Ep. 732: Bring the Magic Home with Sunny Chanel; Holiday gift giving guide
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You're listening to Mousetalgia for the week of November 11, 2024. ♪♪ Hang on to them hats and glasses, because 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 the Disney life. My name is Jeff, and I'm the host this week, along with my co-host, Julia. Julia, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jeff. You're the host every week, though. I am the host every week, but, well, you never know. There's going to come the time when I hand the reins to a guest host to handle the entire week, I'm sure. I don't know when or how. We'll see what happens. But that's

A very distinct possibility. So this week, this week, I'm the host. But I'm glad you joined me on the show. I should mention at the top here that we are sponsored by MEI Mouse Fan Travel, who we appreciate very much. They are your one-stop shop for all Disney travel stuff, whether you're going to a Disney park,

Disney Cruise, want to take an adventure by Disney, go to the East Coast and visit Walt Disney World or stay here on the West Coast and visit Disneyland. Any kind of Disney trip or vacation you want to book, go to mousefantravel.com. Get yourself a no obligation quote and see what they can do for you. That's mousefantravel.com.

All right. So, Julia, I thought it would be fun this week if we could. I know it's a little early for this. Halloween seems to just. It's not too early. It's not too early for you. I know. Never too early for you. My daughters are also like one of the radio stations going to start playing Christmas music. But I did think we might start with something that I think is actually appropriate for about this time of year. And that's a holiday gift giving guide. Perfect. Perfect.

I've noticed that we've started to get those in the mail already. It's not too early. No Black Friday sales have already begun. Yep. And, you know, we did this often on Mousetalgia in years past. And I'm going to be honest with you.

I usually kind of thought about this at the last minute and found something and I'm, and I'm trying to say, I didn't like, you know, put some thought into it, but today I've actually been thinking about this quite a lot. I've been thinking about not just what seems kind of cool to me, but what would I really think was really interesting or thoughtful or inventive for someone to give to me? So I'm hoping that this Christmas gift guide is actually quite informative for all of our listeners out there. Um,

We are going to be talking to, this is almost, it's almost funny how often I've talked about this book, but we're going to be talking to Sunny Chanel. Finally. Yeah, finally, about her book. And that can be kind of the launch to our Christmas gift giving guide. So we'll talk to her in just a few minutes about her book and where you can get it and what it's all about. And of course, that would be an amazing Christmas gift. So, and then you and I will come back and we'll kind of give our Christmas gift idea list, holiday gift giving list ideas. Okay.

But before that, let's start with a nostalgia charcuterie. ♪

The Mousetalgia Charcuterie. Yes, and this week's charcuterie is going to be kind of a report on directing at Disney, new special exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum. Julia, I'm going to let you talk about that. I should say first that the Walt Disney Family Museum is undergoing some sort of transitions in its programming and the way that it handles characters.

these exhibitions, it looks like they're not planning on another major exhibition for a while. And I say that because they've been advertising that big space for weddings again. Like Kristen got married in that big Diane Disney Miller exhibition hall.

And then for many years, it's been kind of booked solid all year long with major exhibitions, you know, that would roll year to year to year. But they've been advertising it for space that you can rent their place. So it sounds like they're not planning on using that for exhibitions in the near future. Well, I will tell you, I don't know when this is happening, but they did announce...

And it might have been at the book launch for their Walt Disney Treasures book that just came out at the beginning of October. There is going to be another new Mary Blair exhibit coming. Will it be in the giant exhibition hall in the Diane Disney Miller? That was my impression. Okay. Well, interesting. So, okay. Well, somehow that's got to square with their taking bookings for that place. Or at least they...

Sure.

Sure. So the newest exhibit that they are hosting inside the museum is called Directing at Disney. And it is actually being held in the lower level of the museum. That's called the lower lobby. The lower lobby. And then so it's in the lower lobby as well as in the lobby of the theater. Yeah, that's the theater gallery. So they have the lower lobbies outside by the bathroom right when you go downstairs and then the theater gallery is inside the lobby.

in front of the theater. So they announced this at the D23, the ultimate Disney fan event presented by Visa. That's right. That this was going to be their latest exhibition. And they,

Don Perry and Pete doctor are both co-authors of the new book that just came out called directing as at Disney, um, as well as co curators for this special exhibition. And they did a presentation at D 23. And just a couple of weeks ago, they had a presentation at the museum as well that they held in the ILM theater, um,

So there's a bunch of people there. Well, you were there. I was there. Now, you had watched Ben two presentations at ILM before, hadn't you? Yes. Okay. I haven't. I don't remember which ones. I know I've been to a couple. Yeah. But yeah, it's just a much bigger theater. Yeah. And yeah.

Tina and I talked about it on our most recent episode of Pal-A-Round if you want to hear more about that presentation. Okay. But I'll just kind of briefly say they kind of went through each section of their book, which is broken up into periods of time.

Okay.

So I think in the 1920s is when they started having directors. But even from the beginning, these directors really didn't get credited as much as Walt Disney because they just didn't credit those people. And the idea of this book...

from Pete Docter watching Peter Pan and the scene when they are starting to fly to Neverland and they're like going over London and everything with all those big sweeping shots he thought to himself man I wonder who came up with that and he could

Could not for the life of him come up. Figure it out. Figure out who directed Peter Pan. Yeah. You know, it's kind of interesting that they are looking at this because you look at an early Disney cartoon, almost all of them, the credits fit onto four or five painted slides. Right. Yep. And that's the credits. And nowadays, credits go on for 10 minutes and include all the babies that were born during the making of the film. Yeah.

Credits have changed a lot in the past 50, 70, 100 years, right? So it's really interesting for them to kind of decide. We want to see who really is behind a lot of this stuff. Yeah. And I mean, I can understand their thought process at the beginning. They just didn't want people thinking about all the people that went into it or all the people that were voicing it because then you're thinking, oh, well...

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Because you looked at this exhibit already. I have not looked at it yet. It started right after the last time I went to the Walt Disney Family Museum. So I got to get over there. October 17th. October 17th. Yeah. And so directing at Disney, the exhibition will showcase an extensive selection of rare film artifacts from the Walt Disney Studios and archival photographs featuring Walt, his early production teams and legendary directors dating as far back as the 30s. So

So objects and ephemera on display will include detailed production and story meeting notes, storyboards, concept paintings, layout drawings, original sheet music, office memos, and handwritten letters. The special exhibition space will also feature touchscreen interactive and interactives and opportunities to scan QR codes. Okay. So they've expanded it a little bit digitally to make up for the small space.

Yeah. And there's even I haven't gotten to like play with it, but there's a bunch of interactive aspects to it as well. Like you can time your own scene from one of their movies, like I think Peter Pan and maybe Jungle Book, something like that.

But you can go in and you can make the scene be timed how you want it. So you can kind of get an idea for what the director was doing. Okay. During the presentation, they said you need at least 45 minutes, but you could spend up to three hours going through this exhibit. Yeah. That's a pretty extensive exhibit for those two rooms. I mean, that's kind of amazing. Yeah.

