I know I post a lot of Disneyland stories, but that’s because the park is just so darn fun. BuzzFeed’s collection of staged Splash Mountain pics are definitely worth a look for those of you who also dig Disneyland -and those of you who just like silly pictures.

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While I think Pandora was beautiful, I don’t think it warrants its own Avatarland. What do you guys think?

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Image Via bearexposed [Flickr]

The Skyway

Most visitors to Disneyland before the mid-nineties will remember this attraction, even if they never rode it. After all, an aerial gondola ride that went through the Matterhorn was something that was pretty easy to remember. The ride was built in 1956 and while plenty of similar rides exist in parks around the country these days, at the time, it was the first aerial ropeway in the U.S. In fact, the Skyway was actually built before the Matterhorn, which had to be built around the pre-existing gondola ride.

While the ride was very popular in that it allowed guests to view the entire park from above, it was closed in 1994 because the Matterhorn battery supports started to show stress cracks. In addition, prior to the closing of the ride, someone jumped out and while he ended up OK, the incident was certainly not something Disney executives wanted to repeat. Fixing the machinery and updating the ride to become ADA compliant and safer would have been outrageously expensive, so the ride was closed all together.

The hole in the Matterhorn is now covered up and the Tomorrowland station has been torn down, but the Fantasyland station is still sitting around empty.

Image Via ATIS547 [Flickr]

Country Bear Jamboree

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m particularly sad this one is gone. Opened in 1972, the Country Bear Jamboree was a stage show performed by animatronic critters –mostly bears. The attraction was so popular, it even was given a special Christmas show to entertain guests and inspired a movie that was released in 2002. A year before the movie was released though, the attraction was removed to make room for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride.

If you are hoping that the bears come back, there are rumors that the attraction may open at California Adventure sometime, but these stories have not been confirmed as of yet.

Image Via Loren Javier [Flickr]

Flying Saucers

This ride, built in 1961, sounds pretty fun as it’s a little like riding on an air hockey puck. Essentially, you got to play bumper cars on hover cars. The vehicles featured an air cushion that was pushed off the ground by forceful gusts of air from the surface under the cars and while the ride seemed to be pretty popular, it was too expensive to operate and only allowed a few guests to participate at a time. That’s why it was cut only five years later, only to be replaced by the Tomorrowland Stage.

If you’re cursing the Imagineers for removing such a cool ride before you got to experience it, there’s good news. This idea is going to be reworked to fit a Cars theme and Luigi’s Roamin’ Tires at California Adventure is all set to open in 2012.

Image Via arbyreed [Flickr]

Tomorrowland Boats and the Submarine Voyage

The Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage might be the current occupant of Tomorrowland’s Mermaid Lagoon, but it is the third incarnation of rides in the area. In fact, the first ride in the lagoon, Tomorrowland Boats, was actually the first permanent attraction to be removed from the park. Opening a little after opening day, then renamed and closed within a year, the boats suffered from unreliable engines that often left visitors stuck in the middle of the lagoon.

Of course, Disney wasn’t about to leave that space open long, so within a few years, the Submarine Voyage was opened to the public. The ride explored an undersea world filled with mermaids, a sea serpent and other realistic and imaginary marine life. The ride was a big enough deal that it was actually one of the first attractions to require an E ticket.

In the mid-sixties, the lagoon was even decked out with real women in mermaid costumes sitting on the rocks and periodically performing synchronized swimming routines. Unfortunately, a few gents actually tried swimming out to meet these mystical maidens and some of the mermaids raised health concerns related to being submerged in the dirty water on a daily basis, so the act only lasted a few years.

The Submarine Voyage lasted quite a while longer, but as rides began improving more and more, kids started to get bored with the attraction and the cost of upkeeping the vessels and underwater creatures just wasn’t worth the investment. The ride closed for good in 1998, with Disneyland president Paul Pressler promising a new attraction would be opened by 2003. Originally, the powers that be intended to create a ride based on the Disney film Atlantis, but when that movie bombed, the lagoon sat empty for years, until it was finally drained in 2005 for the creation of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

Images Via Olivander and Tom Simpson [Flickr]

The PeopleMover and Rocket Rods

Opening in 1967, the PeopleMover was intended to show a futuristic alternative version of public transportation. The ride used a moving sidewalk to get people up to the right speed before they boarded open air cars that ran on a high track, allowing them to see the attractions of Tomorrowland.

When the ride was closed in 1995, it sat vacant for years before it was replaced with the Rocket Rods, which were Disney’s attempt at using the PeopleMover track for something else.

Essentially, the ride took a similar look at the area as the PeopleMover, only it raced through the track. Because Disney couldn’t find a sponsor for the ride though, they tried to keep costs down as much as possible, refusing to bank the corners, which resulted in the ride having to slow down drastically every time it turned. These sudden speed changes also led to problems with the computer system and the ride broke down just about every day. Within two years, the ride was scrapped and the track now sits empty. While there are rumors that the PeopleMover will return, Disney execs have stated that if they do, it will be a major investment on the company’s part because the ride will have to be revamped drastically to make it compliant with modern ADA and safety regulations.

Image Via Distraction Limited [Flickr]

The Mule Pack and Rainbow Caverns Mine Train

Here’s one I always thought sounded cool even though I never got to do it myself. The Mule Pack gave kids and adults a chance to ride real mules up the mountains, forests and deserts of Frontierland. When the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train ride opened in the space that is now Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the mules and trains could operate the hillsides at the same time.

The mule ride was closed in 1973 though, and three years later, the train ride (renamed the Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland) was closed to make way for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. For more information on the transition, check out our Neatorama Facts about the ride.

Image Via fivequinns [Flickr]

Rocket to the Moon and Mission to Mars

Back in 1955, it was amazing to imagine man being able to actually travel to the moon, but the Rocket to the Moon attraction allowed guests to imagine flying in a rocket ship that was on its way to our nearest neighbor in the sky. The project was as realistic as Imagineers could hope at the time and they even worked with NASA to ensure it was as authentic as possible.

After we landed on the moon in 1969 though, the ride started seeming less and less exciting, so Disney refurbished the ride so the ultimate destination would now be Mars. Designers once again worked with NASA to ensure the attraction was realistic and the Mission to Mars opened to the public in 1975. By the nineties though, space exploration wasn’t nearly as far-fetched as it was in earlier decades, so the attraction was closed in 1992 to make way for an ambitious new Tomorrowland project that would include a number of exciting new rides. Unfortunately, Disneyland Paris started going into serious debt at the same time, so most of the Tomorrowland changes were canned permanently. The Mission to Mars building sat open until 1998 when it was opened as a restaurant, Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port –personally, I’d rather take a simulated trip to Mars than eat some subpar pizza.

