It Didn't Work Out Week! The Indiana Jones Adventure

DISNEYLAND's Indiana Jones Adventure has been a huge favorite of guests for over twenty years. The impressive technology used in the attraction was initially capable of even more impressive feats. Walt Disney Imagineering had programmed each of the vehicles to have hundreds of thousands of ride variations.

 

The attraction was supposed to surprise guests by beginning its journey through the temple in one of three different doors. Repeat riders would instantly notice the difference. It was all meant to be very impressive.

 

Unfortunately, the extremely popular attraction faced many stumbling blocks in its first year of operation. Guests were not heeding the warnings of holding onto hats and bags. Ride sensors meant to halt operations if a person fell out of the vehicles were stopping the attraction every time a careless guest dropped a hat or bag. To make matters worse the attraction's ride system, faced with a nearly infinite number of attraction possibilities, would only choose six of them. The three doors of Wisdom only led to one location. 

Walt Disney Imagineering would lower the sensitivity of the ride sensors, install netting to give guests a place to secure their belongings, but couldn't quite get a grip on resolving the problem of the attraction not choosing from the multiple possibilities. Sometimes they had to prop open the middle door to make the attraction get through the day. 

Imagineering desperately wanted time to fix the attraction and felt that it should be shut down if the three doors weren't working correctly. Park operations, faced with thousands of guests who most likely didn't notice anything amiss, won out- the attraction would only close for safety reasons. Imagineering would eventually get various opportunities to try to fix some of these issues over the years, but the attraction would never work entirely as originally conceived.

It Didn't Work Out Week! Dumbo the Flying Elephant

Even a classic attraction like Dumbo the Flying Elephant didn't end up as originally intended. Look closely at a vintage Dumbo from 1955- his ears are obviously not molded with the rest of his head. That's because they were intended to flap up and down while the attraction was in motion.

 

Unfortunately, the ears rarely worked and often caused problems with the popular attraction's daily operations. Walt Disney allowed the attraction to operate without the flapping ears. Eventually the ears on Dumbo were permanently fixed to his head. When the cars were replaced in 1990, the new models had no ear flapping mechanism.

 

It Didn't Work Out Week! The Jolly Trolley

When DISNEYLAND first opened Mickey's Toontown in 1993, it featured a rollicking trolley that took guests from Downtown Toontown to Mickey's Neighborhood.

 

The trolleys were meant to rock and roll down the streets of Toontown. At first, each trolley consisted of two cars connected together. Operations had a hard time getting them to operate the way they were supposed to, so the trolleys were changed to featuring just one car apiece. Soon the rocking was shutoff. Eventually, the trolleys were completely shutdown, becoming static photo opportunities. The trolleys were seen as being an operational nightmare.

It Didn't Work Out Week! The Flying Saucers

When Walt Disney's idea for a Space Mountain proved to be unworkable in 1960, he approved the legendary attraction the Flying Saucers.

 

Guests would float on a cushion of air in their own flying saucer. It seemed like it would be an exciting attraction- when it worked. DISNEYLAND's maintenance team hated the attraction and would often "forget" to get it operational again. On days when Walt was in the park, they had to get it running and keep it running all day. Even Walt knew when it was time to throw in the towel. The often closed attraction was finally put out of its misery in 1965.

Amazingly, the company would try the concept again just across the way at Disney California Adventure in Cars Land. That attraction lasted even less time than its predecessor.

 

It Didn't Work Out Week!

 

Frequent visitors to this site know that we often discuss the DISNEYLAND that never was. There are quite a few moments in Disney history where something bigger was attempted but it didn't quite work out. That's what we'll look at beginning tomorrow!