Original Alice in Wonderland Ride

[Brer Oswald]

Disneyland Youtubers and "Historians" are oftentimes overly embellished. And sometimes simply wrong. But, anything that gets people interested in Disneyland history is a positive in my book- and Yesterworld certainly has an audience.

While @Okee68 is definitely correct in the assessment, I think Yesterworld is one of the better YouTubers covering theme park history. Much less of an ego.

 

[Okee68]

While @Okee68 is definitely correct in the assessment, I think Yesterworld is one of the better YouTubers covering theme park history. Much less of an ego.

Yeah, he seems to get his facts straight from what I've seen. It's just this one video in particular that mildly got on my nerves because of his overt insistence that the original Alice ride was some sort of blood-curdling horror fest. However, I will give Defunctland a pass for giving the "terrifying" label to Tales of the Okefenokee at Six Flags Over Georgia, as a lot of those Krofft-made rabbits, foxes, bears, and sentient diva carrots were beyond the uncanny valley.

I actually chose this yellow rabbit as my profile picture when I created the Okee68 YouTube channel because it stood out to me as one of the only cute animated figures in the attraction.

 

[Homemade Imagineering]

Yeah, I definately much prefer Mark’s content over at YesterWorld, as opposed to YouTubers who pass off ridiculous Rumors as fact, such as the removal of IASW...

 

[VicariousCorpse]

Yeah, he seems to get his facts straight from what I've seen. It's just this one video in particular that mildly got on my nerves because of his overt insistence that the original Alice ride was some sort of blood-curdling horror fest. However, I will give Defunctland a pass for giving the "terrifying" label to Tales of the Okefenokee at Six Flags Over Georgia, as a lot of those Krofft-made rabbits, foxes, bears, and sentient diva carrots were beyond the uncanny valley.

I actually chose this yellow rabbit as my profile picture when I created the Okee68 YouTube channel because it stood out to me as one of the only cute animated figures in the attraction.

Are you sure you're not just desensitized from staring at the Chesire Cat in the dark for hours at a time?

 

[Clover Bailey]

I recently re-watched the Yesterworld Alice video for the first time since it was uploaded, and good lord is it cringey at times. He sounds so ridiculous trying to pass off a bunch of literal plywood cutouts of Alice in Wonderland characters as "scary." Words like "unnerving" or "unsettling" would suffice just fine, but this guy opted for the far more meatheaded and ludicrous "TERRIFYING" at every last turn. The only Fantasyland dark ride worthy of that descriptor is 1971 Snow White; Alice '58 was vaguely unsettling at worst. Simply playing up how surreal the ride was, and how much of an utter fever dream it was, would have made for a more accurate video.

It's really kind of a meme to play up the "scary" factor of defunct Fantasyland dark rides. The most egregious misinterpretation I've seen is the notion that riders were "shot dead" at the end of Peter Pan '55, despite the character of Smee being a total buffoon and clearly missing his shot (the fact that you can hear the bullet ricocheting in the recording backs this up), and despite the fact that the actual last sight in the attraction was Tick-Tock.

Yeah, looking back they're not really that scary, just very crude and surreal. I will say that Snow White '55 looks creepy with the uncanny Witch figures that look nothing like the film.

 

[Clover Bailey]

Check out what I got!

 

[Okee68]

The only decent Funko Pops are the ones with mouths, I would say. They actually made some Banana Splits figurines to along with the stupid 2019 horror film, and they're some of the best ones I've seen simply due to having actual mouths.

 

[Mudkip55333]

Snow White 1972 and Peter Pan 1977 are in low pitch sound?

 

[Okee68]

Snow White 1972 and Peter Pan 1977 are in low pitch sound?

Neither is pitched too low, at least not to any noticeable degree. The Peter Pan recording actually was pitched way too low to start out with, so before uploading it to YouTube, I pitched it up according to how accurate the Hook/Smee "shoot 'em down" dialogue in the recording sounded to the unaltered source audio for the dialogue. With Snow White, you can compare the Witch's cackles heard near the end of the ride with the same audio heard in Forty Pounds of Trouble; they're at virtually the same pitch.

