Alice Makes Me Sick

The Alice in Wonderland ride has always been one of my favorites. I loved the movie a lot, and I was constantly crawling into small spaces hoping to fall down a hole and get to run around in Wonderland. The ride is another classic dark ride, so climbing into the caterpillar shaped carts and heading inside  is a meant to be just like falling down the rabbit hole.

 

The film seems to lend itself to this type of ride, with lots of mysterious imagery and figures lurking in the dark. You would think that a ride like this would have scared me silly as a kid, especially the part where you swing dangerously close to the Red Queen as she screams "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" But because I was such a fan of the film, this ride was easy to get me on. The only slightly unnerving part was the feeling that your caterpillar is going to run off the track at every moment, especially when you are on the leaves up high.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

I never had a chance to ride this attraction before the refurbishment of Fantasyland (it happened the year I was born) But when they did, they had Kathryn Beaumont record the voice over...which makes me wonder, why did they wait until then to get the girl who actually voiced Alice in the movie to do it? AND Who was doing it before?

 

What REALLY scares me is the other Alice ride...the Mad Hatter's Tea party. Oh I hate this ride. It seems fun when you get close; the music is cheery and inviting, people are smiling as they stand in line and there are joyful screams coming from the people in the teacups...but its all a lie.

 

As someone who gets sick on spinning rides, the teacups are my most hated attraction. My brothers and cousins can get on the teacups over and over again but they are definitely not for me. I'm usually game for pretty much anything at Disney, but the Teacups are one place I put my foot down.

 

 

 

Dumbo

For such a simple ride, Dumbo the Flying Elephant certainly has a complicated history. Most of the drama happened way before my time, but I still find the process interesting.

 

The ride is very simple, you climb aboard and fly around in a circle with the ability to dictate the height of your specific elephant with a lever.

 

Originally the attraction was called "Pink Elephants on Parade"  because they thought it would be confusing to have a bunch of 'Dumbos' flying around. They fixed this issue by painting all the elephants pink and themed the ride after Dumbo's alcohol-induced visions of elephants made of bubbles. Walt was not pleased, however, and demanded they be painted grey. Walt probably had the right idea, I can't imagine many people being thrilled about flying in a hallucination.

 

The original Dumbos were built with hinged ears so that they would flap like wings as the ride went around. The effect never worked as well as they might have hoped, so the ears remained stationary until the elephants were replaced with models with stationary ears. 

 

The top of the ride has been adorned with a disco ball and a hot air balloon, topped by Timothy mouse holding a whip or the magic feather. And I would like to interject that I think Timothy is one of the best sidekicks in Disney history. He genuinely cares about Dumbo and proactively tries to make his life better. He is protective and sensitive to his life problems and does everything he can to help. I think Timothy is a much better companion than Jimminy Cricket, who kind of just lets Pinocchio do whatever he wants and interjects randomly.

 

Dumbo has been moved and painted and tweaked so many times for a ride that simply goes around in a circle. I think many people have fond memories of this attraction because it was one of the few times that you were allowed to control a vehicle as a child. You could be adventurous and go all the way up or be conservative and stay near the bottom. I honestly don't remember specifics about being on this ride as a kid, I think by this point Dumbo was a welcome change to the pace of the day and so I just enjoyed it.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

When President Truman visited Disneyland he declined to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant on the grounds that the elephant was the symbol for the republican party. Yet another reason why politics ruin all sorts of things.

 

The simplicity of this ride makes it seem too bland to really enjoy, but so many people have distinct memories of this ride because it's one of those attractions that Walt made Disneyland for; so parents and children can ride together.

 

Lesson Learned

Sometimes you have to rethink and change even simple things to make them perfect.

Snow White's Scary Adventure

Snow White's Scary Adventure is one of those old-time rides that really holds up well. It was in place when Disneyland opened and remained after the Fantasyland remodel. Originally it suffered from one of Disney's less successful ideas, to put the guest in the place of the main character and leaving any image of this character completely out of the ride. People were naturally confused as to why Snow White was not in the Snow White ride. When they refurbished Fantasyland they finally got the hint and put Snow White in the ride just one time. The overhaul of Fantasyland happened the year I was born, so I obviously don't remember anything but it's current state.

