Blog HM4: Hidden Mickey 4: Wolf!: Happily Ever After?

When Disneyland first opened in 1955, Fantasyland was themed to look like a village from Medieval Times. It reminded guests of the days of King Arthur and Merlin. There were cutouts of shields and banners that decorated the front of the rides such as Peter Pan and Mister Toad instead of the detailed and lovely façades of today. It was a simpler look – one that I remember well and really enjoyed.
In 1963, the magazine National Geographic did a spread about Walt Disney, Disneyland, and his Studio. Included were pictures of artists as they worked on the animated film The Sword and the Stone. As we know, King Arthur and Merlin are the subjects of that film. In Disneyland we have the King Arthur Carrousel and a sword embedded in a stone facing the Castle. There used to be a Sword in the Stone ceremony presided over by Merlin himself in which a youngster was pulled from the audience and given the chance to rule the kingdom – for a moment or two at least!

In Hidden Mickey 4: Wolf: Happily Ever After?, we explore those days of King Arthur and Merlin as our intrepid heroes have a slight miscalculation in time and end up in the moat surrounding King Arthur’s castle, not King Stefan’s. Found by the owl Archimedes and taken to Merlin himself, Wolf, Wals, and Briar Rose discover their error but are still intrigued by the idea of actually getting to see King Arthur. But Merlin wisely tells them, “You don’t want King Arthur to see you.” Oh, the bothers of time travel!

Not wanting Walt to be left out, we go back in time to see him at various stages of his career and what he was working on. Whether busy at his Studio, or traveling in Europe with his family, Walt always had his eye on the future and how he could improve his Park.

In the second book of this series, Hidden Mickey 2: It All Started…, you got to see Disneyland as it might be in the future. Now you will return to Disneyland of 2042 as the story of the heart-shaped, red diamond pendant comes to its thrilling, heart-tugging conclusion. You will see the Guardians of Walt from the past and present as they unite for one final conflict with the dragon Nimue in an epic battle of Good versus Evil.
We aren’t done, though! Be sure to keep the adventure alive by continuing with my new Hidden Mickey Adventures series of novels. The torch of the Guardians is slowly being passed to the next generation of clue solvers. All your friends will be there: Wolf, Lance, Kimberly, Adam, and Beth. And now you will be reading the adventures of their children: Peter, Catie, and Alex. As always, Walt will be there, too, to tell his story and share his history.

Walt Disney once said that fantasy and reality often collide. And, if you look at the lengthy list of movies that have come out of the Disney studios, you will see that the sprinkling of pixie dust—fantasy—is present in so, so many of them.
It is with Hidden Mickey 3 Wolf!: The Legend of Tom Sawyer’s Island that I begin to add the wonderful element of fantasy to the novels. I introduced a special security guard named Wolf in Book 2 of the series, and hinted at some unique aspects of his abilities. I explore and explain those abilities in Book 3 and add the “what-if” factor. What if a character was able to travel through time? What if the places you are familiar with in Disneyland have another life somewhere else? And, as a twist to the usual time travel theme: What if the things that happen in Disneyland now affect the past?
One of my favorite places in Disneyland is the Frontierland River, or Rivers of America. Whether I was on a keel boat, a canoe, or the Mark Twain, or just sitting on the upper deck of the Hungry Bear Restaurant, the River has always captured my imagination and caused a wave of peace to wash over me. There is a quietness about the trip down the River where the sounds of the busy Park vanish as the rhythmic strokes of a canoe paddle or the swishing background noise of the Mark Twain’s wheel take over.
As a young girl I ran wild through Fort Wilderness, climbed into the lookout towers, and scurried through the Escape Tunnel. As I went by on one of the river vessels, I would stare at Cousin Jed as he bent backward over a fence post, an arrow sticking out of his chest and flames shooting into the sky as his cabin burned. I even have a picture of my brother standing in front of a huge stuffed buffalo that used to be in the Friendly Village.
For years Cousin Jed’s cabin was empty, the flames long extinguished. Always a fan of the Old West, I wondered what it would have been like to live in that log cabin and visit the Fort when it was up and running. When it was time to write book 3, I knew that was where I wanted to go. I wanted to go back in time and bring that cabin and Fort Wilderness back to life.
As Wolf, his friend Wals, the mysterious Rose, and an innocent Dr. Houser tread the dangerous waters of frontier life, Wolf begins to notice an alarming trend. He finds that the changes that are being made to Disneyland in the present day are changing the way of life back on the Island and Fort Wilderness. When he hears that the Island is going to be turned into “Pirate’s Lair,” he knows he has to get all his friends back to their proper time. There’s just one problem: Wals, Rose, and Dr. Houser don’t remember their previous life…
Walt and the beautiful red heart pendant are part of the story, too. When Wolf wants to visit his long-gone boss, Walt, he makes a miscalculation and lands too far back in the past. We get to meet a 9-year-old Walt and his sister Ruthie on the farm in Marceline when Ruthie suddenly spots a big, bad wolf. You will also find out what happened to the Dreaming Tree.
So, sit back, put yer feet up, ‘cause this here’s the wildest ride in the Wilderness!

A common question I get is: “Where do you get all your ideas for the books?”
It’s a good question and one that I had to think about before answering.
My first visit to Disneyland was way back in 1962 – and it was love at first sight. I have been going regularly since then, at least once a year and sometimes more often. There have been many changes to the Park over the years and I have seen a lot of them. There are rides and attractions that I enjoy and go on every time I visit. There are shows where I know most of the words of the songs by heart. So, part of the answer to the above question would be that I know the Park so well, it is somewhat easy to pick out sections I want to share with others. Sometimes the part I choose for a particular novel is no longer still at Disneyland, so I get to bring it, and its creator, Walt Disney himself, back to life in flashbacks.
Another part of the answer would be from all the research I do. Even before I started writing the Hidden Mickey novels, I was already an avid reader about the Park and about Walt. I have many of Disneyland’s souvenir books throughout the decades that I have been reading and re-reading since the late 1960’s. There are many fan pages on the Internet that have staff writers who worked at Disneyland, or, more excitedly, worked with Walt and are now sharing their experiences with all of us. There are also biographers whose works are quite fascinating. I read their words and try to look behind the scenes and find some part that might have more to it than what was said.
One example of this was found in a popular, quite lengthy, biography about Walt. The writer was talking about the tour Walt did in South America in 1941. This was the time the strike was going on at the Studio and it was tearing Walt apart. His good friends told him he needed to get away for a while and they all decided that a tour throughout South America would be just the thing. He could get some rest and do some PR work. Well, it sounded good on paper, but Walt ended up being mobbed everywhere he went. He needed to have some alone time. According to the biography, once they got to Columbia, they “commandeered a boat and went 40 miles up the Amazon River.”
Now, that was all the biography said about that little side trip. As I read, my eyes kept coming back to that one sentence and I wondered, “Hmmm, wonder what happened when they got up the Amazon?” And that was all it took. I include that PR trip in my second novel: Hidden Mickey 2: It All Started… and take the readers up the Amazon with Walt and show what happened on that overnight trip. Walt was given something special in the jungle – something that showed him that all his dreams would actually come true at a time when he was beginning to doubt everything. With a deft blend of fiction and fantasy, I set up for the future novels with the recurring theme of the red diamond Hidden Mickey pendant and its special powers.
I hope you will check out this exciting continuation of the Hidden Mickey story as Lance Brentwood teams up with a new partner and delves even further into the fascinating history of Walt Disney.