Whose Weekend is it Anyway? (continued)
A Review of the ABC Primetime
Preview Weekend at Disney's California Adventure August 24th &
25th
ONE |
TWO
The original park was not spared,
however. Carey went on to joke, ăHere is how to have a
Disneyland experience without ever having to leave your neighborhood.
First you have to get up real early in the morning, pile everybody up
in the car, and drive five blocks, park the car, walk five blocks back
to your house. Then take out all your money and set it on fire. Youâre
getting that Disneyland feeling already, huh? Then you get everybody
in a big circle so youâre all facing everybody else's back, then
just walk around in a big line. Then you go Îwee!â for 10 seconds.ä
The cast for the show consisted of Carey, Ryan Stiles (both shown
above), Jeff Davis, Chip Esten, Colin Mochrie, and musician Linda
Taylor. The audience went wild as Carey introduced each member. The
show consisted of familiar skit formats, including one where a
conversation can only consist of questions (set in a dungeon for
Saturday's show). ăDid you know that before you put me on the
rack, I was five-foot-two?ä asked the old-growth-sized Stiles.
Another skit consisted of the cast singing about a member of the
audience. In this case, the member was pre-selected by an
eBay auction, where a winning bid of $1925 gave 13-year-old
Holly, from San Antonio, Texas, a chance to be serenaded boy
band-style by Davis and Esten.
Yet another skit involved
Mochrie (shown above) and Carey carrying on a conversation where key
phrases were blank, filled in by sentences written on small slips of
paper by the audience. One particularly hilarious moment occurred when
Carey, placing one of the slips of paper on his lower back, asked Mochrie
to ăread the tattoo.ä Asking if Carey truly wanted him to do so, Mochrie
read out loud, ăI donât know why it itches.ä
Then another skit involved two volunteers, Gary and Pam, who
provided sound effects. Stiles and Mochrie were amusing enough, but
the lack of coordination from the volunteers resulted in a skit that
swung between extremely lame and side-splittingly funny.
It was a skit called ăGreatest Hitsä however, that brought the
house down. Stiles and Mochrie introduced a new recording dedicated to
(theme park) mascots, as Davis and Esten (Esten shown above) sang the
various improv tunes they suggested. Songs included a doo wop about
dehydrated mascots, a heavy metal song called, ăThere's No Zipper,
and I Really Gotta Go,ä and a Jamaican reggae tune called ăHroop,
hroopä (the sound of a zipper).
Mike enjoyed the show, and thinks Disney should do it more often. ăI
wish they would bring Whose Line Is It Anyway? to DCA for a extended
time -- it was well worth the wait.ä
| Editor's
note: Did you attend either
Saturday or Sunday's show? We would love to hear from you
about your experience, not only of the show, but of the wait
to get in, and of your overall experience with the ABC
Primetime Preview event itself at California Adventure. Please
contact Lani
Teshima. |
Whose Line Am I In Anyway? Synergy
or Waste of Energy?
If these sorts of events are popular among park-goers, is this sort
of synergy good for the park? Even if the boost in attendance from
these kinds of special events comes mainly from Annual Passholders,
Disney may view the increased attendance as a good thing, no matter
what the final gate receipts. In addition, the success of an event
such as this becomes difficult to measure when the event promotes new
TV shows not yet on the air for the Fall season. With Los Angeles
being a major market, this sort of synergistic event may really help
boost sagging ratings, albeit locally.
There was an on-site casting booth
for ABC(family)'s My Life is a Sitcom.
It makes perfect sense for Disney and ABC to work jointly to
produce these types of events. The special event itself is free for
those who can get into the park ö the same cannot be said about
special merchandising events at Disneyland across the esplanade.
Regular park visitors can meet stars in person that they would
otherwise have a rare opportunity to do.
Jennifer Littrell isnât so sure, even with no extra admission
fee, whether these types of events are worth the hassle. Although she
had a good time, Jennifer felt that Disney catered too much of the
event toward the media, leaving the customers with little to do for
all the hype they were promised.
Jim Belushi and his band, The Sacred
Hearts.
What sets this particular event
apart from other synergistic events however, is that Disney
may not necessarily have been looking for a boost in attendance ö or
more specifically, a boost in paid attendance.* The event was
heavily promoted on its ABC radio and TV stations in Southern
California (yet another use of synergy), but the marketing focused
primarily on meeting TV stars, with the event's venue mentioned in a
secondary manner.
In doing so, Disney wanted to encourage fans of TV shows to attend
the event, instead of focusing on park fans who might want to attend
more out of mere curiosity. These advertising campaign however, was
confined primarily to the Los Angeles market, and was not heard in
other nearby markets, such as San Francisco. The fact that this event
did not cost extra also indicates that Disney was in fact looking
simply to boost attendance. Why?
It is the author's belief that Disney was interested in boosting
attendance to make sure the media went away from the event with a
positive impression of the park. Unlike many publicity events Disney
holds in the park, where the only media to attend are local
organizations, this event was a class-A event with media
representatives from around the country.
