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Disney History Gone But Not Forgotten

Disney’s America

Disney’s America was to be a theme park based on American History, which would have been built in the 1990s.

The first location considered for this enterprise was Colonial Williamsburg, but due to the area only reporting seasonal business this never materialized. Another factor in this location not being used was the two-hour driving distance from Washington D.C., where the park’s major clientele were expected to be based.

The second location considered for Disney’s America was Haymarket, Virginia, only twenty miles from the capital. This location was soon confirmed, and, as of 1993, the project was overseen by Mark Pacala, better known for setting up the Disney Vacation Club, and designed by Bob Weis (currently the creative lead for the forthcoming Shanghai Disneyland).

At the official announcement in Haymarket, Weis unveiled a scale model of the preliminary plans for the park. This featured seven themed areas: Presidents’ Square, recreations of a Native American Village, a Civil War fort, Ellis Island, a turn-of-the-century factory town, a state fair and a Midwestern family farm.

Other areas, which were later added to the plans, included Cross Roads USA, which would be the hub of the park, and Victory Field in which Guests would have experienced what American Soldiers faced during the World Wars.

Park attractions would have included The Hall of Presidents (which would have been moved from Walt Disney World, rather than recreated), a film featuring the Muppets telling the story of Immigration, and a rollercoaster ride called Industrial Revolution which would travel through a nineteenth century landscape. This attraction would feature inversions and near misses with blast furnaces.

Construction of the park was called off for a variety of reasons, which were a mixture of public, personal and financial. Public reasons included opposition by locals and historians. The reasons for the resistance was varied, including the park’s name implying that the Nation was owned by the Corporation and the fear of local historical sites (such as Manassas, the location of the two major battles of the American Civil War) being threatened or undermined by their proximity to Disney’s America. More generic worries included important events from history being forgotten, glossed over or not taken seriously enough.

Personal reasons which Michael Eisner (then Disney’s CEO) cited for not going ahead with the project included the death of Frank Wells (then Disney’s Chief Operating Officer), the resignation of Jeffrey Katzenberg (formerly head of Disney’s motion picture divisions) and Eisner’s own emergency quadruple bypass surgery. These three events had occurred within a space of five months, and Eisner felt “it wasn’t fair to subject the company to more trauma”.

Financial reasons for the park not going ahead included unanticipated large amounts being spent to silence the critics (including expenditure on attorneys and lobbyists), a delayed opening date deferring the date when money would be coming back into the company from the park, and the realisation that the park would have to close for four months annually rather than the expected three. The strengthening of the vision for the park brought costs up an additional 40%, whilst projections for the parks revenues –based on a lower than usual attendance in the other Disney parks worldwide- were decreasing steadily.

Several attractions proposed for the park have influences readily seen in other Disney parks. For example, a proposed Lewis and Clark themed water ride led the way for Kali River Rapids at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and later Grizzly River Run at Disney’s California Adventure (DCA).

Likewise, the design for Victory Field inspired Condor Flats at DCA and the proposed Family Farm was practically identical to DCA’s former Bountiful Valley Farm.

In 1995, Disney’s America was briefly mentioned at a three-day brainstorming retreat in Colorado as one of six proposed suggestions for a new park where DCA currently stands.

The final location considered for Disney’s America was Buena Park, a neighbor to Disneyland. In 1997, the Knott’s Family announced they would be taking bids for their theme park Knott’s Berry Farm. If Disney’s plan had gone ahead, they would have transformed their entrance area into President’s Square (incorporating The Hall of Presidents) and would have adapted the iconic Bigfoot Rapids into the Lewis and Clark themed water ride.

This plan did not go ahead due to Disney realizing they would be expected to transport the park’s Guests to Disneyland, and Knott’s Berry Farm’s concern that Disney would change the park to the extent that it would no longer fit in with the ideals of Walter Knott who had died 16 years previously.

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In the Parks WDW vs DLP

WDW vs. DLP: Frontierland (Part Five – Haunted Mansion vs. Phantom Manor)

In Paris, the equivalent of the Haunted Mansion is called Phantom Manor.  Originally narrated in English by Vincent Price, the majority of the audio of Phantom Manor was changed in the early years to being in French, especially in terms of the narration in and around the stretch rooms. All that remains of Price’s recording is his laughter. There is no audio in the Doom Buggies in Phantom Manor, and some of the characters (including Madame Leota) speak in both English and French. Grim Grinning Ghosts is still purely in English, and some of the Paul Frees Ghost Host audio found stateside now comes out of a Mayoral character found toward the end of the ride.

