Ridley Pearson: Disney freak and author

Best-selling author Ridley Pearson joins me to discuss his career, his band, and his newest Disney YA novel in the Kingdom Keepers series.

As a family who LOVES Disney and loves to read, this guest is extra special!  I've been a big fan of Ridley's thrillers for years, and loved introducing our boys to this series as well as "Peter and the Starcatchers."

You can learn more about the author HERE, and make sure to visit our sponsor, Marco Pelusi Haircare HERE.

Transcript

Sam: Some quick housekeeping today before we get to Meant for Moxie, please make sure you stop by Moximama TV to sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss any information of what's going on on the blog, the travel agency, podcast, or coaching. Yes, I'm aware I have too many things going on. Also, please visit Marcopalusi.com Them for the best hair care system I have ever used to keep my hair color. Marco is a proud sponsor of Meant for Moxie. More about that at the end of the show. Today's episode is a real treat. Before I start, I would like you to sit for a moment if you're not driving your car with your eyes closed and imagine you're in Walt Disney World or Disneyland and you're riding It's a Small World seems pretty innocent, right? Little kid dolls from around the world singing the Happiest song and showing interesting things about their culture. Now imagine you're riding it at night. There's no sound except the slosh, slosh, slosh of the water. As your boat goes through the ride, you start to notice movement and then you realize that the dolls are coming down off their posts and chasing after you. This is a scene from The Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson, a collection of young adult novels that are so fun because they mix the idea of thrillers and Walt Disney World, two of my very favorite things. It is my absolute pleasure to have Ridley Pearson on today's podcast episode for you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Next on Meant for Moxie. Welcome back to Meant for Moxie, the podcast. For those of you who spent any time with me on any of my social media platforms, you know that I am more than moderately obsessed with Disney and I'm an avid reader. So I'm really excited to have today's guest on Author. Ridley Pearson is a New York Times bestselling author. He's got genres from books for us grown ups who would like to read them, as well as some phenomenal adventure series that just happen to touch a little bit into The Happiest place on Earth. So thank you so much for being here today. I so appreciate it.

Ridley: Thank you. We're the spookiest place on Earth.

Sam: Well, yeah, in your books, they really kind of are.

Ridley: Well, in my life they kind of are.

Sam: Well, I'm sure my kids probably we picked this up at some point at a scholastic book fair or something. My kids are 22 and 20 now and we picked up something in the Kingdom Keepers series way back when in elementary school. And we just got so into this. We took our kids to Disney World for the first time when they were two and three and a half, I think, which is really more for us than for them because I'm not sure what they remember. And I loved, as they got older, getting into this book series because they were excited to read it. And it was definitely this kind of spookier, darker side of Disney. So do you mind sharing? How did this come about? How did this partnership with Disney start? Did you come up with the idea? Did they approach you?

