Joe, Mike, Nick, and Ann vow revenge of their heist partner after he steals all the gold from a caper in Venice. Tokyo Disneyland Resort additions, Kong updates, Volcano Bay construction, HHN26 houses, Paddlefish, and then a huge trip report from Mike and Ann!
One of the most popular attractions in Disney’s vast
constellation of Yesterland amusements is the short-lived Swan Boats ride that
carried guests around the Cinderella Castle moat and down the rivers of
Adventureland (and back). For those of you old enough to remember (and for the
rest, those of you who are at least old enough to care), the Swan Boats constituted
a quiet, peaceful, meandering attraction that allowed guests to gain a greater
appreciation (and an alternate prime-time view!) of the Magic Kingdom’s atmosphere.
Normally I would follow up an introduction like this with a conjoiner sentence
that would proclaim something like: “this unpretentious but tranquil attraction
was a pleasant diversion from the hustle and bustle of the increasingly-packed
North American megapark, a relaxing ‘let’s see the sites’ adventure that, like
the Mike Fink Keelboats and others, the Magic Kingdom seems more agitated
without.” I would have wrote that sentence, or something similar, had I not
been told by some sources that the Swan Boats was at one point considered a “D”
Ticket. A D Ticket! Throw out the “unpretentious!” These power-hungry swans
have egos too big for their own good! No wonder it was closed! I would have…
And now they can refuse to remain seated too?!
What kind of anarchy is this?!
Ahem. Nevermind. It was only a D Ticket for a little while.
And anyway, as righteous indignations go, some research reveals that Disney
back in the day had some real
interesting ideas about how to divide up the ticket stock. In WDW’s inaugural
year, the Main Street Cinema and Swiss Family Treehouse were B Tickets, Dumbo
and the rest of Fantasyland (sans Small World and 20k) were C Tickets, and the
Skyway and Riverboat were D Tickets. Okay, so now it makes more sense for the
Swans, but I feel a little bad for the others who are lower on the scale (and
also, Hall of Presidents was a D Ticket but Tropical Serenade was an E Ticket.
Seriously. That was like giving Marisa Tomei an Oscar...or Frozen Ever After a THEA Award).
Sigh...it hurts...
Back on point, the Swan Boats were a nice little amusement
of the type that the American Magic Kingdoms used to have much more of, and
that one can see throughout many of the amusement parks in America. These are
attractions that today would barely even be considered A Tickets, and only
because they are slightly more exciting than sitting on a park bench. But these
little A Tickets are necessary, I’m sure you’ll agree. We, as paying theme park
guests, would like something to do during the middle of the day when even
Sounds Dangerous has a 30-minute line (or, to put it in more contemporary
terms, an attraction so far off the radar that it doesn’t even have MyMagic+). It’s
a nice relaxing ride, a refresher, similar to small theater attractions like
the Tiki Room but communicating with us on a different visceral level, since we
are now outside, in the sun, and moving instead of inside, in the dark, and
stationary. It’s a ride for kids who can’t go on Space Mountain and for moms
who’ve ridden Small World TOO MANY DAMN TIMES. In fact, it also contributes to
the atmosphere (seeing the Swan Boats sail around Cinderella Castle is quite
lovely) and provides a touch of kinesthetics to the area as it moves down the
waterway. Proponents of Walt’s System Method decry the loss of the Swan Boats,
the Skyway, the Keelboats, and others for these reasons.
"Where does this one go, Mommy?"
"Who cares? It doesn't have a theme song."
Ultimately, what sank the Swan Boats was simply a balancing
exercise of opportunity vs. cost. The Swan Boats cost a lot of money to
maintain, due to their fickle natural gas engines and unwieldy guidance system.
By the time the ride closed for good, only 5 of the original 12 Swan Boats were
in operating condition. The boats also had a low capacity and slow load/unload
times. These, combined with the fact that the Swan Boats were a low-visibility
attraction to begin with, convinced even the Attractions division old-schoolers
that it was time to put the Swan Boats out to pasture, to go to theme park
attraction heaven prepared for them.
IT'S. SO. BEAUTIFUL.
These types of attractions, throughout amusement park
history, are often the ones to get euthanized first, usually for the same
reasons as the Swan Boats. The metrics are different in the amusement park
world since the demise of the Ticket Books and the rise of the all-inclusive
day pass, since it is now demanded that smaller attractions demonstrate their
net worth or else risk the hangman’s noose. It is a fascinating world they live
in, always balancing precariously above a quantifical black hole. Most don’t
make it. Like Animal Kingdom’s old Discovery River Boats.
The Discovery Boats is another attraction that, like
Superstar Limo, made this list despite actually including the notoriously
annoying feature of actually being built. I will be including many “original”
versions of attractions on this list, simply because I think it’s fascinating
to learn the history, business, and politics involved in turning a
once-promising idea into a product that is the entertainment equivalent of a
botched Star Trek Transporter experiment.
Pictured: Journey Into YOUR Imagination
The Discovery Boats suffered the same fate as the Swan Boats
and Superstar Limo: it was a smaller attraction that just couldn’t justify its
continued existence. And, curiously, the reasons for its eventual fate lie
somewhere between Superstar Limo and the Swan Boats (hmmm….as if it were
planned!)
The Discovery River Boats debuted with the opening of
Disney’s Animal Kingdom on Earth Day, 1998 (Disney used to do these cool things
called “advanced planning” and “practical synergy”). It was a somewhat curious
specimen, in that it combined a traditional attraction with a transportation
element. The boats picked up from a dock on the Discovery River in between
Discovery Island and Dinoland, then traversed down Discovery River encircling
the Tree of Life (past Camp Minnie-Mickey and Harambe) before stopping at the
Upcounty Landing dock in Asia. From Asia, the boats would sail through the lake
area across what is now Expedition Everest, past Dinoland, and back to the
Discovery Island dock. In a nutshell, the river boats were sort of trying to be
the Animal Kingdom equivalent of the Disneyland Railroad.
Along the way, the boat skipper would point out very (few)
species of animals that would be putting on a debutante ball and singing tracks
from “My Fair Lady” (okay okay, they were really live animals and would just do
things real animals would do. Sheesh). Besides sailing past the wonderful
Animal Kingdom foliage (including the always magnificent Tree of Life) and a
few wary animals, guests would get a glimpse of a dragon cave that would spew
smoke and fire outside Camp Minnie-Mickey, a group of geysers outside Africa, a
gaggle of animal-shaped fountains and waterfalls outside Asia, and a
full-figure Audio-Animatronic of Aladar the iguanodon from the movie Dinosaur. If you haven’t seen or ridden
it, the ride was tranquil and moved pretty slow, so the sights were few and far
between, which made the ride pretty boring but not a total waste of 15-20
minutes (also, your boat skipper was no Louis C.K., which I guess by default
made the surrounding foliage that much more interesting). Take a look for
yourselves and take a ride around Discovery River:
As you can see,
the ride was pretty pointless, but mostly harmless and unpretentious, something
you might see once on a trip to Animal Kingdom but no more. So why did the
Discovery Boats disappear without a trace less than a year and a half later? Is
this something for the X-Files?
Actually, it might be. As contradictory and confusing as it
is, it was the River Boats’ popularity
that got the dominoes falling. That’s right. POPULARITY. For some reason, like
the cornfield baseball stadium from Field
of Dreams, everyone just had to ride
the Discovery Boats. I’ll bet most of them couldn’t even explain why they were
in line to begin with (and this was before Fastpass+, so they couldn’t make
that excuse). But, line up they did. The lines at the Cast Member previews were
45 minutes long, and on busy summer days during Animal Kingdom’s first year the
line would reach up to 75 minutes. For the Discovery Swan Boats. 75 bloody minutes.
Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
This means I'm going to miss the finale of Downton Abbey!
I’m sure the Disney executives were as dumbfounded as anyone
else. There’s no way that this should
have a line of any kind, much less one more than 20 minutes. It doesn’t even
have a weird and unique transportation method like the Skyway or the
PeopleMover…it’s just a boat ride! What’s going on?!
The Discovery Boats just had too many factors working against
it. First, it didn’t have a gang-busting THRC. The capacity of the attraction
was minimal and load times were slow (similar to the water launches from the
Magic Kingdom Resorts), indicating Disney did not anticipate demand. Even
though it seems puzzling on the surface why the attraction had such a high
demand, it should have been obvious that A) Animal Kingdom had very few
attractions to begin with, and guests were looking for things to do, B) The
River Boats were the first attraction the guests see as they walk in from the
Oasis, creating a “Spaceship Earth” effect of “lazy tourist walks into every ride
in order” (okay, okay, so I do that when I visit Kennywood. Don’t make a
federal case out of it), and C) Discovery Island was originally called “Safari
Village,” and caused many people to think that the Discovery Boats were some
kind of safari (which, as we know by now, has the same cache to Animal Kingdom
visitors as a new car on The Price is Right). Seriously.
Hey, it can be both!
(But for real, you have to prepare for literally every walk
of life when you’re planning a theme park. Back when I was a CP, one night I
was closing the merch wagon outside the restroom/locker area at the entrance in
the days BE Before Everest when Animals Kingdom always closed at 5 PM, when
this couple walked into the park at
4:55 as literally everyone else was leaving. They asked me why everyone was
leaving, and I told them after staring at them for a minute, which made them
disappointed. They asked me what else they could do at that time, I told them
Epcot would be open until 9. “Oh…what’s Epcot?” they ask me. Florida tourists,
everybody!)