 

Now as you step up to the ride, it looks as though you are entering the Queen's castle, who peeks out of the curtains above the door every few minutes, glaring down at the guests. When I took my friend to Disneyland for his first time we went to this ride pretty early on and as we walked up I pointed out the book on the pedestal with the brass apple on top. There were a few people behind us so I just told my friend to touch the apple. When you do there is a clap of thunder and the evil Queen laughs. The people behind us in line were completely amazed as we walked in and I could hear one lady say, "I've been here a hundred times, and I never knew it did that!" It's fun to help people see all the detailed work that goes into Disney.

 

Once inside you are loaded into carts with one of the dwarf's names on the front and you are off into this classic dark ride. While it was pretty easy to get me on this ride when I was younger, I would spend most of the time in line trying to remember which side of the ride I wanted to be on. There was one side that I hated to sit on, but I could never figure it out before I was just told to sit down. This always lessened my excitement for this ride, because I would spend more time worrying about whether or not I had been sat on the wrong side than I would spend enjoying myself.

 

My Mom would always deploy the whole 'point out how much fun this is' method when we were on rides, pointing out things and trying to make them seem less scary.

 

"Oh look, there are the dwarfs, doing a happy dance!"

"There's Snow White, going up the stairs."

"Look at the happy little animals!"

"Now we are in the woods, look at the logs, they look kinda like alligators."

"There's the Queen in the mirror..."

 

This is where I would freeze and inevitably realize that I was indeed on the wrong side. We would swing into the Queen's room, her facing the mirror. I would push myself as hard as I could to slide further away, but as we moved in closer the Queen would turn around and practically be in the cart with me.

 

 

 

Oh. My. Goodness. I was so terrified of this part that it dominated my every thought as we got on this ride. The rest of the ride was fine for me, weaving our way through the dark, but as soon as I saw this coming up I would have a little heart attack.  The hag even appears a few more times, lurking in shadows and popping out of doors, offering up her poisonous fruit.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

Originally (before 1983) the old hag held out a real apple towards the guests. This proved to be a problem because some guests would actually reach out and steal the apple. After the Fantasyland reopening they solved the problem by having the apple not really there, if anyone tried to take the apple now their hand would pass right through it.

 

This is actually the Disney World version, but you get the idea.

 

I would emerge still alive and vowing to myself that I would remember which side I wanted to be on next time we were on this ride. Of course, over the year or so that followed I would forget which side that was and I would end up sweating it out again, hardly able to concentrate until the witch spun around and nearly made me cry every time.

 

With the new Fantasyland project going on in Florida, this is the only Snow White ride left in the US. They have removed Snow White's Scary Adventure from Disney World and are replacing it with some sort of mine cart ride through the dwarf's mines. So if you are brave enough to sit on the FAR RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE CART, go to Disneyland and resist the urge to scream as the witch spins around.

 

Lesson Learned;

Don't let one event/person dictate your enjoyment of an entire experience.



Mr. Toad's Wild(ly Inaccurate) Ride

It had been a long time since I had actually seen Mr. Toad, but I thought it would be a good idea to view it before talking about Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I remembered the ride pretty well, but there were some parts of the ride that I wasn't sure matched up with the cartoon.

 

After doing so I noticed some major differences that made me wonder if the people at Disneyland had watched the film in a while either. I haven't read the book, where maybe they had drawn more inspiration from, but it seems to me like they should have gone more off the film.

 

Quick Synopsis: Mr. Toad, the proud owner of 'Toad Hall' is addicted to adrenaline and every new fad that comes around. He is so obsessed with each new "mania" that he has nearly run himself into financial ruin. His friends try to convince him to calm it down a bit, but spurred on by his horse friend, Cyril, he becomes obsessed with a new fad, a motorcar. His friends lock him away to try and keep him from being foolish, but he escapes and is later arrested for stealing a car. He claims he traded Toad Hall for the car, but the bar tender "Winky" says that instead Toad was trying to pawn a stolen car off on him.

A while later, Cyril helps Toad escape from jail, and after nearly drowning they find out that Winky is behind a whole plot to take Toad Hall so they sneak in and steal back the deed.

 

So anyone who has ridden this ride might be confused after hearing the plot of this short film, but for everyone else let me point out some inconsistencies.

 

1) The whole concept of the ride. At no point in the film does Toad actually drive the car like a madman through the town. At the beginning he is in a carriage with his horse friend Cyril causing a ruckus, but we never even actually see him driving the car. The whole ride is supposed to be you in the car with Toad crashing though walls and speeding though the town.

