SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: The Theme Park Artwork of Charlie MacWilliams (Muppets, Mashups, Country Bears and MORE!)

This week the SATURDAY SIX Proudly Presents: The Theme Park Artwork of CHARLIE MacWILLIAMS! Over the years in this fine blog series we have taken the time to appreciate artists in the community whose work uses characters, attractions, or any other part of the Disney or Universal theme parks. In the past we’ve been able to shine a spotlight on talented artists including Rob Yeo, Phillip Weatherford, and Henry Taylor, while today we take a look at an artist whose love for the Country Bears rivals TouringPlans’ own Guy Selga….

***

Howdy, folks! My name is Charlie MacWilliams. I’m an animator and designer living up in Massachusetts, where I teach college classes on Animation and Character Design and work remotely for both the YouTube channel CircleToonsHD, and more relevantly to this website, the theme park news site WDWNT.

I’ve always enjoyed theme parks, having grown up in a family that went to Disney every few years, but that enjoyment turned into a passion back at the start of 2018. I took my first ever trip to Orlando with my then-girlfriend (now-wife!), Emily. After a week at Disney and Universal, I came back home with a new fascination for theme parks. Emily, on the other hand, came back with a fear of Wendell from the Country Bear Jamboree.

My journey into the world of theme park fandom started by spending all my free time between college classes binging channels like Defunctland and TPMVids, reading up on the history of the parks, and trying to understand what made these parks so, for lack of a better word, magical. After graduating from college in the Spring of 2020 (a wonderful time to be thrust into the working world), I began working on animated series such as  Inside Job on Netflix and Apple’s Harriet the Spy.

After the Covid animation boom dried up, I spent a lot of time between jobs, struggling to find something that’d last for more than a few weeks. In the Fall of 2023, I was watching the latest episode of WDW News Today, when Tom Corless mentioned they were looking to hire graphic designers. One email and a phone call later, I was brought onto the team to do thumbnails, video editing, and artwork for their weekly comedy show WDW News Tonight. Over time, I’ve gone from part-time to full-time, and have done artwork for special events, merchandise, and a lot of other fun projects. It is definitely fulfilling to be able to combine two passions of my life into a career!

# 6 – Video Games

One of the perks of my job is essentially being paid to do fanart of the park. Doing art for a living often leaves me filling my free time with other activities like gardening or video games, so my collection of theme park art would be a lot smaller if it weren’t for the fact it’s my job now!

Over the last two years with WDWNT, I’ve done a lot of artwork for News Tonight, and a big recurring theme is video games. If I had the knowledge for coding, I’d love to make video games as the medium is so ripe for creating immersive worlds and telling stories that the audience can interact with. That’s pretty much the same reason I love theme parks, so it’s a natural fit to combine the two!

When I saw the announcement for “Super Mario Party Jamboree” on News Tonight, my mind instantly went to the Country Bears, and so I pitched the idea to the show’s crew for a weekly video game segment. The visual of Henry with Tanooki Mario on his hat in place of Sammy was too good to pass up.

The actual artwork for Super Mario Party Country Bear Jamboree ended up being one of my favorite things I’ve ever done. Not just because I got to draw the Country Bears (you’re going to notice a recurring theme with them in a lot of my art), but also because I’m also a huge Super Mario fan.

I’ve done a wide range of these faux game covers for the show. These include bits parodying current events at the parks (such as the Epic Mickey 3 cover finished practically before they got Mark Twain’s head back on right!) to bits that revolve entirely around puns or wordplay (such as Super Splash Bros for Super Smash Bros.) Hey, any excuse to draw Big Al is ok in my book!

My favorite out of all of the hand-drawn game parodies though is “Metroid Prime Time Cafe.” For this one I took the opportunity to create a design for Samus that evoked the illustrative style of the 1950s. I spent a lot of time researching various illustrations to break down the style into some of it’s most common traits: sharp angles, solid teeth smiles, outlineless eyes, and lots of pearl necklaces. While the colors are more modern to help make it clear that this is Samus, I think the general design came out  nicely. Turning Samus’ arm cannon into a milkshake blender seemed like a great touch to me, and I’d imagine it would also work well in combat!

My video game mashups aren’t just limited to work, as just recently I had the idea of recreating the iconic Sonic Adventure 2 box art with Duffy the Disney Bear and Epic Universe’s Captain Cacao. It’s almost too perfect of a pairing to not do something with! Much like with the Samus piece, I spent a lot of time trying to perfectly match a specific style, this time being that Sonic artwork. The biggest challenge with it was all the gradients used in the solid fills- it took way longer than you’d expect. But the results speak for themselves, I’d say!

# 5 – Mashups

The mashups don’t just include video games, as for this piece, I parodied Hulu’s The Bear with… well, The Mouse! This one is pretty simple, but I had a lot of fun trying to pair characters from the show with Disney universe characters. While Donald as hot head Richie was a no brainer, I was going off vibes for using characters like Daisy Duck for Carmy’s sister Natalie. A detail that I doubt most people would be able to notice with all the characters blocking the background is that I actually used a picture of downtown Orlando in place of the Chicago picture in the original. I like to do little details like that, even if they go relatively unnoticed as it makes the process more fun for me.

