June 29 - America Sings

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On this day, in 1974, Disneyland’s salute to the United States’ 200^th birthday, America Sings, opened in Tomorrowland. As Bicentennial Fever began sweeping the nation in the early Seventies, Disneyland naturally wanted to get in on the action. It was decided to create a new show to go in the space occupied by the Carousel of Progress. That classic show, one of the holdovers from the 1964 World’s Fair, was packed up and, in 1973, relocated to the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, where it still runs today. Imagineers, led by the Legendary Marc Davis, then got to work on an all new attraction.

America Sings was structured similar to Carousel of Progress (kind of a necessity since it used the same space). A total of six theatres rotated around a central cluster of stages, each theater moving to the next stage every four minutes. Guests entered the show in stage one, saw a brief introduction, rotated through four eras of American musical history, then saw a brief conclusion and exited from stage six. For the show’s narrators, Marc created Eagle Sam, voiced by Burl Ives, and Ollie Owl, voiced by Sam Edwards. While Eagle Sam is sometimes referred to as Sam the Eagle, he shouldn’t be confused with our Muppet friend of the same name or the 1984 Olympic Mascot, Sam the Olympic Eagle; those are three distinct characters. In a nod to taking over Carousel’s space, Rex Allen, who played the narrator of Carousel, has a small part in America Sings as Sombrero, a dog.

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On a tragic note, America Sings was responsible for the death of a cast member shortly after it opened. On July 8, 1974, just nine days after its debut, Deborah Stone was caught between the stationary outer wall of the attraction and one of the inner moving walls. The 18 year old was crushed to death but her body wasn't discovered for nearly twenty minutes. Guests had actually heard her screams but thought it was part of the show. As a result of the accident, America Sings was closed for three days while safety lights were installed and the moving walls were redesigned to include breakaway panels. Thankfully, no further incidents were recorded.

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It might seem ridiculously out of place to plunk a historical show down in Tomorrowland, but Bicentennial Fever was a powerful thing in the mid Seventies and no one really minded. Until after the reasonable time that bicentennial celebrations could go on, of course. By the early Eighties, America Sings not only didn’t fit into a land that claimed to have its eyes set on the future, but it was getting long in the tooth as a concept as well. The show persisted almost to the end of the decade, however. In 1986, it was slight victim of recycling when two geese Audio-Animatronics were removed, stripped of their skin and installed as baggage droids in the queue of Star Tours. The rest of America Sings kept on singing until April 10, 1988. At that point, most of the remaining 113 Audio-Animatronic figures found a new home in Splash Mountain, which opened the following year. The Stork figure from the show’s finale is used as a training tool to teach and test new Imagineers on how to program Animatronics.

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Plans were made to install a third show in the rotating theaters and a “coming soon” sign was placed in front of the attraction. That sign stood there for almost ten years, as the remaining sets of America Sings slowly deteriorated and the building was used as office and storage space, the new attraction a victim of Euro Disneyland’s financial shortcomings. Finally, in 1998, the building was completely renovated and became Innoventions, Disneyland’s version of the Epcot area. In 2015, the space was further updated and became the West Coast’s Star Wars Launch Bay, a walkthrough attraction highlighting all things Star Wars related.

June 16 - DisneyQuest

On this day, in 1999, DisneyQuest Chicago opened its doors to guests on the corner of Ohio and Michigan in Chicago, Illinois. The concept of DisneyQuest began in the late Nineties as an experimental attraction in a little side room of Innoventions at Epcot. Guests were invited in as test subjects to play a virtual reality game based on Aladdin. They donned big heavy VR helmets, sat on “flying carpets” and flew their way through the streets of Agrabah and the Cave of Wonders, collecting jewels and searching for the Genie. Guests oohed and aahed their way through the simple game, marveling at the new technology. What they didn’t know is that Disney wasn’t just testing out virtual reality. They were also testing out an entirely new concept for a theme park.

