Once again, Disneyland pulls through with another themeing creation that brings me back to “original” Disney Parks perfection.

With puns like this, you’ll think you’re in line for Muppets 3D, but, in fact, you’re in Disney California Adventure’s Blue Sky Cellar, formerly the Golden Vine Winery — Seasons of the Vine. This location is now themed to represent an old winery that the Disneyland Imagineers have taken over as an impromptu office. Guests are free to roam about, sneaking peeks at models and blueprints for upcoming attractions, taking video screen quizzes, watching a film about the upcoming changes to Disney California Adventure, etc.

To your left as you walk in you’ll see a big sign — labeled “reference center” — draped over a full wall of “resting” wine barrels. Video screens that offer fun quizzes and trivia are set within some of the wine barrels, but the others seem pretty plain. Until you look more closely.

Many of these barrels have that special “Disney touch” — clearly the Imagineers have been having a little fun! Some of the barrels even have punny names that harken back to Disney Parks history:

MAPO MAY WINE references Walt Disney and Bob Booth’s MAPO arm of the company, a “multi-craft research and development and manufacturing subsidiary for Walt Disney Productions,” says D23. The shop was responsible for designing building theme park components from ride decor and themeing to transportation elements like the Monorail system. The name of the subsidiary stood for Manufacturing and Production Organization, but it’s also widely known that MAPO was also short for Mary Poppins, the film whose profits were used to create the organization. Currently, the monorail safety system is known as MAPO.

And WED WINE, of course, refers to Walter Elias Disney’s initials, which were also used as the name for WED Enterprises — the branch of the company that eventually became Walt Disney Imagineering. WED Wine could also be a pun for the WEDway — another name for the “peoplemover” ride in Tomorrowland.

CASK MEMBERS refers to the name given to Disney employees, called “Cast Members,” as everything Disney does is considered a “show.”

And IMAGI-NOIR is a play on “Imagineer,” Disney’s name for its concept developers and “show” engineers.

The rest of the barrels display more puns having to do with wine, vineyards, imagineering, California, and concept development — all the things that are supposed to be a part of the themeing here in the Blue Sky Cellar!

I love it when I find hints of classic Disney themeing tucked into places like this! Would love to hear your favorite examples!

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