Barely a day goes by on Disney Parks social media without something becoming a topic of debate, and especially at Disneyland – where just about every square foot is considered holy ground – it doesn’t take much to get fans talking.
A common refrain among Parks enthusiasts is that those who get worked up over inconsequential details should “Touch grass!” – that is, get outside, get some fresh air, and figure out what really matters! In this case, though, touching grass is exactly the problem. An ongoing refresh to Disneyland’s Toontown – the first phase of which is now open – has seen a long-standing fountain replaced by artificial turf…
Is it another apocalyptic chip away at Disney Parks legacy? Or an improvement that, in practice, will make Toontown ever better? We’ll let you decide when we dig into the details of what used to be, what it’s become, and why?…
Mickey’s Toontown
Mickey’s Toontown originally opened at Disneyland in 1993. Largely based on the runaway success of 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the land brought to life a version of Toontown from the film complete with inflated, cartoonish, squashed-and-stretched architecture drawn from the style of Max Fleischer cartoons from the ’30s and ’40s.
Toontown was roughly divided into two neighborhoods. Guests entered via a “downtown” area built around a fountain of Roger Rabbit, with city blocks of punny facades, photo opportunities, and interactive gags (for example, depressing the handle of a TNT send sparklers crackling and flashing in an upstairs, charred “Fireworks Factory”). Accessed via the Toontown Cab Co. just beyond the fountain resided Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin – an anchor attraction and spinning dark ride for the land.
Connected to downtown via the Jolly Trolley (or, of course, just a few steps away) was the second neighborhood – a residential cul-de-sac nestled in the “Toontown Hills.” Aside from Mickey’s House and Minnie’s House walkthrough / meet-and-greets, attractions within the neighborhood included Goofy’s Bounce House (where children removed their shoes and bounced on inflatable floors and furniture), Donald’s Boat (a multi-level splash pad), Chip & Dale’s Treehouse (complete with spiral stairs, rope bridge, slide, and “acorn ball crawl” filling the root level), and Gadget’s Go Coaster. Basically, Toontown had big ’90s family entertainment center energy with bounce houses, slides, ball pits, and more.
Redrawing Toontown
Looking back now, it’s clear that – for better or worse – the standards of “play” have changed a lot since 1993. Especially in the lawsuit-happy culture of the United States, can you blame Disney for taking the “bounce” out of Goofy’s Bounce House, the ball pit and slide (frequent cause of bloody noses, and allegedly at least one broken leg) out of Chip and Dale’s Treehouse, and the wet stairs out of Donald’s Boat? Even the Jolly Trolley was parked in place given the low-capacity ride’s pitfalls. More to the point, imagine having a child who uses a wheelchair; a child with sensory issues; a child who prefers to stick with a parent; a toddler. For them, Toontown offered almost nothing to do, leaning entirely into inaccessible “playground” style features like stairs, slides, climbing nets, and more.
For many, many years, fans expected that Toontown’s time was short. Between immersive, big-budget “New Fantasylands” in Orlando and Tokyo and Frozen themed areas in Paris and Hong Kong, it seemed almost certain that eventually, Disney would level Toontown and use the precious real estate it inhabited in the landlocked park to bring Arendelle to life.
But in 2019, Disney made the surprise announcement that Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – the trackless dark ride developed for Disney’s Hollywood Studios – would make its way out to California, becoming a new E-Ticket anchor for Toontown! That meant that Toontown was going to stick around… which meant it needed a facelift.
Mickey’s Toontown closed entirely on March 9, 2022. Already shielded from the rest of Disneyland, the complete closure would give Imagineers the opportunity not just to construct the “El Capitoon Theater” serving as Runaway Railway’s entrance (and encase the land in new cartoon hills to hide the ride’s showbuilding), but to “plus” the land by upgrading its play features to universally-accessible, modern, and refreshed versions with more to do, more shade, and more space to relax… And that’s where things get controversial…
The “new” Mickey’s Toontown is still under wraps, with a scheduled re-opening on March 8, 2023 (364 days after it closed for its renovation).
However, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway made an early debut, coinciding with the launch of the Disney100 promotion at Disneyland on January 27, 2023. So even though most of the new Toontown is still under construction, out of view of guests, the “downtown” neighborhood centered on the El Capitoon Theater is out from behind construction walls and accessible to guests. And one thing in particular has seemed to surprise them…
In the “old” Toontown, the downtown cul-de-sac serving as the entrance to Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin was built around a fairly extravagant water fountain with Roger as the star. This fountain was something of a landmark for the area, with the tracks of the Jolly Trolley circling around it.
In the new Toontown, that’s changed…
In fact, the Roger Rabbit fountain has been removed entirely and replaced with a small “park” of artificial grass, a few small tree plantings, and Toontown-style street lamps.
Frankly, it’s not like the fountain’s absence was unexpected… If you return to the land-wide concept art developed for “Toontown 2.0,” the fountain is indeed missing. (A new fountain featuring Mickey and Minnie is instead planned for the new “CenTOONial Park” taking shape directly across from the El Capitoon Theater, so technically it’s an even swap.)
Even still, the removal of the fountain and its replacement with artificial turf has gotten Disney Parks fans on Facebook and Twitter talking…
Opinions
Some fans argue that the new artificial turf is “bad show;” that it’s downright silly to remove a beautiful water feature that added to the “downtown” aesthetic of the land in favor of an odd, out-of-place patch of fake grass; that, basically, the vast expanse of turf with just a few immature trees looks like more of a doggie park than a city park.
Others argue that this is exactly what Disneyland is supposed to offer. These fans suggest that thanks to new green spaces like this one, families will have space to run around, relax, picnic, nap, and just enjoy Toontown’s atmosphere… something sorely missing from the former incarnation of the land. Especially today, more places for people to “Dole Whip and chill” while waiting for Lightning Lane return times are needed, and this green space can be exactly that! (And if you see how the space is being utilized, as above, you’d see that people do “get it” and use it for that exact purpose.)
(If you want to know our thoughts, we feel like something more in the middle might’ve been a nice compromise – maybe just by adding a small water feature or even a statue of Roger Rabbit to the “park,” a few artificial grassy “mounds” to climb or sit on, and some permanent picnic blanket-stylized squishy floor squares to break up the grass and clearly define family relaxation spaces.)
In any case, it’s clear that this idea of greenery, shade, relaxation, and play is a major focus for Imagineering’s vision for the land. This patch of “grass” is probably best thought of as a complement to the nearby (but still behind construction walls) “CenTOONial Park,” which will include more green space, more trees, that Mickey fountain that’s serving as a spiritual successor to Roger’s, and an interactive “Dreaming Tree” playground.
Likewise, the new version of Goofy’s House is gaining Goofy’s “How to Play” Yard complete with sound garden, musical instruments, interactive games, shade, an accessible elevated clubhouse, and a candy-making “Rube Goldberg”-style contraption that’ll see candy sliding, spinning, rolling, and dropping through the yard and house in a giant kinetic display.
That’s in addition to Donald’s Duck Pond, a new splash pad and whole-family interactive zone that will include spinning water lilies, balance beams and rocking toys. (The boat itself will now be a prop rather than a climbable structure.)
In other words, it’s clear that the focus for the newly-refreshed Toontown is on universally-accessible, multi-sensory, and fully-interactive play rather than just climbing nets, slides, and ball pits. Almost inarguably, that’s a very smart change for the park to make. Providing more green space, shade, room to run, and room to picnic seems like a win-win, but what do you think? Is the swap from Roger Rabbit’s downtown fountain to a flat green space a plus, a minus, or somewhere in between?
