Picture this: It's late June of 1995. And the folks in charge of Disney-MGM Studios are racking their brains, trying to come up with some
sort of signature holiday event for that theme park.
"The Magic Kingdom had Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
and Epcot had its Candlelight Processional," John Phelan, show director for Disney
Creative Entertainment remembered. "We wanted to stage something similar at the
Studios, give people a really strong reason to come out to that theme park
during the holiday season. But we just couldn't come with a workable hook for
this proposed seasonal show."
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Until Bruce Laval (who – at that time – was Executive Vice
President of Theme Parks at the Walt Disney World Resort) came into work one
day and mentioned something that he'd seen on CNN the night before. Which was
this brief news story about how the Arkansas Supreme Court had just ordered that
some homeowner in Little Rock couldn't put up his over-the-top holiday lights
display this year.
"So Bruce says to me 'Maybe
we could do something with this. I think you should give this guy a call,'"
Phelan continued.
So John then picks up the phone and eventually gets ahold of
the Arkansas Research Medical Testing Center. Which is the business that
Arkansas philanthropist Jennings Osborne owned.
The 1993 version of the Osborne Family's Christmas Lights Display in Little Rock, AR.
Photo by Danny Johnston / Associated Press
"It was a relatively quick phone call," Phelan recalled. "Jennings
didn't quite understand what I was proposing. So he told me to put it in letter
form and then send it to his attorney. So I did that and then I headed out for
my annual vacation."
And when John got back into the office two weeks later, he
found this huge box sitting on his desk which was full of Christmas lights, press
clippings, candy canes and cookies.
"Jennings' attorney had gotten my letter and – realizing that
client was a huge Disney fan – immediately forwarded my proposal to him," John
laughed. "And when Jennings realized that it was THE Walt Disney Company that
was looking to display his family's holiday lights at MGM … Well, that's when Jennings
insisted that I immediately come on down to Little Rock and see what he had to
offer."
The view from the street of the Osborne Family home during 1993's holiday season.
Photo by Danny Johnston / Associated Press
And that's how – just a week or so later — Phelan found himself
standing in Osborne's driveway with Disney-MGM's technical director, as
Jennings then took them on a tour of all the storage sheds that he used to
house his three million holiday lights. As these two WDW employees then tried
to get a sense of what the Osborne Family had created could then be successfully
translated to Residential Street on the Disney-MGM Studio backlot.
"You have to understand that Osborne – in an attempt to
silence his neighbor's complaints about his family's annual holiday lights
display – had actually purchased the houses on either side of his home. And
each of these houses then had storage sheds in their backyards that were just crammed
full of Christmas lights," John continued.
And as Phelan and his assistant looked over all of the
elements that Osborne had collected over the past 9 years – the 70 foot-tall
Christmas tree, the two rotating carousels, the 100 angels with flapping wings,
plus the steam train which was driven by Mickey Mouse – and then heard the
story about how this holiday lights display had gotten started (i.e. Back in 1986,
Jennings' then-six-year-old daughter, Breezy had asked her father if they could
please put some Christmas lights on their house. Osborne responded by draping
their home with 1000 red lights that holiday season. And things kind of
snowballed from there … ), John kind of got a vision of what Disney could do
with the Jennings Family's holiday display.
Another angle of the Osborne Family Home on Cantrell Road in Little Rock, AR during
the 1993 holiday season. Photo by David Gottschalk
"You have to understand that most of this stuff was the kind
of holiday lights that you'd buy at your local store. Just 50 to 100 bulbs to a
strand," Phelan explained. "But if we were to use all of these elements to decorate
the houses on Residential Street and then kind of recreate what Jennings had
done in Little Rock, MGM would then be home to the ultimate Americana Christmas
display."
So the Walt Disney Company quickly cut a deal with Osborne.
And the next thing you know, four 18-wheel Mayflower Moving Vans loaded with
Christmas lights are headed back to Orlando. Where – for a while there, anyway –
it was pretty touch-and-go whether this display would actually be up in time
for the 1995 holiday season.
