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Episode 60: Joshua Shaffer
59 Plays6 months ago
On this week's episode we sit down with author, actor, podcaster, and all-around "Disney Guy" Joshua Shaffer as he share stories from being in Angles in the Outfield, to creating Disney fantasy pins and everything in between!
To find out more on Josh be sure to check out his website HERE
DISLCAIMER: we are not an affiliate of the Walt Disney Company nor do we speak for the brand or the company. Any and all Disney-owned audio, characters, and likenesses are their property and theirs alone.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Sharing the Magic' Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Sharing the Magic, the podcast that takes you on a journey through the enchanting worlds of Disney.
Revealing Disney's Mystique with Special Guests
00:00:10
Speaker
Each week, we're joined by a special guest, whether they're a magician creating moments of astonishment or a Disney expert sharing the secrets behind the magic of the happiest place on Earth. Together we'll uncover the stories, inspirations, and behind the scenes tales that bring these worlds to life. So, get ready to be spellbound and transported to a place where dreams come true.
Meet the Hosts and Guest Introduction
00:00:54
Speaker
Hi everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the sharing the magic podcast. I'm Matt and I'll once again be your host this week as we welcome another guest to share their Disney experiences and memories with us. But before we introduce our guests, let's say hi to my friends who will be helping me co-host the show this week. First up we've got Lisa. Hey Lisa, how are you? Hey everyone. So glad to be back. It's been a couple of weeks since I was on vacation and happy to see you all hear you all again.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yes, we are very excited to have you back. Well, thank you. Uh, also with us tonight, we have Dawn. How have you been doing, Dawn? Hi, I'm good. And I'm getting ready to go on my vacation. I've never been to the grand Cayman. So I'm it like just over the moon ecstatic about laying on a pretty beach. Going to be missing the Disney ears though, but that'll be nice. And rounding out our crew tonight, we have Rachel. Hi, Rachel. Hey, um,
00:01:51
Speaker
doing good today, working hard in the hand handle, the principal area. I'm getting ready. I'm working a lot. So I'm prepared for D23 in a couple of weeks. So looking forward to that. Yeah, not jealous at all. Not jealous at all.
00:02:08
Speaker
So we are very excited for tonight's show. We have another great guest joining us. He's a writer, actor, a fellow podcaster ah who has also worked with some of our favorite previous guests like Imagineer, Terry Hardin, and Disneyland's own Flying Tinkerbell, Gina Rock. ah We have so much to talk about tonight. So I'm ready to get into this. Let's say hello to our new friend, Joshua Shafer. Hey, Joshua, how are you? Hello. I'm great. I'm great. I'm ready for this.
00:02:34
Speaker
ah We are too. We're so glad you're here. Thank you. You were telling us, you know, before we we hit the record button that we've been trying to get you on the
Joshua Shafer's Disney Journey
00:02:42
Speaker
pod for a while. It's been a year. Right. So, yeah, we booked it a year. Finally here.
00:02:48
Speaker
Everyone listening, you know, I'm not the normal host. Barry is our fearless ghost host. And he always starts off our conversations with new friends the same way. And we continue that even when he is unable to be with us. So, Joshua, we always like to ask, where did your where did it start for you, your love of Disney and your love of entertainment? Because you are an entertainer. Where does that come from?
00:03:11
Speaker
Jeez, while the entertaining part ah probably started back in 94, might've been 93, I was an extra in Angels in the outfield and sat behind Joseph Gordon-Levitt when he saw the first Angel. And we're about the same age. So like, I didn't know who the kid was because he wasn't, you know, he wasn't anything yet. And um I didn't know what that, like, why are they?
00:03:36
Speaker
shimmering this reflecting the sunlight onto his face with cardboard and foil and it was like when he saw the angel and it was reflecting the light on his face it was just foil on cardboard and um i was like this is really cool like i want to be an actor and that's what got me into like wanting to do that disney started for me in like 2001 um i went i was 21 years old and i walked in and i was like wow this reminds me of like all the movies i used to watch growing up like we had you know vhs's of cinderella and bambi and honey i shrunk the kids which was the first vhs we ever bought and robin hood and like all sorts of movies and i was like this this is like really fun and i got a season pass right then and i've had a season pass all the way up until 2017
00:04:27
Speaker
So I haven't renewed it yet. i Not sure if I will, um but it's getting really packed there. yeah yeah um But yeah, that's where the Disney started for me. That's all. I'm so glad that you started off by, you know, angels in the outfit because I was going to ask you about it. So for a long time, I've always been a fan of the movie and it wasn't on Disney Plus for a long time. And I wanted to show my son it. He's seven. I was like, oh, we got to get it. So we actually bought the DVD and it was like the hardest thing to even find the DVD of it.
00:04:58
Speaker
And he watched it, he's like, oh yeah, that's great. And then literally maybe two weeks after he purchased the DVD, Disney decided to put it on Disney Plus. So I'm like, okay, I have it just in case it goes off. But you mentioned it so nonchalantly. You're like, I was an extra on ah in Angel's Day. How did you become an extra? How does that process work? Especially where you're like, oh, I sat right behind the main character. yeah I was in the middle of it. How did that work?
