Original Alice in Wonderland Ride

[Okee68]

The second one also seems to drop down too slowly for the jumpscare to be effective. I imagine something faster, like on contemporary Pretzel rides.

The second one is actually animated incorrectly in the VR ride-through as well. In reality, it would have swung down from the right like an old-fashioned traffic sign as opposed to swinging toward riders, which completely exposes it as a flat prop.

 

[Clover Bailey]

The second one also seems to drop down too slowly for the jumpscare to be effective. I imagine something faster, like on contemporary Pretzel rides.

Makes me curious, how fast were the effects on the 1958 Alice? Would the cutouts jump/move very fast, or quite slow? It's hard to picture because the ride vehicles move at a slow pace, which aren't usually paired with quick jumpscare effects. Also, you can't hear any mechanics or hydraulics in the audio recording that might give us an idea.

 

[Okee68]

Makes me curious, how fast were the effects on the 1958 Alice? Would the cutouts jump/move very fast, or quite slow? It's hard to picture because the ride vehicles move at a slow pace, which aren't usually paired with quick jumpscare effects. Also, you can't hear any mechanics or hydraulics in the audio recording that might give us an idea.

All the effects operated via simple pneumatic pistons. Since it was all just done by means of compressed air back then, gags would pop up or swing into view just as quickly as they would in any other pretzel-style dark ride. You can actually see the motorcycle cop from the original Mr. Toad in action in the movie Forty Pounds of Trouble from 1962. He had a jointed leg that he would kick up, providing the illusion of starting his motorcycle, and the movement was very swift. (I've uploaded the dark ride scene here, as the old YouTube uploads of the Disneyland sequence from the movie were blocked a while ago:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YX9ee_yEVgKNcwwzvyl4y_oyXvdYhpiE)

The attached image is a bit from an interview with Bob Gurr, the guy who designed all of the animated gags for the original Fantasyland dark rides, regarding the original Alice attraction. This is from issue #31 of The "E" Ticket, and it goes into detail about how the gags in the ride operated. And you most certainly can hear the mechanical workings in the audio recording, by the way. If you listen closely, you can make out all sorts of muffled little pneumatic snaps, as well as Alice's narrations and other audio reels bleeding in through other scenes.

 

[fantasmicsyd]

All the effects operated via simple pneumatic pistons. Since it was all just done by means of compressed air back then, gags would pop up or swing into view just as quickly as they would in any other pretzel-style dark ride. You can actually see the motorcycle cop from the original Mr. Toad in action in the movie Forty Pounds of Trouble from 1962. He had a jointed leg that he would kick up, providing the illusion of starting his motorcycle, and the movement was very swift. (I've uploaded the dark ride scene here, as the old YouTube uploads of the Disneyland sequence from the movie were blocked a while ago:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YX9ee_yEVgKNcwwzvyl4y_oyXvdYhpiE)

The attached image is a bit from an interview with Bob Gurr, the guy who designed all of the animated gags for the original Fantasyland dark rides, regarding the original Alice attraction. This is from issue #31 of The "E" Ticket, and it goes into detail about how the gags in the ride operated. And you most certainly can hear the mechanical workings in the audio recording, by the way. If you listen closely, you can make out all sorts of muffled little pneumatic snaps, as well as Alice's narrations and other audio reels bleeding in through other scenes.

Where can I find the original, unedited audio recording?? I know it’s used in the VR recreation, but that also utilizes audio from the film which might make it harder to hear some of the original mechanics and such.

 

[Okee68]

Where can I find the original, unedited audio recording?? I know it’s used in the VR recreation, but that also utilizes audio from the film which might make it harder to hear some of the original mechanics and such.

It's used in several of Don Carson's WIP ride-throughs:
I've also used it in several videos of my own:

 

[Clover Bailey]

It's used in several of Don Carson's WIP ride-throughs:
I've also used it in several videos of my own:

I have no idea who decided to leave all the silent spots in the attraction. I can sort of understand the rabbit hole, but it's so weird how there's no background music in the Oversized Room or Garden of Live Flowers, or how the final scene of the attraction is complete silence.

