It’s the show that many Disney World employees thought would
never make it through the Summer of 1974. Let alone still be going strong 37
years later.
“On our opening night at Pioneer Hall, our audience
consisted of six tables worth of Guests. That’s one table per member of the
cast,” recalled Gary Goddard, one of the many talented folks involved with the
creation of the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue. “By the end of our first month of
performances, things were looking somewhat better. We were playing to
half-empty houses by that point. But things were so touch-and-go for a while
there that we wondered whether Disney World management was actually going to give
this dinner show the time that it needed to catch on with the Guests.”
Mind you, you can understand Mouse House managers’
frustration. The Arab oil embargo (which had run from October of 1973 through
March of 1974) had had a horrific albeit temporary impact on WDW’s attendance
levels. And now that there was enough gasoline available around the country that
tourists could once again drive down to Orlando and vacation with Mickey, the
pressure was really on to make sure that every facility on property was focused
on turning a profit.
Workmen put the finishing touches on Fort Wilderness’ Pioneer Hall in February of 1974.
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Now Pioneer Hall had just opened in April 1, 1974. And WED’s original plan for
this new Fort Wilderness facility was that it would serve breakfast & lunch
to the Guests who were staying at the campground. But as to what would happen inside
of Pioneer Hall once night fell … Well, given that the Imagineers had hoped
that most WDW visitors would still be inside of the Magic Kingdom at this point
and/or be enjoying one of the Vacation Kingdom’s other recreational opportunities,
they didn’t put a whole lot of thought into Pioneer Hall’s nighttime entertainment
line-up.
“My understanding is – given that Fort Wilderness was supposed
to be the place where WDW Guests would stay if they wanted to get closer to
nature – that the nighttime programs that the Imagineers had initially envisioned
for Pioneer Hall were to have reinforced that idea,” Goddard continued. “So
they were originally going to present animal programs in there, so that campers
and their kids could then get to see some Central Florida wildlife up close.
Plus there was talk that they might screen some of Disney’s old True-Life Adventures movies
in there on a
nightly basis.”
But – again – all of that changed in the Spring of 1974.
Where – on the heels of the Oil Crisis – every dollar now counted. Which is why
WDW execs turned to Bob Jani (i.e. the then-Vice President of Entertainment for
both Disneyland and Walt Disney World) and tasked him with coming up with a concept
for a new live dinner show that could then be presented inside of Pioneer Hall.
Cast of WDW’s Polynesian Revue from the early 1970s. Copyright
Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
“The luau at the Polynesian was doing so well at this point
that it was selling out every night. They were actually turning Guests away. And
the feeling in-house was that – if Disney World were able to get another
nighttime dinner show up & running somewhere else on property … Well, that
show might then be offered as an alternative to the Guests who were
disappointed about not being able to get a reservation for the Polynesian
Revue,” Gary explained.
The only problem was that Pioneer Hall hadn’t really been
designed as a performance space. The wide stone pillars that held up the building’s
balcony had a pretty detrimental effect on this hall’s sightlines. And then
there was the matter of there being absolutely no money in WDW’s entertainment
budget when it came time to hire the cast of this proposed new nighttime show.
“That’s why the original cast of the Hoop-Dee-Doo were all
members of Disney World Fine Arts College Workshop program. These were kids who’d
come down to the Resort to perform over the Summer. They thought that they’d be
dancing in the Magic Kingdom or singing at the Top of the World. But they wound
up in our backwoods show instead,” Goddard laughed.
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The initial plan for Hoop-Dee-Doo was that it would run for just
12 weeks over the Summer of 1974. But as I mentioned at the top of today’s
article, the audiences that initially turned out for this new offering at
Pioneer Hall were so small that … Well, the show’s creative team & cast allegedly
heard rumors that Mouse House managers were thinking about pulling the plug on
this production just two weeks into its run.
“But that was only because no one knew – at that time,
anyway – that we were out at Fort Wilderness doing this new fun dinner show. And
given that there was no money in our budget for promotion of Hoop-Dee-Doo, I
took it upon myself to start advertising the show,” Gary remembered. “I personally
made up a set of flyers and posters which I then hand-delivered to each of the
on-property Disney hotels. I then made a point of meeting with each of the
concierges at these hotels and inviting them to come see Hoop-Dee-Doo. So that
they’d then start talking up the show to the Guests.”
And – in the end – Goddard’s effort paid off. The
Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue eventually grew to be so popular with WDW visitors that,
for a time, the Imagineers actually toyed with moving this nighttime dinner
show out of Pioneer Hall and then restaging it outdoors on a far grander scale.
Dorothea Redmond’s concept painting of the performance space which was proposed
for that greatly expanded outdoor version of the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue.
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“When I was initially hired by WED in 1975, one of my very first
assignments was to help create some additional entertainment offerings at Fort
Wilderness. I worked with Marc Davis to help design this walk-thru funhouse
called the Old Barn,” Gary said. “I also
helped design this new outdoor version of the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue which was
going to be staged on this full-sized Western street. Where you wouldn’t have
just heard the cast pull up outside in a stage coach, you’d have actually seen
that stage coach roll onstage pulled by a team of live horses. And an audience
of 1500 people could have watched this live show all at the same time – with chorus
lines of dance hall girls & epic gun battles & stuntmen falling out of
rooftops — from across the street, where they sit eating inside of the
Deadwood Steakhouse. Which was going to be this big open-air restaurant.”
And even though Card Walker, the then-Chairman of Walt
Disney Productions, reportedly thought that this greatly expanded version of
the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue was one of the greatest ideas that he’d ever heard
and actually proposed using a network TV special as a way of making would-be
Disney World visitors that this new entertainment alternative was now open at
the Resort … This obviously promising
concept never quite made it off of the drawing board.
Which is why – to this day – people have to make
reservations six months in advance in order to secure a seat inside of Pioneer
Hall. In spite of presenting three shows nightly of the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical
Revue, Disney World still can’t meet guest demand. Which – given that it’s been
more than 37 years since he initially worked on this show with Bob Jani, Ron
Miziker, Larry Billman and Tom Adair – still amazes Gary Goddard.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
“This was a show that only could have happened at Walt
Disney World in the early 1970s. Back then, management was far more hands-off.
More to the point, because we were working out of Pioneer Hall at the Fort
Wilderness campground, we were really off the Company’s radar for quite a
while. So we then had the time we need to fine-tune this show, add new gags,
change the order of things,” Goddard smiled. “Of course, once Dick Nunis and
Bob Matheison came around during our second months of performances and saw that
we had cast members jumping from the balcony down onto the stage … Well, for
safety reasons, they had us restage that part. But beyond that, they really
loved the show.”
And so do most Walt Disney World visitors. Which is why –
since June 14, 1974 – the Hoop-Doo-Dee Musical Revue has been presented over
35,000 times. Which makes this nighttime dinner show the most popular &
longest-running live entertainment production that The Walt Disney Company has
ever staged.
Which – when you consider how close Pioneer Hall came to
being this place where campers could go at night to see live animal demos of
creatures that had been shipped over from Discovery Island and/or watch
screenings of “The Living Desert” or “The Vanishing Prairie” – is just kind of
bizarre.
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So how many of you JHM readers are among the 10 million WDW
visitors who have seen the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue over the past 37 years?
And – if you have seen this nighttime dinner show – what’s your favorite
bear-related pun from that “Mammoth Historical Pageant” which closes out these
proceedings? Mine is “How could you do this to my next-of-skin?”
Your thoughts?
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