5. The Redhead

Image: Disney, via angryap.com

Attraction: Pirates of the Caribbean
Lifetime: 1967 – 2018 (51 years)

A 16-minute voyage from tranquil Louisiana bayous to thundering sea battles and a Caribbean village under fire, Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean is nearly unanimously agreed upon as the best classic dark ride on Earth. Part of its position might be because it was the final attraction Walt Disney was known to have directly worked on. That's why each and every edit to the attraction has been carefully scrutinized by fans. A great deal of the ride's more recent noteworthy changes have been to retroactively incorporate characters and music from Disney's high-earning (but long-in-the-tooth) Pirates of the Caribbean film series into the rides that inspired the films.

Equally irritating to fans are the fairly continuous edits made to the ride in the name of "political correctness." Over the last 50 years, the pirates chasing women on turntables have instead become women chasing pirates with brooms; a pirate exhausted from chasing debauchery became a pirate exhausted from eating too much food. And in 2018, the long-awaited "other shoe" fell. Perhaps the ride's most iconic scene – the Auction – was recast.

Image: Disney 

Originally the scene had included a pirate captain auctioning off "wenches" with humorous (and inappropriate by 21st century standards) scripting. For example, gesturing to a coyly smiling, theatrically overweight Animatronic, the Auctioneer asks, "What be I offered for this winsome wench? Stout hearted and corn-fed she be! Shift yer cargo, dearie, show 'em your larboard side."

The most iconic aspect of the scene, though, was the legendary "Redhead" – a buxom, scantily-dressed woman in all red, lifting her skirt to show her legs, her other hand daintily set in her curly red locks. It's her the onlooking pirates are after, memorably chanting, "We wants the redhead! We wants the redhead!" – an enduring signature of the attraction.

Image: Disney

When the ride opened after a multi-month refurbishment in 2018, the "Auction" scene remained. But now, villagers (dressed more like characters from the Pirates film series than residents of a Caribbean town) are hauling out their gilded frames, chandeliers, and other riches for auction. In this iteration, the "Redhead" remains, too... but she's switched allegiances. She's a pirate, kicking off chants of "We wants the rum! We wants the rum!" It doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way.

6. The Trolls

Image: Disney

Attraction: Maelstrom
Lifetime: 1988 - 2014 (26 years)

When it first opened at EPCOT Center in 1988, the Lost Legend: Maelstrom was a first. Not only was it billed as EPCOT's first "thrill ride" (a questionable claim), but it also proved that World Showcase – EPCOT's cultural southern half – could indeed offer more than just restaurants, retail, and Circle-Vision travelogues. Whether you loved it or hated it, you'll have to admit that Maelstrom was... well... one-of-a-kind.

That's because Disney's idea for the dark ride was an epic, sea-faring voyage through the myths and legends of Norway – journeys through troll-infested swamps and marshes, braving the high seas with Vikings, and more. But Norwegian financiers had other plans. They wanted an attraction that would convey Norway as a modern, industrial country of enterprise and innovation. According to the ride's production designer Paul Torrigino, the financiers in Norway wanted "Vikings, a fishing village, polar bears, a fjord, an oil rig, and maybe a troll or two."

Image: Disney

So yes, Maelstrom was odd, sending guests sputtering through time for a ride that was part historical retrospective, part mythological adventure, part industrial sales pitch. Such is the case when guests' Viking longships would get caught on the mossy bank of an enchanted swamp where a three-headed troll would arise from the grasses. 

“How dare you come here?” “Invaders!” “This is Troll Country!” “Go away! Be gone! “I’ll cast a spell… You’ll disappear!” "Disappear! Disappear!” With that, the ship would cast-off backwards, tumbling down a "waterfall," passing backwards through a frozen tundra of polar bears, then eventually righting its direction and splashing down in a sea filled with oil rigs. 

Maelstrom closed in 2014 to become the controversial Modern Marvel: Frozen Ever After. The trolls' spot is today occupied by Elsa herself. (Ironically, trolls still factor into the replacement ride, but the much friendlier "Fixer Upper" kind from the film.) Still, the encounter with the magical trolls remains a sort of icon of Epcot and World Showcase; part of the perfect staging of the park's dark rides, and the introduction of a "character" guests came to know very well over the ride's 26 year life.