 

2) The 'Train Incident'. In the film, Toad commandeers a train as part of his prison escape ultimately jumping off into a river. In the ride, you seem to be running down the train tracks and are hit head on by an oncoming locomotive. The effect is very well done with the sound and the lights, I'm just not sure that it's a necessary part of the ride.

 

3) Hell. Possibly the most shocking part of the ride, after you are hit by the train (naturally a fatal event) you die. Not only do you die, but in a little commentary on Toad's lifestyle, you go to hell. Complete with hot air, fire and little winged demons, this seems very out of place for a Disney ride. Who came up with this idea? Nowhere in the film does Toad die, and he certainly never goes to hell.

 

As a kid this ride didn't really make sense to me, now I can see why. I had seen the cartoon, but this ride has almost nothing to do with it. Granted I was a bit oblivious as a child, but I could at least tell that this wasn't what I thought it would be about.

 

Lesson Learned:

I'm all for artistic expression, but try to keep it in the ballpark.

I Got No Strings On Me

We had no real order to our rides in Fantasyland, it mostly depended on which lines were the shortest, so I'm not doing these posts in order.

 

As far as Fantasyland is concerned, I really enjoyed Pinocchio. It is a classic dark ride that opened after the Fantasyland refurbishment. Much like the movie, its full of dark imagery and tense situations and a giant man-eating whale. Now why would a little scaredy cat kid like me enjoy this ride? Let me give you a little back story to explain..

 

My older sister tortured me for most of my childhood. She delighted in seeing how she could make me almost throw up (a stunt that resulted in us not being allowed to brush our teeth at the same time) finding new ways to scare me (convincing me she had died and that she was a ghost) or giving me bloody noses or kicking out baby teeth. There were multiple times when I would get kicked in the nose on a road trip which would result in me crying while I was passed tissues and told not to bleed on the upholstery.

 

I liked Pinocchio because for whatever reason it didn't scare me, but it did scare my sister. I would get to smile while we stood in line and watch her fret over this ride. She really seemed to hate the part when you encounter Stromboli and he locks you in a cage. It was one of the few times in my life that I felt more brave than my sister.

 

To be honest, Pinocchio is a terrifying movie and ride. The only semi-cheery parts were the 'There Are No Strings On Me' song (Which is still sad because the people are laughing at him and he doesn't even realize it) and the end when *Spoiler Alert* he turns into a real boy. The rest of this story is dark and disturbing! I still hate the part when they go to Pleasure Island and turn into donkeys. Then poor Geppetto goes out looking for him and get swallowed by a whale...where exactly did he think Pinocchio went? He honestly thought rowing around in the ocean was a good place to look for a lost puppet?

 

I loved the end of the ride when you see the Blue Fairy looking in on Pinocchio as he turns into a real boy before she vanishes, its a great effect.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

The Blue Fairy uses the same tricks used in the Haunted Mansion, which is to say that the Blue Fairy is never actually in the room and only appears with carefully placed glass and lights.

 

I would smugly march onto this ride and secretly chuckle as my sister moped. I would climb off the ride and cheerfully suggest that we should go again. If my luck was in order that day we would walk back around and get back in line and I'd get to gloat for at least a few more minutes.

 

Puppet Me

 

Donkey Puppet Me

               



I'm a real boy!

 

Lesson Learned;

Everyone has fears and phobias, but when it's your sibling it's your job to make fun of them.

 

Thunder Mountain

I'm sure some of you thought I forgot about Thunder Mountain.

 

No I didn't.

 

For some reason this was always included in Fantasyland for me. I know it's NOT part of Fantasyland, but there you have it.

 

This ride was kind of like a starter coaster for me, for some reason I was never scared of this one. Maybe it was because you couldn't really see the whole ride, or maybe it was the cheery train sounds, or maybe by this point I was just so tired of fighting it that I just shut my mouth and got on. Whatever the reason Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was always easy to get me on. My only concern was during the safety spiel, when a man would drawl in a prospector voice to hold on to your hats and glasses. Why this was a major concern was that I was always afraid that my glasses would fly off and I would get in trouble.

 

Having lived in Utah, the landscape portrayed on this ride wasn't really anything new to me, not to mention that I would be in the back seat of a car with my sister for ten hours driving through the desert to my Grandparent's house just before the Disneyland trip. I've grown to appreciate the beauty of the wide open space a bit more now, but there was nothing worse than seeing nothing out the window for hours and hours as a kid.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

Thunder Mountain was actually constructed over what used to be a much more calm ride through the same kinds of vistas. Some of the elements from this leisurely ride still exist;

 

1) On the first lift, if you look to the left there are pools of water that have colored ripples on the surface, once part of Rainbow Caverns

 

2) Obviously a lot of the rock formations were just reused.