00:05:24
Speaker
I wasn't in the in the bench right behind him, but I was behind him in the bleachers. So when I looked down, I could see him. So I was also 13, 14 at the time. And my mom saw an ad in the newspaper for extras. And it was filmed at the Oakland Coliseum, not the Angel Stadium.
00:05:41
Speaker
And I was homeschooled growing up. And so we were able to just go during the week because we could do whatever we want because we're homeschooled. I still had to read while I was sitting there, which was weird. I had a book I was reading and my mom said, when we're not filming, you need to be
Voice Acting and Production Insights
00:05:55
Speaker
reading. So. ah ah they were doing that same scene for three days in a row like that same that same part of the movie so i don't know i've tried to find like a widescreen version and i'm like looking and i'm like i don't see me because i haven't found the widescreen version and i'm wondering if like they refilmed it like on a different day like one of the
00:06:19
Speaker
three days because I was only there one day. I know that the people who sat directly behind him, there was a a woman who was like clapping like she had to show up all three days and they told her that I had a part where I got up and walked up the stairs and then came back and sat back down on my seat. Like that was just one thing that I had to do. OK. And that does.
00:06:41
Speaker
I just, every time that comes up, you can look, I'm going to look for that widescreen, I'm going to look for the kid that's getting up and walking up and down the stairs. He probably has a book, a book next to him, sitting on this. I had my little brother and my mom was with me. That's awesome. That is so cool. Do you like to film?
00:06:59
Speaker
Yes, ah I've i I started in 2006. I was in an independent film called Last Call and I got killed by a demon. I had a bottle jabbed in my eye and it filled with blood and I've been done a couple of like independent films since then for other people and whatnot. And I really just got into voice acting because it like getting into actual acting. It takes like a ah lot of work. So my ex-wife is an actress. She lives in Hollywood right now and she's TV shows and stuff like that. ah She did it up here in San Francisco for a while before she moved to Hollywood. But she's busy. all the She's going to auditions all the time and filming stuff all the time. But with voice acting, you can do it from your home and you can send in clippings. like I use this microphone. I have a foam box that has eggshell crate foam in it and I can put the microphone in there and record lines through that.
00:07:54
Speaker
And I can do that, you know, whenever I need to, but I primarily work with, um, adventurous ideas and I'm also the production coordinator for them. So I keep some good with Excel. I, uh, I keep track of like people who are joining what we're doing. We have currently like 75 projects that we're working on. There's like 16 that are being written right now. And like five that are recording the company's new.
00:08:17
Speaker
we We just released the first episode of Heroes of Extinction, which is a seven episode. They're all audio dramas. So it's like listening to like a 1930s radio show. yeah And it was started. We started it and during Covid actually in 2020. And after that, we started just getting bigger and bigger. And then they decided, you know what? We should make a company.
00:08:39
Speaker
and then do this like an as an actual thing, not just like a little side gig. And Jerry Cornell, ah who creates theme parkology documentary DVDs, mostly Disneyland attractions and lands and stuff. And see Andrew Nelson, who was Darth Vader for 12 years for Lucasfilm.
00:08:58
Speaker
They started it. And so like I have Zoom calls with them and a bunch of our voice actors and the writers. So we have like in Heroes of Extinction, we have Mary Gibbs, who is the voice of Boo in Monsters, Inc. Isaac Singleton, Jr., who was in Pirates of the Caribbean, and he was in Mandalorian season two and he's the voice of Thanos and all the video games and cartoons. And ah ah John Provost, who was Timmy in the O'Lassie series. And just like ah Michael Yurchik,
00:09:28
Speaker
ah Eric Walker, who was in the Ewok movies. Like, we just have so many people. Like, there's just so many people. We we have over, like, 140 people who are either doing voice acting or want to join. And we have, like, dozens of people who are, like, in Doctor Who, in Star Wars, in ah Star Trek, in Spaceballs, in, like, all these other cartoons from the 80s. Like, they're just from all over the place and, like, yeah, one of to do this audio drama stuff because you can do it from your house. And, you know, it's a big collaborative effort and it's fun and stuff like that. And we can do SAG actors. So we we were able to just start doing that. But it's it's picking up speed. We're about to drop ah one of our shows called Dark Park. um But Heroes of Extinction was like the primary one that we started. ah Episode one is up right now for free. um The rest of it's all going to be on like audible.
00:10:25
Speaker
OK, for people to listen to. They're all like 45 minute episodes. It was like sound effects and music. And nice. It's fun. That's that's always fascinated me how, you know, you're saying we could do this from home. um Very our second episode, we had Bill Farmer on the show. Yeah. Goofy. And he right. Goofy. And he was it looked like he was like in his basement or just like an office room somewhere in his house and behind. He was like, oh, yeah, I record Goofy right here. There's like a microphone behind him. He was like, that's where I do everything from. We were like,
00:10:55
Speaker
wow like it's literally just right so that is that's really cool that you you need to do that and you know lisa don and rachel i know jeff is going to be so upset that he's not on this episode right now when he hears it about all the does he do voice acting like yeah does he do stuff does he have like a demo he we I mean maybe we call him our goofy dupe he if he was here right now he would tell you like he loves goofy he loves bill farmer and he is a very good goofy like he did it with bill like him and bill were going back and forth and bill's like wow that's pretty good so he's gonna be super uh super jealous that he wasn't on tonight to get to talk to i know that's what the whole episode would be about if he was on though he would only want to talk about voice acting so that's funny if we take demos
00:11:39
Speaker
Like if he wants to, you know, you know, send in, you know, and an email with a ah link to like his, his audio demo, like okay they'll listen to it. Like there's so many, some of these stories have, if you think about like a book and it how many characters, and like how many characters are in Harry Potter? Over 300. Like that's a lot of, a lot of, you know, voices to do.
