News

• The Walt Disney World Railroad has re-opened in the Magic Kingdom, after being closed for more than four years.
  
• And Jim, speaking of things that I didn’t think would ever happen, James Cameron’s film Avatar: The Way of Water, was actually released into theaters.  I didn’t think it’d happen, Jim, but apparently it’s doing fairly well.
  
• We got an opening date for Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood, and that’s February 17, 2023.

• Augmented reality Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge racing ride,
• Power-Up Bands - will these be required to fully enjoy the land?
  

• Our friend Bethanee Beemis’ book is out. You can find “Disney Theme Parks and America’s National Narratives” at your local bookmonger as well as online at Amazon.com.  I get my copy tonight, and we’ll have Bethanee back on the show to talk about her book, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History’s upcoming Disney theme parks exhibit, which should open this spring.
  
• Speaking of new stuff, I’d like to give a shout-out to David, Brad, and Fred at TouringPlans.com.  We updated the app and site over the holidays to better support Genie+ in the touring plans, including telling you which Genie+ reservations will be the most helpful for your specific plan, and when to get them.  It’s always stressful to release code during Christmas, but this one went really well.
  
• Steamboat Willie will enter the public domain on January 1, 2024.

• Normally, this would allow anyone to use the SW character in their own works. But Disney also owns trademarks on the character’s likeness.  The SCOTUS has previously said - and here I’m quoting the always quotable Tony Scalia, who said that things like this risk creating 'a species of mutant copyright law.'', and that patents and copyrights offered a ''carefully crafted bargain,'' a temporary monopoly after which ''the public may use the invention or work at will and without attribution.''
• Disney’s used the Steamboat Willie character a lot recently,
• It’ll be interesting to see who’s the first to test this, and how far Disney will go in using trademarks to extend its copyright

• Trademarks are designed to protect against consumer confusion — to provide consumers assurance about the source and quality of a creation.

Surveys

Listener Questions

Our friend Paul writes in to say:

I watched the National Geographic TV show tonight about the building of the Disney Wish.  I highly recommend this.  Very interesting to anyone involved in large engineering design and/ or construction projects.  Amazing behind the “green wall” views and interviews with imagineers.

A couple of people wrote in with comments about my counting of people using the Lightning Lane at Space Mountain.  Mary pointed out two things:

1. Space Mountain hasn’t been an Individual Lightning Lane selection for the better part of a year. It’s on the Genie+ Lightning Lane system. Currently the only Individual Lightning Lane option in Magic Kingdom is Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
2. DAS isn’t intended for people with mobility issues. In fact, if your issue can be addressed with a wheelchair or scooter, you won’t qualify for DAS. (Morgan also pointed this out.)

A ton of folks wrote in about their experience with Cirque du Soleil’s Drawn to Life show at Disney Springs, which we talked about on our show last week:

From Steph: I  went to Drawn to Life in Disney Springs in September 2022. I booked a ticket fairly last minute (about a week before). I chose a ticket in the lowest price bracket and was surprised to see that I was actually quite close to the stage. I’ll also note that it wasn’t a sold out show which I was somewhat surprised by. Maybe because I’m used to everything at WDW being oversubscribed! The show was absolutely  incredible and I would say worth the money, although I went alone and would imagine a whole family would be very costly. I enjoyed it so much (my first Cirque show) that I actually booked tickets to another Cirque show in Toronto!! They did a lovely job of tying in the theme of Disney animation and the cast were so wonderfully talented. So I would say, definitely worth it if you have the ability to go, and the lowest price ticket was still a good seat! I hope this helps and happy holidays! Look forward to listening in 2023! :)

Caroline said: Wwe went and saw it this July. It was a birthday present but the prices did make my eyes water. My husband never saw any other offerings as a new disney convert. I have seen la nouba in the past. He loved it but while entertaining and clever in terms of linking in disney art/creative process it really had most of the show being more of the weird French Canadian creepy acting that you used to have as a minor background story line. In the past this was more filler around what was otherwise an incredible spectacle going on all around. I remember there being so much going on that I didn’t know where to look. What struck me now was what looked like a seriously reduced cost/cast numbers show. To say how expensive the show was this was very disappointing. Also the threatre was only around 1/4 full, perhaps less!!! We were at the earlier showing but still, this seemed a real shock. When we went in the past it felt totally full. I suspect this show won’t last long.