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The end of the 20^th Century found the Walt Disney Company thirsting for new arenas to make money in, mostly outside of the existing parks and resorts. A new division was created called Disney Regional Entertainment to make this dream come true. There are several projects from this period that either never came to fruition or actually started and then were abruptly shut down. One that didn’t make it past the planning stages was the idea of having Disney owned and operated rest stops along the major highways of America. The first concept to open was Club Disney, a playland/birthday party destination for the under 10 crowd. That chain made it up to five locations in California and Arizona before being shut down just months after the fifth one opened. The second idea to open was DisneyQuest.

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The first DisneyQuest opened on the West End of Downtown Disney in June 1988 and was touted as the first virtual theme park. Personally, I loved the place. There was that original Aladdin attraction as well as ‘rides’ based on Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Book, Space Mountain and Alien Encounter. It really was like having a whole theme park in one multi-story building, complete with a midway on the top floor and classic video games scattered throughout. The concept really caught on and a second DisneyQuest was announced for the Magnificent Mile shopping district of Chicago, Illinois.

Full disclosure time: a few months after DisneyQuest Chicago opened, my wife and I moved from Orlando to Chicago and I began working there as a cast member in the retail operations part of it. I wasn’t around for the honeymoon period, but I did get to watch all the missteps that occurred over the next year. My version of what happened is probably a little (or a lot) more honest than the official company version.

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DisneyQuest Chicago was the first entertainment venue Disney ever opened in Midwest, making it the closest Disney destination for tens of millions of Americans. On top of that, it was located in a city that hosts millions of tourists from all over the world every year. The success of DisneyQuest Chicago really should have been an easy thing to attain. Of course, unlike the California and Florida properties, this park would have to rely more heavily on repeat business from the locals and that is where management started going wrong.

Hear me now: DisneyQuest Chicago always turned a profit, no matter what you read in company accounts. As it was told to me, the place achieved somewhere in the 6-7% range. Unfortunately, Michael Eisner at the time was fixated on (and had promised shareholders) 20% profits from business units, not necessarily an attainable goal much less a sustainable one. In an effort to boost the numbers, DQC management began tinkering with its mode of admission. They tried a system where guests would buy points, everything inside cost a certain amount of points, you could buy more points as you went along. They tried a flat admission fee, everything included. They tried a tiered plan where you paid different amounts for different groups of attractions and games. The biggest problem was that they tried all of these things one right after the other during the year I was there. They knew that locals would probably come once every three months or so. Want to guess how often they changed admission prices and systems? Locals were really beginning to love the place and be excited about making it a regular part of their entertainment rotation, but every time they showed up, it was like visiting a completely new place when they went to buy a ticket. That gets tiresome really quickly. Eventually people will throw their hands up in frustration and stop coming. And, by the end, that’s what was happening.

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I wasn’t there for end. I saw it coming and got out. The breaking point for me came when the third DisneyQuest that had been announced for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was cancelled even though construction had already begun. That deal left a literal hole in the ground for several years before it was finally filled in and turned into a parking lot. On September 4, 2001 DisneyQuest Chicago closed its doors forever, leaving the DQ at Downtown Disney the sole surviving part of the great experiment. That first and final location continued operating for almost sixteen years after that however, not closing until July 2, 2017. In my mind that proves the viability of the concept, but my mind also thinks that turning a profit is a good reason to keep a venture going. Clearly, in a world where large chunks of money are poured into failing ventures in order to try to save them (rarely successfully), I don’t know what I’m talking about.

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Disney Regional Entertainment did launch a third brand during its tenure, the ESPN Zone, a sports themed restaurant, in July 1998. Nine of those eventually opened in places like Baltimore, Maryland and Denver, Colorado. A large one was located right next to DQC. Although that chain lasted the longest, most of them were closed or closing by 2009 (one, in Los Angeles,  lasted until 2013 but it was operated by a separate company) and DRE itself was dissolved in 2010. What had started so promisingly a dozen years before was now a victim of corporate impatience and greed. The time when a virtual theme park was considered an innovative place to play has probably passed us by (although with the rise of personal virtual reality systems, you never know), so the chances of seeing anything like DisneyQuest in the near future is slim. Which is too bad. I kinda miss the place.