Cool Characters

Feld Entertainment is dropping an $8-million load of Christmas toys into Orange County’s chimney today--”Walt Disney’s World on Ice--Toy Story.”

The two-hour extravaganza, based on the movie and choreographed by 1980 Olympic gold medalist Robin Cousins, continues through Jan. 4 at the Pond of Anaheim. It’s the first time Walt Disney’s World on Ice will also be presented in Spanish in Orange County (see accompanying story). The Southland tour continues Jan. 7-11 at the Long Beach Arena and Jan. 14-19 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

The 1995 movie “Toy Story,” hailed for its groundbreaking use of computer animation, is the tale of Woody, a folksy but cocky cowboy doll who reigns supreme over the toys in 6-year-old Andy’s room, and his struggles with Andy’s newest, Buzz Lightyear, a high-tech action figure with delusions of grandeur.

Buzz, Woody and Andy’s family--along with a passel of personality-packed playthings--have the misfortune to live next door to Sid, a demon child with a fondness for dismembering Andy’s toys and reassembling them into hideous mutant creatures, then blasting them to smithereens. Not surprisingly, Andy’s mom is packing her crew off to new digs.

Enter dramatic crisis. Woody and Buzz fall into Sid’s hands and, through exploits worthy of the most vivid first-grader’s imagination, learn to work together to be reunited with Andy before he leaves town. They learn to be buds and find they can share a place in Andy’s heart too.

Feld Entertainment (which also presents Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, among others) has produced 18 Walt Disney World on Ice shows since 1981, each seemingly splashier than the last. But “Toy Story,” which includes much of the film’s dialogue (including the voices of Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz), Randy Newman’s music and several original tunes and outrageous, true-to-the-film-and-then-some costumes by Frank Krenz, may be the biggest challenge yet from a production standpoint, said creative director Jerry Bilik. The show, which is midway in a three-year U.S. tour, will also run about two years abroad.

“When it first opened, people were all saying, ‘How are they going to do this?’ ” Bilik recalled. “I think they were kind of surprised by what we actually do.”

What they do do--judging from talks with Bilik, Krenz and assistant choreographer Cindy Stuart--is pretty amazing. This “Toy Story” convincingly turns full-size humans into plastic playthings, Bilik said, and blends choreography, skating prowess, costume and scenic design to effectively make the 44-member cast not only look like toys, but also move, dance and occasionally fly like them.

Proportion is the key. To make 6-foot-tall U.S. skater Eddie Gornick a believable 12-inch-tall Woody, he is set in a human world of gargantuan scale. Andy’s bed is 12 feet tall and 20 feet long; the family van towers overhead at 14 feet high.

Woody and Buzz tool around in a fully operational car (R.C., for remote-controlled, get it?) 12 feet long, with special studded tires for traction on ice and a really boss paint job. (Bilik said R.C. is one of his favorite characters in the show because it recalls adventures he created with his own toy cars as a 6-year-old in New Rochelle, N.Y.)

Buzz is no slouch either. Skated by 5-foot-5, broad-chested Russian skater Stanislav Jirov, Buzz sports a 30-pound spacesuit and elicits big-time oohs and aahs by flying (or in Woody’s words, “falling with style”) as far as 30 feet over the ice with the aid of a harness and fly track.

Krenz and his staff spent months working with a variety of materials and fabric treatments to create the shiny, plastic toy look of the costumes. At their own request, Cousins and Stuart donned prototypes of the most challenging ones--Bo Peep and Mr. Potato Head among them--and tried out the choreography in an L.A. area ice arena while bemused visitors looked on.

In the case of Buzz Lightyear, Krenz said, “the challenge was to make him look just like Buzz and still allow him to do this fabulous, world-class skating.” Bilik said Jirov, a three-time gold medalist in the Leningrad Championships, comes through with flying colors.

An average person would “put on that costume and you would be barely able to walk,” Bilik said, “but [Jirov] does double axels in it. It’s like having a little kid riding on your back while you’re doing an Olympic skating routine.”

Bilik said Cousins was picked to create the show’s choreography because “Robin is the kind of person who really responds to a challenge.” Winner of the gold medal in men’s figure skating in the 1980 Olympics and three-time winner of the World Free Skating Championship gold medal, Cousins had worked with Feld 1995 as choreographer and creative consultant for “The Wizard of Oz on Ice.”

Cousins, who lives in London and maintains careers as an actor, dancer, singer and painter, was unavailable for an interview. His assistant, Stuart, who skated with Cousins professionally in the early ‘90s, said much of the credit should go to the cast members, who deliver high-quality skating and believable characterizations, whether they are a Potato Head, a two-piece Slinky Dog, an alien or an Army guy sprouting a platform from his skates.

Kudos should also go to the audience, Bilik said.

“Their imagination is phenomenal. . . . They make a leap, and they finish what we suggest” with the choreography, costumes and scenery. “They participate, [and] they move themselves right into the story.”

BE THERE

“Walt Disney’s World on Ice--Toy Story” opens today and continues through Jan. 4 at the Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Ave. Performances are today at 4:30 p.m., Friday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Saturday at noon, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 4:30 p.m. Shows continue Wednesday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Dec. 31 at 1 and 4:30 p.m., Jan. 1 at 1 and 4:30 p.m., Jan. 2 at 7:30 p.m., Jan. 3 at noon, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 4 at 1 and 4:30 p.m.