The PeopleMover Business Disney Almost Built

The Disney Dish with Jim Hill

Len Testa and Jim Hill discuss the latest updates from Walt Disney World, including a Toy Story 5 overlay for Alien Swirling Saucers and shi

Key takeaways

Alien Swirling Saucers is getting a Toy Story 5 overlay titled Alien Swirling Saucers Lily Pads Jams.
The Magic of Disney Animation at Hollywood Studios will operate on a limited schedule from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Disney has removed the 2027 date for Tropical Americas, signaling potential delays into 2028.
A new Disney patent describes a 'Deployable Canopy System' for retractable shade in theme parks.
The Walt Disney Transportation Company was launched in 1974 to sell PeopleMover technology to airports and shopping centers.

Main topics

Toy Story 5 Overlay
DVC Member Surveys
Disney Cruise Line Themed Cruises

Notable quotes

If midnight snacks are bad, why is a there a light inside the refrigerator?

Conclusion

The episode offers a blend of current park news and fascinating corpor

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Welcome back to another edition of the Disney Dish podcast with Jim Hill. It's me, Len Testa, and this is our show for the week of Schmerzday, September 21st, 2026. Never a cloudy day, Jim. On the show today, news and surveys, more themed Disney cruise ideas, plus your listener questions. Then in our main segment, Jim gives us the history of the Walt Disney Transportation Company. Let's get started by bringing in the man who says that if midnight snacks are bad, why is there a light inside the refrigerator? It's Mr. Jim Hill. Jim, how's it going? Speaker 2 (0:28) It's going well, Len. And light on in the refrigerator makes me think of George Carlin. He had this great riff on this specific topic in A Place for My Stuff, which was Carlin's ninth album. His story shows back in November of 81. But here's the part of the recording that came to mind. Speaker 1 (0:49) You ever been looking through the refrigerator Speaker 2 (0:52) and come across an empty plate? It's like... Boy, that starts me to wondering, did something eat something else? You know, maybe the olives ate the tuna, or maybe that chicken really isn't dead yet. I love it. But then Carlin goes... goes on to say, well, I actually picture a little mouse with gloves and a parker, you Speaker 1 (1:11) know, just waiting for the light to go out. Which, as we know from the documentary that Pixar released called Ratatouille, that those things actually happen in the restaurant industry. That was an expose. Speaker 2 (1:21) Speaking of which, people forget. I mean, you know, again, George Carlin is the comedian, you know, the seven words you can't say on television, but people forget he did a lot of stuff for Disney. Like, for example, you mentioned Pixar. He was the voice of Phil Moore. for the Cars series. Likewise, all three of George's best-selling books, and these are their titles, Braindroppings, Napalm and Silly Putty, and When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? Those were all published by Hyperion Press. That's Disney's, you know, publishing arm. So, you know, George was, you know, as long as we're nominating Disney legends, you know, let's put George Carlin on the list. George Carlin, why not? Speaker 1 (2:07) There we go. That's a great idea. All right. Anyway, good to know. Okay. All right, Jim, let's do a quick shout out to our subscribers. Thanks to everyone who subscribes over at patreon.com slash jimhomemedia, including Christopher Sterniolo, Daniel Steeler. Jessica Polarski, John Small Jr., Justin Nishitsuji, and Nicholas Butt. Jim, these are the concerned citizens of Vronamuk, asking everyone to show up at the next town hall and demand the mayor answer basic questions like, will the street repairs ever be done? What's causing all those tornadoes over at the amusement park? And has anyone checked the license of that railroad engineer? True story. Speaker 2 (2:44) Okay. Speaker 1 (2:45) Just saying there's a lot going on for such a small town. There we go. There we go. All right, Jim, on to the news. Folks, the Disney Dish News is sponsored by BeOurGuestVacations.com. From our friends at DVCRentalStore.com. Jim, it's week three of the NFL season, which means fans from Cleveland to San Diego need something. anything to look forward to this winter. And that can be a trip to Walt Disney World if you call our friends at BeOurGuestVacations.com now. Remember, the one sport that'll never let you down is all-star sports and BeOurGuestVacations.com. That's great. Speaker 2 (3:15) Thank you. That was great. Okay. Speaker 1 (3:17) Took me a while on