00:12:00
Speaker
um You know, unless you're Stephen Fry, you know, or Jim Dale, he just do them all yourself, all about you know, Guinness Book World Records for those. But, you know, did you know that that Bill Farmer did a voice for Gaston in Beauty and the Beast? Did not know that. So what he did was when Gaston was singing and he swallowed the eggs and went, gun gun gun that was Bill Farmer.
00:12:25
Speaker
Okay, yeah, that's cool. this little Little movie fun facts. Yeah, yeah. Fun facts.
00:12:32
Speaker
I know if Jeff was on here, he would probably ask you what kind of microphone you have. I believe that is the big question. If you would like to tell him, he would probably appreciate
Creative Pins and Community Building
00:12:43
Speaker
it. It was on Amazon. It was like $69.
00:12:48
Speaker
There you go. Really, a lot of it doesn't have to do with the microphone itself. It has to do with what you use to record. like I mean, my i my audio is not the best compared to some of the other voice people we have in the in during the shows. Like they have like actual legit three hundred dollar microphones and actual sound booth, you know, like the full set up. And I'm not into it as like I don't do it as much as them to where they're actually making the living doing it. Mine's just the hobby.
00:13:18
Speaker
So that's kind of where I wanted i wanted to ask you is because I know you mentioned this is more of like a hobby because if you go to your website, and we'll talk about your website in a bit, there's a lot of stuff on there, a lot of different things that you're doing. like I understand why they call you Disney at work because you have a lot of different you know Disney fan aspects and facets to yourself.
00:13:38
Speaker
On there, there's, you know, you're an author, you're a podcaster, you have pins. I'm going to let everybody else jump in. ah Did anybody want to ask him ah specifically about the pins before I steal that? Because I love pins. I collect pins. I don't want to steal anyone's thunder. No. Okay. So go ahead. Okay. So I love Disney pins. I collect them. I have like a, like a fisherman's vest that's covered in them that I can park if I want to. You're one of the crazy ones. Okay.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, so I haven't done it in a long time because it's so heavy. Yeah. And when we fly, it's like the whole 50 pounds in my bag. So I haven't brought it with me. It hangs in my closet. um I'll do it when my son's a little bit older to really embarrass him. But as of right now, it sits in the closet, but your pens, they're not like, it's not you collecting Disney pens. You actually create these pens. Yes, they're referred to as Disney fantasy pins, right? They're made by fans, um not by Disney. And then we just do them unless Disney says not to. I mean, there's thousands of us that do it. I've done over 165 designs so far. Not all of them are Disney. I've been commissioned to do some for like a police department, the health department here in my county. um I just did.
00:14:56
Speaker
seven different designs for an upcoming event for Sam McKim, who was the original a Disney Imagineer, who drew the original map for Disneyland. And they're doing like this huge event. It's gonna last two days to talk about his work and the stuff that he did throughout his life. I did seven different designs, not just pins. We have other, I don't know if I can even talk about it. There's like other things besides pins that we had to create that are kind of like pins.
00:15:23
Speaker
um But like i I was busy with that for like a month just into the designing phase and now they're all being produced How do you guys the designs like is it just like oh, I wish they made this pin So I'm gonna make this pin that that what it is. That's good. that Sounds cool. Like what if there's a mashup? I did ah a bunch of Harry Potter stitch Okay. Stitch sells very well. So yeah just depending on, I've done a ah bunch of autism awareness pins. I've done ah pride pins. I've done, I have a bunch for like different cancer awarenesses. So they're different color ribbons, but they're like Mickey ears.
00:15:59
Speaker
So like this is, this is for breast cancer awareness. It's mini ears, ah but the, like the ribbon is glitter. Okay. Yeah. I see that in that. And so like, it's like the mini hat with the bow and yeah and then it's like the ribbon in the middle, but like that mold I will just use for like.
00:16:14
Speaker
another kind of cancer yeah for many years and it would just be a different color. So for like cervical cancer, uterine cancer, but then I have like colon cancer and those are Mickey ears and ah there's lymphoma, childhood cancer. So like I do those as well. um I've done the relay for life pin seven years in a row and they do the the cancer walk.
00:16:37
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. Every year. And so I've done a different one for them every year, depending on what their what their theme is. And so this one was called walking through the the decades or something. I think it was really through the decades. And so I have Minnie Mouse dressed up in like 1920s, Daisy's 1950s. Mickey is dressed kind of like Elvis 1960s, Goofy's 1970s. He's a hippie. And then Donald is 1980s with a Walkman.
00:17:05
Speaker
so like they look like they're you know different outfits but yeah it changes every single year um and then sometimes i'll just come up with an idea like i went up to um with my wife to her mom's house and then we went to a pumpkin patch two years ago and it's a big one like they have a parking lot it's like a little like a little village there and so i'm like what if i did a stitch at a pumpkin patch and he's drinking like a pumpkin latte and he's got a scarf on because it's fall and there's leaves everywhere. So like I just did that one as soon as we got home.