Tyler said: I have answers for your questions that were posed on December 26th show. I have seen drawn to life. My wife and I went to Disney world for the first time since our honeymoon in 2007. The show is emotional, funny and full of technical magic by Disney. Disney. Performers are amazing. Is it worth $85? It is to support the performers, they do things that I could only dream of.

Roger said: I think the show was very good. There is a Walt Disney-inspired character, not named- who later does some great gymnastics. Not sure Walt did this in Marceline. The show is better than Allegria , not as good as O, from which I am still dripping as we bought seating where the tickets warned “Wet Seat.”

Veronica wrote in to say that she bought tickets for her mom and stepdad:  It looks like I paid 126ish a ticket but I had paid 320 a ticket for Hamilton during the Omicron surge in NYC. So $126 including taxes was a bargain.

Our friend Craig, who we met at our live event in December, went to see Drawn to Life after our podcast.  I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison, Craig, because Jim dressed up in a pink bunny suit. Nevertheless, Craig said:

We’ve seen a handful of other Cirque shows and wanted to see this one. The show was, in a word, spectacular. The storyline was more powerful than any other Cirque show we’d seen before. My wife had tears in her eyes for more than one scene. And the technology was jaw dropping. To the lay person (like my wife) she couldn’t believe some of the technology elements and how it added to the show. And to me (who has experience in theatrical tech) my jaw hit the floor when I saw how creatively they seamlessly wove together state of the art tech. The actors and performers told a beautiful story. To me, it’s a don’t miss experience.

Next Week: Why have the parks been so busy?

Paul’s email on starcruiser DVC costs

World of Motion Feature Piece

World of Motion closed at Epcot on January 2, 1996 … And I know that for sure because I was in the Park that night trying to be the very last person to experience this Future World attraction.

Not because I especially liked this ride (Disney had revealed that this opening day Epcot attraction would be closing back in November of 1995. I had actually been recruited for a focus group earlier that same Summer during a visit to Epcot. I got taken upstairs into the GM Corporate Lounge – where Len & I held our breakfast for the 2021 Disney Dish Live event -- and hustled into a conference room with a bunch of other tourists who were visiting Walt Disney World that afternoon. We were then shown a video which outlined what GM Test Track was going to be. Epcot’s first real thrill ride. I even got paid $40 in Disney Dollars to express my opinion on this project. There were advantages to living in Orlando in the mid-1990s).

Anyway … I was there because I was a theme park nerd and wanted to have this oh-so-exclusive “I was the very last civilian to ride this particular attraction” bragging rights.

Here’s the thing … I’m dawdling at the entrance of “World of Motion.” Epcot’s supposed to close that night at 9 p.m. So I was planning on getting in line at 8:59. But there’s this other theme park nerd who’s obviously got the same idea (I bet it was Bioreconstruct!). And we’re both outside of the entrance of this Future World attraction doing the “After you, my dear Alfonse” routine. “You go first.” “No, you go first.” “But I insist.”

And then I hear the Cast Member at the entrance point of “World of Motion” loudly say “Girls. You’re both pretty. But someone has to be the very last passenger on this ride. And I’m clicking the chain that officially closes this queue in place in the next 30 seconds. So decide amongst yourselves, okay? Because the clock’s ticking.”

So I look across at this other theme park nerd. And he’s silently pleading with his eyes. He obviously wanted it more. So I stepped ahead of him, went through the turnstiles, got a seat all by myself in that six passenger omnimover (with the theme park nerd seated in the omnimover right behind me). And off we went ..

And … Well, how many of you actually remember “World of Motion” ? How many of you actually got to experience this Future World attraction doing its 13 year & 3 month run at EPCOT Center? Because the phrase “They don’t make them like that anymore” really does apply in this situation.

