"it's a small world"
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| It's a Small World | |
 |
|
| Designer | Walt Disney; Mary Blair |
| Attraction type | Boat canal |
| Propulsion method | Flume Pumps |
| Vehicle type | Boat |
| Vehicle capacity | 20 (5 rows of 4 guests) |
| 1964 New York World's Fair | |
| Opening date | April 22, 1964 |
| Closing date | October 17, 1965 |
| Sponsored by | Pepsi; UNICEF |
| Disneyland | |
| Land | Fantasyland |
| Opening date | May 28, 1966 |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Magic Kingdom | |
| Land | Fantasyland |
| Opening date | October 1, 1971 |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Tokyo Disneyland | |
| Land | Fantasyland |
| Opening date | April 15, 1983 |
| Sponsored by | Sogo |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Disneyland Park (Paris) | |
| Land | Fantasyland |
| Opening date | April 12, 1992 |
| Sponsored by | France Télécom |
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Hong Kong Disneyland | |
| Land | Fantasyland |
| Opening date | Early 2008 |
"it's a small world" is a popular attraction at several Walt Disney theme parks including: Disneyland (in California), the Magic Kingdom (in Florida), Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. It has been announced that it will open in Hong Kong Disneyland in 2008. The ride features a multitude of audio-animatronic figures in the style of children of the world singing the ride's title track, which unifies a theme of global peace.
Contents |
[edit] History
Like several other Disneyland attractions, "it's a small world" originated with the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair (it was Pepsi's pavillion.) After the fair closed the ride was transferred to Disneyland and when the other parks opened they too included versions of the ride. The attraction was designed by Mary Blair, who was also an art director on several Disney animated features (including Cinderella and Peter Pan). Like many Disneyland and Walt Disney World attractions, scenes and characters were designed by Marc Davis, while his wife, Alice Davis, designed the outfits of the dolls.
The name of the ride was originally "children of the world". When Walt Disney demonstrated it to songwriters the Sherman Brothers the ride's soundtrack featured numerous national anthems all playing at once. Disney said, "I need one song." In response, the brothers wrote what would be known as the most performed and translated song on earth: "it's a small world". [1] Often dismissed as trivial, the song was written in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
[edit] Characteristics
[edit] Exterior
The outer façade of the building at Disneyland is a gigantic clock. On the quarter-hour, wooden dolls representing different cultures parade out of the clock, after the last dolls exit the clock, a pair of giant doors swings open to reveal two large toy blocks — one block with the hour, and one block with the minutes, written in highly stylized numerals, then a bell tolls indicating the time.
The exterior has been slightly redesigned and repainted over the years, first as all-white with gold trim, then in myriad pastel colors, in white with pastel accents, and is currently all-white with gold trim as it was in the 1960s. The gardens around the building are decorated with topiary animals.
[edit] Show
Inside the building, the ride features stylized animatronic dolls in national costumes singing the title song in numerous languages. At Disneyland, boats carrying the riders visit the regions of the world in separate rooms:
- The Hello Room, greets the guests to the attraction, showing different cultural greetings from around the world.
- The Scandinavia/North Pole room, with dolls representing Scandinavia, with the song sung in Swedish.
- Europe, with the song sung in German, English with a Cockney accent, Dutch, Spanish, French and Italian, as well as having a yodeler in the section representing Switzerland.
- Asia, with the song sung in Japanese.
- Africa, with the rhythm of the song marked with drums then sung in English.
- South America, with the song sung in Spanish.
- South Seas, with the song sung with an underwater gurgling sound by mermaids for the first section of the room (Disneyland and Disneyland Paris only), and traditional Polynesian versions of the song throughout the rest of the room.
- New Guinea, a small, relatively dark room with a rainforest scene and native drummers.
- The Finale Room, with representatives from all the cultures of the world dressed in white versions of their native costumes and singing in English in unison. A cowboy and American Indian standing together are the only dolls during the ride that represent the United States.
- The Goodbye room, showing different postcards and parting phrases from different cultures around the world.
