Not directly Duck comics related - but still of interest!
Many people are familiar with Sonny Eclipse, the audio-animatronic lounge singer who hails from the planet Zork and performs at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, alongside his invisible backup singers, the Space Angels, and his sentient organ, Astro. But significantly fewer people have heard of Eclipse's cousin - Officer Zzzzyxxx, who managed the baggage screening desk in Tokyo Disneyland's version of Star Tours until its 2013 revamp.
Or are they cousins?
Yes, the animatronics were definitely made from the same mold, but that's not the question we're exploring here today. The question of the day is as follows: are the characters of Eclipse and Zzzzyxxx, in the official, in-universe canon, actually cousins? Many articles, and even a few mostly reputable theme park history books, make the claim that Disney has, at some point in the past, referred to them as cousins (or at least as members of the same species, Zorkies) in an official capacity. But have they? Or is it simply a fan creation that has been interpreted as official by myriad sources?
Let's find out.
The very first place in which I found the claim was in the book More Secret Stories of Walt Disney World by Jim Korkis - a book which seems to be, generally, a very reputable source for trivia. The book mentions the supposed fact in the section about Cosmic Ray's only briefly - saying, in full:
"Sonny was modified from a similar figure, Officer Zzzzyxxxx, who was at the baggage screening desk outside of the Star Tours attraction at Tokyo Disneyland. Today, Disney refers to them as "cousins".".
No source is provided for the claim.
After reading this, I was intrigued. Taking to the internet, I searched up the claim, but, looking through all of the usual sources - Wikis, articles about the attraction, tourist guides - I could find no mention of Disney ever referring to them as cousins. Most mentioned in passing that Eclipse shares a design with Zzzzyxxx, but that was the extent of it.
Next, of course, I looked through even more obscure materials - Disney magazines from the time of the opening of the ride, promotional materials, back issues of Star Wars Insider - and, while some of them mentioned Sonny Eclipse, and some of them mentioned Zzzzyxxx, none of them mentioned any connection between the two.
By that point, I had become really intrigued. Was this, perhaps, a new tangentially-Duck-comics-related mystery - the very type that I so enjoy researching extensively? It seemed to be just that. I got to work researching straight away to see if I could find an official source that made the claim that the two characters were cousins.
My research first led me to Zzzzyxxx's Wookieepedia article. Although the article mentions the shared figure design, it does not, in its current state, make note of any familial relationship between Zzzzyxxx and Eclipse. However, as my good friend Aristide Twain uncovered, this wasn't always the case. As can be seen in the page history, earlier versions of the article did describe Zzzzyxxx as a Zorkie (Eclipse's species in-canon), and described him as hailing from "Joo Nerzey" (obviously in reference to Eclipse's canonical place of birth, Yew Nork.) These bits of information were removed from the page, as no source could be uncovered by the Wookieepedians. Additionally, Wookieepedia once hosted an article about Sonny Eclipse himself, although this, too, was deleted due to a lack of sources.
Continuing my research, I uncovered issue 53 of Celebrations magazine, an unofficial publication about the Disney theme parks. This issue of the magazine, published in 2017, happens to feature an article about Sonny Eclipse - in which the following is stated:
"The show opened in 1994, as part of the “New Tomorrowland” renovation. The Animatronic figure used for Sonny
was a modified version of Officer Zzzzyxxx, a figure found
outside of the Star Tours attraction in Tokyo Disney. Sonny
is commonly referred to as a distant cousin of Zzzzyxxx,
with the latter hailing from the city of Joo Nerzey on Sonny’s home planet of Zork."
In addition to another instance of the cousin claim, we see yet another mention of the mysterious Joo Nerzey - taken, perhaps, from the now-altered Wookieepedia article, which contained the "Joo Nerzey" claim until 2012. No sources were listed in this magazine, either. My research continued.
Delving even further, I discovered a series of tweets by actor Andrew Barth Feldman, in which he explained the history of Sonny Eclipse - including the following bit of information: "They needed a mascot for the restaurant and found it in the model of Captain ZZZYXX, creating Sonny Eclipse. In terms of the story behind it in Disney terms, the two are cousins. They’re both “Zorkie.” Sonny is from Yew Nork City, ZZZYXX from Joo Nerzey."
Here we had another claim that Disney had officially established the cousinhood of Sonny and Zzzzyxxx - among a thread featuring other facts about Sonny's creation that were undoubtedly true.
