If the short-lived Luigi’s Flying Tires experiment teaches us anything it’s that the brilliant minds within the Disney ranks, even the incredibly talented Disney Imagineers, are not infallible. Disney California Adventure’s most recent casualty was a charming incorporation of a Disneyland original, the 1961 Flying Saucers attraction, with beloved contemporary elements, Luigi and Guido from Cars. It just didn’t resonate with today’s open minded, yet discriminating, theme park guests, and the disinterest may extend beyond the confines of the ride.
The loss of an attraction, much less an entire idea, stirs the emotions. None, though, are likely as disappointed as the Imagineers themselves, especially when admitting that one of the original Disney concepts has failed. Perhaps in time, as tastes change, and change back, the demand for this and the attraction ideas listed below will resurface. But, every theme park alteration requires a sizable financial and geographic investment, and sometimes one chance is all you get.
1. Luigi’s Flying Tires, The Floating-Bumper Car Concept
Luigi’s departure is memorable, because it occurred so recently. It did not elicit the passion of, say, Maelstrom’s removal, or even the simple addition of an animatronic Johnny Depp inside Pirates of the Caribbean. It is a concept that was rather surprisingly brought back with the Disney California Adventure Cars Land expansion, and may have been an act of pure nostalgia.
Disneyland’s original Flying Saucers attraction was similar to a massive air hockey table. It lasted less than six years in a park that didn’t have a ton of rides to begin with. In the 60s, it may have seemed pretty cool to float around in a huge, slow bumper car, over which you didn’t have total control, though even in the low-tech past, the novelty faded quickly. How it ever returned, in the shadow of, and in fact from the same drawing board of Radiator Springs Racers, one of Disney’s most ambitious and theatrical ride concepts, is a total mystery.
The 2010 generation of guests didn’t take to it at all. Within a year of the Cars Land unveiling, Luigi’s saw less traffic than the restroom behind Flo’s Diner. Shortly, the beach ball element, included to increase the level of excitement of the original concept, was removed. The balls never operated as planned, and caused as much confusion and frustration as joy.
To claim there is no room for bumper cars is to misunderstand their sentimental value for theme park guests. Simply because an attraction is slow, and doesn’t have a surfeit of functions, doesn’t make it undesirable. The same has been erroneously supposed regarding canal boats and carousels. Giant air hockey pucks, though, that become stuck when they encounter a wall, another vehicle or cluster of beach balls is a tough, perhaps impossible sell.
2. Skyway, The Unsupervised Ride in the Sky Concept
The Skyway was not removed based on anything to do with popularity. What cost the Skyway was insurance and the litigious evolution of a society that can no longer properly police itself. Drifting between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, above the heads of throngs of fellow guests, for many, the temptation to drop sour balls on them was irresistible. Through much of the 20th century, that’s where it ended. Fortunately, beyond a little mischief, most are able to control themselves, and enjoy the beautiful, peaceful ride.
Perhaps it’s the growth of video games and an excess of sensational movies and other media, but we are now a society with an almost criminally limited attention span. We cannot go to the restroom without an internet-connected device, and there’s no way in 2015 anyone can be expected to sit suspended above the Magic Kingdom for up to two minutes without descending into some manner of ill-advised behavior.
Generations with phones in their possession on which they can accurately orchestrate and participate it the fall of the Roman Empire would not be content with plunking a complete stranger in a sailor hat with a piece of candy, much less sitting still and simply enjoying the view. Were the Skyway in use today, there would be tales of entire tour groups bathed with caramel macchiato from above. No, the Skyway won’t be back, unless it’s via a not-quite-satisfying, yet entirely safe Innoventions simulation.
3. Rainbow Ridge Pack Mules, Riding Animals in the Park Concept
Can you picture your children, charged with cotton candy, soda and a theme-park’s worth of adrenaline, embarking upon a nominally supervised excursion through Disneyland on an actual live animal? Neither can Disney, or their lawyers. Abolished in 1973, there are absolutely no plans to bring this one back. Surely, it was a dream to ride through Disney’s old west, but if you remember, the mule train went right down Frontierland’s main thoroughfare. In 2015, we barely get out of the way for the double-decker busses. Imagine asking hordes of modern families to give way to an ambling mule. The traffic snarl would be worse than the sweaty-donkey smell.
