“Oh dear… It’s time for another meal…”
If you’ve ever felt the meal time blues, then you may have been one of the generation of Disney World fans whose view of the kitchen was forever changed by Kitchen Kabaret, an EPCOT Center original. Prepared by Kraft Foods and brought to life by Disney Imagineers, this incomparable animatronic “dinner” show gave visitors a musical lesson on the “four basic food groups” and how to chase those meal time blues away!
A bygone blues celebration of snacking, Kitchen Kabaret joins our growing library of Lost Legends – in-depth entries telling the complete behind-the-scenes stories of forgotten favorites and closed classics from around the globe. Like Snow White’s Scary Adventures, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure, Captain EO, Universal Orlando’s Kongfrontation, or any of the dozens of other Lost Legends we’ve chronicled, we’re determined to dig into this family favorite and relive the musical extravaganza. And like all Lost Legends, we have to start the story in the beginning…
Disney World’s Fair
For many readers here, the story of EPCOT Center’s origin and opening is a tale as old as time. That’s because of the enormous (and growing) collection of Lost Legends whose stories we’ve told, as the park’s unfortunate turnover of classics is legendary. But there are a few key points worth recalling once again.
Image: Disney
First, we flash back to Walt’s original vision for an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow – a sincere, living, breathing city where tens of thousands would’ve lived. It was Walt’s idea that this EPCOT could be a prototype for urban design and city planning of the future, informing the construction of any American city to follow after. Master-planned, pedestrian friendly, and connected via the applied installations of mass transit systems merely tested at Disneyland (the Monorail and Lost Legend: the Peoplemover), EPCOT was Walt’s true goal – his new pet project.
Obviously, after his unexpected death in 1966, executives at Walt Disney Productions decided they were in no position to run a city, so EPCOT was tabled. When the idea of adding a second theme park to Walt Disney World arose, then-CEO Card Walker orchestrated a revival of the EPCOT concept, though the resulting EPCOT Center would be a theme park rather than a city. Still, EPCOT Center would take the core concepts from Walt’s city – technology, innovation, American enterprise, and human achievement – to create a permanent World’s Fair.
Image: Disney
The park’s Future World realm, for example, would host enormous, gargantuan pavilions (again, modeled from a World’s Fair concept) with each focused on a single area of industry and innovation and with massive international corporations footing the bill and shaping the contents.
EPCOT Center would be quite unlike anything Disney had done before. Up until 1982, a trip to “Disney” was synonymous with princesses, castles, fantasy, and characters. EPCOT Center would leave it all behind to tell the real stories behind real areas of science and society. No princess. No characters. No Mickey Mouse! The freedom (and challenge) of such a radical new way of thinking is what inspired some of the most beloved Disney Parks attractions on Earth – the revolutionary, lengthy, educational dark rides that once called each EPCOT Center pavilion home.
Image: Disney
At its height, Future World would host pavilions dedicated to communication, innovation, energy, the human body, transportation, imagination, the seas, and the subject of today’s entry – the Land.
Designing the Land
Imagining that EPCOT Center’s Future World pavilions represented “slices” in a pie chart of science and industry, it’s not too revolutionary to consider that “the land” would earn one of those slices. Indeed, it’s right at home among such scientific areas as the seas, the human body, and energy. What is worth considering, though, is how The Land pavilion selected the focus that it did – nutrition, agriculture, and horticulture.
If you can imagine, the original idea for The Land was something entirely different.
Image: Disney
As first envisioned, The Land would’ve been an icon of EPCOT Center – a towering pavilion comprised of seven prismatic glass crystal towers. Designed by Disney Legend and fan-favorite Imagineer Tony Baxter, these glass towers would’ve been massive greenhouses, each populated by a different carefully maintained ecosystem for guests to explore… for example, a deciduous forest biome, a desert biome, a rainforest biome, an urban biome, etc.
