The Pyramid in Practice: Hidden Mickeys

As I explain in The Imagineering Pyramid, the interesting thing about Hidden Mickeys to me is that once you find one, you never see it the same way again. They are a fun and captivating way in which the Imagineers engage their audience.

During our recent trip to Walt Disney World, we found a handful of Hidden Mickeys, some of which we’d seen before, some of which were new to us. We don’t go out of our way to look for them, but if / when any of us spot one we make sure to share what we found.

So, which Hidden Mickeys did we see?

At Magic Kingdom we caught the plates on the banquet table in the ballroom scene in the Haunted Mansion.

At Animal Kingdom, I didn’t get a chance to see my all-time favorite Hidden Mickey in the Expedition Everest standby queue (we used a Fast Pass and single rider), but we found this one in the Kali River Rapids queue:

At Epcot, we saw Hidden Mickeys on a handful of of attractions, including:

• On Living with the Land, we spotted the shrimp tube and the garden hose (among others),
• On Soarin’ Around the World, we spotted the hot air balloons,
• At The Seas with Nemo and Friends we found the aquarium rocks. 
• In Spaceship Earth we saw another one of my favorites, the paint circles.
• In the Frozen Ever After standby queue, we spotted this one:

What are some of your favorite Hidden Mickeys? Let me know in the comments!

[Links courtesy of Steven M. Barrett’s HiddenMickeyGuy.com website.]

The Pyramid in Practice: Theming and Resorts

In the Theming chapter of The Imagineering Pyramid, I wrote about the use of theming at the resorts at Walt Disney World, specifically the use of a filmstrip motif at Disney’s All Star Movies Resort.

I think the use of this filmstrip motif is a great example of theming at work outside of the theme parks. When the book was published I wasn’t able to include pictures of the ways in which the filmstrip motif is used at the resort. Fortunately, my family and I stayed at this resort during our recent trip to Walt Disney World, and I was able to get a couple of pictures to show how the Imagineers used this motif in the design of the resort. Let’s take a look.

First, the filmstrip can be seen on the backs of the chairs in the food court:

Chairs at the food court at Disney’s All-Star Movie Resort.

The filmstrip motif is also used on the hand railings on the upper floors of the resort buildings. These are further themed with items appropriate to the specific buildings (Fantasia, Toy Story, Herbie the Love Bug, etc. We were staying on one of the Love Bug buildings.).

Our “Love Bug” building  at the resort.

One other use of this motif is in the design of tiles in the bathroom showers. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a good picture of those during our visit.

As I wrote in The Imagineering Pyramid,

“The filmstrip motif serves as a constant and subtle means of reinforcing the movie theme around which the resort is built.”

 

Thoughts? Let me know what you think in the comments!