More on the dry-ice explosion that triggered an evacuation of Toontown in Disneyland: it appears that the employee who put dry-ice in a sealed bottle in order to cause a loud bang and some water vapor did the same thing earlier in the day in another part of Disneyland. That seems like pretty authoritative proof that this was a premeditated attempt to cause alarm and not absentminded improper waste-disposal:

The Orange County district attorney's office says the first dry-ice explosion took place about 4 p.m. Tuesday outside Toontown shortly after Barnes was ending his shift and a colleague was taking over the vending cart with drinks.

Several minutes later, Barnes is accused of taking a second water bottle from the cart and walking toward the employee break room. While passing through Toontown, Barnes allegedly placed a second water bottle with dry ice in a trash can before leaving the area.

They're charging him with a felony and he's facing six years in jail for a prank that would have barely rated being fired a decade or two ago.

Disneyland worker charged in dry-ice blast 'wouldn't hurt anyone' [Mike Anton and Andrew Blankstein/LA Times]

(via The Disney Blog)

(Image: ToonTown sign, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from bfurlong's photostream)

Remember the New York Post story about disabled people renting themselves out to rich New York families in order to skip the lines at Walt Disney World?

The Today Show followed up on this, investigating the phenomenon of rent-a-disabled-guide services across the country in California's Disneyland. They found people advertising openly on Craigslist, offering to rent out their company and the use of their disabled pass. They sent an undercover crew out with one such guide, and then confronted her in the parking lot and asked her if she felt bad about abusing the system of disabled passes.

Disney has promised to crack down on the practice, threatening lifetime bans from the parks for anyone caught offering the use of their disabled passes.

On ads we found on Craigslist, tour guides brag about their disabled passes: "Let's cut the Disney lines together," "access to ... special entrances." So we had our producer and his family go undercover with home video cameras, hiring two of those disabled guides to show them around Disneyland.

First up was a guide named Mara, who said she got her pass after a car accident. "I'm here to make sure everyone has fun at Disneyland and we get on as many rides as possible," she told us.

"And you have a secret weapon that's going to help us?" our producer asked.

"I do. I have a special card that's going to help us beat the lines," Mara replied with a wink.

And she charged $50 an hour to do it. We started at the Mad Tea Party ride. The long line was no problem for us: We skipped ahead, and got right in through a side door.

Our second disabled guide, Ryan, charged our family $200 and got them right through another side door at Star Tours, an attraction inspired by "Star Wars." "I cant believe we're getting past everybody," our producer exclaimed.

Undercover at Disney: 'Deplorable' scheme to skip lines

Man leaves his handgun on a Disney World ride —

A guy forgot his handgun on the Countdown to Extinction ride at Disney World's Animal Kingdom; it was found by a woman and her grandson, who turned it in. The man said that he didn't realize that concealed handguns were forbidden at Disney World, and that he assumed the (totally, demonstrably pointless) bag search was to prevent bombers, not shooters. — Cory •

Dry-ice "explosion" results in Toontown evacuation at Disneyland —

Someone apparently put a sealed plastic bottle containing dry ice in a trashcan in Disneyland's Toontown yesterday. It made a loud noise (described by one witness as louder than a gunshot) and released some water vapor, and sparked an evacuation, which Disney describes as being the result of "an abundance of caution." No one was hurt and no damage was done. An employee was arrested for making what authorities have called a "bomb" but which also might be described as "a bottle that someone absentmindedly stuck some dry-ice in from an ice-cream trolley." (Thanks, Xeni!) — Cory •

Ricky sez, "At Spooky Emipre's May-Hem convention in Orlando this weekend, Pat Carroll, the original and only voice of Disney's Ursula, read from The Haunted Mansion script that the Paul Frees originally spoke as the ride's ghost host. Of course, she perfectly performed it as her famous 'The Little Mermaid' character, complete with spine-chilling cackles."

Ursula voice Pat Carroll does The Haunted Mansion Ghost Host lines at Spooky Empire's May-Hem (Thanks, Ricky!)

Dan from the Journal of Ride Theory passed me a copy of the original prospectus for Disneyland -- a rare and wonderful document I've never seen or even heard of before. I'm delighted to bring it to you today. Dan explains:

I like it because I get the sense it's an edited transcript of Walt just making up fun stuff on the fly. I have no evidence for that, but I know he was good at telling stories without a script, and there's something about the phrases used that sounds a bit like Walt talking off the cuff. But what do I know?

