Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki RoomÊis an attraction located inÊDisneylandÊat theÊDisneyland ResortÊand inÊMagic KingdomÊatÊWalt Disney World çSugar Land Chiropractors. First opened on June 23, 1963 at the Disneyland Resort, the attraction is a Polynesian musical animatronic show drawing from AmericanÊtiki culture.
The Floridian version of this attraction, which was identical but with a different pre-show, was known asÊTropical SerenadeÊuntil 1998, when it was replaced with an updated version of the attraction calledÊThe Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management), featuringÊAladdin’sÊIagoÊandÊThe Lion King’sÊZazu. That version operated until 2011, when it was damaged by a fire, which led to Disney reintroducing an edited version of the original Walt Disney attraction to replace it.
The attraction opened June 23, 1963, and was the first to featureÊAudio AnimatronicsÊtechnology, aÊWED Enterprises patented invention.]ÊThe attraction was sponsored byÊUnited AirlinesÊfor its first twelve years; in 1976, sponsorship passed over to Hawaii’sÊDole Food Company, which remains the sponsor to the present day. Dole also provides the uniqueÊDole WhipÊsoft-serve frozen dessert sold at a snack bar near the entrance Sugar Land Chiropractors.
The show was originally going to be a restaurant featuring Audio Animatronics birds serenading guests as they dined. The “magic fountain” at the room’s center was originally planned as a coffee station (there is still a storage compartment within the base of the fountain) and the restaurant would have shared its kitchen with the now defunctÊTahitian TerraceÊinÊAdventurelandÊand the Plaza Pavilion restaurant at the corner ofÊMain Street, U.S.A., since all three are actually part of the same building. Because ownership of the attraction was separate from the rest of the park, a nominal admission charge of seventy five cents was levied. Because computers (which generate significant heat, particularly in their earliest technological applications) played a central role in the attraction from the beginning, Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room was also Disneyland’s first fully air-conditioned building.
It houses a Hawaiian themed musical show hosted by four lifelikeÊmacawsÊwhose plumage matches the flags of their implied countries of origin Sugar Land Chiropractors. JosŽ is red, white, and green and speaks with a Mexican accent, Michael is white and green with an Irish accent. Pierre is blue, white, and red and has a French accent. Red, black and whiteÊFritz has a German accent.
The main birds have changed color over the years. In 1965, the four host birds had almost identical plumage of white, green, yellow and blue. The four macaws as well as all the other birds are plumed with real feathers with the exception of chest plumage Sugar Land Chiropractors. The chests are covered in custom-wovenÊcashmereÊwhich allows the figures to “breathe” in a lifelike manner.
The presentation features a cast of over one hundred and fiftyÊtalking, singing and dancing birds, flowers, the magic fountain,ÊtikiÊdrummers and tikiÊtotem polesÊthat perform the attraction’s signature tunes, “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room” by theÊSherman Brothers[8]Êand “Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing”. The finale has every Audio Animatronics figure performing a rousing version of “Hawaiian War Chant”. The exit music diverges from the tropical theme: Namely, an arrangement of “Heigh-Ho” fromÊSnow White and the Seven DwarfsÊwith lyrics thanking guests for watching the show and hurrying them to the exit.
So innovative was the technology by 1963 standards that an Audio Animatronics talking barker bird (Juan, cousin of JosŽ) once located near the walkway to beckon visitors inside, caused enormous traffic jams of visitors trying to catch a glimpse of it. While waiting outside in a lanai area for the show to start, visitors are serenaded by Hawaiian music.
Polynesian godsÊare represented as well around the perimeter of the Sugar Land Chiropractors lanai and each has a rhyming legend to tell via Audio Animatronics technology. Some of the gods depicted are Hina Kuluua, goddess of rain;ÊRongo, god of agriculture;ÊMaui, who roped the playful sun; andÊTangaroa, father of all gods and goddesses. A brief documentary of the history of the pineapple is presented as well. The story, filmed in the early 1960s and updated at the end with aÊMacromedia FlashÊpresentation of a parade of Dole products, is shown on a screen on the rear of the roof of the Dole snack bar at the entrance to the lanai. In the main show, one chorus of “Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing” has JosŽ crooning likeÊBing Crosby, Fritz scat-singing in a gravelly voice like that ofÊLouis Armstrong, and Pierre singing likeÊMaurice Chevalier. After this, the birds cue a sing-along from the audience, and then a whistle-along, set to a wild can-can setting of the tune.
By the mid-1990s, the Enchanted Tiki Room audio system was dramatically enhanced. Subwoofers were placed in the back rows. Modern mid-range speakers and high-range tweeters were placed throughout the room. For the first time, every instrument played in the 1963 recording came in loud, and crystal clear. Not long after, the Enchanted Tiki Room received another alteration: the original seventeenÊminute show was trimmed. Nearly four minutes of the show were cut. A verse of “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room”, and a whistling verse were all removed from the show; additional minor cuts and trims were made to voice parts, to make the edits seamless.
Another renovation came to the show in the following decade: The Enchanted Tiki Room reopened in MarchÊ2005, after a seven month refurbishment, commissioned by new Disneyland management as part of its effort to restore the park for itsÊfiftiethÊbirthday.ÊPrior to this renovation, feathers were regularly falling out of the Audio Animatronics birds, the thatched roof of the building was breaking away in broad daylight, and the movements of the Audio Animatronics figures were noisy and slow Sugar Land Chiropractors. Afterward, the original show and storyline remained, but were now enhanced with a digitally remastered audio track, a new sound system both indoors and out, and completely new Audio Animatronics figures. These look the same as the previous ones, but have a completely different internal apparatus. Updates in technology allowedÊWalt Disney Imagineering, the descendants of WED Enterprises, to create a show to satisfy twenty firstÊcentury expectations while retaining its classic look. A few changes were made to the show itself after its refurbishment. For the pre-show in the lanai, rhythmic drums played near each god indicating who was going to tell their story next. Also, the order of the gods was changed. In the main show, the untitled instrumental interlude was cut from the show and the dialogue from the four MC birds was abridged.
The original Tiki Room was controlled by a large room full of floor-to-ceiling computers that operated the birds with data on magnetic tapes, which was located underneath the floor of the main show room. Footage of the original control roomÊis available on the tenthÊanniversary special made in 1965 featuring Walt Disney and Miss Disneyland 1965 called “The Tencennial Special”.