News Disney plans to reboot Voyage of the Little Mermaid stage show at Disney's Hollywood Studios

MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
Sneaky said:
Cool! It’s funny how much of dhs’s lands are just “city buildings”. This park is gonna have such an odd layout.
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When it opened and was supposed to be like a real working studio, it made more sense. These were "backlots" even though the area at the entrance and around echo lake represented a golden age Hollywood that wasn't likely to ever get used for anything, really. (almost none of that kind of stuff in the park was in any serious sense - residential street for some infrequent outside place-making shots on a few sitcoms where the same footage was used from episode-to-episode, maybe)

I think by the time Sunset Blvd fully extended out, they'd kind of given up on that premise.

The area Animation Courtyard was in had always been themed to a sound-stage lot which allowed for cheap and easy theming to the back side of Great Movie Ride as well as all the other buildings in that area. That's why going down that stretch, past the commissary almost feels like a backstage area of the park.

The actual building that holds most of the ride for RNRC was intended to just look like another soundstage in the distance, too.
 
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lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
MrPromey said:
When it opened and was supposed to be like a real working studio, it made more sense. These were "backlots" even though the area at the entrance and around echo lake represented a golden age Hollywood that wasn't likely to ever get used for anything, really.

I think by the time Sunset Blvd fully extended out, they'd kind of given up on that premise.
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It’s Universal Studios Florida where all of the park streets were designed to double as backlot sets. That was never really the plan and purpose with Hollywood Blvd which is more diminutive and has some aggressive forced perspective. The Disney-MGM Studios had a much a more distinct line between the purely guest area and the production area.
 
Sneaky

Sneaky

Well-Known Member
Yeah, DHS is caught between two eras. It’s a frankenpark. I feel like the “golden age Hollywood” stuff is still very strong and can stick around, it’s just the bland tan soundstages that I think should go.
MrPromey said:
When it opened and was supposed to be like a real working studio, it made more sense. These were "backlots" even though the area at the entrance and around echo lake represented a golden age Hollywood that wasn't likely to ever get used for anything, really.

I think by the time Sunset Blvd fully extended out, they'd kind of given up on that premise.

The area Animation Courtyard was in had always been themed to a sound-stage lot which allowed for cheap and easy theming to the back side of Great Movie Ride as well as all the other buildings in that area. That's why going down that stretch, past the commissary almost feels like a bakstage area of the park.

The actual building that holds most of the ride for RNRC was intended to just look like another soundstage in the distance, too.
Click to expand...
 
MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
It’s Universal Studios Florida where all of the park streets were designed to double as backlot sets. That was never really the plan and purpose with Hollywood Blvd which is more diminutive and has some aggressive forced perspective. The Disney-MGM Studios had a much a more distinct line between the purely guest area and the production area.
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Oh definitely and for a time, Universal even made a real effort to use them.

I just meant the Disney stuff was largely a pretend backlot - it was themed as "backlot" so it didn't have to make sense. They could transition into Echo lake with Mama Melrose's and Prime Time overlooking a pond with Gertie sitting next to Indana Jones because "Hollowood" was the theme.

I don't think Streets of America was really designed with serious production work in mind, either, do you?

I used to know someone who early on, was part of a group of people that would spend their day putting up and taking down equipment along the backlot tour to make it appear as though a live production was in progress which makes sense because no real production wants to deal with a train-load of gawking tourists snapping pictures every five minutes.

The guide would make some remark about being quite because there might be actual filming going on but seriously?

It was a fairly short-lived thing but that's where Disney's head clearly was with this park.

I mean, they did do some real stuff (That's My Dog bounced between MGM and Universal for a few seasons) Superboy started there though I don't recall them actually using any of the "backlot" for that one like they did when it moved to Universal. There was Thunder In Paradise that was filmed all over Disney but I guess, had that one covered pool used at least once in MGM that they'd describe every time you went by it on the tour though you never got to see it and obviously, there were real people working on some of the production efforts for animation but a lot of this felt more like an attempt to recreate the real thing rather than to be the real thing where I recall attending tapings of actual low-budget stuff at Universal.

MGM seemed more like a production hub with the majority of it's land being used for the park with everything else being secondary, to me.
 
