Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks

[Eddie Sotto]

SSL= SuperStar Limo

Eddie, do the Imagineers often come up with a "plan A" and "plan B" for if the budget gets changed, or is that not even mentioned until a budget gets changed? Maybe I'm oversimplifying a more complex process, but just curious

Of course, I cannot speak for what others do or have done, but in my own process I usually have a simpler way of doing something in the back of my mind in case some new innovation does not end up working (Mission:Space uses a Centrifuge instead of a coaster type ride system as the gravity ride could not deliver on the show). You usually present a full blown show with more effects, theming, etc. knowing that you can live with certain basics if they ream you and see how far you get. You almost know they will try and whack at least 10 percent out of it. It's a bit of a "Plan B" I guess. Again, the clearer you know what in essence emotionally works and MUST be there for your show to end up a hit, the more confident you are in the editing process. It's when no ones "owns" the show and it gets cut randomly by many hands that you end up with something you regret that has little or no point.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Duellists in HM

Another interesting post on HBG2's HM site today.

http://longforgottenhauntedmansion.blogspot.com/

It centers on the Duellists in the ballroom, and some speculation about their evolution in design. More importantly, it also touches on how designers frequently use culturally familiar situations or rituals that "read" or are understood instantly by the guest for them to be effective. This carries into the comments section.

We used to think this way at WDI and in many cases restrict the reliance on AA character dialog as it is usually lost on the audience. It's ok to have it as a secondary layer, but the "sight gag" or situation needs to work by sight more than by ear. A good discussion for us here. One way to study this is to watch the more dramatic and later silent films. They had perfected the art of pantomime by 1929 and in many ways the figures in rides are similar to single panel cartoons or the expressive pantomime in those final silent films. I think one reason that the shows work so well in foreign parks is the same as silent cinema, they do not require lots of language and their visual appeal and communication is universal.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Essential book

This new "Walt's People" edition by Didier Ghez contains all of the interviews of the Disney Legends (including Walt!) that were done many years ago by Walt Disney Biographer Bob Thomas as research for this book that most of us own.

http://www.amazon.com/WALT-DISNEY-AMERICAN-Bob-Thomas/dp/0786860278

I don't buy every Disney book that comes out, but this "who's who" of research struck me as a must, even though much of it may be familiar or used in the biography. Thought you'd enjoy it was well.

http://progresscityusa.com/

To order one

http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=93030

 

[jt04]

This new "Walt's People" edition by Didier Ghez contains all of the interviews of the Disney Legends (including Walt!) that were done many years ago by Walt Disney Biographer Bob Thomas as research for this book that most of us own.

http://www.amazon.com/WALT-DISNEY-AMERICAN-Bob-Thomas/dp/0786860278

I don't buy every Disney book that comes out, but this "who's who" of research struck me as a must, even though much of it may be familiar or used in the biography. Thought you'd enjoy it was well.

http://progresscityusa.com/

To order one

http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=93030

I'd be interested in your take on the before and after comparisson of the old FLE plan with the new FLE plans. I certainly have mixed feelings about it. To sum it up, I think content took a leap forward but the aesthetics took a step back. They could have kept the original 'shell' of the building and placed the new ride inside. Oh well.

I hope that the lesson from this is that they learn not to micro-manage WDI. I'm conviced that is never a good thing in the end.

PS- I saw your avatar for the first time. Fantastic! :lol: Could that be one of the retired Imagineers upon seeing the new plans? :lookaroun

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I'd be interested in your take on the before and after comparisson of the old FLE plan with the new FLE plans. I certainly have mixed feelings about it. To sum it up, I think content took a leap forward but the aesthetics took a step back. They could have kept the original 'shell' of the building and placed the new ride inside. Oh well.

I hope that the lesson from this is that they learn not to micro-manage WDI. I'm conviced that is never a good thing in the end.

PS- I saw your avatar for the first time. Fantastic! :lol: Could that be one of the retired Imagineers upon seeing the new plans? :lookaroun

It's so hard to judge these things and i'm tempted not to even weigh in.

