Defunctland Official Meeting Minutes for March 29th, 2022 (Patreon)

Howdy, everyone! Tuesday night we held our Official Defunctland Meeting for March 2022. It was a fun time and here are the minutes if you’re interested.

WELCOME - 10:00PM

At 10:00pm, everyone joined the meeting rooms in the discord.  Overall everyone seemed to be pretty good and a few people chimed in on the topic of “have you ever seen a celebrity at a theme park?”  Kevin knocked it right out of the park with his answer that he once saw Josh Gad (Disney’s own Olaf and LeFou) walk by him at a park.  He was with Jenny Nicholson and asked her if it was Josh Gad, she said, yes it was.  We also counted Jenny as a celebrity sighting as well.  Unwatcher noted the time that he met Vince Vaughn after getting off of Smuggler’s Run. Unwatcher was in the handicap pod and Vaughn was in the next group waiting to get on the ride.  Unwatcher also mentioned that he walked past Nic Cage and had said “Hello” to Kiefer Sutherland.  Lagerholm mentioned that he once saw John Tesh in line at California and that he was very tall. Kevin noted that he was loosely related to John Tesh by a grandfather, although the two do not share a bloodline.  Gold also recalled meeting Marc Sommers when he was 5 years old, but couldn’t remember if it was at a theme park or a mall.

ASK KEVIN ANYTHING 10:10PM

At around 10:10pm, we moved on to the perennial segment of “Ask Kevin Anything”. There were a couple of questions about Kevin’s recent trip but Kevin asked to avoid discussing it in too much detail as he is planning future content related to it. Ellie asked an international-related question,”Have you ever been to the Tokyo parks (or want to)?” Kevin said that he had not and that he would want to.

Lagerholm asked “Where should disney build another park outside of where they already are?” Kevin said that he didn’t have an answer because the shouldn’t. He didn’t believe Disney should support another park anywhere right now.

Specialbunny (she/her) “asked have your eyes fully recovered yet from the lasers?” in relation to the segment of the upcoming EPCOT intermission episode which Kevin designed and performed with actual lasers. Kevin was doing better.

Gold asked “If you could curate your own streaming service, what would it feature?” Kevin said that he didn’t know because he didn’t really like the present streaming options.  He noted that Youtube was his go-to streaming service.

Blake asked “Have you been on a disney cruise?” and Kevin said yes and that he likes them.

Ellie asked “Have you ever been to any of the Meow Wolfs?” Kevin said no he hadn’t.

Gold asked “Have you been keeping any new years resolutions?” And Kevin said no as he had not actually made any New Years resolutions.

Skillsvary asked “favorite thing to cook at the moment” Kevin said soda cake that he made with a can of Coca-Cola Disney Dan left at his house from a recent visit.

Gold asked “do you have a go-to joke that you tell? Kevin said yes and provided the following:

     What does rubber listen to on its iPod?

     Rubber Bands

     What is plastics favorite genre of music?

     Plastic wrap

Kevin noted that he believes those are original as he came up with them and hasn’t seen them anywhere else on the internet.

Quinnbea9 asked, “Will you do an episode on the Mall Of America's Camp Snoopy?” Kevin said maybe but he didn’t think the Peanuts have as much of a fanbase as people might think.  He compared them to Beetlejuice, which he had thought more people were fans of the character.

SexWedge asked, “What is the smallest amusement/theme park you have ever been to?” Kevin said, maybe Silver Dollar City or Worlds of Fun. He also said Knoebels is big but kind of low budget.

Gold asked, “ are you friends with your neighbors?” Kevin said No. He doesn’t really know them.

Daerandir asked, “Will we see a Hard Rock Park episode someday?” Kevin said yes, but he knows its a big story and wants to give it the attention that it deserves.  He doesn’t want to half-do anything.

Skillsvary asked, “first camera you owned?” Kevin said he wasn’t sure of the first but said that he had a flip camera that he used a lot.

quinnbea9 asked, “Are there other indoor theme parks or is there the MOA one the only one you know of?” Kevin and the chat noted that there are a lot of indoor parks.

FlyingSparks32 asked, “if some of your recent tweets are any indication, is this upcoming Garfield Dark ride video gonna be the most insightful ep yet?” Kevin said the Garfield episode will be interesting.  He said there is a lot of romantic activity in the Dark ride and has asked on Twitter for people to reach out with personal accounts.

