Do you remember Disney’s “Earfful Tower” at Walt Disney World? It was a faux water tower that once stood as the park icon for Disney’s Hollywood Studios (or Disney-MGM Studios). The name “Earfful” is a pun on Paris’ Eiffel Tower. It was cleverly adorned with a set of Mickey Mouse ears, inspired by the real water tower located at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. Water towers were commonly found on Hollywood studio backlots in the early 1900s, as they were a key safety measure for highly flammable wooden movie sets.
With the evolution of Disney’s Florida studio park, DHS has slowly moved away from the theme of moviemaking magic. The Hollywood Backlot Tour was removed from the attraction lineup in 2014; this was where you could best see the Earfful Tower. A few years later in 2016, the tower itself was removed in preparation for Toy Story Land. Today, Slinky Dog Dash is where the Earfful Tower once stood. (Hey, I’d love to see a tiny toy set version of the tower as a nod back here, wouldn’t that be cute?!)
While the tower is long gone, I’ve discovered three separate images of the old park icon that live on at Disney’s Hollywood Studios today. Have you seen them? Or better yet, do you know of any more spots we could find it?
The first one can be seen on a plaque atop the shop facade of Keystone Clothiers on Hollywood Boulevard.
We’ve got the Chinese Theater (RIP Great Movie Ride, not a day goes by where I don’t think of you) AND the Earfful Tower. We just need the Hollywood Tower Hotel to have a proper representation of the park’s three separate park icons!
This same image is also located on the directional sign leading to the Beauty & the Beast show near Theater of the Stars on Sunset Boulevard.
Lastly, the little tower can be also seen on the Hollywood Studios mural above the menus inside the ABC Commissary:
Any time I find a stray piece of the movie magic theme park from my childhood, I just want to stop and stare… like Cameron stares at that one pointillism painting in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off:
— Please, please, please, let me get what I want
…Thank you for humoring me. Were you a fan of the Earfful Tower? See if you can spot these on your next WDW trip!
