News Tiana's Bayou Adventure - latest details and construction progress

[ToTBellHop]

The missing ingredient will be iodine.

Finally, we understand where the suspense comes from—the constant existential threat caused by thyroid goiter.

As we all know, in salt mines, heavier iodized salt sinks below regular salt. We will have to “dig a little deeper” to save our new bayou friends and ourselves.

 

[mickEblu]

I agree.100% the missing ingredient will be “you”. Then they will say “thanks for coming, y’all”

And that’s when you the lights go down and you see the Hannibal Lecture AA. The fence mural at the barn/lift hill makes so so much sense now.

 

[zipadee999]

And that’s when you the lights go down and you see the Hannibal Lecture AA. The fence mural at the barn/lift hill makes so so much sense now.

All of the Brer Fox animatronics are reskinned as Hannibal Lecture and Brer Rabbit is reskinned as an unassuming tourist. Tiana’s is just a front. What we’re actually getting is Silence of the Lambs: The Great Dinner Adventure

 

[UNCgolf]

Both "you" and the "Dig a Little Deeper" message actually sounds like they would fit perfectly for this ride!

I agree, though, that "you" seems the most plausible as it's really the easiest to communicate.

Also gives them a chance to repurpose "You Are the Magic"!

 

[Mike S]

And that’s when you the lights go down and you see the Hannibal Lecture AA. The fence mural at the barn/lift hill makes so so much sense now.

“I ate his liver with a turkey leg, and a nice dole whip.”

 

[Disstevefan1]

I honestly think the secret ingredient is going to be music. Since they keep hyping up the musical aspect of the attraction and one of the plot points listed is that Tiana needs to find a band. If I had to guess, the finale will be "We found the band! Yay!! We love music thanks for helping us find it!" But, I could be wrong.
View attachment 762624

 

[ToTBellHop]

They want to be more kid friendly so the secret ingredient is

?
I’m so confused.

 

[Brer Oswald]

No but apparently the overall quantity is impressive. Lots of animated characters in addition to the AAs like Splash.

What do you mean by “animated characters” vs AAs?

 

[ToTBellHop]

What do you mean by “animated characters” vs AAs?

I should have said animated figure. Lower range of motion than an AA. Splash had tons of animated figures.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

What do you mean by “animated characters” vs AAs?

Put simply, Animatronics are more complex and programmable, where Animated Figures are simpler and mechanically driven.

Compare a figure like The Auctioneer in Pirates, whose motions are dictated by digital inputs that could be altered to design a different performance for the figure (they used to be controlled by Audio input, hence the name Audio Animatronics), versus something like a Jungle Cruise Elephant, whose individual movements are more cyclical and tend to loop based off the motors and mechanics to create movements that are intentional but not necessarily timed to run together in exact sequence.

Basically, if the performance is the result of carefully crafted programming then it's an Animatronic, but if the performance is the result of carefully crafted mechanics then it's an Animated Figure. It's not always easy to tell the difference just by looking, since Attractions will sometimes use both within the same scene (Little Mermaid uses Sebastian and Ariel Animatronics in the Under the Sea scene, but all the other characters in that room are Animated Figures that mostly have simple rocking motions to them).

Now, Animated Figures can have some pretty complex motions, so it's not automatic that they're worse than an Animatronic, they just tend to move in ways that are more general rather than specifically timed. One of the biggest tells is that if a character is accurately lipsynching it pretty much automatically has to be an Animatronic, since Animated Figures can't do that given how they're built.

 

[zipadee999]

Put simply, Animatronics are more complex and programmable, where Animated Figures are simpler and mechanically driven.

Compare a figure like The Auctioneer in Pirates, whose motions are dictated by digital inputs that could be altered to design a different performance for the figure (they used to be controlled by Audio input, hence the name Audio Animatronics), versus something like a Jungle Cruise Elephant, whose individual movements are more cyclical and tend to loop based off the motors and mechanics to create movements that are intentional but not necessarily timed to run together in exact sequence.

