Turtle Talk with Crush
| Turtle Talk with Crush | |
|---|---|
| Park | EPCOT |
| Land / area | World Nature |
| Type | Interactive talk show |
| Opened | November 16, 2004 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering
|
| Status | Operating |
Turtle Talk with Crush is an interactive theatre show in The Seas pavilion in World Nature at EPCOT in Walt Disney World, Florida. In each performance, Crush, the laid-back sea turtle from the Pixar film Finding Nemo, appears on a screen styled as an undersea window and holds a real, unscripted conversation with the audience, answering children's questions about the ocean and asking plenty of his own. Developed by Walt Disney Imagineering with Pixar, it was the first Disney attraction in which guests could talk directly with an animated character, and versions have since opened elsewhere, including Disney California Adventure.
History
Turtle Talk was created as part of Imagineering's Living Character Initiative, exploring ways for animated characters to interact with guests in real time rather than in recorded performances. It opened on November 16, 2004, inside what was then The Living Seas pavilion, in a small theatre converted from an exhibit space known as Module 1C. It was the first Finding Nemo element at the pavilion, predating the rest of its retheme.
The show was an immediate success — more successful than its small room could handle. When The Living Seas closed on August 21, 2005, for its transformation into The Seas with Nemo & Friends, Turtle Talk was moved out of its original space and into a larger theatre formed from one of the pavilion's former preshow theatres, with an adjoining space becoming its pre-show area. It reopened in the new location as the pavilion's transformation was completed in early 2007, and it has remained there since, through the pavilion's later move into the World Nature section of the park.
The format proved exportable. A second version opened at Disney California Adventure on July 15, 2005, and a third at Tokyo DisneySea on October 1, 2009; a temporary version also appeared at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2008. At EPCOT the show has been refreshed rather than replaced. In 2016, to coincide with Finding Dory, it was updated to include Squirt, Crush's son, alongside Dory, Destiny the whale shark, Bailey the beluga whale and Hank the octopus.
Experience
Guests are seated in a small theatre facing what appears to be a large aquarium window looking out onto a coral reef, known in the show as the Window to the Pacific. Children are invited to sit on a carpeted area at the front, closest to the window, while adults take benches behind them. A human host introduces the show, and Crush swims into view, looking and sounding as he does in the films — a green sea turtle of about 150 years old with the vocabulary and easy manner of a surfer.
With the host acting as moderator and passing a microphone to selected guests, Crush picks out individuals to talk with, often describing what they are wearing or where they are sitting. Much of the comedy runs in both directions: children ask Crush about turtle life and the ocean, and Crush asks them about the unfamiliar human world in return. Because the conversation is improvised, no two performances are the same. Cameo appearances by other characters, including Nemo, Marlin, Dory and Squirt, are worked in along the way.
The effect is achieved by digital puppetry. Behind the screen, a performer voices Crush and controls his movements in real time; the rendered turtle is animated at sixty frames per second so his mouth matches the performer's speech as it happens. Cameras in the theatre let the hidden performer see the audience, which is how Crush can comment on a particular child's shirt. The same approach later powered Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor at Magic Kingdom.
See also
- EPCOT
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends
- Disney California Adventure
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
- World Nature
- Walt Disney World