issues come out. It's not everyone's cup of joe, but it is mine.

And, just like he successfully did writing the screenplays for the Dark Knight trilogy, it looks like with "Man of Steel", which opens June 16, Goyer found inspiration from some of the best comic books out there to read.

Remember my last blog about hiking to the Hollywood Sign? No, well go read it!

For the rest of you, I headed back to the same area yesterday. I had a ticket to watch On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the third film in the Alex Theatre's five-week event series "James Bond 007 50th Anniversary" which featured an appearance by that film's Bond, George Lazenby. The trail leading to The Batcave is on the way to the Alex Theatre in Glendale. And since my New Year's Eve mission this month was to "Visit the Batcave", I did just that!

The Batcave I'm talking about is the actual shooting location used in the 1960's Batman TV series starting Adam West and Burt Ward. It's located in an area just east of Hollywood called Bronson Canyon. I discovered this area last month while researching ways to get to visit the Hollywood Sign, my March NYE mission.

Now I've been a Batman fan for practically all my life, through both comic books and the 60's TV series. Watching it as a little boy, the infamous camp humor of the show was nowhere to be found. Instead, all I found were the brightest colors of the Dynamic Duo fighting against the forces of evil. Caped Crusaders to the rescue!!

So when I discovered where the actual Batcave was, where they shot the scenes of the George Barris-designed Batmobile roaring out of a secluded cave that was supposedly outside Wayne Manor, I was more than thrilled to check the place out for myself.

So nearly a month after I was here, I was back again! Back to the Camp Hollywoodland sign in Bronson Canyon to trek up the other pathway leading away from the Hollywood Sign and onto the bygone lair of Batman's secret underground headquarters.

Viewing the trail on Google maps, it was certainly a much shorter hike than the hike up to the Hollywood Sign. But I was surprised by how much shorter. It's about a ten minute walk from where I parked. Just up a curvy hill and you're there.

I'll be honest. The entire moment was a little anti-climactic, not the least of which was due in part to the fact that there were a lot of cars parked in the area! Apparently, I showed up on a day when a music video was gonna be shot here. Also, it looked different than how I remembered it. I'd been told by a friend who'd been there that it'd be different, but it's a lot more striking to actually be there and see the difference.

I asked a nearby security guard if it was okay to roam through the area, and he said it was fine since they hadn't started shooting yet. I walked to the cave, walked through the cave, found more set ups for filming, and was pleasantly surprised to find a beautifully framed view of the Hollywood Sign from the other side of the cave. There's a road that circles around that leads you back to the front of the cave and that was the end of my tour.

I brought with me a small die-cast model of the 60's Batmobile and a DVD movie titled "Return to the Batcave". I had hoped to showcase them in the foreground of a shot of the Batcave somehow. But there were no rocks or low hills in front of the cave that I could use as a stand to put them on, the ground here being very level and plain. Plus there was production people walking around and the winds today were really gusty, so the notion went away fairly quickly.

But I was glad I got here in the afternoon, with the sun was behind me and flooding The Batcave area with a lot of natural light. I'm sure I got better shots at this time than if I'd decided to avoid freeway traffic and get here in the morning.

So that's my short visit to The Batcave. All told, I was there for probably just over a half hour. Nothing like my hours-long trek to the Sign. It was a productive little trip. And with some Adam West Batman action figures coming out this summer that might inspire better ideas for some pictures, methinks I'll be back...TO THE BATCAVE!

You can see the rest of my Batcave photos at my Flickr site.

This past New Year's Eve, my sister and brother-in-law threw a small party to ring in the new year. It was a PJ party, and while I didn't think it would turn out this way for myself, I ended up crashing the night on their couch. The party officially ended when the pizzas arrived for lunch the next day.

It was a fun evening, with plenty of food, drinks and playing board games. Then, at some point, my sister gave everyone a jar with our names on them and 12 slips of paper inside each one. Then, she told us to think of 12 things to accomplish during 2013 and write them down on the slips of paper. Then each month during the year, we would have to pull one out to do.

Three months later, I've actually done good and accomplished three of my "resolutions". In January, I went to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, my first time ever. The next month, I visited the Ronald Reagan Library, a place I'd never been to before, where they were hosting an exhibit I wanted to see, Treasures of the Walt Disney Archives.

