UPDATE: This decoration did not return for the 2017 Holiday Season as a result of the Disney’s Hollywood Studios Christmas Tree’s move to the Echo Lake area of the park.
Standing just outside the park’s bag check area, it’s hard to miss the enormous Christmas tree as you enter the Disney’s Hollywood Studios during the Holiday Season. Many Christmas trees have toy trains that circle their base, but for a tree as large as that one, it needs something a little bigger than a toy. Given the park’s Hollywood theme, it only seems fitting to also include some of Disney’s biggest stars in the display. So, large cutouts of Disney characters, including Donald and Daisy Duck, can be seen riding in train cars that surround the massive Christmas tree’s base.
While Donald has appeared in Christmas cartoons dating all the way back to the 1940’s, including the Academy Award-nominated “Toy Tinkers” in 1949, Daisy would have to wait until decades later for her big break into Holiday films. The delay would prove worth it, though as she eventually was given an important part in 1983’s “Mickey’s Christmas Carol.” In the role of Isabelle, Scrooge’s long-lost love, her presence in Disney’s version of the oft-told Dickens tale marked the first major turning point in the miser’s journey toward redemption. Perhaps Daisy’s first Christmas cartoon should have come sooner, but, as they say, that’s show biz!
Ink and Paint in the Parks 