Tributes to Imagineers of earlier times and elements from never realized projects - Disneyland Paris has it all adding a unique back-story to the incredible wealth of details found everywhere. Looking at Frontierland and Main Street, U.S.A., Discoveryland or Fantasyland those who know about the history of Walt Disney Imagineering and some of Imagineer's dream-projects will find a whole new world. So do You remember that long list of answers Tony Baxter got, when he asked his team for Paris: “If You could redo Disneyland what would You keep and what would You add?” - well I told you a little bit about the long list already in the first and the second instalment of this series ... but I did omit the answer of the (now) former Imagineer Chris Tietz, who replied “Why don’t we take the Tree House of the Swiss Family Robinson, the Captain Hook Pirate Ship and a playground area and recreate Tom Sawyer Island in Adventureland?” That answered sparkled the imagination of Baxter and his team - and most of all earned Chris the head design spot for EuroDisneyland's Adventureland.

See gang, this answer by Chris Tietz very much saved Baxter’s team from a very realistic potential “Adventureland problem”, as when it came to designing this part of Europe’s Magic Kingdom the design team was literally in “high seas”. From the very start of the EuroDisneyland project Tony Baxter realized that Europeans needed something "more" then what they had previously done in the other parks for Adventureland as Europeans seemed to judge the American Adventureland concepts as “shallow” and a bit “cliché”. Therefore Tony Baxter was sure that a simple reproduction of what had been created in Tokyo (the “cut & paste” Magic Kingdom according to the comments of some Imagineers) wouldn’t work in Europe.

For the other four lands the design team was able to go back to ideas and projects from their earlier dreams (as detailed in the earlier instalments) but Adventureland was another matter. Since 1955 the only real expansions Disneyland’s Adventureland had ever seen were a few additions to the Jungle Cruise, the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House and the Tiki Tiki Room in 1963. And even the newer Adventurelands in Orlando and Tokyo were "just" based on the original design without new rides or ideas for the area having being cooked up.
Practically there was nothing to look back to as reference for Europe’s Adventureland once the decision was made that copying what had been done earlier was no option. In addition the Jungle Cruise, so the Imagineers, would not work in the rainy weather of Paris (the ride already had problems in Tokyo but the Japanese hardly ever disapprove vigorously of something bad - all they did was staying silently seated in their boats even in the snow and, in an ordinate fashion, simply stepping out of the boat without commenting). But taking the Jungle cruise out of the land was essentially taking the core of Adventureland out ... without it the land had to be re-created from the scratch!

Chris' idea was pivotal to reconstructing the land around a totally different concept: an Adventureland not so much based in a precise time period and location but on the most important and common concepts of the perception of Adventure of Europeans. So it embraces both Pirates (from the ones plundering the Caribbean all the way to Captain Hook) and the concept of exploration and discovery of different cultures.
Morocco, Algeria and the whole middle east served as the base for the design of the “upfront” of the land. Looking form the park's central hub towards the entrance of Adventureland guests in fact feel that a whole land filled with unexplored adventures is waiting for them. Like Indian Jones or another hero in a Hollywood movie Europeans venture down the street of an Arabian Bazaar, like Aladdin they travel on a magic carpet through a world of Adventure and like Sindbad they always find something magical waiting for them around the next corner!

Chris Tietz knew that using real countries and then layering Hollywood mythology on top of the replicas wasn't going to be enough for the Europeans, so he relied on one of the strongest images of the original Fantasyland from before the 1983 redo to get the theme of exploration & discovery, as obvious in the Pirates of the Caribbean (meant to be the highlight of Adventureland), to meet the expectations of the guests visiting a Disney Magic Kingdom: magic & dreams. So the Skull Rock and Capitan Hook’s  Galley a.k.a. Chicken of the Sea Tuna Boat / Restaurant were "moved" into the Adventureland from their locations as devised for the orginal Disneyland in Anaheim, where their American incorporations happily served Tuna sandwiches in Fantasyland from the parks 1955 opening till 1983. Placed exactly where Dumbo now takes guests into the air in front of the lush green of the the Storybookland canals the two elements formed a visual masterpiece catching the eye of guests entering the original Disneyland the moment they entered Fantasyland through the Castle's gates.
As detailed in the previous instalment of this series Disneyland’s Fantasyland was redone for three main reasons: to create Walt’s (supposed) original vision of the façades instead of Carnival tents, to improve the rides by allowing guests to see the main characters and (this is where the Tuna Boat gets in) to improve the land’s viability. The later was achieved by a number of changes - one of them was removing the Tuna Boat, which was meant to be relocated inside the Storybook land Canal Ride in order to create a wide opening and the future “Big Thunder Trail”. Unfortunately the galley was destroyed in an accident during the relocation process.

