MEGA SHARK VERSUS MECHA SHARK

The Asylum starts the new year with Mega Shark Versus Mecha Shark, the third and said-to-be-final movie in the series.  Earlier this week, I received and watched my Blu-ray copy of the film.  Here’s a quick summary:

A (as opposed to the) mega shark emerges from a iceberg being towed by a trawler.  It’s smaller than the mega sharks of the first two movies, but still bigger than most ships.  The world seems somewhat prepared to face this new monster, even to the Americans having a giant mecha shark almost ready to go into battle.  The mega shark isn’t going to go down easily and the mecha shark has a few bugs in the system.  Shark fight!

Christopher Judge and Elisabeth Röhm star as Jack and Rosie.  He’s a scientist who developed the artificial intelligence that will be downloaded into Mecha Shark.  She’s the ace pilot with a drinking problem.  They are also husband and wife and, much to my surprise, their married couple scenes are pretty good.  If you’ve seen Röhm in Angel or Law and Order, you know she has a very limited range. She never quite pulls off the drinking problem, the grief over the death of their child or her determination to save another child in harm’s way.  But she shines in the “married scenes.”

The movie gets off to a slow start.  The mega never looks remotely convincing.  It attacks a ship here and there.  It tries to chomp on a passenger jet in homage to the most famous scene of the first  movie.  It’s as if director Emile Edwin Smith was trying to remind us that the creature is supposed to be terrifying.

Some digressions...

Just as Mecha Shark is a nod to Mecha Godzilla, this movie presents a world in which new mega shark attacks are not met with disbelief. Indeed, the world’s governments and scientists keep an eye out for them and try to prepare for them.  Maybe there’s even a Mega Shark Channel for jaded viewers whose appetites for mass destruction are not satisfied by the Weather Channel. 

Debbie Gibson reprises her role as scientist Emma MacNeil from the first movie.  Gibson is always fun, but, whenever she appears here, it’s merely to move the plot along with some scientific jibber jab. She should have been part of the action.

Back to the movie...

The movie doesn’t pick up steam until the mega shark heads toward Sidney Australia and the mecha shark goes wild.  The mega is horny, but is going to be even more pissed off when it gets to its former spawning grounds and finds there are no mega shark babes to quench its desire for summer loving.

After fighting out of its weight class, the mecha shark gets tail-flipped onto a dock.  Jack and an injured Rosie lose control of it. The mecha grows treads and starts cruising down the city streets, wrecking buildings, vehicles and people. Jack and Rosie must regain control of the mecha shark and launch their final desperate attack against the bigger, meaner mega shark. The last thirty minutes of the movie are honestly exciting.

Mega Shark Versus Mecha Shark is an okay monster romp.  It has some moments of deliciousness, but is uneven.  I was going to agree that it’s time to put the series to rest until I realized the Asylum has enough giant creatures in its archives to produce its own version of Destroy All Monsters!

Imagine Mega Shark, Giant Octopus, Mega Piranha, Crocosaurus. Mega Python, Gatoroid and 2-Headed Shark all in one movie.  Now that’s entertainment!
  
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Not long ago, I stumbled across a YouTube video of the 40 absolute worst shark movies ever made.  This amazed me on multiple levels. I was not consciously aware that there were so many terrible shark movies.  I was astonished realizing how many of them I’d seen.  And I was more than a little horrified by the thought that there were more horrible shark movies than even that list of 40 horrible shark movies could accommodate.  I knew then I would have to seek out and watch every one of them.  Which brings us to an Italian movie made in 1984.

Monster Shark is also known as Shark: Red on the Ocean, Devouring Waves and Devil Fish.  If you were this bad of a movie, you would be using aliases, too.

The creature, who looks really goofy whenever the movie is forced to give you a good look at him, is a hybrid created by the military by combining an octopus with genetic material from a prehistoric Dunkleosteus.  Which is an actual super-predator that lived around 360 million years ago and which, judging from the skeletal head I saw on Wikipedia, looked pretty goofy in real life, too.

The creature has escaped from the wacky military and is feasting on tourists on the Florida coast.  There are brave good scientists who want to kill it and there are stupid bad scientists.  Once enough scientists have died, the creature is cornered in the Everglades and destroyed by flamethrowers.  No one dreams that, someday, this crappy movie will be remade as Sharktopus.

Fun facts from the Internet Movie Database:

The cast and crew from the United States, Italy and Latin America. They couldn’t always understand each other, which was a problem for the movie.  It was always going to be dubbed over.

