Extinct Attractions - The Lottery

Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I took a look back at a queue video that first debuted 36 years ago.

Via All Ears 

36 years ago, Disney-MGM Studios opened on May 1, 1989 to help fuel the demand for a third park in Florida, while also serving as a working movie studio. Universal Studios Florida was set to arrive the next summer (though without a studio tour), but Disney-MGM Studios was closer to the Universal Studios Hollywood model with a full-on studio tour that included both a walking tour and a tram tour. Disney decided to pull out all of the stops with the experience, making it nearly a half day experience by itself.

Via Park Lore 

In fact, they put so much into the attraction that they created an entire short film for part of the walking tour called “The Lottery." Filming for five days from February 3, 1989 until February 7th, 1989, the short was the first film to be completely shot on the backlot at the park. The legendary writer/director Garry Marshall (of Happy Days and The Princess Diaries fame) directed the film, with frequent John Carpenter collaborator Debra Hill serving as a producer on the project. However, the biggest get was Bette Midler, starring as a music teacher who wins the lottery.

After teaching her pupil for a little while, Bette Midler’s character tunes into the television where she learns that she won the lottery. As she’s celebrating, a gust of wind tears the lotto ticket from her hand, so the lesson was quickly over as she jumped onto her balcony to chase down the pigeon who managed to grab it. As she was coaxing the pigeon to hand it over, she fell over grabbing onto a banner and hanging onto the cord for dear life. The pigeon then dropped the ticket, which Bette managed to grab before falling from the banner, luckily right onto a comfy shopping cart that just happened to be rolling down the street. From there, the cart rolled down the New York street with plenty of hijinks along the way as things often do on busy city streets. The cart kept rolling until it fell down the subway, with the ticket flying away once again.

Via Disney Wiki 

Not wanting to lose her chance at glory, Bette immediately jumped onto the subway track to grab her ticket and tried recruiting the other people on the subway to help find the ticket. But of course, this caused a mad rush as everyone tried to get the ticket for themselves before a train started speeding in. Luckily, some police officers helped her out, though the ticket was gone, seemingly forever.  

The next day, Bette was teaching the same girl, who asked for two lessons since their previous lesson was cut short. But out of nowhere, the pigeon magically reappeared with the lottery ticket in hand, leading to a triumphant yell from Bette.

Via YouTube 

“The Lottery" was fun, but what really made the experience so cool was that after the film ended, they showed a behind the scenes version of how all the special effects were done. It was a really cool way to show how moviemaking came to life within the context of the park. The park’s original intent was to showcase the magic of the movies and how they came to life, so it was an awesomel learning experience that hit the theme right on the nose.

The show eventually moved to become part of the tram queue after the dissolution of the walking tour element of the tour, with the film officially phased out on June 29, 1996. Luckily, the park still had a lot of other options at the time, but “The Lottery" was still a ton of fun. I’d love to see it as a little featurette on Disney+ someday to fully complete its journey and bring the fun movie to new light.

Via All Ears 

As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.

Thanks for reading and have a magical day!