“E-Ticket”...You Keep Using That Word

This one is less a thought about Disneyland and more a thought about the Disneyland/Disney theme parks fandom. Apologizing in advance if it gets a little ranty.

I keep seeing Disneyland fans demand more “E-tickets.” No major change at the park—at any park—is considered complete without one. People like to speculate about what “lesser” attractions they would sacrifice in order to have more rides with this coveted top-tier status, and how feasible the replacement would actually be. And of course when it comes to imagining future developments, existing E-tickets are considered sacrosanct, while anything else is up for grabs, automatically considered expendable. To hear some tell it, the park would be better if it consisted of nothing but E-ticket rides.

I strenuously disagree, of course. The main reason, with which many others will concur, is that there's a lot more to Disneyland than just its flashiest, most popular rides. The attractions not usually considered E's are vital for pacing one's day and maintaining the park's signature family atmosphere, as well as often being highly enjoyable in their own right.

But there's another reason I wish my fellow fans would stop their single-minded fixation on “E-tickets.” To be blunt...the term doesn't mean anything. Not concretely. At best, it's used as shorthand for any of several concepts, none of which really holds up under scrutiny.

Here, let me go over them...

1981 Called, They Want Their Theme Park Access Scheme Back

The most obvious definition for “E-ticket” is the literal one: an attraction costing an E coupon or the monetary equivalent to visit. In that sense, of course, there are no E-tickets in Disneyland (or any other Disney park), and haven't been for over 30 years. So this one is a non-starter.

Your Grades Are Slipping

If there are no actual “E-ticket” rides in Disneyland anymore, maybe there's the next best thing: a timeless, definitive list of the attractions that were E-tickets, back in the day, which can be extrapolated from for future reference.

As it turns out...there is not. The “letter grades” assigned to attractions back in the day weren't set in stone. Disneyland's management could and did move attractions up and down the scale in accordance with fluctuating popularity and operation costs, in order to even out demand and help defray those same costs. America Sings began life as an E-ticket, but was reduced to D by the time the coupons were retired. The Mark Twain started out as a C-ticket ride, but was upgraded to D and then E when those designations were added to the list...only to revert back to a D at some point afterward.

Be Careful What You Wish For

At this point, we might resort to choosing a fixed point in time to define the E grade for attractions—such as the last fixed point in time when it had a literal meaning. For the sake of argument, let's establish an understanding that “E-ticket” refers to those attractions that were listed on the last E coupons to be printed and sold (during the first half of 1982), along with comparable attractions that came later. That should bring the definition in line with the overall usage of the term, right?

Well, let's see. I wasn't able to find a picture of a 1982 E coupon, but this one is from 1977-78, so it's probably very close to the final list:

Based on this, we can see that right up until the end of ride coupons, E-tickets have included not just the thrill rides and storyful themed extravaganzas you would expect (and that the “More E-tickets!” people seem to be referring to), but the far less intense “it's a small world” and even the ultimate bane of thrill-seekers: audio-animatronic theatrical revues. You'd be hard-pressed nowadays to find a fan willing to attribute E-ticket status to something that isn't even a ride*...but it just goes to show how elusive a single definition for the term is. Had the coupon system continued into the present, I think the E grade would have been assigned to not just Star Tours and Splash Mountain and the Indiana Jones Adventure, but also Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and Buzz Lightyear Astro-Blasters. If popularity had remained a big factor in the grading, even some character meet-and-greets might require an E coupon.

It would be a massive understatement to say this is not what the most vocal fans want.

English As She Is Spoke

So...what, then? What do people mean, in practice, by “E-ticket?”

In the mainstream—outside of Disney theme parks fandom specifically—it's synonymous with “thrill ride.” When Sally Ride described launching into space as an E-ticket in 1983, she probably didn't mean it was like sliding down a gentle waterfall into an underground cavern filled with pirate skeletons.

Within the Disney parks fandom, it typically means, as mentioned above, either a thrill ride or a highly immersive themed ride, usually brimming with audio-animatronic figures and special effects. But...trickily...not always. Heading over to California Adventure for a little while,** California Screamin' is certainly a thrill ride, but is seldom name-dropped as an example of the kind of ride we supposedly need more of. Superstar Limo was definitely highly themed and loaded with animatronic characters, but it's rarely even mentioned anymore except in the context of a curse. Clearly there's more to “E-ticket” status than the plain format of a ride, when it comes to the opinions of Disney park fans.

Maybe innovation in design and execution is the key. Looking at that 1977-78 coupon again, it's true that each attraction listed was cutting-edge...at least when it debuted. The Enchanted Tiki Room was the first attraction based entirely on audio-animatronic performances, while the Country Bear Jamboree set new standards for articulation and fine movement of this key piece of Disney technology. “it's a small world” introduced the first continuous-load ride system. The Disneyland Monorail was the first daily operating monorail in the Western Hemisphere.*** In that case, it's not surprising that people would cease to consider some of them E-tickets once the technology was no longer new...but it doesn't explain why the Disneyland roller coasters are still so exalted when not a one of them is younger than 35, nor why some much newer and more advanced rides, such as Astro-Blasters, aren't so highly regarded.

Maybe there's some sort of “two of three” phenomenon going on here. That is, an attraction needs any two of these three qualities—thrills, amazing theming, cutting-edge tech—to be considered an “E-ticket” level experience by the fans.

Then again...

Both pushing 50 and modestly exciting at best, and the Disneyland fandom would go into collective seizures of delight if we were promised more rides like them.

It's time to face facts: When the denizens of theme park message boards talk about “E-ticket” rides, what they mean is good rides. Which, of course, is entirely subjective. It's a big world—big enough that there are probably people who think Splash Mountain is stupid and pointless, people who think the Enchanted Tiki Room is the most amazing thing at Disneyland, people who could gleefully spend an entire trip riding the Tea Cups over and over, and maybe even someone who was sad when Superstar Limo closed. It does no good to throw the term “E-ticket” around as if there is any kind of consensus as to what it means.

So I end this with a plea of sorts: Folks...can we please have a moratorium on the term "E-ticket" when discussing any point in time after June 1982? When talking about attractions you'd like Disney to build, actually describe them. Say “I think Frontierland could use another thrill ride,” or “Is there room to fit an Omnimover ride based on Frozen if they fill in the old Motorboat Lagoon?”**** Say “Such-and-such is fun, but from a technical standpoint it doesn't bring anything new to the park.” Say what you actually mean, instead of using a lazy and ambiguous shortcut.

Then, once we establish a more elegant mode of communication on the matter, maybe we can tackle the issue of why you think there need to be so damn many “E-tickets” in the first place.

* It's chilling how often I see people wish that Disneyland would tear out stationary entertainment like the Enchanted Tiki Room or Fantasyland Theatre in order to install more things that whiz around.

** New Year's Resolution!

*** Just so you know, I typed that from memory.

**** Necessary disclaimer: I don't want either of these. But they are very typical of the sorts of things people are asking for when “More E-tickets!” is the topic of conversation.