that one, but thank you. All Speaker 2 (3:19) right. Speaker 1 (3:19) Okay. All right, Jim, speaking of Walt Disney World, Aliens Rolling Saucers is getting a Toy Story 5 overlay. starting this week to help promote Toy Story 5 coming to Disney+. So the new name of the attraction is Alien Swirling Saucers Lily Pads Jams. What do you make of this, Jim? Speaker 2 (3:36) Well, I'm Speaker 1 (3:37) kind of intrigued Speaker 2 (3:40) to see the parks getting behind. Is this the first time that a film arriving on Disney Plus has had something inside of the parks to Speaker 1 (3:52) help promote it? Our listeners will tell us one way or the other, but I suspect that they've done some Disney Plus promos before. I don't know if we've ever gotten an attraction re-theming like this. But yeah, we've seen minor stuff. This might be the most ambitious thing that they've done, though. Speaker 1 (4:08) Music includes Toy Story songs and new tracks just for the ride, so we're getting a new soundtrack. And remember, this is the attraction that our friend Jim Schultz designed, right? He's got a patent for this ride mechanism. There Speaker 2 (4:17) we go. Speaker 1 (4:18) Yum. And then, Jim, speaking of this, my favorite new conspiracy theory. Would you like to hear this, by the way? Absolutely. My favorite new conspiracy theory is that Taylor Swift, who currently has 14 Grammys and an Emmy, wrote the Toy Story 5 song, I Knew It, I Knew You, just to get an Oscar on her way to the EGOT. Like she's checking boxes off as we go here. Speaker 2 (4:37) I, you know, she was Speaker 1 (4:40) in cats, Jim. I'm just saying. Speaker 2 (4:42) There we go. There we go. No, I think you're on the money with this one. In fact, let's see what happens come the 2027 Academy Awards. She's got to be the odds on favorite Speaker 1 (4:54) for that, Speaker 2 (4:55) right? Speaker 1 (4:55) Oh, yeah. God, yes. And Jim, speaking of Hollywood Studios, we have the long-term schedule now for the new Magic of Disney animation attraction, which is 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. starting at the end of this month. So the attraction is going to open roughly an hour after official park opening. And these hours seem consistent with attractions that include characters and live demonstrations. So like Conservation Station at Animal Kingdom is a decent analogy. It's open 9 a.m., which is about an hour after the park opens until late afternoon. So this tells me this is a minor attraction in Disney's view, something where it's not going to be the first or second or third thing that people go to. if you're rope dropping, and it's not something that you're going to go to all day. This is basically one of the kids in the park schedule, and Speaker 2 (5:40) that's Speaker 1 (5:40) when this is staying open. Speaker 2 (5:41) Okay. And have you managed to make it over to this? I mean, it only Speaker 1 (5:45) opened this week. No, I went the day before looking for previews, but I'm going to go back this weekend. Speaker 2 (5:50) Okay. Okay. Because, again, I'm just going to be intrigued because I guess the other aspect of this that makes it a little challenging is this is going to be fairly character heavy, isn't it? notion of, you know, some of the walk-around characters are going to be out interacting with the public. Speaker 1 (6:07) Oh, yeah. And they are, yeah. So tons of characters, but also you've got animators and characters on the inside. So then you start to run into equity questions there. Like, you know, these are people who are paid on a different scale than hourly cast members. And I think that's why we get those hours. All right. Got it. Got it. Okay. We'll see. But yeah, I'll report back next week. Okay. Also, Jim, last bit of news from Walt Disney World. Our friends at WDW Magic have noted that Disney has quietly removed the 2027 date from their Coming to the Parks Tropical Americas page. And we speculated a couple of weeks ago that the D23 announcement of a partial opening of Monstropolis in late 2027 was a sign of something to come. And this looks like it's that. What do you think? Speaker 2 (6:49) The lazy Susan rotated. It's Monstropolis that's sort of stepping in and will be the thing that gets promoted in the fall of 2027. But even in that case, it's important to remind folks that the Doors coaster is Speaker 1 (7:07) 2028, right? At the earliest? Yeah, 2028. So it looks like we're getting a lot of stuff in 2028 now, and some of it might be front-loaded, yeah. Speaker 2 (7:15) Okay, okay. Speaker 1 (7:16) You know, it's fine. So the interesting thing for me is this. Disney's 2027 fiscal year runs October 1st, 2026 to September 30th, 