This month, the card I pulled read "Visit the Hollywood Sign". March has been a busy month for me, performing every weekend as one of the "12 Angry Men" for the Torrance Theatre Company and also fortunately getting some steady freelance work during the weekdays. But this last week of the month, I finally got a free day - and some sunny weather to boot - yesterday to check off my third resolution of the year.

Now again, here was another something-I-never-did-before thing, so the night before I hit the internet to look for some tips. Hollywood Sign Trip was the first site I looked through, and I was grateful for the photo-by-photo guide of the trail they recommended you take to reach the sign.

I looked for other sites and found an article on LAist which offered three hiking trails up to the sign, rating them by physical challenge from easiest to more difficult. As soon as I saw two words in the second suggestion, I knew immediately that had to be the one I'd take.

I hit the freeway a little after 10am for the Brush Canyon Trail. It took me less than an hour to get there. I drove up Canyon Drive through a quiet neighborhood and at the end of the street, it reached a park. I drove through the park as far down as I could and parked in the last parking lot, near this sign.

After taking advantage of the Gump (Renaissance Faire-speak for porta potty) there were one of two trails to take. I took the one at the end of the road that headed in the direction of the Hollywood Sign that I'd seen on Google Maps rather than the one that seemed to head down to where the Batcave would be.

In the map above, I've traced out the path I took on what ended up becoming a 3 1/2 hour hike, and I never even bothered to find out how long the trail was. And as I write this, I still haven't. Going in, I just had an idea of the hike. But now that I've traveled it, I recognize pretty well the routes I took.

And when I say "hike", OMG it was a hike! I don't hike regularly, and while on the trail, I discovered that reading the words "hike" and "trail" didn't really sink in until I was actually hiking on this trail.

I left the park around 11:15a and the start of the trail has a steady uphill grade that lasted for about half the distance of the journey, weaving and snaking around the sides of the canyon. All the way up as I maintained an internal dialogue of whining and moping, I kept wondering if I'd make it or if maybe someone would come around a hill and see my body lying prone on the trail, unable to take one more step under the noontime sun! But I persisted, thinking "slow and steady" and took my time and resting occasionally. And with my ONE SINGLE BOTTLE OF GATORADE as my only nutrient on this excursion, I also thought I was a complete idiot!

But this idiot had a mission, and after reaching the halfway point, the trail got noticeably easier for me. A sense of accomplishment renewed my spirit and I got to enjoy the hike a lot more. Horse packs shared the trail with me and the many other hikers this day. And can you believe some of the families were also pushing strollers on the trail!?

As I mentioned the trail wrapped around the rolling hills of the canyon, and often as I rounded a hill I could see the Hollywood Sign looking just a little bit larger than the last time I saw it. Finally, I reached paved road. It would be a sign that I'd reached the last part of the trail on my journey to reach...

The trail dead ends at the edge of a neighborhood. To be honest, I was hoping the trail led closer to the sign. But by this point, I was glad to say "mission accomplished".

Until, on my way back, I looked up at the sign again and was able to make out tiny people on the hilltop above and behind the sign. They were taking pictures from there. From my research, I knew folks were able to reach that backside of the sign too, and thinking about the trail I took up here, I remembered a split in the trail, where a second trail headed up the mountain, probably up and around the back side of the hill that the sign sits on.

By this time, I had hiked about two hours. It was close to 1pm, I had half a bottle of Gatorade with me standing under a hazy sunny sky. I was a tired idiot. But this idiot knew his mission wasn't fully accomplished. So as I backtracked on the trail and reached that fork, I chose the trail not previously traveled and continue on up...

...until finally reaching the top and viewing not only the back of the Hollywood Sign but also an amazing view of Los Angeles county. If it weren't so hazy, I know I'd've see the Pacific Ocean as well.

With just days left in the month to accomplish this latest resolution and too many things already scheduled on a number of those days, today's adventure was pretty much an impulse decision. It started out exciting, became torturous when the hike began, but ultimately I accomplished a lot today and felt good about the whole thing. I also realized this put a pretty strong dent into catching up on a lot of exercising these past three months that I haven't done, so there's that too.

On my way back down the the mountain, I found the first half easy. But there was a patch of uphill grade I ran into just before the midway point that threatened to strangle the back of my left thigh into a tight, painful cramp. So I sat down and rested a bit before moving on. Then, and I can't believe this, I found myself hiking further and further up hill. I soon realized I'd missed another split in the trail and was on a hiking path heading for the Griffith Observatory, way further than where my car was parked!

