Happy Halloween (a.k.a. “All Hallows’ Eve”)! As many little goblins and monsters might be looking to “Trick-or-Treat” today, I thought I would provide an Imagineering concept for The Haunted Mansion. The Disneyland version gets a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay every year. A Muppets’ Haunted Mansion is getting lots of view on Disney Plus. Here I will detail an overlay with my favorite cartoon—Scooby-Doo! I will go through each of the rooms in the rest of the write-up.
In the Stretching Room, the following 4 portraits are revealed: Shaggy, holding a document, is revealed to be cornered by the Miner 49er, who is holding dynamite. Daphne, holding an umbrella, is revealed to be balancing on a fraying tightrope above the gaping jaws of the Gator Ghoul. Velma, holding a rose, is revealed to be sitting atop a tall gravestone, at the bottom of which is a stone bust of Jefferson Stillwall (from Haunted House Hang-Up) with a hatchet embedded in his head. Fred is revealed to be sitting on the shoulders of Scooby-Dum who sits on the shoulders of Scooby-Doo who is next to the Tar Monster. When the lightning flashes, the Headless Spectre makes an appearance. In the Portrait Gallery on the way to the loading area, guests find the following portraits: Netty Crabbe from “High Rise Hair Raiser” who transforms from a young woman into an old woman ghost The Ghost Ship from “Go Away Ghost Ship” Ace Decade transforms into the Phantom from “The Diabolical Disc Demon” The Black Knight on horseback (from “Scared a lot in Camelot”) morph into glowing skeletons (both knight and horse). The Cat Creature (transformed from a middle-aged Olivia Dervey) Uncle Stuart from “What the Hex is Going On?” who ages to the point of death Guests board “Mystery Buggies,” which are detailed in flourescent light blue paint (like the Mystery Machine). In the Conservatory, guests find the Mantis. The Endless Hallway has the well-known doors, paintings, and clocks. The Black Knight is found here. Although I’m personally not a fan of the Seance room because of its ties to the occult, the instances that are found in Scooby-Doo episodes generally show that it’s not worth getting into that sort of activity. For example, the Ghost of Elias Kingston, which “flies” in a fortune teller’s space is determined to be just a hoax. The Gypsy in “A Gaggle of Galloping Ghosts” is found to be a fake. Also included in this scene is the Ghost Clown. Next comes the Ballroom Scene. Monsters that were found in social situations (such as the Headless Horseman of Halloween, the Phantom Shadows, and the Witch Doctor) are found here. In the Attic, Dr. Jekyl makes an appearance as the hatbox ghost. In the Graveyard Room, are the other ghosts from the series (such as the Ghost of Vazquez Castle, the Boo Brothers, the Phantom of Milo Booth) as well as monsters that were encountered in graveyards (such as the Werewolf, the Ghost Witch of Old Salem, Gargoyle in “A Good Medium is Rare”). Hitchhiking Monsters—the monsters that hitched a ride on The Mystery Machune in the series (including the Creeper and the No-Faced Zombie) join guests in their Mystery Buggies.
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Walt Disney World has been open for 50 years! Of course, the Disney Company is using it as a reason to celebrate—whatever entices people to visit the resort! There are new rides, new shows, 50 character statues, and 150 new food offerings, to name a few things.