 

3) Many of the animals are still used, as a matter of fact, in some of the small lakes around this ride you can still catch a glimpse of the fish that jump out of the water.

 

The story for this ride was always lost on me, I never really got it. Apparently the idea was that a small mining town grew overnight after the discovery of gold, but it has become a ghost town after an earthquake and you the guest are boarding an old mining train which is now running on it's own. It seems like such a chipper ride, the back story doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the atmosphere. I think that maybe to get the nostalgia of it you might have had to know about the area before Thunder Mountain was built.

 

Lesson Learned;

You don't have to know EVERYTHING about what you are doing to just sit back and enjoy it.

Costumed Creepers

Now that we are in Fantasyland I feel it's an appropriate to mention my overwhelming fear of the costumed characters that walk around Disney, lurking in every corner, lying in wait to accost unsuspecting visitors.

 

Let me clarify; I like people. I'm usually very nice to people I'm meeting for the first time, if not just a bit shy about it. As long as people are friendly I'm all for having a conversation.

 

 

BUT THESE PEOPLE AREN'T PEOPLE AND THEY CAN'T TALK

 

When I was younger my mother told me about a friend who worked for Disney and the caliber of people that are sometimes sweating nearly to death inside these things and it totally shattered any fascination I might have had for them. My dad actually played Smokey the Bear a few times in parades and I thought that was pretty neat, but the idea of a highly intoxicated person staggering around Disney incognito disturbed me.

 

I have slowly grown into the kind of person who doesn't like when people cannot be themselves with me, this includes the face characters (People dressed as human characters not in the mascot get up) There is something unsettling about a person who has to perpetually take on the persona of someone else.

 

All of these phobias came together one year when I was in Disney's California Adventure.

I was walking towards the Tower of Terror when I spotted The Queen of Hearts interacting with some other guests. I had made a small wager with a friend at work to see who could get the most pictures of/with costumed characters. I had refused to actually be anywhere near them, but I could still take pictures of them. I pulled out my camera and snapped a pic then looked down to return my camera to my pocket. In the thirty seconds it took for me to stow my camera in my cargo pants pocket the Queen swooped across the road and got uncomfortably close to me. It was like a scene from a horror film when I looked up and her huge plastic face filled my entire field of vision. I'm glad my gut reaction wasn't to just punch her, him, whatever, I instead just gasped and froze. I don't remember much more of the interaction (if there was any) until the Queen waddled away.

 

I've made it a point to avoid any possible contact with anything that remotely resembles a furry anthropomorphic animal. Imagine my dismay when both of my brothers were chosen to be the mascot for their high school. I still have recurring nightmares about being mauled by a disturbingly happy husky dog.

 



 

Lesson Learned;

Costumed Characters are scary. If you ever see me running at Disney, this is why.

Sleeping Beauty Castle

The first thing you notice as you enter Disneyland is undoubtedly the castle standing at the end of Main Street. Walt wanted the structure to make a statement and it certainly does. I wasn't particularly fascinated by the castle as a child, it tends to draw my attention more now that I'm older.

 

As a kid we would pretty much just walk over the drawbridge and into Fantasyland without too much hullabaloo. It was much easier to get my sister and I on most of these rides as compared to Splash Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. I do remember the waterfall with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs always confused me, why was she hanging around Sleeping Beauty's castle? I know it was their first movie and all, but if you aren't calling it 'Snow White Castle' I think Snow White might have been more appropriate somewhere else.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

The drawbridge is actually functional. It has only been raised/lowered twice, once on opening day, and then again after the Fantasyland refurbishment in 1983

 

If you walk through the interior of the castle and out the other side you can turn to your left and see an entrance to a less-traveled attraction. I don't remember doing this as a child, but I was very excited when they re-opened it in 2008. (It was closed after the events of 9/11)

 

Through a series of cleverly designed vignettes they tell the story of Sleeping Beauty, complete with sound effects, music and animation. The spot where you watch Maleficent (Spoiler Alert!) transform into the dragon is particularly impressive. I also love getting to the end to see Sleeping Beauty and the Prince dancing in their storybook with her dress changing from blue to pink and back again.

