Theme Parks with Sarah Griffin

Summary

Sentimental Garbage Podcast Episode Summary
Episode Title: Theme Parks with Sarah Griffin
Host: Caroline O'Donoghue
Guest: Sarah Griffin
Release Date: March 6, 2025

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1. Introduction to Theme Parks

Caroline O'Donoghue welcomes her friend Sarah Griffin to discuss their experiences with theme parks, particularly focusing on their trip to Disneyland Paris. The conversation sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of the emotional and cultural significance of theme parks.

Caroline (00:27): "Sentimental Garbage is the podcast where we talk about the culture we love that sometimes makes us wait in line for."

2. The Disneyland Paris Odyssey

The hosts recount their adventurous week spent in Disneyland Paris, highlighting the unique challenges and magical moments they encountered, especially navigating the park during Sarah's pregnancy.

Caroline (01:18): "We went to Disneyland Paris with you while you were five months pregnant... it was one of the most magical times of my life."

3. Navigating the Hotel Maze

They delve into their stay at the largest hotel in France, describing the labyrinthine corridors and the impact of such immense spaces on their experience.

Sarah (03:49): "The hotel was psychedelic in its size. It was so strange... it really kind of removed a lot of reality out of us."

4. The Magic of Design and Sentimentality

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the intricate design of Disneyland Paris and how it transforms visitors the moment they arrive. They explore the aesthetic details, the role of Mary Blair, and the emotional responses elicited by the park's architecture and theming.

Caroline (11:04): "Everything there is designed to make you feel good... the moment you arrive."

Sarah (12:16): "Mary Blair was among the colorists... her distinct visual style is part of what makes the park so moving."

5. Queue Systems and Thematic Storytelling

The hosts analyze the sophisticated queue systems employed by Disney, which are designed to entertain and immerse guests even while waiting for attractions.

Sarah (24:42): "Queues are designed in such a way that you can't see the queue ahead of you for more than maybe five or 10 minutes... it's a narrative, environmentally storytelling journey."

6. Personal Emotional Journeys

Caroline and Sarah share deeply personal moments from their trip, including emotional reactions to specific attractions like "The Circle of Life" fireworks display and the profound impact these experiences had on their relationship and individual lives.

Sarah (55:47): "It felt very profound... it was the circle of life, the wheel of fortune."

Caroline (57:41): "Weeping... we were just basking in the moment together."

7. Disney Adults and Cultural Reflections

The conversation shifts to the phenomenon of Disney adults—dedicated fans who invest heavily in their experiences at Disney parks. They discuss societal perceptions, the emotional fulfillment these parks provide, and the balance between corporate intentions and personal enjoyment.

Sarah (65:22): "It's pure escape... there's a sense of worship and finding something to fulfill different needs."

Caroline (67:44): "It's the dream of America we used to have... we are either laughing at you or we're scared of you."

8. Failed Theme Parks and Critical Insights

Addressing the flip side, the hosts explore examples of failed theme parks, analyzing the reasons behind their shortcomings and contrasting them with Disney's meticulous design and execution.

Sarah (83:03): "Failed theme parks are a fascinating subgenre... when it doesn't work, you're kind of uncomfortable."

Caroline (85:16): "Magical illusions vs. utility in design... Disney maintains a constructed world that aims to delight."

9. Upcoming Projects and Closing Thoughts

Sarah Griffin introduces her forthcoming book, weaving in themes from their discussion about architecture, character work, and the emotional layers within theme parks. Caroline reflects on their shared experiences and the deep connections formed through their cultural explorations.

Sarah (93:54): "It's about two women who work in a small flower shop in Dublin... it's a story about working in a shop and falling in love."

Caroline (95:19): "A theme park can sometimes be a shopping centre... it's a constructed space made for leisure."

10. Conclusion

The episode concludes with heartfelt goodbyes as Caroline and Sarah reflect on the profound impact of their Disneyland Paris trip, the intricate designs of theme parks, and the sentimental value these experiences hold in their lives.

Caroline (96:31): "Goodbye, everybody."

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This episode of Sentimental Garbage offers a rich and nuanced exploration of theme parks, blending personal anecdotes with critical insights into design, culture, and emotional resonance. Through Caroline and Sarah's conversation, listeners gain a deeper appreciation for the artistry behind theme parks and the heartfelt experiences they foster.

Transcript

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[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Hello and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we talk about the culture we love. That's the sometimes makes us wait in line for. My name is Caroline and I'm the invisible underground cast entrance your heart makes. And joining me is the dragon that lives inside of Sleeping Beauty's castle. It's Sarah Griffin. Hello.

[Sarah Griffin]

Hi, Caroline.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Very few people are able to convince me into loving something I never cared about before.

[Sarah Griffin]

Very glad that I could bring you all the way around.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, all the way the fuck around. Because today we're talking about theme parks.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yes, we are.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Now if I didn't make this podcast and I were just a listener of it, this would be the episode previous versions of myself with Skip. Because I was brutal.

[Sarah Griffin]

Brutal. I'd say there's plenty of you guys out there who Skip The Girl Games 1. Do you know what I mean? It's not everybody's flavor and that's totally fine.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But like. So you and I went on an odyssey last summer where we spent a week. No, that week we haven't. Three days in the middle of the week and 30 degrees of heat. Yeah. In Disneyland Paris. Disneyland. In Disneyland Paris. And I have been to theme parks before. I had been to Disneyland Paris before I had been to the LA Universal experience. I stopped in there during my honeymoon for a day or two and I liked it, but I never thought it was worthy of my time Until I went to Disneyland Paris with you while you were five months pregnant.

[Sarah Griffin]

My God.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And it was one of the most magical times of my life.

[Sarah Griffin]

I feel like it was a real risk.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

To decide in the tick of the summer to go to a theme park at the point of pregnancy that I was in.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

That was a bananas choice that I made.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But it was absolutely the right one due to sort of circumstances outside of, you know, the way life goes. I wasn't really able to travel at all during my pregnancy for various. Various reasons. And it was my last. The last time I set foot off of Irish soil. Actually. I haven't gone anywhere since.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

So it was very important to go and do something hilarious and silly and special before I walked through a big portal, you know, like a kind of a baby moon in its way.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. It was A baby moon.

[Sarah Griffin]

It was.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. It kind of just worked out because I remember I had some days left on my interrailing pass. So we're like, let's get the train to Paris.

[Sarah Griffin]

Train to Paris. Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Dental garbage out of Jenkini. But so we went. And it was this very odd thing. I've never traveled with a pregnant friend before, and I had this immediate sense of, like. Oh, I feel, like, very protective.

[Sarah Griffin]

You were.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You were. Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It was brilliant. It was lovely.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And also, like, when we walked through into that, we were sharing hotel room, obviously. And so there was a kind of a. I don't know, we just. We sort of read as a queer couple traveling together.

[Sarah Griffin]

It was absolutely delicious. It was so good. You made a really terrific wife. Especially when we got locked out of the room immediately in the largest hotel in France. And that is. That is. You think. I've been in a. I've been in some big places. I've been in some large supermarkets.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

I've been in airports, bus terminals. I've seen some big establishments.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I've been around a while. I've seen some big places.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. I've looked at the cathedrals, you know.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But that hotel, my God, that hotel was psychedelic in its size. It was so strange. Yeah, it was so strange. We kept being like, this is kind of on the Piranesi edge of things.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's sort of the very strange sense of repeating hallways.

[Sarah Griffin]

Very easy to get lost and no landmarks. And that sounds kind of bizarre. And it's actually also not as opulent as it sounds either. It's a very nice hotel, but it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Also is the biggest hotel in France, catering to the biggest theme park in Europe.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, it's. There's still Mickey Mouse decorations everywhere, you know what I'm saying? Like, which is, again, lovely. He's wearing a little captain's hat. It's very pleasing. But we were staggered by how big the place was in a way that you were kind of still walking down a corridor going, hang on, what day is it like? It really kind of removed a lot of reality out of us in a way that I thought was very. The hotel was tricky for me, you know.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, it was. And we had this sort of. I mean, we're sort of focusing on hotel rather than. This is all part of it, part of the landscape. But I think what is interesting to me is the way in which a theme park changes you the minute that you arrive there. And the way it changed me was that we walked up, we got the lift up to our Floor. And then we walked through thousands of hallways to get to our thing. And then the keycard didn't work. And I was like, stay here. You were five months pregnant. This has knackered you. It's a hot day. You stay here. I go downstairs and basically there's a couple of, like, the key card isn't working. I come back upstairs, I come back downstairs, whatever. But I just became an angrier and more protective wife. And I just. On the third go down, I went like, my wife is upstairs five and a half months pregnant.

[Sarah Griffin]

Getting more pregnant by the trip.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She is 11 months pregnant. She is 56 months pregnant.

[Sarah Griffin]

She has been pregnant for eight years.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And she is sitting outside our hotel room with our luggage. Tell me what you're gonna do to fix this. And I was like, this side of me has never come. I am so non confrontational. I'm so baby. I had just come off a month of traveling with Jen where she was daddy. And I was like, I'm baby now. I'm like, what's happening? And yeah. And so then our week began. And then because you were pregnant, you were granted. You had a doctor's letter.

[Sarah Griffin]

I did. My OB GYN wrote me a special letter of dispensation. And you know what? I felt like a bit of a pig asking for it. But they do it all the time. The letter said something to the effect of. It would be greatly appreciated if my patient didn't have to stand for long periods of time.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. While she goes to the theme park.

[Sarah Griffin]

Which in retrospect, but like bananas thing to do. But also I was at that point it was getting a bit tricky to move around. You know, it was kind of on the bridge. There was a certain point at which things kind of started to change with your center of gravity, you know, and they don't really go back for a good while. And I was in that nice kind of space in the second trimester where I was kind of glowy and happy as well. Like it was. It was. It was great. But it was also. Your body is. You really don't want to be standing for very long.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

20 degrees each. Your body is actively keeping score.

[Sarah Griffin]

You're very. But this is a. Here's a cheat code for everyone. If you are in. In the way of pregnancy and attending a Disney park and you do present a letter to the concierge at your hotel or to City hall at downtown usa, which is the main street of Disneyland, they will give you a band for your arm.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Which has a picture of Thumper. From Bambi.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

This is my favorite part.

