75. Former Imagineer Joe Lanzisero on Toontown, DisneySea, and Mystic Manor

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The 1970s were a tricky period for the Walt Disney Animation Studios. Legendary artists were getting older, and there wasn’t a new crop to take their place. The Character Animation Program at CalArts would help to fix that trend. Beginning in 1975, the first class included familiar names like Tim Burton, Brad Bird, and John Musker. Another student was Joe Lanzisero, who became an animator for Disney in the 1980s. His experience at CalArts set the stage for a remarkable time with Walt Disney Imagineering.

Lanzisero is my guest on this episode of The Tomorrow Society Podcast to talk about his career. The animation background gave him the right storytelling perspective for theme parks. He joined Imagineering in 1987 and became the lead concept designer on Toontown at Disneyland and in Tokyo. Lanzisero ultimately took on a leadership role over Tokyo Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and more. His projects include some of Disney’s most inventive attractions.

During this episode, we cover both Lanzisero’s background and some of his most significant work, including the following topics:

• What was it like to study among such talented artists in the Character Animation Program?
• Why was Lanzisero interested in making the transition to Imagineering?
• Which attraction was a big inspiration on the design of Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin?
• How did the creative process for Tokyo DisneySea with the Oriental Land Company help make the park succeed?
• How did Mystic Manor’s design come together to deliver such a remarkable attraction?

I loved having the chance to speak with Lanzisero and learn about his career. He also described the process of designing for Disney Cruise Line and how it relates to the parks. There was too much to cover in a single episode, but it was still a thrill to have the opportunity.

Show Notes: Joe Lanzisero

Listen to my second interview with Joe Lanzisero on the Tomorrow Society Podcast in Episode 95.

Read this Huffington Post article from Jim Hill about Lanzisero and the creation of Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland (April 7, 2014)

Transcript

Dan Heaton: Hi there. Today’s podcast covers some of Disney’s most inventive attractions and parks like Mystic Manor, Tokyo DisneySea, Roger Rabbit in Toon Town, and a lot more with former concept designer and Creative Senior Vice President, Joe Lanzisero. You’re listening to the Tomorrow Society Podcast.

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Dan Heaton: Thanks for joining me here on Episode 75 of the Tomorrow Society Podcast. I am your host, Dan Heaton. One of the key factors in the success of the original Disneyland and beyond was the animation and storytelling backgrounds of some of the legends that worked under Walt Disney, like Marc Davis, Ken Anderson, and Claude Coats. There’s a very long list of figures that were closely involved in the Disney films and then went on and worked at WED and helped to bring Disneyland to life, and that’s also true more recently with the company where you see some crossover between animators and directors and other types of artists that then go on to work for the parks and to design attractions.

A perfect example is my guest today, Joe Lanzisero, who actually was part of the first character animation program at Cal Arts alongside Brad Bird and John Lasseter and so many others, and then went on to become a feature animator in the eighties. I mentioned that because that would be an interesting story on its own, but it’s only the starting point for Joe’s work at WDI where he worked as a concept designer and went on to leadership roles and the list of attractions that he was involved with, either as a designer or as a leader, is stunning.

What we cover during this podcast are some of the high points, but there is a lot more to the story. I mean, even within this conversation, we cover multiple attractions in Tokyo, we talk about Hong Kong and the Mystic Point expansion, and Disney Cruise Line. He’s so involved in the growth and history of Disney Cruise Line and there’s a lot more to it. That’s just a small piece of it, and what really stood out to me after talking with Joe is the reminder about the team. It’s easy to look at these amazing attractions that Disney puts together and look at someone like a Joe Rohde or even Tony Baxter from the past and think they designed that this is theirs.

Yes, they played an important role, but it took such a large amount of people, and I know this should not be eye-opening to me. This is pretty much an obvious point that all of you know, but really talking to Joe, he is very good to point out that he was very fortunate and part of a larger group, and that comes through with any of the topics we discussed during this podcast.

Well, this was a blast to record this podcast. Joe had so many good stories and has had a remarkable career, and I hope you enjoy it. I learned a lot about how attractions are put together, especially ones that I want to visit someday like Mystic Manor. Here is Joe Lanzisero.

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Dan Heaton: All right, my guest today is the former Creative Senior Vice President of Walt Disney Imagineering. He began his career as a feature animator and also worked as a Concept Designer during more than 35 years with Disney. His projects included Mickey’s Toon Town, Mermaid Lagoon and the Arabian Coast to Tokyo Disney Sea, and the Mystic Point expansion at Hong Kong and has done a lot of work with Disney Cruise Line. He’s currently a creative consultant in the theme park industry. It is Joe Lanzisero. Joe, thank you so much being on the podcast.