The second Alice recording is a complete mess, however, because it's pitched too low for the most part but completely normal in some places, namely the Garden of Live Flowers and Mad Tea Party scenes.

 

[Okee68]

@Rich T we summon ye.
Check Page 19 in particular. A month ago, we found legitimate audio recordings of all the pre-1983 Fantasyland dark rides, including another one of Alice. I've been dying to hear your thoughts on these.

 

[Clover Bailey]

Just found this, not exactly sure what it is. Maybe it's audio from one of the pre-1983 versions of Peter Pan?

 

[Okee68]

Just found this, not exactly sure what it is. Maybe it's audio from one of the pre-1983 versions of Peter Pan?

This is an utterly bizarre edit of the audio heard in the Peter Pan segment of "People and Places: Disneyland" from 1956, which, like the Toad segment, uses an instrumental piece created explicitly for the TV special that was never used in the actual attraction. The user who uploaded this asked me (rather bluntly demanded) in the comments of my Toad upload from a week ago that I overlay the 1977 Pan recording with the current ride.

 

[Clover Bailey]

This is an utterly bizarre edit of the audio heard in the Peter Pan segment of "People and Places: Disneyland" from 1956, which, like the Toad segment, uses an instrumental piece created explicitly for the TV special that was never used in the actual attraction. The user who uploaded this asked me (rather bluntly demanded) in the comments of my Toad upload from a week ago that I overlay the 1977 Pan recording with the current ride.

Ah I see. I was wondering because it was different from the music in the recording. I think it's safe to say that out of all the 1955 dark rides Peter Pan has changed the least, especially since it was the only pre-1983 Fantasyland dark ride to have high quality 3D figures.

 

[Clover Bailey]

Also, I'd like to point out how much I love Florida's Peter Pan as it is, in my opinion, the last true "classic" dark ride from that era of Disney Imagineering. Anaheim's have all been heavily updated and Florida's Snow White and Toad are gone, so the 1971 ride is arguably the closest you can get to early Fantasyland dark rides as it's pretty much exactly how it was on opening day.

 

[Okee68]

@Rich T One thing I wanted to ask you about the 1970s Toad recording is if anything conflicts with your own memories of how the ride sounded. Something I immediately noticed about the recording upon hearing it is the presence of certain audio reels which were used for the 1971 WDW version of Toad (namely the queue/Toad Hall song, the loop of chirping crickets and owl hoots, the oncoming train and collision, and the cackling devils), and some of us have been speculating whether or not these predate the WDW ride. I've hypothesized that if the Toad recording is from the early seventies like the Alice and Snow White recordings, then those reels almost definitely predate the Magic Kingdom, but you're basically the only one here who can give an educated answer.

Your description of the ride's audio from September is definitely accurate, by the way. I can make out the motorcycle siren no less than seven times throughout the recording, and you can actually hear the first cop whistle through the front wall at five seconds in. The sole thing in the recoding that has me confused is the low-pitched "rumbling" sound heard along the village straightaway at 0:46, and then again at 0:50. If you have any recollection as to what this sound was supposed to be, I love to hear it.

 

[Rich T]

@Rich T One thing I wanted to ask you about the 1970s Toad recording is if anything conflicts with your own memories of how the ride sounded. Something I immediately noticed about the recording upon hearing it is the presence of certain audio reels which were used for the 1971 WDW version of Toad (namely the queue/Toad Hall song, the loop of chirping crickets and owl hoots, the oncoming train and collision, and the cackling devils), and some of us have been speculating whether or not these predate the WDW ride. I've hypothesized that if the Toad recording is from the early seventies like the Alice and Snow White recordings, then those reels almost definitely predate the Magic Kingdom, but you're basically the only one here who can give an educated answer.

Your description of the ride's audio from September is definitely accurate, by the way. I can make out the motorcycle siren no less than seven times throughout the recording, and you can actually hear the first cop whistle through the front wall at five seconds in. The sole thing in the recoding that has me confused is the low-pitched "rumbling" sound heard along the village straightaway at 0:46, and then again at 0:50. If you have any recollection as to what this sound was supposed to be, I love to hear it.