You have to remember that General Motors was the very first corporation to officially sign on as a sponsor for the Future World portion of Epcot Center. This was back in 1978. And at that time, GM was supposed to be sponsoring this theme park’s transportation pavilion. Which explains why “World of Motion” ‘s central attraction (which is largely housed in the second floor portion of this 65 foot-tall, 320 foot in diameter show building) tells the story that it does. It looks back at the development of transportation (from man walking on foot to the futuristic transportation systems that Guests glimpsed in the final scenes of this ride).

Imagineers determined to do everything bigger with “World of Motion.” Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” had 75 animatronic figures in its original iteration. “World of Motion” had 150.

The track that the Omnimover moves along in Disneyland’s “Haunted Mansion” is 960 feet long. The track that the Omnimover follows as it travels through the second floor of “World of Motion” is 1700 feet long.

Guests experiencing the version of “It’s a Small World” out in Anaheim get a 14 minute-long ride experience. People experiencing “World of Motion” at Epcot Center got a 14 minute and 30 second long ride experience.

With the folks at GM, it was always “Our ride had to be the biggest. The Best. The Longest. With the Most.” And with Roger Smith (who was Chairman and CEO of General Motors from 1981 – 1990) writing the checks to cover the cost of developing & then constructing Epcot Center’s very first corporate sponsored attraction, the Imagineers were happy to oblige.

The only problem was … GM couldn’t initially decide what it wanted. Executives there initially said that they wanted a serious look back at the history of transportation. So that’s what the Imagineers did. They filled rooms in Glendale with storyboards & models for a Future World pavilion that would then take a very serious look at man’s development of transportation.

Then the Imagineers hauled all of this material out to GM’s design center in Warren, Michigan. They filmed room after room with this stuff and then did an elaborate presentation for GM’s board of directors. And the very first note that the Imagineers got at that end of this presentation was “This is so serious. Isn’t this supposed to be going into a Disney theme park? People will be bored by this. Can’t we sponsor something fun instead?”

Okay. So the Imagineers now regroup. GM still wants to sponsor a history of transportation at Epcot Center. But now they want a fun version of this story. Which is why they now call in Disney Legend Ward Kimball.

These days, Ward is mostly known as the guy who animated Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s original hand-drawn version of “Pinocchio.” Likewise as the visionary behind those early “Man in Space” episodes of the “Disneyland” TV show in the mid-1950s. But in-house, Ward was also known for his very irreverent sense of humor / outrageous pranks.

EX: Ward once spent weeks going to used clothing stores buying up pairs of shoes & pairs of pants. Kimball also acquired a large pile of newspapers. Then – one Monday morning – Ward drove into work early at Disney Studios (We’re talking like 3 o’clock in the morning earlier). He then went to every bathroom in the Animation Building on the Disney Lot. And – after stuffing every pair of pants with newspaper and then positioning each pair of shoes at the end of each pant leg so it then looked like someone was actually sitting on the toilet in every bathroom in the building – Ward then used a key that he swiped from the janitor at Disney Studios to lock each of those toilet stalls behind him after he’d positioned all of those pants & shoes.

Ward got everything in place before 6 a.m. that morning. With the end result being that – if you entered any of the bathrooms in Disney’s Animation Studio – it would appear (at first glance, anyway) that all of the toilets in the building were already occupied.

As the story goes, it wasn’t ‘til later that day (We’re talking around lunch) that folks at the Studio finally figured out what was going on here.

Ward started at Disney in 1935 and – though he officially retired from the Company in 1973 – served as a consultant on special projects for the Company through 1980. And even after that, Kimball was regularly called back to work on things at Disney right up until his death in July of 2002.

So Ward was brought in in late 1978 / early 1979 to look at what the Imagineers had done on Epcot’s “History of Transportation” pavilion. Kimball’s assignment was to fun this material up. Make it more relatable to both GM executives and the general public.

Ward’s solution was both ingenious and simple. Which was to take various vignettes that the Imagineers had already cooked up for this show and then make them relatable to Day Guests at the Park by showing them things they experienced in day-to-day life. Like traffic jams & toll booths & used car lots.

