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Enchanted Tiki Room Presentation at NFFC |
Humuhumu
Grand Member (5 years) 
Joined: Aug 22, 2002
Posts: 3536
From: San Francisco
|  Posted: 2005-07-14 4:46 pm Permalink
Alooooooo-HA!
This past Tuesday, I had the GREAT honor of assisting my dear friends Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily (who are responsible for all those great Tiki Room pieces, and more) in giving a presentation to the NFFC. NFFC is the National Fantasy Fan Club, and this was their annual convention -- think Oasis or Hukilau for Disneyphiles -- minus the alcohol, plus lots of mouse ears.
With the assistance of the always-entertaining King Kukulele, they developed a little show to entertain the crowd while showing them a bit about the history of the Enchanted Tiki Room. Kevin & King sang and played ukuleles, Jody ran the slide projector, their friend Stacia whistled, and I clapped coconuts together.
The show worked out really well -- it started off with Keving, King and I doing "The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room", and then while Kevin "took a break," the Barker Bird (actually, one of the Barker Birds going on sale tonight that Kevin had modified at home) came to life, and performed his spiel for us, complete with head turning, beak opening, the whole bit. After Kevin was done "roosting --er, resting," he have a FANTASTIC slide presentation, showing lots of materials from the Disney archives, and telling a bit about how the project to design the Enchanted Tiki Room changed as it was being developed, and showing how Kevin and Jody had created the merchandise for the Disneyland 50th Anniversary.
After this, King Kukulele performed Hawaiian Cowboy in tribue to Wally Boag (sadly, Wally Boag couldn't make it), which was a real hit with the crowd. Then, Kevin and Stacia performed the now excised Offenbach sequence -- it's all whistling, and Stacia's whistle has to be heard to be believed! I think the audience thought it was a recording until her whistle got a little dry and she had to stop to wet it.
Then, we all got up on stage and let the crowd through Hawaiian War Chant!
For me, the greatest honor was that I got to wear Kevin & Jody's vintage TIKI ROOM HOSTESS DRESS! It was pretty big on me, but I didn't care. The shirts being worn by Kevin, Jody and King Kukulele are the reproduction shirts that are coming out tonight. That hat that Stacia has is an actual hat that you used to be able to buy in Adventureland!
After the performance, the crowd was very enthusiastic, they LOVED King Kukulele, asked for lots of pictures of all of us, and swamped Kevin to talk shop and ask for autographs. It got kind of surreal.
After that, we all went to Disneyland, where we rode the newly-reopened Space Mountain, and of course visited the Enchanted Tiki Room. Sadly, like an idiot, I didn't get a picture of myself waking Jose in the hostess uniform.
A little tiki bird told me that there might be a repeat performance at an upcoming Tiki Taix....
Here's the whole album:
http://photo.humuhumu.com/v/nffc/
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Critiki - Ooga-Mooga - Humu Kon Tiki
[ This Message was edited by: Humuhumu 2005-09-23 14:52 ]
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Tangaroa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 25, 2002
Posts: 1550 | Posted: 2005-07-14 5:53 pm Permalink
Wow Humu!!!!!!! Great pix - I wish I could have been there....
I saw Kevin's "animatronic" bird today - it knocked my socks off! Now if we could just find a way to retrofit the ones we buy......
One of these days!
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Miehana
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Apr 03, 2002
Posts: 27
From: Los Angeles
| Posted: 2005-07-15 12:22 am Permalink
Thank you, Humu, King, and Stacia! This was a hoot and a holler, and we could not have done it without our talented friends. The 400+ people in the audience loved it. Dole Whips all around!
xx
Kevin and Jody
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Monkeyman
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 04, 2003
Posts: 2301
From: Vista, CA
| Posted: 2005-07-19 12:12 am Permalink
that is too cool.
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BarkerBird
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 20, 2004
Posts: 168 | Posted: 2005-07-19 10:26 am Permalink
Wow Humu!!!!
I'm sorry I missed it. You MUST let me know if and when there's a repeat at the Tiki Taix!
Also, it seems that Kevin has lapped me in my quest to feather my barker bird. I know I don't have nearly the skills to animatronic my bird.
But Oh, I wish I did.
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Tangaroa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 25, 2002
Posts: 1550 | Posted: 2005-07-19 10:52 am Permalink
BB - you know we've been talking about how to "animatronic" this guy cheaply for a while now....
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Unga Bunga
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 06, 2003
Posts: 5738
From: CaliTikifornia
| Posted: 2005-07-19 10:54 am Permalink
Is the Barker Bird 100% resin?
I have some experience with animatronics, I may have a project in store.
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BarkerBird
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 20, 2004
Posts: 168 | Posted: 2005-07-19 11:02 am Permalink
Talking is Cheap!
Me not smart enough with all things model and robotic.
I'm sure there are very smart people who can do these things. But I'm afraid they might be out of my range of expertise. I imagine some very precision work.
Feathering I can do, however, and I know that I could do that, at least without ruining my barker bird.
But keep me apprised of any plans. If the project seems within my abilities, I too would LOVE a working bird. I have an old pc laptop that would gladly give its life so that a bird could sing!
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BarkerBird
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 20, 2004
Posts: 168 | Posted: 2005-07-19 11:29 am Permalink
Actually, thinking a bit more about it, I suppose one could quite easily rig a jaw-motion one.
You'd put a pivot joint in the jaw, and weight and balance the back. It would sit balanced and closed, but then open when you ran current to an electromagnet.
Quite simple. And the electromagnet could be operated by a simple circuit that was based on the amplitude of the audio track.
Hmmmm.....
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Palama Tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 01, 2005
Posts: 349
From: Lake Wales, Florida
| Posted: 2005-07-19 1:07 pm Permalink
Can I assume that everyone knows that you can purchase many of these great items at www.disneydirect.com ?
click on this link for the Adventureland collection: http://disney.store.go.com/DSSectionPage.process?Merchant_Id=2&Section_Id=14770
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Tangaroa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 25, 2002
Posts: 1550 | Posted: 2005-07-19 1:19 pm Permalink
Yes - you may assume away....
http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?topic=13912&forum=1&158
BB - You should shooot a PM to Miehana - I'm sure he can tell you how he "rigged" his Barker Bird for the show! I say we contact Wally Boag & get him to record new dialogue for us now!
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BarkerBird
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 20, 2004
Posts: 168 | Posted: 2005-07-19 2:19 pm Permalink
I emailed him, and yeah, I just wanna be in the loop when stuff happens. Feathering etc.
Wally Boag.... wow. THAT would be someTHEEENG.
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tiki1963
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 12, 2003
Posts: 197
From: los angeles
| Posted: 2005-07-19 5:33 pm Permalink
i was actually trying to hook that scenario up between kevin/jody and wally. prob is wally's been a little 'under the weather' (no pun intendo) and was only part of the 50th celebrations for a little bit.
we will be interviewing him on-cam very soon for the forthcoming extinct attraction dvd on the tiki room which is almost done.
on the barker's feathers...i'll have to check out the Disneyland 10th Anniversary Show again, but did the original's body work mainly as a sculpted body? i can imagine even if kevin's bird was to have full feathers, the price would have to be a hellava lot more clams to make it look good. besides, this helps keep the real tiki birds a little more special!
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BarkerBird
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 20, 2004
Posts: 168 | Posted: 2005-07-19 9:38 pm Permalink
The one that Walt interacts with is feathered. Don't know about the one on the attraction.
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Tangaroa
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Apr 25, 2002
Posts: 1550 | Posted: 2005-07-20 06:46 am Permalink
No - both the one outside the Tiki Room & the one on TV were feathered.
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