Today, I drove an American icon around...

[flippyshark]

Today, I drove a living legend around on the Backlot Tour at the Disney -MGM Studios. Who was it? Why, Hugh Hefner, accompanied by four identical bleach blonde plastic bunnies. (They were honestly kind of disturbing to look at. Seriously, they looked like clones of each other. And their faces looked sort of stiff and shiny and incapable of expression.)

The fellow who spieled for them was kind of relieved that they sat way in the back row of the shuttle. He told me he was kind of nervous, and would have been all but incapable of coherent speech if they had sat up front. All the guys were high-fiving him when he got back to the break room. He told me he couldn't wait to get home and call his Dad to tell him that he had been Hef's tour guide.

Anyway, from the brief look I got, Mr. Hefner was looking a litttle frail, but he was dressed in a very loud pink suit, and was smiling. So, there you go, my very own brush with a cultural icon.

By the way, Hugh and company got a really lousy show by sitting in the back of the shuttle. Catastrophe Canyon is almost not worth seeing at all if you are seated in the last car of the tram. The shaker table that creates the "earthquake" effect is not working in the back, and the big water effect for the finale is messed up. The third water dump-tank falls way too early, and obscures the view of the rest of the show for the last car. So, people seated back there don't see or feel much of anything. (We often don't load the back car at all these days.)