- E ticket
Since the 1950s, the phrase E Ticket (or E ticket ride) has referred to an unusually interesting, thrilling or expensive experience. It derives from the tickets used at
Disneyland andWalt Disney World theme parks until 1982. Formally, Disney called them "coupons", but they were commonly referred to as tickets, as they were generally purchased in ticket books (with admission). The tickets came in different denominations, from A through E, with E tickets being the most expensive and reserved for the newest, most expensive or popular rides and attractions.Park-goers could purchase tickets individually or in booklets that included tickets of each denomination. Booklets tended to have more high-level (D and E) tickets than lower-level (A and B) tickets, and might contain, for example, a park admission ticket, one A ticket, one B ticket, two C tickets, three D tickets, and three E tickets. Visitors tended to leave the park with unused A and B tickets, not because they had received large numbers of them, but because the A and B rides were less common and less popular.
The parks no longer use this method of selling tickets — instead, all rides are included with admission. However, the phrase continues to be used, having long-since passed into the
lexicon ofpopular culture . In 1983, astronautSally Ride , the first American woman in space, famously described the experience of aSpace Shuttle launch by saying: "Ever been to Disneyland? ...That was definitely an E ticket!" [ABC News report filed byLynn Sherr ,June 18 ,1983 ]The
Fastpass system is currently used to give out timed tickets that allow users quicker entry to popular rides that, historically, would usually have taken an E ticket.In 2007, Disneyland brought back the term "Disney's eTicket" for marketing its new Print at Home ticket option, where customers buy their ParkHoppers and other types of admission online and print a bar code on their home printer, and then take that printed page directly to the park entrance turnstiles, where it is scanned and a standard ticket/ParkHopper is printed at the turnstile and handed to the customer.
Cultural References
*There is a fan-published magazine called
The "E" Ticket , which examines the history of Disney theme park attractions.
*The employee cafeteria next to the administration building at Disneyland is called the Eat Ticket, a reference to the E ticket.
*Julie Brown 's song "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun ", describes the homecoming dance as, "definitely an E-ticket."
*"Weird Al" Yankovic 's "Jurassic Park" states: "Well, this sure ain't no E-ticket / Think I'll tell them where to stick it..."
* In the Monkey Island series of games, the player may find an E-ticket as buried treasure.
*InGwen Stefani 's song Orange County Girl, she sings: "I know I'm living the E-ticket dream/For a girl from O.C. it's almost unheard of."
*In the movieNight of the Comet , the character Willy is tormenting the main characters by pointing a gun at their heads and playingRussian Roulette . Each time he clicks the gun and it does not fire, he makes a sadistic quip. One of these is "Ooooh! An E-Ticket attraction! Let's try again!"
*The Vandals 's song "Pirate's Life" mentions that "You get something really wicked / when you spend an E ticket," referring to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.
* OnMike Watt 's album "Ball-Hog or Tugboat?" there is a track entitled "E-Ticket Ride"References
External links
* [http://www.yesterland.com/tickets.html Yesterland's tickets article]
* [http://keeline.com/DLTickets/ History and Pictures of Disneyland Tickets]
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