New Rumor Says Further Demolitions Cancelled & Clubs Could Reopen!

Master Gracey

Master Gracey

Well-Known Member
Wilt Dasney said:
I like the dancing moon guy on the PI brochure...reminds me of the Mac Tonight campaign from McDonald's. Maybe there's a connection, in that kid-synonymous franchises trying to explicitly market themselves to adults with "after dark" material was a '90s-era gestalt thing.
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Ah yes the Funmeister! Who, like the rest of the island, was tied into Merriweather Pleasure's backstory as well.

pl_logo_st.jpg

“The Funmeister! I’ve found the Funmeister! This shall be where we will build Pleasure Island,” Pleasure proclaimed to a travel weary family and crew.

Pleasure had read about this ancient half-moon icon, whose roots go back to the Barbarians after the sack of Rome. It symbolized individuality, the celebration of life, and the sharing of laughter. The ancient Germanic name for this idol translated to “Funmeister,” as close as historical linguists could approximate. On every continent, in every civilization that Pleasure had studied, he had found a Funmeister counterpart. Now, purely by coincidence, he had stumbled upon a link to those ancient times and our own.

Rushing ashore, he found the descendants of the I-4 Indians, who had held the land on this lake as their sacred ceremonial territory. Clad in their traditional attire, the Indians carried themselves in a regal, almost other worldly manner. These natives told Mr. Pleasure the island was imbued with the spirit of one of their deities, the one they called the “Funmeister.”

Excitedly, Pleasure begged the Indians to allow him to settle and build on their land and he would make the island a living monument to the spirit of the Funmeister. They told him that he would have their answer in the morning. Pleasure returned to his ship with the sense that fate had led him to this spot. In the morning when he returned, the village that he had seen only hours before had vanished completely and without a trace—with the exception of a giant image of the Funmeister on a totem pole. The Indians he had met the day before were actually the spirits of the Island’s former inhabitants who, by their disappearance, were now granting him permission to settle there.

The next week, an excited Merriweather Adam Pleasure officially purchased the land on the shore of Lake Buena Vista from the Seminole Land Agency. He knew, however, that the land would always truly belong to the Funmeister. That is why Pleasure island has always been dedicated to individuality, the celebration of lfie, and the sharing of laughter.
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From Mouse Planet: The Pleasure Island New Year Story
http://www.mouseplanet.com/8653/The_Pleasure_Island_New_Year_Story​

Some days you eat the mouse.
Some days the mouse eats you.
But never give into the mouse without a fight!

KUNGALOOSH!
​
 
K

Krack

Active Member
How can you have "too much backstory"? It's not like they made you read it and pass a quiz before you were allowed through the turnstiles. It's the platform that the island's internal consistency is (was) built upon.
 
W

wizards8507

Active Member
flavious27 said:
It is speculation right now. Other projects have been announced without insiders posting about it first.
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Oh, I know. I was actually surprised when I was down there last weekend and they still had the Pleasure Island sign up in the first place. Seemed uncharacteristically sloppy.
 
wolf359

wolf359

Well-Known Member
Krack said:
How can you have "too much backstory"? It's not like they made you read it and pass a quiz before you were allowed through the turnstiles. It's the platform that the island's internal consistency is (was) built upon.
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Sure, but at the same time I think Pleasure Island's lengthy storyline sums up the trend in late 80s-early 90s Imagineers to overthink and over back-story things.

I'm not necessarily saying "too much backstory" is a bad thing exactly, but it certainly stands in strong contrast to the more open style used in the past. Contrast the short paragraph that merely paints a vague picture of each land in the Magic Kingdom with the doctoral thesis of a backstory Pleasure Island has.

Sometimes having such a lengthy and detailed backstory works to bring a feeling of detail and consistency that gets a project off the ground well, but it stifles later developments because there's just no room left to add or adjust as time goes on.
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Krack said:
How can you have "too much backstory"? It's not like they made you read it and pass a quiz before you were allowed through the turnstiles. It's the platform that the island's internal consistency is (was) built upon.
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If your point is that the complex backstory didn't detract from the average guest's experience, I agree. I just think it didn't substantively add to it either, and possibly stood in the way of a simpler tie-together that could have been more accessible and enriched more people's visits.

