Published in 2014 by Disney Enterprises, Inc., I decided to take a flyer on this book given the rave reviews a 2019 release dedicated to Marc Davis has gotten in Disney fan circles. This is expressly an art book, and any text that it contains isn't terribly in-depth, though it helps to flesh out aspects of Marc Davis' personal life, his background prior to animation, and his contributions to Imagineering. Marty Sklar makes the point that Marc Davis' touch for gags and humor was a cornerstone of the Disney Parks successes. He is attributed as to having gone into the parks and reporting that the place needed more humor, leading to his transition from animator to imagineer. The most prolific designer of his era, Davis saw attractions as things to experience rather than interactive narratives driven by the designers and as you may or may not be aware, that is a major sticking point in all arguments about theme parks before and after.
DO I WANT THS?
How Does It Read?: As this is an art book, words take a back seat unless they specifically describe aspects of the highlighted art. Theme park fans will be most interested in the 7th chapter with oodles of concept drawings for attractions like World of Motion, Carousel of Progress, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Will I Learn Anything?: Depends on the audience. For those who are hardcore Disney fans, I imagine some of the knowledge about his art is probably known. I'm not an animation history type of person or a Disneyana type, so I largely flew through those sections of the book as impressive as all the drawings were. It's less likely that you'll know as much about his time as a draftsman or his adoration of Papua New Guinea, and there is quite a bit there to unpack. I certainly know something about his relationship with his wife Alice now, but this isn't really the reason I read books related to the theme park industry either.
Did You Take Anything Away From This?: I mean, sure, Marc Davis is a very good artist and it was interesting that he would dabble in modern art work aside from his time working on animation and creating so many of the characters we know from the Disney theme parks. It's interesting to see all the sketches and such, but for me, I'm just not the target audience.
Chapter 9: Papua New Guniea and the Pacific Islands (Paula Sigman Lowery) Chapter 10: The Divine Miss Alice (Mindy Johnson) Afterword by Randy Haberkamp
Disneyland and Disney Hollywood Studios' newest expansion, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge (SW:GE), has led to a lot of divisive opinions. None is more divisive than the argument of why it has, at it's best, turned out to simply draw crowds close to numbers of people who came last year before the expansion was completed. Most of these discussions ultimately revolve around the fact that Rise of the Resistance, arguably Disney's most complex attraction ever constructed, will not be open for months. No Rise, no armies of humanity demanding entry.
Beyond the fact that this is not provable now given that it is a hypothesis about the future, that this is usually agreed upon doesn't necessarily mean that everyone agrees upon what that means about what presently exists at Galaxy's Edge. The land itself is completed minus Rise: it is done, and by all accounts, it looks great. You can go and see it and "fly" the Millennium Falcon, eat at Oga's Cantina, buy a Blue Milk, build a light saber, and make things beep with your phone. For those who purely want to "experience Star Wars", there really aren't any barriers beyond the expense of a one day ticket, which if we are being very frank here, anyone actively in this exorbitantly expensive hobby should have the capacity to afford.
As Galaxy's Edge has opened to guests in Florida however, there are concerns which have arisen from guests demanding the utmost in "immersion". Many revenue centers (restaurants, shops) don't feature any form of air conditioning, given that they are open air markets, so fans were frequently seen propped up in corners during the summer months. Seating is at a premium in the land, which has led Operations to go to the store and buy stock patio furniture to give people a place to sit down and eat. Much rumoured live entertainment and character interactions in the land did not appear, with Bob Chapek being blamed as some sort of villainous accountant. If the intent is absolute pitch perfect world building, these things obviously are a detriment to it as functional as they may be. This question of functionality is in fact a fundamental question about the parks themselves: What is the function of a theme park? This seems an almost ridiculously basic question, but it is rarely asked and merely accepted to be inferred as self evident. There is in fact a significant divide in this.
SW:GE is generally accepted to have been influenced by the construction of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands Of Adventure, which was the first US example of what one might term "hyperreal". Rather than produce a theme park space that was a pastiche of known entities in a safe-for-children-and-mass-tourists manner (like how Adventureland is basically every place brown people live smashed together), these new hyperreal places intend to build fully-formed worlds for people to explore and interact with. Whether that is Avatar's "interactive" sperm cannon plant, Potter's wands, or the Play Disney App in Star Wars, these places put you in your own individual role playing game (full cooperation optional) to be part of the land. That then is the point of theme parks, isn't it? To put us in foreign worlds where we get to "escape" and become someone else; to transform ourselves into junk traders and wizards and, uhhh, intergalactic tourists. Or is it?
That is perhaps what some people would like theme parks to be. The media portals we use boost the negative signals because negatives attract attention, and advertisers crave content that gets attention, creating a sort of death spiral in which no matter who you are, we are in constant global peril from some sort of existential threat. Many people are exhausted of constant worry; worry about global climate change, billionaire rapists, financial ruin due to medical bills, armed conflict, mass shooters, fentanyl, immigration, loss of individual freedoms. No matter what side of the political fence you are on, there is someone, somewhere who wants to radicalize you (and subsequently sell you media, dietary supplements, and possibly donate to a political campaign or ten) even if you are the sort of individual who has well paying work and can easily afford a luxury hobby such as "attend theme parks". These worlds are then a potential escape for you, a thoroughly psychologically taxed and beaten individual. It should be no surprise then that on Twitter, Facebook, and the like there are many, many people who relate to these parks as a form of therapy. Walt did intend for his park to be an escape from every day life. That is true. So did Walter Knott. So did literally everyone who built traditional amusement parks or zoological gardens.
And this is where the problem with this thinking lies: "immersion" is not simply a thing that exists in the confines of Disney theme parks. Modern and postmodern art has played with the interactivity of art and the public for much of the 20th century, and in the 21st century this has been taken to bold new places by the likes of Meow Wolf and teamLab, as well as theater troupes and museums. There are many places in the US with spaces reserved purely for renaissance festivals (not unlike fairgrounds, which of course they mimic the European precursor to), and Evermore Park was constructed to more impressively/permanently fulfill these role playing fantasies. Cedar Point constructed Forbidden Frontier for 2019 following the success of the Ghost Town Alive summer "game" in Knott's Berry Farm. Immersive theater has been used by the Smithsonian; Orlando has had a fairly authentic and expensive representation of ancient Israel in the Holy Land Experience for many, many years. The Ark Encounter in Kentucky? It's built to the cubit based on the descriptions in the Bible and filled with animatronics to make you know just what Noah was doing. Can't immerse more than that.
