Real, Ancient, and Imagined: An Armchair Imagineered Blue-Sky Build-Out of Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Like most of us who doodle theme park concepts in our spare time, I’ve sketched out ideas for Animal Kingdom for a very long time. (To give you a sense, I once planned out a version of the park that would turn Dinoland into South America, and then return dinosaurs to the park in a new land based around the upcoming Pixar release The Good Dinosaur, which, was obviously going to be a huge hit.)

Anyway, the final land in this build-out of Animal Kingdom is one I’ve sort of quietly thought would be a nice fit for the park for a very long time, even if it’s maybe a little weird at first glance. Just bear with me…

GRAVITY FALLS

Background

Created by Alex Hirsch for Disney Channel, Gravity Falls may be one of the most passionately-beloved animated series of all time despite having run for only two seasons. I’ll tell you right now that I am not part of its fandom (I’ve only ever seen a few episodes – sorry) so it’s not like I’m selfishly trying to wedge it in here just because I love it. Actually, I think this land is the perfect final piece for Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

In the show, Gravity Falls is the name of an unusual town in the pines of Oregon where – in the great tradition of monster-of-the-week episodic television – strange occurrences aren’t so strange. The series centers on 12-year old twins Dipper and Mabel Pines who are sent to spend the summer with their great-uncle – “Grunkle Stan” – who’s the proprietor of a tourist trap in the forests outside of town called the Mystery Shack.

Naturally, what follows is a weekly foray into sometimes-classic, sometimes-invented legends, myths, supernatural happenings, and cryptozoological creatures. Across its 40 episodes, the show builds into a serialized adventure that leaps between dimensions, but I think the real value here is to do just what Pandora and “a bug’s land” do, which is to require nothing of us in terms of homework, pre-reading, or recognition of the IP. Instead, what we can pull from Gravity Falls is its spirit of humor and joy, its unique and colorful stylization, its incredibly compelling setting, and its focus on a different sub-genre of imagined animals: cryptids.

I want to immediately say that this, I think, is very different from the other imagined creatures we’ve seen in Mythica, which I’d call “literary” or “mythological” – the European dragons, unicorns, fairies, griffins, et al. In Gravity Falls, we’re dealing with tall tales; folklore; the Americana inherent in stories of Bigfoot, the Jersey Devil, the Mothman, and more.

By the way, I think that if we had the space, we could imagine a Gravity Falls land on the scale of Cars Land – enveloped by the geologically perplexing mountains that wrap around the town, and with cross streets filled with the town’s tourist shops, diners, and sites of oddities. Like Cars Land’s Radiator Springs, I think the physical town of Gravity Falls could very well rise above the source material and become a very iconic, memorable theme park space even for those without any knowledge of the IP.

But given the limited space we have to work with, I chose to “zoom in” on the pine forests around the Mystery Shack and instead envision this land around the shack and an annual “Cryptid Carnival” put on by the residents of town.

To be sure, a huge inspiration here was my “local” real world equivalent: Santa Cruz, California’s legendary Mystery Spot. You can’t drive in California without seeing the iconic and outrageous yellow bumper sticker on at least a few cars. Arriving to the space is like the culmination of a long teasing relationship.

Mystery Spot recalls an era of Americana; of family road trips where the route is dictated by billboards; of oversold roadside attractions with big promises. Like other “Confusion Hill” attractions, Mystery Spot is just this silly, gotta-see-it, over-the-top little tourist trap set right down in the redwood forests. The kind of place you want to bring your friends without telling them what it is.

Put another way, Mystery Spot (and its kin) inspired Gravity Falls, which in turn we can make into a real, physical place in Animal Kingdom that draws from that same spirit of Americana and the call of the unknown and the supernatural that you’ve gotta see to believe… even if, by design, the theme park version will be contrived and commercial in a very different way than the organic tourist traps that started the whole cycle. But the connection is there, and I think it would read even to those who have zero exposure to Gravity Falls as an IP.

What I especially like about it is that in bringing Gravity Falls to Animal Kingdom, we sort of accidentally reincarnate Dinoland – but, I think, in a way that’s a little more on-the-nose and won’t go over so many heads…

Both lands are centered on the theme of pop culture and how we, as people, make animals that no one has ever seen with their own eyes real. Both lands give “North America” a piece of Animal Kingdom’s pie but without the standard zoo animal set – deer, bears, wolves, otters, etc. And both serve as excuses for theme park necessities (like off-the-shelf flat rides, carnival games, and snack stands) by being centered on fairs. In all three regards – pop culture, celebrating unseen animals of North America, and being a fair – I only think that Gravity Falls lends itself more effortlessly by nature of that relationship between pop culture, roadside attractions, and the supernatural. So here’s what I came up with.

