Monday, January 9, 2017

Armchair Imagineering: Saving the Heraldry Shoppe

So they’ve gone and decided to close the Castle Heraldry Shoppe, reportedly to extend the queue area for Peter Pan’s Flight. While I am sympathetic to this purpose—the spillover for Fantasyland’s most popular dark ride really was getting out of hand—it’s still disappointing to lose yet another unique and classy feature of the park. It’s nowhere near the travesty committed by walling off the Court of Angels to the general public, but dangit, I like the Heraldry Shoppe, and not just because I have an interest in heraldry itself. It's one of the few places in Fantasyland to have something going for it with more substance than just animated characters presented without comment.
And the thing is...we didn't have to lose it, per se. Shops come and go all the time—the Heraldry Shoppe itself only goes back to 2004—and sometimes they simply move. There’s no particular reason some other location couldn’t take up the mantle of Disneyland’s purveyor of fine coats of arms and bladed weapons. This is definitely true of Fantasyland, whose retail spaces tend to be underused or redundant to begin with.
So here are my picks, in descending order of preference, for where the Heraldry Shoppe should be moved. Even though it won't be.



The Castle: West Nook

Ideally, of course, the Heraldry Shoppe would remain within the bounds of the Sleeping Beauty Castle structure, and the space on the western side of the main archway gets my nod. This spot, currently known as the Enchanted Chamber, has been without a solid identity for some time. Mostly, it seems to serve as overflow for merchandise relating to whatever hip thing they're promoting at any given time. During the 50th Anniversary celebration it specialized in souvenirs of that occasion, then it spent some time focusing on Tinker Bell, for the past several years it has housed Princess toys, and just lately it has carried a stock of Christmas ornaments and souvenirs. This makes it, in my estimation, wholly redundant, since a) Disneyland as a whole has no shortage of Christmas retail space, in season or out, and b) Fantasyland has not one but two other Princess-themed retail locations, one of which (Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique) is just a few yards away from this one, and the other of which (Fairy Tale Treasures, in Fantasy Faire) shares much of the same inventory. Wouldn't it be lovely if it became the new Heraldry Shoppe? It even has some heraldic displays painted right on the doors!



Fantasyland Courtyard: Northwest Corner Lot

I am referring here to the point at which the western building complex wraps around toward Frontierland: the spot between Pinocchio's Daring Journey and the Village Haus. It was first built as a Geppetto-themed retail space, though it often wasn't open. They experimented with a few different lines of merchandise until 2010, when it was retooled as a meet-and-greet spot, first for Tangled, then for Frozen under the name Royal Reception. But then Fantasy Faire opened as the place to chill with Princesses, the Frozen stuff moved across the Esplanade, and Royal Reception went unused for a while. At the moment, it seems to be used for Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique costume overflow. It could be a more unique shop again.
Interestingly enough, one of the identities it tried on before becoming a meet-and-greet was Names Unraveled, a place where you could look up the meaning and history of your surname, and maybe buy a nice printout of the info, maybe mounted in a pretty frame—a spiritual predecessor of sorts to the Heraldry Shoppe.


That’s about it as far as our options for moving the Heraldry Shoppe in the form we have known it; its peculiar merchandise pretty much demands a dedicated indoor space. But if we are willing to transform it a bit, more potential locations open up.


Fairytale Arts

Speaking of Names Unraveled, I seem to recall it being one of the options at these booths, either before or after its stint in the Courtyard corner location. In either case, I think it was taken off the menu when they came up with the idea of having your name hand-painted in Disney-flavored illuminated letters instead. But I must say, illuminated letters and coats of arms seem like natural neighbors to me. An outdoor location is no place to display luxurious embroidery or real weapons—or, for that matter, to set up high-resolution printers—but a variation on the Heraldry Shoppe's wares could work. I am envisioning a scenario where, rather than looking up your “real” coat of arms (which Americans don’t actually have anyway), you design your own, choosing from among several color and image options, and have it painted on a piece of cardstock. Then they could just write your name underneath, in nice medieval calligraphy, with “Sir” or “Lady” tacked on. Framing optional.
I think people would go for that.


It's a Small World” Toy Shop

I admit I'm reaching pretty far with this one. Toy shops focus on children by default, and the market for this one skews younger than most. The Heraldry Shoppe, on the other hand, serves almost exclusively adult clientele. To make matters worse, about the only aspect of the Heraldry Shoppe that the “It's a Small World” Toy Shop could support is a computer terminal for looking up coats of arms and maybe—maybe—a printer for creating saleable reproductions. The only reason I include it as a possibility at all is that it has carried, from time to time, toy swords and shields made of foam rubber, which might be considered analogous to the real ones featured in the Heraldry Shoppe.


Fantasyland Theatre

Not the theatre itself, that is, but part of the space it currently occupies. Rumors sometimes bounce around about the theatre being closed and its footprint used for something else. I don't want to see it happen—I think it's important for the park to have a dedicated space for elaborate live performances—but in the event it did, a lot of room would open up. Perhaps some of it could be used for a new Heraldry Shoppe.


All this is so much wishful thinking, of course. By all accounts, the Castle Heraldry Shoppe is leaving Disneyland, never to return.* However, Armchair Imagineering isn't just for what Disney should do or might do. It can sometimes be about roads not taken, opportunities missed. The actual Imagineers save all their ideas, even ones that never go anywhere, because they never know what might be useful in light of future developments. Can we Armchair Imagineers do any less?
Farewell, Heraldry Shoppe. Your elegance and sense of history will be missed.





* Fortunately, its website will remain operational.

No comments:

Post a Comment