Hooray for Hollywood!
Visit Magic Kingdom to be transported to the romantic worlds of “yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.”
Stop into EPCOT Center to explore a brave, new “permanent World’s Fair” concept, showcasing American innovation and cultural unity.
But the new, third theme park to join Walt Disney World is just a little different.
Michael Eisner’s dedication at this park’s May 1, 1989 opening proclaimed that the park was “dedicated to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic…” The Disney-MGM Studios is a celebration of “a Hollywood that never was – and always will be.”
More simply, this new park still transports you – but not to another world. Just another side of the country. The Disney-MGM Studios is exactly what it sounds like: a real, working movie studio modeled after the classic, soundstage-packed movie-making campuses sprawled across Hollywood, California. It’s a place where, at last, Disney can dispense with timelessness and immersive worlds and instead provide a home base for Eisner’s new industry-leading concept: that Disney Parks should be hip, young places packed with the stories, characters, and settings that resonate with young people right now.
Okay, in 30 years, people might not still be talking about ABC’s 1991 sitcom Dinosaurs, and 1987’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or 1995’s Goosebumps may not be “timeless” enough for that snoody Magic Kingdom, but here in the beige showbuildings and industrial backlots of a studio, they’ll feel right at home! And even better, their inexplicable proximity to each other would be part of the fun! After all, we’re not really being transported to Ariel’s world… we’re on a backlot, where we might bump into her and the Power Rangers in one stroll!
When the Disney-MGM Studios opened in spring 1989, it didn’t exactly offer a full roster.
In fact, the park was officially divided into two distinct halves: a theme park proper (featuring just one ride – the iconic Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride – with another Lost Legend: STAR TOURS en route for later that year) and a studio. The eponymous studio that gives the park its name is indeed an actual, real, active production facility. Look no farther than the map above, pointing out a Backlot (comprised of camera-ready sets representing New York, Chicago, and San Francisco interchangably, a Residential Street, and a special-effects-ready canyon set) and a formal Production Center of studio sets, costuming, and other studio musts.
Disney built this place to singlehandedly transform Orlando, Florida into a “Hollywood East,” courting major stars and blockbuster productions to take up shop among its amenities. One potential pitfall? Your shoot will be within earshot and eyeline of Walt Disney World guests on one of the most spectacularly-sized attractions ever:..
Part I: The Tram Tour
If you’ve got a few hours to spare (and we imagine you do, given the Backstage Studio Tour is the second of two rides at the new Disney-MGM Studios), make your way to the park’s headlining attraction – its “thesis” of sorts, though saying so makes the park sound pretty uninspired. At a whopping two hours (give or take), this attraction is so wildly scaled, a restroom break is provided halfway through.
Your journey begins under the daunting Studio Arch just off of the park’s central plaza. That arch – modeled after the ornate arches often found at the gates of Hollywood’s movie studio lots – is a grand entrance for a grand attraction. Boarding the park’s fleet of studio trams, we’re off!
Production Center
Quickly coming into view is the park’s official icon. Magic Kingdom has a castle; EPCOT Center has Spaceship Earth; Disney-MGM Studios has the Earful Tower. At a whopping 130 feet, the Earful Tower is an instantly-recognizable water tower (humorously wearing its own set of Mickey Mouse ears… size 342 3/8, if you ask). In the early 1900s, Hollywood studios’ backlots were always populated by water towers, ready to strike if and when easily flammable wooden sets caught fire. This water tower doesn’t actually have water in it. It’s also unusual in that the only clear view of this park icon is from this ride. The gorgeous, elaborate exterior of the Chinese Theater reigning at the end of Hollywood Blvd. might’ve made more sense, but this is a studio park, where a studio icon is a must. (Spoiler alert: Though this Earful Tower made our list of 10 Demoted and Destroyed Park Icons, its younger and taller sister is still holding strong at Disneyland Paris’ Walt Disney Studios Park… more on that later.)
Snap your photos while you can, because the tram continues along and into the heart of the studio’s production center. Passing into a warehouse, a long window gives us a sneak peek into our first behind-the-scenes feature: the Costuming department, “where skilled designers create the clothes worn by your favorite stars.” And indeed, seamstresses and tailors are hard at work within, sorting and trimming various lengths of fabric to create the costumes in use in the studios’ productions.
Attached is the Scenic Shop where studio craftsmen design the props and setpieces the production calls for.
Backlot
Ah, but here’s the moment we’ve been waiting for. The Backlot. It’s finally time to see some hot sets. Undoubtedly, we’ll run into world famous directors and stylish celebrities making their newest Oscar-winning feature films.
A charming-enough place to start is Residential Street. As the name implies, this collection of “homes” (really merely facades) was built to stand-in for suburban American neighborhoods with a “choose-your-own-adventure” array of architectural styles.
Take, for example, the ranch-style house here.
Look familiar? For fans of the 1985 – 1992 sitcom The Golden Girls, it will. The Golden Girls was originally filmed on-location in Brentwood, California. An exact replica of the real home’s exterior was built here at Disney-MGM Studios for use in season two onward. Keeping up with the Joneses wouldn’t be easy in this neighborhood, as the house next door was featured in Empty Nest, with the homes from Earnest Saves Christmas and Splash, Too just down the street.
