DLRP Today

With the latest TV adverts for “The Celebration Continues… Big Time!” now showing across the UK and France, you might notice these were produced many miles from Paris… in Florida, for cost and quality benefits. Sixteen years ago, however, this was their only option…

Just how do you advertise in video a Disney resort that hasn’t even finished construction yet?

The inverted commas in the title of this dlrpTV column are particularly important. Because, in the early nineties, Walt Disney World became the key component in the EuroDisney marketing campaign. Photographs featured familiar Magic Kingdom locations — populated with guests carrying ‘EuroDisney’ shopping bags. Video footage was shot across the park ready for Paris — characters, attractions, parades. Even aerial views…

This is perhaps the most famous EuroDisney teaser of them all, as boy enjoying a picnic with his family drifts into a dream which sees them landing in “EuroDisney” on a now-iconic Mickey Mouse hot air balloon:

“And now, we invite you to watch as a little boy dreams of the incredible adventures waiting for him at the EuroDisney Resort near Paris, France…”

“EuroDisney… the dream becomes reality in 1992.”

Now as we all know, the swamps and forests of Orlando versus the open fields of Marne-la-Vallée was not to be only difference between the two parks. Guests planning a visit to the park in 1992 might have seen this trailer and expected to see Cinderella Castle, Astro Orbitor and the Haunted Mansion, or the old-fashioned versions of “it’s a small world” and Autopia.

As it happened, those first guests were in for a surprise, thanks to a little over-spending…

[Video uploaded by mouetto on Dailymotion]