Joe Lanzisero: Oh, I am so happy to be doing this with you today, Dan.

Dan Heaton: Well, great. I’m just excited because you’ve done so many interesting things in your career and there’s just a lot of great things to cover, but I want to start kind of near the beginning. So I know you started out as an animator, so what really got you interested in animation and even Disney when you were younger?

Joe Lanzisero: I grew up in Burbank, California and not too far from the Disney Studios, and I’m old enough to remember watching the Sunday Night Show with Uncle Walt and was totally inspired by that. Every year my family traveled to Disneyland. In fact, a little bit of interesting history is my father was in the arcade game business and he actually installed the Davy Crockett Arcade in Disneyland back in 1955 and always told the story about going to Disneyland and they weren’t allowed to bring trucks on site and he would have to load the equipment onto the donkey cart.

My dad was from New York, and his only frame of reference for theme parks was, or for amusement parks was Coney Island. I remember him telling my mom, my mom would tell me the story that he would come back and say, this place is going to fail. There’s no roller coasters, there’s no Ferris wheels. This guy is crazy. But I think it only reinforced the genius of what Walt was doing back then. So it’s interesting that I had that little bit of history even before I started work, even before I did anything involved with the theme parks.

Dan Heaton: That’s so interesting that your dad had that connection and it, it’s funny that he had that view, which was very common I think, at the time. But how did you kind of take that and then ultimately move to where you were becoming part of the character animation program taking classes at CalArts?

Joe Lanzisero: So I was always loved to draw as a kid. As far back as I can remember, I loved to draw. Like I said, I grew up watching Uncle Walt on Sunday night and of course loved the Disney cartoons, but I was also a big Looney Tunes fan and I was also a drummer. I still play drums today, and I wasn’t a band with this gentleman, John Debney, who’s now a very famous Hollywood composer. In fact, he’s doing the Lion King live action film. He works a lot for Disney, and his father was a producer and director at the Disney Studios. So I was playing drums in a band with him, but I was always involved and loved to draw, and I was actually making a little animated film on my own at the time when I was still in the band with him.

I showed him some of the work that I was doing, and he said, well, they’re starting this program at Cal Arts because a lot of the Disney animators I have are either retiring someone passed away, and they finally realized that they need to replenish the ranks there. So he said, if you’re interested, I can you get your portfolio and put it in front of the right people. It was kind of a tough decision for me because part of me wanted to be a rock and roll drummer, but this was an amazing opportunity and something that I always wanted to do. So I gave Lou my portfolio, he brought it to CalArts, and I got in, and at the time I didn’t realize what an amazing, amazing opportunity this was and the incredible talents that were there.

That first class included people like John Lasseter, of course, who went on to start Pixar and Brad Bird was in the class and of course gone on to do live action films and Pixar films, including the Incredibles. I was good friends with John Musker, who was an absolute legend, went on to do The Little Mermaid and so many other great films for Disney. So it was an amazing time, but we didn’t realize it while we were there.

We were just a bunch of kids who loved Disney, loved to draw, loved animation and loved storytelling, and I feel like we learned as much from each other as we did from the professors. Now there’s no way to discount the incredible, incredible program and incredible teachers that they had there. We were fortunate because most of us, in fact, none of us ever really met Walt, but we’re fortunate because all the professors, there were the artists that worked directly with Walt.

Many of them were the Nine Old Men or key art directors, key designers. So it was an absolutely amazing opportunity, but like I said, at the time, I don’t think any of us realized how incredible it was. As I talk to these people today, we all say the same thing. Wow. How fortunate we were to be involved with at that time with those people. It was just kind of this magic convergence of a time, a need to replenish these artists, all these great teachers and all these really talented kids with this drive to carry on this art form.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, it’s so interesting because if you look at that group that you just mentioned and think about it, you were coming in at the time where before the Disney Renaissance and all of that where Disney animation even after that, but as in the eighties was still kind of finding its way, and then all that group that eventually led to Pixar and to so much else and then to what happened in the theme parks with people like yourself. It’s crazy that kind of all fell into place. So I mean, I know you mentioned that no one realized it, but I mean, what was the atmosphere like? Was it super competitive? Was everyone realizing how good you all were or again, like you mentioned, it was just so new.

Joe Lanzisero: I think it was healthy competition. I just remember everybody really helping each other. We would look at each other’s storyboards, we’d look at each other’s films. When I think about what John Lasseter did at Pixar in terms of creating a brain trust and creating an atmosphere where everybody was looking at each other’s work and helping each other’s build on what the other person did. I think part of that too was also what we were taught.

