In this episode of Synergy Loves Company, Eric dives into the connections between The King of Pop Michael Jackson and Disney. Starting from Michael's early days with the Jackson 5 and their cover of "Zip A Dee Doo Dah," to their appearance on Sandy in Disneyland, and Michael's solo career participation in Disneyland's 25th and 30th anniversaries. Discover how Michael's admiration for Disney influenced his life, including his performances, like "When You Wish Upon A Star," and his secret hotel suite at the Royal Plaza. Learn about Michael's ultimate Disney collaboration—the creation of Captain EO, a 3D in-park movie with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, and how it became a part of Disney Parks history. The episode also covers Michael's contributions to DTV, his uncredited cameo in The Simpsons, and his continuous connection to Disney until his passing. Next time, Eric will explore the enigmatic Disney connections of Prince. Make sure to subscribe and stay tuned! Thanks for enjoying Synergy Loves Company: How Disney Connects to Everything.
Check out Episode 1 of this miniseries: Madonna and Disney https://synergylovescompany.com/episode/madonna-and-disney
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00:04 --> 22:16 Synergy loves company. 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 kind of entertainment possible. It's what we hope to do here to really develop something that, well, it's just more than an entertainment enterprise. It's something that contributes in many other ways. Hey, this is Synergy Loves company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything because there's so much magic out there beyond the Disney parks. So let's discover some together. I'm Eric and we are right smack dab in the middle of our 1980s pop trinity trilogy of episodes about the biggest pop stars of the 1980s and how they connect to Disney. If you missed the last episode, we took some time to celebrate Madonna and her roles in Disney projects, as well as how Disney inspired Madonna in her own work. Check it out after this one if you haven't listened yet. But you know what we're here for today, right? We're going to be starting something on the biggest Disney fan of the bunch, the king of Pop, Michael Jackson. So let's moonwalk into this episode of the miniseries with Michael Jackson and Disney. Ladies and gentlemen, this is synergy loves company. Michael Jackson was the biggest international pop star in the 1980s. Other artists on MTV were trying to keep keep up with his cinematic music video, short films. His celebrity status was exploding and he was the biggest name in entertainment with millions of adoring fans across the world buying his records and copying his iconic dance moves. While the world was getting their entertainment from Michael Jackson, he was getting his own entertainment from Disney. The king of Pop was a huge Disney fan and he understood how important storytelling was in entertainment. He studied Disney movies and theme parks and even the life of Walt Disney. He was a huge fan of Walt Disney. His brothers remembered that when they were on tour, Michael Jackson would read biographies of Walt Disney and any information he could find about Disneyland, Disney movies and Walt Disney. Today on Synergy Loves company, we'll remember the times Michael Jackson connected to Disney. Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana on August 29, 1958. Just like Madonna, Michael was a Great Lakes region northern midwesterner born in August of 1958. What are the odds of that? Michael was born into a big family, a big musical family. And his dad, Joe Jackson, had dollar signs in his eyes when he saw his sons performing together. They were great. And little Michael would be the ideal cute frontman boy for a family band. The Jackson five were a family boy band. Before boy bands were a thing. Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael Jackson. If this were 30 to 40 years later, they would probably have found themselves on the Disney Channel, at least on one of those Disney mania cds doing a Disney cover. Oh, wait a minute. Oh, no, they weren't on a Disney Mania CD. Sorry about that. But they did have a big Disney cover. In 1969, the Jackson Five released their first album with Motown, and they were pretty new on the scene, pretty much unknown. So their album was titled Diana Ross presents the Jackson Five. Diana Ross was a bona fide star at this time, so that would get them some attention. Could you imagine today if it was like Beyonce Presents or Taylor Swift presents, some random band you never heard of? It would still sell a ton of records. Anyway, the first track on that first album is the Jackson Five's cover of Zippity Doo