Disneyland's Tiki Room turns 45 -- merch ahoy!
Former Disney designer Kevin Kidney and Jodi have been commissioned to make a run of limited-edition items based on the Tiki Room for a special event at Disneyland on June 22 and the schwag is awesome -- every nerve in my body just stood on end and shouted "WANT!" (Oh, if only I still lived in LA!)
For years, I've harbored a fantasy of putting together a punk/alternative tribute disc for the Tiki Room, with the parrots voiced by Shane McGowan, Nina Hagen, Cheech Marin and Jean Reno, and the songs performed as follows: "In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room," the Ramones; "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing," Shonen Knife; "Hawai'ian War Chant," the Breeders; and "Heigh-Ho" by Tom Waits.
Yes, I know, many of these people are dead. But a fella can dream.
Link (Thanks, Dwiff!)
We’ve been waiting 5 years to make this item, and it’s finally happened. Rongo, the Tiki God of Agriculture, is at long last a beautiful green-glazed ceramic drinking vessel for your Tiki bar. His very unusual size and shape makes him an equally suitable fruit bowl, cereal bowl, or whatever-you-like-bowl. He’s even clutching his spool of kite string, just as he’s been doing at Disneyland for 45 years.
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"Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing" Shonen Knife -
Great, now I've got a song created in Cory's imagination stuck in my head.
At lease the Waits cover is real.
Send me you want list - I'll see what I can do...
I went to the Tiki Room in the seventies and was mesmerized by it. Disneyland was truly a magical experience back then. I went back a couple of years ago, and got the impression that it's nothing more than a dirty theme park. The Tiki Room didn't hold the same magic, perhaps because I have become so technology aware.
My want list? WANT ALL OF IT! I'm gonna try to phone order on the day after.
I don't think I understood why the Tiki Room ruled when I was 7. Older and wiser now.
Cory, what are your thoughts on the remake -- Tiki Room: under New Management?
Keneke, I just hate it. Artistically, I think it fails -- it's meanspirited, opportunistic (trying to jump on a pop culture bandwagon that had already left the scene like an old white guy in a bad suit and comb-over doing a Flava Flav impression) and incoherent (what does Gloria Estefan have to do with Polynesia?). The brilliant twoaxis symmetry that guaranteed that every seat in the house was a great one is gone, so half the theater misses half the show now.
The old show's jokes were corny and sweet, the new show's jokes are lame and dismissive.
Every time I hear Iago tell us that the tiki birds are stupid, I remember how much pleasure my grandfather got from them, and I think, "What a prick the guy who did this must have been."
that´s funny, I`m just reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, when Jules is killed in the Tiki Room....
Why always DisneyLAND, Boing-Boing? It seems like DisneyWORLD should be the focus of your Disney-obsessed articles. It's bigger. It's more Disney-like. The environment is so attractively artificial and controlled. Everything is so cool and manufactured and monitored. Disneyworld feels way more like some kind of futuristic commune than a theme park. And you know what... if you can get past the whole "big scary corporate mouse overlord watching everything you do and slowly ushering you into an era of highly-policed bovine citizens"... it's kinda comfy there.
Is it just because you live closer to Disneyland? Is it because Disneyland shot first? Is it the humidity? Do tell.
I went to Disney World about 10 years back while at a trade show in Orlando. I was most looking forward to the Tiki Room and was pretty devastated to see how it had been revamped.
Oh but that's not even all of the great merchandise being released for the 45th anniversary of the only TRUE Tiki Room out there (Walt Disney World's definitely no longer qualifies as a fun, inventive, or amusing attraction).
http://www.register123.com/event/profile/web/index.cfm?PKwebID=0x112329ffe5
Check that link for everything that will be released in honor of the occasion!
Dwiff: Shane doing "It's a Small World". Please. Fuck it, throw in the Pogues, as well. But alas, Mr. McGowan's voice cannot be reproduced electronically.
