PizzeRizzo opened as the first Muppet themed restaurant in any Disney Park, but it takes its inspiration from a much more ambitious restaurant planned for early Disney MGM Studios.
This restaurant would also have been a pizza parlor themed based on the Rizzo the Rat character, but it would not be located in its current spot, which was planned for a different never built Muppet restaurant.
The originally planned version of the Muppet themed pizza restaurant would have been located in the current location of the neighboring Mama Melrose Ristorante Italiano.
This spot would not have just been a pizza parlor featuring Muppet theming, but it would have featured animatronic Muppet rats in the railings above you, possibly even delivering your food to you in a creative Muppet way.
In the advent of Jim Henson's death and the collapse of the Disney Muppets purchase, this restaurant would be canceled, but construction had already begun on the building.
It would be reutilized as the current Italian restaurant, even keeping the wooden railings above you.
Once Disney purchased the Muppets, Disney began investing more in the franchise. At the moment there are two different Muppet themed restaurants in Walt Disney World, including PizzeRizzo which has the same theme as the originally proposed restaurant, but on a much less immersive scale.
No good idea dies at Disney, and even though many of the original elements never came to be, the idea for a Muppet pizza place survived decades before actually becoming a reality.
Be sure to come back next week as we continue to explore more of the never-built Muppet attractions for Disney's Hollywood Studios. Also, be sure to check out the rest of Never Built Disney Studios so far here.
Comments
Post a Comment