Unfortunatley...

I'm still technically on hiatus here, but I thought I'd give a general heads up that I was able to look through Walt Disney World: Then, Now & Forever - by Jeff Kurtti and Bruce Gordon - last night and I regret to say that I was duly unimpressed. Their very nice Disneyland: Then, Now & Forever was an interesting way to organize information, where one could go from Big Thunder Mountain to Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland to Rainbow Ridge Pack Mules by turning a few pages. That book becomes a pretty disorganized mess near the end as the desire to create a pictorial souvenir which was also a Disneyland history book begins to manifest, but this flaw is apparent throughout the WDW incarnation.

Too much attention is paid to Animal Kingdom and Disney-MGM Studios which are still fairly close to their original forms, and too little to The Magic Kingdom & EPCOT. Those moments where good information is being imparted are often overshadowed by a far sloppier layout than the first book, and subjects come and go at a chaotic whim. Worse, most of the pictures in the book are Pana-Vue slides commercially available at Walt Disney World in the first few years and still common in second hand markets. These pictures can be downloaded for absolutely free online, which makes the book even more superfluous. The comparative lack of text, lack of new pictures and information, and chaotic disorganization utterly does the book in.

I'm not sure how to diagnose this. Kurtti is no stranger to Walt Disney World history and his very nice, text heavy and graphics light Since The World Began from twelve years ago is still the best Disney-authorized beginner's look at the history of the Florida Project. He also had a hand in the 1997 - 2000 publication A Magical Year-by-Year Journey, which published solid information and unusual pictures in a logical format. Moreover his just-published Walt Disney's Legends of Imagineering is a concise, cutting and essential book and his text for that project shows a writer who has evolved from a chronicler to a critic. I am very hesitant to blame Kurtti for putting out a subpar product.

Length restrictions may have had a role. Disneyland: Then, Now & Forever doesn't have enough space to fully be all it can be, and that book is covering two parks, three hotels and a shopping district. The WDW version is covering over twice the amount of subjects in roughly the same number of pages, and some of the omissions are unfortunate. The resorts are given a very brief mention and there is fairly little said about the Shopping Village or the golf courses. If You Had Wings is relegated to a photo caption about Dreamflight. Although I realize that my level of obsession with Walt Disney World minutia is coloring my perception of the book, if you came to the book expecting lots of weird pictures and unusual information, you'll be a little let down.

In a larger sense the book is pretty indicative of Disney's larger attitude towards Walt Disney World's history, which is that there is none. Disneyland is successfully marketed as the "history park" while Walt Disney World's varied past is often and sloppily swept under the rug. While the Disneyland volume is well-resourced enough that we can be shown cool things like an original Show White painted flat, the Walt Disney World volume seems parched for content. Was Kurtti given too little to work with and too little space?

It pains me to say this, but after being thoroughly annoyed by the book I must warn people with my level of interest in Walt Disney World to purchase with caution. Give the book a through inspection. I declined to buy it. Others with a less strong expectation of WDW history reportage may want it, but consider this an advance warning that it will not be for all tastes. Of course I may be an outlier because I considered Realityland to be a crashing disappointment also. Let's hope that The Art of Walt Disney World, supposedly forthcoming, proves more exciting.

Amazing Quote of the Hiatus No. #2: "The sounds and sights of Tomorrowland are sometimes young... and sometimes old!" - A Pictorial Souvenir of Walt Disney World, 1972

On Hiatus

Hi everyone, I've decided to put this blog on hiatus for a few weeks until I can get some stuff relating and not relating to Disney sorted out, as well as hopefully take a break to keep the work fresh. Rest assured - I have no intention of letting this place slide into sedentary mode, but I may not be making my "one a week-ish" "deadlines". What we can hopefully look forward to is some fun short silly posts just to keep me on my toes. In the meantime, here's some links back to noteworthy material from the past few months. Oh yeah, and happy 2nd birthday, Passport to Dreams!

Magic Kingdom: Snow White's Adventures: Original Version / The Early Film Presentations / Two By Yale Gracey / Phantoms of Influence

For Further Study: #1, #2

Coffee Series: #1, #2, #3, #4

Amazing Quote of the Hiatus: "Audio-Animatronics is a unique application of spaceage electronics, combining and synchronizing voices, music and sound effects with the movement of three-dimensional animated objects."

Tempo Bay!!

