Welcome To Screamscape!

Park News - (8/18/08) According to one of our readers it was announced that the singing group Four For A Dollar who perform before the Beauty & The Beast – Live on Stage show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will give their last performance there on September 20th. Off Disney property the group is known as Return 2 Zero and you can read more about them here.
  (8/8/08) The official dates for this year’s Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at the Studios is November 28th to January 4th, 2009.
  (7/21/08) Over the weekend a few reports have come in indicating that Disney is preparing to scale back the performance schedule of Fantasmic to just two nights a week starting in January 2009 at the end of the busy holiday season. In fact you can even see a copy of Disney’s internal announcement about this change posted over at Intercot forums which goes on to even say that this move will happen at the same time that the park opens the new American Idol Experience (hardly a fair trade) and that Fantasmic will typically only be offered on Monday and Thursday nights. I’m not really sure how they came up with those nights, as you would think that perhaps they would try to run the show on the more busy nights of the week like Friday and Saturday nights. I’ve also got to wonder if the loss of Fantasmic five nights a week will also result in some earlier closing hours for the entire park since the Studios did typically close earlier in the days before Fantasmic.
  (7/16/08) According to one of our readers, Rock ‘n Roller Coaster apparently has a new sponsor as a Hanes logo has been added to the Guitar on the facade of the show building. Of course the theme of Rock ‘n Roll and Underwear has been well established for years ever since Tom Cruise sang about that Old Time Rock and Roll back in Risky Business. That reminds me... I heard a crazy rumor awhile back claiming that Aerosmith’s initial 10-year contract will be coming to an end soon and that Disney was looking into ideas to possibly retheme the ride and perhaps update the soundtrack with new music. While certainly this is possible, I’ve heard very little to back up this oddball rumor at this time, but if you happen to know more about this story, please do let me know.
  (7/14/08) Disney has confirmed that the High School Musical 2: School’s Out production will come to an end on September 13th to make way for the new High School Musical 3: Senior Year show opening on October 24th.
  (7/1/08) Disney has announced the entertainment lineup for this year’s Night of Joy concert festival settling in to it’s first year at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on September 5th and 6th.
  (6/27/08) Some new pictures taken during one of the Star Wars Weekends have been posted to FigmentsMedia.
  (6/22/08) Okay, this has got to be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in quite some time, shot during this year’s Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It starts out innocent (but still weird) enough as the Dance Off with the Star Wars Stars, but just keep watching to see Darth Vader come in to steal the show at the end with a performance you wont soon forget.

  (6/16/08) While I haven’t heard why yet, the official WDW website currently lists the Sounds Dangerous show closing down for an extended rehab this summer from July 7th through August 5th. Anyone know why? Personally, I keep expecting them to close this attraction down for good, though they’ll probably keep it open until they get American Idol up and running.
  (5/28/08) While we’ve heard about Disney’s plans to create a more spooky and teen friendly Jack’s Halloween Party event (see below) at the Studios for years, it seems this is just one aspect of the new direction the studios is heading. Previously Disney had already announced that the annual Night of Joy concert events would be moving to the Studios this fall. More recently it was announced that starting in 2009 the famous Grad Night tradition that has always been a staple of the Magic Kingdom will be moving to Disney’s Hollywood Studios instead. According to my sources this is not a one-time test either, but just another piece of a grander plan that will see the Studios become home to all manner of teen friendly events. Now the latest rumors claim that Disney has yet another Holiday themed event in the pipeline, this one hoping to create some kind of teen friendly Christmas holiday themed event. Just think of it as a Teen friendly version of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party… though I’m not sure just what that would involve.
  Beyond the plans for the Studios, I’ve been told that the grand plan is to focus the after-hour special events at each of the parks to specific demographics. The Magic Kingdom will focus on events for families with small children (Very Merry Christmas, Not-So-Scary Halloween, Pirate & Princess and apparently a new concept still in development). Meanwhile Epcot has already long been focused on the more sophisticated Adult market with events like the Flower & Garden Festival and the ever-popular Food & Wine Festival. The overall goal is to essentially try to fill the calendar year with special events outside of the normal busy seasons to keep things busy all year round.
  (5/15/08) Remember that you heard it here first late last month and now the first real-world Wall-E has make an appearance that was caught on video roaming the streets of LA. I’m not sure how they did it, but how can something so cute be so awesome at the same time? Wall-E just looks incredible in this video clip, like he just downloaded himself right out of the Pixar mainframe and into the real world. Simply amazing… and I’m sure this is just a test run. I can’t wait to see what he does when let loose in the parks.

Wall-E Spotted in LA! from Blink on Vimeo.

