MickeyWaffleCo.
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
~ Team Creators Proudly Presents ~
THE WORLD BENEATH US
presented by Richfield Oil
While most of Tomorrowland on opening day took you to outer space, The World Beneath Us took you into the earth. Behind the rather unassuming façade reading "The World Beneath Us: Presented by Richfield Oil" lies one of the park's most unique experiences. As you enter Richfield’s Hall of Geology you are only be left with one thought: This place rocks!
A simple switchback queue in the open space gives you ample time to study the geology lab into which you have walked. Earth diagrams, a large mural and well-placed Richfield Oil advertisements cover the available wall space, with the queue pacing back and forth around a line of lab tables.
Click to view the rest of the queue gallery.
Before exiting the queue into the load area, you can get a bit of background on the lab’s messy inhabitant and your guide for the day, Professor George E. Orchard (called Professor Geo by his counterparts). Depicted as a static figure approaching the load area, the small-statured and comic-looking professor tells you all you need to know about your adventure.
A simple switchback queue in the open space gives you ample time to study the geology lab into which you have walked. Earth diagrams, a large mural and well-placed Richfield Oil advertisements cover the available wall space, with the queue pacing back and forth around a line of lab tables.
Before exiting the queue into the load area, you can get a bit of background on the lab’s messy inhabitant and your guide for the day, Professor George E. Orchard (called Professor Geo by his counterparts). Depicted as a static figure approaching the load area, the small-statured and comic-looking professor tells you all you need to know about your adventure.
Professor Geo
A voiceover from the professor plays, thanking you for your visit to the Hall of Geology and for taking a journey beneath the earth’s crust in his new experimental mining machine. New, experimental and oil roll off the tongue easy enough.
The ride vehicles themselves are patterned after the standard two row bus bar vehicles found over in Fantasyland, though not quite as fanciful. These cars have a more industrial look, in keeping with the experimental and natural element of the ride. Needing to successfully traverse the earth’s crust, these futuristic mining machines (as depicted in a schematic on the wall), are a little boxy in nature, with accents designed to appear to be treads for moving, drilling tool in front and a few miscellaneous items around the back. A large mural of the Earth’s crust dominates the back wall of the loading platform, depicting part of the adventure ahead.
Early attraction map.
Exiting the load area, the mining vehicles are greeted once again by a static Professor Geo giving a few seconds of instruction to prepare to enter the Earth’s crust. Do not be alarmed, he says.
Before entering the Earth, your mining vehicle takes a short jaunt past an oil field. The normally rather crude setting is in this case very stylized, thanks to the talents of Mary Blair. All the simple set pieces, from the derricks to the Richfield oil trucks and everything in between, maintain a clean look.
Audio from the professor comes on: “Ever wonder where our oil comes from? Let us journey to the world beneath us!”
Leaving the surface behind, the track transitions into a rocky setting as your vehicle has entered the first layer of the Earth’s crust. As will be consistent throughout the attraction, Blair style backgrounds mix with painted flat sets and smaller set pieces to set the scene.
Darkness slowly comes into focus as the mining vehicles enter a cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites. Simple lighting illuminates the space as the track weaves in and out of these unique features. The rocky formations of the stalactites and stalagmites leads to a colorfully illuminated space. A deposit of various gemstones is embedded in the rockwork creating a kaleidoscope of colors and reflections. A light purplish geode, three times the size of the vehicles themselves, provides one final relaxing viewpoint before moving on.
After another brief transition through darkness, the mining vehicles enter a rockslide catacomb. The previously cool colors of Blair’s artwork start to take on warmer hues here. An earthquake is underway! Professor Geo warns you: “It’s an underground earthquake! You’d better watch your footing.”
The flat painted rock set pieces in the walls spiral and shake and twist about. A loud rumbling reverberates throughout the space. Your vehicle soon passes over uneven floorboards, creating a surprisingly effective earthquake sensation. This basic effect is similar to one felt on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, where cars rumble while driving over the wooden floors of a dock.
Instead of another dark transition, your vehicle smashes through a pair of boulder-shaped crash doors and immediately enter a vibrantly glowing room of molten reds and oranges. “Uh oh!” comments Professor Geo, “You’ve entered the inside of a volcano!”
