Welcome back to another edition of the Disney Dish podcast with Jim Hill, it's me, Lantesta, and this is our show for the week of Shimmer's Day, September 16th, 2024. On the show today, in the news, we have Crane permits and an unsolicited bit of maritime engineering for you DCL fans. In listener questions, it's a mix of facts and obscure French cinema. Then in our main segment, Jim continues the history of Disney's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Let's get started by bringing in the man who says that children are our future. Not your children, better ones. It's Mr. Jim Hill, Jim has it going. It's going well, Lant. That was for the teachers out there. There we go, there we go. September underway. Yes, we're all hopeful, but since we're talking about the children of the future, I thought we should also take a moment to acknowledge the children of the past, especially those who took part in the children's crusade of 1212. The idea here was thousands of young people in Europe would march to the Holy Land and retake Jerusalem with love rather than by force. This was definitely not a way for parents to get rid of kids when they could feed them. No, that would be cynical. Go outside, get some fresh air. I didn't quite work out that way. I was going to say I'm guessing it didn't work. Now, what's interesting is contemporary accounts of the children's crusade suggest that none of these very well-meaning young people actually ever made it to Jerusalem, which Len, I'm just going to say this, that whole, in my day, we were a lot tougher than today's kids. We used to walk uphill both ways and barefoot on our way to school and never ever was true, not even back in the 1200s. Let's just put net out there. I find it hard to believe, but can you imagine the kids that did make it back and they're like, oh, you think you've got it tough? There we go. When they're talking to their kids. Let me tell you about the time it gets stuck in Spain. There we go. There we go. All right, Jim, let's do a quick shout-out to our subscribers. Thanks to everyone who subscribed to the show over at patreon.com/jimhillmedia, including Don Devaux, Greg Strobel, Brian Fleming, Josh Przman, Kevin Nelson, and Jennifer Swart. Jim, these are the Disney skippers who recently tried using the old 20,000 league's submarines to get guests from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom faster. Everything was going great until one of the crew found the ramming speed section of the instruction manual. A Disney spokesperson denied this has anything to do with the current Grand Floridian boat dock refurbishment. Two story. I was waftering about. Thank you for bringing it up. Okay. It just suddenly appeared on the schedule. I was kind of intrigued by that. Yeah, it's unusual. All right, on to the news. All right, the news is sponsored by TuringPlans.com. TuringPlans helps you save time and money at theme parks like Walt Disney World. Check us out at TuringPlans.com. All right, Jim, a permit was filed with the FAA. Yes, the FAA, to have a 240 foot crane installed over at Fort Wilderness from mid October 2024 to mid August 2025. And the location Jim is smack dab in the middle of the old river country. I've put a pin in a graphic in the show notes for you to look at. And this follows the filing last month by the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board for electrical equipment that's specifically mentioned in New Resort. And Jim, I'm going to note this is the exact location for Disney's reflection, DVC Lodge, and that the South Florida Water Management District filing said that the construction would take just under four years for that, or Jim, as I like to say it. This new Magic Kingdom Resort area, DVC will be opening around the time Carsland and Villasland opens for the Magic Kingdom, right? Yes, yes, and I think it's time for us to start harvesting all of the... There was a lot of artwork out there for reflections. There was about the exterior, the retail, the lobby space, and that sort of thing. And I might be time to revisit that and see if they... Face it, it was interesting when that got tabled and they then went with the... What are they calling now the Villas at the Polynesian? Polynesian Isle Village Villas. Yeah, something. Yeah, we'll be interesting to see if something is going forward here. What remains of the previous plan? I mean, a 240 foot crane is not some sort of employee recognition program I'm thinking. No, it is not. And by the way, just to circle back on that, having to reach out to the FAA, well, I don't need to tell you this lens, but that's, for example, why the Tower of Terror at the studios is 199 feet tall, that when you're 200 feet tall, you need... What is it? An aerial safety beacon, so anybody who's flying over property becomes aware of that. So at 240 feet, yeah, this is something that's going to be blinking in the dark there. Yeah, we'll definitely see it from all over property, yeah. Okay, okay, and just private note to bio reconstruct. Please note that there's a crane. Red blinking light. I'm sure he's got friends at the FAA. I'm absolutely certain. Okay, okay. You mentioned the poly towers, though, and the thing that I found interesting when that concept art came out is how people commented it was so similar to the reflections concept. So I wonder if they're going to do two relatively similar looking buildings in the Magic Kingdom Resort area, or if they're going to go with something