Back in 1969 Walt Disney World's original "fathers" probably didn't realize they were giving their heirs hell when the name "Contemporary Resort" - rather than the more oblique and admittedly less cool "Tempo Bay Resort" - was decided on. And thus for the last thirty-seven years has a resort designed to be "as contemporary as tomorrow" struggled to remain cutting edge. The original 70's aesthetic was a bizarre amalgamation of 70's pop and Mexican hacienda, where dramatic reds, oranges, yellows and browns overflowed from every nook and cranny of the place, and Mary Blair's ridiculously sublime mural in "The Grand Canyon Concourse" seemed to be the rationale for a strange Southwest aesthetic, crazy artificial trees which looked like twigs supporting a mess of broken stained glass, and the double-duty food court/arcade being dubbed the "Fiesta Fun Center". I mean, really, the Fiesta Fun Center?

"Where the hell are we?"

With the arrival of the 90's the Contemporary was looking about as dated at one could imagine, as earth tones were no longer cool and still nobody knew what to do with the "Southwest" theme. And so Version Two of the Contemporary began to grind its' way into existence, which involved renaming the successful Character Cafe on the concourse to Chef Mickey's, overhauling the color palette in favor of purple, beige, turquoise and red, and playing smooth jazz music in lots of places. The most successful of these changes throughout the 90's was undoubtedly the building of a big new Convention space on the hotel's southwest (ironically enough) corner. Suddenly the Contemporary's clientèle changed to conventioneers, and the demand for upscale dining increased, a demand which could not be met by Chef Mickey's or the Concourse Steakhouse. In 1995, the old Top of the World dinner show was torn out and California Grill, an upscale open kitchen eatery, filled the Contemporary's highest point with gold, silver, bronze and black hues.

The California Grill is now thirteen years old and it seems its' subdued but modernist aesthetic is spilling over to the entire resort. The entire lobby has been redone in a combination of retro-chic American mid-century and Japanese minimalism and I, for one, could not be happier with the amount of good work on display here.


This isn't a real light, it's more like a light's dream of what a light can be. These little hanging lamps make the lounge area look and feel like a living Shag painting. Notice the contrasting textures of metal, wood and glass.


The much photographed entryway to The Wave feels like you could be entering Sea Base Alpha again. Or maybe a version of Journey Into Imagination's Rainbow Tunnel passed down through the years. Such a mid-grade restaurant hardly deserves such an amazing entryway.


Tiny steel beads hung in a long chains are grouped close together to form hanging walls of beads, recalling both beaded curtains and a kind of space age crazy futurism. They move in the air currents ever so gently, and both divide and, strangely, do not divide up the waiting space.


This dividing wall echoes the overall shape of the building. Notice how the tile grey accent along the back wall slowly slopes in a south-easterly direction, against the north-easterly slope of the dividing wall.

In addition to all this Disney is building a big honking tower where once the understated north garden wing was. Although the quality of that hotel has yet to be seen, it will destroy what was, for thirty five years, Walt Disney World's most remarkable and stark landscape.


Keeping the Contemporary cool and exciting is at best a fifteen year proposition, and no doubt in fifteen years this setup will look as dated to us as the last one did. But for the moment let's celebrate a revitalized Contemporary which once again looks as contemporary as tomorrow... and yesterday, as well. Good show.

Snow White's Adventures: The Original Version

I wrote this piece for Widen Your World, and a full page on that website is currently forthcoming with all sorts of neat pictures and diagrams and stuff, but in the interim I found this essay sufficiently interesting and sufficiently fun to write that I think it's worth posting the text here to stand on its' own. There's a lot of interest in and even more misinformation about Walt Disney World's original Snow White ride, and I hope that this article plugs a significant gap in many peoples' understanding of Fantasyland 1971.

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A facet of the increasingly intertwined histories of Disney’s two original Magic Kingdom parks oft overlooked by historians ameatur and otherwise, is of the number and scale of improvements made to the general characteristics of Disneyland in the Florida Project’s Phase One development which don’t begin and end with more space and a bigger castle. Indeed many existent Disneyland attractions were disassembled and reconceptualized from the ground up - a redesign of the Jungle Cruise which transformed it from a contested thing to a true Marc Davis attraction (to say that it jumped from being a classic to a masterpiece in the process is redundant), a greatly improved and expanded Haunted Mansion, a Tiki Room spread out large and allowed to blossom like a tropical flower, and a Submarine Voyage so dramatically altered while retaining many of the core elements that it didn’t even feel related. Those items which were adaptable were quickly shuttled over to Disneyland – Country Bear Jamboree, improved figures in the Indian Village, and whole stretches of the Jungle Cruise – and installed so seamlessly and so quickly that the innovations of the Florida property began to be forgotten. As more and more Floridian elements made the transcontinental journey (proving in the process that Disney’s Clone Wars are as old as there were things to clone), everything from figures to pieces of music to menu items originating in Florida became “Disneyland Originals”. So when the original park’s absorption of the final Magic Kingdom exclusives was complete in 1983 with the opening of the New Fantasyland, totally forgotten were the Florida originals which made such a thing possible.

