News

EPCOT Food & Wine Festival runs July 15 - November 20

WDW park hours extended

Magic Kingdom is increased by 1 hour, moving to an 8am opening.

• 8 AM to 9 PM, with early opening around 14 hours

EPCOT is increased by 4 hours, moving to an 11pm close.

• With early opening, about 12 hours, same as 2019
  

Disney's Hollywood Studios is increased by 2 hours, moving to a 9am opening and 8pm close.

• With early opening, around 12 hours

Disney's Animal Kingdom is increased by 4 hours, moving to an 8am opening and an 8pm close.

• With early opening, about 12.5 hours, same as 2019

In 2019:

• MK 9 AM to Midnight (15 hours)
• EP 9 AM to 9 PM (12 hours)
• DHS 8 AM EMH to 8:30 PM (11.5 hours + 1 hour EMH)
• AK 9 AM - 9:30 PM (12.5 hours)

Len in the parks

IASW entrance moved yet again.  On last week’s show we said Disney was getting into the ‘quest game’ business, and apparently “Find the way into Small World” is their field test of that.

Harmonious barges are hideous

• It’s hard to overstate how big these things are in person. They block the view of all of the pavilions and scenery behind them.

• There’s no way that water fountains are going to hide them during the day. The noise that would be generated by the size of the water pumps needed to do that would be deafening
• And so the questions I have are:

• Why blight the landscape with these things for 12 hours a day, for a 15-minute show once per night?  Who in Imagineering said “Yeah, this is an acceptable tradeoff.”
  
• Does anyone in Imagineering think these things look good? Can anyone in Imagineering seriously argue that these barges have visual appeal?  That there’s some sort of aesthetic quality that adds to the overall guest experience in World Showcase? If so, what is it?
  
• I know a lot of Imagineers listen to this show, so if you actually worked on these things and you feel strongly that I’m being too harsh on this, email me and we’ll talk about it privately. Tell me what your design inspiration was for this, and why you thought it fit into World Showcase. What were you going for?
  
  Like, if you say “Hey, the dome shape of the barges came from Peter Behrens AEG turbine factory in 1909 Berlin”, I could see that.  I’d want to know why you thought the early 20th century Werkbund school of design was right for all of World Showcase lagoon, but we can have a rational discussion about that. And I’ll keep it confidential.  
  
  And to the Disney PR people who’re going “Yeah, it was TOTALLY the Werkbund school that inspired us, Werkbund is spelled with a W...because it’s German.”
  

• More broadly, looking at these barges, the thing that came immediately to mind is this:

• To my friends in Imagineering: And I mean this sincerely: it’s okay to tell your peers and management ‘no’ sometimes. Many of them are already thinking it, but don’t want to be the first to say it.  You’re not going to get fired for it. Some people will respect you more.
• I’m beginning to think Joe Rohde left because got tired of explaining to management why things like Harmonious barges are bad.

Listener Questions

From Sarah:

1. My family is thinking about taking advantage of virtual school and doing “school” from WDW before the end of school year. We did a trial run back in the fall, and the internet coverage @ our Beach Club DVC room was awful. Three of us needed to be on Zoom for class or work, and the signal kept dropping. Which DVC resorts do you think have the best/most reliable internet coverage (and/or cell coverage in case we need to default to using our phones as a hotspot)? I’m asking about DVC because we’d probably want a 1 bedroom in order to spread out and get work done.

Saratoga Springs just installed fibre cables to the buildings, and improved WiFi.  Absolutely the latest technology.

Grand Flo Villas after that?

2. Do you and Jim have a best guess for when you think the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser will open? The official Disney page still says coming in 2021...

From Ben:

Listening to this weeks Disney Dish you mentioned the torque on the trams, I can tell you first hand how powerful those machines are. I was a College Program CM spring of 2002 and worked at the TTC, I spent time mostly working in the evenings shuttling folks to their cars on the trams rather than directing and parking cars.

Out in the parking lot with noone on the tram or the rear platform we could do what we were told specifically not to do, that is slam the accelerator down to get the tram to do a wheelie. If we rapidly pressed the gas you would achieve a bounce that rivals any electronic bull ride you might encounter. The bounce on a tram was so high you could get it caught on one of the poles lining the parking lots, and that is exactly what happened to the tram in the attached photo at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Parking lot.

The CM who did this was quickly promoted to ‘guest’ after this stunt.

From Cameron:

If I'm not mistaken, the reference in the survey to CAMP is an experiential retail concept for kids/families. They have a few around the city, particularly one at Hudson Yards. It's worth checking out next time you're back in the city.

