News Splash Mountain retheme to Princess and the Frog - Tiana's Bayou Adventure

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
I’ve seen you mention the design/proportion thing before. Would you please elaborate on this? The design of PatF is clearly different than that of American Sings and Splash, but it seems like this might be addressed with an overlay? Just trying to understand the perspective that the current AAs won’t work.


I’ve mentioned the same thing on the DL thread. For example take the frogs in PatF. They are tiny like in real life. Now take a look at 2 foot tall Brer Frog. The animals in Splash are almost human sized but in PatF they are closer to the real world and they also don’t wear clothes unfortunately.

The fact that Tiana and Naveen will not be present as frogs helps and so does some The biggest difference for me is that the animals in Splash wear clothes.
 

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Are you sure about that? I feel like I always see that 100# thrown around for DL.
I'm positive. It's the numbers wikipedia cites, and seemingly other Disney websites with "ride facts" (including this one). But they are definitely wrong. I've analyzed both versions of the ride and counted the AA's several times.

Disneyland by my count has 70 animatronics. WDW I counted 60. It's plausible I missed one or two figures for each, but I was quite thorough and there's definitely not as many as 68 for WDW, let alone 100+ for DL...

I didn't count anything that was a static prop. Like the turtle being used as a drum by another porcupine AA. I also didn't count the 5 prairie dogs in the Laughing Place scenes (which are at both DL and WDW). They aren't animatronics, just static props that pop out of the holes as boats pass. No motion otherwise, even the prairie dogs in Living With the Land have more movement.

68 is at least slightly closer to the actual number for WDW, but still off by 8. The 103 number i'm seeing cited for Disneyland is just ridiculous. I have no idea where it came from but it most definitely does not have anywhere near that many.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
I'm positive. It's the numbers wikipedia cites, and seemingly other Disney websites with "ride facts" (including this one). But they are definitely wrong. I've analyzed both versions of the ride and counted the AA's several times.

Disneyland by my count has 70 animatronics. WDW I counted 60. It's plausible I missed one or two figures for each, but I was quite thorough and there's definitely not as many as 68 for WDW, let alone 100+ for DL...

I didn't count anything that was a static prop. Like the turtle being used as a drum by another porcupine AA. I also didn't count the 5 prairie dogs in the Laughing Place scenes (which are at both DL and WDW). They aren't animatronics, just static props that pop out of the holes as boats pass. No motion otherwise, even the prairie dogs in Living With the Land have more movement.

68 is at least slightly closer to the actual number for WDW, but still off by 8. The 103 number i'm seeing cited for Disneyland is just ridiculous. I have no idea where it came from but it most definitely does not have anywhere near that many.

Weird. Did they think people would just never count or have they lost some through the years? Doesn’t seem like any are missing. It’s not like they say 100 characters either. I’m pretty sure they always specify 100 +AAs.
 

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
I’ve seen you mention the design/proportion thing before. Would you please elaborate on this? The design of PatF is clearly different than that of American Sings and Splash, but it seems like this might be addressed with an overlay? Just trying to understand the perspective that the current AAs won’t work.
The animals from PATF are still the general shape of real life animals. Example being the roseate spoonbills from Dig a Little Deeper.
ykb-xB1H8kGF8YPofLKy2y-tIfW_Y3mgsoXqXBFrDljQ_ffnKYONRHA9wECLt2F5atV-Ag9jLhuivKMdZYZP1HViqTGscaYEMAgUsow2UyLqD4n96PQ2g6wC2BM9U99eAHRM_X4DM_P4nJc-sgtvf6hGGi51_Su2yoAfaBE


Note that these birds are only a couple feet tall at most (Mama Odie is tiny, half the height of Tiana). Overall, despite being cartooned up (particularly the eyes, colors and silly facial expressions), these birds do compared to the size and general shape of real life spoonbills. Their heads are extremely small and their legs and necks are extremely thin.

