Carolwood Park: A new name for MK's Storybook Circus, with a new attraction

[mharrington]

Some time ago, I had considered renaming the Storybook Circus area of the Magic Kingdom to Carolwood Park. The train station for this area already bears that name (somewhat):

So I thought it would be a good idea to spread that to the entire area, as though this is where the circus came to town.

Reinforcing my idea is this article from Passport 2 Dreams (http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2012/09/lightning-in-bottle-storybook-circus.html), which breathlessly describes the then-new Storybook Circus in great detail:

The Circus is set up in an area which clearly previously existed before the Circus' arrival. "Dumbo" is set in Florida, but the Circus is not a Floridian one; it's set up somewhere in the Midwest, what was probably a little cow town called Carolwood Park. Carolwood Park contributes pre existing railroad tracks, billboards, barns, and train roundhouses to Storybook Circus, and gorgeously crafted rambling stone walls - implied farmland. Along with the heavily vegetated areas, this Circus brings to mind an atmosphere vintage and rural, some vaguely defined sense of pre-modernity. It's the imagined rural youth of American myth. [...] The use of the name "Carolwood" isn't just an empty name drop; although Dumbo is the reason for the area to exist, the star of the show is the Railroad. [...] The railroad had previously provided important conceptual links on Main Street and Frontierland, but it grows into a central role in this area. The entire area is, in fact, motivated by the train, because the Circus arrived on it.

I brought this up because I think it should not be just limited to the circus area, but the entire surrounding area, train station and all. The station even has its own area music, separate from the circus area. Hence, another reason for the name change. The name for this area will actually be a dual one, one that you can pronounce either way if you so desire: Carolwood Park, Featuring Storybook Circus.

In keeping with the broader land name, there will also be a new attraction that is not directly tied to the circus, but is tied to this land as a whole.

 

[mharrington]

There is a new attraction to go with this new subarea. It is actually an alternate idea for the Mickey's Fun House concept, which has its own thread here: https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...s-storybook-circus-open-brainstorming.936029/. Like that ride, this one will be a contender for the spot currently occupied by Pete's Silly Sideshow.

I will go into details later, but right now, the basic concept is that Mickey is running a museum of cartoon artifacts (based on his classic cartoons of the past), with Donald Duck, his assistant, inadvertently causing havoc (something like Mystic Manor, with Mickey as Lord Mystic and Donald as Albert). I was thinking of including Goofy into the proceedings as well, but I don't want to conflict with his role in Storybook Circus. And yes, this sounds like Mickey's PhilharMagic, but that attraction is being retired in my plans (to be replaced by a partial extension of the Peter Pan ride nearby).

What are you thoughts? @Pionmycake, @spacemt354, @MANEATINGWREATH, anyone at all? I have some ideas, but I will need help with others to fill it out.

 

[spacemt354]

I would have to think on it - the ride sounds pretty good I don't have anything to add at the moment.

 

[mharrington]

The concept is something of a museum in Carolwood Park, based partially on my concept for Mickey's Colorfully Timeless Twist. There will be a new name here, though I haven't thought of one yet.

The queue is set up loosely based on the Mickey meet-n-greet in Shanghai:


In addition to not-so-still paintings, the area has occasional artifacts representing Mickey's long career over the course of his run. At one end of the room, there is a multimedia presentation, running over and over again, telling about this museum and its curator Mickey Mouse, who has been saving many of the museum's artifacts, dedicated to his long career in show biz, for posterity so guests for all time can come to see them. The emphasis is placed on one of the most powerful artifacts ever, the magical Sorcerer's Crest, which must be handled with care. It's also shown that Donald has been providing Mickey with some much-needed assistance. Of course, with Donald, between his temper and his occasional envy of Mickey, anything can happen.

I'll get to more later, but right now I'm still contending with having Goofy here, too, mainly because he already has his own ride over at the Storybook Circus part of this new land, and I don't want to be too contradictory here.

What are your thoughts?

