There's the fact that the name is also based on the Odyssey, so any sequel would have to have a different title or upset some people by replacing Jason with Ulysses.
When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
- Status
There's always the option of taking inspiration from the story of Jason and replacing him with Ulysses. You then have an ensemble cast of the Argonauts (which can also tie in the Labours of Herakles if you like) and an objective that can span two seasons: one season getting to the Golden Fleece (which might be a fantastical ship, given the setting) and then another season trying to return after the gods once again see fit to plague Ulysses with being set adrift in space. Only this time he has more than a couple of kids and a robot to help him!
In that case, that is a good title.
The same goes to you.
Yes, it would.
Well, that's a given.
Deleted member 165942
Yeah, Unicorn is kinda on the limbo most later works are in, but Hathaway's Flash seems to be something that Tomino has always wanted to do.
That does sound more interesting and a more definitive end to Zeon than what Unicorn had which was kinda eh, I can also see that version of F90 tackle the themes of Legacy by showing what kind of legacy Amuro, Char and Zeon had left on the Earth Sphere, with Amuro's kid struggling under the legacy of the father that they never knew due to him dying before they were born. Also maybe ITTL with the greater success of Zeta (and probably ZZ) they'll allow Tomino to flesh out F90 and F91 into the next chapter of the Universal Century as he intended, and who knows? It might also gets Hathaway's Flash animated more than two decades earlier than IOTL.
Edit: Maybe if Hathaway's Flash gets adapted before that expanded F90 and F91, an older, retired Bright Noa can appear in an episode where Amuro's kid visits the Noa family restaurant during downtime, it can lead to Bright talking about his regrets over Amuro and Hathaway's deaths and how much it pains him to see the child of a man who was his brother in all but blood in a military uniform.
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Ok, well, that generated some conversation. Is it possible to make a PM threat if you want to discuss further? This is starting to turn into a chatroom.
So, thanks once again to @Denliner for the excellent post on Gundam. More guest posts covering anime will appear later. It's not a subject I'm much of an expert on, but clearly there are plenty who are interested, so thanks again to Den and the others who are bringing these guest posts!
So, thanks once again to @Denliner for the excellent post on Gundam. More guest posts covering anime will appear later. It's not a subject I'm much of an expert on, but clearly there are plenty who are interested, so thanks again to Den and the others who are bringing these guest posts!
I think making a PM thread for certain subjects would not be a bad idea.
With regards to the Spur Posse, when they do get caught in TTL, they're likely to turn on each other once they get threatened with hard time--they aren't going to get off lightly at all, and that's a good thing, IMO, because they deserve everything they get...
I'd like to turn to another subject: in OTL, during the 1990 season, Lisa Olson, then a Boston Globe reporter, was sexually harassed by Patriots players in the locker room; the fallout led to her suing the team and Victor Kiam, the then-owner of the Patriots, taking a major PR hit once that came out and his response was basically victim-blaming--here's more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Olson. (1)
In TTL, when an incident like that happens, the fallout will be worse (and deservedly so, IMO) due to the #MeToo movement, especially if it occurs during that timeframe in TTL (the Olson incident was likely butterflied away, but other incidents with other teams are likely to occur at this time--and I'm not even getting into the other skeletons in the players' closets (2))...
(1) Robert Kraft was a minority owner of the Patriots during this time, as he owned Sullivan (later Foxboro) Stadium, and his refusal to let the Patriots break their lease was the reason he would wind up as majority owner of the Patriots (and why the Patriots are still in New England). I've always thought that this was a factor in why he listened to his wife, Myra, and dumped University of Nebraska defensive player Christian Peter, who was rather well-known for violence (and sexual assault) against women, after drafting him in the fifth round of the 1996 Draft...
Of course, I don't need to remind you who the Patriots drafted in the sixth round in 2000...
(2) If you thought wrestling was bad with its skeletons, have I got news for you about the NFL...
I'd like to turn to another subject: in OTL, during the 1990 season, Lisa Olson, then a Boston Globe reporter, was sexually harassed by Patriots players in the locker room; the fallout led to her suing the team and Victor Kiam, the then-owner of the Patriots, taking a major PR hit once that came out and his response was basically victim-blaming--here's more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Olson. (1)
In TTL, when an incident like that happens, the fallout will be worse (and deservedly so, IMO) due to the #MeToo movement, especially if it occurs during that timeframe in TTL (the Olson incident was likely butterflied away, but other incidents with other teams are likely to occur at this time--and I'm not even getting into the other skeletons in the players' closets (2))...
