4. Iguanodon

Status: Extinct
Location: Discovery River at Disney's Animal Kingdom
Video: "Besides that one over there, dinosaurs are long gone..."

When Disney's Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, the park offered only two noteworthy attractions: the headlining Kilimanjaro Safaris, and the terrifying Lost Legend: Countdown to Extinction. In the latter, guests would board EMV Time Rovers to leap back to the last moments of the Cretaceous, tasked with saving an Iguanodon from the brink of extinction and returning it to the Dino Institute for study.

Image: Sam Howzit, Flickr (license)

Of course, the park also contained the Discovery River Boats. To Disney's thinking, this simple boat-based ride would simply shuttle guests from the park's entry Oasis to Asia, easing walking requirements for the gargantuan park. Along the way, the boats would sail past simple vignettes meant as "teasers" for what each of the park's lands would offer, like a goat exhibit and geysers in Africa and a fire-breathing dragon near Camp Minnie-Mickey (meant to hint at the Possibilityland: Beastly Kingdom). Along the shores of Dinoland, guests would find a playful Iguanodon splashing along the shores of the Discovery River, as if the dinosaur folks had rescued aboard Countdown to Extinction had escaped!

The connection was cute, and helped expand the world of the ride to a deeper continuity connecting the rest of Dinoland to its story. But unfortunately, the Discovery River Boats garnered multi-hour waits from guests expecting a "Jungle Cruise" style experience (especially with only two other rides in the park), inevitably leading to disappointment. By the park's first autumn, the ride was renamed Discovery River Taxi to emphasize its functional role, but it wasn't enough. In March 1999 – before its first birthday – the ride lost its riverside scenes and became the Radio Disney River Cruise before closing forever that November.

5. Seagulls

Image: Disney

Location: Tomorrowland at Disneyland
Video: "Mine! Mine! Mine!"

When Disneyland's venerated Submarine Voyage closed in 1998 (a strange way to "celebrate" the land's Declassified Disaster: Tomorrowland 1998 "update"), all hope seemed lost. After all, Magic Kingdom's version of the ride – the fan-favorite Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – had closed just a few years earlier without so much as a warning and it stood to reason that Disneyland's 1959 ride would be sufficiently sunk as well. Fans held to the hope that Disney's 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire might inspire Disney to re-theme the Walt classic, but when that film bombed, all hope seemed lost.

But 2003's Finding Nemo and a major change of management at Disneyland buoyed the concept of reviving the subs to celebrate Disneyland's 50th Anniversary. We traced the growth of Pixar and its place in Disney Parks in its own standalone feature – Disney•Pixarland – with 2007's Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage as one of the largest E-Ticket "Pixar" rides yet. While it doesn't have much in common with its predecessor, fans were relieved to see the revival of a ride system Walt himself had cared so much for.

Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)

As you walk along the bubbling lagoon between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, the iconic and beloved seagulls from the film will make it perfectly clear that the cartoon clownfish has overtaken the Tomorrowland classic. "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Roosting on a floating buoy, the seagulls chatter, chirp, and provide phenomenal photo opportunities... to some, an unfortunate invasion in the continuing "cartoonification" of Tomorrowlands. Similar seagulls can be found outside of The Seas with Nemo and Friends at Epcot.

6. Sonny Eclipse

Image: Disney

Location: Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom
Video: "Hello, all you Earthlings!"

Believe it or not, there was a time before Tomorrowland was overtaken with Pixar properties. After any semblance of actual scientific futurism but before Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Lilo and Stitch moved in, Tomorrowland briefly existed as one of Disney's first ever attempts at land-wide continuity. In fact, when Magic Kingdom's New Tomorrowland debuted in 1994, the idea was that each of its rides, shows, and even restaurants would take place in the same "universe," each connected by an overarching narrative and art-deco architectural style.

Tomorrowland was meant to be a real, immersive, sci-fi city – an intergalactic spaceport of landed spacecrafts, neon signs in alien languages, and a spirit and style influenced by 20th century pulp sci-fi comics and characters like Buck Rogers. The city's Transit Authority (the Peoplemover) would whisk guests past the Tomorrowland Science Center (home to the Lost Legend: The Timekeeper on exhibit), the Interplanetary Convention Center (hosting the alien engineering firm X-S Tech, unwittingly making guests guinea pigs on the Lost Legend: Alien Encounter), and the city's space port (Space Mountain). Most every element of the land was meant to feel like part of the same frame story.

Image: "Joe Shlabotnik", Flickr (license)

That includes Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, a retro-futuristic jazz club owned and operated by aliens. As guests dine at this intergalactic restaurant, they're serenaded by the smooth stylings of "lounge lizard" Sonny Eclipse, "the biggest little star in the galaxy" from the planet Zork as he sings original songs on the Astro-Organ. Okay, so Sonny is clearly a bit of '90s Chuck E. Cheese-style kitsch leftover from another time... but he has outlasted the rest of Tomorrowland's ambitious '94 rebirth, now a single bit of original sci-fi left in the Pixar-populated land. By the way, jet off to Tokyo Disneyland for the even wilder animatronic entertainment of Tony Solaroni on the second level of the park's Pan Galactic Pizza Port for a full-on show during your meal.