The pavilion’s headlining attraction would’ve been a suspended dark ride with guests seated in the baskets of hot air balloons, whisked through the world’s ecosystems by following water from the mountaintops and down through the habitats and ecosystems of the world. In a spectacular grand finale, the balloons would’ve burst out of the confines of the dark ride and entered into those greenhouse towers, soaring over the exploring guests below.
As grand and educational as EPCOT Center’s finest, The Land was poised to be an icon of the park’s early days, casting us as protectors of nature by showing us the complexity, beauty, and fragility of the planet.
So why on Earth would Disney not have brought this concept through to completion? Simple…
Sponsorship
Image: Disney
On paper, Disney executives must’ve seen the sponsorship model not only as EPCOT Center’s lifeblood, but as its coup; a win-win. After all, mega-corporations would come on board and foot the bill for a pavilion’s construction and maintenance… then, they’d regularly reinvest to keep their pavilion up-to-date! After all, no corporation would want its name associated with aging technologies or entertainment at Walt Disney World! Disney, for its part, just needed to design attractions to appease those sponsors and request more money when it was needed.
What really happened is a bit different… While there are dozens of stories to be told (and many have been in associated entries for EPCOT Center’s Lost Legends: Body Wars, Maelstrom, Universe of Energy, and World of Motion to name just a few), the thing that stalled this ecological version of The Land right out the gate was that its sponsor didn’t come through at all.
A logging company had signed on to sponsor The Land, and had requested a feel-good pavilion about habitats, ecosystems, and environmental protection… a smart and natural connection to their company and the message it wanted to portray. And that’s precisely what Tony Baxter’s version of The Land would’ve been. But in 1978 – early on in EPCOT Center’s design – the logging company dropped out.
Image: Kraft Heinz Company
Disney instead secured sponsorship from Kraft Foods. And while Baxter’s concept for The Land was grand, it didn’t match up with Kraft’s business or message. They (justifiably) requested that Disney go back to the drawing board to create something that fit their brand, with a focus on agriculture, horticulture, farming, harvesting, and food production.
Baxter, for his part, was reassigned to the empty plot of land next door where long-time Disney partner Kodak had said they didn’t care what topic Disney chose for them to sponsor but requested that their pavilion be “something imaginative” (see Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination) and The Land was redesigned.
Image: Disney
On the next page, we’ll see exactly what the pavilion contained… Read on…
The Land
Image: Disney
At least in 1982, you simply couldn’t miss The Land. Covering more than six acres, the pavilion was by far EPCOT Center’s largest, with a glass greenhouse tower as a visual “weenie” drawing guests in. Otherwise, the enormous pavilion was pleasantly disguised behind rolling hills and gentle landscaping.
Inside, The Land is perhaps the truest “pavilion” in EPCOT Center in the sense that it sincerely contains multiple rides, shows, attractions, and restaurants all centered around the pavilion’s theme… A pleasant task, given that the sponsor – Kraft – has shaped a pavilion ostensibly themed to the planet (a broad focus, to be sure) into one specifically focused on… well… food.
Image: Disney
Which is why entering into the pavilion, we find ourselves standing on a balcony overlooking a food court below. The Farmers Market features warm, earthy colors with guests dining under umbrellas alongside an iconic white fountain. “Hot air balloons” are suspended overhead, representing the food groups (which, in 1982, were four: cereals and breads, fruits and vegetables, milk, and meat).
Meanwhile, the Good Turn Restaurant is the pavilion’s signature dining experience. The dining area is physically placed on a giant turntable, slowly rotating as guests eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner. As the restaurant turns, it aligns with windows looking out over the pavilion’s signature attraction.
Image: Disney
Listen to the Land is the headliner here – a live-narrated boat ride through the musical “Symphony of the Seed,” past simulated habitats, and into the actual greenhouses and production facilities where many of the fish and plants served in EPCOT Center restaurants are grown. There’s also Symbiosis, an 18-minute film in the Harvest Theater, an inside look at the relationship between people and the land, and the technological progress of harvesting and environmental protection.