(1) Robert Kraft was a minority owner of the Patriots during this time, as he owned Sullivan (later Foxboro) Stadium, and his refusal to let the Patriots break their lease was the reason he would wind up as majority owner of the Patriots (and why the Patriots are still in New England). I've always thought that this was a factor in why he listened to his wife, Myra, and dumped University of Nebraska defensive player Christian Peter, who was rather well-known for violence (and sexual assault) against women, after drafting him in the fifth round of the 1996 Draft...
Of course, I don't need to remind you who the Patriots drafted in the sixth round in 2000...
(2) If you thought wrestling was bad with its skeletons, have I got news for you about the NFL...
So I was looking through a list of Canadian shows from 1992 for ideas to air in the US when I discovered this show:
en.wikipedia.org
And I decided to start watching to see how good it was and I have to say I'm kinda getting sucked into it now and I kinda wish it had aired in the States. So I petition that Nickelodeon ITTL picks up this show.
Edit: Here's the playlist for the show:
The Odyssey (TV series) - Wikipedia
Edit: Here's the playlist for the show:
Last edited:
Hooray for Hollywoodland!
Chapter 17: Expansion and Challenges (Cont’d)
Excerpt from The King is Dead: The Walt Disney Company After Walt Disney, an Unauthorized History by Sue Donym and Arman N. Said
By the early 1990s, the Disneytowns were starting to come into their own. While the original idea of “Disneylands in miniature” had not met the original attendance expectations, the flexibility of the concept allowed underperforming stores and attractions to be quickly swapped out with new ones, allowing the Disneytowns to evolve naturally with the local culture and interests. The Disneytowns’ low construction costs (typically around two-hundred and fifty million dollars at most, about the price of an EPCOT pavilion and often offset by local government incentives, partnerships, and sponsorships) made new franchises a fairly low risk bet. Furthermore, the Disneytowns proved somewhat “recession proof” as financially hurting families in the early 1990s who were no longer able to take their kids to Disneyland or Walt Disney World could at least take them to the nearby Disneytown and do a bit of outlet mall shopping and have a nice lunch or dinner while they were at it[1].
Even so, performance was mixed. The Denver Disneytown, with its beautiful location near Palmer Lake nestled in the scenic foothills between Denver and Colorado Springs, and with free shuttle service to several locations in the metro areas, had been a wild success, soon boosted by the appearance of outlet malls and vacation rentals. And while the original Philadelphia Disneytown had initially performed below expectations (though Sesame Place continued to perform well), it remained profitable and popular, fed by returning visitors from Richmond to Washington to New York to Boston. The San Antonio location, built on the site of an old quarry, struggled at first, but eventually found an audience, and became a surprising boost to Hyperion Music thanks to Fiesta Stadium. A Disneytown in Seattle built in on Pier 57 performed spectacularly well, particularly in the winter months when sunlight was rare and the comforting bright lights and fun inside were greatly appreciated by its weather-weary populous. Similar reasons drove the success of a Disneytown in Chicago, built on the Old Navy Pier. However, a Disneytown in St. Louis (technically Eagle Creek, Illinois, near the Cahokia Mounds National Monument), which was created with great hopes in keeping with one of Walt’s original expansion plans, suffered badly from competition from nearby Six Flags St. Louis and lost money.
The overall success led to the investigation of international Disneytowns. The first of these would be Disneytown London, made in partnership with Pearson PLC, and built in 1994 as an extension of their Chessington World of Adventures theme park in the southwest of London, with an Adventureland theme (in particular The Jungle Book), in keeping with the themes of the Chessington park. Disneytown London would be a popular spot for locals and tourists alike and help whet appetites for Disneyland Valencia (“If you like this, mate, wait until you see the full Monty down south!”). Disney also partnered with the City of Sydney, Australia, and local sponsors to build a Disneytown on Glebe Island near the old White Bay Power Station, which would open in late 1996. It would be the nucleus for a growing Disney Resort that would lead, ultimately, to something far grander.
In Asia, Japan’s Oriental Land Company pushed aside talks of a Disneytown and instead asked about the DisneySea resort then under construction in Long Beach. Exploratory talks with Hong Kong were initiated, though it was quickly determined that a whole new island would need to be dredged to build one, beginning a series of cost-benefit studies that dragged on through the years. This eventually led to a sweetheart deal with the Chinese government, who absorbed most of the construction costs, with dredging starting in 1997 shortly after the transfer of sovereignty. The Chinese Government specifically hoped that the presence of a Disney resort would help ease concerns of “Communist oppression” in the west and among the citizens of Hong Kong. Talks even began with the Saudi royal family for a Disneytown or even full Disneyland in the Kingdom, but they soon stalled based on security fears.