So clearly, if world construction and relocating to that fantasy is the demand, then these things must be doing strong business. Ark Encounter? Attendance there is sluggish and it would probably have shuttered inside of 5 years if not for state tax breaks. Holy Land Experience - which has never had a ride - failed financially and had to be bought out and operated by a religious TV station. Evermore is operating at a whopping three nights a week. Cedar Point announced they're going to bring back a family boat ride that just so happens to encircle where Forbidden Frontier is....on an island. That means the bridges to the island have to go. Turns out immersive themed experiences at "big iron rides" parks - no matter how well done - aren't appealing to people who don't like "big iron rides" parks since it's still a "big iron rides" park. Art installations like Otherworld in Columbus. OH or THE EXPERIENCE in Tulsa, OK are expanding, but the cost for entry in that space is dramatically lower than that of a theme park world (or theme park sized entity). And more importantly: these art installations are not theme parks.
What separates immersive art experiences from a "theme park" is that a "theme park," very specifically by the language we use, refers to themed amusement facilities. Amusement facilities have shows, rides, dancing, swimming, and so on. Theme Parks have existed for decades with people flocking to them to experience things: Country Bear Jamboree, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, just to name a few of these. Things happen around them and occasionally to them, but never do they make things truly happen. The idea of immersive world building as the future of theme parks changes this dramatically. The impact of the art is maximized by interaction with it, then the art must be encouraged to be interacted with. For those who've seen the parks as that kind of escape - a space for reinvention of themselves - this is a dream come true.
But what about everyone else? What about the people who just want to go on a ride? What about kids? Children will have the least ability to accumulate points in Galaxy's Edge compared to childless adults who use it as an after work escape, and the younger they are, the less likely that they will be turned on by a series of games and missions with such stringent rules. In creating a rich mythology for visitors, Disney imagineers have left nothing to the imagination of the guests. There is not intended to be much in terms of individual interpretation. The scenes mean what they mean; they communicate with brute force intensity. It sees the lack of narrative in Pirates of the Caribbean not as an asset, but a liability. Star Wars as a intellectual property shows this conflict in the parks as well. As bound to canon as Galaxy's Edge is, many early reviews and anecdotal evidence suggest Smuggler's Run doesn't on average receive as high of marks from guests Star Tours (a ride that plays liberally with canon).
If the functionality of theme parks is to merely to entertain rather than "immerse" in a realistic world, this wouldn't be surprising. Star Tours introduces us to old favorites and worlds we've always wanted to explore, in addition to huge battle sequences. It's been updated fairly recently and has reasonably good animation and animatronic figures aboard the craft (Smuggler's Run has one animatronic in a pre-show, and he's from a cartoon series that averaged about 3 million viewers). It hits the right notes of nostalgia (a huge part of Disney's success in general) while also providing variation in experience to draw guests back. Star Tours offers no buttons to mash and no points to get, but still manages to have an average wait not far from a half hour even after the construction of Galaxy's Edge.
Function subsequently has led to changes in form elsewhere in Disney World's Galaxy's Edge. Recently, news that menu boards would see the names of food items changed to reflect what they actually were instead of "in character" names; Fried Endorian Tip-Yip became Fried Chicken. Guests apparently had been confused by the names and cast members were complaining the refusal of paying customers to play along with the conceit of being on another planet (a planet, it should be noted, where Coca Cola and paper receipts saying the park name are apparently Star Wars canon) when attempting to spend huge amounts of money on food for their family. To an outsider, the notion that customers would be forced to change their behavior in this way is hilarious, but is largely accepted as a given by those deep in the bubble of hyperimmersion. Cast members have increasingly moved away from calling water fountains as "hydrators" and restrooms as "refreshers" given that those words mean nothing in the context of actual reality when people need to drink water.
This isn't to say that Galaxy's Edge is a total failure: while domestic park attendance dropped in spite of this massive investment, there have been increases in per capita spending related to the new restaurants and retail shops inside. And of course there's the small issue of Rise Of The Resistance not being open. Without it operating, it feels like that period of time this section is opened is more or less a control for the real experiment of "Worlds or rides?"
For all the hand wringing to the contrary, theme parks are just a subgenre of amusement park. Without the function - the rides, in this case - there's no need to see what the section has until they've arrived. If you disagree, ask yourself this: would hundreds of thousands of guests refuse to book travel to Disney if Rise of The Resistance was open but it was Oga's Cantina that was behind in development? How about if it was Droid Depot that was delayed 9 months? Do you really think if they pushed out the roving bots and doubled the number of costumed characters that it would lead to monster lines and record attendance more than if it was the 20+ minute, multi-system, multi-sensory E-ticket ride to end all E-tickets? Be honest with not just yourself but what you know about other people.
I've learned there's always someone who has the contrarian position. I once had someone on Twitter tell me they traveled to stay at Disney moderate resorts for a week and never go to the parks. To be entirely honest, that claim was mind blowing. Doesn't mean I think they're a bad person or anything (they are probably very nice people who I would bet are shy as hell in real life), but I reserve the right to question some people's life choices and what it says about the relationship they have with the rest of society. I also know that going to Disney World for a week and not going to parks because "pools" and "Disney Springs" is not standard procedure for most people who are hardened Disney fans, much less regular, normal people. There would absolutely be one or two people who would wait out Droid Depot out of 20 million. But that's what you're looking at. Theme parks can't be geared to that one or two: it has to be to the 20 million, and maybe the way guests have reacted (or not reacted) to Galaxy's Edge is the path back to that.
Inspired by current trends in Twitter discourse as usual, I felt compelled to produce a good old fashioned think piece about think pieces.
Fan generated discourse is, in all likelihood, a qualitative good. Not just because it is human interaction. What fan generated/led discourse has done, particularly in the internet era, has made it more acceptable for people entering some sort of artistic endeavour to interact with fans. This interaction then is able to influence the way things are presented or developed, often to the benefit of an even larger audience. It also normalizes fandom and makes it easier for people who start as fans to progress into industry rather than being seen as unnecessarily attached.
I start with that paragraph for a reason; fan generated/led discourse also has the potential for negatives. By overly encumbering the vision of the creatives with the will of the most hardcore fans, it makes for increasingly insular art. Avengers: Infinity War can be used as an example of this. On one hand, it is incredible that a major movie studio had the willingness to build towards a massive event film over a decade via 20+ other films and several series of programmatic television. It has lived up, in many ways, to the desires of the most core audience by staying stunningly authentic to a very, very dense mythology. The success of Avengers also can't be ignored: Infinity War crossed 1.7 billion dollars in global ticket sales this week, and at minimum will be the 4th highest grossing film ever. 3 other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe exist along with it. The negative in this? Movie attendance in the US fell to record lows in 2018.
