June 21 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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On this day, in 1996, Walt Disney Pictures widely released its 34^th animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame, two days after its world premiere at the New Orleans Superdome. The idea for adapting Victor Hugo’s epic novel came in 1993 to David Stainton, one of Disney’s development executives, after reading one of those Illustrated Classic comic book versions (feel free to insert your own jokes here about the reading levels of corporate clowns, but it was actually David’s job to read that kind of stuff looking for new material to mine). Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who had co-directed Beauty and the Beast a couple years prior, were struggling to put together an adaptation of the Greek myth Orpheus when Jeffrey Katzenberg assigned them to helm Hunchback. It didn’t take Gary and Kirk long to get excited about the project while at the same time they quickly realized that many of the books dark themes were going to have to be toned way, way down in order to get a G rating.

So Gary and Kirk went to work. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz came on board to do the music and also to help shape the story. A whole bunch of characters were shown the door. A few new ones were introduced, specifically Quasimodo’s gargoyle friends. The ending was made a lot (and I mean a lot) happier. In the book, literally everyone but Phoebus dies, although Hugo does quip that the soldier doesn’t get off scot free because he ends up getting married (you can see why Hugo is known for drama and not comedy). And in the end, Hunchback did get its G rating but it is still one of the, if not the, darkest Disney animated films ever made (Frollo sniffing Esmerelda’s hair, anyone?).

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At its release, Hunchback received mostly positive reviews and its fair share of controversy. To date, it is the only Disney animated film to overtly take on the issue of religion, which it did with mixed signals. On the one hand, the only actual religious figure in the film, the Archdeacon played by David Ogden Stiers, is weak, doesn’t offer much spiritual guidance other than to vaguely hint at God and presents the official church as mostly ineffective at actually helping people (although he does keep Frollo from committing infanticide at the beginning, day to day nurturing seems to overwhelm him). On the other hand, God Help the Outcasts clearly denounces religious hypocrites and, in the end, it’s strongly suggested that God himself kills Frollo when the cathedral itself causes him to fall to his death. Needless to say, there are obvious reasons Disney hasn’t touched religious material since then.

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame earned an Oscar nomination for its score, ten Annie Award nominations and numerous other award nominations. It won a Satellite Award for best Animated Film, two Golden Reel Awards for editing and a BMI Film Music Award for Alan Menken. The movie would later be adapted into a stage musical that only played in Berlin, Germany. But that wasn’t the only stage version that came out of the deal, which leads us to the second part of today’s post.

Also on this day, also in 1996, The Hunchback of Notre Dame – A Musical Adventure debuted at the Disney-MGM Studios in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Considered by many guests (and cast members) to be one of the best productions to ever grace a Disney theme park stage, the Hunchback show opened to coincide with the release of the film. Closely following and condensing the plot of the movie (the only songs not included were Hellfire and The Court of Miracles, for obvious and logistic reasons respectively),  it ran for six incredible years on the Backlot Stage, then abruptly ended. The show is now infamous in the annals of Disney entertainment history as a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks being cast in a successful show equates to job security.

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The story goes that Hunchback went down for one of its periodic refurbishments, as all shows and attractions that run 365 days a year have to do. However, not only wasn’t any refurbishing work done but part way through the refurbishment period, it was announced that the show wasn’t coming back. No explanations, just it’s done. It would be pure speculation how much management knew in advance of the decision to close (somebody somewhere was very aware). It also isn’t clear as to why the decision was made, although the best guess is that the company was no longer willing to shell out for the size of the cast required with the amount of costly expertise needed to pull the production off. What is clear is that there wasn’t a burning desire to put something else in Hunchback’s place. The Backlot Stage stood empty for years after the show’s closing.

Not to be left out of the Hunchback celebration on this day, in 1996, Disneyland also debuted their own show, The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Festival of Fools. Festival of Fools was similar to A Musical Adventure in that it was a retelling of the film but it was a very different staging of the story. The Disneyland version had more of a carnival atmosphere than a stage show. Festival wasn’t nearly as successful and only ran for two years.

May 16 - Muppet*Vision 3D

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On this day, in 1991, the Muppet*Vision 3D attraction opened for mayhem at the Disney MGM Studios in Walt Disney World. Starting in 1989, Jim Henson began to negotiate a merger between his entertainment empire and the Walt Disney Company. As part of those negotiations, several shows and attractions were planned to capitalize on the new partnership. Only three ever came to fruition and two of them didn’t last very long. What happened to all that potential, all the youngins might ask? We don’t like to talk about it, but Jim developed pneumonia, didn’t get medical help in time and suddenly died from toxic shock syndrome on May 16, 1990, late in the production of Muppet*Vision and exactly one year before it opened. His unexpected demise threw every Muppet-filled plan out the window except the ones that were already nearing completion and brought negotiations to a grinding halt.

