55 and 50 Party - Disneyland and Zlick!

[cirquelover]

It sounds like it was the swankiest event ever!

Thanks for sharing the pics, so I can see what an amazing time was had by all. The suite looks beyond imagination, so wish I could have seen it!

I'm so glad everyone made your birthday special. It looks like you gave everyone an amazing weekend too!

[CoasterMatt]

I love the fact that two of us saw Steve in the 70s/80s pics and yelled out "Doug Henning!"

I'd love to contribute to any slideshow, if I've got any pics worthy of inclusion.

[MouseWife]

I want to know, the skyride, did someone make that? After reading that it was 99% your items, what did YOU make?? AND the Pirates bed, that is yours??? AWESOME!!! {decos, not bed}

[Alex]

In some of the pictures of Steve from this last weekend I was thinking "Gary Oldman."

But I don't know who Doug Henning is so maybe I'd have thought that instead.

ETA: Ok, seeing his Wikipedia picture I recognize him as the TM kook.

[innerSpaceman]

With my long hair, I was often referred to as Doug Henning in the '80's.


Once I cut my hair to a non-retarded length, and until about 3 years go, I was constantly mistaken for Gary Oldman, though I do not see the resemblance at all - not one little bit. But one particular lady at DCA was so insistent I was him - and that I give her an autograph - I obliged by signing Mr. Oldman's name. Sheesh.

Originally Posted by MouseWife

I want to know, the skyride, did someone make that? After reading that it was 99% your items, what did YOU make?? AND the Pirates bed, that is yours??? AWESOME!!!

Many people thought the suite came pre-Disney decorated by Disney. Um, not so. (Though there are prints of Disneyland artists' renderings throughout, which will be available at Company D once they gut this building in 2012.). Just about EVERYTHING was installed by me and my crew, from - ahem - concepts of mine, inspired by the suite's unique layout.

So the Skyway was the most time-consuming and difficult item of decoration. Modern-day beach pails and childrens' toys no longer look like the original skybuckets, and I couldn't even find online expensive models of the revised skybuckets. I was so fortunate to locate a paper model of the skyway at disneyexperience.com (they have papers models of a slew of attractions).

We doubled the size of the parts and painstakingly cut, folded and glued for nearly 40 man-hours of work to make the ten buckets. (I can't imagine what kind of ship-in-a-bottle tools would be needed to make them in the original size - but we needed a larger size in any event for our event purposes).

It was very discouraging work at times. We were able to print out different colors for the buckets, but I'd hoped no one would notice the buckets all had the same number - which would be an error. Oh, until I noticed that number was - astonishingly - 55. That gave me the encouragement to finish.


Alas, though the sky crew who put together the entire, beautiful, outdoor patio lighting were an amazing bunch - they did not secure the Skyway to my satisfaction - and buckets kept falling all through the night (prompting many jokes about why the Skyway closed).

When I went around repairing various items on Saturday, the Skyway was foremost in my mind (recalling those 40 man hours of construction). But I saved the project for last, hoping the wind would die down at the higher elevations of the 11th floor penthouse. So when I sliced my arm in Toad Hell, the reason I kept screaming "Fvck" was not because it hurt - but because I instantly knew my necessary trip to the emergency room would mean the Skyway would never be re-commissioned.

But - like many of Disneyland's best effects (the purple smoke from Toad Hall chimneys, the collapsing dry ice "roof" in Indiana Jones) - the Skylight Skyway of 55/50 would be temporary, in this case for the big party only. And in those few hours, it inspired all the laughter, joy and fond remembrances I'd hoped it would.




(More about the decorations in future posts)

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Once I cut my hair to a non-retarded length, and until about 3 years go, I was constantly mistaken for Gary Oldman, though I do not see the resemblance at all - not one little bit.

Interesting, because I've never before seen any resemblance to Gary Oldman and it was just something in these specific pictures that triggered it.

Guess I'm slower in the uptake.

[Cynthia]

When I first saw Steve across the room I thought he looked rather like the singer for the Psychedelic Furs, it is the patrician features I think.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Cynthia

When I first saw Steve across the room I thought he looked rather like the singer for the Psychedelic Furs, it is the patrician features I think.

Hahaha, is "patrician features" nice code for big, honking nose?

