Ep. 728: Ted Thomas on El Grupo, D23 Fan Event expectations and tips
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You're listening to Mousetalgia for the week of August 4, 2024. ♪♪♪ Hang on to them hats and glasses, cause this here is the wildest podcast in the wilderness. This is Mousetalgia. Carpe Kingdom, seize the magic. ♪♪♪

Welcome to Mousetalgia, your podcast about Disneyland, Disney history, and living a Disney life. I am your host, Jeff, and I am here this week with our very special guest, Kristen Carr. Kristen, welcome back to Mousetalgia. Hello, thank you. Yes, of course. I'm Kristen, of course, from the happiest club on Earth. Always a pleasure, and of course, Mousetalgia Fast Pass. Still, um...

Still a thing. Still working. Still a thing. All right, so I am glad to have you here this week for our pre-Expo show. There's no Expo. What are we... The pre-Ultimate... I just... Why... Okay, let me ask you. Why do you think they got rid of the name Expo? Like, what's the problem? Why did we have to do that? Yeah, I'm not really sure. I...

I wonder if they're trying to venture away from like it just being a bunch of vendor booths, which I understand. And I think a lot of people when they're paying the price for the tickets that this is now,

They don't want to pay that if they have this connotation with the word expo, maybe. So maybe they're trying to breathe some new life into it and get some fresh blood. I would 100% agree with you if it didn't sell out immediately the first day. Like, people don't care what it's called. Let me just complain as a podcaster how hard it is to refer to D23, the ultimate fan event presented by Visa. Like, it's a little bit... It doesn't roll off the tongue.

F-I-I, nobody calls it that. Everyone when we talk about it is saying D23 Expo. I'm sure we're not supposed to say that. I don't know what else to tell them. They're going to have to come up with a shorter name. And that's all right. And we're not here to complain much. So that's fine. But anyway, welcome to the show. I do want to mention that Mousetalgia, as always, is...

presented to you and to all our listeners by MEI Mouse Fan Travel, our sponsor. MEI Mouse Fan Travel is, of course, a Disney authorized travel agency. So if you would like to book a trip to any Disney theme park, a Disney cruise, an adventure by Disney, any Disney kind of thing you could imagine, or probably even other kinds of travel too, just go to mousefantravel.com. Get yourself a no obligation quote. All right.

Kristen, so we are going to today talk to Ted Thomas, who is a filmmaker and the son of legendary nine-old man Frank Thomas, one of the animation legends. And so that's exciting. That's coming up. Incredible. Yeah, right? Right? It's going to be amazing. But before that, we're going to have a mousetrap charcuterie. ♪

The Mousetalgia Charcuterie.

Uh, let's see. Uh, if you're a Disney durables fan, which I am, and also can I just preface that with, yes, I have children, but I don't know what it is about those Disney durables. I kind of love them. I, they're like little micro collectible, silly looking things. They're just super happy. I have them lining my windowsill in my office. I don't know why it just became an obsession. They had these exclusives that were really cool. They had like star Wars exclusives that were all gold and,

Like different exclusives every day. So one of the things I love about Comic-Con, right, is that every single day you can go to these booths

and they'll be exclusives just for those days but also there's a ton of booths and a ton of activations that are completely free completely like the marvel booth for instance every day they gave out a pin and all you had to do was go online and enter their little virtual queue for the day which actually like didn't fill up right away and you just walked up and you showed it to them and you got a collectible pin there was a wolverine pin i mean it was it was pretty cool like to get something for

for nothing is kind of awesome. Yeah. I mean, not nothing obviously paid for Comic-Con, right? But I mean, kind of cool. But there is a ton of activations outside. And I always try to tell people that too. Like you don't have to have a badge to go into Comic-Con. There is endless activations outside in downtown San Diego.

I mean, flooding that entire area. BoxLunch always has a great activation. They have a huge truck. They literally give you a swag bag for free. All you have to do is wait in line. I think the longest the line was was maybe 45 minutes. Wow. The thing about Comic-Con lines are...

notoriously hours long. So maybe 45 minutes to an hour at the longest for the box lunch truck. You waited in line, you got a swag bag. And then you also got free ice cream and it was like 90 degrees in San Diego. So that was awesome. Let's see a highlight. Oh, the Deadpool panel, no spoilers, but if you have not seen Deadpool, yeah,

I am a huge fan. He is highly inappropriate and the most vulgar Merc with mouth ever, which I secretly not so secretly love. But that movie literally, I think is going to shift the MCU back into like a very, very hot seat again, where everyone's going to want to see that you again, I think it really lit a fire in fans.

Did you happen to see Robert Downey Jr.'s announcement in person? I didn't see that in person, but I was outside and I, like, I heard the roar. I heard it. It was crazy. That was crazy. And then, so my uncle worked at a comic book store growing up and, like, was a part owner. I forgot, like, if he bought it. I don't remember what happened. But, like, he still owns the store and does, like, music and sells records there. Yeah.

