"There was a guerrilla documentation made of the Orange County phenomenon usually refereed to as "the Disneyland Locals". The video documentation started in 1995 as an alternative to the afterschool task of filming skate videos. Now over 10 years later over 100 hours of video (Hi-8) shot at the park between 1995 and 1997 serve as a glimpse into a piece of Southern California history overlooked by mainstream media but never forgotten by the Generation who experienced it. It always seems pretty hard to explain this to someone who wasn't there during this time period but everyone who was anyone used to hang out in the old broken down tomorrowland. Sort of like the zephyr surfers who would surf at the brokendown theme park "POP" in dogtown z boys. To hang out in tomorrowland you had to have an annual pass that would grant you admission for most if not all days of the year (depending on how fancy your pass was passes were gernerally $100-$200). Most of the people who would hang out in Disneyland grew up going to the park during their childhood in Orange County and to find this as the main hangout as teeagers was very unlikely. During the summer of 1996 security guards started revoking the passes from teens who would hang around most often siteing it as "loitering". There were a number of ways a Disneyland security guard could justify revoking your pass but most popular were "loitering" and using "illegal dance moves" on the tomorrowland dancefloor basically no touching the ground with your hands but pretty much any dance move they didnt agree with. At this point it was already to late to take away passes, the secret was out everyone knew the park like the back of their hands by now .As hundreds of passes were revoked in an attempt to put an end to Disneyland Local culture the locals would comically sneak right back in. As you can imagine the inapropriate clearence of Disneyland locals was sharply responded to by the angery teenagers....and that is when things really started to get interesting. This was the time period when the Disneyland Locals returned the lack of respect and took it out on the park...this would be anything from sneaking in a high volume of people through the re entry with used handstamps Transfered by a wide range of materials and damaging park property to getting off on the rides and re-arranging the puppets into differnt locations (ussually on "its a small world") and other restricted behaviours some more innocent than others. Mostly weak things that teenagers would think funny but still good for a laugh. You can mark the the removal of the peoplemover (the main make out point for all teeagers) as the start of the decline in the "Local Culture". As the groups grew there were Territorial spots that would sometimes move form one side of Tomorrowland to another like a pack of Gypsies. The most well known rivalry between The straight edge groups and the teen smokers would have confrontations often resulting in countless kids getting Maced. The renovation of a new more name fitting Tomorrowland came in 1997 at this time the thousands upon thousands of kids who had set up after school and summertime residency at tomorrowland rapidly declined until it completely seized to exist. Now you can walk through the new highly different tomorrowland as if these moments never happened. Enjoy a look into the past at www.youtube.com/profile?user=disneylandvideos where videos will be added as they are edited since myspace video sucks." [via supercentral and mbs]
I thought Bill might like these three videos given his interest in skateboard kids and "halter top high."
WOW. that beats flash mountain. sounds like more to follow. great discovery.
Those kids have some balls since Disney is practically a police state.
It's just little stuff, but a lot of little stuff.
In the last vid you see the intrepid kid cameraman on a stage sinking into the tunnel system nobody's supposed to see.
I also liked them messing with the security guards--a girl almost rubbing up against one when he isn't looking.
I busted a gut when they "got off the boat" and messed with the "small world" figurines.
Also there was some discussion of whether that kid actually "whipped it out" and peed down a well.
pre 9/11. thats shit dont fly anymore.
Yeah, I guess that's one thing that makes it seem more liberating now. Meanwhile Disney gets more and more powerful.
How soon before Mickey Rat shuts down that YouTube page, claiming "copyright violations"?
soon.
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- tom moody 4-28-2007 8:43 am
I thought Bill might like these three videos given his interest in skateboard kids and "halter top high."
- tom moody 4-29-2007 12:43 am [add a comment]
WOW. that beats flash mountain. sounds like more to follow. great discovery.
- bill 4-29-2007 1:08 am [add a comment]
Those kids have some balls since Disney is practically a police state.
It's just little stuff, but a lot of little stuff.
In the last vid you see the intrepid kid cameraman on a stage sinking into the tunnel system nobody's supposed to see.
I also liked them messing with the security guards--a girl almost rubbing up against one when he isn't looking.
I busted a gut when they "got off the boat" and messed with the "small world" figurines.
Also there was some discussion of whether that kid actually "whipped it out" and peed down a well.
- tom moody 4-29-2007 1:24 am [add a comment]
pre 9/11. thats shit dont fly anymore.
- bill 4-29-2007 1:34 am [add a comment]
Yeah, I guess that's one thing that makes it seem more liberating now. Meanwhile Disney gets more and more powerful.
- tom moody 4-29-2007 1:38 am [add a comment]
How soon before Mickey Rat shuts down that YouTube page, claiming "copyright violations"?
- tom moody 4-29-2007 1:40 am [add a comment]
soon.
- bill 4-29-2007 1:44 am [add a comment]