Muppets Haunted Mansion Review

Welcome Foolish Muppets... 

If you haven't watched the Muppets Haunted Mansion over on Disney+ yet, you are definitely missing out!  It was released on Disney+ last Friday and I've already watched it twice!  I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved it!

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My brother Jeremy loves the Muppets.  He's been looking forward to this since it was first announced.  I'm not as big of a Muppet fan, but I enjoy their silly movies and specials.  As soon as I knew the special was Haunted Mansion themed, I was sold and couldn't wait to see it.  Friday afternoon, I sat down to watch it while Eliot was at work.

The thing I loved the most was that it had so many Easter eggs.  There were a few references to the other Muppets movies- many of which I probably missed.  But what really jumped out at me were the Haunted Mansion ride references.  There were lines from the ride, the scenes and backgrounds were inspired by the ride, the characters were from the rides.  It was really well thought out!

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I loved how they reimagined our favorite Muppets into our favorite Haunted Mansion characters. Miss Piggy as Madame Pigotta was my favorite, but I also enjoyed seeing Fozzy as the Hatbox Ghost "Gauzey the Hatbox Bear", Rowlf as the Organist and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker as the staring busts. 

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The music also surprised me.  I really enjoyed the original songs.  My favorite was the one that Darren Criss (as the caretaker) sings at the very beginning.  I love how they included the actual puns used on the Haunted Mansion tombstones at Disney Parks.  It was bittersweet seeing Ed Asner in one of his final performances, but it made me smile that the performance was dedicated to him.  I also enjoyed how they incorporated the singing busts and "Grim Grinning Ghosts" into the opening song.

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My absolute favorite part of the entire thing was when Miss Piggy was yelling for "Kimmeeee" and Kim Irvine walked in as a mansion maid.  Not only was her costume exactly like the uniforms the cast members wear at the parks, but it was a subtle funny joke to those of us who know Kim as a talented Imagineer who worked on the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.  Her mother was Leota Toombs- who Madame Leota is named after, and the original voice and image of her in the mansion.  Today, Kim provides the face for Madame Leota as well as the voice of "Little Leota" and Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay at Disneyland.

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Overall, I was really impressed and I know that it will be a favorite for years to come.

As soon as Eliot got home from work, I turned it on for him to see.  I really enjoyed watching it a second time.  I caught a lot more of the Easter eggs the second time around.  I pointed a few things out to Eliot occasionally because I wasn't sure he'd catch them.  (For example, he didn't recognize Kim Irvine right away like I did.) 

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Eliot loved the special too.  In fact, he purchased a few items when Shop Disney released a small selection of Muppets Haunted Mansion items for D23 members on Monday.  He got the Muppet Stretching Portrait Pins to go with the rest of my collection and he bought himself the Muppet Wallpaper button down shirt.  It seems like a lot of others also enjoyed the special so maybe Disney will release more items in the future!

If you haven't checked Muppets Haunted Mansion out yet, you really should!  °o°

Hamilton and Disney Crossovers

It's been one month since Eliot and I first watched Hamilton to finish our at home 4th of July celebrations.  Since then, I've watched the movie again twice.  I've also listened to the entire soundtrack a bunch of times.  At this point, it's my go to music if I'm cleaning or organizing the house.  It's also perfect to crank up and lose myself while working on mouse ears.  I think it's safe to say that the musical is now a personal favorite of mine.

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I, like many others who love Hamilton, also love Disney.  With the addition of Hamilton to the Disney+ family, many people have also made Hamilton and Disney mash ups.  A search of "Hamilton Disney" on Etsy will produce a bunch of shirts, stickers, mouse ears, and more with quotes from the musical and our favorite characters.  I'm definitely going to be getting a few of them to rock the next time I'm at Walt Disney World!

Of course, the music itself also presents another fun way to mash up Disney and Hamilton.  I've come across a few things that I couldn't help but share.  The most ambitious project I've seen thus far are these two videos of the entire first and second acts of the Hamilton musical- but performed by the Muppets.  On Youtube, voice impressionist Ricky Downs III has re-created the entire musical, complete with commentary by our favorite Muppet critics: Statler and Waldorf.

