Make It Scary:Walt Disney World

Make It Scary

Dan: Welcome back to another meeting of the Gold Key. Adventurers Society. My name is Dan Leonard,

Jeff: Hi, Dan.

Heather: Dan.

Dan: joining me this week in the studio is Heather Straight and Mr. Jeff Williams.

Jeff: Hey, that's me.

Dan: sure is. Our show, as always, is brought to you by Key to the World Travel. Key to the World Travel is a full service travel agency specializing in Theme Parks, Cruising, and destinations around the world. Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com for more details and a no obligation quote on the vacation of a lifetime. Well, last week we talked about some of our favorite scary or spooky things around the Disney Theme Parks and Resorts this week. I wanna take a look at the flip side of that coin.

I was wondering how can we change some of the more lighthearted attractions and experiences at the Disney parks and resources to turn them into spooky, scary nightmare fuel?

Jeff: More murder.

Dan: always. Yeah. No, not necessarily a full rewrite, although I guess it could be if you wanted to, but I was thinking like a lot of these things, if you just changed one or two little details, it would make it just absolutely terrifying.

 For example, if you took, It's a small world and you slowed the soundtrack down by about 50% and took all of the white light bulbs and replaced 'em with red light

Heather: Oh,

Dan: It would just, Eh, it's so small.

Jeff: Oh yeah. Major cords low.

Heather: similar thought, but instead I had thought that you replace all of the dolls with those creepy antique dolls with the.

Jeff: the ceramic.

Heather: cracked faces. Yeah, just keep everything else the same, but the dolls are terrifying.

Jeff: If you combine those two ideas, that could really be a creep

Heather: That would be nightmare fuel.

Jeff: It's a world of

laughter. 

Dan: Change it to a minor key and

 You're golden. Yeah,

Jeff: somebody somebody needs to do like a slow metal version of that.

Dan: I'm

sure there is. 

Heather: it probably

Jeff: my friends at Macon.

Dan: dad, Jeff Williams always name dropping,

Jeff: Yeah,

Dan: dropping names like.

Jeff: like they're hot.

Dan: like something that you drop.

Jeff: I would like to see a ghosttown version of Main Street USA 

Dan: Oh, 

Jeff: everything was just the same as it was, but like post-apocalyptic style where tumbleweeds and all the shutters hanging off the thing and everything just decrepit. Like a, maybe they could do that for an overlay at some point, but I would

Heather: Yes, just overlay it on Halloween so everybody wakes up and enters the park and it's just ghost

Jeff: Yeah. And especially at night, they could do that with projections and stuff, but just to have like a, instead of the like gay nineties music, you could just have like horrific music and Mommy, why did you kill me? Things like that coming through there, just same kinda mood. Like the batteries just slowly running down on the machine that used to make the fun song.

So they're like slowing

Heather: Oh yeah.

Jeff: outta energy.

Heather: That's creepy.

Jeff: a full creep fest.

Dan: or we, we talked briefly off the air earlier about about what a good movie, something Wicked this way comes, is if it had kind of that feel once after the carnival comes into town and things start getting a little weird and

freaky. 

Jeff: off.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: good idea.

Jeff: that whole vibe. I love a ghost town anyway, so it'd be cool to see that.

Heather: That'd be a fun Halloween overlay.

Dan: Yeah. Doesn't when the Japan parks kind of do like haunted houses?

Heather: Oh, I don't know. But I love it.

Dan: Yeah. I think one of 'em does basically walk through haunted houses.

Heather: I always love to see other countries interpretations of h.

 I once stayed at a, an all-inclusive in Mexico

Dan: Oh,

Heather: and one, you know, the night before Halloween, they had a really cool day of the dead party and you know, all of the sugar skulls and it's colorful and beautiful and was wonderful. And we went to bed and woke up the next morning and it was. A cartel had run through. There were body bags hanging from the trees and it looked like a murder scene. Like that was their interpretation of what we wanted. For Halloween, they had a

Jeff: guys, get a Gord or pumpkin or something. What are you doing with the murder

Heather: body bags hanging from the trees and shoved under loungers at the pool. And then they had a big Halloween party that was. like, you know, I guess they see that we have the severed hands and skeletons and stuff and they thought, Oh, murder. That must be what Americans like. Yeah. But instead they did, you know, fake bodies wrapped in black plastic and

Jeff: Yeah.