A sub-plot involves a professor’s wife having an affair with one of the bad scientists and plotting against her husband with her lover.  The sub-plot gives us this line:

For a woman who has the sensitivity of a slut...to the point of giving her lover the identical watch she gave to her husband as an anniversary present, I will not accept lessons.

I watched Monster Shark on YouTube.  The only version of the movie that seems to be commercially available at present is the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version.  Like the movie wasn’t funny enough in its natural state.

I watched Monster Shark so that you don’t have to.  I should get a medal for that.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

THE MOST (ADJECTIVE) BLOGGY THING EVER!

Produced by Nat Gertler, owner/operator of About Comics, The Most Adjective Romance Comics Ever! [$6.99] is an amusing “comics game” in which players fill in words to rewrite old romance stories into wacky new versions.  For example:

The title of one short story is “How to (verb) That Broken Heart!” The opening caption reads:

Gals write us here at (magazine) to ask us what to do when their boyfriend doesn’t (verb) them any more.  Here are our (adjective) tips.

If I were playing, I’d change the title to “How to Weaponize That Broken Heart!” and rewrite the opening caption:

Gals write us here at Guns & Ammo to ask us what to do when their boyfriend doesn’t frisk them any more.  Here are our steel-jacketed tips.

There are 38 pages of stories, re-purposed and condensed from love comics originally published by ACG and St. John from 1949 to 1951. Some tales were originally written by Dana Dutch (St. John) and the artists include Matt Baker, Ken Bald, Fred Kida and Lin Streeter. These 20 short stories are followed by 20 pages of “worksheets” to allow players to fill in the blanks and then read them back to the other players.

If you head over to Amazon, there’s still time to order and receive this book in time for Valentine’s Day.  I think it would make for a swell gag gift and that you and your loved one can have huge fun playing the game.

For more information on what I’m guessing will develop into a line of “most adjective” books, go to the book’s website.

ISBN 97819364044384

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Going through boxes of borrowed unread comic books, I came across a long run of Detective Comics which were mostly written by one of my favorite Batman writers, Paul Dini.  The run started with issue #828 [April 2007] and ran through issue #85 [January 2009].  There was much to like about this run.

The Riddler goes “legit” and becomes a private detective.  This was a refreshing take on the character.  He was far from being a white hat, but he was more rouge con artist than out-and-out villain. He made good use of the deductive skills he used to devote to those stupid clues he’d leave for Batman.  I would have bought a Riddler series based on that premise.

Other Batman villains appeared during the run and usually received some intelligent tweaking.  The Penguin went from boisterous super-villain to “legitimate businessman” while continuing his discreet criminal activities.  Dini crafted a good story from the Terrible Trio (Fox, Shark and Vulture).  There was a Joker story featuring Zatanna that I didn’t hate...and I hate almost all Joker stories. A new Ventriloquist made her debut and finally ditched the single most annoying speech pattern in comics: Scarface always pronouncing his B’s as G’s. About gloody time. Even the “Heart of Hush” serial, which tried to make sense of the incredibly stupid villain created by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, was better than anyone has any right to expect from a Hush story.

Other writers also contributed some good tales to this run.  John Rozum and artist Tom Mandrake did a truly chilling take on the Scarecrow.  There were also worthy efforts by Stuart Moore, Royal McGraw and Peter Milligan.

The body counts and incidents of “torture porn” were higher than I like to find in super-hero comic books, but it was no how near as bad as is now the new normal for DC’s “New 52.”  It is bad enough the company seems to be aiming its comic books at a readership of mid-40s men-children, but it also panders to their darkest sickest fantasies.  That place really needs an enema.

Keep watching this bloggy thing of mine for more comic books from the past and the present.  Even older issues can be found at comics shops, conventions and online sellers.

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New Harlan Ellison collections are being published at a staggering rate.  This is terrific news for me because I just plain and simple like my friend’s writing.  I liked his writing from the very first Ellison story I read, the award-winning “'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman.” My admiration for his art, craft and insight has continued to grow over the past four decades.  I’m a better writer for reading his stories and a better man for having his friendship those same past four decades.

Honorable Whoredom at a Penny a Word [Edgeworks Abbey; $39.99] is a collection of fifteen never-collected tales from the first dozen years of Ellison’s career.  Mostly crime stories, they appeared in magazines like Trapped Detective Story Magazine, Suspect Detective Stories, Nightcap and others. There are two stories appearing for the first time, one of them being the revised version of a story from 1960.

