The Dark Side of Disney - Leonard Kinsey [47]
“Yes, yes, fine,” he wearily replied. Suddenly he jolted back to reality. “Wait, I just remembered something. Check this shit out.”
He cancelled his porn download, and Newmeyer and I gasped. “This must be awesome,” I thought.
After ten minutes of BBS searches, McGeorge connected to a server and downloaded an ASCII map (i.e., a map drawn with text characters, thus taking up significantly less bandwidth than an actual line-based image) of The Utilidors, the secret network of tunnels underneath The Magic Kingdom, restricted to Cast Members only. And so it began….
ASCII map of The Utilidors
We memorized the map, borrowed a video camera from McGeorge’s uncle, and headed up to Kissimmee. McGeorge actually cut his hair and shaved in anticipation of the trip to The Utilidors, knowing that his faux-hippie appearance was totally contrary to “The Disney Look” and would immediately get us singled out from the rest of the Cast Members down there. Newmeyer and I also showed up that morning clean shaven and with our hair more closely cropped than usual.
When we got to the main gate we backtracked until we found the closest motel we could afford, dropped off our suitcases, loaded up our backpacks, and headed out to The Magic Kingdom.
Pulling up to the far right booth of the Main Parking Gate, McGeorge started in on a scam we’d cooked up. “Uh, we’re, uh, here to meet a friend at The Contemporary,” stuttered McGeorge.
The lady at the booth seemed unconvinced. “Name?” she demanded.
“Uh…” McGeorge looked at me. I shrugged. “Uh… Frank… Sinatra?”
“Seriously?” asked the wrinkled booth operator.
“Yeah,” piped up Newmeyer from the backseat. “Friend of the family! Didn’t you know he was staying at The Contemporary this weekend?”
She screamed across to the booth to her left. “Bill! Is Frank Sinatra staying at The Contemporary this weekend?”
“I dunno?” slurred Bill. “Maybe? Yeah, maybe.” He furtively swigged from a flask. “Sinatra!”
We all cheered. Wrinkly Booth Operator pushed a button and the gate lifted. “You boys better be telling the truth!” she exclaimed as we drove off, veering to the left, away from The Contemporary and heading directly for The Magic Kingdom’s parking lot.
“Fuck paying for parking!” I yelled, and we all cheered. This was going to be an awesome trip.
After taking the tram from the lot to the Ticket and Transportation Center, McGeorge and Newmeyer bought their tickets, bitching about the price, but still happy that they’d received a sizeable discount with their Florida IDs. I had a “Four Season Salute” pass, courtesy of my mom.
“Pretty cool that your mom got that for you,” said McGeorge as he shelled out his hard-earned band cash for a ticket.
“Yeah…. It was pretty cool, I guess.” I replied. For the first time that summer I actually had something nice to say about my mother.
We took the Resort Monorail from the Ticket and Transportation Center to the park. I liked seeing The Polynesian and Grand Floridian on the way in, and the line was always significantly shorter for the Resort Monorail than it was for either the ferry or the direct-to-gate monorail. That was the day we found the “hidden dick” on the monorail, a distinctly ball and cock shaped moulding attached to the door hinges. Many obscene pictures would be taken over the years next to these mouldings….
It’s hard to get off the monorail, go through the gates at The Magic Kingdom, and not feel a sense of nostalgia. Even if you’ve never lived in a small town that has a “Main Street”, there is something in the American cultural subconscious that Walt Disney tapped into here. Some sort of zeitgeist that we can all relate to on an almost genetic level. Walking through the train station tunnel and seeing Main Street, and catching a glimpse of the castle on the horizon produces a visceral reaction in even the most jaded citizens. And Newmeyer,