Cory, while we here in Hawai'i appreciate the well-intended attempt to use the 'okina (glottal stop), it's actually incorrect to put an 'okina into the middle of the word "Hawaiian". Hawai'i is indeed usually pronounced /həˈwəiʔi/ but Hawaiian is pronounced /həˈwaɪən/, not /həˈwəiʔiˈən/. "Hawai'i" is a non-English word, but "Hawaiian" has been Anglicized using English grammar rules and no longer warrants the 'okina.
As for where this inaccurate hyper-correctness comes from? Well, I blame the surf magazines.
Erics 12: What would be the Hawaiian word for "from Hawai'i" or "person from Hawai'i"*? I guess I never thought the real word was 'Hawaiian', but I also never had an opportunity to ask someone who might actually know what it was!
*Both mentioned because obviously they could be different, one being an adjective and the other being a noun...though I also understand that in "Hawaiian" (what's the native word for the language?) parts of speech aren't as distinct as they are in some languages, even English, which is generally pretty weakly typed.
You could always use some of the other tracks from "Stay Awake", which is where the Tom Waits cover comes from. Nothing quite as down-and-dirty as you're imagining, but seeing Animatronic birds doing the Replacements, Sun Ra, Harry Nilsson, Bonnie Raitt and Was (Not Was) would be pretty cool.
Seems like it's still available: http://www.amazon.com/Stay-Awake-Various-Interpretations-Vintage/dp/B000002GFM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1207070114&sr=8-1
Xopher 13: I am not a Hawaiian language expert, and I'm not native Hawaiian either -- I'm just a local boy, born and raised in the islands. (That's another point that folks from elsewhere often miss: "native Hawaiian" is analogous to "native American" in meaning that your ancestors were there from before Western contact. As opposed to, say, a "native New Yorker".) But anyway, as I understand it, in Hawaiian (ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi), the modifier comes after the noun. So a Hawaiian person would be kanaka Hawaiʻi (lit. "Hawaiʻi person"), although these days it's more common to hear kanaka maoli (meaning a native Hawaiian, lit. "true/real person", cf. the Maori of Aotearoa). Beyond that, my knowledge runs very shallow -- the grammar of Hawaiian particles is a complex subject. http://wehewehe.org is an excellent online Hawaiian dictionary, but as with any foreign-language dictionary, don't try to use the language based solely on it.
Well, and then the ludicrous things they did to Tomorrowland. I'm sorry, fine, not ludicrous, OK, I love the Jules Verne steampunk future thing, too, I haven't actually seen it yet, et cetera, et cetera (in a marvelous twist of coincidence, my fear of automata was born at Disneyland between 20,000 Leagues and some ride in Tomorrowland I just spent an hour trying vainly to locate).
But the mid-century World's Fair vision of the future was breathlessly doe-eyed, and like any fan, I think it seems pure sacrilege to scrap it. No, yes, fine, I realize I'm a decade late to my ire. But there's value to that vision -- at any consumer fair like NextFest, you'll see that GE is still trying to sell you the Kitchen of Tomorrow, for instance -- and while I agree that things must evolve or die, you simply can't shortchange the connection between Disney and nostalgia. I mean, jeez, don't tweak it, just rip it out like Mr Toad and 20,000 Leagues and everything else that was awesome.
I think I'm a little off-topic.
Disneyland's Tiki Room was okay for my 2 year old last week. But the first time was 25 years ago when I went to all the song and dance attractions with a person who was deathly afraid of the rides. It opened up my eyes to possibilities there.
@ # 8 - It is the humidity. Disneyland has the better climate.
@ # 16 - For Jules Verne goodness - you'll have to go to Tokyo DisneySea.
tokyo disney sea was definately the best disneyland that ive been to. i grew up in orange county, went to disneyworld when i was 10.... and i definately had the most fun a few weeks ago in tokyo. the steampunk area is awesome!