Nets center Brook Lopez admits he is getting anxious as the big day approaches. Opening Day for the NBA season, as a rookie, his very first? Oh yeah, that too.
See, Disney is coming out with new DVD collections that have Zorro and Dr. Syn, the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, and Elfego Baca and . . .
Lopez, if you didn’t know, is a Disney fanatic. He has a collection of figurines and memorabilia whose numbers are “more like hundreds,” not dozens. He knows the history of Walt Disney and Disneyland probably better than any of the perky tour guides at the tourist attraction.
“My older brothers were interested in it and we lived pretty close to Anaheim when I was younger,” Lopez said. “Then my grandma always brought me little toys and trinkets and figurines and stuff when I was little. It just kind of instilled it in me.”
And if you think he’s bad, his twin, Robin, may be worse.
Robin has a nice little room going, almost a museum in his townhouse in Phoenix,” said Lopez, who’s also a noted “Batman” comic freak.
Of his own collection, if he absolutely, positively, could keep only one item, it would be a near-impossible choice. But he made his decision.
“My best friend got me a pretty cool Disney villains snow-globe like eight years ago,” Lopez said. “It’s all Disney villains. It’s pretty cool.”
Cool like the movies, particularly the TV series. And don’t trash the classics unless you you’re willing to have the 7-foot Lopez go Cruella De Vil on your butt.
“High School Musical?” Please. “We prefer all the old stuff,” Lopez said.
Like “Davy Crockett” with Fess Parker, “Zorro” with Guy Williams, “Elfego Baca” with Robert Loggia and “The Scarecrow” with Patrick McGoohan.
And there is a practical side to Lopez’s love of Disneyana and comics. He’d like to try his hand at writing his own original stories and comics with his brothers who write and draw.
“They were all influences,” Lopez said. “I’m working on writing and collaborating with others. I write, my brother draws, my oldest brother writes, too. I was going to major in creative writing at Stanford. We’re working on some things. It (Disney) definitely influenced us.”