Parc Disneyland Archives

June 26, 2020November 10, 2023

Disney’s Most Magnificent Attraction Posters and Their Stories

Anyone who’s ever visited a Disney Park knows exactly the kind of magic, mystery, and wonder that awaits within… sailing with pirates, soaring over London, exploring remote jungle rivers, and launching into space. It was the belief of Walt and his early Imagineers that guests would need primed to understand these adventures – the kind most had never expected could exist.

Bringing together talented artists, filmmakers, designers, and thinkers, they developed attraction posters… Just as a film’s poster tries to convey the action, adventure, intrigue, and romance of a movie in a single still image, so too do Disney Parks’ attraction posters act as living advertisements, drawing in and exciting guests as previews of what they’ll soon experience.

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 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.

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June 26, 2020December 30, 2020

Do You Remember These “Lost” Disney Parks Characters? Here Are Their Stories!

From day one, Disney Parks have been all about character. Whether from Disney’s own film catalogue or from the minds of Imagineers, the characters brought to life at Disneyland and Walt Disney World become icons; central, memorable figures beloved by the generations who grow to “know” them year after year. From lovable classics like Peter Pan and the “Ghost Host” to new-age favorites like C-3PO and Albert, Disney characters have the unimaginable ability to join us on adventures and turn us into heroes.

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.

Log In or Join Now

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June 26, 2020June 26, 2020

10 Gasps-and-Goosebumps-Inducing BIG Scenic Reveals in Disney Parks

What makes Disney Parks different? While our list of answers may go on for days, one of the key elements we always return to is that unlike carnivals, boardwalks, and amusement parks that predated Disneyland (and unlike the Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks of today), Disneyland and its successors were built by filmmakers and artists.

And like any good film, almost every successful Disney ride has at least one moment where sets, sounds, lighting, and music crescendo to create an epic, emotional reveal that leaves audiences breathless. Here, we’ve collected 10 of the most awe-inspiring, breath-taking, gasp-worthy, jaw-dropping, tear-jerking, goosebumps-inducing scenic reveals in Disney Parks; moments that are so cinematic in their reveal, it could only be filmmakers that imagined, storyboarded, and constructed them.

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June 26, 2020April 26, 2022

“That’s Not Dory” and 8 Other BAD Voice-Acting Moments at Disney and Universal Parks

What would the Haunted Mansion be without a Ghost Host?

The Enchanted Tiki Room without Jose, Michael, Pierre, and Fritz?

Carousel of Progress without John and Martha?

Voice acting is a major piece of great theme park attractions, lending life to Audio Animatronics, characters on-screen, and even ever-present narration! In fact, the delivery of lines can become so iconic, we created a two-part list of ride voiceover lines we bet you know by heart, from “This here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!” to “Thank the Phoenicians!”

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June 26, 2020May 1, 2023

Some Assembly Required: 10 Memorable Moments when Disney Animatronics Froze, Burned, and Lost Their Heads

Like all Disney Parks fans, we love Audio-Animatronics.

That’s why we created a must-read list of the 25 Best Audio-Animatronics on Earth, celebrating the essential role that Disney’s greatest invention plays in the parks today. Make no mistake – these complex, dynamic, sensational figures have been cutting-edge since their debut in 1963. And like all technological marvels, they don’t always work the way they’re supposed to…

For Imagineering fans, the only thing more amazing than watching one of Disney’s Animatronic marvels work is catching one when it doesn’t. Thanks to the age of the Internet, fans’ cameras are ready at every moment to capture the slightest crack in Disney’s shell of immersive show. That’s why we’re able to curate this countdown of 10 misfiring, malfunctioning Audio-Animatronics across Disney Parks, offering a fascinating glimpse into Disney’s rare failures and flubs…

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June 26, 2020March 28, 2022

Mini to Massive: How Disney’s BIGGEST (and Smallest) Parks Measure Up

Discerning Disney Parks fans are known to critique and analyze all aspects of the parks they love: their style, their stories, their smarts… But what about their size? From miniscule to massive, Disney Parks come in all shapes and sizes… but does size matter?

On our cross-continental tour today, we’ll stop by each of the 12 Disney Parks on Earth to take their measurements. Sometimes, Disney’s official numbers don’t quite add up… That’s why we’ve used simple acreage calculator maps when we need to to get closer to the real figures about just how big (or not) these parks are. Our ultimate agreement? We measure the simplest shape of a park – including its showbuildings and behind-the-scenes facilities – but excluding parking lots and empty expansion pads (which you’d think Disney would exclude, too, but they don’t always).

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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, 2020February 21, 2023

STAR TOURS – The Intergalactic E-Ticket Simulator That Changed Disney Parks Forever

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Once in a while, an attraction comes around and the entire industry seems to pivot. Landmark rides shift the consciousness at Imagineering and its peers, enabling parks to see new technologies, new storytelling techniques, and new direction firsthand. Groundbreaking, beloved, and known by generations, these sensational headliners start as must-sees and become legends… or in this case, a Lost Legend.

A long time ago indeed, one such ride reshaped Disney Parks from the ground up. STAR TOURS was more than just a cutting edge E-Ticket thrill ride sending guests on a wayward trip to Endor, it was a reinvention of the formula; an intentional test to experiment with a new way of doing things at Disney Parks; the debut of a never-before-seen ride system that would redefine thrill rides. While you probably already know the ending, you won’t believe the story that gets us there…

Star Tours announces the boarding of the Endor Express, non-stop Starspeeder service to the moon of Endor. All passengers please prepare for immediate boarding.

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June 2, 2020May 31, 2023

From the Earth to the Moon: Disneyland Paris’ Legendary Lost Steampunk Space Mountain

Since 1975, Disney Parks have been whisking guests into the frigid depths of Space Mountain for close encounters with shooting stars and exploding galaxies. But Disneyland Paris changed everything. There, a one-of-a-kind adventure of discovery was crafted by one of Disney’s most loved Imagineers. And it literally saved Disney’s first European park from declaring bankruptcy.

If you’ve been around Park Lore for a while, you probably know about our library of Lost Legends – in-depth features that tell the behind-the-scenes tales of forgotten favorites that have fallen to the wrecking ball. From Alien Encounter to World of Motion and everything in between, keep your eye out for links to Lost Legends entries across the site..

Today, we journey into the vast unknown to explore an unexpected masterpiece at Disneyland Paris. There, the classic Disney attractions you know and love took on entirely new forms, becoming romantic, story-centered adventures based on the collective European imagination. And no lost ride exemplifies that unique shift in thought more than Disneyland Paris’ Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune. It was one of the boldest choices Disney’s designers ever made. And then, it was gone.

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