Tag: Disney's Hollywood Studios

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Living Legends – The Surprising Number of “Opening Day Originals” Left at Each Disney Park

Here at Park Lore, we’re always looking to see our favorite theme parks in new ways. That’s why we reported (and continuously update) a number of sometimes-surprising features that just may have you seeing Disney and Universal parks differently…

For Imagineering afficianados, we’ve broken down Disney and Universal parks by the numbers in two must-read features that are downright surprising: we ranked Disneyland, Disney World, and Universal Orlando’s parks by the number of certifiable “E-Ticket” anchor attractions each park offers (which do you think has the most? The least?) and, even more shockingly, broke it down to the sheer number of rides at each park… with some unexpected results…!

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By The Numbers: The Surprising Number of E-Ticket Attractions at Each Disney Park

They are the Holy Grail of theme park attractions – astounding, breathtaking, spectacular rides both classic and modern. When you imagine the most amazing experiences at Disney and Universal parks, it’s probably E-Ticket attractions you picture: the coveted, beloved, fan-favorite, larger-than-life masterpiece rides that command spectacular crowds and engage generations. 

Here at Park Lore, we took a global tour of Disney and Universal parks in our Ride Count Countdown to explore the number of rides each park – and ultimately, resort – offered (with some major surprises along the way). We’ve also explored the parks “By the Numbers” with specific counts of how many dark rides and Opening Day Originals each park offers! But how would our rankings change if we instead looked only at the so-called “E-Ticket” headliners?

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16 ‘Easter Eggs’ of Closed Classics Hidden in the Rides that Replaced Them

As long-time Disney and Universal fans know all too well, even the most beloved rides don’t last forever. In fact, Imagineering aficionados may have already scoured our collection of Lost Legends – the definitive, full stories of forgotten fan favorites and closed classics from around the globe – or taken a look at our Then & Now collection of hand-drawn, before-and-after layouts as rides are swapped out.

Those stories are evidence that, time and time again, sometimes attractions simply disappear. … Or do they? Over their decades of experience removing rides that guests have come to know and love, designers have gotten pretty good at leaving behind hints. 

Today, we’ll take a look at some of our favorite hidden “Easter egg” hints of forgotten rides scattered around Disney and Universal Parks inside the rides that replaced them… These clever remnants are like mini-memorials to the beloved rides of yesteryear… if you know where to look. 

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Rewind Awards: The One, Single, Best Theme Park Attraction From Each Decade (So Far)

The best theme park attraction of all time. What would it take to earn the title?

In its more-than-six-decade history dating to Disneyland’s 1955 opening, the modern art of Imagineering has developed in fits and starts, yielding hundreds and hundreds of noteworthy and nostalgic rides across modern theme parks. For that reason, we won’t even dare attempt to pit Walt’s golden age classics against today’s multimedia E-Tickets, or to foolishly compare incomparable experiences.

But it did get us to thinking… In those eras of growth and transformation in the industry, which ride is the best representative of every decade from the 1950s to the 2020s? For each, what’s the single most iconic, memorable, and beloved attraction that also definitively speaks to the state of themed design? Today, we’ll walk down the timeline from the 1950s through today. For each decade, we’ll list our own personal nominees before bestowing the decade’s “best attraction” award.

Agree? Disagree? What’d we miss? Let us know in the comments below if you think we got these Rewind Awards right on or not… And as you’ll see, many contenders for each decade happen to link to full, in-depth entries across our Lost Legends and Modern Marvels collections, so fall down the “rabbit hole” and explore these classic rides!

Do you love armchair Imagineering, in-depth storytelling, and seeing the theme parks we love differently? Park Lore is an ad-free, quality-over-quantity, one-person project centered on building a world-class collection of the interconnected stories of theme park attractions, design projects, and industry explorations.

This feature is one that’s usually locked in our Member Vault, where Park Lore patrons can find hand-drawn art, armchair Imagineering walkthroughs, and other in-depth Special Features, as well as quick-read, just-for-fun Extra Features. Thanks to supporting Members, this feature is temporarily unlocked as a preview!

But if you value my mission to provide clickbait-free, ad-free deep dives and new ways to see the parks, consider becoming a supporting Member of Park Lore for as little as $2 / month. That support is what keeps this unique themed entertainment storytelling project open, ad-free, and available to all. Thank you!

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The REAL History of 6 Legendary Hollywood Buildings Brought to Life in Disney Parks

When the Disney-MGM Studios opened in 1989, CEO Michael Eisner’s opening speech dedicated the park “to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine.” He memorably welcomed guests to “a Hollywood that never was – but always will be.”