Build-Out

With the precious little space we have left here – wedged between Mythica and the remains of Rafiki’s Planet Watch (which I’ve converted into backstage space), resides Gravity Falls.

This is quite a transition, of course, from the enchanted forests of a European legend to the pine forests of Oregon. I envision guests stepping through a tree tunnel to make that jump. On the other side, we’d immediately find ourselves on the winding roads toward Gravity Falls in the style of the historic Burma Shave signs, inviting us to the Mystery Shack’s Annual Mystery Fair.

Arriving at a clearing in the pines, we’d find ourselves among the strung lights and banners of the fair. I planned a number of stylized flat rides here in the understory of the pines – CYCLOPTOPUS SPIN (with a fiberglass, one-eyed octopus in the center of a spinner – a spoof of Universal’s Kang & Kodos’ Hurl & Twirl) and PTERODACTYL PTERROR! (a classic yo-yo swing with stylized pteranodons circling overhead) to establish the stylized, animated fair atmosphere.

I have to tell you, my favorite must be PLAIDYPUS PATROL. This is inspired by the most ridiculous and adorable ride to have ever existed – Bert & Ernie’s Loch Adventure at Busch Gardens Williamsburg (video above). It’s a Zamperla “Kiddie Flume” that doesn’t even have a drop (though Zamperla does offer models with a two or three foot lift and drop, which I bet is even cuter.)

On the Busch Gardens version, two kids at a time just load into a little stylized Loch Ness Monster and drift around an oval-shaped course, under fountains, past little flat cut-outs of sheep. It’s almost laughably simple, which is its appeal. So as part of the carnival in Gravity Falls, I envisioned a slightly-extended version that would give the same adorableness while also being a little higher capacity. I think that this far into the land, people would “get the joke” and embrace such a silly, simple ride as part of the “fair” aesthetic, especially if kids are searching for the elusive “plaidypus” (plaid-patterned platypuses, as fiberglass figures) “camouflaged” along the route.

Beyond is the iconic WHEEL OF MYSTERY – a small, 35-foot tall kiddie Ferris wheel with a light-up question mark in its center. This core of the land also contains a number of ramshackle structures housing CRYPTID CARNIVAL GAMES – like Ring-the-Leprecorn-Horn, Bigfoot Basket Bounce, or Pick-a-Plaidypus. Together, these four rides and the games, all beneath strung-up lights and banners – very directly convey the nature of this space: a roadside fair appealing to would-be creature-seekers like us.

The place we can find them is on the road. Again embracing that core tenant of the American roadside attraction, we have to take to the back roads on DIPPER & MABEL’S MYSTERY TOUR. I very much envision this as an “Autopia” for Animal Kingdom, letting little ones behind the wheel – in this case, of one of Grunkle Stan’s “Mystery Carts.”

On board, families can set off on their own personal “Safari” through the pines, with location-triggered radio calls from Dipper and Mabel, activating in-cart screens to help identify the cryptids who’ve been drawn out for the Fair. I thought that this no-height-requirement ride would be a fantastic way to cram a lot of creature sighting into a single ride-through. I also really fell in love with the idea of the carts being equipped with in-cab flashlights that could be used to totally transform the ride at night, and certainly to create some cool moments during the indoor scenes it passes through.

Just past the center of the Fair would be the iconic GREASY’S DINER, having been hauled right into the woods for the carnival and serving as the land’s quick service eatery. I also equipped the giant log facade with a space for a SPIRITS UNKNOWN BAR, because I thought the Pacific Northwest really called for a cool redwood patio with criss-crossing strands of lights overhead… Feels like a nice retreat for adults.

Of course, the land’s E-Ticket is reserved for the Mystery Shack itself…

Here, I planned for the land’s anchor attraction to be GRAVITY FALLS: STRANGE DIMENSIONS. Initially, I had the ride inside the landmark Mystery Shack subtitled “The Great Gobblewonker Adventure,” centered on a quest for the show’s Loch Ness-style sea serpent. But I think this is the place where we can foist a little more lore onto guests, using the queue (through the Mystery Shack) and preshows to introduce the journals from the show, as well as introducing Dipper and Mabel and Grunkle Stan more formally as Audio Animatronics.

And at that point, rather than centering on a single creature that makes a one-episode appearance and certainly doesn’t feel “cumulative” for the IP, we might as well go a little wilder. Though the TV series begins as a “monster-of-the-week” episodic show, it’s all in service of laying breadcrumbs toward some big storylines at the end. While I really don’t think we ought to go all the way to “Weirdmageddon” and demons and Bill Cipher (think of Grandma!) we can certainly use this ride to investigate some of the bigger, stranger lore behind the series and its creatures.