2027, which means we're getting no new lands or rides in fiscal year 2027 domestically. And that's a bit of a surprise. Speaker 2 (7:32) Like if you Speaker 1 (7:33) would ask me in 2024, if we're getting something in fiscal year 2027, I would have bet money on it. And now it looks like that's not true. On the other hand, as a software developer, I have often had to tell people, um, you know, your project is going to be late. And the best response I ever got, uh, was from a guy that I used to work with at American Express named Al Cheek, who I love. Uh, and I, so I had to tell Al one time his project was being, um, uh, delayed and Al thought about it for a second. He said, as long as it's good when it, when it, when you deliver it, that's, what's important. Like no one's going to, no one's going to remember that you were, you know, a couple months late. Everyone's going to remember whether it worked. And I think that's the philosophy we need to have here. If it's a good attraction, a couple months here or there, is it going to make a big deal? Speaker 2 (8:15) And speaking of which, increasingly hearing from the folks out in California about Hex, that evidently the new animated feature from Disney, that, you know, again, it was kind of tough getting this one across, but evidently... The finished film, it looks really good. And, you know, in fact, evidently the people at the parks have seen enough of this that they're like, oh, do we in fact have, you know, another Frozen here? Speaker 1 (8:50) A tangle Speaker 2 (8:50) of Speaker 1 (8:50) Frozen. You know, the funny thing is, is I went to see a late night showing of Coyote vs. Acme. Oh, okay. Last week. And I get that it's an animated film. Speaker 2 (9:01) But Speaker 1 (9:02) all of the previews were for... kids' films, including Hext. And I was like, was this just the algorithm thinking, okay, animated film main feature, so we show animated film previews? Because those are two vastly different audiences. The audience for Coyote vs. Acme is probably not the audience for, you know, Troll 7, you know, Electric Boogaloo or whatever. Speaker 2 (9:26) You're not wrong. But I wish they were a touch more sophisticated when it comes to trailer placement. Or to be honest, I wish they were more honest about the movie start time. You know, I always show up and then get that 30 minutes of trailers, and it's like, I could be outside in the lobby, you know, having a beverage. Speaker 1 (9:43) I plan on arriving at the stated show time and then just wandering in. But yeah, the Hex preview looked really, really good. It looked to me like a cross between Tangled and Frisbee. There you go. With Speaker 2 (9:56) just a dollop of Harry Potter folded in. Speaker 1 (10:00) Right, right. But I love the color palette, too. That was really pretty. Speaker 2 (10:05) It Speaker 1 (10:05) looks great. And Speaker 2 (10:07) again, Disney has very, very high hopes for this come November of this year. And so do the parks. And we'll just leave it at that in regard to what might help bring people into the parks in early Speaker 1 (10:20) 2027. Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, Jim, one bit of news over from Universal Parks. It's more of a question, but have you heard anything about a reopening date for Universal's horror makeup show? It closed May 12th. It's supposed to open this winter. Yeah. Speaker 2 (10:34) Okay, the weird part with the horror makeup show is obviously, you know, especially down in Orlando, they're going full bore with Halloween Horror Nights. And just the notion of there was just enough overlap with the team between those who were doing the horror makeup show redo and the folks who were getting... Halloween Horror Night up and running. And it just... Oh, Speaker 1 (11:00) got it, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very specific skill set. That's Speaker 2 (11:05) an Speaker 1 (11:05) exact play. And Speaker 2 (11:06) there's a lot Speaker 1 (11:06) of demand for it in September. Is that what you're saying? There we go. Speaker 2 (11:08) And Speaker 1 (11:09) just they Speaker 2 (11:09) ran out of time. And so it's one of these notions where, Speaker 1 (11:13) you Speaker 2 (11:13) know, it's the Speaker 1 (11:14) first week of Speaker 2 (11:14) November. There will be a lot of hands available. And in fact, they are definitely shooting to get it open. for the holiday season because obviously that's when that park needs all of the capacity it can get. So it's a full court press from November through December to, all right, finish what we need to do, get this thing open for the holidays. Speaker 1 (11:35) The funny thing is, is that is such