Finally, and very successfully, a Canadian Disneytown was built in Ontario in 1998 near the city of Hamilton. There it was deemed far enough from Philadelphia and Chicago not to compete directly, but still very close to several major cities in the Eastern Great Lakes region on both sides of the border and close to the tourist Mecca of Niagara Falls, though world events would soon complicate international travel. Special ferry boats were even constructed, though the notoriously volatile waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario limited their use. For obvious climactic reasons, much of it was built inside, encased in a large, glass-and-steel atrium reminiscent of the Imagination Pavilion that locals and truckers called “The Mouse Trap”.
The 1990s also saw an expansion and modernization of the “main” parks in the US. Several proposals were made for the US parks, from a “Disney America” park somewhere near Washington, DC, to a new smaller EPCOT at Disneyland, called “WestCOT” by the Imagineers. The former was judged too risky due to many parks in the immediate area and deemed far too close to (and thematically similar to) Disneytown Philadelphia. The latter was an ambitious plan intended to take up the space used by the Disneyland parking lot. It was first proposed in 1991 as a fallback should DisneySea prove untenable[2], but almost immediately went on the back burner. Part of this was due to cost (an estimated $3 billion), which was increasingly becoming a factor as the recession continued, Disneyland Valencia underperformed, and the construction costs of the Disneytowns and Port Disney added up, even with government grants and corporate sponsorships taking up some of the cost burden. But the main reason for the delay in WestCOT was DisneySea itself! With a sort-of second gate already being built 30 miles away in Long Beach, it was feared that opening WestCOT would compete with DisneySea. As such, WestCOT would go on hold indefinitely.
(Image by @Denliner)
Instead, the very first US park expansion would be, at the insistence of Chairman and President Frank Wells, a “third gate” at Walt Disney World, specifically the Disney-MGM Hollywoodland Resort and Studios, which he had been advocating for since the days of the Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT. The recent opening of Universal Studios in Orlando and Warner Brothers World and Columbia Peach Grove Studios in Atlanta appeared to be siphoning off customers from the Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT, whose attendance had dipped compared to other EPCOT pavilions. Disney and MGM Studios, seeking to expand productions in TV and film beyond their increasingly strained Burbank lots and sound stages, had already begun building the Disney-MGM Studios East complex after the banner 1991 movie season, and had initiated studio tours of these sound stages and lots, including a New York City outdoor lot. Tours, which originated at the Entertainment Pavilion and followed a “Yellow Brick Road” to the Studio lots (actually dyed and shaped concrete) began to expand as the “hands-on” exhibits at the Entertainment Pavilion were expanded at the Studio Lot due to long lines at the pavilion. But Wells, and his right-hand man Stan Kinsey, knew that they could do much more.
Thus, as construction on Port Disney Phase I completed and profits from the Pier Revue and the associated hotels began to come in, Ron Miller greenlit Wells’ long-desired Disney-MGM Studios resort. Starting construction in 1991 and taking a style cue from Disneyland Valencia and Port Disney in Long Beach, the $525 million Disney-MGM Studios Hollywoodland Resort[3], costs partially offset by sponsors and outside investors, would be “the city of Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood” with the Hyperion Style in full effect. With Phase II attractions still under development, Phase I opened to the public in the Spring of 1993 and became a fast success. Centered around the crossroads of Hyperion Avenue and Buena Vista Boulevard, the main draw was a reconstruction of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and a small recreation of the “Hollywoodland” sign on an artificial hill atop a protective levy, with forced perspective used to make it appear far away. Various buildings on the “streets” would serve as theaters where classic movies would play on a loop or where live performances would be held. Others would host rides, always movie-themed, included The Great Movie Ride (which was relocated from the Entertainment Pavilion), the child-friendly Ghostbusters: We Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts interactive dark ride/shooting game, the older-child-friendly Back to the Future dark track ride (with its innovative DeLorean-shaped ride vehicles), and the decidedly not child friendly Aliens: Enter the Nostromo[4] (based on the 20th Century Fox movie and built in a limited partnership with Triad).
Outdoor sets with live action shows were added over the years, such as the Indiana Jones Adventure, made in partnership with Lucasfilm and Triad, and The Land of Oz, an outdoor walking attraction where the guests followed (naturally) a pedestrian-only expansion of the yellow brick road that wound through the various encounters of the classic MGM film, with live actors playing Dorothy (your guide), her friends, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Munchkins, and, ultimately, The Wizard himself, with an optional balloon tower ride added to the end in the late 1990s[5].
