Plane Crazy

Source: Yesterland

March 1991 – November 1991

LOCATION

Fantasyland – Plane Crazy occupied Videopolis, later renamed the Fantasyland Theater. To find the theater, visitors flocked to the rear of Fantasyland, near It’s A Small World. The theater was on the left side of the open plaza, behind the hills of the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

BACKGROUND

In 1991, Disneyland hosted a summer celebration: Disney Afternoon Avenue. This festival celebrated Disney’s animated television programming, and effectively transformed portions of Fantasyland into a Toontown-like experience, two years before Mickey’s neighborhood opened to park visitors. As part of the celebration, Disneyland used the nearby Videopolis venue as an outdoor theater and created a live show for the Disney Afternoon Avenue lineup.

EXPERIENCE

Guests would sit down at the theater to discover they had arrived in the middle of a crisis: Don Karnage from TaleSpin and Fat Cat from Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers have stolen an X-22 spy plane! The two villains shrunk the plane, making it much harder to find. The heroes from the Disney Afternoon lineup of shows had to band together to find, grow, and rescue the plane from the clutches of evil.

The three main heroes featured were:

• Baloo (TaleSpin)
• Chip & Dale (Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers)
• Launchpad McQuack (DuckTales)

The show also included musical numbers, a little audience participation, and even an airplane fight on stage. In the end, the audience helped the heroes find the plane and grow it back to its original size, thwarting Don and Fat Cat’s plot.

 Source: Laughing Place

CLOSURE

Audiences enjoyed Plane Crazy, and the show was one of the more popular components of Afternoon Avenue. But the celebration was only a temporary installation, and Plane Crazy closed when the block party ended in fall 1991.

TRIVIA

“Plane Crazy” was the name of the first cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse. “Steamboat Willie” was the first released to the public, but it was actually the third Mickey cartoon created in the studio. The live show bore no resemblance to the cartoon aside from the name.

Source: D23