I somehow forgot to include this in the previous story - almost as if my subconscious was blocking it out. This was the sight in Fantasyland on the morning of September 8, 1998. They didn’t waste any time - it was almost as if they’d been planning to close it or something, eh?
Ten years ago yesterday, on a drizzly and humid Orlando morning, Disney fans gathered in Florida’s Magic Kingdom to bid farewell to one of the park’s original and most beloved attractions. Scores of fans and protesters, many with matching t-shirts, buttons and posters, took their last opportunity to see a favorite attraction and to voice their displeasure with the park’s management. On September 7, 1998, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride took its last daredevil excursion to nowhere in particular, and I was there.
The events leading up to and surrounding the demise of J. Thaddeus Toad and his adventures were a bellwether event for Disney fans; for many, they were the “shot heard ’round the world” that signaled the declaration of a war between fans and management that, in many ways, continues to this day. While the changes in corporate management that began with the ouster of Michael Eisner in 2005 have gone a long way towards healing this deep rift, many fans still harbor a deep level of distrust for management born of the Toad era and cemented by many even greater missteps to follow.
On the heels of Walt Disney World’s 25th anniversary in 1996, fan-management relations were still fairly cheery. There had been missteps - the grating new Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management show was looming on the horizon - but the property as a whole was still growing in fairly exciting ways. Yet, at the Magic Kingdom, there were areas of concern for long-term fans. Many of the out-of-the-way shops and attractions that gave the Magic Kingdom its unique texture were slowly disappearing in favor of more marketing-driven concepts. The park was slowly growing more homogenized, and guests were far less likely to discover the exotic hidden away in some unseen corner.
Main Street was hit hard by these changes; in 1995, guests lost the fan-favorite Magic Shop and Penny Arcade along with the Main Street Bookstore in order to make way for the generic athletic apparel of the Main Street Athletic Company. The Main Street Cinema followed in 1998, becoming another run-of-the-mill merchandise location. Perhaps the first salvo in this battle was not recognized for what it was until much later; in 1994, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea went down for a rehab from which it never returned. One of the flagship attractions of Walt Disney World’s debut, and still very popular in 1994, the submarines were closed as a cost-cutting measure that was at the time unacknowledged by the Magic Kingdom management. The ride was “on hiatus” for years, as its once-scenic lagoon filled with garbage and decay.
It was in this uncertain atmosphere that rumors began to emerge in the fall of 1997 that Disney would be closing Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in order to add an attraction featuring Winnie the Pooh. Those who were not Disney fans at that time might not be aware how ubiquitous Pooh had become at the time; a huge marketing crush had made the portly bear more popular than ever and Disney didn’t miss a chance to cram him and his neurotic backwoods pals down the throats of consumers. One could easily compare the Pooh marketing of the era to today’s High School Musical overkill, and it only made it more maddening to fans to have the marketing darling of the day sweep in to replace a popular existing attraction.
While the reach of the internet was far less vast in those days than it is today, the nascent Disney online fandom rallied to the cause and the centerpiece of fan efforts was Save Toad. The Save Toad movement, spearheaded by Miami-based Disney fan Jef Moscot, began a year of protest, distributing pins and t-shirts and mailing hundreds of postcards to Disney management. Press coverage followed, but as time passed Disney continued to maintain that no decision had been made to the fate of Mr. Toad.
The crowd gathers for the final Toad-InDespite these evasions, Disney finally revealed that Toad would close on Labor Day, 2008. The announcement, which came only a week before the closing, was designed to give fans only a short time to respond. But respond they did, gathering for a final Toad In on September 7th. To say the occasion was bittersweet was an understatement; fans gathered to discuss Toad memories and ride one last time under the constant oversight of a cadre of Magic Kingdom managers. Cast Members were stationed throughout the ride, hiding in the corners to ostensibly prevent crazed Toad fans from doing anything untowards. In the end, fans were ushered out of the park at closing time by cast members - some sympathetic and some oblivious - and Mr. Toad was no more.
An unknown Toadite and myself on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. We were the second-to-last car ever to witness the antics of Toad on that side of the attraction.Why did the loss of this attraction strike such a chord with fans? Why did people travel from across the country to bid farewell to a rather
simple and technologically outdated dark ride?