Ridley: Yeah, I mean, it started with a thank you note. They had treated Dave Berry and me to this amazing weekend where they gave us our hotel rooms and the Grand Floridian, and they gave us passes for our families for three days. They actually had cakes in our rooms that had images of our adult books, and the image was edible on top of the cake. I mean, it was insane. And then they gave us a VIP guide, lauren, I think was her name, and she showed us around the park for three days. And it was unbelievable. So, having been raised to write thank you notes, I wrote thank you notes to the people whom I thought had done it. And then it wasn't enough because it was such a spectacular time. I decided to make a couple of phone calls and eventually reached the woman who was behind it. And she happened to be with Disney Books, with whom I was not affiliated. And she was just lovely about the whole thing. And she asked me her name is Wendy Lefcon, and she asked me if I had a particular favorite thing about my visit to Disney, like you, it sounds, I had not been, and my parents were not people who would take you to Disney. So we took our kids to Disney when they were maybe three and five and on this trip with the berries. And that was my first experience. So she said, what did you like about Disney? And I said, Well, I was kind of slack jawed, because on every ride there's a beginning, middle, and end. And typically you go to these amusement parks and they just want to see if they can make you throw up. And this was so different than that. As a writer, I could just see a story on every attraction. And she introduced me to the concept of the imagineers the people who design and build these rides. And we got talking and talking, and she said, hey, have you ever thought about writing for kids? And one thing led to another, and eventually I was hired to write The Kingdom Keepers. The thing is that when I write, I do a lot of research. At least at that point. I was used to that for my crime novels for adults. And so I said, I really don't think I could do this effectively, because my story was going to be set after everyone left the park, unless you could give me access to your parks after everybody leaves. And she just sort of laughed and said, as if we don't do that. And I said, Well, I figured you didn't, but I don't see how I can write it without it. And we kind of left it there. And she called back literally a month later and said, I'm sending you VIP passes that will get you into any Disney park around the world for free. I still have these passes, and if you call ahead, we'll assign a Disney Imagineer to show you various attractions. So I got to start going in there a couple of times a year at 5530 in the morning, 430 in the morning, and being shown you could never do more than maybe three, sometimes four, attractions before the people arrived into the park. But it was cold. Everything was turned off, it was dark. It was just so atmospheric. And all of those sort of creepy experiences I had ended up in The Kitchen Keepers.

Sam: So when you were there with Dave Barry, had you already done Peter and the Star Catchers?

Ridley: No, we had not. I was just going down and I was just going down, and I told Dave, dave and I play in this author's rock band, that we raise money for good causes. We are the worst rock band you've ever heard, but we've been doing it for 30 years with Stephen King and Amy Tan and Scott Tarot and Greg Isles and Mitch Album and others. And so I just wrote Dave and said, hey, I'm taking the family to Disney World. And he wrote back and said, not without me, you aren't. And I said, what do you mean? He said, I'm like the world's Disney expert. If you're going for the first time, you need me. And so we went together. That's really what it was. And as Disney and I were working on how to write these books without the Disney attorneys taking my head off, because you can't hurt a kid in the park. You can't sabotage a ride. The challenge was, how do you make a fun, exciting story without anything really happening?

Sam: Right?

Ridley: And eventually I came up with that. But in the meantime, I had read Peter Pan, the novella with my daughter Paige, our daughter Paige. And she had put her hand across the book and said, hey, dad, how did Peter meet Captain Hook in the first place? And that gave birth to Peter and the Starcatchers, which I ended up co writing with Dave. And he and I wrote for ten years together. I think we wrote 13 books together. It was an amazing experience.

Sam: So in going back and researching for this, we're big fans of The Kingdom Keepers, and I'm going through the things that you have written over the years, and I was like, Wait. We were super into Peter and the Star Catchers, too. We would get those on audiobooks if.

Ridley: We had a long, best audiobooks ever. It's embarrassing because the audiobooks are way better than the actual book.

Sam: Jim Dale is incredible, beautifully performed, and our kids were really into it, and I think it helped them kind of get to a higher level of reading at a younger age because they were hearing these bigger stories. And I was like, I hadn't put that together. I think as a parent, I remember reading certain stories, but not all the details of it because they were also in phases of maybe Little League.

Ridley: Yeah, exactly.

Sam: And practices and meals on the fly.

Ridley: Why do I understand?

Sam: And then I kept going, and you just mentioned, like, the royal court of every author I love and the oh, gosh, what's the full name of it? The diary of Ellen Rimbauer.

Ridley: Oh, yeah, I wrote that here.

Sam: That is on the list of things. And I was just telling my husband, I said, do you remember watching that miniseries Rose Red? And I read the book and we were super into it. And then there was like that extra book that came with it that you bought for me. I said, that was Ridley Pearson too. So you definitely have a foot in this darker space with, like, the crime novels.

Ridley: I guess so, yeah.

Sam: In this little connection to Stephen King. So how did that one come up? You were like, the best secret. You were really well kept secret for a long time with that because nobody knew who wrote it.