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J

jrhwdw

Well-Known Member
MrPromey said:
Oh definitely and for a time, Universal even made a real effort to use them.

I just meant the Disney stuff was largely a pretend backlot. I used to know someone who in the early days, was part of a group of people that would spend their day putting up and taking down equipment along the backlot tour to make it appear as though a live production was in progress.

It was a fairly short-lived thing but that's where Disney's head clearly was with this park.

I mean, they did do some real stuff and obviously, there were real people working on some of the production efforts for animation but a lot of this was an attempt to recreate the real thing rather than to be the real thing where I recall attending tapings of actual low-budget game shows headed for cable at Universal in their sound stages and recall seeing parts of their backlot in stuff on UPN or WB or whatever that second-rate broadcast network was called at the time.
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Wheel Of Fortune was taped at MGM for Years! Granted it only happened when Wheel took a WDW Vacation but still.

The Disney Channel's MMC was also at MGM.
 
MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
jrhwdw said:
Wheel Of Fortune was taped at MGM for Years! Granted it only happened when Wheel took a WDW Vacation but still.

The Disney Channel's MMC was also at MGM.
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They'd do wrestling there every once in a while, I think, too but a lot of that was an attempt to legitimize it making a strong point, just like with your Wheel of Fortune and the radio show, Live From Walt Disney World that it was in fact, done at Disney's MGM studios.

The "boneyard" featured stuff that had mostly been brought over from California to fill in that space - not from productions actually shot there. In that sense, it was fake and simply staged as something for the tour to go past.

Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but that costuming department you'd pass through on the backlot tour was mostly for the actual park costuming even then, no?

I'm not suggesting there was anything wrong with that, either - just that they, perhaps more than Universal at the time, understood what was and wasn't practical when trying to have a "real working studio" that doubles as a popular international theme park.

It was clearly the right approach, too since Universal has now long given up their Florida Studios ambitions.
 
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Bocabear

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
They were also filming a sitcom series there that didn't make it... I think Dolly Parton was involved... She was also involved in a feature animation project that was cancelled when the Florida animation department closed...
 
wdwmagic

wdwmagic

Administrator
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Original Poster
S

Splash4eva

Well-Known Member
mattpeto said:
A bunch of "bad news" is here and is incoming.

But this one is might turn out being good, if Monsters ends up taking up the waste of space at the AC and saving Muppets. I'm not saying that's the case, but here's hoping.
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Its going to possibly save muppets but lose disney jr…. A park starving for things to do with kids
 
J

jrhwdw

Well-Known Member
Sneaky

Sneaky

Well-Known Member
mattpeto said:
I think the masses will take that trade.

Besides it's not as complicated to spin up a dance party elsewhere in the park, than to bury Henson's final project.
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Splash4eva said:
Its going to possibly save muppets but lose disney jr…. A park starving for things to do with kids
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MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
They were also filming a sitcom series there that didn't make it... I think Dolly Parton was involved... She was also involved in a feature animation project that was cancelled when the Florida animation department closed...
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Most of the stuff that started there either didn't stay there or "didn't make it". ;)
 
MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
Splash4eva said:
Its going to possibly save muppets but lose disney jr…. A park starving for things to do with kids
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I'd say that location has been massively underutilized, almost since it was converted.

Not to say there should be no Playhouse Disney/Disney Jr. in the park - just that there's elsewhere it could go.

What's up with the Sounds Dangerous location these days? That seems like a better sized location for something like this.
 
Sneaky

Sneaky

Well-Known Member
MrPromey said:
I'd say that location has been massively underutilized, almost since it was converted.

Not to say there should be no Playhouse Disney/Disney Jr. in the park - just that there's elsewhere it could go.

What's up with the Sounds Dangerous location these days? That seems like a better sized location for something like this.
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Mickey shorts I think. That’s just chugging along on its own. Disney jr would prob bring in more people though.
 
MisterPenguin

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Disney-MGM Studios not only had nothing to do with MGM (except the use of the MGM branding) but from the start of the deal with MGM, Disney and MGM were suing each other.

Nostalgia over the park being "MGM" is...
1. not using the actual name of the park, which was: Disney-MGM Studios​
2. solely based on a temporary name/sign​
​
Thank-you for attending my TED Talk.
 

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