Lowdown on the Plus-Up - A Theme Park Podcast

The Jungle Cruise has a gun-signal system skippers use to communicate emergencies. Two shots: all clear. Three: boat can't move. Four: medical or security. Six: derailed. Five is deliberately skipped — too easy to confuse with four. #ThemeParks #Disneyland

The Autopia cars introduced at Disneyland in 2000 were styled after Chevron commercial characters designed by Aardman Animations — the studio behind Wallace and Gromit. Tomorrowland's vision of the future was, quietly, a British claymation project. #ThemeParkHistory

Charlie LaVere had a million-selling record as a vocalist, and Bing Crosby trusted him enough to rehearse 'Road to Morocco' with him privately — instead of with the full studio orchestra. LaVere wrote the Golden Horseshoe Revue songs a few years later. #ThemeParks

Disneyland's landscaping budget ran dry. So Bill Evans got ahead of the bulldozers clearing land for the freeways, tagged the trees he wanted, and paid $25 a tree for the demolition crew to leave them standing. His team boxed the roots and hauled them to Adventureland.

The giant Skull Island gates from the original 1933 King Kong were later burned down for the Atlanta fire sequence in Gone with the Wind. If you know what to look for, you can see them behind Clark Gable and the horse. #FilmHistory

Disneyland's Jungle Cruise opened in 1955 with almost no vegetation — the plants hadn't had time to grow. Walt's fix: have Bill Evans label all the tiny saplings with long Latin names so the sparse greenery looked instructional. Turn the liability into a feature. #ThemeParkHistory

Steven Spielberg walked up to the King Kong Encounter programming console, said 'I heard you guys know what you are doing' — and then recognized the engineer as his college roommate and the best man at his own wedding. They hadn't seen each other in six years.

Bob Gurr built the King Kong animatronic so that any mechanical failure would cause the figure to stand upright and hold position. A machine engineered to fail in the safest possible direction. #ThemeParkHistory

Bonita Granville Wrather — the woman behind the Disneyland Hotel's third tower — was cinema's first Nancy Drew. Four films in two years, starting in 1938. There's also a steakhouse named after her. History contains multitudes.

Bob Gurr built the King Kong Encounter's 10-foot animatronic head with 29 computer-controlled movements. He was so proud of it that he rode inside the head as it cycled through its motions — sometimes with eight coworkers. Sometimes while the show was open. #ThemeParkHistory

It's Star Trek's 60th Birthday! Celebrate with us, Lowdown-style! We discuss the rise and fall of Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas, Universal's interactive Trek experiences, and the Elvis-impersonator who built the entire Enterprise in upstate New York. Link below. #StarTrek

Harry Nilsson was terrified of looking unprepared in front of conductor Gordon Jenkins. So he quietly spent hours rehearsing standards with a pianist named Charlie LaVere. (LaVere had co-written the Golden Horseshoe Revue at Disneyland.) Nobody knew about it for years.

Disneyland brought in a team of consultants to design a new Autopia car. They all disagreed with each other. The result reflected everything everybody wanted — and was, per Bob Gurr, worse than the car it replaced. Also it broke the curbs.

Here's what the road sign doesn't tell you: Katella Avenue — one of the main roads leading to the Disneyland Hotel — is named after two little girls. Kate and Ella. Their farmhouse literally sat by the train tracks that eventually became the road. The street outlasted the farm. #DisneyHistory

When Walt Disney walked through the empty interior of Sleeping Beauty Castle to plan its walkthrough, the first sign something was wrong was Emil Kuri's white pants turning black. From fleas. There were nearly 100 cats living in there. Walt had them neutered and adopted.

Hey everyone, If you've listened to our show, you know we love small, independent, attractions like the Oregon Vortex. The Vortex is struggling to re-open after a flood a few years ago. If you can help them with anything, it would be appreciated. GoFundMe link below.

The Disneyland Hotel was one of the first hotels in California to use solar water heating. Early satellite teleconferencing. Computerized check-in. The hotel built on looking forward. Its towers are now named after Disneyland lands. Tomorrowland is not among them. #DisneyHistory

Wally Boag performed nearly 40,000 shows at the Golden Horseshoe. He was also Walt's choice for the voice of Tigger. After Walt died, they recast the role. Just — recast it. And moved on.

The animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland stands six foot seven. Lincoln himself was six foot four. The extra three inches were there to fit all the hydraulics and electronics inside him. The technology had to live somewhere. #DisneyHistory

The Dancing Waters at the Disneyland Hotel traces its lineage back to a 6'9" circus strongman who built a hydraulic water organ in the 1820s. Giovanni Belzoni later turned it into a phantasmagoria spook show. World of Color is his great-great-great-grandchild. #Disneyland

Wally Boag's boat broke down on the Jungle Cruise. He had a Golden Horseshoe show to make. So he removed his hairpiece, held it above his head, leaped out of the boat, swam to shore, kissed a hippopotamus on the head, and ran. The show went on. #DisneyHistory

The Main Street Opera House was the first building constructed at Disneyland. Not as a showpiece — as a lumber mill. That's why it's so big. #DisneyHistory #Disneyland

Autopia opened at Disneyland in 1955 as a vision of America's multilane highway future. Eisenhower hadn't signed the Interstate Highway legislation yet. The future had arrived before the future existed. #ThemeParkHistory #Disneyland