The cast includes Kermit as Alexander Hamilton, Miss Piggy as Eliza, Gonzo as Aaron Burr, Sam Eagle as George Washington, Fozzie Bear as "Marquis de LaFozette" and many more of our favorite Muppet friends.  Some of the characters even switch for the second act of the play, just like in the real version of Hamilton!  (You can read more about Act 1 here and Act 2 here.)  I haven't had a chance to listen to all of the videos yet, but it's definitely on my to do list!

My personal favorite crossover (so far) is this video parody brought to us by King George if he owned Disney.  It's the perfect Hamilton Disney crossover and I found myself laughing each time I've watched it.  Of course, we'll be back... even when you raise the ticket prices to remind us of your love.

If you love Disney, the Muppets, and Hamilton, you have to check these out.  I'm sure you'll get a big chuckle out of them- just like I did!  °o°

WDW Honeymoon Recap- 3/27/13

We started Day 5 of our Disneymoon at Animal Kingdom!

We always get a picture with the Tree of Life when we enter the park.  This morning was nice and sunny, but it was still cold for Florida so we wore our "warm" clothes again. Before heading towards Africa, we also took a magic shot with Simba!

On the way to Africa, we stopped to watch the flamingos for a few minutes.  (My best friend Katie loves flamingos and I had to send her a picture of all the "Floyd's"!)

The walkway started to get pretty crowded the closer we got to Africa and the safari ride. While we were slowing down I snapped a quick picture of Everest in the distance and the Harambe sign welcoming us to Africa!

Eliot went up ahead of me to get some Fastpasses and I told him that I'd meet him in the store nearby.  A few minutes later, he showed up with the Fastpasses... quite a few of them actually.  Apparently, the machine was malfunctioning so he had to use a different one.  The original one eventually worked.  Then the second machine printed out two sets of passes!  So we ended up with three sets of Fastpasses for Kilimanjaro Safaris!

I wasn't going to complain since every trip on the safari is a different experience.  I usually got on it twice anyways.  (We're big fans of the "get your Fastpass and stand in the standby line so you can ride it twice" method.)  The animals are always moving and sometimes you see different ones even a few minutes later!

We sat down and had breakfast while waiting for our first Fastpass time.  Then we headed over to the Fastpass line.  I love when you turn onto the safari and can see the animals and the other safari trucks in the distance!

This particular day, the lions were both actually out too!  Since it was so cold, they were out sitting in the sun to stay warm!  I've never had a such a good view of them on Kilimanjaro Safaris before!  Can you spot them?

In between our safari rides, we went over to Camp Minnie-Mickey since Eliot's never been there.  We had heard rumors that it was going to be closing due to the new Avatarland so we wanted to at least go see it.  The area was really crowded and the lines for the characters were really long.  We didn't plan to get photos anyways, so we didn't stay for long.  I did take a few pictures before leaving though.

Then we went back for our other safari rides.  We got a really good view of the elephant family.  One of the elephants was pregnant!

We enjoyed the safari rides a lot.  Even though it was cold for the animals we still ended up seeing hippos, crocodiles, warthogs, monkeys, giraffes, lions, elephants, cheetahs, black rhinos, flamingos, and a white rhino!  I'd call that a safari success!

We didn't want to stick around Animal Kingdom too long after that.  It's not that we don't enjoy the park.  We like Animal Kingdom, but it was cold and we didn't absolutely need to go on any of the other rides.  We quickly swung by Everest but Eliot decided he didn't want to wait that long in the line.  (We've since decided that Florida vacation week is not the week to go to Disney!)  We decided to relax at the hotel for the afternoon and that we'd try Extra Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios later in the evening.  I had plenty of things that I wanted to work on anyways.  And Eliot wanted another nap.

Upon our return, I went to work decorating our window for Easter.  I brought window clings with me and we bought the Mickey and Minnie Easter plush at the Magic Kingdom!

I also prepared our autograph book.  Eliot and I had never done an autograph book together, so we thought that it might be a fun activity and memento from our honeymoon. I used to get the character's autographs when I was little, but that was a long time ago.

Next, I finished my sea shell hair clips.  I had run out of time trying to finish them before our trip so I just brought my supplies with me!  And it's not everyday you use a beaten up Disney park map to protect your workspace!

Finally, I worked on my customized Minnie headband.  I'd bought a headband and planned on wearing it during our wedding week but I never got the chance to finish it.  I decided to customize it in our wedding colors with a pink and lime bow!  I love how it turned out. Pop Century is a good place to work on craft projects if you're wondering. (I'm able to make this declaration confidently between this week and our wedding week...)

