The DCA Hollywood Tower Hotel: Walkthrough Part 2.5: The Tower at Night, A Glitch in the Matrix, and The Paper Bag of Shame

As eager as we all are to get to the lobby, I'd like to make a little diversion here to showcase more about the ride exterior, including the Tower of Terror arguably at its most gorgeous: at night!

During the nighttime hours, the flickering neon sign really amped up the "haunted hotel" look. The Tower itself had a gorgeous lighting array, which transformed theTower from its golden daylight self into an array of blues and deep purples. I'm not quite sure the rationale for the lighting choice (maybe taking the "twilight" part of The Twilight Zone literally?) but the results were stunning.

First, some early evening photos, taken May 2016:

And now, on to the dark of night!

May 2016

Those two lit windows at the top of the tower would dim and brighten as if someone were opening or closing their shades...or as if they were blinking eyes!

May 2016 photo, now with those window lights dimmed.

A full shot of the Tower, including the lit-up fountain sign, May 2016

In these photos you can even see how some of the different letters flickered in the sign! On rare occasions, the sign even had special different flicker cycles, where different letters besides the usual ones brightened or died out. Sadly, these flicker cycles do not appear to have been filmed, although this instagram video shows the Paris Tower doing one of the unique flickers.

Now, I'm sure at least some viewers are asking, "Wait, didn't you say the lights were purple and blue? Those look very bright solid blue to me!" Honestly... I have the same question. I love the all-blue lighting look, and indeed the Tower was very blue-lighted in its last years, but I do have very distinct memories of the nighttime Tower looking a bit more like this at night:

September 25, 2015 photo by knockturnalliewitchstew.tumblr.com

I have no idea when or why the lighting scheme changed. I don't have a very clear photo "timeline" of what the nighttime Tower looked like over the years. The only guess I could make is that the very blue Tower was to coincide with the blue color scheme of the Disneyland 60th anniversary celebration. The color coordination can be seen in photos like this:

Tower with 60th anniversary-decorated Carthay Circle Theater, courtesy land-of-manors-and-beans

The Tower also got special extra lightning effects and projections during at least one Halloween season, as seen in this YouTube video:

Now that we've seen the Tower at arguably its most beautiful, let's take a look at its worst appearances, which I have dubbed "A Glitch in the Matrix" and "The Paper Bag of Shame", both of which hail from the Tower's final months in 2016.

The Glitch in the Matrix Tower happened when Disney suddenly removed the "Hollywood Tower Hotel" sign from the building. This was an unexpected move, as it was in late September/early October and Disney was promoting the Tower and its "Late Checkout" experience for Halloween. Disney defaced an attraction it was actively promoting! This appearance got its nickname when someone told me that seeing the building without the iconic sign was like seeing "a glitch in the matrix."

Here's a nice atmospheric video of the Glitch Tower that was donated by a reader. It was filmed 30 September 2016:

Just in case Blogspot ate the quality again, [here] is a link to the video in full quality on Google Drive.

As you might have noticed, the uppermost blue dome on top of the Tower was also removed alongside the sign.

I must admit, the Tower without the sign does look really weird and wrong. But at least the Glitch Tower wasn't as bad as what was to come: The Paper Bag of Shame.

Not long after the removal of the sign, Disney started covering the exterior with scaffolding and tarps so that exterior conversion to the GOTG Tower could begin. The result was that it looked like someone had shoved a giant paper bag over the entire building. Disney did nothing to improve this. It would have been a perfect opportunity to project anything they wanted onto the tarps, but nope, for the last few months of operations guests entered the Twilight Zone via an oversized grocery bag.

I have few photos of this appearance, probably because it looked so terrible most people didn't want to photograph it. Thankfully, for completeness' sake, here's some photos taken in December 2016 by Mrbellcaptain: