Progress City, U.S.A.

Ryman works on a concept painting for Euro Disneyland in 1988; his concept for the Indiana Jones Adventure is in the background

When Herb Ryman returned to WED Enterprises to work on EPCOT Center in 1976, he also helped with conceptual designs for “Oriental Disneyland” – the park that Disney was developing for Tokyo. Most of his work seems concentrated on World Bazaar, the covered area that would replace Disneyland’s traditional Main Street, U.S.A.

The Hub, Tokyo Disneyland

Note the huge expanse depicted in Ryman’s rendering of Tokyo Disneyland’s hub – the park was designed to be far more spacious than the typical Disney park. Also of interest in this piece is that it’s a mirror image of the actual park; Tomorrowland as depicted here is where Adventureland and Westernland are in the real park.

A more futuristic – dare I say contemporary? – concept for World Bazaar from 1976

A World Bazaar that more resembles the final design

A very rough sketch for the World Bazaar entrance

A portion of one of Ryman’s conceptual paintings for Meet the World

Aside from World Bazaar, Herb also worked on Meet the World; this attraction was a Tokyo Disneyland exclusive, although it was originally intended for EPCOT’s Japan pavilion as well. The show, which took place in an adapted carousel theater, took guests through scenes from Japan’s history through the integrated use of animatronics, film, and animation.

Ryman in Tokyo

After wrapping up his work on EPCOT, Herb traveled east once more to recreate some of his adventures from the 1930s. There was a special side trip, though, as Herb stopped in Tokyo to visit the newly-opened Tokyo Disneyland park.

Concept for the S.S. Admiral, a project for Landmark Entertainment

In Ryman’s spare time, he would occasionally work on projects for Landmark Entertainment. Gary Goddard, a former Imagineer, founded Gary Goddard Productions in 1980; it would be renamed Landmark Entertainment in 1985. Landmark has worked on many, many well-known projects over the years, for Universal and others, and in its early days it employed the services of many legendary Imagineers. Alain Littaye has a wonderful collection of their artwork on his site, and we have two of Ryman’s pieces here.

The first, above, is for the S.S. Admiral project in St. Louis. Below is one of Ryman’s pieces for “Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant,” an indoor entertainment project designed by Landmark for Six Flags. Lasting only a few years, this remarkable concept was located in a disused power plant on the harbor in Baltimore. Part of a failed attempt at urban renewal, the site was ironically used more than a decade later for the first ESPN Zone – which was shuttered this year.

I’ve gotta say… I wouldn’t mind a Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant 2.0.

Rendering for Phineas T. Flagg’s Power Plant

Concept for Euro Disneyland. Note the elevated train on the right, and that’s our pal Dick Nunis with the child on his shoulders.

Much of Herb’s last work for Disney was on the Euro Disneyland project, where he focused on Main Street, U.S.A. The original designs for this land, overseen by Progress Citizen Eddie Sotto, traded in Disneyland’s more rural midwestern Main Street for an urban, Prohibition-era design from the 1920s. The designs were fresh and very promising, but sadly they were pulled by Disney CEO Michael Eisner at the last moment. More artwork from this wonderfully atmospheric concept can be found at Disney and More.

As you can see, Sotto’s Main Street featured an elevated train that would give guests a view of the area from above. It would also feature a genuine 1920s speakeasy, hiding a swinging Jazz Age club in the secret room behind an innocuous florists’ shop. Another concept the Imagineers wanted to feature was a diner based on Edward Hopper’s famous painting Nighthawks. Sadly, this was all lost when the street’s theming was reverted to the turn of the century.

Ryman’s sketch of the Nighthawks diner; the speakeasy’s entrance was via the orange awning to the left

Ryman’s work on Euro Disneyland and other projects like the Indiana Jones Adventure would wrap up his career; sadly, he would never see their debut.

Way back when, it was the tradition for every new Disney theme park – or even major attraction! – to get a big opening special. Euro Disneyland was no exception; it got its ballyhooed stateside debut when The Grand Opening of Euro Disney aired on CBS on April 11th, 1992.

