Disney-MGM Studios

Disney-MGM Studios is a theme park built on the Walt Disney World Resort, Florida, USA. The third park to open at the resort, it opened on May 1, 1989. 135 acres (546,000 m²) in size, the park's theme is Hollywood classic movies and popular TV entertainment.

The only affiliation that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has to the Disney park is via contracts that allow Disney to use the MGM name and lion logo in marketing, and separate contracts that allow for specific MGM content to be used in The Great Movie Ride.

Dedication

"The World you have entered was created by The Walt Disney Company and is dedicated to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be."—Michael Eisner, May 1, 1989

Attractions

The park consists of five themed areas. Major attractions are listed below.

Hollywood Boulevard

Hollywood Boulevard is lined with shops selling Disney merchandise and food. This is also the location of the "Disney Stars and Motor Cars Parade." Michael Eisner, who had a major part in the park's creation ever since the earliest development, demanded the opening land operate on the same principle as Main Street, U.S.A.—a street lined with shops and food, but in a style more fitting to the Studios.

• The Great Movie Ride, a dark ride paying homage to several classic films is located at the end of Hollywood Boulevard.
• Atas Hall of Fame Plaza

Backlot

• Star Tours, a motion simulator, identical to the one at Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!, a live-action performance showing how movie stunts are done. The show re-enacts various scenes from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Sounds Dangerous, a show following Drew Carey through a day as an undercover detective when his video camera fails and the audience is left in the dark wearing earphones, following his adventure through sound cues.
• Jim Henson's MuppetVision 3D, a 3-D movie experience similar to Epcot's "Honey, I Shrunk The Audience"—also replicated at Disney's California Adventure
• Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show, a car & motorcycle stunt show that debuted at the Walt Disney Studios Paris
• Honey I Shrunk The Kids Movie Set Adventure, Kids can have fun in this fun playground based on the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
• Meet the Power Rangers from five generations: Wild Force, Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, S.P.D. and the newest series Mystic Force. Appearances throughout the day.
• Cover band Mulch, Sweat, and Shears performs several times a day, five days a week, next to the Tri-City Diner popcorn stand.

Mickey Avenue

• The Disney-MGM Studios Backlot Tour, showing how movie special effects are created. Guests see a movie scene set on the Special Effects Water Tank filmed using volunteers from the audience and various special effects. The audience sees this final sequence edited all together in an action sequence called Harbor Attack. Guests board trams and are taken through Catastrophe Canyon, to see fire and water effects, and are driven past large-scale movie props. The backlot tour used to include the facades of buildings used in ABC shows, such as "The Golden Girls". They were torn down to make room for Lights, Motors, Action!.
• Walt Disney: One Man's Dream, a museum-like walkthrough attraction that explores the life of Walt Disney and his legacy through photos, models, rare artifacts and a short biographical film narrated by Disney himself.
• Journey Into Narnia: Creating the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a walk-through interactive attraction featuring props from the movie and an appearance from the White Witch.
• The American Film Institute Showcase
• Toy Story Mania, an interactive attraction inspired by classic carnival midway games and featuring popular Pixar characters, will open in 2008.

Animation Courtyard

• Voyage of The Little Mermaid, a live performance using puppets, lasers, movies, human actors, and water (mist). The show recreates the animated Little Mermaid movie, in an abbreviated form.
• The Magic of Disney Animation, a short presentation showing how animated films are made.
• Playhouse Disney Live on Stage!, a live performance featuring Disney children's television characters. It used to house Aladdin scenery with costumed characters from the movie to hang out with people as they ate in the restaurant.

Sunset Boulevard

• Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage, a simplified version of the film.
• Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, an indoor roller coaster in the dark with three inversions and a high-speed launch.
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a thrill ride that drops guests in an elevator in a randomized set of four sequences each involving multiple high-speed drops and ascents. In addition, special effects including scents, lighting and sound enhance the experience.
• Fantasmic!, a nighttime show with characters and fireworks held in the adjacent Hollywood Hills Amphitheatre.

History, operations and production

The idea which led to the Disney-MGM Studios began at its sister park, Epcot. A team of Imagineers led by Marty Sklar and Randy Bright had been given an assignment to create two new pavilions for the park's Future World section. The fruits of the brainstorming sessions were the Wonders of Life pavilion and the Great Movie Ride pavilion. The second of the two was to have sat between the Land pavilion and the Journey Into Imagination pavilion, and was to look like a soundstage backdrop, with a movie theater-style entrance in the middle. The actual attraction is very similar to the plans for the equivalent at Epcot, only, when newly-appointed CEO Michael Eisner saw the plans for the pavilion, he requested that, instead of placing the ride in an already existing park, it should be surrounded by a brand new theme park which extended the showbiz, Hollywood and entertainment theme.

