> Journal - July 8, 1994

The premier opening of the Lion King Attraction in Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom was on Friday, July 8, 1994 at 10 am. There was a ribbon cutting (actually a "vine" cutting) ceremony with Judson Green, Robert Guillaume - voice of Rafiki, and Ernie Sabella - voice of Pumbaa. The ceremony was only about 5 minutes long but it was colorful, with a full size Rafiki (live) character and full of music from "The Lion King".

After the dedication, we entered the theater dark pre-show area (7 minute preshow). Rafiki (human size live character) starts telling the story of the circle of life. Great staging and lighting in this area. It then continued with a movie clip from the movie intro. You the enter the main theater set (16 minute show). This is absolutely beautiful. It's a combination interactive theater with the live action on stage and a very large movie screen in the rear of the stage. The show is part movie, part live character and (mostly) puppetry. They call them "animateers". There are 9 animateers and one full size live character per show. The puppets are done very much like Jim Henson's style of puppeting (from a 'pit'). Some puppets are on carts below stage level, some ride as 'backpacks' and there is one large Simba that takes 6 people to animate! A total of 3 full casts (80 people) a day - running 3 shows any hour for a total of 42 shows a day. Some of the people present at the opening (and the luncheon) were: Doug May (Sr. Show Producer), Jim Heffelfinger (Producer), Bob Owens (Audio Director), Fran Soeder (Show Director), James Joy (Scenic design), John Haupt (Lighting design), and Tylor Weimer (Special FX design).