Revenge of Mickey's Toontown Expansion (open brainstorming)

[mharrington]

Picking up where this thread leaves off: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=487497.

As stated on more than one occasion, my main concern is that it's become too pacified by lawyers who wouldn't know fun if it came up and bit them in the butt. Another concern is that there is too few things for anyone without children to do, short of Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and, to a lesser extent, Mickey and Minnie's homes. So that's what this overhaul is all about: to scrap several smaller attractions and replace them with more worthwhile things to do. In the end, only the things between the mice's homes and the Roger Rabbit ride will be what's left of the "old" Toontown. Granted, that's a lot of the "old" Toontown retained, but things beyond that will be removed and replaced. And even the things left of the "old" Toontown will get an update.

Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin
This ride will receive a few minor updates, mostly in the queue. First of all, you know how in the queue there are several license plates whose jumbles of letters and numbers form the names of various Disney things? Well, the plate that reads FAN T C will be replaced by one reading FAN T ZA (meaning "Fantasia"). The year on that one will still be 1938. But the most attention will be on the second set of plates: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/2564727241_314a9964db.jpg.

Two brand-new plates will be added to this set, each with its own respective year. One is at the very top of the set (almost touching the ceiling) and the other is below the 1D N PTR one and next to the IM L8 one. The one on the very top will read ALADN (meaning "Aladdin"), its displayed year being 1940. And the one near the bottom will read DONL DUK (meaning "Donald Duck"), its year being 1934.

Elsewhere in the ride, a new radio broadcast on Baby Herman's radio will be featured. Much of it will be similar to the old one, but mainly with all references to W.A.C.K.Y. Radio being replaced by a new station, dubbed K.R.A.Z.Y. Radio (which will also be heard in Mickey and Minnie's homes, too), as well as feature a new sponsor for the broadcast, in addition to the Big Bad Wolf Demolition Company: Professor Ludwig Von Drake's Old Curiosity Shop (Von Drake himself is then heard on the radio saying, "We got all the things you want."). In the ride, there will be the sounds of cartoon tires squealing here and there, and in the scene with the evil laughing clowns, an additional laughing sound is heard, sounding very much like the laughing hyena sound from It's a Small World. Actually, I got the idea from watching "Disneyland USA" and hearing this laugh coming from the old Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

More to come!

 

[ScorpionX]

I once thought of a concept for a walkthrough based on the home of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit similar to Mickey and Minnie's.

 

[mharrington]

Various elements of Toontown
All effects of the gags, such as the smoke from the Fireworks Factory and the dog in the fire department will be revived and updated where necessary. The bars of the Dog Pound will be fixed up to be more flexible and less... uh, lopsided.

The Jolly Trolley
In the interest of the Horse-Drawn Streetcars on Main Street and the upcoming Red Car Trolleys at the California Adventure, the Jolly Trolley will be brought back from the dead. There will also be tastefully-done streetlights to control the flow of traffic through the area and allow the trolleys to travel freely. Or we could do things how they do things for the Horse-Drawn Streetcars. Whatever they do for similar rides, can be done for the Jolly Trolley.

The Gag Factory
The Gag Factory store will be fixed up somewhat, to restore all the Gag-O-Matic thematic element in the store (if it hasn't been so already): the cogs and gears rotating on the big machine, the bellows squeezing in and out, and the suspended gloves carrying the various gag items through the store. The things the store will once again be less homogenized and more "gag-like": things like crazy toys, practical jokes and magic tricks, mixed in with regular clothing and hats. Even the TV in the corner will now play Disney cartoons.

Toontown City Hall
At each quarter hour, not unlike the clock tower at Small World, the clock atop City Hall will go haywire in typical Toontown fashion and then play the Mickey Mouse Club March, followed by the figures of Mickey and Roger popping out of their cannons and blowing their horns. Mickey will play his horn for each full hour while Roger plays his horn for each fifteen minutes (one = 15, two = 30, three = 45). Sometimes, but not all the time, a random Disney character will come out into Toontown through the City Hall.

More to come!

 

[mharrington]

Minnie's House
Minnie's House will be left almost completely intact, except to fix up the hands-on activities in the kitchen.

Mickey's House
The home of the big cheese himself will also be largely left untouched, but will nevertheless be updated slightly. Most of it will be in the area where you can actually meet Mickey (as well as in the now-updated preview theater where Donald and Goofy operate the film projector showing the trailers for Mickey's cartoons). But first, let's take a stroll through Mickey's house itself. On the radio just inside the entrance, a new radio loop will now play. All references to W.A.C.K.Y. Radio will be replaced a new radio station, called K.R.A.Z.Y. Radio. I know "crazy" is misspelled, but that's only because this Toontown is on the west side of the Mississippi and all stations there have their call letters start with the letter K (hence the new name of the Toontown radio station). The letter W is used east of the Mississippi.