Learning from lessons gathered from the experiences at Universal Studios, Orlando, the design was carefully maintained with levees and other barriers used to limit noise bleed-over from the visitor attractions to the active sets and sound stages[6]. This allowed the stages to continue to be used even during peak park hours. Numerous popular TV shows and films would have scenes filmed at Disney-MGM Studios East, with the New York City set finding plenty of use, particularly in the Spider-Man sequels. Extra dollars were made leasing the sets, particularly the NYC set, to other studios.
The relatively low construction cost of the park compared to Valencia and Port Disney made the park a financial as well as creative win for the company, and the working studios and sets achieved a secondary purpose in serving the studios. MGM Vice Chairman Bernie Brillstein even spent a year in Orlando to set up the studios, which would ultimately take up production on a majority of the MGM, Disney, and Hyperion television shows as well as several feature films. The “make your own movie/TV show” attractions from the Entertainment Pavilion were relocated and expanded upon along with new “effects workshops” and a guided studio tour. There was a walking or tram tour of restored old sets and movie models, including the Titanic model from Lew Grade’s failed Raise the Titanic, which was bought by Henson from ACC as a gift to Grade[7]. Optional fare included private set tours or even the chance to work as an Extra on a show or film.
The Pacific Electric Railway (Image source “brookhavenbear.wordpress.com”)
Later additions to the park in the 2000s included the Pacific Electric Railway Streetcars from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the beloved Timeless River ride (which took guests on a slow tour through the early world of Black & White animation, in particular Oswald and Mickey, and thus became colloquially known as the "Steamboat Willie ride" [8]), the Ghostbusters Tower of Terror (featuring an interactive Haunted Mansion inspired “Ghost Show” with live actors playing the Ghostbusters as entertainment for the guests in line awaiting the optional final attraction: a terrifying drop ride), and the largest and most impressive version of Roger Rabbit’s Toon Town to date, served naturally by the Pacific Electric. Eventually, the Pacific Electric would run all the way to the Magic Kingdom, letting off passengers at Muppetland and the Great Muppet Movie Ride.
Symbols for the Dream and Living Earth Pavilions (Images by @Denliner)
The Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT, now largely made obsolete, would at first be rebranded into the Dream Pavilion (keeping the cloudscape design), and would be rethemed with exhibits on dreams, dream imagery, and the psychology of dreams, but the hastily revamped space failed to attract enough visitors. It would ultimately be completely overhauled into the New Horizons Pavilion after the discovery of a dangerous sinkhole[9] below the original Horizons and other structural concerns forced it the be closed and demolished in the late 1990s. In the place of the old Horizons they would (ironically, given the sink hole) build the Living Earth Pavilion in the early 2000s, sponsored by Bass Brothers, which explored geology and geophysics and the science of mining with a dark ride built around a journey deep into the core of the earth with shining crystals, stalactite-covered caverns, dinosaur bones, and flowing magma, plus a fanciful trip through scenes out of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, a ride reproduced (albeit at a smaller scale) from Discoveryland in Disneyland Valencia.
In a fitting epilogue, Disney-MGM Studios, rather than simply competing with Universal, Warner Brothers, and Columbia Peach Grove, became the terminus of what was starting to be called the “Studio Tour Trail” by aficionados. Tour companies began to offer marathon ticket and tour packages that picked up clients from Atlanta International Airport on Sunday, ran them to the Warner and Columbia parks over Monday and Tuesday, drove or flew them to Orlando on Wednesday, visited Universal and Disney-MGM on Thursday and Friday, and flew out of Orlando Airport on Saturday. Not wanting to miss the opportunity the “trail” provided, the four rival studios partnered with various tour companies to create the “Four Star” packages running such tours themselves, but “officially” with a special reduced rate, ultimately spawning failed monopoly lawsuits.
The Good Sports Resort, Disneytowns, and Hollywoodland Resort offered an interesting “low cost” contrast with the Valencia and DisneySea resorts, and their success would lead many on the board (and among the shareholders) to openly ask why Disney was spending billions of dollars on large, showy resorts when the “small, cheap ones” were offering such a good return on investment in comparison. The fate of future of “big” resorts, like the imagined WestCOT or more full-size Disneylands, would thus hinge largely on whether or not Valencia could turn itself around and whether the $5 billion Port Disney and its DisneySea resort could possibly perform to Dick Nunis’s optimistic expectations.
[1] Disneytowns will see a bump in attendance in the summer months from 1990-1993 compared to better economic times and will in part help pad Disney through the recession. And hat-tips as always to @Denliner and @El Pip for the parks design and financing assist.
