Mouse Extra

Scott Powers of the Orlando Sentinel has an article this morning that officially confirms a lengthy delay in the opening of the new Monsters, Inc. The Laugh Floor Comedy Club in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom.  In the article he points out that the passholder previews are also going to be delayed…

The Laugh Floor Comedy Club was slated to have passholder previews, then a grand opening, in January. But now those won’t happen until sometime in the spring…

I am sorry that I won’t be able to attend the previews, and I am also a little disappointed because I was coincidentally going to be in the Magic Kingdom for the January preview for Disney Vacation Club members, but it is much more important that they get this right.

Mr. Powers also includes a conversation he had with a guest who attended an early preview.  What the guest says confirms something I wrote in a previous article.  No matter how exciting the technology and themes may be, it will buckle under the pressure of bad jokes…

Chris Eliopoulos, who was in one test audience, said he thought the overall structure was sound and the crowd found the technology exciting, but the humor was a bit flat and the jokes didn’t hit their marks. However, Eliopoulos, 39, of New Jersey, himself a humor writer and cartoonist, respectfully pointed out that humor is hard work.

“Humor that is funny for all ages is even harder,” he conceded.

We all know what the Imagineers can do.  We all have laughed at the little jokes here and there that dot the attractions of Walt Disney World.  But this is entirely different.  This is not about engineering, technology or realism.  It’s about being funny, and we all know how hard that can be sometimes.