The original iteration of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride opened at Disneyland in 1955, only six years after Disney’s animated retelling of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows, debuted in theaters. The film adaptation, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, never became a particularly beloved entry in the Disney canon, which makes it all the more peculiar that when building Walt Disney World sixteen years later the Imagineers decided to revisit Mr. Toad. This was not always the plan; originally the “funny ride” slot in the Fantasyland lineup was intended to feature a ride based on the story of Ichabod Crane and the legend of Sleepy Hollow. In the end, it was decided that Disneyland’s dark rides would be re-created in Florida to save some development money and thus Toad came to Walt Disney World.
Orlando’s version of Toad was expansive; it was far larger than its counterpart at Disneyland. In fact, the attraction was built with two tracks that, unlike any other ride in Disney history, presented completely different show experiences. And what experiences - Toad presented a psychedelic melange of scenes that took us from Toad Hall to gypsy camps, from prison to Hell itself! It was inhabited by a motley crew of woodland creatures, villainous weasels, gunslinging British bobbies and buxom barmaids. The beer flowed, the bullets flew, and the portrait of Rapunzel hung on the wall, her modesty barely concealed by her flowing locks. It was quite a ride.
And yes, the ride ended with guests being struck by an oncoming locomotive and being sent to Hell, where a brightly painted Satan loomed overhead. What other ride at Disney could claim such a dramatic finale?
You don’t see that in Toy Story ManiaIt made little to no sense, even if you had seen the film on which it was based, and it was magnificent. There was a sense of reckless insanity and borderline seediness to it, and as a child one wavered between horror and bewilderment. Where will modern children gain knowledge of Edwardian barrooms and the perils of the horseless carriage? What ride contains anything approaching Rolly Crump’s unhinged color scheme or character design as distinct as the oddball denizens of Toad’s London - the sneering weasels and sleazy mustachioed barman Winky?
Without Toad, Fantasyland is far less exciting and the Magic Kingdom is poorer for it. The ride had an edge without trying to be “edgy” - as a child you had a feeling you were seeing something a bit over your head.
Surely you weren’t meant to sneak a peek at that buxom barmaid - yet there she was!
As stated, the demise of Toad began the long war between Disney fans and management. Soon after came the arrival of Journey into YOUR Imagination, something that even those fans who refused to lament Toad’s departure could not countenance. Horizons, a masterpiece of epic Imagineering, closed soon after and began its slow decay. The real megaton blast in this conflict came when Eisner and acolyte Paul Pressler opened their “masterpiece”, California Adventure, in 2001. This time not only did fans stay away, but the general public did too. The ill will engendered over the previous several years finally came home to roost for Eisner, who was pushed out of office in 2005 partially by a fan and stockholder revolt led by Roy Disney.
While it remains to be seen whether current management will truly rebuild the burnt bridges with fans, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see another attraction as unique as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Its sheer madcap atmosphere and bizarre design sensibilities seem unique to its era, and it’s definitely not something that would make it through the gauntlet of focus groups and marketing flacks that new attractions must survive. Here’s to you, J. Thaddeus - you are missed.
No self-respecting city of the future would be caught dead without a thoroughly modern method of mass transportation. This was the thinking of Walt Disney Productions when they were creating Walt Disney World, and part of Disney’s vision for future cities was the sleek and efficient monorail. We’ve already discussed Community Transportation Services, the division of Walt Disney Productions set up to develop transportation systems for Disney’s Florida property and to then market them to cities and communities around the country. And what better way to market yourself than a colorful brochure?
Below are the scanned pages from a 1979 brochure intended to market the Mark IV monorail which was then in service at Walt Disney World. Sadly, they didn’t succeed in flooding our nation with monorails, but they’re a nice reminder of an era when big ideas were still in fashion.
So you’re vacationing at Walt Disney World in 1992, and as you wake up in your Treehouse Villa you wonder where you’re going to go today. Should you jump the green and gold EC bus and head to EPCOT Center for a ride on Horizons? Or should you head to the Magic Kingdom on the green and gold MK bus for a trip 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?
Before the advent of fancy-pants onboard computers and changeable electronic displays, guests at Walt Disney World chose which bus to ride by looking at the design of the flag painted on its side. Each resort and route had its own distinct emblem, and before the Eisner-era building boom escalated it was easy to find transportation between any two locations on property.
Copies of bus guides like the one below were found in each guest room on property. So download these images, print them on the front and back of a piece of paper, fold along the creases, and place it on your bedstand when you go to bed tonight. It’ll be just like waking up and the Polynesian in 1992!
In early 1982, Walt Disney Productions was working full bore on the construction of EPCOT Center. Behind schedule and over budget, construction crews toiled around the clock to try and have the park ready for the October 1st opening date. In the meantime, Disney management scrambled to prepare both cast members and the public for what would be a very different type of theme park.