[2] True in our timeline too. WestCOT was imagined as a “backup plan” for DisneySea. Eventually, as a money crunch hit Disney in the late 1990s in our timeline, Eisner, who has himself admitted to being “cheap”, asked for a cheaper alternative, leading to the ill-fated Disney California Adventure on the location.
[3] Roughly $200 million has already been spent on the Studio Space and Lots, all paid for by Disney and MGM Studios profits.
[4] Considered but abandoned in our timeline due to opposition by “senior Imagineers”. Eventually Ripley and the Alien made an appearance in The Great Movie Ride and the idea itself morphed briefly into the ExtraTERRORestrial Encounter before that became the much more family-friendly Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.
[5] Essentially a much-higher-budget version of the Beech Mountain Land of Oz, which had largely been closed save for “special events” since the 1970s.
[6] In our timeline Disney didn’t even consider this issue, resulting in many of the expensive sound stages and outdoor sets effectively being rendered worthless as crowd noise ruined takes. Universal, having already learned this lesson, did not have the same issues.
[7] You all asked, so I found a way!
[8] Hat tip to Brian Krosnick of Theme Park Tourist and S.W. Wilson of Ideal Build-Out, from whom I stole this idea fair and square. See their brilliant “Disney Hollywoodland” park Ideal Buildout here. And hat tip to @Nerdman3000 for alerting me to it.
[9] Rumors persist of such a sinkhole being behind the end of Horizons, as have rumors of roof leaks or other structural issues. Either way, repairing and shoring up the original would have been far more expensive than building a new one.
Excerpt from The King is Dead: The Walt Disney Company After Walt Disney, an Unauthorized History by Sue Donym and Arman N. Said
By the early 1990s, the Disneytowns were starting to come into their own. While the original idea of “Disneylands in miniature” had not met the original attendance expectations, the flexibility of the concept allowed underperforming stores and attractions to be quickly swapped out with new ones, allowing the Disneytowns to evolve naturally with the local culture and interests. The Disneytowns’ low construction costs (typically around two-hundred and fifty million dollars at most, about the price of an EPCOT pavilion and often offset by local government incentives, partnerships, and sponsorships) made new franchises a fairly low risk bet. Furthermore, the Disneytowns proved somewhat “recession proof” as financially hurting families in the early 1990s who were no longer able to take their kids to Disneyland or Walt Disney World could at least take them to the nearby Disneytown and do a bit of outlet mall shopping and have a nice lunch or dinner while they were at it[1].
Even so, performance was mixed. The Denver Disneytown, with its beautiful location near Palmer Lake nestled in the scenic foothills between Denver and Colorado Springs, and with free shuttle service to several locations in the metro areas, had been a wild success, soon boosted by the appearance of outlet malls and vacation rentals. And while the original Philadelphia Disneytown had initially performed below expectations (though Sesame Place continued to perform well), it remained profitable and popular, fed by returning visitors from Richmond to Washington to New York to Boston. The San Antonio location, built on the site of an old quarry, struggled at first, but eventually found an audience, and became a surprising boost to Hyperion Music thanks to Fiesta Stadium. A Disneytown in Seattle built in on Pier 57 performed spectacularly well, particularly in the winter months when sunlight was rare and the comforting bright lights and fun inside were greatly appreciated by its weather-weary populous. Similar reasons drove the success of a Disneytown in Chicago, built on the Old Navy Pier. However, a Disneytown in St. Louis (technically Eagle Creek, Illinois, near the Cahokia Mounds National Monument), which was created with great hopes in keeping with one of Walt’s original expansion plans, suffered badly from competition from nearby Six Flags St. Louis and lost money.
The overall success led to the investigation of international Disneytowns. The first of these would be Disneytown London, made in partnership with Pearson PLC, and built in 1994 as an extension of their Chessington World of Adventures theme park in the southwest of London, with an Adventureland theme (in particular The Jungle Book), in keeping with the themes of the Chessington park. Disneytown London would be a popular spot for locals and tourists alike and help whet appetites for Disneyland Valencia (“If you like this, mate, wait until you see the full Monty down south!”). Disney also partnered with the City of Sydney, Australia, and local sponsors to build a Disneytown on Glebe Island near the old White Bay Power Station, which would open in late 1996. It would be the nucleus for a growing Disney Resort that would lead, ultimately, to something far grander.
In Asia, Japan’s Oriental Land Company pushed aside talks of a Disneytown and instead asked about the DisneySea resort then under construction in Long Beach. Exploratory talks with Hong Kong were initiated, though it was quickly determined that a whole new island would need to be dredged to build one, beginning a series of cost-benefit studies that dragged on through the years. This eventually led to a sweetheart deal with the Chinese government, who absorbed most of the construction costs, with dredging starting in 1997 shortly after the transfer of sovereignty. The Chinese Government specifically hoped that the presence of a Disney resort would help ease concerns of “Communist oppression” in the west and among the citizens of Hong Kong. Talks even began with the Saudi royal family for a Disneytown or even full Disneyland in the Kingdom, but they soon stalled based on security fears.