Our professors there talked about how they operated at the studio, and the studio was all about, they called it plussing that no matter what you did, there was somebody in the next phase of the work or the next part of the process that would take your idea, your drawing, whatever, and make it better. It was an attitude about, Hey, we’re all in this together to make a great product. And it wasn’t about the ego. In fact, I always remember that, oh, I am the sole author of this.

In fact, I remember the day, the first day in when we went to the studio after I got hired, and there was a group of us, many of us from CalArts, and Eric Larsson was the mentor. He was one of Walt’s, and one of the first things he told us was, you’re going to sit and labor for a year or two, maybe three years on one of these animated films. When it’s put up on the screen, everybody sitting in the audience will think that Walt did everything.

That was his way of telling us that the hold was greater than some of the parts that what was happening was not about us, but about all of us working together to create this great product. I think that’s an amazing lesson, and I took that lesson and I carried it with me through everything I think I ever did was about empowering and embracing the whole and all these great talents that together we can create something better and greater than I can do by myself.

Dan Heaton: That’s a great lesson to learn, like you mentioned in so many different fields, but especially with animation and with theme parks because those projects can get so large. But I know you went on to be then work as an animator in the eighties on several films and such. So what was that experience like when you then moved on and were working on films like The Black Cauldron or The Great Mouse Detective?

Joe Lanzisero: It was an interesting time at the studio. We still had, some of the old guard was left. They were still trying to find their way because I would say starting not long after Walt passed away, the films kind of went downhill a bit, and that was part of the reason for the studio doing this program at CalArts in order to infuse some fresh ideas and young talent into the studio. So I’m not saying if you watch The Black Cauldron, it’s kind of a mixed bag of things.

Dan Heaton: It’s interesting, I’ve seen it.

Joe Lanzisero: I think all of us who went to CalArts and others too, not just CalArts, had a vision for what animation was and should be, and it kind of got a little distorted and over time, and there was a period of some of the films that came out, like I said, post Walt’s death and all the way through The Black Cauldron were struggling, I really felt like the Mouse Detective was kind of the turning point.

That was directed by Burny Mattinson and two young directors, Ron Clements and John Musker. Between the three of ’em, they were really trying to recapture some of what made the older films great. It was more inventiveness in the storytelling, a little more fun and looseness in the characters and the character design and the animation. To me, that was the turning point. Of course after that, then The Little Mermaid came along and lead and the whole renaissance of animation.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I’ve often heard, even though it’s not, and I dunno if it’s officially included, but The Great Mouse Detective kind of listed as the start, or at least the precursors to the Disney Renaissance like you mentioned, because then there was Oliver and Company, and then it kind of built up from there. But The Black Cauldron, I mean, it’s great that there was so much talent there and faith in everyone that it continued on, but I know then you moved on pretty soon after that ultimately into Imagineering. So what made you decide to make that move to become a Concept Designer in the late eighties?

Joe Lanzisero: I loved animation and I’m very thankful for all the great lessons I learned there and all the great people that I got to work with there. But animation at least in those days, and I think for the most part, still if you’re an animator, it’s a pretty solitary art. You know, get your assignment, what scene you’re going to animate, and you sit in your room eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours a day by yourself doing it. I’m a very social person; I’m a people person. I’m an extrovert, so I get energy from people.

I had a couple opportunities and in animation to work in storyboard and story development, there was a short little film that we did for a couple short films that we were working on for Epcot, and that was actually my entree into Imagineering because I got to know some of the Imagineers who were in charge of these films.

One was I did a little bit of work on the Seas Pavilion, a little short film that was called Suited for the Seas. I also did a little bit of work on a film for an attraction at Tokyo Disneyland that interestingly, that years later I was instrumental in having it a bulldoze for another project that I was in charge of, but that was Meet the World and there was some animation in that.

And then we were also doing some animation for, it was a CircleVision show for Disneyland, the pre-show for that. I said, wow, they’re doing some really fun interesting things over there. I mostly love the collaborative process, worked with numerous people and your end result, again, like I said earlier, was it was about the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. You had a lot of different people, a lot of different energy.

And actually through a friend, he introduced me to Tony Baxter and said, they’re starting to really gear up for this big park they’re going to build in Paris. There’s a lot of work that’s happening down in Florida, and one of the things that Tony says he thinks is lacking is the old Marc Davis kind of storytelling stuff that came out of animation.
So I met with Tony and we hit it off and he liked the way I approached my thinking and what I was doing, and he said, well, why don’t you bring your portfolio over and show it to the people at Imagineering? And literally a week later I walked across the street because at that time, the animation building, we had moved from the studio to a location on Flower Street across from Imagineering. I literally packed up my stuff, put it in a box, walked across the street and started working at Imagineering.

