How exactly do you go about reviewing a trivia book?
That’s my challenge today, folks, as I weigh in on Kevin Yee and Jason Schulz’s “Magic Quizdom: Disneylandia Minutiae Semper Absurda” (Summer 2003, Zauberreich Press). I mean, it’s obviously not fair to compare this attractive paperback to a full-blown novel. There’s no characters or plot to be found here.
And — though there’s certainly a lot of interesting Disneyland history to be found as you page through “Magic Quizdom”‘s 240 pages — this isn’t really a theme park history book either. So it’s also not fair to judge Kevin and Jason’s entertaining effort by that standard either.
So what can I say about “Magic Quizdom”? Well, I have to admit that I’m really not all that big a fan of Disney trivia or quiz books. But — that said — I did enjoy reading what Yee and Schulz had put together here. But mostly because I kept skipping over the questions and heading straight for the back of the book.
“Why the back of the book?” you ask. Because that’s where all the answers are! You see, Kevin and Jason — when they’re providing answers to their trivia questions — don’t go the one word or short phrase answer route. But — rather — they provide their readers with at least a paragraph length explanation. As they try to give you some backstory of why things are the way they are at Disneyland.
Take — for example — this question, which I pulled out of the “Adventureland” section of “Magic Quizdom.” Which (I should warn you) was deliberately supposed to be one of the more difficult questions in the book to answer:
What was the original concept for an Indiana Jones ride in Adventureland?
And Yee and Schulz’s well-researched response to this query went as follows:
The initial concept called for not one ride, but two: a jeep transport ride such as we have now (if a bit tamer), and a mine-train car chase that would have resembled a roller coaster, as inspired by the sequence in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” (A mine-car roller coaster similar to that envisioned for Disneyland in California was built for Disneyland Park Paris.) In fact, the same sort of overlapping view we enjoy of Splash Mountain from the Disneyland Railroad was also proposed for Indy, with both the Jungle Cruise and the Disneyland railroad skirting by a brand central chamber in which the two new kinetic rides would be visible. When the project was scaled back to one ride, the transports benefited by becoming “simulator-enhanced” to turbo-charge the experience. The attraction was spearheaded by Imagineers Skip Lange and Susan Bonds, based on renderings and ideas by Herb Ryman and Tony Baxter. Dave Durham programmed the transports used in the attractions, as well as the ones used in Dinosaur (a similar attraction at Walt Disney World Resort, then named Countdown to Extinction) and Cosmic Waves, the interactive fountain in Tomorrowland.
Let me tell you, gang — as someone who’s already done a ton of research about Disneyland’s “Indiana Jones Adventure” attraction (Why for? Because further on down the line, I’d like to do a few stories about this ride and its truly intriguing development phase as a possible long-form story for JHM) — Jason and Kevin have obviously done their homework. Their Indy answer is really right on the money … as were all of the other paragraph-length pieces that I read toward the back of my copy of “Magic Quizdom.”
So would I recommend that you pick up a copy of Yee and Schulz’s book? Well … I was talking with Jim Korkis about “Magic Quizdom” just a week or so back (Jim says “Hi” by the way … and that he really misses being part of the JimHillMedia.com family. Anyway … ) and while Korkis isn’t really isn’t a fan of quiz books either, he did have to admit that he learned a few new things while burrowing through Kevin and Jason’s book.
That’s pretty much how I feel about this book as well, folks. While I’m really not all that enthusiastic about Disney trivia contests (when you make your living as I do — by taking tiny pieces of Disney history and stretching them out into these impossibly long, long-winded stories — you quickly lose your taste for dealing with Mouse-related trivia when you’re away from your laptop), I honestly enjoyed peeking at the answers at the back of “Magic Quizdom,” and I have to admit that I too learned a few new things in the process.
So I guess what I’m saying here is that I think that picking up a copy of Kevin Yee and Jason Schulz’s “Magic Quizdom” was a positive experience for me. Which is why — if you’re a Disney trivia fan and/or just a theme park history buff who hopes to pick up a few new stories about Disneyland — I can heartily recommend that you pick up a copy today. Okay?
Sadly, as of this moment, “Magic Quizdom” is not available for sale in bookstores and/or through Amazon.com. But you can order your very own copy of MQ through Kevin and Jason’s website, www.smalloaktree.com. So head on over there now if you’d like to pick up a copy of this entertaining and informative paperback.