The card was part of the marketing effort by the sponsor of the attraction, AT&T. Of course, in the mid-90's, cell phone use wasn't as prevalent as today--hence the 1-800 number for collect calling and calling cards. When is the last time that you saw a payphone?
So, for the first official Imaginerding GIY Project (Geek-It-Yourself), I have provided a scan of the card that you can printout, fold over and have your own Mara decoder card.
Trust me, you are going to need it. You can even take it to Disneyland and decode a few of the messages that have survived the past 14 years.
Cut me out! (Well. print me first, then cut me out.)
For the second part of the GIY Project, I leave you the following message to decode:
12 comments:
I knew I should have used the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring!
It had to be snakes!
Somehow I knew what the message would be before decoding it. This is going to be a great summer for movies.
Ovaltine?... A crummy commercial?
I thought the GIY Project would be to create our own payphone...
You beat me to it! I was saving up my decoder for a later post - now I'll need to wait for the DVD release before I do my post! hehe
Brilliant post! Those decoder cards were a great detail that I hope might come back in the future, especially with the heightened popularity brought about by the new movie.
Speaking of which... I'll be at the movie theatre tonight at midnight - I'm sure I'll be feeling it tomorrow! :-)
Incidentally, for us cheapos who can't afford printer ink, you'll also notice that most of the Mara letters are actually stylized English letters. My friends from LA showed that to me on my first trip through the ride, and it came in really handy when it went 101 for 20 minutes ^_^
Last pay phone I saw was in Canada at Epcot last week. It was in a British red phone booth cabinet which I've never seen in the actual Canada. Maybe they exist (existed) somewhere in the east.
Decoding the text on the walls is a great timewaster when waiting for the attraction to start up after a shutdown.
LD
i have that card! i went to disneyland, say, what? within a month of the indiana jones ride opening. that might actually have been the frist time i went to DL by myself. and it wa odd, too, because the IJ ride line was literally like 3 hours long. so you had lots of time to decode your little secret messages! and yell at the bats. and wiggle the posts. and yank on the ropes. and i was behind german teenegers who smoked and talked and groped each other the whole time. oy. no wonder i have a PDA block.....
I got three letters in and was able to guess what it was. Nice nod to a classic!
Too bad there was no decoder on the dedication plaque at the Stitch attraction. I had to decode that one without any help.
I think I will drink some Ovaltine when I get home. We always keep a jar on hand.
Mmmmmmmm....Ovaltine.
My wife has been frantically trying to find her decoder card amongst her high-school memorabilia so we could blog about it. Darn you George. I guess we can always find a way to blog about it still....LOL
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