[Sarah Griffin]

I know. It's such a. It's incredible detail. And that band allows you and your guests, up to four guests, to skip the line and to stand in the mellow zone for the fireworks. Yeah, it's an incredible. Incredibly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's a great gift.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's a great gift. It's a very. Operating within the world of cues with a. With a cheat coat is remarkable. Like, it's absolutely shocking that you just kind of mince onto Pirates of the Caribbean twice in a row without having to kind of blink while the rest of the world waits for three hours. You know what I mean? It really kind of messes with your brain a bit. It changes the layout and the experience, but equally, if you're pregnant, you're pregnant. So it sort of balances out.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The thing is. Yeah, the trade off is you don't have to wait for anything, but you can't go on any of the roller coasters.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, no big whopper ones.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There's like a fairly, like, you know, a limited sort of supply of things that we could go on.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, no Space Mountain for me, man.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I'll tell you that much. And you said to me several times, you're like, listen, man, we'll walk you up to the front of the queue and you can go on Space Mountain. And I was kind of like, I love roller coasters. Nothing I love more than a fucking day at a theme park where I'm a bit pissed and riding the roller coasters. Love it. But it just felt. I was like, no, I don't want to do that. I want to be with my friend, and I want to enjoy the beats of this experience at the rate she's able to enjoy it, because it wouldn't feel as special otherwise. Not even for, like, you know, altruistic reasons. Just because, like, nah, it's just not the vibe. And so what it was was us, for three days in Disneyland Paris, experiencing Disneyland Paris. Not like it's a theme park that has gift shops and roller coasters, but, like, it was a small European town where I got to appreciate every little design choice, every little wallpaper choice, every little entrance and exit, the shows during the day, the parades during the day, the boats, rides, Pirates of the Caribbean, like, Small World, all these things. And I did all these things several times, and I had the most special time doing it, but. And I want to talk about that in a second. But, like, I want to go back a little bit to one of my favorite moments of the whole trip, which was when, when you got your Thumper band, the White band. And I got one too.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. Because I'm your friend and I've still got one.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I still got it. Yeah. And it has Thumper on it. And neither of us are like Bambi heads.

[Sarah Griffin]

I mean, who is man who's a.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Bambi head past like 1939, but also.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, not worth it. Like, that's bad. That's a sad, sad movie. There's a lot of like, no way.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Famously sad.

[Sarah Griffin]

Famously sad. Famously. Like many children's stories, opens with the death of a mother.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

And a child being left to the world.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And you're a bit like, why this?

[Sarah Griffin]

Why are you incant. Why are you incanting this?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

On me and this.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And we, we glimpse other people's bands and other people's bands for like, you know, various disabilities and whatever. They have different characters on their bands.

[Sarah Griffin]

There's a visual code, right? Why this thump?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Why are we talking about Thumper? And then, and then you got a kick. Thump, thump, thump. And we were like, thump, thump.

[Sarah Griffin]

And in French, she's thumping inside. Crucially in French, Thumper is called Pampin.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And the direct French translation for pan. Pan, I believe, is bump. Bump.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And my God, what a detail.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That was the first burst into hysterical tears.

[Sarah Griffin]

A lot of sobbing, really, but it's sobbing and laughing.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, it's stuff like that. I think that was the beginning of the. My conversion to theme parks as a art form because I realized that like, we live in a post investor world where margins are being trimmed all the time, where companies need new investors coming onto the board all the time so the old investors can buy themselves out and cash in. The new investors come in. Margins are getting trimmed all the time. Things are getting worse all the time. Almost everything I've ever loved has gotten gradually worse over the course of my life.

[Sarah Griffin]

Wow. There's never, you know, we haven't seen a lot of good renaissances, you know. No.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, and it's because we're living in this world. Yeah. We have to. People think things aren't really serving the customer anymore. They're serving the people who are investing in them. With the exception of Disneyland. That like, that is a Disneyland. And Disney in general is a fascistic heritage brand that comes from a top down hierarchy that started at one guy who insisted on perfection with everything. And those, those parks were this post war creation of like, you know what? The American people need somewhere to bring their families. And this is going to be the most perfect place on earth to Bring them. And I am going to make sure I am controlling what you're seeing, what you're experiencing all the time. And for that to trickle down into the tiny detail of, like, my pregnant friend's wristband has a specific character that, if you want to think about it for more than a second, is perfect and is so chosen for her tiny enjoyment, not for a shareholder's enjoyment, even though obviously the shareholders are important. That, like, just the idea that you've been thought of to that level of detail makes you want to burst out cry.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, yeah. Like, the symbol is so small on it. Yeah. It's negligible.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's so negligible.

[Sarah Griffin]

And that was also not a moment designed for you and me. That is a moment designed for any pregnant person who walks through the doors of Disneyland. That is designed for a person who is going into a theme park potentially already with children and more likely than not already carting children around. That's why there are four guests on the wristband.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because you're bringing your kids and you're probably waddling very slowly behind them or you're running in and out of various places to be unwell. And it's a. For me, it was a quiet little nudge of you're not just a tired person or a mam. Or a. You know, you're not.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It was in this. It was in a particularly vulnerable point in the pregnancy. And it was like it really went right through to my heart. And I imagine for many other pregnant people who went through that and had that moment of realization, it's this. Oh, it's. It's very tender.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's very sweet. Like, are they taking your money? Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, yeah, they are. Oh, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I think. What. Cause you know a lot about theme parks.

[Sarah Griffin]

I do, unfortunately.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And for my friends, you told me something that there was like an estimation that is made that how much money does Disney make off the average person or something.

[Sarah Griffin]

If you walk through the gates as a paying customer of Disneyland, they on average assume that over your lifetime you will spend US$60,000 on US$60,000 on Disney.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I imagine that estimation was made before we had Disney plus.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh. And before they had the. Before they. The ways in which the. There has been obviously attrition and experience. There's lots of added extras and different things to pay for. But by and large, your average theme park consumer of the Disney zone.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Your average Disney adult.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Is going to spend around that. That average counts for people who go. Who get to go once ever and it's a trip of a lifetime. To the people who go every fucking year.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

To people like me who've been all together, I would say in my life like six or seven times since I was a small child. I went once When I was six, I went once when I was 19. I went after I eloped.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

I went in Tokyo twice over two years. And I went with you to Paris and I went to Florida as an adult. So, yeah, that's about, that's not. That's a good chunk of a good chunk of trips and a couple of times I didn't pay for those tickets, so. But I'm there. I'm buying the ears, I'm buying the popcorn. I'm part of the. I'm part of the machine. And I recognize that I am. The thing about Disney and Disney adults and the people who participate in the theme park is that. And again, staring down the eyeballs of the top down fascistic kind of system of the grand toothy machine of Disney is that, you know that you are a financial quantity to them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But there are very few places in the world in which we are not a financial quantity.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And there are lots of places where we're a financial quantity that don't exert detail and imagine and experience.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

So I will give them back that. I will say, you know what? Yeah, count me, count me among the chumps. But also, I have had a very beautiful time meant like every time that I have been there in my life.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, and for different reasons at different junctures of my life. And a lot of it in my adult life is because I'm interested in spaces and I'm interested in design more than I am in films.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Really. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But I, I think if I am part of that statistic, definitely not at the 60 grand edge. Jesus Christ. Yeah, but it is not a. It is a. It is a luxury experience. You know what I mean? It is something that is fancy and expensive and it's a big mean business, you know, but, but it's also in.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So, like in ways big and small that start with wristbands and end elsewhere. Like, better than it needs to be.

[Sarah Griffin]

Better than it needs to be. Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because we were experiencing this again like a small European town. Because we weren't chasing rides. We were doing pregnant people stuff. We were like going in and out of shops, like having.

[Sarah Griffin]

We were nosing around.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We were nosing around all day. Just, just. We spent almost the whole time just like noticing little things, looking y. Looking at, Seeing Love. Yeah, yeah. Going to the shows and, like, looking in the shops. And I remember this very. On the last day, the specific moment, because, like, it obviously, yeah. Almost all of Disneyland, every other space is shops. Right. It's just shop shops to buy stuff in. It's not a ride, it's a shop. But there's, like, different tiers of shops and top shops for different kinds of things. And I was in this, like, a glassware shop.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, yeah, the jewelry and glassware shop. Incredible crystal tiny goofies and donalds to the.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And it's this weird immersion thing where you're there. If you're there for a few days and you're looking in all the shops, you're like. You kind of forget that you're looking at, like, a crystal Goofy.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because you're like, of course I am.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because everything is goofy. So you're like, where is my childhood friend Goofy?

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You're like, what a beautifully made piece.

[Sarah Griffin]

Do you know, I think they really captured his essence here.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. You kind of forget that you're looking at just characters. You're like, yes. Like, it's almost like you're looking at an interpretation of, like, how all the Renaissance painters were doing biblical scenes. You're like, oh, I see what you're.

[Sarah Griffin]

Doing with this goofy changes. You're just like, that is fine. I am in the house. That was what we kept saying in the giant, strange hotel was. Oh, this is Michael's house.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And Michael's house.

[Sarah Griffin]

Our good friend Michael Mouse. You know, like, you sort of have to agree, Right. You have to go, okay, here we are.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Here we are in Michael's house.

[Sarah Griffin]

In we go. If you go in, I think lots of experiences with a kind of a snideness or your nose turned up. You're not gonna enjoy yourself.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. You're not.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, you're. You're robbing yourself of something. You know, if you go into a theme park, you have to agree to play.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You are here to play. It doesn't matter if it's a scaldy, like, old rundown theme park where you are putting your life on the line, getting on a janky wooden roller coaster that's been there for 100. It doesn't matter if it's that or if it's the gleaming, pristine architecture and setup of somewhere like Disneysea. It doesn't matter if you're going somewhere to play. You're going somewhere to play.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

So, like, absolutely. There are bizarre, limitless figurines of obscure and beloved Disney characters that made out of perfect crystal. Is that not what you're here to see?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, but like, I had that experience when I was in that glassware shop examining the crystal goofies the Swarovski fucking jasmine headdresses and whatever.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yes, very beautiful.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I had this really specific moment where I was. I touched the wall and I realized that the wallpaper was real. And by real, I mean it wasn't. The wallpaper that you and I interact with every day, which would be digitally printed onto rolls and then glued. Do you know what I mean? This is like proper raised velvet. Felt like it was like real, real wallpaper that was hand painted, I guess, or something. I was just touching it, being like I am here experiencing a fake town, but the fake town is doing something I experience all the time, which is wallpaper in the real way. It was originally meant to be intended. So that kind of inversion of what's real and what's fake is just like what.

[Sarah Griffin]

That was really trippy. And even down to the architecture itself, you get the impression of the forced perspective that everything's built in. Yeah, every. Every building in the little town of Main street usa, which is what leads you in from the entrance up towards the castle and towards the sort of central, I guess, nexus point that all the other worlds lead out from. It feels like a real town, but it's tiny.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's built in such a way that it's an optical illusion. And it makes you feel completely as though you're in this old timey Americana, kind of little old town with a soda shop. And, you know, there's a. There's an artifice and a storytelling that's happening all around you. And the level of attention to detail that goes into building those structures and tricking your eye so quickly. The castle itself is an optical illusion. You know, in what way? It's not as big as it looks. They never are. It's just how it's tilted and it's how it's angled and how as it gets up goes. As every structure gets higher, it gets smaller. And that is that level of design. And the way the colors, everything is painted and the way it looks different at different times of the day, that is how, you know, the place was designed by visual artists.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. By people who made movies, by.