new. My guess is they're going to use the old one because we've got cranes coming up, so it's not enough time to redo things. But yeah, the similarities are going to be apparent pretty quickly, if they are already. Yeah, cannot wait to see what starts to happen. Our permit is starting when in 2024? It starts in October. Wow, okay, Luke, how? And it runs through August of next year. So you would think that the building would be topped out by then by August of next year, because that would be the end of the need for the crane, or they could always extend the permit. Okay, can't wait. All right, onto some Disney Cruise Line speculation. Jim, an alert listener has sent me an article about how Disney might keep the wonder and magic around as they age beyond the typical 25-year life of a Leonardo DiCaprio girlfriend and a cruise ship. So remember that I'd say that the BBC actually wouldn't let me say that line on the air. No, side conversation. Story for another time. Recall that I said that the magic and the wonder don't generate the revenue that the newer ships do, like the dream, the fantasy, and the wish, right? The magic and the wonder are capped at 2,700 passengers that are limited in the number and type of suites they offer. And those are premium products that generate a ton of revenue. They can't really upcharge for a whole lot of things because the spa isn't modern. They've only got one specialty dining restaurant. Bar space is limited. Also maintenance becomes a problem, right? Yeah, they have older engines and older technology. Okay. So our alert listener friend sent in an engineering article that describes a cruise ship modification known as "Jumboification Gym." And I will read to you from the article. Okay. The process involves slicing a cruise ship in half, inserting a new segment, and welding it back together, allowing for an increase in capacity. This process adds new premium cabins and potentially other amenities, allowing cruise ship operators to recoup their investment within a few years. Electrical systems, plumbing, ventilation, and other internal components are reconnected, while the interior is renovated to make the transition seamless. Additionally, the process allows shipyard workers to perform other maintenance tasks, such as engine upgrades or repainting while the vessel is out of service. Finally, the ship undergoes extensive testing, including sea trials, to ensure all systems functioning properly and that the ship is ready to return to service. One of the major advantages of jumboization is its cost effectiveness. For around $80 million and a few months of downtime, this is significantly less than the price and time it takes to build a new cruise ship, so cruise lines can increase capacity while also upgrading amenities and maintaining continuity with her existing staff. This method has proven highly successful in the cruise industry. At least 21 cruise ships have done this since 1977. All right. So my first question is, this who's going to trust those welds, right? It turns out that the welding is actually the strongest part of a cruise ship. I didn't know that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So that's usually not the big concern there. I do note that when Disney bought the global dream, which they're turning into the adventure for $41 million. That $41 million amount was so small that it didn't get called out specifically in Disney's annual report. So $80 million might as well be $0 and we get to extend the life of ships that people love. We give everyone a new reason to book a cruise on an older vessel, right? You kind of still worry about how long you can make the ships before they go through the Panama Canal, which has a maximum ship length, as you know, of 1,215 feet. So the magic in the winter or 984 feet. So theoretically, you could have another 200 feet or basically 20% more ship and 20% is a lot, Jim. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. $80 million you get a brand new ship instead of a billion? It kind of seems like that's that's an idea that that would be of interest to a cruise line operator. Well, remember, this is the Walt Disney Company that regularly lures folks back to places like the Magic Kingdom or Epcot by adding new attractions or revamping old attractions. So to now shift to this playbook and like, this is the new fantasy land version of the Disney magic. It's like, Hey, we added 20 more percent. There's 10 new acres of things to explore. Come on, bad kids. You know, the marketing team has the magic plus logo all ready to go. Like, and if not, they should be working. Yeah. So my one question to this was, I don't know what lengthening the ship does to the role stability. And amazingly, my expertise in all things does not extend to maritime engineering. But I am 100% sure that we have listeners who are experts in that particular area. So if you guys know, let me know. Yeah. So you make the ship, the ship doesn't get wider, but it gets longer. So at some point, it becomes a cylinder, right? And I wonder what that does for role stability, but I'm sure there's enough margin built in there. All right. Well, let's see what people share. But wow, justification. Yeah. For 80 million dollars? Okay. That's that's an interesting way for for Disney to continue to literally expand the fleet. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Expansion doesn't mean additional ships, right? There we go. There we go. Interesting. Okay. All right. Real quick on surveys, a ton of folks sent in their own versions of the universal resorts survey we read last week, or universal proposed detailed concepts for rides based on different franchises. We read the one for, I believe, how to train your dragon. It would probably take an entire show to go over all of the concepts that we would read. So let me know if you all want to hear that. Okay. All right. Under listener questions. In last week's show, we mentioned that in 1959, Walt paid $1.5 million or basically one cruise ship to extend the mind train through nature's wonderland by nearly 600 feet and add over 200 animatronics. And I wondered whether any other Disney attraction had ever been lengthened like that. So our friend, Jason Schultz, the runs ParkEndium.com, rode in with several examples that Disneyland Monorail got extended to the hotel in 1961. Ultra. The fantasy landed to Marlant Atopias were combined into a single larger atopia in the year 2000. The current Disneyland railroad track got a number of expansions and a bunch of people mentioned the railroads. Eric Smith said as well. Also, Jason said the fantasy land dark rides were all expanded 25 to 33% in 1983. And also the 1957 version of the motorburt cruise may have been lengthened when the area was upgraded in 1959. All right. Okay. Our friend bio reconstruct added that the original version of space mountain in Florida ended with the red reentry tunnel going directly into unload. And people were not ready to exit that quickly. So a curving track section was added in darkness after that reentry. So people already to leave the cars once that's done. Didn't know about that. And my favorite one might be from Brian Babcock, who said tower of terror. So the drop didn't get longer. But originally you had one drop, right? Then you had two drops and then four. And now it's random. I think that counts. I agree. I agree. Thanks to Brian for pointing that out. Yeah. So fantastic examples. Okay. All right. Josh Hess writes in with this question. Jim mentioned the cannons in rise of the resistance, which I agree was an amazing effect that I miss each ride. I hope that they start working again. But alas, Jim said that they are disabled. This was our conversation about the Yeti and another nonworking animatronics, right? My question is, though, is it is in the last part of rise, where Kylo is making his remarks directly to you. And the blast blows at the glass, sending Kylo flailing around. Does anyone have any recent experience seeing that happen recently? I've been to Walt Disney World many consecutive years, and I enjoyed this animatronic. But the last two times I've seen it has been in B mode where Kyle is in his tie fighter on a video screen. Is this in B mode all the time now? Or do I just have a bad luck? All right. So I think I've seen a mode this year in a recently. So it might just be a bad luck, Josh. And then put this Kylo read in with the shaman at the end of Navi River journey that it wouldn't be the same attraction. If it was always in B mode, so I think that one would probably get a lot of attention. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think the last time I was on rise of the resistance. I mean, it does seem to be scattershot. I've ridden it more times seeing it in B mode, which makes, when you finally get to see him, and that moment when the window gets blown out of that much more of a treat. I'll go back. I mean, I mean, I'll be at the studio at some point over the next week, I'll go back and check. Okay. All right. Abigail Jones writes in with thoughts about two recent topics, classic park attractions, and the magic kingdom is for old people. Abigail says, having the magic kingdom seen as an old person park resonated with me deeply. And if you're exposed, this is the danger of the current park's strategy. Anything anchored purely in IP stands to be irrelevant at some point and likely sooner rather than later. I think about the universal studios of my childhood, I mean, 90s baby here, and so much of that IP was old stuff, movies that my parents loved, but they had zero interest in. All right. So this is the great movie ride problem, right? Yep. The beauty of the original Disney park strategy was the blend of original theme park content and IP. There was enough that was familiar to draw people in and enough that was original to keep it fresh, interesting and distinct from other theme parks. And this strategy created generational fans. You want to relive the space map memory with your kids, you have to do it at a park because there is no movies to substitute. So imagine a Hollywood studio is 25 years from now. Will the current content still be irrelevant? Who wants to go to Toyster early? And if movie sequels six through 15 completely sucked? Is this not the theme park development equivalent of banking on a single stock for your financial security? All right. So I love the idea of Toy Story sequels six through 15 because we could hear it's not Tom Hanks. It's his brother that's doing the voices, right? Yeah. Yeah. But the brother's going to get older and eventually to be his brother's kids. And it will get a slow degradation of the original Tom Hanks voice to where at some point it's going to be Murray from New York. But the change will have been slow so slow over so many generations that that's how we think Woody talks. Anyway, by the way, just a quick aside here, I don't know when the last time you watched Muppet's Most Wanted was which