My dad and my brother were, like, obsessed with comic books. So I used to hear about all these stories, right? So I kind of remembered them talking about a story where Iron Man became Doom. Like, it was this whole thing. And then sure enough, when this happened, like, one of my brothers sent me, like, this is the comic book I was telling you about. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Because there were so many people, like... It's very polarizing online. There's a lot of people that...

that just are not for this. And then there's a ton of people that are happy he's back. So I don't know what side you're on. It's going to be interesting. I think Secret Wars is going to be really intense. If you saw Deadpool Wolverine, I think it sets that up nicely. That's going to be a huge tie-in with the TVA and everything. But...

Probably the biggest highlight was the drone show. Oh, the drone show. Interesting. Unreal. Unreal. It was over Petco Park. It was all the Deadpool, Wolverine. I mean, there was music. There was fireworks. Can we just say Disneyland needs drones? Can we just get on it early? I don't know why we're the last ones to get it. It just feels unfair at this point. Yeah. So the Petco Park drone show was amazing.

Let's see what else. I did some stuff for Lucasfilms. That was really cool. We did a partnership with Diff Eyewear. They launched like a whole new collection of Star Wars sunglasses, which was really, really fun. Let's see. Inside Editions. Amazing books. They had a lightsaber collection, which I bought. And it's the coolest book. It is so cool. It literally is like an encyclopedia of everyone's lightsabers. What it's made out of. Like origin stories.

Super nerd. Super nerd time. Inside Editions had some really cool gifts with purchase. A little like acrylic porgs, little keychains. Wow. Yeah. It was a ton of stuff. I feel like I didn't even like...

scratch the surface with some of it. Jeff Granito had an amazing booth with all sorts of fun stuff. He also debuted this whole new collection of his version of Care Bears, which was very, very cool if you're a child of the 80s and 90s. Shag. Shag had a really cool booth. There was some cool tiki stuff. Beeline Collective debuted some new Star Wars tiki mugs that the line was atrocious. But every day they did a free swizzle stick to let you eat the bird food.

150 or something. And so those are like gold elongated sort of chewy swizzle sticks and different ones every day. So, I mean, I feel like whether you have a badge or you don't, Comic-Con is very, very fun to venture to. Yeah. Wow. That was an amazing...

quick, brief, but thorough report. I mean, we've got comic lore in there. We got nighttime spectaculars and we got like merch. Like that was amazing. Great work. Yeah. And so, you know, Deadpool, we're probably, I'm, you know, I've been going back and forth about, do we, do I talk about, do a show review Deadpool on mousetalgia? It would be difficult. Probably not. But I will say, and I'm going to try to keep this without opinion. It's just fascinating. I,

um, for an R-rated movie. Like I was walking through the mall with my wife yesterday and every like down to the, I think we saw Deadpool energy vitamin powder, like in a, in one of these workout type stores, like everything has a Deadpool Wolverine tie-in banner or poster or pop pop display in front of the store. Like it is,

As a media marketing girl, it is like the best campaign for this movie. They have done such an amazing job. I mean, from...

like Deadpool hot chicken wings at Carl's Jr. to aviation gin collectible bottles at BevMo that are like Wolverine and Deadpool. I mean, you name a brand and there's probably something. They did such an incredible job. And it's by no mistake. I mean, they really wanted this to be like a fresh, like in your face, huge bomb to drop on everyone to get people excited again about the MCU. And yeah,

You know, I know his different feelings about it. You know, I mean, obviously he's very vulgar. Obviously it's very violent. Like it's a very over the top. It's probably like, it probably hit the ceiling, you know, a hundred times of where Kevin Feige probably was getting nervous a hundred times in this film. But yeah,

It is one of those things where it has mass appeal. I mean, there's nothing crazy in it. I don't think that like psychological wise, like for me, that's always a deal breaker. Like anything really like,

just way too psychological that seems like really, really terrible like that. I don't want this just, it was a fun ride. That's all I could say. It's just really like for a rated R movie, it was like a rollercoaster of fun for two hours. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say like, it's amazing how they pulled that off. I mean, there's one moment in the whole movie where I thought it kind of pulled out of that a second where Wolverine looks at Deadpool and he goes like,

Like, well, that's just called murder. Like after you killed someone. And I'm thinking like, oh, you know what? This movie is like a thousand murders. But it's not presented that way. Right. So I wonder I was telling this to my husband. I wonder if because it's so over the top, like because it's so overproduced and sort of it's meant to be.

kind of silly in its grotesque, right? Like, I mean, in its nature, it's meant to be really silly. So all of these things, like I don't watch gory movies. I don't watch horror films and I can watch Deadpool, but I think it's because it's presented in a way that's like humorous. Like you don't actually believe that's happening. Like, it's just funny. Like for all you know, he's going to wake up in the next scene and he's going to be like, well, that was a wild ride. Like, I mean, you don't know. It's just kind of, you know, it's kind of...

Which is wild. And when you can't die, the gore takes a different perspective, right? It does. Like, when you know in your head, like, well, they're not going to kill each other. Neither of them can die. Right? Then it becomes, oh, so what am I looking at? It's more of a, like, a grand grignole or, like, just kind of an art. Yeah.