Only in the “World of Motion,” Guests would get to see the world’s first used car lot, or the world’s first traffic jam, or the world’s first toll booth (Ward himself told me that that last scene – which was one of 22 found in the “World of Motion” – was inspired by Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.” Released to theaters in 1974, featured a scene with Slim Pickens and a group of desperados who were stopped on their way to the town of Rock Ridge by a tollbooth –out in the middle of the desert, mind you for the William J LePetomane Memorial Thruway. “Someone got back and get a $#1+load of dimes!”).

Downside of having Ward Kimball serve as the senior show designer on “World of Motion” was that Ward was a transportation history buff (He operated the Grizzly Flats Railroad out of in his backyard in San Gabriel, CA. Full-sized narrow guage steam train that traveled along 500 feet of track). He wanted everything as authentic as it could be. The vehicles. The Props. Everything.

Done on General Motors dime. So be it. Imagineers scoured the American southwest for authentic stage coaches to be used in the Western Hold Up scene. Found one in Phoenix, AZ and another two in Northern California. Each was hauled back to Glendale and lovingly restored at great expense.

Likewise the props in the ride – all 3,375 of them. Ward was especially obsessed with the “World of Motion” scene set in that bicycle shop where a man is supposedly working on inventing the world’s first horseless carriage. Every tool in that garage space is authentic for that period.

GM had no problem with paying for all of this. Their mantra was “Only the biggest and the best. Our pavilion has to be the real stand-out at Epcot.” So whenever GM executives would say things like “I like that Haunted Mansion ride. Can you put some effects in our Epcot attraction that’s just like the ones found in the Mansion?” That’s how you got that Pepper’s Ghost effect at the very end of the ride where Guests could suddenly see reflections of themselves traveling futuristic cars. Traveling in cars that were only going 1.8 feet per second, mind you.

Likewise there was one exec at GM who evidently really liked the Speed Tunnel effect in Eastern Airlines’ “If You Had Wings” ride at WDW’s Magic Kingdom. He wanted that same effect in “World of Motion,” only bigger & better. The Imagineers obliged him by putting three Speed Tunnels back-to-back in “World of Motion,” with the last one featuring the very first CG footage ever created for a Disney theme park ride. This sequence served as the set up for the future city scene towards the very end of ”World of Motion.” Center Core. Lots of fiber optics and liquid neon. Note from GM here … This section should hint at possible future transportation systems without getting into specifics about actual possible symptoms.

Only note for the attraction’s post show area was that it was supposed to tie in with GM’s Concept 2000 efforts. What the Company’s cars of the future might be like.

Opens October 1, 1982. At the 10 year point, GM is contractually obligated to update the pavilion. Discussion begin on turning this Future World attraction into a thrill ride. Disney’s excited by this idea (Epcot desperately needs a thrill ride at this point) and – as a result – allows GM to defer maintenance on “World of Motion” while this project is in the works.

Which brings us back to the night of January 2, 1996. I’m in the Omnimover in front of the theme park nerd who’s going to have the bragging rights that he’s the very last civilian to ride “World of Motion” at Epcot. We leave the load area, rotate up that outside curve and are about to enter the first real show scenes (Footprints on wall, caveman with tired feet blowing on them). Omnimover – with an awful groaning sound – grind to halt. Sit there for 10 minutes or so.

Eventually a Cast Member shows up. Opens the Omnimover, says “Get out.” Ride system has broken down. Since demo of the attraction begins tomorrow / Epcot has already closed for the night, they won’t be calling Maintenance to repair the thing. No more “World of Motion.”

Upside is … Theme Park Nerd is in car behind me. He gets walked off of this Epcot attraction first. I’m the last civilian to walk off of “world of motion” during its last official day of operations at Epcot Center. Pathetic bragging rights. But I’ll take them.

We already did a series about the development of the ride that replaced World of Motion, GM Test Track. Originally supposed to open in May of 1997. Wound up delayed ‘til March of 1999.

Good story. Check it out.