It is in the spirit of this that I now motion to promote to full classic status in the realm of Florida Originals: Snow White’s Adventures - to stand alongside such innovate entertainments as Country Bear Jamboree, Space Mountain and The Hall of Presidents. It is perhaps the Magic Kingdom’s lost classic, too low profile to garner much more than a passing interest when it was open and too early to the party of Florida extinctions to be lamented when it closed, Snow White’s Adventures was the Florida Original by dint of being a complete reconception of the then fifteen year old Disneyland original to an extent only matched by Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride next door. WED literally reduced the attraction down to brass tacks and retained exactly two elements of the attraction, discarding all others and making perhaps the strangest adaptation of one of their own films ever.

A familiarization with the long forgotten Disneyland original is here in order, but this is perhaps beyond the scope of this article except in passing. Curious parties should be advised to proceed directly to Issue #13 of The E Ticket magazine, where the whole thing is related in extreme detail. This will hopefully be, for the rest of us, sufficiently illuminating:

SEQUENCE OF 1955 ATTRACTION:
Load Area
Entering Diamond Vault
Seven Dwarfs Mine
Enchanted Forest / Cottage of Seven Dwarfs
Witch’s Castle
Dungeon of Castle
Shadow of Witch
Witch at Cauldron
Haunted Forest
Witch inside Seven Dwarfs Cottage
Witch on Cliff with Boulder

SEQUENCE OF 1971 ATTRACTION:
Load Area / Enchanted Forest
Queen’s Mirror Room
Dungeon
Witch at Cauldron
Witch in Boat
Haunted Forest
Seven Dwarfs Cottage
More Haunted Forest
Seven Dwarfs Mine
Runaway Mine Cart
Diamond Vault / Witch with Giant Gem
Explosion Room

Aside from general repetitions like scenes of the transformed evil queen laboring over a cauldron culled from the 1937 Disney film, one striking difference is that the sequence of events in the attractions is essentially reversed. The turning point in the Disneyland attraction was where you leave the seven dwarfs mine (Dopey arrived with a sign warning you about the witch at this juncture) and safety behind; in Orlando the Mine was not only the last scene but the least safe, where the Witch popped out a total of three times at the riders (counting the brief scene before actually entering the mine), finally cornered them, and dropped a giant gemstone on them, apparently killing the riders and ending the ride in a room filled with strobing starbursts. Moreover the turning point where safety becomes danger in the 1955 attraction was visualized by approaching and then inevitably turning away from the Seven Dwarfs Cottage: this was the first repeat moment in Orlando, but in the 1971 version, it happens in the Load Area of the attraction, before the ride is even underway!

That Load area, by the way, was a tricky little thing, stylized in the manner of Sleeping Beauty, with the Seven Dwarfs Mine on the right where little ride vehicles exited, The Evil Queen’s Castle on the left where Snow White’s voice echoed from a wishing well, and in the center a little downscale “distant” Dwarf cottage and a shimmering plastic waterfall. That WED wanted to build a Sleeping Beauty ride here may explain the stylization of the load hall, but it doesn’t explain why such a pretty and brightly lit exterior was affixed to such a relentlessly grim attraction. The most beautiful and elaborate of all Fantasyland dark ride exteriors, if riders suspected that something more like It’s A Small World and less like The Haunted Mansion was within they could be excused. The only real hint is that those mine cart / bed / whatever shaped vehicles entered not the dwarf cottage but the evil queen’s castle and, as they entered, the Queen would part a set of curtains in an arched window and peer down on the carts as they entered. This sinister little detail was translated to Disneyland in their 1983 Snow White ride with much celebration, but as an original Florida onride effect its’ placement has the uncanny effect of telling any wary children onboard: “You’re totally screwed.”