Basically, if the performance is the result of carefully crafted programming then it's an Animatronic, but if the performance is the result of carefully crafted mechanics then it's an Animated Figure. It's not always easy to tell the difference just by looking, since Attractions will sometimes use both within the same scene (Little Mermaid uses Sebastian and Ariel Animatronics in the Under the Sea scene, but all the other characters in that room are Animated Figures that mostly have simple rocking motions to them).

One of the biggest tells is that if a character is accurately lipsynching it is automatically an Animatronic, since Animated Figures can't do that given how they're built.

Wow. Mind blown. I had no idea there was a difference. So for splash that would be something like one of the laughin place turtles versus the rabbit trap Brer Fox

 

[EagleScout610]

Wow. Mind blown. I had no idea there was a difference. So for splash that would be something like one of the laughin place turtles versus the rabbit trap Brer Fox

Pretty much.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

The stormtroopers in Rise are also animated figures (though a lot don't even move at all AFAIK). Since they only have one or two axes of motion in the neck or arms.

Disney in recent years has taken to conflating animated figures with animatronics so they can lie in marketing. Hence why Star Wars was stated to have so many in marketing, while in actuality it only had like 5. The official ride page for Splash Mountain claimed it had over 100 animatronics. When in reality around 30-40 of those were animated props with pretty minimal movement. They were literally even counting the spinning beehives in that number (mentioning the ride has "animatronic bees" on the ride's page). Though to be fair, it still has a ton of legitimate animatronic figures compared to Star Wars and such.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Wow. Mind blown. I had no idea there was a difference. So for splash that would be something like one of the laughin place turtles versus the rabbit trap Brer Fox

That's a good example, yes.

Animated Figures can be really nice to flesh out a scene with characters and motion that don't have to be programmed as specifically as the main figures, and therefore cost less. If you single them out specifically you can tell they're doing less than the main figures in the scene, but taken as a collective it's often hard to notice they're doing anything less impressive than the genuine Animatronics.

This is also how Jungle Cruise had animated animals on opening day in 1955 despite Audio Animatronics not being invented properly until The Tiki Room came along - the JC figures were all Animated Figures rather than proper Animatronics. I think that may still be the case today, unless any of the new figures from the last update are actual AAs.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

To be fair, the term "audio animatronic" I think only defines a robotic figure whose movement is synced specifically to a sound recording (often the mouth but can also mean body movement). But you can still have fairly simplistic figures that are synced to sound. Like the Small World dolls, Splash Mountain possums etc. Or sophisticated robots that don't rely on sound much or at all. There are POTC characters for instance that don't speak, but still have a decent and dynamic enough range of motion for me to call them legitimate animatronics. Same goes for a number of the minor animals in Splash Mountain (though a lot of these did once have speech in America Sings). Sinbad at Tokyo have a ton of incredible and legit animatronics that don't have connecting audio.

That's why I usually like to classify a figure based on the movement they're capable of. The tiki birds imo are a good minimum baseline for what I call an animatronic, even without including sound.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Finally, we understand where the suspense comes from—the constant existential threat caused by thyroid goiter.

As we all know, in salt mines, heavier iodized salt sinks below regular salt. We will have to “dig a little deeper” to save our new bayou friends and ourselves.

Oh, wait! So Tiana and Naveen weren't turned into frogs... they only looked like frogs!!

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

To be fair, the term "audio animatronic" I think only defines a robotic figure whose movement is synced specifically to a sound recording (often the mouth but can also mean body movement). But you can still have fairly simplistic figures that are synced to sound (like the Small World dolls), or sophisticated robots that don't rely on sound much or at all. There are POTC characters for instance that don't speak, but still have a decent enough range of motion for me to call them legitimate animatronics. Same goes for a number of the minor animals in Splash Mountain (though a number of these did once have speech in America Sings).

That's why I usually classify a figure based on the movement they're capable of. The tiki birds imo are a good minimum baseline for what I call an animatronic, even without including sound.

It's a little bit tricky, which is why I tried but maybe failed to be clear.