Okay, so let's see a little bit here who they're really focusing on. Because if you've listened to Nostalgia for the past decade or more, almost two decades, holy cow.

A lot of these names should sound somewhat familiar. So some of the directors and legends that they're featuring in here are Ben Sharpstein, David Hand, Ham Lusk, Wilford Jackson, Wolfgang Reitherman, Wooley. And they all were, I think they chose people that had distinct styles so they could kind of, you know, show you how different directors really influenced the different looks of Disney films and productions. Because it's kind of, it's kind of a,

a given that Disney movies and films and animated projects have what people call Disney magic and there's something consistent about them, but they really are radically different. Like they're very different from each other.

When you stop and think about it and look at them. So this could be really interesting to help explain some of that and why they feel the same, but they also look very different. Yeah, they were all very different. I think one of the working titles for this book actually was Between Walt and a Hard Place because it wasn't all sunshine and roses working with Walt Disney being your creative director. Obviously, he was a genius, but...

He ultimately had creative control over everything, which may differ from what the director and the animators were trying to do. So the directors kind of had to be that in between between the animators and Walt Disney, which sounds like it wasn't always the easiest thing. I'm sure I'm sure not. You know, you can understand why they might have.

Nick's the title between Walt and the Hard Place, although that does seem very accurate from all the things we've heard over the years. I'm sure that's a very accurate title, if not maybe the most marketable title.

title that they could have thought of so okay well anyway well julia i'm i know that you still want to inspect it more you told me you got to see it but you're there's like you didn't spend three hours there so i did not so assuming there really are three hours worth of things to see here um i'm really looking forward to see i'm sure the next time we're there together we can kind of check this out and see what's going on and it is it is running through march of 2025 and

It is actually free to the public, so you don't have to pay for tickets to the museum. I mean, I don't know why you wouldn't. You don't have to be visiting the main galleries of the museum in order to check out this exhibit. If you want more information about it, go to waltdisney.org.

And you'll find it. Yeah. I have told people before, it's even worth going to Walt Disney Museum if you're in San Francisco, even if you're not going to pay to visit the whole museum, or maybe you don't have time to visit the whole museum. Even just walking through the lobby is really rewarding. You can shop in their store and you can see a really good selection of, it's mostly awards, but it really gives almost a history of Walt's life just in terms

tracing the wards around the room like you can start at the beginning and go to the end and see a setup of his apartment you know from at disneyland and you can almost get a whole a little bio bio tour of walt's life just by looking at the different awards he's won so adding this to the picture like this is a like a can't miss free thing to do in san francisco i think

So that's kind of amazing. So directing at Disney, new special exhibition at the Walt Disney Family Museum. Here you leave today to hear a podcast from the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy. Nostalgia. Carpe the Magic.

All right, up next we have a very, very special guest. So I don't know, some of you heard me talking in the lead up and during my recording on the expo about my friend Sunny Chanel and her new book.

I'm very pleased that we have Sunny on the show right now to talk about her new book. Sunny, thanks for joining me on Nostalgia. I am so happy to be here. It's my favorite Disney podcast. Oh, that's very, very generous of you to say. So your book. Years, years, I tell you. Oh, well, thank you. And, you know, that's true, actually. I can't remember the first time I actually met you, but I think it was like a screening for a Star Wars thing, maybe down at Lucasfilm or something like that.

So, yeah, it has been years. So I'm just glad that you're here on Nostalgia finally for good reason. OK, because your book just came out and this is no like little rinky dink theme park press produced book. This is Disney additions, right? A Disney published book, beautiful hardcover book called Bring the Magic Home, an exploration of design inspired by Disney parks.

with the Disney logo, like right there on the front cover. So, so Sunny, first of all, why don't you tell me a little bit about the inspiration for your book and then maybe in your words in a high level, what it accomplishes? Of course. Well, I've been a Disneyland fanatic since I was like,

So it never left my heart. It is a magical place, as all your listeners know. And one of the things that I noticed as an adult when I go to the parks is I always think about, like, how do I get that feeling when I'm in the parks and bring it home?

Because I so appreciate the visuals and the feeling and the aesthetic overtones of all the lands. And so I slowly started doing that in my home, integrating things I learned from the parks. And I was wondering why more people weren't doing that. And I started searching for people who were doing that. And I found people.

people all over the country doing it in amazing ways, paying tribute to the Haunted Mansion, to the Jungle Cruise, to Space Mountain. It's just, it's really interesting to me and especially since people, you know, they want, instead of just buying a poster and putting it on your wall and saying, that's Disneyland, that reminds me of Disneyland, this is actually incorporating

These items that make you feel that same environmental joy that you feel in the park. And also, the Imagineers, who better to learn from and to take cues from? Because they know what they're doing with aesthetics. You know, one thing that I really like about your book is that you give people permission to let their Disney flags fly, right? And so to bring the magic of Disney into your home, you don't have to be...

rich. You don't have to have the Dumbo ride vehicle hanging from the ceiling. So I'm talking to you right now, and behind you is this gorgeous recreation of the Tomorrowland entry walls. And I just kind of wonder, from your perspective...

How do you find the balance for yourself? Like, let's talk about you as the author of this book, because that wall looks to me to be pretty accurate. You know, like, so do you prefer to have more of a, hey, this is Disneyland down to the detail? Or do you prefer to be more subtle and have a room color themed after Small World? Like, how do you balance in your own life?

Well, I live with my husband and teenage daughter, so I have to really kind of put them in consideration. So I try to be subtle. And let's say if you came over to my house, you would look at our bedroom and go, oh, my God, you have a Jungle Cruise bedroom. But if somebody who was not familiar with Disneyland came in and they'd never been on the Jungle Cruise, they say, oh, wow, you have a tropical themed bedroom.

It would be subtle enough so it's not like in your face. So that's what I prefer. I prefer to have those nods that like if you know, you know. But I really appreciate it when people are, they go all out and they really...

go with the theme 100%, I respect that. I think it's fantastic. But in my own life, I like to kind of bridge my fandom with being anybody from a stranger coming in and not going, oh my God, she's totally nuts. So kind of keeping...

you know, and a good balance. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. So you must've met a good number of Disney fans or, and Disney, let's see, how do I put it? Disney people with a Disney aesthetic, as you put together this book and kind of researched it and looked into things. And as far as meeting people that appreciate Disney and the aesthetic,

Are there any through lines there or any commonalities that we can be looking for? For sure. I think that one of the things is that they all had that same kind of feeling that I had about how they wanted to bring literally the magic home as the title of the book. You know, they wanted to have that feeling in their homes and they appreciated the aesthetic and they wanted a reminder in their everyday life. They're not going to Disneyland every day. They wanted that reminder that,

in their 365 days a year that Disneyland exists. That it's kind of like the safe little place that they have that they can always kind of... If they can't be there physically, they could be there just by seeing it briefly in their own home and having that kind of sensory recall. And that's the thorough thread with everybody. And also the creativity. Like most of the people...

had no background in being designers or painters or any background. There were some that did. There was a guy who built...

