Last year, during the height of the pandemic, actor, comedian, writer, and director Jack Plotnick came across Disney’s Wonderful World of Color videos on YouTube. “When the pandemic hit I would often find myself watching YouTube videos in bed at night, trying to get my mind off the sadness we were all experiencing,” said Plotnick. “So of course, my interests turned back to what made me so happy as a kid, and I sought out videos about the Disney Parks, rides, restaurants, whatever!”
One of the videos Plotnick saw was a series of shows that has Walt introducing the upcoming Disneyland Park to the country. These shows, which were aired on “Disney’s Wonderful World of Color,” got Plotnick thinking about what was really happening in those encounters? What might each of these people be thinking at that time? So he decided to make his own version. Plotnick created four “new short stories” focusing on different scenes from the original show: it’s a small world, the Plaza Restaurant, The Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Plotnick inserts himself into each of these scenes as Mary Blair, Blaine Gibson, John Hench, and other Disney Cast Members. In each of these vignettes, seemingly ordinary interactions quickly spiral out of control.
Now, Plotnick has come out with a new video – “Disney Made a Carousel of Progress Show.”
The original video, “Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair,” which aired on 17 May 1964, has Walt giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the Carousel of Progress, one of a handful of attractions he and his team of WED engineers were creating for the then-upcoming 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. In it, Walt proudly shows off the carousel’s model, tours the sets as they are being built, shows off the latest Audio-Animatronics technology, and offers up the first listen to the attraction’s theme song, “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”
In Plotnick’s version, we see a “different” version than the one that aired. Here Harriet (presumably Harriet Burns), has feelings for Walt. She says she longs for someone like “Father,” the narrator of the Carousel of Progress. She then dreams what it would be like if “Father” was real until her fantasies go very wrong. In the end, Marge, another designer, who is apparently disliked by all the other women, cannot find her purse and is told it is between the sets. Disney fans know what this setup is and what is coming next. In 1974, Deborah Gail Stone, a Disneyland Cast Member, was killed when she got caught between two walls as the theater rotated. At the time, the attraction was known as “America Sings.”
Other shorts from his brilliant, off-beat mind can be found at youtube.com/jackplotnick.