Image Via bearexposed [Flickr]

Do any of you miss these long-gone attractions? And those of you who visit Disney World or the other parks, do you have any closed rides you were particularly fond of?

Sources: Wikipedia #1,#2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7

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Disneyland fans! See more Neatorama Facts:

Neatorama Facts: Splash Mountain
Neatorama Facts: Haunted Mansion
Neatorama Facts: Sleeping Beauty Castle
Neatorama Facts: Pirates of the Caribbean
Neatorama Facts: The Jungle Cruise
Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain
Neatorama Facts: The Enchanted Tiki Room
Neatorama Facts: Christmas at Disneyland
Neatorama Facts: It’s a Small World
Neatorama Facts: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Neatorama Facts: Star Tours

If you’ve been to Disneyland in the last twenty years, then you’re almost certainly familiar with Splash Mountain. Even if you refuse to ride the massive log ride, you probably at least rode the train through the tunnel that shows the happy ending of the ride. But did you know the ride is based on a movie that has never been released on home video because it’s considered too offensive? Or that the reason there are so many familiar faces inside is because the imagineers salvaged the characters for another attraction? There’s plenty more fun trivia like this inside this edition of our Neatorama Facts series.

Image Via OpenThreads [Flickr]

Trying To Make a Splash

The Zip-a-Dee River Run was originally conceived of as a way to start attracting more people over to the often empty Bear Country area of the park, which was renamed Critter Country after Splash Mountain was opened. Unfortunately, the project quickly ballooned over budget, becoming one of the most expensive projects the Imagineering team had worked on up until that point. To help reduce the cost as much as possible, the team decided to use previously existing animatronic animals from the recently closed America Sings attraction. Even then, the ride still ended up costing $75 million to complete.

Although CEO Michael Eisner kept pushing for the ride to be based on the film Splash, imagineers had long planned to base the ride on the live action/animation film Song of the South and they refused to be moved on that point. In honor of Eisner’s ignored contributions, they did decide to change the name of the ride from the Zip-a-Dee River Run to Splash Mountain.

Strangely, despite the fact that one of the most popular Disney rides was based on Song of the South, the company has still refused to release the title to American home video or DVD because their executives believe the content is offensive to black people. While Uncle Remus is the character believed to be the most offensive and was left out of the ride as well, his presence can be felt in the queue area; a variety of his quotes can be found throughout the barn-themed line area, all the way up to the loading area.

Images Via Express Monorail and PrincessAshley [Flickr]

America Sings Again

Because first Splash Mountain incorporated the characters from America Sings, the Disneyland ride has the most animatronic characters in their version of the ride –a total of 105. While the main characters were specifically created for the new ride, all of the rest were rescued from the closed attraction. All but a handful of the characters from America Sings were used in Splash Mountain; two of the other characters were already hijacked and reskinned for use in Star Tours and one was saved to help teach new imagineers how the technology works.

While the characters may have already been dressed for the occasion, the America Sings animatronics had to be completely reprogrammed and synched with the ride. It took imagineers over 80 hours to rework each figure to fit in their new home. After months of hard work, the characters can now carry out 45 seconds of movement and dialogue before they loop back to the beginning of their programming sequence.

In comparison to the 105 animatronics at Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom only has 68 animatronics and Tokyo Disneyland has about the same number. In case you’re wondering, there is no Splash Mountain at Disneyland Paris because the designers agreed the weather was a bad fit for a water-splashing log ride.

A Simple Story From A Time Long Ago

While the live-action story lines aren’t used in Splash Mountain, many of the Br’er Rabbit tales from the film are. When you get on the ride, you are soon put on a conveyor belt that brings you up the side of the mountain. The main characters can be seen, but mostly you’re just serenaded by unseen voices singing “How Do You Do?” before you drop down the first small dip nicknamed “Slippin’ Falls.” You’re then whisked inside the mountain where you are entrenched in a cartoon version of Georgia circa 1870.

Once inside, you see the source of the singing, the geese, frogs and opossums cheerfully saying hello through song. You also see Br’er Rabbit mocking Br’er Bear just before you go down the next small drop, leading to the Rainbow Caverns filled with more characters, this time singing “Ev’rybody’s Got A Laughing Place.”

In the movie, Br’er Rabbit gets caught in a tar blob that was disguised to look like a little person, but since the “tar baby” was considered to have questionable undertones, the ride shows Br’er Fox catching the sly rabbit in the honey of a bee hive instead. The mood in the ride turns somber and the characters start to sing “Burrow’s Lament” and your log starts climbing up the large hill. You pass between two vultures who taught your impending doom and see Br’er Rabbit about to be eaten by Br’er Fox.

In the movie, Br’er Rabbit convinces the fox to throw him into his home in the brier patch using reverse psychology, so after taking the huge dive down “Doo-Dah Landing,” you’re suddenly immersed in a happy land of critters singing “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” You see Br’er Rabbit relaxing at home with his family and Br’er Bear and Br’er Fox fighting off a hungry alligator.

Before arriving at the loading area, you’re shown a preview of the photo that was taken during the plunge as Professor Barnaby Owl describes the looks on the rider’s faces.

Image Via Loren Javier [Flickr]

Differences Between The Parks

Overall, the Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom’s versions of the rides are fairly similar, except that the Disney World logs feature a lap bar, likely added after a rider died after trying to get out while the ride was moving. The Disney World version also has slightly different music, as the Southern style of Disneyland’s Critter Country ride was determined to not be a perfect fit for the Magic Kingdom’s version, which was located in Frontierland. As a result, the music is a bit more country-music styled.

The Tokyo version looks largely the same as the others, but it features the country music soundtrack from Disney World with reworded lyrics and the dialogue is split between English and Japanese. The scenes are also put in a different order. This park has the highest drop of the three parks, letting riders fall 60 feet instead of 52 feet. Interestingly, the Japanese version is also the driest, as this version was specially designed to limit the size of the splash. If you want to stay dry at the other parks, all you can do is try to get on a log with a lot of kids, as the more your log weighs, the more water you’ll get soaked with.

