Monthly Archives: October 2011
Aliens All Around
Oct 28
In the spirit of Halloween, I had to write about something a little bit terrifying, so step of the way Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, I want to talk chilling and thrilling in this blog post.
Some may not think it, but Disney does have a darker side and it does show through in some of their attractions. I’ve seen both children and adults question themselves of rides like the Haunted Mansion, Expedition Everest, and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. I still have a hard time making it through Snow White’s Scary Adventures. That witch giving out the apple is scary stuff. However, the story to tell, I thought, lurks within an extinct attraction still very popular and missed today.
The ExtraTERRORestial Alien Encounter, or just Alien Encounter, opened in the new Tomorrowland at Walt Disney Worldin 1994 and was somewhat of a black sheep. When Disney reconstructed Tomorrowland to have a Jules Verne looking future, they also felt that they needed to update some of the attractions. One such attraction was Mission to Mars which seemed out dated after being open for over 18 years. Mission to Mars was closed on October 4th, 1993 and Michael Eisner and his team went to work on thinking up the next great Tomorrowland attraction. What they came up with was a ride called “Noststomo” which was named after the space craft from the movie Alien. The initial idea for the ride was to use the actual alien creature from Alien but that was deemed too scary, not to mention that Alien was rated R which meant it was seen by children, a large base of the guests at the Magic Kingdom.
The idea was then given to George Lucas, who had a huge hit with Star Tours in Tomorrowland, and his team at Industrial Light and Magic, or ILM for short. They came up with a concept that was a bit more light-hearted but still scary. Using the idea that an intergalactic technology company, X-S Tech, has created a teleportation system, they teleport an alien into a circular theater room where guests would encounter this alien while staying safely seated. Lucas, despite having his name attached to the project, left all the work to ILM and the Disney Imagineers. The project attracted talents like Tyra Banks, Phil Hartman, and Jeffrey Jones who were added into the pre-show and main attraction. In rapid time, Alien Encounter had its soft opening on December 16th, 1994, but was shortly closed due to Michael Eisner thinking it wasn’t scary enough. Tim Curry replaced Phil Hartman as the voice of Simulated Intelligence Robotics (S.I.R.) which gave the character a more sintister voice. Alien Encounter reopened on June 20th, 1995 and was a big hit with adults and teens.
Even the promo for Alien Encounter is terrifying!
After waiting outside of the attraction, a group of guests are welcomed into the Intergalatic Convention Center where they are shown a video presentation on what X-S Tech is so that they become familiar with the story. Guests are the shown into a a second pre-show room where they get a demonstration from S.I.R. on how X-S teleportation works. After the demonstration including a cute alien named skippy, guests are shown into the main theater room where everyone takes a seat around a large tube. The plan is to teleport the X-S Tech chairman, L.C. Clench, who wants to meet all of the guests. The teleportations signal is diverted and instead, an unknown alien is beamed into the theater. The winged carnivorous alien breaks from the teleportation tube and rampages over the audience in the dark. Special effects were used during the main show, which simulated the sounds of an alien as well as the breathing and touch of an alien. Water dripped from the ceiling and warm air was blown onto the necks of guests to frighten them, in seat speakers brought the alien right up next to guests, and over-the-shoulder harnesses are pushed down to make it seem as though the alien was sitting on top of you. all of these effects are now used in many of the 4D shows, but at the time were pretty new to the theme park world.
Due to complaints from parents of frightened children, ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter became a black sheep in the new Tomorrowland. It became increasingly a cult attraction and lost some star power by the beginning of the 2000s. Imagineers then decided to redesign the attraction using a newly popular character named Stitch from the hit animated film Lilo and Stitch. Stitch’s Great Escape was thought up so Alien Encounter was closed October 12th, 2003 permanently.
The attraction lives on within Stitch’s Great Escape as you can still find glimpses of X-S Tech logos and of course the beloved Skippy still exists in the pre-show.
Sunshine Trees and Birds
Oct 20
When I started this blog, I said I would take a look into the history of all sorts of things, and so far I’ve delved mostly into major theme park attractions, but today, I’d like to take a step back on the grand scale of things and look at a much smaller, yet very important part of the Magic Kingdom’s history. When Walt Disney World’s first theme park opened to the public in 1971, much of the park was just a replica of Disneyland, including Adventureland. You could find yourself on a Jungle Cruise or watching birds sing in the Tropical Serenade (a replica of the Enchanted Tiki Room) or climbing a Swiss Family Tree House. In many ways, the experiences you could find here were not new, even down to getting yourself a Dole Whip snack. However, something unique opened in Magic Kingdom’s Adventureland that you couldn’t find at any other park due to a partnership between Disney and the Florida Citrus Commision. The partnership between the Florida Citrus Commision (also known as the Florida Citrus Growers or FCC) and the Walt Disney Company found the FCC sponsoring a pavillion at the new Magic Kingdom while Disney created a cartoon mascot for the group.