 

[spacemt354]

If it's renamed into Carolwood Park it would be nice to see more of a focus on trains instead of a circus theme. If you took out the Great Goofini (as the Mine Train has kinda taken over as the 'kiddie' roller coaster in the park) and replaced it with Casey Jr. or something like that, it would open you up to Goofy in this attraction of yours without having him in two locations.

 

[mharrington]

If it's renamed into Carolwood Park it would be nice to see more of a focus on trains instead of a circus theme. If you took out the Great Goofini (as the Mine Train has kinda taken over as the 'kiddie' roller coaster in the park) and replaced it with Casey Jr. or something like that, it would open you up to Goofy in this attraction of yours without having him in two locations.

Actually, the Mine Train is relatively more thrilling than the Great Goofini, with a different height requirement (38", as opposed to Great Goofini's 35"). And Casey Jr. is already there, albeit as a water feature, not a real ride. It would actually be pretty difficult to do the coaster as Casey Jr. According to Jim Hill, way back in 2009, when the Fantasyland overhaul was first announced:

Given that the Barnstormer (where it stands now) is so close to where the new Dumbo Circus area is supposed to be built, the Imagineers (for a time, anyway) toyed with retheming this coaster as the Casey Jr. Circus Train. The only problem with that idea is that ... Well, in order to be recognized as the Casey Jr. Circus Train, the front car of this roller coaster would have to resemble the character as seen in that 1941 Walt Disney Studios animated feature. And given that the Casey Jr. Circus Train has this very distinctive, rather tall smokestack, that meant that WDI was suddenly dealing with all sorts of clearance issues at Wiseacre Farm. Which led one wag at 1401 Flower Street to reportedly say: "Couldn't we just shortened the smokestack and call this the Casey Jr. Jr. Circus Train."

So -- for the moment, anyway -- the Casey Jr. Circus Train-based retheming of the Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm is supposedly off the table. Though I hear that the Imagineers are still reviewing some Dumbo-inspired ideas from the redo of this Mickey's Toontown Fair kiddie coaster. One of which would send Guests zooming down Clown Alley, where they narrowly avoid getting pies thrown at their faces and/or seltzer squirted in their hair.

In the end, in addition to the ride structure, they also retained the basic theme of Goofy. I actually like that the Goofy theme survived from Toontown Fair, albeit modified for the circus setting. Maybe I'll just not include Goofy here in this ride of mine, just focus on Mickey and Donald.

Another difficulty I have is that one thing I thought about including in this ride of mine was a tornado scene, as a homage to "The Band Concert", with wind, spinning, objects flying around, and the William Tell Storm music here. However, I have read that one rumored scene for the upcoming Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway was to be a similar, if not identical, scene of getting caught up in a twister, and again, I would rather not plagiarize one scene in one ride just to include something similar in another ride. I want them to be different so guests will have a reason to see them both.

 

[spacemt354]

Actually, the Mine Train is relatively more thrilling than the Great Goofini, with a different height requirement (38", as opposed to Great Goofini's 35"). And Casey Jr. is already there, albeit as a water feature, not a real ride. It would actually be pretty difficult to do the coaster as Casey Jr. According to Jim Hill, way back in 2009, when the Fantasyland overhaul was first announced:

Given that the Barnstormer (where it stands now) is so close to where the new Dumbo Circus area is supposed to be built, the Imagineers (for a time, anyway) toyed with retheming this coaster as the Casey Jr. Circus Train. The only problem with that idea is that ... Well, in order to be recognized as the Casey Jr. Circus Train, the front car of this roller coaster would have to resemble the character as seen in that 1941 Walt Disney Studios animated feature. And given that the Casey Jr. Circus Train has this very distinctive, rather tall smokestack, that meant that WDI was suddenly dealing with all sorts of clearance issues at Wiseacre Farm. Which led one wag at 1401 Flower Street to reportedly say: "Couldn't we just shortened the smokestack and call this the Casey Jr. Jr. Circus Train."

So -- for the moment, anyway -- the Casey Jr. Circus Train-based retheming of the Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm is supposedly off the table. Though I hear that the Imagineers are still reviewing some Dumbo-inspired ideas from the redo of this Mickey's Toontown Fair kiddie coaster. One of which would send Guests zooming down Clown Alley, where they narrowly avoid getting pies thrown at their faces and/or seltzer squirted in their hair.