Cinderella's castle in his backyard. He had never built anything in his life before. And it's perfect. It's like unbelievable. And I just love the creativity and the gumption. Like I'm going to do, you know, a Pirates of the Caribbean, you know, bedroom and they just do it. So that was really fun to see. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing I like that you, you kind of, you put into your book and at least visually, um,

is that you can really approach bringing Disney into your home from a different, like a lot of different angles. Me personally, my Disney fandom has a number of levels, you know, history and stuff, but I think collecting is at the top. So I just like to gather things and you can probably like, if you're like, like my listeners can't see, but you see all the junk behind me, right? I just, I can't stop collecting stuff and I get the whole, I live with someone. So this little six by eight,

room that i'm in is where all my halloween and monster stuff has to live because my wife doesn't want to look at it every day so getting back to your book i like that there are some examples in there of like maybe if you're a collector there's a way that you can also use that to create a space that gives you kind of an emotional connection to disneyland when you're not there um

I'm thinking of your Mr. Toad shelf. There's collectible things on there, but it's not necessarily... But it can be something as simple as, here's my collection, but how can I use this to feel like Disneyland is near to me, as opposed to a bunch of rows of plastic pop vinyls in rows on a bookshelf? You know what I mean? The combination of decorating and collecting kind of finds a happy place in your book, and I like that. Yeah.

It's about integration. It's about integrating these Disney touches into the everyday. So the Mr. Toad bookcase, for example, I try to tell the story of Mr. Toad. There's like a little devil and there's his little car that looks like his car and a figure of Mr. Toad. And there's a fourth, oh, the two little frog bookends. And it all kind of tells the story of Mr. Toad.

in with a bunch of dizzy books, you know? So, and you can do that with any of the attractions. You could kind of like take your collectibles and take a little vignette and use it in like on your mantle or in a bookcase or, you know, there's a whole thing people are doing with fridge scaping now where people like see it.

inside their fridge. You could do that if you wanted to. I mean, there's so many different opportunities just to kind of like integrate those collectibles and things that are touch points of the story, doing storytelling in your living spaces.

You know, that's really interesting. I had never heard of fridgescaping until you mentioned it right now, but there's a thing happening at school. I teach at a high school and there are not very many lockers, but certain students have lockers. But for the spare few lockers that there are, a lot of the students that have them are still carrying around big heavy backpacks and using these lockers as these little miniature, I don't even know how to describe it, like little fairy lockers.

fairy lands. They'll decorate in there and put little lamps and lights and all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with school or storing your stuff. And I'm sure our school is very careful to only give lockers to students who have huge instruments or things that they really should have a locker. But so many of them are not even using it for that. And it's really fascinating to see how

People are starting to change the way they can what they consider to be decorating into these really interesting places. So tell me a little bit more about yourself. I don't even know some of this stuff about you. So stepping back from the decorating thing.

How did you, I guess you've said you've always kind of always been a Disney fan, but do you remember a moment when you thought I'm a Disney person? Um, I think what I've been going, my parents would take me, I'm from San Francisco and we would go down, um, about once every two months down at Los Angeles and a special treats. We would go to Disneyland. Um,

I think I was about seven when me and my best friend decided to make our own little Disneyland club. And so we had like a washing machine box and we had a secret handshake and we were convinced that we're going to save up as much money as we possibly could. And we're going to go to Disneyland on our own. And we're like seven.

And that kind of mindset never went away. Like I'm always trying to save money to go to Disneyland. And it's just kind of started at a very young age. My parents always encouraged it. Like my bedroom had a, but my bed was a poster when the vintage Disneyland poster maps, I had all the Disneyland books, you know, the guidebooks like next to my bed. I mean, it's always been part of my personal culture. Yeah.

And then when I had my, and it kind of faded a little bit when I was like an editor of a music magazine and kind of, I went on different kind of roads. But then when I had my kid, it just all came back 120%, you know, and then it was like every opportunity. And, and I'm, I was a freelance or I still am a freelance writer, but,

And one of the beats that I really enjoyed was Disney parks. So I started covering one of my main things I would focus on were Disney cruise lines, Adventures by Disney, Disney parks, anything with the, and then Disney movies, Disney TV shows. I kind of like, that was my,

my focus. I did that for years and I worked for Babbel which was Disney's parenting site and I worked for Imagine Academy which was Disney's like this kind of startup thing that kind of had a short lifespan and then I wrote for a bunch of different websites you know BuzzFeed and Britco and Business Insider and always put in my Disney pieces.

And then, you know, that's freelance writing. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a lot, it's a big, it's a little bit stressful job. And then I was like, I just want to write a book. That's what I want. I want to write a book about, you know, how you make your house look like Disneyland. And I pitched it and they said, yes. And now I have a book. And here we are. And not just any book, like a gorgeous coffee table book. So, um,

I believe it happened. It's shocking. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm not shocked. I mean, it's gorgeous and contentful. Like, it's Disney... I will say Disney books...

generally are pretty good with the content. There are some times where they're a little heavy on the repeated imagery that they know they'll be able to sell again and again. But pretty generally, Disney's books are full of... And I feel like they're lately trying to publish books that have new stuff and new information and new content. And this is no joke. I mean, it's

There are numbers of books that tell you how to decorate. And I buy those magazines, too. Every Halloween, I buy every...

like, decorating Halloween magazine there is. And they're all the same, and they all tell you the same stuff, and they all make faces on cupcakes out of candy corns and, you know, pretzels and things. But I still buy every single one. But there's never been a book like this that helps you merge your love of Disney with a little bit of a, like, a kick in the pants to, like, you can do this. Like, you can do this. You don't have to. It's not only for, you know, fancy decorators. You can do it, too. And, like, I really love it. So let me ask you this.

Ashley Eckstein wrote the foreword for your book. That seems like an interesting collab. How did that come about? Well, she's in the book and her house is over the top. It's amazing. It's so themed beautifully. A lot of heavy with Alice in Wonderland.

Her husband, who was a professional baseball player, has Dave's Corner, which is based on Casey's Corner in Walt Disney World. So she was able to afford to have a professional come in and do it. And they did an amazing job. So when I was working with my editor, we were talking about who would do the forward, and she just thought, since we have Ashley in the book, she's like, oh my God, Ashley. And I'm like, yes. So it just was a perfect match.

And she's one of the kindest, most enthusiastic, lovely people. So I was so honored to have her write the foreword and to also feature her home, which is gorgeous. Yeah, it's really cool. You know, I don't know. It was neat at the expo that they featured your book. And she, how do I say this? She kind of had to support you. And it was kind of neat to see, you know what I mean? Because...

