That Disney Summer

By Will Todd

Young Walt Farquhar, lifelong classic Disney fan, pursues his dream of working the summer in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World...

...but soon learns that it takes more than wishing upon a star to make dreams come true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Todd
• Release date: Nov 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311445483

Will Todd

ALL ABOUT TODD1960: Born.1961-1982: Grew up. Did non-writing stuff.1983-1985: Worked with NASA as Aerospace Engineer. Started writing scripts part-time for no money.1986-1987: Started writing scripts full-time for no money.1988-1990: Wrote for first two seasons of "THE WONDER YEARS". Nominated for Emmy, Humanitas, and Writers Guild Awards. Won Humanitas and Writers Guild. Lost Emmy to pilot of "Murphy Brown" but I'm not bitter anymore especially since show never lived up to its potential.Wrote the first two "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" movies. Became rich, but with occasional pangs of guilt.1991-1992: Tried to elevate the quality of films coming out of Holywood by rejecting all script assignments and writing only on spec. I.E., Obscurity and Unemployment.1993-1995: Ran away to Europe for a few months, returned, wrote first play. Ran away to Asia for a few months, returned, directed first short film.1996: Stopped running long enough to get in line to write a feature film version of "I Dream of Jeannie". BLINK! Next.1997-1999: Completed Quest for Seven Continents with travels to Africa, Australia, South America, and Antarctica (whiter even than The Blank Page).2000-2002: Solidified reputation as International Man of Leisure. Blew it by writing a book in here somewhere.2003-2005: Nap.2006-2007: Wrote, produced, and directed a 90-minute compilation of comedy shorts called "42 STORY HOUSE". Sold very nearly that many DVD'S.2008-2009: Pangs of guilt concerning sudden wealth now a distant memory, sought status as "Too Big To Fail". Failed.2010: Attempted to finance an indie movie called "WHY THE SQUIRREL WON'T FRY". Fried.2011:Published first eBook "THE TELLING OF MY MARCHING BAND STORY". Fell.2012: Published some eScreenplays to see if anybody was interested in reading eScreenplays. Seriously, anybody. Hel-loooooooooo...?2013-2014: Started YouTube Channel "Todd Trumpet Videos". Reached "Blockbuster" (LLC) status.2015-2016: Wrote "A CHRISTMAS CODA". Received lavish praise from Dickens Experts. Who - "Bah! Humbug!" - apparently don't impress the General Public.2017: Adapted "A CHRISTMAS CODA" into a stage play. Learned Broadway and Hollywood, despite being on opposite sides of the country, actually share the same Welcome Mat.2018-2019: Achieved Complete World Domination. (Pending)

Book preview

Preface

A few

NOTES

on Style...

What the heck was that?? Those three lines just above - a sentence fragment, unexpected CAPS, and the three dots at the end? Why not simply, A few notes on style:?

Here's why:

- I used to be a screenwriter. In fact, this story originated as a screenplay. But, for reasons that will become clear when reading it, this story was also a huge risk that ended up being seen by a very limited audience. Hence, a desire to retell it here, in prose form...

...or very nearly prose form, for I dearly love the script format. Wait, don't panic! What follows is NOT a screenplay, but a book. However, it is my intention to slowly transition from pure prose to a more hybrid form, incorporating some of the many advantages of screenwriting for this type of story, such as:

- Velocity: Screenwriters are taught that stories have a beginning, middle, and end - a destination - and only a very limited time to get from start to finish. Side trips are not allowed.

I call the opposite phenomenon, often encountered in novels, as describing the drapes. Personally, if it doesn't have anything to do with the story, I don't need to know. Get on with it. Don't describe the drapes.

No drapes are described in the story that follows. It's a pretty fast read. By design. For the average reader, maybe 2-3 hours.

- Acceleration: The overall effect of starting out more like a book and ending more like a screenplay is that the story accelerates toward its conclusion.

Not coincidentally, so do theme park attractions.

