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The Hanes company recently signed a deal with Disney to produce all of the clothing sold for Disney Parks. The special agreement also makes Hanes the sponsor of the Rock N’ Roller Coaster Attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and give the Hanes division, Champion, naming and sponsorship rights to Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. The main reason for the deal is to raise clothing merchandise sales at Disney Parks.

By Sparky LD     Dinosaurs battle, graveyard bones rattle, the Wicked Witch shouts and an evil grasshopper spouts. On the lighter side, wise-cracking birds, singing Country Bears, time-traveling robots and a growing lineup of diverse characters comes to life at Walt Disney World Resort via the “magic” of Audio-Animatronics technology. Humor, fantasy and drama are enacted daily throughout Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney-MGM Studios by more than 1,600 “performers” related to one another by the thread of “life” achieved through Audio-Animatronics technology. The technology electronically combines and synchronizes voices, music, sound effects, character movements and other show elements. As a result, characters such as the original graveyard ghouls in The Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom or the imposing Hopper in “It’s Tough to be a Bug” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom can wow guests with their lifelike movements.

     Audio-Animatronics development began almost 50 years ago, spurred by Walt Disney’s desire to give life-like movement to the three-dimensional figures that would be the stars of new Disneyland attractions — just as he had given life to the cartoon characters in his films. The challenge to animate the theme park figures fell to WED Enterprises (now known as Walt Disney Imagineering), the Disney creative design, development and engineering subsidiary. On staff were many of the famed Disney animators, rich in their understanding of the basic elements of re-creating movement. But technology to achieve pre-programmed movement in three-dimensional figures was in a primitive state. The earliest experiments utilized simple mechanical devices — cams and levers — to animate miniature scale model human figures such as Dancing Man, a 9-inch-tall tap-dancing vaudevillian, who was programmed to mimic the dance steps of Buddy Ebsen. Cams were tedious to cut, and the movement they could induce was limited to the diameter of the cams — clearly an inadequate approach to animate life-size figures with life-like movements and sounds. Disney’s Imagineers combined the cam-and-lever principle with an electronic-hydraulic-pneumatic approach to achieve more versatility in the moving animals of two early Disneyland attractions, Nature’s Wonderland and Jungle Cruise. But the actions remained simple. Abandoning cams and levers, Imagineers — with help from studio sound experts and electricians — devised a system to control the actions by means of magnetic recording tape and solenoid coils. Signals recorded on the tape trigger solenoid coils inside the figures, producing action. This first “pure” form of Audio-Animatronics technology was introduced in the summer of 1963 with the opening of The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland.

     Programming life-like movements in animal characters proved easier than in human figures. To record the sequence of signals that would animate the human figures during playback, Wathel Rogers, “the father of Audio-Animatronics technology,” was rigged-up with a harness-like device. As he moved, the various actions were recorded as a series of distinctive signals. The programming was painstaking. For instance, a figure of Abraham Lincoln created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair incorporated 57 moves, including 22 different head movements, all of which had to be acted out in correct sequence by the wired-up animator. In 1969, Imagineers turned to the rapidly developing technology of computers as an ally. A variety of movements are first recorded onto a computer data disk, a process known as the Digital Animation Control System (DACS). Animators then manipulate figure movements using a console of buttons and knobs, enabling them to quickly insert, delete or adjust actions.

      The finished show is controlled by DACS Playback, which simultaneously relays data and cues to speakers, lights, special effects and Audio-Animatronics figures. As technology progressed into the 1980s, so did the control system. Today, a control system composed of multiple DACS controls the Audio-Animatronics figures for both Epcot and Magic Kingdom from a single remote location. Sophisticated computers have enabled Audio-Animatronics animators to achieve greater subtleties in body language and expression — even a pioneering walking movement by Ben Franklin during a scene of The American Adventure at Epcot. Franklin’s head tilts and nods, his body twists, individual fingers of his hand move, his torso moves forward and to the side, his mouth “pinches” right and left — some 40 separate movements in that scene alone. “To accomplish this, we had to push our abilities to the limit,” Wathel Rogers observed during the show’s premier in October 1982. “When the process was finished, we had the most complex Audio-Animatronics figure ever built.” That is, until Imagineers developed Audio-Animatronics A-100 technology in the late 1980s. These state-of-the-art figures incorporate compliance technology, which enables their movements and gestures to be even more fluid and realistic. However, programming remains as painstaking as ever. It generally takes about eight hours to animate one second of movement.