I quickly double backed and found the right trail to be on. And the rest of the trail was literally down hill. But I found it still wasn't as easy an effort heading back to my car as I'd hoped. The grade was still noticeably steep, so I had to put some effort into my legs walking down the steep grade. And because of that, you know that feeling you get that the trip going home is always quicker than the trip heading to your destination? Didn't happen for me here. It was long trek back.

But I made it safe and sound back to the park and to my car. My legs, feet and body were pretty spent, and with it now approaching 3pm, I figured it was time to finally get some food and then hit the freeway earlier than later and avoid getting stuck in LA traffic.

But I will be back to this park. There's still a need to visit the Batcave!

To see more pictures from my hike, they're posted on Flickr.

Thanks for reading!

Sometime in the 80's when I was going to college in San Diego, I somehow became enamored with television theme songs. It was also around the time a series of records - yeah, those vinyl ones - had just debuted in commercials, simply and succinctly entitled "Television's Greatest Hits". I can't remember if buying the first volume (there would eventually be seven) fueled my collector's mentality or if it was my many visits to the local Tower Records with its well-stocked 45 rpm shelves that did it. But it was certainly around that time that my interest in searching for and collecting theme song recordings was born.

Now I was bred on sixties and seventies sitcoms, so I remember with fondness the shows of those decades. And in my humble opinion, those shows contained The Best theme songs ever written! There was such a variety of them too, ranging from pop to jazz and novelty to epic orchestral, that without knowing it, they also were teaching us kids about the varied styles of music that existed. So, when I eventually started getting into researching and collecting theme songs I, in my own geeky way, began to appreciate them even more. And I coined, to myself anyway, the term "20th century folk songs" to describe them, to elevate them, from just fun, nostalgic jingles to what I felt they really were.

TV Theme Songs are a unique invention of the 20th century, used to tell, share and identify stories about our culture. And when they are shared down from generation to generation, it's the same practice as was done with traditional folk songs like . Granted, some may argue these stories are nonsense, that they aren't meaningful. But I say you're just an ol' fuddy duddy if you do. Remember the time when someone mentioned an old TV show you grew up watching and thinking about its theme song made you smile? Or the time you pointed out to someone that there were different lyrics at the end of the Gilligan's Island theme? Or when you started singing a few lines or hummed a melody from a theme song like Peter Gunn or Hawaii Five-O because friends around you would recognize it or it was just plain fun to do? And when you did that, didn't you just share a moment with others that uniquely sprang from our modern culture, our youth, from the days were grew up? Didn't you just share a folk song?

Alright, maybe I did or maybe I didn't convince you that they're our folk songs. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But that fact that I thought of them as folk tales comes from the moment when I discovered another magical quality about TV theme songs, that some of the ones I'd only known of as wordless yet signature musical compositions actually HAD LYRICS!

In 1984, I discovered a timely little book called "The TV Theme Song Sing-Along Song Book" by John Javna. I still have it, along with the second volume he released a year later (both are shown in the photo above). And in it was a revelation. That classic instrumental theme songs for the shows Bewitched, The Andy Griffith Show, Bonanza and more actually had lyrics written for them. And they were included in these books with sheet music to boot. A companion LP followed, The TV Theme Song Sing-Along Album, and that's about when my head exploded. For the first time, I heard these lyric-filled recordings of the "I Love Lucy Theme" and "The Andy Griffith Show Theme", songs that for decades were only instrumental tunes in my memory, now fortified with vocals, vocals sung by Ricky Ricardo and Sheriff Andy Taylor themselves. (Now, I wasn't that big an I Love Lucy fan at the time, but now I know the song had actually been sung on one of the episodes. So to Desi and Lucy fans, it wasn't a revelation. But it was to me.) The album also included extended versions of some of my favorite theme songs like Mission: Impossible and Bonanza which until then I'd only heard in their minute-long broadcast version at the top of their shows.

So for the past twenty-odd years I've been the proud collector and owner of hundreds, maybe thousands even, of these 20th century folk songs across 45 rpms, 33 1/2 LPs, CDs and even a cassette tape or two. Why? Because "fan" comes from the word "fanatic", and I'm wear that title fairly often as it is being a Star Trek fan, comic book fan and Disney fan. Just par for the course.

And I'm certainly not alone! I've wanted to do this blog for some time now. And when I planned to include recordings of some of my favorite TV theme songs, some with those unknown lyrics, I knew there were bound to be other fanatics like me who not only owned them too but would post them as videos on YouTube. So for your enjoyment, I present some of my favorite 20th century folk songs below, presented in ways you likely haven't heard them presented ever before.

And if you liked this blog, "Y'all come back now, y'hear?"

Retro Warning: If you were born in the last, say twenty years, and don't watch much TV Land or retro TV type stations, these tunes may not mean a darn thing to you.

"I Love Lucy" (with lyrics)
Lyrics by Harold Adamson
Music by Eliot Daniel
Vocals by Desi Arnaz

"The Fishin' Hole"
Theme from The Andy Griffith Show
Lyrics by Everett Sloane
Music by Earle Hagen and Herbert Spencer
Vocals by Andy Griffith

"Hogan's Heroes March"
Words and music by Jerry Fielding
Vocals by Robert Clary, Richard Dawson, Ivan Dixon and Larry Hovis*

* These are the cast members from the show.

"Batman Theme"
Composed by Neal Hefti
Arrangement by David Slonaker
Performed by Joel McNeely conducting The Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus
1997 recording

Arrangement inspired by "The Batman Theme" by Danny Elfman composed in 1989

"Medley of Television Themes"
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
- Dr. Kildare
- Room 222
- Star Trek: Voyager
- The Waltons
- Barnaby Jones
All composed by Jerry Goldsmith
Arrangement for concert performance by Morton Stevens and Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith started composing for television before going on to create memorable films scores for films such as Patton, The Omen, Poltergeist, Planet of the Apes, Total Recall, Mulan, Gremlins, Rudy, Hoosiers, The Mummy and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (wikipedia link)

This holiday season, I had plans to enjoy three versions of Charles Dickens' classic holiday tale. For some, three might be enough. But this year, my interest in "A Christmas Carol" was piqued (not "peaked"), and I found myself wanting to explore more than these three versions, others that I either hadn't checked out before or wanted to revisit again. Here's how my journey through two, three, four and more "Christmas Carol"s turned out.

The Muppet Christmas Carol
The first one I saw this year was this one. I've seen this only a few times before, but I've played my CD of the soundtrack over and over for years! This happens to be the first time I've owned a copy this movie. And it's on VHS!! I know, crazy, huh?

We had it at a yard sale my friends and I held to raise money for our Relay for Life team, and it was among the items that didn't sell. Originally, I had planned to buy the new Blu-ray version of it, but with it missing the "When Love Is Gone" scene, I dragged my feet on getting it. Ultimately, this VHS - which includes the scene (albeit in pan and scan format) - ended up with me. I know I speak for many fans of the film when I say how impressed I am by how much it uses the dialogue of the original story and retains much of its same tone while being told by The Muppets.

Disney's A Christmas Carol
I passed on watching this when it was in theatres three years ago because I got tired of Jim Carrey mugging and bugging his eyes out so damn much in his films. It was fine when he started out, but it got to be his schtick, altho' friends tell me I need to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so there's that. But the reviews claimed he reined in his usual-ness in this film, so when it came out on Blu-ray, I took a chance. And I was overwhelmingly impressed! I now have to watch this every year with my family at Christmastime who enjoy it too.

A Christmas Carol performed by Patrick Stewart
I'm a Star Trek fan. I got started watching the reruns of classic Trek, then got hooked on TNG after it debuted. That was around the time when I happened to start taking acting classes. And watching the show, even then I recognized how much Patrick Stewart forced the rest of the cast to bring their level of acting up to his level. Midway through his run on TNG, Stewart produced and performed his one-man show of "A Christmas Carol". A CD of it quickly became part of my CD library and I have loved playing it every year ever since. I finally got to see his show at the Doolittle Theatre in 1996, and I remember how cool it was that he'd changed the personality of Scrooge from the one I'd heard all the years before on CD to a low-key, sharp businessman, like one of those single-minded sharks you'd imagine swimming on Wall Street! It was a refreshing surprise and I often wished he'd record a follow-up CD performing that personality of Scrooge on it.

To listen to an excerpt from the CD, a lengthy clip is posted by Simon & Schuster on SoundCloud.

So there are the three "A Christmas Carol"s I had planned to enjoy this season. But I also got to watch a stage version of the story told by several actors each performing many different roles of the story at my local theatre, Torrance Theatre Company. It was great and reminded me of another condensed-cast-adaptation of the novel I'd done in Poway many years before.