The vehicles moved into the Queen’s castle and found themselves in her mirror room where the Queen, facing the magic mirror, arms extended in the air, visible in reflection would very loudly intone “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…”. At this point the voice became a piercing shriek as the figure turned and the raised arms became a lunging gesture towards the riders. The figure leaned forward and instead of the stately Queen, she was already transformed into the wretched witch figure, finishing her statement: “I am the fairest one of all!”.

This room held a number of interesting details, chief of which was the ride’s key transformation effect, so effective it has been duplicated in every Snow White ride since. The effect is simple, a two sided figure, the front being the witch and the back being the queen, which would rotate and tilt forward. Many dark rides through the years have included such a stunt, including dark ride designer Bill Tracy’s wicked gag of approaching the figure of a beautiful naked woman from the back which would rotate to reveal not a flash of breasts, but a rotting skeleton from the front. What makes the Snow White iteration of the gag brilliant and kind of graceful is that there are actually two figures, not just one. The second figure is a complete Queen figure located on the other side of the “mirror”, and that figure rotates at the same time and at the same speed as the half-Witch figure, which means that the riders literally have no clue about what’s going to happen until the witch is already revealed. This room also had a number of interesting and beautifully painted details, including a view of the night sky through a long slender window to the right of the Queen. And, of course, the Witch’s shrieked line “….I am the fairest one of all!” was loud… very loud. Loud enough that you could hear it repeating for most of the first half of the ride.

Immediately following was a short trip through the Witch’s dungeon, which more or less exists in similar form today. Included were two skeletons, some spooky bat eyes stolen from Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean, and a menacingly swinging gate. Guests then came across the “Witch-At-Cauldron” scene, possibly the most famous image from the 1937 film, where she would announce “The sleeping apple!” and a shelf of potions above the riders’ heads would drop from above unexpectedly, creating a terrific crash of breaking glass (in auditory form). According to the Lanzens’ writeup on the 1955 Snow White, this scene and its’ traditional Dark Ride gag was present at Disneyland at this time as well, making this the second and last element of the Disneyland original repeated. Venturing outside into the spooky forest, riders found themselves at the moat level of the castle, where the witch would zip out of a dark dungeon-level opening on her boat, apple in hand. Along the left side on the floor were a number of logs-cum-crocodiles snapping at passerby.

What followed was a more or less accurate theme park version of Snow White’s famous flight through the woods, with large turning trees painted vibrant colors with light up faces along a winding track. It still exists in more or less unchanged form in the current Magic Kingdom ’94 show, except the colors have been muted and the faces of the trees made less unsettling. At the very back of the scene before the cars moved off to the left towards the dwarfs’ cottage was a small device where eyes painted on a flat surface and attached to a long pole are rotated on an axis to appear to rise from the darkness and up into the night air, much like the endless stream of skulls rising from the Haunted Mansion’s pipe organ.

The next scene, the Seven Dwarfs Cottage, most firmly asserted that this version of the attraction would not play by anything resembling “rules”. So far the attraction had been a steadily accumulating number of scenes meant to convey unease, but as the little carts approached the cottage, a warm yellow color so far unseen in the attraction was spilling from the windows and temporary relief seemed to be at hand. But as the “crash doors” opened, the most sinister moment in the entire attraction was revealed… a dark and abandoned cottage.

The Claude Coates influence was most evident in this scene. Coates retained the interior styling of Albert Hurter for the 1937 film where the cottage is ornately carved with little animal figures and heads, chair backs have eyes and silly open mouths, and even the dwarfs’ water pump is a gothic gargoyle head. Coates retained all these but turned them sinister by painting the eyes of all the furnishings bright blacklit white and arranged the props so they are all facing the audience. As a result not only is the cottage unexpectedly quiet and abandoned and blacklit blue, but all of those faces in the furnishing are staring at the audience with burning white eyes. This significantly one ups the disturbing interior finish of the Haunted Mansion with its’ skulls and demons literally in the woodworks. In the next scene, where the seven dwarfs ascend a staircase to investigate a sinisterly ajar upstairs door from which emanates a great black shadow of a ghost, the little owl heads carved on the end of each step are looking up towards the door. The dwarfs’ dialogue is no more reassuring:

Grumpy: “I warned her!”

Doc: “Trouble! I hear trouble!”

At this point, of course, the witch pops out at riders from an open window and it’s once again outside into the forest where the witch again appears from behind a tree trunk offering that poisoned apple. Then it’s off to a diamond mine.