I guess she did that for a few different things during the week. She was kind of a host of this and that, but it was just kind of neat to see. Sure, a lot of people wanted to get Ahsoka Tano's autograph, but she was there because she wrote a foreword to this book. She's so supportive. I mean, to do that was fantastic. I just feel like... I mean, I'm a collector and a designer, and I like to have my home surrounding me, exactly the things you said. I want to feel like if I'm not somewhere...

at least I can get the vibe or, you know, you know, imagine it or think about it. And, um,

I just feel like I hate to keep using, I think I've used the word vibe a number of times tonight. And my kids at school have just like, that's their word of the year. And I hate to keep saying that because I don't know if everyone even knows what it means. But maybe you're not supposed to know what it means. It wouldn't be a vibe if you knew what it meant, right? But it's just cool to have a Disney book that helps you understand what it is to get the Disney vibe.

right? It's not really something that has words that explain it or describe it. Now, you do a good job of describing how to bring it into your life, but to capture something like that is just really valuable, I think, especially for people that maybe feel like they're not super creative but want to be. So let me ask you this before I let you go. Let me ask you to give me two tips, right? So

How about in two different ways? Like, I'd love to hear your best tip to someone who loves Disneyland and wants to get the feeling, feels like, I am not creative. I don't even know where to start. Maybe a tip for that person. And then...

Well, maybe that's number two. And number one, you kind of touched on the fact that you're a freelance writer and you decided you wanted to write a book. And I know Mousetagia listeners are kind of partial to book reviews and things. I hear a lot. We get a lot of feedback about our book reviews. Maybe you can talk about a tip for someone who not wants to write a book. I mean, you have to like if you want to write a book, you write a book. But like a tip for someone who wants to really express themselves as a writer. Like how can they where's the best place to begin?

Okay, for the first question, for writing, I would say, well, one, whatever you're writing about, you have to be passionate about it. And that's why this book came about was because I was passionate about Disneyland history and Disney lifestyle. And so the only reason this happened was because of passion.

The other thing is you just need to put yourself out there. No one said to me, hey, could you write this article about Disneyland? I said to my editors, can I write this article about Disneyland? I pushed it and said, I want to do this. I want to cover the...

opening of fill in whatever ride it is it's opening and i want to you know experience the disney cruise line this whatever so i could write about it so i was i brought that to the table um and i didn't wait for somebody to ask me i went and said i want to do this so i think part not being aggressive but but knowing what your passions are and going after it that would be my advice for riders excellent

The second question on tips on decorating, like if you want to bring the magic home. Again, it needs to be based on passion. It needs to be about what, because Disneyland is so eclectic and that's I think why so many of us love it so much. There's so many different feelings that you get. Like if you're in an adventure land, you have a different feeling than when you're in Tomorrowland. They're very different experiences.

So you have to kind of think about who you are. Like, do you want a modern house? If you're a modern person, you're going to go towards Tomorrowland. If you're more of a tropical type of vibe, you're going to go to Adventureland. So it kind of really gives you have to figure out what you like. And then if you you figure out what kind of land you want, you want your home to aspire to go to that land.

take notes figure out what kind of plants they're using for the landscaping what color you know are they using for the buildings just take those details because it's all about the details absorb as many of these details that you can and then take those home and see how you can integrate them so for like my jungle cruise bedroom i you know studied what color paints the jungle cruise building was and then did the trim of my bedroom windows you know that one color and the

like a yellow and then the main color was green. And then you think you have to have to think about the kind of plants that kind of give that same vibe. So it's again, using that word vibe you use, it's like really about the vibe and the details and also budget.

You have to be aware of your budget because it's easy to spend too much money. So go to thrift stores and Facebook marketplace and go to your basement and see what you can do because you can be so creative with a very small amount of money.

I had never really thought about it, but the question of nostalgia for like 15 whole years is really, you can kind of sum it up into how is Disneyland such a consistent experience for so many different kinds of people? Goths like the Haunted Mansion, Tiki Bar and Tiki people like Adventureland, families and little kids like princesses and dressing up. And like, there's nothing in common ostensibly with that stuff.

And sure, you can say it's a place that just has all those fun things and people come for what they want. But there is something that ties it all together.

There really is Disney magic, and it's really hard to describe. But I'm glad your book is here because it helps us start to feel out some of those things and sort of start to answer that question. So the book is called Bring the Magic Home, an Exploration of Design Inspired by Disney Parks. Available at bookstores everywhere. Sunny, thank you so much for joining me today. Also going to be sold in the parks. Do you know when it's going to go on sale? They're going to be sold in the parks. I don't know where. I don't know when. But that is...

As a Disneyland fanatic, that's so exciting for me. Yeah, I can. I mean, it has to absolutely be in Disney Home at the least. And then who knows where in the parks? Like there's all kinds of places they could fit that in. So awesome. Sunny, thank you so much for joining me. It's been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much.

Who's the team behind the show you're listening to today? M-O-U-S-E-G-A-L-G-I-A. You're listening to Nostalgia. Hashtag Carpe Kingdom. Hashtag Seize the Magic. Yeah, yeah. All right. Always fun talking to Sunny Chanel. So that was a great talk about her book. So the thing I liked about this book that Sunny wrote is just it really helps you kind of figure out

Where you are on the Disney...

How do I say this? Like the Disney meter of life? Lifestyle spectrum? Well, yeah. Or not even style spectrum, but like passion spectrum. Because there's room for everyone, right? You can just be kind of like, yeah, I like the animated films. I mean, I'm not going to turn my life around, you know, to buy everything in the world. But I'll listen to a podcast once in a while. And I'll, you know, maybe you've recently subscribed to Disney Plus to see what's there. You know, like there's a room for everyone. You can jump in there or you can be like...

Like, I'm going to start a Disney podcast and talk about this for three hours a week for 20 years. There's room for everyone in here. You know what I mean? So I admire the way that she pulls you into that world and lets you be free to be a Disney fan no matter who you are. You don't have to be crazy to be a Disney fan. You can just be subtle Disney fan. So, yeah.

In that same vein, we're going to give our Disney and Disney adjacent holiday gift giving ideas to you today. And we're going to try to keep this real. Everything from I think our cheapest item here is five bucks. I think you have a five dollar thing to talk about. I sure do. All the way up to kind of I think the last range that we gave each other was sky's the limit.

But I think most of this stuff we're going to try to keep actually reasonable. Like you can do this and you can be a Disney gift giver. And it doesn't, and I guess getting back to my original point, it doesn't matter if you're giving it to like a casual Disney fan or the ultra super Disney fan. Like we have something here for all those ranges. Yeah.

That will make you, listener, you, seem like the ultimate Disney gift giver. So I'm pretty excited about it to hear, because I don't know what Julia's going to say. She doesn't know what I'm going to say. It's going to be kind of cool to go through this and talk about these things. I will say first, of course, my first suggestion is that you should check out Kristen's store at BoredTeak.com. So she has an Etsy store, and you get there by going to Bored—it's kind of a weird name—BoredTeak.com.