We celebrate many different occasions—birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, retirements, holidays. So I’m sure nobody is going to bat an eye that WDW is celebrating its 50th anniversary. I would like to talk through a bit of why we celebrate. The late philosopher Joseph Pieper devotes a significant section of his book Leisure: The Basis of Culture to this topic. He says that “celebration…is man’s affirmation of the universe and his experiencing the world in an aspect other than its everyday one…The most festive festival it is possible to celebrate is divine worship” (65). That might strike us as odd. Like when do I ever celebrate due to worship that I have just given? We might allow this assertion for things like Christmas (literally “Christ’s Mass”) and Easter. Those celebrations are certainly religious both in origin and practice. But Pieper’s point is that we truly engage in leisure and recreation (the act of being re-created) when we have engaged in the highest activity on Earth that we can participate in—worship. Birthdays are fine to celebrate on the natural level (especially in thanksgiving to God for the gift of life), but Baptisms (and their anniversaries) are more worthy of celebrating, because it is then that we became children of God. We celebrate weddings (and my case, Ordinations) chiefly because of the liturgical acts that have preceeded the receptions. Many of the other holidays—like St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and New Years Day—all have religious significance. Some more recent attempts to institute secular holidays (like Labor Day) just don’t carry the same celebratory depth. But that doesn’t stop Christians from finding a way to worship; for example, Catholics have particular readings and prayers for Labor Day Mass. So what would make the WDW 50th Anniversary celebration more festive? Ultimately, it would be providing greater access to worship. As I have detailed before, worship services are provided at the Contemporary Resort on Christmas and Easter. Also, Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine (which offers several Sunday Masses) is close to WDW. The Catholic Church is familiar with year-long celebrations. Currently Pope Francis has us in the Year of St. Joseph. Other recent celebrations have included the Year of Mercy and the Year of Jubilee. There are official Masses for opening and closing the celebrations. And then there are special ways to enter into celebration throughout the year. Disney already has opening and closing celebrations, but to make it more festive, it would be best tied to a liturgical celebration. I admit it doesn’t sound like a realistic goal for most secular companies, but it's worth thinking about when we ask ourselves, “How could this be an even greater celebration?” St. Francis of Assisi, known for his love of creation, is one of the most beloved saints. His feast day is October 4th. Many parishes offer the blessings of animals on or close to this date. A popular children’s show called “Brother Francis” uses a monk based on St. Francis. He could be the inspiration of a new theme park show. In the Tree of Life show building, Bible World’s Creation Kingdom will showcase “It’s Tough to Be a Saint!” (replacing “It’s Tough to Be a Bug!” at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom). The bugs from “It’s Tough to be a Bug” (based on “A Bug’s Life,” which is based on the parable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”) will be the “tiny friends” that St. Francis points to in describing the challenges of saintly living. St. Francis’ respect for even bugs can be seen in the butterflies and ladybug surrounding him in the picture above. The 3-D show is generally light-hearted with some gags that trick the audience’s senses.
St. Francis mentions to the audience a theme that is found in both “A Bug’s Life” and the lives of the saints—the importance of work in contributing to others. Hopper is pointed to for his idleness—he relies too much on the work of others. On the flip side, Flik and the ants show how teams can come together to be a united front. St. Francis also mentions something that St. Benedict (who instituted a new way of Christian living found in monasteries) focused on that can be called “Work and Prayer.” Work can be offered as a prayer to God. A praying mantis animatronic is lit up and says, “I can’t help but pray. After all, I’m a praying mantis!” Our saintly host tells the audience of the importance of justice. Justice is about giving to another what is owed them. If someone is without food, for example, we have a duty to give them some food (as long as someone else isn’t the food…cue hungry spider from the ceiling). The Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do to you”) is helpful for treating others with love and kindness. St. Francis next mentions that saints should be focused on worship, especially on Sundays. Worship is rooted in the virtue of justice (and right religion)—giving to God what belongs to Him (namely adoration). St. Francis speaks about the importance of humility. A