[Sarah Griffin]

By like animators, background. The women who painted the backgrounds. It is a very technical feat of visual accomplishment. Like, it's astounding to look at, you know, and sure, all those buildings contain shops in which you can buy Mickey Mouse ears.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But if you kind of stop for a moment, there are points on the main street leading towards the castle. And I will say this. Of every Disneyland, I've been to four of the theme parks across the world. Which, again, feels like that's a loss. That's a lot of different. That's cool. And, you know, I'm not quite going to the Shanghai ones. You know what I mean? Like, that's not. Not yet. I'd like to. I don't know how I would figure that out. But no matter which of the parks you're in, the way that that main street, that main artery opens up from the gate towards the castle, there's almost no space spot on that street that the castle doesn't look astounding, you know, because there'll be days where it's very busy. You know, there'll be times where it'd be hard to get a glimpse of things. But it's visually organized in such a way that everything looks good and how it's supposed to look.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. From every angle.

[Sarah Griffin]

From every angle. It's designed by animators. It's like it's. It's. You're stepping into a different constructed world really, really deliberately. And that's what I find so romantic about the place, is the labor and the vision and the deliberate way that it's built to look beautiful. And the castles are different in every country. And the castle in California is smaller than the one in Florida. The one in Paris is a very particular kind of castle because France is full of castles. So why would this one be any different? You know, they have. There is such care put into what we're looking at. There is very little that happens in that part in those parks. Because there are parks. You know, there are designated portions of land that people visit their parks. And the thoughtfulness of the design is, I think, what moves me so much and what makes me feel. There's lots of reasons to feel good while you're there, because everything there is designed to make you feel good. You can't see the outside world anywhere.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

As you know, as any park cynic will tell you, which is lots of people.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And me recently, it's like, oh, yeah. It's a lot of waiting around. Right. But, like, the thing is, you're not really. Yeah. In theory. Yeah. You're like, yeah, 45 minutes to wait for a ride. Fucking annoying. But, like, you're actually never cranky, really. Do you get a bit tired and hungry sometimes? Sure. But, like, you're always in a Good mood in those queues.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because, I mean, the queues are designed to entertain you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, exactly. I know you're very, like, invested in the queue things.

[Sarah Griffin]

Not love them, but interested in them, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. Tell me the cues. Q thing.

[Sarah Griffin]

The Q thing. So for anybody interested, there's a fantastic YouTube video. Jesus, what a sentence. By a dude whose channel name is Defunctland.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And he's a great channel. We'd have our full day in the parks, then we'd watch something on defunct land that night, go home and do.

[Sarah Griffin]

Our homework, you know, Go home and, you know. And he's Mickey Mousehead Pizza. And M M's very wholesome, but his. He has a video about the Fast pass, which was the ticket system that was used for years where you would pick a ticket out of a machine outside the ride that says, come back in two hours and give you a time slot to return. And you get to walk into a shorter line and you get to. It's a way of crowd management, but in order to kind of explain how that works. And that's not the system anymore. But he explains how the lines and the queuing system were designed in each park and each ride and each attraction. The queues are designed in such a way that you can't see the queue ahead of you for more than maybe five or 10 minutes. There are these intricate long systems of highly decorated thematic corridors that lead you around and around and around. That lapping queue system was invented by the Disney parks. The zigzagging back and forth and putting walls and building those queues through corridors means you can decorate them and you can take people on a kind of a narrative, you know, environmentally storytelling journey.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And if it's done really well, it really can play with your emotions in various positions. Like, I think we did. We do Tower of Terror or something.

[Sarah Griffin]

We did. No, we did. We did the Haunted Mansion.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Haunted Mansion. That's what we did. No. Yeah. We couldn't have done territory.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, hell.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That thing of, like. I remember. I mean. Yeah, the Haunted Mansion is like, it's nothing kind of thing. You, like, you walk through a mansion for a while and then the sort of walls change a bit. But I remember getting to a point where I was. I'm really nervous. Like, I'm going on a child's ride. And they've evoked something here, they have evoked something there.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like they build something into the. Into the details of each. It's set design. Do you know what I mean?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And the idea of this, the disappearing queue means you Never really. It disorients you, Right. You don't know how many people.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You see people go in, but you don't see them come out.

[Sarah Griffin]

No one. You don't see anyone coming out. And you don't see. You might read the sign and say, oh, it has a 45 minute wait. But if you want to look at what a line of people for 45 minutes looks like, no way. No fucking way. No way. No, thank you. But if it's done in such a way that you don't see the people ahead of you, your satisfaction is way higher. You're like, cool, okay. Yeah, no problem. And the video that defuntland does on it is absolutely fascinating in terms of describing the technical feat of moving people through large, large quantities of people through attractions in a way that is sane comparatively. You know, like, I have. I'm not a big cure. Like, who's a cure? You know, I'm not. I. I get. I get pretty. Pretty cranky pretty quick, you know. Yeah. But the. There. So even down to that, Even down to the way that they use your time, the waiting stints is very artfully constructed. It's thought about, you know, and there's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There's a incredible. Like. Like going back to, like, the very beginning in the parks. Like, something that's really interesting about Disney in general is how in control of its own propaganda it's always been.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, yeah, like, they're. They're storytellers, man. They're storytellers from minute one.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I think what's. What I find really fascinating is that, you know, the age of streaming that we're in, there was always this thing where, like, people like Disney who. Of the. Of the great, you know, cinema studios of the golden age of Hollywood or whatever, they're kind of the only ones who are left who are. They've only gotten bigger. Do you know what I mean? MGM and 20th century and like, they've all been eaten up or sometimes eaten by Disney itself.

[Sarah Griffin]

Mm, definitely.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But Disney always had to sort of contend with, you know, the government and like, theaters and what theaters are showing what and what will accept them. And they. But now the fact that they own their own platform and are able to, like, tell their own stories is really interesting because they are telling it in a very careful way and very impressively. So. There's a show called Imagineers, which shows the history of the parks, like, where they all began, why they all began, and the way it would, like, skip past being like Walt, who was feeling frustrated by the union strikes. Anyway.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, moving very swiftly past that chapter.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, he, you know, he had a day out with his girls, and, like, he was. His daughters. And he. Like, he went to the carousel and they bought ice cream. And he, wow. Wouldn't it be great if there was a place for families could go all day kind of thing and they wouldn't have to go from pillar to post. They would just be there all day. And then it starts. And everyone thought, like, this is crazy. And you do get swept up in the excitement of it because he brings all these people. Animators, set designers, colorists.

[Sarah Griffin]

Colorists, yeah. People who are doing the literal painting of the backgrounds. All of these visual art artists, as well as architects and engineers. Like, he gathered a squadron of people together and he called them imagineers.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, so engineers and imaginators. Yeah, exactly.

[Sarah Griffin]

There's only one woman among them. But they came together and they built it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Something that had never. Like, there's a bit in the first hour of the documentary where they're like, you know. So Walt is doing these, like, weekly television spots about, like, come to Disneyland and I have a Dream or Disneyland, blah, blah, blah. And they're still fucking making this thing doesn't exist yet. And there's like, the TV cameras are going to show up, and they're like, what are we going to show the TV cameras? And they're like, we're opening in a week. And, like, we're gonna show them us pouring cement because it's still. The blacktop is still drying. Like, the sheer. Like, I don't know, there's the skin in the game of it all. And, like, people just being pushed to the end. Like, I know it's so strange with art in general of, like, we want to create a world where people are making art in surroundings that are comfortable, where they're not afraid and all this. But we also like stakes. We need stakes.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And sometimes the stakes. In bad cases, the stakes are fear. And, like, I'm sure the stakes were fear in Disneyland during these years as well. But also the stakes were making something incredible. And, like, pushing. People being pushed past. Past what they thought was possible or what even existed. And that's still inspiring to me, even though I know it's corporate propaganda, you.

[Sarah Griffin]

Know, because you can. This is it and this is what it is.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know. You know that they're really elegantly telling you the story of the Empire.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know what it is. Right. But there will be these vignettes. There's one vignette that I find very Moving. Because I think animatronics are incredible. Right. I won't keep a room.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And when you say animatronics, what do you mean?

[Sarah Griffin]

Well, like, so I won't keep a room, but in my house, I'm not fucking into, like, there's no Alexa in my gaff. Right. Not. Not a big fan of a casual robot. I'm all good for them. And I buy animatronic. I mean, a machine that moves to impersonate love.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Mm.

[Sarah Griffin]

So the first one, I think that was, you know, that was obviously Disney. The rides are all full of animatronics. They're full of robots that look like Disney characters that repeat movements as you scroll by them in your boat or whatever, you know? Yeah. But the first ones that they built for the parks, I think, were pretty certain of this. Were birds.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. For the tiki rooms.

[Sarah Griffin]

For the tiki rooms, there's an interesting Irish Paris called Michael. There's one from each country of the.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

World, and he's called Michael.

[Sarah Griffin]

An Irish one that has a questionable accent among many questionable accents.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And you sit down in the tiki room, and you look up, and there are birds that talk, that look real even now. And then flowers from the 50s. I think they're probably tweaked, but they're the same designs. Tweaked and tweeted. Tweaked. And the flowers descend and the flowers start to sing. You know, and if you. On one hand, you're like, okay, yeah, cool thing of Lars or whatever. But if you think about the time at which they were built.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And how incredible it was that you could build a tiny machine that imitated a bird. You know, just for delight. For delight.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Not to listen to you and then sell you stuff later through your phone.

[Sarah Griffin]

No, for delight. For delight. Just for. Look at that.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Just for pleasure. You know, something we talked about in.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The west side Story episode was the sort of. The pleasure in seeing the joins of things, the pleasure in seeing how things are made. And something that's kind of adjacent to that conversation, I think, is, like, there's a phrase that people know a lot and, like, called the Uncanny Valley. Right. Which is supposed to represent when something is almost kind of human but not human enough.

[Sarah Griffin]

Makes you feel uncomfortable. Makes you don't really know why. Makes you feel uncomfortable.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. So what's like, a famous example of something in the Uncanny Valley?

[Sarah Griffin]

The. There's a lot of video games. L A Noire. That's a very specific reference.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's like the stuff in Star Wars. Right. Like orgs and stuff.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. When CGI is just almost there, you definitely get from AI You. Absolutely. That's how you know that an AI image is not a real image. Because there's something off.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Sarah Griffin]

You can't put your finger on it, and it's unsettling.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But I think that, like, the term Uncanny Valley was probably created for things like animatronics. Right. Like things that resemble life but aren't life. But now I feel like, again, it's the seeing, the joins of it all of, like, when I see, like, a robot. Like the Pirates of the Caribbean. Robots, man. Oh, my God.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I was like, I'm enchanted. This is incredible. Like, that might have been uncanny valley for somebody 20 years ago, but now what's Uncanny Valley is an app saying to me, hey, Caroline, you haven't logged your steps in a while. Hey, buddy, time to make another hair appointment. What's up? You want to go see a West End show tonight? Today? That's Uncanny Valley. That's like, don't speak to me in the human tongue.

[Sarah Griffin]

Do not speak to me in my beautiful language.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No, no, no. The phrase remains useful, but the definition has changed. Because now I'm like, show me a robot bird. That was created for my delight, I think, because they're.

[Sarah Griffin]

They're not trying to be us. They're not trying to talk to us. They're just playing their loops and their. And their. Their performances over and over into infinity. There's a boundary. There's a really hard boundary, like the frame, like the. The glass a painting is behind, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You just get to look at it, and it's not trying to take anything from you. And I think part of that is where play comes in again.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's not trying to know you. It's just trying to play with you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I think probably back then, it might have spooked people. Or Even in the 80s, it might have spooked people being like, like, what does this fucking fake pirate want for me? Or whatever. But now that I have technology that does very much want things for me to come up with. Yeah. A robot who's acting a script on a loop on infinity forever, like, super moving. That's great. I'm like, love this. Fantastic. We went on that Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride so many times, man.

[Sarah Griffin]

So good. So good, man.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I still have the magnetized photograph on my fridge of us dabbing going down the waterfall.

[Sarah Griffin]

I think it's very special. And I think that that loop, it smells a particular way. There's A musical r. Oh.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The way theme park water smells.

[Sarah Griffin]

Nothing like it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's like pool water mixed with a Juicy Fruit.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely something. There's something that they've been. People have been putting that in their mouths for years, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But there's a. There's also a huge. Again, another optical illusion element to Pirates of the Caribbean because it goes out of the parks into this huge warehouse. It's way bigger. Bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Like, it's a very. No. No wonder it's. It's. It's spawned into a series of films because it is a huge attraction. It feels. It's really thrilling. But you also kind of can't go in cynically.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yo. How a pirate looks like for me. Fine. Yeah. Cool. Let's go. You have to agree. You have to, like. All right, we're. We're in it. Like, when I took you on A Small World, I was really nervous because. I don't know. Because I feel really. As we know from having gone on it. Feel very strongly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

My God, the videos I have on my phone of you just crying. Crying and pregnant going through Small World, the most precious.

[Sarah Griffin]

Absolutely.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There are very few videos that. From phone update to phone update that I saved, but many of them tend to be of you. That's great.

[Sarah Griffin]

Between that and that and singing at you on your wedding, that's a pretty strong track record. That'll be a montage of day. But the. I was nervous bringing you onto it because it's something that means a lot to me for reasons I can't describe.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Potentially it's because it's a theme park ride I went on my mother when I was a small child.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, and famously.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right. People make fun of. Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. Because there's a song now that's some.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Culture that we love that society makes us feel ashamed of. Like, if you're seeing something satirical or gaggy about Disneyland, it's gonna. They're gonna come to Small World. Yeah. And explain what Small World is. For people who don't know.

[Sarah Griffin]

For those of you who don't know. And again, this. I. Sometimes I wonder how specific terms I'm kind of talking or if it is a thing that everyone knows about or if it's just a weird niche theme park thing that only some people. You know. I don't know how ubiquitous it really is. It's a round the world boat ride through miniature iterations of every country in the world that are represented by Tiny singing dolls in intricate costumes A song plays on a loop that mo. I think you would. If you had never. If you had no visual cues with the ride, you would know. It's a small world after all It's a small world after all It's a small world after all now, in French, it's a small. Un peu.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Peu Petit.

[Sarah Griffin]

Petit mond. I think that was it actually. Hey. Leaving through French. But I think there's a. And it repeats through the boat ride. Right. And there's lovely verse lyrics and they're very earnest and very wholesome. And it's. The story that you were, you know, boating through is that it does. We're all the same. Right. Which is so optimistic and naive.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

So it's such a beautiful idea and I find myself getting kind of moved even thinking about it because it's, it's, it's. It's such a. It's. It's so utopian and silly, the idea. But, but. And also the puppets might be kind of distressing to people because they're very simply designed. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, Ireland is absolutely represented by tiny leprechauns.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Love to see them.

[Sarah Griffin]

Love to see them, love to see them. But, you know, it's sort of a cultural studies major nightmare. You know, that's my degree. You know, I'm walking in there with that under my arm. But there's something optimistic about it that I find really Pen. Like I'm almost scared talking about that my voice is gonna break because I find it so optimistic and so true.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And it's really interesting. I'd love to get into the origins of the ride in a second because that's important too.

[Sarah Griffin]

It is, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But there's something about it because, you know, we're both grown ups and we're reasonably well read and like we know about intersectionalism and the abuse of the global south and like all these problems that we know about the world that affects the people who live in it who aren't us and who are us. But it brought me back, being on that ride to a set of like kids encyclopedias I used to have when I was a kid and I loved. And they were my sisters, so they were from the 80s and it would be, you know those books that like, they made themselves look just serious enough but just so a studious child could like really believe they were doing the real work.

[Sarah Griffin]

The DORLING Kindersleys, the DKs. I know them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Is that what they're called?

[Sarah Griffin]

They're white and they have photographs through them. I know the exact ones you're talking about.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God. I've never seen them in anyone else's house. So, like. But they were like, hard back and, like white.

[Sarah Griffin]

And they had photographs.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, each had different colored colors with the colorway. And. Yeah, and there was like, information in there that would be like, you know, here's stories from children from all around the world. And yeah, they were like, this is fucking Eivor. He is a Russian boy. He dreams of being a cosmonaut. And here is, you know. You know, some girl. Some girl from China and something insensitive about rice paddies. And it's like. It's all very like basic fables of how children like you might be living somewhere around the world. And like, are they regressive? Yes. But, like, are they trying to get at some kind of, for a small child, cosmic truth of like, listen, people are living differently to you. That's interesting, isn't it? They're wearing interesting clothes. That's interesting, isn't it? And, like, when it makes. It helps you kind of forget this thing of like, oh, yeah, if you get rid of everything, you know, now just like, it's fascinating that we're all the same. It's fascinating that we're all different. Like, it's.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, the song isn't like, if the small world isn't that weird, look at these freaks. You know what I mean? It's not. It's not that there's so much that we share, you know? And like, that's what's moving about it. When you finally reach the sort of finale of the boat ride and you have seen all of these places, there is final vignette. And, you know, you've been listening to the song for a minute now.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

For a while.

[Sarah Griffin]

For more than a minute now. You know the song by now.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And the final vignette that you pass through is everyone that you've seen before wearing their clothes that they were from their cultures.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, but they're all white gold.

[Sarah Griffin]

They're all uniform suddenly, you know.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, there.

[Sarah Griffin]

There's a sort of an angelic quality to them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, they're like, they've all died.

[Sarah Griffin]

They've all died. And then they take two coins from you for the ferryman, and maybe you die.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You die. You cross the river six into.

[Sarah Griffin]

But. But there is this moment at the end where the lyrics start to get. They start to hit. You know, you're like, oh, my God. Every. They're not meant to be dead. They're all meant to be in their fancy clothes say goodbye to you because you hit the end of the ride.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And it's this sort of reiteration of the theme that everyone is. Everyone is the same. There is so much here that we share, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, we're all under the same sky. You know what I mean? We're all the same, even though we're all different. You know, it's very hard to describe visually without being like. And then we put them all in identical, matching white clothes, and then they're all equal. It's not like that. You know, you have to, again, meet me where we are in this.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Meet me where we are. Yeah. Forget everything you know about everything, you know, like, there's something living, the childlike optimism of, like, maybe I'll visit every country one day. You know, it's like that feeling that you got when you were six with your encyclopedias.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, you're like, man, the world is really big, but there are other children like me out there. There are other people exactly like me out there. You know what I mean? And there's a. There's just something very hard to describe about it because it is deeply, profoundly, and aggressively tweet. Like, I'm not coming at this with any. I'm not trying to convert anybody here. Do you know what I mean? But I'm also well aware of its problems, but I also find it profoundly sentimental.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

I think it is very. I think it's very hopeful, and it has a very strong. I think if we don't have that, we're fucked, man. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're really fucked if you don't have a bit of hope about everyone in the world being the same as each other and equal to each other. Do you know what I mean?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You are fucked.

[Sarah Griffin]

You're so.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You're so fucked.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, come on. You're actually fucked. We're done if we can't go.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

This is the last episode of the season, of this season of sentimental garbage. We're taking a break for a while, but I'll see you guys in May. But I really do feel like we've hit bedrock on sentimentality. It's a Small World. Like, oh, we've struck gold. We finally dug deep enough. We're weeping openly about Small World and.

[Sarah Griffin]

More and more with more heart. The person who visually designed Small World is a woman called Mary Blair. And there's so little of the footprint in that big story about Walt Disney and Roy Disney and the, you know, the nine old men and the men who made the. Whatever.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

There were women. For a long time, Uncle Walt did not allow women to be animators. That was it. They just weren't allowed to be animators.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And it took a few exceptional background artists and color artists to be noticed among the men. Yeah. Like. Yeah, we're talking about a very, like, obviously regressive and shitty time in history towards women.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

So there's no. There's no way of denying that this was part of that. It wasn't suddenly like a feminist haven. Disney animation company. But Mary Blair was among the colorists who. You know, if you have seen the classic Disney films, you act. You do know her work. You know, if you've seen Alice in Wonderland, you know her work. If you've seen Peter Pan, you know her work, her Cinderella, she. All the impressionistic stuff that you see in the backgrounds, the way the light changes, the way the color changes, that is Mary Blair. There's a really distinct visual style. Pastels and deep blacks.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And once you Google it, once you look into her a bit, you'll see this thread that has been there your whole life. And that one woman was shaping like it's really beautiful.

[Sarah Griffin]

One woman the whole time.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's like that classic storybook kind of look, but with something else shot through, something darker and odd.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's also hopeful and lovely.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, such surprising visual work.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, it's.

[Sarah Griffin]

So I was watching a miniature documentary about her on YouTube yesterday, and one of the big Pixar lads said she was like Matisse. As good as Matisse. Matisse with color, you know, and that's. Well, going back to what we talked about in the beginning about everything is set up. Color with the color that you were looking at at every moment is trying to evoke a sense of escape, a sense of disappearing, a sense of play. Like it's. It's drawn there for you. They're showing you a beautiful picture and walking you through a beautiful picture. And Mary Blair's colours are part of an intricate part of that. And the exterior of the Ride of the Small World is a clock and some castle turrets, and there are squares and triangles and there's a very particular kind of abstract look to it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's really timeless.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's really special. It's really also deeply in congress with the rest of the park. There's nothing else that looks like. It's a small world. The small world looks like itself. You know, there's also. It's a. It's a ride that's in all the. It's in all the parks in different iterations. So her work has been erected again and again. They've never changed what it looks like. They've obviously updated some aspects of it. But the particular look of the dolls, that's her. There was a woman who designed every single costume and made every single costume.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There's a great little bit in the Imagineers documentary where this costumer lady said to Walt, she was like, what's my budget per outfit? And he said, I want every single outfit to be something a grown woman would want in her closet. And just tell me the money and I'll get it for you.

[Sarah Griffin]

And she handmade. She hand dressed those dolls. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, that's astonishing. And between herself, Mary Blair, There's a guy called Roly Crump who is like the engineer.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Rolly Crump.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. He was an absolute slice when he was younger and now he's like this kind of cool old dude with big glasses. He's really. His contributions to the documentary.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

He is, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. There's a different set of documentaries that you can watch, propaganda documentaries about each ride. There's one that covers every single ride across the parks, and it's called behind the Attraction. And he talks a lot about them because he would have been an engineer and an architect, a builder of them. So him and Mary Blair were the ones behind.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

The architecture of it. Stunning and deeply, deeply moving to me for reasons that I find very tough, very hard to put my finger on. That within this one man's great vision.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

There are many, many smaller people, Smaller visions that are important.

[Sarah Griffin]

And many women with paintbrushes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And sewing needles, you know. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. Picture this. You're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom, you realize you're missing a part. It's okay because, you know, whatever it is, it's on ebay. They've got everything. Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes. Whatever you need. And it's guaranteed to fit. Which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. EBay. Things people love.

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[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So Mary Blair did a lot of the work On Dumbo. And there is a scene in Dumbo. I don't watch Dumbo. I think it's too sad and weird.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's another one on the no list.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's another one. It's like, no, skip right to Sword.

[Sarah Griffin]

In Stone if you're gonna do the vintage stuff.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's not sad the way up is sad. It's sad the way war is sad.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know what I mean? Like, it's very. It's very cruel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, it's cruel movies trying to te.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's like Pinocchio, man. It's trying to teach some kids some things. And I don't.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I don't fuck with Pinocchio either.

[Sarah Griffin]

No way.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No way. No, Jose, man. No.

[Sarah Griffin]

No.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Thanks, man. But there's a scene where Dumbo's mother's been taken away.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And her trunk goes out through the bars and, like, cuddles him. And I only found out recently that Mary Blair was somebody who suffered from pregnancy loss a lot. And something that Sarah Marshall says that she animated that scene. And she said because, like, what's a miscarriage but a baby you only knew for a little while? And, like, you can see it in that frame. It's so beautiful. And then, like. I hope you don't mind me saying this. We were like. The whole time we were there, like, I didn't know who Mary Blair was before we went on. Oh, my God.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yes. This is actually incredible. Right? This is a beautiful act of. This is the universe tilting on the side, right?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. So I didn't know who the fuck she was. You were telling me all these facts about her. You were getting up stuff on your phone. We were watching stuff about her on YouTube.

[Sarah Griffin]

We watched. We watched sleeping. We watched Cinderella.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Don't say we watched Sleeping Beauty, because that was one of her big works. Yeah. We watched Sleeping Beauty together. I became obsessed with her because, like, who isn't obsessed with a great woman in history who didn't get her due, but kind of is now? And we bought the Mary Blair ears in Disneyland, which are the small World ears, and I still have them in my cupboard of home. And you had your little baby inside you, and we were talking about her the whole time, and we were buying her things, and we were talking about what your little baby's life is going to be like. And then she was born in October, and we found out a little while afterwards that she was born on Mary Blair's birthday.

[Sarah Griffin]

And the even stranger thing is, she was not meant to be born then.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No, no, no, no. She Was way too soon.

[Sarah Griffin]

She was way too soon. But still, the way the world works, it was. It was really, really special. She's very lucky that her name is not Mary Blair like it was.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I wish her name.

[Sarah Griffin]

I love her name, but I wish.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Her name was Mary Blair.

[Sarah Griffin]

If I found it out a little later, you never know. But I feel like it's pretty. That's pretty wild. Calling a baby Mary in 2025 in Ireland. I love that. Bring it back. Bring it back. You know? Yeah, it was.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We just had this conversation last week on the pod, actually, about how cute it would be if someone was called Mary, who's a kid now, but, like a Gen Xer called Mary is weird.

[Sarah Griffin]

Bring it back. Bring it back, man.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Well, you missed your shot, Sarah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Too late. You gave her another beautiful night instead. We also watched the fireworks. I think the big weeper for us.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Was that we watched the fireworks display. And I, you know, fireworks for me are great in context. I have a rescue dog, man. Fireworks are a bit of a fiasco in my house. That's an upset. Silver's too thick. Oh.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She just like lifts her head. She's like, oh, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Lucky Silver. Poor Earl Weaver doesn't enjoy them. And I would love to be the kind of person who's like, all fireworks are terrible. I'm very moralistic about them. I'm not. I like them in context. There's a lot of things I like in context. I find them incredibly moving, generally speaking, because they are bright, colorful explosions in the sky. I'm a pretty simple animal, you know, beautiful shapes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

People think they're better than fireworks and they're not.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, that's a lovely thing to see.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And the way those light shows are executed over the castle.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So someone who's not. Have not. Not been there before, explain exactly what happens from like 5 o'clock onwards.

[Sarah Griffin]

5 o'clock lights are down. You get a parade through this morning parade and the evening parade. And the evening parade is all bright colored floats full of lights. They're really quite abstract, many of them. And after that, you have a fireworks display around the castle to frame the castle. There's a drone show now as well. And there are lights projected onto the castle showing vignettes from films and different music as well. With music. So it's a huge sensory thing happening in front of you. It's very, very moving. And I did not expect. So the Disneyland Paris was opened in the 90s, so all of their big bits are real 90s. Chip and Dale are everywhere.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

They Are everywhere.

[Sarah Griffin]

Inexplicably.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because they're kind of 90s. The Lion King is a very big returning theme. There's a whole. There's a whole Aladdin zone. You know, it's all very.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Which I'm thrilled about because those are. That's. That's my childhood, man. Lion King and Aladdin. They were our two. Worn out, like VHS's Aladdin big time.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, we've talked. We've talked about Aladdin. I think before when we were talking about Spirited Away and Juvenile, we got into it about Aladdin. And it's so. It's lovely. It has a kind of a 90s feel. Like the one in California is the original park. It's smaller. The one in Florida is so big that it would give you a nosebleed. The two in Japan and Disneyland and disneysea are different again. There's different iterations on the space, but the Paris one is really 90s. So the way that the evening show unfolds is referring to all the movies of the 90s. And of course, we open in on the Lion King, the circle of life. And we are standing there next to a pole.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And I am so pregnant.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And I. Again, not lying. King girlie. Too much. Too much children being left alone in the wilderness. Just not. Not it for me. But was absolutely taken to pieces.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It felt very profound.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It was one of the most profound.

[Sarah Griffin]

It is the circle of life.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It is the wheel of fortune. You know, there's a. There's something. Something happens in the. You're being blasted with emotional.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Blasted with sentiment. It was crazy. It was one of the craziest moments of my summer. And it was crazy summer for me of like. Like, I just. Everyone. If you think I don't. I'm not sure how this is coming across to a listener, but, like, just imagine one of your dearest friends is so pregnant and you're away with her. And, like, the sun has gone down and it's slightly chilly and you're in the special zone for pregnant ladies and disabled people and, like, everyone who needs a special area to see because it's hard. And, like, everyone has just been waiting there for ages for this. And then all you can hear is the circle of life and the sky fills with lights. And then you've also, weirdly, went off on a French guy for not taking the needs of your fake pregnant wife seriously. So you're still kind of in that headspace.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's also 30 degrees.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's so Hot.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It is so hot. It's so hot. So you're mentally in the space where you're married to the woman next to you, and I just, like, draped my arms around your belly and we just.

[Sarah Griffin]

Swayed for a while.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Weeping.

[Sarah Griffin]

The kind of crying that I was doing is the kind of crying I've only ever done a couple of times in my life. Which is the one where your chest heaves.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

If anybody else had been standing as close to me as you were, they would have heard it. Yeah, it was pretty serious. And also kind of laughing because it's so silly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's so silly to be. It was so dumb. We couldn't believe how dumb we were being and how much that knowing that we were being dumb was not curtailing further crying.

[Sarah Griffin]

No, just let it. Just letting it wash over you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So stupid.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, that's your. That's your free basing sentimentality.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Free basing is the most sentimental that you can get.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Built around your upper arm right there.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like, that is the most. And it's gorgeous. Because it's silly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because again, you're engaging in an act of play.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. It's so dumb. But it's also, I think, for me, because I wasn't the pregnant one. Right. I was just like, I felt very much, as you said a minute ago at the. Like, I was like, seeing you off into the next chapter of your life and.

[Sarah Griffin]

The edge of the portal.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The edge of the portal, exactly. And I really felt like, oh, I'm just so lucky I get to share this moment with someone I care about so much. And then I kind of realized, like, oh, that's what this park is built on, is that you. They literally, they are creating, like, moments that you will hopefully cherish forever. Bracket, open bracket. And then come back again and spend more money. Close bracket.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. To the tune of 60,000. But I think it's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But it's a no thing to want money for. Like, there are so much worse things I spend money on.

[Sarah Griffin]

There are worse things that I have had money taken from me or spent money on. All the same, I think when we talk about moment moments of the capital M and experiences with a capital E, which is what they're selling us, the way that they're doing it is that they kind of are casting what they have through the prism of your experience. They didn't. Like, there's plenty of pregnant women walking around the park. I saw them. Because, yeah, you get a radar. You get a sense, you know, you're like other pregos. What's up. It's like when you're driving a boogie. No one can see you pushing your boogie except the other women pushing boogies. You give each other the look that. I know you where you were 4:00am Look. You know, there's sort of a. Like you kind of.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You've crossed over.

[Sarah Griffin]

You're sore too, you know. Yeah, there's lots and there's lots of different kinds of people in this densely packed park. People who do spend 200 grand over their lifetime or more and more. People who are. Who are on. Who are on the Disney shit year in, year out. It is a yearly destination vacation every year forever, and has been since their childhoods. And there's people who get to go once and there's people who decorate their life occasionally with a silly excursion like I do. It's all different grades of participants. Right. It doesn't really matter who you are in there, you know, that light hits you the same way, you know, so no matter where you are in your life, like, I was there on my. On the night I got married.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Which we did as a kind of a joke. I am. Which is funny because I'm talking about all this on a podcast, which might belie something different. I don't really tell many people I was pregnant. It was so funny to be talking. I know. I'm kind of glad we're talking. We're having this recording now that I'm.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Kind of gotta feel because this happened in July.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. I was still. I didn't tell anyone I was pregnant for, I mean, long, until it was.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You didn't tell anyone you were. You were. Had a baby until she was two months old.