At any time, a Hollywood producer could choose to do their filming here on this quiet, convincing residential street in the middle of a studio backlot… but it’s unlikely we’ll see any production today… That all changes at our next stop, as the tram loops around the heads for Catastrophe Canyon!
Catastrophe Canyon
In the spirit of the original Studio Tour at… well… a competing studio’s Hollywood headquarters… a visit to the Backlot wouldn’t be complete without a staged special effects demonstration in the form of a disaster.
They already cornered the market on sharks, apes, and earthquakes, but Disney’s home-grown disaster isn’t too shabby. “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.” As our Tram comes to a stop amid the quiet desert canyon, the metaphorical and literal floodgates open.
Sudden torrential rain sends a wall of water over the canyon walls, carrying an oil tanker that catches on fire, sending the tram rumbling. It’s an explosive, exciting moment as we see how physical effects come to life, then “magically” reset.
Of course, this demonstration is for our benefit, not a director’s. Though our Tram guide assures us that we’ve been caught in the middle of a live taping, you won’t spot any celebrities here, either.
The Tram glides out of the canyon as everything impressively reverses and drains – quiet once more – and drives around the back of the “set,” giving us an impressive look at the industrial infrastructure that makes these astounding effects (and their reload) so simple. Now that’s the magic of the movies!
New York Street
Then, it’s back through the Backlot and this time to New York Street, a convincingly flexible cross street of facades that are literally designed to stand in for the real thing. Though each shop, deli, and laundromat along the streets are artificial, to the camera lens behind Hollywood’s next blockbuster, this simple set would be close enough to catch even Brooklynites unawares… it’s the perfect spot to get that action shot without the New York production budget or the street closures. Still, looks like nothing’s filming today.
Ah, but now, we’ve reached our halfway point. That’s right – despite all the wonders we’ve witnessed (though, to our count, no actual filming… yet!) we still have another half of this star-studded attraction. Luckily, we’ve got a chance to stretch our legs at the Backstage Plaza, accessible only to us… and any Hollywood headliners who may be in the park for productions today. Don’t recognize anyone else ambling around at the Studio Catering Co. restaurant? They must be indie arthouse directors then.
Take your time at the Backstage Plaza. The tour will go on without us, but we shouldn’t take it personally. The next half of the attraction is on-foot, and groups of guests leave from Backstage Plaza and back into the behind-the-scenes magic in pulsed batches. Restroom break? Snack? Then off we go…
Part II: The Walking Tour
So, no one seemed to be filming on the Residential Streets, Catastrophe Canyon set, or the Streets of New York today, but this next half of the tour is when we really dig into the Disney-MGM Studios. Our next stop is the Water Tank.
Standing around the perimeter of this stormy ocean set, we’re due for a quick catch-up on some more practical effect wizardry that goes into Hollywood favorites. For example, we’ll see how miniatures are often used to stand-in for full-sized scenes, how to simulate an ocean battle on a closed set, and – with the help of some audience volunteers – see how simple effects (including an absolute onslaught of water) can create a surprisingly convincing scene when lightly edited and interspersed with pre-recorded footage on-screen.
Okay, so a few lucky volunteers were selected to showcase this fun special effects example, but where are the real productions? Ah, but ahead comes a highlight of the tour: the Soundstages. This is it! We’re about to see real studio sets constructed for actual filming, with Hollywood stars aplenty.
The walking tour leads us up into the special viewing hallways above the sets with bird’s-eye views of the goings-on beneath.
Aha! See? The brochures didn’t lie. You’re looking at the set from The Disney Channel’s All-New Mickey Mouse Club (the show’s third incarnation) and it’s true that you may even get a glimpse of Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, JC Chasez, or Christina Aguilera on-set… of course, they weren’t famous yet, so you probably wouldn’t recognize or care. But no photos please!
An inordinate number of sets you’ll find on these three soundstages belong to small-scale, accessory, early-’90s Disney productions, like Teen Win, Lose, or Draw, and Adventures in Wonderland. Game shows like Let’s Make a Deal, Wheel of Fortune, and MTV’s Remote Control would occassionally set up shop for special tapings. But if you’re hoping to see a Hollywood headliner, don’t hold your breath.
A final catwalk connects us to our last soundstage and the finale experience: the literal cutting room where editors work to clean up audio and picture post-production, making the movies we’ve seen today ship-shape for the big screen. Then, it’s into the Walt Disney Theater for a preview of upcoming Disney films. They weren’t filmed here.
The studio tram took us all the way out to the Backlot, and our walking tour through the Production Center brought us back into the shadow of the Studio Arch.
Exiting into the light at last, our two-hour journey into the movies technically gave us an unparalleled glimpse into a real movie studio, just without some of the features you might expect, like movie stars or filmmaking.
But are they essential to the experience? Eisner thought so, and predicated an entire theme park around the draw of a working movie studio… So what happened when reality struck and Disney realized that production simply wasn’t going to catch on and their “Hollywood East?” That’s how the story wraps up… We’re off to the big finale on the last page…