The Walt Disney Company's original concept of the Disney-MGM Studios was to operate it as a full fledged television and motion picture production facility, not just a theme park. When Disney-MGM opened in 1989, the studio/production facilities housed two major components, the first of which was Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, where Disney produced a number of projects, including Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, and sequences from other 1990s-early 2000s Disney animated features. The second, larger, component was Walt Disney Studios Florida, which consisted of three soundstages used for various Disney projects including The Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club and Adventures in Wonderland. Several third party productions also used the Studios, including Superboy (first season only, from 1988-1989), Thunder in Paradise, one season of Let's Make a Deal, special broadcasts of Wheel of Fortune and airplane interior sequences for the feature film Passenger 57. In addition, a number of music videos and several tapings for World Championship Wrestling were also shot there. Even The Post Group had a Florida-based post-production facility located on the Studio lot throughout the 1990s. All these production and post-production facilities were constructed to be an integral part of the theme park's Backstage Studio Tour as well.

During the closing credits of the Mickey Mouse Club (later, MMC in its final seasons) and Adventures in Wonderland, the lit Disney-MGM water tower appeared on the screen and one of the cast said, "(insert show title here) was taped at the Disney-MGM Studios at the Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, Florida." Disney management (including CEO Michael Eisner) decided to downsize Disney's Florida operations by closing the animation studio, laying-off personnel and then moving the operations to the main animation studio in Burbank, California.

A radio studio is also located on the lot, appropriately behind "Sounds Dangerous". It original housed the first children's radio network Radio Aahs which rented the studio. Later, Disney founded Radio Disney and essentially forced Radio Aahs out of business. Radio Disney decided it was no longer profitable to operate in Florida so they moved all of their shows from the Disney-MGM Studios to the Radio Disney headquarters in Dallas, Texas and the once bustling Disney Studios Florida radio studios are now used as remote studios for radio shows that are visiting Disney or the Orlando area and need a facility to broadcast from.

In 1992 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company claiming they violated a 1985 licensing agreement by operating a working movie and television studio at the Disney-MGM Studio in Florida. Disney filed a countersuit saying that MGM Studios, the MGM Grand Hotel, Casino and Park and MGM Airlines had conspired to violate Disney's right to exclusive use of the name MGM at the Florida theme park and that it would harm Disney's reputation by building the MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park in Las Vegas, Nevada. On October 23 Superior Court Judge Curtis Rappe ruled against MGM and said that both the Disney-MGM Studios in Florida and the then under construction MGM Grand Theme Park in Las Vegas could use the MGM name as long as the MGM Grand does not carry a 'Hollywood' theme like the Disney-MGM Studios. MGM Grand has since dismantled their Las Vegas theme park and is using the land for hotel expansion.

Incidents

Main article: Incidents at Disney parks

The Disney-MGM Studios park has had its share of controversy, including the hospitalization of some guests, and one death. See Incidents at Disney parks for more information.

Facts and Figures

• Disney is contractually prohibited from using the Disney-MGM Studios name in certain marketing contexts like the free Walt Disney World vacation-planning kit; in those instances the park is called The Disney Studios.

• Each year, Star Wars Weekends bring Star Wars fans and celebrities for special park events. Star Wars Weekends are generally held for five consecutive weekends (including Fridays) through late May and early June; they feature the 501st Legion (a worldwide Star Wars costuming group) parading through the park in Stormtrooper costumes, a "Star Wars Edition" of the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It!" game where the game begins with Greedo answering questions and a Gamorrean Guard in the audience cheering him on, two (or more) Star Wars actors appearing each weekend for photos and autographs, Jedi Lightsaber Training classes for kids, and other assorted events.

• Every Christmas season, Disney-MGM Studios features the "Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights", with five million Christmas lights on more than 350 miles of wire.

• According to Internet urban legends, while Michael Eisner was working for Paramount Pictures, he saw the early plans for the Universal Studios park in Florida (Paramount has always been closely associated with Universal, and Paramount provided much needed finance into the Universal Orlando Resort). After moving to Disney, he took some of these ideas and used them in early plans for the future Disney-MGM Studios. As Disney-MGM narrowly opened before Universal (as mentioned above the park and its resort had finance problems), it was seen that Universal copied Disney-MGM—or was it the other way around? Some reports say that, in a coincidence, both Universal and Disney planned studio/theme parks at the same time without knowing of the other company's ideas in the beginning and both rushed to finish their respective parks when they heard the news.

• The Magic of Disney Animation attraction originally allowed spectators to watch Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida artists at work on actual Disney productions. From behind glass panes, visitors were allowed to peer into a small section of the studio, aptly called the "fishbowl". At least one sequence from every WDFA film from The Rescuers Down Under to Home on the Range was produced in Florida; films created primarily at this facility were Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, Mulan, and the Roger Rabbit shorts Roller Coaster Rabbit and Trail Mix-Up. WDFA Florida was shut down in late 2003, after the release of Brother Bear.

• Disney-MGM Studios has a sister park at the Disneyland Resort Paris called the Walt Disney Studios Park. Originally, a Disney-MGM Studios Paris was to open in 1996, but plans were scrapped when the resort underperformed. Plans for a film-themed park were revived when the resort finally made a profit in 1995.

• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were part of the MGM scene back in the early 90s.

• If you look at an older version of the Disney-MGM Studios map and turn it upside down, you will see a Hidden Mickey in the overall layout of the park. Recent construction and changes to the park have eliminated much of this image.

See also

• List of past Disney-MGM Studios attractions

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