Mickeytone News
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| Announcer: Dateline Los Angeles, California. Pop star Bobby Sherman has Disneyland in his own backyard. Whether it's winning the lottery or being a movie star, everyone has a favorite fantasy. For many, the ultimate dream is having Disneyland as their own personal playground. Well, for successful actor and former teenage heartthrob Bobby Sherman, fantasy became reality. |
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| Bobby: Originally what I was going to do was build my boys a treehouse. But they were rather young and I kept having these nightmares of them falling out. So, I said, well, I'll try something else. I'll build a western street. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought, well, even if it's brand new, to be authentic looking it's going to look old and beat up. So, I decided, I know, I'll build the first two blocks of main street Disneyland. So, I do a lot of work with the Disney organization. I happened to make a call and they said, sure we'll help you out. They sent the elevations to the first two blocks of main street Disneyland. And thinking it was going to take three months, two and a half years later of hard labor, I finished the first two block of main street Disneyland plus or minus a quarter inch accurate in every detail. |
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| Announcer: Sherman's remarkable tribute to Disneyland's grand avenue is all the more impressive knowing that he built the entire street with his own two hands without any outside help.
Bobby: The most difficult things I encountered was really wood that had to be roundtrying to make things in an arch kind of type of shape. Either I was trying to steam wood, get it wet and let it sit and then bend it. Breaking things right and left. It was very frustrating. Then I realized I could go to metal and it still would look just fine. So, I'd use flashing, different kinds of metals, plastic and I was able to get back to the same look. |
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| Announcer: What began as a simple three month project grew into a two and a half year labor of love. Built to an exact one-fifth scale, without a reference, it is impossible to distinguish this miniature main street from the original.
Bobby: This being the tallest building, the Emporium, is 10-1/2 feet high here. At the park, it's about 54...something like that. So, the integrity is pretty close, plus or minus a quarter inch accurate in every detail. For instance, these corbels are comprised of about 12 pieces and there's 46 of them. So, after a while, when you're working on 46 corbels, 12 pieces, it takes a lot out of you. I do think the Emporium certainly was the most difficult building. It was the largest. It had the most detail. Had the most different kinds of mental exercises...how am I going to do that? And I think that was the one that kept me up most nights trying to figure out what I was going to do the next day to make the thing look right. |
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| Announcer: From the streetlamps to the window frames, Sherman's attention to detail has been meticulously precise.
Bobby: For instance, this is exterior plywood, but I hand routed each brick with a router so it looks and feels just like brick. I just sprayed gray to make it look like mortar and then rolled a color on it so it has the feel and look, just like brick. |
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| Bobby: The streetlamps themselves are kind of a piecemeal kind of thing. So, I used a lot of different materials. For instance, this is an upside down piece of glass screwed into a base which is actually electrical. This is a separate piece that's cut out of metal and this is basically a leg to a table that I used and I cut them all down and added different things to make them look exactly like the lamps at the park. |
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| Announcer: Bobby Sherman has even composed and arranged main street music to make this fantasy world come alive. Although it may seem like an arduous task to many, the construction of a miniature Disneyland main street provided a welcome diversion and therapeutic relief from the grueling show business schedule of Sherman's teen idol days.
Bobby: I found that when I'd go into the workshop to start working on this, that it really gave me some insight to myself. I was learningI was actually finding myself talking to myselfbut learning more about how I felt and how I thought about things. So, it did turn out to be quite therapeutic. |
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| Announcer: Young and old alike have admired Bobby Sherman's handiwork, but perhaps the greatest compliment on his achievement came from a visit by Walt Disney's daughter.
Bobby: The first thing she said was, 'my father would have fallen in love with it because he was a big miniature buff'. I hadn't realized it at the time, the reason was he had worked with miniatures and done a lot of that work. And that kind of made the whole project worthwhile, knowing Walt would have gotten a kick out of it. |
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| Announcer: But one doesn't become as successful as Bobby Sherman by resting on his laurels.
Bobby: Well, it'll do until I start the castle next week! |
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