Like many of EPCOT Center’s early attractions, there’s no denying that The Land was self-serious, grounded, and educational. But at least one attraction let loose. Located on the lower level of The Land just alongside the food court (fitting) and under a glowing red neon sign, we’ll find the entrance to Kitchen Kabaret! As the twinkling theater lights pulse toward the automatic doors, the jazzy swing music signals something spectacular is about to happen…
Please move all the way to the end of your row, filling in all available seats.
Kitchen Kabaret
Seated in the opulent theater, all eyes are fixed on the royal blue curtain ahead, marked “KRAFT GENERAL FOODS.” The voice of a vaudevillian announcer begins: “Ladies and gentlemen, Kraft proudly presents the show that has the whole town cooking… Kitchen Kabaret! Here’s your hostess, Bonnie Appetit!”
At far right, a portion of the blue curtain pulls away revealing Bonnie in her own box seat, reclined among open cookbooks, her hair pulled into a messy bun. Clearly, she’s had a rough time of it. And dinner is the last thing she’d like to get involved with. “Oh dear,” she sighs, “it’s time for another meal.”
And indeed, she’s got a case of “The Meal Time Blues:”
Yes, there are days when I feel downcast
And get the meal time blues;
If I don’t plan a proper meal,
Then my menu will be bad news!
But her toe begins to tap.
Oh, so on those days when we feel downcast,
I’ll give you all some clues
To work magic in our kitchen
And chase away the meal time blues!
Now the timing’s right; the show’s prepared.
Let me serve it on up to you!
Image: Disney
As Bonnie’s curtain seals her off, the lights up come center stage, where a kitchen has appeared! “Okay, Krackpots… let’s get cookin’!” An island rises, with a band of condiments – the Kitchen Krackpots – warming up. A jar of mayonnaise plays the can-drums, a tomato tickles the ragtime ivories, mustard plays the brass, and it’s a bottle of barbeque sauce on the whisk! The jazzy band kicks in as Bonnie returns, but this time, our host is ready to entertain in a bedazzled suit. She’s ready to “Chase Those (Meal Time) Blues Away!”
Thank you folks for coming to my kitchen
As I sing the praise of good nutrition!
Eating balanced meals can keep you fit; feeling grand!
A variety at your three meals can only improve the way you feel!
The basic food groups make the perfect team,
But balanced they are held in high esteem!
Dairy, bread and cereals; meat, fruit and vegetables!
They’ll help you chase those blues – those low-down meal time blues –
They’ll help you chase those blues away!
Bonnie invites our first act – Mr. Dairy Goods and the Stars of the Milky Way – on stage. The refrigerator opens, bellowing fog as a milk carton emerges, crooning into a 1930s microphone.
Image: Disney
It’s time to meet some beauties and this I’ll rendezvous,
We come from the dairy with moving words for you.
With grace and ease, here is Miss Cheese – a delightful array of curds!
The va-va-voom of Miss Cheese is apparent enough by her feather boa and hat, but the block of Swiss sings like Mae West herself, promising “Your taste buds, I’ll appease… I know how to please.” Miss Yogurt – a European sex kitten by the sound of it, offers “Your palate is assured and really quite coutured!” Miss Ice Cream, meanwhile, is an Eartha Kitt soundalike, reminding you that she’s cool through-and-through.
As Dairy and his Milky Way Stars return to the fridge, Bonnie announces “direct from the silos of the Midwest, the Cereal Sisters!”
A cabinet opens and a drawer extends, introducing Mairzy Oats, Rennie Rice, and Connie Corn and their rendition of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” accompanied by a trumpet-playing slice of bread.
Next emerges our third food group, represented by “those breakfast buddies: Hamm and Eggs.” The duo are a comedic vaudeville act singing a comic rendition of “The Meat Group Can Help You Get Strong.” As Eggs presses on his unfortunate, protein-related puns, Hamm loses his cool.
“Mr. Eggs, whatever happened to that tuna you used to work with?”
“Ooh, sad story,” Eggs winks, “She was caught being fresh… and was canned!” As Eggs’ bowtie wiggles, he dips his hat.