While there is a die-hard market for Marvel films that far exceeds the number of people who actually read the comics, the fact of the matter is that the market is still only a small overall fraction of the American public. We can surround ourselves with people much like us who think like we do and by and large agree with us, but ultimately, that's not representative of the movie going, TV watching, or theme park visiting public at large. The tendency then is to focus on when the public agrees with the things we like; They reacted strongly to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which proves that it is good (if not a model for the rest of the industry). They didn't react nearly as strongly to World of Avatar, which makes it just OK. Disneysea succeeded immediately while Disney Studios Paris still struggles: again, evidence that confirms prior beliefs about building expensive themed rides vs. not doing it.
As a result of our seeking likeminded people to link up with in virtual communities, we are used to finding ourselves surrounded with positive feedback to our ideas, and critical feedback being primarily the result of "trolling", or at least easilydismissable as such. We're hard wired to want to be right about our gut instinct, and our desires for reinforcement when matched with the advanced friend-making algorithms of Twitter and Facebook ensures that we should be able to find exactly that reinforcement no matter what. As a result of this, art as a whole online - music, video games, comic books, pro wrestling, and yes, theme parks - gets cut apart and stitched back together by amateur philosophers on an hourly basis. But no matter how many words are written, no matter how many brain cells go into it, how often do people challenge their own beliefs and orthodoxies when writing some new great think piece? It's easy to point at the success of Shanghai Disneyland and state that it is the result of unique attractions; it is another to look at Universal Studios Osaka overtaking Disneysea in attendance and try to rationalize their B&M Flying Coaster with a supposed demand from the general public for fully realized themed worlds.
There are fundamental, basic, inexorable realities about theme parks:
-What we discuss as being "theme parks" are amusement parks, different only in the expense of developing artificial rocks and training materials. There are no theme parks which exist in this world for any purpose other than recreational entertainment. It is almost certain that none will ever be built, as there is no demand for a facility in which people pay money and leave having had an existential crisis. Yes, I'm including EPCOT; aside from being an expansion of the same strategy and business model already used at Tomorrowland by Disney, you can go back even further into the history books and find correlatives. Luna Park in Coney Island NY once had infant incubators with real live infants in them being saved from death. How many babies did EPCOT save?
-The only theme parks which are not intended to maximize profit for owners and investors are non-profit entities like Arnold's Park in Iowa. Theme park blogs don't go to Arnold's Park because it doesn't have a $100 million dollar dark ride themed to a movie they enjoy (or at least some iteration of the movie before the characters were recast). Everything else since time eternal has looked to make lots of money. They have spent money to make money, but they always were in the business of making money first and foremost.
-Because of the cost of construction and maintenance, theme parks as we know them must appeal to as wide an audience as possible. That means families with small children and senior citizens. Because they must appeal to audiences that are A) incredibly simple cognitively B) disproportionately socially conservative, attractions cannot offer any real insight into the human condition or the future of the world. No one will pay $125 to ride the Nihilist Adventure a second time.
-Theme parks primarily make money by selling souvenirs and food/beverage to patrons. Walt gave away the gate in 1955 specifically to do this. Pay-One-Price being introduced by Six Flags was a way to establish "value" for the same purpose. This is what amusement parks (which theme parks, again, are) do.
-Theme parks are escapism, arguably no different than recreational drugs. Filled with surrealistic/hyper real imagery, parks actively seek to activate our brain's pleasure centers while also reassuring us of our importance by catering to us as individualistically as possible. The desire to create increasingly ornate themed areas and integrate elements of cosplay/LARP may be related to this; chasing the dragon of a greater and greater escapist high while refusing to admit one has a "problem" in the first place.
(This is also why some of the Theme Park Fan Analysis of Westworld is so concerning; the show almost goes out of its way to express to us that the existence of Westworld isn't desirable. Itshouldn't be cheered. And yet the wish that it could exist for the purpose of living out sociopathic fantasies like 3D Red Dead Redemption is strong in the community. One might even draw a comparison to technocrats at large on this and whether there is crossover)
This doesn't mean we can't critique parks. This doesn't mean we can't debate what rides are better. This doesn't mean we can't argue over whether or not shows, movies, haunts, restaurants, soft serve ice cream, or literally anything has qualities have positive or negative qualities in contrast to other similar things. There's lots of great debates we could and perhaps should have as fans. What doesn't do us any good is to start pretending that theme parks are something other than what they are. People go to theme parks to escape the real world by (primarily) going on amusement rides, and the ones that most people claim as being "the best" are ones which best generate that sense of escapism where people can safely be separated from their professional or personal fears.
That's what theme parks are. That is all they have ever been. That is all they will ever be. They are not and will never be at the same depth of art as Kurosawa's film or Puccini's operas. The greatest visual artists in history rarely have the capacity to properly express ideas about masculinity, human conflict, or romantic relationships when given 2 hours and miles of celluloid. Someone with 5 minutes and Chuck E Cheese robots has no chance. It is sophistry to suggest that they've somehow been denied the opportunity.
If ratcheting up the illusion is necessary not because it is produces an actively better product for the market, but because as individuals fans-turned-content producers subconsciously seek to escape their problems, then perhaps those problems should be confronted rather than make parks and attractions into behavioral intervention strategies. Animal Kingdom's World of Avatar, Universal's Fast and the Furious Supercharged and Jimmy Fallon attractions, and the slate of upcoming rides and lands for both parks are pushing forward with expensive pre-shows and queue lines. What about the anchor product though - what about the rides? Is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an illusion that can be shattered by turning one's head to the side inside a theater really an advancement of the art form?
Even Walt himself didn't necessarily seem to share this view. There was no need or desire with, for example, Haunted Mansion, it's a small world, or Matterhorn to have them be surrounded by "immersive worlds." There is no detailed and exhaustive back story with those attractions. There isn't one for Pirates of The Caribbean either, for that matter, because Walt (and his 9 Old Men) knew that the medium of amusement rides was not conducive to storytelling, something quoted repeatedly from them during their lives. In speaking on his behalf, the fans and the designers they've sometimes become have molded reality and the vision of the great imagineers of the past into their own to become exactly the opposite of what was believed. And with that lack of storytelling depth in the art, the consequence of requiring stories people are already familiar with is increasingly leaned on; "intellectual properties". In this way, neither Harry Potter nor Matterhorn reflect "right" or "wrong", simply "different," and both even now can be wildly effective assuming the ride which all is built around is actively memorable.
We shouldn't talk about "resigning ourselves to getting the theme parks we deserve," but rather, look inside ourselves first before we take that tact and ask what it is we want and why. More often than not, the demands of the most critical voices in the community are at odds with not only themselves from a practical perspective, but the desires of the general public. Theme parks can offer us a sense of wonderment, but just because theme parks evoke an emotional response does not connote an endorsement of each of our individual reactions, nor a validation that it is correct and others wrong. There are many ways in which one may enjoy things, but finding something offensive or simply void of enjoyment are definitively not methods.
