Discovering The Magic Kingdom

The Lifetime Achievements of Imagineer Terri Hardin

By Joshua Shaffer

I want to tell you about one of my favorite Disney Imagineers, Terri Hardin. She is known as one of Walt

Upon entering Dream Productions in Inside Out, you can spot two large monster feet. This is a nod to Ted, the monster whose legs we can see when Mike and Sulley are crossing the street in Monsters, Inc.

There are a total of 6 Disneyland poster hidden throughout Monsters, Inc. in the background.

1. When Boo is hitting Randall on the head with a bat, you can see a vintage Dis...

The Auctioneer scene on Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the most iconic scenes in all of Disneyland. This scene was also the only completed scene that Walt Disney was able to experience before his death, and the last attraction he worked on. To the happiness of thousands and the sadness of millions, Magic Ki...

#59. Peter Cushing, the actor who portrayed Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, has twelve-inch feet. Costuming didn’t have time to custom make the boots for his costume so they hurt his feet on the first day of shooting. On the second day, he asked George if they could shoot him from the waist up because his feet were hurting and he needed different shoes. For the rest of the filming he wore carpet slippers on his feet and he was filmed...

#49. Robert Englund, who became Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street films, was down at the studio to audition for Apocalypse Now (1979) in the late 70’s for the production company American Zoetrope. American Zoetrope was founded by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas had used the company when he made his films THX 1138 (1971) and American Graffiti (1973) before he made Lucasfilm a sub...

#2169. Mark Hamill’s kids made appearances in the Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017). His oldest son, Nathan Hamill (born June 25, 1979), portrayed Saile Minnau. His second born son, Griffin Hamill (born March 4, 1983), portrayed Salaka Kuchimba, and his daughter, Chelsea Hamill (born July 27, 1988), portrayed Koo Millham. All three of them were part of the Resistance and survived all the attacks by The First Order and ended up on C...

Ben Burtt was working with the sound department. He recorded himself breathing in a scuba respirator to get the iconic breathing sounds for Vader.

Burtt also recorded the beeps and boops for R2-D2 and did the sound mixing to get the sounds we hear from C-3PO.

The voice of Chewie was created by Burtt mixing the sounds from bears, walruses, lions, sick animals, and badgers. Mayhew would either speak English lines or just ye...

My 2nd edition is now available for purchase as we celebrate the 62nd anniversary of Disneyland.
Enjoy 700 pages full of Disneyland information.
There are now over 3,700 fun facts for the parks and for the Disney movies.
There are also over 750 photos contained within.
Here is a quick look inside.
Click here to purchas...

Disney is planning on changing the infamous Auctioneer scene in Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean in 2018, along with Disney World’s Pirates. We get the frequently spoken line “We wants the redhead,” from this attraction. Pirates first opened on March 16, 1967, just four months after Walt Disney passed a...

The Indiana Jones Adventure attraction in Disneyland has the same track layout and EMV’s (Enhanced Motion Vehicle) as the attraction Dinosaur in Disney World’s Animal Kingdom.

MERMAIDS IN DISNEYLAND? That’s right they are real. For the summers of 1965, 66 & 67 you could have caught a glimpse of them. They would swim around for 4 hours each day to entertain guests by doing aquatic stunts. Sometimes they would swim up to the people floating by in the submarine and peek through the porthole. Some of the girls started to complain about the fumes from the then diesel subs and the high chlorine content of the water. So it pressed Disney to remove...

R.I.P. John Hurt

January 22, 1940 - January 27, 2017

John played many characters throughout his 55 years of acting. He has 205 movie and television credits to his name. He will be remembered by all. Here are just a few of the movies/tv series that I know him from.

Tinker Bell is one of the most iconic characters that Disney has ever created. She made her first Disney appearance in the 1953 animated feature Peter Pan. Disney then used her to promote the upcoming theme park, Disneyland. Since the opening of the park in 1955, Walt thought the night-time fireworks show lacked someth...

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest men of our time, Walt Disney. He lost a battle to lung cancer from his chain smoking on December 15, 1966, at 9:30 am.

Here is some information you may not have known about Walt’s last days.

Happy 100th birthday Kirk Douglas!!!

He was born 15 years after Walt Disney on December 9, 1916.

The photo on the bottom right is of Kirk and his family on a visit to Walt's home in 1956. You can see a 12 year old Michael Douglas sitting in the back of Walt's train, the Carolwood Pacific. Walt h...

FUN FACT: Mr. Toad's Wild Ride: When you drive through the town square, there is a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes in a second floor window. This pays homage to Basil Rathbone (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) who portrayed the detective Sherlock Holmes in 16 Sherlock Holmes films between 1939 and 1953. Basil Rathbone was ...

In Cars 2, Luigi’s back license plate says “44.5-10.8.” This is the longitude and latitude location for the Ferrari plant located in Maranello, Italy.

It is said that Ken Anderson’s inspiration for the bride in The Haunted Mansion was the photo of the “Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.” The Brown Lady, or Ghost of Raynham Hall, was the title of a photo taken in 1936 by Country Life magazine. It is a photo of the staircase in Raynham Hall that has a ghostly woman i...

While riding in the DoomBuggies on The Haunted Mansion, you may notice something peculiar about the portraits of Constance with her different husbands in the attic. Her first husband is dressed simply while the following husbands increase in their wealth. Along with her increase of wealth, Constance Hatchaway, the "Blac...