5: The Diamond Horseshoe Revue
Hey, partners, remember that rollickin’ good fun Western-themed musical revue in the heart of Frontierland?
Neither does anyone else except me, because my mother loved it and dragged us to it all the time when I was younger. While every other family was riding Thunder Mountain for the third time!
This one I think we can all live without.
4: Kilimanjaro Safari
When Animal Kingdom first opened with its one billion acres of park (it is the biggest Disney park, to allow room for the animals), its big draw was the Kilimanjaro safari ride. This ride went through some of the park’s ample savannah and was/is actually an awesome facsimile of a safari.
It also had a subplot that the guides would lead you through as the ride unfolded. The story was about poachers on the savannah grounds, who end up stealing a mother and a baby elephant. You’re called into action to help rescue these animals from their ivory-plucked fate. Guess what happens to the mother elephant?
She dies.
Not only does she die, but as trucks proceed past a brush-lined area, her elephant corpse is visible. What.
This lasted, you can imagine, a very short – yet still horrifying! – amount of time before that area was covered up with shrubs and the story changed to her being shot, but recovering. The baby elephant appears animatronically at the end of the ride to put the nail in the happily ever after coffin. Or maybe that’s a bad choice of words, considering.
3: Haunted Mansion
The Haunted Mansion is one of the darker rides at Disneyworld, and so of course it is one of my favorites. Who can’t get behind a house full of murderous spirits who are just dying to have you join them? The ride went through some renovations in 2006 that actually made it freakier, including changing the heartbroken bride in the attic to a killer black widow who chops off her husband’s heads.
Neat!
One of the excellent parts of the Haunted Mansion is the pre-ride build-up, which leads riders through a creaky foyer. The staff members would say things like “Drag your wretched bodies to the dead center of the room” and “Follow the blood-red carpet to the end of the hallway.” In 2008, Disney decided to provide staff with a standard script disallowing the use of these phrases which have become canon over the 40 years the ride has been in issue. This was done in reaction to – what else – parental complaints. Oddly (but wonderfully), however, Disney has no plans to change the Paul Frees famous “ghost host” introduction.
Do you know what the introduction to the Haunted Mansion is like? (I can recite it from memory.) (But I won’t.) (Get a few shots in me.)
You step into an elevator with several portraits, which slowly expand as the host welcomes you. They are the portraits of several people who died here, and how they died is revealed at the bottom of each picture. “By the way,” the host says, “this room has no windows and no doors. Which leaves you this chilling challenge: to find a way out! …Of course, there’s always my way…”
At which point the room darkens, thunder peals and lightning flashes, and a hung body is illuminated at the eaves of the ceiling.
Yeah, I think I’m okay with the slight changes to the staff members’ scripts. Just leave that hung suicide on my kids’ ride, thank you kindly.
2: Jungle Cruise
Get this: the cheesy Jungle Cruise was originally conceived of by Walt himself as a safari ride with real animals. Walt insisted that the skippers be given .38 Smith and Wessons with live ammunition in order to deal with the unruly creatures (PETA, I’m guessing, not a big force in those days). The ride, of course, is all animatronic, but the guns remained – filled with blanks, but still real guns. Skippers used them to shoot at robot hippos, but also to have a little fun with the guests, even pointing the guns at patrons to “rob” them.
Disney used to be so cool.
In 1998, after the Columbine shootings, Disney Powers That Be got a case of the cringes and took it upon themselves to eliminate the Jungle Cruise firearms. Shockingly, almost no one had ever complained about guns being used near their children. And in fact, the complaints about removal of the guns were so numerous that a few months later, Disney added toy guns back in. It’s just not the same, though. Around the same time, skippers were prevented from creating their own improvised routines, required to stick closely to such comedy gold as “Now please, if you’re wearing yellow, don’t make any noises like a banana… it drives the monkeys ape! They find it very ap-peel-ling.”
A few years ago, even the toy ammunition was deemed unsuitable, and the noise of the guns (now being shot in the air instead of at the fake animal) was put on a nearby speaker, leading to (of course) several malfunctions where the skipper fired, and no sound accompanied.
I see, I see.
1: Pirates of the Caribbean
Where to start on this one. Probably the most talked-about and controversial changes in the park have taken place over the glorious buccaneer-themed jaunt that is Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, it’s true that they’ve outfitted the ride with Jack Sparrow and his movie ilk, taking full advantage of the films’ success. What did you expect? It’s Disney. But the real changes started years before those infusions.
Quietly, in the late 90s, Disney began replacing the less palatable components of pirate history on their ride. For example, did you know that pirates loved to sell and rape women? And that several parts of the ride hinted as much at one point?
After the pirates conquer a local town, they hold an auction of the town’s women, the pirates all calling out to see more skin (“Show us your starboard side.”) This scene remains more or less intact. Nearby, the beautiful women being chased by lascivious pirates were given pies, to sort of whitewash the spoils of war thing they’d got going on. Nowadays, the women actually chase the men, brandishing weapons and fighting back.
A drunken pirate further on sits by a barrel, wondering where the woman he’d been chasing has gotten to. He says, “It’s sore I be to hoist me colors upon the likes of that shy little wench.” Yikes! She pokes her somewhat disarrayed body – he’s holding part of her torn petticoat – out of a barrel behind him.
Now that pirate holds a treasure map, and Jack Sparrow is spying on him from said barrel.
Needless to say, the scene remains the same in Disney Paris.
And finally, in Things I Can’t Believe Still Exist:
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
I will have to give Disney a lot of credit for keeping Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride open (not in DisneyWorld, but in the original Disneyland). Toad’s is a rollicking adventure where the famed amphibian from the Wind in the Willows gets drunk, gets into his car, and drives smack into an oncoming truck. The ride ends where drunk driving toads git to – hell.
A children’s ride that ends up with you going to hell. I love that – as a morality tale, as a commentary on what theme parks can be like, as a punishment for children generally. Never change, Disney.
Natasha Simons is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn who rides Star Tours over and over again. She blogs here.