by the way is the sequel to the Disney's Muppet movie of I want to say 2011. But there's they have an opening number called we're doing a sequel and there's a line in it that literally has the studio wants more until they can persuade Tom Hanks to do Toy Story 4 and just the notion of it was a great joke back in the day. But now when there wasn't a Toy Story 4 and put Toy Story 5 is impending. So it was like, oh, okay, we move past the joke. Okay. All right. So I'm 100% in agreement here with Abigail. I think Disney parks should include a mix of original attractions and not based on IP because if nothing else, right, there'll be a test for future IP. That's how we got the Pirates movie and the Haunted Mansion movies, right? I'll true. I'll true. But more to the point, every financial incentive that Disney park executives have is on a much, much shorter time span than 25 years. I would guess three to 10 years tops for stock options, but all of them have to hit their quarter to quarter goals anyway to last that long. So no one's thinking 25 years out. The average tenure of their current leadership team is just under three years in their current roles. From what I understand, none of them are going to make it 25 years. So none of them have an incentive to think along those timeframes. That's somebody else's problem. And I think that's what we're seeing here. And more to the point, if the stories we are hearing about the new decision process at Disney, I mean, it's strictly how many minutes have individual films over in Disney plus been viewed. And that is influencing the decisions about which IPs are moving into the parks today. And I think that's why Bob Iger has mentioned multiple times and multiple recent earnings calls, the need for a better algorithm to make suggestions. So I think we talked about this on a previous show, but I think the current Disney plus recommendation algorithm is, what are you watching in this similar category? What are the top three or four most watched things? And it recommends that, which is not only self fulfilling, but also not super sophisticated. And so you don't get a ton of data around niche things that people might like that they haven't been exposed to yet. If you're just always playing the top five things, you're never going to get, people are never going to discover the other stuff you have. But I think, yeah, so I think what Iger is looking at is saying, if we're going to use Disney plus viewing minutes to make decisions about the parks, we need a better recommendation engine. So we ensure that we're serving the entire catalog of things that we own, not just showing them the same top five over and over again. I will say this much. I am fascinated to see what happens in that window of time when the theme park rights for the Simpsons reverts back to the Walt Disney company. That given supposedly how heavily the Simpsons are viewed on Disney plus, it's like, okay, it's literally the only thing I watch regularly on Disney plus since episodes. Yes. I'm trying to target demographic there. Yeah. All right. Ned Borgen writes in with an Epcot entertainment question. How am I supposed to drink and eat around the world when the Chinese acrobats are no longer in China and the French mimes are no longer miming in France? Why have they not come back? I mean, I love Ned's question for a couple of reasons. One is that I get to make a joke about Epcot could combine both countries into one show that featured acrobatic mimes. Oh, I'm stuck in a glass box. Come on to you. But what is this? I am being balanced on the feet of a young woman who herself is supported by others below. It is the great pyramid of reciprocity. No. Oh, okay. I would pay money for that. I also love the question because it allows me to plug one of my favorite sites for Disney entertainment schedules. The simply named W-D-W-E-N-T dot com run by Steve Sores. The site dates back to 1997 making it one of the longest running Disney related websites around. And if you visit the site, you will see it pretty much in its glorious early 2000s original graphic design, a model of simplicity and primary colors. All right. So Steve's historical data in Epcot entertainment, Ned, shows me that at least two named acrobatic troops have performed at China. The dragon legend acrobats of the famous Puyang school and the jeweled dragon acrobats. And in terms of French mimes, Le Mime Roland, a visual comedy act and an act simply titled French Mime, which sounds like the title of an Agnes Vardafilm. Keep your emails to yourself, film school graduates, and would it kill you to get a haircut and call your mother once in a while? I just a quick aside here to do tumble back to the the acrobatic traps of China. I would love to see an overlay from 97 to the effect of we have the the dragon legend acrobats and the jeweled dragon acrobats. And I would just to see an overlay when the bedazzler came in, just so the whole notion. Oh, they're now the jeweled dragon in somebody's backstage hammering in rhinestones. Grabbing stuff off the racks from the China stores, like grabbing all the rhinestones off and sewing them back on exactly. There we go. All right, folks, we're gonna take a quick commercial break when we come back. Jim continues the history of French aliens Big Thunder Mountain. We'll be right back. We live in such an amazing age. By that I mean we have smartphones, smart speakers, even smart light bulbs. Truth be told, I just finished up a bag of smart food, which is why as soon as I finished recording this ad, I'm gonna go use my smart toothbrush. So, given the technology that now powers our homes has changed with the times, I have to ask, why would you want to stick with the same old cat litter, especially when pretty litter, the smarter health monitoring cat litter is available. Unlike traditional litter, pretty litter helps keep tabs on your cat's health by changing color to be specific pretty litter changes color to tell you when your cat has a potential health issue so that you can then get them help before it becomes an urgent medical situation. Pretty litter is made of clean, effective minerals, silica gel crystals that absorb moisture through millions of micro pores and lock in odor. 