“Mr. Eggs, you’re the first egg I’ve ever seen lay an egg! Let’s finish up before you get us real trouble!”
At meals our act is very keen,
We’re chock full of high protein,
The meat group can help you get strong!
“One more crack outta you and this act is finished!”
“One more crack outta me and the yolks on you!”
Image: Disney
As Mr. Hamm threatens to join another Proten act (cheese, beans, or even nuts), the two exit.
Now, it’s time for the signature number and the most beloved of all of Kitchen Kabaret’s acts. As the lights fall, night sounds and Latin percussion awaken the produce that’s been on the kitchen counter all along. Bonnie Appetit returns as a Carmen Miranda Carnivale dancer descending on a crescent moon.
It’s “Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit” by the Colander Combo and Fiesta Fruit!
Image: Disney
Bonnie croons:
My friends are exciting, just like fireworks igniting; they’re incredible!
Sparks always fly each and every time you try fruit and vegetables!
They’re inviting and delighting, anytime you’re with them, it’s a treat.
Like a carnival, it’s nice to dine with fruit and vegetables.
The produce joins in:
There are no substitutes for we!
Veggie, fruit fruit. Veggie veggie, fruit fruit.
You see a balanced meal always wins with our vitamins, A and C.
Sí sí, fruit fruit.
Veggie veggie, fruit fruit.
Veggie, fruit fruit.
Cha-cha-cha!
With the entire kitchen awake, Bonnie, the Krackpots, and the food groups join together for a rousing Kabaret Finale:
Proper foods each time you dine
Can keep you fit and feeling fine
Eating right’s a healthy sign,
And feeling good makes each day shine and shine!
As the music crescendos, the curtains fall and the audience applauds. “Goodbye! And thank you for helping us chase away the meal time blues! Remember: you’re always welcome at the Kitchen Kabaret!” And to make sure the kitchen is always open for you, here’s a point of view video of the show in action:
Chased away
A classic fan-favorite from EPCOT Center’s earliest days – and earliest philosophy – Kitchen Kabaret was a showstopping animatronic “dinner” show like none the world had seen… And decade later, it was gone. On the last page, we’ll dissect what happened to this storied classic and explore its follow-ups… You may be surprised just how “hip” its successor would be…
Beginning in the 1993, EPCOT Center began to change.
A new generation of executives (under Michael Eisner) had become determined to make Disney Parks into hip-and-happening places where every member of the family – even teens! – would find something worth doing. EPCOT Center was… well… not at the top of most kids’ to-do lists. Even a decade after opening, the park was admittedly aging. Its distinct 1980s architecture and 1980s ideals were looking increasingly dated to audiences of the 1990s.
Image: Disney
The ten years since opening was also just the amount of time needed for many sponsors’ contracts to come up for renewal. And here, sponsorship failed again… Rather than re-upping their contracts and doubling down on investment the way Disney had hoped, many sponsors instead opted to leave altogether. (Again, a common thread running through the Lost Legends entries on Epcot’s closed classics.)
Disney rallied around the park and tried to update its identity (renaming it Epcot ’93, then Epcot ’94, and finally just Epcot), slowly minimizing the “educational” components that had made the park a talk show punch line as the one park kids dreaded spending a day at.
The kitchen bites back
Kraft withdrew its sponsorship of The Land in 1992. The food giant had played a vital role in financing the pavilion’s everyday operation, which meant that The Land might’ve been doomed to either slowly wither or close altogether (with both strategies having been used in the park’s Future World as sponsors fell)… except that Disney found another sponsor willing to take it on.
International food corporation Nestlé came on board in September 1993, agreeing to co-finance the pavilion along with the Walt Disney Company. Luckily, Kraft and Nestle did share a common focus on nutrition and agriculture, meaning the pavilion’s foundational concepts and attractions still worked. But neither Nestlé nor Disney were content simply financing the aging 1982 attractions left in the building.
