The Infection: Welcome to Disney World

Steve Burns

Taylor Hawkins

***The Infection: Welcome to Disney World*** is a 2021 documentary series directed and produced by Jonathan Frakes. It covers the events leading up to the band's most well-known concert at Walt Disney World, with unused footage. The docuseries has a total runtime of nearly ten hours, consisting of three episodes between three and five hours.

Also co-produced by Steve Burns, Patrick Star, Jennifer Campbell and Guillermo del Toro, the series is presented by Walt Disney Studios in association with Warner Bros. Television Studios. It premiered with three consecutive daily releases on Disney+ beginning on December 21st, 2021.

The 3-part series received critical acclaim for its coverage of the group prior to the Disney World concert, although some criticized the relatively long runtime.

## Production

While visiting Warner Bros in late-2019, Jonathan Frakes asked them if there was any unreleased archival footage which he was allowed access to for a potential new documentary. 150 hours of VHS footage from early-July to the Disney World event in November 1997 were made available to Frakes' team.

However, the untimely death of SpongeBob SquarePants halted production for 3 months before it resumed in early-November. The documentary was created with cooperation from drummer Patrick Star, widow Jennifer Campbell, and Kendra Cheeks-SquarePants (daughter of Sandy Cheeks and SpongeBob SquarePants).

Disney was persuaded by the filmmakers to allow for the inclusion of profanity, with viewer discretion warnings at the start of each episode.

## Synopsis

The documentary covers everything relating to the Disney World concert, starting with Sandy Cheeks and SpongeBob SquarePants setting up a meeting at a Florida anime convention in early-July, and covering several parts of the Traffic Jam Tour with the band doing several rehearsals at Criteria Studios in-between August 23rd and September 6th, as well as the personal lives of SpongeBob SquarePants and Sandy Cheeks.

It also details them doing soundchecks from October to November during their 6-show concert residency in Japan and Europe. With the exception of specific shots where no alternative exists, most of the material was never reused before prior to the documentary.

The 3-part series also covers the band traveling to Lake Buena Vista, Florida in the early morning hours of November 6th with SpongeBob and Sandy barely getting any sleep. Despite that, in the afternoon, they showed up at Walt Disney World's *Magic Kingdom Park* with the stage at 80% in completion. At the rehearsal sessions, the band performed several songs from their first two albums as well as several new songs, with some that would later be in the group's 3rd album Disparate Realms.

## Release

#### Streaming and home media

The project was originally announced on February 17th, 2020, and on the same day, The Walt Disney Studios announced they had acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Frakes' documentary.

It was initially set to be theatrically released by Walt Disney Pictures on August 6th, 2020 in the United States and Canada, with a global release to follow. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed back to March 25th, 2021.

The documentary would be released as a three-part documentary series on Disney+ on December 21st and through the 23rd, with each episode being over 3-5 hours. It was streamed for a total of 503 million minutes (equaling 1.07 million complete views), with over a group of 15 to 35 year old people, making up 76% of the demographic.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the series on DVD and Blu-ray on June 3rd, 2022.

#### The Infection: Welcome To Disney World (Live In Concert)

A feature of the band's performance was released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures in all IMAX theatres on February 15th, and broke several box office records upon its release. It has grossed over $401.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $382 million in other territories, for a total of $783.8 million. The film was able to get a 98% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

On February 18th, the audio of the full Disney World performance containing soundchecks and the show itself, remixed in Dolby Atmos, was released by Geffen.

## Soundtrack

This is a list of all the songs heard in the documentary.

#### Criteria Studios sessions (August 23rd - September 6th, 1997)

1. I Have Lips
2. The Traffic Jam
3. Ocean Man
4. Why Did This Happen
5. You Know
6. K-934
7. Insert The CD
8. Connected
9. Tell You
10. Start Scamming
11. The KKK Took My Baby Away (Ramones cover)
12. Gasoline
13. My Frustration
14. Superstrings
15. Infected Stuff
16. The Man With Robot Relations
17. Cigarettes and Valentines
18. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter (Nirvana cover)
19. What I Do on Saturday
20. Mighty Little Man
21. The Texas Song
22. Lost City
23. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
24. Woke Up This Morning
25. Z-Town
26. Thunder Kiss
27. Inside Out
28. Cat Like Thief
29. The Ballad of Duke Nukem
30. Eaglehead
31. Church on Tuesday
32. Magic Tricks
33. All The Things She Said
34. Transgressions
35. Blew (Nirvana cover)
36. Time Trap
37. How You Remind Me
38. Moonlight Densetsu (DALI cover)
39. Viridian City
40. The Creeps (Social Distortion cover)
41. Tank!
42. London's Burning
43. Rampage
44. When the Sun Hits
45. Pink Ranger

#### Walt Disney World concert (November 8th, 1997)

1. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter (Nirvana cover)
2. I Have Lips
3. Beetles
4. Drumstick
5. Come On Tom, Really
6. The Address Is On My Brain
7. We Need An Replacement
8. Pillowhead
9. Moonlight Densetsu (DALI cover)
10. Lost City
11. Bubble Wrap
12. The Traffic Jam
13. Magic Tricks (live debut)
14. Why Did This Happen
15. Rampage
16. Other's Prayers
17. Insert The CD
18. How You Remind Me
19. Start Scamming
20. Knowledge (Operation Ivy cover)
21. You Know
22. Size (Give Me Your Coke Size)
23. I Don't Give A Damn
24. Finally
25. Inside Out
26. Transgressions
27. Start Moving
28. Infected Stuff (live debut)
29. The Creeps (Social Distortion cover)
30. Valentine Gift
31. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (live debut)
32. The Year of Hell