EPCOT Center under construction in early 1982. Click to enlarge.When Walt Disney announced his plans for EPCOT in 1966, he described a vision for a city of the future to be built in Florida. The EPCOT Center that Walt Disney Productions began to promote in 1978 looked nothing like these original plans, scrapping the idea of a working city and replacing it with plans for a permanent World’s Fair. Many people at the time were confused by the shift; what happened to those fantastic futuristic vistas that Walt had promised us? And what will this new theme park actually be?
In May of 1982, Eyes & Ears, Walt Disney World’s internal Cast Member publication, attempted to answer those questions by reprinting a number of questions and answers drawn from a series of EPCOT Center Updates that had been held that March. Disney’s President of Outdoor Recreation, Dick Nunis, hosted the updates and gave the responses printed below. There’s a lot of interesting material here; not only Nunis’s transparent attempts to spin away the fact that EPCOT Center bears no resemblance to Walt’s EPCOT city, but also several mentions of impending projects at Walt Disney World that were never built.
Dick Nunis sez “HOWAREYA?”Q: Dick, there’s been a lot of discussion over a very important question: Have we deviated from Walt’s original concept of Epcot Center? How do you feel about this?
A: I can’t honestly say what we’d be doing now if Walt were here, but I don’t think we’ve deviated from his original concept. The thing that has haunted us for many years is the rendering done back in 1966. Walt believed very strongly that to sell a concept, a picture says a thousand words. So he had someone come up with this idea with a tower and the domed city, and what Walt was trying to do was sell a concept. He didn’t want to come to Florida and burden the local taxpayers with everything he knew he had to do. He wanted to show how, though the free enterprise system, a corporation could take virgin land and develop it without government subsidy.
The first thing we started out with was what we knew how to do … the Magic Kingdom, which is the Disneyland people know.
But what he really wanted to do was develop an area where all types of corporations, governments, and academia could come together to really try and solve some of the problems that exist in the world today. We started with the recreation area, and then began the community, which is Walt Disney World Village, and now we’re building the center … Epcot Center, and we’re going to connect it all with the monorail system.
I don’t think Walt ever intended to have a permanent resident population. I think he wanted to have a large tourist population and an area where people from all walks of life could come and learn.
I can remember when we got the final big parcel of our land which included Bay Lake. It was in the summer of 1966, and Walt called me up to his apartment in Disneyland, and he was really happy. He said, “Just think Dick, we own 43 square miles. That’s like getting on top of the Matterhorn and looking 7 miles one way and 11 miles the other. We’re going to be able to have our own Disneyland, our own Knott’s Berry Farm, our own Marineland and a couple of cities to boot.”
Well Walt, we’re almost there.
Q: What kind of attendance do we anticipate at Epcot Center?
A: When we open Epcot Center, we’ll release a combined attendance figure for both Epcot Center and the Magic Kingdom … a Walt Disney World attendance. Current attendance runs about 13 to 14 million people. We project 20 million people to visit Walt Disney World, per year. I think that’s conservative … I’ll tell you why. Right now we only penetrate 25 percent of Florida visitors. That leaves a lot of room for growth. We know for a fact that people are going down I-4 and passing by because they think we run a carousel.
I figure that Epcot Center will take on the magnitude of a World’s Fair because of the size … people are going to come to Epcot Center and they’re going to talk to other guests who have been in the Magic Kingdom, and I believe they are going to convince the others to visit the Magic Kingdom also.
We also believe that the European market will be very big for us. Last year 23 million foreign tourists visited the United States, and we only penetrated four percent of that. We believe that gives us great growth potential.
We’d also like to extend our guests’ length of stay from an admissions point of view. We won’t offer a one-day admission ticket that will be good for both the Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center. The reason for that? First of all, we’d be selling something that people couldn’t get their value out of and secondly, we’re trying to extend their length of stay. We’re going to market a three-day ticket that will be a very, very good value.
Q: What hours will Epcot Center operate?
A: Well, they’re subject to change, but these are what we have planned: during the slow season, Future World will open at 9 a.m. and World Showcase at 2 p.m., and both will close at 10 p.m. During the peak seasons, Future World will open, depending on demand, at 8 or 9 a.m. and World Showcase at 11 a.m. Both will close at midnight. We’re not going to change the operating hours for the Magic Kingdom.
Q: How will we staff Epcot Center?