Dan Heaton: That’s interesting how you already got to work on some really cool projects. The Seas film is really neat. And then especially with Paris, and I know you had some involvement, I believe, with being on the team for Phantom Manor. So how did that work out? What did you do on that one?

Joe Lanzisero: Were some of my early assignments when I first arrived over at Imagineering, because again, it was Tony who brought me over, he just had me doing gags for, I mean, I wasn’t involved in the big concept of Phantom Manor, but he was kind of trying to use me the same way Walt used Marx Davis. And in no way am I comparing myself to Marc Davis because he is, in my opinion, a God. I put him on a pedestal.

Fortunately I got to know Marc and I fortunately got to learn a lot from him, but I mean they were looking for that kind of more animation gag thinking. So I was able to apply that to some of the things that they were doing on Phantom Manor. At the same time, Typhoon Lagoon had just started in design, and it was the same thing. They asked me to just add some gags and some fun ideas to that park.

I got to say Marty Sklar was my champion almost from day one. I think Marty really understood what I brought to Imagineering and always supported me. One of the early things we did, it was, again, this was back in the Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg days when they were very much in having the Hollywood stars involved and they wanted to do a redo of the Tiki room and wanted to have personality birds based on some of the big stars that they were currently using in the movies like Bette Midler and Danny DeVito.

So I did this whole concept for a redo of the Tiki room, and it did, caricatures of the Birds were caricatures of those famous stars, and Marty loved it, and I remember him even telling me the story where he personally brought it to Michael Eisner to show him the work on it. So that was a very interesting time and an exciting time. That was the kickoff of the Disney Decade when they were doing Disneyland Paris, they were just finishing up on the studio, just starting on Animal Kingdom. I mean, there was so much stuff going on at that time. It was an amazing time to be at Imagineering.

Dan Heaton: I can imagine, because like you mentioned, there were still these legendary people like Marty Sklar and even a rising Tony Baxter and such a really mix of yourself, kind of newer blood and then mixed with the old guard, and plus with Michael Eisner, who was just expanding everything so much. I went to the parks a lot at that time growing up. I was a teenager at that time, and it was just every time you went there was so much to see.

So hearing what you were able to do is great because you came in. It’s such a good time, especially given the movie connection. I feel like a lot of the gags and such probably comes from your background as an animator, like Marc Davis’ background from the movies. So I know the next thing you kind of did is, I mean, you led the Toon Town project, which to me, I think of something where having that background with gags in TOonn Town seems like a perfect place for you. So how did that come together in getting that started?

Joe Lanzisero: Again, I think I have to thank Marty, he saw that I had that sensibility. They were kicking around ideas. The Toon Town grew out of the need to create a place where people were guaranteed to meet Mickey Mouse. They had been working on a couple different ideas. They had done a Mickey meet and greet, and they had done something down in Florida where you could meet Mickey, but they knew they wanted something more immersive.

So we started working on this idea of just creating this little neighborhood for Mickey. But then simultaneously the studio was working on Roger Rabbit and Michael Eisner got all excited about the idea because the story in Roger Rabbit, of course, is there’s this the Toon Town where all the cartoon characters live. So we showed him what we were doing with Mickey’s at the time, it was called Mickey Land.

He goes, well, why don’t we expand it, call it Toon Town. You know, guys can have a little Mickey Land part and we can add the whole Roger Rabbit piece to it. I got to tell you again, just like when I was at CalArts at the time, I didn’t realize what an amazing opportunity it was. I just dived into it head first. They said, we’re going to give you this land and you’re going to lead the team to design it. And I guess looking back, if I was a little smarter and less naive, I would’ve been freaked out.

But I was just super excited. He also partnered me with a great partner, David Burkhart, who was older than myself, had worked on projects at Walt Disney World. He just knew the nuts and bolts of things and just a smart guy and very, I look back again, I was fortunate on many projects to be paired with people that I think complimented me and the kinds of things that I brought and then together, I keep saying, it’s a team effort there.

You’re never in it by yourself, and if you’re put together with the right people, you can do incredible things. So they brought Dave in, and at the time we were doing Toon Town at the same time, Euro Disney was just finishing up. The other thing we benefited from were all these great field talents people that had just come off of Euro Disney. Painters, rock sculptors, prop makers. So we really, really were able to get just some of the top people and they just come off this big project. We had this little project in Disneyland, but everybody jumped into it and embraced it. It was as big and as great as Disneyland Paris. So again, it’s all about timing and I’ve had very good timing in my career.

Dan Heaton: So Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin, it’s a really intriguing ride to me because it reminds me a bit of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, but taken to this next level, it’s like, it’s Roger Rabbit, so it’s a bit crazier and off the cuff, but what was it like to create or work on that attraction?

