Original Alice in Wonderland Ride

[RedzRobinz]

What do you honestly think convinced the original Imagineers to end Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Hell? I understand that the dark rides took some creative liberties with the source material, but it's such a bizarre concept. I could easily see Imagineers in the 70s pulling something as crude off like that, but 1955, when Walt was alive?

Well the whole plot of the ride is recklessly driving a motorcar through an English countryside so getting hit by the train and being sent to the Hades is meant to serve as paying the consequences for your reckless behavior,

 

[Sailor310]

There are many times I'm at DL and ask, 'What was Walt thinking of??'

 

[Rich T]

There are many times I'm at DL and ask, 'What was Walt thinking of??'

Nearly every time, I think the answer would simply be: Walt was thinking, “That would be fun!”

 

[Okee68]

1971 dark ride interior shots. Somebody posted these on a dark ride Discord server that I'm part of, but I don't know where they're from. Reverse search isn't doing anything here. The shots of Toad are fantastic, as I've never seen a photo of either the main part of the hell scene or those trees between the warehouse and the railroad crossing. I would imagine those eyes peering out of the hole had the same "following" effect as the Cheshire Cat and Tulgey Wood eyes from Alice.

 

[Okee68]

As always, I've updated my gigantic tapestry of every pre-1983 Toad photo, and now I have a folder containing each image as an individual file as well. https://jumpshare.com/b/gtxcJCv0gCPwXTBYNIgR

 

[Okee68]

@Rich T Kind of a random question, but do you remember how the Tulgey Wood in Alice '58 was colored? The only color photograph of it that I know of is completely washed out, and really not evocative at all of the scene's actual palette.

 

[Okee68]

Not the original Disneyland dark rides, but I've just been informed of several instances of on-ride footage of WDW's Toad and Snow White rides, which appear in this video at 30:00 and 37:09 respectively:



What makes these unique is the fact that they were recorded on consumer-grade film in 1972. Previously, I had just assumed that any attempt to record one of the Fantasyland dark rides in the days before videotape would have resulted in an indecipherable, pitch-black waste of film, but apparently that wasn't necessarily the case. These recordings actually capture the ultraviolet light somehow, and even if they're extremely fuzzy and feature almost no color except dark blue, you can still generally tell what's going on in them.

I'm posting this here because it's incredibly interesting to see what an actual recording of one of the original 1950s California dark rides would theoretically look like. At least we know that it's technically possible that one could exist now.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

Not the original Disneyland dark rides, but I've just been informed of several instances of on-ride footage of WDW's Toad and Snow White rides, which appear in this video at 30:00 and 37:09 respectively:



What makes these unique is the fact that they were recorded on consumer-grade film in 1972. Previously, I had just assumed that any attempt to record one of the Fantasyland dark rides in the days before videotape would have resulted in an indecipherable, pitch-black waste of film, but apparently that wasn't necessarily the case. These recordings actually capture the ultraviolet light somehow, and even if they're extremely fuzzy and feature almost no color except dark blue, you can still generally tell what's going on in them.

I'm posting this here because it's incredibly interesting to see what an actual recording of one of the original 1950s California dark rides would theoretically look like. At least we know that it's technically possible that one could exist now.

Watching that filled my little Purist heart with so much joy!

 

[Miru]

Well the whole plot of the ride is recklessly driving a motorcar through an English countryside so getting hit by the train and being sent to the Hades is meant to serve as paying the consequences for your reckless behavior,

I think it’s also just cartoon logic at play, as well. Walt himself also disliked the package features and probably didn’t care as much about characters like Mr. Toad (he did care more than the company does about the package features today, however…)

 

[Clover Bailey]

Just a small update, while browsing images of the WDW Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I discovered a set of pins with some very retro imagery.

What really interests me is when exactly these pins were produced and sold? They use obvious scenes from the 1955 version of the attraction, I'm unsure whether these pins were sold before or after the 1983 refurbishment?

 

[VicariousCorpse]

Just a small update, while browsing images of the WDW Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I discovered a set of pins with some very retro imagery.

View attachment 610472

What really interests me is when exactly these pins were produced and sold? They use obvious scenes from the 1955 version of the attraction, I'm unsure whether these pins were sold before or after the 1983 refurbishment?

What's even cooler is that they all open up!
These 4 are from a limited edition set of 2000 from the year 2003.