The attraction’s name is said to have been chosen due to it being easier to be understood by the French–and easier for them to pronounce–but also to differentiate it from “Haunted Mansion”, so that riders do not expect anything too similar to the attractions found in Florida, California and Tokyo.

Phantom Manor very much tells a story (although the specifics of this are very much up for debate–as does whether the story has a plot or is purely a look at “good vs. evil”), whereas Haunted Mansion is much more of a tour, showing you the rooms, telling you what is in them, and trying to convince you to take a “post-lifetime lease” and to thus become the thousandth happy haunt to take residence inside the building.

The other main stylistic change between the two is that Phantom Manor is generally a lot more deadpan than Haunted Mansion. The story it tells is a tragic one, and so the attraction has very little humor (visual or spoken) from the outset, so even the engravings on the tombstones are less funny and more story-line orientated. They do, of course, still pay tribute to various Imagineers and other creatives who worked on the design of the attraction.

The exteriors of the two are very different, with Phantom Manor looking much more like a typical haunted house, built in “Second Empire” style. It looks very similar to the house in Psycho, even to the extent that it is on a hill (with other exterior influences including the Fourth Ward School Museum and the Edward Hopper painting, House by the Railroad). Its interior influences include Phantom of the Opera, Great Expectations and the Charles Allen Gilbert illustration called All is Beauty.

The other main difference is with the upkeep of the house. From the outside, Phantom Manor (or Ravenswood Manor, to give it its in-story name) looks like it is falling apart, whereas Haunted Mansion (aka Gracey Manor) still appears well-groomed.

Entering either attraction starts with one passing through a set of open gates. Both these areas are surrounded by signs warning of the unsuitability of the attraction for some Guests, and there is at least one Cast Member on hand to answer any questions whilst setting the somber mood.

Although many Cast Members are passed in both Haunted Mansion and Phantom Manor, those in the former generally tend to be better suited personality-wise to the attraction. However, the costumes for Phantom Manor are much more ornate–and are purple rather than Florida’s green–and the Cast Members in Phantom Manor’s greeter position gets to stand in a cool coffin-esque booth to protect them from the elements.

Fewer chains and fences in Phantom Manor also give the queue area more of a free-roam feel, which nicely sets up the exploratory tone of the attraction as a whole.

For a while, Phantom Manor’s queue was going to wind through a carriage barn (which would have featured flickering lights, empty horse stalls, ghostly neighing and the like) but due to budgetary restraints this detail never materialized. In its place now stands a Victorian style Garden Pavilion, which is pretty dull and effectless, but thankfully can be bypassed when the queue isn’t excessively long.

From this point onward, the Guests have the option to remain covered from the elements, which can be a blessing, especially at the height of winter.

After the Garden Pavilion, Phantom Manor’s Guests go through a turnstile and then approach the house itself for the first time. On the left is a Cast Members-only door, but the path leads you around to the right, to the front of the building.

Once you have reached this point, you are pretty much guaranteed to be entering the building within five minutes, but this is where the tension starts to build and where Guests tend to begin bonding. There are windows here to try to peer through, and the views across the resort are beautiful, especially in early evening, when the area lighting has changed.

As with its Florida counterpart, Guests don’t enter Phantom Manor continuously; instead they go inside in small groups. However, unlike Haunted Mansion, the Guests enter through the house’s main set of double-doors. These have knockers which—until recently—were freestanding, which added a fun bit of last-minute interactivity, especially when playful Cast Members were on hand to chide knocking Guests for their impatience.

Come back in 2014, if you dare, to find what awaits you once you’ve been fortunate enough to be allowed entry through these ominous doors…

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In the Parks WDW vs DLP

WDW vs. DLP: Frontierland (Part Four – The Wildest Rides in the Wilderness)

The description in the Disneyland Paris park map for Big Thunder Mountain tells you that riders will “Hurl through an abandoned gold mine at breathtaking speed aboard a runaway mine train!” Although I do not agree that the mine is supposed to be abandoned (especially as you can clearly hear a miner call out “Fire in the hole”) this is still a fair description of all four versions of the attraction (Paris, Anaheim, Orlando and Tokyo) and—to a lesser extent—Hong Kong’s Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars.

For the sake of completeness, I should point out that whereas the attractions in Florida and California are called “Big Thunder Mountain Railroad”, the word “Railroad” is missing from the official titles in Paris and Tokyo. Of these four versions, the one in Paris is the fastest, tallest and longest although this doesn’t necessarily make it the best.

