This
one will be relatively short. The weather here in SoCal has been
relentlessly hot and humid, which tends to sap my energy when it
comes to things like composing blog posts. You might say it still
feels like the tropics out there, so...should I just go ahead and
make August Adventureland month? I can certainly try...although I
don't know if I have three more Sundays' worth of related material
that I haven't already posted.
Well,
either way, I'm still in an Adventureland mood this
week, so here's an Armchair
Imagineering
post with an idea for revitalizing that long-standing but
little-appreciated fixture of Disneyland's wild jungle: the
Treehouse.
For
the first 30 years or so of Disneyland's existence, attractions based
on animated movies were confined to Fantasyland. But the other lands
could still have attractions based on live-action movies, and The
Swiss Family Robinson,
a theatrical hit in 1960, was considered a natural fit for
Adventureland. A huge artificial tree* was constructed at the far
western end of the area (near the border with what was then part of
Frontierland) and decked out with a mock-up of the Robinsons'
elaborate treetop dwelling.
It
was pretty cool for what it was, but unfortunately what it was, was
basically a museum exhibit. It came along in 1962, just a few years
before the New York World's Fair blew the doors of attraction design
wide open. Walk-through attractions have not fared well since the
mid-Sixties. As the movie that inspired it faded from the public
consciousness, so did the Swiss Family Treehouse. By the late
Nineties, it was slated for removal, Disneydendron
and all. So the story goes, Tony Baxter saved the Treehouse from the
wrecking ball by proposing that it be re-themed to the upcoming
animated film Tarzan.
(I covered this during my 60 Diamonds series.)
So
far, so good, right? Tarzan's Treehouse is not only a lot more
current than its predecessor, but a lot more interactive
(jazz hands), with plenty of stuff to poke at and play with. The
problem is...it's still fundamentally a walk-through attraction, and
while most people, if prompted, will remember that Disney made an
animated Tarzan movie and even that it's not bad,** its popularity
pales in comparison to the Princess juggernaut and the Pixar stable.
So even now, Tarzan's Treehouse is not much better off than the Swiss
Family Treehouse was by the time it closed. I wouldn't be surprised
if it wound up on the chopping block after all...and I know a lot of
Disneyland fans would be okay with that. In its current form, many
consider the Treehouse auditorily, thematically, and even physically
intrusive.
But,
as I asserted in the 60 Diamonds post, we sort of need
the Treehouse there. I won't necessarily defend the loud theme music
and animal sounds or the presence of cartoon characters in an area of
the park that always did without them...but the way it sticks out
into the walkway, while it does create a traffic chokepoint, also has
the beneficial effect of mostly screening New Orleans Square and
Frontierland from view until you're practically there. This helps
Adventureland feel remote and isolated, more like a real jungle. It
just wouldn't feel right if the wide-open riverfront area and dense
multistory buildings of the adjacent areas were visible as soon as
you came alongside the Jungle Cruise. The Treehouse doesn't need to
be removed; it needs to be overhauled again. Tarzan was a fine
stopgap tenant to save the Disneydendron
from destruction, but by now he has run his course; best to send him
packing and let someone new move in.
But
who could that be? Disney doesn't have any new “jungle castaway”
IPs to draw on, either recently or on the horizon. Who should be the
new denizen of the Disneydendron?
You should.
My
proposal is that the Treehouse doesn't need a famous inhabitant at
all. Disneyland attractions are always at their best when they make
you,
the guest, the center of the adventure. Pirates of the Caribbean is
so good in part because you
slide down the waterfall into the flooded caverns, and then drift
through the ransacked town. The Haunted Mansion is so good because
you
are exploring the house and awakening the ghosts. The Matterhorn is
so good because the Yeti is threatening you.
Peter Pan's Flight is so good because you
fly out of the Darlings' bedroom window and over London.
Exploring
the Treehouse should not be a case of wandering through someone
else's home and looking at their stuff. It should be an opportunity
to pretend for a little while that it's your
home, that you
survived a shipwreck and salvaged what you could in order to make a
new life for yourself far from civilization (and apparently turned
out to be fantastic at it).
Therefore, the Treehouse should be divested of any overt connection to
existing Disney IP and renamed simply the Castaway's Treehouse.
Remove all the flashy Tarzan items—the character statues, the fake
books, the now-dated (and always pointless) LED screens—and fill in
any resulting gaps with generic furnishings and accessories to make
the rooms look functional. Retain interactivity by giving guests
buttons and cranks they can use to play with “Bamboo Technology”
devices that facilitate jungle living. Include signage indicating the
purpose of each room, but keep it simple—”Kitchen,” “Bedroom,”
“Lookout Station,” rather than lengthy descriptions. Let the
guests examine the sets and discern or imagine the details for
themselves.
Another
possible source of interactivity—as well as merchandising!—is a
bank of consoles that guests could use to take a “What Kind of
Castaway Are You?” personality quiz. By answering five or six
multiple-choice questions, guests could get assigned a “type”
such as Homesteader (someone who turns their patch of jungle into a
permanent place to live), Eternal Vacationer (takes advantage of
their separation from society to relax all day), or Wild Child (runs
with the animals a
là
Tarzan or Mowgli). These titles could then be featured, along with
appropriate iconography, on pins, tee-shirts, and other wearable
souvenirs sold in the Adventureland shops. This would also help to
drive home the point that you
are the castaway within the world of the attraction.
Those
are about all the specific ideas I have. My goal here is not a
large-scale structural remodel of the Treehouse, but a surface
makeover. The point is to free the Disneydendron
from reliance on single, limited film properties for its relevance
and turn it, at last, into an evergreen
tree. As well as to free the imaginations of guests from those same
shackles and encourage them to write their own adventure in
Adventureland.
*
Say it with me: Disneydendron
semperflorens grandis,
rough Latin for “big, ever-blooming Disney tree.” This is one of
those trivia bits that I'm thoroughly tired of by now, but I couldn't
not
mention it in this post. You have to mention it. It's the rules or
something.
**
Actually, Disney's Tarzan
is very good.
If you've never seen it, you're really missing out.
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