In the end, in addition to the ride structure, they also retained the basic theme of Goofy. I actually like that the Goofy theme survived from Toontown Fair, albeit modified for the circus setting. Maybe I'll just not include Goofy here in this ride of mine, just focus on Mickey and Donald.

Another difficulty I have is that one thing I thought about including in this ride of mine was a tornado scene, as a homage to "The Band Concert", with wind, spinning, objects flying around, and the William Tell Storm music here. However, I have read that one rumored scene for the upcoming Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway was to be a similar, if not identical, scene of getting caught up in a twister, and again, I would rather not plagiarize one scene in one ride just to include something similar in another ride. I want them to be different so guests will have a reason to see them both.

What I'm saying is that if you're replacing Pete's Sideshow with this attraction based in a museum, and renaming the sub-land Carolwood Park, the circus theme holds less weight. My thought was to reconfigure the land to give it more of a 'park setting'.

If you took out the coaster you could have room for a similar attraction to Casey Jr. Circus Train in Disneyland, for kids, taking the coaster plot and going over the railroad tracks for plenty of space. It would be nice for the WDW railroad to have some sort of tunnel on the east side of the tracks, and this would accomplish that. It would also allow you to add more trees and greenery in the queue and surrounding area, making it a 'park'

 

[mharrington]

What I'm saying is that if you're replacing Pete's Sideshow with this attraction based in a museum, and renaming the sub-land Carolwood Park, the circus theme holds less weight. My thought was to reconfigure the land to give it more of a 'park setting'.

If you took out the coaster you could have room for a similar attraction to Casey Jr. Circus Train in Disneyland, for kids, taking the coaster plot and going over the railroad tracks for plenty of space. It would be nice for the WDW railroad to have some sort of tunnel on the east side of the tracks, and this would accomplish that. It would also allow you to add more trees and greenery in the queue and surrounding area, making it a 'park'

I just want to remind you that the land's full name will be "Carolwood Park, Featuring Storybook Circus". That way the circus theme can still be retained, to an degree. If you remove the Goofy theme from the ride, then you might as well just call it "Dumbo's Circus", as that's really all that it's about. "Storybook", on the other hand, is a little more open. In fact, I'm not even certain that this land will be separated from Fantasyland after all, so really, it may still be part of the larger Fantasyland as a whole.

And let's not forget also that the upcoming Tron coaster may conflict with your idea of a revised Casey Jr. ride in the area. Let's also not forget that the Mine Train's height requirement is slightly more than the Great Goofini's (38" vs. 35").

Like I said, in the interest of not overthinking things, I will just keep Goofy for the theme of the coaster and not include him in the new ride. And what about the idea of the tornado scene? I heard that Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway is going to include a twister scene of its own, and if it is, I don't want to have to rip off one scene of one ride just to include it in another ride.

 

[spacemt354]

I just want to remind you that the land's full name will be "Carolwood Park, Featuring Storybook Circus". That way the circus theme can still be retained, to an degree. If you remove the Goofy theme from the ride, then you might as well just call it "Dumbo's Circus", as that's really all that it's about. "Storybook", on the other hand, is a little more open. In fact, I'm not even certain that this land will be separated from Fantasyland after all, so really, it may still be part of the larger Fantasyland as a whole.

And let's not forget also that the upcoming Tron coaster may conflict with your idea of a revised Casey Jr. ride in the area. Let's also not forget that the Mine Train's height requirement is slightly more than the Great Goofini's (38" vs. 35").

Like I said, in the interest of not overthinking things, I will just keep Goofy for the theme of the coaster and not include him in the new ride. And what about the idea of the tornado scene? I heard that Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway is going to include a twister scene of its own, and if it is, I don't want to have to rip off one scene of one ride just to include it in another ride.

Tron would not conflict with it as it's not in this location. 3 inches really isn't a lot of difference, anything below 40 inches I consider to be an introductory kid attraction. In regards to the tornado, I don't think your ideas should be hindered by the possibility of a future attraction having a scene you want.

