Press Event Fail

Hey everyone, it's finally here! Oh wait, never mind, it's not.

Just as all the "Summer Nightastic" crowds returned home and all the freeway billboards, banners and park maps featuring the dragon were removed, Disneyland scheduled a special press event for 4:30 am this morning to announce the woefully late arrival of Murphy, the Fantasmic! dragon.

One problem: Murphy never showed up. In fact, the press event was canceled altogether.


OC Register was among the invited guests:

Disney dragon debut canceled, but photos and video released

Disneyland canceled the scheduled debut tonight of the massive dragon that was supposed to be the centerpiece of the revamped water-and-light show.

The dragon has been broken all summer, but it was supposed to be ready for tonight’s performance. However, Disney officials are continuing to fine-tune the dragon.

A preview for a select group of media members was canceled this morning. A sneak peek was scheduled for 4:30 a.m., but Disneyland officials called it off just about an hour earlier.

Instead, they sent us a video of the dragon during one of its rehearsals.

No dragon for you!

Oh, what a tease. Photos and video of the dragon are nice, but it's a bit like giving a starving dog a rubber bone.


With no dragon in sight, that left the invited press guests with nothing to talk about except how hard the dragon continues to fail:

Disneyland delays debut of Fantasmic dragon yet again

Disneyland unveiled official photos and video of the new Fantasmic dragon but still has yet to set a date for the 40-foot-tall animatronic’s much-anticipated debut.
[...]
Despite top billing, the oft-delayed dragon failed to appear during the Disneyland’s Summer Nightastic promotion — a big black eye for the Anaheim theme park.

Let's state the obvious. It is very, very bad PR to schedule a special event for the press (at a dismally early hour in the morning, no less) and then call it off. It's bad enough that the dragon missed its cue for the entire duration of the summer campaign to which it was meant to be the highlight; this non-event only made matters worse. They are running the risk of losing their captive audience. Press and park guests will eventually stop caring and ignore the Disney who cried dragon.


So the same question remains: When will Murphy debut? Who knows, and who cares.

DisneyFAIL.

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.

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!