Anyway, Disney didn’t help the matter when they couldn’t
decide whether the Discovery Boats would be transportation (multiple stops) or
attraction (closed loop). They would have guests who waited 75 minutes be taken
to Asia and then told to get out, to wait another 75 minutes to go down the
other half of the river. The Animal Kingdom Guest Relations staff did not have
very much fun in those first few months.
Anyway, all these factors combined to make the Discovery
Boats the second most loathed attraction at Animal Kingdom, behind Habitat
Habit. Guests ceaselessly complained that there was very little substance on an
attraction they waited over an hour to see. And they weren’t wrong.
So what did Disney do to try to fix it? Not surprisingly,
very little. Instead of replacing the attraction with something snazzier (since
a potential safari-themed boat ride was obviously a very popular idea among
guests), Disney thought the solution was to…add an animal trainer to the boats.
Yep. That’s it. That’s what was missing! I would be totally fine waiting an
hour if I could just be shown a Tarantula up close (said no one ever)! Yeah,
the confined space inside the boats meant that the animal trainer would only be
able to carry around small, caged animals like spiders and snakes. And that
went over about as well as you can imagine.
So, after Disney’s herculean effort to fix things, they went
to the traditional Animal Kingdom, Plan B, which was: change the marketing on
the attraction and re-name the ride! We like to call this the “Nahtazu
strategy.” Certainly that was the missing ingredient. If you tell them what to
think, they’ll have no choice but to think the way you want them to! The
Discovery River Boats became the Discovery River Taxis in November 1998, to tell those pesky Disney guests once and for all that it's a transportation attraction, and nothing else! Can
you guess whether or not it worked? I mean, when Disney sticks its fingers in
its ears and starts yelling at you, you have no choice but to bow to its
wishes, amiright?
So it was on the Plan C, which, at the time, meant SYNERGY
OVERDRIVE. In the late 90s, Disney was in runaway synergy mode, which made it
feel like every ride, attraction, and park bench had to have some sort of
sponsor or movie tie-in. It literally was out of control. This is what led to
the Monster Sound Show and Superstar Television being replaced by the 101
Dalmatians Sound Effects Demonstration and Doug Live. And why we almost got the George of the Jungle Cruise and Journey Into
Imagination almost got turned into a ride based on Flubber. All this was real,
I promise.
The Curse! It's Real!
So Synergy Overdrive, like Red Kryptonite, got its hands on
the Discovery Boats and turned it into (I am so not kidding), the Radio Disney
River Cruise, hosted by Just Plain Mark and Skippy. Yes, this was real. From
the brains behind Imagination and Beyond Tomorrowland which, also,
coincidentally, had a Radio Disney music booth underneath the Rocket Rods in
the traditional Lunching Pad location. All this was real, and we’re somehow all
still alive. Seriously, Disney thought by blasting Britney Spears and the
Backstreet Boys as you’re gently sailing down Discovery River, this will somehow
make guest complaints go down. Wuh?
Anyway, the thing we should keep in mind throughout this
whole process is that it’s not good when a ride/attraction with ride vehicles
which, you know, take you somewhere, is focused on keeping your attention on
anything BUT the atmosphere (*cough Spaceship Earth cough cough*) you know
something has gone horribly wrong. So far Disney has tried to fix an attraction
that has a notorious lack of atmosphere not by improving said atmosphere but by
focusing your attention away from it like it was painted go-away green (*COUGH
SPACESHIP EARTH SHAME ON YOU COUGH COUGH*). And for the Radio Disney Cruise,
they actually created an attraction so pointless that you literally could have
exhumed Frank Sinatra and have him walk around the boat and it still wouldn’t
have generated interest. I mean, why would you create an attraction that is so
wildly, blatantly out of place and against every thematic and tonal principles of the park?
...
Predictably, the Radio Disney River Cruise didn’t even last
six months, and the Discovery River Boats closed for good in August 1999. The
docks can still be viewed and visited as character greeting locations, and the
boats themselves, after persistent rumors that they would show up as part of
the transportation package for Tokyo DisneySea, were never seen again.
Back to the Drawing Board
So how did we get to this point? What convinced Disney back
in the day (before the Pressler Era where pointless rides were expected and
welcomed) to greenlight such a turkey? Well, as you can imagine, the original
version of the Discovery Boats were much more
interesting than what actually ended up being delivered. The sad part is, the
ride concept itself wasn’t too different than the final version, but it would
potentially fix the main mistake of the attraction, which was, you know,
actually giving the guests something to see.
To start, it should be noted that, in the few eyewitness
testimonies that we have, the Discovery Boats were NOT part of the initial
designs of the park that were made in Summer 1993. That’s really neither here
nor there, but it’s interesting to note that the ride was actually not part of
the initial plan.
However, it was in the plans early enough when The Oasis was
still called Genesis Gardens, and Discovery River was still called Safari
River. So the plans do go pretty far back.
Anyway, we’re going back to a time when Beastlie Kingdomme
was still in the Master Plan, which would have given guests lots to see in
between Safari Village and Africa. Let’s take a look at the below map so we can
see the full plans of the attraction one step at a time:
So, from the Safari Village/Genesis Gardens boat dock and
past one or two turns in the river, we come to our first major show scenes,
which would be the Beastlie Kingdomme section (Noted on the map as Scene 3…not
exactly sure what happened to Scenes 1 and 2). In the real 1998 version, this
is where we see a dragon’s cave, hear a dragon roar, then see fire and smoke
belch from the mouth of the cave. But in the original version, where Beastlie
Kingdomme is full blown and watching a dragon strut down the street is about as
common as seeing someone dressed as Macho Man Savage at Wrestlemania, we’re
going to get a super mega-colossal version of the dragon’s cave.
Picture this: as we make our way toward Beastlie Kimdgomme,
the area around the river is strewn with burnt armor, helmets, spears, swords,
etc. from countless knights that have been mercilessly burned into oblivion.
The boat skipper is terrified, trying to silently guide the boat past the
dragon’s cave…
But it’s too late. A full, giant-sized dragon, based on the
gigantic sleeping dragon underneath the castle at Disneyland Paris, thrusts
itself out of the cave and blows fire, roars, belches smoke, and acts in a very
dragon-like fashion. It would have been quite a stunning scene, with a
full-sized second generation dragon Animatronic.
Following the dragon attack, we meet the second member of
our two-headed monster parade. As the boat passes Beastlie Kingdomme proper,
the skipper is again afraid, because it’s been rumored that the Kraken swims in
the waters surrounding Beastlie Kingdomme. Sure enough, before long the water
around the boat starts to bubble, and the boat starts to shake. The fins of the
Kraken rise up above the water. The boat finally passes through after much
water spraying and boat shaking from the Kraken.
Upon leaving Beastlie Kingdomme, the boats enter into an
area covered in mist. The skipper informs everyone that mystical creatures are
said to walk around the riverbank in this area, especially…the unicorn. On cue,
we look up to a jutting rock formation, where an Animatronic unicorn presents
itself and neighs to the passing boat. The boat, of course, slows down so
everyone can take pictures of the very beautiful unicorn as it smiles and, I
dunno, sneezes rainbows into the sky or something. Whatever unicorns do.
Yeah, close enough.
This is all included in the Beastlie Kingdomme section of
the tour. Passing into the Africa section on the map, we come to Scene 4, which
is similar to the final attraction in that it will feature a group of
impressive geysers (not sure why they bother on the map to call them “African”
geysers…I mean, what’s the difference between African geysers and all the other
kinds of geysers?) as well as some animal pastures, featuring animals like the
Bangteng, which were featured in the 1998 version.
Note also, next to that red bullet-shaped thing at the top,
the second boat dock would have technically been on the African side of the
park. Upon stopping at/leaving the African dock, the boats will then pass
through a bird sanctuary (or, as it’s labeled on the map, “Birdland”).
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!
We somehow time travel ahead again to Scene 7 (apparently
this boat ride is like a DVD movie with a six year-old at the remote),
featuring another new element, the Asian deer meadows, in the area currently
belonging to Expedition Everest. It would have been a wonderful opportunity for
Disney to…
don't go there don't go there don't go there
…Apologize to toddlers everywhere for that scene in Bambi. That’s what I was going to say.
We cruise past the “floating fountains,” which were featured
in the video of the 1998 version, and then across from Theater in the Wild we
enter into the “Aquanimals” section, which has me really giddy because I have
no idea what this means. Are we going to go underwater? Are dolphins and whales
going to leap into the sky on our skipper’s cues? Who knows?
Pictured: Paul Pressler's Aquanimals Adventure
Finally, we pass the Dinoland section, which would of course
feature some form of Animatronic dinosaurs at the river’s edge, before we
return back to Safari Village. That was fun!
Further Analysis
What I like about this version is that it just builds on
what is already there. It has the exact same ride layout as the eventual 1998
version. But the Imagineers packed it with interesting things.
As I said at the start of the article, transportation
attractions are fickle things. You either have to A) Provide lots of
interesting things to look at, or B) Make the transportation itself the
attraction, or C) Both. An example of B) would be the Skyway and the Monorail.
The real hook for these rides are the fact that you’re riding in an actual sky
bucket and monorail (this is also why, for example, the gondolas at the
Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas remain to be popular but the Luxor Hotel’s old Nile
River Cruise was in operation only slightly longer than the time it will take
me to finish this sentence. The gondolas are unique, and fit the atmosphere of
the Venetian perfectly). An example of A) would be the Grand Canyon Diorama /
Primeval World section of the Disneyland Railroad. An example of C) would be
the PeopleMover, which is an attraction in itself but also features show scenes
and some interesting visuals.