Heather: the buffet. It was so weird.

Jeff: Oh,

Heather: so weird. Yeah. They had a big party that night where there were these great buffets, but then there would be a.

Not a disembodied hand or fake ground princess meat, but just a body. So weird.

Jeff: that's not like. Fun. Scary. That's just gross

Heather: that was a bunch of people have been murdered here. Scary

Jeff: Yeah. You know, for families.

Dan: I was gonna say that you could take that and run with. World showcase in Each country could be overlaid with their own Halloween traditions, but then you'd end up with all this lame stuff. Like instead of Jack Leonards, we just got a bunch of turnips with spooky faces, cutting them, laying around the place.

And

Heather: that's kinda cool

Jeff: would just be some sort of phallic something.

Heather: Yes,

Dan: so just like every other

day. Yeah.

Heather: I thought of taking Space Mountain and changing the music to the music from the black hole and putting max million in there. That was terrifying to me

as a kid. 

Jeff: just as you're like, you're gonna go into him, and

Dan: Nah. Oof.

Jeff: I don't remember the music to the black hole, but I bet it's good. I loved that movie and it scared me as a young.

Heather: Yes, and I haven't watched it as an adult, so I don't know if it's lame now, but I found it terrifying as a kid.

Dan: Yeah. I mean there's a few things that are a little, but for the most part it's still, It holds up pretty well.

Jeff: I mean the character designed for Maxil is still killer looking

Heather: Definitely.

Jeff: literally,

Heather: Haha. Killer robots.

Jeff: Daniel, you got so.

Dan: Yeah. Okay, so this one, stick with me on this one. Country Bears Jamboree, right.

Heather: Uhhuh. Yep.

Dan: There's a handful of songs in there that have some violent

Heather: Yes. Blood on the saddle.

Dan: yeah, well, Blood on the Saddle. And also Mama Don't Whoop Little Beauford

Heather: Yes.

Dan: where she, where at the end she, You're telling Mama to shoot her son in the head.

Heather: Yeah

Jeff: For kids.

Dan: Yeah, so they could get like a real graphic, visual interpretation in there. And then I was thinking that during the finale, Ernie's, little raccoon friend could pop up, but it turns out that he's rabid and he's got a thirst for bear flesh. And then it could just end with the country. Country Bears massacre.

Heather: I love where this is going.

Jeff: I like this because then you could use my idea, which was at the end to just Release live bears into the

Dan: Ha, Then everybody gets in on the fun

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Heather: there's blood on the seats,

Dan: That's right. 

Heather: That sounds fun.

Jeff: Yeah. If they could do a way to have the live animals or like, you know, they somehow come down and then a real bear comes out. But if they could make it seem like it could get to you, but it couldn't and just scare the dog crap out of everybody.

Heather: That would scare people.

Jeff: Oh, so

Heather: That would scare me.

Dan: bears are scary,

especially brown one.

Heather: What if we'd uh, replaced all of the characters with the creepy 1950s versions 

Jeff: Oh yeah. 

Heather: Mickey and Minnie taunts my nightmares.

Jeff: Oh, and they're both just wearing like tights and big weird shorts,

Dan: Well, you know why that

Jeff: you'd also have to make them in black and white, like all the pictures were

Heather: Yes. Why are they wearing tights and black shorts?

Dan: The reason they're all in spandex and tights was because those first costumes came from the ice Capades.

Heather: Wow,

Dan: They didn't have costumes made up and they decided they wanted characters at Disneyland. So they got the costumes from the ICE Capades

Heather: that's hysterical. I had no idea

Jeff: it a Disney Icecapades show?

Dan: yeah, Disney's been ice. Disney on

Heather: on Ice has been for the ages.

Dan: and they took over the Ice Capades a long time ago.

Jeff: Yeah.

Heather: I had no 

Dan: rather the ice Capades like High licensed them to, to, So yeah, that's where those costumes came from.

Jeff: Oh, that's a fun bit of trivia. I never

Heather: I love that. Thank you, Dan. Well the heads are terrifying.

