The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (84 page)

Gadget’s Go Coaster
  Must be 35” or 89 cm tall to ride.

[
FastView:
 
Thrilling for little ones and their parents, but don’t wait more than 15 – 20 minutes for this brief ride.  Queue when
Toontown
opens for short lines.
]

A perfect starter coaster for wee ones,
Gadget’s Go Coaster
has been gently thrilling Guests of all ages since
Toontown
opened in 1993.

Who is
Gadget
?  In the late 1980’s she was an innovative, instrumental part of
Chip ‘n Dale’s Rescue Rangers
team.  If they needed something, she invented it, building high-performance gizmos from natural elements and discarded bits of junk.  Anything and everything could be repurposed.  In that she pre-figures the spirit of the 2008 re-imagining of
Tinker Bell
and the
Tinker fairies
, and is a terrific reflection of the
blue-sky
, can-do, never-discard-anything attitude of the real-life
Imagineering
crew.

Gadget Go Coaster
’s queue, track, and coaster are all visual testaments to crafting something amazing out of nothing in particular. The stony walls of the queue switchback around and over
Toon Lake
and under and along the coaster track, which is constructed of and supported by the likes of giant Tinker Toys, drinking straws, toothbrushes, and paper clips.  A white-gloved mechanical hand appears to crank the chain-pull that lifts the coaster cars up the first hill.

In the shaded loading area (
a cartoon version of a
Disneyland Railroad Station
), you and your party will board one of eight hollowed-out acorns.  Each acorn car seats two Guests, for a maximum of 16 occupants per journey.  That’s one reason the lines can be long, although the coaster’s limited capacity is counterbalanced by the rapid re-loading resulting from the short ride.

The ride is less than a minute
long but reaches speeds of over 21 miles per hour (as fast as
Matterhorn Bobsleds
).  The
Imagineers
have crafted a winner that’s gentle enough for small children and spry grandparents but will thrill Guests of all ages.  There are no special effects or steep plunges, but given the space constraints, designers had to craft a compact tangle of tight rises, dips, and curves that at one point seem almost ready to tilt the acorns and their passengers into
Toon Lake
!

I’d recommend this breezy, whimsical attraction to anyone.  Given the attraction’s
brief ride, don’t wait in a long queue; ride early in the morning, or on an off-season weekday, when lines are short, but do give it a whirl.  In particular, this is the perfect little thrill ride for any Guest either too small or too timid for the park’s exponentially faster, beefier
E-ticket
thrillers (
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
,
Indiana Jones Adventure
,
Matterhorn Bobsleds
,
Space Mountain
,
Splash Mountain
, or
Star Tours
).
Did You Know?
  Does anyone in your party remember
Gadget
’s last name?  Her surname was the very appropriate
Hackwrench
.
Hidden Mickeys:
  According to
Steven M. Barrett
’s book
Disneyland’s Hidden Mickeys
, there are three
Hidden Mickeys
in the rock walls along the queue, and one in the loading area.  I can personally confirm that there’s a
Hidden Mickey
composed of three stones (two small and one large) in the wall on your left immediately before you cross the little bridge built of toothbrushes. Can you find the others?
FastPass:
  No.  Although lines can be long on crowded days due to the attraction’s popularity and the limited coaster capacity,
Gadget’s Go Coaster
is not presently linked to the
FastPass
system.  While the queue area is adorable, much of it is open to the sun, wind, and rain; you don’t want to be standing in an hour-long line on a hot, blustery, or drizzly day for a ride of less than one minute.  The best time to visit
Gadget’s Go Coaster
is when
Toontown
opens; while most Guests rush over to
Mickey
or
Minnie
’s homes, you and your party can enjoy short or non-existent lines and multiple rides on the coaster.
Kid’s Eye View:
  It’s fun.  It’s kind of a fast ride because you go around only once, and there are no real dips.  Not a very scary coaster but fun for little tiny kids.

Goofy’s Playhouse

[
FastView:
 
Diverting fun zone for small children.  Seating for parents is available nearby so you can keep an eye on the kids.
]

As
Goofy
as its eponymous owner,
Goofy’s Playhouse
is a lanky, gangly, crazily tilted, cobbled-together abode that’s been looking, well, just plain goofy since
Toontown
opened its gates in 1993.

You can’t miss it; the home is capped by a giant version of
Goofy
’s signature green hat, and out front
Goofy
’s jalopy is parked where it apparently crashed into the mailbox, his
papers and correspondence seeming ready to tumble out and see-saw to the pavement at any second.  (Guests love to sit in the jalopy for a funny photo ops.)

