Fantasmic! Flame Fail

Just when you thought Fantasmic! couldn't be jinxed any more..

..DisneyFAIL strikes again!

Yes, it seems that this ill-fated 17-year-old show just won't get itself out of the line of fire of Disney fails lately; not even the recent fail of the fire-breathing dragon with a bad habit of setting rivers on fire could douse the smoldering embers on Summer Nightastic!'s marquee offering.


OC Register's 'Around Disney' blog covered the story this morning:

The Mark Twain, a replica steamboat that cruises the River of America at Disneyland, reportedly caught on fire during yesterday’s showing of Fantasmic!, a nighttime show that uses the Mark Twain as a show element.

The small fire aboard the Mark Twain was apparently caused by faulty pyrotechnic effects, which failed to deploy at the proper time and ignited the exhaust emanating from the engine, according to a statement released by Disneyland’s Public Relations Department.

DAPsMagic.com managed to get a picture of the small fire:

Photo by Britt Dietz

According to eyewitnesses, during the 9 pm showing of Fantasmic! the mist screens were on longer than they were supposed to during the scene when Maleficent (who currently cannot transform into a dragon, of course) sets the Rivers of America on fire. This prevented the gas lines that create the flames from igniting on cue. Then, later in the finale of the show when the Mark Twain was making the usual bend around the mill, the river flames kicked into full force, causing the rightmost corner of the stern of the riverboat to catch flame.


The Disneyland Fire Department later released a statement saying it was exhaust from the Mark Twain that caught on fire from the river flames effect.


Luckily no one was hurt, and Disneyland's own fire department quickly controlled the small blaze and no significant damage was reported. However, what hasn't been explained to my satisfaction is how on earth did the gas lines that control the flames on the river misfire so spectacularly out of sync? Is this malfunction putting the show's entertainers - or thousands of spectators - at risk? Clearly, some major timing/piping/eletrical fixes are in order when the Rivers of America is drained in late 2009 - early 2010.

But for now, the show must go on, and rumor has it that the Mark Twain will not appear in Fantasmic! tonight and possibly a few subsequent nights while the vessel gets checked out to prevent the same DisneyFAIL from happening again. That means the lackluster alternate ending with Disney characters dancing on the island instead of the riverboat is in store for guests, which just adds to a growing list of handicaps during Fantasmic!'s big summer season.


Much like the Imagineering process, all raging DisneyFAILs begin with a small spark.

D23 Event Ticket Distribution Fail

Are you 23? Are you angry?

You should be, unless you were one of the lucky few that managed to land tickets for the member-exclusive "D23 Days at the Walt Disney Studios and Archives" event.

The tour is one of the "free" perks available to those who paid the $74.99 fee to become a D23 member. As described on the events page of the official D23 website:

D23 Members will have the rare opportunity to enjoy a 2-hour tour of The Walt Disney Studios and Walt Disney Archives, hosted by D23 and Archives staff. Only two dates are available for the Summer 2009 Calendar, and space is limited.
Dates: Saturday, June 27, 2009 and Saturday, August 15, 2009
Location: The Walt Disney Studios, Burbank, California

Rare indeed! The chance to tour the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California and delve into the Disney Archives is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and would make the mouth of any avid Disney fan drool. A WIN for the Disney community, right?

Below: The Animation Building

The Burbank studios is notorious for never, ever hosting guided tours. In December 2008, the Walt Disney Studio Store, Disney Employee Center, and Studio Commissary on the studio property were open to the public, but the intent was mostly to sell merchandise, not to tour the property itself, and most of the studio grounds and buildings were off-limits to guests.

That's why, when this D23 event was announced late May, it was the closest real-life example I could think of to getting a golden ticket into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Finally, D23 offers a truly unique event that makes the membership price worthwhile.

Below: The Michael D. Eisner Building

Little did I know that the process to get your tickets would be just as hectic, confusing, and plain unfair as the worldwide pandemonium for Wonka bars in Roald Dahl's novel.


D23 members were told that their tour reservations could be made online starting promptly at 11am PDT this morning. However, according to several determined members who were frantically refreshing their screens, the link was active at 10:57am. In a window that amounted to just seconds, all the reservations had been filled, and by 11am everyone who clicked the 'Submit' button was told that the tours were full but that they could be put on a waiting list for the desired date. By around 11:05am, the waiting list was full too. Fail.

