Kill, Refurb, Marry – Disney Sidekicks

Every month my friends over at Mouse on the Mind host a blog hop of “Kill, Refurb, Marry” – and this month’s topic is Disney Sidekicks!  Here are my choices – what would you choose?

Kill – Cheshire Cat

To be fair, he is a cool character – I want to kill him more in the sense of, “gahh I hate you!” rather than “I wish you weren’t in this film.”  He’s not necessarily a villain, but he’s a troublemaker, and he doesn’t seem to feel bad at all for Alice, even when she’s at her wit’s end and crying about home.  He’ll always point her in the wrong direction.  And I’m a cat lover, so he gives my cuddly creatures a bad name!

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Disney Villains

Ooh, this sounds like it will be a fun one!  Disney villains are fascinating characters, though I will admit the thought of having to marry one of them might not be the most appealing thing in the world.  And then there was this question: is “kill” the villain I like the least and “marry” the one I enjoy the most?  Or the one that I would literally want to kill the most or marry the most.  I went with the more literal translation, so the villains in contention for kill are great characters – just they’re such great villains I want to kill them!  There were definitely some difficult choices this week, but here’s what I came up with for this month’s edition of Kill, Refurb, Marry.

Kill – Frollo

This was a tough choice.  Which Disney villain makes your skin really crawl the most?  And makes you want to punch them in the face?  There are certainly a number of contenders here, but I went with Frollo.  Talk about evil personified.  He is a cruel, heartless man, treating people terribly because they are different from him.  Even though characters like Maleficent and the Evil Queen do terrible things and are certainly evil, Frollo seems to hit home a bit more because he’s more human.  There’s no magic or evil spells that are causing him to do what he does, it’s just a malicious human nature.  Maleficent couldn’t exist in real life, but Frollo could.  And that is terrifying.

Kill, Refurb, Marry – Disney Souvenir Shops

After a brief hiatus last month, I’m excited to jump back into Kill, Refurb, Marry with this month’s topic: souvenir shops!  I love a good souvenir, so it definitely took some thinking for me to decide which ones I would kill, refurb, and marry.  It was really tough!  There’s tons of souvenir shops in Disney, many of which I love, and many of which I think they could do more with.  I’m sure I might end up changing my mind, but for now, here are my choices:

Kill – Marketplace Fun Finds

This place in Downtown Disney in basically the “bargain bin.”  Normally I love places like this, because I love a good deal.  However, this just feels a little depressing and not at all a good value.  They stuff some of the typical stuff in here that just happens to be $20 or less.  It would be a lot better if they used it to sell clearance or discontinued items are lower prices, not the same overpriced souvenirs that are all over the place.

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Food and Wine Booths

I’m excited about this Kill, Refurb, Marry because I just came back from visiting Food and Wine for the first time!  I didn’t get to try as much as I was hoping due to a couple of things, including getting sick during my trip and being mostly on my own for Food and Wine, so I didn’t have someone to share things with for a lot of it.  My stomach can only hold so much!  I’m sure that my Kill, Marry, Refurbs might be different if I had tried everything, but from what I experienced here were my choices:

Kill – Africa

When I made my master list of everything I would want to try and Food and Wine if I had an unlimited budget and stomach, there were only three booths that held no appeal to me whatsoever.  Those were New Zealand, Africa, and the Refreshment Port (hardly even a “booth” since it’s there all the time).  When I went back and looked at the menus again, Africa is the one that I really don’t think I would enjoy.  There are two food items, which contain mushrooms and/or onions, both of which I hate.  Even walking past the booth it did not smell appealing.  And there were a few drinks, none of which seemed special.  Africa could have some great flavors, but maybe it needs to be more focused.  Kill Africa and give us a Madagascar booth, or a South Africa booth, instead of lumping a whole bunch of countries into one booth.

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Songs from Disney Animated Films

There are so many Disney songs. Seriously. How am I supposed to pick just one to marry, one to kill, and one to refurb?  Heck, even picking a whole soundtrack for this will be difficult!  I’m sure there will be ones that I’ve forgotten about, and I’ll read what others have done and say, “Oh yeah, I forgot about that!”  But these are the ones that come to my mind.

Kill: Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

There aren’t really many Disney songs that come on where I go, “Ugh, I wish this would stop.”  I’m sure there are some that I’m not remembering, but since I don’t like them I don’t listen to them!  However, this one came to mind because it’s on one of the Disney collection CDs I have.  It’s cute and all with the short, but the song on its own?  No thanks.  It’s just annoying and one of those songs that gets stuck in your head all day!

Kill, Refurb, Marry – Air Conditioned Attractions

I don’t really keep tabs on which attractions are air conditioned and which are not… I’m going to assume for this that almost any indoor attraction is air conditioned.  However, I decided not to count any of the super fast indoor rides (like Rockin’ Roller Coaster, Space Mountain, etc.).  While those might be air conditioned there’s too much going on for it to really make a difference.  For my choices I focused more on shows and that sort of thing.

Kill: Captain EO

Why is this attraction still here?  It did replace Honey I Shrunk the Audience, which I also disliked, but I thought it was only coming back for a limited time in a tribute to Michael Jackson’s death.  But now it’s just been sitting there.  Maybe this was exciting back in the 80’s, but it’s so outdated now that it’s pretty much just laughable.  The storyline and the humor is outdated and the technology is outdated.  This is a space that they could do so much more with.

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Epcot Pre-shows

To be honest, I’m not really a huge fan of pre-shows.  Because you know that you’re just about to get on the ride, and you’re eager and ready… and then you have to sit through one more thing.  But if I had to choose to kill, refurb, or marry some, well, I guess I can make that decision.  There weren’t very many to choose from, but here goes!

Kill: Ellen’s Energy Adventure

The pre-show was the only part of Ellen’s Energy Adventure that I actually liked.  I enjoy Ellen, and her bit with Jeopardy is funny.  So my decision to kill it is more based on the fact that I’d like to see the entire attraction gone.  Or at least extremely change and updated and shortened.  But I wouldn’t be sad to see it go, and the pre-show would just be an unfortunate casualty of that.  Because right now, the only thing that Ellen’s Energy Adventure is good for is a nap.

Kill, Refurb, Marry: Disney Princesses

Uh oh.  This month’s Kill, Marry, Refurb theme is Disney Princesses – which means I’m killing, marrying, and refurbing (?) actual human beings!  The murder didn’t seem so bad when it was just a Disney ride.  I know this one will be hard, but also interesting.  I love the princesses, many of them.  For this I’m going to consider both how the princesses are presented in their respective movies, but also their presence in the parks.  I’m also only including the “official” princesses.  So that includes Mulan and Pocahontas, but not people like Esmeralda or Megara.

Kill – Aurora

Aurora – another classic Princess found at Akershus and Cindy’s Table.

I’m sorry Aurora!  I really, really didn’t want to kill any princesses.  And I enjoy Sleeping Beauty.  But if I absolutely have to, I guess I would kill Aurora because we just don’t get to know her as well as some of the other princesses.  After all, she spends half of her movie sleeping.  I can’t think of any unique personality traits that come to mind about her, so I feel like she’s rather undeveloped as a character.  I’m sure she would be quite lovely if we got to know her, but if I’m forced to choose one to kill then the princess that does the least to stand out is Aurora.