A: We outlined the staffing procedure in the EYES & EARS several months ago. We’re going to need a staff of 3,000 people for Opening Day and that will break down to roughly 300 salaried and the balance in hourly classifications. There is one exception to our transfer-from-within policy … World Showcase. We’re trying to give the people a feeling that they’re actually in the country, so we want to theme the pavilions with the people from the different countries. That’s where the World Showcase Fellowship program comes in. Basically, this enables us to bring university students from other countries for one year to represent their country in World Showcase and to go to school together. It’s going to be a fantastic thing. We might just wind up with the greatest United Nations that’s ever been created.
Wouldn’t it be nice someday if a major power called another to say, “Hey! What’s going on?” because they knew each other way back when they worked at World Showcase at Walt Disney World.
We’ve committed ourselves to 100 of these students, and we’re going to look internally for these ethnic groups as well. If we cant’ find them internally, we’ll reach outside because we truly want to have Germans in the German pavilion and Italians in the Italian pavilion. We think that’s an extremely important part of the overall show.
Q: Will we ever expand Epcot Center?
A: Very definitely. Epcot Center will never be complete. We want to go ahead with the Seas pavilion and we feel there is a need for a Life and Health pavilion. Beyond that, there should be a Space pavilion, but we’ve put that on hold for now because the space industry is changing so rapidly.
In World Showcase we have nine countries to begin with: Canada, Great Britain, France, Japan, the United States, China, Italy, Mexico, and Germany, and there are eight other spaces available. We think they will fill up rather rapidly. We’ve signed a contract with Spain, and we’re negotiating with Israel. We’ll have an African pavilion. We’ll probably have a Scandinavian pavilion someday and we’ve also been talking with Venezuela. Now you see why I think those eight sites will fill up very rapidly.
We also have a blue-sky dream. On both sides of the American Adventure there is enough room to make a cut through and create another lagoon on the south side of the World Showcase where there are about five good building sites. The concept involved building a hotel in Australia for instance. If you’re staying in the hotel then you’re in World Showcase already, if you’re a day guest, you could take a cruise down to Australia or to the South Seas or other parts of the world. I think it’s a good concept and would be another way to generate more hotel space.
Q: Let’s talk about our plans outside Epcot Center. Do we have any plans of expanding the Magic Kingdom?
A: Very definitely, the Magic Kingdom will continue to grow. It’s designed to expand to the north in Fantasyland, and I’d like to bring the Matterhorn to the Magic Kingdom. It’d be the tallest Mountain in Florida. Our concept would be to put the Matterhorn over the train, creating a blizzard scene with real snow. Can you imagine people in July and August riding the train to get cool?
Q: What about the Tokyo Disneyland project?
A: Tokyo Disneyland, quite honestly, will be a fantastic success. Just imagine a local audience of 35 million within a 15-mile radius. Right now, we’re providing as much creative help to support them and get it open next March.
Q: Do we plan to expand our hotels?
A: Estimates say that this area is between 15,000 and 19,000 hotel rooms short. We’re worried about it. Right now we plan to expand the Polynesian Village, Golf Resort, and the Walt Disney World Village resort area.
We also have in design three hotels. The Mediterranean will be located between TTC and the Contemporary. The Cypress Point Lodge will be west of River Country and be themed as a western hotel. It’ll include log cabins along Bay Lake.
The third one, the Grand Floridian, we’ll build on the old Asian site on Seven Seas Lagoon. It will be a replica of the great Florida hotels of the early 1900’s. Our creative people came up with an absolutely beautiful design.
In addition, we have some dreams for the Walt Disney World Village. From the Empress Lilly, we’re going into a New Orleans street, and you’ll walk right into a beautiful New Orleans hotel.
Those are the kinds of things we can continue to do in the future here at Walt Disney World … I think the sky is the limit.
Let me finish by saying that the great strength of our company is our name. It’s internationally known, and the reason it has maintained a reputation is because of the job that all of you people do. The greatest asset Walt Disney World has is its people, and right now, I’d like to thank you. We’ve been going through some very difficult times, and thanks to all of your efforts, I think we’ve done an outstanding job.
Yes; the reason I have so much confidence in our company is because of all of you. We’re going to be doing a lot of things beyond Epcot Center … we’re going to create dreams that we might not have thought of yet. And the reason is because of you.
I want you to know that wherever you are, whatever you’re doing you are important and I appreciate what you’ve done in the past. I appreciate what you’re doing now, and I appreciate the job you are going to do in the future.
