Mickey's Toontown overhaul (feedback welcome)

[mharrington]

I have created numerous threads for improving Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland, because I agree with everyone that it's not very well-developed. Most people would just scrap the land and use it for expansion in Fantasyland (relocating the Roger Rabbit ride to DCA somehow). However, the story is that Disneyland is Mickey's real home and Toontown is where he goes to rest his weary head at the end of the day. Even though I have accepted that WDW's Toontown Fair was merely the Fab Five's vacation home and temporary, I'm still slightly sore about its loss. I've been trying to move on from that, but it hasn't been easy.

Anyway, I'm greatly against everyone saying that Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland should be removed and replaced simply because it's beneath them. I do agree, however, that there is plenty of room for improvement. That's what this thread is all about, to improve it and make more worthwhile, beyond just Roger Rabbit and both mice's houses.

However, there is not much physical space to do go crazy, so what you're going to see, I'm trying to be as realistic as possible. I will also be doing the updates piece by piece.

Here's what I wanted to show first: I will replace the current radio music loop called WACKY Radio, which is heard in the queue for the Roger Rabbit ride and in Mickey and Minnie's houses. It would now be replaced with a new radio music loop, entitled KRAZY Radio. The reason I replaced the radio station name (from "wacky" to "krazy") is because K radio stations are west of the Mississippi (where California is) and W stations on the east (where Florida is). So I had to come up with something similar to "wacky", and "crazy" was the closest I could come up with. So I just replaced the C with a K. Pretty clever, huh? The new radio jingle will be the same, however: "Put a happy smile on your radio dial with K-R-A-Z-Y, krazy radio Toontown!"

Most of the advertisements and news bulletins are the same. However, I had heard the radio loop for WACKY Radio at Toontown Fair on another site, and it shows them revising the jingle to a country-western twang. So the new jingle will be updated as well. I was thinking of having it sound like the jingle for CHUM 1050 (listen from 0:30 to 0:45):


That new jingle would sound something like: "K-R-A-Z-Y, radio Toontown! Radio Toontown!" The announcer is replaced, sounding more like this announcer at the very beginning of "Kingpin" (the one announcing the message before the president takes over):


Furthermore, taking a cue from the KBVS station of Buena Vista Street at DCA, the new announcer will describe KRAZY thus: "You're listening to K-R-A-Z-Y, krazy toon radio, the voice of Mickey's Toontown." And one more thing, there will be a special guest on the new radio loop, a reference to the old Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air radio show: it's Donald Duck and His Webfooted Sextet. They would be playing one of the tunes heard here:


That's the very first piece of the updates to Disneyland's Mickey's Toontown! What do you think so far?

 

[jdmdisney99]

I have created numerous threads for improving Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland, because I agree with everyone that it's not very well-developed. Most people would just scrap the land and use it for expansion in Fantasyland (relocating the Roger Rabbit ride to DCA somehow). However, the story is that Disneyland is Mickey's real home and Toontown is where he goes to rest his weary head at the end of the day. Even though I have accepted that WDW's Toontown Fair was merely the Fab Five's vacation home and temporary, I'm still slightly sore about its loss. I've been trying to move on from that, but it hasn't been easy.

Anyway, I'm greatly against everyone saying that Mickey's Toontown at Disneyland should be removed and replaced simply because it's beneath them. I do agree, however, that there is plenty of room for improvement. That's what this thread is all about, to improve it and make more worthwhile, beyond just Roger Rabbit and both mice's houses.

However, there is not much physical space to do go crazy, so what you're going to see, I'm trying to be as realistic as possible. I will also be doing the updates piece by piece.

Here's what I wanted to show first: I will replace the current radio music loop called WACKY Radio, which is heard in the queue for the Roger Rabbit ride and in Mickey and Minnie's houses. It would now be replaced with a new radio music loop, entitled KRAZY Radio. The reason I replaced the radio station name (from "wacky" to "krazy") is because K radio stations are west of the Mississippi (where California is) and W stations on the east (where Florida is). So I had to come up with something similar to "wacky", and "crazy" was the closest I could come up with. So I just replaced the C with a K. Pretty clever, huh? The new radio jingle will be the same, however: "Put a happy smile on your radio dial with K-R-A-Z-Y, krazy radio Toontown!"

Most of the advertisements and news bulletins are the same. However, I had heard the radio loop for WACKY Radio at Toontown Fair on another site, and it shows them revising the jingle to a country-western twang. So the new jingle will be updated as well. I was thinking of having it sound like the jingle for CHUM 1050 (listen from 0:30 to 0:45):


That new jingle would sound something like: "K-R-A-Z-Y, radio Toontown! Radio Toontown!" The announcer is replaced, sounding more like this announcer at the very beginning of "Kingpin" (the one announcing the message before the president takes over):


Furthermore, taking a cue from the KBVS station of Buena Vista Street at DCA, the new announcer will describe KRAZY thus: "You're listening to K-R-A-Z-Y, krazy toon radio, the voice of Mickey's Toontown." And one more thing, there will be a special guest on the new radio loop, a reference to the old Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air radio show: it's Donald Duck and His Webfooted Sextet. They would be playing one of the tunes heard here:


That's the very first piece of the updates to Disneyland's Mickey's Toontown! What do you think so far?