  (4/25/08) Screamscape sources have confirmed that we will see a Wall-E mobile animatronic character running around just in time for the movie’s release. Wall-E is said to be quite cute and stands about 3 feet tall. From the sound of things Disney has elected to build a Wall-E for each coast.
  (4/21/08) If the latest rumors are true, Disney’s Hollywood Studios may become home to the next Disney Mobile Animatronic character, akin to last year’s Muppet Mobile Labs. This time they’ve got what may be the perfect character to try it out on in the form of a life-sized Wall-E (see sidebar)
  (4/16/08) Disney has released a couple of new photos (see sidebar) to promote the return of this year’s Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios which will run ever Friday, Saturday and Sunday from June 6th to June 29th.
  The list of celebrity expected on site includes:
June 6-8: Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett) and Daniel Logan (Young Boba Fett)
June 13-15: Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and David Prowse (Darth Vader)
June 20-22: Amy Allen (Aayla Secura) and Matthew Wood (General Grievous)
June 27-29: David Filoni (Director of the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and a future guest TBA.
  Warwick Davis (Wicket the Ewok) will also be there as the official Celebrity Host for all four weekends. The event page also mentions that guests will be given a behind the scenes look at the creation of the all new animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
  (4/15/08) Today we have an update about that incident I reported seeing first hand at the Tower of Terror. According to Screamscape sources, the guest in question reached the unload station complaining about severe neck problems and that he felt that he could not move. As per procedure paramedics were called to the scene and that side of the ride shut down until it can be inspected.
  As I witnessed myself upon exiting the ride, the paramedics loaded the man onto a gurney, fitted him with a neck brace and took him to a local hospital. According to our source, his quick trip through the Twilight Zone may have saved his life, because a CAT scan at the hospital revealed that he had been suffering for some time from a pre-existing brain condition that he was unaware of. The closed side of the tower was inspected later that evening, shown to be running normally and cleared by safety officials to reopen to guests at approximately 9:30pm. So there you have it… Disney’s excellent and swiftly moving safety procedures in action and hopefully our mystery guest can now take the proper medical action to live and a long and healthy life.
  (4/9/08) One interesting thing did happen while I was in Orlando taking a ride on Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror. On Saturday (April 5th) around 3:20pm, just before we got on the side of the tower closest to the gift shop, they suddenly shut that half of the ride down and began moving riders in our queue over to board the other side of the ride. I didn’t think too much of it until the ride was over and the doors to the exit opened. We stepped out to come face to face with a CM trying to block our view of the other side of the ride.
  The exit door to that shaft was open with the maintenance lights on and paramedics had loaded a guest (large fellow) onto the gurney and were adjusting a neck brace on him. As we moved down to look at our ride photo they began moving him down the hall and right past us and out the side door next to the photo monitors. I’m not sure what happened but they didn’t reopen that side of the ride for the next few hours that we were nearby, and possibly not at all for the rest of that day. So far I haven’t seen any news reports about it at all, so either no one found out about it or it just wasn’t anything more serious than a slip/fall. Anyone know more?

Ride Rehabs - The following information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as things are always subject to change at the last second.
Nothing is known to be scheduled at this time.

2008 - Playhouse Disney - NOW OPEN - (8/10/07) Disney has announced that a new version of the Playhouse Disney – Live On Stage will open in early 2008. The new version of the show will feature several fresh new characters from: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Handy Manny and more.

2008 - Block Party Bash - (3/11/08) I’ve got four more shots of the Block Party Bash parade to share today.
  (3/10/08) Thanks to a Screamscape reader we’ve got a bunch of new Block Party Bash pictures to share today.
  (3/6/08) Apparently the new Block Party Bash parade performed a Cast Preview performance last night and is slated to do another tonight. The first public performance is now said to be taking place this Sunday (March 9th) at 3pm.
  (2/28/08) A few updated dates for the parade changes at the Studios coming soon. I’ve now been told that the last day for the Stars and Motorcars Parade will be Saturday, March 8th and the new Block Party Parade may begin soft-performances starting the next day.

2008 - Toy Story Mania! - (5/19/08) From what we’ve been told, now that all the special Toy Story Mania previews are over the ride will enter into an almost daily soft open mode to the general public until it’s official grand opening date on May 31st. However, I have been informed that May 20th and 21st the ride will very likely be down for the final batch of adjustments and overall tweaking. Just remember that Soft Open does not mean that the park will verify or even guarantee that the ride will be open at all. This is a period of adjustments and breaking in the ride and crew, so downtime is to be expected. Oh… one final interesting note. I’ve been told that Toy Story Mania apparently has no height limit at all as long as children are big enough to sit upright by themselves in the seat, since lap-sitting is not allowed. I’ve also included a couple of new official Disney PR images (below) as well as some B-Roll footage of the ride in action.

  (5/12/08) MouseSteps has posted their own pictures of Toy Story Mania taken during a private special event at the attraction.
  (5/7/08) Thanks to another reader we’ve been sent