Ridley: Yeah, that was a long kept secret. Well, Steven is in the band. And so my publisher at the time, which actually happened at that time, was a division of Disney, the adult Hyperion line that's no longer a company, but they, because they were Disney, were connected to ABC through Disney. And ABC was doing Rose Red. And Hyperion went to ABC and said, hey, we'd like to do a novel or some kind of book around Rose Red. And so ABC contacted Steve, and Steve okayed me as an author. And so then the publisher came to me and said, hey, this is what we've got going, and we want to do this sort of architectural coffee table book about Rose Red. Would you write it for us? Steven has given his permission for you to be the writer. And I called Steven to make sure this was true, and it was. And I said, yeah, but I don't really want to do a coffee table book. Can I sign an NDA or something and get the scripts? Because I believe it was three different evenings. And so I did, I signed an NDA, which basically meant they could take my first child if I ever leaked anything about this. And in it, in Steven's incredible story, they kept referring to this diary. And so I wrote Steven and said, dude, the book here is the diary. I'll write the diary of Ellen Rimbauer. And he went, oh, cool, let's do that. So I went to the publisher and suggested that they were all for it. And as we got closer to publication, steven really liked it when I got it done. And Steven was the one who came up with the idea and said, Redlay, let's do this. Let's not put your name on it and let's not put my name on it. This was in the era of Blair Witch. And so he said, let's just Blair Witch this thing. And we'll kind of leak it that this diary has been found and it ties into Rose Red. And I said, oh, cool. So we didn't put either our names on it. And at the front, we mentioned that the diary had been found in a house in Maine, and now it's finally been published and it just went viral and went nuts. It was a number one bestseller without either of our names on it for weeks and weeks. It was just the most fun. Then ABC called Steven and said, what if Ridley wrote a movie and we did a movie of it? And so ABC did a movie of it. I wrote the screenplay for it. So, I mean, it was just the most fun project ever.

Sam: I remember I've been a tremendous Stephen King fan for a very long time. And we were so happy when he took the old movies and started putting them into the miniseries format because most specifically with The Shining, there was so much story to be told that wasn't what a story. Stanley Kubrick is a genius, but also it's not true to the book. And so we had told our kids, we're like, oh, my God. The Shining version that was on TV was so superior to the movie. You have to see it and it's so scary. So we were all in on the Rose Red miniseries and completely fascinated with it. And that's why I ended up going out and getting the book. And it turned into my going down a rabbit hole because there were a lot of things that you could read that was it inspired by the Winchester rifle house.

Ridley: Right.

Sam: And so then I got really into looking into the Winchester rifle house that just kept going on and on and on and on. And they came out with a movie about that that wasn't nearly as good as Rose Red. I watched it. I love Helen Mirren. But I was like, no, Rose Red was better. And kind of fictionalized version of what happened with that Winchester house that was so fun for me to learn.

Ridley: Yeah. Steven can really tell a story.

Sam: Yeah, that's great. Okay. All right. It's time to sit down and do the kingdom keepers. You're getting access to the parks, which is like winning the powerball in my world.

Ridley: It definitely is. I've been in 31 times now.

Sam: Wow.

Ridley: All around the world.

Sam: Hong Kong. My husband and I are about to go on, I think, what will be my 21st trip, but only to Disney World. Like, I haven't been we just go I go there. I'm a Disney travel agent now as well.

Ridley: Oh, wow. I did a signing there last weekend and we had so much fun.

Sam: I was a little frustrated by the timing of that. I was like, oh, I would have loved to have been there.

Ridley: Yeah, it was fun.

Sam: And my son did the Disney College program last year.

Ridley: Oh, wow.