This young Ellison is not the brilliant and transformative writer he would become in his career’s second dozen years and since. Yet, as I’ve told him on more than once occasion, there is something in his earliest writings that speaks to me. Even in the least of them, there’s...something...there. When he asked me to pick a short story to adapt into comic-book form for Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor, I chose “Opposites Attract,” a 1957 dark comedy about a mad bomber.

Ellison’s early stories have an energy that transcended their oft-lowly surroundings. The dirty cops and driven reporter of “Burn My Killers!” take the readers into dark and violent places. “Riff” is a tragedy set to the sound of a mournful saxophone. I see some Poe - Edgar Allan - in “The Final Movement” and the revised version of “The Honor in the Dying” is a punch in the gut.

Continuing characters are not often found in Ellison’s stories, but there are three tales of claims adjuster/private eye/businessmen’s agent Jerry Killian.  I enjoyed them all and found myself wishing Ellison had written more of them.

Big John Novak, an ex-circus performer turned private eye, appears in “Can Opener.” This was only Ellison’s seventh short story sale and “the first story in the mystery genre to employ a little person as a protagonist.” Though this was intended to be the first story of a series, Ellison never returned to Novak. Dare I suggest it’s not too late? For your old pal Tony?

Honorable Whoredom feels like the 1950s. There is fine storytelling at work in its fifteen tales. They take me back to a time before I had any clue what was going on in the world around me.  They offer glimpses of the Ellison to come.  For all these reasons and more, I recommend this unexpected and most welcome collection.

ISBN 978-0-9895257-2-5

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Closing note.  Last summer at Comic-Con International, I was most honored to appear on the 2013 Jack Kirby Tribute Panel moderated by Mark Evanier and with guests Neil Gaiman and Paul S. Levine.  You can read a transcript of that panel in The Jack Kirby Collector #62 [TwoMorrows; $10.95].  I managed to avoid embarrassing myself while sitting next to the amazing Gaiman.  That alone is worth ten bucks.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

SATURDAY IN THE PARK WITH MARV

Previously:

Bob Ingersoll, my best friend and a mutant with travel skills far beyond those of mortal man, were in Disneyland and Los Angeles from  January 9th through the 18th.  I’ve taken three days to cover the first two-and-a-half days of this trip.  As Godzilla is my witness, I’ll conclude the Disneyland portion of this adventure today.  This  still leaves seven more days of this wondrous trip to cover, but I will cross that bloggy bridge when I come to it.

Seeing Jenny - You did read yesterday’s blog, right? - revitalized my energy.  I made a stop at our Adventure Tower hotel room, then headed back to Disneyland.

I jumped on the Disneyland Railroad because I knew it would get me wherever I needed to go.  This is a relaxing way to get a grasp of the vastness that is Disneyland.  I got off at Mickey’s Toontown - which, as I later realized to my disappointment, I never actually spent any time in - and caught up with Bob in Fantasyland.  We ate lunch at the Tomorrowland Terrace and then went back to Fantasyland so I could go on the “It’s a Small World” ride.  Yes, I wanted to go on the “It’s a Small World” ride.

I have made mockery of the “It’s a Small World” ride on occasion. I have rolled my eyes at its tedium.  I have expressed my desire to write a Punisher story where he and his enemies blow each robotic, singing figure into small pieces.  I’ve opined that any Disneyland employee condemned to work on this ride is likely to explode into insane rage at any given moment.  I am a churl.

The “It’s a Small World” ride promotes global friendship and even understanding.  It’s a sweet attraction that does not deserve the cruel jibes I have made at its expense.  But that wasn’t the reason I wanted to go on it that day.

Every Christmas season, Disneyland gives the ride a makeover.  It turns it into an international Christmas celebration with several songs in many languages.  I had never seen the ride decked out in its holiday finery before, so, sheepishly, I made poor Bob ride it a second time because nothing’s sadder than an old man riding that ride alone.  It was worth the groveling.

I enjoyed this Christmas version of the “It’s a Small World” ride.  lot.  In fact, I think Disneyland should also give it a makeover for cool holidays like Valentine’s Day and Halloween.