Finally, and very successfully, a Canadian Disneytown was built in Ontario in 1998 near the city of Hamilton. There it was deemed far enough from Philadelphia and Chicago not to compete directly, but still very close to several major cities in the Eastern Great Lakes region on both sides of the border and close to the tourist Mecca of Niagara Falls, though world events would soon complicate international travel. Special ferry boats were even constructed, though the notoriously volatile waters of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario limited their use. For obvious climactic reasons, much of it was built inside, encased in a large, glass-and-steel atrium reminiscent of the Imagination Pavilion that locals and truckers called “The Mouse Trap”.
The 1990s also saw an expansion and modernization of the “main” parks in the US. Several proposals were made for the US parks, from a “Disney America” park somewhere near Washington, DC, to a new smaller EPCOT at Disneyland, called “WestCOT” by the Imagineers. The former was judged too risky due to many parks in the immediate area and deemed far too close to (and thematically similar to) Disneytown Philadelphia. The latter was an ambitious plan intended to take up the space used by the Disneyland parking lot. It was first proposed in 1991 as a fallback should DisneySea prove untenable[2], but almost immediately went on the back burner. Part of this was due to cost (an estimated $3 billion), which was increasingly becoming a factor as the recession continued, Disneyland Valencia underperformed, and the construction costs of the Disneytowns and Port Disney added up, even with government grants and corporate sponsorships taking up some of the cost burden. But the main reason for the delay in WestCOT was DisneySea itself! With a sort-of second gate already being built 30 miles away in Long Beach, it was feared that opening WestCOT would compete with DisneySea. As such, WestCOT would go on hold indefinitely.
(Image by @Denliner)
Instead, the very first US park expansion would be, at the insistence of Chairman and President Frank Wells, a “third gate” at Walt Disney World, specifically the Disney-MGM Hollywoodland Resort and Studios, which he had been advocating for since the days of the Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT. The recent opening of Universal Studios in Orlando and Warner Brothers World and Columbia Peach Grove Studios in Atlanta appeared to be siphoning off customers from the Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT, whose attendance had dipped compared to other EPCOT pavilions. Disney and MGM Studios, seeking to expand productions in TV and film beyond their increasingly strained Burbank lots and sound stages, had already begun building the Disney-MGM Studios East complex after the banner 1991 movie season, and had initiated studio tours of these sound stages and lots, including a New York City outdoor lot. Tours, which originated at the Entertainment Pavilion and followed a “Yellow Brick Road” to the Studio lots (actually dyed and shaped concrete) began to expand as the “hands-on” exhibits at the Entertainment Pavilion were expanded at the Studio Lot due to long lines at the pavilion. But Wells, and his right-hand man Stan Kinsey, knew that they could do much more.
Thus, as construction on Port Disney Phase I completed and profits from the Pier Revue and the associated hotels began to come in, Ron Miller greenlit Wells’ long-desired Disney-MGM Studios resort. Starting construction in 1991 and taking a style cue from Disneyland Valencia and Port Disney in Long Beach, the $525 million Disney-MGM Studios Hollywoodland Resort[3], costs partially offset by sponsors and outside investors, would be “the city of Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood” with the Hyperion Style in full effect. With Phase II attractions still under development, Phase I opened to the public in the Spring of 1993 and became a fast success. Centered around the crossroads of Hyperion Avenue and Buena Vista Boulevard, the main draw was a reconstruction of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and a small recreation of the “Hollywoodland” sign on an artificial hill atop a protective levy, with forced perspective used to make it appear far away. Various buildings on the “streets” would serve as theaters where classic movies would play on a loop or where live performances would be held. Others would host rides, always movie-themed, included The Great Movie Ride (which was relocated from the Entertainment Pavilion), the child-friendly Ghostbusters: We Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts interactive dark ride/shooting game, the older-child-friendly Back to the Future dark track ride (with its innovative DeLorean-shaped ride vehicles), and the decidedly not child friendly Aliens: Enter the Nostromo[4] (based on the 20th Century Fox movie and built in a limited partnership with Triad).
