|
Tree of Life Repertory Theatre It’s Tough to be a Bug! Starring Flik and a cast of a Million Billion Bugs |
||
 |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2019 |
|||
|
Are you fond of insects and arachnids? Or do you think that the world would be better off without them? Flik, the blue ant from A Bug’s Life, wants to convince you that bugs are actually vital to human beings. |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Flik has a plan. He’ll shrink you to the size of a bug, equip you with “bug eyes” so you can see things his way, and make you an honorary bug. All this happens at the base of the park icon, the Tree of Life. You just need to walk through the queue, enter the lobby, and wait for a show. |
|||
Photo by Allen Huffman, 2018 Standby wait time: 5 minutes |
|||
|
Did you get a FASTPASS (or FastPass+ or Lightning Lane pass) for this attraction? It probably wasn’t necessary. This attraction has a huge capacity, with nine-minute shows in a 430-seat theater and just a short break between shows. Returning park guests have already seen it. They enjoyed it, but most of them don’t want to see it over and over. |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2018 Outdoor queue at the Tree of Life |
|||
|
The outdoor queue passes all sorts of carved animals. You really should take time to admire them, but then you risk having to wait for a later show. |
|||
Photo by Allen Huffman, 2018 Posters for some of the acts you’re about to see |
|||
Photos by Werner Weiss, 2004 Dung beetles and a tarantula |
|||
|
Flik’s show is like an vaudeville revue. A string of entertaining specialty acts each have a message for you. Termite-ator, “the explosive soldier termite,” blasts acid at opponents. Don’t be surprised if he considers you to be an opponent during the show. Claire de Room, “the scent-illating stinkbug,” can produce a cloud of green stink. Expect in-theater effects. You’ve been warned. |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2018 Warning |
|||
|
This attraction doesn’t have a height limit. There are no warnings about back or heart conditions. But the part about being scary for young children is legitimate. Don’t be surprised if you hear a crying toddler during the show. |
|||
Photo by Allen Huffman, 2018 Entering the lobby |
|||
|
The bright outdoor queue leads to the dark root system under the Tree of Life. Grab your “bug eyes” as you enter, but don’t put them on yet. Flik will tell you when. |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2019 “Bug eyes” |
|||
Photo by Allen Huffman, 2018 Where you’ll wait until the auditorium doors open |
|||
Photo by Allen Huffman, 2018 “Off-Bugway” show posters |
|||
|
While you wait for the theater doors to open, enjoy posters for other “Off-Bugway” productions by the Tree of Life Repertory Theatre. These talented bugs have quite a repetoire of shows. Each poster has fun facts about type of bug. For example, the poster for Antie (based on Annie) has these bullets:
|
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2019 Not just musicals |
|||
|
The bugs seem to be particularly fond of the works of Tennessee Williams, with bug adaptations of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2018 The show you’re about to see |
|||
Photo by Allen Huffman, 2019 Auditorium with bench seating for 430 guests |
|||
|
Doors open. The auditorium is an underground cavern constructed by bugs. Let some other guests enter first so you can sit somewhere near the center. Then again, the auditorium is designed so that all the seats are acceptable. |
|||
Image © Disney Audio-Animatronic Flik, upside-down from the ceiling |
|||
Photo by Chris Bales, 2024 Claire de Room, the stinkbug, after a groan-inducing in-theater effect |
|||
|
The show begins with demonstrations of survival techniques, demonstrated by the performers that you met on the posters in the outdoor queue. |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2019 Hopper, the villainous grasshopper, showing an extermination advertisement |
|||
|
The show goes largely as Flik intended until Hopper appears in the form of an impressive Audio-Animatronic. Alarmed by Flik’s comment that humans are his friends, Hopper responds, “Friends don’t exterminate friends, do they?” He shows humans mistreating and killing bugs. The show becomes scary. Among other effects, audience members are stung by hornets (actually poked in the back by devices in the seatbacks) and black widow spiders descend from the ceiling above the audience. |
|||
Photo by Chris Bales, 2024 Hopper with a chameleon behind him |
|||
|
Hopper says nothing can stop him, not realizing a chameleon’s tongue is about to get him. Hopper escapes from the reptile’s mouth and from the auditorium, allowing the show to end with a happy finale sung by various bugs from the cast:
We’re pollinators
If you like vegetables, fresh fruits and flowers
If it weren’t for the fact that we like the taste
And if all bugs were wiped off the face of the planet |
|||
Photo by Werner Weiss, 2018 Bug Eye return |
|||
|
Now you know that the bugs of the Tree of Life Repertory Theatre company put on a good show. Perhaps you’ll want to return when they perform My Fair Ladybug, Cockroach Line, Barefoot in the Bark, The Grass Menagerie, A Stinkbug Named Desire, Web Side Story, or Little Shop of Hoppers. |
|||
|
|
|||
|
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park officially opened on Earth Day, April 22, 1998, with It’s Tough to be a Bug! as an opening day attraction. It’s Tough to be a Bug! was based on a movie that had not yet been released, so early guests were unfamiliar with Flik and Hopper. A Bug’s Life would open at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on November 14, 1998, followed by a wide release on November 20, 1998. A Bug’s Life was just the second feature-length film by Pixar Animation Studios, after Toy Story (1995). It’s unusual to have something at a Disney theme park based on a future movie, but this wasn’t the first time. Disneyland opened in 1955 with Sleeping Beauty Castle, but Walt Disney’s animated feature Sleeping Beauty would not be released until January 29, 1959. It’s Tough to be a Bug! was a cute movie with clever in-theater effects and animatronics. It was more repeatable than Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!, but less repeatable than Muppet*Vision 3D. The bugs often played to small audiences. A new attraction was overdue. The final day for It’s Tough to be a Bug! at Disney’s Animal Kingdom was March 16, 2025 — a run of almost 27 years. During that time, digital projection replaced the original film projection, providing a better image, but the content remained the same. The only other Disney park to show It’s Tough to be a Bug! was Disney California Adventure, where it opened February 8, 2001 and closed March 19, 2018. The attraction depended on continuous English language dialog, so it was not appropriate for international Disney parks. In comparison, the essentially dialog-free Mickey’s PhilharMagic is shown at five Disney parks worldwide. |
|||
Artist Concept Only © Disney Concept art for Zootopia: Better Zoogether! |
|||
|
The theater at the base of the Tree of Life is getting a new 3-D movie, Zootopia: Better Zoogether! It stars characters from Disney Animation Studios’ 2016 animated feature Zootopia and is supposed to open winter 2025. The anthropomorphic mammals of Zootopia will the replace anthropomorphic bugs of A Bug’s Life in a park that’s supposed to be about animals. The old show dealt with the role of actual bugs, but it’s hard to see the characters of Zootopia as anything other than humans who just look like animals Then again, fitting in with the theme of a park or a land seems not to matter much to Disney anymore. There’s an unused 3-D theater in Tomorrowland at Disneyland that could use a new attraction. How about also putting Zootopia: Better Zoogether! there? |
|||
|
Click here to post comments at MiceChat about this article.
© 2025 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks Updated March 21, 2025 |
|||