The "Audio" in "Audio Animatronics" actually isn't about whether the figure is synced to an Audio track or not, like speech or music (though they often are), but instead comes from the fact that those figures used to be programmed using Audio Impulses before the dawn of the digital era. That was how they activated the figures' movements in specific and designated sequence without computer technology. Technically speaking, the term Audio Animatronics is pretty much wholly outdated at this point, since I don't think any figures still run off of Audio input, but the term was already popularized and is still used today despite now being controlled digitally. I think the fact that many of them do sync to recorded dialogue or music is part of what kept the term in use - it's easy and pretty logical to assume that's what Audio Animatronic meant, even though it actually meant something else.

My point about lipsyncing wasn't so much that every Audio Animatronic can lipsync, since that isn't necessarily true, but any figure that can lipsync is basically more than a mere Animated Figure. Many of the Pirates in PotC don't lipsync, but are still programmed figures that used to run off of Audio control to create a specific and timed performance, and therefore are Audio Animatronics despite that. Not every rectangle is a square, and all that. It's weird.

Animated Figures tend to be more like a wind-up toy, and may have one or a couple motions that will be repeated as long as there's energy to drive them. But Audio Animatronics are more complex than that in how they're constructed and programmed as well as the type of performance they can give.

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

Put simply, Animatronics are more complex and programmable, where Animated Figures are simpler and mechanically driven.

Compare a figure like The Auctioneer in Pirates, whose motions are dictated by digital inputs that could be altered to design a different performance for the figure (they used to be controlled by Audio input, hence the name Audio Animatronics), versus something like a Jungle Cruise Elephant, whose individual movements are more cyclical and tend to loop based off the motors and mechanics to create movements that are intentional but not necessarily timed to run together in exact sequence.

Basically, if the performance is the result of carefully crafted programming then it's an Animatronic, but if the performance is the result of carefully crafted mechanics then it's an Animated Figure. It's not always easy to tell the difference just by looking, since Attractions will sometimes use both within the same scene (Little Mermaid uses Sebastian and Ariel Animatronics in the Under the Sea scene, but all the other characters in that room are Animated Figures that mostly have simple rocking motions to them).

Now, Animated Figures can have some pretty complex motions, so it's not automatic that they're worse than an Animatronic, they just tend to move in ways that are more general rather than specifically timed. One of the biggest tells is that if a character is accurately lipsynching it pretty much automatically has to be an Animatronic, since Animated Figures can't do that given how they're built.

This is a really great explanation

 

[dmw]

It's a little bit tricky, which is why I tried but maybe failed to be clear.

The "Audio" in "Audio Animatronics" actually isn't about whether the figure is synced to an Audio track or not, like speech or music (though they often are), but instead comes from the fact that those figures used to be programmed using Audio Impulses before the dawn of the digital era. That was how they activated the figures' movements in specific and designated sequence without computer technology. Technically speaking, the term Audio Animatronics is pretty much wholly outdated at this point, since I don't think any figures still run off of Audio input, but the term was already popularized and is still used today despite now being controlled digitally. I think the fact that many of them do sync to recorded dialogue or music is part of what kept the term in use - it's easy and pretty logical to assume that's what Audio Animatronic meant, even though it actually meant something else.

My point about lipsyncing wasn't so much that every Audio Animatronic can lipsync, since that isn't necessarily true, but any figure that can lipsync is basically more than a mere Animated Figure. Many of the Pirates in PotC don't lipsync, but are still programmed figures that used to run off of Audio control to create a specific and timed performance, and therefore are Audio Animatronics despite that. Not every rectangle is a square, and all that. It's weird.

Animated Figures tend to be more like a wind-up toy, and may have one or a couple motions that will be repeated as long as there's energy to drive them. But Audio Animatronics are more complex than that in how they're constructed and programmed as well as the type of performance they can give.

So, are the Tiki birds animated figures, or animatronics? Serious question. This thread finally got interesting.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Tiki birds are definitely legitimate audio animatronics. They were the first figures to actually be called that from what I understand. Their programming was stored on the aforementioned tape system, movement and audio. And their movement, while "primitive" compared to what came after, is still complex and intricate compared to a simple moving prop. Plus their movement still works perfectly for the size and type of animal they represent (the abrupt and precise movement is quite bird-like).

This video about 2 minutes in explain the tech used behind them-