Image Via vmpyr_david [Flickr]

Sweet Southern Sounds

You might not realize it when you’re on the ride, but some serious celebrities gave their voices to the characters.  A few background characters with famous voices include: Br’er Owl by Woody Allen, Br’er Frog by Humphrey Bogart, Br’er Turkey by Keanu Reeves and Br’er Frog by James Avery (aka Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air). Only one voice from the original movie was used, and that is Nick Stewart who voices Br’er Bear. As for the two main characters, they were both voiced by Jess Harnell, who is better known for his role as Wakko Warner on Animaniacs and as the most recent announcer for America’s Funniest Videos. Many of the other characters and the final song, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” were voiced by imagineers and Disneyland cast members who just happened to be working at the park when the ride was being designed.

The only song that Disney paid people outside the company to work on was “How Do You Do?” This number was recorded especially for the ride by a 29-piece group called The Floozies. The bullfrogs singing this number are all performed by members of this band, with one notable exception. The frog with the deep bass voice was voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft who also voiced Tony the Tiger and was one of the lead singers for a variety of other Disney rides, including The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.

Image Via Express Monorail [Flickr]

Switching the “Sp” for a “F”

While I’m sure some of you are already familiar with why the ride is sometimes called “Flash Mountain,” let me go ahead and corrupt you innocent readers who don’t know about this phenomenon. Because the ride has a huge climax that is viewable by visitors not yet on the ride at the same time guest’s photos are snapped, more than a few women (and men) have decided to flash the camera during the log drop. While Disney is usually pretty good about deleting these images before they get out, at one point an employee managed to steal a number of them and upload them on to the internet. It’s almost impossible for anyone to steal these images from the park now, due to heightened security measures, but even so, a lot of women still bare it all on the drop –only to get escorted off the premises shortly after landing.

Image Via Loren Javier [Flickr]

So, do you guys like the ride or is it too tall or too wet for you? Personally, I love the singing and the characters, but after being wet for over seven hours the last time I went on it, I haven’t been too eager to go back. Have any of you had similar experiences?

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Disneyland, Songofthesouth.net, Snopes

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Disneyland fans! See more Neatorama Facts:

Neatorama Facts: Haunted Mansion
Neatorama Facts: Sleeping Beauty Castle
Neatorama Facts: Pirates of the Caribbean
Neatorama Facts: The Jungle Cruise
Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain
Neatorama Facts: The Enchanted Tiki Room
Neatorama Facts: Christmas at Disneyland
Neatorama Facts: It’s a Small World
Neatorama Facts: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Neatorama Facts: Star Tours

When you talk about Star Tours nowadays, you have to distinguish between the new and improved version that just opened this year and the classic incarnation, which was first launched in 1987. Personally, I haven’t been on the new version and I’m sure many of you haven’t yet either, which is why it’s so exciting to read about. Of course, the classic ride was something all Disneyland lovers recall with fondness, so I’ll be sure to include plenty of info on that one as well, including the history of the ride itself.

Image via inturnaround [Flickr]

Creating A Ride That Occurs “A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away”

While Star Tours eventually became the first Disney ride based on a film the company had nothing to do with, it didn’t start out that way. Originally the ride was conceived to go along with the 1979 Disney film The Black Hole. The ride was intended to be an interactive simulator that allowed guests the opportunity to choose the car’s route, but because the project was going to be so expensive (ringing in at an estimated $50 million) and the film wasn’t a big success, the idea was quickly shelved.

Fortunately, rather than trashing the idea altogether, the company decided to partner with George Lucas, who was already working with them to produce Captain EO. Once everyone agreed to the idea, the Imagineers started work on the project by buying four military-grade flight simulators that cost $500,000 each and then they started designing the building and ride around their new toys.

While the Imagineers worked on the technical side of the project, Lucas and his team at Industrial Light & Magic worked on the film that would be played inside the simulators. Once the simulators and film were up to speed, a programmer then had to sit inside with a joystick to manually synchronize the vehicle’s movements to the action on screen.

By the time the project was completed in 1987, the ride cost a total of $32 million, which was almost twice the cost Disney paid to build the entire park back in 1955. To celebrate the official opening, and to help promote the new ride, the grand opening of Star Tours coincided with the park being left open for 60 straight hours starting on January 9, 1987 at 10 am.

Image via popculturegeek.com [Flickr]

The Story of A Classic

While the actual ride doesn’t start till you get on the simulators, you enter the story line as soon as you get to the inside queue area. Essentially, you are a tourist traveling through space to visit Endor. As you go through the line, you can see posters advertising different intergalactic destinations, along with animatronic characters who work at the space port and a life-size mock up of a StarSpeeder 3000 –the ship you are using to travel the galaxy.

If you paid attention in the line for the classic version of the ride, you’d notice a few Star Wars favorites, such as Admiral Ackbar, C3P0 and R2D2. The two famous robots were actually used in the film and C3P0 is even plated in gold, which Lucas chose because it was the only material that gave the right color he was looking for and it was guaranteed not to rust. Another fun distraction in the line was a recorded page for “Mr. Egroeg Sacul,” to meet his party at gate 2. If you ever wondered who the heck that is, try reading the name backwards –that’s right, it’s “George Lucas.”

Once you got near the front of the line, you’d be shown a quick safety video and then you would enter the flight simulator. As the doors closed, your pilot, RX-24, introduced himself and chattily told you that this would be his first flight. If you think this pilot sounded familiar, that’s because he’s voiced by Paul Reubens –aka Peewee Herman.

RX-24 screwed up before you even got out of the space station, sending the ship into a tunnel that led to a maintenance yard and almost getting everyone killed right away. He would then take a breath, put the ship into light speed and manage to overshoot his intended destination. Suddenly, the ship is inside of a comet cluster and RX-24 had to maneuver it out of a maze of tunnels inside of a giant comet in the belt. Upon exiting, he would then be captured by the tractor beam of a Star Destroyer.

A rebel X-wing fighter would save the ship by destroying the beam’s generator, but that also meant that the ship had to tag along in the battle while the rebels attempted to destroy a Death Star. The ship had to avoid attacks by the Empire and navigate through a complex maze of rubble before flying away when one of the rebels manages to destroy the Death Star. Finally, RX-24 would put the ship in light speed again and the ship would arrive at its intended destination, but not before almost crashing into a fuel truck before docking.

While the old ride was great, Disneyland has always been dedicated to updating its rides to keep the park feeling modern and to give the guests new experiences. With that in mind, the company worked with George Lucas again to renovate the ride. In celebration of the ride’s closing, Walt Disney World threw a huge celebration and at the end, they held a Star Tours shutdown ceremony where Boba Fett blew the ride up using a thermal detonator.

For those of you who can’t get enough of the classic, you can always take a trip to Disneyland Paris or Tokyo Disneyland, where there have been no announcements to update the rides as of yet.