My husband made a good point too. And he said it reminded him of the eighties movies he loved were like the buddy comedies, right? Like 48 hours and lethal weapon. And, and like, where it's like two guys, you know, that are kind of like, there's some sort of conflict and then they become friends or, you know, that whole thing. Yeah. It very much had that vibe to it. So I think that's why people like it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you're onto something there. All right. So that's enough Deadpool for mousetrap probably a little

more than we needed to share. Here you leave today to hear a podcast from the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy. Nostalgia. In a minute here, we're going to be talking to Ted Thomas. So Ted Thomas is the son of one of the nine old men animators, Frank Thomas.

who, of course, with his partner Ollie Johnston wrote just tons of Disney art history books, kind of has become a legend of animation history, both because of his work and because of the books they left behind. And, of course, Ted Thomas is talking about a panel that he will be a part of at the D23 Expo. So, actually, without any further ado, let's dive into this and talk to Ted Thomas. Let's do it.

All right, up next, we have a very special guest. I am pleased to welcome to the show Ted Thomas. Ted, thank you so much for joining me on Nostalgia today. It's a real pleasure to be with you. Well, thank you. And the pleasure's all mine. So, Nostalgia listeners...

I mean, I'll preface this with a few facts. So, of course, we've talked about The Nine Old Men and your father, Frank Thomas, many times on the show. But I still am hoping to hear from you about your father a little bit because, you know, here's a primary source, right? But also, we've talked about Walt Nell Grupo quite a few times. So, I'm really excited to talk to you about your new book that you're going to be –

at the, or not the expo, the D23 ultimate fan, whatever they call it, ultimate fan event. So I'm excited to talk to you about these things. But let's start with your, with your father, right? That's a good place. That's where I started. So that's good. I,

So I've read in an interview that you have said, so you have met Walt Disney, but a handful of times when you were pretty young. But that Walt was actually around your dinner table every night because of the stories your father would bring home from the studio. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like how you felt like you got to know Walt Disney in a sense through your father?

Yeah, I mean, my father would go around the table and ask what each of us had done that day. And so it'd be sort of show and tell every mealtime. And then, you know, he would pepper everything.

the dinner table conversation with little things that he had heard that day or things that Walt said in passing. Like, I remember vividly him talking about Walt and Lely having come back from this European trip. And Walt was really impressed by riding in this submarine on Lake Luzon or Lake Lucerne, I forget which one of the Swiss lakes and

And he was going to put it in a submarine at Disneyland. And we said, how's he going to do that? He said, I don't know, but, but, you know, he'll think of something. He really wants people to get in it and be able to take a dive and experience that. And,

So there'd be things like that, you know, so you'd hear that and two, three years later, boom, it would be down at Disneyland or, or there'd be something about, uh, making a movie and, uh, and then boom, two or three years, it would be on the screen, things like that. Yeah. Um, you know, and as an animator, your father, um,

Partly because of his partnership with Ollie and the books they put together has kind of become like an animation history legend, right? And this is by memory, so help me if I get this wrong. But I think John Kaymaker called your father the Laurence Olivier of animation. Is that the right reference? Right.

And I don't, I mean, I suspect some of this has to do with his particular skill at conveying emotion in a way that a lot of animators couldn't do. Can you maybe talk about that a little bit, how your father could take drawings and put heart and soul into the characters?

Yeah, you know, I'd say his greatest gift was using those powers of observation that all of the animators of his generation had. And then being able to also have a deep enough understanding of how you translate pantomime into action that communicates an emotion.

So, you know, he had done some acting on the stage when he was in, you know, high school and college. And I think that really had an impact on his ability as an animator when he then moved deeper and deeper into graphic art. And what stands out

him to me and why I think he was deserving of the Laurence Olivier name that John Canemaker gave him was that no two of his performances are alike. Each one is tailored to what that particular character needed in the movie at that point, whether it be Baloo or

Lady and the Tramp or Lady Tremaine in Cinderella or Pinocchio each one is unique in the way he approached it and you know he often got paired with Milt Kahl the great Milt Kahl because Milt was perhaps the most natural outstanding draftsman at the studio but I think Walt realized that Frank had this uncanny ability to get to the

the heart, the nitty gritty of what the acting needed. So by putting the two, two guys together, um, he figured he would get the best of both worlds, both in terms of draftsmanship and acting. And, uh, they were paired together over and over again throughout the years. Yeah. It's amazing how Walt Disney could do that. Put two people together that maybe had different strengths that other people wouldn't see, you know, as working well together, but boom, you know, that happened really well over and over again. Um,

So you mentioned Pinocchio. Listeners might be surprised to hear me say this, but one of my favorite characters in terms of the artistry and the creative emotion put into it is Pinocchio. I have a lot of other favorite animator characters in terms of the art that I collect and things, but Pinocchio, and specifically I'm thinking of The Puppet Show. I know your father animated that. There's so much...

interesting, you know, character development in that little wood boy, right? Do you... And also, it's interesting that that was a little segment that got immortalized into Disneyland, like in Fantasmic. They have the puppet show. I feel like in animators, you know, when Disney chooses to take something, yank it out of a film, and they know it's so iconic that they use it as a, you know, like a little set piece somewhere that says something, right, about the longevity and character there. Do

Do you, I hate this kind of question, but I'm going to ask you anyways. Do you have a favorite, like a favorite, um, like moment or character or something that your father did that you continually, like you often think back on or that you reminisce about a lot? Yeah. I mean, uh, I'm like you, it's, it's like, uh, who's your favorite child in a way. But, uh, you know, if I, there,

there are a few that do stand out and, you know, no great surprise. They are also identified as sort of the iconic moments film by film. And certainly the puppet show in Pinocchio is one of them because I mean, he was able to craft a performance where he thought, okay, this puppet has been in the world about 24 hours.