Dan: Yes. They're

Jeff: I would say if. You could just add surprise, 70 foot drops to otherwise mild rides. That would just really be fun. So you're just like on pirates. And then, Woo. I always say that

Heather: or witty, the poo

Jeff: people who've never been on there that it's gonna be some crazy free fall at the end. But if you could be like on the merry go round and fantasy land, and then boom, the whole thing

Heather: just falls.

Dan: You just never know what's

Jeff: You never know what, and it doesn't always happen. It could be the mildest ride of your life, or it could be a 70 foot free fall.

Heather: that is terrifying.

Jeff: just don't know.

Dan: Well, Winnie the poo, there's the scene in the cartoon where during the rainstorm where they go over

Heather: Phillips and Woos are very confusing. Yes.

Dan: yeah. You could

go over the 

Jeff: be good to randomize that though.

Dan: Yes. Yeah that's the best part. You never know when you're gonna be in mortal peril of your life.

Heather: What if you go at the end of it's tough to be a bug when everybody's already been scared? And just release like a hundreds of butterflies. They're completely innocuous insects, but they'd come flying at your face and everyone would

freak do it in the absolute dark too, so people dunno, what is that? What is that?

tell what the bugs are. 

Dan: Or something like grasshoppers or something with a little bit more heft to 'em

so that they, really feel 'em when they hit you.

Heather: Haft

Jeff: what's the worst? What are those cicadas,

Dan: Yo,

Jeff: The way they dive at your face

Heather: Oh, I hate those.

Jeff: release. The cicadas

Heather: Yes.

Dan: did you ever keep one as a pet?

Heather: No. Did

Jeff: No,

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: Dan?

Jeff: did use to collect their little shells that they climb out of when they leave their weird husky thing.

Heather: Gross.

Dan: and put him in the freezer, his heart rate will slow down and he'll go to sleep and then he can tie a string around him unless he thaws

Heather: Oh, what the

Jeff: I had, I could afford toys when I was a kid. Dan

Heather: Dan

Dan: sometimes the best toys are the ones you make yourself. I

never actually 

Jeff: the best toys are torturing creatures.

Dan: I never did that, but.

Heather: Cicada on

Dan: But I thought about it. Or like you put out a big tongue depressor now popsicles stick a big, you know, a tongue depressor with some glue on the end and stick him on there. So he is just sitting there buzzing.

Jeff: Big

Dan: God, I

sound like 

Heather: gosh.

Dan: don't I?

Heather: Yes

Jeff: Yeah, a little bit.

Heather: Yes, you do.

Jeff: like it though.

Heather: Oof.

Jeff: things are so loud.

Dan: Yes, they.

Heather: about taking Toy Story land and getting rid of all of the regular toys and putting in those creepy hybrids that Sid makes in the first movie?

Dan: Oh

man, 

Jeff: Yes, please.

Dan: that would

be great. 

Heather: erector set?

Dan: You wrecked

Jeff: I just met her.

Heather: We haven't said that in a while.

Dan: Yeah. . Or even if you had a dark ride. Through SID'S

bedroom 

Jeff: Sid's room, Sid's house.

Dan: Yeah, that'd

Jeff: I love the idea of that. Or if they had like the roaming

 Creature, like the one, It was like the, Yeah. Oh, the multi leg

Heather: head with,

Jeff: Yeah, like the weird legs and the fishing thing. 

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. That kid was

messed 

Heather: disturbed.

Jeff: That kid was me.

Dan: Well,

Jeff: I was pretty much doing that at Ke Con this year.

I was mashing up toys

Heather: Oh yes, we did

Box of 

Jeff: heads and things

Heather: and Jeff made all of the things in the boxes and they were exquisite. 

Jeff: You know, somebody commented, Did you look like Sid from Toy Story? Cause I was like snatching doll heads off and gluing them to other bodies and

Heather: there was a bobblehead head on a dinosaur body. It was great.

Dan: Well, a similar vein Disney Plus is about to get a series of Marvel zombies. What if they just took over Avengers campus permanently? That zombie Captain America that they

have during Halloween is pretty cool looking. Even though he is Captain America and he is lame

dead so it's

Heather: Zombie. Captain America is a okay with Dan,

Dan: but

if they had all of the, you know, all of those zombie characters out roaming in the dark

Jeff: Oh, that would be so killer. Why don't they do that at Ogie

Heather: with chainsaws.