Having said that, (I will anyway) it seems like a good idea to consolidate the "meet and greets" as before it seemed very repetitive. You do lose the "neighborhood" that was kinda cool. The area and attraction mix comes off as more balanced at first glance. But where is the "Wow"? I worry that the extended Castle Wall treatment needs overhead gates or something to tie it all together as in the art it looks like something isolated that will get cut in a budget go round. Hope not because it's cool. Adding more rides like the Dwarf Mine is always a good idea, and if it is some tween thrill ride that would add a bit of variety to the mix that would be great. I know Dumbo is getting "supersized" (kills the charm), but why so much of a "Circus" theme beyond Dumbo? I think Clowns and Circus are so creepy and kind of lame. What kid dreams of the Circus anymore? Maybe it doesn't matter. The Dumbo area probably dominates everything so they had little choice than to go with it. Just an opinion. Overall I think they moved the needle and improved the area.

The only thing I can say is that it would be nice to see something in Fantasyland that is not at all predictable and would blow me away. Harry Potter (could have been a Fantasyland property) makes people think they can fly, why not juice up Peter Pan? Let's "supersize" "the wow" and focus on the potential of "fantasy". In a way, it's too bad that this land assumes that it is targeted young and limits itself to black light. Mermaid will advance that for sure but I want a "gamechanger". I think limiting the scope is a mistake. If anyone wants to believe... it's adults and kids. TDL Pooh proves that.

BTW- My Avatar is epic movie director John Ford.

 

[TP2000]

We used to think this way at WDI and in many cases restrict the reliance on AA character dialog as it is usually lost on the audience. It's ok to have it as a secondary layer, but the "sight gag" or situation needs to work by sight more than by ear. A good discussion for us here.

Similarly, the same thing is needed in the foreign parks where the dialogue is in another language. I encountered this on my first visit to Tokyo Disneyland, and although my Japanese has improved a bit since my first Japan trip, I still experience it today.

Rides like the Sinbad Voyage at DisneySea are all in Japanese, but I enjoy the ride and get the basic plotline because the visuals are so strong and obvious. On the flip side, there are some shows like the Country Bear Jamboree or Tiki Room where the spoken dialogue is all in Japanese but the songs are a mix of English and Japanese, and I'm on the floor dying laughing because it's just so ridiculous. And God bless those Tokyo hostesses who do their introductory spiel in phoenetic English when they see me and my American friends/family walk into the queue!

I absolutely LOVED that Tiki Room show they had in Tokyo up until about five years ago, where it was sort of a Vegas lounge act and they had a female bird named Lava who was a real vamp. Even with all those birds bantering and singing in Japanese, you easily got that she was a total diva and owned that room. That Vegas lounge act (I can't remember the show's exact title) was a fresh, fun way to update the '63 Tiki Room show without turning it into the "New Management" junk that was like a bad 1990's wedding reception.

Only in Japan. Sigh. Where's the number to the Japan Air Lines travel desk?...

 

[TP2000]

I know Dumbo is getting "supersized" (kills the charm), but why so much of a "Circus" theme beyond Dumbo? I think Clowns and Circus are so creepy and kind of lame. What kid dreams of the Circus anymore? Maybe it doesn't matter. The Dumbo area probably dominates everything so they had little choice than to go with it. Just an opinion. Overall I think they moved the needle and improved the area.

I agree with you on the circus thing. I live in Villa Park here in OC, and I often run errands in Orange. For some reason in the last few years I seem to be stopped in traffic in east Orange every summer by the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus Train arriving near the Anaheim Honda Center, of all things! I sit there in the traffic watching this massively long 1950's streamliner train discharge an array of animals and humans and a chain of elephants out onto city streets for the march to the Honda Center.

And I turn down the car radio and think to myself... It's the 21st century! And there's this scene out my windshield that is straight from a 1951 Norman Rockwell painting. I can't believe the circus is still going like this, and people still buy tickets to it. And even in SoCal, where there's a Bajillion other things to do with your leisure time and dollars!

Circus Train arrives in Orange/Anaheim, July 2010

It does kind of warm your heart that this sort of thing still exists. But I do have to wonder how strongly it resonates today with the average 8 year old who was born in 2003 and has likely never known a world without high-speed internet and Wii and social media and smart phones. And yet those young boys in the photo seem pretty impressed with the spectacle of the arriving circus train.

Is the circus really a meaningful enough theme to dedicate such a big chunk of the Magic Kingdom's real estate to in the 21st century? That decision has me scratching my head. But as you say, perhaps WDI didn't have much choice once the Operations folks asked to double the capacity of Dumbo. Or maybe we're just over-analyzing it all as adults? :lol:

.

 

[jt04]

It's so hard to judge these things and i'm tempted not to even weigh in.

