Despite some slips along the way (we're looking at you, EuroDisney), Disneyland and Disney
World have been some of the most successful theme parks in existence. So, it may come
as a surprise to people to know that there are tons of ideas for attractions and rides
that were abolished over the decades. So let’s look at the 10 Attractions that almost became
a part of Disney Theme Parks!
The Great Muppet Movie Ride
With Disney owning the rights to Star Wars, Marvel Comics and Pixar films it's hard to
recall that one of their first major film rights purchases came in 2004 with the purchase
of The Muppets. While kids today may not think much of the Muppets, they were a major force
under the direction of their creator (and the voice of Kermit) Jim Henson in the late-70's
really through the early 90's with television specials, a gig on Saturday Night Live, movies
and even shows for kids like the classic Muppet Babies that all 90's kids remember.
However, after Henson died they lost their creative voice and had lost a lot of their
lustre by the time Disney purchased them. The decision made sense and wasn't completely
viewed as the people around Henson were cashing in - as Henson himself had met with Disney
Imagineers in 1989 to ... Imagine numerous concepts for a Muppet-themed park through
the Disney brand. The plans were serious enough for Disney to announce their intentions publicly
which included numerous sketches for the planned parks. The most promising idea to come from
that was the Great Muppet Movie Ride, which according to Henson himself was going to show
what went on behind the scenes of a movie (through the lens of the Muppets themselves,
which was going to be as funny as it was incorrect).
Enchanted Snow Palace
A lot of the most popular and beloved Disney animated films were based on stories written
by Hans Christian Anderson (as Disney outbid the competition to buy the rights to his stories)
and one of those stories was "The Snow Queen", which was the basis for 2013's mega-hit Frozen.
However, the story was in front of a lot of the people at Disney for years including Marc
Davis the man responsible for designing Tinker Bell, Cruella de Vil, Maleficent and parts
of Disneyland like It's A Small World, the Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Caribbean.
In the late 70's Davis was working on his next big addition to Disneyland which was
based on the story of The Snow Queen, The Enchanted Snow Palace. Considering the fact
that Disneyland is and was located in California, Davis thought that people would appreciate
a ride that took them into an air-conditioned palace by boat. They would've seen the Queen
and all of the things she created with her ice powers like polar bears and snow giants
(like the one in Frozen) while also showing the interior of her castle with things like
her ice throne (sadly, there was no Olaf). It was not to be as the late 70's brought
more thrilling attractions and the brain trust at Disney decided to add more actual rides
than simple attractions and the idea melted away, at least until around the time the movie
Frozen was being made they decided to use Davis' depiction of the Snow Queen when creating
Elsa.
DisneySea
Part of the proposed Port Disney complex was DisneySea. DisneySea was meant to ensure that
people could "experience the marvels of nature's secret world beneath the sea and to gain firsthand
experience of how the oceans affect human life as well as the life of the planet".
The centrepiece of the park would've been Oceana which was described as the focal point
for the park that would've risen up from the centre of the park in a series of "futuristic
bubbles”. This would've lured guests to a fascinating evolutionary journey through
the world's seas. It would've included a state-of-the-art, two-story aquarium which would've been as
educational as it was entertaining. But the project went down when Port Disney lost out
to WestCOT, although aspects of it ended up in Japan. Let's hope the futuristic bubbles
were part of it. 7. The S.S. Disney
Disney is in on the cruise business and has been for years. You can take your entire family
on a Disney cruise and score some Dramamine off of a guy in a Mickey suit as you tour
the Caribbean. However, those cruises really only replicate one aspect of going to Disneyland
or Disney World and that's really the worst part and that's the aspect of meeting the
"characters" from the movies. Beyond that, the closest thing to a ride would be if you
fell off of the side of the cruise ship and pretended it was Splash Mountain.
Disney actually was planning on building a theme park on a ship so that it could bring
it from port to port for people who'd never gone to a Disney theme park. While it'd house
only miniaturized version of some of the more famous attractions like Tomorrowland and Adventureland,
it would've been an amazing experience and also an amazing impetus for people to go to
the REAL Disney theme parks. However, the idea was pretty unrealistic as it would only
visit each location once every five years and also would have been an engineering nightmare
as it would've weighed an amazing amount, making the ship incredibly top heavy, which
is basically the last thing you'd ever want in a ship that's circumnavigating the globe.
Although it still sounds like an amazing idea.
The Dark Kingdom
If you live near a theme park you'll be used to the autumn tradition in which the park
gears up for Halloween and becomes an evil version of itself (for example, Valley Fair
in Minnesota becomes Valley Scare). Now, imagine that going on year round! While Disney parks
are building more and more attractions based on their recent acquisitions like Marvel Comics
and Star Wars, the heart of the park is still based on the cartoons that turned the company
into the juggernaut that it still is today. You can see characters like The Little Mermaid
or Belle from Beauty and the Beast walking around and taking pictures with people, but
one thing you don't see are the villains from those cartoons - unless it’s Halloween.
Well, Disney planned to change all that by building The Dark Kingdom as part of Disney
World in Florida. It would've basically been the Valley Scare version of Disney World,
with a castle as the centrepiece (like Disney World), only this castle would've been Maleficent's
castle as opposed to the Castle from Cinderella. This park would've cost hundreds of millions
of dollars and while both Disney World and Disneyland have been consistently growing
and building since their inception, neither the land surrounding the parks nor the money
behind them are unlimited. It's thought that The Dark Kingdom wasn't built because Disney
had acquired both Marvel and Star wars around that time for around nine billion dollars
combined, so there simply wasn't enough money to go around.
