Hat trick: Hollywood Studios visitors spy new feature over fence
Let’s not call it the cherry on top, but a future Walt Disney World attraction has a new capper in the form of a sorcerer’s cap a la Mickey Mouse in “Fantasia.”
The tall, pointed blue hat has been placed above the entrance of the Magic of Disney Animation building at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park. It’s behind construction walls still, but it’s tall enough and off the ground enough that park visitors can see it already.
Walt Disney Imagineering posted a video of a crane lifting the structure into place this week as workers in Mickey Mouse gloves “conducted” to “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a Paul Dukas pieces from “Fantasia.”
The building formerly housed Star Wars: Launch Bay and, when the park first opened as Disney-MGM Studios in 1989, was home to an attraction where guests could watch actual Disney animators working on future Disney animated projects.
Hollywood Studios visitors will get a closer look at the new hat when the courtyard area reopens May 26. Although the Magic of Disney Animation attraction will not be operating by then — it’s set to debut this summer — that is the day that a new version of “Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live” show arrives nearby.
Within the Magic of Disney Animation building will be drawing session led by an animatronic version of the Olaf character from the “Frozen” series, a Mary Blair-inspired playground and interactions spurred by Disney’s short film “Once Upon a Studio.”
Disney: New drawing classes will feature Olaf animatronic
The hat is a nod to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank, California, which is also fronted by Sorcerer Mickey hat. It’s the second big hat in Hollywood Studios history: a 122-foot-tall tilted sorcerer’s hat was featured prominantly in front of the park’s Chinese Theater from 2001 to 2015. It was designed to be part of the company’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney’s birth then remained in place for more than a decade.
The park has other projects in the works as Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster gets a Muppet makeover and construction is underway on a land based on “Monsters, Inc.”
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