Dahdeh. Okay, elephant in the room. Zippity Doo Dah is a song from the song of the south. And recently Disney has been trying to distance themselves from this song and that movie and everything. But there was a time when that song was synonymous with Disney. And the world was introduced to the Jacksons with that Disney song by the Jackson Five. Putting this as their debut song. On their debut album, they were announcing to the world that they were a family band of children with a family friendly, Disney like sensibility. And it worked. We'll draw you in with Diana Ross and then hit you with some cute kids singing Disney songs. The Jackson Five was big stars among tweens. Before tweens were even a thing, they really could have had their own Jonas style Disney Channel show, and they practically did. The Jackson Five had a cartoon show on Saturday mornings. Michael Jackson is the only one of our eighties pop trinity to be a regular animated character, not a Disney one. But it did something. The Jackson Five show was made by Rankin Bass, the same studio that brought us Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer and those other stop motion holiday specials. Each episode featured the Jackson brothers on different adventures related to being famous musicians. Sometimes they were touring, sometimes they had episodes that were spoofs on fairy tales, Cinderella, or their own version of the wizard of Oz. What's weird though, is that the show didn't use the actual voices of the Jackson's. They had other voice actors do all of the voices. Because of this, though, Michael Jackson actually loved watching the show week to week to see what he was up to on the show. This time, in addition to voice actors doing the Jackson brothers, other famous faces were voiced by different voice actors Disney legend Paul Freeze, the ghost host, did the voice of Jackson five producer and Motown mogul Barry Gordy. But all of that was the Jackson Five. We got to get into Michael Jackson's solo career and let's not lose sight of one thing. It was all started by a rat. Wait a. I thought it was supposed to say mouse. No, that's Walt Disney. Michael Jackson's solo career was all started with a rat. Michael Jackson's first big solo single was Ben from the horror movie of the same name. The song and the movie are both about a boy who befriends a pleasant little rat named Ben who wreaks havoc across the city at night with a street gang full of rats. It was a sequel to Willard, another rat havoc movie. Anyways, Michael Jackson's solo career was actually running concurrently to the Jackson Fives, and he was pretty much the lead singer of the Jackson five. That's a little strange. It would be like if Justin Timberlake was doing his solo stuff while he was still touring and performing with NSYNC. The two were muddled together for a while, but we'll sort that out in a little bit. Let's get to the Disney parks. In 1974, the Jackson Five performed as part of Sandy in Disneyland. It was a CB's tv special where seventies comedian Sandy Duncan explored Disneyland, meeting other celebrities along the way. The Jackson Five were dressed as sailors, with Michael taking the role of captain aboard the sailing ship Columbia. They perform a medley of ABC and I want you back. Hey, I want you back was used in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, remember? And it's one of the songs you could get on Guardians of the Galaxy mission breakout at California Adventure. Anyways, Michael Jackson loved exploring the parks and when he did performances like this for tv, he often wanted to go off and ride the attractions when he was between takes. He would do this even more later in 1980 when he once again starred in a Disney special, this time solo. In fact, by 1980, Michael Jackson was really on his way to being a solo star, bigger than the Jackson five. In the 1980 tv special, Kraft salutes Disneyland's 25th anniversary, Michael Jackson returned to Disneyland to perform when you wish upon a star as well as ease on down the road from the Wiz. He was the scarecrow in that one. Disney just loved celebrating milestone anniversaries with Michael Jackson in the 1980s. Michael loved Disney and Disney knew that Michael loved the parks. So in 1985, for Disneyland's 30th anniversary, they had a walk around goofy character dressed as Michael Jackson with the glove and all. And Michael Jackson actually got to meet the goofy Michael Jackson version. But these weren't the only times that Michael went to the parks. Oh, no. He went any chance he got, which was hard because people would recognize him. He was the biggest pop star in the world in the 1980s. He had to find some clever ways to get the Disney parks experience without getting