As previously mentioned, I'm doing a six-week stint with Disney Imagineering in Glendale, and today I got to spend the day hanging out at Disneyland for the launch of Disneyside, an initiative that asks Disney fans to share photos and videos of themselves having fun at the Disney parks. To kick it off, Disney brought in a bunch of people (and animals) with large social media footprints, from Grumpy Cat to the folks behind Conversations With My Two Year Old, a video series we're very fond of around here.
The Conversations guys put together a great Disneyside video for the launch, but, alas it won't go live for a couple weeks. I did, however, get to fanboy with them for a couple of minutes afterward, and found them to be rather delightful.
David Milchard (who plays the two year old) described his bewilderment at the series' success, and confessed that he wasn't well-versed in electronic media: "I only discovered what Pintrest was last night."
Matthew Clarke (Dad) added, "I thought it was a site where people posted things of interest to Harold Pinter. You know, long pauses."
Clarke and I talked about our daughters, and I asked him about his feelings on princesshood and princess-y role play. He said that he'd feared that his daughter would be sucked into the princess world, and that indeed she became pretty princessified despite his not taking any steps in that direction. "It just naturally happened. But it's not like she just plays with princesses. She'll put a princess and a dump truck in the same play scenario. I'm certainly not going to tell her not to do that. I don't want to discourage or push things on her."
These days, the series is more "Conversations With My Three Year Old" than "…Two Year Old," and the friends are striving to get another season out this year, in between day jobs writing, teaching, acting and doing standup in Vancouver. They commiserated about falling YouTube rates, and suggested that they were writing both TV and Internet treatments for a post-"Conversations…" followup.
For a couple of guys who'd just sat in front of Small World in the LA noontime sun meeting fans, they were in pretty good form. The event was great fun, and I'm looking forward to the time when I can share their Disneyside video with you. In the meantime, here are my photos from the event.