Was
Euro Disney the most significant Disney Parks historical development post-1971?
It
very well could be. When looking at the history of Disney Attractions following
the creation of the Vacation Kingdom, could one find any other momentous
occasion that meant so much to the future of the theme park industry?
We
all know the story of what happened. An original budget of $1 billion quickly
ballooned into $4 billion. Disney had placed the resort right next to Paris,
which is practically ground zero for Europe’s entire transportation network,
and expected (or so some of their consultants said) to get as many as 30
million visitors by the time the second Disney MGM-Studios park would be built
next door.
The
exact reasons why the resort failed initially are far too complex for this
piece. But the resulting fallout would be almost the equivalent of an asteroid
impact within theme park circles.
Disney
had always been the bellwether for the theme park industry since Disneyland
opened in 1955. At its best, Disney has the financial and creative resources
necessary to move the ball downfield in the themed entertainment industry. It’s
no accident that the theme park industry seems to stagnate at the same time
that Disney’s fortitude diminishes.
Look
at the creative boom that happened within the parks industry during Disney’s
golden years of the 1960s and 1970s (with the opening of Walt Disney World in
Florida). To be fair, the Disneyland imitators of Freedomland and Pleasure
Island and Magic Mountain (the one in Colorado, NOT the one in California) all
went bust in the 1950s. But they all learned a very important lesson: don’t try
to be Disneyland. Only Disney can be Disneyland.
After
the failure of these initial parks came the big breakthrough: Angus Wynne’s Six
Flags concept. Here was a pleasant family park concept (or at least it was back
then) that did not provide themed areas per se, but did provide clean,
well-kept, wholesome entertainment for the whole family. And at a fraction of
the cost of a Disneyland presentation.
And
so the race was on. Practically every major amusement park concept we know of
today follows this model, and came to fruition in the 1960s and 1970s. The Six
Flags concept. The Marriott parks in Illinois and California. The Kings parks.
Carowinds. Busch Gardens. SeaWorld. Magic Mountain (the California one).
Astroworld. Marineland. Worlds of Fun. And the old parks all learned these
lessons and made themselves better. Cedar Point. Knotts. Kennywood. Hershey. Holiday
World. And all of this booming success was predicated on Disney’s popularity
and innovation. It’s true.
Let’s
even put aside the fact that Six Flags and their ilk were built trying to catch
the Disney conceptual wave that amusement parks could be fun, clean, friendly
places again. In the 1950s, Walt had a small company called Arrow Dynamics
manufacture and build the ride mechanisms for his attractions, from the
Fantasyland dark rides to the Mad Tea Party and many others. Arrow had become
quite adept at manufacturing these (very new) mechanical ride concepts, to the
point where they were the ones Walt called on when he wanted to create a new
kind of roller coaster to dive in and around his new Matterhorn mountain. And
so, Arrow created the first tubular steel roller coaster.
As
many of you know, the steel roller coaster is now the rock that amusement parks
build their churches on. One would be hard-pressed to find an amusement park of
any stripe without one today. And after Arrow success with the Matterhorn (and
later Space Mountain), they proliferated the steel coaster concept across the
amusement park landscape. First it was the form of the family-friendly mine
train coaster concept, which the Six Flags of the world were happy to utilize
in their family park concept. But later, Arrow would revolutionize the industry
again by creating the Corkscrew for Knotts Berry Farm, the first steel coaster
with inversions, in 1975 (the same year as Space Mountain opened). Amusement
parks again rode the dual waves of the steel coaster boom and the popularity of
the new Walt Disney World Resort.
A
similar boom happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While one could
certainly argue that the soon to be booming economy would have much to do with
the “coaster wars” and innovation wheelhouse that would commence, it’s also of
note that this came at a time when Disney began a second golden age of
innovation for its theme parks. As Disney began to build bigger and better
parks and attractions, other parks felt emboldened to loosen the purse strings
as well.
Look
at all of the 3-D movies that spread into the theme park world after the
success of Magic Journeys and Captain EO. Or the umpteen billion simulators after
Star Tours. Universal Studios and MGM Grand opened new studio-themed parks
after Disney opened theirs. The world of water parks was changed forever with
the opening of Typhoon Lagoon, as was the world of themed hotels after the Swan
& Dolphin and Grand Floridian made their debuts (it should be noted, 3 years
and 1 year, respectively, before The Mirage opened in Las Vegas and began that
revival). The expansions of Disneyland and Walt Disney World led to new
expansions at Club Med, Las Vegas, Branson Missouri, and Universal Orlando.
Then
Euro Disney happened. And everything began to…slowly…stagnate again. Budgets
began to be cut, little by little, every subsequent year for Disney, until by
2001/2002 they would hit the literal bottom-basement of Disney’s California
Adventure, Dino-Rama, and Disney Studios Paris. And it seemed that, every year,
other parks also began to give up. It was like a themed entertainment ice age. After
a $1 billion-plus expansion at Universal Orlando (which should be pointed out
was approved in 1993), the jolly merry-go-round of Universal ownership decided
to hang it up for about a decade. Las Vegas slowly demolished its themed rides.
All the amusement parks seemed to ditch the simulators and dark rides and went
right back to steel coasters (though some very creative ones). Amusement park
owners seemed more interested on installing Fastpass systems and meal deals.
There’s
a controversial new theory (work with me here) in archeology that suggests that
a 1,200 year “instant ice age” in humanity’s past was caused by a comet impact.
Our climate history shows that, after thousands of years of gradual warming,
the earth was plunged very suddenly back into the teeth of the ice age
approximately 12,800 years ago. This began a period of intense cold called the
Younger Dryas that lasted for 1,200 years. This weather event literally
happened out of nowhere. New evidence suggests that a piece of an enormous
comet (or even several pieces) smashed into the earth and kicked up so much
dust and loess that the sun was blocked for years and caused a reverse
greenhouse effect, basically plunging humanity back into the ice age after it
had almost escaped. This comet is sometimes called the “Clovis Comet” because
it seems to have been the cause of the extinction of the proto-Native American
people called the Clovis culture.
Hot
take: Euro Disney is the Clovis Comet of the current ice age in the theme park
industry.
And
it always seemed like it. Even in this featured show, Inside Disneyland Paris, there seems to be an air of awakening from
a very long winter. Because realistically, Disneyland Paris was in a deep,
biting winter for years and years.
