Tianna’s Open Sewer Experience
The most popular ride at any of the Disney parks was hands down Splash Mountain. A project that started life when Michael Eisner brought his son with him to Imgineering. The elder Eisner wanted Disney Parks to start having appeal for the for the Tweener to Young Adult market. Breck Eisner fell head over heels for a mock up of flume ride that Imagineering had created for something else but then shelved because of budget considerations.
Disney was about to put Song of the South back into theaters (for the last time as it turned out), so the theming was selected. It was time to retire the old Bicentennial attraction America Sings, which created a readily available source of animatronics. The name was allegedly changed from the Zip-a-dee-doo-da Run to Splash Mountain because Disney was about to release the movie Splash. It does sound like the kind of silly idea Disney executives come up with.
The ride was finally opened in 1989 to universal acclaim. It was the most expensive ride Disney had built up to that time.
Skipping ahead past the part marked Flash Mountain.
Since the animatronics had been built in 1974 and it was now almost fifty years later it was time to refurbish the ride, one of the animatronics of Brer Rabbit had broken down so many times it was called the Million Dollar Bunny. The first idea was, just put in new Song of the South animatronics
It was at that point that Carmen Smith put her delicate hoof down so hard it was measured on the richter scale. There had been a changing of the guard at Imagineering in 2019 and she was a new vice president. Imgineers had always been a magic combination of engineer and storyteller. In some ways Walt Disney’s shadow was still spread across Imgineering more than any other part of the company. However Carmen appears to be very much part of the new breed.
“Among her responsibilities, Carmen guides global relevancy assessments to identify issues and address concerns; advises on content to make sure Disney’s stories, characters, products and experiences are culturally accurate, authentic, inclusive and devoid of stereotypes; diversifies external partnerships and collaborations; and ensures thoughtful representation and engagement throughout the creative development process. Carmen also oversees the creation of content as both an executive producer and executive creative director.”
“In her previous role as vice president of Creative Development – Inclusive Strategies for Walt Disney Imagineering, Carmen was responsible for developing a diverse pipeline of product, themed experiences and people to enhance Imagineering’s consultant talent and its creative processes globally. Prior to joining Imagineering, she served as the vice president of Talent Development Programs for the Disney/ABC Television Group.”
Yeah, so she was the Woke monitor for Disney TV and now is the Woke monitor for Imagineering. Song of the South was rather notable for its progressive outlook in 1947 but is now hopelessly racist so far as professionally pissed off black women are concerned. It was now going to be rethemed for Tianna, Disney’s only black princess if you don’t count various heads of DEI at Disney.
This project was absurdly accelerated despite the fact that the lockdown should have made it a low priority. Splash Mountain was closed gutted and is now going through a testing phase as Tianna’s Bayou Adventure, despite the fact you’re meant to be on a river.
I’m surprised at how badly the shakedown is going. They opened it up to cast members, which they always do as a Beta test except this ride appears to be Alpha build. It is breaking down constantly and it was just supposed to be a reskin of an existing ride. They’re going to have to push back the opening date at this point.
From John Trent at That Park Place
Meanwhile, it’s not just the public reception of the ride that might be going poorly. Despite the attraction being a “reskin” of Splash Mountain, somehow the downtime for the log flume during press and influencer previews has been atrocious. Repeatedly the attraction has had fire alarms going off and previews for the entire remainder of the day were cancelled on June 2nd. On June 3rd, those attempting to ride reported that the attraction was down for three hours at one point and eventually had to be fully evacuated again.
Meanwhile, those who did manage to get on the ride during the preview days thus far were met with “unexpected results”. When the ride wasn’t suffering from fire alarms, evacuations and downtime, the very expensive animatronics were already malfunctioning. In the following video, Theme Park Reviews discovered that the very first Louis animatronic already has his mouth not opening at all. Because these are brand-new animatronics just delivered from California, this really can’t be blamed on maintenance. These have apparently already arrived in a fragile state.
Thus it is that many are declaring this the worst ride redo in the history of Disney Parks, perhaps even eclipsing Journey into Imagination 2.0. Remember that Splash Mountain was the most-beloved attraction in the entire world when it was closed at both Disney World and Disneyland. This new attraction seems to somehow damaged Disney’s reputation in a way that we haven’t seen ever before.
Astonishingly this Tianna ride has had all references to Voodoo banished by the command of Carmen Smith. So there will be no Doctor Facilier (the last of the great Disney villains) and Mama Odie is now the Fairy Godmother of the Bayou rather than a legendary Voodoo queen. Carmen is clearly the kind of black New Yorker woman who is deeply embarrassed by her cousins in the south and was quietly disappointed that hurricane Katrina didn’t do a better job. A New Oreans themed magic ride without voodoo, the ride appears to be just as uninspired as that makes it sound.
Dull, boring and tedious. Mostly limited motion animatronics and the full motion ones don’t animate unless a boat comes by and trips a sensor, which means they skimped on the quality of the full motion animatronics, they know they would break constantly if they ran all the time. And finally screens everywhere. Nothing says cut corners like that. This is more disappointing than Navii River Journey. Which is kind of surprising because I was expecting so much less from it.
Just as a sad reminder this is what Disney Imagineering could do a just nine years ago.
Tianna’s Bayou Adventure is a tribute to the power of DEI Imagineering.
