Monday, September 19, 2005

Turtle Talk

Sometimes it just comes down to someone’s sheer creativity to really impress you. Lately, to make up for Disney’s California Adventure’s many shortcomings, many millions have been literally thrown at the park.

One gem, which I suspect didn’t cost a huge amount of cash, is Turtle Talk with Crush the turtle from Finding Nemo. We went in and visited Crush and were pleasantly surprised. You enter a small room with theatre seating for about 100 people, and more floor seating near the front for the kids.


At the front of the room is a large screen that looks like a huge fish tank with all the accoutrements of undersea life present. After a host goes over some rules, Crush swims on to the screen and starts talking about how he wants to learn more about humans, so he has some questions for you! Of course, he’s a bit concerned as he says, “dudes, there’s no water in your tank, dudes! Weird, dudes! You humans have serious thrill issues!”

Now this is where it gets really cool. Crush starts asking to talk to people in the theatre, while the host runs around the theatre with a microphone so everyone can hear. The entire show is completely interactive, which is just really cool, because how many times have you interacted with a character from a beloved movie?

And of course, the best part of the experience is learning to talk turtle! Dude, cha! Catch ya later, dudes!