Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I’ll be heading back into the not too distant past to an event all about Minnie Mouse at Tokyo Disneyland.
The Disney 100 celebration begins next week, with the Walt Disney Company celebrating its 100th anniversary in style, particularly at the Disneyland Resort, with new nighttime shows as well as the return of Magic Happens and the long-awaited opening of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway in Toontown. The rest of Disneyland’s Toontown is also getting some major upgrades for the centennial, with the attractions getting much needed facelifts as well as some nice park areas for parents to let their kids go wild.
Via The Geek's Blog
Beginning on January 10, 2020, the Very Very Minnie Event celebrated the lovely Minnie Mouse at Tokyo Disneyland, with the purpose to prepare for a new addition to the park’s Toontown, Minnie’s Style Studio. The attraction wasn’t due to open until April 15 on Tokyo Disneyland’s anniversary as often happens at the park, but I liked the idea of starting the event early to try and build up some hype, especially with Minnie never truly getting her due.
For the event, a mini-parade was created called the Very Minnie Remix that featured costumes that were very similar to ones that we’ll see later in our primary attraction for the day. This attraction did a great job setting the scene for the event with a high energy performance through the park, with some dancers that go really hard in it. They were dancing their butts off in their costumes, with Mickey going truly all out. You could tell that everyone was having an awesome time and the show definitely got me excited to check out the headliner, It’s Very Minnie.
Via Fun Japan
Taking over from One Man’s Dream II: The Magic Lives On in the Tomorrowland Showbase, It’s Very Minnie debuted on January 10, 2020 along with the rest of the event. The show was fascinating because it was full of tributes that paid tribute to previous shows from Tokyo Disneyland that had featured Minnie Mouse. With this move, they were able to cleverly use old costumes from those shows, which it amazingly seemed like they had kept from the previous years. Just a great cost effective move that also was fun for guests to see some of their favorite shows reborn.
The show was a pretty typical Japanese show in that it utilized both English and Japanese throughout the course of the show. Generally, songs were primarily in English, while the characters spoke Japanese and this show was no exception, starting with an opening number of Minnie and some other dancers followed by a Spanish-style song that featured Donald and Chip and Dale as well as Minnie, of course.
Following that, Daisy Duck got the stage to herself for a little while until Clarice the Chipmunk joined her, with the duo singing a power ballad that morphed into a full princess number, with all of the background dancers dressed as princess and Minnie appearing in a huge ball gown.
Via YouTube
After the princesses did their thing, we got one of the best segments that started out with Max and Goofy doing a rap of “Zip–A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Certainly didn’t have that one on my bingo card. But then the party got even wilder when the curtain went up and revealed that we were actually in Club Mickey Mouse with Mickey and Minnie performing an amazing hip-hop dance number.
After all that fun, the scenes started hitting in quick succession with Minnie going through quick “costume changes” to appear as a flapper, Easter fan and even an empress. But my favorite scene appeared near the end when things got a little spooky and Haunted Mansion-themed. It was a much different feel from the rest of the show and a great palate cleanser before the finale, which was a relatively typical finale that you’d expect from a medley Disney show.
Overall, the show was pretty impressive in that Minnie went through about 10 different outfits and truly paid tribute to all of the shows that came before. I had never seen a show like that that paid direct tribute to shows that had come before, right down to the same outfits. Plus, it was all focused on Minnie who truly never gets her due. But alas, the show’s already shortly planned run was cut down even further, ending on February 28, 2020 along with the rest of the park when COVID precautions needed to take place. Club Mouse Beat took its place eventually, but the fact that Tokyo Disneyland was willing to create a 30 minute extravaganza of a show for a simple event pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the Tokyo parks.
Via Gallery Roulette
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!