[Sarah Griffin]

I was pretty.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Your inner circle, like, which I thought was fucking.

[Sarah Griffin]

Unless you saw me. You didn't know. Like, that was my rule. Like. And so again, funny that I'm talking about it here. So I recognize there's a kind of a. Yeah, I know I'm talking on a podcast, but I also didn't tell anyone I got married for a year back when I got married 11 years ago, when I was a child myself getting married. But we said, ah, wouldn't it be funny we lived in California at the time. Like, sure, fuck it. We don't have that much money. But like, we have. Let's go to Disneyland for two nights. You know, like, obviously we got married in City hall in San Francisco and we went down to Disneyland for two nights or three nights. It was in a very, very short period of time. And we turned around and we went back and it was lovely because, again, no one we knew, really knew we'd got married. And the night that we got there, we. I was wearing a modcloth dress for anybody else. Wow.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That does that. Time stamps the story. All right.

[Sarah Griffin]

Holy hell. And we got a fast pass for Space Mountain. And we got on the ride later on in the evening. And Space Mountain broke down as we were sitting on it. Kerry in his suit and me and my cloth seafoam green dress. And all the lights went on. And Space Mountain is a very fast thrill ride that happens indoors. So you get the feeling of barreling through space.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's so good.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's so cool. And the walk in the line is very sort of hopeful 90s or 70s futurism. Like, it's. It's very. It's a lot of fun. It's my favorite ride. And the ride broke down when we were on it, and I was like, for f sake. And this is just before you're very comfortable taking selfies. It's 2013. So I think one picture of the two of us, and in the background, all you can see is this machine.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

This intricate, complicated machine that people strap themselves into and say, okay, let's go. Off we fucking go. But you're never meant to see it because it's all in the dark. And we were sitting there at this angle, tilted in our roller coaster car, looking.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

On your wedding day.

[Sarah Griffin]

On our wedding night. On our wedding night.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Fucking hell.

[Sarah Griffin]

Locked into this broken roller coaster and able to suddenly see the machine under the skies. It'd be like taking all the feathers off of a bird in the tiki room. Seeing that it was tiny, strange, the.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Blinking lights and the girders and things.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's a machine.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's an elegantly constructed machine. And then, so almost kind of as suddenly as we stopped, it launched us off again to the end. And we got to see the whole thing lit up. We got to see it as it shouldn't be seen. We got to see what it was really made up.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Wow.

[Sarah Griffin]

And they brought us around again in the dark, almost as a bit of mea culpa for being like, whoop, didn't mean to show you that. And I think about that when I go back. I think about that without marriage on one hand.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

About having a baby.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

I think that.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So seeing what stuff is really made of.

[Sarah Griffin]

Seeing what shit is really made of and still enjoying it anyway.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know what I'm saying?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Fuck.

[Sarah Griffin]

I know this is a machine.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I know.

[Sarah Griffin]

I am strapped into a fast moving cart and being rattled around and being spat out the other end. And you've just told me I've been through. I know, I know. That all of this is a great corporate fable of the dream of one American man. I know, I know. But let me take my hands off the bars.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Let me just go real fast, you know, Let me play for it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Enjoying it the fuck, anyway.

[Sarah Griffin]

Give us a boom.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But that's how I watch you go through everything. That's how I watch you go through this. Go through this, baby. I know you're new to being a man, like, but very new. You're four months in or whatever, but, like, I remember you saying to me that this is so unrelated. But like, I remember I was. I was telling. Because you're my only friend who's a. Who's a novelist as well, a close friend who's a novelist and a man. And I'm like, man, you got to be my, like, canary in the coma. And you got to tell me what it's like down there. And I got a voicemail off you the other day, and you just said, find it. I'm finding diamonds in the coal mine. I think it's diamond mine.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yes. Like, I think if you look hard.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Enough, you know, and, yeah, it's just.

[Sarah Griffin]

That's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's just a. It's just a privilege to watch anyone you love become a mum, you know, like, that's all. That's you. That's unrelated, but that's all. But that's.

[Sarah Griffin]

But that's the circle of life thing, right? That, like, that beautiful thing where you're.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's why we were crying, you guys.

[Sarah Griffin]

That's. That you what. What luck to get to go through it. And what luck to get to go to strange, unusual, and cleverly built places and look at them and to be able to pause and go, isn't this cool? And to have retained somehow optimism, you know? Yeah. I was super heavily pregnant. I had mad pelvic girdle pain. Like, I was in. I was roasting. But I was so happy because if you just let yourself enjoy things.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And I think that this is what. When you see a lot of cultural pushback against how cringe Disney adults are. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We should talk about them.

[Sarah Griffin]

We should probably chat about them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right? Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

How's it going? I'm sure there's many of you around, like, okay, first, Caroline, as you know, I'm a hater. You're a hater. I will be a hater. Right.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, some toxic bile inside that woman over there. Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

I love to be mad.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh my God.

[Sarah Griffin]

Right. I love to be a hater. Right. I also contain multitudes and do believe you should let people enjoy things, you know, And I think when I see the passion, I guess, of the Disney adults, obviously everyone goes to the parks and repeatedly or collects or is into it for a different reason, they're fulfilling something different. I think it's bringing you pleasure and it's not causing harm. Sure, it can be criticized, but I think there's a lot worse things to be in this world. And I think I find it almost sometimes when I'm listening to their content or like examining the Disney adults, examining them. Kind of churchy, right? It's got a sense of kind of worship. I get that. I see that. I see why, you know.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's pure escape. You know, I, I understand why they go and why they get it. Like I, I get it. You know, I might not be exactly one of them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But I definitely see that they're looking for something and that they're looking to play somewhere.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, but like that's. That is the dream of all fantasy storytelling. Right. And that's what. And what being a Disney adult is. And I'm saying, you know, I feel very curious about it. Like in general, like that thing of you're looking to lose yourself and Disney is the most expansive thing that you could do that in, do you mean?

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, absolutely. So much. There's something there.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And like, yeah, you can pick apart, you know, the problems it's had over the years and the problems that various stories have. But in general, it's. It's like those stories are not trying to hurt you, you know, they're trying to inspire you or whatever.

[Sarah Griffin]

And are they trying to give you a fucking break?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And this is how I feel very strongly about, like, leave Disney princesses alone.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, give the girls a break.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Give the girls a break. I just think that there was this real movement that started a while ago. Like that's. And I under. Obviously I'm. I understand why the thing of like not wanting to, you know, shove a certain form of femininity down into girls throats or whatever and blah. We all know what I'm talking about, right. And like, but. And then I remember a friend of mine who is a mother said to me, like, equality across child genders isn't necessarily always giving a girl a toolbox. Sometimes it's giving a boy a tutu. Do you mean? And I like. I don't know, people who like, sort of boil down the Disney princess thing to like, oh, it's all about being saved or whatever. Aren't paying attention. And like, also just like, give the girls a bit of glam.

[Sarah Griffin]

Let them be glam.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, I remember when we were watching one of the parades one day and we saw all the princesses.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, it was so funny.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Dancers doing a single synchronized dad.

[Sarah Griffin]

That was. We had just walked in.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We had our first time walking in one.

[Sarah Griffin]

We walked in on the parade and the pair of us suddenly screaming as though these are our oldest friends on the floor.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

They kind of are.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

They kind of are.

[Sarah Griffin]

I know her. I've known her for a long time. I had this. I was in Universal in Tokyo and saw some fucking life size Pokemon. Bigger than I saw some Pokemon, man.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Had a hard time keeping my together.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, I wouldn't have blamed.

[Sarah Griffin]

Me and Carrie were like, I know him.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I know that guy. That's Pikachu. That's my friend.

[Sarah Griffin]

I'm not. That's my friend.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's my friend.

[Sarah Griffin]

I chose him on purpose. I chose him. He came with me all the way to the top. You know, like, that's incredibly, again, moving or something.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I really respect that character work that people do. And something else I really respect, which is the kind of the blend between character work and Disney adults, which is something you taught me. Again, you helped me a lot. Disney bounding. Explain Disney bounding to our listeners.

[Sarah Griffin]

We saw a family walking through the park.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

The mother was dressed in a blue dress with a blue bow. The father was dressed in green trousers and a green top with a little hat. And the baby was dressed as Tinkerbell.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And they were in their casual clothes because one of the rules, the big rules of Disney.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Which I didn't know before entering Disney.

[Sarah Griffin]

Don't come in costume.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. You can come in costume because if you were mistaken for a cast member by a child, that puts you in safeguarding issues.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yes, basically. Among other things. But that's kind of there, right?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's kind of the main reason. Right.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. And except at Halloween, everyone can dress up at Halloween. Aww.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Fun.

[Sarah Griffin]

I've never been at Halloween. It sounds very sweet. But what people do instead is they dress in day clothes that correspond to the colors. So go back to color again of their favorite characters or who they want to look like that day. Like if you're dressing up as Winnie the Pooh, you might wear a yellow skirt and A red shirt, yellow hat, and carry a purse that looks like a pot of honey or something. Yeah, there's little. There's a huge, huge online community, but.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Again, very much a form of play and a form of, like, recognizing other people who want to play. And, like, I remember I threw up a picture on Instagram when we were there, and I was wearing a red and white spotted dress that I wear basically every day of summertime. And somebody messaged me being like, oh, you're Disney bounding Minnie. And they're like, oh, I'm playing the Glee. I felt of being like, I'm playing, too. I'm in the game as well.

[Sarah Griffin]

Lovely. You know, rather than being like, oh, no, I'm not. Like, that's it. You're like, yeah, sure, I'm playing, too. Sure I am. Absolutely. I am. I have a little pair of ears that I got when I was in one of the parks that are, like, little burgers that are also Mickey Mouse hands.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Nice.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, I love a little headband. I love a little, like, a participation thing, you know? Like, it's nice. It's cozy. You know, there's something warming to me about it being like, all right, we're all here together. We're all playing together. Yeah, I'll wear a silly hairband. Carrie always gets one as well, you know, like, Carrie's your husband.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Sorry.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yes, Carrie's my husband. There's. I think that that level. And noticing that family dressed as the small cast of Peter Pan was incredibly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Moving, I imagine, because you were, like, thinking about. Because you and Carrie go to theme park slot together thinking, like, oh, wow, we could be Peter and Wendy and Tink one day or something, you know.

[Sarah Griffin]

Dragging a tiny squish along with. You know what I mean? Lucky us. Like, that's awesome. You know, and that would be a very different experience, but, you know, cool.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I think.