The Discovery River Boats are just that. Boats. There’s
nothing special about them. So, in order to make them special, and interesting,
you have to make the show scenes interesting, or else you’ll have a very bland
and tedious attraction that simply moves guests from point A to point B. With a
low capacity, this is not conducive to successful entertainment.
But the original version packs interesting details into
every section of the ride. The Dragon encounter, the Kraken, the Unicorn, the
geysers and fountains, the birds, the deer, the aquanimals, the dinosaurs. All
of these elements would give guests something to see throughout the tour,
justifying the boats as an actual attraction.
In fact, this attraction as presented could have been by far the most interesting
transportation attraction in all of the Disney theme park canon. It would
basically be like a combination of the steam trains and the Backlot Tour, where
guests would be caught in an interactive show scene at every turn. That would
really have made the attraction one of the most interesting and exciting rides
in the Disney theme park empire.
History
So what happened? How did we go from chicken salad to…chicken…uh…soup
(hey, it’s a Disney blog)? Well, as you can imagine, it was due to budgets (for
those of you new to Disney theme park history, practically everything bad about
most attractions is due to budget cuts of some kind or another. Save for Paul
Pressler and friends, there’s really no one at Disney who delights in going
around to certain attraction design concepts and hacking the fun out of them).
The main culprit, as usual, was Euro Disney, as well as Disney’s America.
Euro Disney’s failure and $3 billion debt convinced Michael
Eisner and his Strategic Planning Gestapo that the Parks and Resorts division
had to drastically cut their budgets , which led to Animal Kingdom’s first
round of budget cuts. The second round of budget cuts occurred, curiously,
because of Disney’s America. One of the biggest failures of Disney’s America
was that Disney did not seek out consultation from the country’s leading
historians and politicians straight away. Disney took a “we’ll be just fine by
ourselves” approach, which caused rampant jealousy and ill will among the elite
members of America’s historical societies, causing them to verbally decimate
the plans for Disney’a America when they were finally released. Eisner did not
want tot make the same mistake twice, so Disney hired dozens of the world’s leading
animal experts as consultants. Predictably, each of them commanded a very high
consultation fee.
The final, and unexpected, round of budget cuts occurred
when the Imagineers realized that the backstage areas of Animal Kingdom, the
areas where the animals would be kept, fed, and cared for, would cost far, far
more than what was originally anticipated. Now, if this were, say, any time
before 1992 (Euro Disney), Eisner and Wells would have given the Imagineers a
bigger budget to both provide for the necessary backstage areas and for the
full implementation of the attractions in the park. Unfortunately, now that we move
into post-Euro Disney, Eisner had given strict orders to the Imagineers that
they need to stick to the original $800 million budget. Which means, if there
are cost overruns in one area (a certain attraction or in the backstage areas),
they’ll just have to take the budget away from another area.
This led to the creation of Animal Kingdom being a fantastic
case study of creative engineering and budgetary planning, but as we know it
did not bode well for the eventual Animal Kingdom product. The budget slashing
due to the backstage cost overruns turned Animal Kingdom into a half-day park,
not what Disney should be presenting to the public without showing some shame
for it.
And the Discovery River Boats were a microcosm of what
happened to Animal Kingdom (I’ll be detailing Animal Kingdom’s budget cuts in
more detail in a later article). As we know, the Discovery Boats lost their
deer meadows, bird sanctuary, and aquanimals. The many dinosaur Animatronics
were whittled down to one, specifically, an Aladar figure to promote the soon-to-be-released Dinosaur movie. When Animal Kingdom lost Beastlie Kingdomme, the
boats lost their Kraken and Unicorn.
Sources say that Joe Rohde begged and pleaded with Michael
Eisner to just keep the dragon. Even by giving up the rest of the farm, the
dragon was like the prize racehorse, the derby winner, the one that would
justify the farm’s continued existence. Even with so many elements of the
attraction stripped away, it’s very possible that, leaving in the original AA
dragon, the Discovery Boats could have at least survived until now with that
one “must-see” element. But Eisner wouldn’t have it. He said the Imagineers had
to stick to the budget, no exceptions. And so the once mighty roar of the Discovery
River Boats were turned into a whimper, as the full figured dragon became just
a growl, smoke, and fire effects.
Final Analysis
As I’ll detail in a later article, Animal Kingdom is one of
the most fascinating cases of theme park budgeting. When you are given a
budget, and are held to that budget, what do you cut first? Do you cut entire
attractions, or just portions of those attractions? Would you rather have 10
“B+” rides or 7 “A-“ rides? How would you prioritize which attraction gets cut
first? I think it’s a fascinating business case study.
So, do you think Disney should have just cancelled the
Discovery Boats and folded its budget onto something else, like a new
attraction in Dinoland? Or perhaps a bigger budget for Asia? The problem is,
Animal Kingdom has such few attractions to begin with, and you’re slashing
capacity even more by canceling the attraction. So do you just open a
half-basked attraction for capacity’s sake and hope the general public just
yawns it off? Is there even a right answer?
One of the most intriguing Disney “what would you do’s?” of
today is “what would you do with the Discovery River Boats?” Would you re-open
it? Replace it with something new? It’s a very tough question. On the one hand,
the infrastructure already exists, so it would be easier to just add
figures/scenes/animals/whatever to what’s already there. But, on the other
hand, you can’t really change the attraction. After all, you can’t really
change the river. So, you can’t really make it that much different. That’s an issue. You’re also left with the
same problems from before. Do you make it a clear transportation attraction to
keep the line down (though the lack of things to see would raise the same
issues as before)? Or, do you make it into a full-fledged attraction, which would
not provide the service of transporting guests from one side of the park to the
other?
Given the poor reception it received upon opening, it seems
like a no-brainer to keep it closed. Yet, Animal Kingdom is sorely lacking in
the capacity department (doesn’t help those Per-Caps any), and could use an
atmospheric B or C Ticket (or two, or three) in the Peoplemover/Motorboat
Cruise mold. Wouldn’t the answer be not to shut down the boats, but to offer
more such rides?
In my opinion, you could honestly go any way on this, and
potentially have it work. I’m always of the opinion that there is no such thing
as a bad idea, just bad execution. Let’s explore some simple options. I’m not
counting the option to keep the river closed, since DAK is sorely lacking in
capacity and the river is prime real estate. We have to put something there. And I’m not talking
about the “character barges” that they’ve used the boats for from time to time
or the “dinner cruise” that Disney’s talked about (seriously, does it seem like
Disney just can’t build anything without attaching a cash register?). I’m
talking about something substantial. There’s probably two dozen good ideas out
there of what to do with this space. Teams of designers can show us how.
Really, all we have to do is create an experience that will fulfill our
capacity requirements and have the
added bonus that we will not have our guests running and screaming out of the
attraction crying bloody murder. It’s a tough task (apparently), but needs to
be done. Here are three very basic, very general alternatives that could also
be creatively enhanced in dozens of ways:
1 Make it a strict transportation attraction. To
do this, add a third dock somewhere between Harambe and Pandora. Work on
increasing the capacity as much as possible. Since this will still be an
open-air boat experience, do what you have to do. Make the boats smaller to
allow for faster loading and unloading, make the boats bigger to provide for
separate entrances and exits, drastically increase the number of boats,
whatever. Use it strictly for transportation purposes. Like the steam trains,
no one should have to wait more than 10 minutes for the experience. To enhance
the experience, you could provide a more interesting transportation method
(glass-bottom boats? It’s the return of the aquanimals!), or add more animals
to the surrounding habitat, or add some show scenes around the track with
scenes from the Lion King, Jungle Book, Bambi, whatever. Pandora’s there too. Sky’s
the limit.
2 Make it a full attraction, round-trip excursion.
Eliminate the Spaceship Earth effect by using the Asia dock as the load/unload.
You could do quite a lot with this: provide a traditional Disney “tour” type of
experience with emphasis on the skipper, a la Jungle Cruise or Great Movie Ride,
provide a Disney character-themed cruise (a la Goofy’s Superstar Limo), etc.
Along with everything mentioned in #1, you could also add temples/tunnels that
would act as extended show scenes to replace the more mundane portions of the
ride. I also love the idea of “Birdland”…what if we entered a giant bird
sanctuary, similar to the ones found in zoos all over the country? Kids would
get a big kick out of that.
3 Build something completely non-boat ride
related. Fill in portions of the river and build nature trails or attractions,
or anything. Make a hover-boat ride, if that’s the big thing at the next IAAPA expo.
Just do something with the land! I don’t care if it’s the second coming of the
Luxor Hotel and Casino Nile River Boat Ride!
I still do love the idea of the Dragon and the Kraken (and
the aquanimals!!!) version of the ride. Even with its potentially confusing “is
it a ride or is it a ferry” question, I think there would have been plenty of
excitement to justify a longer wait. And I think Animal Kingdom would have been
better for it. It certainly would give some interesting views, and given the
Discovery River a real purpose. It’s sad to see the connecting river at the
center of the park just be dead real estate. As Walt once said, “we need a full
river!”
YAAAAUUUUSSSS!!! Coming in 2018!!!
Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @ParkscopeJeff.