The better version is at 5th Ave between 16th and 17th because you enter through a pull-away bookcase (a la "put the candle back"). You can tell Disney was an inspiration for the retail concept.

Steven writes in with this:

My question revolves around Disney's rights under the special improvement district and vaccine passports. Article below mentions Florida's governor wanting to ban use of vaccine passports for public and private use in the state. My question is with Disney's reedy Creek improvement district, can disney mandate vaccine passports while the rest of Florida has it banned?

I’m not sure about RCID - I’d have to read the charter. And I originally thought that Article I, Section 8 of the Commerce Clause would’ve prevented DeSantis from doing this, but I asked around and apparently I’m wrong about that.  But also, it’d almost certainly be challenged in court with a variety of other laws, so it’s not clear that a vaccine passport ban would succeed.

Disneyland Expansion Plans

Unwinding earlier resort development plan and re-zoning. Westview.

Patents

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Final Installment

Last week, we talked about how the Imagineers almost teamed with Oscar-winning funnyman Mel Brook to create a horror-based thrill ride for Disney-MGM Studios theme park. That project wound up not moving forward for a variety of reasons.

“Mickey’s Audition” / “Mickey’s Big Break”

Did want to note here that Mel did winding up appearing in one project that WDI creating for WDW’s 3rd gate. And that was “Mickey’s Audition” AKA “Mickey’s Big Break.”

This was a short film that combined live-action & animation to tell the tale of Mickey’s arrival in Hollywood back in the late 1920s and how he eventually came to work with Walt Disney. This project for the Parks was directed by “The Lion King” co-director Rob Minkoff. And Minkoff proved so adept at combine live-action & animation that Sony Pictures eventually hired Rob to direct not one but two “Stuart Little” movies for that studio.

This short film began being run at Disney-MGM in the Summer of 1991. After a few years, “Mickey’s Big Break” moved from the Studio theme park over to WDW’s Magic Kingdom. Where -- beginning in 1994 -- it began being screened in the Main Street Cinema. Then -- starting in 1998 -- this live-action / animated movie began being screened in the Town Square Exhibition Hall. “Mickey’s Big Break” stopped being show in the Fall of 1999 as the WDW Resort geared up for its Millennium Celebration. It’s been in the fabled Disney vault every since. With only cam-recorded bootlegs periodically popping up on YouTube.

“Mickey’s Big Break” is fabled today because of its crazy number of celebrity cameos (EX: Angela Lansbury plays Mickey’s secretary at Disney Studios. Dom DeLuise plays the sound man working the mic as Disney Studios attempts production of its first ever sound cartoon. Jonathan Winters plays the camera guy shooting Mickey’s audition who then can’t get his camera to focus because Mickey’s nose is too shiny). Disney fans mostly remember this live-action / animated film because Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney actually portrays Walt in this short. And given Roy E.’s uncanny likeness to his uncle, it’s the role that he was born to play.

But me, what I loved about “Mickey’s Big Break” is Mel Brooks. He plays an imperious film director from Hollywood’s Golden Age (complete with jodhpurs, beret, megaphone & riding crop). Who -- on a whim -- decides to cast Mickey in the title role of “Steamboat Willie.” But then -- when things go horribly wrong as Disney’s corporate symbol first steps in front of a camera and all that steamboat-themed scenery comes crashing down on poor Mickey -- Mel (without missing a beat) turns to his two toadying yes-men (Played beautifully by Eg Begley Jr. & Mark Linn-Baker, by the way) and screams “Get me another mouse!”

Would love to see “Mickey’s Big Break” in the Park. It’s a genuinely charming, very funny film. More to the point, it was shot on Hollywood Boulevard at Disney-MGM Studios theme park when that theme park was brand-new with lots of extras in authentic period costumes. The place has never looked as good.

Other options considered, “The Outer Limits” & Stephen King

Anyway … Enough about “Mickey’s Big Break.” We’re here to talk about Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Which -- at that time -- was still called just plain Tower of Terror because Disney had yet to cut a licensing deal with CBS and Carol Serling (i.e., Rod Serling’s widow) who were the co-owners of the copyright on that beloved TV show. Which aired on the Tiffany Network for five seasons from October of 1959 - June of 1964.

By the way, just in case The Walt Disney Company couldn’t come to terms with CBS & Carol Serling, the Imagineers did have a fall-back position. If they couldn’t land the theme park rights to “Twilight Zone,” WDI was then going to reach out to the creators of “The Outer Limits.” That “Twilight Zone-lite” series that ran on ABC for two seasons from September of 1963 - January of 1965.

