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Disney is replacing Splash Mountain, a beloved ride with a complicated history, with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure! The new themed ride is based on the Disney Princess movie “The Princess and the Frog.” With each new announcement closer and closer to the opening, Disney is excited to reveal they are “almost there.”
Disney’s Tiana’s Bayou Adventure: Florida 2024, California Later!
During the 2024 Mardi Gras season, Disney announced the new ride would be here in time for the summer of 2024 in Florida and later in the year for California.
“The ride will be all about Tiana after she made her own dreams come true and how we all have the potential to make our dreams a reality,” Disney Parks announced on their blog. “In Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, she’s throwing a festive party during Mardi Gras season to thank her family, friends and the entire community for all the support they’ve given her as a successful business owner.”
Two reimagined retail stores inspired by Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “The Princess and the Frog” are also coming to Disneyland Resort. The reimagined merchandise locations coming to Critter Country in Disneyland park will include Ray’s Berets and Louis’ Critter Club. Their stories will further immerse you into Princess Tiana’s story, along with the opening of the attraction, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, later this year.
Real thought was put into detail for the atmosphere surrounding Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Louisiana native blacksmith, Darryl Reaves, and his apprentice Karina crafted a metal masterpiece that will bring the story of Princess Tiana to life at Magic Kingdom this year. In addition, the ride takes royal inspiration from historic Mardi Gras collections from New Orleans artifacts.
Animatronics and New Critters
Disney is known for its audio-animatronics and gave us a sneak peek into their newest audio-animatronic character and star of the ride, Tiana, in a TikTok also released near Mardi Gras.
Charita Carter is the Executive Creative Producer who took fans backstage to see the fluid movement of Tiana and all of her detailed features.
Walt Disney Imagineering then launched their new series on youtube to dig a little deeper on what makes the animatronics move, what inspired them, and each step it took to develop the characters. Not only do we see Tiana, but we get to see Mama Odie, Louis the Alligator, and more.
In the beginning, the Archives manager walks us into Walt Disney’s office to talk about what inspired some of the first audio-animatronics that we see around the world today. It all began after Walt Disney and his wife Lillian purchased a bird cage that had a chirping animatronic bird inside. He copied the mechanisms and began to create bigger and better audio-animatronics from paper to real life.
Now, the process of making characters come to life begins with the story. They characterize them from their original movie, create a 3D animation to plan how the character will move, and each team collaborates for a seamless transition from ideation to creation.
Other creatives behind the scenes include Laura West, the Concept Design Lead for Walt Disney Imagineering, who helped create a lot of the new characters for the ride. They are featured as the new band of critters coming to the Bayou that we haven’t seen from “The Princess and the Frog” franchise until now.
West explains in the instagram reel they used authentic research of the bayou to create the critters from the types of animals they chose most commonly found in the bayou to the names and music most commonly used in the Bayou. They inspired the sound from the sounds of zydeco, a creole music-style genre.
It was announced last year that Disney is collaborating with industry legends PJ Morton and Terence Blanchard on new original music for the ride, alongside some of the tunes from the Walt Disney Animation Studios film “The Princess and the Frog.”
Splash Mountain Complicated History
The renowned log-ride down the 50-foot drop from Splash Mountain will remain with an all-new story to love. In 2020, during the time of George Floyd Protests across the country, a petition was formed to replace the theme of Splash Mountain which was originally based on the Walt Disney movie “Song Of The South.”
The movie was believed to be outdated and problematic. Disney was ahead of the game, already working on changing the theme to be centered around “The Princess and The Frog.” Disney executives told the Los Angeles Times at the time that “it wanted a more inclusive concept, one free of association with the racist 1946 film “Song of the South” and it’s white-centered depiction of slavery and stereotypes.”
“Song of the South” is a movie that has aged poorly that Disney hasn’t released it in North America since the ’80s and the film has never seen home video or DVD release. The direct association from the movie to the ride was hidden behind the fact that there is no direct mention of the character of Uncle Remus at all, and only the animated characters like Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear appear.
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“Song of the South” focuses on a young boy named Johnny who has traveled with his parents from Atlanta to his grandmother’s plantation in an undisclosed Southern location… Johnny attempts to run away back to his father, but he’s stopped by the kindly Uncle Remus, an elderly black man (James Baskett), who tells him a story about Br’er Rabbit and a time he tried running away from his problems, and only found greater ones. Johnny decides to stay, if only to hear more stories from Uncle Remus.
While the stories of Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox, and Br’er Bear are animated, Song of the South is still very much a live action movie. “Song of the South” has been the subject of controversy since it was released back in 1946, and that controversy has only increased.
Looking Ahead
The ride has been tested by Walt Disney Imagineering project team members. One of the imagineers chiming “It works!” as he cruised along after the 50-foot log ride drop.