You next pass by magma spouts, which are realized with simple water fountains and theatrical red lighting. Hidden heaters add to the volcanic effect. To escape the imminent eruption, your vehicle plows zigzagging through a swift sequence of rockwork crash doors.
You then escape into an unexpected underground oasis. This large centerpiece room is a hidden “Lost World” beneath the Earth’s surface. Warmth from the nearby volcano allows tropical jungle foliage to thrive. More surprising, this realm is populated by living, breathing dinosaurs! Imagineering realizes these prehistoric beasts with largely static figures, simple limited motion, and sound effects.
“Dinosaurs,” explains Professor Geo, “the source of our oil today.” Amazed, you witness a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a Stegosaurus, a Triceratops, and a Pteranodon. The World Beneath Us would face some mild criticism in later years for its paleontological inaccuracies, which dinosaurs chosen for their popularity first and foremost.
The vehicle reenters a stone wall depicting the Earth’s layers. This final apparent ascent carries guests back to the surface. Dinosaur skeletons appear in similar locations to their living counterparts. Crude oil deposits in the walls envelop the skeletons. “Over millions of years, dinosaurs became the oil we use today.” A final painted crash door shows off a beautiful oil slick rainbow, which like everything else on the ride realized with Mary Blair’s characteristic charm.
You unload in the same hall where you boarded. The exit pathway leads you to a post-ride scientific exhibit, sponsored by Richfield Oil. The World Beneath Us was initially conceived as a basic exhibit space, like so much of opening day Tomorrowland, and many of those plans survived the attraction’s transformation into a dark ride.
Here, you find cutaway dioramas depicting the earth’s layers. A cutaway model volcano, familiar to so many science fair projects, show you the science behind eruptions. Cases display a wide array of precious deep earth gemstones. All throughout, cutouts of Professor Geo provides descriptions connecting Richfield Oil to these wonders. Early Tomorrowland, despite its utopian ambitions, could sometimes be a mere showcase for corporate propaganda which would now seem outdated.
The World Beneath Us Attraction Poster.
The World Beneath Us was one of the most popular attractions in Tomorrowland’s history, rivaling Adventure Thru Inner Space.
Not much is known about The World Beneath Us when it first opened, but it does appear on the earliest park maps and souvenir books. Interestingly, while every other occurrence of the attraction's name in print lists it as either "The World Beneath Us" or "Richfield Oil Presents: The World Beneath Us", the 1966 souvenir map lists the attraction as "Beneath Our World."
Little is known about the attraction in its first three months of operation. Several retired Imagineers have stated that the attraction was added to the plans for Tomorrowland less than a year before the park's opening. Originally proposed as a simple exhibit, The World Beneath Us morphed into a full dark ride at Roy Disney’s behest. The new dark ride would require a bigger sponsor, an excellent idea to financially-minded Roy.
The dark ride would use a bigger area of Tomorrowland real estate than the proposed exhibit it replaced. The expansion of the World Beneath Us concept also resulted in the plans for a simulated view of America from space being scrapped.
Unfortunately, the company was unable to find an adequate sponsor before the park's opening. However, three months after the opening of the park, Richfield Oil agreed to sponsor the attraction.
The World Beneath Us pre-sponsorship differed slightly from the attraction that guests experienced from October 1955 onwards. The pre-sponsorship attraction featured an entirely different soundtrack from the sponsored attraction, and lacked the iconic Sherman Brothers tune familiar to many guests. The only record of the original attraction on the internet today is a grainy recording of a single show scene.
The World Beneath Us experienced a three-month refurbishment in the spring of 1968 that added several new effects, such as shaking ride vehicles during the earthquake scene, in addition to several new animatronics to replace the old static figures.
Richfield Oil ended their sponsorship of the attraction in 1975, and The World Beneath Us finally closed in 1982 after years of poor maintenance and declining popularity with guests. The building stayed closed until 1998, when it was converted into a queue for the newly-opened Rocket Rods.
). In addition, the Yesterland article presentation format was very unique and added to the overall charm of the attraction. I think the utilization of the various built in features of WDWMagic was great such as the image gallery, spoiler button, various font sizes and colors, and the dividing lines. 