[Sarah Griffin]

Let's go, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

It won't be us walking around having, like, glasses of wine or sitting in Ariel's Cove Cove bar knocking back daiquiris. You know, like, there are some parks you can drink in, some parks you can't drink in. There's a park in Florida called Epcot, which is my favorite park. And the main attraction at Epcot is a miniature, again, depiction of the world. There's maybe nine countries or 12 countries. 12 countries of the world that are pavilions. They're called.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

So you start around a giant lake behind the ball. The balls. The ball's up front. And you. There's like, a small Mexico A small Germany, a small Japan, a small Norway, which now has a frozen ride. You know, there's all these stops around the world. There's also bars in all of them. So there's a huge culture of drink around the world in Epcot. Like, Epcot is the sesh park. Epcot is not meant to be the sesh park, but it turned out that way. Like, there's plenty of messing to be had, you know, I've got my favorite one because I find one of my earliest memories really, is looking at that ball as a small child and thinking, wow, big things are cool, you know, monuments, you know, being impressed by something strange. You don't really see giant domes often in the world. Do you know what I mean?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Whatever happened to giant dome?

[Sarah Griffin]

Love to be impressed by shape, you know, but there are lots of different ways to go to the parks. Like, we did, like, two gals knocking around an artisanal European city while one of us is knocked up and tired. There's. Let's go roller coaster the living shit out of it, you know? Arms up.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The time that I had gone to Disneyland Paris before I went with you was when I was 22. I had been living in London just under a year, and my ex boyfriend, my favorite ex boyfriend, whose name is Chris, and I hope somebody passes on that. I mentioned him on the podcast because we haven't spoken in years, but I think very fondly of him. I was doing a horrible job in recruitment that made me cry. Every Monday. Every Monday I would go around his house. Didn't live with him yet. Went around his house and I would just bawl my eyes out about how miserable this job. I remember I was ripping on my eyebrow hair and it took years for it to, like, grow back properly. It was like on the edge of a truly mental health time that would have been very hard to get back from if I hadn't been pulled away from it good. And he pulled me away from it. And I'll love him forever. Some part of my heart will love him forever because of that. And he said, you gotta quit your job. And I said, I can't quit my job. I can't afford to quit my job. And he was like, quit your job and you can stay with me for a while and you won't have to pay your rent. I was like, I can't do that. I can't live off you. I don't know you well enough for that. Or whatever. He's like, quit your job. Stay here for a while and I'll take You to Disneyland Paris. I was like, okay.

[Sarah Griffin]

Did you say so?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You say so. And then I quit my job and I got to go to Disneyland.

[Sarah Griffin]

That is top, top boyfriend.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, man.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, that's sweetheart activity.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Good on sweetheart activity. So nice. And it was the first time I'd ever been to a theme park because as I said many times in this podcast, I'm the youngest of four and once you have a family of six, you are not unless you are like Elon Musk money. And even he's not taking his kids anywhere unless.

[Sarah Griffin]

Unless the CEO has just been my mom. The reason that we got to go was cuz my mom is super into Disney. My mom did get to go to the parks when she was a kid, but only two of her siblings were able to go, her and her sister and the other two had to stay at home. I think it was something to do with her dad's job had bought them. Like there was somebody won something. It was very much circumstances Ireland. They were the first house on their street to have a television. I will say that. You know what I'm saying? But you know, it was definitely. Yeah, they had to leave two of the kids behind. Do you know what I mean? This isn't a really big glam set.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like Sophie's choices were made.

[Sarah Griffin]

But my, my mom was obviously deeply changed by it. So she got to bring me as a six year old and then again when I was 19.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, like that was very, like those are big gap. This is not like we went every year. Do you know what I mean?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But it is special. It is special when you're sort of around that 19, 20 age. It is very exciting.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because you do get to go on a bunch of roller coasters.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because I had been to like what we would call in Ireland the Merrys. So I'm sure like English listeners will have, you know, gone to like Thorpe park or Alton Towers or all these butlands and like that doesn't really exist here.

[Sarah Griffin]

Not the same way.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No. So if anyone's wondering why my accent is particularly strong at the moment, that usually is because I'm in Dublin right.

[Sarah Griffin]

Now with Sarah talking to an Irish person.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But like what we had in Cork was Funderland, which.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, comes every winter.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd roll into town and like I was never allowed to go to until I was about 14 because I'm always like, it's too rough, it's too rough.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, you definitely go with an agnider bag. Yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, no, I love nerdy.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes, as well. There would always be a story every year. It was like Cork's Notting Hill Carnival. Do you know what I mean? It was like there was a story every year of someone dying or whatever. So I was never not going to that. Or there would just be the Marys and that would just be like in some field in your village or whatever. And it'd be like a fucking pop up carousel. Pop up? Yeah, kind of thing. An Irving's Carnival sort of thing. So I'd never been to a proper. I never felt the urge because I thought that a theme park was just a big version of the Mary's. Do you know what I mean? And it's like I didn't. I didn't love the Mary's.

[Sarah Griffin]

So why would you do this?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Why would you do that?

[Sarah Griffin]

Why would I do this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So to go at 20 on my first ever roller coaster, having just quit my first horrible job, is to taste a freedom that I might never know again.

[Sarah Griffin]

To replicate that high, you know, that's just.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's unbelievable.

[Sarah Griffin]

There you go. There's a moment in every park for every junction.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Exactly.

[Sarah Griffin]

For different thrills and different points. So should the time come, if I am lucky enough to go again where I'm toting along a kid, it'll be.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Different, It'll be harder.

[Sarah Griffin]

It'll be centered around her experience, not mine. You know, you're bringing the magic to somebody smaller. I've seen it. I'm good. I'm trying to dictate the prism towards her, you know, so I won't be able to go to the bar and have four daiquiris and be like, ew. You know what I mean? I'll actually have to stand in line to meet a fake character that feels kind of like, hello, actor doing their job. You know, that's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, I tell you what else makes me cry is kids meeting their favorite characters.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, boy.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So I went to. During my honeymoon, we popped into Universal Studios, which again, I've only been to Disneyland Paris and to Universal and to go from one to the other and you know, this episode is called Theme Parks, not Disneyland.

[Sarah Griffin]

That's true.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. So we should probably.

[Sarah Griffin]

Universal is different.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's different and like there's magic to be had there. And like a big emotional moment I felt was watching a little girl meet Princess Peach in the Nintendo Land. So I was like, that's the most moving thing I've ever seen.

[Sarah Griffin]

When we went to the Nintendo Land in Japan, we. I recognize I'm like, those are. I have had lots of theme park experiences over there. That's why I'm talking about it. Yeah. Also, I think about it all the time, and I would love to go back. And it was the best trip I've ever been on in my life. We saw Toad. I mean, Carrie were. We were just like, do you think we could eat him?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know what I mean?

[Sarah Griffin]

So different from being like, I'm going to offer my child to this beautiful.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Character and have a moment.

[Sarah Griffin]

We're like, do you think people eat toads? Eat mushrooms in the mushroom kingdom. Eat the toads. Would you eat a toad? Do you eat Yoshi? I. I would eat a toad, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I'd eat the toad.

[Sarah Griffin]

I'm not sure I'd eat a Yoshi. I think Yoshi's a horse, but I don't. I don't think I'd do that, but I think I'd eat a toad.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I'd eat a goomba.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, 100% would eat a Goomba.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No. Pan fried.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Oh, delicious.

[Sarah Griffin]

Absolutely. There's loads of things. So that's where we were with this.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, minced with some garlic.

[Sarah Griffin]

My God. We queued. We queued from seven in the morning to get into that park.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Wow. What time did you get in?

[Sarah Griffin]

The. The. This is. Because this is before the American.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I've heard this. Japanese parks are, like, pretty crazy with.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. The. You can't just walk into the stores in the Disney parks. There's queues to get into the parks. The stores. Stores have very limited numbers of the objects. It's very, very different in terms of the organization of how you move around. The Nintendo park does close. It hits capacity at a certain point, so you can't. So we got in there. Crack it on. I got to look at it empty, which was pretty astonishing and very moving. You know, it was like, oh, wow. This is what it would look like now when you're queuing up for the two rides. Only two rides.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

The lining experience sucks. You know, like, it's not Disney. They're not doing that chemical thing.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But it makes you understand that, like, when you're in a Disneyland, it's like, oh, they're doing, like, a way that I was described by one of the imagineers in the documentary is they want you to experience the park like a movie, and your body is the camera. So they are like what you're seeing when you're seeing it, the way certain landmarks are, the distance they are from you, the force perspective, the. What you're hearing what you're smelling, it's all thought of and like again, like that you go into Universal, great in its own way. Gas in its own way. It's like, it's, it is a post investor environment of like they are cut, they're cutting the margins and like you see mess and you see, you know, staff only doors, which you'll never see in Disneyland or whatever.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, there's no, there's no effort to erect a completely. You know, you're walking into something false. There's not a lot of that sense of escapism that you get in Universal. Like it's a theme park. It's not a experience.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. Well, we had that experience when we were in Disneyland of like, I think it was.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, we went to the. We went to the.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We couldn't find tampons. Oh, yeah, we couldn't because I, I was on the rag.

[Sarah Griffin]

We walked into the, the sort of back rooms of Disney. We went.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. I was looking for a shop that just sold tampons and they were like, oh, no, we don't sell them, but you can get them from like the sort of medic office. And we're like, oh, okay. And then we were like pointed down these buildings that were not hidden, but they might as well have been because.

[Sarah Griffin]

I glaze over them.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And that's incredible to me.

[Sarah Griffin]

Amazing design.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's like, what else is happening to me? Who is spying me on me or stalking me that I don't know about because of their visual tricks. Like, it was just like a green building that you would have. It had to be physically pointed out to me for me to see it.

[Sarah Griffin]

Would never have seen it. Would never have noticed it. Incredible.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And we went inside and they let us sit down in a cool room.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because, yeah, they saw your belly and.

[Sarah Griffin]

They were like, right this way.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I was like, we're just here for tampons. They're like, shush, shush. Sit down right here, big lady.

[Sarah Griffin]

Don't worry. You look very tired, but thank you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's 30 degrees, it's very hot.

[Sarah Griffin]

But then we were somewhere we shouldn't be. You know, we were in this sort of outskirts of the park somewhere. Very convenient, very clean, very helpful, very useful, you know, very good. But also there are these little pockets. There's no. But also there's always people around you can ask for help, you know, Whereas in Universal you can see exactly how it's made. The lights are on a space mountain all day there.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, there's they're not trying to build an illusion for you.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Whereas the park itself of Disney is an illusion. It is a painting. You know, there's a YouTuber whose first name is Jenny, whose name has gone out of my head, but she has a four hour. That's actually bananas to say out loud. Video about her experience at Disney's failed Star wars hotel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes. So failed Nichols, failed theme parks are a fascinating subgenre of their own because they.

[Sarah Griffin]

Because you swing for the big ones with them and that's a lot of money.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no way to build a cheap theme park. Like, it's not a safe one. It's either really expensive and it succeeds or it's really expensive, it fails. Like, there's no like doing anything cheap.

