Walt Disney World of the mid-90s

[ Or Cheesy Hip Hop and Why (Oh Lord WHY!) it Was Required]

I stumbled upon this tonight and I decided after a dozen half written and unposted entries I needed to finally use this thing again.

Ah the 90s, a more innocent time when Alien's terrorized, crystals stood, glimmering before Spaceship Earth in all their glory, and apparently children were drawn to theme parks because Joan Collins was paying a visit...







... Yes, it was a time of conflicting hideousness and wonderful and a time that resulted in a often criticized but I believe necessary makeover of Tomorrowland ( Tomorrowland 95! It sounds so hip and so fresh,) one of my favourite now defunct attractions, ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter, and Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, which fleshed out MGM so well ( yes, I do still remember when it was the Great Movie ride, Backlot Tour, MuppetVision 3D, and Star Tours, and then well, hmm, I guess we could head over to the Animation Courtyard since it is only 10am.) I just realized that I sadly still think of Tower of Terror as a new attraction; this makes me feel horrifically old.

The atrocities that were committed during this time were created the way most atrocities are, in the name of being hip, and fresh, and drawing people for that one year because, look, LOOK! our castle looks like a cake, isn't that slamming? Examples of such horrors are as follows: the Mickey Mania Parade [if you don't recall it, you are lucky, think skateboarders in primary coloured Zubaz pants and rap/house music about Mickey being rad (or some other term overused by my favourite heroes on the half-shell,)] videos like the one above that contained some rappers making "squeaky clean" Mickey Mouse related remixes for park commercials, and of course, the closing of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ( without this ride's watery ambiance Fantasyland has become too blacktop-esque, and I still wish they had plussed it rather than pulled it out altogether.)

I know mourning 20,000 Leagues is silly; it was a low draw attraction, and it has been preserved in Disneyland, sort of, and said ambiance will likely return with the water features that are planned in the current design of the Fantasyland Expansion, but mourn it I do, despite this.

Anyway, that wraps up this voyage into the dangerous wilds of the mid-1990s, tune in next week (same mouse time, same mouse place) when we will journey into the seedy underbelly of Toontown and learn just what keeps our 2D friends so jolly.

It's a dirty job, that no one really needs to do, unless said person is me, avoiding my first paper of the term.




Edit: For those who would like to inflict the awful that was the Mickey Mania Parade on themselves you can find a very good video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q8cHrvkHV0

Don't click that link, no one is that masochistic.
No, I mean it, really don't.
[You did it, didn't you. What was that? And why, why were there weird creepy clown faced blow up Mickeys waddling about in the middle?] Imagine, I saw that in person, and I was only a child man, ONLY A CHILD! Well, I wasn't after that, a parade like that, it changes you!

Disney World of Yore

I spoke earlier of my love of the Disney World of my childhood, I speak of it frequently, and I talk of missing many rides, some replaced with now long time favorites, others replaced with ill conceived toned down versions of themselves (i.e. Alien Encounters) and still others ripped out for a small amount of extra room for a new attraction (I am still not sure that 20,000 Leagues needed to be torn out for Winnie the Pooh, only to be filled in with a small Pooh play area)

Join me on another watch down memory lane:


This is a dark film so it might be hard to see, also there is no audio, but it is almost impossible to find footage of this attraction from Tomorrowland.


Journey into the Imagination with Dreamfinder, Epcot
It is sad, this attraction has been so deformed, and now the Pavilion is basically gone!




Cranium Command from the now closed Wonder of Life Pavilion, also in Epcot.
I love all the jokes in this, some of which are clearly geared towards adults, I feel this is missing in some of the new attractions.





This attraction was so terrifying and awesome, also, I feel like Tomorrowland had a real all encompassing theme during this time. I love the dark humor which, surprisingly I suppose, is in a lot of Disney rides. A crazy company using Earth for testing new technology that they will sell to them, then abandons the audience when things go wrong. And the very company motto has a Gordon Gecko-ness to it that is wonderful! If you can't do it with X-S, you shouldn't do it at all.

The Disney World of My Youth

The Disney World that I grew up with was, for the sake of narrowing it down, WDW between 1986 and 1997. These years were (for the most part Eisner years,) a period of rapid growth in Walt Disney World, and in particular in the "Resort" part of WDW.

In other words, though of course the theme parks themselves gained many attractions and rides, Disney hotels sprung up faster. These hotels added to the profit and all encompassing and enveloping theme of Disney, many more visitors could now eat on property, sleep on property, shop on property ( Downtown Disney,) and use Disney transportation. This time, dubbed by some Disneyites as the Disney Renaissance, marked also the new reign of Disney Classic movies, after a period of slowed production and, some suggest, decreased quality (Sword in the Stone, Fox and the Hound, et al.) Eisner brought with him Jeffery Katzenburg, and he, with Roy Disney, Howard Ashmann and Alan Menken, along with the great team of Disney animators, brought us The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and many more movies. Eisner's reign was, in the end more profitable and helpful to the Disney company than harmful, and despite the fact that I could rant for days about the problems with Eisner's heavy handed, quasi-tyrannical ways, I thank him, (as well as all Disney cast members of the peroid,) for my childhood Disney World.

And with no more delays, on with the show:



Yes, that is ORAC talking, want slightly clearer/louder audio?



I hope you enjoyed that trip back in time, from TTA to the WEDway Peoplemover!