Joe Lanzisero: Well, you nailed it, and I would be the first to admit we were highly inspired by Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. The thing about Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is most people don’t know that story or haven’t seen that film, but it just stands up. It stands on its own rather as a really fun experience. That for me was a really big lesson about adapting a known product at the time.

You have to think about it in a way that what happens a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now when the film is no longer popular, and people don’t know who those characters are, we looked at what Mr. Toad had just in terms of crazy things. You’re going down that railroad track and there’s a train coming at you and you go to hell and there’s little devils around you. It’s like you don’t have to know the film to enjoy it.

So that was a big inspiration for us. Now, we knew we had to hit on some of the story points from the film, the whole thing with Dip and with some of the characters of course wanted to see Jessica Rabbit, but in the end it was just about creating these really fun and crazy moments that had to stand up on their own and withstand the test of time. That was a big lesson for me that I actually carried through most of the projects I did that had any connection with IP. I always wanted to make sure that the core experience that guests were having, whether it was on the Monsters Inc Ride that we did later on, or any of the things that we did with Marvel later on, and some of the things that in a cruise ship, all that included IP and characters.

My first concern was always to make it the core experience, make it fun, make it have clear communication guests what you’re trying to tell them in terms of how they’re going to be involved in this experience. Because in the end, you can’t depend on the IP because the IP is going to fade and people just have to walk away from the experience saying, Hey, that was fun.

Dan Heaton: I think that’s a great point because right now as, I mean, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge just opened and there’s really a focus on IP and such, and it’s like you mentioned, that’s okay, but it can’t just be about that. It can’t be a book report. It has to be something unique. And yeah, Roger Rabbit’s a perfect example, and some recent attractions are a great example, but it’s not a guarantee that’s always going to happen.

Joe Lanzisero: I think one of the things that makes Roger Rabbit still fun today is just that you get to spin the car. I remember that was something that it was the first time there was an interactive ride system like that. I mean, later on we did in Indiana Jones and other things. But again, it was just because we wanted something that would first differentiate it from the other dark rides. At the time, there was multiple dark rides at Disneyland and we said, well, how are we going to set ourselves apart? Again, it just made it something unique. And even today, just the fun of sitting in the vehicle and spinning it, even if you don’t know who those characters are and you don’t know what Dip is, you’re still going to walk out of that ride having had a good time.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, that’s a great point. Just the little bit of interactivity and just the fun of spinning. But I have to mention, I had a listener send me a photo of what I believe is a cameo of yourself in the ride. They said, I had to ask you about this. So explain that. How did that come to being?

Joe Lanzisero: Okay, so believe it or not, back in the studio days, there was a gentleman who was actually a professional clown from Ringling Brothers. He put together a little clown troupe and that we would do parades and charity events. I was actually a clown for a while, as was one of the designers on the Roger Rabbit cartoon span, an incredibly and talented gentleman by the name of Marcello Vignali. Marcello went on to be an Art Director at Sony for years, and actually, I think he’s back at Disney now, but he did a lot of the design work with me on the interior of the show. So there’s a scene where there’s two big crazy clowns, and one of them is a caricature of Marcelo and the other’s a caricature of me.

Dan Heaton: I love it. I liked the personal touch. I’m looking at the picture and I can see the resemblance a bit, but it’s not so obvious where if I hadn’t been pointed out, I wouldn’t see it.

Joe Lanzisero: No, we didn’t want to make it so obvious.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, that it’s really fun though, for sure. Well, I wanted to mention some of the other things you worked out. One of the big ones, obviously, which is kind of for me, the top of my bucket list of places to go, which is Tokyo DisneySea, and I know you were closely involved with the creative development of several lands for that, including the Arabian Coast section, which has the Sinbad attraction, which is one of those attractions that I would love to see someday. So can you talk a bit about working on just Tokyo Disney Sea, but especially that area?

Joe Lanzisero: Yeah, I got to say everything I ever got to do in Tokyo, I’m so very, very proud of. We had a great partner and they have a great partner still in the Oriental Land Company who I believe really pushed us to do the very best that Disney could do. In fact, there was even periods in the history of Imagineering where at the same time, Tokyo Disney Sea was being designed, developed, and built.

They were doing Disney’s California Adventure, and if you can compare the two, yeah, the finished products were on opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s not because there weren’t a lot of great talented people, it was because they weren’t being given the right opportunities in terms of the resources, in terms of money and the desire to do things at a Disney scale and a Disney quality. That’s what Oriental Land Company wanted.

