Summary
A wookie, an acrobatic frog and the keyboardist of the future. Meet the greatest Disneyland band you’ve never heard of in this wonderfully researched documentary.
“Disneyland will never be completed,” Walt Disney said in one of those Instagramable quotes. “It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.” Of all the places in the parks, this idea has always been truest of Tomorrowland, a concept that has always struggled to keep up with the pace of the future.
From monorails to Jedi (by way of Michael Jackson), the themed land has seen some noble attempts at re-envisaging what is yet to be. In Disneyland Paris, for example, their Discoveryland simply uses the Jules Verne model of a future that never was. Yet perhaps the strangest addition to the line-up was a rock band that combined Kiss with Star Wars. One that contained a bass-playing Wookie and an acrobatic frog. The band was Halyx and their story has gone largely untold. Until now.
Backed by a successful crowdfunding campaign, director Matthew Serrano and Defunctland’s Kevin Perjurer relive fond memories of the past in this surprisingly fascinating and often touching exploration of that summer of ’81 when Disney tried to make music happen. Prior to this, the Space Stage near the iconic Space Mountain had been used for a variety of seasonal performances throughout the day and night. You know, something to goggle at while you scoffed down a bite from the Space Place or the Lunching Pad.
So, when an unlikely group of humans – including Disney Records executive Gary Krisel, composer Mike Post (Magnum, P.I., The A-Team, Law & Order) and record producer Jymn Magon – concocted Halyx, it was an unabashed attempt at capturing an emerging youth market. If you are old enough to remember the early ‘80s, everyone was trying to ride the sci-fi wave for a brief time, and the House of Mouse was no exception. In the sweet spot between The Black Hole (1979) and Tron (1982), there was a scrappy band that were actually pretty good.
Through a series of first-hand accounts from surviving members and former company folk, Serrano and his team construct a compelling oral history of the band. There’s all the hallmarks of a great Netflix original drama here too: a vision of what this band was supposed to be, an enthusiastic fanbase, characters in costume, the odds-defying talent, and a creative divergence between label and band. Think: Glow meets Daisy Jones and the Six.
Gathering an impressively large amount of footage – which isn’t surprising if you’ve seen the amount of effort in each Defunctland episode – archival photos, concept art, and song clips pepper the interviews. It’s only slightly hamstrung by the absence of any official record of this former attraction, relaying largely on personal archives and some serious research.
In the decades since Halyx’s final show, Disney and their associated music arm has made major stars out of crossover talents on stage and screen. Yet here we see the small window between what was and what might have been, another vision of the future that Tomorrowland failed to sustain. Now, thanks to this wonderful documentary, their brief time in the sun may last until infinity – and beyond.
You can now watch the full documentary online in the player below.
2020 | US | DIRECTOR: Matthew Serrano | CAST: Mike Carlson, Jeanette Clinger, Jeanie Cunningham, Mike Post | DISTRIBUTOR: Defunctland | RUNNING TIME: 86 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 August 2020 (YouTube)