Speaking of fun, this piece parodying Oppenheimer is hinging on a pun so stupid and ridiculous that it’s almost genius. While this is a straight Photoshop job rather than a hand drawn illustration, I think it still came out really nice. You’d be surprised at how long it takes to Photoshop a Swedish meatball to have the same lighting as an atom bomb. In the words of the Swedish Chef- “Noo I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”Nøø erma becøømenn deadden, der deströyener urv vörldsen!”

For one last movie mashup, we have Five Nights at Freddy’s mashed up with The Country Bear Jamboree! In a weird sorta way, this is a full circle piece as the Country Bears inspired the restaurant chain Chuck E Cheese, which itself inspired Five Nights at Freddy’s, and now FNaF inspired this piece featuring the Country Bears. We’ve gone from one top hat wearing brown bear to another!

The next two drawings are from a series of Epic Universe parody portals we did. First up is a Steamboat Willie portal…

…along with a DC Comics portal.

This one’s a bit more personal. A few years ago I did this little mashup of the iconic Haunted Mansion attraction poster with some old original characters of mine. This trio are from my college thesis film, Skeeto in: Sun Blocked. This was an animated short about a mosquito, Skeeto, trying to paint the sunset but a rude toad keeps blocking his view, causing Skeeto and his friends, Bogart (the frog) and Gumbo (the alligator), to get up to various slapstick antics to get the toad out of the way before the sun sets. My senior year of college was 2020, so due to specific global events at the time, the film was never finished, but hopefully someday it will be!

# 4 – WDWNT

As I previously mentioned, I’ve been working at WDWNT as a member of the graphics team since 2023. While I do plenty of thumbnails and the aforementioned comedy bits for the night show, I’ve also done a whole bunch of special projects!

My first big project after being hired was designing a new logo for the revival of the WDWNT Podcast. I started out by doing a bunch of thumbnail designs (the left side of the artwork below), using the company’s logo colors and iconography to create something that is in-line with their branding but still unique. The first version was pretty basic, just the logo with a banner reading “podcast”, but after that I tried out some more unique designs utilizing the globe symbol that their logo features. After some favorites from that first batch were chosen, I did some variations of them (the right side). I played around with how the red ribbon could be used to accent the blue and white logo, and eventually settled on the idea of it wrapping around the globe.

Out of those final options we ended up going with 3B, and once it was cleaned up, it looked pretty sharp. I also animated it for the intro to the podcast, having the globe “rotate” to reveal the text (in reality, it’s actually the text being manipulated to appear like the globe is spinning to reveal it) and then the red ribbon flying across the screen to wrap around it. This might be a bit esoteric, the red ribbon also served as a way to hide some animation wizardry. Because when it covers the screen, the logo with the rotating text is swapped out for a flat 2D image of the logo without the ribbon, so everything is lined up correctly and the ribbon can “wrap” around it without the layers getting all messed up. I’m a 2D animator by trade, so whenever I have to make things appear 3D, I use a lot of tricks to get it all to work!

Another project I worked on was designing the logo for our Promising Tomorrows event that WDWNT held earlier this year for both the 50th anniversary of Space Mountain and the 30th anniversary of New Tomorrowland. My first thought for a logo was something representing the unique nighttime colors of New Tomorrowland…the vast assortment of colors that give the land a very distinctly 90s sci-fi feel. As someone who loves theme park original characters, I also wanted to include some of the icons of the New Tomorrowland era including Sonny Eclipse, The Timekeeper, the Extra-Terror-estrial Alien, the News Robot, John Carousel, and – of course – Skippy! The characters are featured in profile under Space Mountain, and the gear and text are designed after some old New Tomorrowland signage. I love me some Art Deco font!

For the final version, I moved the Alien to the top taking a bite out of the gear, and in its place, I put the Hair Salon Lady from the PeopleMover to get that attraction represented. I really love how this came out, and the animated version especially looks nice, with the gear spinning and the Alien popping up to take bites.

For Promising Tomorrows, I also designed some merch. The first of which is a button up, which ended up facing some delays and just released at Carousel of Products! The shirt celebrates every iteration of Space Mountain throughout all the Disney parks in the world, not just the original in Florida. I started with the image below as a test for what the mountains would look like, but I wasn’t huge on it. The flat colors and more realistic design would prove to be hard to get looking right and the later mountains would be way too hard to do, so I knew my follow up design would use a simpler style.

In the next pass, I drew simpler stylizations of the mountains, but still used accurate colors.

Eventually I decided on going for a more retro style inspired by UPA artwork and general atomic age visuals. While that particular style is a bit older than the OG Space Mountain, I felt it worked well for a vintage sci-fi piece. I gave each mountain a unique color that I felt fit the best, which helps with differentiating the three original mountains.

