epcotexplorer:

The Last Scary Adventure: Thoughts on Snow White’s Scary Adventure’s Closure. 

Today, after almost 41 years of faithful operation, the Magic Kingdom will close Snow White’s Scary Adventures to make way for a Meet and Greet Experience that will feature Snow White, amongst other princesses. 

Simply, this is a large loss for Walt Disney World, not just in terms of entertainment, but in historical terms, too. 

The original version of the ride opened on Octover 1st, 1971, and was the second version of a similar Snow White dark ride that had premiered in Disneyland, in 1955, for that park’s opening day, too. This version of the ride, however, was much darker, more mad cap, and increasingly more abstract. Designed by Claud Coats, the ride was supposed to put you in the perspective of Snow White, and was entirely in the first person. Thus, you never saw the heroine of Disney’s first feature film, but instead became her. With this in mind, the ride revolved around several terrorizing  appearances by the Wicked Witch, who lunged, transformed, screamed, and lurked around every corner of every technicolor painted flat the ride boasted. This version of the ride was bizarre. And yes, highly frightening. On my first visit to the attraction, I was scared silly. Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. I’m certainly not scarred for life by one slightly frightening experience in a theme park that would grow into one of my favorite places to go to, and to learn about. Personal justifications aside… this was the reason for the attractions massive refurbishment in 1995 that altered the ride in a major way. 

In 1995, measures were taken to make Snow White’s Adventures a bit more conventional. First, the heroine was added to the tableaux, and guests were merely observers of the Snow White story. Second, the focus was taken off the Witch, and given to the madcap chase and “action” sequences of the movie. These changes made a difference in the intent of the ride, but didn’t change the feel of it. The wild, jerking, lurching feeling of the bus bar ride system was still there. The quaint and classic glow-in-the-dar sets were still your surreal scenery. Above all… that was the true experience of Snow White’s Scary Adventures. 

And that, I think, is quite a big loss to suffer in the Magic Kingdom. That wild, loose, partially terrifying ride system is something inherent to Fantasyland. The fact that SWSA is an opening day attraction only compounds the loss in my mind. This is something, once again, unique to Walt Disney World, and something that needs to be kept to keep the lines of homogenization from blurring the differences from the Magic Kingdoms around the world. 

It’s my only hope that a ride is one day reinstated in the old SWSA building, and that the new Snow White Mine Train coaster offers something besides the sensations and sights of a roller coaster, and tries to delve into the story and charm that was captured in the dark ride format that played in the Magic Kingdom for her first 40 years. 

timetravelandrocketpoweredapes:

Batoro by Chris Thornley / raid71

Artist: flickr / charity / tumblr

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About as annoying as a leaf blowe

nevver:

Cycles of Life

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There’s a travel search site advertising that it “makes travel funner-er”. In my experience, searching for travel rates/flights is rarely the painful part. No, if said company wants to make travel funner-er, then it should make travel cheaper and avoid further language butchering.

Growing up, I used to stay up through at least this scene every time it aired on television.

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epcotexplorer:

History of Light: The First Performance of The Electrical Water Pageant

A bit of a follow up from my last post….

The culmination of the dedication ceremonies for the Polynesian Village Resort featured the first performance of WDW’s Electrical Water Pageant. Although important for the history of the Vacation Kingdom, this new show has wider implications for a majority of Disney’s parks around the world. The reason being, THIS was the first use of the Baroque Hoedown music. Music, that would find itself as part of one of Disney’s most well known and iconic parades: The Main Street Electrical Parade, which has had performances in every Magic Kingdom park, save for Hong Kong. Although remastered and rerecorded for the parade’s many versions the 1966 synthesizer piece by Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley is now one of the archetypical sounds of Disney culture and history. A year after its Florida debut, in 1972, the music was adapted for the Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade, which was only a series of flat, hand pushed, “floats” with lighted designs of Disney characters. In 1977, the music would come home to Walt Disney World with the full version the parade we know today. Later, Disneyland Paris would gain a iteration, and Tokyo Disneyland would adapt the parade into a more orchestral version called “Dreamlights”. Disney’s California Adventure even used the parade in its heady early years, headlining it as “A California Classic”. The parade might be, yes, but the music remains, originally, from Florida. 

The Electrical Water Pageant has many important implications closer to home, too. Essentially the first large entertainment spectacular in Disney World, the show illustrates how different the early Vacation Kingdom presented itself to guests. With the Magic Kingdom closing early in the evening, often at 6 PM, it was expected that guests (most of them staying on Disney property) would retire to their hotels and resorts and would find entertainment there. Both the Polynesian and the Contemporary hosted large venues with music and dancing, and many forms of recreation were held on the Seven Seas Lagoon. But the unifying event of the evening was the Electrical Water Pageant, a spectacle unlike most. Synthesized music, glittering, animated floats, set against the bucolic beauty of the Seven Seas Lagoon and Magic Kingdom at night. 

While a cornerstone for Disney’s entertainment history, the Electrical Water Pageant is one of the largely unique pieces of Walt Disney World heritage that defines the Florida venture as wholly its own. 

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I’ll take a wooden dollar over a wooden nickel any day!