Lamp poles were decorated with
banners featuring the new fall shows.
The radio reporters, personalities and DJs from stations in large markets
such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago were present, as were TV tabloid
shows such as Entertainment Tonight -- all getting access to
what they might report as ăthe hottest young stars on ABC,ä as well
as the veteran players like Drew Carey and John Ritter. These interviews
will get aired all over the country, with the reporters making sure
to mention Disney's California Adventure park.
For Disney, this kind of
publicity is absolutely priceless: a radio or TV ad
campaign is augmented many times over by scenes of happy park-goers on
the news footage. Although Disney's park management has been accused
of periodic short-sightedness, it's possible that this particular
event is a sign of long-term planning at the corporate level above the
park management layer.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that these events may be worth
attending if you are planning on visiting the park anyway, or if the
events are for things you particularly like, and donât mind waiting
in long lines for. The synergy is particularly interesting to observe,
and something you can experience for no additional cost. Just keep in
mind that you might not be the primary target for such an event, and
that waiting in extremely long lines may end up being par for the
course. When that happens, ask yourself, ăWhose long line is it
anyway?ä
| *
Editor's Note:
Lani hit on something there about Disney's relative lack of
interest in paid admissions. Apparently last week an e-mail
went out to all Disneyland Resort cast members (CMs) inviting
them and their families to DCA on Saturday. They could get their
families or any other guests they could round up in without
using one of their sign-in privileges for the year.
The only requirement made of them
was that they go to the Hollywood area of the park for the
parade and not wear any Disney-branded clothing so as not
to look like employees of the company. It worked, as they
were able to get a few hundred extra people to line the Hollywood
Backlot street for the media cameras during the parade.
ABC Sports' Dan Fouts
and the Mad Hatter wave to many fellow Disney employees.
As one source filled me in: "There
were a TON of CMs in DCA this weekend for this event. Some
just came in before or after their shifts to check out the
events, and some came in on their day off to see Whose Line...
I know at least a dozen CMs who were in that Whose Line...
show on Sunday, and many of them brought friends and family
along."
I asked about attendance numbers
and got the following response: "DCA attendance on
Saturday was just over 21,000, which was one of the busiest
Saturdays of the summer. Sunday's attendance was tracking
towards 25,000 (as of our press deadline) which will
make it one of, if not the, busiest days of 2002 to
date." Of course this doesn't take into account the
admission mix, which was most likely two-thirds to
three-quarters annual passholders.
We'll have more on this in a
future DIG update.
- Al Lutz |
Highlighted New Shows
Cast members of Less Than Perfect
Less
Than Perfect – Sara Rue plays a temp at a TV network
who — suddenly promoted to work as an assistant for the network's
news anchor — finds herself amid the cutthroat competition of
other assistants. Airs Tuesdays from 9:30 to 10 p.m. Eastern.
8
Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter – stars
veteran actors John Ritter (Three's Company) and Katey Sagal
(Married... with Children) in a "charming family comedy
about a loving, rational dad who suddenly discovers that his two darling
daughters have unexpectedly morphed into hormonally charged, incomprehensible
teenagers." The show is based on W. Bruce Cameron's book by the
same title. Airs Tuesdays from 8 to 8:30 p.m. Eastern.
Bonnie Hunt in the parade
Life
With Bonnie - showcases Bonnie Hunt as Bonnie Molloy,
a host for morning talk show Morning Chicago. This sitcom mixes
scripted plots with improvisational segments where Bonnie Molloy interviews
"guests" on her morning show. Airs Tuesdays 9 to 9:30 p.m.
Eastern.
That
Was Then - An odd mixture of Back to the Future
and Peggy Sue Got Married, this show sends Travis Glass (played
by Canadian trained James Bulliard) back and forth through time as
he tries to improve on his loser life. Also stars Bess Armstrong,
who some readers may remember as donning wetsuit and poking spearguns
in Jaws 3-D. Airs Fridays 9 to 10 p.m. Eastern.
Visitors get to do some show
testing as part of the weekend's offerings.
MDs
- Revolves around the story of two rebellious doctors in a fictitious
San Francisco hospital, who buck the system of evil HMOs and bureaucrats
in order to help heal their patients. One amusing note: A character
who portrays the new hospital administrator has made a career switch
from working in theme-park management (and apparently cannot tolerate
being around the sick). Stars William Fichtner (Black Hawk Down
and A Perfect Storm) and John Hannah (Sliding Doors,
Four Weddings and a Funeral) as the two buck-the-system docs.
Airs Wednesdays 10 to 11 p.m. Eastern.
Returning Shows Highlighted
Chris Harrison, host of The Bachelor,
and The Drew Carey Show's Kathy Kinney (Mimi).
NYPD Blue | My Wife & Kids
| Alias | According to Jim | The Practice |
Whose Line is it Anyway? | The Drew Carey Show |
George Lopez | ABC Sports
BACK
You can contact Lani
here.