 

[Okee68]

I have no idea who decided to leave all the silent spots in the attraction. I can sort of understand the rabbit hole, but it's so weird how there's no background music in the Oversized Room or Garden of Live Flowers, or how the final scene of the attraction is complete silence.

There didn't really need to be any background music in the Garden of Live Flowers (assuming there really wasn't any; I've never been able to tell), because All in the Golden Afternoon is largely acapella as is. The one-second pause between each loop of the song was a little awkward, but little things like that were standard back then. (Fun fact: you can actually hear the Cheshire Cat's laugh through the wall during this pause.) The Oversized Room and Crash Room didn't have any music because, in the case of the former, music wouldn't have added much in such a short and bizarre scene, and in the case of the latter, there was hardly any music from the film that would have been really suitable.

 

[fantasmicsyd]

I wish more than anything we had this sort of documentation on the other pre ‘83 FL dark rides!! It’s incredibly lucky that somebody managed to record the full audio of Alice; I fear the original audio to some of the other dark rides may be lost to time. I’ve seen a few still images of pre-83 Peter Pan (mostly of the same couple of scenes) and I would kill for a VR ride through like we got for Alice ‘58. Snow and Toad both have movie scenes, at least, though I would love to see/know more of the rest of those rides.

 

[Okee68]

I wish more than anything we had this sort of documentation on the other pre ‘83 FL dark rides!! It’s incredibly lucky that somebody managed to record the full audio of Alice; I fear the original audio to some of the other dark rides may be lost to time. I’ve seen a few still images of pre-83 Peter Pan (mostly of the same couple of scenes) and I would kill for a VR ride through like we got for Alice ‘58. Snow and Toad both have movie scenes, at least, though I would love to see/know more of the rest of those rides.

There were in-depth, photo-rich articles from The "E" Ticket on all four of the original Fantasyland dark rides, in case you weren't aware. You've probably already seen the Alice article, which I've uploaded here: https://jumpshare.com/b/A2SoHoq9yotrV9SpVQ9S

Snow White article: https://jumpshare.com/b/nhX40v9yhCZJVdj0zO9Q (Also consult this wonderful source for the original Snow White ride: http://www.kennetti.fi/swscary_1.html)
Peter Pan article: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-peter-pans-flight-e-ticket
Mr. Toad article: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-mr-toads-wild-ride

 

[Clover Bailey]

There were in-depth, photo-rich articles from The "E" Ticket on all four of the original Fantasyland dark rides, in case you weren't aware. You've probably already seen the Alice article, which I've uploaded here: https://jumpshare.com/b/A2SoHoq9yotrV9SpVQ9S

Snow White article: https://jumpshare.com/b/nhX40v9yhCZJVdj0zO9Q (Also consult this wonderful source for the original Snow White ride: http://www.kennetti.fi/swscary_1.html)
Peter Pan article: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-peter-pans-flight-e-ticket
Mr. Toad article: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-mr-toads-wild-ride

Oh wow, I've never seen that colored image of Mr Toad before. I wish we had more photos that actually showed the black-light of the pre-1983 dark rides in action.

 

[Clover Bailey]

How was the lighting in the pre-1983 dark rides? I know they, like the modern incarnations, used black light, but was it a different form of black light? Like were the attractions darker than they are now, or relatively the same brightness and color? We have no real idea of what the rides actually looked like due to the poor quality of the images

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

How was the lighting in the pre-1983 dark rides? I know they, like the modern incarnations, used black light, but was it a different form of black light? Like were the attractions darker than they are now, or relatively the same brightness and color? We have no real idea of what the rides actually looked like due to the poor quality of the images

I would suspect they were at least slightly darker, 1) Because I believe Disney bumped up the amount of blacklight fixtures in the attractions during the 80's redos, and 2) Because now there's new LED Blacklight technology that's been incorporated to some of them. It doesn't always fully agree with the way the scenes are meant to be lit, but it does make a scene brighter.

