Buzz for
Disneyland's 50th
The plans for Buzz Lightyear to be built very, very quickly in Tomorrowland continue to move forward at warp speed. For regular readers of this website, you will remember the several previous articles which explained how the important issue of Disneyland's overall "ride capacity" is a hot button topic for Jay Rasulo. The sudden decision to install Buzz Lightyear into Tomorrowland plays directly into those ominous ride capacity issues, and it should help explain a few things about what the future holds for Disneyland Park under Jay Rasulo's leadership.
The good news for Disneyland Park, and Tomorrowland in particular, is that the new Buzz Lightyear ride is going to be a classic Omnimover ride system capable of handling just over 2,000 riders per hour, without being hindered by a height requirement. The "Omnimover" is a Disney patented invention from the late 1960's which first debuted at Monsanto's famed "Adventure Thru Inner Space" attraction in the New Tomorrowland of 1967 (back when Disney execs actually meant it when they made over the entire land with all new rides and dubbed it "New Tomorrowland").
The Omnimover then gained widespread fame as the conveyance for all four of the Haunted Mansion attractions found in each of the Magic Kingdom parks around the world. But as the theme park industry quickly moved into high speed thrill rides and simulators in the 1980's, the trusty old Omnimover fell out of fashion, even though the ride system was inherently reliable and capable of cycling thousands of people through an attraction per hour without imposing height restrictions on the riders. The last brand-new Omnimover attraction opened at a Disney Park was the Phantom Manor Omnimover which debuted at Disneyland Paris in '92).
Disney turned its back on the trusty, old Omnimover. Until now, that is. An updated version of WDW's "Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin" is currently being built at Tokyo Disneyland in their old CircleVision theater building, and it will be dubbed "Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters". The Team Disney Anaheim (TDA) execs had much different plans for Disneyland's CircleVision building until very recently, but the increasingly important issue of Park ride capacity, and Rasulo's impatience with TDA's recent infatuation with temporary exhibits, trendy entertainment and merchandise special events as the only ways to drive Disneyland Park attendance, has forced this major change in plan for the old CircleVision building.
Just earlier this year there were very different plans for the CircleVision building moving through the advanced design phases. The theater and its lobby would have housed a "History of Disneyland" time travel themed movie attraction. The entrance and lobby would have been overlaid with lot's of watch-gear decorations, with a big Mickey Mouse watch with spinning hands as its icon. The lobby would be full of the models and sketches and archival photos that WDI just loves to put on display during major anniversaries at Disneyland, and that Marty Sklar still insists will find a home somewhere at Disneyland for the 50th.
The 360 degree movie theater inside the building would have remained, although the theater would have had a big golden "Time Machine" contraption in the center of the circular auditorium. The movie shown on the CircleVision screen would have been a tribute to Disneyland, and the creative genius of Walt Disney. However, since Walt never actually appeared in a CircleVision format film, the movie would intersplice regular film formats onto the 9 screens along with the occasional CircleVision format sections. Anyone who remembers the "pre-show" films that featured Walt when that building housed the Rocket Rods queue will understand well how this new pseudo CircleVision film would have worked.
However, as touching and educational as it likely would have been, especially for Disney fans, that type of "Salute to Disneyland and Dear Old Walt" film attraction wasn't likely to cause stampedes of tourists to pack up the minivan and drive to Anaheim to see it. But the CircleVision film was seen by TDA execs as a relatively cheap way to shoehorn in something that could be marketed as a "new attraction" that would help "celebrate" the 50th Anniversary, while hopefully winning some points with WDI management and the Park's avid and nostalgic fan base. TDA knew that the movie and exhibit wasn't going to be around for more than 2 or 3 years however, so the design budgets were all based on a semi-permanent way of thinking. The existing structure and facilities would have been modified very little, and the changes to the building and theater would have only been cosmetic and decorative.
And this modest CircleVision theater proposal chugged along through executive reviews at TDA for months and months in '02 and early '03. But earlier this spring Rasulo was given the official presentation on the 50th Anniversary plans and was seriously underwhelmed. And at the same time, he was discovering that Disneyland under Paul Pressler's limited vision had closed far too many attractions in the last seven years without replacements, while attendance remained at historically high levels, and that was creating serious overcrowding issues.
So what's a group of Burbank and Anaheim execs to do? Find a ride that can be built quickly, but that isn't experimental in nature like the Rocket Rods, and that can swallow thousands of Disneyland visitors per hour to help put a dent in that suddenly embarrassing "ride capacity" issue. Since almost all of the current regime of TDA executives hail from the mall and the military, with woefully little experience in actually managing or operating theme park attractions, they were sort of stumped by this new dilemma. Luckily however, the attractions-focused management of the Oriental Land Company had already agreed two years ago to have a brand new Omnimover ride system built, and a new Buzz Lightyear show installed in its aging CircleVision theater. Someone in Anaheim finally figured out that some economies of scale could be possible, and Imagineering (WDI) had to give some of the TDA execs a crash course in attractions ride capacity. But finally a light went on in TDA and there you have it... a brand new Omnimover attraction for Tomorrowland! And it should be done by the 50th Anniversary summer to boot!
