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Fellowes Dta
Magic In Stealth Mode
Hello folks. It’s me Robert again and this time I have a personal story that only my buddy, our wives and me knew about. Its still things that happened under the Disney radar, but this time it was all done for the children and older Disney fans just like your self who remember their childhood. See just like I mentioned in the first installment, I really loved Disneyland and really looked up to the one who stated it all. WALT DISNEY!!! I was one of those cast members that was all about the show and theme. I never allowed guest to see the failure points of the attractions on the river because Walt would of never allowed it. As you all know by now, Walt Disney was very adamant about leaving the outside world behind and making the guest feel that they were 100% in the era for which they were in. So when guest came into the Frontier Land, they were “really” in the old west frontier, and not just a point in Anaheim. All this was done due to the “Cast” and the theme or “show” as Walt called it. So, one day in the summer of 2001 I was taking a group of guest on my canoe, but this group of 40-50 year old guests, which made a comment about how they remembered the burning cabin and the bear. How it use to be the Indian war canoes before it was changed to the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes. I started to realize that the show aspect was heavily falling apart as it was impacting the guest experience. See it’s easier to remember a bad memory than it is a good. So I started to examine the rivers well being, but instead found the beaver was missing its fur skin in areas, the moose was covered in duck droppings, the burning cabin was not burning but the sound effects were running as if it was, the Indian village was dirty with spider webs, the tee-pees and fire pits no longer smoked, the animatronics like the deer with the moving ears didn’t work. The rapids were dead, there was foliage covering just about everything. Our canoes looked faded. I mean, the river was well…ugly and in poor shape. The theme was dying and attractions managers as well as maintenance management didn’t find it to be a priority. The river was considered as a non-profit attraction and wasted space!!!
So I decided to start making some BIG changes. It all began during my 1am to 9am shift on the rafts, which consisted of escorting the Fantasmic techs working on the show equipment. I only had to take them from the shore to the island. That’s it! So it gave me plenty of time to think of new ideas as well as do things under the darkness of the night. I rigged my raft with my rechargeable floodlights, and began my mission. I would cruise to the back of the island at around 3am where I would park the raft in the Fantasmic barge harbor which the entrance is to the left of the Indian village. I then started to gather up barrels, nets, rope, wooden crates, fake shacks of wheat, buckets and just about anything else I thought I could use. So all night long I began transferring these items to areas that I thought could use a lift. I put a few barrels at the tunnel behind the old derailed train where Angle Falls use to be. Then I placed a bunch of this stuff on the catwalk at the canoe dock as well as around the Mark Twain landing. I moved the old crates on the Mark Twain dock to make it look as if it was just unloaded from a ship. So I continued on my goal to fix the river that DTA (Disney Team Anaheim) seemed not to care about anymore.
Then the real idea came to me and a buddy of mine who I will call J.B. who was also a castmember at the time as well as on the river with me. We decided to rent dances with wolves and watch the whole things in order to get ideas for our new prop. Make it look as real as possible. We also watched both Davy Crockett flicks in hopes to find something that would really make this thing work. So on this one Sunday morning at about 3am, we got dressed up and took off with a canoe, loaded up with all our props, tools and flashlights in order to pull this off. Amazingly no one said ANYTHING. Not a word to us. I guess they thought training shift started at that time instead of 5:30am. So first we cleaned up the burning cabin and made it look as if someone was currently living there. Add a few things here and there as well as dust things off. Gave it a live in look which still to this day remains as well as shut off the sound effects of the place being on fire. Then I was off to fix the rapids where the pumps were shut off for what ever reason, so I began to fix what worked and cleaned out the nozzles then aligned the water stream against the rocks while my buddy pulled out brush covering the animals around the river bank.. Also right next to the rapids, we set up an Indian camps site using props we gathered as well as logs and rock. We even pulled one of the small canoes that’s use to float at one time in front of the village, over to our new campsite. And finally then built an entire set as if Davy Crockett himself was living in there to the right of the chief Indian on the horse. Coon skin hat and rifle too!! It looked awesome! We even set up a wood fishing pole and were able to tie it to the fish that jumped out so to give the fishing line the effect that it had something on it when the water prop moved. Now not only did we do that, but cleaned off all the animals and rocks that had bird droppings on them. I even stitched the beaver’s fur back on using fishing string. Then added a ton of real wood logs to the dam as well. We fixed up the Indian village a little. Got the smog effects working at the fire pit as well as in all the tee-pees. And then the big surprise for our fellow canoe crewmembers; we polished all the canoes. We were so proud and really excited to see what the other castmembers would think.
Now mind you, we were beat at this point. The canoes were to open at 10 am and the park at 8am. So we had time to shower up and change back into normal clean costumes by our shift. So at opening time, the crew began to notice the changes, heck the whole river crew noticed. No one knew what the heck had happened. Everyone was so excited about it but wanted to find out how it happened. The lead even called the manager to ask. Some of the managers knew it was my buddy and me but said nothing. Well I will tell ya this much, every single guest noticed it and loved it. That’s whom we did it for. The guest. We loved that place with all our hearts and wanted to give back single the budget always seemed to be the stopping point for things like what we did that night.
The bad news was, Disney Imagineering showed up with a raft without notice right before park opened and tore it all down. I think they didn’t like being made to look bad cause we did what they are suppose to do on a joke salary and used what we had access to as well as used OUR imagination just like Walt did. The great thing is I have the pictures to prove it as well as the Indian camp is still there. I hope it stays for a long time so I can remember that night every time I take my kids on the canoes or the Mark Twain. Well till next time folks…
About the Author
Robert Baca is a southern California local.
He worked at Disneyland in Anaheim California from 1995 to 2003 as an Attractions Cast Member.
Other Articles by Robert can be found at http://DLDHistory.com