Having said that, (I will anyway) it seems like a good idea to consolidate the "meet and greets" as before it seemed very repetitive. You do lose the "neighborhood" that was kinda cool. The area and attraction mix comes off as more balanced at first glance. But where is the "Wow"? I worry that the extended Castle Wall treatment needs overhead gates or something to tie it all together as in the art it looks like something isolated that will get cut in a budget go round. Hope not because it's cool. Adding more rides like the Dwarf Mine is always a good idea, and if it is some tween thrill ride that would add a bit of variety to the mix that would be great. I know Dumbo is getting "supersized" (kills the charm), but why so much of a "Circus" theme beyond Dumbo? I think Clowns and Circus are so creepy and kind of lame. What kid dreams of the Circus anymore? Maybe it doesn't matter. The Dumbo area probably dominates everything so they had little choice than to go with it. Just an opinion. Overall I think they moved the needle and improved the area.

The only thing I can say is that it would be nice to see something in Fantasyland that is not at all predictable and would blow me away. Harry Potter (could have been a Fantasyland property) makes people think they can fly, why not juice up Peter Pan? Let's "supersize" "the wow" and focus on the potential of "fantasy". In a way, it's too bad that this land assumes that it is targeted young and limits itself to black light. Mermaid will advance that for sure but I want a "gamechanger". I think limiting the scope is a mistake. If anyone wants to believe... it's adults and kids. TDL Pooh proves that.

BTW- My Avatar is epic movie director John Ford.

Thanks for responding. Couldn't agree more! I do think (or maybe just hope) that the interior of the mine train itself will be 'old school' Imagineering. I have a good feeling about that part of the expansion.

But you make a great case that FL still needs a 'wow' factor. 20K used to provide that. I hope they will reconsider the north side of the Circus and perhaps make that area available for future growth. In this instance I think it would actually be a good idea to make the Circus elements in that area truly temporary to make future growth possible.

John Ford? Excellent.

 

[ChrisFL]

I think Clowns and Circus are so creepy and kind of lame.

I agree, but I'll wait until I see the final result.

I also think that a circus atmosphere is more along the lines of the amusement parks that walt was trying to get away from when he opened DL.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

More on Tiki Room

Similarly, the same thing is needed in the foreign parks where the dialogue is in another language. I encountered this on my first visit to Tokyo Disneyland, and although my Japanese has improved a bit since my first Japan trip, I still experience it today.

Rides like the Sinbad Voyage at DisneySea are all in Japanese, but I enjoy the ride and get the basic plotline because the visuals are so strong and obvious. On the flip side, there are some shows like the Country Bear Jamboree or Tiki Room where the spoken dialogue is all in Japanese but the songs are a mix of English and Japanese, and I'm on the floor dying laughing because it's just so ridiculous. And God bless those Tokyo hostesses who do their introductory spiel in phoenetic English when they see me and my American friends/family walk into the queue!

I absolutely LOVED that Tiki Room show they had in Tokyo up until about five years ago, where it was sort of a Vegas lounge act and they had a female bird named Lava who was a real vamp. Even with all those birds bantering and singing in Japanese, you easily got that she was a total diva and owned that room. That Vegas lounge act (I can't remember the show's exact title) was a fresh, fun way to update the '63 Tiki Room show without turning it into the "New Management" junk that was like a bad 1990's wedding reception.

Only in Japan. Sigh. Where's the number to the Japan Air Lines travel desk?...

The TDL Tiki remodel was called "Catch the Fever" because Lava sings the song "Fever", turns up the heat, and arouses the Tikis from their slumber. A bit risque but the best thing in the show. The original Tiki Room is a personal favorite as it is so unique and a true "WOW" of it's day. I still marvel at it's simplicity and how with no curtains or literal stage it finds a way to surprise us more and more as everything comes to life. It's a progression and structure of scenes you don't want to mess with. The music and use of bird calls is fantastic too. The script is very dated and to rely on that is not a good thing. It's best when it's singing. In TDL, no one was going to see it anymore and they were planning to put in the WDW version on my watch. We narrowly escaped that fate by underbidding the WDW "New management" version and promising to do a better show for less money. Looking back, there are things about our show that make me cringe, but OLC said the show worked very well and was reviewed positively by most guests. We redressed the major character birds, upgraded the lighting and audio, and redid the soundtrack so that was about it. The OLC folks were happy with it and to them it was actually funny, as you point out.

