It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for all year — Laughing Place is ready to crown the 2018 Disney Turkey of the Year! This year saw many Disney successes, but there are always a handful of missteps along the way that we’ve collected as our nominees. As usual, we’ve whittled down these embarrassments to five, with only one of them being named our 2018 Turkey of the Year.
Before we reveal our champion, let’s take a look at the nominees and why each one made our list.
Pixar Pier Opens Unfinished
Of all the announcements that emerged from the 2017 D23 Expo, Pixar Pier was one that left many scratching their heads. Beyond concerns about theming and the ever-present cries of “IP overload,” fans also wondered how Disney California Adventure would be able to makeover the entire land within about a six-month timeframe. The answer: they didn’t. Not only are attractions such as Jessie’s Critter Carousel still in the works for a 2019 debut but the Pier’s candy shop Bing Bong’s Sweet Stuff also managed to miss opening day — and the shop’s namesake proprietor has yet to fully show his face (the display featuring Bing Bong’s nose poking out seen above could be a Turkey nominee on its own). If that weren’t enough, Disney offered a preview event for the unfinished area, with tickets going for $300! Say what you will about the project overall, but these unforced errors certainly didn’t help its standing in the Disney fan community.
James Gunn Fired from “Vol. 3”
Most of the time when Disney makes a controversial move, there’s a big hullaballoo and then it tends to fade away not too long after. That does not seem to be the case here. Months after director James Gunn was removed as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 amid resurfaced tweets of a questionable nature, #RehireJamesGunn continues to trend, fan-funded billboards supporting Gunn are popping up, and Guardians star Dave Bautista has shown he’s willing to slam Disney’s decision whenever the opportunity presents itself. Further complicating matters, it’s been reported that Gunn will write and possibly direct a Suicide Squad sequel for Marvel rival DC. Oh, and there are still questions about how Gunn’s departure will affect the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster coming to Epcot or even if his script will ultimately be used to Vol. 3. All of this adds up to a firestorm that just keeps getting rekindled.
Disneyland Resort Cancels Fourth Hotel Project
From the jump, fans were a bit split on the Disneyland Resort’s plans to built a fourth on-property hotel. The first strike was that Disney’s concept art didn’t present much of an inspired theme. Then came news that updated plans for the hotel would wipe out numerous Downtown Disney favorites (namely Earl of Sandwich). Alas, AMC Theatres, Rainforest Cafe, ESPN Zone, the aforementioned Earl of Sandwich, and others all closed their doors in June… only for the project to be put on hold a few weeks later and then officially canceled soon after that. Honestly, the only proper way to describe this entire saga is, well, there actually aren’t any words — at least none we can say on this site. Thankfully, Earl is now reopened, with the district’s second Starbucks set to follow suit, but it’s still an embarrassing case of “cart before horse” that blew up in Disney’s face.
That Time Nearly Every Disney Site and App Crashed
It’s not uncommon for Walt Disney World guests to complain about encountering tech hiccups when using the resort’s My Disney Experience app. That said, it’s not too often that nearly every Disney-own website and app crashes at the same time — yet, that’s exactly what happened in July of this year. In addition to Walt Disney World, Disneyland, D23, ABC, Star Wars, and many other sites displaying error messages, in-park functionality such as booking FastPasses or dining reservations were also temporarily disabled. Perhaps the most humorous example of how this outage impacted the company’s sites came from ESPN, where fans looking for “live” updates from the World Cup, MLB, and more were being served stale scores for some time. This one might not be remembered by many now, but it was really quite something in the moment.
Legend of the Three Caballeros Only Released in the Philippines
In recent years, the Walt Disney Company has managed to pull out some fun surprises to delight fans of the Three Caballeros. Look no further than the addition of Audio-Animatronics figures depicting the bird of a feather to Epcot’s Gran Fiesta Tour in 2015 — or even the Caballeros’ cameo on DuckTales just this month. It seemed like the Mouse House had done it again earlier this year when word spread about a new series titled Legend of the Three Caballeros coming to pass… until we Yanks soon learned the show was only released in the Philippines. Nevertheless, some fans managed to find episodes of the show on YouTube and it seemed to get a positive reception. Of course, with these uploads proving to be pirated material, many were removed, leaving us law-abiding viewers still waiting. With Disney+ coming late next year, there’s still hope that Legend of the Three Caballeros will make its way stateside then. If not, expect to find this one back on our list in 2019.
And the 2018 Disney Turkey of the Year is…
Disneyland Resort Cancels Fourth Hotel Project
It’s hard to overstate how ridiculous this entire episode was. If there were ever a prime example of “cutting off your nose to spite your face” or similar cliches, this is surely it. To be fair, the City of Anaheim had a hand in making this situation as awful as possible, but there were still a few things Disney should have seen coming. With the current reopenings being described as temporary, it will be interesting to see what ultimately becomes of Downtown Disney’s west end now. The only good part of this story — from Disney’s perspective — is that recent Anaheim elections have resulted in a more resort-friendly city council. So will Disneyland eventually be able to turn this Turkey into Thanksgiving? We’ll have to wait until 2019 to find out. For now, the whole situation seems ‘fowl.’
Do you agree with our 2018 Turkey? Let us know what you think should have won!