Playhouse Disney Live/Disney Junior Live

[TwilightZone]

Reminiscing about the long running theater show that ran in DHS and Disney's California Adventure from 2001 - 2018. I remember seeing the original Bear variation when I was really little back in the day. Anyone know what ended up happening to the puppets during the shows long run? Any interesting behind the scenes stories? How did that storybook set work?
There's so little about this show, how it ran, or how/why it even came to be
Some of the versions of the show over time, the playhouse disney song, and promos for the show

 

[Brer Panther]

I understand why they swapped out Bear for Mickey, but it was still something that really upset me. I loved Bear in the Big Blue House - and still do - and the park just hasn't felt the same since Bear left.

 

[TwilightZone]

Some write ups for the show experiences over time. There's a lot of assumptions here, so forgive me if I get any details wrong. This will be split in 3 parts, one for Playhouse, one for Mickey-era Playhouse and one for Disney Junior.

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Spoiler: A whole lot of gifs in here. Open if your computer can handle that

Queue​

The WDW queue quite possibly has some of the worst theming I have seen for any theme park attraction. It shows all the failures of the theme park themed to a movie studio format that was popular during the time.

However the building is still bright and colorful. It tried to be an inviting front to this theater experience. And in some ways, it's even a little charming. The front will age itself poorly however, when one of the shows advertised (Rolie Polie Olie) got removed from the experience (and as far as I could find, the front of the building wasn't updated to reflect the change).

In the queue were hanging CRT TVs that played clips from various shows and a screensaver-esque animation of the Playhouse Disney Live logo bouncing to instrumentals of various Playhouse Disney theme songs. Sadly all of these instrumentals are lost (as far as I am aware of anyways). Before entering the interior, the guests are instructed to yell out Jamie's (the host of the show) name to enter, once this happens, the TVs will reset/progress their loops and starts playing the screensaver loop.


Whenever the CRTs loaded the screensaver loop there was a little honk noise before playing, which I found oddly amusing (around 27 seconds in if the video doesn't work for you).

The DCA variation of the queue is marginally better. It fits the rest of the land well, and doesn't look like a box with Disney characters slapped on the front. It's a little eye-popping, but then again the rest of the land wasn't themed too well, so it's somewhat excusable.

One of the coolest features of the DCA queue line was the rotating sign, which showcased all 3 of the shows that were featured in Playhouse Disney live.

Sadly by 2008, the rotation feature was no longer in operation. The sign was still updated though to include the new characters.

In the queue were various TVs, some were themed to fit the rest of the land while others were themed to look similar to the designs seen in program bumpers on Playhouse Disney. These TVs would play clips from the shows from the network and didn't have the strange screensaver WDW got (unless I'm mistaken and both DCA and WDW had the clips + the screensaver). These TVs were also flatscreen, which is mind-boggling to think about, but that's way off topic.

Interior ​

The interior is quite impressive. There's a lot of lights, projections, catwalks (since the WDW version was a catwalk bar, it's a genius way to reuse that), bubble machines, confetti machines, and a bunch of other theater stuff that IDK the names for. While waiting for the show to start, guests will be greeted to a collection of songs from Playhouse Disney shows (around 1:30 in the video if it doesn't work for you), mostly from Bear in the Big Blue House. This will be a mainstay for all other versions of the show (just with different songs playing).

The stage has a mechanism on top that pulls the "house" in revealing the giant storybook set. From there, the host "Jamie" opens up the pages of the book to reveal the other characters.

Each of the storybook sets are visually impressive, while minimalist. Special mention goes to the Book of Pooh set, which pops open just like a pop up book. In 2006, the Rolie Polie Olie set was replaced by Jojo's circus, the only major change to the Bear format of Playhouse Disney Live. If you want a hot take in this strange write up, personally I prefer the Rolie Polie Olie version, but that's mostly out of bias as that's the version I saw live.

The true stars of the show: the puppets!

These Puppets were AMAZING, they were so well done. Screenshots and videos does not do justice on how high quality these guys were. Sadly, that's the only way to experience them now. From my memory, I specifically remember the Bear costume being huge, he really towered on that stage. And he had all the fluent emotions of the one in the actual Bear in the Big Blue House show on TV. Another 1:1 to compare with are the cast of The Book of Pooh, which look just like the ones featured on their show.

