7. Kitchen Kabaret (12 yrs) vs. Soarin’ (15 yrs)

Kitchen Kabaret: 1982 - 1994 (12 years)
Soarin’: 2005 - Today (15 years)

Original concepts for Epcot’s Land pavilion called for a building of prismatic glass towers containing habitats from around the world for guests to explore, with a hot air balloon dark ride through the seasons and water cycle as the highlight. But a last minute change in sponsor brought in Kraft Foods, who asked Imagineers to pivot the pavilion toward more agriculture and nutrition content - a better fit for their brand.

One component of the revised pavilion was the Lost Legend: Kitchen Kabaret, a “dinner theater” animatronic show exploring the US FDA’s “four major food groups” in a jazzy singalong musical. The show played for 12 years (1982 - 1994) before new sponsor Nestle asked for an upgrade, creating the ‘90s-infused Food Rocks that spoofed pop music of the era. Food Rocks lasted another ten years (1994 - 2004) itself, but was no longer aligned with prevailing models of nutrition by the end of its run.

That’s why, in 2004, Nestle asked for yet another change to the pavilion in exchanged for extended sponsorship… Thankfully, that aligned with one of Disney’s plans for the park anyway. As part of the same evolution that brought Mission: SPACE, Imagineers hoped to open a version of the Lost Legend: Soarin’ Over California – the single, solitary hit from the underbuilt Disney’s California Adventure – at Walt Disney World. Food Rocks closed in 2004 to make way for a copy of Soarin’, which has been taking guests’ breath away since 2005. Although the ride was “upgraded” from the "Over California" ride film to the “Around the World” variation in 2016, the airborn simulator doesn’t show signs of coming in for a landing anytime soon.

8. Space Mountain: De la Terre á la Lune (10 yrs) vs. Space Mountain: Mission 2 (12 yrs)

Space Mountain - De la Terre á la Lune: 1995 - 2005 (10 years)
Space Mountain - Mission 2: 2005 - 2017 (12 years)

Disneyland Paris is often regarded as the most beautiful and enchanting Disneyland-style park on Earth. Part of its spectacular appeal is thanks to the work Imagineers did to make the inherently-American concept of Disneyland more palatable for European audiences. Instead of a Space-Age inspired Tomorrowland of swirling NASA rockets, designers created Discoveryland – a rich, bronze, Victorian, retro-futuristic land based on the designs (and initially, stories) of European fantasy writers like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

In 1995, the park's headlining attraction and Lost Legend: Space Mountain - De la Terre á la Lune opened. Rather than a sleek, white, mid-century mountain, Paris' peak was inspired by the Jules Verne novel From the Earth to the Moon. As in the novel, riders were launched into outer space from the gold Columbiad Cannon (resting against the mountain's gold and copper exterior). Rather than the pulsing sci-fi score of its Californian counterpart, a full, orchestral score accentuated the fantasy trip to the moon and back, including allusions to the 1902 Georges Méliès film adaptation, considered the first sci-fi film ever.

It shouldn't be surprising that, like its Tomorrowland counterparts, Discoveryland was soon overtaken by Disney and Pixar characters, leaving the land a gilded golden shell. That goes for Space Mountain, too. Despite how beloved and celebrated the original, literary, fantasy-inspired ride was, it lasted only a decade. In 2005, the ride became "Space Mountain: Mission 2," essentially applying the sci-fi styling and theming of the U.S. rides to the French mountain's interior.

Even if that was an odd stylistic choice for Discoveryland, it's got nothing on the ride's latest incarnation, "Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain: Rebel Mission," a quasi-permanent Star Wars overlay that fails to explain why our trip to a "galaxy far, far away" begins by being launched out of a gold cannon. In any case, it's amazing to consider that the Jules Verne version of the ride that fans still think of as the definitive, essential version actually hasn't been seen in 15 years... longer than it lasted to begin with!

9. World of Motion (14 yrs) vs. Test Track (14 yrs)

World of Motion: 1982 - 1996 (14 years)
Test Track: 1998 - 2012 (14 years)

We’ve got one more EPCOT Center classic for you... One of the first topics cemented for the park’s Future World was transportation, all thanks to General Motors’ early sponsorship. The resulting attraction – the Lost Legend: World of Motion – was (as you’d expect) an epically-scaled dark ride through the history of human transportation from the stone age to the cities of the future, differentiated from other Future World originals by the work of Disney animators Ward Kimball and Marc Davis. 

World of Motion closed in 1996, again in preparation for Epcot’s Millennium Celebration and the resulting evolution of the park. General Motors stayed on a sponsor for the new attraction, eschewing educational histories and slow-moving dark rides for the Lost Legend: TEST TRACK, a mile-a-minute journey through a GM testing facility, subjecting guests to the routine trials of crash test dummies.

While Test Track would eventually be replaced by a modernized, upgraded spin-off, the crash test version of the ride lasted from its soft-opening in 1998 to 2012… just as long as the classic dark ride that preceded it. Will the new version of Test Track last another 14 years or more? It sure seems that way! 

...But if this list has taught us anything, it’s that the things you think of as “classics” today might not last forever… and eventually - for better or worse - their “replacements” become classics for a new generation!