Laughing EO Off
What became an ironic surprise at the D23 Expo, especially for yours truly, was the sudden cold feet Bob Iger got over the advanced proposal to re-install Captain EO into the old Magic Eye Theater in Disneyland's Tomorrowland.
We'd told you weeks ago that the proposal was a go from Glendale, and that Team Disney Anaheim (TDA) executives were giddy over the thought of all the locals who would descend on the park to see this piece of 1980's kitsch reborn for the 21st century. On Tuesday last week the Honey I Shrunk The Audience show was quietly closed, and Imagineers moved in with a truckload of equipment used to install the Captain EO show for a special executive presentation planned for early Thursday.
The executive review of Captain EO went off without a hitch from a technical standpoint, and after another show for Jackson's children and family, the EO equipment was dismantled and the Honey attraction reopened to Disneyland visitors by Saturday. But Iger had lawyers and PR reps from Burbank whispering in his ear all week and right up to show time about the possible backlash to the attraction stemming from Michael Jackson's controversial legal problems in later years.
While returning Captain EO to Tomorrowland for a temporary run had the full support of the Disney geeks in Imagineering (WDI), and the TDA planners were only looking at the numbers, Iger has now become rather unimpressed with the idea and is not convinced it would be worth the possible PR headaches it might bring.
As of now there is still a strong possibility that Captain EO will at least return to Disneyland, especially considering all of the technical work already completed by WDI and the logistical plans made by TDA in the last two months. But what Iger has his publicity and legal teams looking into is if there is a way to tie the return of Captain EO into the 2010 Disneyland marketing campaign centered around volunteering in your local community. The carefully crafted message might include a big cardboard check given to a worthy charity at Captain EO's grand reopening, or somehow tied into the 2010 promotion of earning a free ticket to Disneyland for working a certain number of volunteer hours in your community.
That will all take time to develop though, and Iger wasn't about to commit to it at D23 Expo, which helps explain the answer he gave to the Captain EO questions at D23. Iger hasn't shut down the idea of Captain EO returning entirely, but by last week he very clearly wasn't as enamored of it as his teams in WDI and TDA are. Or enamored as much as WDI and TDA were, since when word got out late last week that Iger was running cool to the idea some of the biggest executive boosters in Anaheim and Glendale shifted their Expo small talk to Star Tours II and Cars Land instead of Captain EO. At least Jay Rasulo had two days to practice his new Expo presentation that was without mention of Captain EO.
What happens after EO runs its course later in 2010 is the real prize for WDI however, as the plan is for Captain EO to run for at least six or nine months and then close after the summer of 2010. The Magic Eye Theater would then be gutted and turned into a slightly re-tuned version of the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor attraction already found in Walt Disney World's (WDW) Tomorrowland. WDI has some refinements planned to the interactive elements of the comedy club attraction, and they would like to see it up and running by the time Star Tours II opens for the summer of 2011.
If Iger and his PR group pulls the plug on EO entirely out of fear of a messy public backlash to Michael Jackson, then Honey would likely limp along through 2010 and then be shut down to become Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. With only a few thousand guests visiting Honey now on its busiest days, far less than the 6,000+ that visit the 46 year old Enchanted Tiki Room on an average Saturday, Honey is a tired old attraction that clearly is past its prime. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, tweaked a bit to play to Southern California audiences, would at least be an improvement for most Disneyland visitors.
