Veteran designer helps to bring Disney’s special magic to the ice

By John Benson

Falling gas prices and prudent planning must be the reason why Mickey Mouse and his gal Minnie are taking an automobile adventure in the brand-new Disney on Ice production “Worlds of Fantasy,” which comes to Cleveland from Wednesday through next Monday at Quicken Loans Arena.

Though the beloved rodents’ junket takes them into the worlds of “Cars,” “Peter Pan,” “The Lion King” and “The Little Mermaid,” it’s the former four-wheeled animated feature film that makes its Disney on Ice debut in “Worlds of Fantasy.”

The job of transforming the Radiator Springs inhabitants into life-sized characters belonged to Hagenbeck-Wallace Scenic Elements Vice President Rick Papineau, who in many ways is like a Santa’s workshop foreman and visionary.

“That’s what is fun about my job in general; the owners of the company give me free rein and they demand that we come up with something brand-new, never been seen before,” said Papineau, who has worked on more than 40 Disney on Ice productions since 1990. “This is like I’m a kid in a candy store, and who wouldn’t love that?

“So with ‘Cars,’ we had to build six cars that had to be fully animated, which nobody had really done before, with a talking mouth, full animation and yet being able to drive on ice. They are full-sized cars, about 85 percent of real size.”

As a veteran Disney on Ice designer, Papineau said he realized when the 2006 feature film “Cars” was a big hit that sooner or later he would be required to bring the movie to life. Considering most of his jobs go from idea to finished product in three months, he started brainstorming in his head.

“What was nice was I got to work directly with the sculpture and creative team of Pixar on the best thing that we could possibly make in real time, things you can touch and feel,” Papineau said. “It was a great collaboration. Those guys were wonderful, and they supplied me any technical aspects that they saw in their creative vision. I did my best to create it in real life. It was a challenge because they can do things with a computer that I only dream about.”

He added, “The animatronics are done through programming through the soundboard and are triggered through the soundtrack, so it always lines up. Everything is pretty much automated. The cars are driven. Pixar doesn’t like people to know that, but we have drivers in them because they are drivable cars. These are drive trains that we developed ourselves. They’re 48-volt electric systems, and the animatronics are powered by CO2 compressed air and pneumatic air cylinders.”

Papineau said the hardest part about his job isn’t keeping up with what Pixar and Disney create on screen as much as staying on top of all the advances in technology year after year. With that in mind, he’s really proud of his “Cars” creations. Furthermore, of all of the shows Papineau has been involved with, he feels “Worlds of Fantasy” is somewhat different regarding the crowd reaction.

“It’s based around these cars,” Papineau said. “I don’t think anybody is expecting these cars to do what they do. People have seen cars drive around on the ice before, but when these things start dancing and talking and their eyes moving and blinking, nobody is expecting that.

“I can tell you from the few shows I sat in the audience, it’s just been amazing. The cars are getting standing ovations. What’s nice for me is the kids are screaming and yelling, and then I heard their fathers say, ‘Oh my God, how’d they do that?’ That was wonderful for me.”