Since this season of SYWTBAI is all about reviving past projects, I thought it would be apropos for this project to revive a project near and dear to my heart: the very first project I ever posted on Visions Fantastic...
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A "Hunny" of an Adventure Comes to Disneyland!
If you remember my last post here, you may remember me mentioning that Winnie the Pooh has found a new home in Disneyland's Fantasyland, after his current ride was replaced by The Rivers of Nature. Well, now the time has come to experience the magic for ourselves as we join in the whimsical fun of
Winnie the Pooh's Most Grand Adventure.
Located just behind the rolling hills of Storybook Land, and taking up some of the real estate formerly held by the Fantasyland Theater, you'll find yourselves in the "enchanted neighborhood" of the 100 Acre Wood like never before. Hopping aboard a hot-air balloon, we take off for the magic, the music, and the memories of Winnie the Pooh's timeless adventures.
The attraction carries on the tradition of Fantasyland's five other classic dark rides by having its exterior be themed more to its home-country's setting, rather than the film itself (i;e Snow White's Bavarian castle, Peter Pan's clock-tower facade, etc.) In the case of Winnie the Pooh, the queue is an old English farmhouse. Stepping into the house, we first find ourselves in an old toolshed, looted with all sorts of odds and ends and bric-a-brac.
Moving on from the shed, we move on to Christopher Robin's bedroom, decked out as it was in
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh's opening sequence.
At the farthest end of Christopher Robin's bedroom is an large open book, large enough to step through. As in the film's opening sequence, our eyes are met with a large map of the 100 Acre Wood. An instrumental arrangement of the Sherman Brothers' inspired music plays on an endless loop.
In the map's foreground is the ride's loading area. Riding along an aerial track, a la Peter Pan's Flight, are a series of hot-air balloons. These hot-air balloons seat four to five people within their baskets, and are decorated to look like different characters from the Winnie the Pooh stories (ex. half-red, half-yellow for Pooh, orange and black stripes for Tigger, half magenta and half light-pink for Piglet, etc.)
Once all are aboard their balloon, we pass through an arch in a nearby page of the book, and soon find ourselves face-to-face with an illustration of the sun shining happily over the trees of the wood. Suddenly, the balloon rises and sails over the trees, thus marking the transition from the pages of a book into the Hundred Acre Wood itself. Much like every other version of the ride, we are taken through the story of the 1968 Academy-Award winning featurette
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. “A Rather Blustery Day” plays as an instrumental, as wind blows across the land (slightly shaking the balloons a bit).
We first pass by Pooh as he flies his balloon over to the Hunny Tree in order to get a small smackarel, as he says,
“I’ve got a rumbly in my tumbly. It must be time for something sweet!” Like in the Tokyo Disneyland version, the audio-animatronics used on this ride not only blink and move their mouths when they speak, but they’re also quite fuzzy, like real stuffed animals. As we move around the room, Pooh flies above our heads as we travel through the wood, and in the middle of the room is Owl’s house, where Owl sits outside in his rocking chair blabbering about his relatives. Across from Owl’s house, we find Rabbit’s garden, where Rabbit is clinging to his wheelbarrow for dear life.
“Oh, why do these things always happen to me?” he groans.
“Why oh why oh why?” Just then, Pooh flies through his garden, knocking some vegetables into a nearby wheelbarrow.
“Thank you, Pooh!” the rabbit says.
“Next time, I hope he blows right through my rutabaga patch.”
Nearby, we pass by Gopher's hole. He pops up and says
“If I was you, I'd think about skedaddlin' out of here...” He heads back into his hole and finishes his sentence:
“...'cause it's Winds-day!” As Gopher says “Winds-day”, a bunch of leaves pop up from his hole.. Meanwhile, over at Kanga and Roo’s house, Roo is hanging from a kite that Kanga is holding.
“Hang on tightly, Roo!” Kanga yells.
“Look, Mama, look! I’m a kite!” Roo replies. Nearby them is Piglet, sweeping up leaves in front of his house, Trespassers Will (named after his grandfather, Trespassers William). As he sweeps, the wind keeps bringing more leaves on, and occasionally blowing him a few inches away.
“I don't mind the leaves that are leaving, it's the leaves that are coming”, Piglet says. As we leave the room, we pass by Eeyore standing nearby his house...which Pooh promptly knocks over.
“If you ask me, he’ll never reach that tree”, the donkey sighs. But before we leave the room, we see one more sight – As we pass by a clump of branches across from Eeyore’s house, we see Tigger jump out and say,
“Come on, everybody! Let’s all bounce together!”
As we pass by Tigger, the aerial track changes into a normal dark-ride track. Oh, I forgot to mention--the real technological breakthrough of this ride, is the fact that it combines three different types of track--aerial track, normal track, and water track. Anyways, the normal dark-ride track is necessary for the next scene. Here, we pass through a part of the Wood at nighttime, and taking advantage of Tigger's invitation, our balloon actually starts bouncing alongside Tigger.
This segment should be very identical to the one seen in the current Magic Kingdom version. However, in order to achieve a proper bouncing effect, and not the faulty "bucking-bull" effect of the Magic Kingdom version, the balloon is equipped with a small Kuka-arm that allows it to "bounce" and "land" completely vertically.