That sounds awesome.

 

[mharrington]

I will now get into the first part of my actual updating of Mickey's Toontown. Before I do that, though, my main concern is that it's become too pacified by lawyers who wouldn't know fun if it came up and bit them in the butt. Another concern is that there is too few things for anyone without children to do, short of Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and, to a lesser extent, Mickey and Minnie's houses. So that's what this overhaul is all about: to scrap several smaller attractions and replace them with more worthwhile things to do. In the end, only the things between the mice's homes and the Roger Rabbit ride will be what's left of the "old" Toontown. Granted, that's a lot of the "old" Toontown retained, but things beyond that will be removed and replaced. And even the things left of the "old" Toontown will get an update.

So now, here is the first part of the overhaul: Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, one of the first things you encounter as you enter the land. This ride will receive a few minor updates, mostly in the queue. First of all, you know how in the queue there are several license plates whose jumbles of letters and numbers form the names of various Disney things? Well, the plate that reads FAN T C will be replaced by one reading FAN T ZA (meaning "Fantasia"). The year on that one will still be 1938. But the most attention will be on the second set of plates:

Two brand-new license plates will be added to this set on the wall, each with its own respective year. One is at the very top of the set (almost touching the ceiling) and the other is below the 1D N PTR one and next to the IM L8 one. The one on the very top will read ALADN (meaning "Aladdin"), its displayed year being 1940. And the one near the bottom will read DONL DUK (meaning "Donald Duck"), its year being 1934.

Elsewhere in the ride, a new radio broadcast on Baby Herman's radio will be featured, played on the new KRAZY Radio (which I had already talked about above).

Anyway, in the ride itself, there will be the sounds of cartoon tires squealing here and there, plus the sounds of crashing as you go through the china shop and then the power house, and in the scene with the evil laughing clowns, an additional laughing sound is heard, sounding very much like the laughing hyena sound from It's a Small World. Actually, I got the idea from watching "Disneyland USA" and hearing this laugh coming from the old Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Thoughts, comments, concerns?

 

[mharrington]

I had heard that Knott's is trying to make its Camp Snoopy more family-friendly by removing some attractions with a maximum height requirement, which separates parents from children. That's what I'm trying to do with Mickey's Toontown, to make it slightly more family-friendly. Anyway, here's the next part:

Minnie's House
Minnie's House will be left almost completely intact, except to fix up the hands-on activities in the kitchen.

Mickey's House
The home of the big cheese himself will also be largely left untouched, but will nevertheless be updated slightly. Most of it will be in the area where you can actually meet Mickey (as well as in the now-updated preview theater where Donald and Goofy operate the film projector showing the trailers for Mickey's cartoons). But first, let's take a stroll through Mickey's house itself. On the radio just inside the entrance, the new audio loop set to KRAZY Toon Radio.

Next, we continue to move through the house. The answering machine's messages will be altered, as per the overhauled area. After this, not much will be changed from here on, until you reach the "outside" garden where the gopher tries to make off with the crops. New flowers will be added to this area. These include tulips (literally two lips puckered up for a kiss) and dandelions (literally small lion-like faces).

Which brings me to the area in the Movie Barn where you meet Mickey. In the preview theater, I'm thinking about replacing the loop with a new loop. Currently, it shows "trailers" for the Mickey cartoons, but now, I'm thinking of doing something like this, the old Mickey Mouse Revue preshow film (but updated):


It's in Japanese, yes, but there is a script for the old show in English, found at Walt Dated World. In the interest of time and space, here's a link to the old preview: http://waltdatedworld.bravepages.com/id44.htm.

Also, in between the trailers of the old loop, we saw Donald and Goofy engaging in some antics of sorts, sometimes involving them getting into the film projector to deal with a problem when it malfunctions. That I would like to keep. Here's a snippet of the old loop with an example of this scene:


I need help with picking and choosing elements of the old preview (seen in the first video) for the new pre-show, but how? I also want to remove the old '70s music, because it sounds so dated. And how can they be interspersed with the "interruptions" from Donald and Goofy (seen in the second video)? Any ideas?

