Midway to Main Street

You ever notice that sometimes theme parks have buildings that are just giant… things? A big traffic cone that sells food, a camera shop with a giant camera on the front, a hat shop in the shape of a hat, and an ice cream stand inside of a big dinosaur. It’s a style called Programmatic Architecture, and today we’re going to talk about where it came from, why it exists, and why you can find it in very specific parts of theme parks.

Did you know that the song behind the Main Street Electrical Parade, perhaps one of the most famous Disney parks songs ever, wasn’t made by Disney, had nothing to do with Disney when it was made and that the person who did make it didn’t even know Disney was using it for nearly a decade?

Loyalty rewards programs and free gifts are not really anything new when it comes to business. You order nine burritos and the tenth is free, you open a bank account and you get a toaster. They come in all types and sizes for all sorts of businesses, and as it turned out that included a gas station chain in Florida in the 1950s that had their very own amusement park. This is the story of the Super-Test Amusement Park

My favorite Christmas film, by far, has always been ‘A Christmas Story’. Growing up, I always wondered… why a leg? Why was Ralphie’s dad winning a leg lamp? Who was making and giving away leg lamps? As it turns out, there is a reason behind it.