Enchanted Tiki Room Presentation at NFFC

Alooooooo-HA!

This past Tuesday, I had the GREAT honor of assisting my dear friends Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily (who are responsible for all those great Tiki Room pieces, and more) in giving a presentation to the NFFC. NFFC is the National Fantasy Fan Club, and this was their annual convention -- think Oasis or Hukilau for Disneyphiles -- minus the alcohol, plus lots of mouse ears.

With the assistance of the always-entertaining King Kukulele, they developed a little show to entertain the crowd while showing them a bit about the history of the Enchanted Tiki Room. Kevin & King sang and played ukuleles, Jody ran the slide projector, their friend Stacia whistled, and I clapped coconuts together.

The show worked out really well -- it started off with Keving, King and I doing "The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room", and then while Kevin "took a break," the Barker Bird (actually, one of the Barker Birds going on sale tonight that Kevin had modified at home) came to life, and performed his spiel for us, complete with head turning, beak opening, the whole bit. After Kevin was done "roosting --er, resting," he have a FANTASTIC slide presentation, showing lots of materials from the Disney archives, and telling a bit about how the project to design the Enchanted Tiki Room changed as it was being developed, and showing how Kevin and Jody had created the merchandise for the Disneyland 50th Anniversary.

After this, King Kukulele performed Hawaiian Cowboy in tribue to Wally Boag (sadly, Wally Boag couldn't make it), which was a real hit with the crowd. Then, Kevin and Stacia performed the now excised Offenbach sequence -- it's all whistling, and Stacia's whistle has to be heard to be believed! I think the audience thought it was a recording until her whistle got a little dry and she had to stop to wet it.

Then, we all got up on stage and let the crowd through Hawaiian War Chant!

For me, the greatest honor was that I got to wear Kevin & Jody's vintage TIKI ROOM HOSTESS DRESS! It was pretty big on me, but I didn't care. The shirts being worn by Kevin, Jody and King Kukulele are the reproduction shirts that are coming out tonight. That hat that Stacia has is an actual hat that you used to be able to buy in Adventureland!

After the performance, the crowd was very enthusiastic, they LOVED King Kukulele, asked for lots of pictures of all of us, and swamped Kevin to talk shop and ask for autographs. It got kind of surreal.

After that, we all went to Disneyland, where we rode the newly-reopened Space Mountain, and of course visited the Enchanted Tiki Room. Sadly, like an idiot, I didn't get a picture of myself waking Jose in the hostess uniform.

A little tiki bird told me that there might be a repeat performance at an upcoming Tiki Taix....

Here's the whole album:

http://photo.humuhumu.com/v/nffc/

Critiki - Ooga-Mooga - Humu Kon Tiki

[ Edited by: Humuhumu 2005-09-23 14:52 ]

Wow Humu!!!!!!! Great pix - I wish I could have been there....

I saw Kevin's "animatronic" bird today - it knocked my socks off! Now if we could just find a way to retrofit the ones we buy......

One of these days!

Thank you, Humu, King, and Stacia! This was a hoot and a holler, and we could not have done it without our talented friends. The 400+ people in the audience loved it. Dole Whips all around!
xx
Kevin and Jody

that is too cool.

Wow Humu!!!!

I'm sorry I missed it. You MUST let me know if and when there's a repeat at the Tiki Taix!

Also, it seems that Kevin has lapped me in my quest to feather my barker bird. I know I don't have nearly the skills to animatronic my bird.

But Oh, I wish I did.

BB - you know we've been talking about how to "animatronic" this guy cheaply for a while now....

Is the Barker Bird 100% resin?
I have some experience with animatronics, I may have a project in store.

Talking is Cheap!

Me not smart enough with all things model and robotic.

I'm sure there are very smart people who can do these things. But I'm afraid they might be out of my range of expertise. I imagine some very precision work.

Feathering I can do, however, and I know that I could do that, at least without ruining my barker bird.

But keep me apprised of any plans. If the project seems within my abilities, I too would LOVE a working bird. I have an old pc laptop that would gladly give its life so that a bird could sing!

Actually, thinking a bit more about it, I suppose one could quite easily rig a jaw-motion one.

You'd put a pivot joint in the jaw, and weight and balance the back. It would sit balanced and closed, but then open when you ran current to an electromagnet.

Quite simple. And the electromagnet could be operated by a simple circuit that was based on the amplitude of the audio track.

Hmmmm.....

