The Orange County Regional History Center’s newest exhibit might get your creative juices flowing and give you a wave of nostalgia. “Animationland” offers experiential art activities, and its sister production, “Drawing Magic: Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida,” is a return to homegrown work.
Created by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, much of this space depicts a storyline featuring Turtleback Island’s pencil dog Tracy and her various friends. The exhibit features multiple stations where visitors can create animated sequences using these characters.
Participants learn storyboarding and drawing techniques and can then move on to practicing stop-motion animation, creating sound effects, and creating in-person videos. This is like a more active/less screen time TikTok session and can be a good group activity for kids and adults.
This historical aspect includes the Mutescope, an 1800s hand-cranked toy that works in the style of a flipbook to create animations.
Another space is devoted to “Drawing Magic,” a locally produced exhibit that encapsulates the animation produced at Disney-MGM Studios, the theme park now known as Disney’s Hollywood Studios. (The name change began in 2008).
In one corner is an animator’s drafting desk with a schedule, a maquette of Lilo and Stitch characters, a lamp, and a stool. But in the background, several people are depicted looking down through the glass partition of their desks, just as the on-stage animators worked at Disney-MGM. Park visitors could, at least in theory, see a hand-drawn animated film in the making inside a “fishbowl.”
The exhibit describes Walt Disney Animation Florida, which existed from 1989 to 2004. This division was part of the so-called “Disney Renaissance” in animation.
Theme park fans may be intrigued by the cartoon-style promotional map of Disney World, which includes old photos (Michael Eisner with Mickey Mouse and Roger Rabbit) and unusual sights such as Scrooge McDuck in a helicopter, Ben Franklin on top of Epcot’s Spaceship Earth, and Bra Rabbit playing a banjo as Ariel sits on a rock and flies around a lake.
Other panels detail Disney’s big-budget productions in Florida, including the “Mob Song” from “Beauty and the Beast,” the Jasmine scene from “Aladdin,” and the “I Can’t Wait to Be King” segment from “The Lion King.”
The Florida-based studio’s first feature was 1998’s “Mulan.” The last film he completed was 2003’s “Brother Bear.”
Among the non-animation items on display are “Lilo & Stitch” T-shirts, Walt Disney animated feature jackets, “Brother Bear” cast and crew mugs, and a small jigsaw puzzle incorporating the dragon character Samurai from “Mulan” for the animation studio’s workplace’s 1998 open house.
The exhibit also describes the end of the local studio era with the proliferation of computer animation. Work stopped completely in March 2004.
“Animationland” is at the museum in downtown Orlando until May 3. Included in regular admission price. For more information, visit thehistorycenter.org.
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