From day one, Disney Parks have been all about character. Whether from Disney’s own film catalogue or from the minds of Imagineers, the characters brought to life at Disneyland and Walt Disney World become icons; central, memorable figures beloved by the generations who grow to “know” them year after year. From lovable classics like Peter Pan and the “Ghost Host” to new-age favorites like C-3PO and Albert, Disney characters have the unimaginable ability to join us on adventures and turn us into heroes.
That’s why – just last year – we investigated the 10 Greatest Original Characters Created for Disney Parks. That got us to thinking – what about all of the characters that once inhabited Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but who’ve gone the way of the dodo at their respective resorts?
Take a look through these eight unforgettable characters who are “missing” from the parks, rides, and attractions they once inhabited. If you could bring one back, which would it be? Which one should stay lost? Share your thoughts in the comments below! For each entry, we also included a link to make a quick-jump to the epic Lost Legend features to learn the complete stories of each attraction.
1. Captain “Rex” RX-24
Image: Disney / Lucasfilm
Attraction: STAR TOURS
Lifetime: 1986 – 2016 (30 years)
With a mythos spread across entire galaxies, Star Wars has enough beloved characters to fill a stadium. That’s why it’s surprising – and in retrospect, brilliant – that none of them were selected to be the central character of the Lost Legend: STAR TOURS. This interstellar simulator starts as all long-distance air travel starts: in a monotonous, boring airport. Turns out that even in the epic world of Star Wars, most people have to travel by way of budget airlines. Our pilot is Captain RX-24 (“Rex”) and wouldn’t you know it? It’s his first day on the job.
Obviously, what followed was a madcap race through space with Rex “still getting used to his programming,” hurling our unsuspecting low-fare flight into a heroic encounter with the Empire’s dreaded Death Star. Rex’s quips and exclamations throughout become so engrained in fans, they live on even though the ride itself doesn’t.
Image: Disney
From 2011 to 2017, all four Star Tours attractions across the globe were upgraded to Star Tours: The Adventures Continue – an HD 3-D prequel with randomized sequences so the ride’s rarely the same experience twice. Set before the timeline of the original Star Tours, “Rex” couldn’t be the Captain. C-3PO takes his place via an in-cabin Audio Animatronics figure. Still, “Rex” can be seen in the queue’s Droid Customs and baggage area as a broken Droid being shipped out for repair… stuttering his old recorded dialogue.
2. The Timekeeper and Nine-Eye
Image: Disney
Attraction: The Timekeeper / Un Voyage à Travers le Temps
Lifetime: 1992 – 2004 (12 years)
When Magic Kingdom’s “New Tomorrowland” debuted in 1994, reaction among Disney fans was mixed. Imagineers had done away with the simple, geometric, “plain,” Space Age Tomorrowland that had existed since the park’s opening in 1971 and replaced it with something very different: a sci-fi spaceport of landed alien crafts, neon signs in extraterrestrial languages, and techno-infused, pop-art-deco architecture. In other words, Tomorrowland had abandoned the optimism and science of the real future in favor of a science fiction land that would never become outdated.
Image: Disney
The first example of Tomorrowland shifting to fantasy was also the last gasp of an era before intellectual property invaded… This “New Tomorrowland” featured an overarching story connecting all of its rides, shows, and attractions in one narrative, truly making the land feel like a “real,” habitable city of converging stories years before the Wizarding World model became the standard.
For example, right along the land’s main entry was a Circle-Vision theater dating to the park’s opening. But now, it would become the Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center, currently showcasing its newest exhibition and subject of its own in-depth Lost Legend: The Timekeeper. Inside, The Timekeeper – a joyous, adventurous robot voiced by Robin Williams – would dispatch the lovable Nine-Eye back in time to record her surroundings via her nine eyes (projected on nine screens. Get it?).
Image: Disney
Very shortly after the opening of New Tomorrowland, Disney pivoted to the “intellectual property” based attraction model we know today, quickly sweeping across the land to undo their original stories and the land’s larger continuity. The Timekeeper was one of the first to go, becoming Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. Still, as the first ever Circle-Vision film to feature a plot (rather than just beautiful vistas of natural splendors), The Timekeeper was a smart, educational attraction anchored by an original character – something we don’t expect to see in the U.S. Disney Parks for a long time.