Goofy’s Playhouse
stands–or, more accurately,
leans
–east of
Donald’s Boat
, on the southern edge of
Toontown
.  It’s conveniently located just south of
Goofy’s Gas
, a station built in the Art Deco style of the 1920’s and 1930’s, period correct for Hollywood’s golden age.  One of the signs at
Goofy’s Gas
promises “If we can’t fix it, we won’t,” a maxim that seems goofy on the surface, but would be an honest slogan for some real service stations.  Cartoon fish swim in the gas pumps.  The station isn’t a real gas station, of course; it houses
Toontown
’s Payphones and Rest Rooms, and is adjacent to
Toontown
’s food court.

Across the street,
Goofy’s Playhouse
has a garden play area, complete with a kookily spinning clothes line and lots of safely textured areas for climbing and running around. Grown up Guests can rest and chat while the little ones run wild.  The interior used to be a bounce house, but is now simply a walk-through attraction with goofy furnishings, good for a laugh and a chance for the kids to get out of the sun in summer or chilly breezes in winter.

Goofy’s Playhouse
is imaginative fun, but unless you or your kids are gaga for
Goofy
, this is a
Toontown
attraction that you can skip if you’re on a tight schedule.
Did You Know?
 
Goofy
’s first cartoon appearance was in
Mickey’s Revue
in 1932.  He’s a member of
Disney’s Fab Five
cartoon superstars, along with
Mickey
,
Minnie
,
Donald
, and
Pluto
. 
Goofy
was originally known as
Dippy Dawg
. 
FastPass:
  No.  This is a self-guided, self-timed attraction and therefore not linked to the
FastPass
system. Aside from the most crowded days, your children won’t have trouble finding a spot at this attraction.
Kid’s Eye View:
  I’ve never been in there.

Mickey’s House
&
Meet Mickey

[
FastView:
 
For many Guests of all ages this is the holy grail of their
Disneyland
visit, a chance to explore
Mickey
’s modest home and to meet
Mickey
and pose for a photo with him.  You can tour
Mickey
’s house even if you decide not to meet the famous mouse; meet-and-greets take place out back in the big red barn modeled after
Walt
’s own barn in
Holmby Hills
.
]

Located in the northwest residential district of
Mickey’s Toontown
,
Mickey’s House
, like all the
Toontown
residences, reflects the personality of its owner.

On the DVD
Disneyland Resort:  Imagineering the Magic
,
Imagineer Joe Lanzisero
relates that there was a discussion about what type of house
Mickey
would live in.  Some suggested a grand manor, on the scale of the
Haunted Mansion
, since
Mickey
is the superstar of
Disney
’s cartoon pantheon; it’s not just
Toontown
, after all, it’s
Mickey’s Toontown
. He’s the big cheese (so to speak).

Lanzisero
and other
Imagineers
saw
Mickey’s House
as a more modest dwelling, more in keeping with
Mickey
’s “everyman” stature.  Their vision prevailed.  Visitors to
Toontown
will find that
Mickey’s House
is a Pasadena-style bungalow, handsome, certainly, but with no pretentions of grandeur.

Given that
Mickey
is in some mysterious way a reflection, echo, and avatar of
Walt
, the attractive but modest bungalow makes perfect sense and tracks with
Walt
’s real home. 
Walt
and his family had a house built in
Holmby Hills
, a posh neighborhood in west Los Angeles, when
Walt
was in his late forties, but it was a modest house by the standards of the community.

The
Disneys
kept no battery of servants.
Walt
’s biggest indulgences were installing a soda fountain for his daughters and their chums, and building his miniature railroad, the
Carolwood Pacific
, in the back yard. 
Walt
essentially remained true to his humble roots.  He even built a big red barn, reminiscent of his childhood barn, in his backyard.  It sheltered his train, and was a place for him to tinker and create.

Mickey
’s bungalow was open to Guests when
Toontown
launched in 1993, and it sets just the right tone; it’s where we’d expect the famously down-to-earth every-mouse to live.  Painted in the yellow and red color palette that we associate with
Mickey
, the cozy house at
1 Mickey’s Neighborhood Way
sports low roofs, dormer windows, long, shaded front porches, and a deep-set entrance, all reminiscent of the California bungalow style.

This
motif extends to the interior design, with its Arts-and-Crafts style wooden floors and exposed redwood beams, stone fireplaces, beveled glass, built-in cabinets and red and green throw rugs.  It’s a friendly style, in harmony with nature and the neighborhood–just like
Mickey
!

B
ehind the house, past a humble little garden where gophers periodically steal the carrots, is a big red barn, just like
Walt
’s.  In it,
Mickey
tinkers with props and plots and gags for the next big
Fab Five
picture, and it’s here that Guests queue to meet
Mickey
, get his autograph, and pose for a snapshot.

If you or your youngsters are wild to meet
Mickey
and see how he lives, you’ll want to queue here soon after
Toontown
opens for the day.  Check online or in the day’s
Entertainment Times Guide
(available at the
Main Turnstiles
) for
Mickey
’s visiting hours that day.  In
Toontown
, bear left (west) from
Toontown
’s entrance promenade.  Look for the yellow bungalow with
Mickey
’s mailbox out front.