Monday, April 13, 2020

The Grand Opening of Walt Disney World Part 7 – Six segments with very different themes



Kids of the Kingdom
We come back to the parks from the Polynesian and meet up with the Kids of the Kingdom performing the song “There's More!”. They start in the hub and begin a whirlwind tour of the Magic Kingdom. First to Fantasyland where they can be seen riding on Dumbo and the Tea Cups. It's a nice little clip looking back at a shine new Fantasyland complete with Skyway. Then they are off to Tomorrowland. We see the “Kids” singing and dancing in front of the original Tomorrowland Entrance, complete with the two massive towers that I miss so much. Then across the park to Adventureland where the Kids of the Kingdom are still in glorious song but now high atop the Swiss Family Treehouse. All and all I really like this segment. It's a really nice song that has found it's place into Disney nostalgia and can even be found on several fan-made music collections on the internet. It also gives a nice be it short look at some of the key lands in the park.





Mickey Mouse Revue
This segment starts kind of weird with Julie Andrews saying “Now we are back in Disney World and to prove it here's the Mickey Mouse Revue.” So where have we been for the last 50 minutes...Cypress Gardens? That odd intro aside we now get to see a pretty good preview for The Mickey Mouse Revue. Once again we are seeing a brand new Disney attraction that is a Walt Disney World original and would be until it left for Tokyo Disneyland in September of 1980. We see Mickey warming up the band, then the Three little Pigs singing “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”. Next Snow White and her forest friends are Sings “I'm Wishing”. Then the Seven Dwarfs sing the “Dwarfs' Yodel Song”. On to Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother sing “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”. And last it's the Song of the South gang singing “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” with the rest of the cast and a fade-out with the “Mickey Mouse Club March”. Again a great segment that achieves exactly what it set out to do.




Buddy Hackett 
On to Tomorrowland and we see the colored flags of the Grand Prix Raceway. We meet Chick Hearn our announcer for the coming race. Chick Hearn was a famous Sports announcer in the United States. He was best known for being the commentator of the L.A. Lakers. He also is the person that coined the term “Slam Dunk”. We are introduced to our racers. Mark Donohue, twice winner of the U.S. Road Racing Championship and three-time winner of the Trans American Sedan Series. Bobby Unser, 1969 Indianapolis 500 winner and 1981 winner as well but had it taken away for then re-awarded to him in one of motorsports biggest controversies. Sir Jackie Stewart, who is credited by Chick as the Current World Driving Champion. Fun side note Sir Jackie went on to win the F1 Championship that year and he did it with Mononucleosis, the wear of racing all around the world and having to cross the Atlantic 186 times for media commitments including this one. Lastly, we meet “Mr. Leonard Hackett”.

As the Drivers run to their cars Buddy finds out they are short one car. With a whistle, he's old friend Herbie the Love Bug shows up and they start the race. Herbie makes his move on the inside but is stopped by a spoon in the road. Yeah a spoon not a fork 70's humor at it's best.





Jonathan Winters
Johnny's back and this time he has a whole new character for us. For some reason, he is now a trapper named Carl Cracker from Weevil Seed Georgia, which doesn't exist, and his two dogs Jessie and Cugini, who also don't exist. He points toward his feet below the camera line at to fictional dogs. But at this point, we have already seen some crazy shenanigans from John so we shouldn't start questioning him now. He begins to tell the story of how his other character from earlier had talked to him about using his dogs to track his missing wife who ran away. This segment has a few dog jokes but not much else but its something to split up the park segments I guess.



Small World
After the antics of Buddy and Johnny we return to a calming voice of reason in Julie Andrews.
Shes going for a ride on the Skyway. And She's been on camera for more than ten seconds so of course, she's singing. This time the song is titled “A World Full of Love”. In a series of really well-done cuts she goes from the Skyway to in front of the station and into the queue (formerly the exit ramp) of It's A Small World. And as she makes her way to the load area the voices of children come in and start singing “It's A Small World After All”. It's a really well done mash-up of the two songs and it continues as she floats down the ride. Then out of the exit Julie pops out with dozens of children wearing their traditional national outfits and they head for the carousel. She gets them all on board and then we get a great wide shot of the carousel and of Julie singing in front of it. Again we get to see an attraction plus a nice musical number, very well done.






Bob Hope
This segment is really special. It's just Bob Hope talking about how “all this is Walt”. He really sums up Walt's philosophy and his love America and all of us. I can't do this justice but I will post the clip on the Manifesting the Magic YouTube page and link it here on the blog. It really is worth a watch.




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