Sam: And he got to the point it's so funny you're talking about these behind the scenes and working with the Imagineers. He had some opportunities to sign up for the behind the scenes of Kilimanjaro Safari, which he tried to get into, and it filled up too fast. One that a bunch of his friends went to was the behind the scenes of the Haunted Mansion. And I said, Why wouldn't you go? He said, I don't want to kill the magic. So in your experience, and I know you said you've seen this sort of dystopian version in the middle of the night when it's all dark, including the.

Ridley: Haunted Mansion four times.

Sam: Has that changed your ability to enjoy just being on the ride? Do you now live in this sort of dystopian version of it when you're on it?

Ridley: Yeah, probably the latter. I mean, I've been inside the Haunted Mansion now four times with the lights on, and in many ways it's creepier than when the lights are off because you see all sorts of stuff, they spare no detail. And it all goes by so quickly when you're in one of those doom buggies, when you walk that ride, there's always an exit walkway in case the ride should shut down. So that's what I always do first is I walk the ride and it takes me about an hour and I'm walking usually with an Imagineer, and they point out all these things that you just don't have time to see when you're in the doom buggies. I mean, if you knew exactly where to look at the exact right moment, maybe you'd see it. So for me, it's been revelatory because I get to then go back on when I'm there with my family or whatever, and it's in the dark and I can be looking for these things going, oh, wow. And it's really special. Like one of the places I love, and I've used a story once, might use it again. When you're in the Haunted Mansion, on your right as you're going along is a hallway. And in my imagination, I've always wondered, where do those doors go? And so I've used those doors a few times to go other places.

Sam: Well, it's so funny you say that. Like our last trip there, there's the piano and the piano is playing and there's a thunderstorm going on outside. And how many times I've ridden that ride and seen it, and I looked at the floor and I realized when the lightning flashes, there's a shadow of the ghost playing the piano. It was the first time I'd seen it. And then, of course, we got out and we went back on and we all switched Doom Buggies because I had to point it out to everybody in our party.

Ridley: This is the genius of Disney to me, the fact and that's what I had seen that first time I went was a real story being told, a beginning, middle and end. The imagineers. Write between 61 hundred pages of a short story that they're going to tell on these rides. They're very in depth stories, and it's just, I think the reason we can ride them so many times and I've written them all, like you, I've written them four or 510 times over a period of years, 2030. And they're always different. And that's what's brilliant, is they show so many layers of this story that you have these AHA moments. Even the fifth time you've written something, you're going, oh, now I get it. That thing is chasing that thing, and I'm right in the middle of it. And it's just incredible what they do. Instead of just trying to worry you around and flash colors at you, right.

Sam: And try to make you throw up.

Ridley: Yeah, but you're right. I mean, there are these details like shadows and or whole items that just change and you look at them and go, why have I never seen that? Quite like that like the story of the young woman in Haunted Mansion, and she has one pearl necklace on and she has two. Eventually she has five. All the husbands she's killed. I mean, it's so easy not to pick up on that. When you know it and you see it, you go, okay, we're a three over a four. Oh, we're a five.

Sam: It's just those little rooms have so much detail, and it's always amazing to me when people are like, I hate Disney World. I'm like, why? At every phase of my life, I have loved it. When I was a kid and my parents took me, it was magical. And then my husband and I went for our honeymoon and we were like, oh, there's stuff you can do as grown ups, and it's still fun to play around in the kids stuff. And then we took our kids, and every time there was another detail, there was another nugget, the level of service. And anyone who has paid any attention in the world of business to understand the depth that they go to, to create the story, to create this experience, there is nobody like it. And so I can put on a marketing hat and appreciate the business piece of it. Now I'm going with my adult kids and we're like, oh, we can drink our way around the world. And that's a whole different experience. That's really fun. Don't get on Guardians of the Galaxy after you've done the World showcase. Just a word to the wise. It's very spinny. Yeah, it's remarkable to me, and I.

Ridley: Love it is remarkable.

Sam: Other adults that still get that thrill.

