The International House of Mojo

"He lives in North Hollywood on Radford, near the In-and-Out Burger--" "The In-and-Out Burger is on Camrose." "Near the In-and-Out Burger--" "Those are good burgers, Walter." "Shut the fgck up, Donny."

This time, the Mixnmojo staff managed to break free of the mania that is E3 and took a lateral journey to the mania that is Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth (next to chatting it up with the really cool LucasArts people in the hallways of E3). Now I know what youre saying. What does the Mixnmojo staffs day at Disneyland have to do with LucasArts? As it turns out, a lot, so shut yer face.

Our day began with our staff running to stand in line for the ride that served as the inspiration to the games we all love. Unless youve been living under a giant sweaty eye patch for the past eleven years, you should know that Pirates of the Caribbean was the ride that inspired Ron Gilbert to create one of the most famous graphic adventures of all time, Monkey Island. If youve never been on this ride before, you should sell your soul to go, or maybe you could just buy a ticket with your spare cash.

Immediately, any Monkey Island fan would recognize the familiar atmosphere, characters, and situations in this classic ride. In fact, it seemed to our staff that there were elements of all four Monkey Island games nested in the ride. Starting off, from the first Monkey Island game, we could see some coincidental and/or intentional similarities. There was a spooky ghost pirate skeleton manning a ships wheel in one room, which may have served as the inspiration for LeChuck. In the pirate town, there were a few men playing accordion and singing a rousing drinking song. These men reminded us of the Men of Low Moral Fiber, minus one rat.

From Monkey Island 2, the ride contained a scene with pirate prisoners confined to a small cell. Outside the cell was a dog, sitting with the key to the prison door clutched in his mouth. This scene was reminiscent to the situation in Monkey Island 2 where Guybrush is locked in the cell on Phatt Island. The dog, if you will remember from the game, is called Walt. This is most likely a reference to Pirates of the Caribbean and Walt Disney himself.

Soon, the boat ride in Pirates of the Caribbean stumbles through the fog into a fierce battle at night between a pirate ship and a fort. This scene is almost exactly identical to that famous title sequence at the beginning of Curse of Monkey Island. Similarly, the ride also starts out in a swamp with a soft banjo playing. This reminded us of the difficulty screen found in CMI.

There was a small part of Pirates of the Caribbean that reminded us of Escape From Monkey Island. The ride, as mentioned above, starts out in a swamp. There are small cabins located on the swamp that reminded us of Pegnose Petes house. However, we didnt have a duck in our possession to throw into the window. Oddly enough, one of the pirates towards the end did look a heck of a lot like Sean Clark.

After Pirates of the Caribbean (and a bit after Spaff bought a silver pimping shirt with skulls all over it), we experienced many more rides. We took a seat on the Star Tours ride, which is a wonderful Star Wars experience. Youre greeted in line by C-3P0 himself (Anthony Daniels doesn't get much work these days) and led into a theater that shows a good old fashion Star Wars space battle. The flight simulator gave you the impression of zooming down the Death Star trench. I imagine this ride would appeal to any sort of Star Wars fan.

One of our favorite attractions was the Indiana Jones ride, Temple of the Forbidden Eye. In fact, we cut back in line to go on this ride two more times, but shhh, dont tell anyone. Actually, we only cut in on this ride twice at the end of the day as everyone was leaving, so there was no disrespect to the other tourists. Temple of the Forbidden Eye is a truly magnificent ride that successfully recreates the danger, excitement, and adventure of an Indiana Jones film. There was even a huge serpent hissing at you as you went by, although it wasnt quite as menacing as the one found in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. I would highly recommend cutting in line on this ride as much as you can before youre thrown into the secret Disney prison by the security guards. That reminds me, I still need to put up Jakes bail money (Ed: "I'm a victim of society" -Jake)

In the end, Disney was a wonderful side trip to our E3 experience, even though it was still very LucasArts related. I'd recommend that no matter how cynical you might be, go check out the rides mentioned above. Oh yeah, and Space Mountain, too, no matter what Spaff tells you. (Ed: "I'm a victim of society" -Spaff)

Today's FACT OF THE DAY is both juicy and embarassing (highlight for spoiler): For almost half of the day today Dom's tag was totally sticking out of the back of his tshirt. We were afraid to admit we even knew him, let alone were visiting Disneyland with him. Sarah, being the kind soul that she is, informed Dom of this faux pas half way through the trip, much to our dissapointment.

Special bonus fact (of the day, of course): There will be some extra photos from all four days coming once Pedgey gets back and has time to upload them.