 

[Okee68]

Just a small update, while browsing images of the WDW Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I discovered a set of pins with some very retro imagery.

View attachment 610472

What really interests me is when exactly these pins were produced and sold? They use obvious scenes from the 1955 version of the attraction, I'm unsure whether these pins were sold before or after the 1983 refurbishment?

I've always thought those were a bit weird. It would make a lot more sense if they had been produced for Disneyland's fiftieth anniversary, but they obviously predate that, so I'm not sure why they chose to use the pre-1983 iconography. Also, I have the feeling that these were designed solely by going off the "E" Ticket issue for the original ride. The top-left one in particular is extremely reminiscent of the way the warehouse and the cops are drawn in that big cutaway illustration.

 

[AllyInWonderland]

Hey everyone!

I just spent the last 1-2 hours catching up on this thread (after not being on here for years), and I just wanted to say thank you to those who have kept it going for all these years! I was not expecting this thread to grow this much, and definitely not to keep going for so long. All of the info and research posted on here has been so interesting, and I especially love all of the photos and videos. My former cringey teenage self and current day self are completely satisfied!

Keep up the awesome research!

 

[Okee68]

Hey everyone!

I just spent the last 1-2 hours catching up on this thread (after not being on here for years), and I just wanted to say thank you to those who have kept it going for all these years! I was not expecting this thread to grow this much, and definitely not to keep going for so long. All of the info and research posted on here has been so interesting, and I especially love all of the photos and videos. My former cringey teenage self and current day self are completely satisfied!

Keep up the awesome research!

It is kind of funny how this thread evolved, isn't it? Some basic little discussion from 2013 which contained only the most rudimentary information on the original Alice received a sudden spike in popularity seven years later, quickly becoming the single most in-depth and informative thing on the internet regarding the pre-1983 Fantasyland dark rides.

 

[RedzRobinz]

Ya'll won't believe what I just found... On-ride footage of pre-1983 Peter pan! It's very short and the footage is sped up for whatever reason but it's still better than nothing. Some Alice footage is also present but it's only the outdoor section :'(. Also a lot of fantastic wide-angle footage of the park and other rides like Space Mountain and it's a small world. The Peter Pan footage can be found around the 12:00 mark.

 

[VicariousCorpse]

Ya'll won't believe what I just found... On-ride footage of pre-1983 Peter pan! It's very short and the footage is sped up for whatever reason but it's still better than nothing. Some Alice footage is also present but it's only the outdoor section :'(. Also a lot of fantastic wide-angle footage of the park and other rides like Space Mountain and it's a small world. The Peter Pan footage can be found around the 12:00 mark.

Very cool! The footage gets sped up because the footage was most likely shot in 18fps and then was transferred to digital where the format is 60fps. So if you don't adjust the settings to play at the right framerate, then the older footage gets forced into the modern framerate, which is 4x faster. Same thing with really old movies like Chaplin.

 

[Sailor310]

I miss sooo many things shown in this film.
Those boys seemed pretty hyper. They climbed on anything and everything.

 

[Miru]

Ya'll won't believe what I just found... On-ride footage of pre-1983 Peter pan! It's very short and the footage is sped up for whatever reason but it's still better than nothing. Some Alice footage is also present but it's only the outdoor section :'(. Also a lot of fantastic wide-angle footage of the park and other rides like Space Mountain and it's a small world. The Peter Pan footage can be found around the 12:00 mark.

Thanks! It’s pretty surreal to see footage of a Disneyland so different even compared to a time that was “the good old days”, like 2012, from that far back, from the perspective of visitors rather than official historians.

 

[CaptinEO]

Ya'll won't believe what I just found... On-ride footage of pre-1983 Peter pan! It's very short and the footage is sped up for whatever reason but it's still better than nothing. Some Alice footage is also present but it's only the outdoor section :'(. Also a lot of fantastic wide-angle footage of the park and other rides like Space Mountain and it's a small world. The Peter Pan footage can be found around the 12:00 mark.

Wow! I love how natural the park looks and they dont use cartoony shades of paint on the buildings like they do now. Everything now is so overly colorful.

 

[truecoat]

Very cool! The footage gets sped up because the footage was most likely shot in 18fps and then was transferred to digital where the format is 60fps. So if you don't adjust the settings to play at the right framerate, then the older footage gets forced into the modern framerate, which is 4x faster. Same thing with really old movies like Chaplin.

Need to interpolate some frames there and bring it back to earth.