MousePlanet | Cast Place

The surprise success of an unlikely alliance between Disney, Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and the Warner Brothers Studio, the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit broke through a lot of the boundaries of traditional filmmaking. Touted as the first realistic feature-length attempt to meld live action and animation, it was co-financed at a time long before such co-productions became routine.

The true legacy of the film, it could be argued, is not in the breakthroughs for Hollywood deal-making, nor is it the historic meeting between Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse — both of which were contractually obligated to have exactly the same number of words — but rather in a concrete location in Disneyland, and later Walt Disney World and then finally in Tokyo Disneyland. According to the film, cartoon characters live in Toontown, an animated reality adjacent to the real Hollywood, which facilitates their acting careers in studio movies.

Disneyland, seeking a child's play area in the late 1980s, simply had to have Toontown as its own. Walt Disney World had opened a similar sort of area in 1988 called Mickey's Birthdayland to celebrate Mickey's 60th birthday, which later morphed to Mickey's Starland, which was the same thing, with just a slight change of theme. The Roger Rabbit picture offered an ideal chance to bring Mickey's Starland to Anaheim with a new theme. And so, in keeping with the conceit of the film, Mickey's Toontown opened at Disneyland in January 1993 not as a new land, so the publicity went, but as a long-empty backstage area that had, until this moment, kept its doors closed to the public.

Sunday, January 24, was the press day for the Toontown opening, and I had the good fortune to work it. I am not quite certain how I was selected for these things. I mean, I was a foods lead over in New Orleans, and had no business over in the new land. But my goodness, of course I was most willing to help out. I was to be a Table Lead at the temporary tables set up to distribute buffet-style food, so I guess I was there in my capacity as a Lead with experience in Enchanted Evenings, which not too many of us had experience with.

The work itself was a pretty standard Enchanted Evening. Get the tables from Decorating, move them to the appropriate spots, cover them with tablecloths, then set up all the foods stuff, such as sterno lights for heat, chafing dishes, empty bustubs, extra napkins and utensils down below, and so on. The centerpieces and table skirting would be attached by the Decorating Department folks just a few hours before the event began. What was fun about this part was getting to explore the new land, by which I really mean the backstage areas — there would be plenty of time to check out the onstage areas.

What was backstage? Well, the Toontown hills are held up by large red poles, for one. There is a service road between the hills and the buildings of Toontown, in fact. Attached to the back of the Toontown City Hall is a small break area, really just an air-conditioned spot to sit, with perhaps a few vending machines. Stark white walls in there, but it was clean and cool at least.

As our standard setup progressed, more and more of the decorations came into the area. Tables were adorned with centerpieces, large balloon chains were fastened to fences, and the area became festive, as if for a party.

Editor's Note:

While Kevin was working, I (thanks to a friend at a major magazine) got to attend the week full of festivities. It was my first Disneyland press party — and it was an eye-opener as far as what the company did in its quest for publicity.

Literally the entire Fantasyland Theater became a base of media operations with satellite trailers set up, beaming footage of the event to stations across the land, and making what they call "b-rolls" (background footage) that all the press folks / local personalities / weather people could take back with them to use on local broadcasts.

What I could find of what I kept from the event

From all the giveaways — including a baseball cap with a brim that opened up into a 3-D tableau of the land, to a specially printed Mickey Disney Dollar, a pair of ToonTown sunglasses, to the collector's series of Coca Cola ToonTown cans — it was lavish on a scale now unimaginable. This sense of style continued on to all the planned events — including a private showing of Fantasmic! and a specially set up arcade along small world way which included a giant slide installed for just one night. Disney had thought of everything, from meal coupons for every meal, to bag lunches if we needed to snack in the press area.

The big launch party itself started on a classy high note. We entered the park via Main St. after it closed to the public, and from the gate in, then all the way down the pathway to the gates of ToonTown, it was completely lined with CMs waving to us with Mickey Mouse white gloved hands. What an impressive welcome!

At the party we were able to eat dinner right in the land, and have some wine with it, while watching Br'er Bear make funny movements at us as he stepped on the plaques in the sidewalk surrounding the fountain in front of Mickey's house. (Back then they used to trigger all sorts of funny strangled horn sounds and spout a little water from the central sculpture each time you stepped on them. The idea the Bear was trying to convey was that he was, um, well.. expelling some gas. Alas, those effects no longer work.) Somewhere I also still have one of the free photos they took of us with the new characters from Aladdin.

One of the things I remember in particular was my friend asking who a character was, and our media guide going to find out. "I thought you guys knew everything" I joked. She replied, "No, I'm not one of those Dis-noids, (that's what we call them) who know it all." It was the first time I'd heard that term.

As the evening went on, the rules got bent a little bit for us, (maybe due to all that wine... ) so we all got to roll around in the now gone Chip and Dale acorn (ball) crawl and we then got to bounce in Goofy's house — probably the last / only time that ever happened for adults. Roger Rabbit was not open yet that night — we only got to see a model of what it would look it.

