Hollywood Land
In the old California Adventure, the objective of a Hollywood-themed area would’ve been to emulate the real, modern Hollywood and poke fun of the movie-making industry and tabloid-fueled celebrity culture of the late ’90s; in essence, to make a visit to the real Hollywood redundant and to bring a spoofed, over-saturated version of it just an hour south to Anaheim.
The former incarnation of this land – Hollywood Pictures Backlot – was exactly that. Its Hollywood Blvd. was a streetscape flanked by recreations of famous Los Angeles buildings that – upon close inspection – are revealed to be nothing more than textureless flats; a “backlot” style recreation of Hollywood, convincing only as a backdrop for a modern television production staged by the ABC Soap Opera Bistro. “Punny” signs affixed to these false fronts advertised fake stores; cheetah print awnings and references to Hollywood’s paparazzi scene reminded you that you weren’t in some long-lost, idealized, Golden Age of Hollywood, but here, now.
Worse still was the land’s tucked-away “backlot” plaza – an industrial, concrete, sun-bleached square from which guests could see the steel and plaster holding up the fake facades of Hollywood Blvd. Loaded with gray soundstages, corrugated steel walls, industrial lighting rigs, electrical poles, and piles of props and refuse meant to evoke a production courtyard of a major studio, the Backlot’s “anchor” – and the park’s only dark ride – had been the Declassified Disaster: Superstar Limo until it closed in the park’s second season leaving (lest we forget) zero dark rides at this depressing Disney Park.
When Disney California Adventure re-opened on June 15, 2012, that had changed… At least, nominally. Now, California Adventure’s second land had been upgraded to something a little more timeless in Hollywood Land. Though not quite as elegant as the sign that once resided in the Hollywood Hills (a single word – “Hollywoodland”) the name change here is meant to downplay the land’s old studio aesthetic and refocus it on that “Golden Age” that seems so tailor-made for Imagineering’s strengths (and that’s executed so perfectly at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida).
Despite the name change, it’s clear that Hollywood Land received the least amount of capital as part of the “DCA 2.0” reimagining. Sure, there’s been a clear effort to close up the exposed backs of the land’s flat facades; modern references and punny shop names have been replaced with historic window displays and period-appropriate billboards; the barren Backlot has been stripped of its industrial exposures and polished up as a brighter, fresher, greener campus for filmmaking.
The large golden elephants and the “Hollywood Pictures Backlot” banner they carried have also been removed, leaving only their vaguely-Oriental pedestals as markers of the transition between Buena Vista Street and Hollywood Land. Frankly, that works. Rather than feeling like two dissimilar worlds, Buena Vista Street and Hollywood Land feel like a continuous space that guests (and the Red Car Trolley) flow between.
But it makes sense that otherwise, little has fundamentally changed about the land or its lineup. After all, nearly all of those “Band-Aid” fixes that took place prior to Iger’s formal, five-year reimagining of the park landed here, in the land most in need of things to do.
Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue opened in 2005 – a cute dark ride (and an early Pixar addition to Disney Parks) overtaking the bones of Superstar Limo. Triple-checking the mandates that California Adventure add more rides, more characters, and more for families, the Monsters Inc. dark ride was a needed “plus,” at least adding some draw to the barren backlot aside from the opening day (and absolutely wonderful) Muppet*Vision 3-D.
That same ethos no doubt powered the ABC Soap Opera Bistro (one of the park’s overbuilt and unneeded restaurants) to cede its space to Disney Junior – Live on Stage, opening in 2003. Same with the addition of Turtle Talk with Crush in the land’s hidden gem of an Animation Building. So it goes with Aladdin – A Musical Spectacular debuting in 2003 in the Hyperion Theater (boldly eschewing theme park standard to present a legitimately-Broadway-caliber, 45 minute full-stage production).
In other words, so much of the heavily lifting for Hollywood Land actually came prior to the park’s grand redesign that it’s fair to see why it was put on the back-burner during it, with just light placemaking. And sure – you could argue that though Monsters Inc., Aladdin, Disney Junior, and Finding Nemo additions are all introavertibly “plusses,” none really lends itself to California at all, much less the land’s supposed setting in 1940s Hollywood. (Hold onto that thought, as it becomes a throughline with the “new” California Adventure – gorgeous lands recreating idealized Californian places and times… but lots and lots of cartoon characters inside those lands.)
Though of course, more than ever before, Hollywood Land is anchored by one of the park’s definitively and distinctly-Californian E-Tickets: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
Even having been added to the park back in 2005 as one of those pre-five-year-plan “Band-Aids,” there’s no question that the Hollywood Tower Hotel rising over Hollywood Land and Buena Vista Street makes more sense today than it did in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot; a looming legend of old Hollywood, its vintage lounge songs echoing across its urban gardens…
Sure, this version of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is, by most counts, a “value-engineered” version of the original back in Florida. Yes, it’s got a whole different layout and ride system. No, it doesn’t have the beloved “Fifth Dimension” scene….
…But it’s difficult to overstate how important this ride is as an anchoring figure of an early California Adventure, and how deeply embedded into the park’s reborn, interconnected mythology it feels now.
Take, for example, how the Tower of Terror has been retconned into the larger narrative at work here… For those who visit the Fiddler, Fifer, and Practical Café back on Carthay Circle, where posters for the jazz trio of sisters’ upcoming performances list the Tip Top Club – the legendary art deco bar supposedly housed on the Hollywood Tower Hotel’s third floor.