Outdoor sets with live action shows were added over the years, such as the Indiana Jones Adventure, made in partnership with Lucasfilm and Triad, and The Land of Oz, an outdoor walking attraction where the guests followed (naturally) a pedestrian-only expansion of the yellow brick road that wound through the various encounters of the classic MGM film, with live actors playing Dorothy (your guide), her friends, the Wicked Witch of the West, the Munchkins, and, ultimately, The Wizard himself, with an optional balloon tower ride added to the end in the late 1990s[5].
Learning from lessons gathered from the experiences at Universal Studios, Orlando, the design was carefully maintained with levees and other barriers used to limit noise bleed-over from the visitor attractions to the active sets and sound stages[6]. This allowed the stages to continue to be used even during peak park hours. Numerous popular TV shows and films would have scenes filmed at Disney-MGM Studios East, with the New York City set finding plenty of use, particularly in the Spider-Man sequels. Extra dollars were made leasing the sets, particularly the NYC set, to other studios.
The relatively low construction cost of the park compared to Valencia and Port Disney made the park a financial as well as creative win for the company, and the working studios and sets achieved a secondary purpose in serving the studios. MGM Vice Chairman Bernie Brillstein even spent a year in Orlando to set up the studios, which would ultimately take up production on a majority of the MGM, Disney, and Hyperion television shows as well as several feature films. The “make your own movie/TV show” attractions from the Entertainment Pavilion were relocated and expanded upon along with new “effects workshops” and a guided studio tour. There was a walking or tram tour of restored old sets and movie models, including the Titanic model from Lew Grade’s failed Raise the Titanic, which was bought by Henson from ACC as a gift to Grade[7]. Optional fare included private set tours or even the chance to work as an Extra on a show or film.
The Pacific Electric Railway (Image source “brookhavenbear.wordpress.com”)
Later additions to the park in the 2000s included the Pacific Electric Railway Streetcars from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the beloved Timeless River ride (which took guests on a slow tour through the early world of Black & White animation, in particular Oswald and Mickey, and thus became colloquially known as the "Steamboat Willie ride" [8]), the Ghostbusters Tower of Terror (featuring an interactive Haunted Mansion inspired “Ghost Show” with live actors playing the Ghostbusters as entertainment for the guests in line awaiting the optional final attraction: a terrifying drop ride), and the largest and most impressive version of Roger Rabbit’s Toon Town to date, served naturally by the Pacific Electric. Eventually, the Pacific Electric would run all the way to the Magic Kingdom, letting off passengers at Muppetland and the Great Muppet Movie Ride.
Symbols for the Dream and Living Earth Pavilions (Images by @Denliner)
The Entertainment Pavilion at EPCOT, now largely made obsolete, would at first be rebranded into the Dream Pavilion (keeping the cloudscape design), and would be rethemed with exhibits on dreams, dream imagery, and the psychology of dreams, but the hastily revamped space failed to attract enough visitors. It would ultimately be completely overhauled into the New Horizons Pavilion after the discovery of a dangerous sinkhole[9] below the original Horizons and other structural concerns forced it the be closed and demolished in the late 1990s. In the place of the old Horizons they would (ironically, given the sink hole) build the Living Earth Pavilion in the early 2000s, sponsored by Bass Brothers, which explored geology and geophysics and the science of mining with a dark ride built around a journey deep into the core of the earth with shining crystals, stalactite-covered caverns, dinosaur bones, and flowing magma, plus a fanciful trip through scenes out of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, a ride reproduced (albeit at a smaller scale) from Discoveryland in Disneyland Valencia.
In a fitting epilogue, Disney-MGM Studios, rather than simply competing with Universal, Warner Brothers, and Columbia Peach Grove, became the terminus of what was starting to be called the “Studio Tour Trail” by aficionados. Tour companies began to offer marathon ticket and tour packages that picked up clients from Atlanta International Airport on Sunday, ran them to the Warner and Columbia parks over Monday and Tuesday, drove or flew them to Orlando on Wednesday, visited Universal and Disney-MGM on Thursday and Friday, and flew out of Orlando Airport on Saturday. Not wanting to miss the opportunity the “trail” provided, the four rival studios partnered with various tour companies to create the “Four Star” packages running such tours themselves, but “officially” with a special reduced rate, ultimately spawning failed monopoly lawsuits.
The Good Sports Resort, Disneytowns, and Hollywoodland Resort offered an interesting “low cost” contrast with the Valencia and DisneySea resorts, and their success would lead many on the board (and among the shareholders) to openly ask why Disney was spending billions of dollars on large, showy resorts when the “small, cheap ones” were offering such a good return on investment in comparison. The fate of future of “big” resorts, like the imagined WestCOT or more full-size Disneylands, would thus hinge largely on whether or not Valencia could turn itself around and whether the $5 billion Port Disney and its DisneySea resort could possibly perform to Dick Nunis’s optimistic expectations.