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Just nine days after Jim’s passing, on May 25, 1990, the first Muppet show opened in a little theater in the Animation Courtyard area of the Disney-MGM Studios. Called Here Come the Muppets, the show utilized life-sized versions of the characters rather than the puppet sized ones you might be used to. This show was kind of thrown together to give the Muppets a presence in the park until Muppet*Vision was ready to open, but you wouldn’t have known it was supposed to be temporary looking at it. Here Come the Muppets actually ran for four months beyond the opening of its sister attraction, closing in September 1991 to make way for Voyage of the Little Mermaid, although savvy observers can still claim to see a small piece of it running on a daily basis. The mechanism that moves the rock Ariel sits on to sing Part of Your World is the same one that made a monorail crash the stage of Muppets (if you squint just right, you can almost see it happening).

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Two weeks after Here Come the Muppets closed, a second live show opened. Muppets on Location: The Days of Swine and Roses (could they have possibly come up with a longer title?) once again used the life-sized versions of the Muppets, but this time in an outdoor setting that was much more interactive with the audience. This Muppet show ran for three years before it too closed to be replaced by an Ace Ventura show of all things (What can I say, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, they can’t all be good folks).

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Which leaves us with the one Muppet attraction from that era that still runs today, Muppet*Vision 3D. A version of the attraction did also run (somewhat intermittently) in the theater that currently shows Mickey's Philharmagic on the West Coast in Disney's California Adventure between 2001 and 2014. It’s the last project that Jim ever worked on and one of the last that Richard Hunt, another beloved Muppet performer, was a part of (Richard died in January 1992). Putting that tragic history aside, it’s easy to see what could have been had the merger continued when you see Muppet*Vision. All the classic Henson humor is there, coupled with what was then cutting-edge technology. A combination of puppets, computer graphics, live characters, animatronics and special effects that culminate in a glorious three hour finale (just kidding, it’s only ninety seconds) is enough for any Muppet fan to go weak in the knees. The bittersweetness of hearing Kermit’s original voice is mitigated by the delightfulness of the whole presentation (and for those of you saying what does he mean Kermit’s original voice? When did it change? you can find your own way out, thank you very much).

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Of course in the end, we aren’t left with just Muppet*Vision 3D. Fourteen years after the first deal fell apart, Disney finally did acquire all the characters from The Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House. A live stage show featuring Bear ran for two years around the turn of the 21^st century and guests can currently see a full on puppet show every day in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom, The Muppets Present… Great Moments in American History (again with the paragraph masquerading as a title). The current show is Muppet mayhem at its finest and enjoyed the input of several classic Muppet performers during its development, including Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire (before he was abruptly fired). So there is hope that we will continue to get new doses of the Muppets from time to time and I think that is something that most of us can agree that the world sorely needs right now.

January 7 - Voyage of the Little Mermaid

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On this day, in 1992, Voyage of the Little Mermaid first invited guests to travel under the sea at the Disney-MGM Studios. When the studios first opened in 1989, the Backlot Tour was half of the available attractions. When the park proved to be more popular than anticipated, pieces of the Backlot Tour were slowly taken off the tour and made into their own stand alone things. One of those pieces was a theater at the end of the tour.

At that time, Disney was in negotiations with Jim Henson to acquire the Muppets. In anticipation of that deal, two attractions opened at the Studios featuring Jim's characters. One of those attractions, Muppet*Vision 3D is still running. The other was a live stage show with life size Muppet characters that opened in that little theater located just off Animation Courtyard. That show was called Here Come the Muppets and ran for just over 15 months. The show that replaced it is one of my favorite shows in all of Walt Disney World.

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Now is a good time for full disclosure. I'm more than a little biased when it comes to VoLM. I performed in it more than 7,700 times over a three year period. That number sounds impressive when I say it but it's really not. There are performers still there who have been with the show since the beginning and have logged well over 25,000 performances. Compared to them, I'd barely started. I am immensely proud of the not only the work I did while part of the cast but of everyone I worked with, most of whom put me to shame with their talent. So even though VoLM is getting shiny patches on the knees of its pants and looking a little haggard when it crawls out of bed each morning, I think the world of it.

And, for the most part, so do guests. They might not all appreciate the fact that Ariel is singing live rather than lipsynching to a track. They might not care that being able to watch nine puppeteers ply their craft at one time doesn't really happen much anymore, or anywhere. They don't even notice that the show doesn't make much sense if you've never seen the movie (let's be real, though, who hasn't seen The Little Mermaid?)  But I do think they enjoy the show completely and wholeheartedly. After all, audiences have been consistently showing up, day in and day out, for 27 years now. In fact about a third of all guests who come to the Studios each day find their way through the little theater near the back of the park. To put that in perspective, about half of all guests will find a seat in the much (much) larger space that houses the park's premiere show Fantasmic. VoLm does more than all right for itself.

There are constantly rumors afoot that Voyage of the Little Mermaid is on the brink of closing. The reasons are always varied: it's so old, so tired, it would cost too much to properly refurbish it, Disney is getting rid of all puppeteers, etc. etc. etc. A couple of years ago, more than one blog even reported as "fact" that it was done that Labor Day. As the Studios are in a constant state of flux these days, those rumors get more rampant the closer Star Wars Land gets to opening but so far they remain rumors. Will there be a place for VoLM in the new Disney's Hollywood Studios? I'm sure at some point it will go the way of Legend of the Lion King and Here Come the Muppets, but don't count this little slice of undersea adventure out just yet. And when you do go to see it, if you run into Max, tell him an old friend says hello.

January 6 - Disney-MGM Studios

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On this day, in 2008, the third Walt Disney World theme park, the Disney-MGM Studios, ceased to exist. Which sounds more dramatic than it really is. The theme park didn’t actually go anywhere, of course, it just suffered a name change to Disney's Hollywood Studios. But that is enough of an excuse to talk about a place that has become near and dear to my heart. The park opened on May 1, 1989 as a theme park, yes, but with a fully operational production studio layered on top. The concept for the park had actually started on a much smaller scale. In the mid-Eighties, Legendary Imagineer Marty Sklar had teamed up with Randy Bright with the task of creating two new pavilions for Future World in Epcot. The two lead a team that came up with plans for a health based pavilion called Wonders of Life and an entertainment pavilion known as the Great Movie Ride. When Michael Eisner became the head of the company, he looked at the Great Movie Ride and thought it might be better to make it the anchor for a third theme park. To that end, Disney signed a licensing agreement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Disney-MGM Studios was born, at least on paper.

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As plans for the new park grew, it was decided that included would be television and film production facilities, a functional backlot area and an auxiliary animation department to the California studio. The animation studio was the first thing to open and it promptly caused problems. MGM filed a lawsuit claiming they only agreed to a theme park and didn’t know anything about new film productions at the site. The fact that MGM wanted to open (and eventually did open) their own theme park at their hotel in Las Vegas, may have had something to do with it. Disney would file a countersuit over that theme park. In 1992 a federal judge decided that there was enough money to go around that both parks could exist. Only one still operates today, however, making the whole thing an overly expensive, not to mention pointless, spat.

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Plans for the new park were further complicated when Universal Studios announced that they were going to build a theme park in Orlando that would be similar to the one that already existed in Southern California. Construction had begun on Disney-MGM in 1987 but was accelerated in order to beat Universal’s opening by as much as possible (Universal’s actual opening was so plagued by problems it might not have mattered, but that’s a discussion for another time).

When Disney’s version of studio opened in 1989, it only had two attractions to offer guests. One was the Great Movie Ride (from the original Epcot brainstorms) and the other was the Studio Backlot Tour, which was part tram ride (through Catastrophe Canyon) and part walking tour. The Little Theme Park That Could proved to be popular, though, and it began to change in subtle ways almost immediately. Part of the backlot, New York Street, was taken off the tram tour and opened to relieve pedestrian traffic as the Streets of America. Bit by bit, pieces of the backlot tour were made into their own attractions, mainly to help with traffic control, including the theater in the Animation Courtyard area that made me love the Studios (more about that in my next post).

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The park also began expanding almost from the beginning. Star Tours debuted before the end of that first year. In 1991, the Grand Avenue area opened featuring one of my favorite attractions, Muppet*Vision 3D. The next big expansion opened in 1994 when Sunset Boulevard appeared on the map and dead ended at the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Since then all sorts of changes have happened. Actual productions stopped happening (too late to matter to MGM). The animation studio packed its bags and moved to California. The backlot tour systematically phased itself out until it was closed and the entire area was demolished to make way for an expanded Star Wars area. A Pixar street was added with the ever popular Toy Story Midway Mania ride and then even more Pixar was added as Toy Story got it's own land. And then, seventeen months ago, the Great Movie Ride itself closed its doors to make way for a new Mickey Mouse based experience.

