Magic Journey: My Fantastical Walt Disney Imagineering Career

“TIME FOR RECON!” That is Rob’t speak for, “Let’s take a trip to Anaheim and try to figure out what this new attraction is and where it’s going.” Matt Ouimet didn’t tell us where he wanted it. He only told us that he wanted it. What it would be was up to us. We already knew, prior to our recon mission, this attraction concept would be a welcome addition to Disney California Adventure because the park was in need of more welcome additions. The first ride experiences to be added after the park opened in February 2001 were not designed for the general family audience. Flik’s Fun Fair, which opened in 2002, was created to provide experiences for younger children, something the park lacked. (As a member of the Flik’s Fun Fair design team, I created the attraction name and wrote the script for Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train. In the recording session, I asked Pixar’s Joe Ranft, who cocreated the story for a bug’s life and performed the voice of its caterpillar character, to deliver the Spanish version of the safety spiel as the German-accented Heimlich. The result was hysterical! This is the first time a character would provide the Spanish spiel on an attraction).

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which opened in 2004, offered an additional ride opportunity—but for thrill seekers. The time was ripe for the park to get an attraction that would entertain guests of all ages. Besides, Disneyland already had a game-based attraction with Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, so we set our sights solely on Disney California Adventure.

We arrived at the park hoping for a spark. Our plan was to simply walk and talk, keeping our eyes open for any possibility. As we strolled along Paradise Pier, we stopped in front of the boardwalk games and started talking crazy talk about how much fun it would be if we could play those games with unlimited objects to toss, not three only, and always come out feeling like a winner. This led to the “what if” question Imagineers always ask when brainstorming new ideas: “What if we could ride through these games and always walk away feeling like a winner?” KA-BAM! There was the spark we were hoping for. Actually, it was more like a lightning bolt. The ride could be built right here, somewhere on the pier, because thematically it was the perfect fit. While riding through, guests could somehow toss as many objects at targets as they possibly could in the time allowed.

We loved the idea, but it came with more questions than we had answers. What’s the story that ties the experience all together? How do rider-players actually toss objects and what are they? How, in one ride, could players throw darts in one game and baseballs in another? How do we create a game attraction that is as fun and challenging for gamers as it is for non-gamers? How could the playability be intuitive and fun even if you’ve never played a midway game? Would Grandma have as much fun and be as successful as her grandkids?

Neither Rob’t nor I was a game aficionado, so the first thing we did when we returned to Imagineering with the big idea was bring Sue Bryan on board. She had just poured her heart and soul into the creation of Mission: SPACE at Epcot—plus had a slew of other interactive and gaming experiences on her impressive résumé—so we knew we could not pull this off without her. Sue is still today the best interactivity and game guru we’ve got.

As Sue was starting to wrap her head around this crazy game idea and ways to play it, Rob’t and I started to explore story possibilities. But our story development effort didn’t get the full-time attention it deserved because we were also wrapping up our work on Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!

In addition to that, I was working on both Nemo attractions and a Car-azy concept I started on my own called Carland. (I would eventually call Rob’t in for help on that one, too!) Rob’t and Sue took a recon trip to the L.A. County Fair and returned with a whole zoo’s-worth of stuffed animals that they had won at the games on the midway. Based on their experience that day, we made a list of their favorite games, including throwing darts at balloons, tossing rings, tossing coins, and tossing baseballs.

Suffice it to say there was a whole lot of tossing going on. These traditional games would be instantly recognized and intuitive to play for our guests. When we landed on our top choices for tossing games, our first thought was to invent some kind of mechanical device that would automatically gather up all of the objects players tossed and keep the ride vehicle constantly refilled. It didn’t take long to determine all of that physical picking up would require some sort of complicated and noisy vacuum system—and that would suck. And even if it didn’t, would such a device be able to gather up all of the objects from the ground before they got run over by the vehicles, the very notion of which would cause our ride guys to put the kibosh on the whole thing before we even got started? Three-dimensional imagery was the answer. It could give us the darts, baseballs, and rings we wanted as well as the perception of trajectory when tossed. Usually 3-D is chosen because it’s the best way to deliver gratuitous in-your-face gags. But more important to us than 3-D gags, was making the booths and the games inside of them believable. They had to look as if they had real depth and dimension. We determined there had to be some sort of tangible tossing device that would never run out of “ammo” mounted to the ride vehicles and positioned directly in front of each player. We were starting to solve one practical game challenge at a time, but in the meantime, we had not yet hit the bull’s-eye on the story.