One
thing that always fascinated me about Inside
Disneyland Paris was that it was the first Disney-specific special to ever
air on a Discovery Channel, TLC, or Travel Channel-style show. This always made
me wonder. Though Disney attractions would be featured in specials like Funhouse, only through Buena Vista video
and the Disney Channel could one find Disney-specific documentaries, such as
with the Walt Disney World: Inside Out specials. Amusement parks like Cedar
Point and Magic Mountain were featured multiple times. Universal was featured
all the damn time (to our great consternation). But Disney never entered the
fray. Until this show.
We
were all giddy about this show, because it was the first Disney effort on the
Travel Channel. We awaited with great anticipation. And it makes total sense
now, looking back, that Disneyland Paris would be featured first. We can expect
that Disney didn’t allow Travel Channel to make these kinds of documentaries
for a variety of reasons, be it the hesitation of letting a third party into
Disney’s backstage areas or the idea that Disney “doesn’t need” someone else’s
help to advertise its own products. But Disneyland Paris needed all the help it
could get.
And
so we see Disney’s freshman effort at letting the Travel Channel world into the
backstage magic. And the final product is good, but not spectacular. We see a
lot of what we expect from park specials: the peak inside the food warehouse, the
construction of HISTA, the landscaping, etc. Some better highlights include the
challenge of swiveling Indy’s mine cars backward, the behind the scenes at
parade rehearsals, and the insiders look at the Space Mountain launch area.
Lowlights include every shot of Jay Rasulo.
My
personal favorite highlights are the extensive interviews with Tom K. Morris about the conception of
Fantasyland and the magnificent Sleeping Beauty Castle, as well as the sequence
at the end that reveals the behind the scenes of the Cheyenne’s wild west
dinner show (complete with real buffalo!)
So
enjoy Disney’s first Travel Channel effort. We promise there will be many, many
more to come ;)
DisneyQuest is a failed promise. This past week
someone on Twitter told me, no, it wasn't DisneyQust that was the last major
gamble by The Walt Disney Company, but it was MyMagic+ and Pandora. Bullshit.
Disney's gamble into localized themed entertainment was more risk than anything
they could imagine now: specialized experiences designed only for local
audiences that would drive destination attendance. But it never worked, and I
argue nothing has been the same.
This
special is unique in that it's local, no where else is a Disney
"parks" opening so ABC and geocentric. Chicago is the midwest as seen
by costal eyes: central, liberal, and enough of a major city to send something
there. DisneyQuest was chosen as the second market location before Philadelphia,
which would be third. First, of course, would be Walt Disney World; more
specifically Downtown Disney West Side.
June 16th
1999. That's the date all the advertisements and signs have said. This leads up
to the date of DisneyQuest Chicago; a park equal parts indoor theme park and
equal park massive risk. Like all Disney openings it involves awkward ABC
sitcom cameos (Melissa Joan Heart, Brad Renfro?) but instead of slicking it
over with post production, it's all local TV schmaltz. This special drips with it
so much I could take a McChicken Nugget and dunk it for some sweet goodness. I can taste it
now.
After a
Green Army men opens the ride to the theme of Fantasmic! we have a quick
interview segment with those on the ground before we head inside. Just like at
Walt Disney World, there are four zones to access once you reach the main
floor.
Our hosts
seem to head towards the worst locations to show off DisneyQuest to anyone with
an interest in the park. First: Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters, the bumper cars
plus attraction with a game mechanic that doesn't work in practice (yes we've
tried). A vast majority of the special is spent on the build your own roller
coaster Virtual Space Mountain.
Outside
of a few segments "EMAILING TO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS" while having
some cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, not much else is spent around the
indoor theme park. We have a shot of some Mighty Ducks pinball, some CreatZone,
Virtual Jungle Cruise, and that's about it. Disney spends way too much time on
one aspect of the "park" than really hyping up the unique aspects.
They make sure to highlight how to recharge your passes for more games rather
than Treasure of the Incas, Alien Encounter, or the Hercules ride.
The
ultimate failure of DisneyQuest was two fold:
1) Giving
up early. Disney didn't have to fold in 2001 with Chicago, they could have
expanded to Disneyland, a location ripe for the picking and where Tony Baxter
reportedly wanted to make DCA a pay per attraction park after it's disastrous
opening. Cancelling Philly may not have been a bad idea, but clearly going so
local ASAP was a bad move.
2) Never
expanding. DisneyQuest, besides upgrading Hercules to Pirates of the Caribbean,
closing Treasure of the Incas, and adding some Fix it Felix cabinets (from the
Disney movie Wreck-it-Ralph) never added anything to the park. It was
effectively a dead man walking since the mid 2000s.
DisneyQuest
never lived up to its dream of regional theme park because Disney realized the
water was cold right when things mattered. An indoor theme park by Disney is
not a new idea in 1998 and still is a great idea. Capacity, attendance,
ticketing, and attractions need to be always developed and reconsidered. As I
mentioned before, The Cheesecake Factory was a major player for the first few
years, but now most guests want less calories, gluten, and can find it close to
home. Why would guests seek out The Cheesecake Factory post 2000? Now guests
just look for something to do at Disney Spring during the rain or tour groups
with "water park and more" tickets look to kill time before their
reservations at Planet Hollywood.
DisneyQuest
isn't actively bad like the 100 Years of Magic hat at DHS, Stitch's Great
Escape, the Imagination Pavilion, or Dinorama, but it's always been the last
shameful point. Now Disney owns Star Wars and Marvel yet no effort was made
feature them inside DisneyQuest. No effort was made to pivot away from the
token model towards food and beverage. No alcoholic drinks were offered to my
pre-teen recollection. DisneyQuest went from a gamble to a contractual
obligation they kept open for hungry teenagers and soaked foreign
tourists.
DisneyQuest
worked in 1998 and 1999 but never had the opportunity to expand after 2001.
Jeff
For as
far back as I ever enjoyed the themed entertainment industry, I’ve thought of
what the next “big,” “cool” theme park would look like. Like many of you, I’ve
dreamed and imagined the next amazing rides at Disney, or Universal, or Cedar
Point, or my own theme park. The late 1990s were the absolute best time to be
twelve years old and thinking about exactly this. Disney had become a themed
entertainment juggernaut by building better and more jaw-dropping rides. Star
Tours gave way to Splash Mountain, to Great Movie Ride, to Fantasmic!, to Roger
Rabbit, to Tower of Terror, to Indy, to Discovery Mountain. We saw the rise of
Pleasure Island, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Wilderness Lodge, Boardwalk,
Yacht and Beach, Grand Floridian. Each year followed more and more big news for
major expansions. And our heads still swam. What would be next? We dreamed of
Fire Mountain. We begged for Mission: Space. And Beastlie Kingdomme. A
villains-themed CAVE experience? Why not? We were promised Test Track and
Westcot. Universal was desperately trying to catch up. They gave us Terminator,
and Spidey, and Men In Black, and an entire Disneyland-esque Florida resort.
