Jim Hill - May 17, 2001

Jim Hill
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by Jim Hill (archives)
May 17, 2001
In response to a recent reader request, Jim Hill dishes the dirt on one particularly promising Disney theme park project that never made it off the drawing board: Disney / MGM Studio Theme park's Maroon Studios, which was to have been home to a trio of truly cool "Roger Rabbit" related attractions.

Anything to P-p-p-lease a LaughingPlace.com Reader ...

A week or so back, Abu233 -- in a note posted on a LaughingPlace.com discussion board where readers commented on my "The Sad Tail... I mean 'Tale' of the stalled Roger Rabbit Sequel" story (click to read) -- said:

"I wish Jim Hill would do (an) article about the fate of (the) Baby Herman's Wild Baby ride that (was) mention(ed) in the Disneyland Story special. Also in A MGM Special, They mention(ed) a Roger Rabbit Hollywood Trolley Star Tour/Spider-Man type way back during the 20th anniversary special. Jim, Please tell us a story about the Roger Rabbit attractions that were never made. Ppplease Jim."

Well ... I'm supposed to be saving this stuff for a book that I'm working on about proposed-but-never-built Disney theme park attractions ... But what the hey ...

Do any of you old time Disneyana fans remember "The Disney Decade"? That ambitious slate of projects that WDI announced with much hoopla in the late 1980s? Only a handful of these proposed new theme parks, hotels and attractions ever made it off the drawing board. The rest? Well, they've become the stuff of legend in theme park circles.

Tomorrowland 2055. The "Little Mermaid" ride-through attraction. The "Beauty & the Beast" audio animatronic show. Dick Tracy Crimestoppers. All of these would have be great additions to any Disney theme park. But all of them became mired in Never Land because -- in the end -- Disney executives were reluctant to fork over the cash necessary to build these shows.

To my way of thinking, perhaps the greatest loss (Outside of Westcot and the original Disney Seas theme park, of course) was the Maroon Studios complex. This "Roger Rabbit" themed area was originally supposed to be the "weenie" at the end of Sunset Boulevard, not the Tower of Terror. And -- believe me, folks -- it would have been a beaut.

You see, the Imagineers just loved the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" movie. Roger Rabbit and his toony antics inspired the folks at WDI to come up with a ton of ideas for over-the-top attractions. In fact, had the Walt Disney Company actually gone forward with WDI's original expansion plan for Disney/MGM, Roger and his Maroon Studio pals would have starred in no less than a trio of attractions. Among the rides and shows that were proposed were :

  • The "Benny the Cab" / "Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin" ride, which -- in a somewhat simplified form -- eventually ended up being built in the Mickey's Toontown area at Disneyland & Tokyo Disneyland.
      
  • "Baby Herman's Runaway Buggy Ride" : The story behind this ride is really quite simple. Baby Herman is refusing to do the stunts necessary to finish his latest picture, so the guests in line are recruited to take his place. Climbing into giant four passenger baby buggies, guests would have then tied on huge baby bonnets before roaring off through a hospital-based dark ride adventure. (The setting of this attraction was inspired by the " St. Nowhere " Hospital Roger & Baby Herman visited in "Tummy Trouble.") En route, guests would have been menaced by a giant nurse wielding a huge syringe saying " It's time for your booster shot." They would have also zoomed through a nursery full of screaming babies.

Truth be told, "Baby Herman's Runaway Buggy Ride" was nothing more than a 90s redo of "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" -- only much toonier. Even so, the people in WDW merchandising were quite anxious to see this ride built. They believed that -- if they installed an image capture system somewhere inside the attraction ( Those photos Disney now sells to guests as they exit Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror, Rock 'N' Roller Coaster and Countdown to Extinction ) -- they could have sold a ton of photos of guests wearing bonnets as they rolled around in oversize baby buggies.

  • "Toontown Trolley" : Was the proposed ride that really excited WDI. This could have been the attraction that would have put Disney/MGM on the map, making it the theme park you had to go to while visiting Central Florida. The Imagineers had hopes of using this attraction to take their "Star Tours" simulator ride technology to the next level. ( Since there were many folks at WDI who felt that Universal's "Back to the Future" had topped "Star Tours," they were anxious to come a Disney ride that could reclaimed the "King of the Simulator" crown for the Mouse. The Imagineers thought that "Toontown Trolley" was just the attraction that could do it. )

The storyline of the proposed ride was again fairly simple. Guest queued up inside a toony version of Los Angeles' venerable Union Station. In line, they learned they were about to board a tour bus ( Gus the Bus, to be precise ) for a scenic drive through Toontown. Your special guest tour guide for the day : Roger Rabbit himself.

As you might expect, with Roger in charge of our tour, disaster ensues. Gus the Bus -- and the guests inside him -- run into all sorts of catastrophes while rolling with Roger through Toontown. At one point, the vehicle was actually supposed to feel like it had been blown high in the air and narrowly avoids being hit by a low flying jet.

What would have made Toontown Trolley different from other Disney simulator rides like "Star Tours" and "Body Wars" was that -- this time around -- Disney wanted guests to get a panoramic view. Guests would have been able to see Toontown through the front windshield of the bus as well as out through the windows on the sides.

Another wonderful illusion that was to have incorporated into the attraction was the use of flexible plastics. For example, when Roger crashed down onto the roof of the bus following some mishap, the ceiling of the attraction was to have bulged inward for a second. For a brief moment, a perfect impression of Roger's body could be seen on the roof of the bus, before it bounced back to shape with a loud SPROING! It would have been a wonderful toony effect.

Don't these all sound like great ideas for attractions? So how come only the "Benny the Cab" / "Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin" finally make it off the drawing board? See my previous article about Disney's feud with Spielberg over the "Roger Rabbit" character ruined any chance of there being a sequel to the movie or any new attractions ...

Did that answer your question, Abu233? Hope so. Anyone else got any questions?

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-- Jim Hill

Jim Hill can be reached using the Talkback form below or by emailing him at [email protected].

Jim Hill is this guy who lives 'way out in the woods of New Hampshire. (Hey, it's not like he wants to live there. But the Witness Protection Program has got rules, you know.) He has one beautiful daughter and three obnoxious cats. When he's not looking for real work, Jim writes about the Walt Disney Company and related matters for LaughingPlace.com, AmusementPark.com, "Orlando Weekly" and Digital Media FX.

The opinions expressed by Jim Hill, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the past decisions and future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.

-- Posted May 17, 2001