Theme Park Insider's 2011 Year In Review - October

January 2, 2012, 5:00 PM · Note: The editor of these articles has insisted that I make the soon to be obvious point that while there may be some real news in here, the key to these articles is a sense of humor. While your own recollection of these stories may be a little different than what is presented below, your recollection is quite possibly closer to truth. While it was requested that I keep to the facts, I realized quite quickly in this process that 1) Hahahahahaaaa! and 2) Mwwwaaaahahaha!.

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October, my favorite month, where I can run around the neighborhood dressed up in some bizarre costume, scaring the living ^&%$^&* out of the teenagers that won't keep off my grass…although my wife has asked me to wait until Halloween before doing this anymore. Since then season is winding down at this point, not much happened.

The captain is now a 7-year-old named Morgan. He was the most qualified of the passengers left on the plane, having rebuilt his dad's computer at the age of three. Morgan is not quite certain where the button for the seatbelt sign is, so just pretend that it is on. Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. If there is anyone even slightly religious who can hear this, please pray for us.

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Theme Park Insider's Year In Review – October

Legoland Florida – The Land of Magic and the Land of Potter finally has some new competition with the Land of Plastic. This month the plastic overlay of Cypress Gardens was finally completed to the joy of people who love petrol based non-biodegradable plastics. While some people are concerned about how a non-Disney or non-Universal park would hold up to the competition, I have this to say for you: In getting my house ready for a new baby, I found many old toys that have been saved since I was a kid. Among the very old toys was a bin of Legos. While all of the paper instructions have yellowed and crackled away into dust, the Legos themselves appear to be just fine, still showing the teeth marks that I put on them in my extremely weak youthful days. When all life is extinguished on this planet (supposedly sometime in this new year), when an alien species finds our planet in a million years, they are going to find only cockroaches and Legos, leading them to the conclusion that the petrified Lego people where the dominate race until the cockroaches took over. So will Legoland survive? The answer is yes, long after the human race has died out.

Disney California Adventure – As a treat to the construction worker's hard work, the three different rides for the new Cars Land started testing this month. While at first thought, everyone thought this was a great idea, the aftermath is that construction then slowed down to a crawl right before stopping completely. The opening day of this new on its current schedule is looking to be opened sometime in 2023.

McKamey Manor – While this is not really a themed park, it is a themed house, and quite an impressive one. A local DJ and Halloween enthusiast, Russ McKamey, spends nearly $30 thousand every year to update and improve his Halloween maze that wanders through the different rooms of his house. Since this is a person's house and not a corporate sponsored Halloween maze, the rules don't apply…especially after you sign an affidavit saying that you agree to whatever happens to you. No touchy? Broken. No dirty? Wrong again…don't wear nice clothes. No wet? Wrong yet again…you will be soaked, spit up on, made to reach in to a filthy toilet for a key, among many many other horrible things...not to mention your pants which may be self-soaked. The home haunt takes a staggering 45 minutes to complete and then whole thing is filmed so that later when you are boasting about it not being that bad, your friends can then play the video showing you screaming like a little girl. Now that Steve Jobs has passed on, Russ McKamey is now at the top of my list of really cool people I would like to meet someday.

Since the subject of cool Halloween things has come up, honorable mention needs to go out to the Disney Zombies, a group of people who dress up as Disney animation stars that have been turned into zombies. Kudos needs to go out to these folks for creating the intricate costumes in the first place, but it was a stroke of genius and self-confidence that made them then stain the costumes with blood and zombify them. Someone needs to make a movie about Disney Zombies…although who would the hero be? The only thing cooler than Disney Zombies would be Star Wars Zombies…. Oh, yeah, Obi Won Kenobi, dripping in blood, lightsabre held limply in one hand, Jar Jar's head in the other…. There's a free idea for the world to take and run with… don't say I never gave you anything.

Oh, and the Magic Kingdom turned 40 this month…celebrated with riots and pepper spray.

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So there you have it: October. If you don't remember the month like I do, please set a monkey-boy straight in the discussion below.

All monkey pictures have been lovingly borrowed from the amazing artist Frank Cho and his long deceased comic strip Liberty Meadows. No monkeys were harmed during the production of this article…but it is amazing how much they can bleed… humanely…

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