returning to my "old stomping grounds" for an afternoon

By now, regardless of where you live on this planet of ours, you've likely very well heard of 2 things over the past year:

1: the mega (& officially a full year old, as of today) success that Disney has had with a certain animated movie;

...& 2: an old dump of a building that sat almost completely disused up until about a year or so ago, aside from the occasional college basketball game/graduation/etc., before a serious influx of touring acts somehow found the joint at the same rate they did when MSG was being completely renovated...

...what do you get when you put those 2 together?

...you get Disney on Ice presents Frozen, produced by Feld Entertainment & presented further by Stonyfield Farms Yogurt, which I only didn't find out about until recently because they were very late hopping on the "Greek yogurt" bandwagon, & as a person not known for declining the occasional container of Greek yogurt (preferably Dannon OIKOS, but that's just me...), that repels me... it doesn't offend me, however!

As pictured above, obviously, the setup for Disney on Ice in a place like the Meadowlands doesn't look entirely dissimilar from that, save, obviously, for the ice surface replacing the stage... Other than that, however, the pitch-black curtains are hung in the 200s, allowing, among other things, for a makeshift "backstage" area for all the performers hustling in & out of everybody's view!

That was the obvious stuff, however; here, now, is some less obvious stuff:

You know where that video board was that morning/afternoon? Up in the ceiling, &, to make matters worse, it was up there the entire show, which, unlike the yogurt sponsorship, greatly offended my basketball/hockey fan self, having been in there for numerous NBA/NHL games up until 2010!

This is what that video board once looked like:

I don't think you people will be able to notice this, since my pic came out all blurry, but the previous pic (the Milwaukee Bucks entering the Meadowlands & rolling the then-lousy Nets) & the more recent pic (Disney on Ice) is the changed sponsorship from Pepsi to Coke...

There were also these shield-type things hanging about in between the ice & rafters, & they looked something like this:

As you can tell in that ridiculously cropped pre-show pic, they were simply displaying the show's logo then, but once the show actually started, they flipped between showing images of various "winter" objects, & either this part was actually true, or perhaps I was too busy looking up at those "shields" instead of down at ice level, but I remember them displaying some scenes from the movie itself to go along with the live action... Also featured in the pre-show were short introductions of each of the previous Disney animated (main) characters, along with remixes of some of their tunes, & also this timeless "groove":

...mind you, that wasn't actually the original Steve Winwood recording of that tune, but, unfortunately, the entire cast of the show "taking a stab" at that tune, &, at least to me, trying too hard to tie that in with the actual show...

Thankfully, once that was done, the show itself started, &, with that, came the answers to the few remaining ?'s I had, such as "will these people keep the movie soundtrack, &, more importantly to me, will they keep it in order?"

The answer to that 1st "?" ended up being a resounding "yes", but just to confirm that:

(...& thank **** that was indeed the case...)

The answer to the other "?", however, was "nope"... The early parts of the show were as we've all come to know from the film itself:

That makes sense & all, but to screw up the continuity between film & live just to enter the intermission on a rather predictable "high note" was what particularly got to me initially:

I get it... they didn't want to waste the "showstopper" by sticking it at any earlier point in the show instead of right before intermission... On 2nd thought, who am I kidding to think about anything but that being the case with the live show...

(at least the rest of the soundtrack was kept in its proper order...)

Here now is a recap of what I just mentioned, in no particular order:

1: thank **** the soundtrack was merely a recording of the movie itself-I don't think I could've lasted any longer than two minutes or so if I heard the actual live performers try (and most likely destroy) the soundtrack...

(this, x1,000,000...)

2: I get that 3D technology does amazing things, but I think the arena, as old as it is, could've done better than sparks filling in for the CGI ice effects so über present in the movie... Perhaps, considering the building's age, I dunno, blue lasers or something like that?

(that was actually the case-the arena literally used the exact opposite effects to stand in for "3D ice"...)

3: fittingly, most of the cast was over in Manhattan, either performing in or simply watching this year's Macy*s parade...

(& will continue to be, if NBC gets its way with its planned full slate of holiday specials over the next month or so...)

4: despite the visual effect limitations, I think the building melded old-school looks with new-school entertainment almost seamlessly, particularly the constant presence of merchandise from the franchise, and the old three-quarters seating arrangement, with part of the far end of the upper level open, which, I think, would only be possible in older arenas such as that in the Meadowlands, which were all-seating without any obstructed view seats (Brooklyn...)!

