Part of the Disney World of Color Premiere night was a chance for the mombloggers to line up with the other papparazzi members of the legitimate media to take pictures and chat with celebrities on the red carpet. Only this carpet was blue, because this is Disney and water is blue. Get it?
Anyway, I’ve never been to a red or blue or rainbow-colored carpet event before, and it was pretty exciting. I’ve seen or met a few celebrities in my day, mostly at airports or stalking them in back alleys after the theatre. This was more like seeing them in their natural habitat, swimming frantically upstream to spawn or make it into the next issue of Us Magazine, or whatever payoff comes from walking down a blue carpet with people screaming at you and being forced to smile into various digital devices while total strangers gawk at you.
Of all the various TV and movie personalities who came sauntering down the field of blue, Teri Hatcher was probably the most accommodating. She was a total doll and spent quite a bit of time with the moms, taking questions, posing for pictures, and just looking gorgeous in a green dress. She even took a few arms-length photos of herself and fans, which was probably way beyond what was required of her. She has a new website called Get Hatched on Disney Family that she was promoting, and someone very likely astutely pointed out to her that mombloggers were both her target audience and likely her biggest allies. Well played, Teri, well played.
Jamie Lee Curtis ran by us like she needed to be somewhere fast. I figured that the Activia was kicking in, and she just needed to find the potty, like pronto. I forgive her for just about anything, though, since I’m all in favor of the natural, let it all hang out look for both regular moms and Hollywood celebrities alike. Kudos to you, Jamie Lee, for looking fabulous and owning your real age, not by Hollywood-imposed rule of “Playing some dude’s granny when your 35”.
She came back a few seconds later to make out with Geena Davis. Well, they didn’t actually make out, but there was some serious hugging and eye contact going on.
Maybe she had something in her eye and figured Geena could take a look-see, and if needed, Geena’s doctor-husband was there to help out.
Two words for you: Cameron Mathison. Wow. I’ve watched All My Children for over 25 years off and on, and I have to say, I don’t care much for Cameron’s character, Ryan Lavery. The man himself, however, is one fine looking fellow, probably built in some soap opera cloning lab from a genetic mash-up of the DNA of matinee idols from bygone years.
For those of you who don’t religiously Tivo All My Children, or AMC as those of us in the know call it, Cameron aka Ryan won the hearts and loins of cougars everywhere when his character had a totally bizarre affair with the 60ish Erica Kane. The affair ended when Ryan’s presumed-dead fiancee and Erica’s mortal enemy caught them in flagrante delicto and proceeded to have a stroke. Or something like that. I make liberal use of the Fast Forward feature on Tivo when watching soaps, so I can’t be sure exactly what happened.
Melissa Rycroft was famously dumped by Jason Mesnick on The Bachelor. This is notable because this episode got the entire Twitterverse’s knickers in a twist. Luckily, pluck Melissa rose from ruin to triumph on Dancing With The Stars, where she cha-cha’d her way into America’s hearts. She looked a little confused by the whole blue carpet thing and like she just drove in from a beach party with Moondoggie and Gidget. Still? totally gorgeous even in shorts and tank-top. Here, she practices her next gig as a celebrity flight attendant pointing out the location of the nearest exit.
Vanessa Hudgens (Hutchins? Huggins? Huggies? Whatever) raced by us like we were stalking her in the airport bathroom, keeping her head down most of the time. Maybe she didn’t want us to tell her mom she was out past curfew. I believe she’s the girl from High School Musical, but without her arm ornament Zac Ephron at her side, I can’t be sure.
I tried to pull a fast one on my son by telling him this was the girl from iCarly, but he didn’t fall for it, because as he explained, “iCarly is on Nickelodeon, not Disney, Mom. Jeez, everybody knows that.”
I stand corrected, schooled by a 9-year old.
John Stamos was there, and some of the younger moms in attendance had to restrain themselves from yelling out “Uncle Jesse!” as an homage to their childhood crushes on the former Full House star. I still remember his teen years as the bemulleted Blackie Parrish on General Hospital, when he narrowly escaped a Luke Spencer Bad Home Perm disaster. Yes, I know he grew up, was on ER and is a bona fide star now with a celebrity divorce and Broadway run to prove it. Some of us just can’t let go of our youth just yet. Deal with it.
There were a number of other TV stars in attendance, some I recognized and some I didn’t. If they never appeared in a soap opera (daytime or reality version), it’s likely I didn’t recognize them. At any rate, most of them seemed to enjoy the attention and stopped to pose for pictures with fans. I had to look up these two, who according to my exhaustive research (Thanks, Wikipedia!) are Rico Rodriguez II and his sister, Raini Rodriguez. He’s the star of ABC’s Modern Family, which I have seen exactly once, and she is the star of one of my son’s favorite movies, Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Even though I was not hip enough to know who they were, these kids worked the carpet like pros, and were friendly and sweet and full of smiles for everyone. Good job, Mom and Dad Rodriguez.
If you want to know what the stars actually said, you’ll have to rely on Colleen’s blog. I was too far back to hear what was going on. I was standing on a bench with Kari, Kristen, Marsha, and Candace, just enjoying the view. Thanks, Disney, for a very memorable evening!
Disclosure: Disney Parks & Resorts paid for my
airfare and accommodations to attend this event. I did not receive any
compensation for writing this review, or payment in exchange for
posting. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect
the views of the Walt Disney Company or any of its affiliates.
Glennia Campbell has been around the world and loved something about every part of it. She is interested in reading, photography, politics, reality television, food and travel and lives in the Bay Area of the U.S.
She blogs about family travel at The Silent I and is also the co-founder of MOMocrats Beth Blecherman and Stefania Pomponi Butler, which launched out of a desire to include the voices of progressive women, particularly mothers, in the political dialogue of the 2008 campaign.
She found her way to Democratic politics under the tutelage of the late Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Cora Weiss, and other anti-war activists and leaders in the anti-nuclear campaigns of the 1980’s. She has been a speaker at BlogHer, Netroots Nation, and Mom 2.0, and published print articles in KoreAm Journal.
Professionally, Glennia is a lawyer and lifelong volunteer. She has been a poverty lawyer in the South Bronx, a crisis counselor for a domestic violence shelter in Texas, President of a 3,000 member non-profit parent’s organization in California, and has worked in support of high-tech and medical research throughout her professional career.
