Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.You can use your Twitter or Facebook account to sign up, or register directly.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="FerretAfros" data-source="post: 9306225" data-attributes="member: 93758">While Splash Mountain is known for a lot of things, one overlooked element is that it was the first time that Disney's classic animated cartoon characters had a permanent home outside of Fantasyland. Although it wasn't the first attraction located elsewhere in the park to be based on Disney's library, the others were based on live-action properties with a basis in literature and folktales (Swiss Family Treehouse, Davy Crockett Museum). In some sense, Splash Mountain continued that tradition with its folktale roots, while also opening the floodgates for the cartoon invasion throughout the parks in the decades that have followed. Looking back on it, it's almost shocking that Disneyland's animated characters were confined to Fantasyland for the first 34 years of its existence. Given the trajectory of WDI's output in recent years, it's hard to believe that so much of the content was original in the parks' early years, with animated film-based attractions almost being an afterthought. Splash Mountain was the first major addition to really buck that tradition, followed shortly by the Goofy About Health area of the Wonders of Life pavilion in Epcot opening in October 1989. It seems like this was a crucial step in the journey in changing the design philosophy that placed WDW's submarine attraction in Fantasyland in 1971 because it was based on the live-action science fantasy 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea film, to Frozen Ever After being placed in World Showcase in 2016 despite being based on an animated film set in a fictional land. Without Splash Mountain and its overwhelming popularity, one has to wonder if the IP invasion of all the parks would have been so widespread and so dramatic. In many ways, it really led the way for the trajectory of the theme park industry for decades to come, for better or for worse.Another often-overlooked addition for Splash Mountain was the bridge over the Pirates of the Caribbean queue, which was added to ease crowd flow to the west side of the park in anticipation of the new headliner being located at a dead-end. In addition to adding dedicated outdoor queue space for POTC, the bridge addition also included stairs to the balcony, letting guests access Walt's apartment for the first time as the Disney Gallery. The area along the riverbank was further modified a few years later to add the terraced viewing areas for Fantasmic!, making the original configuration almost unrecognizable today.<img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/64/90/b1649051d058025e0608690c3e343991.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /><img src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5190/5757824029_08d1cd130c_b.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />The original at-grade POTC entrance remains to this day at Tokyo Disneyland, which copied DL's New Orleans Square façade for the ride's entrance and to serve as a transition between World Bazaar and Adventureland.</blockquote>

Verification