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OMGOMGomg&c.

This has to be one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen on the internet:


Seriously, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to see the old in-room Disney resort TV from the 1980s. This is instant flashback material. To give an idea of how evocative this is, despite the fact that I haven’t seen this video in over 20 years I had instant recall as soon as Jiminy Cricket came on the screen. This despite the fact that I had forgotten that his little prologue was part of the video.

What a wonderful video, and so different from the current manic and abrasive in-room feed. The focus is on the parks and resort itself, not some speed-addled ingenue rabbiting on about whatever the marketing department has decided are the “top” attractions of the day. The parks sell themselves in these videos, without some ridiculously scripted demographically-targeted “guest” telling us what fun they’re having. We know it’s fun, that’s why we’re there. Just show us the freakin’ park, already.

You also get a sense from these videos of the resort as a whole – a fully integrated vacation experience, not just a collection of four theme parks. There was a little something for everyone, and it could all be accessed by touching ’11’ on your room telephone. Take special notice of the footage from the Disney Village Marketplace – what a relaxing, laid-back environment.

These videos make me think of sitting in the floor of a Vacation Villa next to Lake Buena Vista, watching these videos over and over again until my brother and I were forced to go to bed (but then only after arguing over who had to have their bath first so the other could stay up watching the video longer). That was a few years prior to this 1987 video, but it’s not far off. In those olden days, the television feed must have come off an actual videotape player, because after it had played through the TV would go black for a while so that the tape could rewind. Those few minutes of blackness were the longest in the world – it seemed like a triumph of human ingenuity when they eventually upgraded so that the video would loop continuously without pause.

Good times. Thanks to EPCOT Central for posting this.

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