5. Autopia

Image: Disney

In the early days of Disneyland, Autopia stood as its own cottage industry. Multiple versions of the ride existed in Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. As impossible as this is to imagination today, the interstate highway system was planned rather than completed at the time of Autopia’s debut. Walt Disney wanted to show a future in which our children would crisscross the country in the cars of the future.

Alas, Autopia reflects one of Uncle Walt’s rare miscalculations. He didn’t intend for the attraction to involve any bumping to the point that early iterations of the cars didn’t include bumpers. The early years of Autopia involved a lot of downtime for wrecked vehicles in desperate need of service. Today, Autopia is a pale imitation of driving simulators kids can play on their tablets, but it’s still a joyous experience shared between parents and children. Watching your kid gleefully attempt to ram the car in front of them never gets old. It also explains why automobile insurance is a mega-billion dollar industry.

4. Snow White's Scary Adventures

Image: Disney

It’s not like Disney didn’t try to warn people with the name. An entire generation of children was scarred by their interactions with the Evil Queen. I’ve always believed that Snow White’s Scary Adventure got a bad rap. Yes, the concept is a bit confusing to piece together, but once you realize that you’re Snow White, it should make perfect sense.

To Disneyland’s credit, they never watered-down the premise by dialing it back like Walt Disney World did. I don’t view the eventual closure of the ride there as coincidence. Still, Snow White’s Scary Adventures is fairly long in the tooth. I maintain that in 1995, it was the most innovative ride on this list. Today, it’s an intriguing curiosity that offers insight into the creativity of the original batch of Imagineers.

3. Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

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Oddly, when I think of Disneyland, this is one of the first attractions to pop into my head. The dazzling colors on display provide the appropriate connective tissue to link Disneyland the theme park with Walt Disney Productions the animated filmmakers. It was a spectacular achievement in ride design for 1955. Riders truly feel as if they’re experiencing a goofy cartoon adventure. The inimitable style of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is something that Disney is smart never to attempt on other attractions. For some reason, it only works for this. Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin is something of a spiritual successor, though.

2. Peter Pan’s Flight

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In my Behind the Ride write-up for this attraction, I noted that the Aerial Galleon aka the ride cart “perfectly mimics the sensation of flying over London.” I’m in awe of the fact that Imagineers developed such sophisticated ride technology more than 60 years ago. They deduced what they needed to build to bring the Darlings’ Neverland adventure to life. Unlike the Snow White problems above, it worked perfectly from day one. It’s one of the finest examples of Imagineer ingenuity.

People tend to take the experience for granted today since they’ve ridden the ride so many times. After all, the ride experience has changed little from your childhood until today. That’s a credit to the mechanics of Peter Pan’s Flight rather than a criticism, though. It’s the ultimate Disneyland example of, “It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Instead, Disney has sagely chosen to accentuate the Neverland journey at the core of the ride. They work to improve the set pieces as well as the attraction queue. There’s no reason to adjust the Flight itself. That’s already perfect.

1. Jungle Cruise

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If you read the Murky History of the attraction, you already know that I’m a huge mark for Jungle Cruise. It’s the silliest thing Walt Disney tried to do with Adventureland, whether he was consciously aware of that fact or not. Originally intended as something similar to what Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom eventually became, the people involved with the planning of Jungle Cruise decided to have some fun with the premise. The result is a series of jokes involving giant horns and humans desperately trying to avert getting the point in the end.

Fans of the ride know it so well by this point that they can recite the dialogue as easily as the guide. For that matter, if you want to join them, PDF downloads of the official script are available online. While critics note that Jungle Cruise was already stale when Walt Disney was still alive, I maintain that nothing stands the test of time better than a wry sense of humor. The narration for Jungle Cruise will be just as entertaining to the children of the 22nd century as it was to those who first rode it on Black Sunday. Out of the nine rides that debuted that day, Jungle Cruise remains the most enduring and enjoyable.