‘Drawing Magic’ at the History Center offers a look at how cinematic magic was once made in Orlando

A Disney animator’s desk in Orange County Regional History Center’s Drawing Magic exhibition Credit: Seth Kubersky

The frigid finale of Animal Kingdom’s Dinoland U.S.A. on Feb. 1 added Dinosaur to the list of long-running Walt Disney World attractions that have gone extinct within the last year. While some fans are grieving the ride’s imminent Indiana Jones makeover as much as I mourn MuppetVision and Tom Sawyer Island, you won’t hear anyone crying over the closure of Star Wars Launch Bay at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. That’s largely because the little-lamented exhibit and its surrounding courtyard are returning to their roots and reopening this summer as the Magic of Disney Animation, a new incarnation of one of Disney-MGM Studios’ opening-day headliners.

If you’re excited about an interactive exploration of the animation process returning to town, you don’t have to wait for Disney’s version — which will include a Mary Blair-inspired playground and multiple princess meet-and-greets — because the Orange County Regional History Center’s new exhibition Animationland covers much of the same ground, without the IP or expensive admission. Katie Kelley, the History Center’s curator of exhibitions, gave me a tour of the exhibit and its locally curated companion show, Drawing Magic, devoted to Walt Disney Feature Animation’s former Florida unit.

Animationland is a touring exhibit developed by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, an institution Kelley praises for their “highly interactive exhibitions, particularly ones that incorporate science and creativity.” Visitors follow a pencil/dog named Tracey as she creates Animationland from her imagination, starting in her studio with an RFID-based demonstration of basic storyboarding. From there, guests can trace a character (or create their own) before moving onto other simple computer-assisted demonstrations of flip-book animation.

Although aimed at children from preschool through pre-teen, Kelley says they’ve already seen guests of all ages enjoying Animationland’s activities. The antique Mutoscope and stop-motion camera will be of particular interest to grown-ups, and the Foley sound effects booth demonstration is strongly reminiscent of a feature formerly found in the theme parks. But the best reason for Disney adults to visit is accompanying exhibit Drawing Magic, which displays memorabilia — from park maps and collectible pins to a commemorative crew coffee cup — charting the rise and fall of WDFA Florida, which only lasted from 1989 to 2004.

The small studio started with only 78 artists, who were initially little more than living props for the theme park’s animation studio tour, where guests would walk through a simplified version of the animation pipeline. However, Disney-MGM’s debut coincided with the start of Disney’s second animation renaissance, and the Florida unit was soon put to work on parts of scenes or characters for The Rescuers Down Under, Aladdin and The Lion King.

“By the mid-’90s, the studio had grown [and] there was just incredible talent here,” says Kelley. “A couple of Disney’s most iconic animators of the ’90s were at the Florida studio, so by the mid-’90s, they were given Mulan to take on as their own production.”

The centerpiece of Drawing Magic is an actual animator’s desk from the Disney studio, which was donated to UCF. It is cleverly displayed surrounded by life-sized graphics of gawking tourists, re-creating the vantage of artists who worked within the tour’s “fishbowl” windows. One former Disney animator who remembers that experience well is Thomas Thorspecken, who began as a trainee in-betweener on The Lion King and rose to key assistant animator on Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear.

“My first day on the job, my desk was right against the wall where the tourists looked down at the artists at work. The glass was soundproof, but I could hear the tourists knocking on the glass every few minutes. I would look up at them and they would give me a thumbs-up with a big smile. It was a nightmare. I felt like a gorilla in a zoo,” recalls Thorspecken, who later discovered a prank note reading, “If you like my work, please knock on the glass” taped to his glass wall. “I was dumbfounded. The artist across from me a slight distance from the glass was laughing his head off. It was a memorable first day in the fishbowl.”

Pixar’s 1995 hit Toy Story made Disney executives focus on CGI and largely phase out hand-drawn animation, shuttering the Florida studio in 2004. “I was there until they closed the studio down. When an artist walked down the hall, we would mutter ‘dead man walking,’” says Thorspecken. “Eventually a huge meeting was called and we were told the studio would close down. We were given a few months to write résumés and apply to other studios.”

Following the closure, Thorspecken and several other Disney animators joined Dominic Carola at Project Firefly (now Premise Entertainment), a start-up studio that worked on the 2006 Curious George feature. He went on to document Orlando’s arts scene in sketches and — along with many of his fellow former colleagues — teach art at area schools like Full Sail and Crealdé, making the studio’s impact echo long after its end.

The reimagined Magic of Disney Animation attraction will doubtless be better than the mostly empty hall of mock movie props it’s replacing, but it will never be an authentic working studio again. You’ve got until May 3 to get to the History Center if you want a real look at how cinematic magic was once made right here in Orlando.

“Animationland” and “Drawing Magic,” through May 3 at the History Center, 65 E. Central Blvd., thehistorycenter.org, $10.