So I was very fortunate working with the team under the direction at the time of Steve Kirk, and he had his brother, Tim Kirk, a very talented guy, had a great vision for the park. They wanted a lot of story, a lot of detail. So I had just come off of Toon Town, so of course the kind of cartoon equivalent to Toon Town in Tokyo DisneySea was Mermaid Lagoon. So I led the initial design on Mermaid Lagoon.

What ended up in the field was pretty close to my original concept. There were some changes along the way, but I feel very proud of what ended up in the field. For the most part, it reflected the work that I had done on and kind of laying it all out and coming up with the big ideas for it. The Arabian Coast I did, again based on, although it wasn’t supposed to be Aladdin Land, Aladdin, the cartoon feature had come out, was very popular.

They wanted it more real world. But I took a lot of cues from Aladdin. Of course, we had the Genie Magic Lantern Show with the Genie and the Carousel, and it was actually my idea to do the double decker carousel. I wanted some big, large iconic element in the land. I worked a little bit on the first pass of the Sinbad ride, but I got to say that was actually another team that kind of took it in and developed it into what ended up in the park. But again, ironically years later when I went back and I was in charge of Tokyo DisneySea.

I actually got a chance to go back in and rework it a bit. That was great. I got to work with Alan Menken who did the music for The Little Mermaid, and we came up with a musical score for it and got to redo some of the scenes, and that was pretty fun. But yeah, Tokyo DisneySea, probably anyone who’s been there will agree with me. Probably the most beautiful of all the Disney parks. There’s so much detail, there’s so much thought, there’s so much great story there, and that’s another way to discount any of the other great parks and great lands that are out there. But I think collectively, in terms of an overall consistency in terms of the level of greatness, nothing else compares with Tokyo DisneySea.

Dan Heaton: Oh, I agree. I haven’t been there, but it’s one of those parks where even when you see pictures of it, it’s almost hard to wrap your brain around everything because it looks, I mean, even you mentioned Mermaid Lagoon, which has some kiddie rides and such, but it looks incredible. It doesn’t look like, I hate to say it, like a Bugs Land or something, just as a counterpoint, nothing against that land, but it’s just everything seems to be done on this level of scale that is stunning.

I mean, it’s designed so beautifully. So most people I talk with either who’ve been there or who want to go there, it’s that same way. But I want to hit on a few, I know later on when you were a Vice President overseeing things, several really innovative attractions came in Pooh’s Honey Hunt and the Monsters Inc. Ride and Go Seek, which are both unique in their own way to that park. So how did it feel to be involved with so many innovative attractions when that was kind of under your purview?

Joe Lanzisero: Again, what, looking back, I feel privileged because a lot of it, like we said earlier, is about timing. It was about being there at the right time. As I’ve already said, we had our partner Oriental Land Company that wanted to do new and unique things. And I got to say, Tokyo Disney Sea kind of raised the bar. I also got to say I was fortunate, I was the Concept Designer and the lead overall lead designer for the Splash Mountain in Tokyo Disneyland.

In some ways, that was probably the first really big themes land with a level of detail that was kind of at the same level of what they ultimately did in Tokyo DisneySea. Oriental Land Company at first was they were a little taken back by the costs and what it took to do something like that. But they quickly realized, especially the Japanese audience who loves to get into the details of these things and really dives deep into the stories and all the minutiae and the design, and they realized that they had an audience that really, really appreciated that.

And that’s why I told you DisneySea I think took what we had started doing with Splash Mountain, and I took it to the next level. I was fortunate once I became the Creative Lead Vice President in charge of the resort there and the projects that were given to me afterward, the bar had been set, and not just by me, but by others.

And Oriental Land Company wanted to maintain that level of detail of storytelling and of innovation too. They wanted to have bragging rights to say, Hey, we’ve got the best Tower of Terror. We got the best Midway Mania, and what a great thing. Again, looking back at the time, this is an amazing opportunity that I was just happened to be there when I had this client Oriental Land Company who’s challenging us and pushing us to do the best version of whatever we could do in the parks.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I mean, that comes through with how the parks are both the parks, and I know they’re currently even doing more expansions. They are talking about it. And I expect it to be at the same level because like you said, when you have someone like Oriental Land Company working with you, it gives more support to do those types of things. I think both parks and their popularity are a testament to it. They’re just, they’re beloved over there.

Joe Lanzisero: Absolutely.

Dan Heaton: So speaking of bragging rights, I know that the big project that I have to talk to you about is the Mystic Point and Mystic Manor in Hong Kong. I know that park, when that expansion came in, it really seemed to me like Imagineering and such really went all out to create one of the greatest attractions that we’ve ever seen with Mystic Manor. So can you tell me about how that came to fruition, that project there?