So the original Disneyland lost two of its most striking visuals - very much to the regret of the Imagineers who since then were really hot on reviving the ship in some way in a Disney park and most of all improving on the original, now gone, “Skull Rock” visual which had the potential to bring back all the memories of the magical animated feature Peter Pan. Reworking the concept for Adventureland for EuroDisneyland to combine the Middle East with the world of dreamed of adventures, in other words fantasy, proved an excellent solution for the Imagineers - finally they were able to bring back both of them, the galley and the Skull Rock.
Finally bringing back these two elements to a Magic Kingdom paid, to a certain extent, tribute to the old world’s fascination with magic and romance (very much linked to the Europeans' perception of the Arabian world) and especially was a homage to the Imagineers who had created these two sights for the original Disneyland in the first place.

EuroDisneyland’s Adventureland therefore wasn't created by its Imagineers to represent a precise location and time period (contrary to the other Magic Kingdom’s South Seas theme) but to embody everything European guests connect to the word “adventure”. To achieve this some triggering and updating to beloved attractions had to be done - but the effort paid of. By creating a unique balance of references to the real Arabian world and Disney movies (from the Bazaar as entrance of the land to Captain Hook’s pirate ship) Chris Tietz allowed practically any future expansion to find a home in the land - old favourites were fitted in too certainly and in the process were updated to the land’s “adventures in romance, magic and fantasy” theme.
Take the Pirates of the Caribbean ride as example, here Chris Tietz and Tony Baxter were determined to “get it right this time”, for in the first time in the ride’s history this Adventureland favourite would not be changed during the construction phase, being desperately added in a rush or only simply copied - this time the Imagineers could designe the ride from a blank sheet of paper.

What am I talking about? Well simply enough the Pirates which opened in 1967 in Anaheim had a rough start. Since 1962 the New Orleans’s Square (the area which houses this favourite) had a pirate’s based exhibition in its plans but the concept for “Rogue’s Galley” as it was originally meant to be called was that of a totally different attraction. Housed in the basement of the area guest would have ventured out on a tour by foot with a live guide taking them through the various scenes depicting the life of these high sea pirates. As strange as it may be for today's guests Walt’s original concept for the ride, and Marc Davis' first sketches, did not call for the guests to go sailing on boats in the middle of a high sea adventure and or for cannon balls to shoot over the heads of the guests passing by. No - Disneyland guests would have descended a flight of stairs and happily wandered through this (immense) basement filled with wax fiures and AudioAnimatronics.
“So much for capacity problems” - Walt immediately realized that this show had the potential to be something unique. Adding the fact that Disneyland was seeing its attendance increase by the minute he preferred to stop the work on the New Orleans Square until he could get his Imagineers to find a solution for the pirates attraction. This also caused the Hunted Mansion’s construction to stop, so the shell of the building was up by the Spring of 1964, but the attraction did not open till 1969.

Being the great man he was Walt set his men to design the four rides for the New York World Fair of 1964 and it was one of these attractions which gave the Imagineers the idea how to solve their capacity problem with the pirates attraction. Believe it or not my friends but the Pirates of the Caribbean owe there very life to the children of it’s a small world. As far off as this may seem but while designing the Pepsi Cola sponsored UNICEF ride for the fair Marc Davis (who also created together with Claude Coats the Pirates) realised that the little boats could be the solution for the troubled Pirates ride.
Once Imagineering and Walt had settled for the new Pirates concept a second show building was constructed outside the berm, as the new ride system called for so much space that the already constructed basement originally designed for the show couldn’t hold everything. The cave, the dead pirates and the forgotten treasure sequences therefore were added to in the new show building. Thanks to this "little" change “Rogue’s Galley” has become the most visited Disneyland attraction - and one of the park's highest capacity rides since 1967 too. 

