Although there are great many reasons that I like to take short excursions to California, the dates on which I take them always correlate to one of the Hollywood Shows. This gives me the opportunity to continue to build on my ever-increasing number of celebrity encounters, which has become my equivalent of collecting baseball cards. Naturally, the more celebrities in attendance, the greater the value in making the effort to get there. Of course I enjoy these shows for the most part, but like any hobby, they take money and effort – which can sometimes be exhausting. So once the show is over, what I really look forward is the time I get to spend with my California friends doing a variety of activities, the most common being an excursion to Disneyland. So if the title didn’t tip you off, that is mostly what you’ll be getting in this posting…
The morning of Saturday, January 12, 2013, began at David’s house. I had stayed there after our first visit to Disneyland after my L.A. arrival the day before. We got up and ready and headed to the LAX area to meet Jimmy for breakfast at The Coffee Co. Restaurant. I enjoyed some corned beef hash and good company, as the conversation often degenerated into regales of laughter.
Breakfast with the boys
David didn’t attend the Hollywood Show, but Jimmy was gracious enough to tag along and snap photos for me and gawk at one or two celebrities he was interested in seeing. Since my first show of the 2000’s in 2005, the Hollywood Show was being held at the Burbank Marriott convention center, but for this show, they had moved to the Westin Los Angeles Airport hotel. I was expecting something a little bit bigger, so I was a wee bit disappointed that it seemed just as crowded as before… but I managed. They had, however, dropped the large black backdrops behind the celebrity guests which opened the room a bit more, but the one bonehead move was to not put any spaces between the tables, which often meant great difficulty in getting behind them to pose for photos.
I would describe this show as a pretty good one, if not great. I was quite happy to see that the show had brought the number of celebs back up near the 100 mark. In recent days, they had fallen to about 75, which left less chance of seeing ‘new’ celebs. There was a small handful of celebrities whom I was really, really excited to see, a larger group whom I was merely quite pleased to see, a few who I went ahead and got because I found their prices acceptable, and naturally a huge number of stars I’d already met.
Some pretty good Star Wars look-alike models. These and chatting with my friend Rick Greene were other non-autograph highlights of the afternoon.
Hiding a Leif Garrett record under the tablecloth on Renee Taylor’s table. Stay tuned to future postings to find out why!
Among the repeats were: Paul Le Mat, Candy Clark, Bo Hopkins, Greg Evigan, Parker Stevenson, Barry Livingston, Stanley Livingston, Erin Murphy, George Lazenby, Tanya Roberts, William Schallert, Connie Stevens, Louise Fletcher, Luciana Paluzzi, Piper Laurie, Lana Wood, Maryam d’Abo, Scott Colomby, Tony Ganios, Mark Herrier, Dan Monahan, Maud Adams, Richard Kiel, Tony Dow, Ken Osmond, Carla Laemmle, Pamela Sue Martin, Francine York, David Mandel, Eric Shea, Lesley Ann Warren, Lynn Marie Stewart, Billy Gray, and Virginia Madsen. I think that Amber Benson, Cindy Williams, and Michael Madsen were no-shows, as I never actually saw them there. Lee Montgomery was scheduled for Sunday only. Among the unfortunate cancellations were Michelle Johnson, Joseph Balogna, Frank Bank, Ed O’Ross, and Karen Black.
There were multiple reunions going on at this event (Leave It to Beaver, My Three Sons, Grease 2, American Graffiti, Bewitched, Father Knows Best, The Hardy Boys, Magnum P.I., and The Beverly Hillbillies among them), but the biggest reunion was that of cast members from the James Bond films. I had only recently started to collect autographs of the Bond girls, picking up a few in small doses here and there as I saw them. Since this was a large gathering of them, it was somewhat overwhelming, so I skipped a few on my list if their prices weren’t very competitive. Among the casualties were Serena Scott Thomas (at $40 for the combo), Diana Lee (at $35 for the combo), and Trina Parks (at $30 for the combo). Others I axed from my list included Lori Petty ($50), Sandahl Bergman ($35), Renee Taylor ($40), and Celeste Yarnell (who didn’t have any photos from Ozzie & Harriet, which is what would have interested me). You can check out the trail of celebrities from this show starting here.
Jimmy and I had made pretty good time at the show and I had wrapped up my celebrity encounters at about 2:45pm. We had parked at the Wiley office nearby and walked to the show, so we walked back, stopped in the office, filled in Steve Cox via phone how the show had gone, called David to let him know we were headed to Disneyland, and hit the road.
We got there at around 4:30 and found that it was just as cold as it was the night before. David met us there and we took the tram from the garage to the parks. After he got us in with his special pass once again, we entered Disneyland. We were going to catch Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, but the show had just started, so we opted to come back later (which we never did). We stopped by the castle for a couple of photos and then headed into Tomorrowland.
Disney had put up an acceptable facade for the under-construction train station since the previous night
One big castle
David becomes the next in line to help re-created the Walt and Mickey pose…
…But he has a different vision of how it should be
The Matterhorn fellas; we’ve been to real one so that qualifies us to be experts
Our first ride of the evening was the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. I had never seen the line quite so long for this throwaway ride. In Florida, it’s almost always a virtual walk-on, but we waited over 20 minutes. I didn’t do too shabby on the scoring, coming in at 100,300, defeating David who ended up with 10,300. As a Space Scout, I did have to recognize that David wasn’t really trying, and we were concentrating more on posing for pictures taken by Jimmy in the next car.
