Original Alice in Wonderland Ride

[dweezil78]

My guess is the Blackpool ride was "inspired" by the Disney ride. The Upside Down Room was created for Disneyland, and is a location that doesn't even exist in the film or books (it's based on a brief sight-gag in the movie where Alice doesn't realize she's hanging upside down in a rightside-up room). The DL ride's unusual 2-level indoor/outdoor layout is a result of it's particular location in a very tight space: It has to climb up over Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and then back down again. The Disneyland Upside Down room, like the whole ride, was very stylized and based on the designs of Mary Blair, while the Blackpool version is very generic- looking. And those cheshire cat vehicles are very noisy and clunky compared to the arrow-designed caterpillars.

The Blackpool ride kind of reminds me of those imitation Disney animated movie knock-offs you see on DVD a week after a new Disney film hits theaters (Ice Princess!). I mean...did Blackpool even bother to get the rights to the Willy Wonka music? But, what the heck, it still looks like a fun dark ride, and Disney certainly doesn't have exclusive rights to Wonderland.

Some interesting history about the ride here: http://www.dldhistory.com/disneyland-article.asp?Page=5&Ident=2056&FilterBy=Current

Both rides were developed by Arrow - w/ DL's opening in '58 and Blackpool's in '61. I suspect track layout is nearly identical, but a lot of the scenery was changed due to licensing issues.

 

[Clover Bailey]

I think it's from somewhere else; the original ride had a very simple (but beautiful) flat mural facade, much like a traditional carnival haunted house. Here's the entry doorway for the vehicles:
View attachment 140729
There's a fantastic article about the mural here:

Sounds like a cool image you've got, though: Are you sure it's not from SD Mine Train?

That is not the entrance to the ride on the card. So that means were left with a few other guesses:

• It is possibly an updated entry doorway that either replaced or was replaced by your image.
• Maybe a themed gift shop at a Disney Park or used to be there.
• Just some image created (I doubt this since most backgrounds are actual images of the rides).

Also the board game came out a while before Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened, so it can't be that. This is the card so if you guys know what it is please tell me.

 

[dweezil78]

That is not the entrance to the ride on the card. So that means were left with a few other guesses:

• It is possibly an updated entry doorway that either replaced or was replaced by your image.
• Maybe a themed gift shop at a Disney Park or used to be there.
• Just some image created (I doubt this since most backgrounds are actual images of the rides).

Also the board game came out a while before Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened, so it can't be that. This is the card so if you guys know what it is please tell me.

What a weird photo to use for the card! No idea where that is and I find it hard to believe they couldn't have chosen something better lol

 

[Rich T]

Some interesting history about the ride here: http://www.dldhistory.com/disneyland-article.asp?Page=5&Ident=2056&FilterBy=Current

Both rides were developed by Arrow - w/ DL's opening in '58 and Blackpool's in '61. I suspect track layout is nearly identical, but a lot of the scenery was changed due to licensing issues.

That's a nice piece, and it does mention that the rides were never very similar and "None of the characters in the Blackpool attraction looked too much like any of the Disney characters in the first place though. On the whole, they were based on John Tenniel's illustrations for the original books, whereas the Disney ride/film was thought to be using caricatures of people known to the animators."

The track layouts are very different, too. Disneyland's interior track is designed to climb up above Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to fit into a very tight, restrictive existing space unique to that location, and the exterior downramp is completely different. During the 1980's remodel of DL's ride, the interior track remained pretty much the same: The Tweedle scene is the same track layout as the old Upside Down Room, the Oversized Room was eliminated to make the Flower Garden larger, Tulgey Wood kept its old layout and the Queen/courtroom sequence was the Tea Party/Crash Room/Screaming Doors. The extra track near the end for the new Tea Party scene was added for 1983.