That’s what inspired the idea behind the Strange Dimensions ride. At its core, I wanted this ride to use the “SCOOP” ride system (first used on Universal’s Modern Marvel: Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, but we’ve now seen Disney’s version on both DisneySea’s Peter Pan ride and California Adventure’s Avengers ride). Unfortunately, the concept I initially proposed doesn’t actually gel with the series’ mythology. (Thank you MaverickNerd in the comments below!) It goes to show that I shouldn’t dabble in IPs I don’t fully understand. So I’ll just say that storywriters can do a lot better than I at figuring out how to make this an E-Ticket dark ride that feels cumulative, dizzying, daring, and surprising for the IP!

Finally, I added something I always try to incorporate into parks: a vast, explorable, interactive area for families. GNOME FOREST ADVENTURE is a self-contained playground of interconnected watchtowers, prophetic ruins, climbing nets, glowing caves, hop-across streams, mossy tree slides, climbing walls, zip-lines, and interactive runes. Similar in spirit to California Adventure’s Redwood Creek Challenge Trail or an at-its-prime Tom Sawyer Island, this space is one where a family can spend an hour or more just burning steam and exploring together.

My hope was that Gravity Falls would bring a sort of levity, humor, and cartoon stylization to Animal Kingdom, recreating the pop culture nonsense and tourist trap comedy that Dinoland was meant to embody but didn’t always accurately convey. I thought this space would also us to touch on gnomes, Bigfoot, sea monsters, and more in a way that addresses their inherent pulpiness and never once feels the need to make them scary or self-serious (which, of course, is the treatment we give the more classical, literary creatures found in Mythica). I really do think this can serve as something of a “Toontown” for Animal Kingdom, and introduce this very strong cast of characters and its compelling setting to a vastly larger audience.

Anyway, with Gravity Falls having been explored, our route home is ours to choose. Sure we could walk. But we could also travel via the WILDLIFE EXPRESS back to Africa or take the Discovery River Ferry from Mythica back to Discovery Island – two options that both serve to save our feet as we return from this most far-flung part of the now-even-larger park.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom – Closing Thoughts

So here it is. My completed “Blue Sky build-out” of Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

If there’s anything I’ve learned through this process, it’s that Animal Kingdom is already such a wonderful park. That’s why the first half of this write-up largely consisted of me saying, “Yep, looks good!” Sure, I tried to wedge in new experiences and new attractions, but it’s all grafted onto a park that’s already so full and so “complete” in and of itself. The expansions that the park has already undergone – Pandora, the new districts in Harambe, Everest, and now the Tropical Americas – are all (in my opinion) really well done.

So while I tried to round a few edges and add reasonable growth where I could in the existing park, this build-out really ended up being about that Blue Sky expansion space and – more than any other park I’ve tinkered with – guest movement. I don’t take lightly that this park would be a behemoth to get around. But in keeping with the park’s tempo, even this vastly-expanded version of Animal Kingdom would “only” have about 25 rides – about as many as DisneySea.

That’s a huge increase from the 9 it’ll have when the Tropical Americas are done, but I think this is a perfect ride capacity for this park. This version of Animal Kingdom loses just one ride (Kali River Rapids) and gains some excellent new headliners (Dragon’s Tower, Mo’ara Valley Expedition, Voyage of the Hours, Gobblewonker Adventure), a noble spread of family-focused flat rides (four in Gravity Falls, four in a bug’s land, one in Mythica, and one in Pandora), and a much-needed “middle tier” (Firefall, Flik’s Clover Coaster, Quest for the Unicorn, Dipper & Mabel’s Mystery Tour, Swan Lake, Gnome Forest) that modern Disney seems to feel isn’t worth their effort.

I’ll be honest – sometimes I leave these build-outs going, “Meh, I’m gonna return to this one when I get a chance and make some changes.” But I’ll tell you: I really, really like this Animal Kingdom. I’m weirdly proud of it, and (like I felt after my build-out of Islands of Adventure) kinda bummed it’s not real. This whole thing might make Joe Rohde shudder. But I can leave this project feeling like I balanced those factors we talked about on page one, and that this is a park that remains fundamentally itself – thoughtful, reflective, “original,” and rooted in reality – just with a little more “Disney.”

So I guess that’s the end of this one. If you made it this far, I’m speechless. (The site estimates a 96 minute read time, so don’t think I don’t know what a gift your attention was!) As I’m sure you noticed, not one ad interrupted your reading! That means I made zero dollars and zero cents from ad revenue for this project – which is the way I like it. No ads, no clickbait, and no pressure to release “quantity-over-quality” content. So if you enjoyed this project, I hope you’ll consider joining Park Lore for just $2 a month or more. This entire website is the work of one person, so every Member makes me literally cry happy tears.

In the meantime, let me know your thoughts on this build-out of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in the comments below. Then, check out my build-outs of Islands of Adventure, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, or Disney California Adventure. We’ll see you next time.