4/17/13 Last Night: Studios and Fantasmic

I slept in Wednesday, did the Run for Boston, and working on packing so we wouldn't have to think about it later. We'd need to drop off our luggage early Thursday morning to hit the MK one last time.

So it wasn't until the afternoon that we headed for MGM to catch Fantasmic. Fantasmic is the nighttime show that is, to me, the best of all four parks. I haven't missed it in a single trip. And now, since I have the new zoom lens that is useless anywhere but far off shows (and football fields...) I was really curious to play with it.

The clouds were pretty ominous when we arrived.

But shortly thereafter...

We popped into Sci-Fi to see if they had any walk-up availability, and were seated right away. The Sci-Fi's tables are inside cars at a drive-in that plays really awful B movie clips and retro advertisements. It's great fun.

After a bite, we wandered around the Muppets section. Showing off the only purchase of the trip,  my Beaker and Honeydew Nerds shirt.

We decided to take in the Little Mermaid show. The Under the Sea scene is done by puppeteers in black costume with black lighted fish. It's always amazing to see their choreography.

 Couldn't help it, this12 foot tall Ursula:

made me think of this:

I leaned over to Bob and mouthed "BOOBS" and he started cracking up.

 And they redesigned Max. His head looks all disproportionate and his body isn't shaggy enough. Hrmph.

We grabbed ice cream and headed into the amphitheater a little after 7:00 for the 8:30 show to make sure we could get a center seat up high, since I really wasn't sure about that zoom. I'd tried it earlier at the MK and not been able to back up enough to shoot anything.

They make a killing every night, most nights with two shows, with these light up toys ($8 to $20 a pop) Everyone one of these things you see here, and this is just one half of the theater, was purchased before the show.

That zoom turned out just right from the top of the theater!

Although John Smith needs to swing just a little slower...

The version in Disneyland is far superior for a number of reasons (already blogged about) but one of the main ones is that the Florida show was set up to promote Pocahontas, where California uses Peter Pan.

 Princess Floats

Evil Queen transformation

I will say, the snake from Aladdin is much more menacing than the one from Jungle Book at DL.

And then there's the dragon. Don't think about Disneyland. Don't think about Disneyland...

Beast just said something hilarious and we'll never know what it was. (Neither will Mulan.)

Photobombed by Brer Bear

 Now, if you haven't seen the show, this last sequence will not impress you as much as it should. The timing to catch these explosions has a margin of error at about .5 seconds. I got both Sorcerer Mickey's exploding appearance at the top of the mountain, and his magical reappearance as Mickey at the bottom. Go me.

 Some imagination, huh?


Out of theater, before I swapped back to my walk around lens, a few shots from as far back as I could get:

This one is taken from the far end of the street, up at the Tower of Terror:

Oh, and I can't wait to try this baby out on the full moon this week!

 Okay, so last zoom shot, standing at the same spot, pulled as far back as possible:

Same shot with the walk around lens pulled all the way back. Little bit of difference, huh?

I never spotted the Eddie Valiant window in all these years. There's so many tiny things, I was glad to slow down and take some of them in this trip, instead of dashing from one ride to another.