Combine that with the fact that the originals made more use of simple, black negative space and the net effect is that what we ride today likely feels brighter.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

There were in-depth, photo-rich articles from The "E" Ticket on all four of the original Fantasyland dark rides, in case you weren't aware. You've probably already seen the Alice article, which I've uploaded here: https://jumpshare.com/b/A2SoHoq9yotrV9SpVQ9S

Snow White article: https://jumpshare.com/b/nhX40v9yhCZJVdj0zO9Q (Also consult this wonderful source for the original Snow White ride: http://www.kennetti.fi/swscary_1.html)
Peter Pan article: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-peter-pans-flight-e-ticket
Mr. Toad article: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-mr-toads-wild-ride

So I just made a pass at cleaning up that Toad photo using Photoshop and some AI noise removal software - it's not perfect, but I think it's a decent representation of how the scene might have looked to the eye (brightness notwithstanding, since I suspect it was darker in there):

 

[Clover Bailey]

Have y'all seen the recent sneak peek of the Snow White refurb? It's now called "Snow White's Enchanted Wish", and just as suspected it's making the attraction a much lighter experience:

 

[Okee68]

I would suspect they were at least slightly darker, 1) Because I believe Disney bumped up the amount of blacklight fixtures in the attractions during the 80's redos, and 2) Because now there's new LED Blacklight technology that's been incorporated to some of them. It doesn't always fully agree with the way the scenes are meant to be lit, but it does make a scene brighter.

Combine that with the fact that the originals made more use of simple, black negative space and the net effect is that what we ride today likely feels brighter.

We also have several blacklight-friendly shots from Snow White and Peter Pan. The Snow White views are probably fairly accurate, but the first two of Peter Pan are entirely purple, like an extreme version of how a lot of early home video recordings of dark rides look.

 

[Miru]

Have y'all seen the recent sneak peek of the Snow White refurb? It's now called "Snow White's Enchanted Wish", and just as suspected it's making the attraction a much lighter experience:

They announced a refurb, but did an overhaul behind our backs.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

We also have several blacklight-friendly shots from Snow White and Peter Pan. The Snow White views are probably fairly accurate, but the first two of Peter Pan are entirely purple, like an extreme version of how a lot of early home video recordings of dark rides look.

Well, these aren't perfect, but I think they're cleaner than what we had before:

And, as a light bonus, I messed with this watermarked photo from the early Neverland scene to try to clean it up too:

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Well, these aren't perfect, but I think they're cleaner than what we had before:


View attachment 524676

View attachment 524678

I see Tiger Lilly's in both pictures, but seems to be located in completely different places (one in Smee's boat and one in the water), I assume one of these pictures is from before the '60's refurb or were there two Tiger Lillies?

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I see Tiger Lilly's in both pictures, but seems to be located in completely different places (one in Smee's boat and one in the water), I assume one of these pictures is from before the '60's refurb or were there two Tiger Lillies?

I noticed that too - I have to assume they're from different periods and there was only ever one Tiger Lily at a time.

If I had to guess, my bet would be that the shot of her in the water is from after the 60's refurb - in editing the closeup picture of Smee I didn't really find any evidence that the floor was as blue as it is in the other picture, and given how little time and money they had to get Disneyland off the ground in the first place I would think that changing the floor to look more like water would be something that happened in a later refurb. They probably moved Tiger Lily there at that time, since now there was actual "water" for her to be in instead of just a black floor, and guests would get a better look at her there than in the boat with Smee.

Also, considering that the staging of her in the water has been retained ever since, I think it's more likely she was in the Boat first and moved out of it, rather than staged in the water, moved to the boat, and then moved back into the water at some point.

 

[Clover Bailey]

We also have several blacklight-friendly shots from Snow White and Peter Pan. The Snow White views are probably fairly accurate, but the first two of Peter Pan are entirely purple, like an extreme version of how a lot of early home video recordings of dark rides look.

I still have no clue on how those Witch figures went under the radar. They didn't even attempt to make her look like the character from the film. Here's one that has a watermark, but gives a good idea of how uncanny these figures were: