You didn't think I'd head down to the 50'th Anniversary Celebration of Walt Disney World without sharing a vintage Disney Parks special did you? Well strap in, because what better special to watch for the anniversary of Walt Disney World than the Grand Opening of Walt Disney World?
I love this. It's not as insane as the Tenth Anniversary special (what could be?) but it is very close. That running subplot about the campers is extremely special. So is the catchy song about how, if you think you do not have to visit WDW because you've been to Disneyland, you are very wrong, because WDW has MORE!!! We get extended looks at the Country Bears and the Hall of Presidents, and rare footage of the Mickey Mouse Review. Arthur Fiedler conducts a huge marching band, Bob Hope gives a weird speech, Glen Campbell sings existential songs in the woods, and Julie Andrews sings and watches a good chunk of the Animated Canon! All this and the amazing Vault Disney bumper!
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Art of the Day!
It's still Faebruary, so here's a portrait of the best Disney Fairy.
I think it's fair to say that the good folks at Retro WDW.com helped save a very very weird holiday weekend by sharing this particularly good seasonal weird vintage Disney Parks special.
Highlights include:
* - The commercials! The ads for Sea World ("Make contact!!!"), Kissimmee St. Cloud, and "Adventures in Wonderland" especially slammed a nostalgia button I didn't know I had.
* - Roger Rabbit as a walk-around character!
* - Never mind him, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as walk-around characters?!
* - Never mind them, the Sinclair family from "Dinosaurs" as walk-around characters?!? I bet you can't guess what song they get to dance to!!! 😔
* - The Spring Break montage! Possibly cut down from an entire Spring Break at Disney Parks television special I seem to remember and which in hindsight feels ill-conceived.
* - The fabulous finale and musical number! I don't have enough gigantic frilly dresses in my life.
* - The "Fantasmic" preview. All of it. The whole thing. This is worth watching the entire special for because it is bonkers. And very definitely something made in the immediate wake of "Home Alone". Trust me, you'll be able to tell.
I am heading down to Walt Disney World very soon! Goodness I can't wait to experience the whole Rise of the Resistance Boarding Group insanity for myself! Ha ha ha (please keep my family and I in your thoughts and prayers) ha ha! 😨
So as is tradition, let's travel back to the long-long ago and watch a weird vintage Disney Parks special. Now this particular special is mostly here due to unabashed nostalgia. I haven't seen this in ages and can't believe how much I remembered from it; it's almost certainly my first encounter with most of these songs and artists. I'm not going to say it's outright good, you don't even see much as far as vintage Walt Disney World goes. But among the wonderful things you do see and hear are Doug Henning! A very young Bobby Brown! Upsettingly wrong-sounding Goofy! The star of the brand new Disney movie "Baby"!?!
Stick around after the parade for a couple local news shows and a pledge drive! Ah, YouTube.
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Art of the Day!
The coming spring season is a time for animals to get flashy, so here is an extremely speculative Triceratops couple:
The early days of Walt Disney Home Video were... something. But among the seemingly random films and specials in the first few runs of home video releases was this very nice short film about Walt Disney World circa 1980. It's basically a visual guide to the park presumably for tourists. But in it's brief half-hour it provides a lovely document of what Disney World had to offer back then. The Bob-around Boats, Top of the World dinner show, and River Country may be gone now, but goodness, there are still a few early attractions I've never experienced!
"Trish," you ask, "I know you like sharing the weird vintage Disney Park specials you like to watch before heading down to Disney World to get yourself hyped. But why in the world are you sharing one from 1970 set in Disneyland?"
Oh, boy. Just watch:
So the main point of this here weird vintage Disney Park special from 1970 is to advertise the debut of the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. And eventually we do get there but not before one of the very oddest Disney specials I've ever seen. The thing is, I know I saw this as a little kid and it almost certainly was my first encounter with nearly all the songs included in it. Including the unforgettable "Oh, Please Be Him", which has to be one of the most hysterical-in-every-sense-of-the-word songs ever created.
And I'm almost positive this was the first time I ever encountered The Osmonds. Whew boy...
Unless you're a huge Osmonds fan, this gang of smiling white 70's boys with unsettling teeth are by far the least interesting aspect of the special. They sing smiling white versions of contemporary songs, they are among the first people to ride the Haunted Mansion (I promise we're getting there), and they emphasize the crucial importance of having a designated spot to meet when your party gets separated. Then again, this is a version of Disneyland where the costumed characters openly kidnap people.
I think this must have been made smack in the middle of what would eventually be unofficially known by Disney nerds as the Walt Disney Presents Weird Sh*t Happening to and/or Around Kurt Russel Series (not to be confused with the John Carpenter Presents Weird Sh*t Happening to and/or Around Kurt Russel Trilogy, which is generally considered better), because Kurt is our host here. And he narrates the very best part of the special where we get a look at the effects and characters that populate the Haunted Mansion. He also gives a STORY for the beloved ride that's much nicer than any business with rings stuck in the sidewalk. We get to ride the ride along with the Osmonds and get a reminder of how mind-blowing those effects must have been for the first visitors.
It's February and you know what that means: I'm going to Walt Disney World this month! And as is of course tradition, I am hyping myself up by watching weird vintage Disney Park television specials.
And because I also felt it was kind of weird keeping a Christmas post up top for so long, here's a... Fourth of July special? Well, why not?
A special with this much stuff is right for any season. Highlights include wrong-sounding Mickey announcing the whole entire new Magic Kingdom land built for his birthday, the very odd "Spirit of America" parade, a look at the then-new Norway pavilion, the Electric Light Parade complete with circus floats, a special preview of the Disney/MGM Studios, and the triumphant return of our lanky tap-dancing friend Tommy Tune in a patriotic musical finale that seems to go on forever.
I hope that everyone in the coming year brings as much enthusiasm to their creative endeavors as Uncle Jessie does playing percussion here.
The earlier Disney Parks specials have a certain "'70s-ness". This special, however, celebrating the 25'th anniversary of Walt Disney World, has what I can only describe as a '90s-ness.
And also a '70s-ness. See, I remember reading somewhere that you'd never be able to write a truly accurate depiction of life during the '70s without including the rampant '50s nostalgia. Guess what rampant nostalgia '90s kids were bombarded with?
And so, we have a Disney Park special that whisks two little boys from 1971 through time to land in 1996. Yup, it's bonkers. It's more fun than "The Dream is Alive" at least; we actually get to see Walt Disney World for one thing.
Highlights to watch out for include the infamous Castle Cake, a deeply troubling walk-around Quasimodo costume, a God-damn "Really 700 Years Old" gag in a Disney special?!? 😨, and -of course- a mime! Because it isn't a truly baffling vintage Disney Parks special without mimes.
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Art of the Day!
So, I've been thinking about the "Kingdom Hearts 3" trailer a lot, and I think my very favorite part is when this happens:
I reiterate: I like to watch vintage Disney Park specials before heading down to The World. I like to see what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what I missed out on that I honestly wouldn't believe actually happened unless they were documented on film for posterity.
"Walt Disney World's 20'th Anniversary: The Dream is Alive" does not preserve much of the latter (save for a brief glimpse of a Pleasure Island marquee). In fact, this Disney Park Anniversary Special contains almost NO footage of Walt Disney World at all. What it gives us instead is Michael Eisner -a LOT of Michael Eisner- struggling to be as charismatic as possible.
Whew, they really don't make them like this anymore. Look for Eddie Murphy's expression at about the seven minute mark, because I had a similar one watching this.
Side note: Me having to pause and rub my temples at the sight of Michael Eisner's credit in "Bojack Horseman" is the new me having to pause and rub my temples at the sight of Seth MacFarlane's credit in "Cosmos".
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Art of the Day!
Speaking of Especially Weird Disney Things, we recently got a look at "Kingdom Hearts 3" and...
😍😍😍 HEY WOW WOWIE WOW AWESOME COOL FUN PARTY BARBIE BIRTHDAY AWESOME WOW YIPPEE YAY WIZARD WOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😍😍😍💩🍹🍰
😨
Okay, this one is going to take some explaining.
If you spend any significant amount of time in the Disney fan portion of this vast sea we call the Internet, you'll find that one thing Disney Park fans like to complain about is the inclusion of popular established characters in Epcot attractions. This hasn't been bothering me nearly as much as it does others, but after watching "BARBIE BIRTHDAY PARTY AT WALT DISNEY WORLD EPCOT '94!!!" (henceforth, "BARBIE IN EPCOT" because I just... can't) I can see where the dissent is coming from.
The whole "BARBIE IN EPCOT" thing was actually a contractual obligation between Disney and Mattel and ye gods, does it ever look like it. I feel like this must have been the Faustian bargain for all the Mattel characters they got to include in "Toy Story". The stage show lasted a little over a year and a half, and just about the only real evidence that it wasn't some kind of group hallucination is this video. The video was available for purchase with special Barbie dolls for a penny, which seems about right.
On the one hand, it's always neat to get a behind-the-scenes look at Disney stage shows, and the segments about how birthdays are celebrated around the world are very nice. On the other hand, you have the screaming 90's child actors. Do anything you can to prepare yourself, because the screaming 90's child actor hosts of this special are like entire seasons of "Full House" made flesh. I hate them, I hate them so much, and it's as much about the screaming and their being genuinely horrible (get your damn fingers off that beautiful cake you monsters!) as it is that I wish I could get as excited about anything as these screaming 90's child actors get about literally everything.
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Because it's my Birthday and I love you (and also because Faebruary's still in my rear-view mirror and St. Patrick's Day is this weekend) have a Bonus Especially Weird Disney Thing! Let me show you the traditional dances of my people:
This isn't what I saw a few nights ago in Raglan Road after downing two Kilkennys (though it's close). This is "Light Magic". It's from 1997 and was meant to be the replacement, in Disneyland, for the Main Street Electrical Parade. Once again, home videos like this are about the only real evidence this wasn't a mass hallucination.
It's also from that very weird, very specific, and thankfully very over period where Disney Parks defined "parade" as "Three or four floats that ride down the street, then stop and stay still for several minutes at a time to do a long elaborate show, then start moving again to suddenly stop and do another show and so on". It went over even less well than "BARBIE IN EPCOT", not even surviving one whole year.
May the good Fairies draw near to you,
And spread love and luck with their weird little dances every day.
And may a good strong drink
Make the memories of horrible screaming 90's child actors go away.
I am going to celebrate a big momentous birthday in Walt Disney World! And I really like to watch vintage Disney Park specials before heading down to The World. I like to see what's changed, what's stayed the same, and what I missed out on.
And this time, I've found some really weird ones. First up, we have a special celebrating what, in my opinion, was the most awesome Disney Parks anniversary of all, the fifteenth anniversary of Walt Disney World. I think this might have even been one of my family's first trips. Every fifteen minutes, someone entering the park would win a prize, and the decorations were terrific.
This special doesn't focus on that at all. Instead, we get half of the Golden Girls, a really strange tour of World Showcase, a reminder of how 3/4ths of the Monkees were everywhere in the 80's, a seemingly endless patriotic production narrated by Charlton Heston, and previews of upcoming attractions, including something about a "studio tour"...
The full, absurd title is (deep breath) "Disney Sing-Along Songs: Flick's Musical Adventure at Disney's Animal Kingdom". Here to please both fans of "A Bug's Life" and Disney's Animal Kingdom - without showcasing the song in "A Bug's Life" or ever mentioning the fact that there is a "Bug's Life" themed attraction in Disney's Animal Kingdom:
This makes for a pretty fascinating companion piece to last week's Animal Kingdom grand opening special. Once again, they highlight the attractions centered around the animals themselves, this time in song. And the songs, when they aren't from "The Lion King" (I have learned that I will never not get frisson from "The Lion King" OST) or Disney songs with new lyrics, are... dubious. Yes, we do get another version of "Walk the Dinosaur", because why pass up an opportunity to trot out the world's laziest animal-related music cue? It's not like there's a song specifically written for Animal Kingdom's Dinoland USA, right?
We're traveling through sixteen years of Walt Disney World history in a couple of weeks. And, as far as opening specials for the higher-concept gates go, not a whole lot has changed:
Drew Carey is our advertised host, but it's really Jane Goodall who steals the show and lends a great deal of class and authenticity to a park that, at the time, was going through an awkward age. You'll notice that, although we do have mercifully brief visits to both Camp Minnie-Mickey and Dinoland (but a-yi-yi, that Dinoland segment. I guess it does make for a fascinating demonstration of many of the things we talked about here, but I'd be in a far happier place if it didn't.), most of the emphasis is put on the safari and other live animal attractions. They were hands-down the best things Animal Kingdom had to offer at the time; arguably they're still the best parts of the park to this day.
My winter hiatus is over! Let's go to Disney World!
Oh my goodness, this is wonderful.
First off, when I think of futurism circa the very early 80's, I think of no other person but Danny Kaye. Yeah, it's a strange choice from our point of view here in the actual 21'st Century, but it works. Early Epcot was very high-concept, and Kaye introduces it all with humor and warmth. (And ear-worms.)
Keep an eye out for Roy "Guy Who Seems To Be In All These Old Disney Specials" Clark, Sico, better known as that robot from "Rocky IV" with a surprisingly poignant origin, many teases for pavilions that would never see the light of day, a finale where Marie Osmond makes it weird in the way only an Osmond can, and loads of early 80's "Computers can do ANYTHING" hype.
The teenager in me is hyperventilating right now, so here are adult-me's notes:
* - This is from 1992 and has the very a rare version of the Wonderful World of Disney opening. Trigger Warning for the cereal scene in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" (though note at least we are not alone).
* - Eisner on Rollerblades...
* - I believe I must recommend the outstanding "30 for 30" episode about Skategate, "The Price of Gold" (available on Netflix Instant), as it'd be hard to explain here.
* - That Dopey mask...
* - "Oh, here's a fun ride; a BENCH!"
* - I want to see fangirls fawning over *this* Jack Frost.
* - Did you know that Olympic champion ice skaters are the guardians of portions of a magical snowflake and are essentially Ice-type Pokemon? Well they are, apparently.
* - Roger Rabbit!
* - I can't believe Disney is using their special holiday event to shove their most popular recent movie down our throats you guys.
* - I am a sucker for figure skating and pretty much everything else in this special.
Some friends of mine are going to visit Walt Disney World during this holiday season and they asked me what unique things there are to do there. I suppose I could show them my posts from my trip a few years ago -- or I could just show them this, which is from 1992 and probably still 100% accurate:
Seriously, if you're a Disney theme park history junkie like me, there's a lot to love in this special. That special version of the Country Bears, man...
Hailing from the same year (or thenabouts) as "Journey Into Magic", this video was a trip-planning instructional film put out by Disney and Delta.
There's a lot of great footage of then-new and
currently-gone attractions (that shot of Horizons got me right in the feels). There are also some pretty candid
interviews with guests and cast members. And there's a great deal of regrettable 90's fashion.
Sidenote: Again, the more I see/hear about Adventurer's Club, the more deeply sad I am that I never got to experience it myself. Tell me it wasn't as fun as it looks. Look into my little face and lie.
Disney has done a lot of specials promoting their theme parks over the years. This one is certainly one of the most special... for a given definition of "special".
OK, there's a lot to unpack here.
The highlights are the extinct and just-new attractions of course. Splash Mountain gets an especially strange segment, as does Pleasure Island. But there's also a nice, long segment about the in-park animation studio, including the briefest teases of the then-upcoming "Lion King" and "Pocahontas".
There's also a couple of running segments that seem to go on forever about a boring family living out their wildest dreams via Disney Magic, a golfer trying to hit every hole on WDW property, and some dude trying to stay in every Disney resort because why not? The whole special seems to be assuring parents that there's lots for adults to do in WDW circa 1993.
Sidenote: the more I see/hear about the Adventurer's Club, the more upset I am that I never got to experience it for myself.
Before I head down to Walt Disney World with the family, I often like to watch old Disney World specials to see how much has changed. Often the most interesting ones are from before my time, not just because they show me parts of the park that didn't exist by the time I got there, but also (admittedly, mostly) because they have a certain very 70's-ness.
That is to say that everything about "Welcome to the World" is simultaneously terrible and amazing.
