Magic & Mayhem: What We're Celebrating (and Booing) From the Past Disney Week
Welcome to Magic & Mayhem, our periodic look at some of the good things that are happening at Disney as well as some of the bad.
Magic: The Doomies has finally made its way to Disney+. While you may think that a show which took four years to debut following its announcement in 2022 might be troubled, it is actually quite good. While there are moments that reveal its French DNA, the creepy but fun aesthetic makes the show appealing to both kids and adults. While there doesn’t seem to be much marketing behind the show, do yourself a favor and give this hidden gem a chance.
Mayhem: Disney once again did their annual tradition of Halfway to Holidays where they share information about the holiday happenings at the parks. But unfortunately, outside of some holiday shorts at Walt Disney Presents, it seems there are no new holiday offerings across any of the domestic parks. To get a new offering, you will need to go to Paris, where World of Frozen will have a holiday celebration. At one point, there was always something new each holiday season, and unfortunately, this is just another example of the lack of effort in the park’s seasonal offerings. While many love to celebrate their holiday traditions at the parks, it is long past time that Disney finds new ways for families to create new traditions.
Magic: Linda Cohn’s and ESPN’s decision to not continue their relationship is described as a mutual decision. But while ESPN could have just unceremoniously have Linda Cohn’s contract expire, they made the wise decision to bring her back to Bristol for three editions of SportsCenter so she could get a proper send-off — what a classy move. Recently, ESPN has done a great job of letting their tenured talent have their moment in the sun prior to departure as seen with Hubie Brown and Lee Corso. Linda Cohn, as one of the last mainstays of the golden age of SportsCenter deserved the chance to be celebrated by those she worked with as well as those she inspired.
Mayhem: While it is no surprise that the Gingerbread House is not returning to the Grand Floridian, Disney could have done a much better job in how they handled it. While I do not know Disney’s rationale, they could have been honest when it took a hiatus for construction that they had no intention of having it return. And if it can’t live on at the Grand Floridian, could it not find another form across the entire Walt Disney World property? Of course, this would take more work and ingenuity, but just letting a holiday tradition die without being open and honest about its fate is a poor move. They developed the phenomenon, with that comes the responsibility to be a custodian of the tradition, even if it has to evolve to meet the needs of the times.
Magic: The new "Lilo & Scratch" short sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to keep the franchise alive before the sequel to the live-action adaptation. But what is perhaps more exciting is that Disney developed a production pipeline that can seamlessly blend traditional and CG art into one production. If successful, this could open the door to more traditional-style animation in the future. While they have not announced anything, and I am basically jumping to conclusions, Disney has historically used shorts to test out ideas before applying them to bigger productions.
Mayhem: At times, I am at a loss for why Disney has made a certain decision. Such is a case with the new figure at Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland that uses front projection in the treasure room scene. I had the opportunity to see this technology in a generic setting at the Imagineering campus and it is impressive when done correctly. However, this is a case of it not being done correctly.
Even if you can excuse the fact that this pirates looks nothing like the Marc Davis stylized characters throughout the rest of the attraction, the sequence makes no sense due to its placement before you encounter alive pirates. In the TechRadar story, an Imagineer said, "We don't build technology for technology's sake. Everything is about telling a great story to our guests." But that is exactly what they did here. I hope Disney doesn’t take the wrong lessons here. It is not that we don’t want them to plus beloved attractions or try new technologies, but it has to be done in a way that makes story sense and matches the style of its surroundings. I am sure this tech will be used in an effective way at some point in the future, but this installation was using technology for technology’s sake and is a failure.