Now look at the commonly seen birds from Splash Mtn-

0choLhgeAlNHLKyp-ftAArtDaUsOxzzRSSG3hv-dF2oFHVHuwhl4UgnQUE2mBnGysB6GpE3mfuutvKu3HsJpQcu3g0r-NIZP979zPfyR9KjVqK3E4MVcs80zs2vKSPigSc_UHOBs7Z2A-3Ysw_h1yP5cP0BiVU33QHqridQbS070ypQqRNGmisU7UFgsPbMYyCjy

4pjvexa5ivGKlOzlsTrQQ9jGvXxJuNWHlj2o5YdgjWXDjmVTM6P8z8ZVb28xiwtWo4diKmbAmwt7DVhpuGKRy0NZHCkRE_cipcsM571R


You can probably see the difference just by looking. Even those small frog figures are WAY too large, fat and overall improperly shaped for PATF's frogs. Movies that share similarly more "realistic" animal designs to PATF include Lady and the Tramp, Bambi, 101 Dalmations, Aristocats, Lion King, Brother Bear, Tarzan etc.

The animals in Splash Mtn are different, the word "anthropomorphic" being the key. If you aren't familiar with the term, it refers to animals that have been drawn to have more human-like bodies (to varying degrees). Do a google image search for the term and you'll find a lot of examples. Besides Splash Mtn, Disney's Robin Hood and Zootopia are two examples that also use this anthropomorphic style.

09c7a7400f94a3ceb412e59ee2d6e532.jpg
98c69930ca0f90d45e987d62ca7d33a8.jpg
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
I'm positive. It's the numbers wikipedia cites, and seemingly other Disney websites with "ride facts" (including this one). But they are definitely wrong. I've analyzed both versions of the ride and counted the AA's several times.

Disneyland by my count has 70 animatronics. WDW I counted 60. It's plausible I missed one or two figures for each, but I was quite thorough and there's definitely not as many as 68 for WDW, let alone 100+ for DL...

I didn't count anything that was a static prop. Like the turtle being used as a drum by another porcupine AA. I also didn't count the 5 prairie dogs in the Laughing Place scenes (which are at both DL and WDW). They aren't animatronics, just static props that pop out of the holes as boats pass. No motion otherwise, even the prairie dogs in Living With the Land have more movement.

68 is at least slightly closer to the actual number for WDW, but still off by 8. The 103 number i'm seeing cited for Disneyland is just ridiculous. I have no idea where it came from but it most definitely does not have anywhere near that many.

If you count all the fish on a stick and all the fish glued to a wall, the Little Mermaid ride has 200 AAs!!
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Which is very stubborn and purely based on nostalgia because Disney-MGM Studios was not even a good name.

Turned out to be a *disaster* of a name that was very short lived (only 9 of the 31 years of the park's existence) and led to lawsuits (plus nothing MGM-y in the park at all except a few movie references in TGMR).

It'd be like continuing to call "Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!" ride "Superstar Limo."
 

DCLcruiser

Well-Known Member
Turned out to be a *disaster* of a name that was very short lived (only 9 of the 31 years of the park's existence) and led to lawsuits (plus nothing MGM-y in the park at all except a few movie references in TGMR).

It'd be like continuing to call "Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!" ride "Superstar Limo."
It will always be MGM. Hollywood Studios is too many syllables.
 

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Weird. Did they think people would just never count or have they lost some through the years? Doesn’t seem like any are missing. It’s not like they say 100 characters either. I’m pretty sure they always specify 100 +AAs.
I'm fairly certain Disneyland hasn't lost any. Except the occasional one or two temporarily removed for mechanical work. I've ridden the WDW version countless times, it definitely hasn't lost any since it was opened (again excepting temporary maintenance). You can always spot the platforms they were removed from.

Disney's official page for the ride also claims over 100. So I guess the number didn't just come out of nowhere. Though the page for the WDW ride also claims 100+... They're just copy/pasting stuff between versions. Even with static figures included, there's still far below 100.

I did notice something on the WDW page that caught my eye. "Over 100 AA geese, frogs, raccoons, possums, bees, alliga.......wait hold on....bees....BEES? There aren't any animatronic bees. The only bees in the entire ride are the hives in the Laughing Place. Are they counting these as AA's? That's just a bunch of metal sticks tipped with blacklight paint and attached to a spinning motor. Those in no way are animatronics. A neat looking little prop, but good lord no. Is this where they're getting the other 30 AA's from? Counting each individual blob of paint on those sticks? What a ridiculous lie if so, 60-70 actual AA's is already an extremely impressive number...
 

jt04

Well-Known Member
My camp staff group actually had a Disney marathon and one of them was PaTF. After watching the full movie, I definitely think they could do Splash justice with a proper retheme,

Yes, with a mix of all the tech available in 2020+ it could be very amazing. I know that word gets overused but it really should exceed expectations. Best decision they have made for the MK in a very long time.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
The animals from PATF are still the general shape of real life animals. Example being the roseate spoonbills from Dig a Little Deeper.
ykb-xB1H8kGF8YPofLKy2y-tIfW_Y3mgsoXqXBFrDljQ_ffnKYONRHA9wECLt2F5atV-Ag9jLhuivKMdZYZP1HViqTGscaYEMAgUsow2UyLqD4n96PQ2g6wC2BM9U99eAHRM_X4DM_P4nJc-sgtvf6hGGi51_Su2yoAfaBE


Note that these birds are only a couple feet tall at most (Mama Odie is tiny, half the height of Tiana). Overall, despite being cartooned up (particularly the eyes, colors and silly facial expressions), these birds do compared to the size and general shape of real life spoonbills. Their heads are extremely small and their legs and necks are extremely thin.

Now look at the commonly seen birds from Splash Mtn-

0choLhgeAlNHLKyp-ftAArtDaUsOxzzRSSG3hv-dF2oFHVHuwhl4UgnQUE2mBnGysB6GpE3mfuutvKu3HsJpQcu3g0r-NIZP979zPfyR9KjVqK3E4MVcs80zs2vKSPigSc_UHOBs7Z2A-3Ysw_h1yP5cP0BiVU33QHqridQbS070ypQqRNGmisU7UFgsPbMYyCjy

4pjvexa5ivGKlOzlsTrQQ9jGvXxJuNWHlj2o5YdgjWXDjmVTM6P8z8ZVb28xiwtWo4diKmbAmwt7DVhpuGKRy0NZHCkRE_cipcsM571R


You can probably see the difference just by looking. Even those small frog figures are WAY too large, fat and overall improperly shaped for PATF's frogs. Movies that share similarly more "realistic" animal designs to PATF include Lady and the Tramp, Bambi, 101 Dalmations, Aristocats, Lion King, Brother Bear, Tarzan etc.

The animals in Splash Mtn are different, the word "anthropomorphic" being the key. If you aren't familiar with the term, it refers to animals that have been drawn to have more human-like bodies (to varying degrees). Do a google image search for the term and you'll find a lot of examples. Besides Splash Mtn, Disney's Robin Hood and Zootopia are two examples that also use this anthropomorphic style.

09c7a7400f94a3ceb412e59ee2d6e532.jpg
98c69930ca0f90d45e987d62ca7d33a8.jpg


True except from what I remember Louis is very anthropomorphic and if we use him as reference then it is possible to keep some or most of the big anthropomorphic dogs, geese, alligators etc. The clothes for me is the biggest distinction between Splash Mountain and PatF. I guess we can just make them naked and voila. Although it would be kind of strange to disrobe AAs that have been dressed for 31 years.

In the end if they really want to make it work they can. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye at the different style Splash AAs except for the imagineers who created Galaxies Edge that need everything to be hyper real, depressing and boring. They can kind of meet in the middle and make some of the newer figures match the AAs that are there now. That and a little proper staging go a long way. Besides, you can find a way to justify anything. Like why are we in a log on a mountain in New Orleans in the first place? Why is that not an issue but the show enhancing AAs are? I just think it’s pretty silly to take out these great AAs because they wont match the new fiberglass figure. That would be like taking all of the nice expensive furniture out of your house because it doesn’t match the new cheap rug someone bought you.

Easy fix - put a shirt on Louis. This is after the movie and in New Orleans people prefer him clothed so he’s uncomfortable being naked now.

If and when most of the AAs are removed it won’t because they have to or because it’s better for the show it will be to save money on maintenance and so the imagineers working on it can really put their stamp on the new attraction - for better or (probably) worse.
 
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