The original Playhouse Disney Live while having a short run (2001 - 2006 for WDW, 2003 - 2006 for DCA), was loved and remembered by many kids and their parents. During performances you could hear audible cheers and wows from all the age groups. From personal experiences, whenever talking about old Disney trips my Mom would always bring up seeing Rolie Olie Polie up on that big stage. But of course, all things must change, and with how fickle TV is so would this show.

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[TwilightZone]

Playhouse Disney: The Mickey Era
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Spoiler: A whole lot of gifs in here

You might be wondering, why make this separate from the Disney Junior era, which is a good question. Personally, I feel like including this strange inbetween period is really interesting when considering Disney's place during this time. The year is 2008: Micheal Eisner has been booted from Disney for about 2 years, Iger is now ruler of the kingdom. Some changes are underway to bring Disney's reputation back up from the ashes. And Playhouse Disney is getting a whole bunch of new shows. The most notable thing is Bear in the Big Blue House has ended it's long run. Something had to fit the shoes, and luckily there was already a new show featuring a house to take it's place: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

When the eventual rebrand of Playhouse Disney happened, it was a real headscratcher for me. Why rebrand it? What was the issue with the old name? But after relooking at the network and it's rebrand it makes sense to me. Playhouse Disney only had a few ultra popular, money making shows during it's long run. While the other shows were good, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who truly remembered, for example, Bunnytown or Johnny and the Sprites. I grew up with the block and I can barely remember half the shows that aired on it vs. Nick Jr. where I can recite every single one. Playhouse Disney also could never find a true identity of it's own, the hosts, bumpers, and shows were always changing. Not much about the block was long running or stable. And the Playhouse Disney name simply is kinda confusing if you weren't in the know. I could easily see someone who didn't have Disney Channel not knowing if Playhouse Disney was a programming block and thinking it was a place in one of the Disney parks, a TV show, or something else. Change was needed, but it wouldn't come until 2011. Until then Playhouse Disney and Playhouse Disney Live existed in a strange inbetween state.

So let's go back onto topic, the last iteration of Playhouse Disney: Live.

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Queue

The WDW queue manages to be even more depressing than the previous incarnation. The entire thing looks cheap and slapped together. The banners now resemble the latest bumpers for Playhouse Disney, which is a smart move, but the front just looks depressing. Sadly there's no other footage or clips I could find of this era's queue, which shows how short lived it was before the Disney Junior rebrand. I can only assume that the CRTs were swapped out for flatscreens and the screensaver was replaced with more clips. No more theme song instrumentals. Interestingly, the front shows both the original splat-like logo and the newer logo for Playhouse Disney at the same time, which is just a testament to how lazy the makeover is on the front.

Interior

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There were quite a bit of upgrades to the interior. The most obvious is that Bear's house was swapped with Mickey's clubhouse, which has a mechanism to open up the "doors" of the clubhouse and reveal the inside. Sadly the house even when unfolded is a lot smaller than Bear's house was and it's quite obvious that the storybook is there. In order to try to immerse the experience, the cover of the storybook is gone and instead the pages are opened up to show the magic field where Mickey's Clubhouse is, which doesn't quite really work with immersion IMO as it's quite obvious the field is a book.

The top of the clubhouse is actually an elaborate (possibly projection) screen, which lights up to reveal the mouskadoor and Toodles, Mickey's little robot friend, who introduces each object relating to the characters in the storybook.

The projection technology and lights were upgraded massively. Each page turn is met with psychedelic projections and lights in all sorts of different shapes. There are also projections for various stage theming elements like clouds, fog, Toodles, and more.

There's still a lot left of the original stage despite the changes. The old mechanism that held up the projection screen for Luna has been lowered to hold up the new projection for Toodles. The sun projection circle on the stage is still around, rarely used for most of the sets sadly (but it was rarely used in the original production as well, especially after Olie got the boot).

Of course, I have to talk about the storybook sets. This version of the show had Handy Manny, Little Einsteins, and My Friends Tigger and Pooh featured. I'd argue these sets are vastly more interesting and impressive than the ones featured in the Bear version of the show. They all have something interesting about them. Manny has the little work table where Pat the hammer "stands" on, Little Einsteins has Rocket with his glowing engine, buttons, and flatscreen TV, and Tigger and Pooh has the giant tree with the kite that gets stuck in it (and eventually unstuck from it).
The puppets are visually impressive as well, great designs and they all translate pretty well. I'm not sure they are as good as Bear-era puppets, but they're pretty fantastic. I have a bit of a conspiracy theory that the Pooh puppet might be a modified version of the Bear-era Pooh, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Playhouse Disney Live v2 didn't have much long to last. Come 2011 and the brand got completely changed into Disney Junior. Perhaps that's for the best, not just for the brand but also to help distinguish the stage show a little bit more from it's Bear predecessor. Still it's interesting to think "what if".