While researching games for Toy Story Midway Mania!, Sue Bryan and Rob’t Coltrin prove they have a “plush” life!

The first place we went story-wise was the notion of having Mickey Mouse and his pals work the game booths. We even came up with a name to go along with it: Mickey’s Midway Mania! But that didn’t last long because it was difficult to land on an easy-to-get story hook that would work for Mickey and do him justice. It just didn’t feel right having the most classic of our classic characters operating midway games. (For some reason, creating a story around Mickey for an attraction has always been a tough nut to crack for Imagineers, and this was no exception. I personally believe this is because Mickey is “every man” and goes everywhere, and does everything. He doesn’t come with a distinct role or job, as does Wreck-It Ralph or Kim Possible, and he doesn’t come from an instantly recognizable place like Radiator Springs or Arendelle. If Mickey had always lived and worked at a carnival or state fair, Mickey’s Midway Mania! would have been a no-brainer. All that said, I’m so happy and proud that a decade later Rob’t and I would finally crack that Mickey ride story nut by creating the original story for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Imagineering’s first-ever Mickey-themed ride-through attraction. Woo-hoo!)

And now, back to our story. Tossing Mickey out of the midway (with all due respect!), we started toying around with the connection between toys and games, which naturally took us to Toy Story. What if Woody, Buzz, and the gang were to set up Andy’s “midway game play set” to play while he was away? And what if we could shrink to the size of a toy and play these games ourselves? Bull’s-eye!

Taking into consideration the cast of Toy Story, we let each character’s job and/or personality inform the types of game they might host. In doing so, the game and story sequence practically wrote itself! Hamm was a natural for an egg toss on the farm. Bo Peep was perfect for the dart-tossing balloon-pop game in which her sheep could be balloon animals. The Green Army Men could command the boot camp–themed, plate-breaking baseball toss. Buzz Lightyear could launch the ring toss around rockets in outer space. Barbie could bring on the beach ball toss (into floating swimming-pool rings), and Woody would wrangle the Old West–themed, suction cup–darts six-shooter game. Within a month of the original spark of the idea, we had the above-game sequence and attraction name Toy Story Midway Mania! pinned to our concept board. We thought these names for the games were right on target:

Hamm & Eggs

Bo Peep’s Baaa-loon Pop

Green Army Men Shoot Camp

Buzz Lightyear’s Flying Tossers

Barbie’s Backyard Beach Ball Bash

Woody’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Shootin’ Gallery

One of our first game ideas that didn’t make the cut was a ball toss in which you would try to knock Mr. Potato Head off the shelf. But that seemed rather mean to do, even for Mr. Potato Head! So, we moved our spud bud out to the front and cast him in the role of boardwalk barker to shill the attraction and invite all passersby to “step right up” and play Toy Story Midway Mania! Barbie’s Backyard Beach Ball Bash didn’t make the final cut either for various (ahem! legal) reasons. This broke my heart because I think Barbie is a real doll.

