“Festival of the Lion King” show at Disney’s Animal Kingdom proves that recycling can be fun

Leslie Navarro

14 years ago

Care to guess which creatures are the most popular at Disney’s Animal
Kingdom theme park?

The answer may surprise you. It’s not those real lions,
elephants and giraffes that you can see while rolling across the faux-African savanna
aboard Kilimanjaro Safaris. But – rather – those all-too-human animals who sing
& dance daily in Camp Minnie-Mickey at the “Festival of the Lion King”
show.

Mind you, what’s kind of ironic about all this is that –
when The Walt Disney Company first
revealed its plans for DAK back in June of 1995 – there was absolutely no
mention of this theme park having a “Lion King” -themed stage show. In fact,
the piece of real estate that Camp Minnie-Mickey currently occupies had originally
been set aside for Beastly Kingdomme. Which was to have been this entire “land”
which celebrated mythical creatures like dragons & unicorns.

Concept for Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s never-built Beastly Kingdomme area
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

But as the cost of building Disney’s Animal
Kingdom ballooned from its-originally-budgeted $600 to $850 million,
Beastly Kingdomme suddenly got pushed off in the Spring of 1997 to Phase II of
this project. Which meant that – as DAK’s opening date of April 22, 1998 loomed
– WDW’s brand-new theme park was going to have an attraction-free zone that
stretched all the way from Discovery Island to Harambe Village.

This was unacceptable to the Imagineers. However – since
they already had their hands full finishing up Animal Kingdom’s
opening day assortment of attractions – they then turned to WDW Entertainment
Department for what was supposed to be a temporary solution to this theme
park’s Beastly Kingdomme problem.

Now the folks at Disney
World’s Entertainment weren’t given a whole lot of time or money to work
with. They were just told that they had to come up with something affordable to
fill up this blank spot on DAK’s canvas.

Lead parade float for Disneyland’s Lion King Celebration
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

Coincidentally, about the same time that this project got
dropped in WDW’s Entertainment’s lap, Disneyland’s “Lion King Celebration” was
ending its nearly three year run at that theme park. And since the floats &
puppets that Michael Curry had designed for this acclaimed street pageant were
now due to go into storage to make way for Disneyland’s next movie-based parade,
the “Hercules Victory Tour” … Well, WDW Entertainment requested that these
elements of the “Lion King Celebration” be packed up and sent off to Central
Florida ASAP.

And then – in an artful bit of recycling – those parade
floats & puppets became the bones on which Disney World’s Entertainment
Department built one of the more popular shows to ever be performed at a Disney
theme park, “Festival of the Lion King.”

When you consider that this 30-minute-long theater-in-the-round
show has entertained millions of WDW
visitors over the past 12+ years, it’s somewhat startling to learn about
quickly “Legend of the Lion King” was thrown together. By that I mean: When
this 1000 seat, Adirondack-themed theater first began welcoming DAK visitors
back in March of 1998 during this theme park’s soft opening, it didn’t even
have exterior walls or air conditioning.

But WDW Guests
were willing to overlook this theater’s rough edges. Mostly because of the
energetic performances that this talented cast of 50 gave as they sang, danced
and tumbled their way through Sir Elton John & Tim Rice’s Academy
Award-winning songs.

In fact, “Festival of the Lion King” became so popular with Animal Kingdom
visitors (according to Guest Relations insiders, this stage show regularly came
in first whenever people were surveyed about what their favorite experience at DAK
was) the Resort’s staff actually had to wait ’til the Fall of 2003 before they then
got the chance to enclose & air condition this then-still-open air arena.

But the upside is … Enclosing Camp Minnie-Mickey’s theatre
then allowed Disney World to increase capacity for each performance of
“Festival of the Lion King.” Which means that now nearly 1400 WDW Guests can be
entertained at any one time as they’re first divided up into Elephants,
Giraffes, Lions and Warthogs and then led in cheers for their “side.”

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wdek-m1CI8]

And ever since then, the Company has looked for other ways
that it can plus this DAK
favorite. Witness that articulated Timon head which got added to “Festival of
the Lion King” back in January of 2009. This means that the walk-around version
of everyone’s favorite meerkat can now move his mouth & blink his eyes as Timon
leads the crowd in singing “Hakuna Matata.”

And given that The Walt Disney
Company prides itself on being green … Well, WDW’s Entertainment Department
has to take some pride in the knowledge that – by recycling some parade floats &
puppets that had originally been created for Disneyland’s “Lion King
Celebration” street pageant – they were then able to create one of the more
popular Disney theme park shows
ever.

Just how popular is “Festival of the Lion King” with WDW visitors? So much so that –
when The Walt Disney Company was looking for sure-fire shows to drop into Hong
Kong Disneyland – they then decided to place a clone of this DAK stage show in
the Adventureland section of that theme park.

Mind you, the Hong Kong Disneyland version of “Festival of
the Lion King” – just like its DAK
predecessor – was only supposed to be a temporary attraction. According to
WDI’s original plans for this part of the theme park, there was supposed to be
a dinosaur-themed roller coaster occupying this corner of Adventureland. Rather
than some theater-in-the-round show built around an animated feature from 1994.

But given that that the Animal Kingdom’s version of
“Festival of the Lion King” has been wowing stateside theme park fans for more
than a decade now … I’m guess that it could be quite a while before any Hong
Kong Disneyland Guests then get the chance to pull any Gs while they’re trying
to escape from some T-Rex.

And all of this because Disney’s Animal
Kingdom went overbudget during its initial construction phase and the
Imagineers then needed something quick & cheap to replace Beastly
Kingdomme.

Who said that recycling isn’t fun?

And speaking of saving things … If you’re looking to save a
few bucks on your next trip to Orlando, I know some folks who can help you when
it comes to finding discounted admissions to Central Florida’s theme parks.