 

[TwilightZone]

So, come the Disney Junior change and at first not much changed about the show, with the exception of adding Jake and the Neverland Pirates to the line up. For this reason, when I'm talking about the sets, I will cover v2 of Disney Junior Live, which included Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, and Jake. The change, mostly wasn't all too much, but in a way just changing the name was really helpful. Like I said earlier, it helps distinguish the new show from the Bear in the Big Blue House original. Sure it was the same format as the original, but Disney Junior: Live had new characters (including the host of the show who is now named Casey instead of Jamie which is oddly bittersweet to me), new sets, and new effects. It's basically a new experience. The change from Handy Manny and Little Einstiens helped solidify that when the time came to swap out characters.

Lets cover the last sets and any other changes that Disney Junior Live went through.

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Spoiler: A whole lot of gifs in here

Queue​

The queue in WDW is now simplistic and blue. I kind of like it, it's simple to look at without being depressing like the Mickey-era Playhouse Disney building. It's still a step down from the Bear-era front (which I already kind of disliked for being cheap looking), but it isn't bad.

The DCA queue was vastly cleaned up, long gone are the crazy exterior decorations for a more streamlined look. It helps tie the theme of the land together, but it also makes the building a lot easier to miss during a trip. Not fully sure if I am a fan of it, but I understand why the changes were done.

Interior

The interior had little changes since the update it got when Mickey was introduced. The new projection effects, however had less big moments in the new version of the show than when they were first introduced. My best guess as to why was maybe they were too distracting? The projection effects, however are done a lot better because of this since the effects are now more subtle compared to the crazy psychedelic stage effects used during the introduction of Handy Manny (though those effects are still used for summoning the clubhouse). A lot more of the stage is used during the storybook segments. All three shows uses the sun circle projection and Jake uses the previously rarely used TV screens on both sides of the stage to display various locations and tropical plants.

There's also better integration of the fog, bubble, and confetti effects than previous iterations (save for Handy Manny who was fixing a bubble machine).

For me personally, this is my least favorite line up in the shows history visually. The sets not as consistently visually impressive as Playhouse Disney v2 and not as nostalgic as Playhouse Disney V1. However, I consider the Jake set the best set in the show's entire run, it is insanely interesting to look at and the entire story really keeps your interest. Plus the bushes the characters hide behind are super high quality.

The other sets also have there fair share of interesting effects as well, such as Sofia's glowing garden and Doc Mcstuffin's falling tools.

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The 3rd swap of characters helps show why the show was replaced with the dance party. Keeping up with an ever changing TV lineup while having to make new sets (as minimalist as they were) and puppets had to be a bit pricey. Though I've also heard the show is cheaper than the dance party overall, I still can see how it would be a bit much for upkeeping. The Disney Junior show was also losing it's luster in an ever changing DHS (and DCA), with half the people who commented on the original closure announcement mentioning that it was time to retire the show for new experiences and to help with the general retheming of DHS. There was also sad and frankly upsetting stories floating about on Micechat: anonymous Cast Members' tales of poor treatment of the puppet workers. This story also went out to the LA Times. So perhaps Disney closed the attraction to stop a PR nightmare in the bud.

Disney Junior Drama
I began receiving messages from upset puppeteers at Disney Junior Live a few weeks ago. We hear from disgruntled cast members all the time. Sometimes there are real issues behind these messages, other times it’s just an individual who is unhappy with a supervisor or who thinks they’ve been treated unfairly. As the emails began to stack up in the Disney Junior case, it was clear that these employees had a real issue that needed to be addressed. However, when the employees sought a solution, Disney reacted by canceling the show all together.

I’m going to share one of the letters with you that I believe best describes the situation, the danger to the skilled cast, and Disney’s hostile reaction.

Hello, I am a puppeteer for the Walt Disney Company and currently perform in the Disney Jr Live on Stage show at Disney California Adventure. As I’m sure you already know, it has officially been announced that the show will be closing on April 9th of this year, but what you may not know is the backstory.

In March of 2015, due to continuing safety concerns with the show, the cast petitioned to join AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists) which is the current union representing singers, stage dancers, and comedians throughout the resort. Since safety concerns of the Disney Junior cast were continually being overlooked, it was decided that we needed a union to support us. Upon petitioning to vote, the company immediately removed all cast members from all other roles in the resort that were not Disney Jr Live on Stage (many cast members worked in the character department and were also character hosts).

