Thursday, August 30, 2012

Welcome to Frontierland, Mr. Smith

File this one under ‘extinct.’ One of the cleverest hidden Disney tributes in the Magic Kingdom has, apparently, walked away.

You remember the slapstick scene from Mary Poppins in which Bert and Uncle Albert are oddly floating high in the air, giddily singing “I love to laugh,” as if the lyrics were a combination of nitrous oxide and helium. While Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael watch  from below, they hear hysterical dialog, including this classic exchange:

Mary - “Why, it's the most disgraceful sight I've ever seen, or my name isn't Mary Poppins.”

Bert - “Speakin' o' names, I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith.”

Uncle Albert - “What's the name of his other leg?”

This misplaced modifier causes even more riotous laughter and they continue with their airborne antics.

Disney Imagineers cleverly paid tribute to this scene by placing a wooden leg high on a shelf in the Frontierland train station, along with other lost items. Naturally, the leg is labeled Smith. Sadly, this hidden tribute didn’t survive a recent furbishment of the train station, since I didn’t see it there on my last few visits. But just thinking about it is worth a laugh.