Would You Have Liked These Unbuilt Disney Rides?

As we speak, The Walt Disney Company is creating more than a dozen theme park attractions.

Technically, the number is much higher than that since Disney’s also building a new theme park.

Yes, we’re in an unprecedented expansion era, but we all know that disappointments are likely.

Multiple Disney fansites are currently running articles about failed Magic Kingdom plans.

That’s a historical example of everything working out for the best in the end.

In case you didn’t know, the original plans for Fantasyland Forest didn’t call for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

Yikes, right? Well, that’s the thing about Disney decision-making. Everything usually works out in the end.

So, what I’ll do today is discuss four proposed Disney attractions we never received. Would you have liked these unbuilt Disney rides? Don’t answer just yet…

The Perils of IP

Bob Iger may love IP more than his wife and children. I don’t know that, but he sure talks about brands a lot.

To be fair, doing that is his job, yet he still comes across as obsessive about it.

Well, here’s another example of the perils of ill-timed IP, something we’ve recently witnessed.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom just closed It’s Tough to Be a Bug! last year.

That show celebrated the characters of A Bug’s Life, Pixar’s forgotten 1990s film.

Next, the park will add an Indiana Jones ride – hold that thought – at arguably the wrong time.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny just failed at the box office, with a common complaint heard.

Modern movie-goers lament that they just cannot relate to Indiana Jones, which is fair.

The audience scores for Dial of Destiny actually increased significantly by age group.

So, Indiana Jones has become one of the fossils he studies…but he is timeless compared to…Dick Tracy.

Some of you reading this may not even know who/what Dick Tracy is.

Back in the olden days when people read newspapers, comic strips were a daily part of life.

People doomscrolled the news but then read Hagar the Horrible and Beetle Bailey for laughs.

Some of the comic strips worked as action sagas, with detective Dick Tracy being at the forefront of this group.

So, fans read about Dick Tracy battling Big Boy and Mr. Intro throughout decades of conflicts.

Dick Tracy’s Crime Stoppers

After Tim Burton’s comic book movie, Batman, broke box office records, Disney tried to mimic its success.

The film studio paid over $50 million, a historic amount at the time, to make Dick Tracy.

Disney cast Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Madonna to headline the movie.

Studio executives were so confident in its success that they plotted a theme park ride.

Dick Tracy’s Crime Stoppers would have been the least Disney thing ever. I’m not joking.

The riders would have fired Tommy guns (!!!) at gangsters throughout the ride.

Fans of The Great Movie Ride are probably reading this and going, “Wait a minute…”

While the premise wasn’t identical, it would have shared surface similarities to this:

Somebody at Disney recognized the issue and prevented the ride from advancing.

Pardon the pun, but Disney dodged a bullet here by never making the ride.

Dick Tracy, the film, was profitable but disappointed at the box office.

Moviegoers in 1990 couldn’t relate to the outdated characters from Dick Tracy’s 1930s inception.

You can imagine how much worse that problem would have been just a few years later. Dick Tracy’s Crime Stoppers would have been a ghost town by 2000.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios chose different IPs for its next two brands, and it seemed to work out well.

We got Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith instead.

Somehow, Aerosmith is decidedly less dated than Dick Tracy, which is a scary thought.

Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition

Something Disney has made clear over the years is how much it loves Lucasfilm stories.

The original Star Tours debuted at Disneyland in 1987 and Hollywood Studios in 1989.

Now, we have Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Indiana Jones Adventure, and more Indy coming soon.

Believe it or not, we could have had an even bigger Lucasfilm presence in the parks a long time ago.

Disney toyed with the idea of creating an entire complex based on the character of Indiana Jones.

This section, Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition, would have housed Indiana Jones Adventure.

However, I’m not listing here because of a themed area that never got built. That’s a topic for a different day.

No, Indiana Jones and the Lost Expedition belongs on this list for the ride we never got.

Disney planned a mine cart roller coaster in this giant indoor facility…and that’s not all!

Imagineers would have routed parts of Jungle Cruise here to connect the two stories.

I’m not saying that Jungle Cruise would have added an Indiana Jones theme or anything.

The modified path would have created symmetry between the look and feel of the rides, though.

Jungle Cruise riders would have traveled through a River Temple, one that also contained the new ride.

The roller coaster legitimately could have been incredible, given its theme…which was this:

As a diehard Indiana Jones fan, I weep that we never got this roller coaster. This was my wheelhouse.

Sadly, the financial nightmare that was Disneyland Paris in the early 1990s forced budget cuts.

So, Disney reduced the plans to what we have now, the still-incredible Indiana Jones Adventure.

While I love and admire it, I also know that it could have been oh so much more.

Rainbow Ride to Oz

Here’s the oddity of this list, the one I may expand into a full article at a later date.

At one point, Walt Disney could have jumped the gun on the Wicked franchise.

Uncle Walt plotted a movie based on the Wizard of Oz stories, one more than 50 years before Oz the Great and Powerful.

Yes, that film represented a longstanding dream of Walt Disney and his successors.

Alas, it failed and became a footnote to this story, one that began with such promise.

Walt Disney had plotted to take guests on The Rainbow Road to Oz during the 1950s.

The Disney Archives and a few private collectors own copies of the script for this film.

Alas, Uncle Walt grew nervous about his decision to cast primarily television actors for the main roles.

So, he shelved the project, which had an odd ripple effect at Disneyland.

The entrepreneur had also planned something I cannot believe is real:

Folks, this is exactly what it sounds like: a mountain made of rock candy. Edible rock candy.

I know it sounds absurd, but many staff members claimed that they ate parts of the props.

I think I just got dysentery from typing that, but still. It was real, and you can read more about it here. The anchor ride at Don’t Put That In Your Mouth Mountain would have been Rainbow Ride to Oz.

Yes, Disney could have had an Oz ride 60 years before Universal Orlando Resort inevitably adds one.

Thankfully, everyone eventually realized that a candy mountain would get gross fast.

Then, nobody would want to ride it because their stomachs would turn just looking at it.

So, we got – I kid you not – Matterhorn Bobsleds instead.

Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ Ride

This is my favorite story on this list because it’s the best example of everything working out for the best.

At one point, Disney officials noticed the popularity of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

In the 1990s, the film earned less than $50 million during its initial box office run.

Believe it or not, that total was still a success for Disney due to the movie’s modest production cost.

However, what got everyone’s attention is how well the animated film performed on home video.

Then, Disney re-released it in theaters in 2000 and again in 2006, with the latter being a highly successful run.

Obviously, people love the money, and that’s the kind of project strategists want in the parks.

So, Disneyland officials asked Imagineers to spitball ideas…and they went wild!

Some genius invented a coffin sled ride cart that would have carried guests through a dark ride.

Famous scenes from the film would have charmed the rider and made them feel like they were in Halloween Town.

I have no doubt that this ride would have been wildly popular BUT…it never obviously never happened.

The idea lived, though. Imagineers championed it to their bosses, who listened.

Thus, the pitch for a Nightmare Before Christmas dark ride directly led to the creation of…

Haunted Mansion Holiday. Yes, the brainstorming for the ride we never got is why we have this now.

I think I speak for every Disneyland fan on the planet when I say that we would NEVER give up Haunted Mansion Holiday.

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