7. Skippy

Image: Disney

Attraction: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter
Lifetime: 1995 - 2003 (8 years)

Located directly across from The Timekeeper in that sci-fi city of New Tomorrowland stood the Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center, currently rented out via a Martian technology firm called X-S Tech. If the giant yellow antenna on the roof weren't proof enough, X-S Tech is in town to showcase its new teleportation technology, capable of beaming living beings across the cosmos. From your first introduction to X-S Tech, everything was designed to feel slightly... off. Black Mirror before Black Mirror, there was a dystopian, cold, dark sci-fi aura around X-S Tech... and that's on purpose.

In fact, one of the attraction's most memorable moments was its pre-show, when another metallic android called S.I.R. – voiced by the snarling Tim Curry rather than the lovable Timekeeper's Robin Williams – opts to warm us up with a simple demonstration of X-S's teleportation technology, simply beaming the cute, fuzzy alien Skippy to a second tube across the room despite his whimpers and his cartoonish, sad eyes. With the push of a button, S.I.R. fills the tube with hissing, sizzling steam, with Skippy magically appearing in the second tube across the room... but burnt, shrieking, and in pain.

Of course, this pre-show was meant to be brutal. Imagineers tweaked it to this darker form just before the ride's official opening, hoping that Skippy's somewhat torturous experience would be enough to lead parents of small children to the "chicken exit;" their last chance to escape before subjecting their kids to Disney's scariest attraction ever, the Lost Legend: Alien Encounter.

Image: Disney

When Alien Encounter closed in 2003, the attraction was made over with a much less horrifying alien who was seen as a merchandising powerhouse, becoming the abysmally bad Declassified Disaster: Stitch's Great Escape. Though Alien Encounter might've been the scariest Disney attraction, its successor is almost unanimously understood as Disney's worst attraction... Skippy was re-used in the pre-show for Stitch's Great Escape. Since the teleportation tubes were re-cast as holding cells for alien criminals, both Skippys were present at once. So totally disfigured was Skippy in his Alien Encounter voyage that the "burnt" version could now stand in as a second, separate alien...

Stitch's Great Escape lasted twice as long as the Alien Encounter that had proceeded it. The attraction switched to "seasonal" status in 2016 before closing forever in 2018. Disney still hasn't acknowledged that the attraction is closed for good, but leaked pictures show Skippy in his worst shape yet: skinned. 

8. Captain EO

Image: Disney

Attraction: Captain EO
Lifetime: 1986 - 1998 /  2010 - 2015 (17 years)

Captain EO was "here to change the world," and changed Disney World along the way. The perfect example of new CEO Michael Eisner's "star power" pop culture influence on Disney Parks, the Lost Legend: Captain EO was absolutely epic in scale. Created by the combined forces of Disney and George Lucas with legendary director Francis Ford Copolla behind the camera, this $17 million "short film" / 3D attraction starred top-of-his-game "King of Pop" Michael Jackson and award-winning actress Anjelica Huston in a musical '80s space opera music video installed at Disneyland. Phew!

Image: Disney

Jackson's character – a soft-spoken but brave intergalactic hero with a ragtag troupe of '80s alien oddities – was named for Eos, goddess of dawn and bringer of light. Similarly, EO and his team infiltrate a steaming, industrial wasteland planet (thanks to George Lucas' influence) to bring the gift of song to the planet's hideous queen. "We Are Here to Change the World" is the anthem of the 17 minute production, which was accompanied in its original run by lasers, fog, and more.

Image: Disney

Of course, film attractions tend to have less repeat appeal than rides, so it was no surprise that EO finished its runs in California, Florida, Tokyo, and Paris through the mid-'90s – right as controversy around Jackson's personal life was rising – to be replaced with the much trendier "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience." But when the entertainer died unexpectedly in 2009, his star was elevated once more and Captain EO Tribute opened at each resort successively. The second time around, EO wasn't about groundbreaking visual effects, the cutting edge futurism of George Lucas, or even the music; it was positioned as a limited-time, retro-'80s throwback celebrating Jackon's magnetism and star power.

Lost and found

Year-after-year, more and more characters are "lost" from Disney Parks. Luckily, that's what our Lost Legends collection is for. From Mr. Toad to Bonnie Appetit, Dr. Cynthia Lair to Ellen Degerenes, there's an entire cast of Disney Parks characters waiting to be remembered. So, make the jump to Theme Park Tourists' Legend Library and set course for a forgotten fan-favorite yourself.