Not to be outdone, the thrill parks kept adding more and more scream machines,
each one bigger and longer and faster, and even weirder (Flight of Fear
anyone?). Creativity was at a mind-blowing scale.
And we
thought, “what could we mix and match? What would we do as Imagineers?” How
many B&Ms could we put in Animal Kingdom? What new mountain would we add to
Epcot? How can we theme old rides to new movies? Could Disney do a Harry Potter
ride? What would that look like? How about Lord of the Rings? Would Disney do a
Matrix ride? What would be in a Jurassic Park land at Universal? What would we
put into Myst Island? Or the unnamed fifth park at WDW? The one that was going
to be all steel roller coasters and themed to Disney Villains?
Even more
exciting were entire theme parks. Rollercoaster Tycoon was
released for PC and it was absolute dynamite for our brains. Universal opened
Islands of Adventure and it was nirvana for theme park geeks and Rollercoaster
Tycoon fanatics. The first theme park themed to “fun” with no
baggage and a billion-dollar budget? Yes, please! A Jurassic
Park land? More! Three B&Ms and an S&S?! YES! A new twist on an
EMV, with superheroes?! I need a new pair of pants! Three mega
water rides? Marvel Island? Dueling Dragons? A multilayered interactive
adventure themed to a battle of Greek gods? Mythos? STAN LEE?! Unbelievable!
And then
it was followed by Disney’s answer: DisneySea. Not waiting to see how
Universal’s “all-thrill” fantasy park would perform, Oriental Land had the
budget, and the stomach, to pull the trigger on a new, even bigger, Disney fantasy
park. The first non-sequel Disney fantasy park since Disneyland opened in 1955.
And though Universal hyperbolically hyped up IOA that would be an “all-thrill”
park, DisneySea’s unofficial tagline was that it would be an “all E-Ticket
park.” Holy Moses. All our favorite E-Tickets would appear in TDS. Indy. Test
Track (Journey to the Center of the Earth). Tower of Terror. ALL THREE IN ONE
PARK. Plus there was a new simulator. And a new 3-D Movie. And a new AA boat
ride. And a huge indoor kids area. And a giant fortress. And a trackless ride.
And a new underwater dry-for-wet submarine adventure. What an incredible time
to be alive!
Everyone
today (and over the last ten years) goes gaga over Shanghai. Please.
That’s one theme park. In the 1990s, there was going to
be seven new theme parks from Disney alone. Seven?
YEAH, SEVEN.
You think
I’m exaggerating. But let’s go through them together. Westcot. A new MGM
Studios in Paris. Long Beach’s Port Disney/DisneySea (though those should
really be counted as two). Animal Kingdom. Disney’s America. The
theme-park-on-an-aircraft-carrier (the real Disney cruise).
The half theme park/half entertainment district at Disney-MGM Burbank. But oh
wait, I’m missing one. What was that? DisneyQuest.
Have you
asked anyone what they feel the future of theme parks will be? What do they
say? More Harry Potter and Star Wars lands? More queue-less (clue-less) parks?
Cabana-land? Roller coaster parks? Simulators and screens? More VR headsets
tacked onto rides as an afterthought? What do you think? More digital Fastpass reservations?
Fantasyland dark rides that know your name? More opportunities to book
expensive ride packages with expensive dinner packages?
I’ve
always…ever…had one answer. The past and present of the theme park is
Disneyland. The future…is DisneyQuest.
DisneyQuest
was a happy accident born before Michael Eisner and Paul Pressler ordered
Disney to stop making happy things. Given the time period of its gestation and
birth (1998, a full 6 years after the Euro Disney debacle dried up theme park
funds), it’s astounding it was ever opened at all, let alone shipped to Chicago of
all places (Trivia Time: there were five announced locations for DisneyQuest.
Most of you know the first four. Do you know the fifth? Let’s count. First was
Orlando in 1998. Then Chicago in 1999. Philadelphia in 2000. Anaheim in 2001.
Where would the fifth DQ open in 2002? The answer is…Toronto).
DisneyQuest
happened because of two major trends. The first was the result of Disney
uber-1990s expansion period. Ever since the mid-1980s, Michael Eisner and
then-CFO Gary Wilson announced the infamous “20/20 plan:” they decreed that
Disney would grow 20% total revenue and 20% on earnings every year through the
year 2000 (for those of you who know anything about business and/or finance,
that’s pants-on-head ludicrous, and almost impossible to sustain, especially
for a non-software-driven company like Disney, for more than five years). Thus,
everything must continue to grow and make more and more money. Problem is,
let’s do the math, if you grow by 20% compounding each year, by year 5 you
would have grown by 149%. By year 10, 519%. And by year 15, 1,541% (note: this
is even steeper than Steve Jobs’s return on Apple over the last 10 years of his
career). So when you are a vastly underutilized company like Disney was in
1985, having 5-7 years of 20% growth is just what the doctor ordered. But by
the year 2000, as Roy Disney said, you would be “to the bloody moon.” Disney
fulfilled its 20% promise by building out WDW with thousands of hotel rooms, a
new theme park, a new water park, a new nighttime complex, etc. Okay, that was
the first five years. How does it continue? So Disney (and WDW) suddenly was in
“expand button” mode. More water parks. Mini-golf. Timeshares. Another theme
park. Maybe ANOTHER theme park. Tens of thousands of hotel rooms. TWO new
nighttime areas. Two cruise ships. A private island. A Disney Institute. A
sports complex. A city!
And
themed entertainment (then called the “Attractions” division) outside of WDW
would have to expand in kind as well. Disneyland was going to quadruple in size
by 1999. Disney’s America would have launched theme parks outside of the two
core resorts. And always Eisner and the Imagineers were on the lookout for what
could be exported to every city in the world. This impetus first came with the
Disney Stores, where each store opened seemed to be more profitable than the
last. Disney first planned to do this on a grand scale with the Disney-MGM
Studios Burbank concept, which they hoped to export to every major city in
America, starting with Dallas (yeah, I know, even more random
than Chicago). The half-park/half-district idea died, but the “let’s export
everything” idea never did. They tried it with DVC (Vero Beach and Hilton
Head). They tried it with the ESPN Stores (remember those???). They did it with
the Cruiseline. And Eisner was looking for more industries to exploit. He was
always on the lookout for more Busch Gardens to turn into Animal Kingdoms, more
SeaWorlds to turn into Living Seas, more Pirate’s Coves to turn into Fantasia
Gardens, more Church Street Stations to turn into Pleasure Islands. And so, the
Imagineers (now an absolute juggernaut of a department with all the new
experiences being planned in the 1990s) identified several, which Eisner
whittled down to three. First, the sports bar/themed restaurant (ESPN Zone).