The Mouse’s Chickens Come Home to Roost this Summer
Over the past week, the Walt Disney World Resort has unveiled its “Summer Awakens” offerings to select media members and the general public. It is quite possibly the most impressive slate that the Resort has had to boast about since the Happiest Celebration on Earth in 2005. That year brought us new offerings to each Walt Disney World theme park. Magic Kingdom received an impressive overlay to Cinderella Castle and Cinderellabration; Epcot received Soarin’; then Disney-MGM Studios received Lights, Motors, Action; and Disney’s Animal Kingdom received Lucky the Dinosaur and the promise of Expedition Everest for the following year. Fast-forward 11 years, and Magic Kingdom is getting a new stage show; Epcot is getting Soarin’ over the World and Frozen Ever After; Disney Hollywood Studios is getting a smorgasbord of Star Wars entertainment; and Disney’s Animal Kingdom is getting Rivers of Light, a projection show, nighttime safaris, and other entertainment. Very familiar to the Happiest Celebration on Earth playbook, right? Unfortunately for Walt Disney World, the resort is stumbling face forward into “Summer Awakens” with the only solid opening dates being offered for Soarin’ and the tertiary parts of Animal Kingdom Awakens. The notable new offerings with open-ended openings are the recently delayed Rivers of Light and ( the supposedly delayed) Frozen Ever After. While Epcot really needs the one-two punch of Soarin’ and Frozen this summer, it should be fine in the interim; Disney’s Animal Kingdom seems to be the big loser with all of the uncertainty of Rivers of Light. Since its debut in 1998, Disney’s Animal Kingdom has predominantly been a daytime only park, and the only substantial addition it has received is Expedition Everest. Its infamous Phase 2 in Beastly Kingdom never materialized but instead is coming in the form of Pandora: World of Avatar sometime in 2017. The mishandling of Avatar and failure of Rivers of Light to get afloat throw a proverbial monkey-wrench into Walt Disney World’s plans for Animal Kingdom. Disney wants guests to view Animal Kingdom as a full day experience and spend their evenings eating and shopping at the park. There is an uphill climb to make because the park has closed around 5:00 PM for its 18 year existence. Animal Kingdom Awakens is designed to change guest behavior, and Rivers of Light is the supposed to be the centerpiece and ultimate draw of the campaign. Rivers of Light was originally scheduled to debut April 22, but it was recently delayed indefinitely. Depending on who you trust or where you read, it was delayed for technical reasons, content, or likely: both. Rivers of Light contained no Disney IPs, no fireworks, and a bizarre story with shamans. The aforementioned media were able to see a preview of a segment of the show; however, Disney was probably better off not showing anything at all. What was shown did not seem to be well-received and at best, people are taking a “wait and see” approach. The infrastructure for a show relying on fountains and projections seems to be lacking, and the music and/or story does not appear to be memorable. This show has long been rumored to have had development problems, and Disney’s trusted nighttime entertainment wizards were not involved (perhaps Disney’s biggest mistake.) Disney has announced that a Jungle Book show will fill the void while Rivers of Light gets its kinks worked out. None of this bodes well for Rivers of Light (in its original form) or Animal Kingdom Awakens. Disney needed a timely hit for Animal Kingdom Awakens to work; instead, the campaign boldly trudges forward this summer with its marquee attraction delayed indefinitely and an obviously thrown together Jungle Book show. The park will be competing with a brand new Star Wars fireworks spectacular at Hollywood Studios and the well-known commodities of Wishes, Main Street Electrical Parade, Fantasmic, and Illuminations Reflections of Earth. Where Disney went wrong was allowing its second tier parks to stagnate over the past decade, putting each into panic mode while Magic Kingdom blew up into an even bigger unstoppable force. Animal Kingdom needed 2016 and 2017 all to itself and that was the alleged plan. Rumor has it that there is an entirely new Illuminations show ready to go, but it is/was being held back to give Animal Kingdom a chance at becoming a full day/nighttime park. However, Avatar appears to be coming a year too late or Animal Kingdom Awakens is too early. Magic Kingdom will continue to be number one by a wide margin. Epcot is primed for huge success with Soarin’ over the World, Frozen, and its established history of being a full day experience ending with Illuminations. Disney Hollywood Studios has the known commodity of Fantasmic, but it also has the hottest IP right now in Star Wars. While anything of substance regarding Star Wars is years away, the franchise has one of the most recognizable film scores and said scores are perfectly paired with fireworks. So, Disney has three parks with strong cases to be a guest’s nighttime destination. Animal Kingdom seems to be on the outside looking in. Ultimately, it appears that Pandora: World of Avatar will have to do the heavy lifting for Animal Kingdom unless Rivers of Light really is a darkhorse nighttime spectacular and blows guests away. The question remains, when will Pandora open and will it have an appreciable impact on Animal Kingdom? How long does the rumored Illuminations replacement collect mothballs? How long does Wishes continue? Basically, how much rope is Disney willing/prepared to give Animal Kingdom to transition into a nighttime/full day park? Does Star Wars Experience inevitably close the window? Will Universal Orlando “awaken” and enter the fray? Apparently, we will have to wait and see.
Joe, Lane, Mike, and Nick celebrate a bachelor party in Las Vegas and wake up forgetting what happened and where the groom is. We talk about regional parks, the start of Halloween Horror Nights announcements, Magic Kingdom after hours event attendance, Disney's Awaken Summer media event, why it's really dumb to call Animal Kingdom at night "like a 5th park", Avatar, Star Wars, Toy Story Playland, Lane's Dark Side race rant, and Nick's Grad Bash.
Amazing user CatCatCat on Orlando United forums found the documentation that lists Peter Giacalone, the Senior Vice President of Business Development for Universal andJohn McReynolds, Universal's Senior Vice President of External Affairs as the permit filers. The company it is filed under is SLRC Holdings LLC, a shell company like the ones set up by Walt Disney when purchasing land in Orlando.
With the documentation is also a map of all property owned by SLRC/Universal. Owned property is in purple.
There’s always a point in every major news story, be it
politics, sports, local news, what have you, where a single off-hand quote or
bizarre side effect can turn a relatively entertaining but otherwise
unremarkable event into a time-bending “where were you when…” historical
milestone. Nixon’s “I am not a crook” speech or Bill Clinton’s “I did not…”
anti-speech comes to mind when pondering eventual falls from grace. Vin
Scully’s “I don’t believe what I just saw” turned an LA Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson
World Series home run into an eminently playable verse run forever through
video players until the end of time (or at least until the end of video
players). And of course, phrases like “That’s one small step for man…” speak
for themselves, and ensure immortality almost before the sentence is even
finished.
Some don't even need sentences AT ALL
So it is with great reverence and glee that I recount the
infamous “year in review” segment of the 8th annual THEA Awards,
held in 2001. The THEA awards were still relatively new and committee
organizers were still trying to figure out a suitable format. In vogue at the
time was to have a celebrity host, similar to the Oscars, who would provide
some star power to the event and would, politically speaking, be incapable of
choosing sides because said celebrity would have little to nothing to do with
that year’s award recipients (also see: every Oscar host in history). Whether
the affordable celebrity pool was too shallow to jump into or because he was
just that nice of a guy, Tom Wilson was the host of several of the early THEA
award presentations. Tom Wilson is of course, best known as Biff from Back to the Future (and, might I add,
Coach Fredricks on Freaks and Geeks).
If you’ve seen Tom Wilson in informal settings, he’s quite the funnyman. And
not really someone you want to be holding a microphone when political niceties
are on your Greatest Hits list. Especially since the event was held in Spring
2001, a few months after Disney’s California Adventure had opened to less than
rave reviews.
As Tom was delivering his presentation for the Men in Black:
Alien Attack segment, he burst an emotional dam that had been years in the
making. After trading back and forth looks between the pretty pictures on the
overhead screen and his notes, Tom looked at the audience and uttered the now
immortal lines:
“At the end of the
attraction, Will Smith ‘zaps’ you so you won’t remember anything that happened
in the past five minutes. Disney, of course, is looking to install the same
finale for Superstar Limo.”
Yep. Wow. Yes! On point. Devastating. As the best comedians
would tell you, comedy gold is spun when reality gets hit directly in the face
with a pie. I might have just made that up, but the point is comedy can have
some devastating satirical consequences.
There were entire rows of Disney bigwigs in the audience,
not just because Disney is a themed industry giant but because Tony Baxter
would receive a lifetime achievement award from THEA later that night. Though
the Disney contingent laughed uproariously through the roasting of Universal’s
Islands of Adventure the previous year, as you can imagine, they were stone
cold silent after that line. It was reported that then-Disney Attractions (now
Disney Parks and Resorts) Chairman Paul Pressler and many of his cohorts left
the ceremony before Tony’s award speech. After the ceremony was over, Marty
Sklar ripped the THEA organizers a new one, reminding them of how much money
Disney “donates” to the THEA organization every year. As you can imagine,
certain things would eventually be changed within the organization.
Upon departure, Tom Wilson was quoted as saying,
"Hasta La Bye Bye"
But Tom’s point became the “I Have a Dream” speech moment of
the cultural themed entertainment industry zeitgeist at the time. If you set
your memory wayback machines to 2001, you’ll recall that Disney was still the
undefeated, untouchable champion at the time, the George Washington crossed
with Michael Jordan perfect paragon of themed entertainment. Disney had an
amazing decade-long track record of near perfection from 1984-1995 (Euro Disney
notwithstanding, hence the “near” perfection), when it seemed like everything
the Mouse touched was turned to pure gold (Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain,
Temple of the Forbidden Eye, Wilderness Lodge, the Disney Stores, on and on and
on). Though Disney’s creative perfection would start to turn sour after the
1992 Euro Disney fiasco, and start to turn rotten after Frank Wells’ death in
1994, the mainstream media and Disneyfiles alike were more than willing to give
Disney the benefit of the doubt.