To complete our concept package, we sketched a proposed ride vehicle, which was actually inspired by Rob’t’s original design for the Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! vehicle in use today at Tokyo Disneyland. (Rob’t and I came up with the idea for that attraction as well in between all of the other stuff we had going on!) The Monsters vehicle design was a single chassis upon which was mounted a row of three two-passenger canopied “pods” capable of turning quickly to the left or right. Each pod has a tethered flashlight positioned in front of each passenger to be used for our original “flashlight tag”-through-Monstropolis concept. In the case of Midway Mania, however, we invented a toylike spring-action shooter, sort of a string-pulling electronic popgun for each passenger. Once artist and designer Ray Cadd had our storyboard art completed, we were ready for our dog and pony show. We literally took our show on the road because instead of presenting the attraction concept to our corporate leaders at Imagineering, Marty Sklar was so excited about the concept he arranged to have Rob’t and I pitch the idea as soon as possible in the executive offices at the Disney Studio. We tossed our concept and storyboards into the back of my pickup truck and schlepped everything over to the Team Disney Building in Burbank.

At that time, as mentioned, I was in the middle of working on the two different Nemo-themed attractions in California and Florida, and Rob’t and I were busy on both Monsters, Inc.-themed attractions. Despite the heavy workload, I was selfishly and excitedly hoping to get going on this new idea, whatever it may be, because it was intended for Anaheim only, as was my concept for Carland. What this potentially meant is once the Nemo attractions were completed—and if another team could tackle Monsters for Tokyo—I could land designing an attraction close to home.

When Rob’t and I pitched Toy Story Midway Mania! to our top three corporate leaders (Bob Iger, Jay Rasulo, and Tom Staggs) in their executive suite, I had sweet dreams they’d love it. So, with Mania and potentially Carland as my next projects, I could peace out in Anaheim. Well, they loved it all right. So much so they ordered two: one for Anaheim and one for Orlando! And they wanted them completed at the same time! Holy spring-action shooter! Take it from me, fellow dreamers, be careful what you wish for! (Today there is a third Mania in Tokyo Disneyland.)

“Well,” I said to Rob’t, “the good news is they loved it. The bad news is…they loved it!” It was bad news only because we had no idea how we were actually going to do this thing. The vision depicted on the concept board and storyboards we were pushing on a wheeled cart back to my truck meant we had done the hard part. But now came the harder part—figuring out how to make it real. I mean, I point-blank pitched to Bob Iger that the Audio-Animatronics Mr. Potato Head would actually pull off a part of his body while at the same time in my own head I was thinking I must be bonkers to even suggest such an impossible figure function. (Speaking of body parts, you should have seen all the jaws drop when I pitched this crazy notion of a motion to our animation team that would have to pull it off!)

It was now up to Rob’t to site the attraction at Paradise Pier as promised and then, after determining the facility size and configuration we could get away with given the limited real estate available, design the ride layout to fit.

The day after we got the green light we took another trip to Paradise Pier to scout out an exact location for the new attraction. “I don’t see how a ride can possibly fit here,” I sadly said to Rob’t, surprised at and disappointed by my nay-saying self because I never say “never” and always believe we can do anything anywhere, anytime. But this time, as we stood in front of the long, straight span of coaster track of California Screamin’ that towers above and directly behind the game booths, and visually measured the distance from the edge of its track to the edge of the water behind us, it was clear there was not enough room to build another ride here. Another churro cart here may fit, maybe. Rob’t saw how disappointed I was. “Here’s what we do, Kev,” he assured me. “We blow right through the coaster.” Surely, he was joking. “You mean,” I questioned, “blow right through the coaster as in blow right through…the coaster?” Rob’t nodded affirmatively even though I believed we had our backs to the wall. My mind flashed to the scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when the pair is trapped on a precarious mountainside ledge high above the dangerous rock-filled water below. The terrified Kid sees no way out, but Butch has a plan. “We jump,” he says. Sundance responds, “Like hell we will!” “No,” said Rob’t, “it’ll be okay. We’ll cut a hole through the coaster structure and enter the ride from this side and we’ll put the ride building on the other side.” Yikes! If this were even possible it would surely mean shutting down California Screamin’, one of the park’s most popular attractions, during our construction. As I continued to stare at him with my frozen expression of disbelief he reminded me of the promise we made to our execs by adding emphatically, “We have to.” It was exactly like when Butch Cassidy said, “Would you make a jump like that if you didn’t have to?” Like Sundance, I answered, “I have to and I’m not gonna. I’m not gonna suggest that to upper management, either.” Rob’t laughed, “I will,” he said, “and do you know why?” I was afraid to ask. “Because we’re gonna leave Screamin’ open while we build under and through it.”

