Mickey Avenue at DHS (open brainstorming)

[mharrington]

I'm doing this thread over again: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/my-own-take-on-mickey-avenue-at-dhs.859422/. I've been trying to do this by myself with help from others, but it just seems like I was pretty much on my own. Much of the responses I got on the older thread seemed to indicate I had already planned everything out, which I hadn't. And I'm really stuck. So I'm doing it over again, this time as an open brainstorming thing.

There's just a few conditions, however. First, I don't want this to just be another Toontown. As far as I'm concerned, balloon-y, free-flowing architecture doesn't belong in an "anything goes" park like the Studios. To me, Mickey's house, for example, as existing in Disneyland, does not fit the Studios. Second, I don't want this land to be studio-y. As far as I'm concerned, anything regarding a Toon Studio would work against the park's move to drift away from an actual working studio. Setting up a studio theme for an area like this, to my way of thinking, just seems to remind of the park's past and is a cop-out to boot, like with Star Tours in Florida (which, of course, is located in the Studios).

Instead, we should try to make Mickey Avenue look more like Mickey's Birthdayland/Starland from an architecture perspective. Obviously, however, it will not be so low-rent. When Birthdayland/Starland became Toontown Fair, it was in 1996, three years after Toontown in Disneyland opened. So I feel that the Disney feel here can work again in Mickey Avenue, a section at the Studios to be expanded greatly and improved on.

As for location, it will go in this vicinity somewhat:

Okay, so now that we got the formalities and guidelines out of the way, let's discuss!

 

[mharrington]

Where is everybody?!?

 

[lego606]

Build a giant show building back there, with the ? buildings as queue.

 

[mharrington]

Build a giant show building back there, with the ? buildings as queue.

This is not just going to be one big attraction. There's going to be at least two attractions there. Two things I would like to include here are a gas station and a hotel. The reason I have those here is because of some articles of both on Yesterland. Here's the article for gas stations: http://yesterland.com/gasstations.html. And here's the article for hotels: http://yesterland.com/hotels.html.

As far as the hotel is concerned, that's actually going to be where Mickey and the gang will do meet-n-greets. They will be in separate rooms, like in a hotel. I have two questions, though. First, I want to make the hotel look tall without actually being tall (I don't want it to compete with the Tower of Terror), so how can I do that? Second, based on that, how can the elevator be done? I don't think I would like the guests actually go up or down different floors to get to the characters. I was told that the only way to make the hotel appear tall without actually being tall (like I said, I don't think the Tower of Terror would like the competition) was to use forced perspective. As for an elevator (because a hotel should have an elevator), the only alternative would be to do what they did with the Haunted Mansion's stretching room of the Living Seas' former hydrolators, and have the elevators not actually travel anywhere and deposit guests on the same floor they started in. I didn't even think of these ideas myself. I was told these ideas by others.

The thing is, I'm really confused as to what can be done. I'm used to doing things in the castle parks and Epcot. Anything else is confusing for me, especially when you consider what a mess the Studios currently is.

 

[lego606]

I don't think we should necessarily shove a lazy-theming gas station in there. the m&g idea is cool, but the fan reaction to yet another M&G would be... well... not positive.

 

[mharrington]

I don't think we should necessarily shove a lazy-theming gas station in there. the m&g idea is cool, but the fan reaction to yet another M&G would be... well... not positive.

Well, as far as the meet-n-greet is concerned, I wanted something on the same level as Town Square Theater and Pete's Silly Sideshow at the Magic Kingdom. I want someplace in the Studios where the guests can find the characters reliably. This section of the park is called Mickey Avenue, after all. What good would it be if you can't find Mickey and the gang here?

 

[lego606]

In that case, I like the hydrolator idea. Though perhaps it could be "studio offices" with some kind of movie-related Fab 5? Like Director Mickey, Actor Donald, etc?

 

[mharrington]

In that case, I like the hydrolator idea. Though perhaps it could be "studio offices" with some kind of movie-related Fab 5? Like Director Mickey, Actor Donald, etc?

No, I already said I don't want anything movie studio-related. The land is called Mickey Avenue, not Toon Studios. I already mentioned in the first post of the thread, and I quote:

I don't want this land to be studio-y. As far as I'm concerned, anything regarding a Toon Studio would work against the park's move to drift away from an actual working studio. Setting up a studio theme for an area like this, to my way of thinking, just seems to remind of the park's past and is a cop-out to boot, like with Star Tours in Florida (which, of course, is located in the Studios).

Anyway, one reason why I thought of the hotel was because, when I was trying to figure out where Mickey and the gang would "stay" at WDW (I know they "live" at Disneyland), someone jokingly suggested that they would stay in a hotel like regular guests. And then that's pretty much where the hotel idea came from. Anything with a movie studio theme just seems to beg for big generic soundstages. And the Studios already has too many of those.

 

[lego606]

Then the question is, with this expansion to the "hotel" type thing, should we also be renaming the park in general?

 

[mharrington]

Then the question is, with this expansion to the "hotel" type thing, should we also be renaming the park in general?

What's the renaming of the park got to do with this?

 

[lego606]

What's the renaming of the park got to do with this?

If we're totally pulling away from the studio idea, then the Studios name doesn't make sense anymore.

 

[mharrington]

If we're totally pulling away from the studio idea, then the Studios name doesn't make sense anymore.

Which is why I even thought of a new name for the park, something like Disney Hollywood Adventure. Note the lack of an apostrophe-S.

