By now, you’ve probably heard about the Mr. Potato Head that’s been installed in the queue area of “Toy Story Mania.” How this 5 foot, 2 inch AA figure (Which reportedly cost a million dollars to build) will actually address individual quests as they stand there, waiting in the attraction’s queue area. And given that Don Rickles himself spent hours in a recording booth laying down tracks for this state-of-the-art Audio Animatronic … Well, when Mr. Potato Head tells jokes and/or serenades theme park patrons with the four songs that he knows, this Pixar character will at least sound authentic.
Sooo … Given the amount of money that Walt Disney Imagineering has already lavished on this AA figure, you’d think that the folks at Pixar would be happy with Mr. Potato Head. Well, think again.
As it turns out, many of the folks who work at that Emeryville-based animation studio are actually Disney theme park geeks. Consequently, these Pixar employees are well aware of what happened with the last state-of-the-art Audio Animatronic that WDI sent to the field: The Yeti featured in the climax of Disney’s Animal Kingdom‘s “Expedition Everest: Legend of the Forbidden Mountain.”
And ever since DAK officially opened this nearly-200-foot-tall thrill ride back in April of 2006, the Imagineers have struggled to keep this 22-foot-tall AA figure working properly. But because the Yeti is such a sophisticated piece of machinery, it rarely operates the way that it was supposed to.
And given that Expedition Everest’s state-of-the-art Audio Animatronic only makes an appearance at the very end of this DAK attraction (More to the point, given that the Yeti appears in a very dark section of this thrill ride) … Well, when this AA figure is broken, it’s relatively easy to put the Yeti in a very scary pose, throw a strobe lit on him … And Presto ! 90 % of the guests who zoom through Forbidden Mountain that day have no idea that a key element of this thrill ride was broken.
Photo by Jeff Lange
But since Mr. Potato Head is just as technologically sophisticated as the Yeti (if not more so), the folks at Pixar are wondering what WDI’s contingency plan for “Toy Story Mania” is. I mean, given that this AA figure will be right out there in public where any guest that walks by the show building can see him, it’s not like the Imagineers can do what they do over at “Expedition Everest” (i.e. Put Mr. Potato Head in a scary pose, throw a strobe light on him and hope that nobody notices).
But when Pixar staffers asked the Imagineers what their “Toy Story Mania” contingency plan was … WDI officials said (in essence) that ” … We don’t really have a plan right now. So if Mr. Potato Head breaks down, I guess we’ll just throw a sheet over him until we can get this figure repaired.”
Which — to be honest — is not really what the folks from Pixar wanted to hear. But after 16 months of dealing day-to-day with Walt Disney Imagineering, it’s the sort of answer that they’ve now come to expect.
As one Pixar insider recently told me:
“We’ve just got two fundamentally different approaches to the way we do business. At Pixar, we pride ourselves on doing things right the first time. Taking all the time that we need, spending all the money necessary to make sure that our final product is good as it can possibly be. Delivering the best possible show that we can.
Whereas with the Imagineers … It’s not so much about doing a good job is it is about protecting their jobs. Making sure that they don’t make some sort of costly error that could then wind up costing them their position at Imagineering.
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Honestly, I have never dealt with a more paranoid group of people. At WDI, it seems like everyone is looking over their shoulder. Wondering who’s trying to undercut their project now. No wonder so many half-assed rides, shows and attractions have come out of Glendale over the past decade. Who could ever do quality work under conditions like these?”
Mind you, at Pixar’s suggestion, Disney Company management has made an effort recently to deal with Imagineering’s culture of fear. Which is why Peter McGrath was recently brought in from the Disneyland Paris Resort to become WDI’s new Vice President of Creative Development. The way I hear it, Peter’s main goal is to transform Walt Disney Imagineering from being a workplace where people continually obsess about which job number they can charge their project to to … Well, a place that’s more like Pixar. Where it’s all about delivering a quality product that the public can then enjoy.
Speaking of the theme park going public … Late last week, “Toy Story Mania” hit yet another snag. It seems that — due to the pull-string firing mechanism that’s used on all of the cannons in this ride-thru shooting gallery … Well, Operations is now concerned that — should they allow parents to hold their kids in their laps as they ride through “Toy Story Mania” — someone might wind up getting injured. Either the parents will accidentally hit their kids in the face as they pull back on that pull-string OR their children will wind up whacking Mom & Dad in some pretty tender areas as they too pull on those pull-strings.
Which is why — just last week — Operations had to institute a new rule for “Toy Story Mania.” As in: No lap sitting. Which (as you might expect) is going to have a very interesting impact on the hourly capacity of this new Disney theme park attraction. Since every single child that boards this ride will now have to have a seat of their very own … Which is going to make this attraction that much more difficult to load & unload.
Long story short: Be sure and be extra-patient when you queue up for that Annual Passholder Preview of WDW’s version of “Toy Story Mania” next month. For it may take those DHS cast members quite a while to get a handle on how to properly operate this brand-new attraction.
Your thoughts?