This particular special is not one of the better offerings even in the often-rocky post-Walt television canon; perhaps as some odd harbinger of Euro Disney’s woes, it’s stilted and odd and kind of uncomfortable. It’s hosted, for some reason, by Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, who despite being married at the time don’t seem to like each other very much. They’re not natural hosts, either, and Griffith’s seeming attempts to emulate a first-generation audio-animatronic makes one actually miss Kelly Ripa.

The special is so uninteresting, in fact, that we at Progress City never really revisited it as kids, despite playing our recordings of other contemporary parades and specials to the point of absurdity.

One interesting bit, though, comes towards the end of the special when Johnson and Griffith describe the attractions that are slated to soon debut at Euro Disney. These are the famous lost attractions designed for Fantasyland – a ride based on The Little Mermaid and the animatronic show based on Beauty and the Beast. Despite being designed and announced for the park, they were never built (although a computer-generated simulation of the Mermaid attraction was created for that film’s “Platinum” DVD release). Ariel and her friends have yet to make it to Paris; dark rides based on her adventures is currently under construction in California and Orlando.

The other big project mentioned in the Grand Opening is the Disney-MGM Studios Europe, then intended to open in 1995. This would be Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s attempt to build a second version of this concept after the Disney-MGM Studios opened in Orlando in 1989. Eisner was determined to make this park idea a global franchise; his other efforts would include the Disney-MGM Studios Backlot intended for Burbank and the Disney-MGM Studios Tokyo that he tried to push on the Oriental Land Company as Tokyo Disney Resort’s second gate.

None of those concepts would see the light of day, but a pared down version of the Studios concept would debut in Paris at the Walt Disney Studios park in 2002.

Take a look at the future that was, presented by the effervescent Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson!

A saw a story yesterday that made me realize that there have been a lot of little bits and pieces of news trickling out lately about new attractions that are coming to some of the less-covered Disney parks overseas. These developments don’t tend to get the coverage that new American attractions receive, so I thought that I’d summarize them here.

Now, I know I’ve been a bit of a Debbie Downer lately, what with all the disappointing shenanigans at Feature Animation and Parks & Resorts, but I’m afraid that won’t be turned around by these projects. One can pretty much guarantee that any new project at Tokyo Disneyland will be top notch due to the incredibly high levels of quality and service that the Oriental Land Company manages to achieve, but even they’re getting stuck with some new attractions that are less than… inspiring. But let’s take a look:

Concept art for Fantasmic! at Tokyo DisneySea (Disney)

The most recent announcement came a couple of days ago when the Oriental Land Company announced that it would be replacing its current night-time water show BraviSEAmo! with the similarly punctuated Fantasmic! The new show will debut in April 2011 as part of the celebrations surrounding Tokyo DisneySea’s 10th Anniversary, which is on September 4th of that year.

This might seem underwhelming to Disney fans, who might already have seen Fantasmic! in either California (where it’s played since 1992) or Florida (where it debuted in 1998). Thankfully we can hope for a little of that OLC magic (and their roughly $33.5 million investment) to update the twenty-minute show, as the announcement promises scenes from Aladdin, Cinderella and Finding Nemo. One can expect some new staging, too, on the waters of the park’s Mediterranean Harbor area. The concept art above shows Mickey atop some kind of ziggurat rising out of the water, and it seems apparent that the setup of the show will accommodate the larger lagoon.

BraviSEAmo! will perform its last show on November 13th, 2010, and preparation for Fantasmic! will begin soon after. While it might seem sacrilegious in Disney circles, I really am not a fan of Fantasmic!. In fact, I kinda hate it; it’s just not my thing (save for the giant MechaMaleficent). But hopefully the OLC will pull out all the stops to make it worthwhile. After all, their live shows typically tend to blow the offerings in the American parks completely out of the water.

Of course, DisneySea has been paying the price lately for its decade of awesomeness by receiving a string of cast-offs from other parks. Last year they got Turtle Talk with Crush, which fits beautifully with the 1930s ambiance of the American Waterfront area and the stylish S.S. Columbia. The American Waterfront will be the site of DisneySea’s next expansion, arriving in 2012. We’ve talked about this one before – behold:

Eeeeeehh… (Disney)

Toy Story Mania! (what’s up with all the exclamation points?) will be added to the New York area of the American Waterfront. Hopefully its budget of $129 million will lead to a little plussing.

