The one thing I can say about the facades, in a strictly Devil's Advocate way, is that they were probably hard to maintain in Fla's weather, AND with each passing year, WDW is filled with new generations of kids that don't have the slightest clue what The Golden Girls is, not to mention Empty Nest and even Home Improvement isn't as prevalent on the pop culture landscape.
WAIT!!!
Before people start writing with comments like "my 6 year old LOVES Golden Girls" or "Home Improvement is on 5 times a day in my neck of the woods," I admit, it's a very BROAD generalization, and doesn't match everyone's catalog TV shows watched and enjoyed. I've argued that we're witnessing a sort of death of pop culture. There's still no lack of crap product to be consumed, but now there's SO much to consume - hundreds of channels of TV, so many movies or shows on DVD or on ripped off online, so much music, etc. - that there are frightfully few pieces of entertainment that cut through the clutter and become part of the national consciousness.
Not trying to sound all old-man-like, but when I grew up, there were three national networks, a handful of syndicated stations, a few PBS stations between VHF & UHF (cable would hit my neighborhood, I think, when I was 11 or 12). Back then, if a TV show only had 10 or 12 million viewers, it was considered a bomb, it wouldn't make it through the season. Now it's considered a hit, because there are so many other options for your eyes and ears. If my friends & I enjoyed a movie, we might see it again and again and again, but now, most movies aren't around long enough to achieve that degree of loyalty, people just wait for the DVD. None of this is a tragedy, but it means there are fewer movies/shows/entertainers everyone knows, and will be able to discuss.
In that sort of cultural climate, celebrating pop culture is kinda tricky. One of the reasons gossip shows are so popular, and probably always will be to some degree, is that it's a centralized place to know who everyone is talking about. You may never see a Lindsay Lohan movie, but you know who she is. You might not ever buy a Britney Spears CD, but you know who she is. Whatever Paris is selling, not all that many people are buying, but get her nekkid and throw nightvision on her, and she's fascinating. Gossip, American Idol, some youtube videos and maybe movie trailers, are pretty much the only things guaranteed to really get in the national consciousness.
When you consider that sort of climate, then it's no surprise that the backlot tour is a shell of what it was. At this point, it's Disney's habit of locking movies in "the vault" and rereleasing them 7 to 10 years later that helps insure they remain a big deal. I'm surprised people like Lucas & Spielberg don't make an effort to do the same thing, pulling their movies off the shelves only to rerelase them later (of course, with the level of AV quality we now possess, not to mention the ability to flawlessly, albiet illegally, reproduce) will rerelease events be a big deal anymore? How much of our pop culture past will survive and be appreciated by future generations, not as history, but as bona fide entertainment to be enjoyed and passed on? Are we, at least in some fashion, witnessing the slow inevitable death of pop culture? Or at least easily-referenced pop culture, where you can make a comment about Michael Jackson and children will understand his music used to be a big deal and he wasn't quite as creepy? Where you can talk about how great the original Saturday Night Live was without someone going "yeah man, those Roxbury guys were FUNNY!" When you can discuss music you loved growing up without kids only knowing it if it were used in a commercial? And where people give a damn if house facades from once-popular shows can still garner attention on a studio lot tour?
Can you tell I'm suffering from insomnia tonight?