I found it ten or so years ago, in the files of Eyerly Rides in Salem. They had a contract to build the Dumbo ride and a windmill Ferris wheel for Disney, but the deal fell through when Lee Eyerly got cancer. Also, Walt insisted the ride must load everybody all at once, while the Eyerlys knew from experience that was an inefficient way to work the queue.

At one point, somebody at Eyerly went to a bookstore and bought a Little Golden Book (or something) of Dumbo so they could have reference pictures in order to design the fiberglass elephants.

Take Walt being intractable, add the Eyerlys insisting they knew their business, then throw in cancer, and the deal fell through -- amicably, as I read the documents. Arrow Development got the contract for Dumbo. It barely worked on opening day and queues have been long for that ride ever since. The Ferris wheel idea wasn't built until Disneyland Paris.

I've got a LOT of transcripts of phone calls on that deal, and a few drawings/diagrams. Scanning all those documents is a one-of-these-days project.

Read it all the way through for an example of horrible, casual racism.

Disneyland Prospectus (Thanks, Dan)

I was skeptical of the NY Post story alleging that rich New York private-school parents use a service that lets them hire disabled people to act as line-jumping Disney World guides. Now Lesley, a Disney-obsessed local, has published a rebuttal pointing out that such a service wouldn't work well because there are lots of rides that can accommodate wheelchairs through the regular entrance. She also points out that the article claims that the wheelchair guide helped skip a 2.5h line for Small World, which sounds like BS, because Small World doesn't really get 2.5h lines. The whole thing is worth a read.

I've visited Disneyland and Walt Disney World with friends who had disabilities. I went to Disney World with my mom and a friend who were both in wheelchairs (my Mom had just had a hip replacement; my friend had a broken foot), and found that there were hardly any long-queue rides that offered any priority queuing to people in wheelchairs. On the other hand, I once visited Disneyland with a blind friend and her service dog in the late 1990s and found that people with dogs and their parties did go straight to the front of the line in most cases (I don't know if this is still the case, though).

YEAH NO: Rich Manhattan Moms Allegedly "Renting" Disabled People To Skip Lines At Disney World (Thanks, Irk!)

Kristen sez, "The DoomBuggies website has released a version of the Haunted Mansion Corridor of Doors wallpaper in fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap, and according to the DoomBuggies facebook page, it's the same graphic that has been used by Disney. 'This is created from the same artwork that we created for Disney's official Haunted Mansion 40th Anniversary CD box set and CD insert,' according to Jeff Baham, the owner of DoomBuggies.com."

DoomBuggies Eye Fabric

The (awful and not usually very trustworthy) New York Post reports that rich New Yorkers pay thousands of dollars to an Orlando area service that rents out disabled people to accompany them to Walt Disney World in order to jump the lines. The article says that there's a word-of-mouth underground in New York's priciest private schools, in which parents pass on the details of the service, which is allegedly called Dream Tours Florida:

Passing around the rogue guide service’s phone number recently became a shameless ritual among Manhattan’s private-school set during spring break. The service asks who referred you before they even take your call.

“It’s insider knowledge that very few have and share carefully,” said social anthropologist Dr. Wednesday Martin, who caught wind of the underground network while doing research for her upcoming book “Primates of Park Avenue.”

“Who wants a speed pass when you can use your black-market handicapped guide to circumvent the lines all together?” she said.

“So when you’re doing it, you’re affirming that you are one of the privileged insiders who has and shares this information.”

Rich Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides so kids can cut lines at Disney World [Tara Palmeri/New York Post]

Paul Liberatore in The Marin Independent Journal:

Marin filmmaker Brenda Chapman, who won an Oscar for writing and co-directing the animated feature "Brave," blasted Disney's sexy makeover of her movie's feisty heroine, Merida, as "a blatantly sexist marketing move based on money." ... "I think it's atrocious what they have done to Merida ... When little girls say they like it because it's more sparkly, that's all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy 'come-hither' look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It's horrible!"

It's really blistering, bridge-burning stuff, and I salute her for it: "I forget that Disney's goal is to make money without concern for integrity."

Previously: Disney gives Brave princess a body makeover