The gentle boat ride through the park’s greenhouses – Listen to the Land – was briefly closed to freshen it up and plant a little more of Nestlé’s message. The Symphony of the Seed introduction was replaced with a rainforest scene, and the ride reopened quickly as Living with the Land. Similarly, the aging Symbiosis film received a character injection (one of the park’s first, though placing Disney characters amongst the park’s grounded locales became the name of the game during the Eisner area, continuing unto today) becoming Circle of Life: An Environmental Fable featuring the cast of The Lion King.
The most radical transformation, though, was to Kitchen Kabaret. When Nestlé took over in 1992, the only immediate change was that Mr. Mayonnaise was repainted to become Mr. Tomato Sauce. Otherwise, it was business as usual…
Image: USDA
However, in 1992, the “four basic food group” nutrition model used by the FDA since 1956 was retired. It was replaced by the Food Pyramid, which expanded to five food groups (and a “Fats, Oils, and Sweets” group) and visually represented how many servings of each was recommended. (Controversially, the Food Pyramid was politically charged and overtly shaped by special interest groups. It underwent its own radical transformation in 2005 to become MyPyramid before giving way to the current MyPlate nutrition model in 2011.)
Suddenly, the animatronic “dinner” show Nestlé had inherited from Kraft was a relic of a bygone era. A lone standout in a pavilion that had been refreshed (and a testament to an outdated nutrition model), the attraction needed to change. And in this case, Nestlé went for a full redesign. Kitchen Kabaret closed forever just a few years later, on January 3, 1994.
Image: Disney
After a three-month absence, the space re-opened with Food Rocks on March 26, 1994. As the quick turnaround might indicate, Food Rocks wasn’t quite as lovingly crafted as its predecessor, with more rudimentary animatronics and two-dimensional backdrops.
However, Food Rocks did align to the brand new Food Pyramid and offered a more high-energy, frantic, bright, “modern,” and overtly funny take on the concept… even if it was obviously not as timeless, thoughtful, or fully realized as its predecessor.
Image: Disney
The attraction was themed as a benefit concert for good nutrition hosted by Füd Wrapper (above, a rapper wrapper voiced by real-life artist Tone Loc) and a series of food group musical acts with the rotten metal band The Excess (below) constantly chiming in to deride healthy foods and encourage guests to overeat.
Image: Disney
At least its pop and rock songs (and their associated “punny” singers) would be more recognizable as pop culture references, much hipper for a new generation…
- “Vegetables are Good For You” sung by Neil Moussaka (voiced by Neil Sedaka, parodying his song “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”)
- “Every Bite you Take” by the Refrigerator Police (a take-up on The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”)
Image: Disney
- “Good Nutrition” by The Peach Boys (of course, the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations”)
- “Just Keep It Lean” by the Sole of Rock ‘n’ Roll (a fish who looked and sounded curiously like Cher, parodying her “It’s In His Kiss”)
Even if Food Rocks wasn’t as stylistically complex or creatively timeless as its predecessor, it gained its own fan following thanks to ‘90s kids who grew up with the sing-along animatronic show. For what it’s worth, the show was modeled around the Food Pyramid, a now-retired nutrition model with six food groups.) In any case, another radical renovation would see this benefit concert shut down, too.
You can see exactly what Food Rocks had in store with this video filmed of the attractions:
Full circle
In 2003 – after 10 years of sponsorship – Nestlé’s contract was up for renewal. They agreed to continue on their sponsorship, but agreed with Disney that The Land needed another floor-to-ceiling renovation if it were to remain viable in the 21st century. That aligned with a radical reinvention that Disney had planned for the park’s Future World, as we chronicled in its own standalone feature, Possibilityland: Epcot’s Project – GEMINI.
While much of Project: GEMINI never came to pass, a few elements planned for The Land did thanks to the plan’s proximity to Nestlé’s renewal.
Image: Michael Gray, Flickr (license)
First, the pavilion’s identity shifted with a new logo, new colors, and new visual identity that was more modern, sleek, and bright. The exterior was reimagined, replacing its staggered palm trees with a forested grove, growing to cover much of the pavilion’s exterior (as chronicled unbeatably in Yesterland’s Then & Now photo essay).