Disney created The Orange Bird for the Citrus Growers, a small bird that couldn’t talk but instead communicated through thought bubbles above his head. He lived in the Sunshine Tree and had a head that looked like an orange. The Orange Bird became a smash hit for the FCC, being put into advertisements for print as well as television starting in 1970. The Sherman Brothers, who had written the songs for Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, and many other Disney films and theme park attractions, also wrote a song for the bird which was sung by Anita Bryant, a relatively familiar pop singer and beauty pageant star. Bryant was past her prime, but still had appeal as a wholesome singer doing commercials for various companys, however, her main employer became the Citrus Growers during the 1970s.
With the success of the Orange Bird in advertising, the Disney Company added a small restaurant to the side of the Tropical Serenade (the pavillion sponsored by the FCC) which served several Citrus snacks. The Sunshine Tree Terrace opened right next door to the Tropical Serenade on opening day of the Magic Kingdom and was a unique establishment because it served as the only home to the Orange Bird in any Disney park. Just outside of the small walk up snack shop, you could find the Orange Bird walking around greeting guests, giving hugs, and signing autographs. Just inside the shop, you could see the Sunshine Tree with an animatronic Orange Bird perched within.
(Despite the poor video quality, this commercial is still a great ad for Florida orange juice)
The Sunshine Tree Terrace became popular for its Citrus flavored treats, including the still popular, Citrus Swirl ice cream. The Terrace still serves many of the classics it first served in 1971 including Orange slushes and rasberry lemonade slushes. The snack shop has also offered other ice cream flavors, coffee, cookies, and potato chips over the years and still holds as a popular spot to grab a snack in the summer time.
The Terrace, along with the Orange Bird, flourished during the 1970s, but unfortunately due to Anita Bryant’s very public and outlandish comments towards the gay community stating in 1977, the FCC backed away from their star and the Orange Bird suffered along with that. No longer was the FCC an advertising machine, but a quiet organization that just sold orange juice. The FCC agreed to a five year sponsorship in 1981 which allowed them another building in Fantasyland’s Enchanted Grove, however, with the high cost of sponsorship, the lack of advertising going out due to the FCC cutting ties with Anita Bryant, and the Orange Bird losing popularity, theFlorida Citrus Commision opted to not sign another deal in 1986.
The Sunshine Tree Terrace continued without the Orange Bird, but stayed mostly in its original form. In 1994, the orange and yellow stools were replace with brown and beige stools to fit more closely with the architecture of the Tropical Serenade show. During a refurbishment of the Tropical Serenade pavillion in 2000, The Sunshine Tree Terrace suffered its greatest loss when the removal of the Sunshine Tree happened. The Terrace opened again with the new Enchanted Tiki Room-Under New Management Show, but any indication that the snack shop had once been associated with the Florida Citrus Commision was gone. The snacks were still served up but the unique aspect of thise specific spot was gone and with that, it just became another food stop at the Magic Kingdom.
Today, the Sunshine Tree Terrace opens seasonally during peak periods. However, there may be hope for the Terrace to once again be unique and busy. Tokyo Disney has released several products that include the Orange Bird and these souveniers have become increasingly popular. It is possible with the 40th Anniversary of Walt Disney World happening this year, we might see some of those products or souveniers coming to Florida. Several Disney “Geeks” including myself are hoping for the return of the Orange Bird to the Terrace with the popular products floating around, but thats only hope. So here I sit with my glass of Florida orange juice saying, “Cheers to you Orange Bird and Sunshine Tree, may you return to your origins soon.”
Until next Wednesday
Josh Taylor
Not The Briar Patch!
Oct 13
My first ride on Splash Mountain is a great park memory for me. In fact, I’ll dare say one of my fondest. I was only 4 years old when Splash Mountain opened, so I didn’t meet the height requirements, and I had to wait a few years before our next trip to Anaheim. (I grew up and still live in Denver and trips were every few years for us.) Anticipation built, and when I turned 7 years old, I got to finally ride the most anticipated attraction of my childhood. I loved it, even the scary plummit into the briar patch.
However, to talk about Splash Mountain, we have to talk about the Carousel of Progress. I know most people wouldn’t associate either of these attractions, but without the Carousel of Progress, I’m not sure we would have Splash Mountain the way that it is currently.
The Carousel of Progress was one of the 1964’s New York World Fair attractions that WED enterprises built. After the showing in New York, Walt Disney brought the show to Disneyland in 1967. Unfortunately, as a few years passed, the show decreased in popularity. The show’s sponsor, General Electric, advised that west coast people had seen the show several times and it would be worth it to move the attraction permanently over to the newly opened Walt Disney World in Florida. In 1973, the show was moved to Walt Disney World and Imagineering started working on a new attraction for the empty building that housed Carousel of Progress.