And -- just so you know -- if Disney couldn’t close a deal with either “The Twilight Zone” team or the people who owned “The Outer Limits” … Well, the Imagineers had one last horror-inspired idea up their sleeve. Which was to turn the Tower of Terror into a celebration of horror novelist Stephen King.

There was only one problem with that plan. By the early 1990s, Universal Studios already had a handshake deal with King. They were developing a trackless ride-thru for their theme parks that -- if Universal Creative had ever solved this proposed attraction’s technical issues -- would have blown the doors off for Stephen King fans. Allowing classic King characters like Randall Flagg, Cujo & Pennywise the Clown to get right in your face.

Sadly, Universal’s Stephen King ride (which -- appropriately enough for a studio theme park -- was to have been housed in a dilapidated old movie theater) never made it off the drawing board. Whereas Disney’s back-channel conversations with this acclaimed horror novelists did bear fruit. Resulting in a number of written-exclusively-for-television projects like 1999’s “Storm of the Century,” 2002’s “Rose Red,” and 2004’s “Kingdom Hospital.” All of which aired on Disney-owned ABC.

Carol Serling takes advantage of “Twilight Zone” theme park rights sale

Back to “Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” now … Thankfully for Disney, CBS & Carol Serling were willing to sign over the theme park rights to this Emmy Award-winning series. With the understanding that this attraction would do its very best to elevate the brand. What Disney didn’t realize at the time was that Carol Serling had recently come across two unproduced “Twilight Zone” scripts that her husband had written out in a truck in the family’s garage.

Carol was hoping that the publicity surrounding the construction of “Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” at Disney-MGM Studios might then spur CBS to go forward with production of these two recently discovered “Twilight Zone” scripts. Carol was correct in her assumptions. And -- in May of 1994 (Just three months before “The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” opened at WDW’s three gate) -- “Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics” aired on CBS.

Long story short: Carol Serling was a clever woman. She turned Disney’s pursuit of the theme park rights from “Twilight Zone” into two paydays. One for “Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” and the other for that “Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Classics” TV movie.

Difficult to translate “Twilight Zone” TV show into a theme park attraction

Back to the theme park ride now. As WDI show writer Michael Sprout explained in a Spring 1994 interview:

“What we tried to do is recreate the look and feel of ‘The Twilight Zone.’ The tone, the atmosphere, everything is meant to make people feel as if they’ve actually stepped into an episode. That they experience what it’s like to go into the Twilight Zone.”

Okay. It’s one thing to say that. It’s an entirely different thing to actually achieve that goal. Especially when it comes to a TV series that -- at that point -- is 35 years old and people sort of remember.

The Imagineers wound up watching all 156 original episodes of “The Twilight Zone” at least once. Took longer than you might think. For Season Four (January of 1963 - May of that same year), CBS asked Rod to change the show’s format from a half hour-long to an hour long.

About this same time, as the Imagineers were trying to figure out how they were going to transport Guests into the fifth dimension … That’s what people remembered most about “The Twilight Zone.” The way Rod Serling said the opening lines of that show:

"You are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop -- The Twilight Zone."

The downside of that idea was … Well, remember how this thrill ride started off life as Disney’s effort to do something for its theme parks with that Freefall ride system that Six Flags Magic Mountain introduced back in 1982? Well, suddenly -- with this new send-Guests-into-the-fifth-dimension imperative that came with the Company acquiring the theme park rights to “The Twilight Zone” television series -- the Freefall ride system just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

Free Fall dropped in favor of elevator-based ride system

WDI’s executive designer Eric Jacobson explained that:

“Available systems didn’t meet Disney standards for capacity. (EDITORS NOTE: Remember how -- on the very first installment of this series -- I mentioned that the Six Flags Magic Mountain version of Freefall had a very low hourly capacity. That -- even with six cars operating at any one time [Each of which held four Guests tops] -- this thrill ride struggled to carry 300 - 400 riders per hour).

Jacobson continued:

“And besides, our idea for what this attraction was going to be kept changing. So we decided to let the concept drive the ride system, not visa versa.”

Dave Spencer of WDI’s R & D department continued:

“The Free Fall idea just didn’t work for the Twilight Zone-themed version of this attraction. There were just too many story ideas, plot points that we were trying to get across now. We needed more control over the Guest’s overall ride experience than a Free Fall system would give us.

So we had a brainstorming session that included Show / Ride Engineering reps Dave Fink and Bran Ferren to find out what was feasible. That’s when the idea of using an elevator to power the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride experience was first proposed.”