Tomorrowland 2055
Disney's original Tomorrowland was created in a time where the space race between the
United States and the USSR was just beginning and because of that Tomorrowland was heavily
focused on space (and strangely a lot of Monsanto sponsored chemistry labs). So, as time went
on and Disneyland grew, Tomorrowland became outdated and was in desperate need of an overhaul.
Enter, Tomorrowland 2055. The original plan was for Star Wars creator George Lucas to
design an entirely new Tomorrowland that would've upped the sci-fi vision that the original
touched upon. Lucas' vision was amazing but would've taken a few years to complete and
would've cost a fortune so they decided to basically just update some of the attractions
in Tomorrowland as opposed to completely tearing it down (they did implement one idea from
Lucas' vision, Alien Encounter, which was eventually torn down itself because it terrified
children, much like the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy but for different reasons).
Disney's America
A lot of people don't know that Disney attempted to build a third park in the United States
that would've rivalled Disneyland and Disney World in terms of size and ambition and also
would've been a completely different sort of park. It was to be called Disney's America
and would've been located in Manassas, Virginia. The idea behind it was that every year millions
of people from around the world were traveling to Washington, D.C., so in 1992 Disney thought
that they'd open a theme park based on the history of America that people could visit
while on their way there. Like Disneyland, the park would've been divided into different
sections, with each section representing a different era in the history of the United
States. The entrance, for example, would've been a Civil War era town where people could
board an antique train that would bring them to a Native American village or to Ellis Island
where European immigrants were becoming US citizens.
Many people took issue with the plan for a myriad of reasons. Some thought that Disney
was exploiting tragic events in American history. There's a reference to this in the Simpsons
when Bart and his classmates attempt to visit a Civil War re-enactment that used to be free
but now costs money because of Disney (with the slogan; "Sorry, there's money to be had").
On top of that, the park would've been... On top of an actual Civil War battle site
so the local government blocked it and like the Confederacy Disney's America was lost
to history.
The Soviet Union at Epcot
If you've spent any time on the internet you've certainly heard the conspiracy theories that
say Hollywood studios are both part of the Illuminati and also basically communists.
So, after the fall of the Soviet Union back in 1991, and decades of a Cold War that literally
was so tense that children in America were taught where to hide during a nuclear holocaust,
somehow someone thought it'd be a good idea to include a recreation of the Soviet Union
within the Epcot Center. That one person actually happened to be the
CEO of Disney at the time, Michael Eisner, which is where those conspiracy theories come
in. Now, it actually does make some sense as the Cold War was finally over, America
had won and it was really the first time that people in the US were able to look at Russia
as anything but the scary place where onion (or stone) soup was the only thing one could
eat. Since that veil of fear had been lifted, it's easy to see why it might make sense to
highlight that in a park as people were interested in seeing what life was really like in Moscow
after decades of propaganda showed breadlines and snow.
The sketches of the park included a replica of the Saint Basil's Cathedral (one of the
most famous buildings in Russia, at least to us) and the rides would've been based on
Russian myths and fairytales. However, Disney liked to include sponsors with their parks
to offset the operating costs and obviously no American company wanted to be associated
with Russia, Cold War or no Cold War so the idea went the way of the USSR.
National Harbor
Despite the rejection of Disney's America, Disney had done enough research into the DC-Metro
Area and clearly liked what they saw in regards to the amount of people that were traveling
in and out of DC either as tourists or as delegations from other countries. Because
of that, Disney ended up purchasing 15 acres of land in Prince George County, Maryland,
which was on the Potomac River in a town called Oxon Hill. Disney planned to build a 500-room
resort on the site that was once a plantation.
Knowing that basically every single plot of land in that area is somehow involved in either
the creation of the United States or the war to keep the United States, United, Disney
didn't immediately develop the land. Also, the site is in the same county as the Washington
Redskins stadium, it was a decent drive away from most attractions and isn't connected
to the main public transportation options. Because of that and the fact that Disney had
built another waterfront resort at the time, this one in Hawaii (as part of their Lilo
& Stitch promotion), Disney ended up selling the land to a nearby developer despite the
extreme disappointment of everyone there.
Roger Rabbit's Hollywood
As the recent $2 billion dollar bailout of EuroDisney shows, it costs a lot of money
to run a theme park. Part of offsetting that cost is sponsorships, which are readily apparent
in parts of Disney World and Disneyland. Those sponsorships also helped Disney begin to acquire
its massive library of characters and the merchandise that comes with them. The best
combination of those sponsorships and acquisitions was Disney-MGM Studios which opened at Disney
World and displayed characters like Roger Rabbit (who Disney had recently acquired).
Because of the massive popularity of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Disney actually planned
an entire park within Disney World around Roger. It would've been called Roger Rabbit's
Hollywood and would've included attractions based on people and places in the film. For
example, it would've had Maroon Studios (which is the cartoon studio in the film), the Acme
Warehouse and much more. While that sounds more than amazing and a sure-fire hit (even
now), Steven Spielberg got involved. His company Amblin, believed that it also had the rights
to Roger Rabbit and the idea fell apart (although some rides were created and placed around
the parks).
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