 

[mharrington]

Tron would not conflict with it as it's not in this location. 3 inches really isn't a lot of difference, anything below 40 inches I consider to be an introductory kid attraction. In regards to the tornado, I don't think your ideas should be hindered by the possibility of a future attraction having a scene you want.

Three inches may not seem like much, but there is a difference if two similar rides have different height requirements. I'm just simply going with what Disney says. And when I said that Tron may conflict with the location, I was speaking in terms of sightlines and theme, not necessarily in physical space.

Anyway, I don't know much about what the new ride (Runaway Railway, that is) will offer, but I just don't want it to seem like anything is being ripped off for my ride.

 

[mharrington]

The queue is similar to Shanghai Disneyland's Mickey meet-n-greet, with not-so-still paintings of Mickey and the gang on the wall. Also here and there are props and memorabilia from the mouse's long career. The queue can hold approximately a 60 minute wait inside the queue, before overloading into Storybook Circus. There are eight scenes in all, with a run time of about the same as the Peter Pan ride (about 3 minutes).

After the painting room, a relatively small space, you come across an equally short space on memorabilia, which is based on Mickeyjunk Mountain in "Epic Mickey" in the sense that there's Mickey memorabilia everywhere. Actually, none of it is real; the toys and such are just props for the ride. They are just based on real merchandise.

And then the queue leads to a small theater showing a multimedia film on the history of Mickey's exploits, and how he has had the honor of storing them here for all of his fans to see. It is similar to the preshow on the old Mickey Mouse Revue:


Sorry that it's all in Japanese. You can read the English translation from the original show here: https://waltdatedworld.com/id44.htm.

The film concludes that so proud Mickey is of his career that he wants to share it all with his friends, and thus he opened a museum devoted to it. And the crown jewel of this museum is a little something called the Sorcerer's Crest, whose magical properties are intended to keep things nice and orderly and not go out of control. It is so powerful that it must be handled with care. However, Mickey can't keep up the work of the museum alone, and so Donald Duck, one of Mickey's closest friends, has agreed to help out. Of course, given Donald's temper and his occasional envy of Mickey, anything can happen. And it just might.

Then you are sent on your way for your tour of the museum.

What does anyone think so far? @spacemt354, @Pionmycake, @MANEATINGWREATH, anyone?

 

[spacemt354]

The queue is similar to Shanghai Disneyland's Mickey meet-n-greet, with not-so-still paintings of Mickey and the gang on the wall. Also here and there are props and memorabilia from the mouse's long career. The queue can hold approximately a 60 minute wait inside the queue, before overloading into Storybook Circus. There are eight scenes in all, with a run time of about the same as the Peter Pan ride (about 3 minutes).

After the painting room, a relatively small space, you come across an equally short space on memorabilia, which is based on Mickeyjunk Mountain in "Epic Mickey" in the sense that there's Mickey memorabilia everywhere. Actually, none of it is real; the toys and such are just props for the ride. They are just based on real merchandise.

And then the queue leads to a small theater showing a multimedia film on the history of Mickey's exploits, and how he has had the honor of storing them here for all of his fans to see. It is similar to the preshow on the old Mickey Mouse Revue:


Sorry that it's all in Japanese. You can read the English translation from the original show here: https://waltdatedworld.com/id44.htm.

The film concludes that so proud Mickey is of his career that he wants to share it all with his friends, and thus he opened a museum devoted to it. And the crown jewel of this museum is a little something called the Sorcerer's Crest, whose magical properties are intended to keep things nice and orderly and not go out of control. It is so powerful that it must be handled with care. However, Mickey can't keep up the work of the museum alone, and so Donald Duck, one of Mickey's closest friends, has agreed to help out. Of course, given Donald's temper and his occasional envy of Mickey, anything can happen. And it just might.

Then you are sent on your way for your tour of the museum.

What does anyone think so far? @spacemt354, @Pionmycake, @MANEATINGWREATH, anyone?

I think it looks good.

