We all know this is a weenie:
But did you know that this is too?
In the More-Useless-Information-I-Learned-From-the-Internet Department, I found out a new definition for this inherently funny word yesterday.
Appearing as both “weenie” and “wienie” on various web sites devoted to Disneyana, the term describes an architectural construction which draws the eye and tempts the visitor to venture further into the diabolical design that is the Disney theme park.
John Hench, author of Designing Disney, and a member of Walt’s original team, spells it wienie. The concept apparently came from Disney’s experience of training dogs with “wienies”—that’s hot dogs, frankfurters or wieners (from wienerwurst, or Vienna sausage), to you. Hench describes the human, theme-park purpose of the wienie in a profile from the NYT archives:
, and a member of Walt’s original team, spells it wienie. The concept apparently came from Disney’s experience of training dogs with “wienies”—that’s hot dogs, frankfurters or wieners (from wienerwurst, or Vienna sausage), to you. Hench describes the human, theme-park purpose of the wienie in a profile from the 
The wienie is really a beckoning finger…It’s kind of a reward. If you have a corridor, at the end there has to be something to justify you going that distance.
The photograph above shows Sleeping Beauty Castle, a wienie that draws the hapless Disneyland visitor down Main Street and toward Fantasyland. And speaking of Fantasyland, one of my favorite things about Disney’s term is its resemblance to the German wie nie, which translates roughly to “as never before.”
Whether or not Walt chose this unorthodox spelling on purpose, the vision it conjures when taken literally in German is perfectly apt: Spaceship Earth, the enormous silver ball that sucks visitors into Disney’s Epcot Center and which Slate’s Seth Stevenson describes as “perhaps the wieniest of all wienies,” is powerful precisely because it is like nothing visitors have ever seen before. The 77-foot Sleeping Beauty Castle, scaled to be a welcoming beacon rather than a forbidding fortress, is something that belongs in the Neverlands that Disney built–a big fat wie nie.
4 replies on “Attack of the 77-Foot Weenie”
Ah…..if only Disneyland weren’t the most hated place on earth (admittedly my term…I know many other are “wieniered” into it.) Now….how about something from the blogmeister on nausea, nauseated and nauseous? (Funny how those words came to mind in conjunction with Disneyland…..)
Hey Annie Glimmerglass…..watch it!!!! Them’s fightin’ words to a Southern Californian who, with family, friends, and visitors from out of town, has been to Disneyland somewhere over 100 times!!!!!
I’m a Disneyland fan, myself–I admit that those wienies sucker me in. I hate spelling it like that, by the way. But the connection with German is just so interesting!
I’ll put the nausea/nauseated/nauseous idea into the future posts file–unless you’d be interested in doing a guest post, Annie.
Here’s my post on the nausea, et.al. Maybe you can figure out how to make it a “guest post” for me. The nauseous aura of Disneyland creates a feeling of nausea in me, thereby making everyone around me nauseated (especially Mr. Moss.) Many people (all of whom shall not be named here….or…none of whom shall be named here) misuse nauseous as an adverb…as in:” I feel nauseous.”