You're right. So the way he moves and acts is informed by everything is new and foreign to him, you know, a stranger in a strange land. And what do you do to get by? You know, so there's this wonderful lack of awareness on Pinocchio's part. And then I have to say that, you know,

the ice skating sequence out of Bambi, which is this enormous tour de force that he had assists with a couple of other guys, but Frank basically posed out the entire sequence from start to finish and animated or reanimated most of it himself. And that stands out for me. And then of course,

the spaghetti scene out of Lady and the Tramp, and the way Tramp and Lady are both in their own worlds until their muzzles meet. It's really fantastic. Just sublime. It is, and that's the kind of thing people don't really even recognize. As animation fans, we all hope...

People start to see, do you see why you love these things? You don't even think about the heart and how real this moment is, you know, the kind of flirtation, but we're not going to really pay attention. We're kind of going to try to keep averting our eyes until boom, you can't, there's nothing you can do, but notice each other. Right. And just to see that in two cartoon dogs, it's, it's phenomenal. Yeah.

the talent that your father had. And he was a pianist. Before we leave talking about your father, I'm a pianist. I played my whole life church piano and keyboard. I was in a band. I followed that dream briefly. But your father, can you talk a little bit about where did the Firehouse 5 plus 2 live

in his life. Like they, I know they sometimes would travel to play clubs once in a while and stuff, but mostly Disneyland and the studio and stuff. So, right. So where, like, I'm always, I've always been curious, where did that live in their lives in terms of prominence and importance? And you know what I'm asking? Yeah. Well, there was a period where it was very important and you know, that,

what a lot of people don't realize is that the band around Disneyland was the second or the third incarnation of the band. It started out as jam sessions just blowing off steam at noon because working at the drawing board all day was so intense.

And then that bloomed into actually a functioning musical unit after World War II and late 40s, early 50s. Believe it or not, pre-rock and roll, they were one of the most popular bands in the country. I mean, their songs were on the hit parade and they were on...

Bing Crosby's radio show. It's like three times in a year. And they were on early television. You know, Melton Burrell's TV show and Edwin's TV show and

They were a big deal, so much so that they had to evaluate whether or not they were going to go music full-time and leave animation or try and balance these two careers at the same time. And they finally decided to stick with animation. Because for my father, the music was a release.

And he used to say that when they'd play three gigs on a weekend, that Friday night was look out, take no prisoners, because they had so much steam to blow off. And the next night, Saturday night, was when they played the best music, because they were more relaxed, but they still had some energy. By Sunday night, it was becoming a slog. They didn't have any new ideas to share anymore.

And then they go back to work on Monday. Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that. You know, I'm always kind of trying to piece together what was, you know, the Firehouse 5 plus 2. That's really interesting. But let's turn our attention now to your latest, I think this is your latest project, Firehouse.

Walt Disney and El Grupo in Latin America. So a new book, the Hyperion Historical Alliance is putting out 230 pages. And your, let's see, the publicity that the Hyperion Association has put out calls this the definitive most thorough account ever put into print of the 1941 Goodwill tour. So I believe it will live up to that claim, but let's talk about it a little bit. So there, so your 2009 film is most Disney fans favorite.

entrance and definition of Walton El Grupo, right? So it's how people know and understand what happened on this tour. So it sounds like as you put the film together, there were some bits and pieces that kind of led to this next

iteration of the story. So can you talk a little bit about how that all worked? Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you make a film, well, there's a reason why there are films and there are books. You know, each one lives in a different sphere. And films are ruled by the clock. You know, there's only so much that you can fit into whatever your allotted time is.

And you have to be telling a story, but you also have to be conveying an emotion. And the advantage of a book, of course, when you put it between two covers, even if it's an e-book, you know, you have the luxury of flipping back and forth and living with it, right? And there's so much about this trip.

that Bear is revisiting, you know, because it has so many different levels, you know, it has the geopolitical level, it has the artistic level, it has the Disney history level, and it has the personal journey, you know, of individual artists and how they felt and then who they interacted with. So, you know, J.B. Kaufman, a great historian, author, and friend, and I realized that

in the course of him doing his book and me doing my film, that we really had a lot of terrific material that was not used in either project. And Didier Ghez, the indomitable Didier Ghez,

who always has a million projects going, said, "Well, why don't we all get together and pool our research and come up with something new that nobody's seen before?" So the first thing I did was I realized that we needed to create a chronology with the photographs because this trip was extensively photographed both in the press and then through travel snapshots by the different members of El Grupo. And

Even so, they really weren't laid out in terms of a day by day. You know, one of the things I had to tackle when I started making the film was we got this wonderful shoebox of photographs from Norm Ferguson's daughter.

It's a bunch of snapshots. My dad shot when he was on this South American trip. And it was like doing a jigsaw puzzle, trying to figure out where was this? Who was this? When was this taken? And the process of making the book and doing a chronology was like an extension of that. So I worked on that. JB worked on that.

