After-Action Report: The Fantasyland Dark Rides

Wow, how long has it been since I did an After-Action Report post? According to my records, it's been...oh. About three months. It seems longer. You know, when I first began this blog, right after the Bronze Age Collapse, I assumed the bulk of it would be me yammering on about existing attractions and other features, what I like and don't like about them and so forth. Funny, that.

This one has been a long time coming, I think. For some reason, theme park bloggers don't talk much about the Fantasyland dark rides as much as we probably should, considering they are in many ways the bread and butter of Disneyland's branding. The quintessential Disney theme park ride is one based on an animated movie, and these are the classic examples. Even I usually just bring them up in passing rather than applying any sort of analysis; on the rare occasions when I do devote an entire post to just one of them, it tends to be a shorter-than-usual example of its type. These rides just are not big enough to spark many deep and rambling thoughts.

And that's fine. They're bite-sized morsels of delight. So for this post, I'm not going to exhaustively list their individual features or even do much comparing and contrasting between them. I'm just going to highlight a few unique points of each—believe it or not, although they justifiably vary quite a bit in popularity, each of the five Fantasyland dark rides can claim to be the best at something.

Kidnap the Magic: Wonderland Leaves

With Easter less than a week away, you might be thinking about spring and summer decorating motifs for your home and garden. It's the season of leaves and flowers, and for some people, there's no need to be weird about it—real plants and/or realistic silk floral will be fine. But some of us might prefer something a little more...specific. More stylized. More relevant to our unique interests.

More like the art of Mary Blair, amirite?

 Mmmmmm...artistic...

Armchair Imagineering: Plussing the Show

“Always plus the show,” Walt Disney was known to say. I have no idea if he innovated the practice of using “plus” as a transitive verb, but fans have picked it up right alongside other Disneyland insider jargon, including “weenie”* and “protein spill.”** To Walt, “plussing” meant any sort of improvement on what was already there, but as language does, the term seems to have evolved. When most people talk about “plussing,” they are definitely not referring to new attractions or even wholesale renovations of existing ones. Nor is the term used in connection with essential maintenance—fixing a broken animatronic is not plussing…more like “un-minusing.”*** Plussing, rather, is making a small improvement to the park—a new garden planter here, an array of verisimilitude-enhancing props there, an Easter egg added to a show scene to reward the sharp-eyed and/or well-read.

There is no hard bright line separating the mere plusses from more significant alterations, but we know the difference when we see it. The 2015 changes to the Matterhorn are too extensive to be considered plusses, but the revamp of Big Thunder Mountain’s climactic scene might count. The addition of a cross-country skiing troupe to A Christmas Fantasy Parade definitely counts. Here’s another great example, spotted (by yours truly) just over a week ago in the Enchanted Chamber:

Pictured: The funniest scene in any Disney movie ever. Period.

There is an infinite “possibility space” of plusses that could be made to Disneyland. Here are some I would like to see.

Unauthorized Fun – Easter Bunny Hunt Tour

I sure do love Disneyland...but I definitely don't always love the way Management tries to gouge the guests. I'm not talking about above-standard prices for food or prominently placed souvenir shops. That's par for the course for any theme park, and at least at Disneyland, the food is decent and the souvenirs don't fall apart during the drive home.

I'm talking about the way they charge you upwards of a hundred bucks a head just to walk through the front gate...and then spend the day trying to upsell you all these little “magical” add-ons. Character Dining. VIP viewing for parades and shows. Disney Vacation Club memberships, for Pete's sake. And the advertising all heavily insinuates that if you don't buy these things, if you just go to freaking Disneyland and ride some freaking rides and meet some freaking characters after waiting in line like normal humans, then you and/or your kids are missing out and your visit isn't truly magical and I'd better stop before I vomit. Seriously, can you believe these people?

I've got news for them...and for any potential guests who might be suckered in by the marketing copy: It is Disneyland. It's magical just as it is, without expensive add-ons. Is it fun to have Goofy come pal around with you during dinner? Sure. But it's not necessary in order to have a top-notch visit to the park.

I think there are two groups of people who fall for the...let's call it the Extended Warranty model of Disneyland visiting. There are those who are vacationing from out of state, who have never been before (or not for many years) and may never get to visit again, and who not only want to absolutely maximize their trip, but have little to no idea what do to without help, and turn to the readiest source of help available: Disneyland's own website.

I'm not really talking to them. (They're probably not going to read this blog anyway.) This is for the second group. These are the people who visit Disneyland often and know damn well what they're doing...but maybe visit so often that a normal, ride-some-rides-and-meet-some-characters kind of day doesn't always quite do it. So they maybe consider buying some extra goodies in order to jazz things up. If that's really what you want to do and you will accept no substitutes...I guess I can't help you. But if you're conflicted—if you need ideas for ways to spice up your otherwise routine visits to the park without further enriching those money-grubbing jerks—then I am pleased to introduce Unauthorized Fun, a post category for doing just that. In posts with this label, you'll find ideas for Disneyland-based games, activities, and “quests” that won't cost you a dime extra...or if they do, it won't be many dimes, and they won't be funneled directly into Bob Iger's pockets.

And now, without further ado...

Imagineering Theory: You're Just Projecting

I am not a big fan of digital projections and similar technology in theme parks.

It's not that it's not cool stuff in itself. I can definitely appreciate the accomplishments of computing and optics required for it to work, and some of its applications are downright stunning. It's thanks to digital projection that we can actually look into the eyes of Mara:

The Buzz Lightyear animatronic in the queue of his ride is pretty sharp, and his mobile face is achieved via LED screen technology:

So this family of technologies definitely has its place. What I dislike about it is the way it seems to be...taking over. Nearly every new attraction being built these days uses screens and/or digital projections in some way, and they have been added to several attractions that didn't previously use them. This would be fine enough if it were a reliable way of improving an attraction, but in practice the results are quite mixed, ranging all the way from “Wow, awesome!” to “Okay, um, why?” and hitting pretty much every point inbetween.

The thing is, there isn't just one reason why these types of effects can be underwhelming. It's actually a tricky realm to navigate, and I hope Imagineering treads carefully in the future so as to avoid the pitfalls and show off their new toy at its best.

As for what those pitfalls are? Read on...

60 Disneyland Diamonds: 1956-1965

Welcome back! Last week, I announced a new post series I'll be running here at the Disneyland Dilettante in honor of Disneyland's 60^th birthday: 60 Disneyland Diamonds for the Diamond Anniversary. So let's get the ball rolling with the first ten!

Imagineering Theory: The Sightlines of Fantasyland

This is an elaboration of this Micechat forum post.

In a previous post, I lamented the thematic mess that is present-day Tomorrowland (there's an ironic turn of phrase). Whatever your opinion of the individual attractions therein, there's no denying that it's a complete hodgepodge of concepts and design elements.

But the funny thing is, it's not the only area at Disneyland that has this issue. Take a look:

It's Fantasyland! What a charming little fairy tale village! But then...

Okay, getting weirder...

Wait, what?

How can all these vastly different design motifs be part of the same land? Were the planners drunk or what?

And how come we never notice how badly things clash when we're actually there?

To answer these questions: 1. Because that's how it worked out, 2. Probably not, 3. I'm getting to that.