Wing Chung, The Disney Dentist

From the San Gabriel Valley Tribune:

No one considers a dental office the happiest place on earth.But maybe Dr. Wing Chung’s is the exception.

Chung, who owns a dental practice in Covina, has turned his three examination rooms into the various lands found within the Disneyland theme park.

“The whole thing started as kind of a joke,” Chung said.

But for a joke, Chung has taken the vibe of each examination room pretty seriously.

His first room, which was the original concept room for the other two that followed, is based on Fantasyland. It’s complete with limited edition attraction replicas, attraction posters and figurines based on characters that correspond to that land – like Dumbo and Peter Pan.

The next room is based on Adventureland, which features the Tiki Room bird, Tiki masks, a miniature Jungle Cruise replica boat and a commemorative ticket from the nascency of the Indiana Jones ride. There are even fake leaves that line corners of the ceiling.

His final room, and the most requested by patients, is his New Orleans Square room, with artifacts ranging from the the four creepy posters that stretch and grow in the elevator of the Haunted Mansion, to a replica map found just inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

I’ve gotta wonder if Dr Chung has seen the documentary Trekkies, which includes an interview with a dentist whose office is decorated entirely in Star Trek theme, and whose staff dresses in Starfleet uniforms. I’ll bet the two dentists could swap plenty of awesome stories! There are some aspects of fandom that cut across almost all genres.

I saw Trekkies for the first time near the tail end of a 24-hour sci fi film festival, and it was funny to hear people heckle the Trekkies, given that: a) said hecklers had been sitting around in the dark watching sci fi movies for 22 hours, and b) many of said hecklers probably had an opinion on Kirk v. Picard (Picard, duh).