disneydriven:

The Matterhorn Bobsleds

Images from Tours Departing Daily

Text from The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland

Imagineers are often asked how we make decisions as to what to add to our parks. Usually the answer is not a simple one. Matterhorn Bobsleds is a great example of how Disneyland can evolve- often very rapidly- based on a variety of factors. Challenges and opportunities present themselves all the time, and the key to the Imagineering mentality is to always look for ways to turn those things into positive changes for the Park. The Matterhorn story illustrates how that sort of thinking creates landmarks of Disneyland magic.

At its opening, the Park featured a twenty-foot high mound of dirt formed by the digging of the castle moat during Park construction. The pile had been dressed up with a bit of landscaping and some benches, and over the years had taken on the name Holidy Hill after an abandoned concept for the area. This hill was also the home to a rather unattractive steel tower for the Skyway buckets that made their way across the Park at that time. Additionally, Walt was still in search of a thrill attraction for Disneyland after the re-focusing of the Casey, Jr. Circus Train away from being a true roller coaster. 

So, with all of this rattling around in the back of his mind, Walt found himself during a European vacation on the set of the 1959 film, Third Man on the Mountain, filmed atop the legendary Matterhorn in Switzerland. Around this time, an executive in Disneyland sent him a magazine article about wild-mouse-style roller coasters, and Walt’s grand scheme was hatched. The skyline of the Park was forever changed, and our pattern for plussing the park by identifying all of our best “opportunities” was set in place.

Not Yeti

The Abominable Snowman found within the Matterhorn offers a view into the evolution of our Audio-Animatronics figues- a lineage that leads eventually to the massive beast found inside Expedition: Everest in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World. The Abominable Snowman was added to Matterhorn Bobsleds in 1978 in keeping with WDI’s desire to incorporate story elements into our thrill attractions, such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain. In Everest, the relative scale, menacing movements, and the ferocity of the modern figure show how far we have advanced the technology in the intervening years. However, the use of the element of surprise ensures that the original beast still packs a wallop!

Quick Takes

• Matterhorn Bobsleds was the first tube steel-track roller coaster in the world when it premiered in 1959.
• Matterhorn Bobsleds was originally part of Tomorrowland, but made its way into Fantasyland in the early 1970s without moving an inch.
• The Disneyland Matterhorn is 147 feet tall, exactly 1/100 the size of the actual mountain. 

((Request more rides here!!))

tangledupindisney:

disneyprince:

pagingretroland:

Walt Disney dancing the night away, Carnation Plaza Gardens at Disneyland. Date unknown.

new favorite picture of walt ever

he looks so happy. I want to cry.

(Source: )

dontmoveamuscle:

waltdisneymeme:

what the what

no unicorns :( 

(Source: disneywishing)

betherella:

I love this! Its an early employee handbook for the Walt Disney Studios from 1943. It certainly reflects the times with its sexist doodles and the fact that no one of any race or color other than white appear to be pictured (though if you look at the “Penthouse Club” page I’d swear they were already ahead of the times when it came to accepting homosexual relationships) but its very interesting to be sure. I love getting a little peek into that time at the Disney Company. The full book can be found on the Disney Family Museum’s website here.

waltdisneyconfessions:

“Gaston makes me feel like a failure because he eats five dozen eggs and I don’t even eat any”.

it’s true eggs are nasty :(

i tear up (more than usual) at that part of the song because it reminds me of how i will never be the size of a barge

disneylandguru:

Shortly after New Orleans Square opened in 1966, Walt posed for this photo with Cast Members at the Creole Café. Later renamed Café Orleans, you can still find delicious desserts, and of course, espresso there.

Nowadays, you can go to Café Orleans to see the very same espresso machine pictured with Walt after all these years.

A waitress at Café Orleans saw me reading my Imagineering book the last time I went, and she told me about the espresso machine’s long history!

The waitress who told me this also explained how she’s the daughter of two other Disney cast members who happened to meet while working in the park. I believe they both still work at Disney today, too. That’s just about the most adorable thing.