FL -- Lake Buena Vista -- Disney-MGM Theme Park:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.221.187.121 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1]
MGM_030125_001.JPG
|
[2] MGM_030125_009.JPG
|
[3]
MGM_030125_050.JPG
|
[4]
MGM_030125_054.JPG
|
[5]
MGM_030125_062.JPG
|
[6]
MGM_030125_082.JPG
|
[7]
MGM_030125_093.JPG
|
[8]
MGM_030125_095.JPG
|
[9] MGM_030125_097.JPG
|
[10]
MGM_030125_100.JPG
|
[11]
MGM_030125_102.JPG
|
[12]
MGM_030125_110.JPG
|
[13] MGM_030125_115.JPG
|
[14]
MGM_030125_117.JPG
|
[15] MGM_030125_136.JPG
|
[16]
MGM_030125_146.JPG
|
[17] MGM_030125_153.JPG
|
[18] MGM_030125_159.JPG
|
[19] MGM_030125_179.JPG
|
[20] MGM_030125_194.JPG
|
[21] MGM_030125_212.JPG
|
[22] MGM_030125_225.JPG
|
[23]
MGM_030125_230.JPG
|
[24] MGM_030125_242.JPG
|
[25] MGM_030125_252.JPG
|
[26]
MGM_030125_254.JPG
|
[27] MGM_030125_256.JPG
|
[28]
MGM_030125_258.JPG
|
[29] MGM_030125_266.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- MGM_030125_001.JPG: The Sorceror's Apprentice hat is usually shown as the symbol of the park
- MGM_030125_050.JPG: You see the Mickey Mouse water tower on the "backstage tour". During Christmas time, they used to put a Santa Claus hat on top of it but I'm told they don't do that anymore.
- MGM_030125_054.JPG: They promote this as the Golden Girls' house and say that exterior shots for the show were taken here. I was told that's technically correct. The three stars came down one day and were briefly filmed waving from the front of the house. That was it. Note that left over Christmas decorations over the house.
- MGM_030125_062.JPG: This is part of the "backlot tour". It features a fire complete with thousands of gallons of water which come tumbling down. Kind of cute.
- MGM_030125_082.JPG: Props from "Reign of Fire"
- MGM_030125_093.JPG: Prop from "Aliens"
- MGM_030125_095.JPG: Prop from "Planet of the Apes" (the new one)
- MGM_030125_100.JPG: Prop from "Judge Dred"
- MGM_030125_102.JPG: Prop from "Star Wars"
- MGM_030125_110.JPG: This kids' playground features oversized characters to remind people of the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids".
- MGM_030125_117.JPG: This Muppet fountain is outside a 3-D in Muppetland show
- MGM_030125_146.JPG: Various scenes from the 25-minute version of "Beauty and the Beast" that they present several times a day. The story pretty well follows the Disney cartoon, complete with most of the songs, with two variations (all of the townspeople try to kill the Beast, not just Gaston; there's a full dance number after the Beast changes into the non-Beast character).
- MGM_030125_230.JPG: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror consists of being strapped into an elevator which raises and then drops like it's possessed. When you reach the top levels, the doors open and you get this incredible view of the park which is combined with the terror of knowing that you're about to plummet to the bottom.
- MGM_030125_254.JPG: One of the Disney characters walking the park is Cruella Deville. Someone walked past and yelled "Puppy killer!" The character sneered, "Let's be a little less obvious, shall we?"
- MGM_030125_258.JPG: Yep, a Star Wars ride. You're put in a vehicle that looks like the inside of a transport ship. You're then sent through the Death Star and a variety of stellar formations before you land. The cool thing is that when you land you find that the ship never actually moved; you were just jostled up and down while the movie in front of you simulated movement. There's a Back to the Future ride at Universal that's almost identical to this.
- AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
- Wikipedia Description: Disney-MGM Studios
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Disney-MGM Studios is a theme park at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA. The third park to open at the resort, it debuted on May 1, 1989. Spanning 135 acres (546,000 mē) in size, the park's theme is show business, drawing inspiration from the heyday of Hollywood in the 1930s and '40s.
The only affiliation Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer has to the park is via contracts that allow Disney to use the MGM name and lion logo in marketing, and separate contracts that allow for specific MGM content to be used in The Great Movie Ride.
On August 9, 2007, Walt Disney World President Meg Crofton announced that the park's name will be changed to Disney's Hollywood Studios effective January 7, 2008. In announcing the name change, Crofton said, "the new name reflects how the park has grown from representing the golden age of movies to a celebration of the new entertainment that today's Hollywood has to offer—in music, television, movies and theater."
Dedication:
The World you have entered was created by The Walt Disney Company and is dedicated to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be.
