Boy was I getting melancholic the other night thinking about the lost Beauty & the Beast show, designed but never built, for EuroDisneyland, whilst I was watching the new special edition of the movie. You see gang my friends have never really understood my love for the Walt Disney company, sure they appreciate the movies, have fun at the theme parks but are certainly not Disney freaks, more of the usual Joe's looking for some way to spend quality time together, this is why I was genuinely impressed by there desire to (voluntarily I should add) see Beauty & the Beast in it's IMAX release the other night!
Most of all what struck me was how well this story still plays (no wonder it was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar) and what a waste it has been to never have seen nothing more than a few stage shows (like the Florida Studio's version or the one in DLP's Videopolis) of this heart moving Picture! And there I was, just exiting a movie theatre lecturing my friends on the never built Beauty & the Beast AudioAnimatronic show!

You see, if everything had gone according to the Walt Disney Imagineering's (WDI) original plans EuroDisneyland would have seen many rides and shows based on the latest Disney (and non Disney) movies, and not just (like in the other Magic Kingdoms) dark rides based on movies from the 50's.
If you look at the famous "concept art map" which was published in 1992 you will in fact see many (MANY) areas of the park marked as "Future Attraction", artistical renderings of a mountain in Discoveryland (Discovery Mountain, later renamed Space Mountain), of temples and jungles in Adventureland and drawings of the main characters from the two latest Disney movies in Fantasyland: the Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast!

The Beauty and the Beast show would have been something unique: a modern twist of the classic Disneyland attraction "The Enchanted Tiki Room" opened under Walt's direct supervision in 1963 and the first real attraction to use AudioAnimatronic (AA) figures in front of an audience. A show which would have mixed the beautiful music composed for the 1991 hit movie by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, with animatronics, live actors, a participating audience and beautiful themeing.
The Imagineer in charge of Fantasyland (Tom Morris - who is now Creative head of the resort) envisioned this show right in the heart of Fantasyland behind the hill located between Fantasia Gelati and the "Sir Mickey" shop, back to back (therefore sharing the show building) with the Auberge de Cendrillon Restaurant.
The entrance setup would have in fact been similar to the one of the Cinderella's restaurant since guests would have found a path starting exactly where that (now always closed) wooden gate, on the left of Sir Mickey's, is and slowly becoming more and more similar to the forest Belle's father Maurice travels through finding the beast's castle.

The path would have lead guests through this dark forest full of decaying trees and leaves, until they found the Beast's castle (think of a similar setup to the Paris entrance of Pirates of the Caribbean) , passed through the opened gates and saw a forced perspective replica of the front facade of this dark and decaying castle (the show building would have been three floor's high, approximately the same as the Main Street buildings and therefore hidden by the hill on one side and the Cinderella restaurant courtyard on the other, from the rest of Fantasyland).There in the castles entrance court yard (acting as a cue) guests would start recognising elements from the hit 1991 animated movie, such as the menacing gargoyles, the broken stained glass windows and, once inside the castle, the giant hall and the famous staircase Belle and the Beast descended.

Once lead through the castle main hall guests would have been greeted by a CastMember showing them to their seats in the castle's theater. Seats spread out around an amphitheater on three levels: stage, 1st floor and 2nd floor, very much in the same style as many historical opera houses around Europe. This special (and unique in a Disney themepark) arrangement would have allowed WDI to heavily relay on details and therefore for the guests to re-visit the show for a partly different experience and perspective every time.

As the audience was seated and the lights dimmed an AudioAnimatronic Lumier would have emerged from the centre of the stage and start to talk with a CastMember about greeting there guests in an appropriate manner whilst the CastMember would have warned Lumier and the audience not to make too much noise so not to wake up the castle's owner, and as the lights changed Lumier would have answered "of course what is a party without music" the show would have started on the extravagant notes of the movie's show stopper "Be Our Guest" piece.
Plates, candles, dinnerware and all the enchanted objects featured in the movies scene would have made an appearance in this kick-off segment of the show, all in the form of elaborate AudioAnimatronic objects located both on the stage and around the theater. Guests would have been treated to a visual and musical masterpiece of Disney showmanship culminating with an incredible show of lights flickering from the descended centre ceiling mounted lighting and stopping on the same high pitched note you hear in the movie.