Its interior was also redesigned, eliminating the remains of the ‘80s and ‘90s colors, textures, and images to create a more vibrant, modern food court.
Then and now. Images: Disney
However, the largest change was yet to come. As part of a larger shift in focus, Epcot was being redefined. By the New Millennium, many of the park’s lofty educational dark rides had already closed or downsized. It’s clear in retrospect that there was no overarching goal or vision for Epcot anymore, and that piecemeal additions (be they brainless thrills like Mission: SPACE or character injections like The Seas With Nemo and Friends) would be one-off solutions that only further disassociated the pavilions from one another and from any park-wide mission or identity.
The Land, meanwhile, needed a new headliner of its own… and while Disney was reeling from the outright failure of its newest theme park, Disney’s California Adventure did feature one ride that was a soaring success.
Soarin’ success
Nestlé requested that The Land receive the one, single, solitary “success” that the underbuilt and underfunded subject of our Disaster File: Disney’s California Adventure had produced.
Image: Disney
Food Rocks closed forever on January 3, 2004. The space it once occupied would become the entrance to something new. From the theater’s footprint, a massive queue was constructed, leading to a new auxiliary showbuilding behind the park’s Imagination pavilion housing a ride so beloved, it earned its own in-depth entry in our series, Lost Legends: Soarin’.
On board, guests would be hoisted sky-high in nimble “hang gliders,” lofted before a domed IMAX screen to gently glide over mountains, forests, oceans, deserts, and cities. (Hilariously, the ride film was the same as California Adventure’s E-Ticket, meaning that “Soarin’” at Epcot featured exclusively Californian sights! Luckily, the state’s vast landscapes are so varied, most guests probably had no idea they were only seeing California.)
Image: Disney
Soarin’ was an instant hit, earning some of the longest waits at Epcot and signaling to executives that their new strategy to shift the park at its core could indeed work.
That being said, Soarin’ is the subject of its own Lost Legends entry because it, too, disappeared. After years and years of rumors, Epcot’s Soarin’ was finally upgraded with a non-Californian ride film (though curiously, California Adventure got it, too) and was renamed Soarin’ Around the World.
Image: Disney
The updated version now sends guests gliding over international wonders such as the Sydney Opera House, the Great Wall of China, and Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. (Never mind that, technically, that makes the updated ride a worse fit for both California Adventure and The Land.)
For most Disney World guests, memories of either Kitchen Kabaret or Food Rocks are long left behind, as it seems almost universally agreed upon that Soarin’ is worth the loss.
Growing
The story of Kitchen Kabaret and its successor, Food Rocks, are just another chapter in the continuously rewritten story of Epcot. Kraft and Nestlé helped shape Epcot’s “Land” into one focused on nutrition and agriculture, and Kitchen Kabaret was a uniquely Disney component of their goal: to educate, inform, and entertain about something as sincere and “real” as nutrition.
Image: Disney
Throughout the last three decades, our understanding of nutrition has changed. The “four basic food groups” gave way to a food pyramid, which was redesigned and then morphed into MyPlate. As quickly as our understanding of nutrition changed, so has Epcot itself. A new foundational direction for the park meant that Kitchen Kabaret and its successors were doomed.
The Land’s animatronic shows may have been a fun aside for a generation, but they were incompatible with Epcot’s new direction… especially now that its future is forever shifting toward more thrilling multi-media attractions and intellectual properties. Chances are, we won’t see another animatronic “dinner” show at Epcot… unless Pixar’s next hit stars food groups.
Now, make the jump to our In-Depth Collections Library to make a healthy choice about your next Lost Legend.
Then, we want to hear from you. Did you see either of Epcot’s animatronic “dinner” shows? What role do you think these educational, informational attractions had in the park, and what – if anything – is missing without them? Do you agree with us that Soarin’ Around the World a worthy replacement, even if it’s not technically a celebration of Earth’s ecosystems? And what could be next for The Land if Disney decides that all of its Future World pavilions need character ambassadors? Pocahontas? The Lion King? Moana?