But if you want to get technical, nothing that has been added to the park as of late has the Studios name make sense anymore. Case in point: Pixar Place. For that matter, how does the Tower of Terror pertain to the Studios name? Also, read this article here, http://progresscityusa.com/2010/02/03/talkin-bout-studios/, particularly this section here:

The Disney-MGM Studios park was built in an extremely short time on a small budget, to beat Universal to the punch, and I see these “soundstage” elements as an easy cop-out to save some money. I have no problem with the idea of a “live set” on the New York Street or what used to be the backlot; when there was the pretense of actual filming it was fun to see how perspective worked with the city backgrounds or the residential street false-fronts. But it doesn’t work, for me, with the “theme park” side of things. Setting Star Tours on a soundstage, for instance, is an enormous cop-out. I thought so the first time I went as a kid – I didn’t know what they were going for, with C-3PO’s coffee break area and bulletin board off to the side. Are we going to Endor, or are we watching people make a movie about people going to Endor? Introducing the “working set” idea creates a whole extra layer of stuff to get between the guest and the experience. Cramming all these big-box attraction buildings in back to back makes it look like Universal, and robs the properties of the rich areas they deserve. Indy deserves an area of its own. Star Wars deserves an area of its own. Not a set, or a big warehouse building, but a fully-themed area.
Now other areas can play by other rules. The Muppets, which you mention, are essentially running their own “studio” so that type of theming makes sense. It also makes sense within the confines of their humor, which is very meta and self-referential. I’ve no problem with that – but I do think that Muppets deserve to have their area all to themselves, and another attraction to boot!
The point of my rant is that I don’t think Disney has done well in the post-”working studio” era of combining those old facilities with the existing theme park. I love movies, and the process of making movies, so these are all concepts that should appeal to me, but they’re so haphazard and poorly defined in the park now, it’s hard to see where they’ve committed to any single idea. The idea of not knowing what’s around the next corner is appealing in a way, but not when what’s around the corner is the Lights, Motors, Action marquee and state fair grandstand or the weird old Hunchback theater building.

Within this context, if Mickey Avenue were themed to a film studio, as you suggested it should be, similar to the Star Tours comment in the bolded section, would you be riding, say, the Silly Symphony Swings (not that it's actually going to be added; it's just an example), or would you be watching a movie being made of you riding the Silly Symphony Swings?

 

[mharrington]

One thing I would like to do is to include a Goofy-themed dark ride, like the one I thought of long ago and just recently brought up again: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/a-goofy-themed-dark-ride-with-no-place-for-it-to-go.856525/. But again, I have no idea what could be done.

 

[mharrington]

The main reason I came up with Mickey Avenue is a sort of "revenge" for using Mickey Mouse-themed areas (i.e., Toontown Fair, Camp Minnie-Mickey) as only temporary. I want Mickey Avenue to be permanent and done on a bigger scale, like with Cars Land, which, according to an article on Progress City, U.S.A. (http://progresscityusa.com/2011/12/18/the-carsland-conundrum/), "due to its scope, expense, and 'pet project' status for grand poobah John Lasseter, will never be removed." And for the architecture, I want something like Mickey's Birthdayland/Starland, but less temporary-looking. Here's an overhead shot of it:

Notice those facades that really are just almost flats, particularly along all those tents? And to give you an idea of what the structures for Mickey Avenue should look like, here's another shot:

But I have no idea how to do this section in something not so low-rent and be able to fit the Studios. Has anyone got any ideas for to do this?

 

[OSUBMac555]

I think that area of DHS could use a dark ride...heck the whole park could.

I've had this idea for a while but put in an omnimover ride based on Disney animated movies. Kind of like the great movie ride but you could take an interesting spin on it and have it also see how the movies took shape. The scenes could start off black and white, use the new projection tech to create a sketching effect and then add color. I think that ride would be a huge hit and would pull some crowds towards that section of the park.

 

[mharrington]

I think that area of DHS could use a dark ride...heck the whole park could.

I've had this idea for a while but put in an omnimover ride based on Disney animated movies. Kind of like the great movie ride but you could take an interesting spin on it and have it also see how the movies took shape. The scenes could start off black and white, use the new projection tech to create a sketching effect and then add color. I think that ride would be a huge hit and would pull some crowds towards that section of the park.

As much as I like the concept, I'm also a bit uncomfortable with it. Don't get me wrong, it is interesting, but that kind of ride would probably go best in the Animation Courtyard section, as a replacement for The Magic of Disney Animation. As you can see by the picture at the beginning of the thread, that area is outside the area of Mickey Avenue. Furthermore, I'm probably thinking that there would be scenes of Disney films here, and if that's the case, then it would probably cannibalize the dark rides of MK's Fantasyland, which are, of course, also themed to the movies. But that's just my opinion.

 

[mharrington]

As much as I like the concept, I'm also a bit uncomfortable with it. Don't get me wrong, it is interesting, but that kind of ride would probably go best in the Animation Courtyard section, as a replacement for The Magic of Disney Animation. As you can see by the picture at the beginning of the thread, that area is outside the area of Mickey Avenue. Furthermore, I'm probably thinking that there would be scenes of Disney films here, and if that's the case, then it would probably cannibalize the dark rides of MK's Fantasyland, which are, of course, also themed to the movies. But that's just my opinion.

To further explain, there might be a way to merge the two together, but even still, that wouldn't limit the characters to just Mickey and the gang anymore. By virtue of just the addition of Disney Animation alone, we should have to include characters from the feature films. And like I said, the concept of a dark ride themed to scenes from Disney movies, a la The Great Movie Ride, would cannibalize Fantasyland's dark rides. So what about that?