 

[Rich T]

That is not the entrance to the ride on the card. So that means were left with a few other guesses:

• It is possibly an updated entry doorway that either replaced or was replaced by your image.
• Maybe a themed gift shop at a Disney Park or used to be there.
• Just some image created (I doubt this since most backgrounds are actual images of the rides).

Also the board game came out a while before Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened, so it can't be that. This is the card so if you guys know what it is please tell me.

I...have no idea where that is!

 

[Clover Bailey]

Also, apparently there is no zero footage of the original Alice in Wonderland attraction.

 

[Rich T]

Also, apparently there is no zero footage of the original Alice in Wonderland attraction.

I know... all we old folks have is our memories! Not only did I ride it about a hundred times over the years growing up, I actually took my lil' Panasonic cassette recorder through it to record a audio ride-through to listen to back home-- And listen I did, until the tape broke! . Man, park fans have it so good these days-- being able to virtually ride nearly any attraction on Earth via Youtube...

 

[Clover Bailey]

Last night I had a non-surprisingly nightmarish dream about the original Fantasyland rides. It was about me and I was able to visit a Disney Parks convention that had recreations of the original Fantasyland rides. I have listed the experiences below.

Peter Pan's Ship: Basically a recreation of the modern Peter Pan's Flight, except the ride had no Pirate Ship Battle. It ended with Captain Hook and Smee swimming away from Tick Tock.

Snow White and her Scary Adventures: Oddly enough, it wasn't as scary as we built it up to be. The Witch models were very goofy and sounded goofy too.

Titanic Ridden: Yeah, I don't know how I imagined this up. It was a water slide that small queues because so many people got stuck in it (this was actually intentional and used to prank most riders). If you didn't get stuck it would bring you to a Blizzard Beach in DLR.

It's A Small World 1964: No dolls. That was the only bizarre thing. Zero dolls or animatronics. Members of the Disney Vacation Club could dance on the sets. Don't know why.

Alice in Wonderland: This was really weird. For starters all the walls in the ride were blue and for some odd reason, Cheshire Cat was black. The Queen of Hearts was the one from the 2010 Alice in Wonderland. There is some other stuff as well but I forgot it.

Black and White: Saved the scariest for last. This never existed, yet it ended up in my dream. There was a very old opening day Fantasyland dark ride on the edge of Tomorrowland called Black and White. This was truly freaky. The entire ride was 10 minutes long and you were just watching a horrifying animatronic head with a white face talking about r*pe. YOU HEARD ME RIGHT. He had a twisted voice that made you cry, and was overall a disgusting attraction.

So that was my dream. Well more like fever dream.

 

[Californian Elitist]

???

 

[Curious Constance]

 

[Clover Bailey]

Well, I guess I wasted 15 minutes typing my dream for the internet to see.

 

[Phroobar]

 

[Deleted member 107043]

View attachment 146116

*dies*

 

[yookeroo]

I like the dream version of Small World.

 

[mickEblu]

This belongs on the Country Bear meme thread.

 

[SandyClaws]

I miss the Cheshire Cat head at the end with the dialogue:

''I do hope I don't meet anymore mad people!''
''Oh, you can't help that! LOL!''

Me too! I wish they would have at least kept the dialogue in. I beleive they had Cheshires head on display at a D23 walk through.. There's photos onine of it.

 

[Phroobar]

My daughter would kill for that head on her wall.

 

[SandyClaws]

My daughter would kill for that head on her wall.

I would too XD I freaking LOVE that thing! I'm a die hard Cheshire cat fan and would LOVE to get my hands on a replica of one of the static Tulgey wood figures of him! I may very well make one!

 

[SandyClaws]

You can see his head over to the right in the hedge. There's that creepy alice again!

 

[Clover Bailey]

Today I was looking at the Alice in Wonderland attraction's Wikipedia page and found something... odd.

A paragraph claims that in 1971, it opened in the Magic Kingdom. The ride's description is just the modern attraction's ridethrough, so it's likely just some typo made.