With the final designs of the mountains settled, I added background details to fill the space. I also brightened up Paris’ Space Mountain, as the color wasn’t working well for the manufacturer. I think the bright red looks a lot better, and overall I really love how this came out.

Also for Promising Tomorrows, I made a Skippy magnet. I wanted to design something that felt like the kind of promo art you’d see in real parks merch. The best part of this to me though is that I have one in my office autographed by the Disney Imagineers who designed Skippy! So cool. I hope we get to see this guy come back someday.

 

In between events, I was tasked with designing the new company birthday card, featuring all our favorite park characters celebrating! The little Waldo here would soon prove to be foreshadowing for my next project.

This next piece is pretty timely. If you’re reading this the day it is published, June 7th, then it’s the last day of Muppet*Vision 3D being in the parks. If you’re reading this after June 7th, then Muppet*Vision is sadly no more. If you’re somehow reading this before June 7th…can you use your time machine to go back in time and save the show from being closed?

To celebrate the life of Jim Henson’s final masterpiece, WDWNT threw an event featuring Imagineers and people from the Jim Henson Company who worked on Muppet*Vision, where they talked about their work (much like how I’m talking about mine!) and showed off concept art from their time on the project. Steve Whitmire, performer of Bean Bunny, Rizzo the Rat, and Waldo was one of the special guests. For the event, I was tasked to design a button up themed to the show. I wanted to do something that captured what was special and unique about Muppet*Vision 3D, so I settled on a pattern of various props from the show’s queue, pre-show, and main show – mixed with all the various versions of Waldo that appear throughout the attraction.

Originally, everything was going to be colored in, but I quickly realized that having so many different colors all competing visually would just be an overload. Some button up shirts thrive on being a mishmash of colors, but I wanted to design something that found the balance of unique and simple. So, I decided that the props would all be line art and the Waldos would be in color. This way the shirt has a limited color palette, since Waldo’s forms all use the same colors.

Here’s a look at the cleaned up Waldos with an added 3D effect.

After that, I tested out some colors for the base of the shirt. I went with three possibilities at first:  red, white, and blue. I unintentionally channeled Sam Eagle there! The red was meant to evoke the theater, the blue was meant to evoke the Muppet Labs blueprints from the queue, and the white was simply because I thought a white button-up would be a nice contrast to the Space Mountain shirt I designed. Out of these, the blue won out, so onto the next phase we went!

I created a simple blueprint pattern for the background to add some visual interest without it being too busy, and then I applied a faux 3D effect to the props and Waldos to allude to the show’s 3D nature. Overall, I’m really pleased with how this came out. Muppet*Vision 3D is very special to me, personally, as it’s one of my earliest theme park memories. I remember during my first visit to the parks, back when it was Disney-MGM Studios, running out of the Tatooine gift shop ahead of my family and coming face-to-face with Kermit’s face. I remember recognizing him, but not being entirely sure who he was. One screening of Muppet*Vision later, and I was hooked. I’m happy I was able to come out to see it on its last day (or at least I assume I did, I’m writing this before it’s closed- I don’t even know if my plane made it to Orlando in one piece!), and I’m really gonna miss it.

Did you say, “cheap 3-D tricks”?

# 3 – Reimagined Magic Kingdom

Many years ago, long before I really got into the theme park community, I workshopped what an ideal Disneyland style park would be. My first draft was a little rough as I essentially drew a circle, divided it up like a pie chart into different lands, and then listed a million rides to fill it with. No thought for entertainment, amenities, or guest flow… it would be almost as bad as a Six Flags! But the idea of having this idealized castle park stuck with me.

I eventually decided to give it another go when I was much more knowledgeable on theme parks. I kept the lands I had originally developed, but tried to lay things out a bit more naturally. On my honeymoon in Paris, my time killer during flights and train rides was working on this park even more- however, after experiencing Disneyland Paris on the last day of our honeymoon, I decided I wanted to scrap the entire thing and restart.

Flash forward a couple months later, and I’m approached by Tom and Eric with an idea for a project they wanted to do on their podcast, where I’d be making a park map and concept art for a reimagined version of the Magic Kingdom. I figured that would be a great way to get some experience making park maps for my eventual attempt at making my own original castle park!

So, we begin with Main Street U.S.A- the main idea here was reducing the heavy congestion in this area by adding some arcades and side gardens to walk through, found to the left and right of the Main Street buildings.

 

They wanted to bring some more vintage charm to Main Street, so we added a pool hall, soda fountain, and turned Starbucks into a vintage coffee and tea shop (still operated by Starbucks), to name a few changes. We also moved Club 33 to the second story of the street, with an outdoor balcony to allow for amazing fireworks views. Of course, the general public deserves that too, so we added a restaurant on the other side of the street offering the same experience, named Walt’s.

We also added an attraction inside the Fire Station, a simple interactive shooting gallery where guests aim hoses to spray fake fire in a little diorama that’s made to look like it came right out of the early 20th century.

