While Disneyland has been hosting sing-a-long events in Stage 17 lately, their screening of Sleeping Beauty for Annual Passholders on October 7th got a big venue upgrade. The presentation instead took place at the Fantasyland Theatre, home of Mickey and the Magical Map.
Like the sing-a-long AP events, attendees were treated to free popcorn and drinks to truly set the movie-watching mood. Before the show began, Mr. Jones and Mr. Smythe from the Fantasy Faire performances took the stage to warm up the crowd and introduce some other special guests for the evening.
The duo then brought out TIm O’Day and Tony Baxter who not only discussed the film itself but also the castle it inspired in Anaheim and Paris. Though Disneyland’s castle was originally to be Snow White Castle, Walt instead decided to promote his upcoming picture instead and it became Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Interestingly the Disneyland castle was not really based on the one in the film but the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, which itself was already a tourist attraction. However when Imagineers first presented Walt with their version, they accidentally turned the model around the wrong way. When Walt actually preferred this arrangement, that’s how the Sleeping Beauty Castle stayed and is how we know it today.
For Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant in Disneyland Paris, the Imagineers spent more time and focus on adding touches from the film to the castle. For example the square trees seen in the film surround the area. The were also able to add to the illusion that the castle was high on on the hill. Of course there’s also the infamous dragon that lurks underneath the castle.
Baxter also spoke extensively on the redesigning and reopening of The Sleeping Beauty Castle Walk-Though. When he first floated the idea by then Disneyland President Ed Grier, Grier was unaware that the castle even had an interior, mistakenly believing that only Florida’s castle was enterable. After finding the key to the long-locked door, Grier agreed to let Baxter proceed with the project but gave him a deadline.
It seems Baxter and his team ran awful close to that deadline as the recently released Blu-Rays advertised its impending return. Baxter joked that he was even threatened that if his project wasn’t completed on time he would have to pay for the recall of the discs.
The walk-through did reopen on time, though the team worked overnight to finish up every last detail. In one scene where Aurora and Phillip are in a field of roses, the Imagineer originally conceived of using cut out roses. Unfortunately these did not look the way they intended, and the night before the walk-through was set to open, Baxter ran down to the local Michael’s craft store and purchased white-fake-roses that were later painted with red black-light paint.
One scene missing from the newest version of the attraction was a bottomless pit where kids could yell down and hear their echo. The intention was that children would yell the traditional “hello” into the pit to hear it repeated back to them. Unfortunately, many kids didn’t just say “hello” and, as Baxter put it, “this is Disneyland,” and so the scene was scrapped for the redo.
Of course no discussion on Sleeping Beauty would be complete without discussing its wonderful Tchaikovsky soundtrack. Baxter and O’ Day spoke on how perfectly the composer’s pieces worked in the film decades after he had written them. Then O’Day surprised the audience by announcing that all attendees would receive a copy of the recently released Legacy Collection Sleeping Beauty Soundtrack.
After the pair left the stage, Mr. Smythe and Mr. Jones returned and even brought out Princess Aurora to help them retell the story of Sleeping Beauty in only 55 seconds — since the film is 55 years old.
Following their mad cap recap, the film began and looked just as gorgeous on the big screen as you’d expect. What was unexpected was the lengths Disney went through to put on this event. It’s been an interesting year for the relationship between Disneyland and Annual Passholders ever since the resort raised prices on passes and eliminated the popular So Cal level pass. It seemed to some that Disneyland was trying to shake some of their large AP base, but events like these feel a compromise between keeping day guests and APs happy. So the APs who hung on through the price increases and such have been heavily rewarded as the resort courts them back… just not on Friday nights or Sunday afternoons.