Sad news emerged for any classic Disney-loving Muppet fans this morning, when Disney Parks announced that its MuppetVision 3D attraction at Florida's Hollywood Studios park is being shut down, to be replaced by a Monsters Inc.-themed land. I just took my family to Disney World this year and we loved the Muppets experience – we just saw it a couple of weeks ago. The attraction debuted 33 years ago, where guests enter a theater wearing 3D glasses to watch a 15-minute show mixing classic 3D visual tricks, animatronics and actors. But it also holds notable tech history: It was designed by Jim Henson, who created the first computer-generated digital puppet, known as Waldo.
The Muppets will live on in a re-themed coaster revamp, according to Disney, replacing the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith with one that puts musical Muppet characters Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem at the top billing. That sounds fun, but I'm always bothered by physical, immersive theme parks saying goodbye to classic experiences that can't be had again.
If only we had some device that could play back immersive 3D experiences at home…oh wait, we do. My proposal: Disney needs to bring the Muppets into VR. Luckily, Disney already has an app for that.
Apple's Vision Pro already features a Disney Plus app that has a bunch of 3D films and a few immersive environmental spaces you can sit in to play these movies, but that's about it. Disney teased a whole future of more immersive experiences that could happen in-headset when the Vision Pro first was announced in 2023, but those haven't come to pass…yet.
Disney did explore one innovative stand-alone experience, a Marvel's What If? app that feels like an extended episode of the Disney Plus show, with a few gamified extras. Disney has already used VR as a place to have theme park-adjacent experiences that spark memories: Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge lives parallel to the real Galaxy's Edge, and already lives on VR headsets, too. But there should be more, and MuppetVision would be a great place to start.
Disney's had a number of 3D film experiences over the years, many of them lost to time such as Honey, I Shrunk the Audience or Michael Jackson's Captain EO. A few remain, like It's Tough to Be a Bug, Disney's PhilharMagic, and MuppetVision 3D.
Many of these 3D films have immersive extras: theaters with sensory bumps and tingles, water splashes or animatronic characters, too. As for the 3D film aspect, headsets like Apple's Vision Pro (and Meta's Quest headsets, which have a far larger footprint) are already perfect for viewing stuff like this. But Disney could go further: Explore a VR theater environment where interactive things happen along with the 3D film. Weirdly, there's very little of this in the VR landscape right now. Maybe Disney could spark a movement to make it happen more.
If I could sit inside the MuppetVision 3D theater at home and try something close to the experience after it's long gone…I'd pay for that. Others would, too. And what about other older films? Do them all. Immersive experiences deserve preservation as much as films, music, games or anything else. It's hard to preserve massive physical attractions, but 3D film experiences seem like the most achievable place to start.
Luckily, Disney's already said it's exploring plans to preserve MuppetVision in some way in its blog post: "As we move forward with these changes, we are having creative conversations and exploring ways to preserve the film and other parts of the experience for fans to enjoy in the future." That certainly sounds like VR could be on the table.Â
We already have a method to make this happen. Disney needs to preserve its own immersive spaces better, and it needs to begin now with VR. And please, please, let it happen with the Muppets. Jim Henson deserves at least this much.