Some members who could not be put on the waiting list at the time of submission later received an email saying that space on the waiting list had opened up, but when they clicked on the link and signed up again, they received the 'event full' message a second time! Fail again!

Above: Icon on D23's website announcing sold out tour

In the minutes following 11am, livid members who followed the rules but didn't get in made their frustration heard across the Twitterverse:

@SnorkletsMom If you're a D23 member, the studio tour ticket method was an absolute joke. Anyone as mad as I am?

@myrnal D23 Days at The Walt Disney Studios and Archives event full both days in 4 min...did not get in...rats!

@lurkyloo So much for D23 members' access to exclusive events - both studio tour dates filled up 90 secs before the 11am release time.

@steveberg D23 FAIL: Studio tour sells out in under 1 minute for both days. Way to go again Disney.

@BriarRose461 D23 Studio tour tickets available at 11am. NOT! Sold out and wait list FULL at 11:01. How is that possible? Frustrated D23 member!

Meanwhile, a message appeared on the official "DisneyD23" Twitter page, meant to appease those who didn't make it in:

@DisneyD23 Thanks 4 ur enthusiasm 4 the Studio/Archives tours. We're exploring ways 2 offer more tours later this year! Stay tuned 4 details.

To which many Twitter'ers responded:

CottageWayOfLif @DisneyD23 Fantastic news D23. While you're at it could you please look into a better way to distribute tix? Today's method was a failure.

cstephens2 @DisneyD23 Really frustrating to get continuing emails from waitlist saying there's room now, only to submit request and be told it's full.

djaffe @DisneyD23 At 10:57 California time you guys were sold out. Totally lame- I won't be renewing.

michaelshearin @DisneyD23 WOW, extremely frustrated that the Studio Tour is sold at 11 AM on the dot! Guess that is what we get for having free events!

chriscorry @DisneyD23 who do we contact to voice some serious complaints with this mornings reservations???

Skorp28 @DisneyD23 You've managed to upset a lot of your most valuable fans. Good job!

Just to be clear, I am not a D23 member, but now I know I do not want to become one. How can you blame me? Be tantalized with an opportunity to tour the Walt Disney Studios with extremely limited space, then put up with a severely flawed online reservation system that deceives people by going live before it's supposed to and is more of a contest of whose browser window refreshes the fastest? Is that what I want to pay $74.99 to do? Yeah, thanks but no thanks, D23.


Smell familiar? This D23 DisneyFAIL reeks with the same stench that plagued past exclusive event fails, like the Enchanted Tiki Room 45th Anniversary merchandise fail (remember how incredibly tough it was to get your hands on that fountain?) and the annual Candlelight Processional online registration fail (the server crashed multiple times last year). What always happens is that Disney severely underestimates the demand for these events, and chaos ensues when everyone tries to get their hands on the same thing at once and Disney is not organized or prepared enough to make things go smoothly.


Why couldn't more than two dates have been available for the D23 studio tour from the start? Clearly they should have known that two dates was not enough to reasonably meet demand. Disney says they are adding more dates in the future in reaction to what happened today, but that will do little to undo the hurt done to the members who got burned this morning.

If some D23 members have to be turned away, why couldn't there have been an orderly lottery system instead of a free-for-all clicking fest? Entering a lottery and being told you have not been selected would have at least made the pill of rejection easier to swallow.


Unfortunately, unless you hold the Golden Ticket, there's no easy way to swallow this epic DisneyFAIL.

Summer Nightastic! Premiere Fail

Welcome to Summer Failtastic!

Above: Entry sign fail

All of the pictures in today's DisneyFAIL were taken at the Disneyland Resort on June 12, the official guest premiere of Summer Nightastic!, and they all fail because they promote the dragon, which only draws attention to the fact that the dragon was absent that night, sitting broken in pieces in an understage pit doing nothing except failing, and failing hard.

(Sidenote: whisperings that the new crocodile is broken are, as Disney would say, "patently false.")

