Splash Mountain (Disneyland Park)

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Splash Mountain
Disneyland
Land	Critter Country
Designer	Walt Disney Imagineering
Opening date	July 17, 1989
Closing date	May 31, 2023
Vehicle capacity	6
Ride duration	9:18 minutes
Audio-Animatronics	103
Replaced by	Tiana's Bayou Adventure

Splash Mountain was a log flume attraction at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, based off the 1946 Disney classic The Song of the South. It contained approximately 8 drops, including a final drop that was about 52 feet. It opened on July 17, 1989 in Critter Country by the Rivers of America and right of The Haunted Mansion.

The attraction was based on Disney's infamously controversial film The Song of the South (1946) and due to these controversies, it was closed in 2023 to be replaced by Tiana's Bayou Adventure, based on The Princess and the Frog (2008).

History

The idea for Splash Mountain was originally conceived in the summer of 1983 by Imagineer Tony Baxter while stuck in rush hour traffic on his way to work. He wanted to attract guests to the often-empty Bear Country land and make use of Audio-Animatronics from America Sings, which was also receiving poor attendance from guests. It was Dick Nunis who insisted the Imagineers to create a log flume attraction for Disneyland, but the Imagineers were initially unenthusiastic about it, insisting that log flume attractions were too ordinary to include in a park like Disneyland. One early idea involved guests being recruited by a sheriff to take care of some troublesome bears making moonshine, which would see guests using lightguns to shoot the stills, before getting into a gunfight with the bears themselves. This was considered too family-unfriendly and scrapped.

While trying to solve the problems of including a log flume, bringing people to Bear Country and reusing the America Sings characters, Baxter then thought of the 1946 Disney film Song of the South. The film Song of the South is amongst Disney's most infamously racist productions, having been protested by the black community during its original release and never released to home video or streaming as a result of its controversy. Some of the more overtly bigoted aspects of the movie were not featured in the ride, such as the, "Tar Baby" scene, plantation owned by the protagonist's family, or character of Uncle Remus.

At the time it was being built, Splash Mountain was one of the most expensive projects created by Walt Disney Imagineering at a cost of $75 million. According to Alice Davis (wife of the late Marc Davis), when America Sings closed in April 1988, production of Disneyland's Splash Mountain had gone far over budget. The only way to recover is to permanently close down America Sings and use the characters from that attraction.

Baxter and his team developed the concept of Zip-A-Dee River Run, which would incorporate scenes from Song of the South. The name was later changed to Splash Mountain after then-CEO Michael Eisner's mostly-ignored suggestion that the attraction be used to help market the film Splash. The characters from America Sings were used in many scenes, though all the main characters were specifically designed for Splash Mountain.

Dave Feiten was then brought in to animate and fix the story and staging problems. Feiten then moved nearly all of the animatronics to new locations and then took out 10 animatronic figures and removed them from the ride completely to improve the show. A version of the popular attraction was planned for Disneyland Paris in France but was scrapped due to budget reasons and the very cold weather in Europe.

Closure and re-theme

On June 25, 2020, it was announced that Splash Mountain at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World would be rethemed to The The Princess and the Frog and renamed to Tiana's Bayou Adventure. On April 12, 2023, Disney announced that the Disneyland version of Splash Mountain would close permanently on May 31. This re-theme was largely the result of public outrage towards Disney upon the ride's source-material becoming better known.

Splash Mountain under refurbishment in February 2014.

Story

The ride scenes were based on the animated segments of Song of the South. It told the story of Brer Rabbit, a mischievous rabbit who left his home at the Briar Patch to look for his "laughing place". Brer Fox and his ally, Brer Bear, try to catch the rabbit but are outsmarted at first. Eventually, Brer Fox captures and takes the rabbit to his cave at Chickapin Hill. Brer Rabbit outsmarts the fox one final time by tricking him into throwing the rabbit into the Briar Patch. A showboat and a lot of critters sing Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah to celebrate Brer Rabbit's safe return while Brer Fox and Brer Bear try to escape from an alligator.

Attraction summary

Guests entered the queue in front the main drop viewing area. The queue winded past the Critter Country sign into the main entrance - an old barn. Inside, a number of machines with cogs and gears could be seen. Various quotes from Uncle Remus (uncredited) were featured on signs throughout the queue, which winded the barn and entered a cavern before reaching the loading area.

Passengers rode aboard six-passenger logs with one single-file seat and a larger seat in the very back. The log departed the loading area and ascended two conveyor-type lifts before floating gently through scenery designed to evoke the feeling of a river in the southern state of Georgia. The homes of the ride's three main characters (Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear) and aged farm equipment were incorporated into the landscape, along with an instrumental version of "How Do You Do?" eminating from hidden speakers along the waterway.

Snoring was heard eminating from Brer Bear's cave. The snoring was a tribute to the original entrance to Bear Country (the former name of Critter Country) where a bear named Rufus was heard snoring from a cave.

After a short drop down "Slippin' Falls", guests entered the indoor portion of the attraction, where various Audio-Animatronic animals, such as geese, frogs, and possums, sung the attraction's first musical number, "How Do You Do?". Around a bend, Br'er Fox could be seen yelling at Br'er Bear who managed to spring the two's trap to capture Br'er Rabbit. Br'er Rabbit himself was seen a little while later planning to leave home, and in the scene that followed, he hitched a ride on a railcart above the logs. The scenes that follows this shows Br'er Rabbit snickering as Br'er Bear gets stuck in a treestump.

After going down the Dip-Drop, riders could see Br'er Bear being stung repeatedly by bees, much to Br'er Rabbit's delight. Logs then passed through the Laughing Place, where various animals sung "Everybody's Got a Laughing Place".

Brer Fox eventually trapped Brer Rabbit in a beehive. The mood turned ominous as two mother characters (a possum and a rabbit) sung the "Burrow's Lament" to their children. The logs began climbing up the final and longer lift hill, passing beneath two vultures that taunted guests and tell of foreboding danger. Shortly before the climactic drop, Brer Rabbit could be seen in Brer Fox's lair tied up alongside the hill, about to be eaten by Brer Fox.

But Brer Rabbit outsmarts Brer Fox by tricking the fox into throwing him into the briar patch. Riders were sent down the final drop into the briar patch, mimicking his fall. The top half of the drop was highly visible from the adjacent areas of the park. A photo would be taken as the log began to fall and it could be purchased after leaving the ride. From the top of the hill, riders looking toward the splashdown point could notice a full pond of water ahead of them.

Splash Mountain

The log then 'dove' under the water into an underground runout in a 53 foot drop where the riders' pictures were also taken. An indoor segment followed the drop, after which the logs made a final entrance into a section of the mountain named "Doo-Dah Landing", where a full cast of Audio-Animatronic animals sung "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" and the respective fates of Brer Rabbit (reclining happily inside his home) and the antagonists (fending off a hungry alligator) were seen.

Before the return to the loading area, riders could see a preview of their picture that was taken on the final drop via an overhead screen. Professor Barnaby Owl, an overhead Audio-Animatronic, would call the riders' attention to the screen with various phrases describing the looks on their faces. After disembarking from the log, riders entered a "dark room," where they preview their on-ride photograph before exiting back out into Critter Country.

Gallery

External links

• Official website