Pop culture mashups: Who wants to go to Downton Disney?

If you know anything about me (or if you have ever seen my Twitter or Facebook feeds) you probably know that sometimes I get bored, and that my mind starts to wander. Sometimes to strange places. Today was one of those days, spurred on by this article that I saw at lunch that details seemingly definitive evidence that the colonists at Jamestown likely resorted to cannibalism at some point. That got me thinking about the rather dreary Peanuts cartoon from the 80s that gave the history of the Mayflower voyage and the first Thanksgiving and how much weirder that could have been if this cannibalism story had been more well known (colonial cannibalism has been long rumored but without much in way of physical evidence until now).

That of course lead to some of us coming up with possible Charlie Brown/Cannibalism mashups (I told you, when I get bored my mind wanders) and resulted in this list of possible updated Peanuts cartoon names:

“I Bet You’d Taste Great With Some Fava Beans And A Nice Chianti, Charlie Brown.”

“I Never Appreciated Before How Much Your Head Looks Like A Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Delicious, Delicious Pumpkin.”

“Why Are You Looking At Me Like That, Charlie Brown? Put Knife Down, Chuck. Please For The Love of…..”

There was also speculation on how different well known Peanuts episodes would have unfolded with a cannibalism theme, too long and too bizarre to recount here, but you get the picture. (Yes, I know, we’re disturbed people, but life does things to you after a while.)

The point to all of this, of course, is not that we are sick, deranged people possibly in need of psychiatric help, but that pop culture mashups are super fun to speculate about when your mind needs a break from the everyday mundane. It keeps you thinking and keeps your creative juices flowing at the very least (and quite possibly gets you a cease and desist letter from the estate of Charles Schultz, you never know.) I”ll share one more of these that’s crossed my mind in recent weeks, as well as some of my recent favorite examples from the Interwebs.

Imagine for a moment that you are one of the Disney executives tasked with coming up with the next great attraction for your park – what do you do? Do you brainstorm and come up with an original idea? Perform market research and find out what the public wants? No, of course not! You probably turn on your computer or TV and look for the first things that’s already popular that you don’t own the rights to (which admittedly these days isn’t much), and then you throw truckloads of money at the creators for the right to build an attraction around the sweat of their creative brow and then market and merchandise the living daylights out of it. If I were said Disney executive, my first call would be to Julian Fellows, and my pitch would be this:

Downton Disney.

Genius no? What’s hotter right not that Downton Abbey? Nothing! People (and I’m very much one of them) love that silly show, and it gives you a fresh tie-in for an existing part of your property that’s growing a little stale. The best part is, the theme ties in so neatly with most of what is already there. For example, how easy would it to rebrand Raglan Road as “Branson’s,” home of the the first radical Irish socialist journalist chauffeurs turned estate managers turned bartenders? Or, imagine if you will the Candy Cauldron turning into Mrs. Padmore’s Kitchen, and watch all of her and Daisy’s wacky adventures. Doesn’t strike your fancy? How about a new attraction, “Dodging Edith,” a funhouse maze where you have to navigate through to the end while avoiding the romantic advances of Lady Edith (men over 50 only, please). Feeling overconfident? Then come have your self-esteem ripped to shreds in the all new “The Dowager Countess Tears You To Pieces And Then Haughtily Laughs At Your Sorrow,” modeled after the wildly popular Turtle Time With Crush. And you’ve got to be kidding yourself if you think people wouldn’t go see the new Cirque Du Soleil show, “Lady Mary Kills a Turk.”

You’ve got to admit, that idea is 100% Fried Gold. I eagerly await my royalty checks to start pouring in from the Mouse.

As promised, here’s a few of my favorite existing mashups that I’ve come across, starting with one that I just saw yesterday. Thanks to Shawn for providing this:

Seriously, who wouldn’t play this just to unlock “The One Who Knocks” Achievement?

And while we’re talking about Breaking Bad…

This has been everywhere recently, but it makes me legitimately sad that Patton Oswalt isn’t actually writing the new Star Wars movies.

The man is a genius. A small, nerdy genius.

“Just do as I say, and Politico gets a Kardashian.”

This is kind of old, but still mesmerizing: Thom Yorke dancing to Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

And with that thoroughly disturbing image planted into your mind, I bid you good day.

Cheers.

December Diary

So I haven’t posted anything in over a month, but I have a really good excuse. Well, several of them. Here’s the short version: 2 birthdays, 4 cases of the flu, work insanity, the holidays, 1000 piece Lego sets, visitors, some quality meals, a nice weekend at the home of the Mouse, vinyl shopping, and one long road trip. Here’s the longer version in handy diary form (Fair warning, I haven’t cranked out a rambling, 2000 word post in a while, so this will probably be way too long).

At the beginning of the month we celebrated both of our sons’ birthdays (birthdays are Nov. 30 and December 3, so they are the same age for exactly 4 days, much to annoyance of my eldest son) by taking them to stay the weekend at the Yacht and Beach resort at Disney. My kids love staying at Disney hotels, so much so that they usually could care less about actually going to the parks themselves. They’d rather order room service breakfast and hang out at the pool all day. I’d like to think that speaks well of how we have well we have raised them, but maybe that just means that they are spoiled rotten. Definitely one of the two.