Images via JoshMcConnell [Flickr] and Peter E. Lee [Flickr]

Enhancing An Already Great Time

Star Tours: The Adventure Continues takes place earlier in the time line of Star Wars. The original ride was set after Return of the Jedi, but the newer version takes place sometime between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. It is also majorly different in that it offers over 54 different possible experiences and the equipment used has all been improved –there’s now high-def video, a 3D high-def screen, an improved motion simulator and other new special effects.

The basic story of the ride remains the same, guests are space tourists on their way to a particular destination –but there are now multiple destinations available. Similarly, the queue also features the same animatronic Star Wars characters, only now there is also a discarded Captain RX-24 who periodically delivers lines from his prior role as your captain. The biggest change in the line area though is that there is now a mock security checkpoint where your luggage, cargo and self will be inspected –unlike a TSA checkpoint though, there are no nude body scanners and you can keep your shoes on.

Once you get through security, you’ll see a television monitor showing you C-3PO who has been trapped in the cockpit while trying to perform maintenance on the ship. You will then be seated and start the adventure, which will always involve delivering the Rebel spy (a randomly chosen member of the audience) to safety.

There are eleven segments of the film though and each segment has multiple options that the ride will select randomly. Ultimately, there are 54 different journeys available and that’s not including the bonus that you might be selected as the Rebel spy on your voyage. This means you can ride the attraction over and over without getting bored and if you have been on it a few times, you can even tell the queue operators which journeys you have been on to ensure you get the maximum variety for your trip.

Depending on your specific trip, you may or may not hear the newly recorded audio from famous cast members including Anthony Daniels as C-3P0, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, Frank Oz as Yoda and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia. All in all, the ride is even more tied in with the actual films than it used to be and the special effects and random ride options make it even more immersive than ever before.

Images via litlnemo [Flickr] and HarshLight [Flickr]

I’m waiting until the Fall to head back to Disneyland so I won’t have to deal with the heat and all the crowds, so I’m dying to ride the new Star Tours. Have any of you gotten to take a trip yet? If so, what did you think? Do you prefer the old version or the new one?

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, Little-Known Facts About Well-Known Places: Disneyland

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Disneyland fans! See more Neatorama Facts:

Neatorama Facts: Haunted Mansion
Neatorama Facts: Sleeping Beauty Castle
Neatorama Facts: Pirates of the Caribbean
Neatorama Facts: The Jungle Cruise
Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain
Neatorama Facts: The Enchanted Tiki Room
Neatorama Facts: Christmas at Disneyland
Neatorama Facts: It’s a Small World
Neatorama Facts: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

(Video Link)

My favorite thing about this video is how relaxed the one on the left looks, while the one on the right is so excited to be alive.

Via Laughing Squid

Disney fans rejoice, it’s time for yet another set of Neatorama Facts featuring the Happiest Place on Earth. This time, we’re taking a detailed look at “the wildest ride in the wilderness,” Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Image via Mastery of Maps [Flickr]

Conceived and Created In Different Parks

Most of the definitive “Disney” rides seem to have been created specifically for Disneyland long before they were added to Disney World and the other parks, but Big Thunder Mountain started out in exactly the opposite way. This time, the ride was originally conceived as part of a new Magic Kingdom area called the Western River Expedition, a Western-themed area similar to Frontierland. The area would look like a big plateau and contain a number of rides, including a runaway mine train roller coaster. Unfortunately, because the park just opened Pirates of the Caribbean, the area was considered too expensive to install, so Imaginer Tony Baxter proposed building just the coaster as a separate attraction, which would instead be added to Disneyland park first. While that idea was approved, the project way put on hold so the team could focus on Space Mountain.

More Computers, More Problems

The delay in the project actually turned out to be a good thing though, as it meant the developers were allowed to use computers to design the coaster, allowing for a smoother ride than one designed by hand.  Big Thunder Mountain was actually the first ride to use a computer to design the track, but because it was a brand new technology, the creation process was actually anything but smooth.

While ride designers knew what would look good, the computer wanted the ride to be as simple and smooth as possible. So the imagineers had to submit nine different designs before the computer finally accepted one without automatically making changes that would make it less attractive.

Eventually the design was accepted upon by all parties and construction started. The ride opened first in Disneyland in 1979 and a larger version opened in the Magic Kingdom a year later.

Image via Sally Ann French [Flickr]

There Is Actually A Plot

While the railroad coaster may not seem to have as much of a storyline as some of the other rides, it actually have a pretty detailed story. Essentially, gold was discovered at Big Thunder Mountain and the nearby town quickly became a thriving mining town. Unfortunately, the miners who built the mine trains to transport the ore didn’t realize the mountain was sacred to the Native American tribe and that those who disturbed the mountain were cursed. The earthquake in the tunnels destroyed the mines and killed enough workers that the town was quickly abandoned.

I’ve been riding the mine carts for years and never once realized that there’s supposed to be a significance to the fact that there’s no engineer in the train. As it turns out, that was very intentional. The carts are supposedly running on their own because they are possessed.

Tourists are now asked to enjoy a trip through the haunted mines in the possessed trains. Scary, right?

Shoutouts to The Past

Before Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was built in Disneyland, there was already a somewhat similar (although significantly slower) train ride in that spot. The Mine Train attraction featured a small mining town, glowing pools of water and two waterfalls, named Big Thunder and Little Thunder.

After tearing the old attraction down, many of the features were kept around and incorporated to be part of the new ride. The ride itself is named after the large waterfall in the Mine Train ride and the town at the end of the ride was from the old ride, the rainbow caverns at the beginning of the ride, and most of the animatronics are all from the previous occupant of the space.

Image via kalavinka [Flickr]

Acquiring Other Design Details

The rock formations themselves are based on real landscapes found in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah (the landscape at the other parks is based on Arizona’s Monument Valley). As for all those fun decorating details like the ore-crusher and the hauling wagon that sit just out of reach of the tourists, those are real relics from the American Southwest that were purchased specifically for use on the ride.

Sound Familiar?

If you’ve kept up on all of these Neatorama Disneyland articles, you’ve probably noticed that Disney was big on using the same voice actors over and over. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is no exception to this rule. The narrator that warns you to keep your hands and arms inside the ride while you experience the “the wildest ride in the wilderness” is Dallas McKennon. If you think his voice sounds a little familiar, that’s probably because you’ve heard him talk in many other Disney roles, including the fox in Mary Poppins, the Owl in Sleeping Beauty and a number of supplemental characters in Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians. He also did the voice for Archie Andrews in the Archie cartoons of the 60’s.