It's kind of weird because I thought it up. Sorry, Kristen. Because originally she was only going... She was going to be really niche. She was going to only make things out of old game boards, like board games. She was going to find old board games and deconstruct them for the artwork and the pieces and make crafts out of them. And then she decided the world of Disney ephemera is wide and broad and she found all kinds of stuff. So it's expanded into all kinds of Disney ephemera, but she makes...

all kinds of items by upcycling old Disney prints. So the cool thing about Kristen's store is everything there is real vintage Disney material. Like she doesn't scan and print anything. She doesn't make copies of anything. Like every single thing you buy from her is literally vintage antique or older material that's involved. That's somehow involved in the Disney universe. So, um,

First thing you can do is go check out BoardTeak.com. So I just talked to Kristen and got the details about her special promotion just for Nostalgia listeners. So if you go to BoardTeak to do some shopping and use code Nostalgia, or she says mention the store, so I don't know if there's a place for notes, but if you mention Nostalgia or perhaps use code Nostalgia...

She will throw in a free upcycled ornament with every purchase, right? So every order that you make, not every item, but every order that you place, you can get a free upcycled ornament handmade by Kristen included with your order if you use the code MOSTALGIA. So it's like a bonus gift, right? Nothing to lose. Go to Bordeteak.com. All right, but here's our list. So, Julia, I want you to start with your $5 item.

And then we'll go on from there and we'll kind of we'll move up the price ranges. We'll start we'll start cheap and move on up a little bit. So let's see where we get. But why don't you start? What do you got? For my under $10 pick, I am going to visit Five Below. Oh, excellent. And...

I selected the Disney The Emperor's New Groove Cusco remote control figure because it's just so weird. Now, you own one of these, right? You actually own one. Have you tried it? I haven't. I haven't tried it yet. Okay. But it is Cusco as the llama, which, I mean, how could he not be? Yeah.

But I don't think it comes with batteries, and I don't know how fast it goes. But it was just so weird, I had to get it. Because I was like, maybe I'll meet David Spade someday, and wouldn't this be a weird thing for him to sign? That's where my brain went. But there's a lot of Emperor's New Groove fans out there. I think it's an underrated classic, so it was...

I couldn't, I don't think you can pass this up. Yeah. Well, I think a $5 toy that's remote controlled is an underrated prize. So, and I think you can still get these at five below.com. So F I V E. It says they're low stock for ship to home. So if you can't, if you can't get to a store and you need to order it online, you might want to do this first thing. Yeah.

Ooh, that's a good start. Like $5. Like $5. You can't beat it. Yeah, that's almost unbelievable. So, all right. Well, my under $10 pick. Yeah, what did you pick, Jeff? So I'm going to go to Etsy for a couple things. I tried not to just live on Etsy here because you really can find a lot of kind of cool gift stuff on Etsy. And I'm probably going to mention a couple things from Etsy, but...

I'll start with this one store called Vacation Patches. So they sell patches for $7.50. And it's kind of, I guess, kind of cheating because are you really going to give someone just a patch? I mean, I would think that's cool. And maybe it's someone you know that has like a big jean jacket that they put patches on things. But probably what I would do is get this patch and then go find like a cheap patch.

Or not even a cheap, maybe a good baseball cap that's blank. You know, I put the patch on myself on the front. But the one I chose, it's called, I mean, it's a logo for the Rope Drop Crew. So your Rope Drop Crew patch. And then it also says, you know, DLR slash WDW. So kind of for those who know in the know, you know what the Rope Drop Crew means. Yeah.

And it's just kind of a cool, like no one else is going to have that at Disneyland. You're going to get a lot of comments. You know, whoever you give it to, your friend is going to get all kinds of comments about their awesome rope drop crew hat. Where'd you get it? And they'll have to say, I don't know. My friend got it for me for Christmas. So, but you know where to get it. Vacation patches on Etsy. And it's only $7.50. So I think that's pretty cool. It looked like they had a couple bundles from some of their other patches, you know, but maybe go check that out.

All right, so you got anything else here? What's your next cheapest item? My next cheapest item is for under $20. Okay. I don't know if you have checked out the Disney Macy's collection in celebration for...

Minnie Mouse getting her first balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Have you seen any of this? No. Unfortunately, there is one thing you probably really would have liked, but it is no longer online. So I'll have to just show you that when I get it. But I highly recommend the Minnie Mouse balloon blown glass ornament that was created for Macy's.

She is super cute and it's just a little glass blown ornament of the balloon. So she kind of looks like she's floating. It is regularly $19.99, but right now it is on 30% off. So it's $13.99. Wow. Better jump on it.

Wow. Okay. I like the idea that they're commemorating the Thanksgiving Day Parade. I don't think they do that every year. Do they? They don't. I do have a little water globe that I got one year for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but that was like back in the 90s. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, that's actually pretty interesting. And you know how I like very specific themed things. That's usually where I lean. So that's really cool. Yeah.

Do you want me to tell you the thing that I think you would have loved so you can see if you can find it? It was a set of five floater pens, which I know you love floating pens. I do. To tell you the truth, I was trying to get us both it for Christmas, but you could only buy one per order. When I went back to make the second order, it was already too late. Wow. Well, I'm glad you got in there and got it because that sounds pretty cool. I'll check it.

um, eBay one of these days and see what's going on. Check your Macy's too, just in case, just in case you never know. Okay. All right. Um, let's see where I'm going to go. I have a few different things here that could fit in the under $20 category. I think I'll go to 1999. So let's push it to the limit here. Um,

You might think of the Spirit Store, like, thank God it's over and closed because, you know, it might be the busy kind of place in the neighborhood around Halloween time. Oh, no, no. Have you? Did you? I just want to interrupt you. Yeah. Did you hear that they made, I think, about 10 Spirit Stores into Spirit Christmas Stores?

That's interesting. I think they're all on the East Coast, though. Yeah, they're giving it a try. None for us here, even though Spirit started in California, but whatever. Well, it'll be interesting to see if it's themed towards the festive Christmas or themed towards, like, horror Christmas, right? Merry Christmas? I'm curious. It could be either way, right? And actually, the reason I'm bringing it up is because they do have a really extensive and every year growing Haunted Mansion line of merchandise. And...

Some of it is actually really reasonably priced. It's a little bit not quite my style of Haunted Mansion. Like, they have their own illustrated versions of the Hitchhiking Ghosts and the characters, and it's all very specific to the Spirit Halloween store. So that's kind of interesting, you know, that they have their own line. But what I do really like, actually, there's a T-shirt that

And I think it's on sale right now for $19.99. It's Spirit Halloween. I'm not sure. But it just says Home Sweet Haunted Home, and it has a picture of the Haunted Mansion in the middle, the Disneyland version with the hitchhiking ghosts. And I think the Tightrope Girls there, April, December, I think –

I'm not sure who else there are. A bunch of characters are all in there peeking out. And it's just, it's pretty cool. And it doesn't say Tomb Sweet Tomb. It says Home Sweet Haunted Home. Kind of in sampler letters. It's just sort of cool. It's not really super masculine or super feminine. It's just kind of right there, Disney fan appropriate. And it's $19.99. And plus, when you're at Spirit Halloween and you type in Haunted Mansion into the search bar, like you'll see...