Next, I stumbled upon a blog - disneyhipsters.com - which made this claim:
"In order to get more bang for their buck, Sonny's animatronic was made from a model of Captain ZZZYXX, from the Star Tours attraction at Tokyo Disneyland. The captain is a Zorkie, like Sonny, and is indeed Sonny's cousin. Unlike Sonny who is from Yew Nork City...ZZZYXX is from Joo Nerzey."
Continuing my search, I discovered a Japanese-language site, starwars.jp - a fan site, in spite of its official-looking URL. Their Zzzzyxxx article, translated from Japanese, says:
"Zzzzyxxx is thought to have originally hailed from Joo Nerzey on the planet Zork. His race calls themselves Zorkies. And he wasn't the only Zorkie at Star Tours . Another Zorkie who worked at the company is Astro Organ performer Sonny Eclipse . Sony played Bossa Supernova and Eclipse Music Styling at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, the First Earth Restaurant Franchise From Outer Space in the Orlando Florida Spaceport. However, while Sonny's skin color is green, Zzzzyxx's skin color is the same as a standard human. There are various types of Zorkie skin colors, such as blue, pink, purple, green, and polka dots. And despite the different skin tones, Zzzzyxx and Sonny were thought to be relatives, perhaps cousins. Many tourists asked about the relationship between the two, but Zzzzyxx always answered in a mysterious language called Japanese, and there was no interpreter droid that could translate it ."
The site also has a page about Sonny, which repeats the claims.
All very interesting information, most of it taken from a very canonical source - Sonny Eclipse's show at Cosmic Ray's. The wiki on StarWars.jp seems to present itself as an encyclopedic type of site rather than a place for fanon, but it's possible that the Zorkie, Joo Nerzey, and cousin claims were simply taken from Wookieepedia and once again misunderstood as canonical facts. The article is from 2013, a year after the claims were removed from Wookieepedia, but the author of the site certainly could have seen them there prior to that - the article does, after all, link to the English Wookieepedia's Zzzzyxx page.
So, did the claim originate from a bit of fanon inserted into Wookieepedia? Maybe, but I wanted to be sure. I continued my research.
I soon uncovered an article on wdwmousing.com, an article about Tomorrowland which happened to feature a section about Sonny Eclipse. A section which stated the following:
"Sonny is believed to be the cousin of Officer Zzzzyxxx from the Star Tours Spaceport in Tokyo. While Sonny hails from Yew Nork City on the planet Zork, Officer Zzzzyxxx’s employment records suggest he originated in a region called Joo Nerzey on the same planet. Inhabitants of this world call themselves Zorkies and their skin pigmentation can range from standard human fleshtones to more colorful hues like ‘blue or pink or polka dot and purple-green’. During his act, Sonny makes passing mention of various members of his family, including his six-eyed, twelve-nostriled estranged wife (Luna), his parents (father Sola and mother Parsha), and his mother-in-law (Tota Leigh Clipse), but he never mentions his cousin Officer Zzzzyxxx, the only other member of the Zorkie race who currently resides on Earth. Some theorize that the two had a falling-out over Sonny’s childhood dream to pursue a musical career."
Now here was some in-depth information - and, at last, this article cited its sources! I clicked through to the ones pertaining to this bit on info about Sonny.
And there it was. An article from 2009, on the website endorexpress.net, about Sonny Eclipse, which featured the following blurb:
"Sonny is believed to be the ‘cousin’ of Officer Zzzzyxxx from the Star Tours Spaceport in Tokyo. While Sonny hails from Yew Nork City on the planet Zork, Officer Zzzzyxxx’s employment records suggest he originated in a region called Joo Nerzey on the same planet. Inhabitants of this world call themselves Zorkies and their skin pigmentation can range from standard human fleshtones to more colorful hues like ‘blue or pink or polka dot and purple-green’. During his act, Sonny makes passing mention of various members of his family, including his six-eyed, twelve-nostriled estranged wife (Luna), his parents (father Sola and mother Parsha), and his mother-in-law (Tota Leigh Clipse)… but he never mentions his cousin Officer Zzzzyxxx, the only other member of the Zorkie race who currently resides on Earth. Some theorize that the two had a falling-out over Sonny’s childhood dream to pursue a musical career."
