In this episode of Synergy Loves Company, host Eric jumps into the connections between Disney and Las Vegas. From exploring the Disney-like spaces in Las Vegas to examining the influence of Disney on the city's resorts and attractions, Eric uncovers the surprising ties between the two entertainment giants. He discusses the Disney connections in various Las Vegas resorts, the intertwining of MGM and Disney history, and the impact of Disney personnel, including Kenny Ortega and Michael Curry, on major Las Vegas attractions. Look out for his recommendation for the newest Themed Entertainment space setting the bar for the future. Join Eric as he unravels the fascinating links between Disney and Las Vegas! Thanks for listening to Synergy Loves Company: How Disney Connects to Everything.
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00:10 --> 00:53 We have this coterie of rich franchises. The company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative, innovative kind of entertainment possible. It's what they hope to do here to really develop something that's more than an entertainment enterprise. It's something that contributes many other ways.
00:59 --> 26:18 Hey, this is Synergy, love's company, where we explore, explore how Disney connects to everything. Because you don't have to be at the Disney parks to experience the magic every day. I'm Eric and thank you so much for tuning in to listen or watch because first things first, I got a little announcement. Some synergy loves company news. The show has been on YouTube for a while. That's not the news. But originally it was just little video clips of my interviews. I'm excited to announce now that Synergy Loves Company has a full video version of each episode. There's a video version of my last two interview episodes. The one where I talked to Kristen Carr about Disneyland and the one where I talked about Disney legends with Jamie Hecker. There are even video versions of the solo ones now, like this one that you're listening to so you could go and watch it. Now, if you rather would watch than listen, you can do that. Alright, let's get back into talking about Disney and how it connects to something else. And today I want to get back into my recent trip. So before I went on my trip, I talked all about Disneyland with Kristen Carr. After I came back, I talked about the Warner Brothers studio tour. Why didn't I talk about Disneyland yet? Because I have another trip coming up this summer and I kind of want to talk about Disneyland and Disney world together after I come back from Walt Disney World. But that wasn't my whole vacation. Over spring break, I had more vacation than just Disneyland. Los Angeles. The Warner Brothers tour. We took a road trip and went to Las Vegas. And Las Vegas is stocked full of Disney, if you know where to look. Disneyland was built on an orange grove in the middle of nowhere. Walt Disney World was built on a swamp in the middle of nowhere. And in both cases, the presence of a Disney theme park put the cities of Anaheim and Orlando on the map. Major tourist destinations. It was the draw of these massive resort complexes, their theme parks, hotels, shopping, leisure activities that made millions over the years. Want to vacation in these cities that were previously in the middle of nowhere. Building a leisure destination in the middle of nowhere was not a Disney invention. In the desert of Nevada, in the middle of nowhere, a small town that used to be a water stop for wagon trains, decided to take a big leap in the 1930s, when gambling became legal again in the state of Nevada. Small casinos clumped together downtown on Fremont street. And later, in the forties and fifties, the bigger and bigger casino resorts were built along Las Vegas Boulevard. These massive resort complexes, their theme parks, hotels, shopping, leisure activities, and in the case of Vegas casinos, made millions over the years. Want to vacation in this city that was previously in the middle of nowhere? My family was drawn to Las Vegas as a stop on our spring break trip, just because it's something to see. After we visited California, we made a little road trip all the way from La out to Las Vegas. We went from Disneyland to Las Vegas. And I couldn't help but notice that Las Vegas has a lot of Disney feeling spaces. I'll just go through a few of them right now. Those Disney feeling spaces, the forum shops at Caesar's palace, makes you feel like you're shopping outdoors in ancient Greece. And at the far end, there's this massive Atlantis themed animatronic show. And even walking down the Strip, some of the casino resorts themselves feel like extended Epcot world showcase pavilions. The Paris has a massive Eiffel tower at the front, and the Venetian has a replica of the campanile from St Mark's square, just like the one at the Italy pavilion in Epcot. And then there's the inside of the Venetian. A canal runs right through it, and gondoliers will give you a boat ride down the canal. It's amazing. And that's just a few of them. There's so much more that feels Disney, and some have more direct Disney connections. That's why we're here, though, right, to see how Disney connects to Las Vegas. So let's start out with a mini list of some things I saw when I was in Las Vegas. Things that are staples of Las Vegas, that are also staples of Disney parks and resorts. An exact one for one comparison. So here we go. Las Vegas and Disney Staples. Number one, Las Vegas has soarin. Well, not exactly, but it kind of does. I have seen these popping up all over in different tourist destinations. The company is called flyover, and they make attractions that look