Later in the evening, we headed over to Hollywood Studios for extra magic hours.

It was still chilly, so we planned to do indoor activities.  Most guests were waiting to watch Fantasmic over on the other side of the park so we went in the other direction.  We ended up going to watch Muppetvision 3D.

I'd forgotten how cute the show is.  We enjoyed it a lot.  I even found a hidden Mickey while we were waiting for the show!  (I actually found 3 hidden Mickeys on this trip without the help of a guidebook!!!)

Afterwards, we went over to tour the animation building while it was quiet.  I love looking at all of the drawings of the scenery from the movies.  I remember watching the animators when I was a kid and being fascinated by it.  I took a few photos of the castles.  Then Eliot and I headed into the Animation Gallery store.  We admired all of the artwork and sculptures.  I love the little Haunted Mansion one!  

We also spotted the how to draw books.  (Eliot's checking one out in the background.) We almost caved and bought one of the books.  But we decided that we probably wouldn't be drawing on our vacation, so we'd wait until we got home.  (Once we got home, we went to our local craft store and got one of the books with a 50% off coupon!  I haven't mastered any of them yet, but if I do, I'll make sure to share on here.)

And that's the end of Day #5!!!  °o°

Halloween Jack O'Lanterns

One of my favorite parts of Halloween is carving Jack O'Lanterns! 

Last year we went to Katie's apartment for a pumpkin carving party after our Maine Wedding Reception.  It was dubbed Pumpkinfest: Bar Harbor Edition.  It was a great night of pumpkin carving, food, friends and fun. 

Eliot went online to find some jack o'lantern stencils for us to use.  I hadn't carved a pumpkin in such a long time!  We selected Kermit and Tigger since they seemed easy.  

I ended up getting a little bit of help carving Tigger (from the wonderful BJ) with carving out the details on mine.  And yes, I am still wearing my tiara.  I had it on at the reception and we stuck it in my hair pretty good so I just left it on instead of wrecking my hair style. Once a princess, always a princess!

Eliot worked really hard on Kermit.  He was pretty happy with the result.

Our Disney loving pals BJ, Katie and Kathleen also made Disney pumpkins.  They carved out Captain Hook and Malificent!  After all, what's Halloween without a few Villains?

Katie designed her own stencil and made Floyd, her signature flamingo!

Here's a group picture with how they turned all out!

At the party, Eliot severely caught the pumpkin carving bug.  He created a group on Facebook to share some of the templates that he found online with all of us.  He also wanted to carve pumpkins... lots and lots of pumpkins.

Since you can't just go out and buy pumpkins all year long, we decided to look into some of the plastic ones you can get at craft stores.  They also aren't as messy and they won't spoil so you can enjoy them for many years to come.  Luckily for us, Michael's had a large supply that were 60-70% off so we stocked up on them.  Eliot has made a few jack o'lanterns with the fake pumpkins.  (They are on sale right now if you're lucky enough to find some lingering at your local craft store.)

Eliot wanted one for our apartment last Halloween, so he carved out another Kermit for us to enjoy. (We kept the real pumpkins at Mom and Dad's house since we weren't sure how they'd survive the 5 hour drive back to Boston.  Plus, we knew that they'd actually get trick or treaters and our apartment building would not since you had to key into the building.)  

Shortly after that, he made Captain Jack Sparrow.

He also found a stencil for Eeyore.

And a week or so ago, he added Tigger to our collection.

I'm trying to convince him to make me a Tinkerbell pumpkin with lots of pixie dust like this one I found on Pinterest!  I might even paint it lime green with some of my left over wedding paint!

If you're interested in carving some Disney pumpkins, the websites that Eliot found to get stencils to carve from are Zombie Pumpkins and Spoonful.  (You have to become a member of Zombie Pumpkins to get the stencils.)

Here is our current display of jack o'lanterns!  We use orange flickering LED tea lights to illuminate them.  (That way they can stay on for hours at a time and the LED lights won't melt the plastic of the fake pumpkins.)  They look great and you can't even tell that they're not real ones!  I'm hoping to add some Haunted Mansion hitchhiking ghost pumpkins to our collection next year!  °o°