Bob and I met up with comics legend Marv Wolfman a little later and ended up on the Disneyland Railroad, which was great for catching up on what’s been going on in all of our lives.  It’s probably been well over a decade since I’ve spent so much time with Marv, a dear friend of over four decades, and it’s something I want to do more often.  We talked about all sorts of comic-book and work stuff, but  that’s between Marv and me. This ain’t no tell-all.

The three of us went on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride and helped saved the galaxy.  Bob had the highest score because he’s a wild man.  I beat Marv by about 20,000 points.

At Marv’s suggestion, we headed back to California Adventure where the Hollywood Land Hyperion Theater was showing Disney’s Aladdin, a live musical spectacular that condensed the movie to an hour or so.  This was the highlight of the weekend.

The Hyperion is this grand old theater, tall enough for Aladdin’s flying carper to soar above the audience carrying the cast’s stunt doubles.  The actors playing Aladdin, Princess Jasmine, Jafar and other characters were all excellent, but the standout performances were those for the flying carpet and the genie.

The flying carpet never says a word during the show, but the lovely young actress playing the magical rug was amazing.  She got laughs, she was spunky, she was wonderful.

The genie? He was a bundle of entertainment energy.  He made with the jokes, many of them contemporary ad libs, and kept the audience laughing.  He was physically and verbally hilarious.  I laughed so hard I actually shed a tear or two.

I would’ve bought a ticket just to see the Aladdin spectacular and, yet, it was only one of a hundred or so attractions at Disneyland. I might have paid just over two hundred bucks for my two-day pass, but I definitely got my money’s worth.

Strolling along Buena Vista Street, we were entertained by Five & Dime.  To quote the entertainment guide:

These swinging “hepcats” jazz up 1920s & ‘30s tunes from the back of their makeshift jalopy and welcome anyone who’ll dance and sing along.

When the band stopped at Carthay Circle, they were joined by Goofy. A crowd quickly gathered and, for somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-hour, the street was jumping.  These Disney performers were joined by folks from the crowd, some of which were probably Disney cast members as well.  It was - and I can’t use this word enough to describe my Disney experiences - delightful.  I may have to change my dwarf name from Grumpy to Happy.

Marv, Bob and I headed back to our hotel through Downtown Disney. We had drinks and a fine dinner at Steakhouse 55.  That was pretty much the last Disney thing we did.  Marv left and we went up to our room.  On Sunday morning, we would check out of the room and drive to Los Angeles.

In writing about my time at Disneyland, I have left out all sorts of details, impressions, observations and probably a ride or two. Imagine how long this trip report would have run if I had taken the copious notes I’d originally intended to take.

My overwhelming impression of Disneyland and all it encompasses was that it was a place every bit as special as it has long claimed to be.  Everywhere I went I saw creativity, imagination, attention to detail and efficiency.  Every cast member, which is what the park calls all its employees, was friendly and happy.  Whatever else one might think of the huge entity that is Disney, I believe this park - and Walt Disney World in Florida - represent a great deal of what is great about our country.

Trips like this will always be few and far between for me.  I’m a man of modest means and, by nature, a stay-at-home kind of fellow. But I’d sure like to return to Disneyland sooner rather than later.  It’s the third best reason - after all of my California friends and Comic-Con International - that I can think of for traveling to the West Coast.

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Just to change things up a bit, I’ll be writing about other stuff for the next three days.  My Los Angeles trip report will resume on Monday with name-dropping guest appearances by the likes of Harlan Ellison, Mark Evanier, Stan Lee, Len Wein and many others.  Think of these bloggy things to come as an answer to the frequently-asked question, “Why is Tony so darn happy all the time?”

© 2014 Tony Isabella

MY DISNEYLAND SATURDAY SURPRISE

Previously:

Bob Ingersoll and I arrived in Los Angeles on January 9.  We headed to Disneyland.  In this, my third trip report bloggy thing, I’ll start telling you about our second full day at the parks.  Think of me as your personal key to the magic.

Since we were staying at a Disneyland hotel, we could get into the parks an hour earlier than people who weren’t staying at one of the Disneyland hotel.  I was feeling a tad bit under the weather, so I told Bob to go ahead and I’d meet him later.

I hadn’t slept well the night before - belated jet lag, maybe - and the chilly morning contributed to my lack of energy.  However, when I thought about all the huge Disney fun waiting for me, I rallied quickly and met Bob at the gates before the park opened.

