Time again for another Photo Friday!
This week, let's dive into the recent past at Disney Hollywood Studios for an image from a now extinct attraction that only lasted a few short months - Luxo Junior!
As most of you know, the icon of the Pixar studios is Luxo Junior, the desk lamp first seen in Luxo, one of the first Pixar shorts.
Back in Spring 2009, Disney created an audio-animatronic version of Luxo that would come out every once in a with a short little performance at an area directly across from Toy Story Mania.
Well all good things come at a price, and the price in this instance was a lawsuit by the company that make the actual Luxo lamp. According to published reports, Luxo had agreed to allow Pixar to use the lamp image as part of the company logo, but when Disney made a physical Luxo (as seen in these photos), the Luxo company Disney - Pixar had taken things too far and filed suit. To further compound the problem, the Luxo Jr. audio-animatronic was temperamental and often suffered malfunctions. By Spring 2010, less than one year after Luxo Junior had first debuted, Disney pulled the plug (sorry, had to use the pun) on the project, presumably due to the lawsuit.
While there's nothing to back this up, I suspect the Luxo company wanted more money and Disney wasn't going to give in. Personally, I think this was a dumb move by Luxo as it was a golden opportunity to market their product to millions of people each year, but I digress.
Anyway, there you have it - a piece of short-lived Disney history.
Enjoy this obituary for Luxo Jr. by Matt Hochberg of StudiosCentral.com.
