"Hunchback" hype hits hideous highs
This week on America (TM), a fully-owned subsidiary of Disney Cosmos (TM): All Quasimodo advertainment, all the time!
Does anybody out there know if there's a new Disney feature opening this summer?
Ha-ha, only kidding! Unless you spent the last couple of months, oh, holed up in a remote Montana cabin with no electricity typing out some weird anti-technology manifesto, you know full well that Disney's 34th full-length animated feature "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" is coming to theaters everywhere -- Everywhere! -- June 21.
Never subtle, the Disney hype machine has gone ballistic this time around, thanks to the synergy (which is maybe too benign a term for it) between Disney's network TV, cable TV, Internet, home video and retailing components. Like second-hand smoke, "Hunchback" advertising is pervasive, sneaky and all but impossible to escape.
First there was the "Hunchback" Mall Tour in April and May, with a traveling exhibit of art and merchandise from the movie rolling its way into malls across America. Then cuddly Quasimodo -- actually, the Disneyfied character's name is "Quasi" -- dolls and little Esmeralda gypsy frocks started showing up in The Disney Store chain and other retailers like K mart and Mervyn's. The home video release of Disney's golden-oldie animated feature "The Aristocats" included a long preview of "Hunchback," just like last spring's video release of "The Lion King" offered a first look at "Pocahontas." And this week, Disney's TV soldiers, ABC and cable's Disney Channel, fell dutifully into line with "Hunchback" specials.
ABC's "Disney's Most Unlikely Heroes" special two nights ago was hosted by Walt Disney Company Vice President Roy Disney (wearing a handsome "Hunchback" polo shirt) and narrated by that breathlessly enthusiastic guy who does all the Disney trailers. The show was ostensibly a salute to Disney heroes, with a bewilderingly eclectic lineup of celebrities (Nicolas Cage! 49ers quarterback Steve Young! Pat Sajak!) ruminating about their favorite Disney characters. But, guess what? Quasi is a -- most unlikely hero! And so are Quasi's three comic gargoyle sidekicks who hop around on their truncated torsos looking disturbingly like, as one wag put it, peeled bananas lopped in half. Roll the clips!
There was no difference between "Most Unlikely Heroes" and an infomercial for, say, the Power Rider. Throw in a couple of commercials for Disney World and Burger King's "Hunchback" toy tie-in and you had a seamless half-hour package of wholesome family advertainment. Thank you, ABC, for being such a team player. (And, no, we haven't forgotten that last season, after the merger between ABC/Capital Cities and Disney, nearly every ABC sitcom had an episode set in Disney World or Disneyland.)
Last night, "Hunchback"-mania reached ridiculous heights with a Louisiana Superdome world premiere of the movie for 65,000 lucky lottery winners. Disney's "Hunchback" website offered live coverage of the pre-screening "Festival of Fun" parade through the streets of New Orleans (the city was chosen, apparently, for its French influence and its willingness to become a Disney colony for a week). The coverage was a joke, just still photos taken along the parade route. Then, it was on to cable TV and the Disney Channel, which was being offered free and de-scrambled this week so that every cable-wired family in America could have the privilege of seeing a two-hour commercial for "Hunchback."
The Disney Channel's taped and edited highlights from the Superdome "Festival of Fun Musical Spectacular" chronicled the preparations for the pageantry, which was described by everyone from wardrobe mistress to the mayor of New Orleans in ever-escalating terms. The Superdome was outfitted with "the largest indoor stage ever constructed." The show featured 108 performers, each of whom required five costume changes, so "you can do the math," said the wardrobe mistress. Mayor Marc Morial proclaimed the festivities "a world premiere unlike any that the world has seen."
So, what does Disney do to top this? What's left after you reach the saturation point? Does the quality of the movie even matter? (Strong reservations about the suitability for young children of "Hunchback's" elements of genocide and sexual obsession, as well as disbelief that the movie carries a G and not a PG rating, have been expressed in, of all places, Variety and the syndicated column by Hollywood gossip columnist Marilyn Beck.)
With the hype inflated nearly to the bursting point, it's hard to see "Hunchback" as anything more than a hugely expensive widget, necessary only as the commodity that enables Disney to get on with its real business, the business of selling Disney -- of creating "Events" with Pavlovian regularity for Disney-hooked consumers.
In "Most Unlikely Heroes," the cheery Disney Announcer Guy marveled, "Who'd have thought in 1928 when 'Steamboat Willie' was released that a black and white mouse would go on to take over the imaginations and hearts of the world?"
That Montana cabin sounds more inviting all the time.