What he meant is that Disney’s version of Hollywood is dreamlike; passed through a lens of nostalgia and optimism. As usual, Imagineers took the reality of Hollywood and made it romantic and timeless. It’s idealized and blurred, with all the skill of storytelling and placemaking Disney can muster. it’s the Hollywood we collectively imagine and dream of, even if it never truly existed to begin with. And yet, it’s not fiction.

Today, we’re going to investigate the real histories of six iconic structures at Disney Parks that sprung not from the minds of Imagineers, but from real landmarks of Tinseltown. It’s all in hopes that, next time we step into Disney’s Hollywood Studios, California Adventure, or Walt Disney Studios Park, we can see things differently… Let’s take a look.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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The Seven “Natural” Wonders of the Theme Park World

For our Passholders, we’re kicking off a new three-part series where we discover the “Seven Wonders of the Theme Park World.” We’ll take a look at the Seven Ancient Wonders and the Seven Technological Wonders, but we’ve got to start somewhere, so what about the Seven “Natural” Wonders? Below, we’ve counted down the seven most convincing natural features in theme…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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Original Mythologies: Disney Parks’ Richest Imagineer-Made-I.P.s and “Expanded Universes”

“Here you leave today and enter the worlds of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.”

Since those words were placed above the entrance to Disneyland in 1955, Disney Parks have been about taking guests into incredible stories in unimaginable places. Born from the minds of Walt and his team of Imagineers, Disney’s storytelling has continued to evolve and expand through new eras. Along the way, designers have crafted some spectacular tools for building those stories and places. 

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These 9 Lands Don’t Just Recreate Worlds Seen on Screen, They EXPAND Them…

From Hogsmeade to Radiator Springs, it’s no surprise to fans of Imagineering that the era of “living the movies” is alive and well. Today, it can sometimes feel that no project can get the greenlight at Disney or Universal unless backed by a tried-and-true blockbuster intellectual property; that everything we see in parks today is directly drawn from the screen.

But pulling places from the screen isn’t always as straightforward as you think… Sometimes, attraction designers need to expand on the worlds we’ve seen in movies by taking a physical place and adding to it for logistical or narrative reasons; other times, they need instead to contract, distilling massive and incalculable worlds into smaller, concrete, “real” places guests can inhabit and connect with. Either way, some of the most spectacular theme parks lands on Earth today take the essence of source materials and expand them with “original worlds” born of the minds of designers! Here are some of our favorites…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Countdown: The 10 Greatest Original Characters Created Just for Disney Parks

It’s no surprise that Disney has perhaps the most valuable collection of characters in history. Ariel, Elsa, Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella, Mr. Toad, Mickey Mouse, Sleeping Beauty… for the last century, Disney has been amassing a catalogue of the definitive versions of beloved characters from across the world. Acquisitions of Pixar, The Muppets, Star Wars, Indiana…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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PARKSTROLOGY 101: A Park Lore Primer on Disney Parks, the Zodiac, and the “Magic in the Stars”

Is there magic in the stars?

Whether or not you lend any credence to astrology – the practice of divining information about human matters from the patterns and movements of celestial objects – there’s one compelling connection none of us can deny: Twelve Disney Parks. Twelve signs of the Zodiac. With that idea in mind, I reached out to my longtime friend (and personal Dr. Facilier) with a penchant for the supernatural. A self-described mystic, craft artist, and witch, Desdemona Lotte also happens to be a lifelong friend and personal Dr. Facilier.

 If you’ve been around Park Lore long, you know that my goal is to see theme parks differently. Through unexpected views of what a park’s pathways tells us about its history and personality, the first cohesive collection of hand-drawn ride layouts, unexpected diagrams of Disney Parks offerings, and other theme park-y creations, I’ve tried to come up with some unusual lenses for seeing the parks we love with brand new eyes.

So it made sense for me to sit down with Desi for a really-for-real lesson on Astrology 101, determined to rise above “What kind of noodle are you based on your Zodiac sign” Buzzfeed quizzes to decide which Disney theme park best complements each of the twelve signs.

Much to our surprise, pairing parks with the stars worked out pretty effortlessly! Somehow, each Disney Park’s “personality” seemed to slot intuitively into a corresponding sign… (Keep in mind, direct from Ethan, that the signs we typically associate with ourselves are our “sun signs” – technically, they show us not who we are, but who we are on the way to becoming…) 

Is this clear complementary relationship a product of divine intervention? We’ll let you decide… But trust us when we say that – whether you “believe” or not – looking at the parks through this lens may change the way you see their personalities, quirks, and relationships to one another… 

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