Image via iheartlatkes [Flickr]

By The Numbers:

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad can reach a top speed of 30 miles per hour, but usually travels around 24.
• The ride lasts an average of three minutes and fifteen seconds.
• There are six trains on the ride and they all have terrible puns in their names, all of which start with U.R., I.B. or I.M. The full list is: U.R. Courageous, I.M. Brave, I.M. Bold, U.R. Fearless, I.B. Hearty and U.R. Daring.

Do you guys like Thunder Mountain, or is it a little to fast for you? Also, how many of you actually knew the ride had a plot? Be honest.

Sources: Wikipedia, Mental Floss, All Ears

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Disneyland fans! See more Neatorama Facts:

Neatorama Facts: Haunted Mansion

Neatorama Facts: Sleeping Beauty Castle

Neatorama Facts: Pirates of the Caribbean

Neatorama Facts: The Jungle Cruise

Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain

Neatorama Facts: The Enchanted Tiki Room

Neatorama Facts: Christmas at Disneyland

Neatorama Facts: It’s a Small World

Since I was a kid, I loved ghosts and haunted houses and Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion has always been one of my favorites and I’m sure many of you agree. But what do you really know about the mansion and the stories behind its layout and design? The history behind the ride is almost as cool as the experience itself, so for today’s Neatorama Facts, I give you an inside look at the Haunted Mansion.

From Humble Beginnings Rose A Legend

Image via Passport to Dreams.

The Haunted Mansion wasn’t open until 1969, but the idea was kicked around since the beginning. In the one of the original park designs created by artist Harper Goff showed a crooked street coming off of Main Street and winding past a church and a graveyard and leading to a run-down mansion on a hill. The idea wasn’t incorporated at first, but Disney liked the idea and assigned imaginer Ken Anderson to build a story around the drawing and create a full experience around it.

Because plans for New Orleans square were currently in progress, it was decided that the ride would be built in the style of an antebellum manor. The original souvenir map that showed New Orleans Square promised that the area would include a thieves market, a pirate wax museum and a haunted house when it was open.

The first drawings for the mansion showed it overgrown with weeds, filled with swarms of bats and having boarded up doors and windows. While this certainly would have set the mood for a scary adventure, Disney hated the idea of a run-down building in his park and insisted, “we’ll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside.”

Delays on Top of Delays

Video link

When working on the original plans for the mansion, Anderson developed a number of wonderfully chilling tales, the main of which revolved around a ghost of a sea captain who killed his nosy bride and then hung himself. He was even hoping to incorporate some of the monsters used in Universal films. Most of this ended up not materializing because Disney wanted to take things in another direction.

For the special effects, Rolly Crump and Yale Grace were hired to create creepy effects that would be far from obvious. The pair researched real haunting stories, Greek myths and monster movies and then started building elaborate effects in their private studio. The effects got to be so good that they scared some of the cleaning crew. Thinking that was funny, they hooked up all the effects to a motion sensor so it would all go off when the cleaning crew entered the room. After that, the crew refused to enter the area and they had to clean up their own studio.

Despite all the work on storylines and effects, things didn’t progress very fast and then the imagineers were held up by Disney’s active role in the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. While this didn’t end up speeding the process up, it did actually end up becoming an important part of the final project, as it made the creators realize that the attraction would be far too busy for people to just walk through, as originally intended. Instead, imagineers decided to use the people mover they built for the fair and used in the Adventures Through Space ride as “Doom Buggies” to carry guests through the exhibit.

To Be Or Not To Be (Spooky)

Three of the main designers of the finished project were Marc Davis, X Atencio, and Claude Coats. Rolly Crump also helped add to the ride, as he proposed a “Museum of the Weird” restaurant be built beside the attraction and filled with coffin clocks, talking chairs, man eating plants, living gypsy wagons and other spooky settings. While the restaurant idea was quashed, many of Crump’s ideas managed to make it into the final version.

Claude Coats was design-focused and wanted to create a terrifying atmosphere for the ride, but Marc Davis wanted things to be silly and goofy like traditional Disney attractions. X Atencio was assigned with scripting the ride’s plot line and he managed to mix the two ideas together so the atmosphere begins spooky and eerie and then as the ghosts appear, things begin to get silly.

Image via DoomBuggies.com

Funny enough, the ride’s many delays led to the façade being up for five years before the ride actually opened and a number of rumors began to circulate as a result. One of the best stories said that the ride was so scary that someone died of fright during testing, so they were forced to tone it down and play up the silliness. Because the ride has just such an arc in its story, the tale is widely believed to this day and is even reported on in the Snopes website.

All the ghost stories and urban legends actually helped promote the mansion though and the opening of the ride helped the park recover from Disney’s recent death in 1966.

Size Can Matter

Disneyland is a fairly small park and by the time the Haunted Mansion was set to be established, space was already running out. That’s why the imagineers started the ride off with the legendary “stretching room” that serves as the elevator to help bring guests below the surface level.

Once in the actual ride, you go far beyond the boundaries of the park that you can actually visit, under the railroad, and under the back lot, along the tunnels for Splash Mountain.

Dedications By The Dead

If you remember the outside tombstones looking different when you were a kid, you’re probably right. When the mansion first opened, the tombstones were largely made as a tribute to the imagineers that helped develop the ride. The one dedicated to X Antencio, for example, read:

REQUIESCAT
Francis Xavier
NO TIME OFF
FOR GOOD
BEHAVIOR
RIP

X was perhaps one of the most important fathers of the mansion as he not only scripted much of the ride, but he also wrote almost all of the verses seen on the tombstones and co-wrote the famed “Grim Grinning Ghosts” that serves as the ride’s theme song.

Nowadays though, these memorials have been removed to expand the waiting area (X took his home with him) and a newer pet cemetery has been added in front of the mansion. There is also an older pet cemetery with headstones scattered about, but this can only be seen from the handicap line area these days.

Inside the interior graveyard scene, there are more headstones, many of which also contain hidden messages relating to the imagineers. There are also a few gag ones and one rhyme relates to a charity auction Disney put on eBay that allowed the winner to have his or her name added to a tombstone in the graveyard scene. The winner, a doctor and medical attorney named Cary “Jay” Sharp, was given a tombstone that reads:

Jay
Doctor-Lawyer
Legal Clerk
Forever Buried
In His Work

Image via DoomBuggies.com

In the Disneyworld graveyard, the pet cemetery also contains a special tribute, a headstone for Mr. Toad that was added after the park closed Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in 1998.

