Theme Park Scope

Confession time again (I’m sensing a pattern with myself, honestly): I have a genuinely embarrassing amount of nostalgia for the old Animation Academy.

I am not an artist. I drew a Genie once that looked like a thumb with a beard. I went back the next year and drew him again, slightly better, still thumb-adjacent. There was something about sitting in that room, actual pencil in hand, that felt like a real peek behind the curtain.

So when Disney dropped its full first-look at The Magic of Disney Animation, opening September 14 at Hollywood Studios, I did what any reasonable person would do and read the entire thing twice, mostly hunting for whether any piece of that old room survived. (Spoiler: it did. We’ll get there.)

Before you even get to the building with the Sorcerer Hat on top, the entire Animation Courtyard around it has been redone to feel like the real Walt Disney Animation Studios lot in Burbank…the actual campus that inspired the Emmy-winning short Once Upon A Studio, which is basically the spiritual blueprint for this whole project. The outdoor space now includes details like Pluto’s Corner, and it’s genuinely built as a hangout: somewhere for families to play, relax, and snack under actual trees, with character surprises tucked into the branches and grass if you bother to look up instead of just power-walking to the next ride.

The Studio Theater next door still runs “The Little Mermaid — A Musical Adventure,” and the neighboring soundstage now houses “Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live!,” which is already open. It’s a full sing-and-dance show where Mickey and Minnie kick off a party, realize their friends have wandered off, and turn the whole thing into an audience-assisted search mission until Goofy, Daisy, and Pluto show back up. If you’ve got a Disney Jr.-aged kid in tow, that’s a freebie worth building into the day even before you set foot in the animation building itself.

Here’s the detail that actually got me: Disney says this is the first time at Walt Disney World that all 64 Disney Animation feature films are represented somewhere in one space. That’s not a “spot five hidden Mickeys” level of Easter egg hunt.That’s a genuine excuse to walk through slowly.

Some of what’s confirmed so far:

• A Lost and Found Department hanging overhead in the reception area, stocked with the Map Sphere from Treasure Planet, Eeyore’s tail, a vase depicting Hercules fighting the Hydra, and the Sundrop Flower from Tangled — with Figaro perched above it all, tail flicking, looking like he’s personally claimed a few items as his own
• A chandelier of paintbrushes, each one individually named after a real member of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ actual Ink and Paint Department…a small detail, but a genuinely lovely way to credit people who don’t usually get their names on anything guests see
• Tilework in the space matching the real lobby tile of the Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank
• Pencil sketches of deep-cut characters like Oliver from Oliver & Company, Mr. Toad from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and Tod and Copper from The Fox and the Hound
• Maquettes (the small reference sculptures animators use to study a character from every angle) of a young Tarzan and Taffyta Muttonfudge from Wreck-It Ralph, tucked around “Off the Page!”
• A gallery called Treasures Untold, packed with actual keepsakes: Jiminy Cricket’s suit and gold star pin, a box of Kanine Krunchies from 101 Dalmatians, Lilo’s doll Scrump, the Aristocats’ collars, and Kuzco’s crown and earrings

And then there’s the detail I was fishing for: the Animator’s Office, styled to look like an animator just stepped away from their desk — except the desk itself isn’t a prop built to look old. Disney says it’s the actual, original animation desk preserved from the old Animation Academy at Hollywood Studios. There’s a Moana cap sitting on it, plus a mini maquette and a scattering of other personal keepsakes, but that desk is doing a lot of quiet emotional work for anyone who took a class at the old one. It’s a genuinely nice way to keep a physical thread running between the two versions of this space instead of just wiping the slate clean.

Drawn to Wonderland

For younger kids, “Drawn to Wonderland” is an indoor playground built around Disney Legend Mary Blair’s original concept art for Alice in Wonderland — the Mad Tea Party, the Mad Hatter’s house, the Queen of Hearts’ rose garden, and the Cheshire Cat’s Tulgey Wood, all rendered in Blair’s bold colors and slightly askew shapes.