00:17:37
Speaker
That is awesome. I do commissions and stuff. Someone just commissioned me to do a um ah boy or girl ah stork pin, like the the bundle it's carrying is a pink or blue um because they work in a receiving ah birthing receiving department of a hospital. And so they give them out to mothers. And so I was like, oh, cool. I could do like the stork from from Dumbo.
00:18:02
Speaker
yeah and then it would just be the bundle would be pink or blue he wouldn't see dumbo you just see the stork right um i did some changes to him so he's not he doesn't look exactly like the one in the movie but you know you know it's him right that's disney sterling halloway's first voice credit for disney there you go before winning the poo and That's so cool how you're able to do like for very specific causes that might not always get these pins, you know, because Disney does stuff that's for much larger audiences, but for you to be able to hone in on these very specific causes that it's awesome that you can do that. Do you like to stitch one that you showed us and and and relay through the decades? Do you draw all of this like when you design it? So you you have that artistic background as well.
00:18:49
Speaker
So this was a Harry Potter cat for that I did for the cat lounge here in Martinez. They're a nonprofit cat rescue and they pull from cats from the shelter. I worked i worked at animal shelter for 18 years and they pull cats from there and then they get to run free in this like.
00:19:05
Speaker
little facility and it's Harry Potter themed. So I made this pin because I had a book signing there. He's got a little lightning bolt on his head and glasses. So this is just generic cat that's dressed up to kind of look like Gryffindor. um But I would draw it in pencil. I would scan it to the computer and then I would trace over in Photoshop and then make some changes. Like I would use like a a drawing tool to make his glasses perfectly round or you know, like I may might copy an eye and flip the image so it's like the same size and shape you know so it's more symmetrical but yeah I usually do the outline pencil sketch of it sometimes I'll have like I did one of I needed a it was a pin with a hammer in it and I just got an image of a hammer and then I just traced over the hammer so I didn't have to draw a hammer ah I think that should be called Harry Purr
00:19:58
Speaker
Harry purr. Well, and I just, I just did one of, uh, Lucifer from Cinderella, but as a Slytherin cat and I did a Kickstarter for it and it got fully funded and I should be getting the pins in like a week now, but I was like, Oh, I should have done like Disney cats. And I didn't with this one. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's crook shanks dressed for Harry Potter. That's so funny.
00:20:24
Speaker
who So Trader's Saints or any of the bars like that, that would be fun to do pins on those. I really like the Tiki theme. I have a Tiki bar in my house right now with a fake thatched roof, and there's lighting in it, and there's a fake wall hanging that makes it look like you're on the beach, and but I have just decor all around, and it's all Tiki themed. We even do, my wife and I do tastings when we're both not working on Friday night. It's called Tiki Time and Shafer Tiki Bar, and then we'll we'll taste things and stuff in front of the bar, and then people watch us live on Facebook.
00:21:01
Speaker
But I have done a couple Tiki themed ones. I did one of, it was a Tiki stitch with his hands. He was like a statue and he was holding ah Jose and Michael, the parrots. And I've done a pineapple stitch where he was actually based off the pop figure of stitch with the pineapple. And yeah, I've done a couple, a couple of that kind. Joshua, I have two questions for you now, yeah since you brought up your Tiki bar. um The first one about the pin trading, you can't trade them with cast members, correct?
00:21:31
Speaker
correct you can't trade them in the park not in parks where if you want to trade is there a group out there that trades them or like at mouse con kind of like where mouse con yeah are are you near mouse con do you go to mouse con no no i've heard of it though Okay so um I'm doing more California and the western I'm doing more research on that all of that side I'm on I'm in Florida so Disneyland has been new uh Anaheim and all the west coast is new to me the last two years
00:22:02
Speaker
Okay, okay, so I went to the Bakersfield Mouse Con once, and then the one here in Concord, which is near me, I've been to every year since 2015. And they're doing one in Salt Lake City coming up in a month or two. And I'm not going to that one. But You can trade them at other places that aren't Disney parks. I mean, people do trade them in Disneyland. It's just you can't you have to be like, hey, this is a fantasy pen. Obviously, you flip it over and it's blank or it has like an artist name on it. It doesn't say Disney. It doesn't have the waffle head pattern. So, you know, it's not an actual Disney pen, but like a cast member can't trade with you. But you can trade with people as long as they know. But like I wouldn't.
00:22:45
Speaker
People wear it in the park. I had somebody find me on on Etsy because they were looking up I don't even remember what pin it was now, but they saw somebody's pin in the park and they're like, where'd you get that? And they're like, oh, it was on Etsy. And so he found it on Etsy and he messaged me and he's like, oh, can I get like 10 of these? And I'm like, ah, I only have like six left. And ah he's like, yeah, I saw it in Disneyland. I'm like, you saw it. You actually saw it in the park. That's really cool. People send me pictures of.
00:23:11
Speaker
Like my pins in the park because they're like, you know, wearing them on their backpacks or wherever. It's pretty cool. ah Even in Hong Kong and in Tokyo, Disney, my pins have been over there. I'm like, that was really cool. That is really cool. Okay. My next question is about your Tiki bar. Do you, I noticed in some of your pictures on your website, you have the Tiki mugs. Do you have a favorite Tiki mug? And then also do you have one that you want, but don't have yet?