Ghoulishly Good Voice Talent

The “ghost host” who narrates your journey is voiced by Paul Frees, who is commonly mistaken for Orson Welles, who he was able to do a great impression of. You might also recognize his voice as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, or as the narrator of Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. He was also the narrator of a number cartoons and stop-motion animations, most notably Donald in Mathmagic Land and the Rank and Bass Christmas series. Perhaps the funniest credit he has to his name though was the voice of “Josephine” (Tony Curtis’ female role) in Some Like It Hot.

Image via Express Monorail [Flickr]

Throughout the entire ride, the “Grim Grinning Ghosts” song is played, although the version changes from room to room. The singing busts in the graveyard actually depict the real singers of the tune and the one most people mistake for Walt Disney is actually Thurl Ravenscroft, who is also well known for doing the voice of Tony The Tiger and his work in the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

If you’re wondering how the busts sing, it’s actually just projections of the singers shot at busts with the actors’ features. The same effect is used for Madame Leota as she floats in her crystal ball.

Spectacularly Spectral Effects

Image via Dave Cobb [Flickr]

Speaking of effects used in the mansion, one of the coolest is the ballroom filled with dancing ghosts. The ghosts are not actually holograms, but are instead reflections of dancing animatronic figures located above and below the doom buggies track that shine on to a glass plate set in front of the viewers.  Marc Davis, who designed the room did forget one thing when he set up the ballroom, reflections show up in reverse. As a result, if you look closely, you’ll notice that the women dancers lead the men. Another cool bit of trivia, the organ being played in the ballroom is the original organ used in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Another favorite effect is the appearance of hitchhiking ghosts in your doom buggy. This is done through the use of a conveyor belt carrying the ghosts at the same speed behind the wall and two-way mirrors which show the ghosts using weak lights.

Remember the Moving Suit of Armor?

If you were one of the lucky few who got to ride the attraction at its very start, you might have a vague recollection of a suit of armor that actually moved around and walked the halls. If so, you’re not crazy, when the ride first started, a cast member would roam the halls in the suit of armor. Because the cast members weren’t supposed to be seen entering and exiting from the dressing room, they were given a remote control to stop the ride. Unfortunately, this resulted in the ride constantly being stopped whenever someone would spit at the character or throw something at him.

The dressing room is still around and is hidden behind the breathing doors.

Variations Between Locations

Image via Express Monorail [Flickr]

All Disneyland parks have a Haunted Mansion, but each one is a little different from one another, with the exception of the French Phantom Manor, which is very different from the others. In the Disney World mansion (seen above), the exterior is done in a Dutch Gothic Revival look because it is located in Liberty Square. Because the park had more space, there are a few more rooms, including a library that features flying books, moving ladders and an invisible ghost reading a book in a rocking chair. There is also a room that looks like something M.C. Escher may have drawn up that features staircases going in all variety of directions and green footsteps moving across them. The Tokyo park is almost identical to this one, except that the outside features broken windows and the narration is in Japanese.

The Phantom Manor of Paris though, follows a completely different storyline than all the other rides. The design of the Manor looks quite a bit like the house in Psycho, but Disney says it was based on the Fourth Ward School House in Virgina City, Nevada. Personally, I think it looks much more foreboding.

Image via wrayckage [Flickr]

The story of the Parisian manor follows the story of a young woman named Melanie Ravenswood and she is predominant throughout the ride, starting with an exterior headstone. Because the ride is located in Frontierland, there are a number of Western-themed displays in the ride, but it is otherwise similar to the original Haunted Mansion’s layout and story.

The story of Melanie Ravenswood says that she was the daughter of a man who made his fortune in the gold rush and built his mansion in a town that’s now run down. Melanie wants to marry a train conductor who promises to take her away from it all, but her father wants to stop the marriage at all costs. The father and mother are killed in an earthquake shortly before the wedding day, but a phantom arrives on the day of the ceremony and kills the groom in the attic (he is the one hanging in the stretching room this time). Melanie swears her groom will return to her and wanders the house throughout the rest of her life dressed in her wedding gown, while the evil phantom and his demonic guests celebrate around her.

After the bride’s boudoir (the room that belongs to the black widow in other Haunted Mansions), there is no graveyard scene, instead the doom buggies visit the backyard where the phantom sits laughing above an open grave. They then travel to underground catacombs and then pass into Phantom Canyon, which is a supernatural version of Thunder Mesa where an earthquake is going on and ghosts rule the streets.

The Mansion Before Christmas

Ever since Christmas of 2001, the Disneyland Haunted Mansion has been decked out yearly for the Haunted Mansion Holiday, featuring the entire cast of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Tokyo has had similar redecoration, but the Paris and Florida parks have never held a similar overlay.

This was not the first Christmas overlay on a ride and The Country Bears and It’s a Small World both received the treatment before, but what makes the Haunted Mansion Holiday special is its use of spooky characters from the Tim Burton film. The special Christmas layout became so popular that it was responsible for the decision to add a Fast Pass to the ride.

Now, there’s plenty more secrets of the Haunted Mansion and I’m sure many of you can help fill in the parts I left out, so be sure to add your own trivia in the comments.

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, #4, #5; DoomBuggies.com #1, #2, #3; Mouseplanet; Passport 2 Dreams; 2719 Hyperion; and Disneyland: Little-Known Facts About Well-Known Places.

Disneyland fans! See more Neatorama Facts:

Neatorama Facts: Sleeping Beauty Castle

Neatorama Facts: Pirates of the Caribbean

Neatorama Facts: The Jungle Cruise

Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain

Neatorama Facts: The Enchanted Tiki Room

Photo: Ack Ook [Flickr]

Yo ho ho and 66 animatronic pirates! The Pirates of the Caribbean ride is one of my favorite Disneyland rides. And apparently, I'm not alone in this: over 300 million people have gone on the ride since it opened in 1967. But did they know that the ride was originally supposed to be a walk through with wax figures? Or that it was Walt Disney's favorite project? Or that political correctness led Disney to change some of the raunchy scenes?

For today's Neatorama Facts, let's take a look at some of the neatest facts about the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland:

The Pirates of the Caribbean was Walt Disney's favorite ride. Actually, whatever ride Walt is working on was his favorite - and since he died during the construction of the ride, it will remain his favorite forever.