Now I’d heard everything. If there’s one thing about Rob’t, it’s he doesn’t let anything throw him off track, not even the giant quagmire of cross-braced structural steel of an established and unmovable—and by all accounts, untouchable—roller coaster. We went backstage behind the gauntlet coaster to see what we could see, and we saw a big electrical substation smack-dab in the way of the only section it looked like we could possibly blow through. “We’ll work around it,” my crazy partner in creative crime confidently assured me. After a moment of thoughtful silence, he added, “Otherwise we’re dead.” The Sundance Kid finally admitted, “I can’t swim.” To that Butch laughed and said, “Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill ya!” I let out a yell and joined Rob’t in the jump.

Working his magic at his drawing table, Rob’t brilliantly sited and positioned the ride building right through the roller coaster structure and knocked out a track layout inside the building, proving against all odds this crazy thing could work. In order to get as many guests as possible through the ride, he cleverly created two identical show sets on either side of the single-track path, similar to the way Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage has mirrored scenes visible from either side of the sub. To make it work, he changed his Monsters-inspired, ride–vehicle design to place four guests in each swiveling pod back-to-back, with a shared seat back high enough to block the view to the opposite side of the track. Each peanut-shaped vehicle chassis or carriage, hidden under the floor, would carry two of these back-to-back four-passenger pods. Doubling the vehicles and show sets doubled our guest capacity! It was inspired and oh, so Rob’t. We wanted the ride itself to be as fun as the playing of the games, so we worked in a little razzle-dazzle vehicle spin as they quickly transported guests between games. Protecting all of the show sight lines and designing the track layout, so as not to allow any character doppelgangers, also had to be figured out. After all, seeing two Buzz Lightyears or two Woodys at the same time would be as devastating as seeing two Santas!

While continuing to work on the version of the attraction for the Paradise Pier location, we were also working on how it could fit thematically into Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where there was no boardwalk. By this time, we asked Lori Coltrin to come join us and Sue Bryan to help with the big thinking, keeping in mind the practical game and set production to come. As our production designer, Lori would ultimately be responsible for delivering the goods in both parks, each opening only one month apart. As our game designer, Sue was responsible for producing the games, and Roger Gould, Liz Gazzano, and their Pixar team were responsible for delivering the character animation.

Call her crazy, but Chrissie Allen took on the daring and daunting responsibility of being our cat-herding producer for both attractions throughout their simultaneous design, development, production, and completion. Hey, we didn’t call it Mania for nothin’! But Chrissie, with her wicked smarts and even wickeder pluck, was definitely the right producer for this job. (One day Chrissie and I loaded up a bunch of stuff we needed to haul to Anaheim in one of those giant rental trucks. Before I could do it, she climbed into the cab and sat her undersized self behind the oversized steering wheel. “Gimme the keys,” she said. When we pulled off the Santa Ana freeway near Disneyland and were waiting at a red light, she looked over at me and asked, “Hey, Kev, do you know what the difference is between me and Mangum?” I replied, “I dunno, what?” As the light turned green and she shoved the clutch to the floor and jammed it into first gear, she gave me the answer “Dirty Harry” style: “I drive the truck.”)

The difference between the two versions of the attraction was the façade and queue. The ride and game experience would be identical. As the attraction was originally designed for Paradise Pier only, we had to rethink the entrance and queue area for its location inside a studio soundstage. Taking inspiration from our attraction’s story (all the answers to any question or challenge that may arise during the design and development of any project can always be found by staying true to the story), we decided to design and deliver Andy’s bedroom, the very place in which the toys have set up these games and at the scale the toys would view it.

