881 · The Magic of Disney Animation: An E-Ticket Without a Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios

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In this episode of WDW Radio, host Lou Mangiello explores The Magic of Disney Animation at Disney's Hollywood Studios, reflecting on its evo

Key takeaways

• The original 1989 animation tour offered rare access to real animators at work, creating a profound connection between guests and the creative process.
• Today's Magic of Disney Animation experience uses visual storytelling and character integration to evoke the feeling of being in a working studio, even without active production.

Main topics

• Evolution of Disney's Hollywood Studios
• Historical animation tour at Disney MGM Studios (1989)

Notable quotes

"You could be walking around Walt Disney World eating a Mickey bar while on the other side of the glass, story artists and animators were doing their daily jobs."

"This was not a demonstration that was created for guests. Like the Florida studio was. And really became, I think, an important part of Walt Disney feature animation."

Conclusion

The Magic of Disney Animation redefines what it means to be a studio e

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:15) I'm wishing. Speaker 2 (0:51) On May 1st, 1989, you could stand inside the Disney MGM Studios and watch real Disney animators making real Disney movies, including films like Mulan. And the park has evolved a lot since then. But I think one question has always stayed very interesting to me, especially now, which is, what does the word studios actually mean here? This week, I'm taking you inside the magic of Disney animation to explore what this new experience actually offers. why different people in the same family or group might come away loving completely different parts of it, and why I think it reconnects Disney's Hollywood Studios with something that's always made the idea of a studio so fascinating, which is seeing how the magic is made and getting a chance to be part of it yourself. Hello, my friend, and welcome to WDW Radio, your guide to the Disney parks and experiences around the world. I'm your host and your friend, Lou Mangiello, and this is show number 881. And whether this is your first visit or you've been part of the WW Radio family for more than 20 years, thank you for choosing to spend some of your time with me today. We're going to talk about what the magic of Disney animation is, what you can expect, who it's really for, the history connected to this exact location, and why I think this experience might help answer a bigger question about what the word studios can mean in this park today. As always, Join me this and every Wednesday, 7.30 p.m. Eastern for WWW.LIVE on Facebook and YouTube. Be part of the community and conversation over in the Clubhouse at www.com slash clubhouse. Connect with me on social. I am at Lou Mangiello on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And when you're ready to book your next Disney vacation, cruise, or adventure, my friends over at mousefantravel.com can help with completely free personalized vacation planning services. So whether you remember looking through those animation windows like me back in 1989, you're curious about what Disney has created there now, or you just want to understand why somehow I ended up meeting every character, drawing awfully three times, and crying with Mulan, I'll share that story. There's a lot to talk about today, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's episode of the WDW Radio Show. Speaker 2 (3:05) I want to approach this a little differently than simply taking you room by room on a virtual walking tour, because there is a lot to see and do and photograph and draw and discover and probably purchase inside the magic of Disney animation. And I absolutely want to help you know what's there and what to look for. But I think the more interesting story is what all those things add up to. And for me, and I think for you, that story starts not inside the building, but outside. Because when Disney first revealed that reimagined animation courtyard, I fell in love with it immediately. Yes, love at first sight does exist. I loved the references to the real Walt Disney Studios campus in Burbank. The sorcerer's hat inspired by the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. Pluto's Corner and the characters, not just the main ones, but secondary characters like Pua and Thumper and Lucifer tucked into the environment. And there's more characters that have been added since that first. time I visited and the characters are aware of one another. You can see in the way that they are positioned and who and what they're looking at. But once I finally stood there and spent even more time in the courtyard, I kept coming back to a single word, studios. Like what makes a place feel like a studio, especially when the movies are no longer being made there? Because in 1989, that question had a very literal answer. When the Disney MGM Studios opened on May 1st, 1989, one of its very few, it was very much a half-day park, one of its very few opening day experiences was the animation tour. Guests could actually look through windows and watch Disney artists do the work of making animated films that they were eventually going to watch in real theaters. And I think you need to think about that for a second because it's kind of remarkable from a theme park perspective. You could be walking around Walt Disney World eating a Mickey bar while on the other side of the glass, story artists and animators and background artists and ink and paint artists and other members of a real production team were doing their daily jobs. And this was not a demonstration that was created for guests. Like the Florida studio was. And really became, I think, an important part of Walt Disney feature animation. It's something that Michael Eisner wanted to bring here. And it was the principal production home for films like Mulan and Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear. So films that became, I think, increasingly meaningful to people were being created right here where families were visiting the park. And I remember being here as somewhat of a kid and thinking like this was really the first time. That we as guests were able to peek behind the curtain to see not just how movies are being made, but how these animated features are being made. And dad, mom, thank you for being so patient with me as I stood there, like literally and figuratively with my face pressed up against the glass, wanting to sort of understand and see. how these artists were creating the work that was so meaningful to me and my family. It was the movies that brought us to the parks. I think that is the journey for a lot of people, especially in the early days of Disney. And I've always loved learning. And like, this was a place, this was a park I could come to and see how the things that I enjoyed were being made. To go and feel like I was backstage. on a movie set and here inside a real working