These are wonderful to listen to; back about 1975 I took my little Panasonic player/recorder on Toad, Alice and HM. That tape is long gone, but these recordings bring it all back. One difference I notice between this recording of Toad and my memories is that, when I rode, the Merrily Song was faintly present in the first room, but not nearly as clear as it is here.

I think I have the answer to your question; from the sound, I’m pretty sure it’s the big overhead crate at the wharf scene lowering straight down toward riders’ heads. In 1983, this was replaced by the odd-shaped crate swinging around overhead.

I always assumed that sound was a recorded effect, but—if it is the crate—the sound repeating so quickly only seems to make sense if it’s actually the real time sound of the gag’s mechanism, followed by its re-setting (or vice versa).

 

[Clover Bailey]

These are wonderful to listen to; back about 1975 I took my little Panasonic player/recorder on Toad, Alice and HM. That tape is long gone, but these recordings bring it all back. One difference I notice between this recording of Toad and my memories is that, when I rode, the Merrily Song was faintly present in the first room, but not nearly as clear as it is here.

I think I have the answer to your question; from the sound, I’m pretty sure it’s the big overhead crate at the wharf scene lowering straight down toward riders’ heads. In 1983, this was replaced by the odd-shaped crate swinging around overhead.

I always assumed that sound was a recorded effect, but—if it is the crate—the sound repeating so quickly only seems to make sense if it’s actually the real time sound of the gag’s mechanism, followed by its re-setting (or vice versa).

Hey, it's nice to see you back! Just curious, I'm not sure of your knowledge on the original Snow White dark ride, but do you possibly know what's going on with this recently discovered photo of the Witch at the cottage?

 

[Rich T]

Hey, it's nice to see you back! Just curious, I'm not sure of your knowledge on the original Snow White dark ride, but do you possibly know what's going on with this recently discovered photo of the Witch at the cottage? View attachment 547665

Thanks! On the original ride, the Witch appeared in the doorway of the Dwarfs’ cottage—pretty much in the same spot as the reworked cottage in tbe 1983 version—holding an apple that had to be constantly replaced, as it was apparently within reach of long-armed guests. In the pre-opening publicity for New Fantasyland, the Imagineers said they’d solved the problem by creating a holographic apple that guests could reach for, only to grasp thin air. Sounded like a great illusion! And we all know how it turned out...

 

[Okee68]

These are wonderful to listen to; back about 1975 I took my little Panasonic player/recorder on Toad, Alice and HM. That tape is long gone, but these recordings bring it all back. One difference I notice between this recording of Toad and my memories is that, when I rode, the Merrily Song was faintly present in the first room, but not nearly as clear as it is here.

I think I have the answer to your question; from the sound, I’m pretty sure it’s the big overhead crate at the wharf scene lowering straight down toward riders’ heads. In 1983, this was replaced by the odd-shaped crate swinging around overhead.

I always assumed that sound was a recorded effect, but—if it is the crate—the sound repeating so quickly only seems to make sense if it’s actually the real time sound of the gag’s mechanism, followed by its re-setting (or vice versa).

Thanks for the answer - really interesting stuff as always. I actually had no idea any version of the overhead crate gag was in the harbor scene prior to 1983, although I had speculated that the gag could have been added as part of the 1961 mini-overhaul. It likely wasn't present in 1955 as the attached photo suggests (unless it was really way up there toward the ceiling), and additionally I haven't seen any view of the 1961-1982 harbor scene aside from a single shot of the painted mural alone.

What's weird about the rumbling sound is that if it actually is the crate gag at the harbor, then you can't seem to hear it at all during the actual scene. The portion of the recording in which it's audible is rather the straightaway through the storefronts and the black dead end with the motorcycle cop. The sound also doesn't appear to be played off at eleven- or twelve-second intervals like the other trigger-activated sound effects. If it starts at 0:46, before the car turns toward the wharf, you would logically hear it again at 0:57 or 0:58 at the wharf, yet the only sound effect I can make out at that point aside from the police siren is the stack of kegs toppling over at the far end of the warehouse.

 

[Clover Bailey]

Is the poison apple hologram still within reach? I'm pretty sure all attractions after Adventure Thru Inner Space had a rule that all props must be out of arms reach. I doubt any riders would be able to grab the apple in the current version, so the 1983 holographic apple always seemed kind of redundant.