MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
Those Wonderful World of Color episodes are some of my all-time favorites! The best one was the second one from Spring, 1967 just after the ride opened. Walt had actually passed away five months earlier, but they used footage of him explaining the ride from a 1965 episode of Wonderful World of Color, so it still had plenty of Walt in it.
There's so much great footage, and some really funny lines in this episode! Anyone who has more than a passing interest in the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions simply must watch Walt Disney explain the ride and debut it to the American television audience. And it's in Living Color, no less! :sohappy:
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color introduces Pirates of the Caribbean - April, 1967
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pT36SYP5T4
Yep, i still have that episode on tape! That's the first real tip-off that our version of Pirates was heavily downsized and changed for the worse too lol! Part 2 of that video contains a full and surprisingly solid quality ride-through of the attraction. All my childhood i was wondering what was up with the double drops, swamp scene, extra skeleton scenes, and extra ending sequences. Everything felt so much different (and better). Glad i finally got to experience a version that was truly worthy (Paris). I still hope to visit the one at Disneyland someday (though might not ever get to).
I would not complain if they closed the WDW Pirates for a year or even more to gut and redo the attraction to be more like DL or Paris (preferably the latter) complete with the Blue Bayou cafe. It's something i'd be willing to do without for a while to see it happen. Won't ever happen though i'm sure.
Pirates is my favorite attraction to ride at the end of the day. It's reasonably lengthy (at least when you disregard the Disneyland versions) and isn't too thrilling but still not fully calm. Can't explain it, but the atmosphere makes me feel happy. Even with our gimped version at WDW.