News Happy 50th Birthday to Walt Disney World!

[TP2000]

Well, if I didn't finish that Grasshopper, I at least finished watching the 1971 Grand Opening TV special.

So many thoughts...

The early 1970's were a bizarre time, and it seems like it could be centuries ago instead of only 50 years. The WDW TV special is no exception:

Smog jokes! Eight kids packed into a giant Ford LTD convertible without a single seatbelt in use! A heavy emphasis on Animatronics, because those were still novel and Space Agey! A whole bunch of B and C Tickets operating in addition to the big E Tickets! Lavish musical production numbers for no apparent reason! Newly transplanted leafless trees! Cast Members who tucked their shirts into their pants!

I sat in slack-jawed shock at the Bob Hope segment as he dedicated the Contemporary. I'd forgotten how risque he was in '71 on this special, and in this latest viewing it's even more amazing...

Bob Hope stepping off a monorail, leering at the two pretty tour guides in plaid mini-skirts assigned as his escorts, and saying lasciviously "Thank you girls, I'll see you later in Adventureland!"

Bob Hope gazing up at the cavernous Contemporary Hotel lobby and exclaiming "Now I know where the Goodyear Blimp goes during the mating season!"

And the whole time the Disney producers are hitting the laugh track button every 10 seconds and showing beehived ladies and more pretty tour guides laughing along with it all. You'd be thrown in jail for that today, or at least banned on Twitter. But not in 1971.

So, I think it's safer and more fun to stay in 1971 for this 50th Anniversary. Even though my attempt at a theme evening got bogged down in a syrupy Grasshopper, I still salvaged the evening and I still raise my glass to all the hard working Cast Members of the last 50 years who have made Walt Disney World what it was, and what it still is! Happy 50th kids!

 

[TP2000]

It's now Midnight Pacific (Burbank) Time, so it's officially WDW's 50th. Hooray!

A few other thoughts from that 1971 Grand Opening TV special...

I'd forgotten how genuinely gracious and lovely Julie Andrews is. Also how legitimately talented Glenn Campell is. You just don't see that kind of classy talent any more; it's now just autotuned tramps glamping around the stage and narcissistic YouTube stars with vocal fry Calabasas accents.

I hope the fans out at WDW have a wonderful 50th birthday weekend, and that whole kite thing gets figured out soon. Or maybe just send the kites to the "hiatus" lounge that Light Magic is still waiting in?

 

[TrojanUSC]

I find some of the pessimism on the WDW side of the forums kind of extreme. It's fine to be unhappy with how some of the new additions are being executed, but I see people claiming that WDW is being ignored or that Disney is being lazy with it while it's right in the middle of the biggest investment in that resort that I've ever seen in my lifetime. The 50th obviously got scaled back cause of Corona, possibly severely cut back, but they're clearly trying to make a real effort to celebrate it and expand the parks, even if the results are not what people here are liking.

But anyway, happy anniversary to the second greatest Disney resort in the world. I haven't been in a long, long time but am planning to go next year sometime during the 50th.

Honestly I think just because the 50th at WDW feels... hollow. The 25th Anniversary at WDW and Disneyland's 50th both had great elements which really tugged at your heartstrings and made you believe that the people running the place had a love for those destinations and that we needed to honor those places.

The WDW 50th feels like it's being put on by people in consumer products who couldn't care less about WDW and don't understand what makes it special. Nothing about either new nighttime show honors Walt Disney World. They are just montages of Disney movie music, without a collective thread that speaks to why this show is here to honor Walt Disney World on its most important anniversary. The 50 statues which is oddly become a major focal point have nothing to do with the resort and its history.

The fan reaction has been glowing for the new Contemporary lobby and the Points of Light on Spaceship Earth, both additions which feel like they were created to honor Walt Disney World's legacy and iconography.

Why is the current leadership team so hellbent on ignoring the fact that the parks CAN be their own IP and people can have their own special attachment to the parks, just like they do to the movies? The parks are not just vessels to showcase movie clips or let you "ride the movies," that was always Universal's deal.