At the other Disney parks, the path of the flume winds around one large room, emphasizing its theme that the world is small and interconnected. The order the countries appear and which countries are represented vary in each version of the ride.
- They do not begin with a separate room for the Arctic; the Scandinavian dolls are in the Europe room.
- The rainforest scene is in the Latin America room.
- In the Disneyland Paris version of the ride, there is a North America room, with dolls representing Canada and the United States.
- At the Magic Kingdom in Florida, the ride recently reopened with a state-of-the-art sound system, a few new animatronic figures, and a loading area similar to the ride's façade at Disneyland.
- The Hong Kong Disneyland version currently under construction will add 30 Disney characters into certain scenes with them being placed in areas their stories originated. It will also have an expanded Asia and North America sequences, and the promise of "a spectacular 'curtain call' with some extraordinary optical lighting effects not seen on any other Disney ride"[2].
[edit] Holiday season
Since 1997, Disneyland has featured "it's a small world holiday" during the Christmas and winter seasons. The attraction is usually closed in October to receive temporary holiday decorations inside and outside, only to reopen in early November before the start of the busy Holiday tourist season. The overlay has proved very popular and at one point during its run needed the use of temporary FASTPASS machines (which have since been uninstalled). The attraction is the same boat voyage through many regions of the world featuring choruses of children singing. During the ride, the main theme song is not played fully, but instead the children of the world sing "Jingle Bells" and a bridge of "Deck the Halls" added to the main theme. The holiday overlay has since been implemented at Tokyo Disneyland.
During the 2005–2006 holiday season, in order to remove some of the massive crowds from the main plaza during the popular Remember... Dreams Come True fireworks spectacular, a second viewing station was installed at "it's a small world". At the same time, the outdoor facade incorporated a sophisticated, elaborate multi-media presentation projected on the colored patters of the outer façade each quarter hour after dusk.
[edit] Parodies
The song and the ride have been the subjects of numerous parodies:
- Disney's Disneyland "Bootstrappers" pirate singers in 2006 warns park patrons of the "cursed dinghy ride" where they stick poor little children in a boat in a dark tunnel where they play the same song over and over again, and you can't get it out of your head. They then sing the cursed tune in a minor key. Also, at the Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe in Tomorrowland at Disney World's Magic Kingdom, an animatronic lounge singer plays the song and claims that "On my planet, we use that song to break the enemy."
- A Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1982-1983 season (season eight) showed people getting trapped and dying one by one on a ride similar to "It's A Small World".
- By Disney's own film The Lion King (in which Zazu, as Scar's bard, sings the song, much to Scar's distress) and Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D attraction
- In the Disney movie Kronk's New Groove, Yzma and Kronk go to their lab and at the beginning there's a fast-paced song in the background with a parody of it's a small world figures.
- In an episode of The Simpsons, the family visits Duff Gardens, itself a parody of a number of theme parks, and Aunt Selma, Lisa, and Bart ride "The Little Land of Duff" which features animatronic children singing about Duff Beer.
- An episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog set in "Doc Gerbil's World," an underground river complete with Audio-Animatronics and a repeating, monotonous soundtrack.
- The "The Wonderful World of Wizzley" episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot, where Brad, Tuck, and Jenny are at an amusement park and ride on a ride called The World Ain't So Big.
- An episode of Family Guy as "It's a Tiny World", where Stewie is chained to the floor with hundreds of other children and forced to sing on the threat of appearing in a Christmas movie starring Tim Allen, but the children are later freed by Peter. The Small World ride was also briefly mentioned in a previous episode of Family Guy, in which then-CEO Michael Eisner claims that he must get back to Disneyland before it opens, as they are "ethnically cleansing" the Small World ride.
- An episode of Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain (a spinoff of Pinky and the Brain), in which Brain attempts to take over the world by altering a key verse in the show's version of the song during the "Happy Sappy Children of Many Lands" ride.
- The 2005 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, wherein a display of saccharine puppets singing "Wonka's Welcome Song" are subsequently torched by the display's own fireworks (and are later seen in the Doll Hospital and Burn Ward, which was described by Wonka as being "relatively new").