I'm a big believer that less is more when Disney tries to tell a story in a 3-D space, and that the most effective stories are those that arise intuitively and obviously...and are by necessity more vague. (You walk through the castle, and you're in the world of fairy tales. Pretty straightforward, and if you want to mythologize further, have at it.)

As it was, I don't think PI had an intermediate level of interpretation somewhere between "here's a bunch of clubs" and a lecture touching on the fall of the Roman Empire and barter with modern day Native Americans (just to hit on the moon logo's part of the story!) You couldn't just look around as a first time visitor and "get it" intuitively. To me, that's a failure.

So maybe my real criticism isn't that PI had too much backstory per se, but that too much of it was hidden from the view of the average guest and was pretty much irrelevant to the presentation and experience of the actual brick-and-mortar structures. :shrug:

This is coming from someone who enjoys a well-developed fantasy literature world...and who plans to read up on the PI backstory later just to see how much effort they put into it.
 
M

Mouse Detective

Well-Known Member
Wilt Dasney said:
This is coming from someone who enjoys a well-developed fantasy literature world...and who plans to read up on the PI backstory later just to see how much effort they put into it.
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But the back story is the entire justification for the Island. You certainly did not need to know any of it to have a good time there. But if you were ever there and wondered why mannequins were hanging around a huge turntable, if you ever wondered why Videopolis and Cage were in an old scientific lab or if you ever wondered why a restaurant was called Fireworks Factory, the back story provided that guidance.

It was just plain fun and was an example of the high quality imagineering that existed at that time.
 
M

markc

Active Member
RonAnnArbor said:
It has to do with supply and demand....the reality is, there is no demand for the old clubs anymore...

Countrywide, the "dance club" model is dying...those that remain are struggling to survive.
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You couldnt be further from the truth- The dance club model is far from dying. What is happening, however, is a saturation of bars/clubs. Far more clubs have opened in almost every major metropolitan area than there is demand. To further complicate that - the ability to make a profit is fairly difficult when you consider the start up costs of clubs (insurance, rent, remodelling costs of the existing building, staff costs, etc...) .

. At that time, almost everyone arrived on Disney Property either in their own cars or rented cars in Orlando. There was no magical Express. There was barely a Mears service.
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As far as I know, Mears has been a fairly popular transport service since the early 90's, far before PI hit its prime in the mid 90's. Not sure that you can really link those two factors together.


When I was younger, I liked Pleasure Island too -- it gave me something to do, clubs to check out, liquor to buy...now I can get that in the Hotel pool bar, or at any of the parks (other than MK) and I certainly don't want a dance bar anymore....

The model has changed the world over...
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While a pool bar maybe completely satisfactory to you and others - to many, it's not a replacement. For a lot of people - its not a matter of choosing between a pool bar and a club/real bar setting. It's a matter of, "well, there's no bars/clubs on property anymore, and I dont have a car or want to risk a DUI driving downtown, therefore I'll just go to bed earlier". Lost revenue for Disney, and less of a reason for a segment to stay closer on property. Ironically, the lack of a good nightclub/bar option at Disneyland is the exact reason why I never stay on property around there when I visit the SoCal area several times a year. Instead, I'm more inclined to stay at a place either closer to Los Angeles or Newport Beach.

While we all have our own theories as to why PI is no longer here - I think the underlying reasons are obvious and have been well publicized. Disney did not want the responsibility of managing bars/clubs anymore, nor do they feel that Downtown Disney is a place for anything but 3rd party vendors. PI was still majorly popular through 2006...at that point, Disney neglected it, started cannibilizing the island (destruction of the stages, any food places on the island, shops) and it died a slow death, end of story. Modern relevance of clubs/bars really didn't play any part in this.
 

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