Foodles...for Me and Yoodles

Everytime I go to a grocery store, besides the two I frequent, I always find all kinds of goofy and/or cool blogworthy items. Last week while shopping at a gigantic new store in town I spotted these kiddie food trays from afar. I noticed that the shape of the tray resembled Mickey, and then when I got closer I saw some familiar faces staring back at me!

There's several different varieties of Disney Gardens' Foodles, all of which contain a combination of three different healthy snacks in kid sized portions. You might think that $3.49 is a lot to pay for 1/3 of an apple, a handful of pretzels and six grapes...but did I mention that the package is shaped like Mickey!?!

Seriously, it's a pretty neat little treat for kids. And you have to give Disney some credit...they could slap their characters on sugary-sweet breakfast cereal or potato chips (and they have) but they are trying to make a move to associate Mickey and the gang with good food choices for kids. Now, if we can just get somebody to make Batman Broccoli, I might get my kids to eat some veggies!

Disney Gardens has a pretty nice website, featuring games and kid-friendly recipes.

Wall-E Wednesday: Toys!

The Wall-E merchandising invasion has begun. Books of all kinds (story, sticker, coloring, punch-outs, activity) started popping up at book stores a few weeks ago. Now the toys are starting to make their way to the shelves of fine retailers everywhere. I haven't seen anything at Wal-Mart yet, but at Toys R Us at the end of an isle full of Star Wars and Iron Man stuff there was one column jam packed with Wall-E goodies. The "action figures" come in two sizes. The collection you see above are traditional action figure size and most of them have a special feature. The Dance `N Tap Wall-E has a pull string that makes him wiggle and dance all over the place. The U-Repair Wall-E is basically a Wall-E where all the parts are removable (and therefore lose-able too.) We picked up the Cube `N Stack Wall-E where his front panel opens and you can pop out little cubes of trash. It comes with two cubes and you can make more with Play-Doh...a messy feature I'm not telling my kids about!

There's another set of figures that are smaller, about the size of standard PVC figures. They come two to a pack and feature many different scenarios from the upcoming film. They've also got a remote control Wall-E who is considerably larger than the other figures. One of the coolest items was a Wall-E gripper hand where you pull the handle and Wall-E's hand opens and shuts...it's kind of like those Robot hands you've seen at a toy store where you can pick stuff up with them...but this one is way cooler.

It looks like there will be more toy options with Wall-E than there were with last year's Ratatouille.

Here's the back of the packaging from the Cube `N Stack Wall-E.

West Coast Chest

Last week, Craig over at Earning My Ears featured one of his favorite pieces from his collection of theme park memorabilia - a Secret Panel Chest from the Haunted Mansion. At first, I thought he had beat me to the punch. The Haunted Mansion puzzle box is a prized piece of my Disney Park collection as well and I was planning on doing a post about this classic souvenir in the near future. Then I noticed that his Secret Panel Chest was from Walt Disney World while mine was from Disneyland. Both of the chests feature artwork depicting the exterior of the attraction, and since the East and West coast versions of this ride are so different...it looks like there's room in the blogosphere for a post on both versions of this long gone gift shop item.

My Secret Panel Chest came into my possession through my father, who picked it up on a visit to Disneyland in 1971 (a few years before I was born.) The chest has secret panels on it that when moved in the correct order open up to reveal a secret compartment. It features the original Haunted Mansion located in New Orleans Square in Disneyland. The sign, which reads "The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland c. Walt Disney Productions" is the same as the sign on the WDW version of the box except of course for the park logo and the words "Haunted Mansion" seem to be printed smaller than on the Orlando box.

There doesn't seem to be much history or backstory to these mysterious souvenir chests. The ultra-informative website DoomBuggies.com offers this trivia:

Another popular souvenir was the "Secret Panel Chest," a wooden puzzle box that had a colorful illustration of the Haunted Mansion on the top that could only be opened by using a secret combination of movements. The boxes were constructed by a small company in Hikone, Japan, using many types of wood for each box. They were available in three different sizes. These are desirable collectibles in the Disneyana marketplace, bringing anywhere from $50 for a well-worn piece to over $200 for a box in excellent condition with the instruction sheet

There's a scan of the instructions up at Earning My Ears but I guess all the spooks and spirits left my box sometime over the last 37 years because I can't seem to get mine open. I still have the instructions that came with this Disneyland Chest. They are safely locked away inside the Haunted Mansion Secret Panel Chest.

