Originally Posted By AutoPost This topic is for Discussion of: <a href="http://www.laughingplace.com/w/articles/2014/04/29/the-newest-wonder-of-the-world-the-disney-mgm-studios-theme-park/" target="_blank"><b>4/29/14: The Newest Wonder of the World… The Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park</b></a>
Originally Posted By FerretAfros It really is amazing to see how much the park changed in those early years. How long did the daily celebrity appearances last? It seems like most of the handprints in front of the theater are from around 1992 or earlier (I think the most recent is the Harry Potter kids, from right after the 1st movie) The show schedule is particularly interesting, with how it considers things like The Great Movie Ride to have continuous "shows". It's also pretty incredible that they were running 10 daily shows of the Indy stunt show! One thing that's always perplexed me was the "hidden Mickey" layout. The face and right ear make sense, but even pre-Sunset Blvd the left ear doesn't appear to have been anything recognizable. It may have been painted a different color, but it didn't have any of the 'structural' components, like the planters in the plaza, to make the shape meaningful in any way
Originally Posted By DlandDug I LOVED the early Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park. It still breaks my heart to see how muddled it has become over the years. The "Star of the Day" program seems to have vanished without a trace. It may have lasted a year or more. There's a nice "capsule" history of Disney-MGM here: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.studioscentral.com/column/studios-weekly/ages-disneys-hollywood-studios">http://www.studioscentral.com/...-studios</a> The first image shows the "hidden Mickey" in the plaza. Yes, the left ear was painted on the roof of the buildings, primarily the Soundstage Restaurant (which is today Playhouse Disney Live). You can also see the original Theater of the Stars location, where Sunset Boulevard begins today.
Originally Posted By DlandDug In doing sone quick research online, I find that the Star Today program was still going as late as 1993.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros ^^That's pretty incredible! I assume it wasn't a daily occurrence for the park's first 4 years (or there would be a lot more handprints), but it seems like it lasted for quite a while. It would be fun to see them bring something like this back on a semi-regular basis, to give the park more of a feeling of reality, rather than simply a theme park as it feels now (bringing back some sort of film production would also help too)
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn As a 44 yr old, the park's existence is still kind of wonky to me. It started as a Great Movie Ride attraction that was supposed to fit beside/withing Journey Into Imagination in EPCOT. Then Disney execs decided to concept a whole park around the idea, and jam it somewhere else on property. Strangely, their selected location left the park boxed in and difficult to expand. After a while, it eventually seemed to fit a "Disney brand", being that it was really meant to be true movie/commercial/TV production studios. But for many reasons, that effort went by the wayside (Catastrophe Canyon noise, actors/producers/animators not wanting to relocate to Orlando, etc...) It seems to end up becoming two things: a place to shoehorn attractions that didn't fit in MK or EPCOT; and a balance against Universal Studios theme park - but not a studio. Even the road plans surrounding the park was un-Disneyish. Then the addition of its neighboring Wide World of Sports made it exceptionally more strange. To this day, it's a little weird to go there. It still seems like woods should be there. Animal Kingdom however doesn't give me similar creeps. It seems to fit. As a matter of fact, one of Walt's original pencil sketches of the WDW property had a separate area called "Swamp Ride"... located right about where AK is today.
Originally Posted By virk4 I remember having lunch next to Lisa Minnelli at Prime Time Cafe. She was the daily star that day.