[1] Disneytowns will see a bump in attendance in the summer months from 1990-1993 compared to better economic times and will in part help pad Disney through the recession. And hat-tips as always to @Denliner and @El Pip for the parks design and financing assist.
[2] True in our timeline too. WestCOT was imagined as a “backup plan” for DisneySea. Eventually, as a money crunch hit Disney in the late 1990s in our timeline, Eisner, who has himself admitted to being “cheap”, asked for a cheaper alternative, leading to the ill-fated Disney California Adventure on the location.
[3] Roughly $200 million has already been spent on the Studio Space and Lots, all paid for by Disney and MGM Studios profits.
[4] Considered but abandoned in our timeline due to opposition by “senior Imagineers”. Eventually Ripley and the Alien made an appearance in The Great Movie Ride and the idea itself morphed briefly into the ExtraTERRORestrial Encounter before that became the much more family-friendly Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.
[5] Essentially a much-higher-budget version of the Beech Mountain Land of Oz, which had largely been closed save for “special events” since the 1970s.
[6] In our timeline Disney didn’t even consider this issue, resulting in many of the expensive sound stages and outdoor sets effectively being rendered worthless as crowd noise ruined takes. Universal, having already learned this lesson, did not have the same issues.
[7] You all asked, so I found a way!
[8] Hat tip to Brian Krosnick of Theme Park Tourist and S.W. Wilson of Ideal Build-Out, from whom I stole this idea fair and square. See their brilliant “Disney Hollywoodland” park Ideal Buildout here. And hat tip to @Nerdman3000 for alerting me to it.
[9] Rumors persist of such a sinkhole being behind the end of Horizons, as have rumors of roof leaks or other structural issues. Either way, repairing and shoring up the original would have been far more expensive than building a new one.
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👀 I sense a Disneyland Diwn Under!
And then Jim Henson talked with the Chinese president and made them realise that oppressing your own population is stupid and so China became a haven of Democracy and human rights.
What too unrealistic?😂
If James Cameron needs a Titanic he can always ask.
Btw do they have Marvel attractions too? Or walkarounds?
So many great attractions, I wonder what Universal and Warner have against this IP tsunami.
It's weird that there's two Ghostbusters attractions, isn't that a excessive? Also Great Muppet Movie Ride? Awesome!
Great chapter @Geekhis Khan
Just caught up with this TL and what a ride it's been so far! I find it fascinating that Yugoslavia hasn't fallen so far TTL. That'll keep the number of participants lower in Eurovision and the European Championships at least. I am definitely watching this with interest 
Going back to search of Canadian shows for American television I found a new show: Bookmice. While I'm hoping to find shows for the other shows beyond Disney but the format (puppets) and subject matter (the joy of reading) just screams Henson and Disney.So I was looking through a list of Canadian shows from 1992 for ideas to air in the US when I discovered this show:
And I decided to start watching to see how good it was and I have to say I'm kinda getting sucked into it now and I kinda wish it had aired in the States. So I petition that Nickelodeon ITTL picks up this show.The Odyssey (TV series) - Wikipedia
Edit: Here's the playlist for the show:
Bookmice - Wikipedia
- I like the idea of picking another IP for the Tower of Terror. I had the idea that one of the "ghosts" that the Ghostbuster actors should "catch" should be an homage to the departed Hatbox Ghost.
- I'm hoping that Disneyland Valencia has a shorter path to profitability than OTL Disneyland Paris did.
- @Shiny_Agumon One of the Ghostbusters-themed attractions is more kid-friendly than the other.
Public transit options boosting local businesses?! quelle surprise!
The presence of an all-seasons, indoors amusement park that doesn't need to be on the scale of the West Edmonton Mall is going to be a significant boost to the entertainment sector in Ontario beyond Toronto and perhaps inspire a couple of copycat attractions. Also, finally a reason to visit Hamilton! (a friendly dig from the other side of the Big Smoke). I have my doubts about ferries, that's a long trip by water to say nothing of the lake's dubious cooperation.
It might be made a decent competitor to PBS' Wishbone with a bit of love on the Disney channel.Going back to search of Canadian shows for American television I found a new show: Bookmice. While I'm hoping to find shows for the other shows beyond Disney but the format (puppets) and subject matter (the joy of reading) just screams Henson and Disney.
Bookmice - Wikipedia
It depends on if and when Disney picks up Bookmice. If it's 1993 like I imagine than the show would end before Wishbone begins. Reading Rainbow seems like a bigger competition:
Reading Rainbow - Wikipedia
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