America Sings, a tribute to American popular music opened the following year in 1974 in the old building. It featured a vast array of cartoonish animal audio animatronics (say that five times fast) and popular songs throughout the history of the United States of America. Unfortunately, much like the Carousel of Progresss, it also lost its crowd after a few years. The show became dated and was in need of some sort of refurbishment, adding in hits of the current era.
Meanwhile, Tony Baxter (the Imagineer also behind Star Tours from my previous blog) was coming up with ideas to attract more people to Bear Country. The area just outside Frontierland had been losing popularity since there wasn’t much there beyond seeing the Country Bear Jamboree. The idea came about of using characters from Song of the South, a Disney release from 1946 about stories from African American plantation workers. Using all of the animated parts of the film, they could put together a dark ride that would fit into Bear Country, soon to be renamed as Critter Country.
Imagineers were being advised to build a log flume type of ride for guests on hot summer days so the plan was to build a ride called Zip-A-Dee River Run. The name didn’t flow with Michael Eisner. He instead wanted to incorporate the name “splash” and a mermaid to promote Disney’s popular movie of the same name. (Also to toot his own horn since it was a big hit when he first came to Disney.) Imagineers didn’t like the mermaid idea as it didn’t go with the Song of the South theme, but putting together “splash” as well as using “mountain”, since this would be another tall peak to add to Disney’s Space, Big Thunder, and Matterhorn, seemed a perfect fit.
How does all of this tie in with America Sings? With construction beginning on Splash Mountain, and budgets being pushed to the max, it was decided that to cut back on costs, they would reuse some of the animatronic figures from other rides. All the way across the park from Splash Mountain sat America Sings, which had become less and less popular by the year. The decision was made to close America Sings and bring new life to the animals in that show by bringing them into Splash Mountain. In 1988, America Sings put on its final performance and a majority of the characters were moved across the park to be fit into the story at Splash Mountain. It took Imagineers three months to re-wire all of the animatronic figures so that they would “forget” the America Sings routine and “learn” the new Splash Mountain dialogue and songs.
(The Rabbit from America Sings now is a star in Splash Mountain)
The main characters of Splash Mountain are not old skeletons from American Sings, but were newly built robots that could act out and do much more than their background counterparts, as well as be water resistent since they were so close to the boats.
Splash Mountain opened on July 17th 1989, with a televion special to showcase the attraction. (“Ernest Goes to Splash Mountain,” with Jim Varney acting as his Ernest character) The ride was advertised as having the steepest and longest log flume drop as well as having 103 animatronic creatures. The rides popularity soared and the idea to bring in to other parks was a no brainer.
(I also couldn’t help noticing this horrificly late 80’s/early 90’s advertisement. Thanks to Holly Stanton for bringing this little video to my attention. Please take a moment and laugh at how wonderfully aweful this is!)
Walt Disney World opened up their version just three years later on October 2nd, 1992, but imagineers had a problem with this version. Since there wasn’t space for a Critter Country, Splash Mountain had to be added to Frontierland, but they didn’t want to lose the mountain’s deep south origins. The solution came when the train station was moved and incorporated designs from both the South as well as the west, and Splash Mountain was painted in deeper oranges and reds instead of the browns that Disneyland’s version has.
Another version was built for Tokyo Disney in 1992, keeping more true to the original Disneyland exterior, however the interior is more closely resembling of Walt Disney World’s version.
The soundtrack has become just as popular as the attraction, being seen on many Disney park albums and becoming part of pop culture once again, over 50 years after then had originally been written for Song of the South. The songs were all recorded at Disney’s Burbank studios and a 75 person choir was brought in to record “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Da” which became a staple all over the parks.
Splash Moutain, even after 20 years of being open to the public, still draws crowds all year long. Even in the winter months, it packs them in, and don’t even think about hopping right on during the summer months. You are much better off getting a fast pass and coming back later. Its amazing how great this ride has held up and will continue to hold up as long as Disney wants Splash Mountain to still be around. The story is a classic cat and mouse chase, or should i say bear, fox, and rabbit chase, as well as being just thrilling enough to please all audiences.
I hope I can jump in line with my grand children one day and still enjoy this attraction in all its charm and thrill.
Until Next Week
Josh Taylor
(I apologize for the tardiness of this post. I have many ventures in life and had to readjust my schedule, but I’m back on track. This blog will now be only once a week EVERY WEDNESDAY, no longer will there be a post on Sunday. I apologize, but to do this blog justice and keep posts worth reading, I can only post once a week.)