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Yeah, this was the fall of '74 and the attraction is now 14 years old and as you mentioned at the top of the show today, I mean, Walt had spent 1.5 million to put in 200 early animatronics, which to be honest have not aged well. And all right, park managers were hoping that Mark could could come up with a way especially to give this frontier land attraction a new exciting finale. These managers look at what Mark proposes and decide, eh, we'll pass. Instead, they opt to go with what newly minted Imagineer Tony Baxter was suggesting, which was to effectively flatten mine trains through Nature's Wonderland, which would then open up 7 acres of land at the center of Walt's family fun park, which could then be used for the construction of well, not just one brand new thrill ride for Disneyland, but two whole new lands for the park. Okay, so what are we talking about Disneyland employees? We're wondering the exact same thing, especially when starting in 1975, they began to notice that Imagineering survey teams were coming out and wandering around mine train through Nature's Wonderland, walking the track and measuring spaces and that sort of thing. So they knew something was up. Anyway, staff at Disneyland, the WDI bumper stickers in their car say, my other car is a bulldozer. Yeah, that's when you know something's up. I believe those teetering rocks may not be teetering some. Anyway, um, staff at Disneyland finally gets a peek at what Tony Baxter is proposing for Disneyland in August of 1976 land. And so just as the park is wrapping up its bicentennial celebration, Tony sets up shop backstage in the center building. He takes over a conference room there for two days. In fact, these two days are August 13th and 14th again, 1976 sets up a model and a bunch of colored renderings of what the park will look like in six years time, which is when an ambitious three part plan was supposed to be completed by the fall of 1982. The glorious three part finale. There we go. There we go. All right. And by the way, why the fall of 1982? That's also when Epcot Center was supposed to be opening a Walt Disney World and the company was anxious to avoid what had happened back in the fall of '71, which was when the Walt Disney World Resort opened up and everyone who worked at Disneyland suddenly felt like the redheaded stepchild, just sort of like, wait a minute, why do we get a new attraction? And so the idea was like, girls, girls, girls, you're both lovely. And so to make sure that both parks on both coasts get showered with attention and new stuff. And by the way, there was also a component here that was intended for the investment community. Disney wanted to let Wall Street know in no one certain terms that you look, Walt Disney production is aggressively investing in both its east coast and west coast properties. And we'll get into the specific specifics at the moment. But okay, so now back to what Disneyland employees saw when they dropped by the conference room in the center building in August of '76. First of all, they got to see, well, not just Tony, who driven down from Glendale to serve as the host of this presentation. Baxter had also brought along veteran, imaginary, really crump, as well as Tom Sherman, who I think we've talked about on the Disney impact show. He was a imaginary resident expert when it came to all things 20,000 leagues related. 20,000 leagues? All right, I'm sure you're going to address this. Okay, all right. So the big model that Tony have brought down from 14 on a flower street featured, again, big thunder mountain attraction that we know and love today. But it was the other stuff on the model, the things that were supposed to be built around the periphery of this ferrite that really caught cast members attention. And remember, Big Thunder was to be built on just two acres of the land that my trains who Nature's Wonderland had occupied, leaving five acres open for development. And what was supposed to be built next to Big Thunder, that's where the Disney online, the in-house newsletter for folks who work in Anaheim. This is what it had to say about what Baxter set up in that conference room. It revealed that in addition to the throw ride that would soon replace mind train through Nature's Wonderland, the Imagineers were planning on adding to this theme park, quoting directly from the article now, Len. Two major theme areas with the working titles of Discovery Bay and Dumbo Circus. Now, wow, Discovery Bay was to be built in the northern most portion of Frontierland and reflect the cultures and eccentric aspects of San Francisco circa the mid 1800s, a king off of what came in regards to the opening of man's knowledge