Magic Kingdom Archives - Page 8 of 10

June 6, 2020July 30, 2021

Coffeeland: 8 Ways Disney and Universal Parks Disguise Starbucks in Plain Sight

If you were to ask his friends and family what Walt Disney was, you might get any number of answers: an animator; an artist; a dreamer; an optimist; a futurist… But that’s not all…

According to the fantastic Eat Like Walt by Marcy Carriker Smothers, Walt was also a restauranteur – a man experimenting right at the height of mid-century middle class American dining, introducing the idea that food and fun could go together; that food was full of color and fantasy; that food could be an integral part of the story of each of Disneyland’s themed areas.

However, there was one area where even Walt wasn’t willing to mess around: coffee. As the story goes, Walt decreed back in 1955 that Disneyland would always offer a cup of coffee for ten-cents and not a penny more. And in fact, coffee in the park did cost only a dime until Walt’s death in 1966. Those days, of course, are long gone…

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June 6, 2020January 15, 2022

7 Weird Disney Parks Things Fans Just “Get” But Must Leave First-Timers With Questions…

If you’ve been a Disney Parks fan for long enough, there are certain things that are just facts; there are deeply layered reasons and nuances to explain why things are the way that they are. And because frequent visitors come to understand the methods behind the madness, we become blind to… well… weird things.

Don’t believe us? Here are 7 things that Disney Parks fans just seem to understand or ignore, but that first-time guests must be totally bamboozled by. Put yourself into the shoes of a first-timer and imagine how strange some of these must be for someone who doesn’t have the history or context behind them!

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June 6, 2020July 4, 2020

From Atom to Zurg: 10 Microscopic Ways Imagineers Have Made Guests SHRINK

Disney Parks are big places. In the shadow of Cinderella Castle, Spaceship Earth, Grizzly Peak, or the Tree of Life, it’s only natural that guests might begin to feel small. But some Imagineering experiences around the globe take that to the extreme!

In fact, it may feel that a day at a Disney Park simply isn’t complete without suddenly becoming the size of a toy, rat, or ant at least once. But just how small can you get? Join us as we progressively shrink down through ten miniaturizing Disney Parks attractions that make guests smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Which of these attractions succeed most at transporting guests to an oversized world? We’ll leave that for you to decide… Just let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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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June 4, 2020February 21, 2023

THE TIMEKEEPER: The Making of Disney’s CircleVision Sci-Fi Double Feature From Iwerks to Imagineering

Here at Park Lore, our growing list of in-depth features is committed to an ambitious project: capturing the complete stories of forgotten fan-favorite attractions and telling those tales in one-of-a-kind, in-depth features that we call Lost Legends. We’ve been thrust to the dawn of time aboard Universe of Energy and Back to the Future – The Ride; we glimpsed tomorrow itself with Captain EO, T2 3-D, and Horizons…

But the subject of this Lost Legend brings the past and future together as never before. The Timekeeper was a cross-dimensional, time-traveling, cultural adventure starring Robin Williams that turned ’50s technology into a showcase of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Equally at home in Disneyland Paris’ glittering, golden retro-future and the industrial, factory pomo tomorrow of Magic Kingdom, the attraction was timeless… until it disappeared. Buckle up, because – like all of our in-depth features – the story of The Timekeeper begins long before the attraction ever opened…

And before we head off, remember that you can unlock rare concept art and audio streams in this story, access over 100 Extra Features, and recieve an annual Membership card and postcard art set in the mail by supporting this clickbait-free, in-depth, ad-free theme park storytelling site for as little as $2 / month! Become a Park Lore Member to join the story! Until then, let’s start at the beginning…

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June 3, 2020July 5, 2020

Artificial Worlds: The Rise and Reign of Screens and Simulators at Theme Parks

Back in the first half of the 20th century, the business of entertainment was quite a bit different. Back then, mere “amusement” was enough to draw people to leisure gardens, carnivals and traveling fairs, seaside boardwalks speckled with thrill rides, and rudimentary roller coaster parks. But when Disneyland opened in 1955, entertainment changed.

After being swept up into its “worlds of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy” – immersive, cinematic lands built not by carnies, but by filmmakers – guests began to have one simple, timeless, reverberating request: “take me somewhere.” And in the decades since, designers have chased that very idea, looking for increasingly elaborate ways to make guests feel as if they’ve become part of another world, from Peter Pan’s Flight to Pirates of the Caribbean; Haunted Mansion to Indiana Jones Adventure…

But there’s only one kind of attraction that can take guests somewhere without really going anywhere at all: simulators. Today, a growing chorus of critics say that Disney and its contemporaries may rely too much on the transportational power of these increasingly-elaborate attractions, and in an age where guests are increasingly surrounded in screens at home, legitimate questions must be raised: is it time to sideline the simulator? Can physical sets ever make a comeback in the digital age? Or has the reign of these technological giants just begun? Let’s start at the almost-beginning…

This article and hundreds more are available for 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 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.