exactly like Soarin, and they let you fly over different locations around the area that you're in, kind of like Soarin over California. And the brains behind flyover Las Vegas and the rest of them is Rick Roth's child, the Disney imagineer who was the original brains behind Soarin. So it really is kind of soarin. Number two, you can drink your way around the world, just like at Disney Springs. There's a massive Coca Cola store where you can buy merch and visit their soda fountain. And of course, there's Beverly, just like at Disney Springs. And more famously, at Club Cool and Epcot, you can taste coke products from around the world. And there, too, in Vegas, you could get a sampling of everyone's love to hate it. Beverly. Number three. In Vegas, you could get a sandwich from the Earl, just like Disney Springs in downtown Disney's iconic Earl of sandwich, there is another location just off the casino floor. I walked right past it in season Palace. I know Earl of Sandwich is a chain, but there are not a lot of locations. And it's a restaurant that a lot of us associate with Disney. Number four, this one's more. One that Disney took from Vegas. Vegas is known for its Cirque du Soleil shows. There are currently six to choose from on the Las Vegas Strip, and Disney's got one of them, too. Drawn to life is the newest cirque show, and it has taken up residence at Disney Springs. Drawn to life was tailor made for and themed to Disney animations. So it makes sense that that's the one at Disney Springs. But there's so many of them in Las Vegas. All right, so far on the list, the first four, that was a lot from Disney Springs. Let's start to go in some other directions. Number five, Las Vegas is known for its conventions. You know, those trade shows. There was a convention center of varying sizes in practically every Las Vegas resort we entered. And Disney has its share of convention centers, too. They're both kind of convention destinations. At Walt Disney World, there are five resort convention spaces. Coronado Springs Yacht and Beach share one boardwalk, the contemporary and the grand Floridian. And Disneyland Resort is just across the street from the Anaheim Convention center, where Disney holds its own giant convention with D 23. Interesting fact, too. Disney actually made first contact with inventors hall of Fame imagineer Lanny Smoot at a convention for the National association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas. He was showing off a really cool new camera system he invented that allowed viewers to control the direction of the camera. And Disney wanted it for their guests to be able to maybe control cameras to view animals, maybe at a theme park they were developing at the time. And Smoot was practically hired on the spot for his technology. Number six, last but not least, Las Vegas has a monorail. The Las Vegas monorail runs behind the resorts and casinos on the east side of the Strip. It connects the Sahara all the way to the MGM grand. And if that doesn't mean much to you, just know that it pretty much goes the entirety of the Las Vegas Strip. But it's not just any old monorail. When the Las Vegas monorail opened in 1995, it needed trains for its one rail track. And they got a good deal on some secondhand mark four monorail trains from Walt Disney World. The Vegas monorail used to be the original Walt Disney World monorail, but it isn't that way today, actually. Now both Walt Disney World and Las Vegas are running Mark six models of the monorail, and both were manufactured by Bombardier of Canada. So now the monorails are like siblings, I guess. Speaking of the MGM grand, where the monorail makes its most southern stop, we stayed at an MGM resort, and it really feels like MGM owns half the Strip. And if you're thinking, wait, MGM. Yes, it's that MGM. Well, kind of. Back in the 1960s, billionaire investor Kirk Kirkorian was just a millionaire investor, and he was buying up property in Las Vegas. Very lucrative. Many of his purchases would become what we know now as the Las Vegas Strip. In 1969, he turned his money toward Hollywood and he bought a majority stake in the MGM film studios and later became their board chairman. And in a moment of synergy, in 1973, he opened a brand new casino in Las Vegas and named it the MGM grand. After his newest acquisition, this original MGM grand experienced a tragic fire in 1980. By 1989, Kirkorian was ready to start rebuilding a new, even more synergistic MGM grand hotel in a new location on the Las Vegas Strip. This one would be green like a real life emerald city from the MGM classic Wizard of Oz. The resort would also be mostly themed to the wizard of Oz. When it opened in 1993, it had a giant wizard of Oz attraction with animatronics of Dorothy the Tin man, the cowardly lion and the scarecrow right in the center of the casino floor. It attracted a lot of families, but MGM didn't really want the kids to be in their casino. They wanted the kids and the families to be in the theme park in the back of the casino resort. That's right. MGM Grand Adventures. Their theme park was located just behind the MGM grand casino off the Strip. And it had a movie studio theme, and it featured references to popular films from the MGM film library. Wait a minute. MGM Studios park, movie studio theming, wizard of Oz, animatronics. This all sounds familiar. In fact, this was a point of contention in 1985, before MGM Grand Adventures was even thought about, Disney licensed the theme park rights to the MGM film library for its upcoming third gate in Florida. Disney's MGM Studios. I still pretty much call it MGM Studios. Over time, Kirkorian had become