Inside the mine is dark and confusing, with one forced perspective mine shaft leading off to oblivion as the timbers ominously creak and groan. At one point the witch appears above the track, pushing a timer off its’ support post in an effort to send it crashing down onto the carts. Just down the line, a mine cart loaded with glittering diamonds zips from around a corner and stops just short of crashing into the ride vehicle. At this point in the attraction, in the space of about 30 seconds, the Witch has literally made four attempts on your life and the real feeling of a pursuit is underway. Finally, the carts roll into the dwarfs’ diamond vault, where thousands of glittering gems emerge from the walls in painted blacklight splendor. Suddenly the Witch appears atop the door to the vault, pries a gigantic gem out of the rock and drops it towards the ride vehicle. “Goodbye, dearie!” And then it’s through a room where flashing cartoon starbursts cover the walls and back out into the Florida sun.

And so ends Snow White’s Adventures, perversely, the second and least famous Fantasyland attraction where riders are killed in traumatic fashion at the very end. Although the terror of the headlong plunge down a pitch black tunnel towards an oncoming train cannot be replicated by a scary blacklit witch dropping a big ridiculous gem on your noggin, the complete disorienting chaos of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was effectively present in Snow White’s Adventures as it was in all classic-era American dark rides, an endangered species if there ever was one. It wasn’t until the advent of Alien Encounter in 1994 that Disney presented an attraction where every scene was literally a threat to you, and even Alien Encounter had its’ share of wisecracks and nonsense to dull the edge. Since riders are expected to take on the role of Snow White during the ride they literally become stalked by the maniacal Queen, and there is very little rest between assaults until they are finally killed. Not even the Haunted Mansion proposes that kind of direct threat to riders, and Mr. Toad is done in by his own motor mania, making that attraction a kind of morality play. Future Snow White shows would relegate the role of Snow White to figures appearing in the ride, dulling the edge so that although such scenes may be scary, they are ultimately a passive trip past fairy tale tableaus. Accounting for Snow White, Mr. Toad’s pin up girl and hellish ending, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’s terrifying giant squid, and nudity on Peter Pan mermaids, Fantasyland 1971 offered the highest number of attractions inappropriate for children than anywhere else on property! (If you want to go for the hat trick you have to jump ahead to 1987 when Magic Journeys played in the Mickey Mouse Revue theatre where the number of inappropriate attractions jumps from four to five because, as we know, Magic Journeys isn’t appropriate for anyone.)

Of course all this descriptive text and video can’t fully recreate the experience of riding any better than any other “virtual” Walt Disney World attraction, but a word relating to the sound of the attraction should be relayed here. Although not as sparse in manufactured sounds as, say, The Swiss Family Treehouse, Snow White’s Adventures is notable in being a Disney attraction of the “Golden Era” of WED with no unified soundtrack of the sort found in, say, Pirates of the Caribbean or If You Had Wings.

Indeed, one of the most characteristic things about the ride was its’ comparative quiet. While later versions of Snow White would feature clips of song from the original film, Snow White’s Adventures was spent mostly listening to the witch cackling echoing from elsewhere in the ride and hearing the Queen bellowing “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…” from the opening scene. There were atmospheric effects in the haunted forest scene, creaking timbers in the mine, and strange atonal music in the diamond vault climax and outside the dwarfs cottage (possibly related to the music for the Jungle Cruise), but otherwise the ride was spent wondering if that cackling witch was behind you, in front of you, or just right upon you, ready to jump out at the next moment. Even the layout of the scenes increased the terror of these ambushes, as increasingly the track twisted and turned as each new threat approached, forcing the riders to violently “jump away” from shrieking witches and out of control mine carts. And, of course, there is one of the wickedest layout tricks in any Disney attraction, where upon entering the Diamond Vault where that final witch will kill you, she is initially hidden behind an outcropping of rock which must move away due to changing perspective before she shrieks her final line and does you in.

In a way, it’s appropriate. Snow White is Walt Disney’s most frightening and Gothic film. Adults who dote on the comedy and romance often forget the terror of the Queen’s transformation into a witch and the Witch’s ghoulish screams: “She’ll be buried alive! Buried alive!”, not to mention the honest grief of Snow White in the glass coffin. From these vibrant horror and gothic traditions did Snow White’s Adventures draw its’ inspiration - Snow White’s terrified run through the forest, the Queen’s prisoners who starved to death inches away from food – there is no shortage of genuinely gruesome material pulled from the film legitimately, regardless of the liberties the ride takes with the source in the wide view.
Film historian Tim Lucas documents in his book on Mario Bava that in the 1930’s American horror films were suppressed in Italy by the Mussolini regime, but Snow White was allowed through, and left deep marks on a generation unaccustomed to such intense material. That Snow White’s forest run is repeated in two key fright films of Italian origin – Bava’s own Black Sunday of 1960 and his heir apparent, Dario Argento’s film of 1977, Suspiria, is notable.