noticed. There were some rumors that he had built some sort of version of Pirates of the Caribbean in his living room. And then there's the Neverland ranch. He tried to make his own version of Disneyland at his home. His home estate was giant, and it was named after Peter Pan's Neverland. And it had an amusement park and an entryway inspired by, or probably stolen from Disneyland. And Michael Jackson's giant Disney memorabilia collection was there in Neverland. But building his own stand in for the parks did not stop him from going to the parks. Still, sometimes he went in disguise. Sometimes he went when the parks were closed. Disneyland was easy because he lived in southern California. After his family broke it big, they got the heck out of Gary, Indiana. Walt Disney World, though, that was harder. He needed a place to stay when he was in town, and he wanted to stay at the contemporary. But it was all booked, like, for real. They couldn't even accommodate Michael, the king of Pop Jackson. Anyway, he called around and he found a place to stay at the Hotel Royal Plaza over on Hotel Plaza Boulevard. They gave him the big penthouse suite, and he actually really loved it. He kept going back so much so that the Hotel Royal Plaza let him decorate the suite. And they named it the Michael Jackson suite. And what's crazy is if he wasn't staying there, guests could book the Michael Jackson suite at the Hotel Royal Plaza. The hotel building is actually still there, but it's not the Royal Plaza anymore. And there's not a Michael Jackson suite anymore. Today it's the Renaissance Orlando resort and spa by Marriott in the Disney Springs resort area. So you could still stay there. And I get that good neighbor experience. See where the Michael Jackson suite used to be. In 1982, though, Michael Jackson's thriller came on the scene and really launched Michael's solo career into the stratosphere. The singles, the music videos. He was everywhere. And just a couple years later, another Michael was stirring things up at Disney as their new CEO. And this one loved celebrities. When Michael Eisner found out that mega superstar Michael Jackson was a fan of Disney Parks, he knew he had to find a way to bring them in, you know, make some synergy. At this time, Michael Jackson was actually interested in being in the movie business, his epic music videos were known for being cinematic short films set to music, and usually included the big names of Hollywood producers and directors. It only made sense that he'd want to get into feature films. So one day, Michael Jackson's friend David Geffen called up his friend Jeffrey Katzenberg over at Disney and told him that Michael was interested in making a movie with Disney. Jeffrey Katzenberg showed Michael Jackson around the Disney studios, but also brought him over to imagineering to show off what they were doing over there. Katzenberg knew that Jackson was a big fan of the Disney parks. Jackson, of course, gravitated towards the parks even more so than the movies. Even though the conversation started as a way to get Michael into film, he kind of more wanted to get into parks. Eisner and Katzenberg found this as an opportunity to put imagineering and the Disney studio together to make an epic 3d in park movie for Disneyland starring Michael Jackson. When Michael Jackson agreed to the idea, he requested that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas get involved. Around that same time, Michael Eisner had shown George Lucas around Disney to entice him to collaborate with Disney imagineering on a new attraction that would become star tours. So Lucas was already in the Disney fold, and it was easy to get him to sign on. Spielberg, though, wasn't available. So Disney got Francis Ford Coppola on board. Originally, some of the stories that they tried to work out had Michael Jackson in Disneyland dancing with audio animatronics that had come to life, but it was very similar to, like, just thriller in the Disney parks. So Jackson didn't want to do that. He wanted to lean into that George Lucas vibe. He wanted to be in his own song and dance version of Star wars, and he got to be Captain IO. In the story, Captain IO and his ragtag crew of outsiders travel to a dark planet ruled by an evil spider alien queen, played by Angelica Houston. They use music to spread joy and defeat the darkness in the planet. Michael Jackson wrote two original songs for the project, another part of me, which would show up again on the album Bad in 1987 and become a pretty moderate hit for him. And the other song was we are here to change the World, which remained unreleased from Michael Jackson until a box set came out in the mid two thousands. But there's a really great cover version