Dan: Yeah,

Jeff: Yeah. Halloween Horror Night Style. Just all the Marvel characters trying to kill the children.

Dan: Perfect, happiest place on Earth,

Heather: Solve.

Jeff: I would like to combine Tower of Terror with what we talked about last week with the extra terror.

Heather: Ooh

Jeff: And so if you were same drop mechanism and all that, but as you're going through, you have the

Heather: Oh, whoa,

Jeff: stuff swirling all around you with

Heather: yes.

Jeff: and monsters in your ears. If they really amped up the sound and stuff before you start falling, they could really turn that into something cool.

Dan: And with the length of that ride and the way the car actually moves at Hollywood

Heather: That's the thing that terrifies me about the one at Hollywood Studios is the fact that it moves and is it still safe?

Jeff: So you're like, Did it lock in correctly to this

Heather: This seems maybe like 

Dan: mean, it only drops what, like

Heather: 50 times

Dan: Yeah, but it

doesn't drop that far? 

Heather: Oh, I don't know. It feels far.

Dan: Yeah. It, the, that's why it's dark to make you feel like you're going real far, but you're not actually going

Jeff: Yeah, cuz you've already gone up a good way before you go out.

Dan: Yeah,

Jeff: you

Heather: you're saying I won't fall to my death, is what you're saying?

Dan: no. Just to severe injuries,

maybe 

Jeff: they could really amp up the scarce cuz it's, you know, the thing, the difference in that ride versus the guardian's ride in California is that buildup. Guardian's ride is like, Man, rock and roll. Me. We're going up and down. It's like a party. And then the one here is, or here I'm not there. The one in fault.

Disney World is a whole different thing. It's like a spook fest and you don't know exactly when it's gonna start. I love. Think they're gonna drop right away. And instead you go through the whole thing and they're like, What is going on?

Heather: I like to encourage that and make people think we're about to drop and then we, and it moves. I love

Jeff: Yeah get some speakers that are like right up on you, like extraterrestrial style, or just have stitch in there, burping in your face and smelling like buster.

Heather: terrifying.

Dan: That'll do it.

Heather: What if they take all the rude servers at fifties primetime, and it's your mother-in-law.

Jeff: My mother-in-law is a delight.

Heather: I mean, mine was too, but you get the idea. Somebody rude in your family

Dan: My mother-in-law's a real psychopath, so

Heather: but she's also dead.

Dan: Right.

So terrifying if she, if she was serving me at the restaurant, Ooh, that would be

Jeff: Yeah, it would be cool if somehow they could pre-interview you before you go, and the person that you most were scared of in your life was that, whether it was your mom or your creepy aunt or your school teacher that touched your own whatever,

Heather: no,

Jeff: Mr. Belcher, the school janitor. Not to be too specific for me.

Heather: Oh, dear. I'm concerned for you

Jeff: The pre-interview just to go eat meatloaf, fifties prime

Heather: That would be it for me. Just a rest, a restaurant that made me eat all the gross, creepy meatloaf and apple sauce.

Dan: That sounds delicious.

Heather: Gross.

Jeff: chop and apple size.

Dan: I like a good pork chop and a good meatloaf. Are you kidding me,

Heather: Yeah I'm trying to open my mind to the meatloaf, but apple sauce is the devil's sauce.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: I'm with you.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: if you're watching Hoopty do review and then one of the people on stage is murdered and it turns into a mystery dinner theater where they have to solve the case of the goofy sheriff that's shot in the face or something.

Heather: It's very specific. 

Dan: But with super realistic blood and gore

effects, 

Jeff: Where it seems like something happened. Oh yeah. He could just be singing and dancing then fall over dead and then like, you know, somebody comes in, there's been a murder.

Dan: they play 100% straight. Yeah.

Jeff: Like the ambulance comes in and all that, and then they, It's gotta be someone in here that did this. How did this happen?

Dan: Yeah, Cops come in.

Heather: More realistic dinner theater type stuff. I'm all for that.

Jeff: Yeah, especially with Murder

Heather: Messenger

Jeff: Pass in jail has been mailed out there.