The goal with that show was to leave the room intact and not go too far as to ruin what works about it, which is the magic of revealing all of it's layers in that wonderful sequence of events. The introduction of a female lead or torch singer was a reaction to having 4 guys that other than being dated stereotypes do not offer much and this needed to feel fundamentally fresh. We looked at adding character birds from the films but they stylistically and tonally fought the Macaws and the other more realistic fowl. In that context they look cartoony and plushlike, so we looked inward at how to create new personalities from the birds we had. I realized that making a Macaw into a lusty Mae West type would not be that hard to do. It's minimal redressing and mostly the voice. The "Queen of the Showgirls" on the Birdmobile made sense. She was the Star. With the 3 guys, you had a bit of a "Rat Pack" and Lava the hottie set them off. A bit of a dynamic there like "Teddi Berra" and the boys. The "birds from Vegas" theme made it "tongue and cheek "glitzy and something Japanese relate to. We knew that the show would not last forever (and it didn't) and left it in a condition so that it could go back to the original if need be without too much investment. I agree that the mix of English and Japanese is strange, but I don't speak it and they wrote that stuff in Japan and tell me they think it's funny. One of the host birds was a big Japanese Vocalist they like, but I was not familiar with. You kind of have to just go with it.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Is the circus really a meaningful enough theme to dedicate such a big chunk of the Magic Kingdom's real estate to in the 21st century? That decision has me scratching my head. But as you say, perhaps WDI didn't have much choice once the Operations folks asked to double the capacity of Dumbo. Or maybe we're just over-analyzing it all as adults? :lol:
.

We took our kids to the Ringling Bros. Circus a few years ago and between the Animal rights issues, Cirque De Soleil, and the desire to be hip and cool, the whole show was trying to please too many masters. It diluted itself away from whatever made it good in the first place. My wife was expecting lots of exotic animals and the traditional kind of thing. Forget it. Motorcycles in the ball of death, parade floats and dancers. There are still remnants of the old Circus, but it's so slick now. I love the image you posted. Very cool. The Circus was something my grandmother thought was special, an exotic escape in the middle of the great depression. Clowns need better PR. They need an image makeover. Walt Disney was the biggest Circus fan out there and the clown Emmett Kelley was his hero. There are even Imagineers that have been to clown college. I guess it's part of the Disney tradition as well!

 

[imagineer boy]

I think Cirque Du Soleil has done a good job of giving clowns an image makeover. A lot of their clowns are actually very funny, they don't wear freaky make-up (although most of their non-clown characters have freaky make-up) or garish clothing, and they're itegrated into the overall themes of the shows.

I especially love Les Cons (the four white clowns) in La Nouba. Half clowns, half mimes, half dancers, and they're so friggin cool!

 

[T-1MILLION]

In my opinion (if that counts for anything) is Disney and theme parks of high quality in general have that oppertunity to take something mundane wants you discover it and maybe that has its ugly side (carnie types and the questionable treatment of animals in some circus companies) and give it the fantasy flare and treatment you always have it as in your mind.
Such as Frontierland for example. The Wild West was never anything really as depicted and experienced there but you get the magical feeling you want it to have been like. To be honest, this is the same reason I liked 'new' Tomorrowland make over of the 90s. Instead of being the future we can't keep up with or surely predict, we can take the sci fi route of that future we always want the future to be no matter what time we have lived in.
I am not sure how things alway work and I can't say that the Circus theme wins over much other possiblities in my personal opinion but I say if it is executed well its executed well.

 

[DisneyNut2007]

I absolutely LOVED that Tiki Room show they had in Tokyo up until about five years ago, where it was sort of a Vegas lounge act and they had a female bird named Lava who was a real vamp. Even with all those birds bantering and singing in Japanese, you easily got that she was a total diva and owned that room. That Vegas lounge act (I can't remember the show's exact title) was a fresh, fun way to update the '63 Tiki Room show without turning it into the "New Management" junk that was like a bad 1990's wedding reception.

Oh, TDLFAN, you contaminate enough forums already with your overly-negative, overly-hateful attitude!

Leave "Under New Management" alone already, especially since you're dead wrong in your opinions about it and still are long overdue in admitting to being wrong!

 

[TP2000]

The TDL Tiki remodel was called "Catch the Fever" because Lava sings the song "Fever", turns up the heat, and arouses the Tikis from their slumber. A bit risque but the best thing in the show...