The question then becomes, now that the original show is gone, where to direct interested parties looking to experience it. The 1983 Disneyland show cannibalized the Orlando scenes, sets and props to create a version of some real intensity but still significantly sanitized – Snow White now appears in the fiberglass person to be menaced, displacing the threat, and the show is overall a chronological recount of the Snow White story with the good and bad more fully represented rather than the bizarre riff on certain thematic material in the Orlando show. The Mickey Mouse Revue dwarf animatronics arrived to provide the show with an upbeat “Silly Song” opening, and many of the decorative molds and props created for the 1971 dwarf cottage interior show up as well – pointedly, many of the most disturbing looking ones are placed in such a way that they don’t appear to stare at the riders with the blank horror they’re designed to.

The ’83 show then proceeds to cherry-pick through the rest of the Florida show as it pleases, lifting the best shock moments – the mirror transformation, the emergence on the boat – in every detail and distributes them in pretty much logical order throughout the show. This is not to denigrate the Baxter version in any way – it is a beautiful ride (if too cramped perhaps for its own good, but therein lies its’ wonderful danger) and let’s not forget that Baxter installed the ’71 show and knew its’ tricks. Retained from the ’55 version is one of the best moments in any Disney fright ride, where the witch irrationally throws open the door of the dwarfs’ cottage with a great metallic creak to menace riders with an apple, a moment disturbing enough to be worthy of the Orlando show. And it is this version of the ride which has become the “template ride”, repeated verbatim at Disneyland Paris with an expanded ending scene which actually makes good on the promise of “Happily ever after”. Yet perhaps because this author is such a contrarian, she finds the abrupt Disneyland Anaheim ending most appropriate – the show has been such a relentless trek through a catalogue of horrors that it is most logical that it end with just a mural announcing a promised but not percieved happy ending – the ride is still called Snow White’s Scary Adventures, after all, and the evil Queen still peeks out of her tower to glare down at you no matter how many times you watch her get struck by lightning. This is, among other noteworthy things, the only version where one can observe the original speed and ferocity of the Orlando shock effects – the Witch still rockets out of the gloom on her boat shrieking, a nightmare image.

Then, perhaps, it will be wise to look at the Magic Kingdom Florida’s 1994 renovation of the show, a true mixed bag. On one hand this version is absolutely the most pictorially beautiful – every scene is alive in the brightest tones and has some wonderful effects. Yet every witch is still accounted for but does not frighten anymore: where once she came shooting out of darkness she now stands bolted in place, making too many scenes like tableaus and dulling their edge. Snow White is similarly ineffectual and the lack of real motion in the figures makes the whole affair seem more like a wax museum. It is, in short, the safest of all Snow Whites, yet one can get a flavor of what was once present in those rooms: the layout is mostly unaltered. It is essentially the version of the show nearest to being a children’s attraction, further removed than even the 1983 show from the version from which it takes most of its’ scenic elements and ideas.

A third version exists, an alternate 1983 show which still plays near the original 1971 Mickey Mouse Revue at Tokyo Disneyland. It is the best version of the show still in operation, a kind of “mega version” of the 1971 show – more sensibly paced but with a less crazy ending. It has a perfectly recreated 1971 load area followed by the largest and best Mirror transformation scene of all the versions –the Witch even continues to pivot, well overshooting facing the cars as she turns, just like the original Orlando version. The Disneyland expanded dungeon follows, then a very expansive version of the haunted forest where the Claude Coates floating eyes are even given their own little part of the scene. The Disneyland “silly song” sequence in the cottage disappointingly follows, but thereafter is a very faithful version of the Orlando mine, complete with ominous creaking, although there is no witch in the mine and the mine cart only threatens to roll towards the riders. There is a strangely flaccid version of the scene outside the Dwarfs’ cottage from the 1955/83 show where the Witch does not open the door to startle riders, then the 1983 version’s cliff scene and out the exit doors in appropriately abrupt style. Of course all this sadly makes mincemeat of the beauty of the 1971 show’s carefully constructed façade, where there is no lie: riders begin their journey in the Queen’s castle, end it in the Seven Dwarfs Mine, and if one where to punch through the back wall behind that little downscale cottage in the center they’d be in the dark and scary haunted forest with yet another Dwarf Cottage – full scale and scary inside and out – at the back of the room.