Next, the Chuck E. Cheese kids zones (Club Disney). And the arcades, most
notably the growing Sega Joyopolis/mega arcades (DisneyQuest). So let it be
written. So let it be done.
But
DisneyQuest would be no mere arcade, no simple Sega Joyopolis retread. This
brings us to the second major trend that birthed DisneyQuest: The Imagineers’
desire for more interactivity with greater and greater technology. Disney
attractions under Eisner/Wells seemed to have more and more interactivity built
in. Star Tours was a roller coaster on stilts. The Great Movie Ride had actors
hijack your car. Roger Rabbit let you control the car’s spinning. There was a
Sega zone at Innoventions. Tower of Terror’s drop profile could be changed on a
whim. And Indy had over 100,000 variations. Innoventions, in particular,
featured an Aladdin’s Magic Carpet virtual reality attraction. And then, the
creative equivalent of the DK Hammer was dropped on the technological
landscape: the Disney Fellows were unleashed.
The
Disney Fellows (as I will explain in a later Wish Upon a Blue Sky article, if
it ever gets finished. Sorry) was an all-star team of technological geniuses
that joined with Disney’s R&D group once WDI acquired Bran Ferren’s level
20 themed design and tech group, Ferren & Associates. They would bring the
future to Disney the way Doc Brown brought the future to Marty McFly.
And
Eisner and Pressler would gleefully spit on that future. But before Pressler was
promoted to lead the Attractions Division in 1999, Eisner would still approve
of expansion mode (I mean, if Club Disney was a go, I think anything would be).
And so the Disney Fellows and their ilk were able to bring their technological
wizardry to the most advanced video game experience on the planet.
DisneyQuest
opened at the time of the N64. Let that sink in. Sega Dreamcast was still a
year away. PlayStation 2 was two years away. Xbox was three years away.
DisneyQuest opened at a time when we were still used to blocky square faces and
when the most advanced arcade games were rows of Sega Rally and Hydro Thunder
and cabinets for Sega flight simulators. DisneyQuest, people forget, was so
revolutionary because of its 1998 Michael Eisner-esque tagline: “theme park in
a box.” It was just as different as a Disney Cruise, or Pleasure Island. It was
something Next-Gen. In an era obsessed with new simulator rides, DisneyQuest
practically made a whole park out of a simulator. The idea to put you in a box
and take you anywhere your imagination can dream of is still a world of
possibilities.
I still
have very fond memories of DisneyQuest. I thought it did many things quite
brilliantly, and upped the ante in terms of interactive attractions technology
for the new millennium. The act to create a “Hub” on the third floor, and take
Guests there first (the middle of five floors) was quite canny. To get Guests
there, of course 1990s Disney had to have a killer preshow experience, this
time in the form of a Cybrolator hosted by Genie. Even the ticket lobby was
full of Casting Building-era detail, with bronze heads of classic Disney
characters perched around a circular waiting area.
I
remember DisneyQuest for being so weird, and so different. The lighting
patterns of dark purple and turquoise throughout the building are forever
stained in my memory, as are the uber-1990s Disney Channel-esque Cast Member
costumes. Though I haven’t been there in 5 years, the stairway in between
Explore and Create, like a side stairway in Legends of the Hidden
Temple, was covered in gold, green, and purple studio lighting, had a mural
of an Aladdin-style desert with the Cave of Wonders as a 3-D
element front and center, and the sides near the staircase covered in vines,
will forever be burned into my memory.
The
ExtraTERRORestrial Encounter was a sort of sequel to Alien Encounter (even
Jeffrey Jones as Chairman Clench made an appearance in the preshow video, can
you imagine Disney doing something like that nowadays to something so low
scale?) It was a full 360-degree cabinet with four stations (one driver, three
gunners). As I remember, it was pretty impossible to get a high score without
all four stations occupied.
Buzz
Lightyear Astro-Blasters was a concept that I loved, simply because it was a
twist on an amusement ride we’ve seen so many times. This was the kind of thing
Disney could have used for Paradise Pier.
I have
fond memories of the retro-cave area (with Soul Caliber!) feeling like you’re
in a literal cave. Seriously, you could lose yourself in there for days.
Ride the
Comix had some great supervillain concepts. I remember shamelessly ripping off
the supervillains and planting them into my own stories when I was a wee lad. I
also remember the VR headset (similar to Aladdin) being heavy as hell and the
saber device unwieldy.
Aladdin
was classic simply for the preshow video. The experience itself was clunky and
the line was always unbearably long. But dear God, that preshow. “Easier than
falling off a camel!” “I see you like our NEW HIGH-TECH PILE!” “And remember,
when the world begins to unravel, Hakeem’s Carpets are the oooooooooooonly way
to travel!”
I
remember the old Legends of the Hidden Temple meets Masters
of the Maze-style Treasure of the Incas game underneath the floor of
Explore. Were you supposed to find something in those mazes? I don’t even
remember.
My
favorites, of course, were CyberSpace Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and
Pinball Slam. Creating the most ridiculous roller coaster on CyberSpace
Mountain in the era of Rollercoaster Tycoon was always a
thrill. Pirates was a fantastic use of the CAVE technology and an excellent
forebear to Toy Story Mania. And Pinball Slam was the ultimate video game
experience, where two dozen players strap in and duke it out on a giant
multi-story screen.
So now
let’s circle our way back to the beginning. I believe DisneyQuest is the 1.0
version of the next-gen theme park. Though its ultimate destiny is to stretch
its arms and meld with the theme park proper, even with the “theme park in a
box” limited version it is absolutely criminal what Disney has let DisneyQuest
become.
What
DisneyQuest became, by and large, was the equivalent of Disneyland in 1955: not
quite ready for prime time. Much like how Walt’s dream began as an operational
nightmare (remember, on day one Disneyland attractions didn’t even have maximum
capacities!) so too DisneyQuest stumbled out of the gate. There weren’t enough
activities for women. There weren’t enough communal activities (like Pinball
Slam or Buzz Lightyear). They could never figure out the admission cost, or the
format (unlimited or pay-for-play?). Do you put it on a Park Hopper, or not?
Too many experiences had low capacity (ALADDIN). And yet, aren’t these similar
to the problems of 1955? What if we had a Walt Disney at the helm in 1998,
vowing to improve DisneyQuest each year and molding it into something the world
has never seen before? Can you imagine what its equivalent of Pirates or
Mansion or Magic Skyway or Tiki Room would be? Now do you see why I think
DisneyQuest is the future?