All kinds of stuff. So much, yeah. I think they had a Constance mug right now for five bucks that's on clearance, which is pretty cool. Like her axe is the handle. Then, you know, it says Constance Hatchway. So you can check out the Spirit Store for, ironically, for Christmas gift ideas. Okay. So let me see. Where are we at? I think I gave you, what did the next number I gave you? Was it 50 bucks? Yeah. Okay. So let's hear what you got.

Okay, my next one is right there, but this is something I'm eyeing for my new baby niece. Okay. It is from Hallmark, so hallmark.com.

It's a Disney... It's a small world rotating lamp with sound. Because gosh darn it, she is going to love Disney and Disneyland. And this is a classic ride to take a baby on, right? Yeah. So it looks really cool. It's like...

It's round and it's got a little base that looks like water. It looks like that's where you turn it on. It's battery operated. And the parts of it that rotate, they're kind of like they look like plastic.

But the light can go through it kind of like a luminary. I don't know if I'm explaining this. Yeah, sort of. So the base looks like water. Okay. And then it looks like the first layer that's rotating is all the little dolls holding hands. And then the second layer that's rotating is all different landmarks from the different countries. And then the...

Third, like inside part that rotates is the outside of It's a Small World. So you've got like the clock face and all that. And it looks super cute. And I'm going to, I don't want to use the word indoctrinate, but I am going to make my niece love this song. Fair enough. That is my plan. Well, that's a good plan. All right. What do you have, Jeff?

Okay. Well, let's see. So this is $50 and under. I really had a hard time deciding here. I have a kind of a tie for a few things. So I'll name a couple of things, you know, in the middle between 20 and 50, like there's a couple ideas I had. So one of them is that King's Wild Project. So it's a website that is custom. Well, not custom, but they make their own limited edition sets of cards that

So the website is kingswildproject.com. And they make these very intricate, kind of exquisite playing card sets. And you can usually just get a deck of cards for a really reasonable amount of money. And sometimes then they have a special version. So they have this really incredible Alice in Wonderland deck of cards. Now, it's not Disney licensed, and it's not like a ripoff or anything. It's not Disney. But Alice in Wonderland...

Yeah.

And Alice, the original Alice stuff and the Disney stuff is really kind of similar. But it doesn't even matter because, you know, Disney fans also love Disney adjacent things. Like Disney fans often have all kinds of Alice in Wonderland stuff or all kinds of Peter Pan stuff, you know. So this Alice in Wonderland deck of cards is really gorgeous. So it's only $12. And...

It's very decorative. It's kind of Russian decor decoration around the edges. And then the artwork is not the art from the book, but it's very similar to the artwork in the book.

And then it's only 12 bucks, but you might as well, if you're there, take a look at the gilded edition, which has, it's got a, the edges of it are this beautiful purple foil. So that's $35. If you're a cart deck collector, that's pretty amazing. And then, so that's $35. Also, if $35 is around what you're looking to spend on someone, which is a pretty common amount for like,

a good friend, but you have a lot of friends and you can't spend too much, but you really want something thoughtful. Maybe that kind of deck of cards, but here's another idea. I narrowed it down, but you have a plethora of options, right? So you can go to Etsy,

And you can get hand-cut silhouettes. And I would look for hand-cut ones. Like, there's also companies that will take your picture, scan it, and turn it into a silhouette and have it cut on their, you know, their Cricut or something. But there are quite a few companies on Etsy that will, by hand, cut silhouettes for you. I like Thistle Cottage Company, Thistle Cottage Co. at Etsy.

So you can look at them. I think that's Etsy's pick for hand-cut silhouettes. So they have for $35 a 5x7 silhouette. You send them a picture.

They make a silhouette and send it back. Right. And so, but there are also quite a few. It's also Disney adjacent, right? It's very main street. A lot of people think of Disneyland when they see a hand cut silhouette, even though it was a very common type of artwork around the turn of the century, but it's, it's no longer a very common type of artwork unless you go to Disneyland. Right. So that's another thing you can do. And then if you want to go right up to the edge and spend $50 exactly, I'm going to suggest one more thing. So, um,

The Nucleus Gallery, Gallery Nucleus, and you can just find their website. I think their website is gallerynucleus.com.

They recently had a 65th anniversary of Sleeping Beauty tribute exhibition, and they still have quite a bit of the limited edition prints available for sale. I'm going to have to go check that out. The one that I love is called Entry No. 16 is what it's called. And I don't know if they didn't name it and it's just it is Entry No. 16 or if that was the name of it. But it's an old style. It's almost an Ivan Earle.

homage. And it's a 12 by 16 or 12 by 17 paper, watercolor paper. So it's a clay and it's limited edition of 200. It's only $50. It's gorgeous. Yeah. You will like this, Julia. You'll probably order one right away. The artist is Beverly arse arse. I think that's how you say her name. Arse arse. And, um,

Yeah, you can see that. But there's also quite a few other Sleeping Beauty tribute prints still available there. So gallerynucleus.com. They often will have signed books and all kinds of things Disney related also there. The gallery itself is located down in Alhambra, I think. I think somewhere sort of close to Disneyland. So you can check that out.

All right. So let's move up the list. What was our next amount of money I gave you? Was it $200, $100? $100. Okay. You got anything for...

Under $100? I do. I would highly recommend gifting a membership to the Walt Disney Family Museum to somebody. That's actually a really good idea. Yeah. So you can individual gift memberships are $100 exactly. If you know a student, they are $75. And if you know a senior, they are also $75. Okay.

So give the gift of a whole year of visiting this gem of a museum. Yeah. And I would say this, um,

So you're kind of giving the gift to the Walt Disney Family Museum, right? So consider the fact that no matter where you live, you might not... Julie and I actually have done this before to each other. We've given each other gift memberships to something that we probably can't do, but it will give us a little incentive to keep that in mind. And maybe the next year we'll have a chance to do it. Do you know what I mean? A lot of our audience is in the Bay Area, but a lot of you aren't. But

But when you order a membership to a museum, any museum, Walt Disney Family Museum, you're really contributing to that museum. They might not be nonprofit organizations, but they often use your contributions primarily to build up the museum. So if you want to donate to the Walt Disney Family Museum by gifting someone a membership, even if they may or may not be local and may or may not use it,

If nothing else, it might give them an incentive to take a trip out to San Francisco. You're helping the museum, and you're also kind of giving your friend a cool membership card they can put in their wallet. And it does come with a few perks, like decreased prices for...