Joe Lanzisero: Well, first thank you for your kind words, and I got to say, may have been the high point of my career, and at the time I didn’t realize it, but in a way it was my swan song. First off, it was, again, it was because of a partner in this case it was the Hong Kong government who they were part owners of the park, and they actually had a majority share of the park. So they had a pretty big voice in terms of telling us what they wanted to see in the park without being dictatorial about creative in any way.

But they knew that the park that was delivered to them was a little under par in terms of the scale of it and in terms of the innovation. So when I got the assignment to come in to do this expansion, they were pretty clear in that they wanted unique content, which was unbelievable because it came at a time when Disney was getting more and more involved with Pixar, with Marvel, and then ultimately of course with Lucasfilm in terms of using existing IP as the story base for attractions.

So imagine how privileged I was when or how privileged I felt when they said, Hey, we want you to develop completely original content. And initially when we did the expansion, we had three lands, and all three lands were going to be unique with their own stories. It was just because of some timing and some issues with the government because they were concerned because a second park in Hong Kong called Ocean Park and they were doing an expansion at the same time, and one of their ideas was similar to one of the things that we were proposing.

So we ended up doing Toy Story Land, which in the end I felt like was the right thing to do because when you look at the three lands that we delivered Toy Story Land, Grizzly Gulch, and Mystic Point, there’s a great contrast between the three in terms of the look and the feel and the storytelling.

So of course, the first thing we delivered was the Toy Story Land, which was basically a variation on what had been done in Paris. Of course they’ve since gone on to do versions in Orlando and now in Shanghai and then Grizzly Gulch. They wanted a version of a Frontierland, but again, with a different spin on it. So we came up with the whole Grizzly Gulch and the bears hiding in the mountain and that fun coaster. But without a doubt, the high point for me was coming up with Mystic Point.

Mystic Point is actually, and the story, there is a little bit of a continuation of the story that we created for Tower of Terror in Tokyo, and we came up with this backstory about the Society of Explorers and adventurers, the SEA, and Harrison Hightower, who was the character that we created for the Tower of Terror in Tokyo, was kind of the bad version of Lord Henry Mystic. Harrison Hightower went around the world stealing artifacts, and then it kind of turned on him in a bad way.

But with the story that we created for Mystic Point, we wanted it to be a little more lighthearted, a little more fun, but still have that sense of a little bit of mystery and adventure to it. Initially, they wanted us just to do a version of the Haunted Mansion. After we did some research, we found that the Chinese have a very different relationship with the afterlife, and this whole idea of singing Happy Ghosts that we have in our Western versions of the Haunted Mansion wouldn’t have played well there. That was kind of a turning point for us and how we thought about how we wanted to create this attraction, but we wanted to keep the core of what the Haunted Mansion was all about. And it’s really a great illusion show; Yale Gracey and the Imagineers who created that ride, they were great.

The Pepper’s Ghost effects that they used in the ballroom and all the cool projection work that they did in the seance room and such, I mean, it was so innovative at the time when we were so inspired by that, we said, Hey, we want to create an experience that really has unique special effects that we haven’t seen before, but now find the right story that we can do that can tie it all together.

Then we came up with the story of Lord Henry Mystic. He’s an adventurer and explorer like the other characters, and he meets this monkey character. And what was fun for us was thinking that the way we approached it, we kind of thought about it. We were creating a movie, we came up with the characters, we came up with the situations. We tried to create motivation for the characters who they were.

I mean, we spent a lot of time talking about the characters and about the monkey. So because of that, I think it plays like a ride based on an IP because we really wanted to make sure that the guests understood the relationships, for example, of Lord Henry Mystic and the little Monkey. As you go through the queue line and the pre-show, we set up how they met, what the relationship was like, we set up the whole idea of this magic music dust that lives in this artifact that they find. So hopefully by the time they get to the actual pre-show where they go in and they meet the monkey for the first time, and there’s a little film that talks about all those things I just mentioned, people really have an understanding of, oh, okay, there’s this story, there’s these characters.

And then when you get in that ride vehicle, it works. Hopefully it works the same way. If you’ve seen a movie, we kind of set up the characters, we set up the place, and you get in the ride and then the adventure starts. That was a unique opportunity to be able to take for me all those skills that I had learned through the years back in animation, through all the attractions that I did in all the various parks. And for me, it was kind of a culmination of all that.

Dan Heaton: I think that’s what really stands out from that. The Tower of Terror is in both cases, because like you mentioned, we didn’t have the connection as much to The Haunted Mansion. And then with Tower of Terror not having the Twilight Zone because it’s not as big a connection in both cases, you were kind of able to build these deep stories that were possible. And another thing with Mystic Manor is you have the score from Danny Elfman, who obviously has done some movies. So what was that like to work with him?