And who could blame them? While the creative juices
continued to erode somewhat (CommunCore turned into Innoventions, World of
Motion turned into Test Track, Tiki Room: Under New Management, Journey Into
Your Imagination, Agrifuture Tomorrowland, etc.) they sometimes made up for it
with some continually inspired products (Boardwalk Inn and Villas, Disney
Cruiseline, Kilimanjaro Safaris). But those “in the know” knew the branches
were starting to creak. Paul Pressler took over Disneyland and became the theme
park equivalent of Fuhrer Eric Cartman. Pressler’s omnipresent and unrelenting
cost-cutting mandates were so ludicrous they literally bordered on parody. Yet
Disney had so many years of goodwill that the aforementioned “questionable”
creative decisions were given as mulligans from the mainstream, a simple chink
in the armor but no more.
Seriously, if you think the Disney fan community is off its
rocker nowadays, you should have been there in the AOL Dial-up, alt.disneyland
newsgroup days when MousePlanet, DisBoards, and MouseInfo were the only games
in town. You could sort through pages of discussions and articles before
finding one legitimately negative comment, which would be ultimately derided with
the same “get out of my pool” attitude we see today (“if you hate it so much,
WHY DO YOU GO?!?!?!?”).
Good. If you don't go, MORE FASTPASSES FOR ME!!!!
Into this mix comes Disney’s California Adventure, the theme
park equivalent of New Coke or the Edsel. And still, aside from MousePlanet,
you couldn’t find one critique or concern about the new park. So when Tom
Wilson breaks the dam, it really breaks. Because the theme park insiders knew
the branches at Disney were creaking, and were about to fall. Now, they could
LAUGH ALL NIGHT ABOUT IT. The mainstream finally caught up. And during the
following few months, legitimate media organizations like the LA Times would
pan the new park and wonder why Disney’s budgets had suddenly been shrunk by
Wayne Szalinski’s new-fangled machine. And this turning of the tide would
eventually lead to Roy Disney’s angry resignation, and then Save Disney, and
then Bob Iger and John Lasseter and Steve Jobs. And Superstar Limo was right
there in the middle of everything.
New Coke
Superstar Limo was sort of like a theme park equivalent of a
hurricane. Just get out of the way and hold on for dear life. There’s nothing
you can do about it. It will just keep coming, no matter what you do. If I could describe it using as few words as possible, it was the theme park equivalent of this:
Superstar Limo is so famous (or infamous) because throughout
its design process, it literally got worse and worse, dealing with different
creative objectives every few months, and just turned out to be a monstrosity
upon delivery, like a demon baby you’d see in an Exorcist rip-off (probably
with its twin babies, Under New Management and Journey Into Your Imagination). Superstar
Limo’s claim to fame was that it LITERALLY lowered the guest “overall
satisfaction” scores on Disney Research surveys. This is one of those strange
but true facts that have to be seen to be believed. During my time at Disney, I
had access to the Research archives (mostly just reports once you get too far
back), and the satisfaction scores literally did rise noticeably after SSL
closed for good on January 11th, 2002 (when there was no other
significant change to boost scores otherwise). The joke around the Cast Member
water cooler was that Superstar Limo literally lowered guests’ IQ points.
One of these days Disney will learn its lesson
Obviously, the ride itself wasn’t that bad. Honestly, many
people made it out to be a spawn of some two-tongued beast of the abyss, but really
it was just a ride with too many hands in the pot that also ran out of money. But
it’s just one of those funny “cursed attraction” stories that makes you raise
your eyebrows and say, “Of course this can’t be real life, but then again…”
Sigh. God damn you, Epcot '94
The biggest knock against SSL, aside from the “designed by
committee” story writing and artistic design, was the mega-DCA budget cuts that
hammered the park after Pressler and Eisner decided to slash the original $2.1
billion Disneyland expansion budget (down from an original $3.2 billion for the
Westcot expansion) by a full third, down to the eventual $1.4 billion that the
resort expansion was greenlit with. Unfortunately, this budget cut came after
the park had already been fully planned and designed, so the original park
attractions had to either be cut or redesigned altogether (save for Soarin Over
California, barely any of the attractions that opened with the park in 2001
were similar to the concepts presented in 1997/98 when the park went through
its initial design phase). The budget cuts hit SSL hard in many respects, but
most devastating of all was the fact that the full sets and moving figures
planned for the attraction had to be turned into cardboard cutouts and simple
painted flats with blacklights. Thus, a less-than-inspired attraction was
turned into a less-than-inspired attraction with no budget, and the rest is
history.
So, if you haven’t seen it, take a gander for yourself
below, and try to ask yourself two things: A) Why God, Why?, and B) What…what
exactly were they thinking? Who wrote this? It will make the viewing experience
much more penetrating. At the very least, it should keep you awake for a
minute. Take a look:
Okay, first of all, I’m retracting the spawn of Satan joke
from earlier and FIRMLY switching it to imply the spawn of Satan is THAT
ANIMATED JOAN RIVERS. I mean, WOW. I had seen it many times before, but it
somehow gets worse every time. It’s like watching the last season of Lost or the entire 120 minutes of Attack of the Clones. I need a shower
and an exorcism.
In the Beginning
Now, what it really intriguing to me is, what were we originally
supposed to see? After all, this is an article about Disney attractions never
built, so I’m most curious about what was left out of this Hindenberg, rather
than what was put in.
The $3.2 billion Westcot expansion was put on ice following
the Euro Disney disaster. Budgets across the Attractions division had to be
severely cut to help Disney recoup its then-$3 billion debt to the banks for
Euro Disney. So, Westcot was going to be rethought as more “cost productive”
(read: cheaper). Initially, Disney tried to just produce a smaller-scale
Westcot with a smaller budget, but when Paul Pressler was moved from the
President of the Disney Stores to President of Disneyland, he and his team did
not like the overly-ambitious nature of the Epcot/Westcot idea (where the
Future World/Ventureport areas would have to be updated every few years to stay
ahead of future and current trends), so Eisner convened the now-infamous 1995
Aspen summit to discuss possible ideas for Disneyland’s eventual second gate.,
with a smaller $2.1 billion budget.
The leading candidates at the time were a version of Disney
MGM-Studios (a park the executives loved due to its “cost effective” nature) as
well as a resurrected Disney’s America. Dozens of ideas were discussed.
Eventually, the executives hit upon the idea of combining Disney MGM-Studios,
Disney’s America, and an old-school California beach pier-side amusement park
into one park, under the umbrella theme of “California.” The thinking was,
while Disneyland primarily attracted a local population, a second gate in
Anaheim would need to attract a multi-day, tourist visitor base in order to
succeed (as well as fill up the expensive new Grand Californian Hotel). In an
inspired “why go to the Kennedy Space Center when you can ride Mission: Space”
moment, the Disney executives decided to combine the best touristy portions of
California into one park in an attempt to siphon off tourists who would
normally go to Hollywood, Universal Studios, Napa Valley, Venice Beach, etc.
but decide to be lazy and stay one more day at Disneyland instead. Of course,
what they forgot is that Disney’s version of California should at least attempt
to be even a fraction as interesting as the real California, but that’s a story
for another time. (Perhaps…maybe…we’ll get a deeper backstory on this in a
future article?)
The one original idea that made it out of the primordial
Blue Sky stage was a fantastic, careening, out of control dark ride in the Mr.
Toad mold that took guests on a wild limousine ride through Hollywood. It was
going to be one interesting show, since WDI was just coming off their finished
work on Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin, and were looking for the next
Fantasyland-esque dark ride to push the envelope a little further.
Unfortunately, DCA’s budgets prevented them from creating anything too
revolutionary, but Imagineer John Horny and his group really came up with a
lightning-fast, snappy dark ride that would have been a heck of a lot of fun to
ride.
The original Superstar Limo had guests entering through a
recreation of the mega-UFO-looking “Theme Building” that houses the
“Encounters” restaurant at LAX (the earliest designs of the attraction actually
had a restaurant at the top of the structure similar to the Encounters
restaurant, but this idea did not last as long as it should have). The queue
area, like in the eventual final version of SSL, would queue up in a recreation
of LAX, full of as many industry puns as possible (Eisner loved the Hollywood
industry puns…he was obsessed with them, by all accounts). Eventually, guests
would load up in their stretch limos (with the Grouper Cast Members asking,
“how many in your entourage?”) and off we go.
Michael Eisner would then appear in the little video screen
embedded in each cab (similar to what we would eventually see on Test Track)
and outline the plot: he has a mega-movie contract waiting for you at the
Chinese Theater. He promises you’ll be Hollywood’s next big thing…as long as
you get to the Chinese Theater NOW…and as long as you don’t do anything to
damage your reputation on the way. As the screen cuts out, your Limo driver
says, “Gotta get to the Chinese Theater in a hurry? I know a shortcut!” while squealing
the tires into Scene 2. The Disney gods, on cue, appropriately press the “And
Then Something Goes Horribly Wrong!” button as you find out your limo driver
makes RX-24 the Unstable Pilot Droid look like Mister Rogers.
As you can imagine, the rest of the ride is a mad dash
through famous Hollywood locations as you try to blur through Hollywood faster
than a Jamaican bobsled team. A major recurring scene in the ride would involve
a swarm of paparazzi popping out behind the scenery at the end of each major
scene, causing your limo driver to burn rubber into a new location. Eventually,
the chaos you create Toad-ing your way through LA (also of note, there would
have been NO Paper-Mache celebrities along the ride) gets you on the cover of
the National Inquirer (which is
cleverly shown to you at the end of the ride as your on-ride photo
opportunity), and Michael Eisner withdraws his million-dollar offer to you,
muttering a “better luck next time, kid” as he looks for more daycare centers
to sue and dogs to kick (but let’s be realistic, there’s no way Eisner ever
intended to give you that contract anyway. By the time you got there he
probably would’ve already given it to Michael Ovitz). The obligatory exit gift
shop would have then been presented in a full recreation of the Chinese Theater
lobby, a la Great Movie Ride. Unfortunately, an animatronic Michael Eisner
would not be there for you to throw churros at.