Greeting Buzz before launching the Astro Blasters
Innocently participating in the shooting action…
…Before turning on the cameraman
Bob had arrived while we were on this ride, but he was over in California Adventure getting Fast Passes to use later in Cars Land. We grabbed our own Fast Passes for Space Mountain, and then swung by the Matterhorn Bobsleds, which as luck would have it were closed down.
I had been so enchanted by the holiday version of it’s a small world, that I requested that we ride it once again. I took even more pictures outside and on the boat ride this time – presented below for your pleasure:
Under the holiday Small World sign
This thing is just gorgeous
Well it was
Assorted holiday treats
My favorite holiday imagery in the ride
My pink hippo buddy enjoying the festivities
A final, lovely thought
With David and Jimmy outside after the ride
It was a little bit after 6pm when we got off the ride, and we really didn’t have enough time for another ride and still make our dinner reservations, which were at 7pm at Carthay Circle in Disney California Adventure. So we just mosied on out of the park, stopping to browse in a couple of shops, and got to our restaurant by 6:30. We let Bob know we were there and he came in shortly afterward. David’s friend Jose was going to join us, but he ended up getting tied up with some visiting family.
Entering Disney California Adventure, as a little kid runs by in a flash
A new restaurant for us to try out: Carthay Circle, modeled after the Los Angeles movie palace from the Golden Age of Hollywood. The original was in operation from 1926-1969
This was one of those fancy shmancy Disney eateries with the price tag to match, but David had received a coupon to get 50 percent off the meal. So with that in mind, we splurged on some great appetizers like: the Carthay House Biscuits (stuffed with white cheddar, bacon, and Jalapeno), the crispy portobello mushroom gorditas, and the Chenel goat cheese stuffed grape leaves. The main course I order was a sumptuous scrumptious Grilled Angus Ribeye, served with sautéed mushroom Ragu, red flame grapes, and blue cheese. We took our time eating, discussing the Golden Horseshoe Revue for much of the dinner, and leaving the restaurant at about 9:20.
Bob meets up with us in time to dig into these exquisite morsels of delight
One of the giant portraits hanging in Carthay Circle, Shirley Temple presenting Walt Disney with the special Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
From there, Bob escorted us back to Cars Land with his Fast Passes, which enabled us to get on the new Radiator Springs Racers in about fifteen minutes. This was my second time on the ride and I started to take a liking to it this time around. I hadn’t realized that there were two possible ride variations, one involving a paint refresh in Ramone’s House of Body Art and the other simulating a tire change in Luigi’s Casa Della Tires. We got the paint job this time, and I’m fairly certain that I had gotten the tire change the first time.
Bob and me in Cars Land. Wearing coats at Disney felt mega-weird.
David and Jimmy lined up for the Radiator Springs Racers
We are ready for some high speed action and animatronics
These guys are equally geared up
The gang’s all on board in fact
Bob punches me during one of the ride’s faster moments
California Adventure was getting ready to close at 10pm, but just in the nick of time, Bob prompted us to board the final ride of Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree. This was Jimmy’s first time in Cars Land, so it was good that we got to ride at least two of the three rides.
Riding solo in the Junkyard Jamboree
Jimmy can scarcely contain himself as his tractor revs up
Bob left for home after we had ridden the Junkyard Jamboree, and David, Jimmy, and I headed back over to Disneyland, which was open an hour later. As we headed back to Tomorrowland, a most remarkable thing happened: I spotted a guy who looked remarkably like fellow Sons of the Desert member Steve Wichrowski. The trenchcoat, the briefcase, the staggered, hurried walk, and the utter confusion convinced me that it was him, so I yelled out his name. Sure enough…
Steve was celebrating his 70th birthday at Disneyland; he told us he’d be staying in town to go to the Way Out West tent meeting on Tuesday. All were thrilled.
Still reeling from the oddest-of-encounters, we queued up for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. The wait was perfectly acceptable, maybe fifteen minutes. As I’ve mentioned before there are 54 possible variations of this ride (the first scene having two options, the next three having three options each… 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 54). This time around I got: the Darth Vader intro, the Tatooine pod race, Master Yoda confirming the rebel spy onboard (which happened to be David this time), and the Naboo ocean dive. Remarkably, this was the exact same configuration that I had seen the last time I was at Walt Disney World.
Jimmy and me in 3-D, ready for space travel and stuff with the Star Wars gang
Capping off the night was the utilization of our FastPass and a high speed flight through Space Mountain looking, sounding, and feeling as cool as ever. With that, the clock had reached 11pm and the park was closing.
More space travel on Space Mountain
We had some colorful aliens or something in our ship
Jimmy and I said our goodbyes to David, and then we headed back to his place in San Pedro. With their baby due in March, Jimmy and Ellen had re-located ‘my room’ to his office, re-configuring the former guest room into the baby room. It made no difference to me. I was out like a light as soon as I hit the pillow.
Unlike many previous trips to California, this one wasn’t as short-lived as I still had two more days of activities to enjoy on the West Coast.
The California weekend will continue…
Follow the trail of celebrities from the Winter 2013 Hollywood Show starting here…
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