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3. Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!

Image: Disney / Marvel

When Disney announced that the Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror would soon disappear from Disney California Adventure in favor of Marvel's irreverent, rock 'n' roll superhero team, the move caught many fans off guard. In a park that just spent a billion dollars to add more rich, historic, Californian settings and stories, how could the Hollywood Tower Hotel be replaced by a "warehouse prison powerplant" blasting '70s pop music? How could a Technicolor fortress decked out in satellite dishes and pipes make sense looming over a 1940s Hollywoodland?

Of course, the answer is, it didn't! Though Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! is a spectacular, laugh-out-loud E-Ticket, no one – not even Imagineers – bothered trying to explain its location. Instead, they merely countered that eventually, a larger Marvel presence in the park would add context to a building that clearly looks like an art deco Hollywood hotel that was grafted with space junk "based on the beauty of an oil rig."

Image: Disney

Mission: BREAKOUT! still looms over Hollywoodland (and really, the whole park), but at least on paper, it was absorbed into Avengers Campus when the land opened in 2021. Stylized as an old Stark Motors facility that's been turned into a superhero recruitment compound by the Avengers Initiative, the land is a mix of red-brick and glass; ancient sanctums and Pym laboratories. Visually, the interstellar "Collector's Warehouse" still doesn't make much sense in Avengers Campus, but at least it's not an awkward member of Hollywoodland anymore.

4. Barnstormer

Image: Disney

In 1988, Magic Kingdom opened its first new land since its opening 17 years earlier: Mickey's Birthdayland – a limited-time land meant to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Mickey Mouse's Steamboat Willie debut. In many ways, Birthdayland was temporary, featuring circus tents and plywood cutouts meant to last only as long as the year-long promotion. In other ways, it wasn't temporary at all. With the Mouse's big celebration past, the land was renamed Mickey's Starland in 1990, then Mickey's Toyland in 1995.

Finally, the "temporary" land was made permanent in 1996 as Mickey's Toontown Fair – a "rustic" counterpart to the much more built-out Toontown in Disneyland that could also excuse the circus tents. In addition to more permanent "Country Homes" for Mickey and Minnie, Toontown Fair added the Barnstormer – an off-the-shelf family coaster made fun by soaring over (and through) Goofy's Wiseacre Farms.

Image: Disney

Mickey's Toontown Fair closed in 2011 to make way for a New Fantasyland. The "Storybook Circus" sub-area still uses the same "temporary" tents from 1988, but they're now wrapped in a lot more texture and detail. The area looks like an ode to the heyday of the circus, when the "big top" and its exotic animals rolled into town on the railroad... and it manages to pay homage to Disney films like Dumbo and The Little Engine That Could along the way. The Barnstormer survived, too, even if Goofy's Wiseacre Farm didn't. Instead, Goofy is now "The Great Goofini," and his propellor-propelled biplane recalls the great aerial acrobatics of the traveling fairs of yesteryear... a ride that "moved" to Fantasyland without actually going anywhere.

5. Flik's Flyers

Image: California Bear, Flickr (license)

While all of the rides on this list have "moved" on paper, they haven't really gone anywhere. But Flik's Flyers really has. After the dismal opening of the original Disney's California Adventure in 2001, word quickly spread that the new park was very short on rides, had practically nothing for families to do, and featured almost no Disney characters. As if by magic, the very next year "a bug's land" opened. Absorbing the park's existing copy of "It's Tough to be a Bug," the land added "Flik's Fun Fair," a collection of four mini flat rides and a splash park themed to the 1998 Disney-Pixar film A Bug's Life.

A Bug's Land may have been a "cheap and cheerful" addition itself, but it was admittedly pretty adorable... In some ways, it's too bad that Toy Story Land became the de facto "shrunken" family land for Disney Parks, because arguably, "a bug's land" was a much more enjoyable environment and scale.

Image: Disney

Anyway, "a bug's land" was squashed for Avengers Campus, closing in 2018. The land's spinning flat ride, bumper cars, and the legendary Heimlich's Chew Chew Train were apparently scrapped. But Flik's Flyers – a mini yo-yo-swings style attraction – was given new life. The ride was reclad and repainted, swapping Pixar decor to become "Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind" on Pixar Pier in 2019. (How or why Disney avoided the million dollar name "Mood Swings," we may never know.)

 
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Comments

Fun article - thanks for writing it! I believe the Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes has been in multiple lands as well - quite possibly three? Frontierland, Bear Country, and Critter Country. I think this is correct, but not positive. I love Disney history.

In reply to by James Smith (not verified)

Following up on my previous comment - here's a link to an article I wrote about the explorer canoes and Mike Fink Keelboats. It makes reference to the canoes being in three different lands. The only attraction (other than railroads) that could be considered as having been in three different lands (without actually moving!). Have a great day! https://factsandfigment.com/2021/11/15/dearly-departed-disney-rowing-the-rivers-of-america/

That's a great one, James! Can't believe I didn't think of it. Thanks for sharing!

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