Quinnbea9 asked, “Will you ever do an episode or channel on still-existing cool parks and rides?” Kevin said, it would have to be a channel if he ever did, but probably not because its a pretty crowded space.

Ellie asked, “Would you do any DefunctTV episodes about kids shows that aren't educational PBS type stuff? (like the one you did on the Buzz Lightyear cartoon)” Kevin said yes, there will be more stuff like that.

Unwatcher asked “Is that the video for the worst defunct ride for this year? The Garfield ride?” Kevin said possibly.

Quinnbea9 asked, “Do you have a theme park channel you'd recommend, then?” Kevin said, my friends’ channels, including Park Ride History and Yesterworld

Quinnbea9 also asked, “Besides the Santa theme parks, what's the weirdest theme park theme you've heard of? Did you know about the cheese one?” Kevin said that British theme parks that theme to America is a weird thing to him.

That wrapped up the Ask Kevin Anything for the month.

*Apologies for any missing questions. If you remember a question and answer, please feel free to comment below.

WAITING IN LINE

A little after 10:30pm, we virtually waited in line together for the classic and defunct queue for “Back to the Future” at Universal Studios Hollywood.  Thanks to a video from Youtube channel REMEMBER HORIZONS  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DryU21b30fo), we were able to make our way to the ride through the whole queue as we visited the Institute of Future Technology.  We got to see Doc Brown and Biff, as well a number of Doc Brown’s inventions.  We also got to see the guy making live announcements for the ride.  Eventually, we got to experience time travel ourselves before moving on to the Great White North.

CANADIAN PUPPET PARTY

For our Canadian Puppet Party, we watched clips from classic Canadian puppet shows and Public Service Announcements.  We started with a couple of clips of Mr. Dressup with Casey and Finnegan. Although many consider Mr. Dressup to be the Canadian Mr Rogers, the show actually began one year before Mr. Rogers Neigborhood in 1967 which is when our first clip was made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ojv4JrnMMgg. After that, we checked out Mr. Dressup and his friends nearly 20 years later in 1986 https://youtu.be/fisAovCXc5Y?t=475

After that, we watched a brief clip from Noreen Young’s “Pencil Box”, a show that transformed stories submitted by children into sketches with puppets, actors, and artwork. https://youtu.be/pq54ZbJQkK8?t=726

Jim Henson also taught us a little about how the Gorgs on the Canadian produced puppet show “Fraggle Rock”.  Here is a link to the segment in its entirety as we only watch a portion of his explanation.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrNJnou-qPs

Then we watched a couple of Canadian puppet shows that eventually made it international on Nickelodeon.  We enjoyed the intro to “Today’s Special” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cxLfIs051c and a promo for “Fred Penner’s Place” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OixU5C_ti5Y

We also learned a little French with the instructional series “Téléfrancais!”, first from the Noreen Young designed pineapple puppet Ananas and then we rocked out to the Noreen Young designed skeleton band Les Squelettes. https://youtu.be/rBSflK1FTSY?t=336

We viewed a collection of Canadian PSAs including “Be Travel Wise” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zG0teOvT34, the classic “Don’t You Put It In Your Mouth” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AuLkMBAFZg, “Ever Thought About Taking Drugs?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Ku6RGlJyk, and “The Trap” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuiPl4P1wyg.

Then we visited “The Big Comfy Couch” with Loonette, Molly, and the dustbunnies, Fuzzy and Wuzzy, in the episode “Gesundheit” https://youtu.be/24C9ylbDK18?t=372. Then, we ended up at “nanalan’” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7x6-pg265E, and ended our Canadian Puppet Party with Sherri Lamb Chop’s Play-Along which was shot in Canada, first in Burnaby, British Columbia, and then at the CBC Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia. https://youtu.be/Z3BAZIA9wM4?t=1333

GAME NIGHT PLAYTEST

After that, we tested out a couple of rounds of the possible future Defunctland Game Night game “What the Sell?”. For the game, we watched some retro TV commercials that mysteriously had tracking problems obscuring the product.

Hnrfineart got the first point by guessing Hubba Bubba. Ellie got a point by guessing Milk.  We were coming up to the end of the night so the new game ended in a tie.  People in the chat were very positive about the game and it’s possible we’ll play it again.  

Comment below if you can guess the brand for the attached commercial.