Our first stop was Star Tours - The Adventures Continues.  The ride simulates a ship fleeing from the forces of the Empire on account of there’s a Rebel courier on board.  One passenger is selected at random and their image is shown on a transmission from the Empire forces.  Of course, the ride got it wrong.  I was the Rebel agent. I just used a Jedi mind trick to confuse everyone.

While Bob did a couple rides on his own - I figured the Matterhorn bobsleds might be a little rough on me - I went to the Tomorrowland gift shop.  I immediately fell in love with a black t-shirt printed with the quote “Judge Me By My Size, Do You?”  I had to have it and brought it to the sales counter where, much to embarrassment, the salesperson was a dwarf.  She laughed when she saw the t-shirt and said she needed to buy one for herself.  I asked to have the shirt shipped to the hotel where I would be able to pick it up on Sunday morning.

I met up with Bob at Fantasyland where we road Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Snow White.  The rides are a little dated and slow, but there’s always great craftsmanship to admire as you travel through them.

At Fantasyland’s Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, young ladies can get a “Princess Makeover.”  Since I had enjoyed that episode of The Big Bang Theory in which Penny, Amy and Bernadette got such makeovers, I popped into the store to check it out.  I wasn’t tempted to get a “Princess Makeover,” but, if the Boutique had offered a “Prince Makeover,” I might have gone for it.

My earlier fatigue was catching up with me.  Since I wanted to be 100% when we met up with our good friend Marv Wolfman - yeah, that Marv Wolfman, creator of Blade, Bullseye, the New Teen Titans and a whole bunch of other great comics characters - I left Bob at the Peter Pan ride and headed back to the hotel.  I had a sense that’s where I needed to be, which was probably a premonition that I was about to experience my third surprise encounter of this Disneyland adventure.

I walked into the lobby of the Adventure Tower.  I heard a gasp and a tentative “Tony?”  I turned around and saw a woman I hadn’t seen in probably two decades.  Let’s call her “Jenny.”

Jenny used to live in Cleveland and was an occasional customer of the comics shop I used to own there.  She wasn’t into comic books per se, but she would buy fantasy and science fiction paperbacks. We hit it off and became friends.  After the store closed, we would talk from time to time and occasionally meet for lunch.

Jenny’s life had not been easy.  A transgender woman, she faced the discrimination and irrational prejudice you would have expected in those even less-enlightened-than-today times.  She had run afoul of the law a few times and received no justice when she was assaulted. But Jenny was determined to make a good life for herself.  At one point, she moved to Japan and took a decent job there.  Sad to say, she found the same kind of creeps in Japan who plagued her here.  One of these was a brutal man who saw her as some sort of kinky sex toy.  She returned to the U.S. after two years.

Jenny persevered.  When I last spoke to her, she had completed all of her gender reassignment surgeries and was moving to California to live with her elderly mother.  She seemed guardedly optimistic. I’m not sure why we fell out of touch.

Seeing her was a “look at you” moment.  She looked great.  She had married, but was now a widow.  Her beloved husband left her in very good circumstances.  She is involved in a number of charitable and political organizations.  She looked happier than I’d ever seen her before.  She said the same thing about me.  We were both right.

Jenny had stayed at the hotel following a fundraiser the previous night.  She reads this blog and has read several of the books and comics I’ve written. She said she was grateful for my friendship back in the day and, with a smile, added I was one of the only two men she ever truly loved.

She had to be somewhere.  She asked for one of my cards and if I’d mind her mentioning me to people in the entertainment fields.  I’m not sure anything will come of it, but I have learned to never rule out the possibility of good fortune in my life.  I have experienced it again and again as I move through the years.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see or hear from Jenny again.  I am very happy I got to see her at Disneyland and to know she’s doing well. If we never cross paths again, we’re still friends...and I always wish the best for my friends.

When I started writing today’s bloggy thing, my intent was to cover the rest of my second full at Disneyland.  But there’s no way I can top what I just wrote.  Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you about spending the rest of that Disneyland day with Marv.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

SURPRISE ENCOUNTERS OF THE DISNEY KIND

Previously:

I went to Disneyland last month, part of nine days in Los Angeles.  If you read the comments section of yesterday’s blog, Bob Ingersoll - master of memory - listed not just all the Disney rides and attractions we did on Friday, but the order in which we did them.  He’s a mutant, but, fortunately for us humans, he uses his powers for good.

My trip report continues...

Bob went on more rides than I did.  This is because he’s a mutant and I’m an old man who can’t handle rides that spin me around, toss me violently from side to side or turn me upside down even a little bit.  I also can’t watch IMAX movies without my head exploding and releasing the demons I keep penned up in there.

