Imagineering Theory: Three Transcendent Rides

I keep saying that having a popular IP tie-in isn’t enough. Even the most expensive, state-of-the-art ride needs to have something to say beyond “Look! It’s that movie/those characters you like! (Now go buy the merch!)” Otherwise, the movie can do a fine job all by itself and there’s no need for anyone, on either end of the transaction, to spend the kind of money that theme parks cost these days.

It’s easy and fun and even satisfying, in a snobbish sort of way, to expound at length about the failures: those attractions whose slavish adherence to recreating some aspect of their source material results in lackluster experiences. I’ve done that enough on this blog. This post, at least, is about…not the successes, but a handful of rides that go above and beyond mere success. These few rides have built on their source material so well that they have transcended said material. You don’t need to know the first thing about the movies that inspired these rides—and indeed, many people don’t—to appreciate them for what they are.

Mad Tea Party

The “proper” name of the ride that everyone just calls the Tea Cups tells us that it comes to us courtesy of a particular sequence in the movie Alice in Wonderland, and the constant piping of “A Very Merry Unbirthday (To You)” in the immediate area backs it up…but who cares. What movie? They’re the Tea Cups. Alice has her own dark ride next door, including a more movie-accurate rendition of the Mad Tea Party scene, which leaves the twirling Tea Cups to be more-or-less their own thing.

Said own thing is, by the way, possibly the most instantly recognizable of all Disney rides. Spinning tea cups! They’ve been referenced on The Simpsons (but then again, what hasn’t?) and more recently on Steven Universe, albeit in an altered form:

This picture is really telling, isn’t it? The Mad Tea Party is so iconic that even in an alternate-history setting where (as far as we can tell) Disney doesn’t exist, the natural design motif for a carnival spinner ride is tea cups.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Be honest: When was the last time you watched The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad? (The whole thing, not just the Sleepy Hollow part as a Halloween special?) Not that I can blame you—for most of the 1940s, Walt Disney Animation was basically spinning its wheels, keeping the lights on with this and similar compilation or “package” features but not trying to push the artform anywhere new and interesting. You're not missing much, in other words, and neither are the 99% of guests who visit Mr. Toad's Wild Ride without ever having seen its source material. I doubt if most people even know this ride stems from a movie rather than being a whimsical park original.

And even if they do, and have seen it, the ride takes a really unusual approach. Most attractions based on movies are either loose summaries of the events depicted on-screen, or are framed as sequels or side-stories involving the same characters.* Mr. Toad's Wild Ride does neither—the best term to identify it is deleted scene...but, like, a scene that never should have been deleted, because it would have been the highlight of the entire movie if it had been included.

Seriously, the movie skips straight from Toad discovering the motorcar to a newspaper announcing Toad's arrest for grand theft auto, but we can infer some kind of chaotic joyride based on his personality. The ride fills in that gap in glorious first-person perspective, and it comprises a story in itself. That's how Mr. Toad manages to hang on in Anaheim despite its source material falling into relative obscurity.**

Splash Mountain

Now, I know the vast majority of Disneyland guests haven't seen the movie that inspired this ride, because...you're not allowed to. Disney has entirely disowned Song of the South, whose well-deserved controversies are incompatible with the company's total unwillingness to confront its own negatives, and it is not available for legal sale in North America. (I have seen it...during its final theatrical re-release of 1986. And never since. At all.)

However, realizing that taking responsibility for Song of the South would get them the stink-eye from just about everyone, has not stopped Disney from not only building Splash Mountain, but duplicating it, plus or minus a few details, in Orlando and Tokyo. And making merch of it. And highlighting it in park anniversary celebrations. And basically treating it like a theme park original, to the point where most people simply assume it is one. It probably helped that, at the time of its 1989 debut, no other ride featuring animated characters had ever been built outside of Fantasyland, and with the movie already being discreetly scooted under the rug, there was little reason for the uninitiated to suspect that the practice was changing.

In any case, Splash Mountain is definitely the best example we have of a ride which has completely eclipsed its source material in success.

Okay, So...?

What can we learn from these examples? Do they establish enough of a pattern for us to predict what the next attraction to transcend its source material will be?

Unfortunately...probably not. This has only happened a scant handful of times in the history of Disney parks, and with the current insistence that every ride be based on not just a movie, but a popular movie, with wrecking crews ready to sweep in and demolish anything the second it begins to underperform so it can be re-themed or replaced...it's hard to imagine that any new attraction will ever be permitted to outlive its inspiration again.

And that's a pity, because surely that should be the goal of designing attractions based on movie franchises, shouldn't it? To improve upon the source and create something so striking in its own right that it no longer requires that background for its appeal?

At least we Armchair Imagineers can strive for that in our own projects.

* Or in the case of Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, both at the same time.

** That, and Anaheim fans are much more sentimental. But we have every right to be.