     The first Audio-Animatronics A-100 figure was the Wicked Witch of Oz, who debuted in The Great Movie Ride at Disney-MGM Studios in 1989. The newest A-100 figures include the terrifying carnotaurs in the DINOSAUR attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The most complex A-100 figure to date is Hopper, a nine-foot, four-armed grasshopper with 68 functions who appears in “It’s Tough to be a Bug,” also at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Other A-100 figures are George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln in The Hall of Presidents at Magic Kingdom.

As part of the announcement of the Year of a Million Dreams extension, a dream catalog has been made to show all of the new dreams being given away next year. You can see the catalog at this link:http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/index?name=YOMD2CatalogLandingPage

In an update on what we reported here about a month ago, Rawlings has opened a small shop inside of the Team Mickey store at the Downtown Disney Marketplace. The store personalizes bats, balls, gloves, and helmets and is open everyday during Team Mickey’s hours of operation.

Recent additions to WDW theme parks such as Stich’s Great Escape, Turtle Talk with Cruch, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, and The Grand Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros are stirring up controversy because they are all based on Disney characters and movies.  In this week’s issue, Tom Corless takes a look at this recent imagineering trend and its impact on originality.   

Disney purists will tell you that the overall WDW product has declined over the last few years.  The addition of motion picture and television program-inspired attractions has set off a lot of the online community.  However, many forget the very reason Walt Disney created the parks – to promote the products of his company.

The ideas for Adventureland and Tomorrowland were based on the weekly television programs that Walt hosted.  Fantasyland was a way of promoting Walt’s animated features.  Even most of the attractions Walt himself created for Disneyland were based on shows and movies.  Some of the classic attractions such as Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White’s Scary Adventure, and even the long forgotten Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride are based on animated features.  Still, the desire for attractions with no former presentation is great within the Disney fan base.

New additions such as Soarin’, Expedition Everest and Mission: Space have been the only original attractions opened at the resort since 1999.  Within that same amount of time, seven attractions and three shows have opened featuring characters and stories from movies and television shows.  While most of these attractions have been widely successful, fan response has still been horrible.  While these feelings are supported by busts such as Stitch’s Great Escape and The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, there are still gatebusters such as Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Finding Nemo The Musical that pack full houses and garner great responses every day.  However, a strong argument can be made for the creation of original attractions.  Original attractions such as Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, Test Track, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad have set the bar high over movie and television-based attractions.  So which is better?  The point can be made that both are equally entertaining, but from a business standpoint, what makes more money?

In the end, something based on a motion picture or a television program is going to sell much more merchandise and is going to do a better job of bringing in people who have never visited the parks before.  Yet the success is reversible.  The development of Pirates of the Caribbean into a blockbuster film series has shown that originality can draw just as well as media-based items.  People who have never been on the ride were clamoring to see the films.

The focus, then, should not be on where the idea for an attraction comes from but rather the quality of the attraction.  There have been bad original rides as well as bad movie-based rides.  Success is not determined by notoriety rather by the guests enjoyment level.  If you believe originality is important, then I suggest you sit back for a while.  For as long as there is Disney parks, there will be attractions based on the films and shows of the Walt Disney Company.  

Hosted by Tom Corless, an introduction to our site and podcast.

Straight from the halls of Walt Disney Imagineering, a ton of news has come out about the future projects that will be happening at WDW. First off, the old site of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and current site of Pooh’s Playful Spot will be getting a new E Ticket/Big Budget attraction. Now, don’t get too excited right away, the project is at the very least 3 to 4 years from completion. I can only tell of one minor detail, that is the project will not be a mountain of any kind, contrary to the rumors that have been floating aound since 1999. In an update on the rumors we had on future enhancements to the Many Adventures of Winnie he Pooh, the changes are going to happen, just not immediately. The reason for the extended time frame is mostly so Animation can have time to animate what they have to, and then Imagineering can test he new special effects. I do not have any more details other than it will be a three dimensional effect and it will be coming to the attraction sometime in the next two years. In updates taking place this year, some major details have emerged on both Spaceship Earth and The Haunted Mansion. Spaceship Earth’s new final scene will feature mirrors and projections that will feature whatever you choose on one of the touch screens that will now be on every ride vehicle. The effect will be much like the hitchhiking ghost scene from the Haunted Mansion, just a lot more high tech and interactive. This will basically be an in ride ad for Siemens. In Haunted Mansion News, the newly announced never ending staircase scene will have some floating objects much like the floating chandelier scene. Not only will there be stairs as far as the eye can see, but plenty of spooky objects to keep guests coming back for more. WDI also confirmed the addition of the two other scenes, the floating Madame Leota crystal ball in the seance room and the new Bride/Attic Scene.