In the balance of evidence it increasingly seems that Snow White’s Adventures 1971 was a lightning-strikes-once sort of creature, way above and beyond what most guests or even Disney themselves wanted. The show’s building blocks were all reutilized for later, safer Snow White ventures but eventually the original threat was, inevitably, disbanded. After years of posting signs, printing warnings in guidebooks, adding and then removing the word “Scary” on the marquee, Disney was unable to clue people in as to what awaited inside. Guests and their children, unlikely to appreciate the irony that the scariest and darkest ride in the park was sitting right next to the castle just inside the land supposedly most intended for children (this misconception is so gross I hardly feel the need to comment on it, but it is there), were reacting badly and finally the much safer version replaced the 1971 ride in 1994. But there was never and still hasn’t ever been anything quite like it in the realm of Disney theme design – all too often eschewing traditional modes of the great American amusement park. The “Spook Train” has been rolling through amusement parks like Kennywood and Coney Island, true sites of national heritage, since the late 1920’s and the Snow White’s Adventures and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride attractions of 1971 are Disney’s two most remarkable contributions to the genre. It is in this capacity that I elect it as a true Walt Disney World classic, a crazy mistake in the grand scheme of things, but a subversive and influential one.

Refurbishment a Go-Go

These are exciting times for East Coast Disney Park fans - who all too often are forced to sit around feeling neglected - in that by now most of the major Magic Kingdom E-Ticket rides have received significant upgrades with the exception to Space Mountain, which is apparently on the slate for the near future, and even minor but still grating examples of deteriorating show have been addressed. Although the return of the spinning blades to Muff Potter's Windmill on Tom Sawyer Island seemed heaven-sent, even more delightful and surprising was the totally unexpected replacement of the water wheel on Harper's Mill. A bright shiny new water wheel turns there now, and it isn't evident except on very close examination that it's actually made of steel - beautifully painted, long lasting, lightweight stainless steel craftily painted to look exactly like wood - insuring that Harper's Mill will be creaking out Down By The Old Mill Stream for years to come. I simply haven't gotten used to expecting this sort of long-term investment in the parks' future on the part of Disney yet.

But the announced refurbishment of Country Bear Jamboree was a real moment of celebration at Passport to Dreams Headquarters - all too often as of late the show had been suffering from terrible audio and neglected audio-animatronics, despite the best efforts of the maintenance team to combat these deficiencies. I'm excited enough about this, in fact, to offer a wishlist for this refurbishment, and I may note here that I'm taking for granted that this monthlong refurbishment will already entail the installation of a true digital sound system, redressing of all figures in fur and costume pieces, replacement of interior finish and correction of those AA functions which have been intermittent for years. Here's a few more humble suggestions:

- Reprogramming of Bunny, Bubbles and Beulah to better match the original 1971 programming. This would necessitate the removal of their handkerchiefs and the return of their wickedly sarcastic little synchronized routine. The rest of the Bears were reprogrammed in 1991 to closely follow and improve the original animations, but these bears were reduced to merely flopping around where once there was wonderfully expressive animation. Also possibly not programmed or just broken for years are Terrance's swaying hips, which would also be a welcome return (remember how he's supposed to be "The Vibrating Wreck from Nashville Tech"?), along with Ernest's bopping body atop his little pile of logs.

- Replacement of Teddi Barra's swing mechanism, which often causes her to merely rock on her perch when she should really be doing quite a long swing, and an even longer one during "Ole Slew Foot". I saw this fixed a few months ago and broken again two weeks later, so it's clearly a faulty mechanism.

- Return of Dal McKennon's performance as Zeke on "Pretty Little Devilish Mary". The Randy Sparks version of "If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl" replacing the Pop Van Stoneman version is debatable, but McKennon is a genuine Disney Legend and returning his vocals while the audio is being worked on is possible and would go a long way towards currying favor among Bears aficionados (me and two other people... we have lunch every sixth Thursday of the month).

- Way way way Blue Sky, but everyone (even you, dear reader) wants to see the return of Melvyn, Buff and Max to the CBJ exit area. A wall could easily be constructed between Pecos Bill and the CBJ exit doors and the heads could easily be elevated off the ground a good six to eight feet to keep guests, who are more touchy-feeley than ever, away from the Bodiless Three. For those of you wondering, raising the ceiling would be fairly easy because the only thing above the drop ceiling is some storage space.