 

[mharrington]

It is at this point you are ushered into your ride vehicles for your ride to begin. However, I'm torn between a car (themed to an old car) or something really unusual like a giant version of Mickey's shoes or a mouse ears cap, which look like the kinds of things from the old Mickey Mania parade:

I only questioned the car because it's themed to inside a building. And granted, the whole ride is housed in a building, but I meant that the cars do not go "outside" or anything.

So what are your thoughts on the ride vehicles? Should they be vintage car-themed or giant shoes or giant mouse ear hats?

 

[Keyblade Jedi]

It is at this point you are ushered into your ride vehicles for your ride to begin. However, I'm torn between a car (themed to an old car) or something really unusual like a giant version of Mickey's shoes or a mouse ears cap, which look like the kinds of things from the old Mickey Mania parade:

I only questioned the car because it's themed to inside a building. And granted, the whole ride is housed in a building, but I meant that the cars do not go "outside" or anything.

So what are your thoughts on the ride vehicles? Should they be vintage car-themed or giant shoes or giant mouse ear hats?

I Would Go with the Mouse Ears.

 

[mharrington]

I Would Go with the Mouse Ears.

Well, I want it to look realistic. The mouse ears and shoes concepts are more for when things go crazy in the ride, not beforehand and afterwards.

I forgot to mention, it should be in the context of the Carolwood Park/Storybook Circus setting, which I believe is much earlier than the 1950s.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? @spacemt354, @Pionmycake, anyone?

 

[Keyblade Jedi]

That Make Sense.

 

[mharrington]

After much deliberation, I will be going with something akin to a golf cart for ride vehicles. However, in keeping with the vintage feel of the place, they will be based loosely on these old windup toy cars:

These cars will be able to seat four at a time, similar to the cars of Mr. Toad before that was scrapped. And similar to the Roger Rabbit ride, they will travel in batches of two at a time. There will be a reason why later on...

What are your thoughts, anyone?

 

[mharrington]

What do you people think about my idea of the vintage car/golf car idea for a ride vehicle? Refer to page #17 above.

 

[mharrington]

Well, I guess there's no point in delaying things much longer, so let's go...

Once aboard your car, you proceed forward through a pair of swinging doors at the end of the room. Here, you see an AA of Mickey (likely reused from the old Mickey Mouse Revue) welcoming you into his museum. He pulls on a set of whistles (a homage to "Steamboat Willie"), signaling the tour to begin. A curtain rises and you go into the cataloging room, where Donald is sweeping up. He spots a very conspicuously placed object: the Sorcerer's Crest, with an equally conspicuous sign reading "Do NOT Touch". It resembles a wand that looks like a paint brush, topped with the familiar Sorcerer Hat on end. The purpose of this thing is to help maintain order and could be chaotic if in the wrong hands (hence, the sign).

Donald, of course, is too tempted to touch the Sorcerer's Crest, especially given how it is just placed out in the open. He takes it and swishes it around playfully. Suddenly, it comes to life and flies out of his hand. It blasts magic dust onto other artifacts in the room, levitating them into the air. Donald is also lifted aloft and he becomes enraged, as he usually does, and struggles with it, inadvertently causing things to go from bad to worse. The Crest slips out of Donald's hand and flies into the next room...

This whole scene is based on the intro scene to the first scene of Mystic Manor, with Donald substituting for Albert the Monkey. It also takes some inspiration from this commercial from Disneyland's 50th anniversary (again, with Donald rather than Goofy):


So that's the first scenes of the ride. What do you think so far? I have some ideas for scenes, but I'm not sure I have enough to flesh it out. But first, what does anyone think? @spacemt354? @Pionmycake? I really would like feedback, please.

 

[v_k]

This sounds good so far, what ideas did you have for scenes? I believe Runaway Railway will be based on the new Mickey shorts rather than the classic ones, but it still might appear too similar. Maybe this one could have an interactive element to distinguish it?

In terms of names, I'm not sure, how about Mickey's Magical Museum?

I always liked the idea of a Pink Elephants coaster for this area, but that's just me.