 

[Communicora]

I'm enjoying your tribute posts and cocktail ideas @TP2000

Might I suggest a Harvey Wallbanger tonight? It seems like a particularly 70s libation from what I remember of my friend's dad's basement decor in the 80s.

My Walt Disney World memories began with The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World. You can watch the whole thing (including commercials from the era) on Disney Plus.

If you have enough Wallbangers,, you'll be dancing the Pooh Polka too!

TV specials from the 70s are spectacularly weird. I'm so glad I was born in such a bizarre time.

 

[waltography]

A brief aside, but parts of the 50th Anniversary collection dropped on shopDisney today including the hand soap I want. Perhaps a positive outcome of the pandemic is easier access to park merchandise online.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

Just returned from the World on Saturday. We had a wonderful time at all four parks and Disney Springs. But the two days at Universal opened our eyes a bit. Give them a couple of years, and they'll be taking even more days from Disney!

 

[TP2000]

Honestly I think just because the 50th at WDW feels... hollow. ...

The WDW 50th feels like it's being put on by people in consumer products who couldn't care less about WDW and don't understand what makes it special.

It probably feels that way because that's exactly what has happened. Exactly.

The fan reaction has been glowing for the new Contemporary lobby...

Don't tell me they actually got the Goodyear Blimp to show up for mating season?!

But seriously, first I've heard of that so I will have to tiptoe over to the WDW side and check things out later this weekend.

Why is the current leadership team so hellbent on ignoring the fact that the parks CAN be their own IP and people can have their own special attachment to the parks, just like they do to the movies?

Because the current leadership team doesn't actually like theme parks. They had tenuous attachments to them as kids in the 20th century, and now are never seen in them as adults outside of staged media events. And when the current execs do enter a park or send their families there for free, they get valet parking and special handling and unlimited Fastpasses (or whatever they are now) and reserved folding chairs for parades in order to remove themselves from the actual paying customer experience as much as possible.

Any leader who actively and routinely tries to avoid their own product's real customer experience is not only a bum, but also someone who will not make good long-term decisions for that product.

But that's exactly what Disney theme parks have had for years now. Thus you get... WDW's 50th.

 

[TP2000]

I'm enjoying your tribute posts and cocktail ideas @TP2000

Thank you. It got going as an impromptu theme evening, and then was hard to stop.

Might I suggest a Harvey Wallbanger tonight? It seems like a particularly 70s libation from what I remember of my friend's dad's basement decor in the 80s.

I remember those! I think one theme cocktail was enough for now. I still have green colored Creme de Menthe coating my insides today.

My Walt Disney World memories began with The Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World. You can watch the whole thing (including commercials from the era) on Disney Plus.

If you have enough Wallbangers,, you'll be dancing the Pooh Polka too!

TV specials from the 70s are spectacularly weird. I'm so glad I was born in such a bizarre time.

They were odd. And yet it's striking how genuinely and highly talented everyone was who appeared in them.

The WDW show was no exception.... Glenn Campbell and his guitar on the Frontierland dock, without an autotune machine in sight, and he takes the show soaring to new heights. Julie Andrews prancing down Main Street with a troupe of dancers, and it looks like a million bucks.

What I want to know is... are those really Jonathan Winters eight kids and his real wife crammed into that big Ford LTD at Fort Wilderness???

 

[TP2000]

Earlier tonight for dinner I crashed at my favorite sushi place on Banker's Hill. The proprietress knows me as the guy who tipped heavily when they operated illegally during Covid, so I got a choice banquette by ordering nothing more than a Sapporo, even though the rest of my party wasn't there yet. (A hospitality concept of seating a partial party strictly forbidden at Disneyland steakhouses and swanky restaurants because their propaganda says they offer "World Class Guest Serivce" and that means poorly trained CM's obeying the App and ignoring the customer standing in front of you.)