Dan: Ooh. We'd all get an opportunity

Heather: The Murderer is one 

Dan: be great. See, I got that reverence. also literate

Jeff: What if the this toys from Sid's house came in and killed the hoopty? Do

Dan: Oh,

Heather: geniuses?

Dan: what if, now go with me here, because there's already a Pirates of the Caribbean

 but what if. 

Jeff: what's it called?

Dan: of the Caribbean, but what if we re-skin Peter Pan's flight so that you're flying through scenes that feature all of the skeleton and zombie pirates from the first Pirates of the Caribbean

movie. 

Heather: okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan: could do some cool stuff with that.

Jeff: I love zombies and I love the, And pirates are so creepy, so just, yeah, Zombie pirates are so killer

Dan: Literally.

Heather: zombie pirates.

Jeff: See?

Heather: I see what you did there.

Jeff: Because they're like all ancient tea anyway, and when they're wearing like, yeah, I love a skeletal, like moving around

Dan: yeah. Those are always good. Good for a scare.

Jeff: Especially if I can fly over top of them and not have them get me

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: in my gallium ship.

Heather: Or it's Bubonic Plague London that you're flying over instead.

Dan: Yeah, there you go. And you can see the shambling masses below.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: I just wanted to say shambling.

Jeff: no, I like the way, it's a perfect word. Like you're flying over World War Z where there's just a mass of.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: guys have anything else on your list?

Heather: Well, I just, this is probably an easy one, but adding creepy clowns to that clown area back in the magic kingdom. To the big top.

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Jeff: Like killer clowns from outer space level.

Heather: Roaming around back there.

Dan: And they need something to replace the the meet and greet back there.

Heather: Well, there you go.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: yeah. Make it just the world's creepiest clown.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: I'm not, I don't find clowns creepy, but I know a lot of people are terrified of them.

Jeff: Clowns in general, don't creep me. But if you a well done like scary clown character, like the guy at What's Jack Yeah. At Halloween h that's a great character

Heather: that's.

Jeff: clowns are supposed to be like fun and funny for kids, but when they're just not it's such a childhood thing that it just really

Heather: creepy clown. I get, but I don't get people who are just scared of just regular old

Jeff: I don't get it.

Heather: I don't know what's scary about

Jeff: Who hurts? You?

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, a clown obviously.

Jeff: Point out on the doll where the clown hurts you.

Dan: I had two more. I was thinking, first of all, what if you go to imagination and Figment becomes essentially Freddie Kruger and he stocks and murders children through their,

in, 

Heather: That's disturbing

Dan: daydreams. Like they're using their imagination Oh,

figment comes and sings a little song and then,

Heather: murders

Jeff: If your imagination is like Dan's

Heather: o.

Dan: I mean, you know, we did just hear that they're making a figment movie, so

Heather: Yeah, that's true.

Dan: maybe they need a script

call up. 

Jeff: the horror movie.

Heather: you could take the haunted mansion and make it super scary just by adding jump scares,

Jeff: Yeah. They could really amp up. I would love to see like a layover, like they have the Christmas, la nightmare before Christmas layover out at Disneyland. Why not do like a scary thing? And they could if, cuz it's the little carts can turn and stuff. If they made it turned more unexpected thing and randomized some of

Heather: right there in your face.

Jeff: movement.

Yeah.

Dan: We've talked about before, for a brief time in the eighties, they had the suits of armor, had people in them, and they would do that the suits of armor, right at the the endless hallway effect. They had people in that costume and they would get up in your face, and then guests started getting scared and punching them.

Heather: Oh, 

Dan: And they got rid of it. Yeah. And they brought them back a

Heather: I love 

Dan: for the big anniversary at Disneyland, I believe

Heather: so sad I missed that.

Dan: it was like a one night 

Jeff: close enough within

Heather: Right. Figure out how the longest lengthiest arm on stage, just outside punching

Jeff: Yeah, but it'd be cool if they could randomize the cart so it would turn in different ways or fall back. You didn't, because you know that one where you it goes back as you go out the attic window. If they could make it do that without the track sloping, so you think you're gonna drop,

 Really turn that scary 

Dan: I mean, they had plans for some really dark, scary stuff in there

Heather: I 

Dan: it 

Heather: would love that

Dan: Yeah. They could have played that side up more and done that. That'd be

Jeff: They're always scared about what it's gonna do to some kid, Like something cool like extraterrestrial, like

Heather: I know.

