With all due respect to Mickey Mouse, the most important character in Disney movie history first appeared in a 1937 feature-length production. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the title that kick-started the entire animated movie genre. It was the foundation for everything that came afterward.
When Walt Disney planned the world’s first theme park during the early 1950s, he knew that he must build an attraction based on that film. Adjusted for inflation, it’s (arguably) one of the ten biggest blockbusters ever made. It’s also a title inexorably linked with the Disney brand we know today. Strangely, the attraction based on the film was harshly criticized and often changed over the years. Let’s go behind the ride to learn about the odd history of Snow White’s Scary Adventures.
The experience: Living out the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The trick: Putting guests in the body of Snow White
Image: DisneyWalt Disney and his team of Imagineers literally wrote the book on theme park design. They were the forerunners who built the foundation on which an entire industry is based. And the trouble with being the first is that you’ll inevitably get a few things wrong. Without a basis for comparison, you’re left fending for yourself, guessing about what customers want.
At Disneyland, there were tangible examples of early missteps. The most famous of them occurred with Snow White and Her Adventures. An opening day attraction, it was intended as a means of making riders feel as if they’d been swept into the story of Snow White. They would see many iconic moments from the film and live them out in an exciting adventure fraught with peril.
Few guests understand what was happening. Instead, they loudly wondered why Snow White was nowhere to be found on a ride with Snow White in the title. Disney faced the same issue with Peter Pan’s Flight and, to a lesser extent, with Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. While fans knew the characters and their stories, they still expected at least one appearance during the ride. In the early days, Snow White never showed up on the attraction. Why would she? Guests are supposed to be the character.
The frustrating part for Imagineers is that they got so many of the details right. While the ride carts of the era were comically low-tech, glorified go-karts, they served their purpose. They transported guests from set piece to set piece in a timely manner, bringing them into the story of jealousy and revenge. The details of the ride were terrific from the start. Since guests didn’t get the core conceit of the ride, however, it was widely criticized. And there was a second problem.
The experience: Venturing into a realistic recreation of the Snow White fairy tale
The trick: Adding realism everywhere, including too much with the villain
Image: DisneyWe live in an age where bad guys in movies coerce others into sawing off their own appendages. The world is different now. For its era, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a savagely dark film, though. At the time, Uncle Walt was entering new territory by creating an entirely animated movie. He didn’t know how much would be enough…or too much.
As any literature major will tell you, the earliest fables are twisted tales that were later homogenized. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is an authentic retelling of a fairytale, and it’s done in the Eastern European style, the darkest kind of fables. A lot that takes place in the film was unsettling for the 1930s.
Disney’s Imagineers wanted the ride to mirror the movie as much as possible. Less than 20 years later, many of those sequences were still disruptive in tone. This is the moment when I point out that the name you know for the attraction wasn’t the one Disney first used. Guests boarded Snow White and Her Adventures. They weren’t prepared for the horror show that ensued.
Image: DisneySmall children in particular found the encounter with the Wicked Witch mortifying. She was evil and ugly and tried to poison everyone on the ride. That wasn’t even the worst part. The Evil Queen tried to crush people with a boulder! It wasn’t played up for comic effect, either. The villain straight up tried to murder people on the ride.
The outcry over the attraction was immediate and sustained. Guests haaaaaaated that Snow White didn’t appear on the attraction. Even worse, they couldn’t understand why a family-friendly theme park would build a ride like this. I know that we’re a bit lax about it today, but murder was frowned upon during the 1950s. Parents didn’t like that their children screamed during the ride and tended to cry afterward, either. These problems were serious enough that Disney eventually altered the name of the ride.
Due to the complaints of the earliest known theme park tourists, the ride became Snow White’s Scary Adventures.
The experience: an eerily authentic recreation of the story of Snow White
The Trick: the finest Imagineering tricks available in 1955
Image: DisneyDisney’s frustration with the negative statements was understandable. From their perspective, they’d created a great ride, one that has undeniably stood the test of time*. We’ll get to the asterisk in the next section. For now, let’s emphasize the positives.
The original version of Snow White and Her Adventures featured clever storytelling that hinted at the greatness of later Disney attractions. Early on in the ride, guests knew that their situation was precarious. They would see Dopey up ahead. Even the slowest of the Seven Dwarfs understood the precarious nature of the situation. He held up a sign that said, “BEWARE OF THE WITCH.”
The ride had two paths at this point, one of which pointed toward the friendly cottage home of the dwarfs. The malevolent option was the Evil Queen’s Castle…and the path to the cottage home closed right in front of the rider. This sort of tension-building has since become a staple of Disney attractions. In 1955, it merely demonstrated that a lot of early Imagineers were twisted. It was the only Disneyland ride that trapped guests, putting them directly in (fictional) harm’s way.