Log In or Join Now

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May 31, 2020November 30, 2021

To The Skies! – The History of Disney’s Long-Lost Sky Ride and its 21st Century Return to Flight

Sometimes, the simplest asides leave the biggest impression.

Since Disneyland and Magic Kingdom’s earliest days, it was hard to snap a photograph of the happiest places on Earth without catching at least a glimpse of The Skyway. This spectacular and simple-looking attraction existed for a seemingly straightforward purpose: to shuttle guests from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland or back, gliding effortlessly over these magic kingdoms. For decades, the Skyway felt like a gentle but functional part of a visit to Disney’s “castle” parks.

But in reality, it was so much more. Today, we’ll dig into this spectacular ride system to see how Walt’s fascination with transportation brought the never-before-seen technology to the U.S. for the first time, explore the ride’s famous Floridian installation, and then see how – sixty years after its debut – Disney is about to elevate the reborn airborne skyway as a new signature of Walt Disney World…

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May 31, 2020July 30, 2021

Lost Lands: 12 Areas Axed from Disney and Universal Parks (and What Replaced Them)

Year after year, it seems that more and more classic attractions and beloved fan-favorite rides enter our Lost Legends collection, replaced by hotter, fresher, and newer stories. In fact, fans have gotten used to saying goodbye to rides.

But throughout the history of Disney and Universal’s theme parks, there have also been rare times when entire themed lands disappear off the map – literally. Today, we’re collecting a list of twelve lost lands you may remember. In fact, you may have even stepped foot in these axed areas! Some of these replacements may be obvious improvements… Others may make you wish for a time machine to experience the classics of yesteryear one more time.

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May 30, 2020February 21, 2023

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride: Disney Fans Fought to Save This Fantasyland Favorite… And Lost

When you think of classic Disney dark rides, you might imagine yourself soaring over London in an enchanted pirate ship, racing through the dark forest to find Snow White before it’s too late, climbing through Wonderland aboard a most unusual caterpillar, or facing Monstro’s razor-sharp teeth with Pinocchio. These Fantasyland dark rides are standards – decades old, classic in every sense, rooted in Walt Disney’s style, and beloved by generations of fans.

But when it comes to the most beloved, lost classic Fantasyland dark ride, one sentence comes quickly to mind: Toadi Acceleratio Semper Absurda.

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May 29, 2020February 21, 2023

Mickey’s Toontown Fair: How Magic Kingdom’s Mouse-Made County Fairgrounds Came To Town and Left Again

November 18, 1928.

That’s the day that Mickey Mouse was born. After all, it was on that day that the curious cartoon mouse designed by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney made his debut at the Colony Theater in New York City within the short Steamboat Willie – memorably, the first cartoon to feature a post-produced synchronized soundtrack. Steamboat Willie became the era’s most popular cartoon; it helped to create the art form of “animation” that Disney would become increasingly known for; it was a technological innovation that changed the animation industry forever.

But perhaps most importantly, it introduced the world to the playful, mischievous, trouble-making, string-tailed mouse bursting with rambunctious personality. From a corporate icon to reimagined modern cartoon star, generations of Disney fans have followed Mickey’s journeys… Yet for a generation of Walt Disney World guests, there was no better place to see “the Big Cheese” than Mickey’s Toontown Fair.

Joining Park Lore’s Lost Legends collection, the first land ever added to Magic Kingdom was also the first to disappear. And today, we’ll step into Walt Disney World to explore the origin of this lost land… After all, our story doesn’t begin in Mickey’s Toontown Fair. It starts in another Mickey-themed land that briefly called Magic Kingdom home… And before that, a Mickey Mouse park… almost.

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May 28, 2020June 5, 2020

Peaks of Imagineering: The 12 Best Disney “Mountain” E-Tickets Across the Globe

For most of Disney Parks history, some of the greatest thrills, most breathtaking attractions, and most memorable E-Ticket anchors have had one thing in common: they’ve been built around a literal mountain range of Disney-designed peaks. From the snowcapped cols of the Himalayas to the sun-baked, sunset-hued cathetrals of the Southwest, these “peaks” of Imagineering are often rides that carry between generations, delighting young and old and – for many – serving as the first major “thrills” of a lifetime.

In this special countdown, we’ll conquer the 12 headlining Disney Parks attractions built around “mountains” to see which peaks truly come out on top. Along the way, count how many of these spectacular summits from around the globe you’ve encountered. Then, be sure to use the comments to share your thoughts on Disney’s decades-long connection to “mountains,” and how these thrills shape the parks we know and love, and are shaped by the ebb and flow of the industry, technology, and storytelling.

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