Can I assume that everyone knows that you can purchase many of these great items at http://www.disneydirect.com ?

click on this link for the Adventureland collection: http://disney.store.go.com/DSSectionPage.process?Merchant_Id=2&Section_Id=14770

Yes - you may assume away....

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=13912&forum=1&158

BB - You should shooot a PM to Miehana - I'm sure he can tell you how he "rigged" his Barker Bird for the show! I say we contact Wally Boag & get him to record new dialogue for us now!

I emailed him, and yeah, I just wanna be in the loop when stuff happens. Feathering etc.

Wally Boag.... wow. THAT would be someTHEEENG.

i was actually trying to hook that scenario up between kevin/jody and wally. prob is wally's been a little 'under the weather' (no pun intendo) and was only part of the 50th celebrations for a little bit.

we will be interviewing him on-cam very soon for the forthcoming extinct attraction dvd on the tiki room which is almost done.

on the barker's feathers...i'll have to check out the Disneyland 10th Anniversary Show again, but did the original's body work mainly as a sculpted body? i can imagine even if kevin's bird was to have full feathers, the price would have to be a hellava lot more clams to make it look good. besides, this helps keep the real tiki birds a little more special!

The one that Walt interacts with is feathered. Don't know about the one on the attraction.

No - both the one outside the Tiki Room & the one on TV were feathered.

well see, that's what amazes me! how long could that thing last in the sun and weather with electronic and pneumatic innards and not malfunction or look ratty after just a few days? you'd think that since the barker bird was so high up and away from the crowd that they would have made him a little more durable and just sculpted his body entirely.

looking at my bird, i'm amazed that something like that would've been out in the elements for more than a day. i wonder how many barker birds they had on hand?

good ol' disney show quality!!! thanks, walt!

[ Edited by: tiki1963 2005-07-20 09:02 ]

Kevin & Jody found LOTS of Barker Birds while doing their research to create this one. There were red, blue, green, pink ones... they eventually settled on this design, as this is the one that Walt introduces people to during the Disneyland 10th Anniversary TV show. (You can see it on the Disneyland tin set.)

On 2005-07-20 09:01, tiki1963 wrote:
well see, that's what amazes me! how long could that thing last in the sun and weather with electronic and pneumatic innards and not malfunction or look ratty after just a few days? you'd think that since the barker bird was so high up and away from the crowd that they would have made him a little more durable and just sculpted his body entirely.

looking at my bird, i'm amazed that something like that would've been out in the elements for more than a day. i wonder how many barker birds they had on hand?

good ol' disney show quality!!! thanks, walt!

[ Edited by: tiki1963 2005-07-20 09:02 ]

Actually (and I KNOW I have a photo of this somewhere...) there was a kind of "pill bug" looking protective covering they'd put around him at night....

You can't see it here - but it was just below him & would coccon up and over the bird...

god knows i've seen images of the barker bird a million times...but i gotta say, is that not the coolest idea in the world?

damn, disneyland was so over-the-top awesome back in the day!

Interesting photos, Tangeroa.

I wonder, what's the provenence of the bamboo cane?

I notice that the BB in your photos doesn't have one, but his perch is bamboo.

Hmmm... bambooing the perch, that might also be a project to undertake.

He certainly looks a little more shaggy than the one in the Walt photo.

I'd like to get a blow up of that Walt photo to take a look at it.

BTW, Pirates of the Caribbean in Florida has a barker bird.

i have a bunch of vintage tiki room exterior slides osmewhere in all this mess. here's another color pic of the barker in his element...

isn't that the WDW/Pirates barker bird with the shaven belly...right?

man, that thing freaked me out as a kid!

that would sure be a cool follow up limited to the tiki room barker! i'd like to mount him to my shoulder and hit venice beach with that one!

[ Edited by: tiki1963 2005-07-20 14:44 ]

The WDW parrot has a shaven belly with a tattoo of an anchor. Plus a peg-leg. :)
He was originally located just before the speedramp exiting the attraction and gave the safety spiel. One would assume it caused a pile-up and they moved him outside.

Any of you folks who wished you could have been at Kevin's presentation at NFFC shouldn't miss this Friday's Tiki Taix!

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=15803&forum=4&0

This is King Kukulele's monthly tiki cabaret night, it happens the last Friday each month at Taix French Restaurant in Echo Park (not far from Tiki-Ti). This month, Kevin is going to be leading a tribute to the Enchanted Tiki Room, and it will include lots of elements from the NFFC show.