The trip itinerary that John Rose had done as a summary for the coordinator's office when they got back and were supposed to talk about where they had been and who they had met.

And then DDA chimed in with journals and new letters that he had come across. So by pooling all these things, we were able to do an extremely detailed day-by-day photo and text, what they're doing, who they met, where they were, how they felt about it. And that's why I think we can legitimately say it's the definitive look at the trip. Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah.

So when I think about the Goodwill Tour and El Grupo, a lot of people, of course, think about Mary Blair first. She kind of has a popularity right now for good reason. But I'm curious, did the Goodwill Tour influence your father at all in terms of his joining the military? Or do you think that's the case?

Not really. I mean, joining the military, we can have another conversation about that. It's all quite fascinating. But I will say that the entire El Grupo trip had a great effect on the members of the Disney party and equally so everyone they came in contact with.

I mean, that was a fascinating thing for me when I made the film was how fresh in the memory the trip was for not just the handful of people who met them that were still around, but for the next generation and the grandchildren of those people. I mean, these...

Meeting the Disney group became part of family lore in family after family in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, wherever we went, it was like that. And there were lifelong friendships and associations that were made by my father and by Walt and by other members of El Grupo that, you know, went on.

went on long after the 10 week long trip was over. Yeah, yeah.

Wow. Um, so I'm looking back at the press release here and it has a couple examples of things that are kind of new information. It mentions dubbing sessions. Um, can you talk about that just a little bit, like give us a little picture into what some of the stories. Yeah. Uh, one of the unsung heroes of the entire trip was Jack cutting who, um,

was sent ahead with John Rose as sort of advanced parties to set things up. And Jack Cutting, you know, had started out as one of the very early animators with Walt in the 20s. And by this time, he had moved into supervising the dubbing sessions into foreign languages. And he had done that not only with the

some of the shorts that had more dialogue, but in particular with Snow White and Pinocchio by the time this trip came about. So he was already familiar with entertainment folks in all three of the major countries. They went to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

And in fact, a really interesting thing is that a session that he supervised during the trip was a dubbing session for Dumbo. And that became, it was done with Argentine talent. And that became the Spanish language version of Dumbo that was shown around the world in every Spanish speaking country. Wow.

And it happened as an outgrowth of this trip. Of El Grupo, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, okay. So I can see this book is going to have a lot of great information, lots of great history for serious Disney history fans. The book is called Walt Disney and El Grupo in Latin America, 4K.

from the Hyperion Historical Association. You're going to be appearing with J.B. Kaufman and Didier Ghez next week at the Expo as a panel discussion, right? You're going to be speaking together?

Yes, that's right. Okay. And signing some books, I hope. Come on down. Come on down. I'm loosening up my wrist now. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Ted, thank you so much. It's been a privilege to talk to you a little bit. Thank you so much for sharing some insight and looking forward to seeing you next week at D23. Look forward to it too, Jeff. Thanks a lot.

All right. So that was awesome. Of course. Um, you know, I don't know the panels of D 23. I, I,

I am excited about more of the panels this time than I have been at least last year. There have been other years where I've been pretty stoked about the variety of things, but there's just, it seems like they did, in my opinion, a better job of kind of covering the gamut of genres this year. Like a bigger range? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

So let's talk now, Christian, let's talk about the D23 Not Expo. What people can expect, what we expect. And I want to dive right in with you. You're an event planner. You know this stuff.

how is this shuttle system going to work? Like, how is it not going to be a cluster to get people? Because everyone going to the Honda Center. Why are you going to put me in that hole right now? I don't have any answer for you because I cannot wrap my brain around that. Here's the thing. Transporting people

in any event, logistic is messy. You talk about transporting people from a wedding venue, 50 people from a dinner to a reception site. It's a lot of, you know, a lot of moving parts. And, um,

D23 is just so many people. And I just don't know how that's going to work. I'm eager to see. I'm really eager to see how they work this out. I think they're going to end up with a lot of people that are just going to say, you know what? I'm just Ubering. You know what? I'm just going to have my friend drive. We're going to go over there and drive. I think it's going to be a long wait. And if you've...

I mean, for me, I would think it's going to be similar to like a night at the parks that was really busy. And, you know, the fireworks just got out and you go to go wait for the Toy Story buses. I mean, that's kind of what I'm picturing, except for even more concentrated because you're talking about a limited number of transportation vehicles taking people to the same place. I don't know. Yeah. So I also was talking about this on the Pal around podcast. And I feel like.

Boy, I do not have high expectations. I'm one of these people, and I think I'm typical, maybe not majority, but typical, where I am staying at a hotel for the expo, so I didn't rent a car. I'm relying on Disney to get me there, although I can Uber. But then I thought about Ubering, and I thought about, well, maybe Ubering there is not a big deal, but Ubering home might be tricky. How far am I going to have to walk to catch an Uber ride?

you know, in at 10, nine o'clock at night, you know, in Anaheim to get somewhere. And I know that art is, I think free for expo attendees. So you can walk, I think they said it's a seven minute walk to the closest, uh,

Anaheim Resort Transportation. They don't have a stop at Honda Center. So I will say that like our bus only comes about every 15, 20 minutes. So they don't get that many people and they're already going to have people from the parks on them. So, yeah, no, I don't know. That's not a solution. I have a little insider tip. Yeah. Hit me. For Mousetail to listeners. And I'm not saying that.