Joe Lanzisero: Oh, it was absolutely amazing. That was, again, that just dropped in our laps. It was at D23 and I can’t remember what year it was. It was a couple years before we actually started to do construction on the project, and we were showing off the expansion for Hong Kong as gentleman Richard Kraft, who is Danny Elman’ss agent, but more than that is a huge Disney fan. Came to D23, saw what we were doing with Mystic Manor at that time. Danny Elfman was wanting to stretch out beyond the movies that he was doing and was looking for other opportunities.

Richard Kraft went to him and told him about this modern version of The Haunted Mansion, and we got the call from Danny Elfman. I remember the day I was saying, yeah, this is Richard Kraft. I represent Danny Elfman, and he’s interested in doing the music for your ride. Can you imagine getting that call? My jaw drops at floor. I got to tell you, his sensibility was perfect for the attraction because all the great work he’s done with Tim Burton on all those films and all the stuff that Danny does, it has sinister but fun, and it’s a little spooky but fun. He always has this undercurrent of fun in what he does, and it absolutely was the perfect marriage for what we were trying to do in terms of the overall tone and feel that we were going after on Mystic Manor.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I mean that the score is so important. Like you mentioned, the sense of fun, it’s not really super menacing. Some of the effects might seem that way. You always have that part of it, and it really makes it work. It’s an impressive achievement. I can understand how good it had to feel to work on something like that. So I wanted to ask you one more thing, which I know you’ve done so much on Disney Cruise Line more than we could possibly cover with a short question here, but I did want to make sure that I asked you, because I know you’ve done a lot of work designing certain sections early on and then overseeing it.

I’m just curious to get your perspective on, because an entirely different type of business for Disney, but I know it has connections to working, doing for things for theme parks. So from your experiences, what was the big difference for when you’re doing things for a cruise line versus what you had been doing for some of the attractions we’ve talked about?

Joe Lanzisero: Well, I think it was different, but the same, and I’ll explain that the same in that it still had to be an emotional experience. I mean, what makes Disney rides and attractions and shows great is that they’re either based on IP or based on stories that in some way have an emotional connection to the guests, those characters, you’ve heard that song, it makes you feel a certain way, and that’s what brings people back to the Disney parks, that it connects with them some way emotionally.

So that’s the thing that’s the same in what we were trying to do on the cruise ship. The thing that was different was, I call it the storytelling form in the parks. You know, have rides that run anywhere from three to 12 minutes long. You have shows that are 20 minutes long. So it’s kind of a short form of storytelling.

But I quickly realized on the cruise ships that we had this luxury of time to tell the stories and to modulate the stories because on a cruise ship, we had guests for three days, five days, seven days, 12 days. We didn’t have to rush to get to an end of an experience that we could plan the experience over multiple days like we did with the detective agency game that we created for the crews, some of the experiences on the upper deck in terms of the water play infusing story into those other mini golf course that we did, the shows on the ship.

So it’s just a different way to thinking about how we applied Disney storytelling, Disney IP across a longer period of time, how it would be experienced over that longer period of time. Also, knowing too that we wanted to modulate the amount of Disney because we had some guests that may not want to have as much of the infusion of Disney characters and storytelling as you would get in the theme park, but we still wanted to make sure it was there.

So we were very careful about how we apportioned it across the ship. In some cases, it was right out in front of you in terms of a visual thing. In others cases, it was more thoughtfully, subliminal, or on a less blatant level. I think about what we did with the Remy restaurant on the Disney Dream and Fantasy, where it’s based on the characters from Ratatouille. But when you walk in your first, the first take is, wow, this is a very elegant looking restaurant. It looks like something I might see in Paris somewhere. So that’s your first take.

But then when you start looking closer, you see, oh, there’s the Remy character that’s been designed into the back of the seats, and there’s a little fixture that has the characters on it. And then we created the actual dining room from Gaston’s in the movie. So it was a different way of thinking about how you applied the Disney storytelling, but in the end, we still had to have the same end result that you had this emotional experience because the characters, the stories and we’re delivering them to you in a way that is touching.

Dan Heaton: I think that’s a great way to end, because like you mentioned, that kind of approach is what you’re going to take on any project and especially give a lot of the ones we’ve talked about. Joe, thank you so much for doing this. You’ve had an amazing career. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about some of it.

Joe Lanzisero: Dan, it was an absolute privilege to be able to talk to you today and to relive some of these great opportunities that I was given over the years. I really feel fortunate that I, I’m gone from Disney, the things that I was able to be involved with live on.