[Sarah Griffin]

Disney and Lucas are obviously in bed big time. Like there's a Galaxy's Edge kind of zone in Disneyland in the States that we went to. And it's very impressive. I'm not a big, big Star wars girly, but it does genuinely feel like being on a different planet. Like if you're not again, if you're not impressed by the architecture alone. Something up here, you know. But this Jenny Nichols has a video about going to the Star wars hotel which was Disney's attempt at doing a kind of a multi day long immersive theater experience for nosebleed money. And it was terrible. It failed. And it failed. And it failed. And her exploration of how influencing around Disney works and how this experience did not function and how frustrating it was at every turn is very. It's very good criticism of the space. It's very good criticism of when she's talking about how seating beds, how a hotel works and how a immersive theater experience works and how everything fails. It is. Oh, it's fascinating because when it doesn't work, man, you're kind of uncomfortable. And.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And that's the invoking of right.

[Sarah Griffin]

Of like this isn't right.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

If enough things aren't right in a row that are very small and that you may not be consciously perceiving but you're subconsciously perceiving on some way, then it just like at some point your, your body which is adult and wants to say no to things.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like says no. And then you don't get that yes. Back after you get that no. And I mean, I watched the documentary about. On that defunctland channel that you turned me onto about the failed Nickelodeon theme park and there were many reasons why that failed. Which is crazy when you think of the Stranglehold Nickelodeon had on the 90s.

[Sarah Griffin]

Entire generation. Yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Entire generation, yeah. Two generations. Many more. And one of it being, like, they got the character work wrong. So it would be that kind of thing of, you know, like. Like nothing was bigger than Spongebob in the late 90s. And, like, they had Spongebob there, but, like, because of the way they designed the outfits, like, the expressions never changed and it was just weird.

[Sarah Griffin]

It could look cheap or frightening or both, and that is not what you want. I find I'm kind of neutral towards car. I mean, I'm not going.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But I can see when it's been done well.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, God. And, yeah, when it's done well, it's so delightful and funny and silly. You know, when I went there, when we were in Disney Tokyo in 2020, just before everything, quite literally weeks before everything changed, we went in the rain.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

We had gotten free passes and we went. And it pissed down on us. And it was. It was my birthday. And all of the. Donald and Daisy and Marie from the Aristocrats and a few. A few smattering of characters.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Marie from the Aristocrats.

[Sarah Griffin]

Huge, Huge.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Huge, Huge, Huge.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. For the girls. Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Really big time.

[Sarah Griffin]

Everywhere. They also have their own mascots there because this is disneysea. There's a bear called Duffy who is Mickey Mouse's teddy bear. And Duffy has friends. Yeah. I was like, who is Duffy? Who's Duffy? And then I left. I was like, duffy's my close, personal.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know.

[Sarah Griffin]

But we were. There was no one really lining up for the characters because it was lashing, raining and no one was there. And so I have this sequence of photographs of me and Carrie and Daisy, who was wearing a raincoat, a very chic little raincoat. Daisy Duck, wife of Donald Duck.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Are they married?

[Sarah Griffin]

I believe so.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Well, maybe they're not, I don't know, living in sin.

[Sarah Griffin]

Those ducks making assumptions about their living situation. I shouldn't really be doing that. Anyway, Daisy situates herself between the two of us and just elbows me a bit and I move. And bit by bit, she pushes me out of the frame. So I have about. And the person taking the Pictures took about 30 pictures in a row of Daisy removing me and then her last one of her holding on to Carrie.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, fun.

[Sarah Griffin]

So they obviously have all these practiced kind of moves that they do with people that are really surprising and really silly and really kind of. They probably do.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I'm true to the character.

[Sarah Griffin]

True to the character. And, like, there's, again, it's that invocation of kind of delight. I thought we were just gonna take a picture with the duck, but there was this sort of moment of play, right?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And it was really, really pleasant. If a spongebob with an unmoving face tried to do that to me, I would be unwell. You know, like you kind of need a softer design.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But it's weird because like, because the duck. What's her name?

[Sarah Griffin]

Daisy Duck.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She. Because she has a head on her as well.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, that's. That is. That is a fur suit, man.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That is a.

[Sarah Griffin]

That's a machine in itself. Right.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But then it's like. Yeah, it's like a. Something specific about the costume of Daisy. Even though it's just like a big thing on someone's head.

[Sarah Griffin]

The eyes, the mouth, the design, the colors. Like we're getting back to this design thing again, right?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

The way that that is put together is not fucking intimidating. It's not uncanny. It's not cheap, it's not wrong. It's completely playful and true to the like the like the fucking crystal. Goofy. I know her.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I know that.

[Sarah Griffin]

And there's something in, there's something in the way that that's built and you can't half ass that, you know, like you cannot.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I think that ultimately what we find inspiring about this is the non half assery of it. When so much feels half assed, so.

[Sarah Griffin]

Much of the world does nothing of this level of detail really could happen today. Like you couldn't start something like this from zero. And I think because of the efforts on technology are never aren't really focused on like yeah, the machine anymore. In a way. They're, they're, they're not like a skyliner isn't impressive today, do you know, in the way that it would have been around the World's Fair and Walt Disney going be like I brought this invention back from the World's Fair.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, the idea of someone having an invention and not like a depressing.

[Sarah Griffin]

Line of code that isn't just like a slim. A slim, slim phone in your hand or an app or something. You know, there's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Which again, fine, they're all useful, but they're not exciting. Thrilling and you know, I feel like the dreams are getting smaller and flatter instead of here is a fun machine you can go on that's gonna delight you instead of harm you, you know. And I don't think, I think that the sun has set. And also definitely with the Disney adults within pop culture, there's a cringe about it. And Lord fucking Forbidden, you know, that our earnestness put us in a place in which we are cringe, you know? And I don't think theme parks are cool, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No, they're not cool, but they are fun. They're not cool.

[Sarah Griffin]

I think they're fun.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And I think that should be probably enough.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I think, as well, they, like, something about those theme parks represent that very specific dream of America that used to exist. And I know there'll be Americans listening to this podcast who probably have a more frequent relationship with theme parks than anyone in Europe, but there's also different ones.

[Sarah Griffin]

There's Six Flags. There's loads of different kinds of theme.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Parks, but European people in general don't have intimate relationships. Like, you listen to, like, an American podcast where, like, they live anywhere within five hours of California and everyone has, like, detailed, like, knowledge of the parks. Do you know what I mean? It's like a different cultural relationship to parks. But to me, what, like, the parks represent is a dream of America we used to have in the mid-90s where, like, if somebody you knew who knew someone who lived there and could get you something, it was, like, such an exciting place that that, like, is so in my head, wrapped up with Disney as well. And that, like, I'm so sorry, you guys. That dream is dead. We are either laughing at you or we're scared of you. Not individuals, but the country.

[Sarah Griffin]

You know, the things that we are building are not for pleasure.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

They're for utility. They're not for delight. You know, they're for some notion of progress that isn't. Like, there is a. There's a ride in the parks called the Carousel of Progress, which is often empty. It's very. It's very much a. I guess, a museum piece, one of. One of Walt's old ones. You know, it's one of. One of his. And it's a rotating stage that brings you across vignettes from different eras of American history. You know, the first one, it's sort of. There's no refrigerator. It's from the deep kind of frontier kind of time. And then it moves up through the 20s and the 50s and the 60s, up in the 90s. And it's now a second. A new second section, which is present day. It's called the Carousel of Progress. It shows how much America specifically, has progressed through machines and invention and how it's socially changed. It's narrated by this one guy and his little duck, and it shows the American family of a particular kind of American family as it moves through the Eras of innovation. And, like, what do we have to show, really? You know, they're not inventing smarter fucking Hoovers or.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Instruments to help women give birth that aren't medieval. You know, I'm saying, like, they're not doing. They're not doing what they were doing. Things have changed. I won't say slowed, but changed. And I don't know. I think about the carousel, the carousel of progress often. And the parks themselves are from. They're from a different time, they're from a different world and set a sort of a different standard. And, like, they've. There's a big introduction of apps into how you navigate the parks that I find kind of. I don't want to look at my phone when they're. I want to look at the buildings.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

But, like, there is. They are unfashionable, certainly. But I still think. I still think they're really special. And I think if you look at them hard enough, you can kind of get back to something. I don't know. I don't know. It's tricky. It's really hard to put my finger on, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No, I think you put all your fingers on it.

[Sarah Griffin]

All my fingers.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

All your little fingies. Sarah Griffin, you got a book coming out really soon.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, my God.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Caroline, Eat the ones you love.

[Sarah Griffin]

I do. It's right around the corner.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Dedicated to yours truly.

[Sarah Griffin]

It is Indeed. Yeah. April. April 22nd.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You want to tell anyone about it?

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah. It's about two women who work in a small flower shop in Dublin and an orchid whose name is Baby who watches them and has very strong feelings about one of them and a very strong feeling of a hunger about many other people. So it's a story about. What did you say, Caroline? Moll's Monsters, Minimum wage.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Moll's Monsters, Minimum wage.

[Sarah Griffin]

It's about working in a shop and falling in love.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Two subjects very dear to my heart.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, we've all done it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We've all done it. And I think as well, like, you know, something that you're really concerned with in your work and something. I love that. I love that you're obsessed with, like, perverts in spaces. Like, that's my favorite thing about your. Your shit.

[Sarah Griffin]

Freaks and architects.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Freaks and architecture is that, like, it very much visits the kind of. The shopping center as, like, not a theme park, obviously, but a constructed space made for leisure. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

Like a now obsolete, eaten by the Internet site of life, you know? Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sarah Griffin]

And also cool architecture. Very weird places.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Nuts.

[Sarah Griffin]

Stuff very strange. Lots of fountains.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Lots of fountains, you know.

[Sarah Griffin]

So, yeah, it's definitely a love letter to the shopping centre. For sure. Like it, really.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

How haven't we done a shopping centre episode? Although we've done the high street episode.

[Sarah Griffin]

Oh, yeah. But the mall and the high street are cousins, you know, the mall itself is. They're on their last legs, you know, like it's a real video Killed the radio star thing, I think, you know, they don't really have the same use they used to. So a little bit about. A little bit of what this book is about is that they. They're still special. Even if they're kind of grim, you know, Even if they don't really serve the purpose they once did, they're still important or something.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, the shopping centre. The theme park's inbred cousin.

[Sarah Griffin]

Yeah, definitely. My God, they see each other a couple of times a year. You know, they're close.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. A theme park can sometimes be a shopping centre, but a shopping center can.

[Sarah Griffin]

Never be a theme park unless it's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The Mall of America when it is small America.

[Sarah Griffin]

Both at once. We'll go there someday.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We will.

[Sarah Griffin]

We should go.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

All right, pal, this is goodbye to Sarah, but goodbye to sentimental garbage for a little while as well. Happy season. Yeah, I. I'm terrible at signing off. Goodbye, everybody.

[Sarah Griffin]

Bye, guys.

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