The only problem the new concept created came with the fact that inside the caves dead pirates and their treasure were shown and that this part of the ride would have to be passed through before the actual AudioAnimatronic extravaganza. Guests didn’t (and still don't) exactly understand why the story stars with the dead pirates and then goes on to show them in full beauty battling and looting. This “problem” (if it can be called a problem) was not really solved in the Florida and Tokyo versions as in the first case the ride was quickly added to the attraction line-up of the Magic Kingdom (pushing Marc Davis' Western River Expedition off the plans - as deatiled in the first part of this series), while the Oriental Land Company requested a perfect copy of the Disneyland original for Tokyo.
But Paris was different: here Imagineers *HAD TO* redesign the ride to make it “more European”. The Spanish and French speaking parts of the attraction are not there by chance kids, they are there to provide a link between the pirates and the French and Spanish conquerors of the past, providing a link between the original ride and the European audience.

Since this “re-visitation” had to be done anyway Tony Baxter and his Imagineers realised they could also fix the “timeline” problem. So in Paris the guest first visit the pirates and only after that the caves with the skeletons and treasures. This creats a better flow in the story rendering the cave sequence as a warning to guests not to act as the pirates did. So there you have it my friends - even in the one land which some tend to call the least beautiful of Disneyland Paris some amazing details and tributes to the past can be found, which just goes to show how much love, care and hard work went into the designing of our Magic Kingdom.
And if you thought that Disneyland Paris only pays tribute to the past of the Disney company well, you are definitely far off!

In Anaheim the orginal Disneyland’s Tomorrowland has been redone in a similar design to Paris' Discoveryland (though some claim this redo not to be a success mainly due to the line-up of rides and the themeing of the land being slightly less, but still, magical), and WDW’s Tomorrowland owes its design to one of the many proposals designed for Europe (remember when I talked about Buck Rogers?). And the upcoming Hong Kong Disneyland is said to get a Frontierland similar in design to the one in Paris with the Phantom Manor and the Rivers of the Far West - early concepts for the Hong Kong Fantasyland even called for the Little Mermaid dark ride originally designed for EuroDisney.
The Oriental Land Company fell in love with the idea of a hotel at the entrance to the theme park as in Paris so Tokyo Disney Sea’s Hotel MiraCosta was designed and built to become a symbol for the theme park as much as our Disneyland Hotel stands as the first sight you see when looking towards our Magic Kingdom.
And then Adventureland lent itself as the basic “evaluation field” for Joe Roth’s design of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Joe was in fact often seen wandering around Disneyland Paris’ Adventureland wondering how to recreate all of those winding paths through incredibly thick looking jungle Tietz had designed for Paris. So next time you see a 40 year old man with tattoos, long beard and hair wandering around with a few Imagineers don’t immediately think something strange is going on - that guy is actually one of WDI's shining stars, the designer of the Animal Kingdom!

So there you have it my friends, I hope I gave you a few insights into the process of creating the various lands of Disneyland Paris. Of course each one of us has his preferred detail, spot, attraction, story, ride and so on in the park, so all I wanted to share with you was a bit of the hidden magic hoping next time you cross the trainstation and head for another adventure you realise that there is a great deal of love and care which went into the creation of our beloved Disneyland Paris.
There are still three things that need to be said so. Disneyland Paris could not be as beautiful as it is if in 1955 Walt Disney had not envisioned - out of his own imagination - the original Disneyland. And certainly Tony Baxter is a great Imagineer and realised that he could not out do Walt’s original vision of Disneyland - therefore he recreated Europe’s Magic Kingdom the way Walt would have probably wanted it, paying tribute to what came before him but also updating and pushing the envelope as Walt always did.

As a Disney lover I must say that Disneyland Paris in my heart is the most beautiful Magic Kingdom. It is a pleasure to know that even after the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland (said to get a high quality replica of Anaheim’s original) in 2005 DLP will still be the only Disneyland park to feature a unique castle, just proving how unique our beloved 10 year old baby is.

For now it's TTFN - tatafornow

MickeyFantasmic