The Mickey Puzzle

A few years ago, I received a cool Mickey photographic mosaic jigsaw puzzle.  I don't usually work on jigsaw puzzles - but in this case I was drawn in by the thousands of single-frame images from Walt Disney Feature Animation.

If I had known in advance how much work it would be, it would probably still be sitting in the box.

I really don't know puzzle strategies all that well, so I started by trying to sort the pieces into piles based on the movies depicted on each one. In retrospect, I doubt this was the most efficient way to solve the puzzle, but it did give me hours of brain-teasing (and eye-straining) fun trying to identify film frames based on the image fragments on each piece.

NOTE -- The fact that each puzzle piece contained parts of three or four different film frames makes this much more difficult than it sounds.

Anyway, after a few false starts, and lots of help from innocent family members, we finally managed to get Mickey back into one piece: 

Now I just need to find a good way to mount this for display.

Any ideas?

- Chris

Double-Take: The Two (WDI) Towers

Isn't it strange how sometimes you can look at an image without really seeing it?

I've been working my way through the WEDway Radio archives (well worth checking out, BTW), and something I heard in Episode 13 caught me by surprise.

WEDway Radio episode 13 compares the two domestic versions of the Tower of Terror attraction.  While I was well aware of the substantial mechanical differences between the attractions, I was surprised to hear that each rendition of the "Hollywood Tower Hotel" is actually constructed in a different architectural style.

Even though I've seen (and photographed) both towers in person, I never noticed just how strikingly different they are:

The Hollywood Tower Hotel,

Sunset Boulevard

Walt Disney World Resort, FL

The Hollywood Tower Hotel,

Hollywood Pictures Backlot,

Disneyland Resort, CA

Yet Another reminder to always keep my eyes (and my mind) open!

Until next time,

- Chris

P.S. 

Yes, I know there's actually *four* versions of the "Tower of Terror" attraction.  However:

1) from the pictures, the Disneyland Paris version looks like a twin of the DCA version,

2) the Tokyo tower is radically different, and isn't even a "Hollywood Tower Hotel",

3) Calling the article The Two Towers appeals to my inner Tolkien geek :-]

- C.