PP4873    DCA - Philip A Couch Casting Agency - Sign

One in a series of pins replicating signs in California Adventure. This one is from the Hollywood Pictures Backlot area. It's a risque pin reading "Philip A Couch Casting Agency". At the bottom in gold are comedy and tragedy masks.

Disney’s California Adventure theme park used to have this sign, in the early 2000's that hung on a façade in its old Hollywood Pictures Backlot section that advertised the fictional Philip A Couch Casting Agency. The sign was shaped like a phallus. The joke was pretty clear, even if in bad taste.

When California Adventure opened in 2001, the Hollywood Pictures Backlot section was filled with signs and shops peddling puns about Tinseltown and the Golden State: Ben Hair, Bur-r-r Bank Ice Cream, Excess Braggage, Floral Canyon, and Souvenir Itch, to name a few. Some of them had really adult overtones. It’s crazy to see that now, because the way they design the parks now doesn’t include adult elements. This casting couch pun is so wild, however pictures of the sign do exist. It was removed when the Hollywood Pictures Backlot was renovated and replaced with Hollywood Land in the mid-to-late 2000s. When California Adventure started its billion-dollar renovation somewhere around 2008 or 2009, the park got rid of many of the punny signs and false fronts that resembled a Hollywood backlot. It's shocking that the Imagineers would put a nod to this aspect of Hollywood in the park—shining brightly in neon, no less. Hollywood Land, as it is now, is considerably more wholesome, with the Disney Junior Dance Party and a Monsters Inc ride serving as major attractions. But all evidence of the Philip A Couch Casting Agency hasn’t exactly been purged. Sleuth long enough, and you’ll be able to track down a Disney authentic souvenir pin versions of the sign being sold online, like this one.

Pin measures: 3/4 x 1-5/8 inches.