Pixar Place

Nowhere else are the growing pains more apparent.

When the park opened, only trams used Mickey Avenue. Once the crowds surged and stuck, it was hastily made walkable. The utility of this street was always tenuous at best. Reroutings and revisions to the Backlot Tour and its amputated second half, Backstage Pass, moved both entrances to the far end. It was the quickest route to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set Adventure. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Play It! didn’t pack ‘em in for long. Toy Story Midway Mania! finally gave the former backstage road a pulse, but at the cost of making both sides of Mickey Avenue mostly show building.

Now that the Midway queue reroutes to Toy Story Land and the rechristened Pixar Place ends past the former Midway entrance, there’s very little room to maneuver.

The Incredibles overlay was only designed to last so long. Once it goes, all that’s left is a meet-and-greet space and a façade that looks strangely like Pixar’s Emeryville studio. It’s a dead-end pinched between Midway and Runaway Railway. The space between it and Galaxy’s Edge is access road.

What will become of it?

What can become of it?

The last hot rumors pointed to a Monsters Inc. door coaster in the soundstage now occupied by Midway’s third track. Now there’s barely room for a store.

A more permanent makeover, possibly to another Pixar franchise, seems the only course of action short of closing it off altogether. It’s the least exciting possibility in the park, but the narrow canvas only makes it more curious.

What to do with one of Hollywood Studios’ last lame ducks?

Animation Courtyard

Take no prisoners, probably.

The other sore thumb of Disney’s Hollywood Studios can’t be much longer for this world. Back in 1989, the studio arches were more than decorative. They marked the blurry line between fiction and fact. On one side, the park was mostly make-believe. On the other, it was the stuff movies are made of. The original, multi-hour Backlot Tour boarded next to the Magic of Disney Animation building. This little cul-de-sac put the Studios in Disney-MGM Studios.

Now it’s a ghost town.

The Magic of Disney Animation, long a shell of its former self, was put out of its misery in 2015 and replaced with a Star Wars preview center. As the bronze medalist attraction from a galaxy far, far away, Star Wars Launch Bay was doomed from the start. It’s now a mask-free rest area.

The Voyage of the Little Mermaid remains dark after the pandemic. Some missing billboards on its soundstage scared up reports of its permanent closure, but Disney corrected the move as a routine refurbishment. What’s less convincing is the lack of social distancing markers in the unused queue, something that all other park theaters have even if they won’t be operating any time soon.

The Disney Junior show has been whittled down to a 10-minute Play & Dance experience to burn off some socially distanced energy. It’s a far cry from programs past, but might bounce back into something more substantial as pandemic protocol eases up. There’s not much entertainment at the Studios for the littlest visitors, but the recently added Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy may be enough to make this expendable.

Animation Courtyard, square foot for square foot, is the most underutilized land in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Like Echo Lake, it’s only a matter of time. They won’t leave completely undisguised soundstages forever.

But the available acreage is misleading.

The Animation complex is a sprawl, but one side is bordered by office space and the other by a parking lot, both necessary. Voyage of the Little Mermaid and Walt Disney Presents, if included, are squished against a different parking lot. The Disney Junior building is connected to the Hollywood Brown Derby, a leftover of its time as the Soundstage Restaurant.

One of the most wishfully speculated expansions, a connection between Animation Courtyard and the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster plaza, would require a complete overhaul of backstage infrastructure. It’s not out of the question, but it’s no coincidence the administrative buildings are already cornered.

The convenience of Cars Land is not lost on anyone who’s seen it. To date, it hasn’t been replicated, but makes sense as that unnamed IP. Echo Lake offers more room. Animation Courtyard offers more thematic consistency, with Toy Story Land and Pixar Place just down the road. But as it stands, unless something gives, it’s not even big enough to hold Radiator Springs Racers.

This piece of Disney-MGM Studios history is on its last legs, but it’ll take time to greenlight a reasonable replacement. Until then, enjoy the art deco while you can.