Similarly upcoming is a refurbishment to the Hall of Presidents, which may possibly see a third discrete version of that attraction as rumors have been circulating that WDI may nix the distracting and unnecessary "current President speech" and may even be making a new film for the show. Similarly persistent are rumors that Lincoln's speech may be the Gettysburg address from the "MORE Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln". Although it took a year and a half or so to get George W. Bush into the Hall of Presidents, I've been told that this was waffling on Disney's part - the idea was to just let the show go and tear the whole thing out to be replaced with a dark ride. After much beating about the bush the change was finally made sixteen months after Bush was inaugurated. There is no intention of doing this this time and Disney is ready, but if things aren't yet set in stone and if there is yet a sympathetic ear, I'd like to suggest:

- Returning to the Royal Dano vocals for Abraham Lincoln would be very respectful and tactful. These are the recordings supervised by Walt Disney and still the best available for their honesty and lack of ponderousness. If WDI wants to replace the current Lincoln speech with the Gettysburg Address, they should consider listening to the Dano version available on the Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln LP. I have heard that one of the reasons for not reinstating the beautiful original Lincoln speech is that the lines:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Should we expect some transatlantic giant to step the ocean and crush us in a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge..."

Makes this original speech impossible to use in the context of America's foreign and domestic entanglements today. Of course it was always presented in the context of "new words of wisdom from old words of prophecy", ie, from a time when America was fairly safe from outside invaders, and offered by Disney in the midst of the era of Mutually Assured Destruction. I think as a powerful notion the statement has as much currency as it ever did, but if Disney so chooses, the passage could easily be excised without losing much of the power of the speech. The immediate quantitative quality jump if the Dano vocals were to be dropped into the current show with nothing else changed should be evident and testament to the power of these recordings.

- Reconsideration of the film. Although I don't think a return to the original film is advisable - the length and prose form of that version is too much for most Disney visitors, many of whom are still wondering where the roller coasters and beer tents are (I swear to God I heard somebody say that with absolutely no irony once). But a halfway point between the excellent original version and the weirdly flaccid 1993 version can be made while still keeping the whole production under 20 minutes, especially if the ponderous slowness of the current Presidents roll call is reduced and the speech by the current President is removed. Here's a short list of things which must be reintroduced - at a minimum - to bring the impact of the show to something near its' original version.

* Fuller version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, still the most powerful moment in the show, which could be much more.

* Reintroduction of Benjamin Franklin's full comments at the Constitutional Convention would be valuable as it is the first full oration in the show and deserves some space to "breathe". WDI could score some serious Awesome Points here as well by introducing Franklin's musings on Washington's chair - so prominently featured in the attraction - featuring a rising or a setting sun.

* The screen must remain at its' "fully open" stage until the end of the film presentation or not used at all. Closing as it does now at the end of the Civil War it comes off as a strange gimmick rather than its' intended effect as a unique reflection of the broadening of America.

* The post-Civil War sequence must be reintroduced in some capacity and duration more than it remains now, and, most importantly, the end of the film needs something new. Ending as it does with the Saturn V rocket, this finale is a perfect single-image summation of America's achievements in the 20th century - or rather, it was in 1971. Today anybody in the audience would be hard pressed to even identify which rocket it is, where it is going, and so on. In 1971 the Space Program was one of the most exciting things about America, but this concept simply doesn't fully translate nearly 40 years later. Surely WDI can come up with an equivalence for 21st century audiences which will send off the film in an appropriate fashion.

- Reintroduction of Baker's full original Battle Hymn of the Republic finale. The American flag formed by the clouds and dawn sky happens far too quickly to be as subtle as is hoped - watch the original show and the little bit of quiet right between the Lincoln speech and the chorus starting to sing as the rear curtains part to reveal the Capitol is gooseflesh inspiringly perfect. The flag also forms so slows that one doesn't notice it until the curtains are practically already lowering, which is just about right. Any faster and the moment turns from a powerful cleverism to a big "ta dah!" moment and the subtlety is lost.

These are of course "best possible scenario" wishlist type items, and truth be told I'm just happy that changes are in the pipeline at all. Still, one must be optimistic about such things - my wishes have seemingly been heeded in the past, and after all, Disney is where Dreams Come True (tm), right? Right?