Now, you'd think I'd gotten my fill of Dickens and Scrooge by now. But I also started reading the original short story too, something I hadn't done before. If you haven't either, I suggest you do. I knew it would be so, but it's still amazing to realize how much of Dickens' words are familiar to you as every adaptation has pulled their dialogue verbatim from his story. As I write this, I still haven't finished it yet. Unless the words are broken up with a lot of illustrated, colored panel art in between, I'm a very slow reader.

And speaking of panel art, I did finish "Batman: Noel", a graphic novel I'd gotten for Christmas last year. It's a book I wanted because of the beautiful, detailed artwork by Leo Bermejo. And "Surprise!" it's another adaptation of Charles Dickens' book, and a good one too that has the messages delivered by the three spirits in the original book represented by three familiar characters Batman runs into while patrolling Gotham City on Christmas Eve.

So two movies, on audio retelling and one and a half books later, you'd think that might be enough. But I still had that itch to look up other versions of the story. I went online and was delighted to find two full-length versions available to watch. And I also remembered I own another one that I've never seen. I only watched about twenty or thirty minutes of each the two online movies, but it only took that long to see the entirety of the other one that I owned.

A Christmas Carol (1999)
I tried to watch Patrick Stewart's TNT movie adaptation once before and couldn't get through it. This year, I still can't. To begin with, it's so dull to me right from the start. His performance on the CDs are so enthusiastic, I guess I miss that in the film. I recognize he's working with a script that includes many wonderful ideas that bring more insight into the situations and main characters, but those ideas just didn't play out well for me when acted out. He's also too much Patrick Stewart in the role if that makes sense; he's ultimately too darn charming.

Scrooge (1935)
It was a nice surprise to find the first sound version of "A Christmas Carol" on film available on YouTube. Taking into account the time it was filmed, I found the performances rather genuine and refreshingly less formulaic than what we've all grown up seeing of the main characters in more popular adaptations. Seeing only half an hour of it, I look forward to making time to watch the rest of it. And from what I've learned about the film, we should all be grateful that it's the full-length version that's available on YouTube (embedded below) and not the abridged 60-minute US version that's out on recent DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases.

Mickey's Christmas Carol
I own several titles of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series. They were those 30 different titles that arrived every fall between 2001 and 2009 in distinctive silver or black tin cases holding a two-disc DVD set inside. I've watched some of them like Disneyland USA, On the Front Lines, and Tomorrowland, but others like Silly Symphonies, Disney Rarities, and Mickey Mouse in Black and White I bought mainly to hang onto for future reference, especially for my design work. Then I remembered one of my Mickey Mouse in Living Color sets includes "Mickey's Christmas Carol"! I pulled it out to watch, all 25 minutes of it. It's cute and very entertaining!

So that's all the ones I've seen this year. It was fun to discover the adaptations that were new to me. And there are still a few more that came to mind that I wanted to see. One was Albert Finney's "Scrooge" which I saw when I was a kid, but all I can remember about it is the catchy tune "Thank You Very Much". Another was George C. Scott's "Scrooge". And finally there's that Alastair Sim one of "A Christmas Carol" which I can't remember if I've ever really seen. So these'll be high on my list to try and catch next Christmas season.

That is, if that itch doesn't come back and I decide to watch 'em before then!

To all my clients, friends and family, thanks for a great 2012.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an interesting film for me to offer a review on.. It is a follow-up to a grand trilogy that I didn’t expect to wow me on the level it did, so there’s a wee bit of expectation I could bring in to seeing this new film. And of the three available theatrical formats my friends and I chose to watch this film in, we chose the newest, labeled “HFR”.

HFR stands for High Film Rate and the HFR version is projected at twice the film rate than normal projection rate. The point of HFR is supposed to be that you’re getting a clearer, sharper image to watch because there’s twice as much footage and thus visual information you’re seeing in the same amount of time. Director Peter Jackson filmed The Hobbit films in this HFR so you’re seeing the film in the same higher quality that he shot it in.

So not only was there some expectation by me about how I felt the film should be, I was also going to be distracted by analyzing the picture quality of the film.

And it was a 3D screening. So there’s the added notion of whether 3D will hinder or heighten my enjoyment of The Hobbit.

After two hours and fifty minutes of sitting in a theatre watching a HFR 3D film, I will say I was very entertained.