That this is not allowed. But I'm not saying that it isn't allowed or that it is allowed. But it kind of is. I hear you. If maybe you wanted to grab a drink after Expo, you know, you had a long day. You've been on your feet. You're going to get ready for the evening's festivities. And you wanted to maybe drive over to Noble Ale Works where they have plenty of parking, lots of industrial parking.

And you grab the drink because, I mean, let's support our local people. Right. Yeah. They are more than happy to let you park there.

And walk on over to the Honda Center, which is not a far walk because people do it all the time. And they actually encourage people to do it for games, for DuckSkate. Gotcha. That's not a bad tip at all. That's an exceptional tip. So if somebody wanted to do that, I'm not saying that I will be doing that. I might be. Yeah. You're just saying there's an idea. It's on my list of options. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. All right. So I got that out of my system. Okay.

The Honda Center Transportation. That's a rough start. However, now we can be a little bit more pleasant. Just look forward to all the amazing, like I said, panels and things that the Expo has for us. So, Kristen, I know you are, as I mentioned before, being involved in the world of events, you must have some initial opinions to share about that.

what we can expect from the D23 Ultimate Fan Event presented by Visa this year. I mean, so judging from past Expo, right? And we're talking about, what is that, 2022? Is that 2022? Obviously smaller scale in the sense that it was all centrally located, right? Even with that,

it could take you 20, 25 minutes to walk from one panel to another. So when you're looking at things that you're interested in on the schedule, I think give yourself more time than you even think. Because I think what happens also is as you're going from one thing to another, you see three or four boosts and you're like, oh, oh, oh, oh. And you're kind of, it's a speed bump every time. Yeah.

Also, everything fills up quickly. I know online with your badge, you can kind of start getting lottery stuff. An interesting thing I did see online was that D23 is stating that they're not going to let people line up overnight this time. And I know that that was a thing of the past where people were lining up really early. They did say they're not going to let anybody line up or do anything until 5 a.m.

I did notice that now they have said that at least for the past three or four expos, right? But people still just find the closest place they can get on harbor or, you know, Cotella. Yeah. And it's a little more stern this time than last time. Yeah. I feel like last time it was kind of like a casual footnote. This was like its own individual post. And I thought that's interesting. All right. So.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I know that, you know, I used to have friends that waited overnight. So I don't know how that's going to work into that factor. The other thing is, you know, standby happens for these panels. It's not, you know, a ton of people, but they usually will get some people in. So don't be discouraged if you don't get into something. There's lots to see on the show floor. I mean, I would encourage you to go to the Walt Disney Imagineering portion for sure. I think that walkthrough is going to be pretty incredible.

Yeah. Do you know what, what's the, do you know what the focus is? I don't. They haven't announced it. Have they announced it? I'm allowed to say it. I don't know if they've announced it. Yeah. So I'm going to say no. Okay. Well, because ILM did announce their stage craft for stage magic. Right. So, but yeah, but Imagineering has not said what you're going to be able to. Correct. Experience. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I think I agree with you. Like there's a pretty good.

there's a pretty good range of offerings like between the stages and the different you know areas i mean obviously honda center is a night thing right so i kind of feel like that's and that was a separate ticket which i also think was an interesting play because i feel like i don't know i feel like that was i mean i know they're sold out but i know that that was really interesting to separate those two things yeah um

But we'll see. I don't know. I mean, is something really spectacular ahead for you for the Honda center every night? Maybe. I mean, I know that they're going to do a lot of big announcements there and that's usually what they would do in those panels, but you know, maybe you'll get a really great swag bag. I mean, we almost always left those panels with artwork of some kind or an exclusive pin or something. So I'm expecting that you're going to get that, especially because you paid for a separate ticket. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean the archives, I'm a sucker for the archive stage. I know you probably feel the same way. Yeah. The Muppets. That sounds really exciting. Like I'm excited about the Muppets. I love a goofy movie. So that one is, I think on Friday, I think Friday afternoon or evening is the goofy movie. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there's just so much. Like, there's a Disney Foods panel, which is going to be really interesting. I'm kind of interested to see how that's going to go. Also, oh, this is something interesting, too. Lorcana, right? Nobody knew what Lorcana was at the last Expo. But Ravensburger had a...

a booth and they were selling those. You got one. I got a random tick. I got a random card that I ended up selling to someone. Like, I think you got the whole set. Didn't you? That like, yeah. Yeah. So that was a huge deal, but nobody knew. Right. Like nobody really knew, like, is this even going to be a thing? Like who knows if anyone's going to want this? Then it turned into this, like, I mean, it was more than a thing. It's a thing. And the art is gorgeous. So there's actually a whole panel for Disney, Laura Connor, which I think is really cool because I'm obsessed with the artwork on those cards. Um,

So I know they're going to do stuff with the Disney Larkana booth. So I would say make sure you do that because more than likely they're going to give out cards. So let's focus in on that a second. So I am curious about Larkana too. I got fortunate. Like my wife and I were in line at four in the morning or some stupid amount of time just to get into the expo. We didn't even know exactly why, but we just thought, well,

We want to get in when it starts last year. And we happen to be next to a girl who said, oh, you got to go to Larkana. Yesterday they gave away a card. Oh, I remember you saying that. Yeah. And then so if it wasn't for her, we would not have even known to go get our free Mickey Mouse card, which we did, which is worth like $1,000 now. But what I have to say is, so Larkana has...