As a result, many of the cast went from working multiple shifts a week to no hours at all (most of the part timers received no hours at all). It is against the law for a company to retaliate against workers before a union vote. Any change from daily operations can be seen as retaliation from the company. Not only were cast members removed from their other roles, but management would also post a new ‘informational unionization flyer’ in the green room backstage with ‘information about unionizing.’ Many of the ‘facts’ presented on the flyers were false and/or misleading. When it came time to vote, the majority of the cast voted to unionize, so AGVA is currently representing us.

The union aided us in presenting our case to the National Labor Board. As a result of the affidavits of many puppeteers, the National Labor Board took immediate action and presented Disney with a cease and desist order. In December of 2015, rather than take the case to court, the Walt Disney Company signed a settlement agreement (almost a year after the petition to vote – meaning most of the puppeteers were not getting full time hours for a year). The settlement agreement is public record through the National Labor Board. The agreement stated that everything must go back to the way it was before the vote.

All puppeteers were also to receive back pay plus interest for all of the hours that they lost out on as a result. However, at this point, many of the puppeteers had already quit because they couldn’t afford to live. The settlement agreement was signed by the company in December of 2015 and it has still not been fulfilled over a year later. Many of the puppeteers are not getting the hours they used to receive and back pay has not been distributed. We have been in contract negotiations since 2015 – a slow moving process.

In December of 2016 we heard rumor from reliable sources that Disney planned on closing the show, and as a result the union confronted the company asking if the rumors were true. They admitted that they had plans on closing the show and would expedite letting the cast know (the company typically notifies a cast of show closing 1-2 weeks before the closing date- for example, Mad T Party). In December, they officially announced to the cast that the show would be closing on April 9th 2017. However, shortly after, it will be re-opening as another Disney Jr Live on Stage show. It is rumored that it will consist of video screens and possibly one live performer. However, the show will NOT have puppets.

We were originally told that the the Disney Jr Live on Stage shows in Florida and Paris would be closing as well, however, there is no longer a projected date for those shows closing and their casts have not heard anything about potentially closing either. The puppeteers have gone through hell for the past two years as a result of unionizing- many laws were broken by Disney and rules bent. Not exactly the Disney Magic we’re all used to hearing about. And with the show coming to an end and contract negotiations still not being finished, it’s time for the public to hear about this.

From http://micechat.com/152420-dca-photos-news-heartbreaker/

It's quite understandable why Disney Junior: Live closed, but the new show is such a downgrade, just by judging from one video you can tell the kids at the new dance party are bored and confused on what to do. The dance party lacks all the magic of both live shows. While the old show was losing it's relevance and luster, it was beloved by many families and was absolutely perfect for the age range, the new dance party is just something that simply does not work for the toddler crowd and will manage to age itself worse over time once the theme park dance party craze is out of style.

 

[TwilightZone]

Playhouse Disney and Disney Junior Live Mysteries

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Well OK mystery might be too strong a word here, but these are the questions I have that I would love to see answered.

• How did the storybook set work? The transitions between each set was amazing
• How did the puppet for Scully work? The puppet is in a very high place and sticks around even as the "page" of the storybook stage is turned
• What remnants of the Catwalk Bar (WDW) and the Soap Opera Bistro (DCA) were still around in the theater/backstage (besides the very obvious catwalks from WDW)?
• Any interesting/funny cast member stories? I'd imagine a show like this would be a little amusing to work for even with all the drama
• What did play in those queue line TVs? The screensaver with theme song instrumentals is so weird to me that I find it interesting. Were there more to it than just that and the show clips?
• Any plans for the space or the show that never went through for one reason or another?
• What did happen to all those puppets? Did Disney really sell them on ebay? The fate of all versions of the show's puppets is really interesting to me.

 

[Brer Panther]

I vaguely remember clips featuring Playhouse Disney's mascot at the time, Clay, being on the TV screens in the queue of the Hollywood Studios version. I could just be misremembering, though...

 

[TwilightZone]

I vaguely remember clips featuring Playhouse Disney's mascot at the time, Clay, being on the TV screens in the queue of the Hollywood Studios version. I could just be misremembering, though...

That would make sense for him to be there, the queue had a lot of Playhouse Disney stuff that surprised me.

 

[TwilightZone]

UPDATE
Now that I have a new google account, I have recreated my playlist. If you have any videos for me to add to it, let me know! The new playlist is in the first post.​