My absolute favorite part that opening week though was getting an all night tour of Disneyland, (thanks to a very kind press person who kindly gave up his evening for us), extending literally from when the park closed until it opened the next morning, to see what actually goes on after hours. We were picked up in a van at about 2 AM at the Disneyland Hotel where we were staying, quickly whisked backstage behind Space Mountain, and then our private walking tour began.

We got to meet with painters who were busy touching up Fantasyland signs ("each color fades at a different rate — so we work on a schedule that refreshes each just before it gets bad — blue always fades more than other colors"), the woman who spent the entire night polishing the King Arthur Carrousel brass work ("yes, it takes the whole night!"), and the two scuba guys who would go through and make any needed fixes to the submarine lagoon. (Needless to say this level of upkeep and maintenance is now past history under the regime of Paul Pressler, who took over the park afterwards.)

We also got to walk through some attractions, my trip through Peter Pan and then backstage behind the ride itself was something that still sticks in my mind. Mind you this was years before the Annual Passholder parties where we got to walk through Roger Rabbit, Pinocchio and Snow White.

I have to say, it was quite an amazing thing to have the park to yourself at 5 AM sitting there with a cup of fresh coffee and a muffin to watch the sun break out over ToonTown, which at that time was brand spanking new and full of vibrant color (see press photo above). I even got a very funny story to tell out of the whole experience about one of the breakfasts we attended during that week that forever married the DIG to the term "toe sucking."

Sadly the opening of ToonTown for me at least, seemed to be the beginning of the end for the old way of doing things at Disneyland. For Indy's premiere a few years later, Pressler was then firmly in charge, and the old style of showmanship and sense of gee-whiz fun was long gone.

— Al Lutz

The party, of course, was the invited VIPs and media personnel. There were many names you would recognize from the guest list. Celebrities I saw with my own eyes — often right in front in my eyes: Candice Bergen, Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, Roy Disney, Jr., Michael Eisner, Sally Field, Whoopie Goldberg, John Goodman, George Lucas, Tom Selleck, Sinbad, Steven Spielberg, Damon Wayans, and Robin Williams.

There were a few other celebrities reported to be there that I did not see, such as Dan Aykroyd, Ted Danson, and George Wendt.

As a Cast Member of no real importance, it was my job to sit tight, serve well, and shut up. We could make conversation with the celebrities, but nothing too fan-like would be tolerated. I interpreted that to mean it was best to be polite but not particularly effusive, and in practice I really only spoke when spoken to, apart from the pleasantries one expects from a server.

I did get a chance to observe Robin Williams up close. I was surprised by four things:

The more memorable encounter was with an extremely inebriated founder of a fast-food chain. He got more or less in my face — in a friendly way, mind you — and it was obvious that he was wearing pancake makeup, the kind folks have to wear for television cameras. I recall feeling a bit of pity that he would try to cover his age so blatantly, especially when it wasn't particularly working. But there are two bits of background info you need before you understand just why this meeting sticks out so much in my mind.

First, I would remember meeting this mogul a few weeks later when I heard on the news that he had been ousted by the board — kicked out of his own company, in an attempt at better bottom-line performance (the maneuver must have worked, since the company is still around). That made me feel sad, that I saw him just before he lost control of his own company.

Second, I had good reason to know this mogul's name in recent times. Not two months before meeting him, I had met his niece. A friend and I had stumbled across her and another girl in a social setting, and she and my friend eventually hooked up that night. I asked her the usual dumb questions — does she get free food? (answer: no, just some coupons once in a while) and my friend continued his brief relationship with her until just before my meeting with her uncle.

So naturally, when I did meet him, I did not want to talk about his company, I wanted to talk about his niece. Sadly, his drunken stupor more or less precluded any sort of substantial conversation, poor guy was so far gone. I no longer remember the niece well, but I do remember the fellow.

Toontown was the crowning achievement for the very first President of Disneyland (until then the corporate structure was different). His name? Jack Lindquist. Shortly after Toontown opened, Jack went into retirement. So Disneyland threw him a party — in Toontown, naturally. At this party, itself a kind of Enchanted Evenings, I once again got to work as a Table Lead, and watched as Disneyland presented him with a goodbye gift: a 23-foot boat. Don't ask me what kind of boat, I'm useless with nautical terms. Seeing that boat in Toontown on a trailer was kind of odd, but it was a special moment that etched itself into my memory.

Jack has a window on Main Street, of course, but Disneyland also gave him one last present and tribute: a pumpkin-head scarecrow outside Goofy's Bounce House. Since Toontown is Jack's land, it seemed only fitting that his tribute should become a part of Toontown.

Jack's farewell party was touching and fun, but it lacked the star wattage of the Toontown opening. As Cast Members at Disneyland, we frequently got to see celebrities, so we tell ourselves that we do not care, and are completely unfazed by celebrity. I told myself that, at least, and look at me: I kept a list all these years of the folks I saw.


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Wednesday, July 25, 2001 by Kevin Yee

Wednesday, July 25, 2001
by Kevin Yee