Heading clockwise from the hub, we arrive into Adventureland! A big part of this change was reducing congestion in the walkways, which we did by first removing the Magic Carpets of Aladdin- sorry, we don’t need three Dumbo spinners! In its place is a new splash pad that takes up less space and also offers kids a place to cool down in the Florida heat. The splash pad that currently exists has been removed in order to widen the walkways a bit more. In front of the Tiki Room we’ve added a miniature Tropical Hideaway, in the form of some tables surrounding a perch where Rosita can be seen talking to guests and cracking jokes. On that note, a LOT of seating has been added in this area to accommodate all the guests getting Dole Whip and wanting a place to sit (that isn’t the objective best choice, the Tiki Room). More seating has been added in the space formerly home to Club 33. Half of that space has been blown open to have outdoor seating, and another portion is indoor, which is also home to an Orange Bird meet-and-greet. Across the way, the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse has been replaced with Mystic Manor, which, believe it or not, actually could fit there without having to remove anything, just a slight rerouting of the boat path to Jungle Cruise’s maintenance shed, which also has been shifted over slightly. Mystic Manor comes with its own exit gift shop and a meet and greet in the front of the facade! The Jungle Cruise, on the other hand, is left mostly untouched, with the only change being a seating area added to the left of the queue for people to wave goodbye to boats that leave the docks.

Heading deeper into Adventureland, the Caribbean Plaza has been entirely reimagined. Now as you approach the area, you wind around rocks to suddenly come face to face with a massive shipwreck looming over you, waves crashing into it and the rocks it’s wedged in. A hole in the hull leads you into the queue, which winds you through the shoreline before you enter the new and improved fortress, with a restored cannon effect to boot. The ride itself is entirely redone, being the same layout as Paris’s Pirates, which in my opinion is the best one. There’s now also a restaurant attached to the attraction like in Paris. The Beak and Barrel is still here too, though it’s tucked into the back a bit, as now the bar is built inside the ride’s town scene itself, allowing guests to peer out windows to see the pirates pillaging the town and guests in boats sailing on by. Of course, getting back there might seem like a long walk, but thankfully, there’s a whole expansion to the land that makes the bar feel less secluded.

Tucked behind the Jungle Cruise is an airfield, home to the new attraction Hathaway Browne’s Aerotours, an attraction similar to Pterondon Flyers at Islands of Adventure. Guests board biplanes to fly over the Jungle Cruise, offering new viewpoints of the park. Hathaway Browne is a member of S.E.A. first debuting in the Adventurer’s Club, making this attraction a deep cut for fans as well. The airfield area is also home to a quick service restaurant, the Hangar Pub, serving wings and drinks. Moving further back towards The Beak and Barrel, we go under the train tracks and find… another park entrance?

That’s right- there’s another entrance to Magic Kingdom, because there’s now a resort attached to the park! Built in the unused plot of land that Fire Mountain was supposed to be built on is The Explorer’s Lodge! This new monorail resort is themed to an old Jungle Temple that S.E.A. is studying, having made a base for themselves behind it.

The main building of the resort is the temple itself, while the surrounding buildings are built by the S.E.A. as they do research on the area. The resort has its fair share of things to do, including a lazy river, fountain show, and plenty of dining- including its own entrance to the Beak & Barrel. There’s also a revival of the Adventurer’s Club, bringing back a special part of WDW history to the resort!

Heading back into the park, we continue clockwise into Frontierland!

Frontierland isn’t as changed physically as Adventureland, but it features plenty of rethemes and relocations. The first thing you’ll notice is the lack of Tom Sawyer’s Island, because in it’s place is… Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? Doesn’t the park already have that?

That’s right! In an insane move that Disney would never do, I relocated BTMRR to the island, making it similar to Paris’s mountain (again, the best one that exists). However, to make MK’s Big Thunder unique, it’s no longer an abandoned mine but an active one… an idea that lasted only a few months before Disney announced that MK’s Big Thunder was being changed to an active mine instead of an abandoned one. Well, it was my idea first, at least. In the heart of the mountain is a steampunk boring machine built by Jason Chandler, an unused character that theme park fans will remember as the “protagonist” of Tony Baxter’s Discovery Bay. Chandler’s machine is drilling right into the center of the mountain, causing geysers to erupt all over the place. My idea here was to add some thrilling kinetic energy to the mountain while adding a way to cool off guests in the hot weather. You wouldn’t get drenched like on Tiana’s, but you’d get misted instead. The geysers would erupt as the trains go by, making the view from the mainland exciting as you see the mountain erupt with every passing train. The ride ends with a calm ride through the Rainbow Caverns before you unload.