—Michael Eisner, May 1, 1989
Park development:
The idea which led to the Disney-MGM Studios began at its sister park, Epcot. A team of Imagineers led by Marty Sklar and Randy Bright had been given an assignment to create two new pavilions for the park's Future World section. The fruits of the brainstorming sessions were the Wonders of Life pavilion and the Great Movie Ride pavilion. The second of the two was to have sat between the Land pavilion and the Journey Into Imagination pavilion, and was to look like a soundstage backdrop, with a movie theater-style entrance in the middle. The actual attraction is very similar to the plans for the equivalent at Epcot, only, when newly-appointed CEO Michael Eisner saw the plans for the pavilion, he requested that, instead of placing the ride in an already existing park, it should be surrounded by a brand new theme park which extended the showbiz, Hollywood and entertainment theme.
According to Internet urban legends, while Michael Eisner was working for Paramount Pictures, he saw the early plans for the Universal Studios park in Florida (Paramount has always been closely associated with Universal, and Paramount provided much needed finance into the Universal Orlando Resort). After moving to Disney, he took some of these ideas and used them in early plans for the future Disney-MGM Studios. As Disney-MGM narrowly opened before Universal (as mentioned above the park and its resort had finance problems), it was seen that Universal copied Disney-MGM—or was it the other way around? Some reports say that, in a coincidence, both Universal and Disney planned studio/theme parks at the same time without knowing of the other company's ideas in the beginning and both rushed to finish their respective parks when they heard the news.
Attractions:
The park consists of five themed areas. Unlike the other Walt Disney World parks, the Disney-MGM Studios does not have a defined layout; it is more a mass of streets and buildings that blend into each other, much like a real motion picture studio would. The layout of the park, however, did have an interesting design characteristic. If you look at an older version of the Disney-MGM Studios map and turn it upside down (or look at an old aerial photo oriented due north), you will see a Hidden Mickey in the overall layout of the park. Recent construction and changes to the park have eliminated much of this image. ...
Production history:
The Walt Disney Company's original concept of the Disney-MGM Studios was to operate it as a full fledged television and motion picture production facility, not just a theme park. In 1988, among the first feature-length movies filmed at the facility, prior to its completion and opening as a theme park, was Ernest Saves Christmas. When Disney-MGM opened in 1989, the studio/production facilities housed two major components, the first of which was Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, where Disney produced a number of projects, including Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, and sequences from other 1990s-early 2000s Disney animated features. The second, larger, component was Walt Disney Studios Florida, which consisted of three sound stages used for various Disney projects including The Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club and Adventures in Wonderland. Several third party productions also used the Studios, including Superboy (first season only, from 1988-1989), Thunder in Paradise, one season of Let's Make a Deal, special broadcasts of Wheel of Fortune and airplane interior sequences for the feature film Passenger 57. In addition, a number of music videos and several tapings for World Championship Wrestling were also shot there. Even The Post Group had a Florida-based post-production facility located on the Studio lot throughout the 1990s. All these production and post-production facilities were constructed to be an integral part of the theme park's Backstage Studio Tour as well.
During the closing credits of the Mickey Mouse Club (later, MMC in its final seasons) and Adventures in Wonderland, the lit Disney-MGM water tower appeared on the screen and one of the cast said, "(insert show title here) was taped at the Disney-MGM Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida." Disney management (including CEO Michael Eisner) decided to downsize Disney's Florida operations by closing the animation studio, laying-off personnel and then moving the operations to the main animation studio in Burbank, California.
A radio studio is also located on the lot, appropriately behind "Sounds Dangerous". It originally housed the first children's radio network Radio Aahs which rented the studio. Later, Disney founded Radio Disney and essentially forced Radio Aahs out of business. Radio Disney decided it was no longer profitable to operate in Florida so they moved all of their shows from the Disney-MGM Studios to the Radio Disney headquarters in Dallas, Texas and the once bustling Disney Studios Florida radio studios are now used as remote studios for radio shows that are visiting Disney or the Orlando area and need a facility to broadcast from.
MGM affiliation and litigation:
In 1988, MGM/UA filed a lawsuit against The Walt Disney Company claiming Disney violated a 1985 licensing agreement by operating a working movie and television studio at the Florida theme park. Disney later filed a countersuit, claiming that MGM/UA and MGM Grand, Inc. the owner and operator of casino/resorts and unaffiliated to the movie studio had conspired to violate Disney's worldwide rights to the MGM name in the theme park business and that MGM/UA would harm Disney's reputation by building its own theme park at the MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On October 23, 1992, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe ruled that Disney had the right to continue using the Disney-MGM Studios name on film product produced at the Florida facility, and that MGM Grand had the right to build a Las Vegas theme park using the MGM name and logo as long as it did not share the same studio backlot theme as Disney's property.
The 33-acre MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park opened in 1993 at the Las Vegas site and closed permanently in 2000.
Currently, Disney is contractually prohibited from using the Disney-MGM Studios name in certain marketing contexts like the free Walt Disney World vacation-planning kit; in those instances the park is called The Disney Studios.
Effective January 7th, 2008, Disney-MGM Studios will be renamed Disney's Hollywood Studios.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].