a log flume through your lower intestine?

February 20, 2003 1:40 PM

Lost Disney Memo Found. McSweeney's posts a posthumously uncovered memo from the Disney board to Walt regarding his initial plans for a radically different "Disney-Land."
posted by jonson (22 comments total)

Yes, that was awesome. On the same level as the McSwy's AC/DC board meeting.
posted by COBRA! at 1:43 PM on February 20, 2003

Cute. But actually the reality is just as funny:

Walt Disney had a model train set at his private home. Except it wasn't hidden in a room in the basement. It ran on tracks around his property and was big enough that he could sit on the engine and ride around.

One day as he was so occupied, he was daydreaming about the then nonexistent Disneyland and so neglected his steering that the train jumped the tracks and crashed through a wall of his house. He wasn't hurt, but he did put a big hole in the wall, and his wife Lillian was livid as she had just finished redecorating that wing for the umpteenth time.
posted by orange swan at 1:59 PM on February 20, 2003

Sorry, but this reads sloppy, as if it was written in 1993, as opposed to 1953. And with little satirical research to boot. And Darby O' Gill and the Little People came out in 1959, four years after Disneyland opened.
posted by ed at 2:01 PM on February 20, 2003

I ♥ Mcsweeney's.
posted by elwoodwiles at 2:15 PM on February 20, 2003

Ed, I'm not sure whether to be impressed or slightly disturbed with your pinpoint accuracy re: Darby O'Gill's original release date.
posted by jonson at 2:45 PM on February 20, 2003

You have to steer a train?
posted by 2sheets at 2:49 PM on February 20, 2003

That train musta been really movin. Maybe it was an Amtrak?
posted by SweetIceT at 2:52 PM on February 20, 2003

Oh, great! Now I've got "You are my dear, my darling one" stuck in my head. Again.
posted by ewagoner at 3:00 PM on February 20, 2003

nobody had to sell ME on "Darby O'Gill". All it took was a young Sean Connery (singing, mind you) to win me over.
posted by padraigin at 3:03 PM on February 20, 2003

mcsweeneys = irrelevant pastiche
posted by Pacheco at 3:41 PM on February 20, 2003

jonson: I have problems with the treacly world of Disney as much as the next guy, but seeing as how I'm a film geek, seeing as how the Darby O'Gill trailer was on nearly every Disney 80s VHS release imaginable and seeing as how, well damn, I dig Darby too, the case for "disturbed" rests in your jurisdiction. :)
posted by ed at 3:44 PM on February 20, 2003

mcsweeneys = irrelevant pastiche

please, name a "relevant" literary quarterly. I'm curious. Maxim?
posted by matteo at 3:57 PM on February 20, 2003

Pirates of the Caribbean opened in 1966.. I wonder how this dude knew about it in 1953...??
posted by afx114 at 4:28 PM on February 20, 2003

mcsweeneys is so....twee.
posted by paddbear at 4:30 PM on February 20, 2003

Wasn't "EPCOT" first in Disney World? This sounds a bit bogus.
posted by DBAPaul at 5:12 PM on February 20, 2003

Oh dear lord. DBA, afx, ed, PLEASE tell me you realize this was a joke.
posted by jonson at 5:21 PM on February 20, 2003

i'd just like to join the entourage of "Eggaz Hataz" because I've heard that's the cool thing to do nowadays.

maybe we should get some of those baseball caps with the old english writing on them.
posted by fishfucker at 5:22 PM on February 20, 2003

Sure as you can steer a train, you can change your fate.
posted by ursus_comiter at 5:36 PM on February 20, 2003

Well, I found out that I can't change my fate, but I did put a big hole in the wall.
posted by transient at 6:51 PM on February 20, 2003

But when she told me off that day, I knew I'd lost my home.
posted by kevspace at 8:54 PM on February 20, 2003

jonson: Yes, I did. But if you're going to do satire, make it believable, much like the hilarious John Smith diary entries in The Sot-Weed Factor, which use tone and historical context brillilantly. This "humorous essay" was a waste of my time because it missed the mark on EPCOT and Darby O' Gill, to say nothing of out-of-place modern language as "interactive romp," "target demographic" and the uber-hip "mescal" -- terms that probably wouldn't be used in 1953 and that work against the satirical illusion.
posted by ed at 9:42 PM on February 20, 2003

You guys are in the wrong thread.
posted by webmutant at 11:25 PM on February 20, 2003