Candy Corn Acres
The year was 2007. It was within our first year of visiting the Disneyland Resort together and becoming Disneyland Annual Passholders. As the summer was drawing to a close and the leaves in Utah were changing, we were looking for a fun and special way to celebrate the changing of the seasons and beginning of the Holiday Season.
When we discovered there was a formal celebration of Halloween at Disneyland, Halloween Time, with a hard-ticketed event in Disney’s California Adventure (DCA), Mickey’s Halloween Treat that would be discounted for us, being Annual Passholders, we just KNEW we had to go. And we were going all in!!
Being theatre geeks, we LOVE to dress up! Earlier that year we became enamored and obsessed with the Walt Disney Animation Studios feature, Meet the Robinsons. And coincidentally, we perceived ourselves to be the somewhat mature doppelgängers of Wilbur and Lewis Robinson. So it didn’t take long for us to make the decision to begin gathering our resources, raiding our wardrobes and fashioning and crafting our costumes. And I even had the hair for it at the time. A little product, hairspray and a blow dryer and I could make my hair stand on end, just like Lewis!
So we loaded up the car to embark on our 10-hr cross-desert trek to Anaheim.
DCA was a looked VERY different in 2007. This was a few years before the announcement would be made that the park would undergo a massive re-theming and overhaul. Before you entered the turnstiles, you were greeted by the iconic 11-foot letters that spelled out “C-A-L-I-F-OR-N-I-A” in the Esplanade. Once you entered the turnstiles, you were surrounded by tile and glass mosaic lined walls in the colors and formation of the natural landscapes of Southern California. Overhead, a scale model of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco contained the beam that the Monorail would travel over as it whirred towards the Grand California Hotel en route to the station in the Downtown Disney District. And then you entered Sunshine Plaza, with the 50-foot tall metal sun sculpture. To the right, the Golden Zephyr Diesel Locomotive, retro-fitted to house Bur-r-r Bank Ice Cream, Baker’s Field Bakery and the ‘punny’
Engine-Ears Toys. To the left beyond the Emporium style store, “Greetings…from California” was the art-deco archway to the Hollywood Pictures Backlot, complete with the Elephants, an homage to the vestiges of the abandoned set pieces constructed on the corner of Hollywood and Sunset in the early 1900’s for the silent film, Intolerance.
But during the autumn season, the Sunshine tree plaza was transformed into a larger than a life-sized farm-like festival, fashioned to celebrate the fall harvest. However, it seems this earth at this farm is ripe and fertile for growing only one product. Candy Corn. And it seems the residents have all but embraced their unique rural fortitude and have invited us all to join in the celebration. The area is adorned with a Candy Corn silo and Candy Corn windmill. Box planters filled with plants and vines growing every garden shape and size, from Candy Corn beans on stalks to pumpkin sized Candy Corn lining the ground growing on vines. And of course, on stalks of CANDY corn.
But the real cream of this crop was the enormous 25-foot tall Blue Ribbon winning Candy Corn emblazoned with the carved pronouncement, “Happy Halloween”. Where periodically throughout the day and into the evening, the air would be interrupted by the unmistakable sounds of munching and crunching followed by the recognizable squeals and moans with delight of Heimlich from Disney – Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. Who would through a hole he had chewed into the side of the centerpiece.
But an unavoidable element that permeated this festival, was the sweet vanilla aroma of the autumn confection; Candy Corn.
And so, it is the memory of this moment in time we reminisce and honor with The Autumn Collection fragrance, Candy Corn Acres. An aroma (and taste) that still takes us back to our first Halloween Time adventure at the Disneyland Resort and Mickey’s Halloween Treat.