Some highlights:
* - Look for the Fort Wilderness train, the Bob-Around Boats, the early monorails, the rising stage in Tomorrowland, and weird, early versions of character costumes (those Ostriches...)
* - Those topiary dragons though...
* - Tommy. Tune's. Pants. O_o
* - The guy I can only confidently identify as Orangehair Bieber McTightpants.
* - Drinking game: Drink whenever you're thinking, "Are they STILL singing?!"
* - The looks on the actual astronauts invited to the dedication of Space Mountain.
* - Wrong-Sounding Mickey. Haunting.
* - The part where they actually ride Space Mountain.
I had to save something special for Christmas Eve, and oh, I think I found us a doozie. Last Christmas, I shared Progress City's upload of "Kraft Salutes the 10'th Anniversary of Walt Disney World", and dubbed it the "Star Wars Holiday Special" of Disney.
Young people, this is why us kids who were born in the end of the '70's are the way we are. Couple of things that stood out to me:
* - So, who would win in a fight? The Clinkers or Chewbacca's family?
* - That vulture is totally thinking, "I ought to be soaring majestically over the Balkans and here I am serving as window dressing for a bunch of soft-rock weenies."
* - Adult. Babies. 😱
* - The Gepetto scene is actually kind of touching. Then it gets weird. And finally they cut to, yep, more mimes.
* - You know, to be fair, at least this special actually takes place inside the Magic Kingdom for the most part.
* - Villains singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". Uh-huh.
* - The sing-along finale is nice but this is another one of those situations where I wonder what the real animals were thinking. (Aside from the obvious "Get me the eff out of here!")
* - OMG Shields can TALK!?!
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Festive Older Art of the Day! I can't speak for the people who made the special we just watched, but I promise I was high on nothing but Christmas spirit when I made this:
Merry Christmas to all! See you sometime in January when I'll post something about dinosaurs again maybe.
There's a part of me that thinks I ought to be doing a trip report or something more substantial like that, but I've been busy with decorating and other Christmassy things. So here's a weird Christmas and Disney related video instead:
I discovered this barrel of insanity some time before we left for our spur-of-the-moment Christmastime in Disney World Round Two trip. It has been argued that the current age of the Disney theme parks is the strangest ever but looking back at 1996, I don't know. Among the stuff I noticed:
* - Is it me or is this actually a document of Jerry Van Dyke gradually losing his mind?
* - I forgot how obnoxious the hype for the live-action remake of "101 Dalmatians" was back then.
* - How would you like to be on the same stage as that terrifying Broadway Lumiere costume? How would you like to have to WEAR that terrifying Broadway Lumiere costume?
* - J.D. Roth's entire career seems to be floating from random hosting gig to random hosting gig.
* - "Remember the Magic!!!"
There are two major Weird Disney Things that are worth singling out here:
* - Okay, there was one interesting and different thing we did during this latest WDW trip, and that was staying in Saratoga Springs. It is a very very large and sprawling resort with many buildings spread out over a large area. I don't think we would have liked it nearly as much if we were in one of the more remote buildings (we were in Congress Park in a building overlooking the remains of Pleasure Island across the river and within about a twenty-minute walk to the main building.) But our room was huge as far as DVC studios go, the facilities in the resort were all very nice, and it was fun spotting the buildings like the old theater that betrayed the fact that this used to be the Disney Institute.
Generally speaking, if you are walking around in Walt Disney World and you see something very strange that has been there since the mid-80's through mid-90's, you can explain it with two words: Michael Eisner. The story with the Disney Institute is that supposedly Eisner went to a resort in upstate New York once that catered to older adults and during your whole stay there you took classes in various subjects. "I LOVED it," he said upon his return, "I LOVED spending the whole week in classrooms learning how to cook or arrange flowers or whatever! You know what, I WANT that! I WANT that in my park!"
And so the Disney Institute, a resort where you'd stay in and take classes all through your entire stay in Walt Disney World, was built. As you can see in the segment about it in the video, the concept didn't go over as well as Michael Eisner thought it would.
* - Castle. Cake.
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If you enjoyed this weird Christmas special from days gone by, I'm planning something big -and probably ill-advised- for next week. Until then, here's the Sketch of the Day with Santas galore!