After checking in on Friday night we went on the “Pirates and Pals” cruise, which ended up being pretty fantastic and one of their favorite things we have done in Orlando (definitely recommend this for a birthday or special occasion if you are in town with little ones to entertain). Everyone dresses up like pirates, meets at the Contemporary Resort, gets their picture taken with Captain Hook and Mr. Smee, and then goes on a “cruise” of the Seven Seas Lagoon led by a Disney “pirate” to get a close up view of the light parade and a fantastic view of the fireworks at Magic Kingdom.

The birthday boys with Captain Hook and Mr. Smee.

Since it was his birthday, my son was chosen to lead the group down to the boats carrying the Captain Hook flag. Big thrill for him. His brother and the rest of the kids on our boat were totes jealous.

Magic Kingdom fireworks over the castle. The big finale.

The one downside to this evening was, right about the time the fireworks kicked in, that I started to feel like death warmed over – chills, fever, dizziness, all the things that you want to feel while on a boat. We didn’t know at the time but this was flu case number 1 of 4 for the Lo family during the month of December. So, while the rest of the family was enjoying the pool and the Yacht and Beach, I was in the bed shivering, sweating, moaning, and generally acting like a patient in an old movie right before the quack doctor applied the leeches to drain out the fever. Lots of fun.

The family enjoyed this pool (complete with sand) at the resort while I was stuck in the room.

One of the best reasons to stay at Yacht and Beach, the view of Epcot during Illuminations, especially handy when writhing in bed with flu. Love the shot with moon on the left.

Surprise dessert the hotel resto provided for the boys. One of the great little touches Disney has.

The flu I picked up kept me in bed the rest of the weekend through Tuesday night. By the time I shook off the flu I was ready for a night out of the house (or really, just out of the bed would have been enough), so we met some friends out at one of my favorite haunts, Redlight Redlight, to say goodbye to my friend Rob before he moved back to the far north reaches of Michigan. After a couple of great Flemish Sours (and a couple of games of Embarrassing Family Photos: The Board Game that likely permanently shattered whatever hipster credibility that I had left), we moved on to Cask and Larder for late night eats (oysters and stout, one of the best combination humanity has come up with yet). The entire night out was worth it to get this photo of Rob.

This mac ‘n cheese is gooood. You are welcome, Robert.

The next couple of weeks are a blur as the boys traded having the flu and I was scrambling to get a delivery out for work before the holidays and finish up getting ready for Christmas. We snuck in a couple of trips to Epcot during the month between the flu outbreaks to take in the Christmas decorations and festivities, my favorite time of year there outside of the Food and Wine Festival. Here are some decidedly higher quality photos of the holiday goodness.

The lads in front of holiday Pluto.

Father Christmas ringing in the holiday.

The boys with my favorite Christmas witch, La Bafana.

The kiddos with the Monkey King in China.

Before you knew it Christmas was upon us and it was time for my yearly holiday tradition of putting together 1000+ piece Lego sets on Christmas morning while trying to keep my profanity at a reasonable level. Not to sound like an old man, but remember when Legos came in a tub with a few hundred pieces and you put stuff together that you came up with using your imagination? Those days are long gone, my friends.

1000+ pieces, 2 instructions booklets and many creative uses of words that my mom would rather I not have in vocabulary, the Lego Malevolence was complete, presented to you by Lo family flu victim #3.

I earned some major brownie points with the in-laws by staying with our sick patient Christmas day so that the rest of the family could go to Christmas brunch. So while the rest of you were enjoying something lovely and homemade that day, I was emptying buckets full of dirty tissues – if I was lucky – and scrounging up some to go sushi (If crispy duck is Chinese turkey, then I guess sushi is my Japanese turkey) from the only resto I could find close by not named Burger King that was open Christmas Day.

After a day delay to make sure everybody was feeling better, we packed up for our annual trip to visit my family in South Carolina for Christmas. Wouldn’t you know it, by the time we got to Georgia Mrs. Lo was starting to feel worse for the wear and was a full blown flu victim #4 by the time we made it to Carolina. That meant that she spent the rest of the week isolated in a hotel room bed while the rest of us chased my sons and their cousin around greater Columbia. I found time to browse the gloriously ramshackle vinyl stacks at one of my favorite shops in the southeast, Papa Jazz Records, and made it to brunch at a nice little place on the west side of Columbia called Cafe Strudel (both places are must visits if you find yourself in Columbia) where I had this lovely concoction below, a bacon infused Bloody Mary.

Bacon infused deliciousness, in handy, easily ingested liquid form.

Once Mrs. Lo recuperated enough to get into the car for a while we made a quick stop in my hometown, Greenville, SC, where we made a point of visiting some spots downtown, including the zoo and their much talked about new edition, Kiko the baby giraffe. He was a bit shy, but we caught a glimpse of him (is it a him? I don’t know to be honest). We also saw a potbellied pig. Seriously (don’t believe me? I have proof)

This is a very fleeting glimpse of Kiko the baby giraffe behind the hill. Apparently, when Kiko was born hundreds of thousands of people witnessed the birth. How many people not named can say that? (Until the Kardashian birth is live on pay per view for $49.99. You laugh now.)

Pig!

(Ok, this is getting way too long even by my standards. Let’s, as Simon Pegg once said, skip to the end, shall we? Hemingway-style)

We drove home. The drive was long. Nobody got sick. The house did not burn down. The Legos were not broken. I listened to some of the vinyl that Santa brought me. All was well. Happy 2013 to you all.

Cheers.