Their events as well as I think you can get discounted tickets to their film of the month as well as just entering the lobbies for no additional cost. And I did have that thought when I picked this one.

that maybe you might not be local, but then I also thought I spend a heck of a lot more on my magic key and use that far less than I use my membership to the Walt Disney family museum. So. All right. I agree. It's a, it's a gift to help support the museum as well as an incentive to get somebody into the museum. All right. That's great. Um, that's a good one. So,

So I have a couple sub-hundred dollar gift ideas. Again, one is kind of mid-range and one's right up there. So for $68, I want to say go over to Kate Spade Outlet. So it's literally katespadeoutlet.com. And Kate Spade put some of their discount items or last season items and types of things like that on the outlet site.

And they right now have a ton of Minnie Mouse stuff from their Minnie Mouse line a year or two ago. But there's this cool one thing I saw for $68, this amazing Lady and the Tramp bifold wallet. It's not leather, but it's kind of simulated leather. You know what? But it's gorgeous. It's $68 and it was $199, right? So the Kate Spade outlet is kind of good for being cheap, right? I don't know. They had some crystal stud mini earrings that are...

were like 60 bucks and they marked all the way down to $19. So there can be some cool Disney purchases available at Kate Spade. So that caught my eye. And then if you want to go up almost to a hundred dollars, $96 and 51 cents, I, you know, I like little trinkety mechanical things, right? Everyone probably that listens to the show kind of can figure that out. And, and,

One thing that's kind of cool is... So music... You know what a music box is, obviously. Everyone knows what a music box is. But music boxes can be more and more intricate based on how many different octaves of notes they have. So a normal little toy music box might have 10 notes or an octave or something like that. Sometimes music...

boxes have a bigger span though. And there is a beauty and the beast 20 note span music box arrangement that you can get at this one website called

that comes in a paper, like a paper strip music box. So that kind of music box is you put a paper strip into it and then you wind it and it pulls the paper strip through kind of like a player piano. And often these paper strip music boxes have more intricate arrangements. The music they play can be a little bit more fancy. So the website is called mium.com. It's hard to say, but it's M-I-U-M.com.

And it's customizable music boxes. And they have all kinds of music and sounds.

some Disney songs, but this one is the Beauty and the Beast theme. And the Beauty and the Beast theme, they have like six different music boxes from a really simple little one to this more complicated paper strip one. So then what happens at this website is you choose kind of the mechanism and then you choose kind of the box you want it in. So the combo I had was this box called Once Upon a Time. It has the castle and you can engrave your name on it if you want. And it's kind of this pretty wooden box. And then with the mechanism in there to play music,

Beauty and the Beast. The whole thing together is $96.51. They also have a 30-note version of Once Upon a Dream by Tchaikovsky, so you could also get that. So it's really, it's like a step above, I mean, it's kind of a mechanical thing, right? It's a little music box that you wind, and it's not about the music boxes. They're just wooden boxes. It's really about the performance and the mechanism, which I think is cool. Some people like music boxes for the kind of the little

figurine or whatever that's attached to it. This is more about the actual music and the mechanism. So I thought that was pretty cool. All right, Julia, now $100 and up, right? So what do you got? So I chose something that... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How much is yours? Let's go in order of value here. So how much is your...

your sky's the limit item here. $9,299. Oh, you beat me. Holy cow. All right. My highest is $8,600. So let me, let's, let's, let me give you a couple more ideas and then let's work our way up to our big ultimate ideas here. Cause I, while I, while I was searching through all this stuff, I found a couple other things that I kind of thought, ah, this is pretty cool. You know, it's,

Anyway, let's just look at a couple of things here. One thing I did want to mention. So we're talking about crafty type things, but there are people out there that kind of like Marvel and, you know, collecting and more modern stuff. So I don't know, like maybe sometime I'll talk about our recent MouseCon experience, maybe on the next show. I don't know if I have much to say of it. Or maybe you can just listen to the next episode.

pal around and we'll maybe we'll talk about MouseCon a little bit. But one thing I did buy was a signed pop. So people still love those signed Funko pops. Every time you read a news article about how Funko is over, no one's going to buy this stuff anymore.

Like it just convention. It seems to become like popular again. I don't know. It could be true that Funko is riding the crest of the wave is receding. Maybe. I don't know. But it still seems like a pretty collectible type of a thing that people really like to get. So if you just aren't really sure what to get someone, but you want to really get out there and get them something interesting, consider a signed Funko pop.

because it still is a very collectible form of autograph collecting. And I know this is going to sound like kind of strange, but I thought when I was thinking about where do you get signed pops? Cause you can find them all over eBay, but it's really hard to tell if they're authentic or not, unless you really know what you're looking for.

And so I thought, well, I'm going to direct you to a place that's pretty reliable. So there's a place called, it used to be called Star Wars Autograph Universe, but now I think they just go by SWAU.

S-W-A-U dot com. And they sell signed pictures and pop vinyls and things like that. And they're reliable. There's some controversy over some of their techniques and things over the years, but they're reliably authentic autographs. So one of the signings they did recently, one of their least expensive signed pops, and it's a really interesting one, is Cosmo from Guardians of the Galaxy.

So the actress who says Cosmo's word, you know who Cosmo is, right? The dog in Disneyland in the Guardians of the Galaxy. So you remember in Guardians 3, Cosmo was released, right? Or Guardians 2. When was Cosmo released? Guardians 3? Cosmo has been freed. Yes. So, yeah.

And so Cosmo is voiced by an actress named Maria Bakalova. And they at SWAU, they had her sign a bunch of pops. And so $135 is their price for Maria Bakalova signed Funko Pop of Cosmo. So I just thought that was kind of unique. Like not many people are going to have the Cosmo Pop signed by Maria Bakalova. So there's your chance to get something kind of cool.

That's $135, right? So if you want to spend just a little bit more than that, well, okay. So I got a couple things. I did go to Saks Fifth Avenue for my ultimate gift, which still is not as ultimate as yours. But one thing I saw at Saks Fifth Avenue, and I'm kind of torn about this, right? Because-

It's too much money. Everything at Saks Fifth Avenue is too much money, more or less. But you can't find it anywhere else, right? So there's a throw blanket from the company's called Barefoot Dreams, and I found it at Saks Fifth Avenue. Yeah, very expensive. And it's $142, right? So you can get a really comfortable, nice throw blanket at Marshalls for $20, right? Yeah.

It's really not necessarily worth $142 for a throw blanket, but they have beautiful blankets that you have to get it from Barefoot Dreams if you want it, right? So one that caught my eye is a drawing of Bambi kind of chasing the butterfly, right? And it's just a muted pastel palette, so it's kind of vintage-looking and

Beautiful. So if money is a little bit less of an object and you want something that's really pretty and a little spendy, you know, and probably comes in a sex with Avenue box, I would guess maybe the Bambi throat blanket from Barefoot Dreams. That's $142, right? So we're not yet at, what was your total? $9,290. Yeah, we're not there yet, but let's look at a couple more things.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Stuart Ng Books. So Stuart Ng Books, that's S-T-U-A-R-T-N-G.com, his bookstore.