Oh, my goodness. It sounds like you are explaining to us that you actually worked on that Catch The Fever remake of the Tiki Room for Tokyo?! If that's the case, and at the risk of becoming a gushing fan, I have to tell you how much my friends and I loved that show! On our first trip to Tokyo we actually saw it twice. The first time we were mezmerized by how wonderfully it updated the Tiki Room concept, and the second time we went back to just enjoy the vampiness of Lava and the kitschy Rat Pack vibe the whole show had without reverting to some contemporary pop shtick. On subsequent trips in this last decade I always made a point of going to the Tiki Room to see Lava and the boys again. So, thank you very much for that. I missed 80% of the Japanese dialogue, but that show was a real favorite!

And now it makes so much more sense why I liked it so much, as someone who really enjoys Disneyland's current 1963 show. The layering of the theater's unique effects and cast, but with new songs and characters, is what made the Fever show feel like a respectful remake of the '63 original, instead of the tacky New Management show where that 1980's-90's predictable WDI plot twist happens where Something Goes Horribly Wrong! and Iago busts in and hijacks the entire concept and sends it into a downward spiral.

I never would have thought it out like that as I don't have a creative bone in my body. But now that you explain it that way, it makes so much sense why it felt fresh and fun (and a tad racy) yet still respectful and very gracious in its presentation.

Let's hope future attraction remakes in the 21st century can finally put to bed that 1990's trend of "updating" something by being cynical and/or making fun of the previous version. Catch The Fever was a great way to update an aging attraction, and yet not make it mean-spirited or disrespectful of the past. Thank you again for that. And how nice to know that you were involved in that project. I can't tell you enough how much it surprised and delighted me and my friends, especially that first visit we discovered it. :wave:

 

[KevinYee]

Switching gears a bit, I wanted to ask you (Eddie) what you think of Masdar, the Abu Dhabi future city that will be carbon-netural (and hopefully waste-neutral too).

It strikes me that this is possibly the 21st century version of Walt's Progress City. Walt was trying to fix transportation and congestion, but fixing carbon footprints necessarily involves things like podcars and planned zones, so is this just the next logical step to an experimental prototype community of tomorrow?

the wikipedia entry is probably quicker to glance at than the official site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_City

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Some Tiki stories.

Oh, my goodness. It sounds like you are explaining to us that you actually worked on that Catch The Fever remake of the Tiki Room for Tokyo?!

That was one of my last projects. At that time, I was responsible for the creative oversight of TDL (same as Eric Jacobsen would oversee WDW or Tony Baxter DL). So during that time we did Pooh, Queen of Hearts, Bon Voyage Shop among other things. There was a dedicated team for just that park. A very busy three or four years up until i quit in 1999. You work directly with the Oriental Land Company, who technically owns the park. If they insist on something that has been built elsewhere you pretty much have to give it to them or find an alternative.

Tiki had almost no budget and no one in WDI management paid attention to it, so we could try more things "below the radar". SO FUN, but also scary because you are redoing IMHO a classic that fundamentally is genius. (Don't crash the Ferrari, just drive it and hang your beads on the mirror.) We recorded the music in Branson Missouri as the session players work for less in the off season. THAT is low budget..Tony Orlando came in and sang a scratch demo with me just for fun! Our musical director brought in primitive early african instruments to do percussion for the "Summertime" number. "Hot Hot Hot" was from the WDW show and worked well for the showgirl number and saved us some cash. We had about 2/3rds of what WDW had to spend. Scott Hennesey was the lead writer and is lots of fun to work with. He will try any suggestion and worked very hard on the Japanese aspect with OLC who played a role in the translation. At the time, the whole "Ultra Lounge" Martini trend was in full swing in LA and we had recently finished "Encounter", this Jetson-esque Restaurant at LAX. I was personally deep into all things "lounge" at the time.

On one of the CD's in the "Ultra Lounge" collection was Peggy Lee's "Fever", and one day it struck me that it could be the heart of the show and that the Tikis could be a funny chorus to respond to Lava. The whole show was built around that one number. If you use the War Chant, its something that has to build over time, so you have to start slow and almost at a stop. So a torch song with a piano and a spotlight seemed like the right starting point. Scott may have come up with the sleeping Tiki idea. I did the snoring sounds myself, so fun when no one is watching over you!

