Dial of Destiny

So, 7-year-old Keith was a huge Indiana Jones fan. My parents wouldn't let me watch Doom, (I'm not even sure we owned it) but I practically wore out my Raiders and Last Crusade VHSs. As an adult, you learn obviously that Lucas and Spielberg are commenting on a million things that have come before – the rogue adventurer-archaeologist was obviously an old trope even then – but to me, who really only mainlined cartoons and Disney movies as a little kid, these things seemed so fresh to me, gosh, so adult and new. Ford's Indiana was such a meaningful figure to me, for probably obvious reasons. Little kid Keith wanted the hat, he wanted the travel, he wanted the whip.

So, when they announced the Indiana Jones Adventure ride at Disneyland in 1995, not terribly far from my childhood hometown, I was enthralled. I remember watching this special, which I totally just found on YT, that had an at-least half-hearted attempt to make a proper Indiana Jones mythos for this thing. What's more, they had a pretty great little decoder thing-y that would unencrypt messages on the walls of the queue leading up to the ride.

So, I did what any kid would do – I harassed my poor parents until they took me. Back in 1995, says the OC Register, ticket prices were only $30 or so, and even if you consider inflation, that's a lot cheaper than today, even not accounting for Genie+ and whatever the hell, so they didn't take a ton of convincing, and pretty soon after the ride opened, we were there. Right when the park opened up that day, I strong-armed my family over to Adventureland, just about almost to New Orleans Square, and I strode confidently over to the ride, decoder card in hand, where I promptly failed to meet the height requirements.

You see, I was a pretty short kid, and Indiana Jones Adventure had a 48-inch height requirement, and man I just didn't clear it, by like a half-inch. I tried to be tough, but I'm pretty sure tears were shed, and the (underpaid, just doing his job) ride attendant stood his ground.

So, my dad, my amazing dad, did something that has lived with me ever since – he freaking memorized the face of the attendant, and then we wandered over to Pirates of the Carribbean and Haunted Mansion, and lunch, blowing probably 2-ish hours. Then my dad shoved like 3 folded Disneyland maps into each of my shoes, made sure the first guy had moved onto another assignment, and we walked right into the line, having cleared the height requirement by like a sixteenth of an inch.

The ride lived up to all of my dreams, even if the animatronic didn't exactly resemble Indy proper. As we stood in line, I decoded all the messages with my stupid little card, and I played with all the little things in the line, and the ride itself became – still is – my very favorite ride at the park.

ALLLLL this is to say that Indiana Jones means a lot to me, and I am trying hard not to let my hopes get too high for Dial of Destiny – the reviews have been kinda mid but not bad – because if we even get to a decent sendoff for this character, it will mean quite a bit for me.