magical memories - Disneyland tickets for May 4, 2005

Disneyland's 50th birthday was on July 17, 2005. In true Disney style, nothing lasts for only a year, so the actual kick-off of the 50th birthday celebration was May 5, 2005, and it had been announced that the park would be closed on May 4, 2005 to prepare for the opening. As May 4 drew closer, it turned out that it would mostly be a media event day with a party in the evening to which celebrities had been invited. Non-media and non-celebrities had a few different ways they could obtain free tickets to attend the daytime festivities. Annual passholders could register on Disneyland's website for a lottery to win tickets for May 4. I really wanted to go, so I dutifully signed up - and I didn't win the ticket lottery. But I had a backup plan.

There were a number of radio stations that were giving away tickets for May 4 as well. At the time, I was a listener of the Mark and Brian radio show, based out of KLOS-FM in Los Angeles, and they were giving away tickets. I had my plan in place. I had been listening to them long enough to know when the best time might be to call and what the best chance of winning tickets would be.

Mark and Brian always had a call-in game at 6:30am which would take up all their phone lines, but after the game was over, many of the calls would drop off, which meant that was the ideal time to call and have the best chance of getting through. The game ended, and I dialed. And the phone rang. And Preva, their call screener, picked up. I told her the game I had made up, and she said that it sounded like fun and that they'd not had anyone do that before. She said for me to be as upbeat with the boys as I was with her. She didn't know that I sounded so excited and upbeat because I was nervous as heck, and when I'm nervous, I tend to talk fast, which actually was going to work in my favor.

What I had made up was a Disney-related trivia game - I would give them the name of a famous actor and they had to name the Disney animated role the actor played and what the animated movie was. I knew that Mark and Brian liked trivia games, but I also knew that their attention would drift quickly, so I picked big-name actors that they'd know and recent well-known movies, not obscure actors in minor films, both of which they'd be disinterested in. If they didn't know the answer, I would wait a second and then just give them the answer. I'd heard other people just press them to guess when it was obvious they didn't know and weren't going to know and didn't care anymore and just wanted to move on in the game. I knew to just jump into the game and keep it moving along.

I ended up getting on the air at about 6:45am.

I started easy, with Craig T. Nelson, and Mark knew that he played Mr. Incredible in the movie "The Incredibles".

Next was Ellen DeGeneres, and Mark got that she was in "Finding Nemo" but couldn't remember her character name. No, Mark, she didn't play Nemo.

Next was Billy Crystal, and Kelli (their news person) got that one, that he played Mike Wazowski in "Monsters, Inc."

Next was Kathleen Turner, which Brian got, that she was Jessica Rabbit in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" I then tried to stump them with Amy Irving, but Brian got that she was Jessica Rabbit's singing voice in the film. Afterward, the husband mentioned to me that Brian *loves* that movie. Oh well.

Next was Robby Benson, which I threw in because there was a running joke about the crush that Frank (their board op) had on Robby. I believe Mark and Brian actually asked Frank to answer that question, that he was Beast in "Beauty and the Beast".

I knew that Brian liked Minnie Driver, so she was next, but they didn't know the movie, so I gave them a big hint - "think Phil Collins". They got that the movie was "Tarzan" and that she obviously played Jane. It was the only question where I had a hint prepared to give them, and I knew they liked Phil, so I figured giving them that hint would be enough for them to guess the film.

And then I ended the game with a Disneyland-related question: where in the park could you hear Patrick Stewart's voice? They were surprised and had no idea, so I told them that in the then-current "Snow White" stage show, he played the voice of the Magic Mirror. Mark seemed to really enjoy the answer to that question, and I even got a signature "huh" out of him. I was quite pleased with myself.

After the game was over, for some reason that I can't remember, they ended up talking to Preva about her hair, so I just remained silently on the line as they had their chat. Then Mark said something like, Cindy, do you know what you'll be doing on May 4, and I said hopefully, "Going to Disneyland?", and he said yes, congratulations, I'd won the tickets. I was so happy!

I have rarely called into a radio show before, but in this case, I knew the reward would be worth it. I think all of the other radio stations' contests were to be the right numbered caller, which is totally random. I also called in about mid-April, still some weeks away from the actual day, when they'd have lots of tickets left. As they got closer to May 4, they had fewer and fewer tickets, so you had to do bigger and bigger things to get them. I also figured that having my trivia question be Disney-related would make sense, especially given the tickets I was trying to win. All in all, it turned out perfectly - I got the tickets I wanted, and I like to think that I amused them for a couple of minutes doing something fun that they liked - trivia.

May 4, 2005 at Disneyland was an amazing day, and it was the start of an amazing weekend at Disneyland, since we were also there all day on the 5th and part of the day on the 6th. Here's my report from that weekend that includes a ton of pictures - and be warned that it's a long report.

I no longer listen to Mark and Brian, but I will always remember fondly the one time I was able to talk to them on the radio, and I will always be thankful that because of them, I was able to go to Disneyland on May 4, 2005.