One of my favorite rides is the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.  It has remarkable trappings and is one heck of an exciting ride, but I won’t be riding it again.  For the first time ever, I came away from it experiencing dizziness and a throbbing brain.

Don’t weep for me, Internet.  Even with these limitations, I had an incredible time at Disney California Adventure and Disneyland Park. I won’t give you a ride-by-ride account, though, because I’d like to keep this trip report from running more days than I spent in Los Angeles.  Some highlights...

Toy Story Midway Mania is a “4D attraction” that allows riders to shoot at targets.  Bob got more points than I did, but I had much greater accuracy.  He’s a berserker while I’m a skilled assassin. Maybe a career change is in my future.

We rode the Red Car Trolley, which is a relaxing way to get around California Adventure while you’re figuring out what you want to do next or where you want to eat.  That brought us to Hollywood Land and the first of three surprise encounters.

One of the most stunning sights in Hollywood Land is the enormous backdrop of the Hollywood sign.  It’s designed to mimic the amazing view you would get if you were looking at the sign from the streets below.  It’s a popular place for park visitors to take photos or to have their photos taken by a Disney cast members.

On that day, Bob recognized the Disney photographer.  He knew Sara from a party he’d attended on a previous visit to Los Angeles and, as they were both Disney buffs, they hit it off.  I enjoyed meeting Sara and especially watching her “direct” park guests into amusing poses.  She seemed to be having a great time, which is something I saw in virtually every cast member we met.

One of the things that constantly amazed me about the Disney parks was how much I could enjoy rides based on movies I’ve never seen.  Monsters Inc Mike & Sulley to the Rescue was one of those and left me wanting to see the movie soon.

Bob and I passed on the Golden Zephyr rocket ships ride, which was similar to the rocket ship rides we had in Ohio when I was younger. It wouldn’t be the same without water balloons.  I guess the “water balloons” thing requires some explanation.

At the end of a school year, the students of Sts. Philip and James Parochial School in Cleveland would be bused to a nearby amusement park for a day of semi-unsupervised fun.  My pals and I would fill balloons with water and sneak them on to the rocket ride.  As our individual ships would reach the highest point and be flown around in a circle, we were surreptitiously toss our water balloons into the unsuspecting masses below.  You got extra points if you could land one near a nun.  Did I ever get those extra points?  Hey, I’m taking the Fifth on that one.

Spontaneous mini-musicals and parades are apt to break out at any time in the Disney parks.  We saw the Red Car News Boys singing and dancing their way through a lively rendition of “California, Here We Come.”

On Paradise Pier, we saw “Operation: Playtime” featuring life-size Green Army Men from Toy Story.  Like most boys of my generation, I owned dozens of those hard plastic soldiers.  Unlike most boys of my generation, I often used them to act out super-hero stories of my own creation, but starring the Challengers of the Unknown or the Justice League of America.  I always felt bad for the soldier who played Wonder Woman in my action-packed scenarios.

Before breaking for lunch, Bob and I went to a presentation of the delightful “Muppet*Vision 3-D,” which was like being in the actual audience of The Muppet Show.  No matter how old someone is, if they don’t smile at the antics of Kermit and his crew, they just aren’t right in their head or their soul.

For lunch, we walked back to our hotel and Trader Sam's.  I had one of Rosita’s margaritas and an Angus Hawaiian Cheeseburger.  It wasn’t a cheap lunch, but it was good and reasonably priced, the latter even more so because Bob’s annual Disney membership got us a special discount. The Albino Wonder has powers and abilities far beyond those of ordinary men.

Master amusement park planner that he is, Bob felt we had finished our California Adventure.  However, as we still had time before our aged bodies demanded we call it a night, I suggested head over to Disneyland Park and do some of the tides and attractions there.  I was especially eager to ride the Disneyland Monorail and check out the park from above.

The Monorail took us to Innoventions, which focuses on futuristic inventions.  The main attraction for me were the exhibits featuring props from the Iron Man and Thor films.  As we made our way down to the ground level, we had our second surprise encounter of the day.

Comics fan Craig Smith, a Disneyland cast member recognized me from all the places where I subject my helpless readers to photos or me.  He recognized Bob as well.  We chatted for a few minutes and then Craig gave us a “back stage pass” that could be used on almost any ride in the park.  It truly does not suck to be me.