Anyway, I brought up the subject of WDW's 50th with my dining partners because they are well traveled and fun people who enjoy some Disneyland. But I just got blank stares and blinking faces back at me. Like I said, WDW's 50th is not getting any play here west of the Rockies.

But when I got home from a fun dinner, I watched more of those videos from RetroWDW that @brb1006 encouraged us to watch. Again trying to steer clear of the Vocal Fry 2020's Instagram Tramps that WDW invariably featured on their 50th TV show, I stuck to the Nixon Era. There really are some fabulous videos on that website and YouTube channel to watch!

And I was reminded how little of Walt's circa 1966 plans actually showed up in Orlando by 1971. Like this Florida Project Update filmed with Walt in October, 1966 about 60 days before he died in early December, 1966. He featured the "Florida Project" and "the Disney World" (Walt's words) by showing how much land there was. But Walt had plans for that land that never actually showed up, even though he showed a massive wall-mounted map in Glendale of the entire property...

He starts at the bottom of the map, where he proudly describes his "Airport of the future!" for Osceola County, roughly where the cubicle farms and chain restaurants of Celebration are today...

Next up Walt directs his pointer to the "Entrance complex where all visitors will enter Disney World", in what is now the 192/World Drive/ESPN Cheerleader Camp interchange amongst swamps...

Then, rather oddly, Walt points to the next node of development, what he calls "an industrial park area of about 1,000 acres".... as if that would be something to Tweet about in the 2020's? But back in the 1960's, hard working American industry was actually something worth celebrating and cultivating, before we exported it all to Communist China.

Then he skips right over that massive Epcot thing, and goes up to "the theme park area waaaaay up here" and then points to a weird glob of stuff that looks nothing like what showed up by 1971.

It's that "waaaaay up here" area that is most fascinating. What is it? It's an exact cut-and-paste copy of Disneyland circa 1966. Right down to the brand new New Orleans Square and It's A Small World, the under construction Haunted Mansion, plus the 7 year old Matterhorn and even the circa 1966 Flying Saucers instead of the New Tomorrowland of 1967. StorybookLand, Nature's Wonderland, the Grand Canyon Diorama, it's all there as if Anaheim was transported to central Florida.

I'm honestly surprised the WED cut-and-pasters had the foresight to at least remove the Santa Ana Freeway and the Global Van Lines building north of the park.

Once you exit that cut-and-paste Disneyland, you don't find the Seven Seas Lagoon. You find some Wedway stations, plus a "Roller Dome" and an "Ice Rink".

Because God knows, after you've spent a long day walking eight miles around a Disneyland, what you really want to do late at night immediately upon exiting the park is roller skate.

In short, whatever Walt may have been planning for his Florida property in the weeks before his death certainly wasn't what showed up there five years later in 1971. And whatever they had to work with in 1971 certainly isn't what they've created 50 years later in 2021. Kites and cupcakes and Tweets and whatever else they think they should celebrate with.

And yet, still I say, happy 50th Walt Disney World! (Where do I rent my roller skates for this? I'm a size 11 and a half..... Hello?)

 

[Communicora]

Because the current leadership team doesn't actually like theme parks. They had tenuous attachments to them as kids in the 20th century, and now are never seen in them as adults outside of staged media events. And when the current execs do enter a park or send their families there for free, they get valet parking and special handling and unlimited Fastpasses (or whatever they are now) and reserved folding chairs for parades in order to remove themselves from the actual paying customer experience as much as possible.

Any leader who actively and routinely tries to avoid their own product's real customer experience is not only a bum, but also someone who will not make good long-term decisions for that product.

But that's exactly what Disney theme parks have had for years now. Thus you get... WDW's 50th.

This is why it surprised me when Chapek said his family visited WDW every year. I never would have guessed that. It doesn't show in how he talks about the parks.

You can hear him say this in the rededication they held in front of invited media rather than the plebes who actually pay to visit the parks.

 

[Communicora]

To be fair, even Walt's famous speech was only for the media.