 

I always thought Maleficent was the most amazing of all the Disney Villains. She didn't want to rule the kingdom, she just wanted to be invited to the party. She was so offended by being overlooked that she curses a baby to DIE on her 16th birthday! She is volatile and unpredictable, going from disturbingly quiet to screaming at the top of her lungs in seconds. She is an ultimate Disney villain, and I always gasped a little as a child when she screamed the word 'HELL' just before she changes into the dragon.

 

I can only imagine how proud Walt must have been when he saw the reaction of the first group of guests as they walked onto Main Street and saw this marvel. Well done Disney on making this the symbol of so many of our childhoods.

 

 

 

Lesson Learned

Some things are easier to appreciate when you are older.

Fantasyland or Bust

Now we move on into Fantasyland, the second area my family would move into during our day at Disney. We would make it a point to walk back to the central hub and walk through the castle which is always a magical experience. Lets get ready for fun and fairy dust in Fantasyland!

The Country Bears Turn to Pooh

There were some things I could always count on as a kid, I would always be hungry roughly 45 minutes after not eating enough at dinner, math would always be my worst subject in school, I would always be too afraid to go straight down the hill on my roller blades instead of weaving back and forth into neighbors yards and every summer I would get to enjoy the Country Bear Jamboree Vacation Hoedown.

 

Then, the year I graduated, the year I became an official 'adult' they closed the jamboree.

 

I enjoy live theater a lot, but the Country Bears were a step above that. What is more fun than a bunch of jovial singing bears?! For those of you who never got to see this show, or choose to pass it up, you are missing out.

 

 

We meet our host, Henry, who is revealed from behind a red velvet curtain after a short intro by three mounted heads (A deer, a buffalo and a moose). Mom liked to point out that the deer's name was Max, my Grandpa's name. Henry is kind of the glue that holds the show together as the rest of the cast seems to be slightly out of their minds most of the time.

 

Like I said, my main memories come from the Vacation Hoedown, which was not the standard show for the bears. Every year over the summer months the entire show was altered with new costumes and songs for the vacation holidays, as well as during the winter. In true Disney fashion they would do massive changes with complex costumes and re-programming the bears to sing new songs.

 

Instead of his top hat and tie, Henry was dressed in a camp t-shirt (still fits, kinda) and a park ranger hat. He and the Bear Skin Rugs, the house band, would sing about how much bears love the outdoors and it kind of became their anthem for a minute. Then they had a range of acts including a mountain climbing Elvis bear, a snorkeling bear with an octopus girlfriend, a bear vacation slide show and three singing lady bears in bikinis. All the lyrics were all changed to bear-themed things and there is plenty of corny jokes and sight gags.

 

Two parts of the show always made me smile,

 

1) The 'Ghost Riders in the Sky' sung by the Bear Skin Rugs. Its one of those foot-stomping, clap along kind of songs. Plus, little Oscar, the bear who sits on the front of the stage with his bottom lip sticking out and his teddy bear gets his only line, well kind of, he just says "Uh-huh"

 

2) Teddi Barra coming down from the ceiling. During the Vacation Hoedown she was dressed in a yellow rain slicker and sang 'Singing in the Rain' after descending from a giant flower. I think she fascinated me because she balanced on a tiny swing overhead and I was amazed at how they got her to move so much.

 

 

It was a chance to sit down and relax and watch the bears put on a great show, usually after being traumatized by Splash Mountain. You could hum the songs for the rest of the day, or at least until you got on 'It's a Small World'. I was so sad when I got back to Disneyland and Pooh had taken over the space.

 

A Glimpse Behind the Magic

Disney is very good at paying homage to attractions they change or remove, and the bears do get a wink during the Pooh ride, in one room if you look behind you, you can see Max, Buff and Melvin, the buffalo, moose and deer from the Jamboree.

 

Not only was this show very entertaining, but it also showed me that I could enjoy different genres of music. Despite living in the south, I was more or less discouraged from listening to country music, so for a while the bears were my only country performer I could reference.

 

I had a neat experience with the bears again however, when I made my first trip to Disney World, where the show is still alive and kicking.  It was late in the evening before I got a chance to go, and none of my fellow park goers were too keen to see the show so I went alone. It was a magical moment for me to sit in a nearly empty theater and see the gang all together again, singing new songs (for me at least). It was like sitting down with a group of friends you haven't seen in years.

 

Lesson Learned

Sooner or later you have to grow up, but that doesn't mean you have to forget the little things that made you who you are.