He mostly deals in animated movies and animated type stuff. So lots of Disney books and things like that, that are signed. But one book that I've kind of been looking for low key for a while, but it's in the hundreds of dollars. So I'll probably never own it. It's called, um, and I do not speak French, so I really can't say this right. But le heroine, how do we say hero, heroines in French? Le heroine Disney. Donne les l'hommes ronds des amnésiaux. Whatever. Whatever.

whatever the disney heroines in the animated films is what it's called the disney heroines in the animated films and um he has actually bernie mattinson's copy from bernie mattinson's library for sale right now so bernie of course recently passed away but he's uh just we met him at one of the d23 expos i think we did i believe at least i did i think we did got him to sign some stuff was he not at the museum once because

Maybe he was. I feel like I've got also a Sleeping Beauty lobby card in a different language. That he signed? That he and Floyd Norman signed. Yeah, I feel like that too. So he must have been at the museum at some point in time. But his copy of this French book is $600 at Stuart Ng Books.

This book dates back to the year 2000, and there's a few French Disney books that have never been published in America. This is one of them. It's really pretty amazing for animation fans because it shows a lot of series animation drawings in series. Most Disney animation books just feature animation.

standout images. And usually they're composited from the background and the cell, you know, and sometimes they are the sketch, but they don't usually show series. And this one shows a lot of series work. So it's, it's really cool book. If you have $600 lying around and you want Bernie Madison's actual copy, you can get that. And then finally, I think, what did you say? 9,000. Yeah. Okay. Well then you're going to go last. Here's my last, here's my last item. I thought this was going to top yours. Okay.

$8,600 at Saks Fifth Avenue. So Disney and Balmain, the fashion house, Balmain, Balmain, that's French, I think also Balmain. They teamed up for the Lion King's 30th anniversary, which was, I think, was it last year?

This year, I don't remember when exactly the 30th anniversary of Lion King is. Was it 94? I think it was 94. I think so, too. So they have come up with a line of fashion based on the Lion King. And of course, you know, $150 t-shirts and et cetera, et cetera. But what really stuck out to me is this beaded dress. So I'm just going to read from the description of this actual piece.

this actual dress. So inspired by his childhood connection to Simba from the Lion King, Balmain's creative director, Olivier Rousteing, I think that's how you say it, Rousteing, collaborated with Walt Disney Animation Studios on the Disney Balmain, the Lion King collection to celebrate the film's 30th anniversary. This limited edition line features archival elements from the fashion house,

showcasing vibrant hues, pleated silhouettes, and couture caliber details while highlighting the contributions of South African and Cameroonian artists. So this dress is decorated with gold-tone pearl-inspired beading

And it's a mini dress cut in a bodycon silhouette and finished with padded shoulders for added dimension. And so that's $8,600. And there's also a sequined zebra pattern mini dress that was very striking also. So if you're in the market for like couture fashion, try Saks Fifth Avenue and type in Disney. You never know what you're going to find. All right, Julia, give us your ultimate amazing gift. Well, my ultimate pie in the sky gift.

gift idea is to gift somebody an adventure by Disney. Oh, that's good. And specifically the ones that I was looking through, the one that called to me was Holland and Belgium Tulip Season River Cruise. Holy cow. As you walk amongst the iconic symbols of Holland and Belgium, tulips and windmills. It is eight days long and it goes from

$9,299 per person and probably can get more expensive depending on things. It is a small ship adventure. You get 20 meals and the minimum age requirement is five, but it is recommended for eight plus. Yeah. Wow. It looks pretty cool. Wow.

Okay. I bet you didn't think I'd pick something. You know how I usually shop, so you probably didn't think I would come with something that grand. I did not think you would go big, but you went big and you did not go home. I like how you brought this full circle because, of course, the windmills and the Dutch and the Netherlands scene in Small World takes us back to one of your earlier gift ideas. Yes.

You did bring us back to the beginning. And so hopefully, I hope that we have given all of our listeners out there some, if not literal ideas for you to go get Disney gift giving, at least some inspiration to kind of help you start thinking outside the box. Like you do not need to start at DisneyStore.com or Disney.com slash shopping or what is the new, what is their latest website? DisneyStore.com. DisneyStore.com. Okay. You don't need to start there. Like you can...

you can think Disney adjacent, or you can think handmade, or you can think, oh, actually, let me throw in one more thing. I almost forgot. You need a card if you're going to give away a gift. You need a card, right? And so the Walt Disney Family Museum, if you go there in person, they have all kinds of handmade cards that have Disney themes. But one place that has these really, really, and these aren't hand, well, I'm sure they're

constructed by hand, but it's not, they're printed cards, but the website is called me and MCQ. So me and mcq.com and their, their paper pop-up cards is what they feature. Right. And so they have this incredible card of Cinderella's carriage. It's only $10 and it pops open. And one side is Cinderella's pumpkin carriage and,

with the godmother and the mice and everything. And then when you turn the card over, it's Cinderella's crystal carriage with gold gilding. It's the most beautiful thing. And it's only $10. Most Hallmark pop-up cards are like $16. They're more than that. And they're not nearly as cool.

There's also, if you're thinking Disney adjacent, there's also a flower sellers cart card that pops up and there's also an Alice inspired teapot card that pop up. So none of this is Disney stuff. It's all Disney adjacent based on fairy tales. But of course, any Disney fan will know exactly what you're trying to say if you give them one of those cards. So almost anything for any Disney fan here in our collection of ideas, I think, Julia, what do you think?

I think so, too. I think we had a good range of attainable to really blow somebody's socks off. I think you're right. So with that, we're going to wrap up this episode of Nostalgia. I want to thank you all for listening and thank you for hanging in there. I did take October off because as any school teachers out there know, October gets a little gruesome for teachers. But Julie and I did pull together a pretty, I think, a pretty cool episode.

episode of the Doom Buggies podcast based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow in honor of the, what is it, 70th anniversary of Legend of Sleepy Hollow? 75th anniversary of Legend of Sleepy Hollow. So you might, if you haven't heard that, I'm really kind of proud of it. So you might go check out. It's a good episode. Good job. It's a good episode. Yeah. Well, thank you. And you might go check that out at Doom Buggies podcast.

wherever you get your podcasts, just search for doom buggies. And, um, thanks again for listening. If you want to get in touch with me, um, or I'll pass on a message to Julia. If you want to get in touch with her, you can write to us at comments at mouse dodger.com. Um,

You can also check out NostalgiaPlus.com if you are so inclined to support the show. I appreciate every one of you that does support the show and helps me out. Every single dime that you contribute to NostalgiaPlus.com goes directly into paying the bills for the show. So I appreciate that. So with that, I hope you have a great week. We will see you soon. And go Carpe Kingdom and seize the magic. Bye, everybody. Bye.

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