While the original Superstar Limo would never have broken
any barriers, it surely would have been a must-see when visiting DCA 1.0. At
the time, the Imagineers were starving
to create another “bus-bar”-era dark ride after so many (The Little Mermaid,
Baby Herman’s Baby Buggy, plus the 23 dark rides planned for Epcot pavilions
that never happened…that may not be an exact number) had been cancelled. In
addition, John Horny was one of those crazy colorful lunatics that Disney loved
to have on its staff back in the day (I’m looking at you, Joe Lanzisero), and
I’m confident he would have made SSL into an absolute ball in the Roger Rabbit
style. According to sources, John packed the ride with gag after gag after gag,
so many that they all would have been impossible to see on first viewing. This
was definitely an attraction that would have required multiple clicks.This is one of the things I miss about
Disney from the 90s: back then, Disney was in such an “expand button” mode that
it had no time to put every attraction into the grater and squeeze an
Imagineer’s individual creativity out, like they do today. Just like Pixar
movies historically reflect the tone and individual creativity of each movie’s
respective director, Disney attractions back in the day carried the creative
stamp of the show producer. SSL would have been a John Horny production through
and through, with little to no executive tampering or “One Disney” cheese
grating to make it JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE. Ah, the old days. Without the
cheese.
Some other interesting notes about the original SSL:
1 Mr. Toad was the obvious inspiration for SSL
from a layout, tone, and basic plot standpoint, so John Horny and his crew
actually entertained the idea of carrying the original elements of Disneyland’s
Mr. Toad, specifically, John wanted SSL to be half dark ride, half roller
coaster. While the ride itself may not have gone up and down on a tubular steel
track, there certainly would have been legitimate banked turns when the limo’s tires squealed to avoid the paparazzi.
That’s pretty sweet!
2 Your on-ride photo would literally have been
packaged with the full front page of the National
Enquirer your limo is featured in.
3 Everyone make fun of Michael Eisner’s
male-pattern baldness!
4 In a “chicken or the egg” originality question,
given the initial timeline of California Adventure’s inception, it’s very
possible that John Horny’s Superstar Limo directly influenced the plot of Rock
n’ Rollercoaster, which was put into production at a later date,
5 In a weird, who-knows-if-this-will-work,
“hey-let’s-make-guests-put-on-baby-bonnets-during-Baby-Herman’s-Baby-Buggy-Ride”
type of inspiration, as you made your way into the gift shop at the unload, the
Merchandise Cast Members were going to LITERALLY treat you like a famous movie
star. They were actually going to fawn over you and pretend to take pictures
and get your autograph and everything. While this is a little over the “please
take a step back” creepy line, I do miss when Disney was actually willing to
try new things.
So that was the original Superstar Limo. I don’t know about
you, but I would have been super-excited to ride it again and again. Of course,
I’m also the guy who likes to continually ride Grandma Gertie’s Gobbler Getaway
at Holiday World and Olympia, Harmony, and Gabby’s “It’s About the Milk” Tour
at Hershey Park for the sheer entertainment value. Yep, I’m “eccentric.”
So obviously, this was not the ride we got when February
2001 roles around. In fact, the only real similarity is that you’re in a Limo
riding through Hollywood to get to the Chinese Theater. The tone, plot, story,
throughline, everything else is wildly different. So what exactly happened in
the intervening years between the original concept and the final lack of
product? After all, a “C-Plus Ticket” dark ride would not have broken the bank
when it came to budget crunch time, so what was the problem?
As I’m sure most of you reading this know by now, the major
blow to the attraction was the death of Princess Diana in 1997. Princess Di’s
death was an international tragedy, and evidence suggested her limo driver
crashed the car while trying to avoid the paparazzi. As you can imagine,
suddenly a crazed limo driver speeding through LA to avoid the paparazzi wasn’t
funny any more. And even worse, from a legal and PR perspective, Disney
executives thought that the mere mention of such an attraction would be in very
poor taste and unload a ton of negative press when Disney was accused of
insensitivity. So, the mad-dash limo ride through Hollywood was out.
The problem was, what do you replace it with? Plenty of
concepts were discussed. Tower of Terror would have been too expensive, as
would the Great Movie Ride. Superstar Television was waning in popularity in
Florida, and getting stale.
And SSL had a few things going for it, from an executive
perspective, that kept it in greenlight status. First, Michael Eisner loved the
concept. He loved the LA setting and the countless in-jokes that only he and
Hollywood insiders would understand (ladies and gentlemen, Michael “Populist”
Eisner). And when the Big Cheese grabs ahold of an idea (I’m looking at you, Disney
Institute) he is NOT letting go. Second, SSL was a relatively inexpensive
C-Plus Ticket experience. As the budget for DCA would start to tumble into an
Orwellian memory hole, DCA had to get as much bang for the buck as it could
muster. So cheap experiences like SSL would be Broadway and Park Place in Paul
Pressler’s Monopoly: Anaheim edition.
In the President Pressler Edition, you can even move landmarks
around to impossible locations!
But now, SSL could not be a wacky Mr. Toad experience any
longer (I often wonder why someone just didn’t go with the “why don’t we just
take out the paparazzi angle” idea…I guess the executives just didn’t want to
deal with any suggestions of
insensitivity). So now, by executive mandate, SSL had to plod along at a speed
less than the 3 feet per second average of similar Disneyland rides such as
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey. So basically it will tread through molasses like
the old Pirate Ride at Cedar Point. And would be about as entertaining.
So now John and his team had a big problem on their hands,
because the layout and construction of the ride would have to be drastically
changed. For those of you theme park design wannabees out there, you’ll know
that the spatial and scene layout for a ride that moves fast (like Mr. Toad or
Rock n’ Rollercoaster) demands a much smaller level of subtlety than do rides
that move slower (like Pirates or Mansion). On faster rides, the human eye
simply cannot pick up on slow movement or the gradual unfolding of scenes as
the ride vehicle whizzes by. If the Doom Buggies in the Haunted Mansion were
replaced with Mr. Toad’s automobiles, you would not be able to understand 90%
of the pointed actions in each scene. Faster rides require more broad actions
(like a guy giving a thumbs up to indicate he’s happy) rather than soliloquies
from Richard II. On the other hand, slower moving omnimover-type attractions
require a subtler hand and greater attention to detail. Since the car moves
slower through the show scene, the eye will be able to study the action and
atmosphere. This allows expert storytellers to create series of actions for
their characters, such as the auction scene in Pirates. This idea also extends
to the entire concept of the attraction. Would you, as show producer, decide to
put a roller coaster-type ride through a pirate bayou a la Pirates? Or inside
Horizons? It wouldn’t make any sense to do so, since the very concept of these
attractions demands slow animatronic show scenes to deliver its story (so for
those of you future Imagineers who are still dreaming of that Pirates of the
Caribbean/Giga Coaster hybrid, maybe you should wait to submit your resume
until after you turn sixteen). You could also think about it another way…what
if you put a Mr. Toad-type ride inside the Haunted Mansion? You’d have to
change the show scenes, wouldn’t you? They would have to change either into a
“Haunted Pretzel” type of scary ride (like Snow White’s Scary Adventures) or a
“Laff in the Dark” sort of funny spookfest. But either way, it would no longer
be the Haunted Mansion.
The SSL team was convinced that SSL would not be as
successful as one would hope. The entire concept and plot of the attraction
(get to the Chinese Theater quick!) was created to showcase a fast-moving ride.
It would be like placing an omnimover inside the Matterhorn…it would be pretty
boring unless you added LOTS of singing and dancing yeti’s! (Wow was that a
tangent). The Imagineers asked the execs to scrap the ride, or at least
re-think the concept, but for the reasons given above, Eisner and his team
insisted that SSL be included in DCA’s opening day starting lineup. So, the
Imagineers were in between Dumb and Dumber.
John’s team did the best they could with the concept. But of
course, by switching from a fast-moving ride (where the visceral thrills would
more than make up for the relatively minimally-detailed sets) to a slow-moving
ride, SSL would demand more craftsmanship in the set design and scene planning,
as well as adding many more sophisticated animatronics. And this meant that the
attraction’s budget would have to go way up. Uh oh. As DCA’s budget continued
to decline, this did not sit well with Pressler and Eisner.
As DCA construction was moving along and land was cleared
for the individual attractions, Disney creative teams were still looking for
ideas to replace SSL with. In 1998/99, one team suggested they replace SSL with
a California version of Rock n’ Rollercoaster.That idea was nixed pretty quick…not only would RnRC cost
almost twice as much as SSL, but it would also cannibalize the impact of the
California Screamin’, the other major looping roller coaster in the park.
Disney was also worried that DCA would be labeled a “thrill park” and keep away
the adults Disney wanted to visit Wolfgang Puck’s Avalon Cove, the Golden Vine
Winery, and the ABC Soap Opera Bistro (for those of you keeping score at home,
“Restaurants available at any Disney park themed to the Muppets”: 0.
“Restaurants available at any Disney park named ABC Soap Opera Bistro”: 1). So
whatever lucky band was going to have the opportunity to do the West Coast
version of The Shocker (preliminary designs suggest Van Halen was the
frontrunner) was out of luck.
