A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Tributes to Lost Attractions
By Dave Shute
Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians and author of Jim’s Gems in The easy Guide, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
By Jim Korkis
DISNEY WORLD ATTRACTION TRIBUTES
Many Imagineers are huge Disney fans as well and mourn the loss of an attraction or a removed venue as much as regular guests do. Sometimes, they will include little tributes to that former location in the new venue.
In the new AbracadaBar at the BoardWalk Resort is a framed copy of a newspaper on the wall that provides the back story of the magicians who mysteriously disappeared from there over seventy years earlier.
However in the lower right hand corner is an odd little news item:
- “Twin Sisters Advance in Beauty Pageant
- “The Sweets Invited to Seashore Finals
“The Boardwalk’s “sweetest” sisters have been invited to compete in the final round of the Miss Seashore beauty pageant. Their special talent? Serving confections with affection of course! Wish the ladies luck as they lead a celebratory rolling chair parade this Sunday on the boardwalk. At this pace, they may be on their way to becoming twin Miss America(s).”
The location used to be the home for a shop called Seashore Sweets supposedly run by two former Miss America contestants, the fictional Sweet sisters. The sign outside the shop proclaimed that it sold “confections with affection” and inside were all sorts of candy, ice cream and more.
The Barnstormer at Goofy’s Wise Acres Farm was a mini-roller coaster designed for children as a homemade “multiflex octo-plane” that was a popular attraction at Mickey’s Toontown Fair at the Magic Kingdom. A barnstormer was a term for a stunt pilot who traveled to rural areas to perform shows in a bi-plane.
In fact, it was so popular that when the area was redesigned as The Storybook Circus section for the New Fantasyland, the attraction was reconfigured as The Barnstormer featuring Goofy as the Great Goofini as one of the circus acts.
The back of the new sign for the attraction was designed to look as if the old sign had been taken apart and reformatted to make the new one.
In addition, the front of the sign states “An Acrobatic Skyleidoscope” which is a reference to the name of a daytime show that ran from 1985-1987 on the World Showcase Lagoon at Epcot. The small sea gulls in the top right corner of the new sign are meant to be a subtle tribute to the similar looking gulls found in the extinct Tomorrowland attraction If You Had Wings.
Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid attraction in the Magic Kingdom is on the spot where the former 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction used to be located. In the queue line, on the left hand side is a “carving” in the faux rockwork of the silhouette of the famous Captain Nemo Nautilus submarine from the original attraction.
Before the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction was removed, Imagineers bottled up some of the water from the attraction and kept it stored safely for nearly two decades when it was poured into the waters of the new attraction as part of the official opening.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction in Fantasyland was originally the home for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. In the room meant to be Owl’s house is a framed picture on the left hand side of J. Thaddeus Toad handing over the deed of the land to Owl. On the floor to the right is a picture of Pooh greeting Moley, one of Toad’s closest friends.
In the pet cemetery at the exit of the Haunted Mansion attraction in Liberty Square in the upper part is a statue to Mr. Toad (actually one of the Big Fig merchandise items designed by artist Kevin Kidney).
Many other similar tributes are scattered throughout the vacation kingdom.
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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew
, which reprints much material first written for this site, and The Vault of Walt: Volume 4, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.
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