disinterested in the film studio, and in the eighties, he was not really involved in the decisions there. He sold off his shares of the film studio, and he was selling off the casino as well. So when MGM resorts went to make their theme park in the early nineties, they were horrified to discover that they didn't have the rights to the film library. The previous regime had given up the rights to Disney. After court proceedings, Disney came out on top, but MGM made it really difficult for them to continue using the MGM IP. And when the contract ran out, they of course, did not renew Disney's license. So now we have Disney's Hollywood studios instead of MGM Studios. If you're interested in the MGM adventure theme park, I want to direct you to friends of the show. Matt and Kevin at the 30, 28. A few years back, they did a whole episode on MGM Adventures, ride and fall and all that it had to offer. And it's probably the most comprehensive overview of the park I've heard. So go ahead and listen to that after this. The reason MGM wanted a theme park in the first place was that in the late eighties and early nineties, Las Vegas was becoming more family friendly. Some in the press were even calling it Disney five. And the guy behind the disneyfication of Las Vegas was Steve Wynn. Let's pump the brakes. Before we go any further, I do want to mention that in 2018, Steve Wynn stepped down from his company, Wynn Resorts, after sexual misconduct accusations he has not officially admitted to them, but he did step down and pay hefty settlements to make these cases go away. So, yeah, they did base the evil casino owner, Terry Benedict from oceans eleven off of him. Definite villain material. Despite all of this, when we talk about Disney and Las Vegas, we do have to talk about Steve Wynn. And I'm not trying to glorify him or anything. I'm just trying to give you the history. At the same time that Kirkorian was diversifying his holdings beyond Las Vegas and into Hollywood, Steve Wynn was learning the Vegas casino resort business. And by 1989, he opened his first Mega casino resort, the Mirage. Steve Wynn was a fan of the Disney parks. He understood the vacation destination appeal, and he appreciated the larger than life, but detailed theming, and he often pulled in Disney personnel to make it happen. In his own work, the Mirage resort was the first to put up some non traditional attractions on the Las Vegas Strip. It was a trendsetter for the new family friendly Las Vegas. It featured animal habitats with dolphins and tigers, a lush oasis like indoor garden. It's supposed to be a mirage in the middle of a desert, you know. And out front, there was a giant volcano that erupted every night with a spectacular free show to draw in potential visitors. Like a weenie. Like the weenies in the Disney parks. Speaking of trend setting, the Mirage was the first resort to feature a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas. The Mirage launched the building boom of the Las Vegas Strip, the one that led to the new MGM grand. But Wynn didn't stop there. Even though the Mirage was one of the biggest hotels in the world when it was built, Wynn built another resort right next door to expand its reach. That resort was Treasure Island. Treasure Island, a pirate themed resort. That does sound pretty Disney. Treasure island was Disney's first live action film, and the Pirates of the Caribbean is still one of the most popular theme park rides. Pirates of the Caribbean was actually the inspiration behind Treasure Island's resort outdoor weenie show experience to draw people in. Where the Mirage had a volcano, Treasure island had a pirate show with life size pirate ships, complete with a crew in each one and an all out swashbuckling battle. It was called the battle of Buccaneer Bay, and it took place in a giant lagoon out in front of the casino. And to make it more Disney, Disney legend Bob Gurr was the one tasked with making the ship sail across the lagoon. Bob Gurr had done so many ride vehicles for Disney that he would be the person you would want to make your attraction move. There was actually a track underwater that the ships ran along, not unlike the riverboats on both coasts at Disneyland and Disney World and the sailing ship Columbia in Disneyland. But the difference is Bob's design features a mechanism that makes the losing ship sink, something you wouldn't want to happen on the rivers of America. Then the mirage and Treasure island were sold to MGM grand in the early two thousands. I told you, MGM seemed like they were taking over the whole strip. And they changed the battle of Buccaneer Bay to be less family friendly. It was a new show they called the Sirens of Ti, and they leaned into more sex appeal. The sirens would lure a pirate crew in with their pussycat doll style, girl group songs and dancing. But even though it shed its family friendly image, the show still had Disney fingerprints all over it. Another Disney legend, Kenny Ortega, choreographed and directed the show for Disney. You might know Kenny Ortega from his work on newsies. Hocus Pocus, high school musical, all of them. And the descendants, like I mentioned, the Mirage and Treasure island were sold to MGM Grand Resorts. But there was one more resort that was part of that deal. The Bellagio was built in 1998, just two years before it was sold to MGM. And its theme is total opulence. The super luxury high end theming meant it featured things like art galleries, a conservatory, and an indoor botanical gardens. And once again, there was an outdoor weenie show to draw people in. The famous Bellagio fountain. These fountains dance. They are