It’s designed purely for active play: climbing, wandering, letting kids burn off energy while parents get a minute to sit down without actually leaving the themed space. Straightforward, but Hollywood Studios has needed something like this for a while.

Off the Page!

“Off the Page!” is the meet-and-greet piece, and each set is staged as a specific animation department:

• Mulan in Story, posed in front of an oversized storyboard panel
• Rapunzel in Layout, set against a multiplane-camera-style backdrop with layered painted cels
• Chip ‘n’ Dale in Hand-Drawn Animation
• Donald and Daisy in Computer Animation
• Goofy in Lighting
• Stitch in Effects

Dan Abraham, the Walt Disney Animation Studios director and co-director of Once Upon a Studio, put it simply: this building used to be a working animation studio that inspired plenty of people to actually become animators, and the hope is this new version does the same for the next generation.

It’s a nice sentiment, and tying each character to a real department they’d theoretically “work” in gives the meet-and-greet more texture than a generic backdrop would.

Olaf Draws!

This is the one that replaces the old Animation Academy format, and it turns out Disney put more thought into who’s actually teaching the class than I expected. Olaf (now an all-new Audio-Animatronics figure) sits at an animator’s desk in a scene pulled straight from one of his moments in Once Upon A Studio, joyfully discovering how to draw. Around him: a copy of The Illusion of Life (the legendary animation book by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston), vintage VHS tapes, character maquettes, and nostalgic toys, including a Black Cauldron figurine. Even the marquee outside has a sketch Olaf apparently drew himself, as a tribute to Jungle Cruise.

The actual teaching still comes from real Disney artists, just through recorded segments instead of someone standing in the room live. And the pairings are genuinely well thought out…you’re not just drawing a random character, you’re drawing it “with” the artist who actually worked on it:

• Mickey Mouse, with Dan Abraham (Once Upon A Studio, Baymax!)
• Minnie Mouse, with Hyun Min Lee (Frozen 2, The Princess and the Frog)
• Donald Duck, with Austin Traylor (Once Upon A Studio, Moana 2)
• Genie, with Eric Goldberg (Aladdin, Hercules)
• Moana, with Samantha Vilfort (Encanto, Zootopia 2)
• Stitch, with Fawn Veerasunthorn (Wish, Raya and the Last Dragon)
• Olaf, with Trent Correy (Once Upon A Studio, Frozen 3)
• Ursula, with Michael Woodside (Big Hero 6, Encanto)
• Judy Hopps & Nick Wilde, with Byron Howard (Zootopia, Zootopia 2)

That’s a legitimately stacked roster of working Disney animators and directors, which softens my thumb-Genie nostalgia more than I expected going in. Josh Gad recorded new dialogue for the experience specifically, saying he loves that a new generation of kids can dream about becoming animators and actually start that journey right there on the lot. It’s not a live artist in the room anymore, but it’s not nothing, either.

Once Upon A Studio Theater and the Enchanted Art Gallery

The Once Upon A Studio Theater screens the Emmy-winning short that started this whole project, with enhanced effects added on top…characters appear to pop up within artwork along the theater walls while the film plays, which is a nice way to make a short you may have already streamed at home feel worth watching again in person.

Next to it, the enchanted art gallery looks like a normal curated collection of Disney Animation artwork at first glance, until, with a little pixie dust, characters spring into brand-new animations made specifically for this space. It’s a quieter stop, but a clever one if you like lingering rather than rushing to the next photo op.

Is It Worth Your Time on September 14?

Between the sheer density of Easter eggs (all 64 films, genuinely), the artist pairings in Olaf Draws!, and that preserved Animation Academy desk sitting quietly in the corner of the Animator’s Office, this feels like Disney actually sweated the details here instead of just slapping a new coat of paint on Animation Courtyard. It’s not a thrill ride, and it’s not trying to be…it’s a slow-walk, look-closely kind of space, which is exactly the kind of thing Hollywood Studios has been missing between its bigger-ticket attractions. If you’re the type who reads restaurant menus for fun or actually stops to read the queue plaques, block out extra time here. You’re going to need it.

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