While Rob’t was circling in on fine-tuning the complicated attraction layout—and even more complicated ride timing—Sue was building game and vehicle mock-ups for play-testing. Our first vehicle “buck” was made of plywood, and the attached spring-action shooter mock-up was made from rope, over-the-counter steel, plastic pipe, and other random parts from a local hardware store. We set up a mock game booth in front of the buck, and Sue worked with Estefania Pickens and game designer Jesse Schell from Carnegie Mellon to develop some early games for play-testing.

There were a lot of learning curves along the way. When Jesse delivered his first-pass version of Hamm & Eggs, and we got the crude spring-action shooter to work in real time with it, every time an egg was tossed and knocked something over, a numerical score would pop out and float above the downed target (like you’d typically see in a video game). But we didn’t want a video game! This was completely counter to the “reality” we were trying to achieve. We wanted the games and the booths to look like they were made out of flat “cutout” wood, painted and assembled. We didn’t want any contemporary electronic game imagery or graphics you’d see anywhere else. Another lesson we quickly learned was, using the dart toss as an example, we had to program the launched darts “stuck” in the back wall to eventually loosen on their own and drop “to the floor” out of sight. The reason for that is if you add up all of the games and all of the thousands of objects that all of the players are tossing/firing real time at the same time, the real-time computer required to simulate so much activity can be quickly brought to its knees. That’s why the hundreds of objects you toss out every game quickly drop out of view to allow for the real-time regeneration of new objects being tossed. Making the games look simple—and the playing of them intuitive—was extremely complicated. We could not have done it without our mock-up and progressive play-testing. As our mock-up space was located directly across Flower Street from our main building in Glendale, we would often host John Lasseter and Bob Iger, who loved to stop by to play, much to the chagrin of their “handlers,” whose job it was to keep them on schedule.

With my creative partner in crime Rob’t Coltrin at our first crude vehicle mock-up, made mostly of parts from the hardware store, for Toy Story Midway Mania!

Over the course of our game development, Sue and Estefania hosted hundreds of play-testing sessions for invited gamers of all ages. These sessions proved invaluable in helping us to fine-tune the games and improve upon their playability. My favorite story was that younger gamers were reluctant to break plates (even though virtual) in the mock-up for the Green Army Men Shoot Camp. Sue discovered that, at that age, they were taught not to break things! That being the case, I brought the voice talent of “Sarge” from Toy Story into our studio to record this command that can be heard in the attraction today: “I am not your mother! You have my permission to break these plates!” Once we added that line, the kids broke free!

While the play-testing and target testing continued across the street, my aim was to write the overall attraction script and the separate “interactive” script for Mr. Potato Head. This, too, was complicated, in that I had to write any combination of real-time line possibilities he could say to any guest related to what they were wearing, saying, asking, and/or doing. “From expert to beginner, everyone’s a winner!” he might say. “How about you, young man in the blue shirt?” I also happily wrote the lyrics to all of the songs he sings in his role of boardwalk barker to attract passersby and entertain those already waiting in line. Joyous was the time I spent working on all of the songs with Joey Miskulin, the accordion player (or the “Stomach Steinway” as he affectionately calls it) from the comedy Western singing group Riders in the Sky. Our connection with Joey, aka “Joey the Cow Polka King,” is Riders in the Sky wrote and performed the song “Woody’s Roundup” for Toy Story 2. Plus, they were also involved with other Pixar-related projects. Joey composed the music to go with my lyrics, which was like a dream come true for me because I was a huge fan of the group that does it “the cowboy way” long before they were involved with Disney and Pixar. Don Rickles, the voice of Mr. Potato Head, sang all of the songs with great gusto and glee. Here’s the attraction’s theme song’s lyrics:

Midway Mania, you’ll love this game it’s so insane-ia

Everybody, I said everybody’s playin’, everybody’s sayin’

You won’t be the same once you play this game!

