Kelly McCubbin
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kellymccubbin.bsky.social
Kelly McCubbin
@kellymccubbin.bsky.social
Enterprise Architect - Theme Park Writer and Podcaster - the guy who brought you Uke-y Stardust and Purple Rain: When Ukes Cry - runDisney dilettante - Finnegans Wake evangelist... https://bio.site/kelly.mccubbin
Well, this should be delightful!
November 11, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Jay Stein - Universal Theme Parks First Visionary: Dead at 87.
The news is trickling in, but it looks like Jay Stein, the most important person in theme parks after Walt Disney, has passed away.
More in the thread...
November 7, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Corrections from recent episodes:
Sinister Seymour wasn't in a 3 Stooges movie. He was a voice for "The New 3 Stooges" cartoon.

Wolfman Jack grew up in Brooklyn, not Jersey.

Irving Kirschner wasn't a producer of "Star Wars". Kirschner directed "The Empire Strikes Back."

More in thread...
October 31, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Before Elvira was the Queen of them all, Vampira!

We couldn't do a show about Knott's Scary Farm without talking about her. Here's a little taste of her TV show (in the comments).

It's the newest Lowdown on the Plus-Up podcast: Knott's Scary Farm!

#KnottsScaryFarm #Vampira
October 30, 2025 at 12:43 AM
Before Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, before Oogie Boogie Bash and Mickey’s Not So Scary, before Six Flags’ Fright Fest there was Knott’s Scary Farm.
Join us as Pete and Kelly explore the wild and wonderful history of the Godfather of Theme Park Haunts!
Link in the thread. #KnottsScaryFarm
October 28, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Last time on The Lowdown on the Plus-Up we invented a theme park based on Ray Bradbury's writings. This week, we invited a Ray Bradbury expert to tell us the reality of the relationship between the great writer and theme parks, Walt Disney, and lots more!
Dr. Phil Nichols joins us!
Link below...
October 21, 2025 at 2:48 PM
With AWS knocking out half the internet earlier, I thought I'd hit this again...

In 1937 Orson Welles read a poem live on the radio, Though few people recall the event now, it changed everything.
My piece on "The Fall of the City."

Link in the thread...

#OrsonWelles
#CitizenKane
#WaroftheWorlds
October 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Last time on The Lowdown on the Plus-Up we invented a theme park based on Ray Bradbury's writings. This week, we invited a Ray Bradbury expert to tell us the reality of the relationship between the great writer and theme parks, Walt Disney, and lots more!
Dr. Phil Nichols joins us!
Link below...
October 20, 2025 at 3:17 PM
In 1937 Orson Welles read a poem live on the radio, under extremely strange circumstances.
Though few people recall the event now, it changed everything.
My piece for Fanfare on "The Fall of the City."

Link in the thread...

#OrsonWelles
#CitizenKane
#WaroftheWorlds
October 20, 2025 at 1:43 PM
In 1937 Orson Welles read a poem live on the radio, under extremely strange circumstances.
Though few people recall the event now, it changed everything.
My piece for Fanfare on "The Fall of the City."

fanfare.pub/the-poet...

#OrsonWelles
#CitizenKane
#WaroftheWorlds
October 19, 2025 at 3:49 PM
A couple of errata for this ep of The Lowdown on the Plus-Up:
Bradbury's book about the making of "Moby-Dick" is "Green Shadows, White Whale."
We mispronounced an Imagineer's name; it's Joe LanZISero.)
The story that made Marta Becket famous was in National Geographic, not Time or Life.
Mea Culpa.
October 9, 2025 at 2:38 PM
We talk about Marta Becket quite a bit in our new episode: Here's Ray Bradbury talking about her, too!
youtu.be/P869Tf-h9m0...

Listen to the new Lowdown on the Plus-Up, Ray Bradbury’s Theme Park — The Great Electric Time Maze wherever you get your podcasts! #Disney #RayBradbury #ThemePark #EPCOT
October 8, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Lowdown on the Plus-Up presents: Ray Bradbury's Theme Park - The Great Electric Time Maze

lowdown-plus-up.com/
October 5, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Portland = Ghorman
September 27, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Let's just take a moment to revel in a picture of one of my favorite Doctors - Sylvester McCoy, The Seventh Doctor Who - out in the streets last week protesting Donald Trump being in England.
He is so much more than JUST a Time Lord.
September 21, 2025 at 2:29 PM
I have thoughts...
September 21, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Disney has been weirdly obsessed with the Alien franchise since the '80s.
Now with Alien: Earth, they have finally merged with the Xenomorph.
Was it worth it?

boardwalktimes.net/a...

#Alien
#Disney
September 17, 2025 at 6:34 PM
The half marathon is also completed!
September 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
10k achieved.
September 6, 2025 at 3:34 PM
I'm a third kind, I think.
September 5, 2025 at 12:46 AM
I love that Timothy Oliphant seems to be channeling UFO in Alien Earth.
August 31, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, New York.
#startrek
August 2, 2025 at 1:38 AM
I found that the opening of the celebration for Disneyland's actual 70th Birthday by Bob Iger ringing the bell to open the markets on Wall Street was really distasteful.
Yes, Mr. Iger, we know that most decisions made in the parks are tied into the movement of imaginary money in a New York building.
July 17, 2025 at 4:43 PM
A person shouldn't have to do this twice in a month.
RIP Bobo.
He was such a good guy and we really really loved him.
July 12, 2025 at 3:23 PM
I'm working on a piece about how a single poem, recited by Orson Welles on radio in 1938, changed movies (and radio itself) forever.

In the meantime, I'd love it if you'd read this piece I wrote for Fanfare about what, I think, is the greatest movie ever made.

fanfare.pub/why-id-bring...
July 5, 2025 at 3:00 PM