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*                                                            *  
*                         CYBERSPACE                         *  
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         *  
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   *  
*                                                            *  
* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer                                  *  
* Free for online distribution                               *  
* All Rights Reserved                                        *  
* Direct comments and questions to:                          *  
*   <kamamer@yahoo.com>                                      *  
*                                                            *  
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I don't look like the kind of person that loves Disney World. I 
look more like the type that would argue, loudly, that the 
complex should be blown up and replaced with a ballet/opera 
house. I can mount no adequate defense for my uncritical love 
of the Florida theme park. All that I know is the only time I 
can briefly stop my compulsive nail-biting habit is following 
trips to the Magic Kingdom. Seriously. No one is more disturbed 
than me that I find inner peace on the Pirate ride.

Happiest place on earth? There are some questions I prefer left 
unanswered. As Plato suggests in The Republic, sometimes we 
need the Big Lie.

More intrepid netizens lacking pernicious nail-biting habits 
have gone where this writer fears to tread. They have 
discovered there's more to the theme parks than $3 hot dogs and 
thrill rides capable of scaring only the very young or the very 
old. Various web sites reveal a secret world unseen by park 
attendees and expose strange rumors like the Vatican is 
conducting cloning experiments in hidden chambers underneath 
Cinderella's Castle (false!), Walt Disney had himself frozen to 
cheat the tax man (false!), and the coffee really sucks (true, 
but you can't find good coffee anywhere in Florida).

                Hidden Mickeys

Artists and other creative types have a long tradition of 
burying small hidden tributes into their works. In the world of 
software engineering these are known as "easter eggs". For 
example, certain improbable key combinations in Microsoft 
products will bring up a credit list of programmers. In the 
world of Disney imagineering, these easter eggs are know as 
Hidden Mickeys. A large number of the parks rides, displays, 
and hotels feature at least one hard-to-spot image of Mickey 
Mouse concealed in the design.

The web page at www.hiddenmickeys.org lists instructions on how 
to find hundreds of mouse images people have discovered. For 
example, in my cherished Pirates of the Caribbean ride, some 
simple Hidden Mickeys are found in barrels and lamp fixtures. 
In more complex examples, some of the animatronics are arranged 
in such a way as to cast mouse-eared shadows.

If you really doubt this phenomenon, the page includes a number 
of photographs demonstrating some of the more ingenious ways 
the Disney trademark has been hidden.

             Secrets Revealed

The page at www.oitc.com/Disney/Secrets.html used to be called 
Disney Secrets but the webmaster seems to have had second 
thoughts and renamed the page Fun Facts. Many of the "secrets" 
tend towards tips on getting a tiny bit more enjoyment out of 
the various rides, instead of actual secrets. A number of the 
fun facts are revealed by current and former "cast members" 
(Disney's term for the poor ride operators that have to wear 
polyester clothes in summer heat). For example, one cast member 
reveals the trains on Space Mountain give a faster, more 
thrilling ride later in the day. The track lubrication warms up 
later in the day and provides less friction to the trains.

             Stuck Up

A few interesting behind the scenes "peaks" can be found at 
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/8897. The site archives and 
organizes "stuck ride stories". While many are horrifying tales 
of being stuck for an insufferable amount of time having to 
listen to "It's A Small World" over and over again, some reveal 
the nit and grit behind Disney magic when an attraction breaks 
down. It's not all bad. People actually seem to enjoy getting 
stuck in the Haunted Mansion.

             The Once and Future Magic King

There are a number of urban legends told of Disney, both the 
man and company. The most enduring is that Walt had himself 
cryogenically preserved so he might one day return to the land 
of the living. This is false according to the pages at 
www.urbanlegends.com and 
snopes.simplenet.com/disney/disney.htm. Both pages explode some 
of the strange myths about Disney. The former page covers a 
number of other, non-related urban legends. It's a great read 
and a great way to kill a boring afternoon at work.