I also indirectly challenged my philosophy to "fork over" a few of his ("deep philosophical") opinions sometime between now & the end of this fall semester, even though I originally issued him said challenge back in late August, even before this semester, never mind before he & the rest of them found out about my almost obsession with all things Frozen, which leads me to my next point, about the crowd, from my "U" e-mail account:

"...the only performance today ('cause turkey) of Disney on Ice presents Frozen, but my point isn't/wasn't that I was there; rather, it is/was the rest of the audience: largely younger kids, a few "stay at home dads" presumably getting dragged there by said kids, and a bunch of random adults (some with kids, others without) who presumably don't celebrate Thanksgiving, at least yet, and a few of my own opinions, having been exposed to the movie quite often over its first six months, even more in Japan, since it only premiered in Japanese at the very end of June (6/30)..."

...as such, most of the guys in the crowd, having been forcefully taken in by their kids who've probably already seen the movie more often than they've been out of state, or anything that infants/toddlers/etc. don't normally do before reaching a certain age, or another certain age (in which, I guess, watching Frozen so often is included), seemed to know more about what was going on than that bunch, although the show made rather effective use of its surroundings (mainly these corner platforms in both corners of ice level) to keep itself moving (literally)!

In all this hoopla, I don't seem to be the only person around here who's both (A) male & (B) of relative adult age to be so taken in by the show: Gig Siruno, 1 of the show's performance directors, who was (A) an Olympic gold medal figure skater & (B) a Disney on Ice cast member at various points in recent memory, was recently quoted on nj.com about the show's unique characteristics:

on the show's borderline "destiny" to end up in this position:

"The film was just meant, I mean, to be on ice," says Gig Siruno, 43, performance director for the show. Having skated for 28 years — he was a national figure-skating champion in the early '90s — as a cast member for Disney On Ice, he once played Aladdin and Mowgli from "The Jungle Book," characters from films based in decidedly warmer climes."

(on the show's visual effects):

"We can go anywhere from a light flurry to a full-blown blizzard," says Siruno, who hails from the not-so-temperate Minneapolis."

(on the film's backstory & the show's "interactivity"):

"He says the film, inspired by the 1844 Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Snow Queen," may be equipped with the kind of showstopping musical numbers that draw legions (you can certainly say that over & over again...), but, at its core, is "a story about family and sisters."

It's also a story that has kept eagle-eyed young fans on the edge of their seats, ensuring a fair amount of interactivity. 

"There's this moment where the villain is revealed," Siruno says. "The kids get so into it. To hear the booing, it's pretty incredible."" (mind you, I don't remember as much jeering of anybody or anything as I did of just plain astonishment at how everything went down, but I guess some people must have figured out who was who to that extent in earlier shows...)

Even the main cast member has been enthralled by the continued success of everything, courtesy of the same nj.com article:
""For me, I still, every time, feel like a little kid again, like at Disney World," says Becky Bereswill, the skater who plays Elsa, the princess who isolates herself, afraid she'll insta-freeze everything in sight. 

Bereswill, 24, a skater from Houston, was a "Let it Go" fan before she knew she'd be touring with Disney on Ice (it's her first year with the company). While running her first marathon, the former competitive skater listened to the song on repeat. She thinks the musical element is key to why Disney considers the movie to be one of its most successful animated features.

"It's a dream come true, for sure," she says of her part. As Bereswill skates during the big ballad portion, she likes to hear the crowd chime in, especially since audience participation wasn't always a part of competitive skating.

"I love hearing thousands of little voices singing along," she says. "It's really beautiful.""

What I'm about to mention next might seem incredibly "cheesy"/weird/etc. to you, but it doesn't seem like that to me! As different as marathons & school semesters might seem on the surface, deep down inside, they're actually very similar, at least to the 2 of us, & perhaps to some of you people, even... As of 6 months ago, even, I had nothing certain to look forward to, since my 1st Japan trip had yet to start, & knowing my luck with seriously considered Japan trips in the past (like that, previously prior to March 2011, & now), I was in fear the whole time leading up to that trip about another natural disaster pushing my "debut" over there back even further, & now, with my GPA in just enough of a position to be able to return there, just based on that, I've found myself entering the same "holding pattern", at least based on the informal definition of that short phrase, & I'm looking to erase as much of that "pattern" as possible within these next few weeks!