Ridley: From it, and that also applies to the cruise lines. I've been hired by different cruise lines to speak on them and do this and that. And then I was invited onto some cruises by Disney. And once you've been on a Disney cruise, it's hard to go on any other cruise line because the cast members on the ship are so happy and it isn't saccharine, it isn't fake. They are thrilled to have a job where they're on this magical cruise ship bombing around the Caribbean. Once I went from Miami to Barcelona on one. I've been through the Panama Canal a couple of times, and everybody has so much fun. If you're an adult and you don't want to do the Mickey stuff, which I love, all of that stuff, but if you don't, they've got the bow of the ship is for adults with a pool and cocktails and all this stuff, you don't really need to interact with the kids. The food is unbelievable. The waiter moves with you and learns your names, and it's like a happy family. It's stunning what they do. And you go on another ship and it's great, but it isn't that. It isn't like a Disney cruise ship.

Sam: We just watched there's a documentary on Disney Plus about the building of the Disney Wish, which they just launched last summer, and I think it's just about an hour long. And they go from the guy in Germany who's in charge, the engineer. It's like Legos and they build it in two halves. Yeah, it's fascinating. And you realize they're crossing the ocean and they're still building the inside of it. But there are whole families who are living they featured one couple. They have two different jobs with Disney, and they have a small child and they're on the boat, so they're not helicoptering somebody in Midway, so you assume they also have daycare and they've got to feed all these people. So there's a lot that's running as they're still building it within the week. We have never said we can't wait to do a cruise. We watched that and we were like, we are going on a Disney cruise next year. Looks so amazing.

Ridley: Think about this. In a week long cruise, they serve 21,000 meals that's hard to and they're unbelievably good meals. And having been allowed to tour in the galleys and all of that, and to see these people at work and how seriously they take their jobs. Like, I passed this thing that was the size of a hot tub, and I asked the chef what the heck it was, and he said, well, that's our stock for all our soups, our meats, all of that. And I said, well, what do you mean that's your stock? I mean, surely you use powdered stock or something. And he goes, no, this is Disney. We bring in the fish bones, we bring in the beef bones, we bring in all the vegetables, and we brew it on the ship so it is fresh, perfect stock. And I just went, okay, I give up. That's beyond what I would do on a ship.

Sam: That's so great. New book, new generation of the Kingdom keepers. I'm going to confess, and this is me because I'm old school with it, the original series. And they've got the idea for anyone who hasn't read the books, and I really do recommend them, is that these kids were kind of pre teen kids were brought in, turned into holograms to kind of greet you around the park for an extra interactive experience. And reading that, I thought I could totally see this happening someday with Disney and what a fun experience that would be. And I kind of keep waiting for them to launch it with the Genie Plus and the magic bands. You know, it's not far off with this. My imagining from what you've written is that are not cast members anymore. Now we're decades later, and they're all these solargrams, as you call them, they're solar powered holograms. Okay, no cast members.

Ridley: Well, I mean, there are cast members, but what you think of cast members are holograms. They're going for economy here.

Sam: Okay, so from a writing standpoint, amazing. But I kept thinking, I don't want to live that long. I don't know that I want to because I'm also a big fan of the Disney Pixar movie, Wally, and it gave me this Wally vibe that everything is technology again, that's just me being old school and remembering before they even had things like the apps and the magic fans and you had to wait to get your fast passes and whatever.

Ridley: Well, there would still be thousands of cast members behind the scene, but I really think that people would thrill at a park where the cast members, of course, are modeled after real people. They have their own voices. These kids have acted these parts or adults, but they only have to pay them once. And after that, they can use their likeness and image and make the whole experience greater for us all at less of a price. So to me, they would jump at that. Whether or not we'll ever see that, I don't know.

Sam: I love human contact. I think coming out of the pandemic, that's kind of the approach I had, that the minute my family could get back to Disney and start to feel like you're seeing people, you're talking to people, you're out and about doing things.

Ridley: Totally agree.