Originally, the Pirates of the Caribbean was supposed to be a walk through Rogue's Gallery with wax figures. Walt figured out that boats (which he did for the It's A Small World ride) and audio-animatronics (which he did for the 1964 New York World's Fair) would work better. But if you think about it: pirates and boat certainly go together!

Oh, and what did Walt do for the World's Fair? An animatronic of President Abraham Lincoln in an attraction called Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. After the Fair closed, the Disney pavilion was demolished and it was thought that the Lincolnbot was lost forever. Years later, someone discovered it packed in a crate - the animatronic president is now on display.

The ride starts at Laffite's Landing, where you board a boat after waiting in line for what seems to be three and a half days or so. The Lafitte in Lafitte's Landing refers to Jean Lafitte (often spelled Laffite), a real life pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico (and subsequent American war hero) in the late 1700s/early 1800s. (Photo: John Bellamy at pirates.wikia.com)

When you passed the Blue Bayou restaurant, look up at the second story of the building. You may think that it's a facade, but the balcony actually belongs to Club 33, a member-only restaurant that most of us can't afford to join (it costs tens of thousands of dollars to join, plus there's a ten year waiting list anyhow). But who says you can't see the inside of Club 33? YouTube to the rescue!

The lyrics to Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me), the theme song of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride that you hear early on, was written by Disney Imagineers X Atencio and George Bruns. (X? How cool is that! Actually he was born "Xavier" but became X later on in life). It was based on Robert Louis Stevenson's sailor's work song (or sea shanty) "Dead Man's Chest" found in his 1883 novel Treasure Island. (Photo: Disney Legends)

Dead Chest Island is actually an uninhabitable island close to the island of Tortola in eastern Caribbean. The lyric "Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest" and "Yo Ho Ho, and a bottle of rum!" referred to the pirate Blackbeard's habit of leaving crewmen on the deserted island, with only a bottle of rum, to die as punishment.

Back to the song for a minute. The Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me) was sung by The Mellomen, a barbershop quartet that also sang many songs for Disney films. They also sang as backup singers for Elvis. The frontman of The Melloman, Thurl Ravenscroft, was the voice of Tony the Tiger, of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.

OK, let's continue with the ride itself. Whether you love the old Pirates of the Caribbean or the new one with all the movie tie ins, you've got to admit, the floating head of Davy Jones on a waterfall of fog (fogfall?) is kind of cool. But who is Davy Jones? No, not the guy from the Monkees or the early stage name of David Bowie - Pirates of the Caribbean's character Davy Jones came from the old seaman's idiom "Davy Jones' Locker". It means the bottom of the sea: if someone was sent to Davy Jones' Locker, it means that he died at sea.

When the Pirates of the Caribbean first opened, Imagineers thought that the fake skeletons used were unconvincing. So they bought real human skeletons from UCLA Medical Center and used them as props. These have since been changed (phew!)

Remember the talking skull on the wall at the beginning of the ride? The original voice (now changed) was actually X Atencio's. Many other voices on the ride - like the auctioneer pirate, ship's captain and mayor - was provided by Paul Frees, who also did the Ghost Host in the Haunted Mansion. But those were not Paul's most famous work: he was also the voice of Pillsbury Doughboy.

The Pooped Pirate before (L) and after (R).
Photos: Tellnotales.com and FilmEdge (c) Disney

The most famous pirate of the entire ride - besides the newly added Jack Sparrow, Davy Jones and Captain Barbossa for the movie tie-in - is the Pooped Pirate. Originally, the Pooped Pirate was shown boasting and waving a lady's lingerie while a woman peeked up from inside an oak barrel behind his back. But that was too raunchy for Disney - the Pooped Pirate was changed to the gluttonous pirate (the woman in the barrel was replaced by a cat) and then to a regular fat pirate holding the key and map (with Jack Sparrow in the barrel). X Atencio didn't like the change, and said that the ride was Pirates, not Boy Scouts of the Caribbean ...

If you love the new Jack Sparrow animatronics, check this YouTube clip where Johnny Depp met his robot counterpart:

When Pirates of the Caribbean first opened, people thought that real flame was used for the burning town scene. Actually, the flickering flames are created by illuminating strips of cellophane blowing through the air. The fake flames are so convincing that the Anaheim Fire Department requested that they be automatically turned off in case of fire so firefighters can fight the real blaze and not waste time battling artificial ones! (Source)

Remember the jail scene where several characters were trying to get the key from the dog? The whistling guy in the middle is based on a janitor that used to work at what is now called Walt Disney Imagineering.

Just because the ride is dark, it doesn't mean that The Mouse doesn't see any hanky pankies goin' on. Like other rides in Disneyland, the Pirates of the Caribbean has many infrared security cameras - park operators can see what young lovers try to do. Sometimes they use the PA system to ... erhm, gently remind them that they're actually in public. Sometimes, if the deed is done, Disney cast members would applaud the romancin' riders who would then realize that they were being watched all along.

Purists: nostalgic about the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride? Here's a neat YouTube clip from the Wonderful World of Disney:

[YouTube Clip]

Now, I'm sure I missed a whole lot of neat Pirates of the Caribbean trivia - Do you have anything to add? Please do so in the comment section. (And if you like this Neatorama Fact feature, what should we do next? The Haunted Mansion? Indiana Jones Adventure? Space Mountain?)

More Disney Articles on Neatorama:

Happy Birthday, Walt Disney!	10 Cool Secrets About Disneyland	6 Attractions You'll Never See at Disneyland ...
Disneyland Remodeling "It's a Small World"	The Dark Side of Disney	6 Repurposed Disney Songs

photo by Stacy Conradt

The ride is currently under major renovations at Disneyland, and while I admit it’s not one of my favorite rides, I was disappointed that my sister-in-law didn’t get to experience it on her first-ever Disney trip last month. And now, she may never get to experience the original World’s Fair version that has resided in Fantasyland for the past 40 years.

Disney says that the main change is a change of boats, but according to insiders in the know, it’s actually going to be much more. We’ll get to that in a second.

The original IASW is based on the idea of world peace. No, really. Walt Disney attended a conference held by President Eisenhower in 1956 about promoting world peace and cultural understanding through world travel. Inspired, Disney recruited Mary Blair to design the attraction, Marc and Alice Davis to design the scenes and the doll outfits respectively, and Joyce Carlson to design the dolls. At first, the ride included the national anthems of all of the different nations represented, but Disney decided he needed one uniting song. Robert and Richard Sherman wrote the now-famous tune and that was that.

photo from feministJulie on Flickr

A couple of quick facts:
• The attraction debuted at the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York.
• Major themes of the boat ride include Europe, Asia, Africa, Central/South America, South Pacific Islands, the Finale and the Good-bye Scene.
• Throughout your 10.5 minute boat ride, you’ll hear the repetitive song in Spanish, French, and Japanese, to name a few.

