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New Lincoln Animatronic Lookin' Good

Can't wait to see more of this figure.  The facial movements look pretty good.  According to this YouTube post, "The old Lincoln figure had 6 functions in the face, but this new one includes 10. Lincoln's mouth is now able to form vowels such as "O"."

I remember learning about the "F" lip movement when I first started to work on animatronic heads and always thought that was cool.

While we are on the topic of this historic and iconic AA figure, I'll share one of my personal experiences with ol' Abe.  Back in high school I occasionally worked at the Mad Hatter shop on Main Street.  There was a stock closet to the right of the stage.  For some reason we thought it was funny to put silly hats on the former president and take pictures.  Hilarious, I know.  We'd sit on his lap and stuff.  Aside from goofing around, I'd stand next to the thing in awe.

Sometimes I'd sneak in and sit in the back of the dark theater as Imagineers worked on Mr. Lincoln.  One time I watched them program the figure with an electric piano keyboard.  I felt like I was watching some Disney Channel behind-the-scenes special where they show animatronics without headskins or clothes.

Disneyland Skyway in Your Backyard?

I found these photos on Flickr.  I have yet to find the story behind it other than this a fully-functioning model of a Skyway-type ride in this person's backyard in San Diego.  Watch this thing in action here.  This video clip takes you on the miniature ride.  I imagine they strapped a digital camera to one of the gondolas.

Lesson learned:  If Disney rips out your favorite ride and gives you really lame excuses as to why they did it, build your own version behind your house.     

One time a buddy of mine and I saw Marty Sklar at Epcot.  We went up to him and said, "we are backyard Imagineers".  He looked at us like we were nuts and said, "never heard of that. What does that mean?"...  "Uhhh well, you see, Marty, it's when kids like us make things at home that resemble what real Imagineers do in the parks."  He had a look on his face like, "oh brother".