- Engine: While novels are mostly internal combustion vehicles that describe the inner thought process of characters, screenplays are mostly fueled by external - or visual - means. Thus, for the most part, I'm not going to tell you what people are thinking - I'm going to show you.

Those are this ride's major engineering specs, here are some of its design features:

- Sentence Fragments: An oft-utilized stylistic choice. Why? Because I like 'em.

A lot.

- CAPS: Will occasionally be used for things you may not be used to, such as LOUD NOISES! and

SLUG LINES

which are capitalized sentence fragments that draw attention to a change of location, time, or character - and are preceded and followed by a blank line to set them off. And speaking of blank lines...

- White Space: You'll encounter more and more blank lines as our transition from prose to script slowly takes place. That's because while prose is meant to flow horizontally, scripts are designed to flow vertically in an effort to

keep

those

pages

turning!

- Ellipses: That's what the three dots are called at the end of this sentence...

...or the beginning and end of this sentence fragment...

...or wherever they occur. I can't really pawn off this stylistic choice on screenplay writing, though. In fact, while most of screenplay format is designed to speed up the reading process, ellipses do just the opposite. They slow down the eye and brain in an attempt to introduce a brief moment of reflection...

...and you'll get used to it.

Finally:

- Dialogue: This is one area, IMO, where screenplay format clearly wins over the novel form. I've never liked the awkward necessity to append nearly every line of dialogue in a novel with he said, she said to identify the speaker. The fact is, it's much simpler to write and read dialogue in script form - particularly bang-bang dialogue. The speaker is always identified, no quote marks are needed, parentheticals can be added anytime anywhere and, again, all this is easily ignored if you just want to absorb the actual dialogue quickly:

GIRL: Like this?

BOY: Yep.

GIRL: No he said, she said?

BOY: Nope.

GIRL: Novel idea!

BOY: Yep. (thinks) Wait, nope...

In any case, I won't throw it at you all at once.

And while it may take a bit of getting used to, the sensation should be fun.

So as

WALT DISNEY

himself once said:

"I don’t know if it’s art...

...but I know I like it."

Enjoy your ride!

Will Todd

P.S. BTW, I also used alotta alliteration. It seemed appropriate for a cartoon-congested comedy!

P.P.S. Oh, and one last note - nothing at all to do with style:

Everything you're about to read has been made up. Mostly on purpose. This is NOT a factual, behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to work at Disney World.

This is a fairy tale...

*****

A dream is a wish your heart makes.

- Walt Disney's Cinderella

Don't just make a wish, make it real.

- Walt Farquhar's Cinderella

Chapter 1

Wipe away the pixie dust!

That's better.

Now...

...the picture you see coming into focus isn't really Cinderella's Castle at all. No, no. For one thing, it's a picture, a cartoon facsimile of something that is in and of itself a stylized representation. The real thing has never been, though millions of people insist on visiting it every year, with its forced perspective spires surrounded by artificial lands of familiar frontiers, retro tomorrows, kid-safe adventures and, most of all, never-never-ending fantasy.

Technically, it's a souvenir map of Walt Disney World.

But really, it's our whole story in mini(mouse)ature, thumb-tacked right on center - within implicit engineering tolerances - to the back of a bedroom door shut tight against intrusion from the outside world. Inside...

...a shrine to All Things Disney!

That is, of course, if said Things were part of The Golden Age of Disney Animation, which is to further say, the 50 years following the release (in 1937!) of the first ever animated feature film, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. And here they are, amidst a veritable Disney doll-ography of their plastic peers, the seven vertically-challenged pioneers (themselfs), carefully arranged atop a pressboard dresser.

Can you name them all?

It's a test, you see. And not a very difficult one. At least, The Boy considers it the very minimum standard for admission. To him, it's less about knowledge than imagination - that's the important thing. It's his Hi-Ho Litmus Test:

Which dwarf is your favorite?

DOC: Ah, the leader. Pragmatic. Wise. But maybe a little too bossy?

SNEEZY: Sure, it's all fun and games until the germs start to fly and somebody gets sick!

SLEEPY: What teenager couldn't relate? But what about the other 12 hours of the day?

HAPPY: Ideal. Dull.

BASHFUL: The one everyone forgets.

GRUMPY: Surprisingly popular. The Boy remembers one trip to WDW in which the Seven Dwarfs were parading through the park, coming off shift, heading for a discreet exit. But Grumpy paused long enough to kick a trash can with a BANG! just for The Boy's amusement. It was the highlight of his trip.

DOPEY: Everyone's favorite. Why? He's awkward. He's sweet. He's guileless. Which always confused The Boy:

Then why don't people appreciate those things in real life?

He's thought about it a lot, actually, but still hasn't quite realized that the Dwarf Test probably says more about him than the people he asks. Truth be told, though, he doesn't really get to ask too many people.

That's him, by the way, over there in that faded Polaroid. [Do you need to be told what a Polaroid is? It's an old-fashioned brand of photography that produced instant prints and went out of business when people picked pixels over paper - computers over chemistry - much like in animation itself.] It was his first trip to the Magic Kingdom, a reward for making it through the trauma of kindergarten, and the mouse ears were fresh and crisp, as was the beaming smile when he vigorously embraced one of his all-time favorite characters, Jiminy Cricket, whose human size and involuntary grunt of pain occasioned no more reflection from the hugger than being unclothed in a dream.

And the other several hundred items surrounding the Polaroid? Those grew from a few modest clippings of Disney-related articles and advertisements to include coloring book pages, food wrappers, bumper stickers, ticket stubs, model kit boxes, party-ware plates, and even a narrow strip of paper from the Contemporary Resort sporting a small, sleek image of the monorail next to the words, Sanitized For Your Protection.

In fact, this collage has taken over an entire wall of the bedroom and, as a reminder that it's still a work in progress, now spills onto the adjoining walls and ceiling, trickling down to a bookcase organized by subject: Disney Animation, Disney Biography, and the largest section by far, DISNEY THEME PARKS. Domestic and International. For it really is a small world after all, as evidenced by an undersized metal globe, slightly off-axis, which rests on top of the bookcase and acts as a hat rack for the original child-sized mouse ears, faded now and drooping, but with enough gold remaining in free-flowing embroidery to distinguish a name:

WALT.

You're not really surprised, are you?

Then the clock on the other side of the case will be even less unexpected: White-gloved, 4-fingered hands point out the hour and minute while a pair of bells stand ready to sound the alarm. In fact, with the little glove already on the 6 and the big glove very nearly touching the 12, we have just enough time to glimpse the subject of this impending wake-up call while he enjoys his last few moments of insular, adolescent dormancy.

For today, childhood ends for Walt Farquhar.

Awkward and gangly, even in sleep, Walt lies face down on a brightly fesTOONed bedspread, unaware that a certain slant of morning light has already begun to beckon a twitch or two from his splayed limbs.

Not unlike Bambi before the arrival of man.

But the gunshot seems imminent, for - look closely! - the big glove of the clock suddenly clicks to 12 and the clapper between the two alarm bells stiffens and--

--nothing. Nothing happens...

...at least, not right away. But see there - a wire attached to the back of the clapper (definitely not OEM) runs down and along the baseboard to a wooden cabinet turntable (better fidelity) where it triggers a 45 (RPM - Revolutions Per Mickey) (just kidding - Minute) to fall onto the platter which starts to spin while the tone arm swivels and descends and needle meets groove and

When You Wish Upon A Star

phonobombs the room.

And not just any When You Wish Upon A Star, the original Victor Records release featuring the high, pure falsetto of Cliff Edwards who voiced the character of Jiminy Cricket in Disney's second feature-length animated film (in 1940!), Pinocchio:

"When you wish upon a star,

Makes no difference who you