Some notable changes include a Dr. Facilier meet and greet next to Pecos Bill’s, which is now Tiana’s Palace. Tiana’s also has a window for beignets and mint juleps, making it easy to get the popular treats without needing to go inside the full restaurant. Grizzly Hall is still home to our beloved Country Bears, but now they have a proper gift shop at the exit, taking up the space currently occupied by the hat shop that I doubt gets many sales. The gift shop is themed to Big Al’s cabin, a nod to the soon-to-be-demolished merch stand that exists outside the attraction currently. Next to Grizzly Hall is Ursus H. Bear’s Stage Door Cafe, a quick service taking the place of the current DVC lounge. The lounge has been moved across the way to where Westward Ho is, now with an outdoor patio on the water. Next to it, the Liberty Belle has been docked permanently to serve as seating and shade, as well as having a live jazz band playing on it. It’s docked right outside Tiana’s, giving it some nice visual cohesion. Tiana’s is left entirely identical to how it exists now, gift shops and all.

In the original Big Thunder’s place is an area of Frontierland themed to Santa Cecilia, the setting of Pixar’s Coco. The area has two restaurants, one being a dinner show, some shops, a meet & greet, and a suspended E-ticket dark ride through the Land of the Dead.

Instead of heading further north, let’s cut around to Liberty Square instead- both lands lead to the same area north of the rivers, creating a full loop.

Liberty Square as it exists currently hasn’t changed much- most notable changes are the Liberty Belle dock becoming a covered seating area and the addition of a Haunted Mansion Restaurant to the right of the attraction. But, heading northwest of the mansion, we find a new mini area themed to Sleepy Hollow! This area has a new Sleepy Hollow Refreshments (the original has been renamed to Amos’s Inn) and a new Headless Horseman Rollercoaster.

Ride of the Headless Horseman is an outdoor terrain coaster where guests board horses and embark through the woods, going on Ichabod’s ride from the film. The track layout and scenes are a recreation of the chase scene from the film- every turn, splash, and drop has been emulated as best as I could fit in the plot of land. The ride features some scenes with Ichabod, his horse Gunpowder, and the Headless Horseman. There’s even two moments where the Headless Horseman races alongside the ride vehicles, adding some thrills to this ride! The ride ends with you seeing the smashed pumpkin and Ichabod’s hat, his fate a mystery…

The land also has a pumpkin patch that starts to turn more twisted and spooky as you approach the covered bridge that leads you to…

…Villainsland! This dark land is home to a coaster/dark ride hybrid themed to the Yzma and Kronk, an E-Ticket dark ride where the villains meet to decide who’s the Cruelest One of All, an outdoor attraction similar to Luigi’s Rollicking Roadsters themed to a sorcery showdown between villains like Jafar, Dr. Facilier, and Madam Mim, and several restaurants like a Hades-themed Greek restaurant. We had considered the infamous Ursula Spinner but removed it from the final map. Funnily enough, this take on the land predates The Wrap’s rumor of what the real life land will be- maybe they thought my art was a real leak and not fan work?

The land also features Maleficent’s Castle, which features its own version of the nighttime show! Like Fire of the Rising Moons at Galaxy’s Edge, this show uses the main show’s fireworks and effects but plays different music and projections to create a new story- a showdown between the heroes and villains of the Magic Kingdom. The show ends with the heroes bringing light to the villains land, an effect achieved by fiber optics and LEDs in the pavement and decor creating swirls of light magic that illuminate the land until the park closes.

Heading clockwise, we cross a bridge and pass Madam Mim’s cottage, which is connected to it’s counterpart in Fantasyland, making them a pair of dueling gift shops!

Fantasyland has received an expansion in the north themed to the English Woods, home to a new and improved Sword in the Stone ceremony, a Merlin themed restaurant, and the starting point of a revived Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. To its right through some tunnels is Pixie Hollow, which has a Tinkerbell meet and greet, a playground, and Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies.

Toad Hall is further down the new path, being a quick service restaurant with British classics like fish and chips. Walking through the spot formerly occupied by the Tangled restrooms, we come to our first two rides- in Peter Pan’s Flight’s place we have a 101 Dalmatians themed dark ride, and in Small World’s place, we have… Peter Pan’s Flight! Rebuilt from the ground up, this is now the Shanghai Disney version of the ride, but with animatronics being used in places where the ride uses screens. Mickey’s PhilharMagic and Pinocchio’s Village Haus are the same, as is the carousel. In the place of Princess Fairytale Hall is a new Cinderella dark ride on the scale of other classic dark rides. Friar Tuck’s is now the Hundred Acre Bakery, home to pastries, sweets, and veggie-based snacks from Rabbit’s garden. Walking past Pooh, the Tea Cups have a new covering that resembles ornate architecture found in British gardens. Up north, the Beauty and the Beast area has been reshuffled- the Belle meet and greet is the same, but next to it is now the village area with Gaston’s and the gifts shop. In the place of Be Our Guest is Tokyo Disneyland’s Beauty and the Beast dark ride, and to the right of that is Be Our Guest! Again, not the most realistic changes to be rebuilding things in different spots, but that’s why this is blue sky!

Storybook Circus is now the Fairytale Gardens. Dumbo remains in place, with some new elephant fountains outside it, and a Casey Jr. kiddie coaster replacing the Barnstormer. Across the way through some gardens is a new and improved Small World, with a large outdoor facade finally realized. The fountains from MK’s original queue have also been recreated here as a tribute to what was unique about MK’s Small World. The facade is angled in a way to allow for another alternate nighttime show, with projections on the facade as fireworks are seen behind it.

