Living in a town with three major theme park companies, you start to see where each develop their special niche. Universal Studios it's Halloween. With all of the classic monster movies to pull from, they have became the masters of the things that go bump in the night. During Holloween Horror Nights they scare the snot out of normaly sane individuals with deranged clowns, Bloody Mary, demented nursery ryhme characters and thier own creation: The Chain Saw Drill Team.(zombies chasing people around the park with real chain saws. . .with the blades removed of course.) I have heard of many occasions where half drunk guests try to challenge the cast for thier chain saws. Word to the wise, unlike at Disney and SeaWorld, scare characters at Universal can and do fight back.
Sea World always seems to have a 'We are the World' feel. For a while anyway, Fourth of July was thier niche. They had special patriotic Shamu shows and firworks. At the time I'm writing this, they had just been bought out by a foreign company, so time will tell if that will still be thier niche. A side note, they have a Shamu show called 'Believe'. My friend saw it the other day and said it was really cool. . . until the whales stopped believing. Apparently something happened and they started aggressively circling the tank. Needless to say, the trainers bailed out of the water until they get them calmed down.
Disney's niche in the holidays is Christmas. Nobody can even come close to all of the details that Disney puts in thier displays. There's a Forty Five foot Christmas Tree in the lobby of Wilderness Lodge. Although the uneven placement of the Teepee ornaments has bugged me all Season. Yacht and Beach club had a chocolate carousel. Boardwalk had a gingerbread gazebo with a moving train set running around it. Why a Gazebo? I'd like to know. If anyone has an answer, emial me. THe Grand Florida has a huge ginger bread house in their lobby. Our guests in the campgrounds who set up for the whole season have taken it upon thier self to decorate thier motor homes with lights and christmas displays to such a degree that is has drawn the attention of a travel channel television show.
The Millions of lights in the Osbourne Family lights display at the Studios lost alot of it's charm once residential street was plowed over for the new stunt show. The Spectical of Lights, or as we call it, S O L . . .(Yeah we have a few other choice discriptions as well), anyway, it all started in Little Rock Arkansaw. Mr Osbourne managed to tick off some neighbors with his massive Christmas light display every year. Law enforcement was called in to manage the crowds and government officals fined him for disrupting the peace and creating traffic jams. Story has it that a particular neighbor got mad, so he bought their house and threw lights on it as well. As this battle was spinning out of control, in steps Disney. They offered to pay off his fines and in return Disney would have the rights to the displays. And thus a Disney legend is born. A little side note, I was told that in 2008, as the metal globe that sits above the display was being installed, it was accidently dropped from the crane and it rolled several hundred yards into the park before stopping. It survived. Dented, but survived. One of my favorite memories of SOL, was back when they used to hand out 3D glasses. With them on, you'd see angels every where. One day, I came across a five or six years old child, standing inches away from a tall lit up candy cane. She'd put the glasses look at the lights. She'd take them off and look at the lights. Put them on, take them off. She must have done this five or six timed in a row. It was like she was trying to figure out where the angels came from.
Epcot always has the warm fuzzy 'all is well with the world' shows. Besides Illuminations, during chriatmas, they have a retelling of the Christmas story by guest celebrity narrators. It's always standing room only, which is why i haven't seen it yet. When you work for the mouse, you tend to not wait around when the lines are long.
Magic Kingdom, being the grand daddy of them all has a Christmas parade, an electric light parade, fireworks and characters out the ying yang. One year back in the nineties, it was a rainy, nasty mess here in Orlando on Christmas day. But the Disney Christmas parade that was televised showed bright sunny skys. So we had guests from Tampa decide to take a drive over to Orlando and get into the sunny side of the state. . . I mean after all, it was sunny on TV. Ooops, Faux Pas. Most, if not all of the Parade is filled in advance. This year Millie Cyrus was supposed to host it. I didn't have the heart to tell Millie's fans that her parts were aleady taped.
New Years has it's usual fireworks and confetti. On the eve of the new millenium, however, Disney had planned for everything from a mild hiccup in the computer systems to an all out Armaggeddon. They had high powered construction lights at every intersection in case the Y2K struck down our power grid. THey had lengthy plans in case of senario A, B and X. THEN. . .nothing happened. Universal Studios, in contrast, gave us one sheet of paper with some meager instructions in case of power outages and/ or Y2K mayhem. Again, nothing happened.