And now the changes: The changes are going to see the rainforest scene – a really detailed, colorful and innovative representation of Mary Blair’s artwork – replaced with a massive “Hooray for the U.S.A.” scene. Right now, the only American characters represented are a cowboy and an Eskimo. This might seem like the U.S. isn’t very well represented, but when you consider that the point of the ride is to explore other cultures, it makes sense.

Another big change is that Disney is going to stick its characters in scenes where they “belong”. So you might see the Hunchback of Notre Dame in the France section, Simba and Rafiki in the African section and Ariel with the gurgling mermaids at the beginning of the ride (at Disneyland, not Disneyworld). Commercialism at its worst, I guess. I get that it’s Disney and its bread and butter is its characters, but the original IASW was not designed to sell Disney product. Walt himself commissioned it with the idea of promoting global understanding, not global marketing.

photo from Re-Imagineering
I guess I’m torn – I can understand the need to update and improve the ride, but maybe not to the lengths they are going. Can’t they up the America factor by adding a few more characters instead of destroying an entire classic scene? And what about subtly putting Disney character references into the ride instead of the actual characters themselves, which won’t match the dolls in the rest of the ride? For instance, make one of the French dolls wear the simplistic blue-and-white Belle dress and carry a book. Give one of the mermaids red hair. I think it can be done in a way that doesn’t rip the integrity of the original design away.

What do you guys think? Horrible updates, or is Small World long overdue for some modernization?

Some Disneyland attractions are classics and have been around forever – Dumbo, for instance, has been around almost since the beginning (the park opened on July 17, 1955 and Dumbo followed about a month later). Peter Pan’s Flight has been around since the beginning, and so has the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (the teacups!) and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Other rides haven’t really stood up to the test of time, unfortunately, and those are the ones we’re going to take a look at.

Holidayland

photo from A History of Disney Theme Parks

You’re probably familiar with the different sections of Disneyland these days – Tomorrowland, Frontierland and Fantasyland, to name a few. But Holidayland? Yep. It opened on June 16, 1957, and was a nine-acre picnic area that was for… well… frolicking, basically. There were playgrounds, horseshoes, a baseball field, volleyball and the “world’s largest candy-striped circus tent” which stood where the Haunted Mansion is today. Pirates of the Caribbean takes up the spot where the baseball field used to be. It only lasted a few years – Holidayland closed in 1961 because it just didn’t fit in with the rest of the park (among other things like lack of shade).

The Viewliner

This miniature train has the dubious honor of being one of the shortest-lived rides to ever exist at Disneyland. It opened in June of 1957 and promptly closed in September 1958 when construction started on the Matterhorn and Submarine Voyage. There were two trains – one for Fantasyland and one for Tomorrowland – and the track ran a figure-eight through both of those areas. The tiny, sleek (for that time) train was supposed to represent the future of train travel. Eventually the monorail filled the void left by the Viewliner.

Monsanto House of the Future

picture from Apartment Therapy

I love those old ads from the 1950s that show “futuristic” kitchens cooking the meals all by themselves with “space-age” technology. That’s kind of what the Monsanto House of the Future was like. It was in operation from 1957 to 1967 and was a tour of a house in the year 1986. It’s laughable now, but the MIT-built house featured technology such as microwaves, which obviously did end up being invented. Just about everything about the house – including the exterior – was made out of plastic. You can still see the support pillars of Monsanto’s House of the Future in Neptune’s Grotto – they were rated for earthquakes and proved to be so sturdy that they were just about impossible to remove. Monsanto, by the way, is an agricultural biotechnology company (meaning they make herbicides and pesticides and the like).

Captain EO

picture from AlteredDreams

In the more recent past, we have Captain EO, which I vaguely remember from EPCOT. Captain EO was a 3-D movie starring, of course, Michael Jackson. And if you’re looking for more credentials than that (keep in mind MJ was HUGE at this point in time), it was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and executive produced by George Lucas. They also co-wrote the script with Rusty Lemorande.

Here’s the plot: Captain EO and his team are piloting a spaceship to deliver a gift to the evil Supreme Leader (Anjelica Huston). One of his shipmates is named Hooter, which seems like a huge oversight to me. Hooter is an elephant, not an owl as you might suspect. Well, the Supreme Leader isn’t exactly thrilled with the crew and orders them to be tortured. EO charms the Queen by singing her a song, but as soon as the music stops the spell breaks and she orders the crew to be captured again. EO uses his music to transform the evil guards into dancers who line up to dance behind him Thriller-zombie-style. EO eventually uses his powers to turn the Supreme Leader and her entire planet into things of beauty.
The 17-minute film cost somewhere between $17 and $30 million to make. Sounds like a lot, but when you consider than it ran for more than 10 years at Disneyland (1986 to 1997), maybe it’s not so bad. Then MJ went weird and Disney decided to pull the attraction and replace it with “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience”.

America Sings!

picture from Yesterland

Looking for a collection of animatronic swamp critters singing old Dixieland favorites and old folk tunes? Too bad you missed America Sings! Had you been at Disneyland sometime between June of 1974 and April of 1988, you could have witnessed geese singing “Camptown Races”, a dog singing “Home on the Range” a pink singing “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey?” and a crane and a rooster singing “Shake, Rattle and Roll”. A decent number of the characters appeared to be either quite intoxicated or at least trying their hardest to get there. It’s one of the few Disney attractions with characters actually drinking alcohol (Pirates of the Caribbean also comes to mind… rum anyone?). The building was used for offices for a while and eventually became home to Innoventions, which I believe is still there today. The swamp creatures, however, befriended Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear and now reside happily at Splash Mountain.

Flying Saucers

Picture from Yesterland

High school physics students who participated in Hovercraft competitions, this one is for you. Basically, the Flying Saucers ride was Disney’s answer to bumper cars. When the ride starts, air would shoot up under the saucer and lift it up off the floor (just a little… we’re not talking feet here). Riders would have to tilt their bodies the way they wanted the saucer to go and were encouraged to bump into other guests. Alas, the saucers only lasted about five years in the mid 60s.

Those are just a few of the rides that are now defunct – things at all of the Disney parks are always changing. Even the old favorites get little updates every now and then. Do you have a favorite ride that is no longer in operation? I know a lot of people were upset when the Magic Kingdom’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea met its maker.