prideful person lacks humility (they are full of “stink” like a stink bug…cue Cleare de Room stink bug), because they over-value their own importance. A humble person realizes that he is only a creature, who is need of God’s grace to thrive. Using the example of Flik and his fellow ants standing their ground when the unjust and bigger grasshoppers tried to over-power them, St. Francis next talks about courage—the virtue of endurance in the face of difficulty. In the end, the ants experienced freedom and peace for their courage. St. Francis explains to the audience that Jesus said that any would-be saint needs to “deny himself, take up his cross and follow Him” (cf. Matthew 16:24). This is the essence of why “it’s tough to be a saint.” Our human tendency is to approve ourselves, reject anything that is difficult, and to follow the way that we make for ourselves. But true love is shown in sacrifice and in putting others before ourselves. Upon leaving the theater, guests remove their 3-D glasses. They leave those behind, but they walk away with (1) a deeper understanding of why it is tough to be a saint and (2) memories of a fun show of bugs and St. Francis. For Part 1, see https://themeparkpriest.weebly.com/blog/next-international-theme-park-part-1next-international-theme-park-part-1.html. Some tables are not shown here due to the difficulty of adding them to Weebly. Gross Domestic Product per Capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of how strong an economy is. GDP per capita gives a measure of how wealthy an individual citizen is in that country. The World Bank gives the most recent GDP per capita (in US dollar) for the world’s countries (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true). The country with the highest GDP per capita is Monaco with $190,500. Burundi has the lowest GDP per capita at $271. Places like Switzerland, Netherlands, and Australia are all in good financial positions to support a theme park resort. India, on the contrary, has such a low GDP per capita that most citizens would not be able to go to the resort (even if the tickets and lodging were significantly less). This doesn’t rule out building a resort in India as with the high population there are still many people who would still be able to make use of such a resort. Geneva, Switzerland, 86600 Los Angeles, USA, 63500 Singapore, Singapore, 59800 Amsterdam, Netherlands, 52300 Stockholm, Sweden, 51900 Sydney, Australia, 51800 Vienna, Austria, 48100 Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 46300 Berlin, Germany, 45700 Toronto, Canada, 43200 Dubai, UAE, 43100 London, United Kingdom, 40300 Tokyo, Japan, 40100 Paris, France, 38600 Rome, Italy, 31700 Seoul, South Korea, 31500 Alicante, Spain, 27100 Barcelona, Spain, 27100 Taipei, Taiwan, 25900 China, 10500 Buenos Aires, Argentina, 8400 Mexico City, Mexico, 8300 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6800 Sao Paolo, Brazil, 6800 Bangalore, India, 1900 Distance to Another Top-Tier Park Increasing distance to another top-tier park is generally seen as a desirable criterion when deciding where to build a park. A park that is close to other top-tier parks might find that the market is too saturated, especially if there is a circumstance that makes people less likely to go to the parks (such as a downturn in the economy or an epidemic). However, it should be noted that there are some locations (like Orlando) where there is sort of a synergy with competing parks. Points for this criterion will be awarded for miles up to 1000 that it would be from other parks; additional parks will be awarded for the far away locations. The distance in miles to the nearest top-tier park are shown below. As can be seen, there isn’t any park near South America, whereas some potential places in Europe or Asia might find competition too close. Population There are tools on the internet for determining the approximate population of an area. I used Free Map Tools (https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm). The radius (for the area) can be changed; I selected a 100-mile radius. Those who are in about 100 miles of a theme park could do a day trip (or a 1-night trip) to the park, so it gives some idea of how many people are the potential “regular” visitors. As seen in the table below, the area around Hong Kong has 51.7 million people. Dubai and Stockholm have a little over 2 million people, so they might not be super high on Disney or Universal’s short list. Please note that Chongqing, China was difficult to search for, so an approximation was made from its Wikipedia page. Intellectual Properties Influence Disney and Universal have good internal numbers as to where their Intellectual Properties (IPs) are popular. From the outside, though, it can be tough to know where IPs are well-received. Avengers: End Game is the top grossing box office movie of all time at $2.8 Billion, so it is a relatively good measure of how well Disney is received. The End Game box office revenue from every country can be found on https://www.boxofficemojo.com/releasegroup/gr3511898629/. The United States