Sam: It was wonderful during the pandemic that we could meet as you and I are through zoom and see people that we couldn't see in person. I just had a little bit of, I don't know. I love the technology piece, but there's a human touch to all of that. And I think I'm just still reeling a little bit from COVID from the isolation months. So you obviously do a ton of research, and I love the dedication at the beginning of this book of Inheritance to is it Brooke Muscot? Yeah, the story do you mind sharing kind of a synopsis of the dedication? Because it sounds like she was just a fan for you.

Ridley: I was speaking at a bookstore in California many years ago now, and there was a young woman by herself. I mean, the place was packed and she was in the front row, so I knew she'd gotten there early. And at her feet were a stack of my books. And in her hand was the book I was there to speak about. But in those books, sticking out of those books were probably 50 to 60 postits in each book. And I got there early, as I do, and I was preparing and I looked down and saw this young woman and I saw her books and I went over and I kneeled by her and I said, are those postits what I think they are? And she said yes. And she didn't have me define what I meant and she didn't define what she meant. And I said, how would you like to work for me at a distance, helping me with continuity in the novels? And she said, oh, I'd love that. And for the next, like eight years, she worked for me. She worked remotely from California. Then eventually her mom and dad allowed her to travel with me, like to a D 23 or something like that. It was just a remarkable time. And eventually, of course, she outgrew the series and me and moved on. But I miss her every day that I write these books because she was a walking kingdom keepers encyclopedia. I could send a text to Brooke and say, now, was Willemore fond of skirts or pants? And she'd go, pants, and it's always blue jeans. And it would come back in 2 seconds. She knew everything, where they'd been, what they'd done, and I can't retain any of that after 13 books. And she was just so incredibly helpful that once we sort of went our separate ways, I felt like, oh my gosh, I have got to thank this woman because she saved my life for all those years. So that's why the dedication.

Sam: It'S such a beautiful thing to happen. And my tagline is everyday people who've done extraordinary things and we all obviously grow up as everyday people. And no one is going to look at you, Ridley Pearson, and say, wait, he's not every day anymore.

Ridley: I'm completely every day.

Sam: But we all grow up that way. And now here's also embedded in your story, the story of an everyday young woman who showed up at a book signing and had this extraordinary experience of doing research with you. And that's pretty amazing.

Ridley: Yeah, it was amazing. So she yeah, she came on several in fact, she came one of the Walt Disney trips with me. She was just so incredible because having a young, intelligent mind, she was able to archive. Everything that we did. I mean, I'd catch this point and that point and write down in my book, but then I'd ask her a week later, and she could remember every little deal. For instance, at one point, I think this was in no, this was in Walt Disney World. So above the firehouse is Walt's old apartment in Walt Disney World. In Magic Kingdom. And they keep a light in there burning, and that light used to be on when he was there and off when he wasn't. And so I was able to tour that a couple of different times. And one of the times, maybe no, actually, it might have been Disneyland when I did it with Brooke, his real apartment in Disneyland, I think it was, because we went up there, and when it was built, the fire pole from the firehouse went from his apartment down into the firehouse. So he would just slide down the pole and walk out to see his people. And eventually guests figured this out, and they would climb up the pole and go into his apartment. So they boarded it over. But Brooke and I got in there with some different guides and things, and you get this sort of overwhelming feeling of Walt and Lillian and that it's a very small place, just two little twin beds and very old fashionedly decorated. And I asked the guides if it would be okay if we were quiet, if I just sat on the floor for about 20 minutes and absorbed the vibe of the place. And they let Brooke sit over across from me on the floor, and I sat on the floor, and they left. And the two of us just sort of inhaled this vibe of Walt that sounds so stupid and crazy, but it was so powerful, and we got so much out of that, so many details that we otherwise wouldn't have gotten out of that 20 minutes where you just kind of rushed in and here's this and there's that. But I remember she was a part of that, too. And we both came out of that just going, Whoa. What have we just done? It was amazing.