animation studio, which we never had access to before. And if you remember that original tour, you most likely remember Back to Neverland with Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams, where Robin became that animated lost boy. And through him, he connected us to this funny, very accessible introduction to what it actually takes to turn somebody into an animated character. And for, I think, a whole generation of us, that might have been our first glimpse behind the curtain of animation specifically. And I want you to hold on to like that Robin Williams for a little bit because we're going to come back in later in a way I think I very much love. I think you will as well. Because that production studio closed around 2004. And while the guest attraction continued in some changed forms until around 2015, This building later became the Star Wars launch bay as the park continued to evolve, let's say. And I'm not bringing that up because I think Hollywood Studios needs to turn back the clock or somehow recreate what it was in 1989 because I don't. I don't think it can. But I think what matters is what that original experience gave us. It gave us proximity to that creative process. You could see that these movies didn't just. appear fully formed on a screen because there are people and desks and drawings and tools and ideas and yes, mistakes and an enormous amount of work behind them. So now you jump forward to today. And if you're not going to have this functioning animation studio behind the glass, how do you bring that same sense of discovery back? And I think that's where this new experience gets very, very interesting. And I think Disney gives this whole area the visual identity that says studio, not just the words on a marquee. Like the courtyard draws from the real Burbank campus. And those references make looking at concept art and drawing the character and meeting Mulan and wandering through the animator's office feel like parts of a larger place rather than unrelated and disconnected activities. And there's something else I noticed outside that I... Hope Disney and you pay attention to because people are not using this courtyard as a hallway. This is not a thoroughfare. It's not something you walk through to get into the animation building. And even before the building opened, on the same day that we were getting previews of Muppets Rock and Roller Coaster and all these other things going on at the studios, the place that I and so many other people were coming back to was the courtyard. Not to meet a character, not to get on a line, not to take pictures. We just wanted to sort of hang out there. And that's not a novelty. And it hasn't worn off because, again, people were stopping, taking pictures, looking for characters, trying to find all the different character statues. And because they're not all major characters, helping other people identify ones that maybe they didn't recognize. But they were sitting and talking and pointing things out and having this shared experience and just. Spending time there. And I think, and Disney very much sees this and understands it and recognize it. This is very much going to inform decisions that are made going forward. I've spoken to some imaginers. I've spoken to some executives and they're like, we understand, we see how this place and space is resonating with people. And I think that Disney parks and we need and crave those spaces. I kept saying all day. You don't need a coaster, a drop, a dark ride, a thrill in order for something to be an e-ticket experience. And I think this is like the poster child for exactly what that means. And the thing I love about this area, whether it is the statues, whether it's the handprints on the ground, is that one child might recognize Pua immediately. Somebody else might notice Thumper or Lucifer. Now that kid or kid at heart gets to be the expert on that movie, right? The parent might recognize something from another and the grandparent might have an entirely different connection. And they're able to have that shared experience. And nobody had to enter a room, a queue, get a lightning lane, a virtual queue, or anything for that to happen. This place itself creates the conversation. And then you walk inside. And I think before I, we start looking at the reception area or the galleries or the characters. I think there's one important idea that makes this entire experience much easier to understand and will sort of metaphorically connect the dots for you. There's a sign that you'll see outside that says this, but you do have to think about this experience truly as a studio open house, that the people who normally are working here have stepped away and the characters they've created have come to life and taken over this place. And if you've seen Once Upon a Studio on Disney +, which you should more than once. And or when you come to this experience, because it's going to be different when you watch it in the theater here, not just because you're having this shared communal experience, but because the artwork on the walls is going to come to life. Spoiler alert. But once you see that, you immediately understand the idea. The employees have left the Walt Disney Animation Studios. The building gets quiet and suddenly the characters start stepping out of the artwork, wandering through the halls, finding one another and making the studio their own. That's essentially the story, the fiction that you're stepping into here. The artists are not sitting at their desks. So Stitch has decided that the animator's office belongs to him. And Mulan is in story and Rapunzel is in layout. And Chip and Dale are in hand-drawn animation. And Donald and Daisy have taken over computer animation. And Goofy has somehow been entrusted with lighting. And Stitch is a multitasker, so he's also involved in effects. which I think is a very odd HR decision, but that's fine. But I think this is why the little things that appear to have been like left behind by these characters instantly make so much more sense. The artwork, the office supplies, the personal objects, the lost belongings, the production materials, all these little traces of studio life are evidence of the people and the characters who work and belong there. And I love the fact that the real And the fictional parts of animation are coexisting that way here. Like you can look at an actual piece of production art and appreciate the hand of the artist who created it, but then turn around and play along with the idea that the character from that drawing has escaped after that artist went home. And I think the beautiful and brilliant part of that is that you don't have to explain any of that to a kid in order for this place to work. They just see the characters and they have fun while somebody else in the family starts to realize why those characters are in those particular rooms, why this thing was left behind, who this is connected to. And when you start to see that, this reception area of this building starts to make a lot more sense because there's a lost and found,