Fair enough. I still do think it is a shame they didn't do the rededication on the day of the anniversary in front of the paying guests. On the other hand, I have absolute no FOMO of not being there yesterday.

 

[TP2000]

Fair enough. I still do think it is a shame they didn't do the rededication on the day of the anniversary in front of the paying guests. On the other hand, I have absolute no FOMO of not being there yesterday.

The whole 50th thing snuck up on me, and I have no problem missing it from what I'm seeing/hearing about. And now I have other post-Covid travel plans for 2021-22 that bump a 50th visit way down the list.

Although... I would love to fly out for a day or two just to see that KiteTails thing. I'm getting a huge kick out of all the Twitvids and hilarious stuff people are posting about it. It makes Light Magic look wildly succesful in comparison.

So many of these mistakes had already been made by Disneyland entertainment in past decades. (Balloons, jetskis, stadiums with no shade, etc.) So either there is no more institutional memory left or they really don't have a phone line between Anaheim and Orlando. Probably both. But I'm tempted to go see this show quick before it joins Light Magic in the Hiatus Lounge....

 

[TP2000]

Okay gang, this KiteTails thing now haunts me. I've got an evening sociable to go to soon, so I don't have a cocktail in my hand (yet), but I highly suggest you pour yourself a beverage and watch this 9 Minute Wonder on the YouTube.

It's got it all! Peppy CM's trying their darndest as they wave around animals on sticks. A bouncy Non-Inclusive soundtrack using the same music that Burbank told us last month was no longer acceptable. Plus giant balloon versions of those Non-Inclusive characters that Burbank told us last month were no longer acceptable. And it's only 9 minutes. How can it harm you?

But the stagecraft is what really makes this show... unique. Put this show on full screen, then wait for the 4:00 minute mark where the Bear Neccesities segment ends by crashing Baloo into an unused section of bleachers. Then a rapid-response team of CM's runs over to Baloo and starts... killing him!, um... sacrificing him?, no.... deflating him. Right there in the bleachers, in front of the children.

While the rest of the show continues on by doing absolutely nothing on the lagoon. Pay no attention to the large blue bear being dismembered by CM's to your right. He's fine. A beloved Disney Character. Really, he's fine. Look at your WDW App instead, we beg you.

The inflatable carnage continues in the bleachers for a few minutes, until all evidence of the crime is removed by the rapid-response CM's. Then they bring out the next Non-Inclusive character, King Louie! Don't tell HR please, or we'll all get in trouble.

Here's King Louie trailing behind a jetski, and some Non-Inclusive monkeys being waved on sticks. At right I've also circled the gaggle of rapid-response CM's high fiving each other over Baloo's bleacher demise and plotting their next kill.

The HR Committee in Burbank might be happy to learn that the Problematic Orangutang meets his own watery end soon. The show concludes by a guy on a jetski causing King Louie to purposely faceplant into the water. The jetski zips offstage, and the Problematic Orangutang is left to float around on his back.

Big jazzy Non-Inclusive finish! Thank you for joining us for Disney KiteTails!

Honestly though, the park mission statement of Animal Kingdom has always been about the Circle of Life. We all may soar in our own way, but eventually our time on the planet comes to an end and we either crash into the bleachers or faceplant into the lagoon. Ultimately, we are all deflated.

Disney KiteTails really has a beautiful message if you think about it like that. Watch this show quick before it floats away forever!

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Okay gang, this KiteTails thing now haunts me. I've got an evening sociable to go to soon, so I don't have a cocktail in my hand (yet), but I highly suggest you pour yourself a beverage and watch this 9 Minute Wonder on the YouTube.

It's got it all! Peppy CM's trying their darndest as they wave around animals on sticks. A bouncy Non-Inclusive soundtrack using the same music that Burbank told us last month was no longer acceptable. Plus giant balloon versions of those Non-Inclusive characters that Burbank told us last month were no longer acceptable. And it's only 9 minutes. How can it harm you?