After all the bouncing's done, we then pass by Pooh's house, under the name of Sanders. Outside of the house, Tigger has pounced on Pooh. He warns him
"Watch out for Heffalumps and Woozles. They steal honey." "Steal honey?!" Pooh reacts, horrified at the thought.
Then, our balloon starts to slow down in speed and we creep in through the front door of Pooh's house. Inside, we stop in front of Pooh, who has fallen asleep in the middle of his vigil. Suddenly, the house disappears into a starfield as the balloon standing nearby turns into the head of a Heffalump. Weirdest of all, Pooh begins to float through the starfield as we hear Tigger's ghostly voice intone
"Heffalumps and Woozles...Heffalumps and Woozles steal honey...beware...beware!"
We travel through the starfield and find ourselves inside Pooh's mysterious and wacky dream world haunted by Heffalumps and Woozles. Unlike other versions, the walls of this scene are not inky-black, but rather, they flash in different colors, a la the backgrounds during the "Heffalumps and Woozles" scene in the short.
The eerie yet catchy refrain of the honey thieves' theme fill the air. Many effects and gags are scattered around the room. Heffalump-Bees and hot-air balloons with eyes on them fly above our heads. Woozle-headed jack-in-the-boxes pop right out of their boxes and laugh at us. We pass by a honey tree with three Heffalumps at the top of it. A hot-air balloon carries Pooh over to it, but a gust of air within the hole of the tree blows him away. A large transparent Heffalump is projected on a mirror as we pass by, sucking the honey out of our honey pot. We even pass by a Heffalump and Woozle band, using their bodies as their instruments. Soon, we escape the madness via a large tunnel made from a Heffalump's trunk. As we pass through it, the sounds of thunder are heard as lightning flashes along the tunnel walls and we see a projection of Pooh flying past on an umbrella. At the end of the tunnel, we head back into the 100 Acre Wood. However, we find that this isn't the 100 Acre Wood we began the ride in. It has now become victim to a flood-inducing rainfall.
At this point, our vehicle now goes on a water flume track. We float along the waters of the flooded Wood as projected rain falls along the walls of the area. An instrumental version of "The Rain, Rain, Rain Came Down, Down, Down" plays. This is basically like the Blustery Day scene, but we’ll seem to be higher due to the flood. Once we enter the flooded wood, the first thing we see is Pooh, who is sitting on a tree branch that we go under. He sits with 10 honey pots as he says
“Oh, no! I must rescue my supper!” Passing under Pooh, we set off to see how the other residents of the Wood are holding up. Seeing as how their residencies are unavailable at the time, this leads to an all-new immersive experience. The things the characters float on have an LPS system, so it truly feels like we're really floating along with them. First, we pass by Piglet, standing on a chair, bailing water with a saucepan. He floats right out of his house towards us. Next, we pass by Owl, sitting on a rocking chair, still talking about his relatives. Then, we pass by Eeyore, sitting on a doorframe.
"First the wind, and now this..." he moans. The final group we float by are Tigger, Kanga, Roo and Rabbit, sailing along in a turned-over umbrella, which Tigger rows. Much like before, Roo isn't fazed.
"Whee! This is fun!" he says. Rabbit, on the other hand, is far more anxious.
"Goodness gracious!" he says. Then, things take a decidely darker tone. First, we pass by Pooh, stuck head-first in a spinning honey pot. Then, we pass by Tigger and Piglet, the former is trying to save the latter from a log.
“We’ll save you, Piglet!” cries Tigger.
“Oh, hurry, Tigger!” says Piglet.
“It’s a very big waterfall!” And just as Tigger says
"...Did you say..."waterfall"?", we plummet down one. The waterfall is about the same size as the first drop on Pirates of the Caribbean back in New Orleans Square, and it's guranteed that we'll get a little splashed when the drop ends.
A few inches away from the waterfall, we leave the water-track behind for one final stretch on the dark-ride track and come back to the land. The skies clear, the sun comes out, a triumphant instrumental of "Winnie the Pooh" starts to play, and a rainbow spreads overhead. We see that our Hundred Acre friends are throwing a party.
“Hooray!” they all yell.
“Hooray for Pooh, too!” pipes up Piglet.
“Speaking of which, where is that silly ole bear?” asks Tigger.
"Over here, everyone!" Pooh replies from inside the honey tree.
"But you can start the party without me." And with that, he happily starts to enjoy his favorite treat.
Passing through an arch made of forest foliage, we find ourselves once again within the pages of the book. We pass by a giant animated storybook page, featuring the characters waving goodbye and text reading, of course,
"The End". After passing through the unloading area, we leave the book-world behind and head back into the real-world. Located in another old cabin, just nearby the farmhouse, we find ourselves in
Pooh Corner, a shop--which the ride exits out into--selling all things Pooh. Much like the ride, the shop has also made the move from Critter Country, and--yes, Virginia--they still sell all sorts of baked goods, including the famous "Tigger Tails".
And there we have it--what was once considered to be the worst of all iterations of the Pooh dark ride has since gone on to become one that can stand on its own merits. Heck, maybe this could compete with Tokyo's Pooh's Hunny Hunt for the title of
best Pooh dark ride! It's another great addition to the legacy of Fantasyland's amazing dark rides.
