TINY: Toy Story Land

Image: Disney

Size: A Mini Babybel cheese wheel
Location: Walt Disney Studios, Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland, Disney's Hollywood Studios

Though the first opened at Disneyland Paris as a quick fix for Walt Disney Studios, almost every Disney Resort is now home to a Toy Story Land. The lands are bright, kinetic, and family friendly. That said, the areas have a reputation mong Imagineering fans for being “cheap and cheerful” stopgaps meant to quickly (and inexpensively) increase a park’s ride capacity with off-the-shelf, lightly-dressed, low-cost family flat rides. It's the reason why the pathetic Walt Disney Studios Paris technically has more rides than Animal Kingdom!

Frequent readers have heard our well-intentioned criticisms of Toy Story Land enough, so we won’t bother repeating that there are better ways to invite guests into the world of Toy Story than the flimsy premise that Andy’s things have been haphazardly scattered in a backyard. But fitting for today’s feature is the land’s inconsistent scale. Ads promise the chance to shrink to the size of a toy, and given the success of the "Wizarding World" model, you might expect to indeed live your toy-sized adventure alongside meet-and-greet Buzz and Woody. But the reality is a bit different...

Image: Disney

Upon entering the land, guests are greeted by Woody and Buzz, who tower over them. While being part of the Toy Story world would imply seeing Andy’s toys come to life, the giant action figures in Toy Story Land are frozen and posed in place, while several guests would need to lie end to end to fill the giant “shoe print” stamped on the ground. From being the same size as Buzz to being the size of a Little Green Man, our shrinking continues...

ITSY-BITSY: A Bug’s Land and "It's Tough to be a Bug"

Image: Disney

Size: Ant
Location: Disney California Adventure and Animal Kingdom

When Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, early reception signaled that the new park lacked a few things Disneyland guests expected, like, oh, you know, Disney characters and things for kids to do. In its second year, the quick-fix Flik’s Fun Fair (a bite-sized collection of bug-dressed flat rides) opened next to the existing “It’s Tough to be a Bug” 3D film, creating the new “a bug’s land.” 

If it sounds like “a bug’s land” served the same purpose as Toy Story Land would later, that’s true. But even if Toy Story became the de facto IP for “shrinking” guests, it’s arguable that “a bug’s land” did it better. How? First, it established and stuck to a cozy, ant-sized scale (think, a tissue box restroom, a giant garden hose splash pad, oversized half-eaten food).

Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)

Famously, the land was loomed over by massive bamboo blades of grass, towering shrubs, and a dozen 20-foot tall clovers, creating a forested, shaded, truly isolated feel for the little land, with narrow paths that truly feel down in the grass in a way Toy Story Land doesn't. But just as importantly, it owned up to what it was - a carnival - with rides cleverly made of “trash” collected by the inventive Flik and his friends.

Though “a bug’s land” was squashed for the Avengers Campus land, “It’s Tough to be a Bug” still has guests filing into Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life like an army of ants, donning “bug eye” glasses as they witness the wonders of the insect world. 

TEENSY-WEENSY: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure

Image: rickpilot_2000, Flickr (license)

Size: Termite
Location: Disney’s MGM Studios

Though “It’s Tough to be a Bug” makes guests about equal in size to the film’s ant protagonists, an ant served as a climbable playset at the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure.” The larger-than-life playground at Disney’s Hollywood Studios also included spider web climbing nets, tunnels made of fallen leaves, slide down a giant roll of Kodak film, and massive blades of grass reaching 30 feet high.

Similarly, the “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” 3D film at Epcot, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Tokyo Disneyland shrunk the physical auditorium to the size of a suitcase, terrorizing mite-sized guests with in-theater special effects like duplicated mice, a hungry snake, and more.

TEENY TINY: Nemo & Friends SeaRider

Image: Disney / Pixar

Size: Plankton
Location: Tokyo DisneySea

When DisneySea opened in 2001, its Port Discovery (the park’s nautical steampunk Tomorrowland) offered a unique original attraction called StormRider. Borrowing the technology of the Lost Legend: Star Tours (but upping the cabin capacity from 40 to 122!), this futuristic trip sent guests from the Center for Weather Control into the heart of a storm  to test a new weather-dissipating device… until something went wrong. In 2017, the Center for Weather Control became the Marine Life Institute from Pixar’s 2016 sequel Finding Dory.

Image: Disney / Pixar

While “Nemo and Friends” are no strangers to inclusion in Disney Parks (thanks to Disneyland’s Submarine Voyage, Epcot’s Seas pavilion, and Turtle Talks with Crush), only in Tokyo DisneySea do we get face-to-fin with the beloved Pixar characters on their scale. It’s all thanks to the Marine Life Institute’s discovery of “Chidiminium,” a shrinkable material the Institute has fashioned into a fish-shaped submersible. The “SeaRider” is also equipped with fishy artificial intelligence, allowing researchers like us to step aboard, shrink to fish-size, and interact with our aquatic friends as the sub makes decisions leading to randomized encounters!