out there by Denise Williams if you want to give it a listen. Captain Eo would debut in Tomorrowland in Disneyland in 1986 and then open on the other coast in the imagination pavilion in Epcot. Because of Captain Eo, Michael was officially part of Disney Park's history, maybe even part of the Star wars canon. In Captain IO, the cosmic bass player in Michael Jackson's crew slash band is a little butterfly winged fuzzball named Fuzzball. Recently, during D 23, Disney released a trailer for Skeleton crew that shows Fuzzball or another of his species in a cage. There's also a character who looks a little bit like Hooter from Captain Eos Crew, who already looked a little bit like Max Rebo from Star wars. So is Captain IO a Star War? We'll just have to wait and see. Captain EO is Michael Jackson's biggest contribution to Disney and a dream come true to the Disney fan that he was Captain Eo left the parks to make way for honey. I shrunk the audience, but it remained a fan favorite and theme park cult classic for fans. In 2009, Michael Jackson passed away just before he was going to go on one final farewell tour. This is it. After his passing, Disney brought back captain IO to both Disneyland and Epcot to celebrate the king of Pop's life and Disney legacy. And that's just about the end of Michael Jackson and Disney's story. But there are a few more Disney roles Michael had taken on over the years that I want to rapid fire mention. So here we go. Number one, Michael Jackson had a secret, or not so secret cameo in the Simpsons. Though it wasn't Disney at the time, Michael Jackson guest starred in a season three episode of the Simpsons called Stark Raving Daddy. In the episode, Homer meets and befriends a man who thinks he's Michael Jackson in a psychiatric hospital. Jackson actually provided his voice but was uncredited on the episode, so it left us all guessing when it originally came out. Later we learned that it was actually Michael who had done the voice work. Another one is Michael Jackson and his brothers were featured on Disney Channels DTV. And if you haven't checked out that episode, DTV, I recorded that one a few months back. Go give it a listen. Just like Madonna, one of the Jackson Five's hit songs, dancing Machine was featured on the Disney Channel series DTV. Dancing Machine was put to footage of the dance of the Hours segment from Fantasia. You know, the one with Dancing Gators and hippos. But that's not all. Michael Jackson's solo hit thriller was also featured in DTV's 1987 monster hits Halloween Special. It featured a lot of spooky scenes from Disney shorts and highlighted Witch Hazel and Hughie Dewey and Louis. Trick or Treat short. Those DTV videos are a great place to close the curtain on Disney and Michael Jackson's connections. Michael Jackson was known for his music videos. He even had the honor of MTV naming their Video Vanguard award after him. He set the far for music videos in the 1980s and nineties, but he was never able to make that crossover to the feature films. But our next and final member of our eighties trinity of pop music in this series is someone who revolutionized pop music in theatrical feature films. And he's got a name that's made for Disney. Next time on Synergy loves Company, the enigmatic purple one, Prince. He's such an enigma. I'm not gonna lie, I'm having some trouble pinning down these Disney connections, but I just know they're there. I'm gonna keep digging. Don't miss that upcoming episode. Make sure you subscribe wherever you are enjoying Synergy Love's company right now. YouTube, Apple, podcast, Spotify, wherever. Just click follow or subscribe and you will know when that Prince episode drops. And while you're there, why don't you give this podcast a rating or review? It'll help people learn more about what you like so much about this show. And if you love telling people why you love this show, don't stop there. Could you share this show with a friend of yours who would enjoy center? He loves company. Tell them about this episode or maybe that upcoming one about Prince. You could send them a link on social media. You can tag me in it so I can say hi, or you can just tell them to visit synergylovescompany.com. and remember, this show is listener supported. There's no sponsors. It's just you and me. And if you feel like you get something out of this podcast and you want to show your appreciation, you can support the show on ko fi, you can donate any amount you'd like, and it helps me keep producing the show. No matter how you decide to support the show. I really appreciate you and the time that you spend with me. So thank you and thanks for exploring Disney's connections with me. Until next time, keep discovering the magic in everything.