- In the film Shrek, Donkey unwittingly activates a souvenir photo-generating kiosk which welcomes the pair to the city of DuLoc via animatronics and a song extremely similar to those of "it's a small world".
- Fun-Fun Universe (from FoxTrot) has a ride like "it's a small world" near 'Souveneir-land' that promotes spending and the lyrics are changed ("It's a fun-fun world where children sing/it'a a fun-fun world where bells ring-a-ling/it's a fun-fun world both high and low/it's a fun-fun world, go spend that dough!).
- In Kim Possible: So the Drama (2005), one of Dr. Drakken's evil plans is "it's a small world"-like rides to drive people insane.
- The song "Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants includes the lyric "all alone at the '64 World's Fair / eighty dolls yelling 'small girl after all'." In some live performances the band replaces the song's usual bridge with the repeated line "it's a small girl after all" sung to the tune of the original.
- In another Disney film, The Lion King 1 1/2, when Pumbaa stops the movie to go to the bathroom, Timon starts humming the song,then he starts singing it, then he starts humming it again. Also on the Virtual Safari on the movie's DVD, they go through a bug-themed version of "small world". At one point, Uncle Max says he "can't get that song out of his head."
- In the House of Mouse episode Chip and Dale, Goofy sings the "Nuts" song which was sung to the same tune as It's a Small World.
- The song became an in-joke among Disney Theme Park staffers. Most notably, cast members at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Play It! claimed that if an audience member yelled the answer to a question out, they would be removed from the studio and forced to ride the ride continuously for eight hours.
[edit] The song
The well-known catchiness of the song is due not only to its constant repetition for the duration of the ride (which lasts about fifteen minutes, not including time in line), but Robert J. Sherman explains that the structure of the song may also play a role:
- Like many songs, It's a Small World has a verse and a chorus. One thing which makes this song particularly 'catchy' is that the verse and chorus work in counterpoint to each other. This means that you can play the same chords over and over again, but with different melodies. The repetitive, yet varied pattern tricks your mind into absorbing the work without it becoming tiresome to your ear [1].
[edit] Attraction facts and figures
1964 New York World's Fair (Pepsi/UNICEF Pavillion) version:
- Grand Opening: April 22, 1964
- Closing Date: October 17, 1965
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Sponsors: Pepsi-Cola and UNICEF
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Disneyland attraction version:
- Grand Opening: May 28, 1966
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Animated/unanimated figures: 400
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed 'round the world.
- Former Sponsors: Bank of America and Mattel
- Ride Length: 14:23
- Ticket Required: "E"
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World) attraction version:
- Grand Opening: October 1, 1971 (Opened with Magic Kingdom park)
- Grand Re-Opening: March 18, 2005
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Length: 1,085'
- Flume capacity: 500,000 US gallons (2,000 m³) of water
- Animated/unanimated figures: 472
- Audio-Animatronics Figures: 289
- Toys: 147
- Animated Props: 36
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed the seven seas.
- Ride Length: 13:30
- Ride System: Flume Ride
- Former Sponsors: Mattel (1991–1998)
Tokyo Disneyland attraction version:
- Grand Opening: April 15, 1983 (Opened with park)
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Sponsors: Sogo Co., Ltd.
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Disneyland Paris attraction version:
- Grand Opening: April 12, 1992 (Opened with park)
- Designers: Walt Disney Imagineering
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed around the world.
- Sponsor: France Telecom
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Hong Kong Disneyland attraction version:
- Projected Opening: Early 2008
- Designers: Walt Disney Imagineering
- Ride System: Flume Ride
- Ride Area: 83,500 sq ft (Planned)
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Disneyland Park - "it's a small world"
- Walt Disney World Resort - "it's a small world"
- tourist video of It's a Small World
- nywf64.com (1964/1965 New York World's Fair Website)
[edit] References
- ^ a b It's A Small World by Disneyland Chorus (HTML). Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
- ^ http://www.hkdlsource.com/news/viewstory&story=73