00:23:38
Speaker
I have a friend who sends me pictures of all the tiki mugs that come out. So I'm just wondering okay. So I really like it's tough because i i I pick out the ones that I like. So I have one that has like cracking tentacles around a barrel and I i just got the parrots the Caribbean and it's a parrot with a peg leg and I just got the haunted mansion with the hitchhiking ghosts in front of it. Those those are awesome. I yeah just saw those too. Those are great.
00:24:04
Speaker
And then i I have this one that's ah like a zombie head. It's not a zombie, it's a um like a voodoo voodoo shrunken head from Trader Sam's. And I think I like that one the best because that was the first one I got and it was at Trader Sam's. But if I could get anyone with that add to my collection is the hat box ghost that came out a couple months ago.
00:24:25
Speaker
because they were there. would The line for that was like four hours long. the People were waiting. I mean, I wasn't there for the release, but I was like, dang, this is any look online and they're like hundreds of dollars. So like, I mean, if I could add one to my collection, I'd want to get that one because I like the hat box goes. I was a fan of him before they brought him back in 2015. So like i I knew I knew about him. I'm like, I like the hat box goes because people don't really know about him because he's not here.
00:24:52
Speaker
You know, he was only on the original, you know, like the record and he was only there for the first two weeks. The Haunted Mansion opened. So like people don't really know about him unless you're a super Disney fan. So I'm like, I like that one the best. And then they brought him in and now they like But I like him first. Is it safe to say that Trader Sam's is your favorite ah lounge?
00:25:11
Speaker
Yes. Um, we're actually going there in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping to get a reservation, but I looked at the calendar after we booked our trip and that's the Sunday night that D 23 ends.
Books and Guides to Disney
00:25:25
Speaker
And so I'm like, Oh man, we're not going to get into there. And where that's the night we're arriving. So.
00:25:30
Speaker
Mike, we're not gonna get in the trades. It's gonna be booked so far out. And I'm not going to D23 this year. It'll be my first year to miss since 2017. I've had a booth every year for the past three years or three times. I'm just not going this time. I'm waiting till my new books come out.
00:25:45
Speaker
OK, well, you just said the magic word, the book, because I want to segue into the yeah into the book. i You know, you got it. So i'm I've never been to Disneyland. I'm a Disney World person. I'm on the East Coast. We were supposed to go. that We were supposed to go. We were trying to get tickets. The D-23 was going to be our first trip. We were going to bring the boys. We couldn't get tickets. We're like, OK, we'll go to Disney World.
00:26:06
Speaker
Oh, and poor me. We're going to Disney World. But tell me about the book. It's Discovering the Magic Kingdom and Unofficial Disneyland Vacation Guide. Yeah. my and My publisher had me add the unofficial and do it. Tell me what what went into making the book and why did you feel like that was the book you had to write um i've always been into facts or tidbits of information i'm always like did you know that the thing of things like this thing and i liked giving information
00:26:39
Speaker
and i used to have there used to be a website called blury or livejourn and i had those in the early two thousand s and i used to post Just facts, here's pictures and information. And then around 2005 or six, I was like starting to learn more about Disneyland. And I started writing down the things I was learning and I would print them out on paper and take them with me to the park. And I would share them with people online. I'm like, did you know that Walt's apartment was above the firehouse? Did you know there's a basketball hoop inside of the top for the Matterhorn? Those are the basic ones.
00:27:12
Speaker
And I just got I'm just laughing because my 11 year old son is that right there. Like he learned something. He has to tell everybody in line that fact about that ride or or whatever. I just go ahead.
00:27:27
Speaker
but i I have ADHD and so I like to say info dumps, just stuff. I'll just talk about something for long periods of time. And I, my, my ADHD focused on the Disney stuff. Like it found something to, this is what, this is interesting. I'll focus on this rather than like sea creatures or science or plants and flowers or, you know, all the other things out there you can learn. And, uh, I was told you should make this into like a booklet.
00:27:54
Speaker
And so I wrote out a bunch of stuff. I purposefully started researching and, uh, cause there wasn't a lot of websites out in mid 2000s with information cause the internet was still newer. Blogs were harder to come by. They weren't, there weren't a lot of interviews with people up yet. YouTube was newer. So there wasn't like interviews from documentaries and clips of things yet. And, uh, I printed out, it was like 67 pages and put them in clear slips in little binders. And I sold them on eBay.
00:28:24
Speaker
And I sold 13 of them. And then people were asking me questions like, Oh, well, how do you use fast passes and you should have stuff about the food and blah, blah, blah. And so I ended up just making it super big and it was 210 pages. And I just decided to have it published in a book. And so in 2010, my first book came out as 210 pages.
00:28:46
Speaker
Then I started writing the second one, which is the second edition. it's a it It is ah an expansion on the first one, even though there is stuff I took out of the second book that was in the first one. Like I did list all the deaths that were in Disneyland and ghost stories that people have experienced. I'm like, I'm going to take those out because I kind of want Disney to pick it up, you know, have it because there was a copy of my first book in the archives because I got to know Dave Smith because ah his sister was a dog walker at the shelter I worked at. She's like, do you know, ah do you know the Disney legends program? And I was like, yeah, I have a section for that in my book. She's like, my brother's in there. Who's your brother? And she's like, Dave Smith. And so i was I'm like, oh, yes, right here is number 200. Wait.
