In 1985 Disney was looking for new ways to show the world the face of the new and improved
Walt Disney Productions.
A drastic change in leadership the previous year had resulted in an outside film executive
named Michael Eisner stepping in as CEO.
His job was to shake off the dust caused by over a decade of stagnation at the studio
and raise the value of the company in order to prevent it from ever being the target of
a hostile takeover again.
That meant more films, more projects, and more new ideas.
As it turned out one of those ideas, set in New York City, would ruffle a few feathers.
1985’s Disney Summer Magic was planned to be a ten-week-long event at New York City’s
famous Radio City Music Hall.
The show was going to be split into two parts.
The first was called The Magical World of Disney.
It was a 45-minute long stage show that was more or less a musical mashup of Disney characters.
It would feature a flying Dumbo the elephant, the marching brooms from Fantasia, villains
like Maleficent, and of course Mickey Mouse himself.
Then, after the Magical World of Disney, the audience would get to watch a new Disney film.
The shows from June 21st to July 25th featured “Return to Oz”, the loose sequel to “The
Wizard of Oz” based on other books in L. Frank Baum’s series.
The shows from the 26th of June to August 29th presented the animated feature, “The
Black Cauldron”.
Disney Summer Magic was touted by Disney to be their most ambitious and expensive stage
show outside of Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
There was just one problem: there were no Rockettes.
Originally called the Missouri Rockets in 1925, the precision dance company would eventually
be acquired by an impressed New York theater owner named Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel.
Humbly, he renamed the group to the Roxyettes.
In 1932 they were booked to open his new theater in Manhattan called Radio City Music Hall.
The group was a hit, and would continue to perform at the venue.
Just two years later the Roxyettes would be renamed once again, this time to The Rockettes.
Performing at Radio City Music Hall every summer and winter, the Rockettes quickly became
a staple of not only the theater, but New York City as a whole.
Disney Summer Magic would mark the first time ever that the Rockettes wouldn’t be involved
in Radio City Music Hall’s summer show.
Disney justified the decision by arguing that the Rockettes would be “inappropriate in
a total Disney experience featuring Mickey and Donald.”
With the Rockettes being such a tradition at Radio City Music Hall, one might assume
the venue would reject the show, but they didn’t.
The unfortunate truth was that Radio City Music Hall had faced financial struggles those
previous few years, and the money Disney was going to bring in with the ten-week rental
would allow them to turn a profit for the first time in a while.
So they didn’t object.
The Rockettes, understandably upset at the decision, took to the streets.
In mid January of 1985, after the Disney show was announced and they were left out, the
dance company picketed outside of Radio City Music Hall to protest their exclusion, and
began a petition to be added into the show.
There was a fear that this decision would set a precedent for them to be left out of
future shows at the venue.
A fear that was amplified by the fact that their contract with Radio City Music Hall
was slated to expire in May of 1986.
The Rockettes saw this move as a potential first step in dropping the dance company from
the Hall altogether.
But beyond their own self preservation, they saw it as a slight against New York tradition.
They had been performing there for over fifty years, and suddenly this outsider comes along
and gives them the boot.
As veteran Rockette, Eileen Collins, put it: “Just as if we went down to Epcot Center,
we would not throw Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck out of Disney World, I don’t think
that Mickey and Donald should throw the Rockettes off their stage because it is our home.”
In an attempt to put an end to the protesting and to smooth things over, Disney offered
to include the Rockettes in their patriotic show at EPCOT Center that summer.
The ten-week-long show, “Salute to America Celebration”, would be a USA themed conclusion
to a multinational festival running at EPCOT called WorldFest.
However, the show only called for 20 dancers in total, meaning that 16 of the 36 Rockettes
would still be left without work for the summer.
Meanwhile Radio City Music Hall offered to pay the Rockettes for the shows they wouldn’t
be performing.
The Rockettes rejected both offers.
To them, it wasn’t just about the money.
It was about the tradition of being a part of the Radio City Music Hall shows.
Furthermore the offer itself was a confusing message.
As Collin’s pointed out: “If they’ll let us dance with Mickey Mouse in Florida,
I don’t see why we can’t do it here.”
Over the following two weeks the Rockettes continued to protest.
At the end of January, seven of the Rockettes flew up to Albany where State Senator Leonard
Stavisky presented a resolution to the state senate praising the Rockettes and urging Disney
to reconsider adding them to the show.
He argued that “They’re a part of the heritage of the city and the state as much
as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.”
The resolution passed 59 to 0.
Then, on January 31st, New York Lt. Governor Alfred DelBello reached out to David Rockefeller,
chair of the Rockefeller Group, which owned Radio City Music Hall, and personally argued
on behalf of the Rockettes.
There’s no account of what happened after that, but the very next day Disney dropped
their objections to the Rockettes performing in the Disney Summer Magic show and offered
to include all 36 dancers.
The Rockettes celebrated that day by donning Mickey ears outside of Radio City Music Hall
and performing their famous kickline.
Disney, wanting to make up for the rocky month, still offered to bring 20 Rockettes down to
Disney World later that summer for the WorldFest show.
This time the Rockettes agreed.
Disney would later comment that “we understood the Rockettes desire to appear at Radio City.
It just took us awhile to figure out how to fit in their numbers with what we had planned.
In effect it doubles the show.”
With the Rockettes included, the cast of Disney Summer Magic grew to eighty-two.
With the Rockettes issue smoothed over, the show was put together and premiered as planned
that summer.
New York Mayor Ed Koch attended the premiere, where Mickey and Minnie presented him a key to Oz.
In turn Mayor Koch presented Mickey and Minnie with passes that would allow them to escape
New York’s mouse catchers.
As for the show itself… well… without a specific breakdown it was reported that
Return to Oz and The Black Cauldron had a combined budget of seventy-million-dollars.
Both films premiered that summer as planned.
Return to Oz grossed $11 million domestically, and The Black Cauldron grossed $21 million
domestically.
They were both seen as financial failures, and The Black Cauldron would earn the reputation
of the film that almost killed Walt Disney animation.
Understandably, there was no Disney Summer Magic in 1986.
The Rockettes, however, would continue to perform at Radio City Music Hall, and still
perform there to this day.
The Rockettes and Disney Summer Magic stand as a lesson.
To Disney, it probably seemed like a reasonable course of action to book a venue, plan out
the show they wanted, and go from there.
However in the process they inadvertently upset many New Yorkers, a big part of their
target audience for the show, who saw it as disrespectful to a city tradition.
Today Disney is no stranger to adjusting their parks, their rides, and their movies to cater
to their specific audiences.
A lesson that would have come in handy all those years ago in New York City.