Next, we continue to move through the house. The answering machine's messages will be altered, as per the overhauled area. Not much will be changed from here on, now, until you reach the "outside" garden where the gopher tries to make off with the crops. New flowers will be added to this area. These include tulips (literally two lips puckered up for a kiss) and dandelions (literally small lion-like faces).

Which brings me to the area in the Movie Barn where you meet Mickey. In the preview theater, in addition to the current four Mickey cartoons featured ("Steamboat Willie", "The Band Concert", "Thru the Mirror" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"), there will be another short featured. This is "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (from "Fun and Fancy Free"). This will also entail an update of the humorous film that plays in this room and involve Donald and Goofy as they try to operate the film projector from the projection booth. Also, new to this area is that if you look behind you at the booth, you can see audio-animatronics of Donald and Goofy here. It will be like how the Swedish Chef appears in the projection booth behind in Muppet*Vision. Donald and Goofy will randomly disappear and reappear, depending on what's happening in the film loop. Here's the film loop to show you: YouTube - Mickey Movie Barn. Anytime you see Donald and Goofy on the screen, they are not shown in the booth.

If the animatronics of Donald and Goofy look familiar to you, they should. They are the same ones as used in the Mickey Mouse Revue, which just recently closed at Tokyo Disneyland, which means we can reuse some of its figures (likewise, I would also use some Song of the South characters from that show to improve Splash Mountain).

Here's a picture of Goofy from the old Mickey Mouse Revue (sorry I couldn't find a better picture, but you get the idea, right?): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3077/2628735819_8d959c3ace_z.jpg.

And here's Donald Duck (with Jose Carioca and Panchito):http://www.omniluxe.net/wyw/mmr3cbl.jpg

As you can see by the pictures, Donald and Goofy's respective clothing colors will be revised. However, there won't be much there to change, short of their hats and the tops of their shirts, since that's all that you will see of them from the projection booth.

Now onto the actual meeting place for Mickey himself. First of all, Mickey, on all "sets" of his cartoons, will be able to "talk". As mentioned above there will now be five shorts featured instead of four. On the set of "Steamboat Willie", Mickey will still be in black and white, but he will not be wearing a scarf anymore. He did not wear one in the short, so why should he here? Or during "Fantasmic", for that matter? Mickey's face will still be flesh, rather than black and white, but there will be a small make-up can marked "black and white", suggesting that Mickey had applied make-up for this role. And there will also be a new set for "Mickey and the Beanstalk" (and, of course, Mickey will be all dressed up for this part). The ceiling would look like the one in the picture here: http://www.photosmagiques.com/gallery/disneyland_park/fantasyland/sir_mickeys_boutique/DSC08340.JPG.

And that ends my overhaul of Mickey's House at Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland.

More to come!

 

[Coolneal]

I feel like they should have created The Mickey Mouse clubhouse. It could be a meet and great for the gang. They can do the hot dog dance with the kids. A slide built to exit the area after they tour the clubhouse. Every 30mins have a digital image of toodles race around the club house. The hand balloon that could have taken you up and gave a view of the whole park. Barnstormer and Donalds boat would have stayed as is. The gift shop themed as Clarabell's moo mart. A play area "Mickey Park". A mountain range that could be seasonally themed.... Mistletoe mountain, spooky mountain, etc.

This could be an area for those young Disney lovers. I know I didn't add a lot of thrills, but it could be a great area for gang and the demo of 1-5yrs.

 

[mharrington]

I feel like they should have created The Mickey Mouse clubhouse. It could be a meet and great for the gang. They can do the hot dog dance with the kids. A slide built to exit the area after they tour the clubhouse. Every 30mins have a digital image of toodles race around the club house. The hand balloon that could have taken you up and gave a view of the whole park. Barnstormer and Donalds boat would have stayed as is. The gift shop themed as Clarabell's moo mart. A play area "Mickey Park". A mountain range that could be seasonally themed.... Mistletoe mountain, spooky mountain, etc.

This could be an area for those young Disney lovers. I know I didn't add a lot of thrills, but it could be a great area for gang and the demo of 1-5yrs.

This is for Disneyland's Toontown, not Disney World's. Anyway, moving on...