Bob and I headed over to the Indiana Jones Adventure where we were able to bypass about three-fourths of the line. The ride has great sets and I love examining them.  That’s as much fun for me as the ride itself.

My memory gets a little foggy as this point, but I know Bob and I went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride shortly after we did the Indiana Jones Adventure.  The number of sets and the attention to detail that went into those sets as you float along a pirate-laden waterway is astounding.  For craftsman and imagination, the ride is outstanding.  As a ride, sad to say, it’s just not very exciting. I’d like to see more action and a faster pace from the attraction. That said, I would love to walk through the ride and see all that cool stuff up close.

From Pirates, Bob and I walked Main Street, U.S.A. looking for an item requested by Harlan Ellison, who we would be visiting in the coming week.  We couldn’t find what we were looking for in the park itself, but we did find two suitable items in the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney.  Mission accomplished.

The personal mission I could not accomplish was finding a clip-on sunglasses.  Despite visiting every Sunglasses Hut booth or store  in the parks, none of them carried clip-on sunglasses.  One young lady, working at one of the outside booths, told me park visitors request clip-on sunglasses at least a dozen times a day.  Yet she’s never been able to convince the company to offer them at the park. It’s not like Disney or a vendor renting from Disney to leave money on the table that way.

We headed back to the hotel, ordered room service for our dinners and watched some television.  I can’t remember what we watched, but Bob probably does.  If you scroll down to the comments section, he will probably share that information while correcting any errors of fact or omission in today’s bloggy thing.  The talents of the man never cease to astound me.

I had one more surprise encounter of the Disney kind on Saturday. Bob wasn’t around for that one.  I’ll tell you about in tomorrow’s bloggy thing.  See you then.

© 2014 Tony Isabella

TONY'S TIPS #41

This week in "Tony's Tips" at Tales of Wonder...Rob Kelly's Hey Kids, Comics and how we came to love comic books.

TONY’S BIG ADVENTURE

I came into some money late last year.  It probably wasn’t a lot of money by the standards of those comics creators and executives who make that much in a month, but, for me, it was a sizable chunk of cash. From the start, I knew most of this windfall would go toward paying bills.  I also decided part would go toward one long-desired extravagance.

I would go to Los Angeles in off-season.

“Off-season,” for me is pretty much any time that isn’t either the week before or the week after Comic-Con International in San Diego. My Los Angeles friends usually spend the week before the convention trying to complete work so they can enjoy the event.  Then, during the week after, they’re besieged by out-of-town friends who come to visit them in L.A.  I always wanted to go to Los Angeles away from that craziness. Off-season.

Even with my modest windfall, this is a trip I could not have made without Bob Ingersoll.  My best friend not only knows Los Angeles well, he enjoys driving in Los Angeles, the merest notion of which terrifies me.  In addition, he knows how to book flights and hotels like a human Travelocity.  Bob’s the wingman who other wingmen wish they could be.

Bob travels a lot.  He generously cashed in a bunch of travel and hotel points to get us ridiculously cheap first-class airfares and, for the Los Angeles portion of our trip, a hotel that cost us next to nothing.  Throughout the trip, his expertise guaranteed I’d have a wonderful time on this trip.

We departed Cleveland on the morning of Thursday, January 9.  Our  first-class tickets meant we didn’t have to pay the airline ransom for our luggage.

We waited for our boarding time in the United Club, another perk of traveling with Bob. All manner of free food and stuff was available to us.  I’m going to miss that on future flights.

First-class air travel is pretty sweet.  There’s sufficient room to be comfortable without reclining one’s seat into the personal space of the passenger behind you.  Naturally, I was seated between the one asshole in the section who reclined his seat.  Coincidentally, I bumped his seat with some force whenever I got up.  I sure hope I didn’t make him uncomfortable.

Other than that, first-class was a dream.  The airline served us a good breakfast.  We had free TV and watched the previous night’s episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  The free movie was We’re The Millers, which was pretty funny in places and heart-warming in others.  When I get back to writing movie reviews, I’ll have more to say about it.

After landing in Los Angeles, we grabbed the shuttle to E-Z Rent-a-Car to pick up our rental.  It was uneventful until we were ready to leave the lot.  That’s when a woman drove into the lot and hit a just-returned rental car.  It wasn’t much of a hit, but she and the lot attendant proceeded to block all other entrance to and exit from the lot.  Which was annoying as Hell. Even cool-as-a-cucumber Bob got steamed, loudly demanding these idiots clear the driveway for us and others.