00:29:31
Speaker
Dave Smith, like ask Dave, the head archivist, the the one who started the archives department, who first cataloged all of Walt's office after he died. Yeah, that's my brother. What? No way. And so um I got in contact with him. and And so he asked for a copy of my book. And so he put it in your archives and.
00:29:52
Speaker
I messaged him every once in a while with questions up until he passed. In fact, the last thing I messaged him, cause I went to my messages after he passed and I was like, what was the last thing I asked him? And it was about the live alligators that got loose in the jungle cruise. Cause I used to have them in a pen there. Um, I was just verifying it. Cause I'm like, I can't really find information about this. And he said, no, they were there. There's footage of them.
00:30:14
Speaker
ah They were in a pen outside Jungle Cruise and they were rented from the alligator farm down but in Buena Park, down by Knott's Berry Farm. There was an alligator farm there and they shortly lived in Disneyland because they got loose and they had to drain the water to catch them. so That was the last thing I had contract with them. Anyway, then I started working on the second edition. I spent seven years on that and I was interviewed on the sweep spot podcast and they have the cleaning the kingdom books and they said they contacted me after the interview and like, Hey, do you want to share a booth at D 23? And this was at the end of 2016. And I was like,
00:30:55
Speaker
uh yeah except i don't want to go with my book that's now seven years old almost so i spent seven months every night after work and i wrote this and this is 700 pages i did the the like just a slight expansion just yeah just i did most of it in those seven months and just adding to it. And ah this one I premiered at the D23 in in 2017. And I shared their booth with them and then Russell Flores, who wrote the Seen Unseen Disneyland books. um and she He was there, too. We cramped in this tiny little booth. I had to stand on the side of the table for almost the entire weekend because it was just a little six foot table. They had two books. I had two books and Russell had two books.
00:31:41
Speaker
So there was four of us with six books and then people just like would line up and then we just talk Disney all day long every day because that it's open from like nine to seven. So there are long days. Yeah. So if we follow the pattern here, that means that this year there should be about a 1200 page book going out, right? Yeah, actually this.
00:32:03
Speaker
and so the one the one I'm working on now it's it's not for Disneyland it's for Disney movies and There's a section for Pixar Walt Disney animation Walt Disney live-action Marvel Star Wars parts of the Caribbean and it has all of the movies And then as many fun facts as I can learn about each movie. But the problem is right now, I have about the same amount of words as what's in the Bible. So it's really long. It's not as long as all the Harry Potter books together. But if you could imagine together ah two of these stacked plus a half of one stacked, that's what it's at now. And I'm not even done yet. I just finished.
00:32:42
Speaker
I have like a bunch of it done, but um what I'm going to do, what I want to do this year is release a teaser trailer book, which will be like, you know, like two or 300 pages and it'll have, you know, a couple hundred or a thousand fun facts and it'll, it'll show basically what my books are going to look like. It'll give you an idea of like, Oh, here's the sections. Here's how it's going to break down. And the fun facts about, Oh, here's the history. Here's the animation board. And here's the voice acting. and Here's the Easter eggs and hidden Mickey's and cameos. So they they all have their own sections. And that way people get an idea of what the future volumes are going to include. Josh, I got to ask and and I'm going to do it. I'm going to prod a little bit. Can we get a sneak peek of maybe what one example of a fact in the movie book would be? um Just a single fact. Let me see. I still have I'm I'm I'm going through. I got Grammarly.
00:33:37
Speaker
The paid version of Grammarly. And it is so good. i wish i I wish I had it like back in the beginning because now I'm going through it. I'm like, man, these are and a lot of it is like suggestions like, oh, what if you read the sentence like this? I don't use the AI tool because i I did a couple of those. I'm like, that doesn't sound like me talking at all. Right. Like it doesn't sound like me. So right now I'm editing ah onward.
00:34:07
Speaker
Which okay up until, I need to double check to see what Inside Out 2 is, but um Onward was the number one ah fan favorite Pixar film. It had the highest fan rating um but out of all of them. i like I loved it too. I think it would have made a ton of money if COVID didn't happen. Because it was only a theater for two weeks. yeah um Let me see here.
00:34:27
Speaker
Okay, ah so these are like ah Easter eggs, cameos, hidden mickeys if there are any. The hand soap in the Lightfoot's kitchen sink is the brand Hygia. This is a nod to Hygia, the Greek goddess of health, cleanliness, and hygiene, which is where the word hygiene came from. The bowl of Hygia originated with her and is used as the symbol for pharmaceuticals, a snake wrapping around a bowl.
00:34:55
Speaker
And I was like, that's really cool. Like they, they put it in and it's just the name of the soap. And it has like, it's, it's it's tied to Greek mythology. And I was like, that's really cool. So yeah, that's just one. So like, i like onward right now has 208 fun facts. but wow So yeah, um, i I might be adding some more cause I'm editing right now. And when I edit sometimes I i end up learning a little bit more.