3. Uh-Oa
Image: Disney
Attraction: The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management
Lifetime: 1998 – 2011 (13 years)
Since 1963, The Enchanted Tiki Room has been a certifiable Disney classic; one of only two attractions to be officially honored with “Walt Disney’s” before its name. The tropical luau singalong is a favorite for generations upon generations who grew up in awe of the impossible place where “the birds sing words and the flowers croon.”
But in the ’90s, executives at Walt Disney World decided that the old-fashioned show just wasn’t cutting it anymore. They saw an opportunity for synergy, and transformed Magic Kingdom’s version of the attraction by inviting Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from The Lion King to take over. The new version of the attraction – seemingly brought to us by the mind behind Disney’s worst ’90s direct-to-video sequels – was self-referential and obnoxious, built around the premise that if the original “bird brain” cast wanted to make it in Hollywood, they needed to “get hip.” To do so, any attempts to sing the classics was overruled with spoofs of songs from Aladdin and the Merrymen’s “Feeling Hot Hot Hot.”
Perhaps the only memorable character from the show was Uh-Oa, the goddess of disaster who would arise from the central pedestal, sing a C-grade song, then fry Iago to a crisp. We dissected the whole experience in a standalone feature, Declassified Disaster: Enchanted Tiki Room – Under New Management. You’ve got to read it to believe it.
Image: Disney
The sad part is that for a generation of Walt Disney World guests, the Under New Management show is the Enchanted Tiki Room, and Millennials who grew up with the animated birds presiding over the attraction find the Walt Disney original boring and slow. (Think of it as Stockholm Syndrome.) For them, Uh-Oa was relocated to Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto, the much-loved S.E.A.-influenced bar at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Order the flaming drink named for her and the bartenders start a chant of her name, waking up the ancient goddess once more.
4. Dreamfinder
Image: Disney / Marvel
Attraction: Journey into Imagination
Lifetime: 1983 – 1998
Though Theme Park Tourist’s Legend Library is made of dozens and dozens of entries, our second ever in-depth feature was a look at the fan-favorite Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination. So beloved was this EPCOT Center original, it’s forever engrained in the hearts and minds of a generation. A huge part of its evergreen appeal is its duo of original characters: Dreamfinder (a red-bearded, enigmatic inventor) and Figment (his creation: a purple dragon).
Together, the duo whisks guests through realms of Literature, Art, Performing Arts, and Science in an ambitious and elaborate dark ride through the process of creation. Equally as iconic was the ride’s song – “One Little Spark” – created by Disney’s go-to composers, the Sherman Brothers (who also wrote “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” “There’s a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and many, many more Disney Parks standards.)
Image: Disney
In what must be one of Disney’s most regrettable decisions ever, the attraction was stripped in preparation for the New Millennium, re-opening as one of the worst rides to ever stand at Walt Disney World – subject of our Declassified Disaster: Journey into YOUR Imagination feature. Neither Dreamfinder nor Figment made an appearance on the new version of the ride, which also omitted “One Little Spark” and transformed the ride from an etheral trip through imagination into a sensory funhouse laboratory.
Journey into YOUR Imagination mercifully closed after only two years, re-opening shortly after as Journey Into Imagination with Figment, maintaining the sensory funhouse / laboratory style, but awkwardly inserting the purple dragon throughout. Even two decades gone, though, Dreamfinder and Figment are de facto icons of Epcot, even for a generation who never saw them in their own attraction as intended.
5. The Redhead
Image: Disney, via angryap.com
Attraction: Pirates of the Caribbean
Lifetime: 1967 – 2018 (51 years)
A 16-minute voyage from tranquil Louisiana bayous to thundering sea battles and a Caribbean village under fire, Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean is nearly unanimously agreed upon as the best classic dark ride on Earth. Part of its position might be because it was the final attraction Walt Disney was known to have directly worked on. That’s why each and every edit to the attraction has been carefully scrutinized by fans. A great deal of the ride’s more recent noteworthy changes have been to retroactively incorporate characters and music from Disney’s high-earning (but long-in-the-tooth) Pirates of the Caribbean film series into the rides that inspired the films.