choreographed to spray and sway in time with the music. And the Bellagio fountain has its own Disney connection. The designer of the fountain, water entertainment technologies, or wet, is known for making water do impressive, unthinkable things. And that's because former imagineer Mark Fuller started his company after working on Epcot back before it opened in 1982. After conquering the leapfrog laminar flow fountains outside of the imagination pavilion, Fuller continued to innovate water, which eventually led him to the Bellagio. But wait, there's more. Kenny Ortega. Yep. That same Kenny Ortega choreographed and directed the fountains for real. Ortega doesn't just work with human actors and dancers. He directs and choreographs h two o. Steve Wynn wasn't done making massive casinos and bringing on more Disney connections. His next project was the win, named after him, but also a pun for Las Vegas. Well, kinda. Well, the house always wins. And he owns the house, so I guess it works for the winner. The major free show is really not a weenie. It's actually not visible from the street, though. It's right there on the strip. The Lake of Dreams show is kind of a thesis statement on all of the resort entertainment that he created for the mirage, Treasure island, and Bellagio combined. The lake itself is surrounded by lush vegetation and it features choreographed fountains. But there are also projections in larger than life practical set pieces as well. Let's get to the Disney connection. Otherwise, I wouldn't even mention it. Number one. Surprise, surprise. Guess who's back. Kenny Ortega is back on board as the director and choreographer. He does direct water, but here's a new one. Michael Curry designs created a gigantic robot tree frog puppet to be used in the show. We're talking huge and it towers over the Lake of Dreams. But you may know Michael Curry and his designs from Disney on Broadway. He, along with Julie Taymor, created the puppets for Broadway's the Lion King. This is what helped put him on the map more recently, on Broadway, Michael Curry designs helped create the Sven and olaf puppets for Frozen on Broadway. In the parks, he helped design the puppets in finding Nemo the musical at Animal Kingdom. And he also had a hand in designing the floating set pieces for the short lived rivers of light at Disney's animal kingdom. So there you have it. There's a bunch of Disney connections in Las Vegas. So many that we walked past, so many that I talked about. I didn't even really talk about our trip. I'll just tell you this, we had a great time. It was a little different being in Las Vegas with kids. I hadn't been there in ten years, so a lot had changed, but a lot was still the same old, same old Las Vegas. Um, I definitely, uh, you know, different experience going with the family. But I do have to tell you one more thing about Vegas that felt kind of Disney. I have to talk about the first thing we did when we got to Las Vegas, which was visit Meow's Omega Mart. Meow is an artist collective, and Omega Mart is technically an art installment, but it's really more like an interactive theme park land. I'm pretty sure this is the future of themed entertainment. Omega Mart is located in area 15, and it kind of looks like if there was a blade Runner themed nightclub at Pleasure island, if I could put it in Disney terms, I guess. But Omegamart itself is really this strange grocery store with kind of off looking products, some of which you can buy right off the shelves. But the further you go into it, you uncover a story that involves a giant corporation and portals into another dimension. I don't know that I got even, like, the tip of the iceberg of what was really going on there. But there's a deep story happening and the whole experience was just so cool. And I would highly recommend it, especially if you're a Disney Parks fan and you love that themed entertainment. So if you do get the chance to visit Las Vegas, definitely go check out Meow Wolf's Omega Martin. But that's it for today. Thanks for listening into this episode or maybe even watching. I love Las Vegas and it shares a similar energy to what I love about the Disney parks. So I definitely had a great time looking at Las Vegas connections to Disney. And if you enjoyed this episode and you want some more, make sure you subscribe or follow in your podcasting app so you don't miss it. And if you've been enjoying exploring the world through a Disney lens with me on synergy Loves company, there are a few ways that you could support the show first. You can find me on social media. I'm on instagram and threadsynergy lovescompany. Come find me. Say hi. Next if you know someone else who loves Disney just as much as you do, I'd love it if you'd share the show. Just tell them to visit synergylovescompany.com and we can make our community so much bigger and more connected. And remember, this show is listener supported. There's no sponsors. It's just you and me. And if you feel like you get value from the show and you want to give some back, you can donate on Ko fi. K o f I on Ko fi. You can make a donation to buy me a cup of coffee. Help me keep going, help me keep the show going. Help me keep the show hosted, and help me continue making more great episodes like this. And if you look in the show description or go to synergylovescompany.com, you'll find a link to my Ko fi page where you could donate to give back to the show. No matter how you decide to support the show, your support means the world to me. Thank you. That's all for today. Thanks for exploring Disney's connections with me. And until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.