Now we move into our final land, Tomorrowland!

The first big change to Tomorrowland is removing the Speedway and adding a ton of things in its place- Happy Ride with Baymax and The Big Pop from Tokyo Disneyland have been added here. Next to that is a Japanese restaurant, Hamada’s, also themed to Big Hero Six.

Next to Hamada’s is Flynn’s Arcade, a recreation of the iconic spot from the original Tron. The inside is a real arcade with free to play games, but in the back you can “enter the grid” and visit the End of the Line Club from Tron Legacy. Tron Lightcycle Run and Space Mountain are the same, though inside Space Mountain I decided on a retrack to make the ride more up to speed with its competition.

Also in the former Speedway footprint is a new Tomorrowland Stage, now with seating and a covered stage. Next to it, per Tom’s request, the DVC kiosk now has the Cat From Outer Space hanging out in a UFO.

The surrounding area near the DVC kiosk also has some homages to classic Disney sci-fi films, with Medfield Merchandise replacing Star Traders, which is a reference to Medfield College, a setting featured in multiple films like Flubber, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, and The Shaggy Dog. Cosmic Ray’s is still here, and Sonny Eclipse is still delighting guests.

The PeopleMover is still here, now with an extended track to pass by and through the new buildings of Tomorrowland. The Carousel of Progress has a new facade recreating its look from the 1964 World’s Fair, complete with a beautiful translucent ceiling with rainbow lightning shining out, and a large fountain outside that has its fountains timed to the music loop. To the left of the CoP is a pathway that leads back to Main Street.

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin is replaced with Stitch’s Space Spin, where guests work to assist Stich in espacing from the Galactic Federation prison. The Astro Orbiter and the Lunching Pad are also rethemed to Lilo & Stitch’s Galactic Federation- the Lunching Pad notably now has chili dogs, a nod to Stitch’s Great Escape. Eric also wanted a Black Hole themed donut stand called the Donut Hole, which I gladly added.

Now heading back towards the hub, we have two new attractions- Ralph Breaks the Expo replaces Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, being another theater show. The exit of the attraction is a candy store named “Mission to Mars”, sponsored by Mars candy (which was done to remove Mars from Main Street in order to be more accurate to the time period). In the place of Stitch’s Great Escape is the “Buy n Large Product Showcase”, which is a Wall-E meet and greet with the Wall-E living character.

I had a lot of fun with this project, and I think it turned out really great! Definitely gave me some learning experience to tackle my own original castle park- which I hope to complete sometime in the future!

# 2 – Plectu’s Intergalactic Revue

You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts!” – Bruce Wayne, Batman (1989)

Okay, this next section is for the true sickos. In my original Castle park’s Tomorrowland, there is an attraction based on the scrapped Tomorrowland 2055 “Plectu’s Intergalactic Revue” in Disneyland. I designed a bunch of characters that would be in this animatronic musical, which is housed in a reverse Carousel of Progress (the guests sit in the center, which then rotates to face various sides of donut shaped stage.)

Plectu, our host, is chipper and mellow blue fellow who has come to Earth in hopes of sharing his alien culture with humans. His optimism often leads him to expect that nothing will go wrong, despite working with the aliens he works with. Nonetheless, he pushes through every performance! His design is a modified and streamlined version of the concept art from the original.

Sclerance is Plectu’s overworked and underpaid stage manager. They are everything Plectu is not: cranky, stressed, and way too busy. However, both are perfectionist,  which is why they haven’t gone their separate ways yet. Sclerance spends the show keeping everyone else in line, to varying degrees of success. I gave them tons of eyes and arms to emphasize their busy body attitude… there’s always something needing to be done and they’re making sure they aren’t wasting a second!

One of the performances is a jazzy lounge number by Miss Stella Nova (no relation to the hotel) and her saxophone player, Grayson. For Stella, I designed her to be a more traditional looking jazz singer, but with some extra alien flair (the glowing spots were an idea I had to make the AA more dynamic.) Grayson is a traditional Little Gray Man alien, too iconic to not include!

Next is Martian Marc on the U.F.Organ- inspired by artwork from Marc Davis of a never built UFO and little green alien for Disneyland’s railroad.

Another act in the show is twin sisters Luna & Astrid. Their design came from a desire to create a very unique AA type. I thought the idea of two siblings with different music and fashion tastes forced to share a body and stage time to be really funny, and I can imagine them dueling each other- classical VS punk rock!

Next is Baer E. Toen, a design meant solely to be a very unique looking audio animatronic. I like the idea of having a large animatronic that had many moving parts, which would be these pipe organ-esque horns. I imagine he would be this shows equivalent of Big Al – a large and imposing character with a weird design and personality who comes out of nowhere does his thing and leaves without any explanation.

