Word: caste
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...acres, Animal Kingdom, fourth of the Walt Disney World parks--after Magic Kingdom (opened 1971), EPCOT Center (1982) and Disney-MGM (1989)--is the biggest. The company hired 2,800 workers to build the park and 2,500 "cast members" (performing employees) to entertain and instruct all the visitors. As many as 10 million are expected the first year...
...enter the park and, instead of a Main Street or Spaceship Earth, you see paths with no special markers leading you know not where. This is the Oasis, a riot of trees where cast members will point you toward the greenery so you can see a snoozing two-toed sloth in one tree, a couple of military macaws skirmishing in another. Then you reach the park's central icon, the Tree of Life, a 145-ft.-high broccoli stalk--actually an oil rig festooned with fake bark and 103,000 artificial leaves, each attached by hand--into which 325 creatures...
...film with in-theater effects on the order of the Honey, I Shrunk the Audience attraction at EPCOT. Inspired by characters in this fall's film release A Bug's Life (from Disney and Pixar, the tandem that made Toy Story), this creepy-crawly mini-epic features a cast of zillions and plenty of clever insect asides. But the kids will love the gross-out effects. One tiny creature, the Termite-ator, blows "snot" at the audience (you will get wet). A stink bug backs up to the screen and engulfs the crowd in his sulfurous stench (face it, fart...
Some attractions are being adjusted. A parade of cast-member "creatures," expected to run twice daily, was still not ambulatory a fortnight ago. The Jungle Book and Lion King shows were getting final tweaks. Dinos in Countdown to Extinction were to be given scarier lighting and infusions of bad breath. The safari ride's story line, about a baby elephant separated from its mother, is lame drama--no match for the amazing beasts on display...
...these are just growing pains for a park that is a living organism. Its cast of star characters is bound to expand and contract. "Animals will be born and, unfortunately, animals will die," Wolff says. "That's part of the natural process." Some local fauna have already squatted in these fabulous digs. And the park itself will grow. Next year the Asia section opens, with a flume thrill ride and a second safari. A still more remote realm, a kind of beastly kingdom, will feature creatures from fantasy. Eisner also hopes to devote an area to domesticated animals...