As for the actual meeting place for Mickey himself, first of all, Mickey, on all "sets" of his cartoons, will be able to "talk". There will now be five shorts featured instead of four. On the set of "Steamboat Willie", Mickey will still be in black and white, but he will not be wearing a scarf anymore. He did not wear one in the short, so why should he here? Or during "Fantasmic", for that matter? Mickey's face will still be flesh, rather than black and white, but there will be a small make-up can marked "black and white", suggesting that Mickey had applied make-up for this role. And there will also be a new set for "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (and, of course, Mickey will be all dressed up for this part).

What are your thoughts on this? And what would be a good way to do the new loop?

 

[mharrington]

Now we come to a part of Mickey's Toontown that has been completely overhauled! Remember Chip 'n' Dale's Treehouse, Gadget's Go Coaster, Donald's Boat and Goofy's Playhouse? All gone! In their place are a couple of new rides!

I had heard that Knott's Berry Farm has been replacing a few kiddie rides at their Camp Snoopy with newer rides to accommodate families. So now one replacement will be a new roller coaster to replace Gadget's Go Coaster. In the past, most coasters have had a Goofy theme (i.e., the Great Goofini's Barnstormer, Goofy's Sky School), but not this time. No, this time, the theme is now on Donald Duck! The ride will be set in a brand-new house of Donald's, which will take over the property once occupied by Gadget's Go Coaster and Chip 'n' Dale's Treehouse. The new house, where the queue is, will be a mashup of a boat and a house, and look something like this (the concept is based on the abandoned concept of Mickeyville, but done in the Donald color scheme of blue, white and yellow):

The concept will revolve around Donald opening up some kind of an airboat school/service thing. It will fly over a new lake. The ride will be called Donald's Air Academy (as a response to Goofy's Sky School at the California Adventure). The queue will be in Donald's new boat-house/house-boat/house and boat, as stated earlier. You wind your way through Donald's boat. It will feature several interactive elements. One is a rope based on the one you can pull in the queue of the Indiana Jones ride (a sign nearby tells you not to do it). You pull on that and a British-sounding man yells at you for doing so. You can pull on this rope in this queue and hear Donald yelling at you for doing so. There is also a radio in the corner, too, again set to KRAZY Radio (the same new loop as mentioned above). Also in the queue is this big map on the wall, looking like this one in WDW's now-extinct Toontown Fair (in fact, maybe Disneyland can claim ownership of the real deal here now that Toontown Fair is gone (just revise the direction "To Toontown Fair" to "To Mickey's Toontown"):

Another interactive element in the queue is another rope, supposedly attached to the boat's steam whistle. But when you pull on it, not only does the whistle on the boat emit a boat whistle-like sound, but instead of steam, the whistle sprays out a blast of water onto passersby outside the boat and just walking around. It could provide a nice refreshing treat on a hot day. When the weather gets colder out, it can be reduced or even turned off altogether.

Anyway, onto the roller coaster itself: The roller coaster train looks like a cross between an airboat and the Spruce Goose. It will look like a boat, but have its wings on the bow, a propeller on the front and a tail with an airboat propeller on the back. Along the bottom of the boat-plane would be a huge rubber raft-like thing (at least that's how it's supposed to look), making it also something like a hovercraft. It could be something like how in "Plane Crazy", Mickey made up his plane from a car. As if named after the Spruce Goose, the plane in the new ride will be called the Drake (meaning "Von Drake", suggesting that Ludwig Von Drake made this for Donald) D-34 Swooper, or commonly called the Deciduous Duck (since the Spruce Goose was largely made of wood). Thus, the makeshift flying boat/seaplane/airboat craft would be called the Deciduous Duck. Also, the craft will be painted in the Donald color scheme: blue, yellow and white. Just as you head out the back door of Donald's home, you pass by plans for the new plane, created by Von Drake

Okay, now that we got the description of the roller coaster train out of the way, let's move on. The roller coaster will fly up and over the new Toon lake, dodging characters try to take aim at you with water, such as spitting frogs perched on the rocks (they're actually the same ones previously used in Gadget's Go Coaster) or Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, all scattered about the lake and firing water cannons at you. There's also Goofy in a boat, trying to fish. He's caught a bite, but the fish in question is dragging his line along and spinning his boat around. This boat accidentally kicks up water in your path. The idea is that Donald, as part of his service, is having you take out his new Deciduous Duck aircraft for a test flight, but it seems that there are more than a few bugs to work out (hence the roller coaster part).

Similar to the Great Goofini coaster at WDW, Donald's Air Academy may or may not have Fastpass. Like its predecessor, Gadget's Go Coaster, it will also be sponsored by Sparkle paper towels. It will also have a Single Rider option.

Oh, and one more thing: to give you an idea of the entrance to the ride, here's a video I found from a Donald-themed special event at Tokyo Disneyland (look at 0:20; it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, I know, but it gives you an idea):


Next up, I will do a replacement for Goofy next door...