Yesterday on the Disney Parks (uuugggggggggggggh) blog, it was revealed that C-3PO will be piloting the new Star Tours next year.

Pretty cool. I'm sure that will make the Star Wars fans happy. (Nerds.)

But through my secret little informants, I've learned even more about their plans for the character in the Orlando version of the ride.

Since I was so successful at bringing tons of people to Animal Kingdom, Team Disco Orlando has modeled the new C-3PO animatronic after me. I'm flattered, really I am.

He'll have 3 modes of operation.

A Mode will be how he operates on opening day. He'll move around, say his lines, and pilot the ship through various disasters and adventure.

Then after the tours have been operating for a couple of years, he'll automatically switch to B Mode. In B Mode, he'll remain motionless for your entire voyage, but a strobe light will flash in your eyes the entire time so that you can't tell.

Also, at the end, they'll sell you pictures of you shielding your eyes from the flash. It will be during a stationary moment of the ride so that everyone's expressions are blank, kind of like on Space Mountain now.

But that's not all. In case the strobe light isn't working or guests complain about it, C-3PO is being outfitted with a C Mode, where he sprays hydraulic fluid all over the guests throughout the ride to distract from the strobe light. For your comfort, the hydraulic pressure will be turned up in the summer and down in the winter, so you get the wettest when it's hot out.

In case that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, no worries. You'll also be offered a Green Team experience, wherein you sit in non-moving seats and someone comes in and describes the ride to you. Preferably someone with a thick accent and no acting skills or enthusiasm.

I hear they're having a discussion about whether they can get away with not theming the room and just doing the whole thing in the dark with only a pair of headphones.

They'll still take your picture, though. That'll be $29.95.

Oh. Man.

You would not believe the week I've just had.

If you're not in Orlando, you might not know this, but the rest of us can't seem to get away from the CONSTANT DRILLING INTO OUR HEADS that Universal is hosting Halloween Horror Nights right now. It's their 20th year of scaring people senseless, and that's just the prices at the ticket booth.

Universal hosts Halloween Horror Nights for basically three reasons. 

1. It brings people to the parks during the traditionally slow October season. (Yes, I just called October a season. Get over it.)

2. It gives them a way to compete with Disney's Not-So-Merry Christmahanukkah Party, or whatever it is we're doing right now.

3. It helps to distract from the cheesy pay-to-play carnival games stationed every 30 feet at Universal. "Welcome to a land of mystery and adventure! Now we only need 3 more people to pony up to win this plush Stewie from Family Guy." (Oh, you thought I was only snarky about Disney? Think again.)

So last week, I snuck out of--

Wait. No. I'm not done ranting on the carnival games.

Seriously, Universal?! After I paid over $100 to enter your park, is it really necessary to have barkers on the street yelling at me to come spend another 5 bucks to throw a ball or toss rings? What is this, the state fair? When we said we wanted Universal to compete with Disney, we didn't mean Chester and Hester's.

Anyway.

So last week, I snuck out of my cave after dark and went to see Halloween Horror Nights. Dudes, that thing is scary. They have all these people ready to jump out at you and scare you… and it totally would have worked, too, if they weren't so busy running away from the animatronic yeti just trying to blend in. Oh well.

Then someone jumped out--I think it was Fear, or Freddy Kreuger, or the Storyteller or the Preschool Teacher or whatever--and put a bag on my head. And I'm thinking, "Hey, this is really immersive, way more than I expect from Universal," and I was all about to give them a high ranking in my next review, until I realized it was real and I was being yetinapped.

Dun dun dunnnnn!

Apparently, someone recognized me as "that yeti," and they were hoping they could get some ransom money from Disney by holding me hostage. So for the last week, they kept me in a locked room, forcing me to watch Woody Woodpecker cartoons and play the worst videogame ever known to mankind: Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure.

I kid you not, this game is real. The concept is that you are at Universal Studios, and you want to ride the rides, but the lines are all too long. So in order to get in, you have to earn points by walking around the park picking up trash.

I'm.
Not.
Kidding.

Yes, someone at Universal thought a brilliant marketing strategy would be to release a terrible video game in which their park is portrayed as having long lines and being filled with trash.

Makes you appreciate Kingdom Hearts, doesn't it?

So anyway, they finally had to let me go once they realized Disney wasn't going to pay up. Apparently, Disney management decided to just replace me with a stuffed animal:

And no one noticed the difference.

I apologize in advance to any of you riding my ride today. It's Friday, I'm bored, and I'm pretty much just phoning it in. Hang on, here comes another train.

Roar.

Okay, I'm back. Anyway, earlier this week I mentioned the multiplicity of apostrophe typos on Disney's Osborne Lights sign. (Someday I'm going to start a band called Multiplicity of Apostrophe Typos. I'm going to get Sonny Eclipse on keyboard, Wendell from the Country Bears on mandolin, and Mitzi from The Rock-afire Explosion on vocals. We'll play at kids' pizza restaurants everywhere. But I digress.)

Well, my Disney neighborhood super spies (super spies!) have informed me that Disney has, in fact, already put up the Osborne sign for this year, and it still has the typos. That makes this at least the fourth year in a row it's been wrong, though I suspect it's been that way since the show started at Disney's MGM-Hollywood-Studios Park and Spa. (Can anyone confirm that?)

Of course, as we all know, Universal refuses to be outdone by Disney in anything. So in response, they've introduced their own bizarre-apostrophe-mistake sign, promoting their restaurant Mythos:

Sigh.

Folks, mythos is a word. It is also the name of the restaurant. There is no one named Mytho grilling hamburgers in the back.

Although Mytho may be the name of the person in charge of editing signs for Orlando theme parks.

If so, he may be looking for a job soon. If he plays bass and likes pizza, send him my way. He can join our band. We'll play everything but disco.

My rating for both's parks's' apostrophe's mistake's's's's:
 3.5 out of 5 disco yetis