Yeah.

So, I'm just curious if you really think, like they have panels, a couple panels, right? There's a meet and greet where there's a signing, which I presume would only be a new card that you get that they're going to sign. Or maybe even artwork. I know they were talking about doing prints. Some prints, yeah. So, that's just, it's really interesting to me. Now, you know that Larkana is sponsoring...

one of the d23 nights right at the packing center i think so yeah i bet you if there's a lorcona card that you're gonna want to get i bet you they give them away then probably sponsored by lorcona yeah like what else would that mean if they don't give you something right yeah i mean so i'm just guessing like you're probably not going to find the next thousand dollar freebie lorcona at the at the expo this year because everyone's going to expect that right

Also, I feel like Larkana kind of had that fire in the beginning. And it was, you know, obviously the lack, right? Supply demand. Now I feel like they keep turning over these new collections. And now you can actually get Larkana. You can find it. Nobody's fighting over it. But it's still popular. It's still hot. I still love it. I still love the art. It's super hot. I mean, people still do unboxings on whatnot. You know, they do open, you know, they break the packs. I mean, I think it's a great...

It's kind of fun. It's something new. It feels fun. I think the artwork is incredible. And it's accessible. You can be a kid and you can afford a pack of Larkana cards. Oh, my kids are obsessed. They think it's the coolest thing to collect. All right. Cool. All right. So that's a good little conversation about Larkana. So if you had to choose the panel that you're most looking forward to, just off the top of your head, which is it? Miss Piggy, what is it? No. Hmm.

maybe the pixar okay okay yeah yeah maybe the pixar panel because the marvel i kind of feel like i'm already jazzed about it from comic-con yeah um animation i mean i loved wish but i don't know that that has the legs that it did and i think pixar is just the momentum is incredible and um

I think that even things like Elemental, right? Like that wasn't super popular out the gates, but that movie turned out to be a huge success for them. And then obviously Inside Out too. So I love Pixar and I'm super excited to see what's on the horizon for them because I just think that they have a formula that really, really works. And I'm excited to see what they're going to kind of share with everyone. That's great. Yeah. And I'm not surprised. Like we are going to choose things that are

probably no surprise to anyone. You choose Pixar, what's coming. I choose looking back at Disney history and like probably women in animation, even though there's a couple of books about it,

You know, I'm curious about that. I'm looking forward to it. But I have a little dose of skepticism that it's going to be new information. But you never know. So I'm looking forward to seeing what they present. I'm not sure if it'll just be another presentation of one of the books about women in animation or if there's some kind of fresh information there. But I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say about that. And I'm looking forward to, we haven't mentioned yet, all of the signings and meet and greets with artists.

it seems, I don't know. I don't do those things, but I know you do. And I know you love those things. No,

No, no, I just don't. I'm good walking by and like taking a video like, oh, that's cool. And like, I keep going. I'm not patient enough for that stuff. My ADHD won't last in those lines. There's no way. I got you. I hear you. But yeah, but as a collector, man, I can't. I'm so excited about some of them. And they'll have a lot of friends involved this year. Like Eric Robinson is doing a number of prints, signings, and he's a friend. And Brian Crosby is doing a signing and he's a friend. So like there's people that I

kind of know that I hope to get to see and say, you know, hello to. So that's exciting. Oh, you know, something I was excited about was the, um, I think it's in like talent central. It's the imaginary talk for, uh,

Is it Greg? Greg Pro? He was a concept designer for Imagineering. So he did like the Rise of the Resistance stuff. Yeah. I love just because I love Rise of the Resistance. And I'm kind of fascinated with that as far as an attraction goes. And for somebody doing like the concept art and Imagineering behind it, I think that'll be a really cool talk. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So there's so much stuff to look forward to this year. Like I said, I feel like.

I don't know if it's me personally that I'm just more into it this year than I was a couple years ago, or if it actually has a better range of subject matter, but I just feel like

Logistics aside, the expo does seem to have kind of bumped it up a notch by moving the big stuff out of the way. And you can go see that if you want, pay more money and be our guest. But they kind of clear it up to be actually, ironically, more of an actual expo. I know, which is funny because it's not in the name anymore. Yeah. So it's going to be cool. Yeah.

So you're telling people look out for Imagineering and archive stuff. I'm saying like, you know, I didn't sign up for the ILM booth on my reservations because I'm presuming you'll be able to kind of get in line for that and make it in. I am super curious, though. I'm guessing they're going to put you in the middle of their new kind of

projection system that surrounds you with a with a background and show you how that works i think so too yeah i'm really looking forward to seeing how that all looks in person right oh and i heard uh garner holt productions is going to bring some really cool animatronic things with them to oh they're birds i bet oh well and uh grogu yeah oh yeah that'll be fun that'll be fun to see up close um the other thing i would say too is i think it's going

I think it's going to be interesting how the show floor kind of pans out this year, because I have a lot of friends personally that purchased nights at the Honda center versus expo and vice versa. So I have people that are just going to expo and not going to Honda or going to Honda only. Cause they thought that would be the real splash and then not going to the floor, the show floor. So the show floor, you know, can be really, really packed. And I wonder if that will sort of give more flow for people, um,

I mean, I don't know. Wow. Yeah. Super interesting. All right, Kristen. I mean, this has been a free flowing conversation, but I think it's full of good information. So, but before we wrap up this show, I do want to ask you, like, do you have, you already gave us one really hot tip about parking for the Honda center. Like, appreciate that. Any other hot tips you have for the surviving expo weekend at D23? Shoes. Be smart.

