"Flash" Mountain and Other Disney Secrets

This is crazy. I remember last nov. , I rode the ride 22 times, and any time somebody would rock their boat, or stick there hand outside of the boat, all of the boats would get jammed in the break sections till the riders stoped. Disney is a bitch!

What's next? Women doing the same thing for the camera while riding the popular Disney's Hollywood Studios attraction, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror? If the X-rated pics end up as the same place as those in "Flash Mountain," it would be called "Tower of (insert synonym of female breasts)!" UGH!

Are pictures still coming out of Flash Mountain? That would be so cool! I thought the last one appeared about 10 years ago.

When Flash Mountain first started (15 years ago?) I followed the story with great interest. It was a hilarious story that drove Disney into a paranoid freak-out. They went to tremendous lengths to put an end to these leaked photos. There were all sorts of serious and funny angles to this story.

1) Why do women do this? In a pre-Girls Gone Wild era, it was (and still is) a little hard to grasp why women would flash a camera for all to see, but not flash anywhere else. Is there something in Disney's water? Chemicals leaching off the Tar Baby, perhaps?

2) The privacy angle. Just how can Disney violate the privacy of its Guests by taking pictures of them without permission and posting them on monitors for all to see? People really do sit there and watch them. And just what happens to pictures like these? What rights do people have over their own image? It also raised questions about pictures and the Internet. In a way, Flash Mountain served as a privacy battlefront and a harbinger of things to come.

These shots aren't exactly like posing with Mickey and having his handler take a snap. This isn't voluntary and many find the pictures embarrassing. Some think many early flashers didn't even know there was a camera, never mind that their boobs would wind up on the Internet. If that's true, then Family Friendly Disney was essentially an accessory in an "upskirt" photo ring. I found that irony was quite amusing. Especially when coupled with what they did to "protect the privacy of our Guests" as one press release laughably claimed.

3) Disney's actions. They have the nickname Mauschwitz for a reason. Insiders (and fans of The Prisoner) see Disney very differently than most. Employees biting the smiling hand that slaps them was actually the original purpose behind the photo leaks.

Rumour had it, Disney tried everything to stop the photos and the embarrassing press coverage. This included mass firings, court actions, security tracking Cast Members after work and media intimidation. They cracked down on "naughty" Guests and accused them of being co-conspirators. Allegedly, they even installed a secret camera to watch the picture watcher. (So watch out Otterly, Big Brother Mickey is watching!) I heard they also extended the tunnel on the ride to reduce the chance Guests standing outside would see any illicit boobies, thus causing the end of civilization as we know it.

Even after this, a few more pics still trickled out and the PR nightmare continued.

I was there at the peak of the Flash Mountain hysteria. I remember being on the bridge in front of the ride and watching a Cast Member who was assigned the task of herding lingering Guests off the bridge, some of whom were talking about the flashers. The Cast Member told one of them who was snapping pictures they couldn't take pictures of other Guests while on the ride, even though Disney took their pictures and posted them for all to see not 2 seconds earlier. I spluttered out some sarcastic, profanity laden, response a little too loudly. The Cast Member turned, looked toward me, and started reaching for his communication device. I skittered off into the crowd before I got a one way ticket to the Haunted House cemetery.

4) Disney went through all this time, trouble, expense, heavy handed tactics and public embarrassment for what? To stop people from lifting their tops at 60 KMH in a dark tunnel where nobody but the Disney camera will ever see?

If they wanted to stop the leaks, all they had to do was TAKE THE CAMERA OUT. Fifteen minutes, tops. Nobody would ever again have their privacy violated by Disney or their naughty Cast Members. What? And give up the fortune they rake in from suckers willing to buy overpriced, poor quality and embarrassing photos of themselves that most people lose or throw out before they even get home?

5) Boobies. Any story with boobies is always interesting. Not only do I love them them, I love to laugh at the lengths people will go to see them and the lengths people will go to cover them up. Punishing park Guests for flashing boobs, or even fingers, is more juvenile than doing it in the first place.

Yeah, those were the days. I remember surfing the Web with my Mosiac browser and my dial-up modem, anxiously waiting for the grainy shots of Flash Mountain boobies to finish loading. Today, nobody thinks twice about living their life on camera for the whole world to see and hi-def porn videos are always just one click away and load about as fast.

And, finally, a question. I'm being dragged to Disney next week. If I try protect my privacy by flashing the "bad" finger to make sure my photo disappears so that nobody gets offended, will security take me aside and Waterboard me?

When I was a kid, I fell during a camping trip and sprained my right middle finger. We went to a local clinic and they splinted it.

The next day we went to Six Flags. My mom and I are roller-coaster fans, so we always rode together while dad and my sister watched from the exciting park benches. I was doing pretty well until we rode "The Ninja" and I forgot everything, throwing both hands up in fists as we passed the camera. You see where this is going, right?

I felt like I'd just flashed a gun at the President. Two guys in dark suits confronted me as I left the ride and started to hustle me off somewhere. I didn't even realize what the problem was, and the only reason they stopped to tell me was that I had my middle-aged, very proper mom right there, demanding to know what was going on.

In their defense, they probably hadn't realized the lady next to me was my mom, because what little boy would flip off the cameras with his mom sitting right there?

Me and my friend Splinty, that's who.

I had the job of screening at Splash mountain photo. Its on a rotation so everyone get they're turn at the switch. It was a great break from dealing with all the guests, I could have sat in that big plastic tree stump for the whole shift.. It was very dark and air conditioned with a couple of monitors and the switches. You could hear the doom/laughing place warning music inside. I never seen a flasher the whole time I worked it. Mostly just rude gestures and titty grabs. Some idiots would stand up in the log sometimes. Every time you saw something and had to boot the pic, you also had to manually log it and why you bottled it.. That was kinda a drag. Splash Photo is just a stand, no A/C. So on a hot crowded summers day the best place to be was in the Tree stump.