Thanks to a recent interaction with your typical online troll, I was reminded that Splash Mountain is now kaput…gonzo…bye bye…taking a dirt nap…since May 31st to be re-themed as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. I can’t say I personally had any sadness over the removal of this attraction. For me, it has always been one big mound of irony.
Splash Mountain opened back in the summer of 1989, the supposed brainchild of Tony Baxter who was tasked with adding a log flume attraction to the virtually empty Bear Country. Imagineers attempted to elevate the standard fun park flume by theming it to the 1946 Disney film, “Song of the South.” Incorporating the tales told by Uncle Remus allowed the Imagineers to re-use the audio animatronic animals from the American Sings attraction in Tomorrowland. The timeliness of that particular attraction evaporated shortly after the Bicentennial. Lots of birds…lots of stones…are you with me?
While the main characters of Splash Mountain were new animatronics, the rest were part of the Disney recycle program. Is the picture below Splash Mountain or America Sings? Does it matter? Does anyone care?
Here’s where the irony part comes in. “Song of the South” was last shown in theaters in 1986 and has never been officially released by Disney on home media due to its reputation of being culturally insensitive.
It is highly doubtful that the majority of people who rode this attraction were even aware of the source material, which has become a kind of forbidden fruit because of the Disney Corporation’s decision to censor/squelch/hide the 1946 live action/animated film which turned a handsome profit when first released.
This post is not about whether “Song of the South” should/shouldn’t be released for the world to see or the validity of the controversy that has swelled up around it.
Instead, I want to address the opportunity Disney has to fix a different kind of error that plagued this attraction from day one: it tries to be too many things at once and ended up being a hot (albeit wet) mess.
As a flume, it was pretty decent. The log moves at different speeds and the final drop was impressive; depending upon the weight of passengers in the boat and where you sat, you could exit the ride soaking wet. “Song of the South” though? The music from the movie is catchy enough, but unless you’ve seen the film, these random scenes that you whiz past don’t really mean squat.
Unlike the scenes in the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, the ones in Splash Mountain were not enticing or memorable enough to make you want to go back and see them again. The Showboat finale is fun and visually impressive, but did a bunch of dancing birds and foxes really hold the interest of the average guest?
Classic Disney animator Marc Davis described it best when he was talking about dark rides, particularly the Haunted Mansion:
The thing was that with this kind of attraction, I found out, and Walt agreed, that this was not a storytelling medium. All of these attractions we do at Disneyland — they’re a series of experiences, but they’re not “stories.” You don’t have a story where it starts at the beginning, a middle, and the end. It’s like you’re driving by and you see a lot of things from your automobile and say, “Wow—did you see that?” And so on, and so on, and that’s about what these rides are. If you happen to blink and you miss something, then you haven’t missed the attraction at all. And by this time, Walt and I discussed it many times. He said very definitely, “You can’t tell a story in this medium.” If you want to tell a story, make a movie! If you want to make an exciting attraction, do things that are aimed for that. I don’t think the two are interchangeable.
At the Disneyland Haunted Mansion 40th Anniversary event back in August 2009, Kim Irvine likened the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean to a fantastic cocktail party where guests would go from conversation to conversation. What a fantastic analogy! I believe the “error” on many of the newer attractions is that their creators attempt to cram a story into a 4 minute attraction and most guests are literally left in the dark. The original interesting vignettes that stand alone in Pirates & The Mansion bear repeated viewings without having to have a linked storyline that holds them together. When the attic portion of the Mansion was given the storyline of Constance killing her husbands, few comprehended the convoluted mess and those who did just didn’t care. Now to the opportunity part…
“The Princess and the Frog” is a beautifully animated fairy tale with memorable songs and interesting characters.
Imagineers could go back to that cocktail party idea and create a number of interesting vignettes to hold the interest of guests as long as they don’t make the enjoyment dependent upon having seen the film or comprehending every detail as the log flume swiftly passes through. Keep it simple!
Will Dr. Facilier be part of this? I sure hope so. The voodoo element could add an element of fun AND fear when done in the right proportion.
Tiana herself brings so many possibilities: hijinks in the kitchen of her restaurant, the live jazz played for guests, and the friendship/comic interplay between her and Charlotte, just to name a few. Over at DCA, the Little Mermaid attraction makes good use of the songs and tableaus. With the catchy tunes available from “The Princess and the Frog,” the same approach could be used.
The other suggestion I would make is to kill Critter Country altogether and expand New Orleans Square into that often vacant real estate instead. A Dr. Facilier Voodoo/Fortune parlour…a jazz club for regular guests (who can’t afford Club 33 membership)…and besides, would anyone cry over the loss of the Pooh dark ride?
If done correctly, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure could be a huge success.
If not, it could be the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage of Critter Country. I sure hope not.
See more Disneyland Splash Mountain photos at my main website.
