It wasn’t too long ago that a theme park attraction was lifeless without Audio-Animatronics. In fact, the number and complexity of these robotic animated figures was often proportional to a ride’s budget and success! Put simply: if you wanted to blow audiences away, animatronics figures were the way to do it.
Let’s face it: we’re now firmly inside the Screen Age. Rides like The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man redefined what headlining attractions could be, capturing all the force, thrill, story, and character interactions of old time classics without a single animatronics figure! It was revolutionary, as proven by the fact that modern headlining attractions like Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, Transformers: The Ride, Ratatouille, and Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts are wildly successful, richly-storied, and smart attractions – with no animatronics needed!
Even if there are more and more exceptions every day, it still seems that animatronics can be pretty securely tied to an attraction’s appeal. Here, we’ve collected twenty-five of the world’s most mind-blowing animatronics casts and figures. Each figure also has a YouTube link where we’ve fast-forwarded to the animatronics’ starring moment for you. Obviously those videos (and our list) contain some spoilers for big moments and surprising figures! How many of our twenty-five have you encountered?
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25. Enchanted Tiki Birds
Debut: The Enchanted Tiki Room (1963)
Location: Disneyland Park
Video: The Enchanted Fountain and Birdmobile
The best place to start is the beginning. In our in-depth Modern Marvel: Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room feature, we explored the unlikely origin of Disney’s “figure animation” and its very first application. This beloved Disney classic is a tropical serenade populated by 150 singing birds, flowers, and tikis with a downright “magical” musicality thanks to their status as the first ever Audio-Animatronics.
Before the Tiki Room, Disney’s figure animation was limited to so-called “electro-mechanical” figures. (Picture the simplest creatures on the Jungle Cruise – those that simply raise or lower, or turn left and right. Simple, “0” and “1” programming of pneumatic actuators.) Think of how vastly, indescribably complex the inhabitants of the Tiki Room are compared to that: each bird independently breaths, blinks, flaps its wings, and snaps its beak, all synced up to an audio track.
Because the technology that powered the Tiki Room was so inconceivable to audiences of the 1960s, a single bird was originally perched at the entrance to Adventureland as a “tease” of what awaited within, spieling to attract guests into the show like a barker at old-time carnivals. One of the rare Audio-Animatronics outside of rides, this macaw didn’t make it long… Guests were so entranced by the breathtaking “barker bird,” enormous crowds would gather around it, clogging the entrance to Adventureland and necessitating its removal – just the beginning of the legendary attraction’s claims to fame!
Over 150 Audio-Animatronics inhabit the Tiki Room, which gradually grows in vibrancy and life as birds, then plants, then totems, then tiki drummers gradually awaken. And proving the genuine timelessness of the concept, audiences today are still delighted by the showing, as new generations look up slack-jawed at the downright magical birds.
24. Pirates and Wenches
Debut: Pirates of the Caribbean (1967)
Location: Disneyland Park
Video: Inside the Fortress
Though the first Audio-Animatronics were feathered, humans quickly followed. The ’60s were an era of epic, larger-than-life rides and incredible innovation at Imagineering, and appropriately, the era’s pinnacle still resides here on this list. Often cited as Walt’s own magnum opus, Pirates of the Caribbean was the last major project in whose design and creation Walt Disney himself had final say.
Disneyland’s definitive version – clocking in at 16 minutes – is a masterwork of themed design with a scale to beat nearly any attraction since. Part of its impressive place in Disney Parks history is thanks to its cast of 119 Audio-Animatronics (many as delightfully stylized human characters designed by Disney Legend Marc Davis) that literally give life to the astounding, scenic ride. The sheer quantity and animated quality of these figures is what elevates this attraction on our list.
Perhaps worth noting: the piratical cast has also had its share of controversial swaps. Equally intrusive to fans are the addition of characters from the long-running (and long-in-the-tooth) Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and the ongoing edits made to the ride’s iconic scenes and characters in the name of inclusivity. The latter – done via piecemeal changes over the last several decades – culminated in 2018 with a “reimagining” of the iconic auction scene, sending the recognizable Redhead to our list of Lost Disney Parks Characters. But as a whole, the cast of Pirates is still absolutely legendary, and even five decades on, remains one of the most jaw-dropping casts in the parks.
23. Gringotts Goblins
Debut: Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts (2014)
Location: Universal Studios Florida (exclusive)
Video: “Here to open an account?”
Sometimes the most powerful message is none at all. Such is the case with the many goblins inhabiting the marble and granite interior of Gringotts’ lobby used as the queue for the Escape from Gringotts attraction in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley. As guests pass under the towering crystal chandeliers of the bank, they step right between towering podiums occupied by minuscule goblins, each working away at their accounting and measuring. The goblins write on scrolls, glancing up every so often to glare at guests in line before returning to their work.
Their silence speaks louder than words, and the almost-eerie humanoid creatures don’t have much to say until the end of the queue, where the lead goblin rushes guests off to the elevators without a hint of welcome in his voice. Outside, along Diagon Alley is the Gringotts Money Exchange, where a digitally puppeted animatronic goblin answers questions of visitors… so long as they exchange their Muggle cash for Gringotts bank notes (cleverly disguised Universal Orlando gift cards) at his teller station.
22. The Dragon
Debut: La Tanière du Dragon (1992)
Location: Disneyland Paris
Video: Waking the Dragon
One of the most spectacular and surprising “walkthrough” experiences at Disney Parks, Disneyland Paris’ gorgeous fairytale castle hides La Tanière du Dragon… the Dragon’s Lair. The elegantly simple experience allows guests to journey into a hidden cavern where a forgotten dragon rests. Soundly asleep, the dragon stirs every few moments, twitching its claws in the stagnant water of the grotto or shifting and rattling its chains.
Once in a while, the dragon unexpectedly awakens, its pupils narrowing. When it spots visitors, a guttural, booming growl emanates from its throat… its mouth begins to smoke as if preparing to barbecue onlookers… But, seemingly remembering the futility of escape, the dragon relents and puts it head back on the ground, frustrated. The Audio Animatronic is easily one of Disney’s most impressive and it’s surprisingly complex, with the most minute motions in its seamless and fluid movement.
21. Ursula
Debut: The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure (2011)
Location: Disney California Adventure and Magic Kingdom
Video: Poor, Unfortunate Souls!
Despite needing a number of refurbishments and re-dressings to make it ship-shape, the Little Mermaid dark ride at Disney California Adventure was long overdue when it finally arrived in 2011. Folks had been clamoring for years to earn the timeless 1989 musical (which literally started the Disney Renaissance) a bigger presence in Disney Parks, and the dark ride did just that. But where there’s a mermaid, there’s a sea witch. The Audio-Animatronic Ariel located in the ride has earned some decided disapproval from fans, but there are no ifs, ands, or buts about Ursula.
The Sea Witch from the fable is present within the ride as a 7.5-foot tall, 12-foot wide Audio-Animatronic of exceptional proportions. Ursula sings, casts spells over her cauldron, and bounces along in her slithery, serpentine manner of choice with incredible detail, surprising range of movement and super-elastic skin. While the rest of the dark ride may get lukewarm reception from fans, Ursula is a sight to behold.