Midway Mania, how can I make it any plain-ia?

So, come on, pal, step right up and make some noise

It’s time to play with all the toys!

You know, your life will never be mundane-ia

When you play Midway Mania!

How does a boardwalk barker, who also happens to be a potato, shill the attraction in song?

One potato, two potato, three potato, four

Five potato, six potato, play the game and score!

Seven potato, eight potato, nine potato, ten

Try your luck, ya hockey puck and play the game again!

Step right up and take a ride, my toy friends are all inside

There’s no need to be afraid-O, trust me, I’m a hot potato!

Hurry! Hurry! Right this way everybody here can play

Feel what it’s like, there’s nothing greater

When you’re a hot potater!

One potato, two potato, three potato, four

Five potato, six potato, you’re gonna score

Seven potato, eight potato, nine potato, ten

Be a hot potato!

One of the big breakthroughs on the Mr. Potato Head Audio-Animatronics figure is our animation team ended up pulling off his ability to pull off his ear. “You there, in the red shirt,” he asks. “How would you like having a potato for a pet? We can do all kinds of tricks. Wanna see one? Okay, are you watching? Are you watching?” He takes off his ear. “Ta-da! Try getting a pony to do that!” He continues, “I like having interchangeable parts. Sometimes I wear my feet where my ears are supposed to go. Like that guy over there!”

Roger Gould and I spent thirty-three hours with Don Rickles in our recording studio at Imagineering. As you can imagine, it was an experience like no other! I had seen the showbiz icon on TV hundreds of times while growing up, and I must admit I was not a big fan of his insulting comedy shtick. In fact, the thought of working with the “Merchant of Venom” scared the heck out of me. Still, on Don’s first recording day with us at Imagineering I thought it would be a nice gesture if I were standing out front of our main lobby to welcome him upon his arrival. I nervously watched as his long black limo turned in to our parking lot and stopped with its blacked-out back passenger side window within my arm’s reach. The dark window went down to reveal the famous face of “Mr. Warmth” himself. “Get in,” he ordered. I dashed around to the other side of the car, slid into the back seat next to the legend, and said, “Hi, Mr. Rickles, I’m Kevin. Welcome to Imagineering.”

He scowled. “Now, you listen to me,” he said, grabbing my shirt collar in his clenched fist and pulling my face right up to his, which wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant as when Cindy Crawford did that to me, “’cause I’m gonna tell you something very important.” He said that with the attitude of an angry parent who is about to warn, “If you ever do that again I’ll ground you for a month!” I assumed Don was about to establish the rules of the road, the pecking order—the uncrossable boundaries between him and me. But what he actually wanted to do is tell me a funny story. And that story was followed by another and then another. The man was doing his act! I was at a Don Rickles show and the only one in the audience! I never said a word as I sat there in our parking lot in the back seat of his limo for a half hour listening to and laughing at his nonstop stories before he finally came in for a landing and let go of my shirt. “Now look what you did, Calvin,” he scolded, “you made me late! You should be ashamed of yourself. If I was your father I’d ground you for a month!”

We had several recording sessions with Don, and he always came to our studio with the energy and enthusiasm of a man half his age. At eighty, he told me he had signed a five-year contract to extend his show in Las Vegas. Every recording session he had with us began with stories about his career and his relationship with Frank Sinatra and many of the biggest names in the business. But of all of Don’s stories, my favorites were the ones I personally witnessed that happened at Imagineering. Jeff Webb, our vice president of project estimating, grabbed me in the hall and wanted to know if the rumor that I was working with his idol Don Rickles was true. “I’m so jealous,” he said when I validated the rumor. Jeff told me he was a lifetime fan of the comedian and had been to many of his live shows. After one of our recording sessions a few days later, as I was walking Don through our main corridor back to his awaiting limo, I figured I knew him well enough to ask a favor. “Don,” I said pointing to an office door we were approaching, “that office belongs to one of your biggest fans and a dear friend of mine. Would you mind just poking your head in and saying ‘hi’ to Jeff?” Not only did Don poke his head in, he marched his whole body in like he owned the joint and found our dutiful estimator crunching numbers at his desk.