00:35:22
Speaker
But I have a whole section for who does that voice? And so I'll list like Ian Lightfoot is voiced by Tom Holland. He is most well known to fans of the MCU as Spider-Man. He's also known for his roles in Secret World of Rarietti, the English version, The Impossible and the Heart of the Sea. So it lists a couple of like big titles of people are like, oh, I i know I've seen that movie. That's who that is. um I do it for the live action ones, too, because You know, some people don't know that Johnny Depp did other things besides Jack Sparrow or that like Captain Barbosa was Nigel from Finding Nemo. What? Like people don't they don't realize that. And so you just put in some other big things they did, especially Disney stuff.
00:36:05
Speaker
Anyway, that's that one. I'm i'm hoping to get the the new ones out, at least that the teaser book this year. um But I have been working on it for seven years because I started it at the end of 2017 when i my other one was done. And I'm like, because I have a movie section in here. So each fun fact is bullet pointed. Let me get but it to the back. So here's, oh, that's funny.
00:36:27
Speaker
So they're all bullet pointed and there's pictures and that way you it reads like an encyclopedia. So you can look up an attraction, a land um and then read about specifically what you're looking for. It's not like a chapter book. I mean, you could sit and read it like that, but I bullet pointed them and then I bolded the topic of the fun facts so that it's easy to skim. And so it's easy to remember. Nice. What's your favorite Disney movie?
00:36:57
Speaker
and i know it's hard And it depends on like the genre. Like I like Pirates of the Caribbean. I like inside out but love to inside out too. Awesome. Lilo and Stitch, Zootopia. Those are my favorites. But I grew up watching Robin Hood, Cinderella, Bambi because we had those on VHS. Are you an MCU fan?
00:37:21
Speaker
Yes, I am. I have I have a movie theater in my house so I can see 21 people. I have an eight foot screen and a snack bar surround sound ah under seat lighting and I have a lot of Marvel stuff up on the walls as movie posters. There's a light up lightsaber. There's a remote control Harry Potter wand that controls the What you're saying is the next time we have you on the show, it's going to be live from your movie theater live from my theater. It's kind of dark in there. I painted the walls a brick red and in the ceiling is dark gray to help keep the room darker. But I used to host movie nights like all the time. But with my new job, I'm just busy, it really slowed down after covid, actually. But um I'm just I'm busy all the time.
00:38:08
Speaker
I work 12-hour shifts, so I don't have a lot of time on my hands. is You're mentioning you love the Disney movies. It's Peter Pan, and you might know where I'm going next with this, but it's Peter Pan up there with you. pan i I like Peter Pan um because I did watch that one growing up and stuff, but I'm a huge fan of Tinkerbell, and it's because I'm Tinkerbell's manager.
00:38:30
Speaker
and so In 2015, I got an email from a woman named Gina Rock, and she said, Hey, I saw your your your blog about um the Tinkerbells in Disneyland. She's like, How did you know? How did you know my name? And the fun fact ended with it was listing them, you know, Tiny Cline, Mimi Zerbini, Judy Kay.
00:38:52
Speaker
do you rock rock period and and i was like uh it's just part of history like i'm a disney historian and like i just i just learned the stuff yeah it's in my book and stuff and she said oh okay well i'm i'm that's me and i was just wondering like how you found that out and i was like oh really and she's like i want you to write an article about what i'm doing now I said, okay. So I interviewed her and it was ah published in the Disney Anna newsletter for Southern California. And then ah in that summer of 2016, she's like, Oh, would she be my manager? Give me on podcasts, sell my autographs, run on my website, which I created because she didn't have one. Um, so yeah, I just, I do all of her stuff for her now. And it's been quite a few years.
00:39:38
Speaker
So I do know a lot about Tinkerbell, not just the one from the park, but like just on the side just because, oh, I have a Tinkerbell movie section in my book too. So it has the Tinkerbell movies, but that one's going to be isolated to just one volume. It's going to, my books are going to be cut into like four volumes because no one can open a book this thick. So how thick is that book? 2000 pages. Oh, so it's a booster seat. Okay. Right. Yeah. So I have separate, like Jim Henson is going to be in one volume and the Tinkerbell movies are going to be in one volume. It'll be like specific to that volume. So those volume, each volume will have all the movies. So like Zootopia, I have 209 fun facts, but in each volume I'll have, I was, I was going to do three volumes, but it's too long. I was going to have like 103 fun facts in each book for Zootopia. So you could get any volume and you'll have Zootopia, but they'll be different from each other.
00:40:31
Speaker
but it'll be like that for all the Star Wars movies too. I'm envisioning a whole trivial pursuit game that you need to make next. I wanted to do an app. I looked into doing an app for Disneyland to where you click on, you're you're there and you click on the attraction and then facts pop up. Like you get like a handful of them and then you get the paid version and then it was like a ton of them pop up. That'd be expensive.
00:40:54
Speaker
ah That would be really fun, standing in line for a particular ride, find all the fun facts about
Connecting through Disney and Future Plans
00:41:03
Speaker
a ride. yeah Have you taken this too on the road? You know, we've had some other authors, I have some friends that are authors, and they do speaking events and and they go, oh you know, they sign their books, you know, just like any of the other fan fan base conventions. have you Have you done any of that yet? have. So I've done speakings a couple times. um One of them wasn't specifically about my book. It was at a school and it was talking to kids about becoming an author and writing and getting published. It just happened to be and my book was about Disney. I've had 40 book signings so far.