Happy Easter!

One of my favorite parts of any holiday is working Disney into the picture somehow. There's always lots of Disney decorations and sometimes even Disney candy to go around. One of the nice things about being so obsessed with Disney and in particular Mickey Mouse, is that people give me Disney stuff all the time. My mother-in-law found this old Mickey Mouse Easter Egg Color Kit at an antique mall and picked it up for me a few years back. This item was produced by SunHill Industries of Stamford, CT. There's no date on it, but I'm guessing it's from the early 80's based on the artwork and the old Walt Disney Productions copyright on the back.
All the box contains is four standard dye tablets and the traditional "egg dipper". The Disney fun comes on the back of the box where you can cut out two pairs of nifty little Mickey Mouse Club hats for your eggs, and the two Egg Holders. At the most, you would have had two Mickey eared eggs and two more eggs sitting on the little cardboard rings. Still, a fun item and a reminder of more innocent times.

SunHill also produced these Little Mermaid Instant Egg Art beauties. Sadly, my ownership of this item does not come from a flea market or antique store. My mom recently found this tucked away somewhere from when I had bought it sometime in the early 90's. And yes, I made a batch of Little Mermaid eggs back then too. But these suckers were cool. This kit comes with 12 egg wrappers which are basically little plastic sleeves that you put the eggs into and then you dunk the eggs into boiling water for 3 seconds and the wrapper shrinks around the egg making very clear and pretty eggs with different characters from the movie. The package doesn't lie..."Prettiest Eggs in Only 3 Seconds!" Then when you cracked the egg the picture just came apart with the shell as if you had hand painted it on the egg! Very cool item! I remember taking some over to my friend Chris' house for dinner Easter night. I'm sure his parents and their other guests thought I was out of my mind...seeing as how I was 19 years old at the time.

This entry into the Disney Easter Egg Decorating Kit cannon is from a couple of years ago. I found them at Dollar Tree of all places! These bad boys come to us from The Paper Magic Company of Scranton, PA. (Rivals of Dunder Mifflin, no doubt!) Here we get FIVE dyes and the bent coat hanger...I mean, egg dipper, plus we get 48 stickers featuring all the four wheeled friends from the CARS movie. The package also promises "9 Fun Tops" and a "Punch Out Drying Tray". The tray, is the box itself with little perforated circles that you can punch out on the back to lay your wet eggs in. The "Fun Tops" are the little cardboard circles that you punched out to make the tray. The box instructs you to "Punch out the circles from the back of the box and push a toothpick into the center, then spin like a top!" Wow...how lame is that? I'm sure our CARS eggs impressed the Easter Bunny though!

Thanks for checking in with The Blog Wore Tennis Shoes and have a safe and happy Easter weekend!

Geppi's Entertainment Museum

Geppi's Entertainment Museum in Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a jaw-dropping treasure trove of all things pop culture. From comic books, toys, and movie memorabilia, there is something in this museum that will make everybody say, "Hey, I had that!" Since no one has had a hold of popular culture so long as Walt Disney, stepping into Geppi's is the next best thing to a tour of the Disney Archives. There's plenty of Disney history and other goodies on display on every wall of this museum.

The museum's tour of all things fun over the last 100+ years begins with the largest comic book collection you've ever seen. The books featuring the first appearances of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spiderman are all on display as well as the first Disney comic books ever produced and scores of obscure titles and movie-tie ins. The exhibits then move in a chronological order from the very first comic strip characters to be licenced and merchandised all the way up to Spongbob Squarepants. Along the way, you won't believe the amount of Disney stuff you'll find. This place is awesome! Here's a few of the sights you see:

One of the earlier pieces of Mickey Mouse merchandising, a tin Mickey circus tent and circus train. I never had one of these but just seeing it made me nostalgic for the old days. (Which is strange because I also didn't live through the 30's.)

Original one sheet for Halloween Hilarities, a 1953 theatrical compilation of Disney animated shorts - released by RKO shortly before they ended their association with Disney.

You'd have a hard time finding Professor Von Drake merchandise from today, yet alone from the original days of Wonderful World of Color.

Here he is! The infamous Little Orange Bird, the subject of many a blog post.