Fantasmic's now-infamous dragonfail has gathered more news attention; one is a story found on page 3 of the June 12th issue of the LA Times newspaper. If you can't be bothered to read the whole article, I'll quote the highlights:

When the creative forces at Disney dreamed up a new and improved version of Fantasmic -- a light, water and pyrotechnics spectacle billed as the surefire hit of the summer at the Anaheim theme park -- this probably is not what they had in mind:

A broken-down dragon.

Alas, Maleficent -- an automated, fire-breathing dragon from "Sleeping Beauty" that was to be the star of the summer-long show -- will instead be a no-show when the revamped version of Fantasmic is unveiled tonight.
[...]
Disney isn't saying exactly what happened to Maleficent, other than it is mechanical in nature. But it confirmed that the 40-foot-tall, 10,000-pound mechanical dragon -- so massive it had to be helicoptered onto the stage -- won't be joining the show until later in the summer.
[...]
It's a predicament for image-conscious Disney, which had peppered television and the Internet with ads featuring the red-eyed dragon shooting flames onto an artificial river.

Below: Park map fail
A predicament for Disney, to be sure. I discussed how Disney reacted to the failing dragon in yesterday's post. But what about the impact on park guests? Did they notice? Were they disappointed?


You bet they did, and you bet they were.


Don't believe me? A simple Twitter search for the word "fantasmic" a few hours after the 9pm and 10:30pm showings provides some insight:

@bibiluu I went to see the brand new opening of the fantasmic show. I was disappointed that the new dragon was not there

@roizebasallo I just went to DLand alone to see the opening night of Fantasmic and the damn Dragon was broken! Grrr....

@zypher8677 Just finished the re-opening night of Fantasmic! And boy was it god awful, too many people showed up only to be disappointed with no dragon.

@Cristina1017 back from a fun day at Disneyland. Saw the new Fantasmic and it's not the same without the dragon. Get on it guys....

Don't worry Cristina, they'll get on it, as soon as the finger-pointing and name-calling over whose fault it was ceases and someone finds a workable solution to fix the problem.

Incredibly, the dragon was not the only glaring no-show on the evening of the Summer Nightastic! kickoff. After all the fanfare Disney made about Dumbo taking flight for the first time in a fireworks show, the puppet pachyderm failed to make his grand appearance in the "Magical" show.

@rebecca_kate No Dumbo OR Fantasmic dragon. Summer Nightastic? Summer LAMEtastic, Disney. Work that into your marketing.

Over at California Adventure, Disney's Electrical Parade was scheduled to step off at 8:45pm but was delayed for 15 minutes due to "unforeseen circumstances." By the time the floats made it to Sunshine Plaza - where the crowds for the parade were largest - pyro from Magical was already going off in the distance.

@steveberg So no dumbo in Magical. Extremely full crowds at Fantasmic. And a delayed Electrical Parade. It's a triple fail by Disneyland tonight.

As a word of warning for future Nightastic'ers: it is almost impossible to see Disney's Electrical Parade, Magical fireworks, and Fantasmic! on the same night. Last year it was reasonably possible, if you hustled a little, to see the 8:45pm Disney's Electrical Parade from Paradise Pier (where it begins), have 15-18 minutes to dash over to Disneyland for the 9:25pm fireworks, and then make your way to the Rivers of America for the 10:30pm Fantasmic. This year, the Golden Dreams/World of Color ampitheater walls make it difficult for park guests on that end of the park to make a swift exit out of DCA with the parade going on. I ended up being forced to view the "Magical" fireworks from behind the Golden Gate Bridge at Sunshine Plaza because I, along with hundreds of other impatient exit-seeking guests, was dead-ended by Electrical Parade floats.

Above + inset: Live radio station fail

Speaking from firsthand experience, on the night of June 12 it was a miracle if you got to see two of the three shows. The crowds on Main Street and Frontierland were epic, on par with what I've seen on New Years Eve and the fourth of July. At times it was pure gridlock, leaving no one with space to move.

That so many guests were there that night is not a fail - a WIN for Disney of course - but the extreme crowding was very uncomfortable and claustrophobic for most every guest who was just vying for a chance to see the new tricks Disney had up its sleeve.