Chip 'n' Dale's Treehouse
Beyond Mickey's House lies the treehouse-like dwelling of Chip 'n' Dale. With this area, we finally come to the area of Mickey's Toontown that will be bulldozed and rebuilt to be less problematic. In this case, Chip 'n' Dale's Treehouse will no longer be a climb-through structure. Instead, it will now be a legitimate ride. Actually, it will be a parachute drop-like ride based on the Jumpin' Jellyfish ride at the California Adventure. But in this case, the tower structure will be a new tree similar to the old one and the parachute-like seats will be acorns topped with leaves to resemble the parachutes themselves. It will also feature the same height as Jumpin' Jellyfish (around 50 feet or so). This may or may not entail a closure of the original ride at the CA Adventure, which has been rumored not to be removed during that park's big expansion.

More to come!

 

[mharrington]

Donald's Dock
Next door to Chip 'n' Dale's Treehouse lies another brand-new attraction: Donald's Dock. This is the new boat-home for Donald Dock, after his old boat, the Miss Daisy, gets torn down. That boat has been neutered by lawyers who wouldn't know fun if it came up and bit them in the you-know-what. Anyway, Donald's Dock is actually a new water ride, intended not just for kids, but for anyone, with or without kids. This ride should help give Mickey's Toontown something more worthwhile to do than just the Roger Rabbit and, to a lesser degree, Mickey and Minnie's Houses.

Anyway, this new ride's entrance and queue will be a new version of Donald's old house and boat all mashed into one and featuring a few new interactive elements. The entrance looks something like this (albeit more done in the style of this Toontown rather than Mickeyville, as seen here): http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OO7WbmARD08/SQoROaB6dkI/AAAAAAAAJGE/g1T_YpXT_ow/s400/Donald%27sDock90.jpg.

In fact, the ride's name gets from the aborted Mickeyville concept. But the ride itself is sort of based on this abandoned ride concept called Duck Bumps: http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/images/upload/duck-bumps.jpg.

Unlike Duck Bumps, however, this ride will not be a bumper boat ride. Instead, it will duplicate the ride system, effects and layout of Tokyo DisneySea's Aquatopia, which itself has the same ride system as Tokyo's Pooh ride. And based on what Aquatopia's Wikipedia article says, this ride may also be a new version of the old Motor Boat Cruise in Fantasyland.

As you enter the queue, you wind your way through Donald's boat. It will feature several interactive elements. One is a rope based on the one you can pull in the queue of the Indiana Jones ride (a sign nearby tells you not to do it). You pull on that and a British-sounding man yells at you for doing so. You can pull on this rope in this queue and hear Donald yelling at you for doing so. Also in the queue is this big map on the wall, looking like this one in WDW's now-extinct Toontown Fair: http://land.allears.net/blogs/photoblog/Donald_Ducks_Boat_in_the_Magic_Kingdom.jpg.

Another interactive element in the queue is another rope, supposedly attached to the boat's steam whistle. But when you pull on it, not only does the whistle on the boat emit a boat whistle-like sound, but instead of steam, the whistle sprays out a blast of water onto passersby outside the boat and just walking around. It could provide a nice refreshing treat on a hot day.

And so it goes in this vein, until you exit the boat. You go past what looks like a cashier booth on the dock beyond. But there is no one in there; a sign on it reads "Out to launch -D. Duck". So you just walk right on past and down the dock steps to your Toon hovercraft-like vessel in the waters of Toon Lake below. These vessels all are colored in Donald's signature color scheme: blue, white and yellow. There are two dozen vessels in all and each seat two guests at a time. As you head out to the dock, you hear the usual safety spiel (Donald may or may not provide it, I haven't decided). The lake is only about two feet deep.

So you climb aboard your hovercraft for your voyage around Toon Lake. These watercraft move independently of each other. The ride itself pretty much the same ride as Aquatopia, so there's not much there to say. Departing the dock, you're in for a wild ride. Your watercraft twists, turns, backs up and spins around in place, all while taking you on a seemingly random trip dodging jagged rocks, spinning whirlpools, and other watercraft. But the biggest obstacle to watch out for is the likelihood of getting doused by any source of water here: from fountains or geysers. Other characters here try to take aim at you, such as spitting frogs perched on the rocks (they're actually the same ones previously used in Gadget's Go Coaster) or Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, all scattered about the lake and firing water cannons at you. Passersby can also try to let you have it with rail-mounted squirt cannons. It's a very wet and ride.

If you watch this attraction from the rail, you'll see pretty much everything it has to offer; there are no surprises when you're actually on it. As stated above, you can actually fire cannons at the rides from the rail overlooking the ride. All in all, this ride should help take the edge off of Mickey's Toontown being a kids-only area. In fact, this actually entails some kids-only areas to be closed. But I haven't forgotten about a play area for the little tykes...

Oh, and in hindsight, there is a section of Toontown Online called Donald's Dock (featuring Donald's Boat), but any similarity between this version of Donald's Dock and the one online is purely coincidental.

More to come!