Jeff: cried about it. So we gotta remove it for

Heather: there were a lot of warnings on that. Yeah.

Dan: Well, maybe villains land, once that opens is an opportunity to do some of this

stuff. Especially,

Jeff: shopping. 

Heather: like churn Abog and Night on Bald Mountain. I mean, he is a demon.

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: It's perfect.

Dan: There's boobs in that cartoon.

Heather: There's boobs in that cartoon

Dan: Oh yeah.

Jeff: What's his name? Turner. Who?

Dan: churn.

Heather: churn Abog.

Dan: Night on Bald Mountain.

Jeff: Yeah. No, I know the thing.

Heather: remember that part of that piece of Fantasia there,

Jeff: huge tits

Dan: Some of the ghosts that rise up are naked and then there he, at one point he conjures up some sexy little fire

Jeff: Oh, I remember that. There's Ghost Bush

Dan: Anyway,

Heather: Fire imps. Nice.

Dan: Yeah. My last.

Heather: making you could make the safari in a magic kingdom creepy by, like, turning it into all the animals or? Zombie animals and they're all rabid and out for your flesh.

Dan: Yeah. Well that was

basically my last. Yeah.

Yeah. Even if they're not necessarily zombie, just, you know, in the vein of like, like orca or jaws, or there's a lion one too that's similar movies where it's just the unstoppable animal that's out for revenge and wants to kill all humans. I, I had, I, my idea was, Very similar for Navi River Journey.

You take that shaman and put it up at the very start of the ride and she conjures up like a blood thirsty, like Black Panther that stalks you through the jungle.

Heather: blood thirsty. Things are always terrifying.

Dan: Yeah,

Jeff: led. That's such a great word.

Dan: yeah, it would make that RA exciting.

Heather: could just make it super scary by not having the overlay be announced and just, Oh no, the lion is on the loose.

Jeff: Yeah. Well that's what I was thinking because they used to have the whole little storyline part with the poachers and all. But if you 

Dan: Yeah. 

Jeff: like radio starts coming in and like the elephants on our amage or whatever thing, and then like, you know, you get into a little

Heather: we.

Jeff: area and they could use sound effects and stuff to really effective way with a.

Rock you drive through with their great rock work and stuff, and then wow, the cheetahs in here with us,

Dan: Oh no.

Jeff: could really be a good thing. And they could randomize the story a little bit. So maybe every fifth time it's a cheetah and you know, whatever.

Dan: they change up. What sound effects they

Heather: is genius.

Jeff: But lights and, you know, claws, clawing on top of your vehicle, it would be inexpensive to do

Dan: it's so

Heather: Yeah, that's good. Dig it.

Jeff: I'll call Bob.

Heather: Let's call the bobs. 

Dan: Yeah, 

Heather: on Scarifying the

Jeff: to one Bob now.

Heather: Oh

Dan: it's not the good one,

Heather: no

Jeff: know.

Heather: it's not.

Jeff: No, it is

Heather: part.

Dan: Oh, that's a shame. Well, thanks for hanging out with us again this week. If

you're 

Jeff: problem, Dan.

Dan: If you're excited to visit the spooky side of Walt Disney World or explore anywhere else around the world, Key to the World Travel, so many worlds. Again, I gotta rewrite this ending Freaking a,

Jeff: Epic, Universal, epic,

Dan: I sound like an idiot. Well, Key to the World. Travel has a swimming pool built on top of a graveyard full of expert travel planners who are ready to make your vacation dreams a reality. Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com to get started with the no obligation quote. Word of mouth is the best way to help us grow our show.

If you have a friend or two who you think would appreciate our special brand of Globetrotting Jack Assery, tell them what makes our show so great and send them our way. You can find links to subscribe to the show on your favorite apps and all the latest updates at www.goldkeyadventurers.com. We can't wait to hang out with you again next week, and we'll see you real soon.

Heather: Bye y'all.

Jeff: Thank you for joining us.