5. Stuffed but not forgotten
Tribute to: Country Bear Jamboree (1972 - 2001)
Found in: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (2002 - Today)
Location: Disneyland
The story of the legendary Country Bears may not be the story you think. In fact, the Audio Animatronic hoedown wasn’t originally intended for a Disney Park at all – a tale we told in a standalone Modern Marvels: Country Bear Jamboree feature. But once it did make its debut at Magic Kingdom’s opening, the popular attraction was quickly copied back to Disneyland (where its capacity was doubled) – the first attraction to be cloned from Florida to California.
In the late ‘90s, the double-sized Country Bear Playhouse in Disneyland’s Critter Country proved too valuable a plot of land to ignore, and the merchandise-friendly citizens of the Hundred Acre Wood took up residence in a West Coast version of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Unfortunately, Disneyland’s version of the ride is brief and quite unimpressive – a product of the famous cost-cutting of the era.
In any case, guests can catch a charming call-out to the former inhabitants just after exiting the “Heffalumps and Woozles” dream sequence by turning around and looking at the wall overhead. There, the stuffed heads of the Country Bear’s narrators, Buff the bison, Max the deer, and Melvin the moose are mounted like hunting trophies in the dark. Don’t worry, it’s not a gruesome and violent end for the animals... after all, they were mounted like trophies even during the show’s run, and talked and sang anyway.
Though both Walt Disney World and Disneyland both ended up with Winnie the Pooh rides (and their associated gift shops), Imagineers managed to save both Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Country Bear Jamboree… even if they only exist on opposite coasts. Speaking of Pooh and friends...
6. Temple of the Forgotten Lot
Tribute to: The Eeyore parking lot (1955 - 1994)
Found in: Indiana Jones Adventure (1995 - Today)
Location: Disneyland
Believe it or not, there was a time when Disneyland’s only neighbor was its own massive, blacktop parking lot. Through the years, regions of the parking lot were marked and denoted by character names and numbers as a helpful way for guests to remember their car’s location at the end of a long day. One premium piece of parking real estate was the Eeyore lot, located just west of Disneyland’s entrance… A very lucky place to snag a spot.
But in 1995, Disneyland received perhaps its biggest E-Ticket yet. A pinnacle of Michael Eisner’s fabled “Ride the Movies” era, the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure took up residence in the park. Er… outside of the park. Naturally, the tiny, land-locked park encircled by the Disneyland Railroad didn’t have any room for the massive soundstage the ride takes place in, so like many Disneyland favorites, the enormous showbuilding is actually located outside the park’s protective earthen “berm”... on the former Eeyore parking lot!
Famously, queuing guests can spot an old “Eeyore” sign salvaged from the parking lot high in the scaffolds in the vaulted altar pre-show room, above and behind the rattling projector playing the preshow. While most guests are observing the three ancient tablets foretelling the three Gifts of Mara or studying the 1930s newsreels of recounting the temple’s legends, eagle-eyed fans (or at least, those who ask a Cast Member to use their handy flashlights) can see Eeyore presiding over it all. Though Eeyore’s section was repurposed in 1994, the rest of Disneyland’s parking lot followed soon after...
7. Celebrity Detection Agency
Tribute to: Superstar Limo (2001 - 2002)
Found in: Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue (2005 - Today)
Location: Disney California Adventure
The rest of Disneyland’s parking lot parked its last car in January 1998. The enormous rectangular plot would be repurposed as a new second theme park nestled up against Disneyland. Unfortunately for guests, that second park was the Declassified Disaster: Disney’s California Adventure. When the park opened in 2001, it was instantly derided by Disneyland’s local (and vocal) fans. And why not? One of three terribly underbuilt and creatively starved parks built in the era, it was short on rides, lacked immersion, and was happy to spoof modern California with a “brash, MTV attitude.”
Symptomatic of the park's issues was its only dark ride – itself a Declassified Disaster: Superstar Limo. The dark ride carried guests through day-glo, exaggerated, comic stylized scenes depicting Los Angeles’ neighborhoods, packed with in-jokes, 1990s pop culture references, and caricatured figures of “C-List” stars like Regis Philbin, Whoopi Goldberg, and Joan Rivers. Most memorable were figures of Drew Carey (flicking out a handful of tourist maps to the homes of the stars) and a kicking Jackie Chan.
The ill-fated attraction closed only a year after the park opened. California Adventure was better off with no dark ride than with Superstar Limo. In 2005, an effort to undo the cost-cutting of the past repurposed the ride as a journey through the story of Monsters Inc. – a cute enough aside in a park that had far too little for families. On the new ride, the limos became taxis through Monstropolis. As in the film, Boo's visit signals the arrival of the Child Detection Agency, with CDA agents clad in their familiar yellow haz-mat suits. Cleverly, those suits are really concealing the re-use of Superstar Limo’s “celebrities,” made most obvious when one flicks out a handful of “WANTED” posters while another is permanently frozen mid-kick.
8. Supercharged
Tribute to: Earthquake (1990 - 2007) and Disaster (2008 - 2015)
Found in: Fast & Furious: Supercharged (2018 - Today)
Location: Universal Studios Florida
When Universal Studios Florida opened in 1990, it offered a number of larger-than-life, massively-scaled attractions that had been plucked and expanded from creature feature encounters on Hollywood’s tram-led Studio Tour. Earthquake invited guests into a multi-part special effects experience culminating in a “harrowing” journey into a San Francisco subway where special effects brought to life a devastating earthquake.
By the early 2000s, the self-serious display wasn’t just showing its age; it was also out-of-sync with real effects, which had mostly gone digital. The answer was a smart swap to Disaster!: A Major Motion Picture Starring You, a tongue-in-cheek update recruiting guests as “stars” in a fake Dwayne Johnson film called “Mutha Nature.” The finale subway earthquake became a chance for all the extras (that’s us) to pile in and make our mark in the outrageously over-the-top, cheesy special effects action flick, with a "movie trailer" inserting the humorous footage amid pre-filmed clips.
Disaster finally bit the dust in 2015, but Dwayne Johnson didn’t leave the building. Instead, the tradition of copying and expanding Hollywood Studio Tour segments into full-fledged attractions continued with Fast & Furious: Supercharged.
Just before boarding the ride's infamous "party buses," guests pass by an office with three increasingly more modern power switches. The initials and dates on each refer to the openings of Earthquake, Disaster!, and Fast & Furious, with the former two attractions switched "off" and Fast & Furious "on." If only it were that easy... After all, Fast & Furious has been the subject of scathing reviews from both fans and the general public, and might not be "on" for much longer.
Comments
What a delightful article. I considered myself pretty high up in Disney trivia but many of these were news to me! Fascinating article and nice to know that Imagineers are paying homage to their past accomplishments, blowing kisses to the rides and areas of the past.