This exhibit piece displays nine panels of a comic book in crystal clear large images. The screens change every couple of minutes, and display the complete story of a few books. One of the stories is the classic Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. You can really appreciate all the detail and color when the frames are blown up in this fashion.

Geppi's Entertainment Museum is a real treat for Disney fans and anyone who likes cartoons, toys and all that good stuff. You could spend several hours soaking in all the museum has to offer. It's definitely worth a drive if you are in the surrounding area. They currently have a Uncle Scrooge exhibit in their temporary gallery space which I hope to get down to soon and report back on.

Have You Been to the Beach Party?

I imagine that this sort of home video title is the kind of thing that alot of people simply discard as children's programming not worth watching. While Beach Party at Walt Disney World does seem to be inspired by the home video & PBS hit "Barney & Friends" Mickey Mouse and company never come close to reaching the heights of annoying condescending overacting that Barney and his multi-cultural friends have made their trademark. Released in 1995 as part of a new home video series "Mickey's Fun Songs", the Walt Disney World resort is the real star of this 30 minute musical video .There's no story here and not much talking either, instead the video soars through 11 musical numbers all shot at different locations throughout the Orlando resort.
The main purpose of the production to to promote the WDW water parks. (Blizzard Beach was in it's first year of operation when the video was made.) However, the party starts with some good old fashioned shots of the Disney/MGM Studios backlot. Mickey gathers up some kids from their front yards and city streets. Anyone who's ever visited the Studios theme park before 2004 will instantly recognize the suburban settings as the now missing Residential Street area of the backlot tour. It's a neat reminder of how the Disney/MGM Studios theme park used to actually be the home of a great deal of film and television production.

From there we're off to several beach locations shot on the shores of Bay Lake and the Seven Seas Lagoon. The kids next follow Mickey to Typhoon Lagoon for surfing in the wave pool. The song "Three Little Fishies" spotlights the park's Shark Reef with plenty of footage of the tropical fish found there and even a scuba diving Mickey Mouse. The next song "A Pirate's Life" was shot on a pirate ship docked in World Showcase Lagoon. It seems the only reason for this location was to have the Mexico building serve as a distant backdrop for the buccaneers. After the boys song, the girls sit with Ariel on the shore while she sings "Part of Your World" with the Polynesian resort looking beautiful in the background.

The centerpiece of the video is a rather extended version of "Hot, Hot, Hot" performed by Goofy while the kids and characters spend a day at Blizzard Beach. Plenty of the attractions are shown in great detail, especially the Ski Patrol Training Camp. Next, the kids take a boat over to the Polynesian for some hula dancing lessons.

The show wraps up on a beach at night time. It's hard to tell exactly where they are, but (a neat little surprise) the Electrical Water Pageant is parked right off shore. It's one of the few times I've seen the water pageant featured in a Walt Disney World show.

Beach Party at Walt Disney World is alot of fun. It's one of those videos that will give you that fix you need when you're having WDW withdrawal. You can easily find the DVD in stores, and ebay is always offering plenty of the VHS copies. The original VHS release is under the "Mickey's Fun Songs" banner, while another VHS and the DVD are labeled as "Sing Along Songs".

Mickey and Ronald Make Up?

It's been over a year since Disney and McDonald's parted ways as far as Happy Meals are concerned. Rumors indicated that Disney didn't want to be associated with Mickey D's fatty foods, while Disney insisted that the breakup was to allow other fast food chains to promote Disney films too. In the down time, neither Burger King or Wendys has had a Disney related promotion. (I did see a Hannah Montana kids meal at Subway, but that doesn't really count - does it?) This weekend marks the return of the mouse to the Golden Arches with the Year of a Million Dreams Happy Meal. It's actually more themed to the Pirate & Princess Party as all the toys are pirate or princess related...it all depends on the gender of your child.

The boys' pirate toys are the usual assortment of action figures and pirate apparel. The girls' princess collection features eight different dress up items based on the popular princess characters. A neat twist with the girl toys, instead of the cartoon picture of each princess, the toys feature photographs of the face characters from Walt Disney World. I thought that was kind of a unique touch. All the toys come with stickers or tattoos and a collectors card that also could be a lucky winner card for a trip to WDW!

I took my boys to McDonald's tonight where they both got Pirate Bandannas. Here's also scans of the two collector cards we got...

You can see all the toys and cards at McDonald's Website.