I’ve never read the book. But the story in this first cinematic chapter of The Hobbit was very fairy tale-like. I did go in having seen headlines of reviews saying it was a slow-moving movie, and I’m glad I knew that going in. There are some big action set pieces, but most of the film is more character-building than character battles. And for the most part, I kept pretty much interested in seeing all that character arc stuff. I don’t know that I need to pay to go see it in a theatre again for all that, but if someone forced to go I wouldn’t be disappointed re-watching it all either.

But mostly here I want to let loose about what I thought about the HFR and subsequently the 3D too.

Going in, I had heard that some movie-goers who’s seen early screenings got sick and nauseous. This concerned me. I got a little motion sickness watching Cloverfield and also during my first trip on Star Tours: The Adventure Continues at Disneyland.

Then, I had a friend tell me that a friend of his who saw an early screening thought it had a “video quality” and that that made it look to more 3D than usual.

Those notions were on my mind going in to see it for myself and during the film. Here’s my take.

Images, especially those in bright daylight, are saturated, sharp, and breath-takingly full of color. And while I noticed more 3D at the beginning, it’s likely my eyes got adjusted to the 3D the longer I watched. I lost all sense of 3D-y heighted depth of field about 30 minutes into the movie. But to be sure, don’t take my View-Master analogy as a negative. It’s just the best way I can describe the HFR look. At the same time, because the imagery was so crisp and sharp and rich in color, there was a bit of a surreal quality to viewing the film too. Not “so real it’s 3D” type of feeling, but just so sharp in image quality that my brain couldn’t understand why it was damn sharp.

The only time I didn’t like the HFR look was at the very beginning of the movie. It’s a prologue scene and it wasn’t until after the scene ended that I knew the scene was filtered to give it a uniquely different look, because the next scenes was gorgeous!

So I enjoyed this HFR presentation. You can imagine the kinds of outdoor vistas Jackson would shoot or create of Middle Earth, and seeing them in HFR was Ah-mazing.

So for those of you who even knew about there being HFR screenings and were curious, these were my thoughts about it. I saw the opening weekend Sunday matinee show at the ArcLight Beach Cities in El Segundo for $17, and I wasn’t disappointed (and my company of friends were definitely a plus as we got into our usual geeky breakdown analysis of what we’d just seen). I don’t know that I need to see every film in HFR either. But I don't doubt the studios offering HFR more, just we have more IMAX and 3D choices today than we did five years ago, if The Hobbit continues to do as well as it’s expected to over the holidays.

Two weeks ago, it was announced that Disney will acquire Lucasfilm Ltd. from George Lucas for $4.05 billion. I learned about the news when I heard my ABC7 iPhone app ping the headline. My immediate reaction was excitement, and then I went straight to the internet to learn what the exact details of the purchase was. I quickly discovered the two videos below featuring the two men at the core of the announcement. They pretty much said in the videos all I wanted to know about what led to this amazing announcement.

Then, I wondered about those new movies they mentioned. As of this time, all we know for sure is:

•            It takes place after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.

•            The story treatments were written by George Lucas, and assumedly not beholden to an adaptation of the popular Heir to the Empire trilogy of books written by Timothy Zahn, the first stories licensed by Lucasfilm relating events taking place after Jedi.

•            Michael Arndi is currently writing the screenplay based on his "40 to 50 page treatment" of George’s ideas.

•            Episode VII will be released in 2015.

That’s it. No casting has yet been done – only rumors and fan dreams circulating. No director has been hired, but George and Kathleen are looking as the world makes bets on who will take the chair. But I will say there’s a better than 50/50 chance that the new movie will open on Memorial Day, same as the last six episodes. It’s a tradition of George’s. But even that is not a sure bet.

Also, I will be sad that Drew Struzan will not be providing his signature art style to Episode VII’s movie poster. Despite being enticed to produce some new work for a series of limited edition prints, he’s retired now.

I’m also a little antsy about a guy named Williams. When a rough cut of the Episode VII is ready for a composer to screen it (assuming Disney is able to stick to their schedule) and begin work on the soundtrack, John Williams will be 82. And we don't yet know who will be the film's director who will hire a composer to score the film. But obviously, a Star Wars film has never been complete without music composed by John Williams. So I hope Williams will continue to produce the music for that galaxy far, far away.

When the very first Star Wars movie debuted, I was thirteen. I was a Trekkie by then, and that love for Trek was greater than for this new Star Wars movie. But as its two sequels came out over the six years that followed, I couldn't escape the magic of Star Wars. And I became as rabid about the Skywalker saga as I was with the stalwart crew of the starship Enterprise.