Equally irritating to fans are the fairly continuous edits made to the ride in the name of “political correctness.” Over the last 50 years, the pirates chasing women on turntables have instead become women chasing pirates with brooms; a pirate exhausted from chasing debauchery became a pirate exhausted from eating too much food. And in 2018, the long-awaited “other shoe” fell. Perhaps the ride’s most iconic scene – the Auction – was recast.
Image: Disney
Originally the scene had included a pirate captain auctioning off “wenches” with humorous (and inappropriate by 21st century standards) scripting. For example, gesturing to a coyly smiling, theatrically overweight Animatronic, the Auctioneer asks, “What be I offered for this winsome wench? Stout hearted and corn-fed she be! Shift yer cargo, dearie, show ’em your larboard side.”
The most iconic aspect of the scene, though, was the legendary “Redhead” – a buxom, scantily-dressed woman in all red, lifting her skirt to show her legs, her other hand daintily set in her curly red locks. It’s her the onlooking pirates are after, memorably chanting, “We wants the redhead! We wants the redhead!” – an enduring signature of the attraction.
Image: Disney
When the ride opened after a multi-month refurbishment in 2018, the “Auction” scene remained. But now, villagers (dressed more like characters from the Pirates film series than residents of a Caribbean town) are hauling out their gilded frames, chandeliers, and other riches for auction. In this iteration, the “Redhead” remains, too… but she’s switched allegiances. She’s a pirate, kicking off chants of “We wants the rum! We wants the rum!” It doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way.
6. The Trolls
Image: Disney
Attraction: Maelstrom
Lifetime: 1988 – 2014 (26 years)
When it first opened at EPCOT Center in 1988, the Lost Legend: Maelstrom was a first. Not only was it billed as EPCOT’s first “thrill ride” (a questionable claim), but it also proved that World Showcase – EPCOT’s cultural southern half – could indeed offer more than just restaurants, retail, and Circle-Vision travelogues. Whether you loved it or hated it, you’ll have to admit that Maelstrom was… well… one-of-a-kind.
That’s because Disney’s idea for the dark ride was an epic, sea-faring voyage through the myths and legends of Norway – journeys through troll-infested swamps and marshes, braving the high seas with Vikings, and more. But Norwegian financiers had other plans. They wanted an attraction that would convey Norway as a modern, industrial country of enterprise and innovation. According to the ride’s production designer Paul Torrigino, the financiers in Norway wanted “Vikings, a fishing village, polar bears, a fjord, an oil rig, and maybe a troll or two.”
Image: Disney
So yes, Maelstrom was odd, sending guests sputtering through time for a ride that was part historical retrospective, part mythological adventure, part industrial sales pitch. Such is the case when guests’ Viking longships would get caught on the mossy bank of an enchanted swamp where a three-headed troll would arise from the grasses.
“How dare you come here?” “Invaders!” “This is Troll Country!” “Go away! Be gone! “I’ll cast a spell… You’ll disappear!” “Disappear! Disappear!” With that, the ship would cast-off backwards, tumbling down a “waterfall,” passing backwards through a frozen tundra of polar bears, then eventually righting its direction and splashing down in a sea filled with oil rigs.
Maelstrom closed in 2014 to become the controversial Modern Marvel: Frozen Ever After. The trolls’ spot is today occupied by Elsa herself. (Ironically, trolls still factor into the replacement ride, but the much friendlier “Fixer Upper” kind from the film.) Still, the encounter with the magical trolls remains a sort of icon of Epcot and World Showcase; part of the perfect staging of the park’s dark rides, and the introduction of a “character” guests came to know very well over the ride’s 26 year life.
7. Skippy
Image: Disney
Attraction: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter
Lifetime: 1995 – 2003 (8 years)
Located directly across from The Timekeeper in that sci-fi city of New Tomorrowland stood the Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center, currently rented out via a Martian technology firm called X-S Tech. If the giant yellow antenna on the roof weren’t proof enough, X-S Tech is in town to showcase its new teleportation technology, capable of beaming living beings across the cosmos. From your first introduction to X-S Tech, everything was designed to feel slightly… off. Black Mirror before Black Mirror, there was a dystopian, cold, dark sci-fi aura around X-S Tech… and that’s on purpose.
