Walt Disney World has announced a holiday overlay is coming to their recently rethemed thrill ride! Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets: Obligatory Holiday Overlay will offer a tweaked storyline, a Christmas song setlist and a few other fun enhancements. In this post, we’ll share the details on the holiday overlay before adding our own commentary.

This year, the holidays at Walt Disney World run from November 13th through January 6th. Thankfully, for those visiting a week earlier, events like Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party (first party date is November 8th) and Jollywood Nights (first party date is November 7th) begin sooner. Even if you’re not attending those parties, having them start earlier means some of the holiday decor, entertainment, and overlays will begin ahead of the official start date. That’s the case for the holiday overlay of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster! Let’s get to the news:

From November 4th through January 6th, The Electric Mayhem is putting its own spin on the season with Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets: Obligatory Holiday Overlay, a limited-time experience turning their already legendary concert into a festive celebration filled with seasonal tunes and new surprises. The rethemed ride featuring The Muppets opened in May, making this the first holiday season it will be operating for.

The celebration begins before you even step inside G-Force Records. Christmas music fills the courtyard surrounding the attraction’s iconic guitar marquee, setting the stage for a holiday concert that only The Electric Mayhem could deliver.

New Holiday Moments Backstage

Once inside G-Force Records, you’ll find Dr. Teeth, Animal, Floyd, Janice, Zoot, and Lips deep in rehearsals for their holiday spectacular. While the band puts the finishing touches on its seasonal set list, a few familiar Muppets friends stop by the studio to offer a helping hand… or at least try to.

As the countdown to showtime ticks, the band’s holiday preparations don’t exactly go according to plan. This is The Muppets and Electric Mayhem, after all. If Gonzo, as Charles Dickens, and Rizzo show up then all bets are off the table. But that’s all part of the fun when your headliners are known more for rocking out than sticking to a schedule.

You’ll be fully immersed in the story with the first-ever Audio-Animatronics figure of Scooter, brought to life using motion-capture technology of Scooter the Muppet (yes, the actual adorable Muppet seen in the photo above). By recording and tracking Scooter’s performance, Walt Disney Imagineering was able to build and program a figure that looks, moves, and emotes exactly like Scooter should, right down to the small details.

Joined by the finest audio engineers, who are obviously penguins, Scooter is doing his best to convince The Electric Mayhem to stop jamming and get to their increasingly restless fans. But will it be enough to get the band across town and on stage in time?

Thanks to the newest technological advancements from Muppet Labs, guests board a super-powered vehicle in the alleyway just behind Studio C known as the Lengthy Immediate Motion Object (L.I.M.O.)!

The Set List for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets: Obligatory Holiday Overlay

For this seasonal celebration, The Electric Mayhem is bringing four new holiday-inspired tracks to Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets, including collaborations with a few special guests.

The limited-time holiday set list includes:

• Holiday Road – The Electric Mayhem ft. Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear
• Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – The Electric Mayhem ft. Jennifer Hudson
• Silver Bells – The Electric Mayhem ft. Cyndi Lauper
• Little Saint Nick – The Electric Mayhem

Each song unwraps its own mix of holiday cheer, high-energy riffs, and rock star attitude, creating a concert-style experience like no other. So deck the halls and get ready to rock around the coaster track with The Electric Mayhem.

Commentary

Combining Christmas and The Muppets into a holiday overlay of an attraction that is already way better than it should be?? It feels like Santa arrived at my house a few months early and already left a present under my tree. As I’ve said before, being objective about anything Muppets related isn’t the easiest thing for me. I love them! Adding another layer to this excellent retheme should only bolster their presence in Hollywood Studios.

Let’s start with the setlist. This remains a mystery for me until we actually hear the songs. It’s hard to picture riding a roller coaster while Silver Bells is playing but I’ve never heard Electric Mayhem’s take on it. Give Animal as many (silver) bells and drums as he can find and let’s see what happens.

Jennifer Hudson makes another appearance in the attraction’s setlist with Christmas (Baby Please Come Home). She’s in the usual version of the ride too, singing Love Rollercoaster. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) is slightly more upbeat so I don’t think song will have a huge change to it. Her amazing voice will be able to pull it off!

On the other end of the track is the aforementioned Silver Bells featuring Cyndi Lauper. She’s a legend and I can’t wait to hear this take on the song. I’m happy to see a few songs that are just Muppets as well, including Fozzie and Kermit’s first appearance as (I’m assuming here) vocalists on the coaster.

Putting the L.I.M.O. in reverse to go back to the queue, the slight plot change of this being a holiday concert is a nice touch. I’m curious how much of the excellent preshow video will actually be changed. There will likely be a few props added to the queue along with some special guest appearances from Muppets in their best Christmas sweaters. Seeing Gonzo in his Muppet Christmas Carol outfit would be a real treat. My expectations of how much of the ride is actually changed besides the setlist is low, but I think a few new videos will be popping up in the queue and preshow!

As we zoom out a little more, this could add a nice Christmas corner to Hollywood Studios. My Muppet loving brain has already jumped to them adding Kermit reading the Christmas Carol outside of the attraction, or a bus full of chickens singing holiday songs. Maybe Michael Caine will show up! I know this won’t happen but there are exciting possibilities! If nothing else, the space will offer Christmas fun and a holiday overlay of a ride. There’s nothing else really like that in Hollywood Studios during the day.

This news came out as news of the annual ticket price increases was spreading. Walt Disney World usually releases some fun news to share opposite of that. It’s a savvy, and typical, PR move and is a nice little touch for fans to help get our minds off of higher costs. Manipulative in timing? Probably, but when it revolves around Muppets then I eat it up!

Speaking of savvy, it seems like a safe bet that all of the holiday overlay footage was filmed and recorded at the same time as the songs and videos for the usual attraction. Good planning! Having a holiday overlay locked and loaded in an attraction’s first operating year is a great touch and one that should draw even more interest to the coaster.

Credit where credit is due, Walt Disney World has made all of the right moves when it comes to this retheme. A lot of heart and thought went into changing the ride and we’re still seeing the after effects of it more than half a year later!

Our hope is that this overlay becomes a cult, or not so cult, classic and the Muppet Holiday Takeover* (pending my copywrite approval) of Hollywood Studios only grows stronger. Play songs from Muppet Christmas Carol in the courtyard, let Miss Piggy do a Mariah Carey impression somewhere, have Sweetums carry around a tree. Let’s play the music and light the lights! We’re thrilled to see this attraction receive a holiday overlay and can’t wait to ride it later this year.

Are you excited for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring The Muppets: Obligatory Holiday Overlay? Let us know, along with any questions you have, in the comments below! Planning a trip to Walt Disney World? Check out our Disney World Trip Planning Guide to help you out. This site offers discount tickets for Disney World, Disneyland, and many other theme parks! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!