Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars

Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)

Imagine the Three Bears moved out of their fairy tale forest abode and, rather than hosting greedy children like Goldilocks, decided to try their hand — er, paw — at prospecting in the gold mines of Gower Gulch. That’s more or less the story behind Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, where a family of bears inadvertently led California prospector Captain Cosgrove to discover sparkling riches within the mountain. The only problem? The bears can’t seem to stop getting themselves (and the tourists who come their way) into trouble.

At first blush, Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars looks like a slightly-modified version of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Guests board a train and barrel through old caves and mountains that have been mysteriously abandoned or boarded up. Both attractions are original to the Disney Parks, but where Big Thunder Mountain Railroad fails to incorporate much of its spooky backstory in the ride itself, Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars places riders right in the center of the action.

Guests are invited to climb aboard the rickety mine train, where they are launched into the heart of the mountain and come face-to-face with the first bear, Rocky. Rocky just can’t resist scratching his back on a lever, which activates the track switch and sends guests hurtling past danger signs to the top of the mountain. There are no friendly opossum families or goats here, just the sound of the lift cable cracking as the train begins to rattle back down the mountainside — in reverse. Riders are then pulled into another mine, where they encounter Mother Lode and her cub Nugget. Both bears are precariously positioned amid boxes of TNT, which they set off (but are miraculously unharmed by) in a cave-rattling explosion that propels the train back to its starting point.

This isn’t the most ingenious attraction ever devised by Disney Imagineers — you won’t find heaps of animatronics, sight gags or catchy theme songs within the canyons and caves of Big Grizzly Mountain — but it spruces up the standard steel roller coaster and remains one of only two Disney coasters to feature a backwards track section (a feat in and of itself).

Tower of Terror

Image: John Carkeet, Flickr (license)

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is, as you’d predict, a ride inspired by episodes of the now-retired Twilight Zone. The premise? A group of hotel guests are inexplicably transported to the Twilight Zone after being zapped by a supernatural burst of lightning in the hotel elevator. (Just what awaits them in the Twilight Zone is less clear, as the story turns out to be an elaborate ruse to bounce guests up and down on the drop tower dark ride.) When Imagineers brought the tower over to Japan’s Tokyo DisneySea, however, they found that the 1930s American sci-fi storyline didn’t quite fit the feel of the park.

Enter… well, Tower of Terror. Disney revamped the idea of a cursed hotel, this time inventing a wealthy, entitled hotel owner and architect named Harrison Hightower III to run the place. The preshow reveals Hightower’s misdeeds: namely, stealing artifacts on his travels throughout the world and displaying them among his many collections at the hotel. His latest treasure is an African idol called Shiriki Utundu, who comes to life during a fateful New Year’s Eve party in 1899. When Hightower boards the elevator to return to his suite at the end of the night, Shiriki Utundu comes to life and allegedly spirits away the selfish architect, leaving only his hat — and a destroyed elevator — behind.

Just as riders are invited to check out the elevator that transported former hotel guests to the Twilight Zone, they are encouraged to tour the haunted elevators of Tokyo’s Hotel Hightower, with similar effects. Once aboard the elevator, guests race to the top of the building to watch Hightower’s ghost interact with the idol, then plummet to the floors below, where they are waylaid by Shiriki Utundu at every turn.

There’s an unsettling feeling that the guests themselves are also being punished by the idol for the transgressions of the deceased hotel owner, much in the same way that riders are also punished for looking into the eyes of Mara during Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure. It’s a subtle way of immersing riders in the attraction that the original Twilight Zone Tower of Terror doesn’t quite manage to capture.