"These lights didn't actually arrive on property 'til
November 4th. Which is why we then had to have three teams of
technicians working 'round the clock for three weeks straight to try and get
all of those lights up along Residential Street," John said. "Jennings even
sent four of his own guys down to help us out that first year, show us how the bigger
pieces like the carousel went together."
Walt Disney World lighting technician Dan Summers
prepares toy soldiers for the Osborne Family
Spectacle of Dancing Lights. Copyright
Disney Enterprises, Inc. All
rights reserved
On the night of November 24, 1995, WDW officials threw the
switch and the first Guests walked down Disney-MGM's Residential Street and
experienced the Osborne Lights. And right from that very first night, Phelan
knew that they had a holiday hit on their hands.
"I was standing behind this family who were standing under
that huge canopy of red lights which Jennings had created. And I watched as the
mother in this family turned to her young son and said 'Merry Christmas,' "
John explained. "And you just knew – from the sound of this woman's voice –
that this was this Mom's very first 'Merry Christmas' of the holiday season. That
being surrounded by the Osborne Lights like that had just filled this woman
with the holiday spirit."
And given the overwhelmingly positive reaction that the
Osborne Lights got from WDW Guests during the 1995 holiday season, Disney-MGM
quickly made plans to make this display a perennial. And with each new edition
of the Osborne Lights, Disney's techs kept just what Jennings did. Which was
add a few more lights every year until this display was eventually made up of more
than 5 million lights.
Photo by David Roark. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
"And when Residential Street gave way to Lights, Motors,
Action! … Well, we just told our Guests that – just like the Osborne Lights got
too big for Little Rock – MGM's holiday lights display outgrew Residential
Street. Which is why we then had to move it to the Big City," Phelan continued.
And every year, Jennings and his family would come on down
to Disney World so that they could once again enjoy all of the lights that used
to decorate their homes.
"That was part of our deal with the Osborne Family. Jennings
didn't want any money for the use of his lights. But he and his family would
always come down to Disney World December 23rd through January 1st.
And we'd then treat them to a suite at the Grand Floridian. And Jennings and
his family would come over to the Studios for one night of their visit. And we'd
then have this special ceremony where Jennings & Breezy would turn on the
lights for that night," John recalled.
In a 2006 photo, Mickey Mouse and Jennings Osborne join the captains of the University
of Arkansas football team to turn on the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
The Osborne Family's visit for the 2011 holiday season is
going to be especially poignant, given that Jennings passed away this past
July.
"We've made a point of working a couple of tributes to
Jennings into this year's version of the Osborne Lights. Like the single
all-white angel who flies over the Streets of America's central square and that
flat-screen we've set up in one of the storefront's windows which tells the
whole story of how the Osborne Family Lights made the trip from Arkansas to
Walt Disney World," Phelan stated. "But there's just no way that you can
replace someone who was as kind and as generous as Jennings Osborne was."
Which brings me to John's favorite Jennings Osborne story.
Which was when he asked one of the technicians who worked on the original
Little Rock, AR version of this holiday display why they positioned their
red-canopy-of-lights so low to the ground.
Photo by Gene Duncan. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved
"And this tech explained to me that Jennings wanted to give
people the feeling that they were actually inside the lights. That they were completely
surrounded by the holidays, which would then hopefully fill them up with the
holiday spirit. And that's what we now to try to do every year at Disney's
Hollywood Studios," Phelan concluded. "Especially with our Streets of America
version of the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. We try and completely
surround our Guests with the holidays. Just like Jennings Osborne used to do back
in Little Rock with the original version of this display."
So how many of you JHM readers have made a special trip to Disney's
Hollywood Studios just to see the Osborne Lights? More importantly, how many of
you have made a holiday tradition out of searching this display for Mitzi's
purple cat?
Special thanks to the nice folks at Pixie Vacations for sponsoring today's JHM column.