As a teen I loved the "Golden Horseshoe Revue" and Slue Foot Sue (Betty Taylor) was a favorite character. She ruled the room as you say. In the ensemble she balanced out the tenor and comedian and heckled the men. Lava in my mind was our Slue Foot Sue. The White Birds on the Birdmobile were our equivalent to Sue's "Can Can" girls. We made them into Vegas plumed "showgirls" so you see the connection.

There is one gag in there that I'm not sure if you caught. After the show, the music of course stops and the birds turn off but some guests may still be inside. I always thought that was odd if you were still in the room. So we recorded a soundtrack that had the birds trying to hold in laughter while sitting still, and then they crack up each other up and start laughing one by one, burst out hysterically, then quickly silence themselves. Again, it's fun to be free! There were a few things that didn't work for me, but overall it was fun to have a shot at working on that sacred show.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Switching gears a bit, I wanted to ask you (Eddie) what you think of Masdar, the Abu Dhabi future city that will be carbon-netural (and hopefully waste-neutral too).

It strikes me that this is possibly the 21st century version of Walt's Progress City. Walt was trying to fix transportation and congestion, but fixing carbon footprints necessarily involves things like podcars and planned zones, so is this just the next logical step to an experimental prototype community of tomorrow?

the wikipedia entry is probably quicker to glance at than the official site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_City

Great topic and thanks for finding this. Spent some time on their site and tried to imagine some form of Masdar on the WDW property. I agree with the parallels you are drawing in that they have embraced the programming priorities of today in this package. It is a "Progress City" of now. They seem to cover everything but magic, the human why. The question I kept asking myself as I looked at the renderings is, would I want to go there and how would I feel inside it? Some of the plazas looked nice and some of the design was kinda interesting too. But I didn't see the "when does it open?" "I can't wait" image. To be fair, it's not an Entertainment City, but other cities have their Eiffel Towers, Space Needles and Hollywood signs. Too soon to tell, but I have seen other projects that have a bigger sense of "wow" to them. I know that is not their goal here, but "wow" is a necessary component IMHO. It seems like Health food to me.

But isn't that the question here? What is the real program of WDW's "Progress City" and how much gloss should it have? Is it really a model of future living, a marketing vehicle, or "knee jerk" snapshot of a cultural trend? Will these "statements" in concrete be Brazilias? Who will go and live the prescription? All interesting questions. Thank you for putting this out there.

To me, the environment has become a powerful industry and it's getting harder to tell those who are truly gone "green" from those going "greenback". There is a certain naive aspect to this as well as we want to make a difference, even if the stuff we recycle like a computer has been in dumped in another countries river. When electric cars get their power from coal burning plants and your bill will be 60% higher, then something has not been figured out just yet. On the brighter side, I hope places like Masdar and it's mega investment and scale will help us understand on a system wide basis, the true tradeoffs and make better long term decisions that really benefit us. Paper or plastic sir?

 

[imagineer boy]

I've seen pictures of the Queen of Hearts resteraunt and the Bon Voyage gift shop and they look amazing. That must've been a heck of a lot of fun working on those.

And of course we all know about TDL's Pooh. Working on that must've been beyond amazing.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I've seen pictures of the Queen of Hearts resteraunt and the Bon Voyage gift shop and they look amazing. That must've been a heck of a lot of fun working on those.

And of course we all know about TDL's Pooh. Working on that must've been beyond amazing.

IT WAS VERY FUN AT TIMES..Here's an interview done years ago about all the TDL projects including the Tiki Room.
http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID110050.asp

We had a very talented team of Imagineers working on those jobs. What you don't see is that in the midst the things being built, there was lots of great master planning going on for the park. We had the freedom and budget to be developing ideas almost nonstop. I think we got alot accomplished in a very short time over there. The one they do have in TDL is the budget to get things built right and then they maintain your show like it was opening day. I'd rather have a great show in Japan than a broken one with the effects turned off in the USA. Had TDS not become a fiscal priority for OLC, we may have gotten even more projects approved. Sci-Fi City was very close to the green light. We got Pooh instead so I'm not complaining. Working in Japan can be politically tedious and mostly protocol and "process" till they say "go". Nonetheless, I had lots of great people to lean on with TDL experience to guide me through the cultural obstacle course. Without them there would be no projects. You become like a family over there. The ops folks are your allies. Designers like Chris Merritt and Christopher Smith cut their teeth on those projects too. It was a fun time period for me and probably the highlight of my time at WDI.