Right after this exciting start the theatre lights would have dramatically changed to reveal the castles gargoyles descending from all over the theatre to the sound of drums climbing up to the rhythm of the "Kill the Beast" song in the movie. Only that this version would have had different lyrics. Under the name "Beware the Beast" the gargoyles would have warned the audience of the awful temperament of the castle's owner and explained the story of the curse and the rose. Most of these gargoyles would have looked like the one's featured in the final segment of the movie (when the Beast and Gaston fight on the rooftops), some others would have been smaller, acting like heads and statues on columns , or simply having limited arm and eye-flicker movement!

At the last line of "Beware the Beast" a giant puff of smoke would explode in the centre of the theatre, and a huge AudioAnimatronic beast would emerge from it. This immense AA would have been the most elaborate animatronic at the EuroDisney resort. Standing 2 metres 10 cm high this elaborate recreation of the beast would have been a real treat for guests to watch, as it in fact could not only have moved its arms and legs or positioning but it could have snarled, puffed, moved his eye's and assumed more "animal like" positions!
Yes that's right gang, WDI wanted to pull all its stops on this one since this figure had to be both human and regal in its acting, and switch from beastly to high tempered to regal in a matter of seconds; exactly like the Beast so often does in the movie.

Remember the moment when Beast is waiting for Belle for dinner? First the Beast is moving on four legs like a dog around the room, then he assumes intermediate positions representing his re-enactment of the suggestions Lumier and Mrs Potts give him, then in a matter of seconds, as Cogswarth tells him that Belle is not coming down for dinner, the Beast jumps around the castle like a wolf and places himself like a human in front of Belle's door!
These continues changes of mood would have been perfectly recreated in this AA, as the Beast stood in the centre of the theater he would have assumed his beastly positions (slightly bent down, teeth out, head forwards, arms wide open) and snarled puffing and shouting at the audience: "Why have you all come here to stare at me?" and then (just like in the movie) he would have said "So you came here to see the beast?".
This sentence would have been the cue for a live Belle to emerge from backstage (through the audience) and run to him saying "No they are friends"! A beautiful actress portraying Belle would have caressed the Beast on its cheek softly saying; "They are friends, they came here to great you not harm you"! On these soft words Belle would have gone towards a child in the audience and given him a rose to hand to the Beast.

This audience participation scheme was in fact first used in Tokyo Disneyland's "Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour", opened in 1986, where in the attractions final sequence a guide gives a sword to a child to defeat the horned king from the "Black Cauldron" movie, and WDI really wanted to involve the audience in this show at their new European Magic Kingdom. As the child, with the guidance of Belle, gave the rose to the Beast the lights would change, the AA beast would bring the rose to his nose, smell it and a tear would have visibly run down his cheek.
"He has finally learnt to love" Mrs Potts voice would echo through the theater, and another puff of smoke would complement the lights which would resemble the final moments in the movie; as the smoke fades and the lights shine again a live actor would stand where the Beast was seconds before; Belle and him would look into each others eyes and to the notes of the film's theme song the audience would see the whole castle turning back into it's glorious self, the gargoyles becoming beautiful statues (through pivoting and revolving mechanisms) and the stained glasses of the castle showing all the Castles inhabitants (Lumier & all) back to there human selvs!

To the tune "Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast" the audience would have exited the theater and seen a different façade from the entrance one, again, instead of gargoyles beautiful statues, and instead of a decaying tree forest a beautiful garden leading back to Fantasyland and facing it's a small world!
Yes gang, the "Beauty & the Beast Tiki show" (how it has been dubbed by many Imagineers and Disney fans) would have been a unique and beautiful addition for EuroDisneyland, a show which would have used the principle's behind Walt's very first AA show "The Enchanted Tiki room" and the master story teller elements, and technological achievements, of the 1990's Walt Disney Company! A show which was to set the stage for the development of contemporary Disney movie's into the theme parks, therefore trying to achieve something which hadn't been conceived since the plans for WDW's Magic Kingdom's three original Fantasyland dark rides (Ichaboad Crane, Sleeping Beauty and Mary Poppins - but that's a story for another time) had been shelved in favour of reproducing three from Disneyland!

So, there I was, in the car coming back from the movies with a tear in my eye whilst I was finishing off the story of "Beauty & the Beast" to my friends, then a voice from the back of the car said: "was this the only lost ride in Fantasyland?"
"Well….there was the Little Mermaid dark ride……….."

For now it's TTFN - tatafornow

MickeyFantasmic