[Cynthia]

No silly, code for "noble" as in from refined stock

[innerSpaceman]

So the other thing that seemed to hit people the strongest was The Pirate's Lair - our version of the Get-It Room.

Ironic, since the prime Disney Get-It Room is featured in Pirates of the Caribbean. It's the room with the Pirate ship firing on the Spanish fort. We took a friend on the ride for his first time - this was way back in the '80s - and he seemed non-plussed by this spectacle. We kept saying, "Don't You Get It? It's a room, indoors, flooded with water, with moving clouds projected on the walls, and a freaking pirate ship with a robot captain firing cannonballs over passing guest boats on a Spanish fortress on the other side? Get it? Get it?"



He didn't get it.


But, ever since, we've referred to any spectacular themed environment room that takes your breath away as a Get It Room. And it seemed our Pirates Lair did just that. Laughter was the most general reaction to all our other environments - but just about everyone who entered the Pirates Lair simply gasped.


Yes, it was beautiful.


It was, at first, the ugliest room in the suite. The carpet, which remained, is hideous. The drapes along the 25-foot long wall were atrocious. The bed was ugly - as was all the standard Disneyland Hotel room furniture from the 1980's (and don't get me started on why this ultra-expensive suite didn't have different, and higher caliber furniture than a standard guest room!)

Once I decided that everything on the east half of the vast suite would be themed to a Disneyland attraction, I started to wonder what could be done with this big, ugly room. It didn't take long - because we had to deal with a giant immovable bed, and I happen to have a skeleton I've used for dozens of Halloween parties. D'uh, Pirate Captain's Quarters!


So I tasked my sister with this particular room, and sent her some reference pictures. Within an hour, she had found that fantastic headboard and footboard on Craig's List. It was cracked up the center, made of cheap, white plaster, and the upholstered inset was hot pink. But a little gold paint, red on the inset, and the addition of a skull and cross-bones - and voila - my single favorite piece in the whole damn project.

Every time I'd get discouraged by the vast scope of the 55/50 decorations and all that was entailed in constructing and assembling them, I'd look at that headboard and be reinvigorated.





My sister Leigh is an interior designer, and her husband Richard an architect who used to design movie sets, so they were the perfect team to fit out this lush and gorgeous room. The red velvet, beaded faux-drapes that covered the ugly drapes were made by Leigh for a display window when The Grove opened in L.A. (Richard was the designer of The Grove, have I ever mentioned that? )

That giant gold frame along the far wall was a display case for one of their ill-conceived sales schemes (The Earring Frame Company) and they traveled around the world with that monstrosity. Years earlier, a friend had given me a giant poster of the background piece that was used for the opening credits of the movie "Hook" - and so the marriage of those two element made for a stunning object seen when you first enter the room.

The huge armoire was perfectly usable, as the artists rendering of Disneyland emblazoned on the front is in perfect Treasure Map style. We capped the armoire with a Pirate skull, a silly pirate hat, and two guns - all of which happened to be purchased at Disneyland over the years. These were flanked by classic lego Pirate ships which were so fun to re-build after decades tucked away in their boxes.

The rest of the details that lushed-out the room came from Leigh's closet or mine, or were picked up here and there. That chest-looking thing on one of the tables, and all the old books were found in other parts of the suite!

Almost all the fabrics on the bed and covering the ugly tables and nightstands are Leigh's, except for the bottom-most bedcover and the material covering the hideous, formerly purple chaise - which were my cousin Lisa's draperies. (And once we borrowed another desk from the room across the hall to use in a seating area, we had to jury-rig another tablecloth from two Pirate flags.)


The only exception to the found fabric was the fantastic stuff that made up the bed canopy - which we hunted down at the downtown L.A. fabric mart a few weeks ago. I may end up using it as a real bed canopy on my own bed -- and I'm tempted to use that headboard, too - though it may be too kitchy for the reality of my swank apartment.


Anyway, nothing but the floor and the wallpaper remained original to the room. (And in a photoshop job, my sister added an oriental carpet, mirrors on the walls, and a chandelier to cover the errant ugly that was un-erasable in the real suite).










The room turned out simply gorgeous. Really the Get-It Room highlight of the 55/50 decor. An amazing transformation from the ugliest space to the most beautiful. I hope you all enjoyed.