A little later, an Imagineering team was challenged with
creating an attraction based on Disney’s hit movie for 1998, Armageddon. Since the movie was directed
by Michael Bay, there was about a 3:1 Explosion to Line of Dialogue ratio, so
the only viable attraction adaptations of Armageddon
were in the Universal Studios “special effects demonstration” mode, similar to
attractions such as Backdraft and Twister. Such an attraction was proposed for
DCA, and nearly got the greenlight at multiple stages (even as a possible
successor to Who Wants to be a Millionaire – Play It! As late as 2003), but
again, the budget was just too high to replace SSL.
And speaking of the budget, around this time the budget for
DCA Phase 1 continued to drop, from the original $2.1 billion down to the
eventual $1.4 billion. So, SSL’s need for sophisticated animatronics and more
detailed show scenes was simply not on the radar. What should have been an
attraction budgeted at $50-60 million (to do it right) remained firmly in the
$35 million range, with most of that figure being used for the infrastructure
of the ride mechanism, power lines, queue areas, etc. The Imagineers saw the
writing on the wall, and knew they had an attraction that no one was going to
find interesting. There would just be nothing to see (again, a direct
comparison to Cedar Point’s Pirate Ride).
So what were they to do? The project, mandated by Eisner and
the execs, had to move forward, yet the attraction was not going to be very
interesting because there wasn’t going to be very much to see. Imagine if World
of Motion had been built for about 1/5th the budget. I mean, what
would even be in the building but a bunch of cardboard flats for scenery and blacklighting?
So the Disney creative teams hit upon a last-gasp effort:
since there would be very little in the way of interest or excitement in the
show scenes of SSL as what was being presented, why not borrow a page from the
Great Movie Ride’s book and puncture the scenes with celebrity figures? As the
creative team observed, “celebrity spotting” was a favorite touristy pastime in
the Los Angeles area, so why not bring it into SSL? This could give a little
extra kick to the interest level of the attractions, as the ride could turn
into a pseudo “find the celebrity” game. The Imagineers were desperately trying
to make the ride even the least bit appealing at the time, so they went ahead
with it.
Of course, they couldn’t possibly have full animatronic figures,
given the budget. The figures would have to be what was dubbed “minimatronic”
figures with very limited motion, basically six-foot versions of the Small
World dolls. And of course there was no way they could sign A-List talent like
Jack Nicholson or Shaquille O’Neal to appear in the attraction, so the list of
available celebrities were limited to those who would sign with Disney to use
their likeness for a bargain basement price, ie celebrities who were already
under contract at Disney and had to do whatever Eisner told them to do (Drew
Carey, Tim Allen, Regis Philben, etc.).
So, what started out as a fun zip through Hollywood turned
into an attraction that puzzled visitors as to why it was even there to begin
with. With obviously so little effort put into the attraction, for a first time
rider it’s just perplexing to ride after walking across the Esplanade after
experiencing Pirates, Mansion, and Splash Mountain.
All in all, the ride did have some excellent side effects:
1 The on-ride photo taken at the end of the ride
unanimously replaced the old Journey Into Imagination on-ride photo experience
in the “how many puzzled faces can we place in one photo” category. Guests
would be legitimately laughing at how weird their faces looked after
experiencing a bit of Paul Pressler brilliance. In another hilariously
short-sighted move by Disney, despite the fact that these comedic photos were
quite in demand, Disney never actually sold on-ride photos to guests while the
ride was in operation. Seriously, it’s no wonder pundits commented at the time
that Disney couldn’t even take advantage of the Second Coming given the
opportunity.
2 The “three rows of six” ride vehicle layout
allowed for a greater dark ride capacity, which was used for the eventual
Winnie the Pooh attraction that opened in Critter Country in 2003. In addition,
the on-ride video screen placed inside the ride vehicles was a Cro-Magnon
forebear to similar attraction in-vehicle video experiences like the Judi Dench
version of Spaceship Earth.
3 The exit gift shop had some of THE BEST
merchandise available in any theme park gift store at the time. Seriously, this
was the real sweet spot time for Paul Pressler-era theme park merchandising. At
the time, Paul kept moving armies of executives from the Disney Stores into
Disneyland, with ALL OF THEM focusing on merchandising as their number one
priority. SSL’s gift shop was quite impressive, with little miniature Oscars,
mugs and T-Shirts with “The Next Big Thing” emblazoned on them. If anyone could
put half as much effort into Space Mountain or Big Thunder merchandise as they
did into Superstar Limo merchandise, there would be a lot more happy Disney
fans in the world.
So that’s the backstory of Superstar Limo in a nutshell. It
really comes down to a compromised vision that couldn’t get out of its own way,
a sort of Faustian bargain with the Eisnerian devil. Congratulations, the CEO
loves your attraction! The bad news, it looks like…this.
The Land Before Time, Part 17
But we’re not done yet! Part of what makes the history of
Superstar Limo so interesting is that it has a series of sequels. Really, for a
while, it was like the Land Before Time series. It Just. Wouldn’t. Die.
Disney’s California Adventure finally opened in 2001, and we
can all, to this day, still hear the crickets chirping. For reasons that should
have been obvious, Disney’s version of New Coke sputters out of the starting
gate before puttering to an abysmal first year. Initially, executives were
quick to blame every conceivable factor but the entertainment makeup of the park
itself as reasons for the paltry numbers, everything from the weather to the
economy. Yet, as we all know by now, Disneyland, the Grand Californian Hotel,
and Downtown Disney were smash hits right out of the gate. It would take until
the end of summer 2001 for Disney to finally admit that DCA was a real problem,
to the point that it was literally dragging the Disneyland Resort’s profit
margins down, sort of like that scene in every action movie when the hero is on
a cliff or plane or anywhere high and is holding on to the heroine as she’s
about to fall to her death. On the bright side, the first few months of DCA did
give us this legendary gem, starting at the 23:30 mark:
Yes, that’s Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood (as Disney
Security Cast Members) accidentally showing Richard Kind and Barry Bostwick
around California Adventure in their search for Michael Eisner, with cameos by
John Lasseter (51:00) and practically the entire history of ABC soap opera
contract players.
Top 3 moments of the “Let’s Get This Over With” California
Adventure tour:
3 Richard Kind being totally species-ist and using
reptilian slurs on Mushu (35:30)
2 Colin Mochrie being perplexed as to why Richard
and Barry are not riding Golden Zephyr and Orange Stinger (56:23), shortly
followed by Brad losing Richard and Barry because he bought too many lollipops
1 Patrick Warburton totally bullying the two guest
stars into riding Soarin over
California (starting 39:11, “We’re not going
to have a problem here, are we?”). Along with, let’s be realistic, EVERY WORD
THAT PATRICK WARBURTON SAYS, especially “Soarin Over California” and “Condor
Flats”…And “Big Cheese”
Anyway, upon DCA’s inaugural year, the guest surveys come
in…less than satisfactory. And by far, the attraction that’s at the bottom of
the list is Superstar Limo. The Disney execs might have loved it to begin with,
but the numbers don’t lie, so Disney had to justify why it was producing $35
million attractions that had less than zero interest from visitors of ANY
demographic (which is really, really tough, let me tell you). The first step,
of course, was to fire the top Imagineers that got stuck making the attraction
(Disney politics, everybody!)
The summer of 2001 was one of the major turning points of
DCA’s history. During this time, the Parks and Resorts executives decided to
accelerate DCA’s Phase II due to the abysmal numbers of the first two quarters
of DCA’s operation. During this time, plans were greenlighted to begin
development of A Bug’s Land, Who Wants to be a Millionaire– Play It!, The Power
of Blast! (Later the Aladdin Musical), the resurgence of the Electrical Parade,
and Tower of Terror. One of the plans they also had was to try to inject some
life into SSL.
Putting a Dress on a Pig
Two of the big criticisms that DCA received on initial guest
surveys was, first, that the park was not “family friendly” enough (read: had
nothing for kids to do), and second, did not have enough Disney characters.
This lead to Disney planning child and character-friendly attractions such as A
Bug’s Land, Playhouse Disney, the Aladdin Musical, etc. The execs also felt
they could help SSL by including some Disney characters. Strangely, there was a
major push in 2001 to re-create Superstar Limo as “Goofy’s Superstar Limo.” In
this version, the limo driver would be replaced by Goofy, and the minimatronic
celebrities would be replaced by the Fab Five and other Disney characters. The
execs hoped this would directly address the “DCA has nothing for kids and no
characters” criticisms.
The strange thing about Goofy’s Superstar Limo was that it
was going to be filled with more than 100 Disney character figures taken from
the Disney Stores. At the time, the Disney Stores were going through one of
their seventeen re-designs, which involved the removal of many large Disney
character figures. These figures would then be moved into Superstar Limo to
star in a “Toonier” version of Hollywood.
The original plan was to get Goofy’s Superstar Limo up and
running by Fall 2001, in time to coincide with the opening of WWTBAM and the
Goofy’s Beach Party Bash stage show located across from SSL in a sort of
“re-imagining” of the Hollywood Pictures Backlot area (this is what Paul
Pressler calls a “re-imagining”). In fact, tests were actually done inside the
attraction after-hours during the summer, with the Imagineers doing lighting
tests on the Disney Store figures to see how they would look under different
shades of blacklight.
However, there were a few too many bugs in the system, and
the Imagineers reported back that the new attraction would probably be ready
for Spring Break 2002, but not before. Goofy’s Superstar Limo was still a go at
the time, but the timetable was pushed back. And then, September 11th
happened, and many of Disney’s plans had to be scrapped. 9/11 really cut into
the tourism business throughout the country through the rest of 2001 and most
of 2002, and Disney cut back even more on its project budgets. So, Goofy was
once again put on hold.