Sam: I'm speechless. I can't even imagine how that would feel, what that would be like.

Ridley: And she was, like, 20 at the time, but she comported herself like she was 35, and she was just a wonderful partner for all those years. I miss her.

Sam: I love how respectful and thorough you are about the original Disney team. Also, I mean, the references to Iworks and all of those people in the creations. That apartment, I know, is huge. Even at the beginning of the kingdom, keepers and the light being on and some of those details that we might not know going in the average guest in the Magic Kingdom, might not know to look for the light and those kinds of things. It's also, I will tell you, been really fun for me every time we go, there are two rides in particular and one, Rest in Peace, Splash Mountains. But anytime I ride that, and It's a Small World, we talk about if I'm with my kids. We talk about the dolls chasing us through those two rides and what that would be like and how scary that would be. And by the time we get off our boats at the end, people are like, what book is that you're talking about? What is it you're talking about? I'm like, oh, these Kingdom Keepers books, you have to read them. Your kids are just the right age. You will never forget them. And it changes the way you look at some of the rides. I can imagine that now that you've been so immersed in that right mentioned when we got on, I had my Maleficent headband on. How scared of Maleficent are you really?

Ridley: I'm scared of Maleficent, and there are a couple of reasons. And then I think we can end on my Small World story, which may or may not surprise you, but the Maleficent story is that as I went to write the books, I especially wanted to work with Chernobyl because he had been brought in in Fantasia and then sort of entirely ignored by Disney. And I was always looking for ignored characters because then I could play with them a little, I thought, without getting in too much trouble. And the imagineers agreed. And in Chernobyl's case, Walt Disney had said he was the most evil creature he had ever created, that Chernobyg eats human souls. And I went, wow, now that is an evil character. But for Maleficent, she is routinely voted the most scary of all the Disney villains. And so that's a place I started from. And then over the years of doing my research behind the scenes, I've met her on many occasions. She's taller than I and has a pointed chin and a green face and a creepy voice, and she's just intimidating. One time in particular, I was in Disney Hollywood studios, and it was, I guess, five in the morning, and I was being escorted around by an Imagineer. And I should have clued into this because they don't really leave you on your own, but this guy said, hey, I got to run into the men's room. I'll meet you in front of one man's dream. I was going to do some research in the Little Museum to Walt Disney. It was early, I was tired. I didn't think anything of it. I walked up and I turned the corner, and there's Maleficent standing 6ft tall with her cape and her green chin, and she goes, Ridley, what are you doing in my park? I just started running, and I ended up in Illinois about two days later. And this is who the Imagineers are. They play tricks on you all the time. And from then on now, I'm alert for these tricks because they are pranksters these guys. And this guy was of course, he had not gone to the bathroom. He'd followed me and was peering around the corner. He was laughing and I was like needing a new pair of underwear. It was a horror moment. So ever since, I don't exactly love maleficent, but the thing I want to end on is that the doll scene in book one, Disney After Dark, it's real. So I went in there at 05:00 in the morning. I walked the route, which took about an hour with an imagineer, and the ride was shut down. So the dolls were all frozen in place. The sound was off, there was no music and there were no colorful lights. It was just emergency lighting like a tornado. And when I came back around, the guy said, should I radio in and bring a crew in and we can start this up for you? And I went, oh, absolutely. So they brought in a bunch of cast members and they fired up the ride for me. And they said, you can take this as many times as you want and take your notes. And I said, well, could I actually go through it like we just did? Could I go through in a boat with the lights off, the dolls off, and no music? And they said, sure. And they turned a bunch of buttons off and so just the boat moved. And when you're in there and there's no music, you hear the sloshing of the boat. You don't hear this when the music's going, but it goes slosh, slosh, slosh, slash, slash, slosh. And it gets creepier and creepier. So we go through the first scene. It's five in the morning, it's cold in Disney in Florida at five in the morning. It's chilly, I should say that. And I was chilly and I had goosebumps and I was getting colder by the minute. And then we went into the second scene and out of the corner of my eyes, two of the dolls stepped forward and I just jumped out of the boat. I landed back on my seat and the guy I was with said, what's with you? And I went right there. Two of the dolls just moved. And he said, Dude, you are an adult. That ride is shut down. There is no way those dolls moved. And I said, dude, I am an Eagle Scout. Scouts honor. Two of those dolls moved. And I wrote down in my notebook, two of the dolls moved. Small world. Scared me to death. And then I went to write the scene and I eventually had the five kingdom keepers in the ride in the boat. It's dark, it's creepy, one of them sees two of the dolls move. And I backspace and said, no, I should exaggerate what I actually saw. And I said, no, four of the dolls move. And then I said, wait a second. I'm in a rock band with Stephen King all of the dolls move. So all of the dolls march off the platform and they attack the kids. And that's my vision of smaller. So now I can barely go on the ride.