But the stagecraft is what really makes this show... unique. Put this show on full screen, then wait for the 4:00 minute mark where the Bear Neccesities segment ends by crashing Baloo into an unused section of bleachers. Then a rapid-response team of CM's runs over to Baloo and starts... killing him!, um... sacrificing him?, no.... deflating him. Right there in the bleachers, in front of the children.

View attachment 590667


While the rest of the show continues on by doing absolutely nothing on the lagoon. Pay no attention to the large blue bear being dismembered by CM's to your right. He's fine. A beloved Disney Character. Really, he's fine. Look at your WDW App instead, we beg you.

View attachment 590669

The inflatable carnage continues in the bleachers for a few minutes, until all evidence of the crime is removed by the rapid-response CM's. Then they bring out the next Non-Inclusive character, King Louie! Don't tell HR please, or we'll all get in trouble.

Here's King Louie trailing behind a jetski, and some Non-Inclusive monkeys being waved on sticks. At right I've also circled the gaggle of rapid-response CM's high fiving each other over Baloo's bleacher demise and plotting their next kill.

View attachment 590672

The HR Committee in Burbank might be happy to learn that the Problematic Orangutang meets his own watery end soon. The show concludes by a guy on a jetski causing King Louie to purposely faceplant into the water. The jetski zips offstage, and the Problematic Orangutang is left to float around on his back.

Big jazzy Non-Inclusive finish! Thank you for joining us for Disney KiteTails!

View attachment 590673

Honestly though, the park mission statement of Animal Kingdom has always been about the Circle of Life. We all may soar in our own way, but eventually our time on the planet comes to an end and we either crash into the bleachers or faceplant into the lagoon. Ultimately, we are all deflated.

Disney KiteTails really has a beautiful message if you think about it like that. Watch this show quick before it floats away forever!

They had to cancel some shows today since Baloo got stuck in a tree. How long can Disney justify keeping a show where every two out of three days they have to cancel at least half a show if not multiple shows because of some random accident?

They really should've spent the money that they used developing this show on a ride at the Magic Kingdom that could use some plussing like Peter Pan's Flight, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, etc.

 

[Californian Elitist]

I finally watched footage of Kite Tails and I’ve been in tears from cackling so much, not only because of the crashes, but also because the show is so disastrously awful in general.

Disney, this is truly pathetic of you. But I’m SCREAMING.

 

[GoneForGood]

I finally watched footage of Kite Tails and I’ve been in tears from cackling so much, not only because of the crashes, but also because the show is so disastrously awful in general.

Disney, this is truly pathetic of you. But I’m SCREAMING.

It is truly the highlight of the "celebration", along with the Emporium Brawls!

 

[Californian Elitist]

It is truly the highlight of the "celebration", along with the Emporium Brawls!

There have been fights?? If so, please kindly post them lol.

 

[GoneForGood]

There have been fights?? If so, please kindly post them lol.

It was over the Starbucks tumblers, they were apparently trampling over people and everything- absolute chaos.
The video if the fight itself is magically nowhere to be found. - but there is this one that gives an idea of the madness...



You can't make this stuff up.

 

[Californian Elitist]

It was over the Starbucks tumblers, they were apparently trampling over people and everything- absolute chaos.
The video if the fight itself is magically nowhere to be found. - but there is this one that gives an idea of the madness...



You can't make this stuff up.

Thanks for posting. I will not be on a quest to find more footage.

 

[BuzzedPotatoHead89]

They really should've spent the money that they used developing this show on a ride at the Magic Kingdom that could use some plussing like Peter Pan's Flight, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, etc.

As much as I’d like to agree with you, considering how modern WDI “pluses” things I think this show is far more enjoyable.

For example: I don’t need to see the Big Thunder goat with a head of Broccoli in its mouth to remind children of the benefits of eating nutritional foods and to avoid the dangers of playing with fireworks. Kitetails is harmless, humorous fun!