BAY LAKE, Fla. – Muppet*Vision 3D is making its final curtain call at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
To make way for the new Monsters, Inc. themed land, Disney began its phased closure of the Grand Avenue area, beginning with Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano in May, followed by Muppet*Vision 3D and PizzeRizzo on June 8.
It might be full of cheap Fozzie 3D tricks, but Muppet*Vision 3D is widely considered a treasure and a full-scale Muppet experience: A pre-show in the prop warehouse, an orchestra pit of penguins, a Muppet Labs experiment, and Statler and Waldorf’s habitual heckling all set in a theater straight out of the classic TV series, “The Muppet Show”.
[Watch 1991 footage of the Muppet*Vision 3D grand opening in the video below.]
Hearing Jim Henson’s voice has major sentimental value as well.
I spoke with Ken Pilcher, News 6 producer, theme parks historian, and Muppet superfan about this attraction’s lasting impact.
COOMES: What is your history covering the Muppets and Muppet*Vision 3D?
PILCHER: Muppet*Vision opened just a few months before Walt Disney World’s 20th in May 1991, and my first media event for Walt Disney World’s 20th, so Muppet*Vision was still a very, very big part of the 20th celebration. First time I’ve ever been able to interview people in a park. I didn’t go to a lot of the media events, but I got all the media tapes and all the media press kits, and I’ve got the Muppets press kit I’ve saved from that era, it’s three-quarter-inch tape.
COOMES: What did the birth of Muppet*Vision 3D mean for the Walt Disney Company?
[Watch Jim Henson talk about 3D technology in the video below.]
PILCHER: When Disney MGM Studios opened, what’s now Disney’s Hollywood Studios, it was a very, very small park, and it needed attractions fast. Coincidentally, right around that time, Jim Henson wanted to give up the business side of the Muppets. He wanted to focus just on the creative. So he and Michael Eisner got into negotiations to sell the Muppets and the whole Jim Henson Company to Disney. They were filming just a couple of months after the announcement that Disney was going to buy the Muppets. Maybe less than six months later, they were already filming Muppet*Vision. Tragically, Jim passed just after principal photography for Muppet*Vision was done. The show was certainly not finished when he died, but the bulk of the footage was done at that point. And he was very much Jim at that time, he was extremely involved with the shoot. One of the things that Jim liked about doing movies over the TV was that several of Frank’s characters are on screen at the same time for the first time ever. He’s Sam Eagle, he’s Fozzie, and he’s Piggy, and all three of them share screen time at the same at one point in Muppet*Vision, which doesn’t get to happen on TV.
COOMES: Imagine what the Muppets could have been at the time if not for Henson’s passing.
PILCHER: What we now call Grand Avenue at Hollywood Studios was supposed to be the Muppet Studios. Where they’re about to build the Monsters Inc. coaster, they were going to build the Muppet Studios, where they were actually going to be able to film Muppets film projects and TV projects. And attached to that building was The Great Muppet Movie Ride. It was a parody of the great movie ride, and it has the Muppets taking over all of the classic film roles.
[Watch 1991 footage of the Muppet*Vision 3D grand opening in the video below.]
COOMES: Why is this attraction a Muppet masterwork?
PILCHER: Jim was a very young guy when he died, but he’d been doing the Muppets since he was in his early 20s. It was the last time the core group of Muppeteers were all together: Jerry Juhl was working on it, Dave Goelz, who does Gonzo, Frank Oz, of course, who’s Piggy, and Fozzie.
COOMES: The Muppets, of course, will be taking over Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. What is the future like for the Muppets at Disney World and what is Muppet*Vision 3D’s legacy?
PILCHER: There is a lasting legacy already from Muppet*Vision and things like “It’s Tough to Be a Bug”, which just recently closed at Animal Kingdom, that 3D movie and that whole attraction where the in-theater effects and things that are poking you in the seats and all that, that came very much out of the same spirit as Muppet Vision. The Muppets are not part of the Walt Disney Studios. They’re part of Walt Disney Imagineering, and so the Imagineers have a soft spot in the heart for the Muppets as they should.
COOMES: It appears Muppet*Vision 3D holds many heartfelt moments for fans.
PILCHER: At D23 last year, Disney announced the Monsters Inc. Land, but didn’t say where it was going for a few months. I think the passion of the fanbase caught them off guard, and so they have spent all this time gradually closing down that land. It’s going to be sad when it closes, but they said they’re gonna try to do things to keep it alive in some way, shape, or form. The last showing to the public is on June 7, but on the 10th, Disney is going to have several screenings just for cast members. And those are going to be filmed for posterity.
More Muppet memory lane
There’s certainly a Muppet*Vision 3D rainbow connection throughout the newsroom.
News 6 Sports Director Jamie Seh did a show and tell of Muppet memorabilia with me. Her boyfriend, Jim, was an Imagineer on the Muppet*Vision 3D team. He was one of the head designers for the logo.
The collage image below shows a jacket that was given to the team. Fun fact — the security badge number is Jim Henson’s birthdate.