Sam: I bet there are times I can.

Ridley: Do it, and sometimes I'm brought down there to show school groups around and there are times we've gone on all these rides, we get to Small World and I say, you guys go, I'll meet you at the exit. I can't face it. So most of the time I can. But there are times I just creep out and think, I'm going to see those dolls move again. I'm going to freak out.

Sam: That's incredible. One final question, because I have to ask and I hope I get the answer I want. Is there any discussion about making these into movies or TV on Disney Plus? Because, holy cow, it would be so amazing to see.

Ridley: We've had discussions for 15 years. The most recent round was last spring, early summer. I at my agents Disney. Everyone was absolutely sure this was being shot for Disney Plus. And at the last minute we got to know and this was from their team. I mean, their team was absolutely certain and it was production issues or something. Every time this happens, I go hide under my sheets for two days. So I'm never going to rule it out. I just want it to be in my lifetime. So I'm hoping it's pretty soon here, but right now I've heard nothing. If you had asked me this time last year, I wouldn't have been able to answer truthfully, but I would have been so excited because I would have been certain it was finally going to Disney Plus, but it didn't happen.

Sam: My family, I'm sure with all of your fans around the world, will have our fingers and toes crossed that happens. And I thank you so much for your time today. I will be linking the books, all kinds of books in the podcast, notes for anybody who is interested. And please give Ridley Pearson a follow on Instagram and social media. And thank you so much, you're terrific.

Ridley: I hope we can do it again. Thank you.

Sam: Thank you. Joining me. Sam ditka at meant for moxie the podcast. Special thanks to bestselling author Ridley Pearson. This was such a treat for me to be able to speak with someone whose words I have enjoyed for so many years. Please make sure you keep listening. For some information about our amazing sponsor Marco Pelosi and his Color Guard hair care system and make sure you visit his site at www.marcopalusi.com and grab your 15% off. Meant for Moxie is the companion podcast to Moximama by Sam Ditka. More information can be found at www dot. Moximama TV Podcast produced by Timothy Ditka. The music the energy is courtesy of Abhishe Music and can be found on itunes. Stronger Hair with Better Shine I've been using Marco Pelosi hair care products for several years now, and I have to tell you, my hair has never felt better. I've colored my hair since I was 18 years old, and all the changes my body has been through since then made for a not ideal hair situation. I ended up cutting my hair really short a few years ago in hopes of a reset of the damage I had from heat styling and color. Marco's products have a wonderful collagen to them that strengthens the hair and leaves it better able to handle what I put my hair through on a daily basis. It's soft and shiny, it smells great, and the products feel really luxe. It has an added benefit of holding my hair color longer, which anyone who's used red dye knows it doesn't like to stick around. My hair is honestly in better condition than it was 25 years ago. You should visit Marcopalusi.com. That's Marcopelusi.com to sign up and receive 15% off your first order.