Fast forward twenty years, and the digitally remastered "Special Editions" arrived. The adventures of Luke Skywalker, now freshly scrubbed, polished and newly detailed, returned to a world of digitally projected theatre screens. They would arrive in theatres in early 1997, but it was several months before that that I actually found myself diving back into the world of the Jedi and the Sith. That was the time I was a product designer working in the Strategic Alliance division of a company called Applause, and Taco Bell called them up to see if we were interested in pitching a line of kid's meal toys to tie-in with the Star Wars re-release.

Wow.

Like in every toy company, there were some hardcore Star Wars fans among us toy designers, and it became our mission to make sure we beat out the competition and win this promotion! Designers brainstormed ideas and over the course of a few weeks, passionately debated with each other to defend our toy concepts, recalling scenes from the first trilogy as reasons why they should stay in the mix. Then, money came into the picture to kill ideas outright due to cost. Finally, concepts were narrowed down and presentation boards were rendered up - which was done by hand back then, using pen and ink, colored pencils and Prismacolor markers - for the sales people to make our pitch.

The pitch took place in June of 1996. Taco Bell chose some of our concepts as well as some from our main competitor Strottman for focus testing with kids. By July, the results were in and Taco Bell had decided. It would be Applause that would be making Star Wars kid's meal toys!

After high-fiving each other and patting ourselves on our backs, we still had a lot of pressure on us. The toys needed to start shipping from our overseas factories by November to give Taco Bell time to receive and distribute the toys to all of their restaurants nationwide. We had four months, not the typical six or seven, to not only get the regular designing and sculpting of toy housings done for production, but we also had to allow time for Lucasfilm's licensing department to review and approve things at every step of the way. Four months for all this to happen was tight.

It was decided that as much of the sculpting as possible should to done in Hong Kong where the factories can have immediate input into design the pieces for quicker manufacturing. And because this was such a high-profile license, it was felt that someone from our office should fly over there to oversee the fast-tracked sculpting to make sure they were as on-model (i.e., closely matched character or vehicle likeness) as possible in the hopes that they could get approved by Lucas Licensing that much quicker and production can begin that much sooner. They needed someone very familiar with the ships and characters of Star Wars. A Star Wars fan.

Normally, my boss would’ve gone. But his wife was due to have their first child at that very time, so he didn't want to travel half a world away from his family. Plus, he wasn’t as big a Star Wars fan as me!

So from July through the end of that year, I handled the Creative Manager duties on Star Wars for Taco Bell. I traveled to Hong Kong that week after we were granted the promotion. After our first pass at sculpts were done, I had to travel some more. This time to a place up in Northern California called Skywalker Ranch. There is where Lucas Licensing's offices were located. I visited there several times, usually with another manager and a sculptor or two, to have them review and approve our sculpts, including making revisions right on those sculpts on the spot to get them approved before we left. Then, then more trips to Skywalker Ranch followed to get approvals on our tooling patterns produced in China, then again on new drawings needed for revised bases and characters poses requested by Lucas Licensing, and then more on new sculpts and tooling patterns, before finally getting okays on our paint masters and first production shots, allowing us to finally get to pull the trigger on full production of millions of Star Wars toys.

All I remember of that time is that I was living, eating and sleeping Star Wars everyday, all to make sure we got everything reviewed, approved, produced on budget and shipped on time so kids and fans across the country would be happy to see our toys at Taco Bell, with the promotion set to kick off on January 26, 1997. And we did it! And it was awesome and exciting and the folks at Lucasfilm and Taco Bell were thrilled with them and it was one of the proudest geek moments the designers at Applause ever had!

So while we wait to see what’s in store for Disney's Star Wars: Episode VII, I thought it'd be a good time to share my personal Star Wars adventure with you. Looking back and going through my stuff and researching online proved to be fun for me, and I hope you enjoyed what I've shared here too.

Below are some of the sketches and drawings I did while working on this project, the only project I and my fellow Applause designers ever had the good fortune of having twenty years time to research a project so thoroughly. Glad it paid off. In fact, it led to the chance to work up more Star Wars toy designs for a film announced after this promotion to come just two years later: Star Wars: Episode I. But like that film, the experience meeting expectations were entirely different from what had happened working on the first trilogy. And perhaps it's a tale I'll share with you another time.

Until then, may the Force be with you.