and Canada are considered the “domestic” market. Below are the countries being considered in this project. The first column (IPs) shows the gross box office revenue for End Game. The second column (IPpcr) shows a ratio for the revenue relative to the country’s population. The third column (IPpc) gives each country a score (out of 10) that each country would receive for this criterion. As you can see, End Game was very well received in Hong Kong. On the low end of the scale is India. This criterion is related a lot to GDP per capita. Ease of Doing Business I wasn’t sure how it would be possible to determine how easy it is to do business in other countries. The World Bank, though, gives ratings for each country as companies try to engage in business (https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/32436/9781464814402.pdf?sequence=24&isAllowed=y). Table 0.1 on page 4 gives the ratings. The maximum possible score is 100—if a country were to receive a perfect 10 on 10 different criteria. Singapore with a rating of 86.2 is the 2nd easiest country to do business with (New Zealand is the easiest). This rating suggests that Brazil and Argentina would be rather challenging to work with. Country Business Singapore 86.2 Hong Kong 85.3 USA 84.0 South Korea 84.0 United Kingdom 83.5 Sweden 82.0 Australia 81.2 UAE 80.9 Taiwan 80.9 Germany 79.7 Canada 79.6 Austria 78.7 Japan 78.0 China 77.9 Spain 77.9 France 76.8 Switzerland 76.6 Netherlands 76.1 Italy 72.9 Mexico 72.4 India 71.0 Brazil 59.1 Argentina 59.0 How the Rating for Potential International Park is Calculated I am almost ready to release the first set of rankings for potential international theme parks. Some original criteria, such as enough land available and travel time to an international airport, are difficult to determine without additional research. Site locations that have been selected as part of existing proposals (such as on the WDWMagic Imagineering Forum) could be studied further with these criteria. Other criteria that were suggested from others have not been included at this time, because I was not sure how to rate them. There were 7 criteria used in this set of ratings. A few criteria were rated higher than the others. Although popularity of IPs and country’s GDP are important measures; the two of them are similar, so they will not be weighted any more than they are. The weights for the criteria: Popularity of IPs in country (10%) Whether initial discussions have taken place to build a top-tier resort (10%) Population within 100 miles (20%) Distance from other top-tier theme park (15%) Country’s GDP per Capita (10%) Ease of Doing Business in Country (15%) Weather (20%) Interested Parties There are many projects already on the WDWMagic Imagineering Forum that have projects located in the countries that are considered in this study. Initial Rankings for Locations Below is the summary table for this project so far. Best locations of parks: 1. Hong Kong (67.9), 2. Los Angeles (62.0), 3. Sydney (61.0), 4. Dubai (53.6), 5. Mexico City (52.2) Best locations of parks (without a current park): 1. Sydney (61.0), 2. Dubai (53.6), 3. Mexico City (52.2), 4. Seoul (47.7), 5. Sao Paolo (47.6) Analysis
It is probably not too surprising that Hong Kong tops the list knowing now that there is over 50 million people within 100 miles of there. The market for movies seems quite large there, too. Disney putting a park (albeit small, at least initially) was a good, calculated risk. If Universal had access to a sizable plot of land there (or in nearby Macau or Guangzhou), they would also benefit from the market. It should be noted that there is a major aquatic theme park in Hong Kong. Los Angeles got high marks, especially due to its great climate. Disney is planning to expand its parks significantly, but there isn’t another park in the plans for Disney or Universal there at this time. The best locations that do not have a current park was somewhat surprising. Sydney scored high, in part because it had come close to having a Disney park before. Based on the high ranking of Dubai, I would think that Universal would try to resurrect their project there. Mexico City seems like it could be poised to be a good fit for either company (whichever one decides to pursue it). I was expecting that the eastern Asian cities (Seoul, Chongqing, and Bangalore) would be near the top. Seoul got marked down due to its closeness to Shanghai, although the distance feels greater due to the Yellow Sea being in the middle and the fact that China has very different regulations than South Korea. Chongqing got downgraded because of its closeness (to Hong Kong) and the fact it has a smaller population than Beijing and Shanghai. India, due to its high rate of poverty, is probably not high on Universal or Disney’s radar, but that could change in the future if it closes the economic gap with other nations. The locations near the bottom of the list have their own major drawbacks. I would have expected Buenos Aires to be rated higher, but it has a rather modest population. |
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