As I said
before, what Disney has done to DisneyQuest is criminally negligent. Think of
its possibilities in today’s world, a world of E-Sports and Escape Rooms and
Augmented Reality and Humans Vs. Zombies and Barcades. CRIMINALLY. NEGLIGENT.
Even the f***ing Plants Vs. Zombies ride at Carowinds is MORE ADVANCED THAN
ANYTHING AT DISNEYQUEST. Cedar Fair has surpassed Disney in its technology. Why
is this not in headlines everywhere?
But what
if there was an E-Sports Arena? With events, and tournaments every day? Or an
Escape Room consisting of an entire floor and themed to…anything? The Cave of
Wonders? Marvel? Star Wars? How about an X-Wing simulator with a full Death
Star Assault? Or ANYTHING with Augmented Reality? I mean, what are we even
doing here?
Remember
when I pshawed the fact that people are actually excited about Shanghai today?I
have that reaction every time someone giggles about Diagon Alley interactive
encounters, or trackless rides, or rides that know your name, or Sorcerers of
the Magic Kingdom games. I’m not impressed. Disney was doing all of these 20
years ago. The Destination Disney concept, of which the MagicBands/MyMagic+
were based, was announced in 2004. Radiator Springs Racers is based on ride
technology from 1997.
As for
interactive games, the Disney community remembers that DisneyQuest 1.0 was to
give way to DisneyQuest 2.0 a few years later in the form of Myst Island, a 13
acre interactive experience on the property of the former Discovery Island. It
was going to be completely interactive, the entire island one big mystery that
Guests had to solve. It combined all the Diagon Alley interactions and SOTMK
exchanges that everyone just can’t get enough of today. Wow, the future is here
huh? Most of us have been waiting for this future since 1998.
I’m sure
everyone will enjoy the sponsored retreads to come. Epcot to be turned into
another Fantasyland. And the “we paid $1 billion for NBA broadcast rights, so
the public will be subjected to this damnit” NBA Experience…I’m sure they’ll
come up with plenty of cutting-edge ways for you to “experience NBA action,”
whatever that means. Oh wait, I forgot, Universal already tried the concept and
dumped it.
Make no
mistake, Disney only cares about what you can pay for, not what you can
experience. I hope you all joined me in bowing your head with regret on July 2nd,
2017. It was the day Disney stopped putting the future on hold, and decided to
cancel it altogether.
Statler: “Boy, he’s really good, that Rudolph whatshisname…you know, I should really learn how to pronounce his name.”
Waldorf: “Don’t bother. After this show, he’ll probably change it.”
Dateline: Disneyland is fondly remembered today as being an unmitigated disaster. One of the most curious happenstances of the show is the fact that, knowing the Orwellian attitude of Disney’s corporate overlords today, the show is even mentioned at all. But it cannot escape the modern geek, with it being available on free media everywhere in all its (lack of) glory.
Pictured: the subsequent line at City Hall
One should not begrudge Disney for such a catastrophe, however. After all, it bears mentioning that live TV had barely been tried at all by this time. TV was such a brand-spanking new medium, the entire industry was still working out the limits of human organizational skills as it discovered the hard way that split-second timing was needed between the cameramen, sound team, and actors for the length of an entire show to pull off a seamless experience. Now, pretend instead of a small enclosed studio, your live broadcast is at a 100-acre public space as busy as Grand Central. As they say, hilarity ensues. But, this is really to be expected, given the novelty of the television medium at the time. And one should at least give Walt his due: when he fails, he fails hard. No focus groups and surveys and “let’s run this by Legal first.” He puts his whole back into it. Like there’s a Walt Disney-sized hole in the wall. And those are the most spectacular of devastations. It’s no surprise that Walt would eventually run into cultural pothole. Indeed, we forget that Walt had recently taken quite a few high-stakes gambles and won. There was the return of the full-length animated movie (Cinderella, which remember are pretty expensive to make), the creation of his own live action movie studio, starting a series of nature documentaries just for the heck of it with his studio in debt, deciding it would be a great idea to jump headlong into a completely unproven medium (television) that the other movie studios were avoiding like the plague, the continued cost overruns on Sleeping Beauty (the most expensive animated film ever made up to that point), and the re-filming of Lady and the Tramp and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at enormous expense when 99 out of 100 people would say he didn’t have to. So yeah, I’d say he was due. Having set up the park for 11 straight months in his Disneyland TV show, all Walt had to do was show the world it was actually open. And for Walt Disney, lover of nonsensical parades (we’ll get to that) and movie premieres (see: the Snow White premiere), he would not be satisfied until Barnum and Bailey and their sister Sue knelt down and begged for mercy. This thing is an incredible tour de force that looks at once like the Olympics opening ceremony, Woodstock, a Tokyo subway station, and the Tailgate Lot outside a Packers game. Here are a list of things that went wrong that day (note: outside the broadcast) inside the park, in no particular order: the plumbers went on strike, causing Walt to skimp on drinking fountains (leading to his infamous “people can’t pee in the street” barb); it was over 100 degrees; the concrete was newly poured, causing women to get their high-heels stuck on Main Street; counterfeiters swarmed the park wielding fake invitations; enterprising entrepreneurs hitched ladders up to the berm and charged $10 for people to hop the fence; there was a gas leak in Fantasyland; the Mark Twain was so full it began to sink; James Mason got into a fistfight trying to get his daughter on the carousel; Sammy Davis Jr. rammed Frank Sinatra on the Autopia; and the effects on themed rides from Mr. Toad to Jungle Cruise decided to stop working halfway through the day for no particular reason. But Walt put his best foot forward. Each land would have some sort of celebrity involvement (except Adventureland, screw those guys): Davy Crockett and Annie Oakley in Frontierland, a bunch of (famous?) scientists in Tomorrowland, Disney characters in Fantasyland, and of course Art, Bob, Ronnie, Walt, and the governor of California to host. Each land would be given a thorough examination by the TV cameras, beamed directly into every American family’s living room. And look, there’s Danny Thomas in the parade! And Frank Sinatra driving in the Autopia! Why, there are celebrities everywhere.
It's all just mind-blowing entertainment, like watching a Super Bowl halftime show be interrupted by Wile E. Coyote while narrated by Jesse Ventura and Johnny Carson. And now, Walt Disney Proudly Presents…
Joe
Ah Dateline Disneyland, this is a mess as I remember. Walt talks, there are parades, guests, collisions on the Autopia, and other general insanity. I have not seeing Dateline Disneyland in years, so I’m jumping into this a little blind. It’s 7:30pm on a Friday, I got paid, got a raise, have a Mai Tai, and some chips & salsa. LETS DO THIS!