The experience: modernizing Snow White’s tale to make it better AND more palatable
The trick: taking new approaches to the same story but making the same mistakes
Image:DisneyThroughout the years, Disney faced tough choices with their most flawed ride. The first pressing one came in 1970. The company wanted Magic Kingdom to have a version of the attraction. Should they fix it, though? Would guests rather have the classic Snow White’s Scary Adventures that frightened small children or would they prefer having the superior ride, albeit one that didn’t honor Walt Disney’s memory?
Disney chose a balance between these ideas. Imagineers took many of the scenes from the original version and re-ordered them. Through this tactic, they could tell the story in a more approachable manner, one that wouldn’t reduce kids to tears. And Disney messed this up, too. It’s almost as if the ride based on the movie about the curse is also cursed.
The “new” take on Snow White ramped up the presence of the hag, the scary-looking Wicked Witch. She was in more scenes, her actions were more nefarious, and some believe she emerged victorious in the end.
Imagineers closed the Magic Kingdom version of the ride in an odd way. Snow White aka the rider got clunked over the head with a gigantic gem. As she laughs gleefully, guests enter a room with a strobe lighting effect. The indication is that Snow White is concussed…or dying. Yes, the upbeat reboot of Snow White’s Scary Adventure ended in murder. Yet again, Disney didn’t get it right.
The experience: Disney finally tells the story in a way that doesn’t reduce children to tears
The trick: Getting four attempts to tell the story right at least once
Image: DisneyBy the early 1980s, Disneyland had aged a bit. Park officials wanted to spruce up the place by rebooting Fantasyland. As part of the overhaul of an entire themed land, Snow White’s Scary Adventures received an update. This plussing of the attraction came with the added benefit of two different parks’ worth of ride experience. By this point, many cast members could recite verbatim guest complaints about the attraction. Imagineers had to fix it, though.
Cast members began at the end. The one thing that the ride had always lacked was a strong finish. Originally, the Wicked Witch had gotten crushed by a boulder, although that happened off-screen. At Magic Kingdom, the villain killed the protagonist, something that even terrifying European fables shy away from doing.
Some insightful Disney employee thought, “Hey, what if we let Snow White be happy like in the movie?” The last thing that guests see on the modern version of the ride is a giant book page that reads, “And they lived happily ever after”. It’s a huge improvement over getting your brain crushed by a giant gem.
Image: DisneyMany of the same ride elements remain from the original, Walt Disney-approved version of Snow White’s Scary Adventures. You still get to see the scary vultures perched on the tree. A menacing woman still offers your poisoned fruit, too. This bit has changed since 1955, though.
Guests used to try to steal the (real) apple at an alarming rate for the body of 30 years. By 1983, park officials had gotten tired of it. They switched the apple into a projection, thereby preventing petty fruit thievery.
Perhaps the most obvious change is also the one that surprises non-Disney historians the most. The 1955 iteration of Snow White’s Scary Adventures came without musical accompaniment. To ramp up the creepy vibe, Imagineers employed silence to maximum effect. By 1983, everyone had figured out what a terrible choice that was. The Silly Song now plays as a way to improve everyone’s mood during the intense ride experience.
Image: DisneyAt Magic Kingdom, Disney tried to mix things up, too. In 1994, many of the dark elements were removed. In their place, Imagineers added new scenes and a new character, The Huntsman, whose primary purpose was to warn Snow White about the dangers in the forest.
Finally, the ride’s ending mirrors that of the movie, as the Prince wakes Snow White from her slumber, and the two leave together. Dopey, once the Dwarf in charge of warning others, happily waves good-bye to guests in this much happier take on the story. Some guests loved this genteel take while others found it too far removed from the Walt Disney-approved version.
A few years ago, Disney sided with the critics when they closed the Magic Kingdom version for good. Its remnants still remain in a fitting place, though. Imagineers cleaned up some of the characters used on Snow White’s Scary Adventures and transferred them to the anchor ride at New Fantasyland, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The dancing scene at the end of this roller coaster almost seems like a mockery of the terrifying tale of Snow White’s Scary Adventures.
Image: Disney
At Disneyland, we’re unlikely to see the original version close. It’s one of the sacred 1955 attractions still in operation. While it was never the most technically advanced ride, Snow White’s Scary Adventures has stood the test of time due to the very aspects that caused it so much strife during its early years. It always felt like a storytelling style decades ahead of its time, adult and realistic to a point of fault. Perhaps society has finally caught up to the grim tones of the ride. Whatever the explanation, it will always seem like the most cursed of Disney attractions.