The site also features an article on Zzzzyxxx himself, which contains a blurb nearly identical to that found on Zzzzyxxx's starwars.jp article - which was clearly taken from endorexpress rather than Wookieepedia as I had expected.
And, at the bottom of both of these endorexpress pages, the following line is present:
"Some details for this entry are from the Imagination of Alex Newborn."
And there, it seemed, was the answer. A fansite article from 2009 had done a bit of fan worldbuilding, which had been misinterpreted by a great many sources as something that had been officially stated by Disney.
But I wanted to be certain. So I contacted the author of the article, Alex Newborn, and asked him if the relationship between Sonny and Zzzzyxxx was one of the details for the entry that had come from his imagination.
He responded promptly, and told me everything he knew about the relationship between Sonny Eclipse and Officer Zzzzyxxx. With his permission, I've quoted the relevant section of his email below:
"To the best of my recollection, Disney never stated that the two had any connection whatsoever. We were just trying to do a little world-building and create an in-story link between the two animatronics which economically recycled a sculpt. None of us spoke or read Japanese, meaning little concrete info was known about Zzzzyxxx, but Sonny sang whole songs about what planet he was from, so it seemed prudent to borrow a few factoids about the one alien and transfer them to the other. Ergo, I made them both be from the planet Zork, but I changed things up a bit. I definitely made up the part about him being from Joo Nerzie (or however I spelt it) since the song established Sonny was from Yew Nork."
So there it was. More-or-less concrete proof that the cousin connection between Sonny and Zzzzyxxx, and the "Joo Nerzey" claim, were fan creations that were widely disseminated and misinterpreted as official, rather than something that was ever established by Disney. According to Newborn, the disclaimer on the site notifying readers that some elements were from his own imagination would sometimes disappear after the site was updated - some people would surely have seen the page without the disclaimer, and taken everything on it as canon information. Thus, the information that he had made up for the page and intended as a bit of fun speculation was spread to other sites, without anyone realizing that Disney had never actually said anything to that effect.
It seemed that my quest had come to an end - I had found the answer. Sonny and Zzzzyxxx are not, according to the official canon, cousins.
(Another interesting discovery: the spelling of Zzzzyxxx's name has varied through the years. In his email, Alex Newborn mentioned that he had never actually seen an official source for Zzzzyxxx's name, but I believe I've found one - the Summer 1989 issue of Disney News Magazine, which spells the name "Zzyxx". The current most common spelling, "Zzzzyxxx", seems to have been originated by the staff of endorexpress, and made official by its inclusion in an article in Star Wars Insider issue 104, which was penned by Newborn. "Zzzyxxx", with only three Z's, has also cropped up on occasion, but never, it would seem, in an official publication. And finally, Kevin Rafferty, the creator of the character, refers to him as "Zzyzx" in his book Magic Journey: My Fantastical Walt Disney Imagineering Career.)
So, is this absolutely, definitely the explanation for the cousin claim? Well, probably, but just in case, I've also emailed Jim Korkis, author of the above-mentioned book, to ask whether he knows of any official sources. I shall write an update to this post if he responds.
Well, there you have it! I shall end this post with an image from the Spring 1993 issue of Disney News Magazine, featuring Imagineer Valerie Edwards working on the original model of Zzzzyxx:
There he is - the fellow that started the whole thing, in his infant days! Lovely.
UPDATE: Since publishing this post a scant few hours ago, I have made a discovery! While the claim that Sonny and Zzzzyxxx are cousins probably originated with Alex Newborn at endorexpress.com, it has been referenced in an official Disney publication! In his book Magic Journey: My Fantastical Walt Disney Imagineering Career, published by Disney Editions, Eclipse's and Zzzzyxxx's creator Kevin Rafferty writes the following:
"[George] Wilkins and I teamed up as composer and lyricist and wrote a lot of music over the years, including ... the Sonny Eclipse ("Biggest Little Star in the Galaxy") lounge act in Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom (Sonny Eclipse, by the way, is a distant cousin to Officer Zzyzx)."
And there you have it! I retract my original conclusion - Sonny Eclipse and Officer Zzzzyxxx are cousins - because, after all, what better source is there than their creator himself? And, besides, even if it wasn't the original idea - if fans of the characters like the idea, does one really need an official source to confirm it?
And thus ends the cousin mystery - probably. Apparently, I can make no guarantees where these two are involved.