Lastly, we have Connie Ductor and her amazing singing Gleeples. I had the idea for her when I realized that a robot character would be a nice, unique design to round out the otherwise completely alien cast. Her aliens are all named after, of course, the Five Bear Rugs.

Here is a group shot of the cast together! I think if this were to be a real show, I would probably add a few more characters to not only fill out the space in the show’s theater, but to help differentiate from the other animatronic shows which have more tight-knit casts.

Before we leave this section, I’d like to share this random Imagineering project I did that conceptualized a replacement for Magic Kingdom’s Speedway…an attraction based on Sugar Rush from Wreck-it-Ralph! This was a quick thing I put together without much finalization of the track, more like a proof of concept. The idea is that from Fantasyland, you’d see the candy mountains and forests and that it would be very whimsical. While from Tomorrowland, the Sugar Rush façade would be the digital plug and cord aesthetic from the films, having you enter the game world. I’ve always loved the original Wreck-it-Ralph film, and I feel this could be a great integration of it into the parks. The size of the Speedway is so large you could have this attraction and some leftover space for another dark ride! Or just divvy it up even more and give the park three attractions instead of two. Tons of possibilities.

# 1 – The One…The Only…The ORIGINAL Country Bear Jamboree

Anyone who has seen my artwork online before – or has got this far into the article – knows that I am a big fan of the Country Bears. If you ask friends and family, they’d likely use the word “obsessed” as the adjective, but either way, I really do adore the Country Bear Jamboree. Disney Imagineer Marc Davis is one of my biggest inspirations as an artist, his work influencing a lot of my own personal style. In the book Marc Davis in His Own Words, Marc talks about how for the Country Bears, the songs came first and the designs came second. He used the lyrics to inform the character. If you listen to the original recordings of the songs featured in the original show, you can really feel that.  Buck Owens’ “How Long Will My Baby Be Gone”, for example, has a sort of shaky, whiny quality to the vocals that matches Davis’s original illustrator of Terrence/Shaker perfectly. Character design is my favorite part of working in animation, and so I was naturally drawn into the CBJ by the vast array of character designs and learning the process behind the designs made me love the bears even more. It truly is a masterclass of character design, and in my humble opinion the Country Bears are Davis’ best work, even better than Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.

This is probably my most “famous” (and I say that lightly) piece of art I’ve done featuring the bears. The idea behind this batch of designs was “what if the Country Bears had an animated series?” I broke down each of the bears’ designs into simple, 2D designs that kept the essence of their more detailed Marc Davis illustrations and in-park animatronics, while also feeling fresh. I also aimed to have a wide variety of fur and face tones for the bears, instead of the kind of standardized face color and heavy use of brown fur the original show has. They’re a bit of a remix of the best traits of the various depictions of the bears- mainly the animatronic shows, but I did take some inspiration from the walk-around costumes and even a bit of the 2002 movie (which, while we’re talking about it, is an awful adaptation, but it’s not a bad movie. Disney, if you’re reading this- I can be the Guillermo del Toro to the Country Bear Jamboree’s Haunted Mansion. Hit me up.) I think out of all of these designs, Gomer is my favorite!

This next one is what I’d call a “hype piece,” as I started it the day of the Country Bear Musical Jamboree early previews and finished it not long after! Ernest the Dude has always been my favorite bear, so seeing him get the show-stopper moment was super exciting. I tried to go for a painterly style on this one that’s a bit more realistic than my normal stuff, and I still like how it came out…though with how much I’ve drawn the Country Bears since, I can definitely see where I can improve on this piece.

This oddly-shaped piece is a recreation of the painting featured on the original CBJ curtain, made for the WDWNT Museum. The museum has a dedicated Country Bear Jamboree area that has a recreation of the stage as a photo-op. I made the painting, while our other full-time artist, Billy, made all the advertisements and put it all together. Despite the original Country Bear Jamboree and its curtain surviving until 2024, long into the HD and 4K era of photographs and videos, there weren’t any high-quality photos or videos that I could find that got right up close to the curtain. So, I did a lot of guesswork based on various photos I could find. It’s not 100% accurate but it’s pretty darn close!

 

In the WDWNT Museum there is a sign telling people they can go upstairs to take pictures. For this I drew Wendell in his vacation outfit, which surprisingly was easier said than done (when you’re someone like me who wants to make sure the costume is 100% accurate to the animatronic, that is.)

I had to look up a LOT of reference photos for this one, trying to get every possible angle that would show me all of the little details the animatronic had, from his various cameras and camera bags to the exact pattern of the Hawaiian button-up- which interestingly had a sort of 8-bit pattern to it.

 

This one is one of the first pieces I did at WDWNT, parodying the Bubbles & Brine booth at Epcot’s Food and Wine in 2023. I had the very unique task of designing a shrimp in the style of Marc Davis, something I don’t think that anyone has done before. From what I remember of my research, it wasn’t even anything Marc himself had done before either! I wish I had thought to keep track of what I ended up using as reference, but I do remember it was a lot of mixing and matching of various traits of his style. My main thought process was, “if Marc had designed a crustacean, what would he have done to anthropomorphize it?” On that goal, I’d say it was a success!

A bit unconventional for an article about art, I know, but I felt I should include this WIP piece for a project I’ve been wanting to do. Inspired by Bunny Wars’ “Buzzy Identification Guide” showcasing every design of Buzzy over the years, I had the idea to give the Country Bears the same treatment. Not just Henry, not just Big Al… all the bears. It’s quite the undertaking, and likely impossible to get 100% correct. Through my research I’ve found that there were many, many minor changes throughout the show’s history, from small random details being added to entire fur changes for the whole cast. I put together a spreadsheet logging all the changes, though it’s not complete. If there’s anyone out there as crazy as I am who can fill in the gaps of my research, let me know!

This last piece is a warm-up sketch I did awhile ago of Henry and Wendell in the style of the Tokyo Disneyland CBJ illustrations. The art for the bears over there is full of so much personality and charm- if Disney were to ever do an animated CBJ movie (I already have a script outline, hit me up Disney), I think that should be the going-off point for the style. They’re a fantastic evolution of Davis’s original designs, and really showcase the bear’s individual characteristics- which is the other half of what makes the original CBJ so wonderful. You have the fantastic writing from Al Bertino that, combined with Davis’s designs, really created the first true park-original characters- not just nameless pirates or parrots all made from the same mold, but unique characters with unique designs, backstories, and personalities. Not only that, but the show has heart- despite all the comedy, these bears are a found family (the best kind!). A dysfunctional family barely keeping it together, but still a family nonetheless.
While the original show in its later years might have come off a bit dated or creepy, if you give the bears enough time, you’ll find the heart and charm beneath the 50-year-old-hydraulic surface. Just ask my wife- she went from being terrified of Wendell, to now loving him (those viral TikToks of him dancing in the park definitely helped with that.) They might not be the most popular nowadays, but I’ll always love these guys!

HONORABLE MENTION: Toys For Tots Livestream

This past Holiday season, WDWNT had its annual Toys for Tots Charity Livestream, where for 50 hours we streamed a variety of segments to help raise money for charity. I had a segment where I would draw requests for people if they donated (black and white sketch for any amount, color if they donated a certain amount.) It proved to be a success, as it alone raised nearly $1,300 for Toys for Tots! I had a lot of fun prompts to draw, from classic Disney characters like Powerline and Fud Wrapper to some funny scenarios featuring some bears I was more than happy to draw. I even got to do a little artwork for some Universal characters…

 

 

Double Secret Honorable Mention – Magnets

In July of 2025, I was asked to design some magnets for WDWNT to give out at Tampa Bay ComiCon – one of Gertie the Dinosaur, one of Sonny Eclipse, and one of the Carnotaurus from DINOSAUR. I decided to make them in the style of the WDW Passholder Magnets, and they were such a hit at the convention that more were ordered for our only store- which also proved popular! Not long after it was decided that there would be a “magnet of the month” club with more characters in the style of those first three- simply called the “WDWNT Magnet of the Month Club”. Each month, subscribers are sent a new magnet featuring a park-original character!

Not long after it was decided that there would be a “magnet of the month” club with more characters in the style of those first three – appropriately called the WDWNT Magnet of the Month Club. Each month, subscribers are sent a new magnet featuring a park-original character, such as Pita Gabriel from the show Food Rocks.

Since then, we’ve had four magnets for the end of 2025, and we’re two into 2026! While we started with some DINOSAUR characters and the Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster itself to celebrate the end of those ties, February’s spotlight on Ernest the “Dude” from the Country Bear Jamboree is a sign of things to come – in fact, the rest of 2026 is all fun picks. No more dinosaurs and dying rides- it’s all hits from here on!

 

If you enjoyed this article, you will surely like the following:

Artist Spotlight Class of 2021: SonderQuest | Sam Carter | Brian Cooper | Sterling Decker

Artist Spotlight Class of 2022: Rob Yeo | Ava Buric | Jess Siswick | Hayden Evans

Artist Spotlight Class of 2023: Marie Catano | Savannah Hamilton | Bunny Wars

Artist Spotlight Class of 2024: Jaime S. | Jess Feldman | Bryan Bindman

Artist Spotlight Class of 2025: Brandon Starr | Kristi O | Henry Taylor

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: The Theme Park Artwork of Brian Gweon

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: The Theme Park Artwork of Phillip Weatherford (AKA The Horizoneer)

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: The Theme Park Artwork of Charlie MacWilliams

SATURDAY SIX Artist Spotlight: The Theme Park Artwork of Stephen Christ

SATURDAY SIX Presents: Artists Inspired by Universal’s VELOCICOASTER

SATURDAY SIX Presents: Artists Inspired by Universal’s EPIC UNIVERSE

SATURDAY SIX Presents: Artists Inspired by Universal’s HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS

SATURDAY SIX Artists Inspired by HHN Series: Declan O’mara