00:41:41
Speaker
The last one I had was at the cat lounge in Martinez um that does the cat rescue. They had me there and it was my first time to not have to say, Hey, do you like fun facts? My book is over 3,700 fun facts in it about Disney because they were there to see me like they announced it. It was gonna be walking.
00:42:01
Speaker
Yeah, they came for me because I'm going to walk through into a cat rescue and be like, oh, there's a book here for some reason. Like they came to see me. And it was very interesting to not have to like, you know, lure people in. um I've been at Barnes and Noble a couple of times. Again, people were there to see me um unless they were like they walk straight up to me or they'd be like passing by and they glanced down and I'm like, do you like fun facts? My book has over I say it all the time. Like somebody got me this pen that is engraved with my name and it says, do you like fun facts on and um the case? And it has like my name on the pen. Yeah. I mean, my my podcast is called, do you like fun facts? That's just like my catchphrase. So i I really, I appreciate that you went and talked to students about
00:42:50
Speaker
um about becoming an author, but you could also talk to them about other things, being a manager, you could talk to them about... um being a voice actor, becoming a voice actor. This, that one from the school was before all that stuff happened. Before those happened. Yeah. This was my first book. I think this was in 2013 maybe. So it had been out for a couple of years and it was one of my friends. She was a school teacher and she's like, Hey, do you want to come talk to my class? And it was, it was a private school. So there was like 15 students.
00:43:24
Speaker
They're sitting on ah benches listening to me and they told the parents, hey, if your kids want a book, have them bring $20 to the school. But that was interesting because I wasn't focusing on Disney. I was focusing on what I went through to actually write it in more detail, fighting with my publisher.
00:43:40
Speaker
I love the Disney connection throughout multiple facets of your life. It seems like a lot of the relationships you've built have built on to the next relationship. So I think you know even that, helping young young people learn about those connections and and building on those is very important.
00:44:02
Speaker
Why me? So going to these conventions and stuff, I meet so many people like I had dinner with Tony Bancroft, the director of Mulan, and he was the animator of Pumbaa and Yago and Cogsworth and Cronk and ah Margaret Carey, the actual live action model for Tinker Bell was there at the same dinner. And then Bob Gurr, the imagineer who made the Doom buggies and the monorail and like all that stuff. He was there at the same dinner. We're sitting at one gigantic table. Rolly Crump.
00:44:31
Speaker
wrote the ford for my book you know he made the haunted mansion tiki room in small world and terry harden who was on your show previously she wrote the ford for my book too i have two fords roly crump is one of the reasons why i made my tiki bar it's one of the reasons why tiki culture is so popular here and it's because of the tiki room how many millions of people have been through there and they're just drawn into the tiki culture because it started around that time because it was right after hawaii became a state and united airlines started flying people They're more often and so they'd advertise and stuff. They were one of the sponsors And we gotta Yeah, we're gonna have to get you to come back and do like uh, like a trivia night challenge thing because you would be perfect We're getting all of that out. That is that's so cool You know, I know we're we're coming up to our our time here, but you mentioned your podcast you have book
00:45:25
Speaker
Where else can our listeners go and and find out more about what you're doing? and you know I mentioned your website, but we didn't get into it too much. Where can they hear more from you? What's your website? How can they get in touch with you?
00:45:38
Speaker
Uh, my website is Disney guy.org. It's very easy Disney guy. Cause I'm the Disney guy. So it has, when you go there, it has all the links to everything I did write a mini bio for Terry Harden. It lists all the movies that she was in puppeteering, you know, the puppeteer for baby and dinosaurs. Uh, she was in Ghostbusters. Like I have all of that stuff listed all that.
00:46:00
Speaker
all of the attractions she worked on in the parks, um my stuff for Tinker Bell's there, my podcasts, my live tastings, my pins, um magazine articles that I've written, links to my IMDB page. like yeah Very very cool stuff. Well, I mean one I'm gonna be looking for you in angels in the airfield now I gotta find a widescreen version and I gotta I gotta find you because I love the movie and i I might be ordering a couple pins because I was scrolling through some of this stuff and these are very very cool looking Different you can't get them from Disney and it's things you might not think of so it's it's very cool and
00:46:38
Speaker
We're going to have to have you come back, especially when the next book comes out. And, uh, we can, we could talk a little bit more about that. Thank you for sharing a little teaser with us. That sounds awesome. Well, again, thank you. And I'm telling you right now, Jeff is, he's going to be so upset. He's going to be so upset that he wasn't on this one. Jeff, send us your demo. Yeah. I bet you i bet he will.
00:46:59
Speaker
Well, I'll message him as soon as we're done. Be like, Hey, listen, you you missed a good one. Hopefully he's okay. Jeff, if you listen to this, hopefully you're okay. We know you're sick right now. We miss you buddy. But again, Joshua, thank you so much. we're Barry's going to reach out and we're going to have to have you back. But we wish you good luck on the next book and thank you so much.
00:47:18
Speaker
Well folks, that's it for this week's episode of Sharing the Magic. We want to once again thank our guest Joshua Shafer for joining us and sharing his story. Be sure to hit that follow button to stay up to date with our latest episodes as they come out for even more amazing Disney conversations. We would also love to have you follow us on our social pages. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok by searching Sharing the Magic Pod. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, keep sharing the magic.
00:47:53
Speaker
yeah