Speaking of which, should you hop aboard the Red Car Trolley back on Buena Vista Street (and remember, back in the 1920s as opposed to Hollywoodland’s 1940s setting), you’ll see that the cable car makes scheduled stops at Carthay Circle, Hollywood Blvd., and around the corner at the Hollywood Tower Hotel.
Subtle as it may be – and as unimportant as it may seem – there’s a beautiful bit of world-building here: that when folks step off the train in Los Angeles, the Red Car Trolley might be their connection to their final destination: a stay at the young, luxurious Hollywood Tower Hotel (pre-1939, of course).
This E-Ticket dark ride has been integrated not just into Hollywood Land, but into a park-wide mythology; a living timeline of events around the Golden State… For instance, those who bother to glance up at the “in-universe” advertisements inside the Red Car will see an ad recommending a “Stay in Luxury” at the Hollywood Tower Hotel… albeit without its iconic (and as we know, doomed) main guest tower, insinuating that the main structure we know must be a later addition, constructed in the early 1930s. For Disney Parks nerds… that’s jaw-dropping!
And sure, in Hollywood Land, evidence of a former and less elegant life remains. The buildings along Hollywood Blvd. are still paper-thin facades; the Backlot is still an awkward, soundstage-enshrouded plaza devoid of traffic or focus; and perhaps most evidently, what is now presented in theory as a historic, idealized, 1940s neighbor of and continuation of Buena Vista Street still terminates in a false “blue sky” backdrop to disguise the fly of the Hyperion Theater… which is about as “backlot” as you can get…
But here in 2012, anything is possible. And of course, fans have latched onto artwork released in the initial batches of concepts for “DCA 2.0,” clearly showing that a more complete reimagining of Hollywood Land – one to match the land’s new name and stated timeline – are indeed in the works… A street of period-appropriate facades, terminating in a full-scale, real-world exterior for the Hyperion Theater…
So sure, Hollywood Land looks and feels a whole lot like Hollywood Pictures Backlot did… And yes, you’ll still be stopping by for a drink at Schmoozies and a hot dog at Award Wieners – clear remnants of the old days.
But for us – the first guests to the reborn California Adventure – a proper reskinning of Hollywood Land is not a matter of “if.” It’s a matter of “when.” And despite the land’s relative lack of change (especially after the home run of Buena Vista Street) it’s clear that the future is bright not just for Hollywood Land, but for all of California Adventure. There’s a new heart here. And if Hollywood Land is among the least impacted of the park’s lands, just imagine what lies ahead…
The Hollywood Tower Hotel is the last stop for the Red Car Trolley, and the path forward leads on through thickets of bamboo and underbrush, into tunnels formed by towering grasses…
a bug’s land
Our Grand Circle Tour of the new California Adventure next carries us into “A Bug’s Land.” It’s important to remember that “A Bug’s Land” actually debuted in 2002 – just a year after the park’s opening – to try to entice families to visit. Again ticking the boxes of bringing character, ride capacity, and family offerings to the park, this quick-fix land may have technically been a hastily-assemble “Band-Aid”, but it pulled it off well.
“A Bug’s Land” absorbed the downright silly Bountiful Valley Farm area (long gone by 2012) and thus obtained It’s Tough to be a Bug (13) – an opening day attraction at the park (and one of two 3D films copied and pasted from Walt Disney World alongside Muppet*Vision). Here located “underground” in an “ant hill” instead of Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life, the show would probably be considered the main attraction in “a bug’s land.”
That’s because the rest is contained to “Flik’s Fun Fair” – a sweet little six acre plot with a number of kid-sized flat rides. There’s the Flik’s Flyers yo-yo swing (with riders placed in spectacularly crafted to-go containers, snack boxes, and margarine tubs beneath stitched-leaf balloons), Tuck and Roll’s Drive ‘Em Buggies (a somewhat ineffectual bumper cars under a big top tent), Francis’ Ladybug Boogie (a spinning, dizzying, near-miss turntable attraction with guests riding in ladybugs), and Dot’s Puddle Park (a splash pad playground complete with leaky hose).
Of course, for many guests young and old, the highlight is Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train – a downright silly attraction that has guests climbing aboard the very hungry caterpillar for a ride through a smorgasbord of “giant” foods.
En route through the forest of grasses, Heimlich chews his way through a watermelon rind, a box of animal crackers, a cupcake, and candy corn – all with scents! – as he burps and exclaims along the route. Just when it seems it might be time to head indoors to a proper dark ride, the Chew Chew Train comes to an end… but the so-bad-it’s-good attraction is a must-see in its own right, and a clever addition for families.
Alright, alright. “A bug’s land” may not be Hogsmeade. But back in 2002, this land was a rare bit of heart for a park that hadn’t convinced many people it cared. Pencils jabbed into the earth as fencing, flavor-dyed Popsicle-stick benches, firefly street lamps, a tissue box bathroom… and of course, aside from its bamboo-forested pathways, the land is shaded by dozens of massive clovers (just one with four leaves!) that make the space relaxing, cool, green, and colorful.
Here at the park’s relaunch in 2012, it’s already clear that Pixar’s A Bug’s Life didn’t necessarily have the “franchisability” of, say, Toy Story. But frankly, with a Toy Story Land having opened at Disneyland Paris in 2010 and Hong Kong Disneyland in 2011 with the same conceit of shrinking guests down to ride off-the-shelf flat rides, there’s little debate that “a bug’s land” does it better, adding more capacity and in a more whimsical, shaded form.
So though “a bug’s land” was nearly unaffected by “DCA 2.0,” it’s important to swing through this space to understand the spread of experiences that this reborn Disney Park offers. Speaking of reborn – emerging from the dense greenery of “a bug’s land,” another land with a whole new story awaits just ahead…