Missing Kilimanjaro Elephants

Budke

New Member
Original Poster
There are two elephants missing from the Kilimanjaro Safari. The first most people have heard about. Before the park opened to previews, the original Safari ended with the Big Red being killed and your tour vehicle driving the poachers away from her dead carcass. This effect was removed before opening because executives felt (and rightly so) that this was a little too intense for an environmental message (as it is covered in the queue video). Still, in the early days of the safari, Big Red was "killed." The soundtrack was eventually changed to let guests know that Big Red was going to be OK.

The other missing elephant is more interesting. The original lion area was to have the carcass of an elephant as the animal's feeding area. This idea was dropped when the vets let the imagineers know just how often a guest might actually get a chance to see one of the carnivores eating from the side of their downed elephant: next to none.

A few more lion tidbits: apparently the vets freeze feeder rabbits into blocks of ice to help keep the lions on show and out of the shade during the summer. It keeps them cool, keeps them interested and it keeps them on pride rock. And I've heard there are air conditioners hidden in the rocks, but I don't know that for certain.
 

General Grizz

New Member
Originally posted by Budke
There are two elephants missing from the Kilimanjaro Safari. The first most people have heard about. Before the park opened to previews, the original Safari ended with the Big Red being killed and your tour vehicle driving the poachers away from her dead carcass. This effect was removed before opening because executives felt (and rightly so) that this was a little too intense for an environmental message (as it is covered in the queue video). Still, in the early days of the safari, Big Red was "killed." The soundtrack was eventually changed to let guests know that Big Red was going to be OK.

I also heard about this from Jim Hill. They were thinking about the whole corpse thing, but they were afraid it would startle the children. They still wanted to show the harm of poaching, so Eisner came up with the idea that it could be like Bambi (not having to physically see the mother's death). Although it seems that she's fine now... :)

Simba 1...come in Simba 1...
 

Yen_Sid1

New Member
The other missing elephant is more interesting. The original lion area was to have the carcass of an elephant as the animal's feeding area. This idea was dropped when the vets let the imagineers know just how often a guest might actually get a chance to see one of the carnivores eating from the side of their downed elephant: next to none.

It was actually a zebra, or an half eaten zebra, by the lions drinking water, so when the lion is drinking it looked like it was feeding on the zebra. It was there for the cast previews. Then they removed it.
 

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