Animatronics break down.
The high demand of upkeep is a central reason that animatronics and other practical effects aren’t as common in theme parks as they once were. When an animatronic breaks down, it’s rarely as simple as closing the ride for an hour to do repairs; sometimes, it can take weeks to fix the problem. During that time, the ride can either stay closed or remain open with a missing key piece – both happen, and both make for a lesser ride experience. In some unfortunate cases, it may not be possible to fix an animatronic at all; Expedition Everest features a 25-feet-tall animatronic yeti that famously suffered structural damage shortly after the ride’s opening in 2006 and hasn’t worked since.
But despite malfunctions, animatronics are built to last, and the subject of today’s article is a perfect example.
Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros opened in 2007 inside EPCOT’s impressive Mexico Pavilion. It is a musical experience that takes guests on a playful and, at times, surprisingly atmospheric adventure through Mexico, ending in an audio-animatronic performance of the Three Caballeros theme.
As a dark ride, Gran Fiesta Tour showcases many practical effects, but it did not feature animatronics in its finale until 2015. Interestingly, the ‘new’ animatronics added to the attraction were actually not new at all.
They’re older than Gran Fiesta Tour. They’re older than the Mexico Pavilion. Older than EPCOT. Originally part of the Mickey Mouse Revue, the Three Caballeros were performing for guests on the opening day of Disney’s Magic Kingdom in 1971.
Recycling animatronics does happen on occasion. They’re a huge investment and designed to last, so when the opportunity arises, retired animatronics get given new life. Looking at the Three Caballeros with the knowledge of their lengthy past, it’s hard not to feel amazed.
But, of course, any piece of machinery half a century old is going to break down. In the summer of 2020, José Carioca (one of the Three Caballeros along with Panchito and Donald Duck) toppled over, leading to his temporary removal while Imagineers did repairs. He was returned to Gran Fiesta Tour within a few weeks.
Then in January 2021, Donald Duck malfunctioned, and it was a different story.
The saga begins on January 4th. It’s evening. The animatronics have been performing all day, but Donald Duck is… well, he’s propped up against a box. The park closes and Donald is removed from Gran Fiesta.
Now Imagineers have a problem: Donald clearly needs maintenance, but there’s not enough time to get him repaired and back in the attraction before opening tomorrow morning. They could leave his place empty, let two of the Three Caballeros carry Gran Fiesta’s finale like they did when José Carioca malfunctioned last year, but José’s absence didn’t look right. With the Three Caballeros clearly arranged as a trio, it was visually unbalanced with only two.
The park is opening again in just a few hours. They need a solution. Fast.
Someone has an idea.
Initially when José Carioca fell over, cast members of Gran Fiesta Tour hid the animatronic with fake plants until he could be removed. It didn’t look good, but it was better than nothing at all.
“We’ll do a similar thing here,” they suggest. “We’ll replace Donald with a plant. We can put a sombrero on it.”
They replace Donald with a plant. They put a sombrero on it.
And… it kind of works?
I have no idea if that’s how it went down at Disney, but I’ve been in enough design projects to know what it’s like when things go wrong on a tight schedule.
The sombrero-wearing plant is not a perfect solution to Donald Duck’s absence, but it does accomplish what Disney needed it to: Gran Fiesta Tour’s finale looks significantly more balanced with the plant than it did when José was missing. In fact, when I showed a clip of Donald’s botanical understudy to a friend who didn’t already know Gran Fiesta, they noticed nothing unusual.
“It just looks like a set piece,” they explained, “like it was always there.”
The sombrero-plant remained until the end of January, when it was removed along with José and Panchito. The Three Caballeros were replaced with static wooden cut-outs, which stayed for so long that themed entertainment fans – me included – wondered if we’d seen the end of the historic animatronics.
Disney Imagineering could have decided that the Three Caballeros were simply too old to maintain any longer. They could have retired them for good and hidden them away in the Walt Disney Archives. No one would have faulted them for it.
But Imagineers saw an opportunity.
Great design doesn’t always come from a thousand calculated design decisions that turn out just right. Sometimes, great design happens when things go wrong.
The Three Caballeros were rebuilt from the ground up, Imagineers carefully replacing 50-year-old parts with modern technology and preparing the animatronics to perform for decades to come. They were returned to Gran Fiesta Tour in May 2021, better than ever before.
When things go wrong in design, our next steps determine the future of what we’re working on. We can panic, let failure bring us down, retire the animatronics, or we can put the sombrero on the plant and look for opportunities to grow.
I choose the sombrero.
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