at the start of the industrial age. This proposed addition to the park was supposed to have an island at the top of the world attraction, as well as a Captain Nemo's Grand Salon restaurant. Now, just up the hill from Discovery Bay was supposed to be Dumbo Circus, with the big attraction there to be an audio animatronic circus theme show where classic Disney characters took on traditional big top roles. Dumbo Circus was also supposed to be home to two new dark rides, the Pinocchio's Daring Journey and Mickey's Madhouse. So Pinocchio's Daring Journey didn't exist yet? No, no. In fact, what's fascinating about this is that it was a dual-purpose project. It was intended to go into Dumbo Circus initially, but also was being readied for Tokyo Disneyland to go in that park's fantasy island. Anyway, connecting Discovery Bay to Dumbo Circus was supposed to be a sky balloon ride that, according to the backstory, would serve as a suitable transition between these two proposed additions to Disneyland Park. Just to clarify a few things here, Dumbo Circus, the suggestion to Disneyland was if you're in the park today, it was supposed to be built off to the left of small word plaza, you know, where the fantasy theater is. There we go. In fact, that's the space where just this past summer, the Pixar Palace Playtime Party was staged as part of that park's Pixar Fest. Anyway, as we head into the fall of that same year, 1976, this was the ambitious plan that was going forward to Disneyland Parks. In fact, long-time cast members as they gathered at the Disneyland Hotel for their annual employee recognition banquet. This is for the folks who worked for Walt's family from park for 10, 15, 20 years. They were treated to a similar sort of display, like the one that had been set up at the center building. So during the cocktail hour, prior to the banquet, in the lobby of the Embassy Ballroom at the Disneyland Hotel, those who were there to pick up their service awards were invited to have a cocktail, grab an order of it, take a look at this art in that model, because we're going to show you what the next 10 years of growth at the Disneyland Park looks like. And by the way, the difference between what was shown in the center building, which again, six-year plan and what was shown. But the 10-year plan is the folks who were there at that service awards banquet got to see artwork for new fantasy land, which again, wouldn't open phase 183, phase two and 84. Sorry. At this point, Jim, did they know that the Olympics were coming to Los Angeles in 84? That's still far away. Um, I want to say at this point that there had been conversations about it. Okay. All right. Yeah. So they were planning for it. Okay. But long story short, nobody, nobody knew what was going to happen and how that would scare everybody out of town. But anyway, um, January, 1977, mind-trained through nature's wonderland, officially closes at Disneyland Park, company's still being kind of cagey about what's going to replace, uh, that classic frontier land attraction, at least as far as the general public is concerned, it's not until eight weeks later, uh, February 24, 1977, where the park finally with great fanfare says goodbye to Disney's mind train and a load of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And then we get all sorts of specifics coming out how this is an attraction that will be set in the American Southwest during the Gold Rush era. Uh, again, runaway mind train ride occupy two acres of land in the park. But in that two acres, there will be 2700 feet of track. Uh, and that this this attraction will be serviced by a fleet of six trains, each capable of holding 30 guests at a time, which means when the park's running all the trains. Um, this attraction is going to be able to accommodate 2400 guests an hour, which again, that's, that's like pirates level, right? It's pretty close. It's like two thirds. Okay. All right. So anyway, why the eight week delay? Um, kind of interesting that it has to do with the Disney shareholder meeting that year, which wasn't held till February 9, 1977. Uh, and when Disney's board of directors were down at the Anaheim convention center, by the way, this is the first year ever that Walt Disney productions, uh, held one of its shareholder meetings down in Anaheim. And, and by the way, the meeting ended with a free screening of the original freaky Friday, the one with Joe, Joey Foster, Barbara Harris. But anyway, uh, board of directors is down in Anaheim at the convention center and right after the shareholders meeting, they have a brief business session. And at that time, the board of directors formally votes to fund construction of Disneyland's version of Big Thunder. So this is why the PR team held off till February 24th. In essence, Len, they were waiting for the check to clear. Yeah. If you weren't going to make the joke, I will say that's great. But let me, let me ask this question. So the parks PR team said that it was set in the American Southwest during the Gold Rush era. Is that canon? Because I've always said that Frontierland ended in 1895, you know, no, or with Frontierland doesn't exist beyond 1895 and maybe 1890. But if we said now that the remaining attraction from the original Frontierland is set in the Gold Rush era, that knocks it back decades, which is really interesting. Okay. If you have this, um, if you have this, I'd love to read the PR stuff. Okay. I will pass that along. Michael, thanks. All right. Where