Ah Yes, let's not forget the fateful Speedway Incident of '93
So, here’s where it gets really weird. SSL closed (turned
out to be for the final time) after the operating day of January 10th,
2002. The attraction wasn’t even in operation for a full year. At the time,
Disney claimed that there were “unplanned stresses” in the ride system that
necessitated its closure. We’re not sure if that’s true or not, but one does
have to wonder that…given the time of the closure (right after the Christmas
season), Disney just wanted to close the attraction so it would not have to pay
for daily maintenance and labor on an attraction that arguably brought overall
guest satisfaction scores down? We’ll probably never know.
During this time, WDI took advantage of SSL’s closure to
have the SSL ride track act as a mule track for the upcoming Winnie the Pooh
attraction at Disneyland, which would debut in Spring 2003. At the time, Pooh
was of major importance to Disneyland, since it (sadly, literally) was the only
brand new ride/attraction added to the park since Indiana Jones in 1995 (since
Rocket Rods lasted for about three and a half seconds), and Disneyland did not
have another attraction planned to debut for several years afterward. While
Disney had to pour money into DCA to get it back on track during the post-9/11
recession, Winnie the Pooh was going to have a lot of weight rested on its
shoulders, and was expected for these reasons to be in very high demand
(remember, at the time Disney also thought it would at least be as popular as
the WDW version). Ergo, Disney could not afford to have any technical glitches
with the new ride.
So they used SSL as a test for Pooh. The Pooh ride vehicles
were modeled after the SSL vehicles and tested on the SSL track for the first
few months of 2002. Disney committed to have SSL fixed and ready to come back
up for Spring Break.
However, around this time, Disney had just settled a lawsuit
(in a HUGE out of court settlement) with the Zucker family (for those of you
who know your Disneyland legal history, that’s the family whose son got stuck
underneath a Roger Rabbit vehicle, which is why there are now doors and
lap-bars on every conceivable vehicle Disney has, even the surrey bikes that
ride around the Boardwalk Villas). Disney legal demanded that the Safety and
Operations departments look over every attractions to see if more seatbelts,
doors, etc. could be added. So, the SSL opening was delayed yet again as doors
and lap bars (or belts…stories differ) were added onto the painfully
slow-moving vehicles. The SSL
opening was pushed back to Summer 2002.
Days of Swine and Limos
The next Frankenstein phase of SSL involved not Goofy, but
Miss Piggy. As Disney was negotiating with the German company EM.TV to fully
purchase the Jim Henson Company, plans were made by the Imagineers to turn
Superstar Limo into “Miss Piggy’s Superstar Limo.” I’m sure you can guess the
makeup of this attraction, as instead of celebrities or Disney characters your
limo would drive by scenes of Muppet characters in a Muppetized version of
Hollywood as you head to the premier of a movie starring Miss Piggy. This idea
was gaining traction, since the execs wanted SSL up and running (since it would
be silly to just keep a $35 million attraction closed when it was perfectly
capable of opening at any time, especially in a theme park that was getting
criticized for not having enough attractions in the first place), they also did
not want to open SSL in its current form, since it had literally zero fanbase
outside Michael Eisner’s personal office. Unfortunately, there was an opposing
faction of Disney execs who argued that the Muppets were simply not popular any
more and would not drive the popularity of the attraction enough to justify the
millions of dollars needed to update SSL.
Will This Ever End?!?!?
So, as of Summer 2002, the score is: re-open ride: 1, Miss
Piggy: 0. As if this saga couldn’t get any weirder, someone, somewhere, at some
point in late 2002, then hit upon the idea to take advantage of the latest
Pixar hit Monsters, Inc. by
incorporating (no pun intended) the Pixar characters into the ride. Except it
wasn’t anything like the Mike and Sully to the Rescue experience we see today.
Instead, it would be a “Mike and Sully and Boo Visit Hollywood” themed
attraction (yeah, I know…WHAT?!). The idea, of course, was to keep costs down
as SSL gets renovated. This idea had the added benefit that alluded Miss
Piggy’s Superstar Limo that 1) It was based on a Disney-produced hit movie and
2) It would show John Lasster and Steve Jobs that Disney was trying to play
nice with Pixar, since around this time the new round of Disney/Pixar contract
negotiations were starting. But, again…it would have been the world’s cheapest
overlay, in the range of about $14 million to redo the entire attraction. So,
SSL’s opening was delayed once again to prepare for the inclusion of Mike and
Sulley.
Which, of course, never came. Initial plans and budgets of
the attraction were being drafted just as Winnie the Pooh opened in 2003. The
reviews were, shall we say, tepid at best. National news organizations decreed
the attraction a real yawn-fest, a pale imitation of what Disney was used to
showing to the public. After the DCA disaster, the media was no longer willing
to give Disney the benefit of the doubt. They were starting to be very, very
honest. Suddenly, the super-cheap Mike and Sully Do Hollywood makeover does not
look as appealing as it did, given the tepid response of an attraction that also
has popular characters in it. Mike and Sully didn’t seem like a slam-dunk any
more, and therefore Disney was very hesitant to spend the $14 million necessary
to complete the attraction. So, go back to you home Superstar Limo, the ice
cream truck didn’t come again today.
In late 2003, Cynthia Harris (Paul Pressler’s right hand
girl) was replaced as Disneyland President by Matt Ouimet, who was appalled by
the horrid condition the Disneyland Resort was in. Matt felt that the upcoming
50th Anniversary (Summer 2005) celebration was a huge moment in
Disneyland history and had to be done right. Unfortunately, he had a huge mess
to clean up after the disastrous reign of Prince Paul and Princess Cynthia.
Initially (since he had worked in Florida for several years
before coming to Disneyland), Matt wanted to tear down the unused Millionaire,
SSL, and Hollywood and Dine buildings in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot area
and finally build the West Coast version of the very popular Rock n’
Rollercoaster. But again, unfortunately, Matt could not get the budget
approval, since he was determined to spend so much money in cleaning up the
resort and providing some new experiences for Disneyland’s 50th
Anniversary (in addition, DCA was about to open the $100 million Tower of
Terror, and no one was in the mood to spend another $60-80 million on RnRC).
So, Matt was stuck with the empty SSL building. An Operations Committee was
convened to discuss what to do with SSL as the 50th approached.
Eventually, it was decided that SSL would again come back for Tower of Terror’s
opening in May 2004. There were several convincing reasons to do so, each of
them somehow more bizarre than the last.
First, obviously, the execs expected Tower of Terror to be a
huge draw in Hollywood Pictures Backlot. SSL would add some much-needed ride
capacity in a soon-to-be popular area of the park, and would also give moms and
little kids something to do while dad and the bigger kids waited in line for
Tower of Terror. Secondly, Roy Disney had just angrily quit the company and
started his “Save Disney” campaign to point out every single thing that Michael
Eisner had screwed up. By opening SSL, Disney could pretend to make a
good-faith effort that it was trying to maximize its assets. A closed $35
million attraction would be low-hanging fruit for Roy and his friends. Lastly,
the Disney creative teams actually WANTED the ride to be opened and fail. By
their reasoning, Matt and his Vice Presidents could then see just what a
disaster the ride was. Unlike Paul Pressler, Matt would gladly shell out a few
million dollars to fix a dud of an attraction and at least get the show back on
the road.
And then…they changed their minds. Again. For the last time.
Matt and his team decided that opening SSL would just cost more than what it
would make back. They threw cold water on their faces and realized that no one
wanted to go on SSL, regardless of how popular Tower of Terror was. And so,
Superstar Limo was removed from the DCA maps, once and for all.
As we all know, Disney finally replaced Superstar Limo with
Mike and Sully to the Rescue, using the same vehicles, queue, and track layout
as SSL but creating an entirely different attraction experience (though
bizarrely, in one of those “we can use America Sings figures in Splash
Mountain” moments, Imagineers took the SSL minimatronic celebrity figures,
threw yellow plastic on top of them, and recast them throughout the new
attraction as members of the CDA. We’ll never be rid of Robo-Cher, will we?).
I’ll detail some more specifics of Mike and Sully in a later article that
discussed post-Pressler DCA in more detail. I can pretend it’s for thematic
purposes, but mostly it’s because my fingers are about to fall off from typing.
So that’s it. That’s the Saga of Superstar Limo. If you’re
somehow still reading this, I promise the rest of these articles won’t be as
absurdly long. But SSL is just so special, in so many different ways. I loved
Superstar Limo as a concept, just because it reminded me of all the bad “What
drugs were they on when they thought this up” moments that you see at cheap
insubstantial dark rides at amusement parks around the country, the ones where
the construction paper is peeling off the wall to the point where the sun is
leaking in from the outside to spoil whatever the effect was that was
intended…unless the effect was several seconds of uninterrupted laughter, in
which case the effect was pulled off flawlessly. I’m talking about all the
Scooby Doo’s Haunted Castles and Gobbler Getaways and Hershey Park Reese’s
Pieces Xtreme Elimination Challenges and all the others (like the CEDAR POINT
PIRATE RIDE) that make our trip to the park unintentionally hilarious. You're right there on Mount Rushmore, Superstar Limo. Even though 95% of Southern
California wishes you never existed. Thank you for providing so much intrigue
and head-shaking. Seriously, it’s better than a spy novel, but with more Miss
Piggy. And you provide such good material for Tom Wilson.
And since you, dear reader, somehow made it through all this
way, here is your prize for making it this far. I’m sure you can guess what it
is. You're welcome. You deserve it.
Send Jeff a line at HamGamgee@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @Parkscopejeff.