The Paris attraction has a much shorter exterior queue area than Florida, mainly due to the weather but also because less space here is needed: Queues tend to not be as excessive in France, the area to be traversed is not as steep, and the surrounding area has already immersed you in the world of the Big Thunder Mining Company.

Whereas Fastpass users have the same exterior scenery as regular riders in Florida, in Paris the two have very different sets to look at prior to entering the main building. Also, Fastpass users in Paris enter the building much nearer the load station than in WDW.

The interior queue areas of the two are very similar in layout, but different in terms of style. In essence, this is because Paris hasn’t got the interactive attractions which were added to WDW’s BTM queue earlier this year. However, the tone is more serious in Paris—the signs are less jokey and the sound effects are less over the top.

Once one gets to the ground floor (via stairs in Paris or a ramp in Florida) the décor is much the same. The start of the ride is pretty different though, seeing as it features an outdoor section in Paris, and a section with bats in Florida. In Paris, the bats come later.

Paris riders have a slightly longer darkened section here, because the track needs to take them under the Rivers of the Far West and onto the island where the majority of the attraction takes place.

The scenery of the next section in Paris—the first ascent—is very similar to that of its Floridian cousin, with very little on the left and the beautiful rainbow caverns on the right. Both ought to then take you through a stylized waterfall, although this effect in France rarely works.

The attraction continues being similar until just after the opossums. In Paris, this next portion doesn’t have the trip through Dave V. Jones Mine or the storage shed, although it does feature a dip into water—where you have your photograph taken—as well as an animatronic goat trying to pull Jeans off a clothes line.

This takes us to the second ascent. It is usually about here that one realizes the differences in sightlines. For example, in Paris, riders can see many other attractions (such as Tower of Terror or PanoraMagique) which ruin the theming, spoil the magic and remind you that you are not really in the American West.

Conversely though, riders in WDW can often see at least one of the other four trains, thus making the experience feel less unique. This rarely occurs in DLP, not least because more of the attraction is covered and fewer trains usually run in one go.

From this point onwards—with the exception of health-and-safety measures and the positioning of some of the props—the two attractions are very similar until exiting the third ascent, where in DLP you are almost instantly brought back under the water to the load/unload area.

 

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In the Parks WDW vs DLP

WDW vs. DLP: Frontierland (Part Three – Rivers of America vs. Rivers of the Far West)

Whilst it has been made clear which rivers are referred to in the name of WDW’s Rivers of America (the Potomac, the Rio Grande, the Columbia and the Mississippi), it is as yet unstated which ones the Paris equivalent (Rivers of the Far West) is themed to, although the Mississippi and the Missouri are the two referred to most often by Imagineers in this context.

Rivers of America encompasses Tom Sawyer Island, whilst there are several islands within Rivers of the Far West. One of these is the home to Big Thunder Mountain, one separates Smugglers’ Cove (the load/unload area for the former Keel Boat attraction) from the rest of the water and several of the others make up Wilderness Island (where a “Lil’ Big Thunder” was once considered).

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A detail from Smugglers’ Cove.

As well as the Keel Boats (and Cast Member-only motorized skiffs), other vehicles sometimes visible on the Rivers in Florida include rafts and canoes. Whilst Disneyland Paris has never had the former, nor the need for them, the latter operated in France for the first two years of the park’s existence until being discontinued due to the waterways being considered too busy.

The most iconic vehicles to travel the Rivers however are much bigger. Florida has the Liberty Belle, whilst Paris has the Mark Twain and the Molly Brown, although a maximum of one of the two in France will operate on a given day. All three feature onboard audio. Like the Liberty Belle, the Mark is a sternwheeler, whereas the Molly is a sidewheeler.

An advert for the Mark Twain which can be found on DLP’s Main Street.

The Paris boats are better covered from the elements and their equivalent of Riverboat Landing loads Guests into the bottom story rather than the second floor. The view from all three includes animatronic animals, live ducks, the Railroad and Old Joe, the fisherman.

Whilst most of the visuals along the Rivers of America are thematically manmade (such as the Native American village), on show for those touring the Rivers of the Far West are more nature-inspired features, such as a geyser –which, due to frozen pipes, no longer erupts- and a mock-up of a natural rock bridge, in reality fabricated of steel and concrete.

In both Florida and Paris, the Riverboats are travelling along I-beam tracks and take just under a quarter of an hour to complete a tour of their respective River. In Florida, this round trip takes place in a clockwise direction; it is counter-clockwise in France.

DSC01242 DSC01241The Molly Brown in dock in the early evening, in front of Phantom Manor (left) and Big Thunder Mountain (right).

