February 23 - Legend of the Lion King

On this day, in 2004, Fluffy was hoisted for the last time as the lights went down on the final performance of The Legend of the Lion King in Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World. The show opened on July 8, 1994, just three weeks after The Lion King burst into theaters, replacing the Magic Journeys movie and was an instant success. A retelling of the movie, Legend was a mixture of really big puppets, a live performer and all sorts of theatrical effects including projections of clips from the film and filling the set with fog.

A taboo image

The puppets used in Legend were designed and built by Michael Curry Design Inc. and when I say they were big, I mean it. The Adult Simba puppet was more than twice as tall as a lanky adult human and required five puppeteers to manipulate. The stage area was made much larger than the theater's seating area (the opposite of pretty much every other theater in the world) in order to accommodate their size. All the puppets were mechanical in design, meaning the operator squeezed what looked like a bicycle brake that was connected by cables to the puppet's mouth in order to open and close it. Other cables connected to the same handle allowed the puppeteer to move the head around, blink the eyes and so on. The size of the puppets meant that many of them were actually worn by the puppeteers via rigid harnesses that slipped over their shoulders and was safety strapped around their waists.

The puppets, also known as Humanimals, looked like they'd stepped right off the big screen and into the theater. Unfortunately, while they looked great, they were also kind of fragile. They just weren't designed to do thirty (or more) shows a day, seven days a week (but, really, what is?). The cable guts  would constantly wear out. Space constraints in the theater (as well as the obvious necessity of a finite budget) only allowed for two of each character to hang around. Even with a puppet 'hospital' directly off stage left and at least two technicians working all day, every day on repairs, it was extremely difficult sometimes to keep the show going. There were occasions when guests might see a show with only two out of three hyenas, for instance. It was truly through the speed and dedication of those puppet doctors that Legend ran as smoothly as it did.

Image copyright Disney

There was one character in the show that wasn't a puppet. Or, to be completely accurate, was only partially a puppet. Rafiki, the wise yet cheeky baboon (and narrator of the show), looked almost exactly like he did if you met him out in the parks, except for one big difference: his mouth opened and closed. For the first time in Disney history, a costumed character had what is known as an articulated head. Supposedly, the first time folks from the Jim Henson Company saw the new Rafiki in action, they were a bit mystified, especially since the performer had full use of both arms (if you ever look closely at, say, Big Bird, you'll notice one of his arms doesn't do a whole lot). A simple mechanism, hidden in the costume's glove, with a cord running up the sleeve to the head made the whole thing possible. Two fingers, one for each of Rafiki's lips, and a whole lot of practice was all it took to make guests gasp in delight at the sight of an actually taking character (it was especially effective since Rafiki was the star of the pre-show and the first thing guests saw in the show).

This image really shouldn't exist.

Full disclosure time: I was lucky enough to be a part of the cast of Legend for two years in the late Nineties, performing the show over 1,800 times, a thousand of those as Rafiki. It was my first Disney show (and the reason I got a transfer to entertainment to begin with) and it was as much fun for me to perform as it was for people to watch. One of the milestones that was passed during my tenure was Legend's 50,000th performance, a number that was dwarfed by the end as the show ran for five more years. Incidentally, the Fluffy I mentioned at the beginning of this post was our nickname for the puppet of Simba and Nala's baby that Rafiki raised at the end of the show. No one knew that their offspring would be called Kiara when the show opened and by the time we did know, it was too late; Fluffy it stayed. If given the chance to ride the lift and hoist Fluffy one more time, I, like I suspect most of us who did it once upon a time, would do it in a Manhattan minute. After all, the show might be over, but the Legend lives on.