this especially gets interesting, especially out ahead of what's about to happen in the Magic Kingdom in Florida as Tom Surys Island gets transformed into that new car's road rally attraction. Well, again, quoting from Disneyland Line article from the late winter of 77. And according to Dave Malanson, wed the project coordinator for Big Thunder Railroad, maintenance salvage and tree boxing is scheduled to begin on March 1st of this year. And again, that's 1977 with maintenance salvage determining what elements of scenery and animation can be saved from nature's wonderland and then put to future use. Now, why I think, uh, this is why I think Disney theme park fans are going to need to be patient when it comes to the car's road rally project because, um, it's really quite likely that as soon as that construction fence goes up around the rivers of America and they then begin to drain that four to eight foot deep waterway, um, Len, there's going to be a bunch of months where it's just going to look like nothing's going on. Oh, yeah. They're going to have to salvage stuff. Well, this is it exactly. And in particular, what is it? What's heard a cultural team is going to be coming in and identifying, well, trees that they'd like to save on Tom shows island where some now, mind you, some of these will first be boxed up and then just hold backstage behind the Burmett the Magic Kingdom where they'll be available for immediate replanting on site once the car's road rally. The site has been cleared and then regretted. Yeah, this is the thing to have to save all of those old trees because you can't grow a 50 year old tree. You can't, you know, overnight. Yeah, but what's especially interesting is you need to remember in the not so distant future Disney's animal kingdom will be looking to transform the faux parking lot where Chester and Hester's dino rama stands today into a lush green space where the magical Casita where the madrigal family from Encanto where they live where that's going to be built. And likewise, the dino Institute needs to be reimagined into this overgrown Mayan temple that Indiana Jones finds hidden away in the jungles of tropical America. Now, yes, the plants and trees that guests will see up close will need to be tropical looking to back up the story that animal kingdoms new in Canto and Indiana Jones themed area that they're building that they're in tropical America. But towards the back of these expansion areas, a lot of those full size 50 year old trees you were just talking about. Those are coming over from Tom Sawyer Island. Yeah, there's a ton of stuff that I mean, not only that, but the the cars that itself is still going to need trees that look like the Pacific Northwest and those aren't saplings. No, no, they are not. And but again, that's the whole idea. Just take them backstage, rebox them. And again, as soon as you get this thing degraded, bring them back over and replant them. Now, speaking of Walt Disney World, there is a part of the construction story for Disneyland version of Big Thunder that our folks today I think often forget. And that's again, quoting from this Disneyland on line article from February 77 construction of a big thunder attraction at Walt Disney World is scheduled to parallel our project scheduled here at Disneyland with a completion date for the summer of 79 has been set for both of these projects. And we're going to get to why this didn't happen, more to the point why Discovery Bay and Dumbo Circus at Disneyland fell through. And here's all Hintland. It ultimately has to do with cost overruns that the company incurred. Well, Epcot Center was under construction in the late 1970s and the fourth and final installment of the series, which by the way, will debut on next week's Disney dish. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, I love it when you have two projects on two different coasts and they diverge in terms of timelines, because the reasons for them are always super interesting. No, no, no, absolutely. And just again, between what we saw with Galaxy's Edge or what we're seeing right now with Tiana's Bayou Adventure, everybody goes into these projects with the best of intentions. And it's like, well, they're 3000 miles away. And watches, as you mentioned, the projects they diverge. Yeah, yeah, the land is different. So yeah, all right, folks, that's going to do for the show today. You can help support our show by subscribing over to patreon.com/gmailmedia, where we're posting exclusive shows every week. Our most recent show with Imagineer Jim Schul tells how Disneyland revamped the legendary storybook canal boats. On next week's show, special guest Richard Devler Jr, vice president of business development for the Los Palmas restaurant group, comes on the show to talk about what it's like running the bars and restaurants at Epcot's Mexico Pavilion. You can find more of Jim at jimhillmedia.com and more of me, Len at touringplans.com. We're produced fabulously by Eric Percy and David Gray, who'll be driving their 1971 day Tommaso Pantera, nicknamed Montalban at the San Juan Festival of Speed this coming Sunday. September at Jim Schlock figured it's making me laugh. This coming Sunday, September 22nd, 2024, at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in beautiful downtown San Juan, Puerto Rico. While Eric's doing that, please go into iTunes and Ritter Show and tell us what you'd like to hear next. For Jim, this is Len. We'll see you on the next show.
