1. Tricked you
I've searched the world over and if there exists a place more jaw-dropping than Pizza Planet, I haven't found it yet. This is not hyperbole. Hear me out.
So-called fun centers and recreation franchises were commonplace throughout my childhood...and they were okay I guess. I mean to say, they were awesome until I saw Toy Story and watched Woody & Buzz search for Andy in that Spacetastic Wonderland. It teemed with that same late-eighties sci-fi intrigue that still burned prevalent in the minds of little nineties kids like me.
I stepped out of that theater with two questions for my mom:
- Does this place really exist?
- If it does, how come you only take me to inferior, feet-scented places like Putt-Putt & Chuck E. Cheese?
Dont laugh. As a teenager I wondered the same thing about Casa Bonita on South Park and turns out it's an actual place you can visit if you're ever in Colorado (So far I haven't been).
No such luck for Pizza Planet. I found out in the roughest of ways that I'd never play Andy's favorite game, Black Hole. I'd never fill my cup with slime straight from an alien's mouth, never try my luck at winning a squeaky three-eyed martian from the claw machine.
Now, in fairness, those little guys have been available to me in various forms for years due to Disney's tremendous merchandising arm, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
But if any higher-ups employed by the mouse can hear me, please consider this the voice of your people:
We want to dine inside that iconic space port in real life...
not just by eating pizza lunchables in front of the laptop while watching the Pizza Planet segment over and over again on YouTube.
Use some of that sweet Avengers money and make it happen!
I think I speak for the nation in saying that every city should have one.
It's not our fault. We didn't make it seem so magical & awesome, you did!
At the time of this writing, Pizza Port in Tomorrowland is said to have been converted into a pop-up rendition of Pizza Planet for Pixar Fest. I haven't been yet, and although I usually stay out of that place because the pizza is actual cardboard, I still plan on heading straight there to see what amount of Toy Story magic has been recreated in this space.