Be smart about your shoes. Arch support. I know everybody wants cute pictures, but just be smart. Don't, don't, you know, no one cares. No one's going to look at your shoes in the picture in 10 years and be like, wow, those are the shoes you chose. No, don't regret it later. Shoes, shoes are important. Also, I would say go to the booth that you think is going to give the biggest bag first. And

And I will tell you a little tip that usually Loungefly and Funko have the biggest bag. So if you're going to buy something and it's like, oh, I want to pin from them. I think you still get the giant bag either way. So like, hold on. I'm going to show Jeff. And I know nobody can see this, but this is my bag from Comic-Con. Funkoville.

Look at that Funko airways lounge fly everything Funko. I'm just saying go for the place of the biggest bag. You know what my my wife was searching up sponsors and she's like where's Bessamay where's Bessamay because they always had the best giveaways. I don't think they're going to be there this this time.

They had the crow from Sleeping Beauty and it was a giveaway and it was an open flap card and it had a perfume sample in it, but I still have it because the crow was so cool. So cool. Like a velvet, like a velvet postcard. It was a cool scent. Yeah.

Okay. Wow. Okay. So go for the big bags first. Wear sensible shoes. And I'll even say, if you absolutely have to wear chucks or something, just get some super feet insoles or something. Keep yourself going, right? Because, yeah, I hear you. Yeah. All right. Do you have any, before we leave, and I don't know if you know anything about this, but food is always for me a challenge when I'm at the expo. They don't really, they have the food center there, right? With

Yeah. It feels like every time I go, Oh, this is sold out. That's sold out. There's like, you can get a hot dog or a pretzel. Like, do you have any food? I feel like I always just pack. I make sure that I pack protein. Right. So mix nuts,

cheese, you know, some sort of like little containers with things like that. You can always get those to go really easily. Just pack things like that because I feel like a lot of these booths give out sugary stuff and that's just, you're going to crash. It's just not worth it.

Or you're going to get a headache and, you know, like nobody wants to ruin their time. And usually the stuff that sells out first is the more sensible things like that. So even if you just go to Starbucks before they have those little protein boxes and it has like a hard boiled egg and cheese and crackers. I mean, you know, make yourself like a little charcuterie, mini charcuterie thing and just have something to snack on. Yeah. Or what is that place? The coffee bean or the tea? What's that?

coffee bean and tea leaf something like that yeah is it still there I don't know that's where that was our I mean Hilton has a Starbucks I mean there's there's places but you don't want to have to leave if you don't you don't want to um but yeah it's the food I would say especially I feel like Comic-Con had more food options yeah um

Yeah, D23 is not going to have a whole lot of options for you. All right, well, we'll see if they pick up the pace on that at all this year. Remains to be seen. Well, okay, so Kristen, just thank you for joining me today. This has been, I believe, a good conversation for people to listen to. And I don't want to, you know, it's kind of you're going or you're not, right? So it used to be, Mousetagio, we'd do these prep shows because you could decide up until the last week if you wanted to go to the expo or not. Like, those days are...

to be gone. Like it seems to be going the way of Comic-Con, which is you want to go buy your ticket the day it goes on sale. So if you're going to the D23 ultimate fan event presented by Visa, I

I hope to see you there. I will say that I will be carrying around a lot of nostalgia pens. So I'm not going to have an official nostalgia meetup, I don't think. But watch our Facebook. You never know. But for sure, if you see me, I should have some kind of nostalgia apparel on and you want to be penned. That's still a thing. I love that. Are you going to deal? I have brand activations I'm working on. So I will be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I will not be there Sunday. It is my twin's birthday. Oh, okay.

It's very unfortunate that it lined up that way because I had to make a really hard decision and

you know, probably chose wisely. I think you did. But it's a rough day to miss because I'm sure there's going to be some great announcements on the last day, but I will not be there Sunday. But if you see me, same thing, please come and say hi. I usually have giveaway stuff to give out. So yeah, super. All right, Kristen, people can find you at the happiest club on earth in various social media outlets. Thank you again for joining us today. Look forward to seeing you at the expo. Always. See you soon.

All right. And that will do it for today's episode of Nostalgia. I want to thank Kristen again for joining us. If you have any comments or any feedback you want to give to the show, you can send us an email, comments at nostalgia.com. And you can get a hold of me there. If you want to support the show, go to nostalgiaplus.com. You can see our Patreon account and make a great decision as to whether or not you feel like this is something worth supporting with your hard-earned dollars. I would appreciate it if you did.

I love all our nostalgia Patreon supporters. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And that's it for this week. So let's go out there and carpe kingdom and seize the magic. Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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