 

 

The photos below were taken onboard the Molly in Oct 2013.

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All photos courtesy of Hugh Allison. Please do not use without permission.

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In the Parks WDW vs DLP

WDW vs. DLP: Frontierland (Part Two – Shops, Restaurants, Theatres and Shows)

In Florida, Frontierland has six very distinct shops (Big Al’s, Briar Patch, Frontier Mercantile, Frontier Trading Post, Prairie Outpost & Supply and Splashdown Photos) whereas there is really only one store in the Frontierland of Disneyland Paris. This is the Thunder Mesa Mercantile Building, although it is split into three separate parts: Bonanza Outfitters, Eureka Mining Supplies and Tobias Norton & Sons. To the untrained eye (e.g. mine) the three sections seem interchangeable, except for having different entrances, but perhaps the differentiation is to help out those who work in the park’s sales department…or maybe it is a cynical ploy to get more potential customers to visit/revisit the store.

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Thunder Mesa Mercantile Building at dusk. October 2013.
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Interior of Thunder Mesa Mercantile Building. Spot the obvious Hidden Mickey. October 2013.
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Interior of Thunder Mesa Mercantile Building. Two of the store’s many decorative mannequins which originated in the nearby Legends of the Wild West. October 2013.

Arguably there is another sales point of sorts in DLP’s Frontierland: Big Thunder Photographer. As well as this being where one can purchase the on-ride snaps from Big Thunder Mountain, it also sells T-shirts, bottled beverages and plush toys, albeit currently only of Woody and Jessie.

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Big Thunder Photographer – Photo taken in May 2013, when shop was undergoing refurbishment.

In terms of restaurants, Disneyland Paris hasn’t got anything too similar to any of the three eateries currently in WDW’s Frontierland: Golden Oak Outpost, Pecos Bills Tall Tale Inn and Westward Ho.

What Disneyland Paris does have however is the Silver Spur Steakhouse, a restaurant which once featured various watercolors, etchings and oil paintings by the likes of Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), Edward Borein (1872-1945) and Charles Russell (1864-1926) so as to set the scene of “lavish Victorian ambience…accentuated with masterpieces of western art”. In 1994 however, these were removed and replaced with printed copies.

Whilst the Silver Spur Steakhouse is a table service restaurant, the other eateries in the Land are all generally considered to be “Quick Meal” experiences: Cowboy Cookout Barbecue (“Western style” food, and frequent live music and/or characters), Fuente del Oro Restaurante (Mexican food), Last Chance Café (Tex-Mex) and The Lucky Nugget Saloon.

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Although looking slightly shabby now, this Aztec golden fountain sits in the forecourt outside “Fuente del Oro”. The restaurant name translates as “Fountain of Gold” which refers to this fountain. However, Fuente’s other meaning, source, means the eatery’s name is also a reference to the backstory of Big Thunder Mountain, which has its entrance opposite this fountain. backstory. October 2013.
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A detail from the heated terrace added to the Last Chance Café in 2009. Many people are against this terrace as it spoils the view of the Land, and goes against the restaurant’s original theming. October 2013.
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A seasonal addition above the Lucky Nugget. October 2013.

The Lucky Nugget Saloon is (in many ways) France’s answer to WDW’s The Diamond Horseshoe, although it is perhaps closer in design and atmosphere to Anaheim’s The Golden Horseshoe.

When I visited The Lucky Nugget last month, it was featuring shows by The Sun Flower Spooky Trio and The Thunder Mesa Band, with nearby performances by The Riverboat Halloween Band. Other shows at The Lucky Nugget over the years have included Lilly’s Follies, The Lucky Nugget Christmas Trio, The Lucky Nugget Revue and Rosie & The Rebels.

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The Thunder Mesa Band performing inside The Lucky Nugget. May 2013.
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The Riverboat Halloween Band, standing in front of Rivers of the Far West with part of the BTM track in the background. Some of these guys have been known to perform in other bands throughout the park. October 2013.

Now that WDW considers The Diamond Horseshoe as being in Liberty Square, Frontierland has no theatres aside from Country Bear Hall. Conversely, France’s Frontierland has a 1,350-seater called The Chaparral Theater, which opened in 1995.

The Chaparral is currently showless, although extravaganzas which have appeared at this open-air theatre over the years include Goofy’s Summer Camp, Hill Billy Hoedown, Mickey’s Winter Wonderland, Pocahontas: Le Spectacle and The Tarzan Encounter.

 

All photos courtesy of Hugh Allison. Please do not use without permission.