Poor Thanksgiving tends to get over looked alot. Management always gets a turkey and/ or ham for us and we potluck the rest. One year, Epic had several turkeys delievered to the stage on a tall, metal catering cart. The cart was pushed outside to give us room in the trailer. And there it sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. It had to have been nearly a month that it was forgotten outside of the Epic trailer. When one day, some one decided to send it back to catering. It was then that we realized we still had aleast two roast turkey's in there. Needless to say they were a bit fuzzy.
Martin Luther King day, I never really thought much about him, UNTIL his day turned into a paid holiday.
November is Native American Month and at the Wilderness Lodge, we have a tribal leader bless the lodge. Maybe that's why we're staying busy in the slow periods. In our lobby we have two totem poles. Since it is considered to be bad luck to have them face each other, ours are off set just a bit, but I was told that the totems almost facing each other is another reason we get it blessed every year, in order to keep all of the bad spirits, karma, ect away.
Another November memory was the year Disney decided to float the Macy's Thanksgiving day ballons over New York street. I was told that there had to technicians on the building roofs 24/7 to keep the helium ballond from tearing up or getting tangled up since they would sink in the cool night air and could possibly over inflate in the heated up day time air. We still managed to kill the a few ballons. I can'r remember if we did that one or two years, but when the Osbourne lights moved in the Macy's ballons moved up the road to Universal.
THanks for readiing. Keep coming back each month for more inside the insider's view of Disney
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
OH THE LIFE OF SHORT LIVED SHOWS.
Just like tiny towns in the middle of nowhere, you'd miss some shows and events at Disney over the years if you blinked. Did you know that Norman the Cow from the City Slickers movie used to live at the Disney MGM Studios backlot ? . . . Yeah, i never saw him either, but they say he did.
Norman's field was turned into the temporary stage for Beauty and the Beast. . . then the new home of Pocahantas. . . then the new and jazzed up home of Hunchback of Notre Dame . . . then the new, new home for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . . . then new temporary home for Star Wars Weekends (deep breath) And Now after much gutting, rebuilding and remodeling that space is (drum roll) a convention space . . . and I believe a venue for Night of Joy, Super Soap, Ect, ect, ect.
But first let us go back in time to some other one hit wonders like the Dinosaur Parade. Do you remember the television show with Earl the Dinosaur and his family ? The most famous member of the cast was the baby whose only line was "Not the mama." Well, we had a Dino parade with about three or four floats and the infamous Dino - Whores, i mean Dino - girls. THey got that nick name because of the itty, bitty costumes and a dance routine that was straight out of a night club, but then most of our parades seem to have a unit or two of scantily clad girls. I guess you have to do something to keep the 'little old men' coming back.
Although it was a relatively short run, we did manage to be around long enough to have the only float wreck I can remember at the Studios. Sure, we had plenty of floats clips a few trees and trim a few branches, but during the Dino parade, we had a float actually hit the fence. Fortuneatly no one was hurt, although a few people did go to first aide.
Disney had a way of creating shows and events that are not quiet in step with the modern trend. When they opened the Goosebumps Horrorland show / attraction, the series of children's books was already on the decline. Although i never worked at the show, I was told the grand finale all hinged on young childern volunteers doing a certian bit part in order to release everyone from a curse. It all sounds well and good. You pick the most enthusiastic kids in the audience, take them back stage, dress them up and give them a couple lines to say. Easy. Right? Wrong. When taken out of thier element, some kids melt like the wicked witch under water. SO. You have a show that "can't end until the kids say the secret words", but often times you'd have kids that wouldn't say the secret words. Gotta love kids.
The fact that the audience was outside, standing on hot asphalt with out any sun shade pretty much gauranteed that it was only going to be a short run show. They also had a spooky maze for kids to go through. THe cast loved it because they could scare the bejesus out of little kids and get paid for it. Where the maze area is now an enterance to a gift shop.
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, or Epic, had an ultimate top to bottom over haul back in the late nineties or so. While they were on hiatus, the cast did an odd ball kind of show out on New York street. Good guys and back guys fight it out, some one falls to thier death (not really) and heros save the day kind of show. Right next to the New York Street Show was the Pocahontas show. (Another short lived wonder.) During the Pocahontas show there is a touching scene between John Smith and Pocahontas where John offers her his hand in friendship and trust. Nice sweet, touching moment. Expect during Epic's street show.
On several occasions it went something like this. John Smith offers to shake hands with Pocahontas, "This is how we say Hello." This is abruptly followed by rapid gun fire from the Indy show out on the street. Hey, for once Disney got history right. . . get it ? "this is how we say hello", white settlers killing off the natives. . .anyway. After a few shows like this. The cast of Pocahontas wanted go on the War Path and raid the Indy street show. Stage managers called a truce, adjusted show times and peace was restored. To bad it wasn't that easy back in colonial times.
Ace Ventura was another one hit wonder at the studios. Since it was also considered a stunt show, there was some over lapping of cast. One particular day, a cast member at Ace was also a cast member at Epic in the same day, practically at the same time. In order to make it from one show to the other, a costuming dresser was assigned to play pargo chauffuer all day as the stunt guy was laterally changing costumes in the pargo on the way from one end of the park to the other.
Always remember. . . "The Show Must Go On."
Norman's field was turned into the temporary stage for Beauty and the Beast. . . then the new home of Pocahantas. . . then the new and jazzed up home of Hunchback of Notre Dame . . . then the new, new home for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . . . then new temporary home for Star Wars Weekends (deep breath) And Now after much gutting, rebuilding and remodeling that space is (drum roll) a convention space . . . and I believe a venue for Night of Joy, Super Soap, Ect, ect, ect.
But first let us go back in time to some other one hit wonders like the Dinosaur Parade. Do you remember the television show with Earl the Dinosaur and his family ? The most famous member of the cast was the baby whose only line was "Not the mama." Well, we had a Dino parade with about three or four floats and the infamous Dino - Whores, i mean Dino - girls. THey got that nick name because of the itty, bitty costumes and a dance routine that was straight out of a night club, but then most of our parades seem to have a unit or two of scantily clad girls. I guess you have to do something to keep the 'little old men' coming back.
Although it was a relatively short run, we did manage to be around long enough to have the only float wreck I can remember at the Studios. Sure, we had plenty of floats clips a few trees and trim a few branches, but during the Dino parade, we had a float actually hit the fence. Fortuneatly no one was hurt, although a few people did go to first aide.
Disney had a way of creating shows and events that are not quiet in step with the modern trend. When they opened the Goosebumps Horrorland show / attraction, the series of children's books was already on the decline. Although i never worked at the show, I was told the grand finale all hinged on young childern volunteers doing a certian bit part in order to release everyone from a curse. It all sounds well and good. You pick the most enthusiastic kids in the audience, take them back stage, dress them up and give them a couple lines to say. Easy. Right? Wrong. When taken out of thier element, some kids melt like the wicked witch under water. SO. You have a show that "can't end until the kids say the secret words", but often times you'd have kids that wouldn't say the secret words. Gotta love kids.
The fact that the audience was outside, standing on hot asphalt with out any sun shade pretty much gauranteed that it was only going to be a short run show. They also had a spooky maze for kids to go through. THe cast loved it because they could scare the bejesus out of little kids and get paid for it. Where the maze area is now an enterance to a gift shop.
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, or Epic, had an ultimate top to bottom over haul back in the late nineties or so. While they were on hiatus, the cast did an odd ball kind of show out on New York street. Good guys and back guys fight it out, some one falls to thier death (not really) and heros save the day kind of show. Right next to the New York Street Show was the Pocahontas show. (Another short lived wonder.) During the Pocahontas show there is a touching scene between John Smith and Pocahontas where John offers her his hand in friendship and trust. Nice sweet, touching moment. Expect during Epic's street show.
On several occasions it went something like this. John Smith offers to shake hands with Pocahontas, "This is how we say Hello." This is abruptly followed by rapid gun fire from the Indy show out on the street. Hey, for once Disney got history right. . . get it ? "this is how we say hello", white settlers killing off the natives. . .anyway. After a few shows like this. The cast of Pocahontas wanted go on the War Path and raid the Indy street show. Stage managers called a truce, adjusted show times and peace was restored. To bad it wasn't that easy back in colonial times.
Ace Ventura was another one hit wonder at the studios. Since it was also considered a stunt show, there was some over lapping of cast. One particular day, a cast member at Ace was also a cast member at Epic in the same day, practically at the same time. In order to make it from one show to the other, a costuming dresser was assigned to play pargo chauffuer all day as the stunt guy was laterally changing costumes in the pargo on the way from one end of the park to the other.
Always remember. . . "The Show Must Go On."
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