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When the Great Movie Ride closed, the argument could be made that the Disney-MGM Studios actually did cease to exist at that point, not with the name change nine years earlier. The park has changed and evolved so much since opening day that hardly any of the original park is left. It is poised to change even more later this year with the opening of Star Wars Land (yes, I'm aware it's called Galaxy's Edge, not Star Wars Land, I'm marginal on that name) but that's okay. Change is something Walt expected his theme parks to do and I think Disney's Hollywood Studios has done the best job of embracing that change of any of them. It's gone from being a place where movies are made to being the place that brings movies to life. Will it get another name change as it moves into the future? Bob Iger once hinted as such, some really terrible names were focus grouped and then denials were made about Bob's hint, so I honestly don't know (although I'm still pulling for The Pixstar Ranch). What I do know is that the Disney-MGM Studios... I mean Disney's Hollywood Studios (some habits really do die hard) becomes more relevant and more exciting with every change.

December 1 - Bette Midler

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On this day, in 1945, Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was named after another famous entertainer, Bette Davis, although she pronounces their shared name with only one syllable instead of two. Voted "Most Dramatic" of her senior class in high school (shocking, I know), Bette would go on to study drama at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She only lasted three semesters before dropping out to try to make some money.

In the mid Sixties, Bette made her film debut in an uncredited (but still paid) role of a seasick extra in a movie titled, appropriately enough, Hawaii. Using the money she earned from that experience, she moved to New York City. Her first paid stage roles came in off-off-Broadway productions by Tom Eyens (Tony Award winner for writing the book for Dreamgirls). In 1966, Bette made her Broadway debut as Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof. After three years of Matchmaker, Matchmaker, she joined the original cast of the rock musical Salvation, playing alongside Barry Bostwick (whose big break was of course as Brad in the Rocky Horror Picture Show).

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In 1970, Bette made a pivotal career move as she joined a long list of first class entertainers and began performing at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse at the Ansonia Hotel. She not only became close to her pianist there, one Barry Manilow, but she earned one of her nicknames, Bathhouse Betty, and perfected another, the Divine Miss M. The latter nickname would be the title of her debut album in 1972 (produced by Barry) and the former would be the title of an album released in 1998, long after the Continental Baths would close its doors. The Divine Miss M would go Platinum and earn Bette a 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Not bad for her first time out. Her second album, Bette Midler, would also be produced by Barry and would also reach the Billboard Top 10. The remainder of the Seventies would see two more albums, a three year stint as the voice of a wooden spoon on PBS's Vegetable Soup and an Emmy winning television special, Ol' Red Hair is Back. Bette ended the decade with a disco album that flopped and her first starring role on the big screen in The Rose, which didn't. She nabbed an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win for that. Her single version of the film's title song went Gold and won her another Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance.

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For the beginning of the Eighties, Bette released a concert film, Divine Madness, that was relatively successful and a comedy, Jinxed!, which was not and caused her to concentrate on the singing side of her career for several years. She released two more albums and performed for the famous "We Are the World" recording and for Live Aid, both of which benefited famine victims in Africa.

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In 1985, Bette joined the Disney family when she signed a multi-picture deal with Touchstone Pictures. Starting with Down and Out in Beverly Hills, with Nick Nolte and Richard Dreyfuss, she began a string of successful comedic turns. She followed this with Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune (earning a Golden Globe nomination) and Big Business. Bette was cast in 1988's Oliver and Company as the voice of the spoiled pooch, Georgette. One of her biggest hits (in spite of generally negative reviews) came that same year in a decidedly more dramatic role: C.C. Bloom in Beaches. The soundtrack for Beaches became Bette's biggest selling record, featured her biggest selling single, Wind Beneath My Wings, and won her a third Grammy Award for Album of the Year. She then appeared in Touchstone's Stella and Scenes From a Mall with Woody Allen. In 1993, Bette starred with Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy in the now-cult classic, Hocus Pocus. She was also part of the original Back Lot Tours at the Disney-MGM Studios. A short film staring Bette, titled The Lottery, was used to demonstrate and explain everything that goes into making a movie, with set pieces and props available for viewing. It's also has the distinction of being the first film to be entirely shot at the park.

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Since her days under the Disney umbrella, Bette has continued to appear in movies as varied as What Women Want and the remake of The Stepford Wives. She's released several more albums including tributes to Rosemary Clooney and Peggy Lee. In February of 2008, she opened in her own Vegas show at Caesar's Palace that ran for nearly two years. In 2012, the Songwriter's Hall of Fame awarded her the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement award. Bette returned to Broadway after an absence of over 30 years for 2013's I'll Eat You Last. The show was such a success, it moved to Los Angles for another run after the Broadway version closed. Starting in March of 2017, she continued on Broadway, reviving the role of Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly, snagging a Tony Award in the process.

After 25 albums, 20 concert tours, three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards and a fair number of controversies along the way, the Divine Miss M shows no signs of slowing down. Will she ever be in a sequel to Hocus Pocus? Will she find the energy for another go at Broadway? Will she release a tribute album to... herself? Only time will tell.