In fact, one of the attraction’s most memorable moments was its pre-show, when another metallic android called S.I.R. – voiced by the snarling Tim Curry rather than the lovable Timekeeper’s Robin Williams – opts to warm us up with a simple demonstration of X-S’s teleportation technology, simply beaming the cute, fuzzy alien Skippy to a second tube across the room despite his whimpers and his cartoonish, sad eyes. With the push of a button, S.I.R. fills the tube with hissing, sizzling steam, with Skippy magically appearing in the second tube across the room… but burnt, shrieking, and in pain.
Of course, this pre-show was meant to be brutal. Imagineers tweaked it to this darker form just before the ride’s official opening, hoping that Skippy’s somewhat torturous experience would be enough to lead parents of small children to the “chicken exit;” their last chance to escape before subjecting their kids to Disney’s scariest attraction ever, the Lost Legend: Alien Encounter.
Image: Disney
When Alien Encounter closed in 2003, the attraction was made over with a much less horrifying alien who was seen as a merchandising powerhouse, becoming the abysmally bad Declassified Disaster: Stitch’s Great Escape. Though Alien Encounter might’ve been the scariest Disney attraction, its successor is almost unanimously understood as Disney’s worst attraction… Skippy was re-used in the pre-show for Stitch’s Great Escape. Since the teleportation tubes were re-cast as holding cells for alien criminals, both Skippys were present at once. So totally disfigured was Skippy in his Alien Encounter voyage that the “burnt” version could now stand in as a second, separate alien…
Stitch’s Great Escape lasted twice as long as the Alien Encounter that had proceeded it. The attraction switched to “seasonal” status in 2016 before closing forever in 2018. Disney still hasn’t acknowledged that the attraction is closed for good, but leaked pictures show Skippy in his worst shape yet: skinned.
8. Captain EO
Image: Disney
Attraction: Captain EO
Lifetime: 1986 – 1998 / 2010 – 2015 (17 years)
Captain EO was “here to change the world,” and changed Disney World along the way. The perfect example of new CEO Michael Eisner’s “star power” pop culture influence on Disney Parks, the Lost Legend: Captain EO was absolutely epic in scale. Created by the combined forces of Disney and George Lucas with legendary director Francis Ford Copolla behind the camera, this $17 million “short film” / 3D attraction starred top-of-his-game “King of Pop” Michael Jackson and award-winning actress Anjelica Huston in a musical ’80s space opera music video installed at Disneyland. Phew!
Image: Disney
Jackson’s character – a soft-spoken but brave intergalactic hero with a ragtag troupe of ’80s alien oddities – was named for Eos, goddess of dawn and bringer of light. Similarly, EO and his team infiltrate a steaming, industrial wasteland planet (thanks to George Lucas’ influence) to bring the gift of song to the planet’s hideous queen. “We Are Here to Change the World” is the anthem of the 17 minute production, which was accompanied in its original run by lasers, fog, and more.
Image: Disney
Of course, film attractions tend to have less repeat appeal than rides, so it was no surprise that EO finished its runs in California, Florida, Tokyo, and Paris through the mid-’90s – right as controversy around Jackson’s personal life was rising – to be replaced with the much trendier “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.” But when the entertainer died unexpectedly in 2009, his star was elevated once more and Captain EO Tribute opened at each resort successively. The second time around, EO wasn’t about groundbreaking visual effects, the cutting edge futurism of George Lucas, or even the music; it was positioned as a limited-time, retro-’80s throwback celebrating Jackon’s magnetism and star power.
Lost and found
Year-after-year, more and more characters are “lost” from Disney Parks. Luckily, that’s what our Lost Legends collection is for. From Mr. Toad to Bonnie Appetit, Dr. Cynthia Lair to Ellen Degerenes, there’s an entire cast of Disney Parks characters waiting to be remembered. So, make the jump to Theme Park Tourists’ Legend Library and set course for a forgotten fan-favorite yourself.