Now.

Over at Tokyo Disneyland proper, there are a few new attractions on the way. The park, of course, has recently received the massively popular Monsters, Inc. dark ride. While unannounced, it also seems certain that the park will be receiving the upgrades to Star Tours that are on the way to parks stateside. In 2011, Mickey’s Philharmagic will be added in Fantasyland. While that’s perfectly reasonable, it naturally makes me sad because it necessitated the loss of the legendary Mickey Mouse Revue which I will now never be able to see in person. Between the Revue and Meet the World, replaced itself by Monsters, Inc., Tokyo Disneyland was a haven for attractions that should exist at Walt Disney World and I always hoped to see them myself.

Anyway.

Another attraction I’d always wanted to see at Tokyo Disneyland was the Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour, a walkthrough attraction that took guests through the bowels of the park’s iconic castle. This attraction has to be one of the most truly bizarre in Disney park history, leading guests through a series of encounters with various villains to a final confrontation with the Horned King from The Black Cauldron as he tries to raise an army of the damned.

So, yeah. I kinda hated to miss that one. It sounded insane, it was the sole attraction ever to reference The Black Cauldron, and it furthered my inferiority complex about the Magic Kingdom having the only one of the first four Disney castles to not have an attraction of its own. But the Mystery Tour closed in 2006, without replacement. Until now.

Now, I understand the closing of the old attraction and I understand the desire to make the new walk-through, which opens in 2011, focus specifically on Cinderella. After all, it’s her castle. And if we’re embarking on a brave new world of endless princess meet-and-greet interactive experiences, this would be a reasonable place for one. But I want you to take a moment and absorb the piece of concept art that was released to accompany the press release announcing this attraction. This wasn’t released as part of a sequence of renderings, or to emphasize one specific aspect of the project. This was, and as far as I can tell still is, the only piece of artwork that has been released to promote this new attraction. Can you tell I’m really wanting to build this up? So much that I’m going to put a page break below to make you click through to see?

Drum roll, please – gentlemen, behold!

(more…)

They might not have, but they also might want to talk to the people making their park maps. The always-revealing site WDSFans has posted the official 2010 map graphics for the Disneyland Paris Resort and the Walt Disney Studios park itself. And it has a secret for you:

Oh poor Walt Disney Studios – no one will ask it to the prom

Do you see it? Unless the Rowlingesqe strategy Disney is trying to use to hide major construction in plain sight of millions of people has worked, you might notice the as-yet-unannounced Toy Story Playland hiding in the barren wastes of the Walt Disney Studios park:

John Hench is sooooo mad at you right now

I continue to find this hilarious. First Bay Lake Tower, now this. At least that made sense – Disney was trying to unload all its unsold DVC stock before they announced a new resort. But why the secrecy here? To hoodwink the Hong Kong government into thinking their Toy Story Land is an original idea? Or to keep French farmers from burning tractors at the park’s gates when they find out that the park’s next much-needed attraction comes in the form of a trio of carny rides?

This isn’t the Da Vinci code, guys. We can see it on the map!

UPDATE: More information, pictures, and some amusing fan reactions can be found at Disney and More.

Euro Disneyland Paris, 1994

This isn’t an official park map; it’s from a booklet that Disney distributed at Walt Disney World to promote the Euro Disney Resort to American guests. It shows the park as it was in 1994, which is remarkably similar to how it is today. There were still some small attractions to be added as park of the capacity expansion program that occurred during the 1990s, but a lot of the major attractions intended for future expansions have yet to appear. One major missing element is Space Mountain, which would be added the next year and which would be credited with pulling the resort out of its financial doldrums.

I was actually saving this image at first for a story I was planning about how the poor Tomorrowlands have always received short shrift in every new Disney park since Disneyland’s 1955 opening. In any early map of any Disney park, Tomorrowland just looks so sad and pathetic. Look!

So many trees!