I've been going to Epcot (or EPCOT Center) since 1984. And no, I don't need a walker quite yet. I was 9 the first time we visited "the place with the giant golf ball."
The entire park immediately captured my imagination. Well, let's be honest, at 9 years-old I hardly even remember World Showcase. It would be nearly 2 decades before I would discover the Dionysian joy that is "Drinking Around the World!"
Of course the Jetson-like picture of the future painted by Horizons was a favorite, but I won't pine for it's unlikely return (at least not now.) I was fortunate enough to ride the original Journey Into Imagination a couple times (what those mid-90's Imagineers were thinking I'll never know!) But one other now extinct attraction from those O.G. days of EPCOT Center, or what could appropriately be called B.S. (Before Soarin') was the wonderful animatronic musical review Kitchen Kabaret!
Hosted by ( the I now realize strangely hot) Bonnie Appetite, a tired career-family gal trying to balance it all) Kitchen Cabaret took us into her enchanted kitchen where the food sang about nutrition and the four food groups. To a 9 year-old, the message didn't really matter. It was just cool to see robotic fruit and vegetables playing instruments and a singing milk carton.
In case you're too young to remember it or didn't visit Epcot til the Center dropped out, thank goodness for YouTube!
Oh, and lest I forget, it wasn't all music. Like any good Cabaret show, there had to be a little comedy!
Kitchen Kabaret is one of my most vivid memories of my first (and second) visits to Epcot as a kid. When I returned to WDW with my wife after a nearly 10 year absence, I couldn't wait to drag her to The Land pavilion to show her this fun show! What I didn't know was shortly after my last trip in '93, the Imagineers overseeing Epcot when bat$#%@ crazy and started messing with classic attractions.
My beloved Kitchen Kabaret had been given an unnecessary and unsuccessful shot of "hip" to make it current . . . for 1994. And only 1994. The name of the show had been changed to Food Rocks. And dear sweet Bonnie had been evicted from her happy nostalgia filled home and replaced with that notorious symbol of the mid-90's - an streetwise urban character clearly created by white people. In this case, he was voiced by 2-Hit Wonder, Tone Loc, and his name was Fud Wrapper (get it, food rapper?) Yeah, you weren't really supposed to laugh.
Okay, so let me be fair. It wasn't a horrible show. It just wasn't nearly as good or as charming as what it replaced. The face-lift, or should I say face-off was the result of a shift in sponsorship. I'm just surprised a new sponsor would come in and say "make it less good." Even the Audio-Animatronic characters from the first incarnation were replaced with these weird cardboard cut-outs with moving mouths, as though designed by the producers of Clutch Cargo.
And the music was all over the place featuring a bizarre combination of celebrity impersonators and actual obscure celebrities. From Sting, to the Beach Boys . . . sorry, that's Peach Boys, to Tone Loc himself, all the way to Neil Sedaka. Neil Sedaka, people! (Even Eisner should have shouted "Has everyone taken crazy pills?!?!")
Well, here. Take a look and judge for yourself.
Okay, maybe I'm just a raving Disney World fan-boy. I suppose it's irrelevant because even if the change to Food Rocks had never happened, in 2003 the whole theater would be bulldozed and turned into . . . I know, you're wondering what new attraction could take it's place. Wait for it. The entrance to the extremely long hallway that leads to Soarin'!
Don't get me wrong, I love Soarin'. Even with it's already grainy film and the rip in the screen, it's still an awesome experience and makes me giggle like a little kid.
But I can't help but think there was room to leave the theater, return Kitchen Kabaret and sweet Bonnie Appetite (who I understand rests, sadly, in a backroom behind the Emporium on Main Street with most of her artificial skin removed) to their former glory, and still have found a way to build Soarin'.
I'm not one of those delusional fans who believes if we whinge loud enough and long enough, Disney will cave and return a long-gone attraction. A totally dated 3D film featuring a once-controversial but sainted-in-death pop star, sure. But an Audio-Animatronic stage production showcasing what made Disney parks special (of which there are very few left) never.
But in my heart, that singing milk and veggies will never spoil and that humorous ham will never go bad!
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