Our destination this day was Disneyland and the Disneyland Hotel. We stopped along the way for a quick lunch at In-N-Out Burger.  I hadn’t eaten at one of these in years.  The burger and fries were good, but no better than several places in Medina and Los Angeles. I bet Five Guys and a Burger would only need two guys to beat them.

Disneyland was not in my original travel plans, but Bob Ingersoll is an amusement park champion.  He convinced me there would be much fun to be had and he was absolutely correct.

We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel in the Adventure Land building. It was a clean and comfortable room, though the really tiny toilet room within the bathroom made me feel claustrophobic. Frightened and picky senior citizen that I am, I used the much bigger facility in the lower lobby of the building on several occasions.  Not even I bought my claim that, as an early riser, I did this so I wouldn’t disturb the slumbering Bob.  Style note: that bathroom had way cool “Adventure Land” wallpaper.

Once we unpacked, Bob and I headed over to Downtown Disney, which was between our hotel and Disneyland itself.  We bought our passes for the next two days and checked out the various restaurants and shops in the area.  Dinner was at the Earl of Sandwich restaurant. I had the kid-sized turkey sandwich and chicken noodle soup.  Both  were quite good.  Travel note: I’ve gotten in the habit of ordering off the kids menu on frequent occasion.  I find most adult entrees are way more food than I want, than I can eat and than is good for me.  I plan to stick around for a few more decades and overeating won’t get me there.

Master planner that he is, Bob decided we should hit Disneyland’s California Adventure on Friday and the main park on Saturday.  It was a good plan.  Because we were staying at the hotel, we got into the park an hour before its usual opening time.  Because we were at the park on a Friday, we had virtually no wait for any ride or any restaurant.  The main park was a bit more crowded on Saturday, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared. Travel note: There’s a lot to be said for going to Disneyland in January and mid-week.  While you miss the special fireworks and parades of the weekend, you have a lot less wait time and a lot more elbow room.

Weather note: Los Angeles in January is still January.  It starts to get chilly when the sun goes down and the sun goes down pretty early.  It warms up once the sun comes up, but be prepared to wear a jacket in the early morning and late evening.

Our first destination was Cars Land and the Radiator Spring Racers ride.  “Take a road trip to Radiator Springs then race another car across beautiful Ornament Valley.”  Though I haven’t seen Cars - I need to correct that omission - I was delighted by this attraction. The detail and imagination that went into this ride is amazing and inspiring.  Which brings us to my pro-Disney rant.

Yes, you can cite times when the Disney corporation or individuals have acted badly.  Using the kind of legalese I learned from TV and not Ingersoll, I’ll stipulate to that without delay.  However - and this is a big however - I admire what has been accomplish at both Disneyland and Disney World.

I’ve already mentioned the attention to detail in the attractions at the park.  The craft that goes into these rides and the settings around them is the equal of the imagination that birthed them.  I can’t even begin to tabulate how much work went into them, but it’s  obvious those who labored on them were determined to achieve the best results humanly possible.  That is exactly the kind of drive and dedication and pride I try to put into everything I do and that I want to see from others.

Every Disney employee we interacted with seemed happy to be there and to make sure park patrons were enjoying themselves.  If any of them were unhappy with their jobs, they never showed it.  Since I never got the sense that any of them were “faking it,” I choose to believe they were genuine in their interactions with us.  Frankly, if I liked people more, I want to work there.

You don’t have to ignore the bad in the history of Disneyland and corporations in general to appreciate all that’s good about these parks.  My two-day, park-hopping Disneyland pass cost me $210.  I think it was money well spent.

Bob and I had breakfast at Flo’s V8 Café in Cars Land.  It wasn’t inexpensive, but it wasn’t unreasonable either.  It was good, well-prepared food.  If there were one of these in Medina, it would be neck-in-neck with Denny’s and Bob Evans for my favorite breakfast spot.

What with all the fun I was having, I neglected to take any notes as to the order Bob and I did things in California Adventure.  But I was smart enough to grab and save a map to refresh my memory when I wrote about the experiences.  I’m always thinking of my bloggy readers that way.

Come back for tomorrow’s bloggy and I’ll tell you about the rest of our California Adventure, our Disneyland exploits, hanging out with Marv Wolfman and why it doesn’t suck in the least to be me and Bob. See you then.

© 2014 Tony Isabella