Retroblog

Pirates in Disneyland

This just in: Pirates have invaded the sleepy little getaway known as Tom Sawyer’s Island in Disneyland. Apparently they crossed the Rivers in America from New Orleans Square under the cover of nightfall and set up shop. The legend of Huck Finn has taken a backseat to “Pirate’s Lair”, a newly renovated portion of the island featuring hidden treasure and periodical Captain Jack Sparrow shows.

Some, like myself, say that there is, in fact, such a thing as too much of a good thing. We are up to our collective buccaneers in pirates. What started out as a delightfully imaginative and innovative boat ride attraction, carrying tourists through an underground world of battles, burning cities and various forms of debauchery, has recently spawned an insatiable desire for anything that contains one of these eye-patched scurvy scum. Besides the three blockbuster movies, based loosely on the 1966 attraction, there are pirate shirts, pirate singing groups that perform regularly and even the now-annual “Talk Like a Pirate” day that is gaining popularity nationally with each passing year.

Now granted, we’ve always had this thing for pirates, going all the way back to books like Treasure Island and films such as The Buccaneer. Captain Kidd, Blackbeard and Long John Silver have all been written about and had films based upon their exploits for many decades. And yet, one wonders if there are more pirates roaming about in modern times than in their seafaring heyday. One begins to wonder if imaginations have become so under-used that pirates are the only thing creative minds can come up with to entertain us with anymore.

Certainly, the public at large shows no diminished interest in pirates, as can be seen by recent box-office figures. But how far will this expansion go? Will there be pirates in the Haunted Mansion? Will Brer’ Pirate be added to Splash Mountain? At some point, somebody needs to finally defeat these dastardly villains of yesteryear to make room for some original ideas.