Twenty-five minutes before the 10:30 showing of Fantasmic! it was announced that due to overwhelming response all guest viewing areas were full. I was hoping that Disney might decide to include an additional third Fantasmic! performance, as this has been done before, but that never happened, which is a mini-fail in and of itself. Shouldn't they have expected "overwhelming response" in the first place? Had there been a third 11:30pm showing, more guests would have been able to have a chance at seeing the show. The park stayed open until midnight; what was their excuse?

Below: Parking structure billboard fail

What a Nightastic mess! Not only was the Dragon down, but Dumbo failed to fly and crowd control for Fantasmic was a disaster last night. I suggest holding off on a visit until Disneyland gets its act together. - Al Lutz

I have more to say about the 'lesser' Nightastic offerings, Pixie Hollow Enchantment and TLT Dance Club, because each has its shortcomings. That discussion will have to wait for another time. As a whole, Summer Failtastic's opening night was a jumbled mess. Which is why it is now immortalized as a DisneyFAIL.

Fantasmic! Dragon Fail

It's one thing to witness Maleficent in her colossal dragon transformation get defeated by the powers of Mickey's incredible imagination. It's quite another to find out her neck was broken by mistake.



Despite several confirmations by cast members, MiceAge editor Al Lutz, and secondhand accounts, Disney officials dismissed the Internet gossip that the dragon's neck had snapped as false and chose the empty phrase "technical issues" to describe the cause of the problem.

Now no one should have expected Disney to divulge what actually happened; after all, they have their reputation to worry about. If Disney were to formally announce that the dragon suffered a severed neck, people might start to question the safety of the other mechanical equipment on property. Since Safety is the #1 concern at the Disneyland Resort (and any news to the contrary is picked up by mainstream media faster than you can say "DOSH"), it's best for them to paint as pretty a picture as possible. Here at DisneyFAIL, we believe in the broken neck theory, because let's face it: you know that's what really happened. ;)

The new Fantasmic dragon, the icon of the big Summer Nightastic campaign, sits broken in the pit beneath Tom Sawyer Island and the Disneyland PR machine has shifted into heavy damage control mode. The dragon's repairs are now being estimated in weeks instead of days, and the media party on Thursday is being shifted to focus on the Magical fireworks show instead. Dumbo to the rescue! - Al Lutz

Now the Disney marketing team is trying in vain to downplay the failing dragon (nicknamed Murphy) as much as possible, even as the dragon is featured prominently in TV commercials, Downtown Disney banners, freeway billboards and bus advertisements as the mascot of the Summer Nightastic! promotion (as seen below).


Within the past few days, Disney removed a video that featured a "making of" documentary about the Fantasmic! dragon from their YouTube channel, and soon after someone also removed a video of the TV commercial that features a CG dragon from their Summer Nightastic! website. However, the reaction is too-little, too-late. Park guests who paid $99 for their Summer FunPasses and stake out their spots along the Rivers of America five hours in advance of showtime are expecting dragon, and when they don't get no dragon, cue anger, disappointment, rage, fury. Fail.


Disney's official press release for Fantasmic's return, distributed June 10th, makes it sound like the dragon's delay was planned all along:

Making its debut later this summer will be a fully animated, three-dimensional dragon who breathes fire across the Rivers of America. The 40-foot-tall dragon will dazzle guests like never before as the creature steps out of the shadows that concealed it in past “Fantasmic!” performances.

What the press release fails to say (if you'll pardon the expression) is that those mysterious "shadows" that conceal the dragon were probably cast by an epic Audio-Animatronic outsourcing fail, an Imagineering fail, a rehearsal fail, or some combination of the three. But no one should have expected it to say that, either. In the wonderful fabricated land of Disney press releases, even broken dragons can sound really, really cool.

Meanwhile, for park guests who live in the real world, the wait to see Murphy may take weeks, perhaps as long as a month.


That Murphy the dragon is not making its debut with the rest of the Summer Nightastic! offerings on June 12th is inexcusable. If Disney decides to centralize its entire summer campaign around one image, that's fine, but wouldn't it make sense to plan ahead and be damned sure that that image is in working condition and ready to go for showtime?

Clearly, that wasn't the case. Clearly, Murphy the dragon deserves to be our first DisneyFAIL.




What's that in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's DragonFail, brought to you by Summer Failtastic!