So Mark Sumner -- as Disney’s representative on this theme park project -- began reaching out to various elevator manufacturers, seeing if they’d then like to be involved with WDI’s next big thrill ride. Needless to say, when they heard that this attraction was going to be called the Tower of Terror, a lot of elevator manufacturing companies immediately begged out. As Sumner explained:

“The problem is that elevator manufacturers have always tried to reduce the bumps and sensations you feel as you go up & down. But when it came to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, we wanted them to put back in everything they’d spent decades trying to take out.”

Elevator manufacturing company sets some strict terms & conditions before getting involved

Finally an unnamed elevator company (It begins with an “O” and ends with an “S”) agreed to take a flier on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. But only with the expressed understanding that that company’s name would never be seen by any member of the general public while they were in line for or riding on this thrill ride for Disney-MGM.

The contracts for this project even bear this condition out. If you look over the paperwork for the hardware that powers the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, you’ll never once see the word “elevator” used. Instead, you find this phrase used over & over again: physical vertical vehicle conveyance system. The old PVVCS.

Which Laine Akiyama -- the show producer of this Disney-MGM attraction -- kind of agrees with:

“Technically, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror isn’t an elevator. Elevators are used to transport people from floor to floor at reasonable speeds. Whereas our physical vertical vehicle conveyance system drops about a hundred feet in a matter of seconds.”

Mind you, this physical vertical vehicle conveyance system drops its load of 21 Guests with incredible precision. That’s because of the massive motors -- built by that still-unnamed elevator company which power the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

These things are 12 feet tall, 7 feet wide and 35 feet long. They each weigh 132,000 pounds and were designed to safely operate for at least 35 years.

And that extreme lengthy length-of-use for the elevators that power the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was a deliberate design feature. Because -- when it finally comes time to replace those 132,000 pound motors -- the Twilight Zone Tower will then have to shut down for upwards of a year as first the Imagineers have to  basically dismantle the entire top third of this thrill ride to gain access to these now 35-year-old motors and then -- with a heavy industrial crane -- pluck them off the top of the Tower of Terror and safely lower them to the ground. Then they have to repeat that whole process with the new Tower of Terror elevator engines.

Six motors in total. One for each of the four lift shafts at the back of this show building, and two for the drop shafts towards the front of the Tower of Terror.

DHS’ Twilight Zone Tower of Terror motors will need to be replaced by the end of this decade

Just in case you’re wondering: The Disney’s Hollywood Studios version of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror opened on July 22, 1994. 35 years from that opening brings us to July of 2029. Some eight years and three months into the future. Keep that in mind as you’re planning trips to the WDW Resort towards the end of this decade. Given how few actual rides Disney’s Hollywood Studios has … Well, the year or so Twilight Zone Tower of Terror will be down for maintenance will be tough.

Upside … Those six massive engines give Disney’s ride designers plenty of control over what sort of ride experiences Guests can have while they’re on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. And the Imagineers began exploiting this aspect of this attraction almost from the get-go.

    • 1996 -- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror went from one drop to two drops, “twice the fright.”

    • 1999 -- Twilight Zone began offering a triple drop

    • 2003 -- Ride system reprogrammed to offer four different drop patterns which were randomized (You never knew which one you were going to get when you boarded)

    • 2004 -- 10th anniversary of the opening of the Florida version of this ride. Randomized drops AND lifts. Along with new “Twilight Zone” -related imagery.

Will DHS’ version of Twilight Zone Tower of Terror be rethemed like DCA’s version

Question constantly comes up about whether the Disney’s Hollywood Studios version of Twilight Zone Tower of Terror will get rethemed. The Disney’s California Adventure version of this attraction closed on January 3, 2017 and then re-opened four & a half months later as “Guardians of the Galaxy -- Mission: BREAKOUT !”

Want to point out here that Disney has to pay CBS & the Carol Serling family (Carol died back on January 9, 2020 at her Pacific Palisades home at the age of 90) for the theme park rights to Twilight Zone. And that franchise just isn’t as popular as it once was. Back in February of this year, Jordan Peele’s “Twilight Zone” reboot (which aired on CBS All Access / now Paramount+) was cancelled after just two seasons on that subscription streaming service.

So will Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ version of “The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror” wind up being rethemed around the “Guardians of the Galaxy” IP? With “Guardians of the Galaxy -- Cosmic Rewind” due to open at Epcot in 2022, that’s unlikely.

That said, in a recent interview, former Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde revealed that -- as they were looking at the proper Marvel character to retheme DCA’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror around -- the Imagineers looked closely at two other characters: Doctor Strange & Spider-Man.

So if The Walt Disney Company decides in 2029 (as they’re pulling those six 132,000 pound motors off of the Tower of Terror to make room for their replacements) that they’re tired of sending checks to CBS and Rod Serling’s family … There are options.