I’ll never forget the look on Jeff’s face when he peeked over the top of his reading glasses and saw the man of whom he was a fan standing before him. “Look, at you, Jeff,” exclaimed Don. “You’re tired. You’re overworked. You’re underpaid. These Disney people are obviously taking advantage of you. Now, do you and me both a favor, huh? Get outta here. Take the rest of the day off. I mean it!” A few doors down the hall Don took me by surprise when he suddenly side stepped into video producer Ken Horii’s office. “Hey, pally,” he greeted Ken. “Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you! What’s a classy guy like you doing in a dump like this? Look at this place. I’m embarrassed for you. A big important guy like you should have better digs. Don’t worry. I know people. I’ll get it taken care of.”

But my all-time favorite Don Rickles moment happened in the middle of one of our recording sessions. Roger Gould and I codirected Don’s performances while sitting next to him in the studio. We worked him hard and he professionally knocked out everything we tossed his way.

Pixer’s Roger Gould and I spent thirty-three hours in our Imagineering recording studio with Don Rickles (can you imagine?), where he brought my scripts and songs for Mr. Potato Head to life.

After one of his takes, which I thought was perfect, Roger asked him to perform the line once again with a different inflection on one of the words. “Roger,” snapped Don, continuing in a rapid-fire pace, “why can’t you be more like Kev? I like Kev. Kev’s a good guy. Kev’s a smart guy. I’m gonna take him on the road with me. But you! YOU! You’re from around the San Francisco area, aren’t ya? Look, do me a favor. Leave right now, fly back up north, hop in your car, drive to the Golden Gate Bridge, suck off all the red paint, then keep heading north and never come back again!” On the day when Don Rickles passed away I received this text message from Roger:

I should have bought Don a Disney sweatshirt in Mickey’s of Glendale to replace the one he was wearing!

Don became such a good friend that when he passed, people, including Marty Sklar, sent notes and cards of condolences to me. I should have known better than to be scared about working with Don. His insulting demeanor was all an act. What he did for a living was not who he really was. I was really blessed to be able to get to know the sweet, caring, and lovable guy who was the real Rickles. When our sessions were over, I sincerely thanked him for working so hard and for doing such a great job for us. He thanked me and said it was his pleasure because he does Mr. Potato Head for his grandchildren. Every line he performed, and there were hundreds, was for them.

June 9, 2008

Dear Roger and Kevin,

I figured I’d save stationery writing to you as a team!

Gentlemen, I can’t thank you enough for my special Mr. Potato Head sweatshirt. I’ll wear it proudly at the Donald Duck swim off contest at Disney! Meanwhile guys, take care of yourself and work on your personalities!

Love ’ya,

Don

Every bit of designing and delivering Mania was insane-ia. But boy, was it fun! Not only was the attraction a toy and a game, it was also a puzzle. And in the end, all the pieces fit perfectly, including both versions of the attractions that were shoehorned into unorthodox spaces. On those occasions when you achieve your goal, the more impossible it seemed at the beginning, the sweeter and more gratifying it is when you get there. I worked on both Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster and Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and prior to the addition of Mania, when the rope dropped on Hollywood Boulevard upon the park’s opening, I was always so proud and happy whenever I saw guests turning to the right to head over to those attractions first. But once Mania opened—and I saw the wave of guests turning left—I jumped for joy. On the West Coast, adding this attraction to Disney California Adventure was a game-changer, because its popularity helped open the door for more expansion.

The ride and game experience was right on target, and the icing on the gingerbread cake—its highly detailed boardwalk-inspired architecture designed exquisitely by Oscar Cobos—in every way emanated a classic Disneyland vibe. And for Disney California Adventure, there was even more lovingly executed Disneyland-like detail to come on the road ahead!