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| It's a Small World |
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| Land |
Fantasyland |
| Designer |
Walt Disney; Mary Blair |
| Attraction type |
Boat canal |
| Propulsion method |
Flume Pumps |
| Opening date |
May 1966 at Disneyland |
| Vehicle type |
Boat |
| Guests per car |
20 Guests |
| Ride duration |
11-14 minutes |
| Maximum speed |
2.3 mph (3.7 km/h) |
| Sponsored by |
Unicief, Pepsi Cola, Bank of America, Mattel, Sogo, and France Télécom |
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Wheelchair accessible |
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FASTPASS available |
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It's a Small World (formatted “it's a small world” by The Walt Disney Company) is an attraction at several Walt Disney theme parks: Disneyland (in California), the Magic Kingdom (in Florida), Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Park at Disneyland Resort Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland. The ride features a multitude of audio-animatronic figures in the style of children of the world singing the ride's title track (composed by the Sherman Brothers), which has a theme of global peace.
[edit] History
In 1956, Walt Disney attended a conference, along with many other notable celebrities of the time, at the invitation of President Eisenhower. The conference was about founding a national organization to help promote world peace through international civilian travel. (This dream became a reality in 1956, when Eisenhower founded the People to People Student Ambassador Program.) Inspired by the ideas from the meeting, Disney returned to California and set to work, creating the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland.
Like several other Disneyland attractions, It's a Small World originated with the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair (it was Pepsi's pavilion.) After the fair closed, the ride was transferred to Disneyland along with three other attractions from the fair that year; Primeval World Diorama, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln and the Carousel of Progress.
The attraction's design was done 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 costumes for the dolls. Blaine Gibson sculpted the animatronic figures, while Harriet Burns painted them. Many of the dolls were created by Joyce Carlson who is honored with a shop window along the Magic Kingdom's Main Street U.S.A. The sign there reads: "Dolls by Miss Joyce, Dollmaker for the World." Rolly Crump designed the Tower of the Four Winds (a huge structure controlled by the four winds, which stood at the entrance to the attraction at the World's Fair).
The name of the ride was originally "children of the world". When Walt Disney demonstrated it to songwriters Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman, the ride's soundtrack featured numerous national anthems all playing at once. Disney said, "I need one song."[1] In response, the brothers wrote one of the best known Disney tunes of all time: It's a Small World (After All).[2] It is argued that the song may be the most performed and translated song on earth.[1]
On January 22, 2008, Disneyland closed its version of the ride until November of 2008 for refurbishment.[3][4] Rumors of removing the rainforest scene for a United States scene were squashed by a memo from Marty Sklar, but various Disney characters will seamlessly be added throughout the attraction, which has received mixed feedback. [5] [6]
[edit] Characteristics
[edit] Exterior
The outer façade of the building at Disneyland presents very stylized flat cut-out turrets and towers, minarets and domes, some vaguely reminiscent of world landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Surrounding them are numerous squares, triangles and rectangles. A major feature is a gigantic three-dimensional clock with a round, happy face that swings back and forth. 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 shades of blue colors, then in pink and white with pastel accents. Currently it is all-white with gold trim, as it was in the 1960s. The gardens around the building are decorated with topiary animals.
[edit] Disneyland
The boats travel through a tunnel into the show building, which is much larger than the façade and is located backstage between the back of Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and the roundhouse for the Disneyland Railroad and Disneyland Monorail System. This portion of 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 English with a Cockney accent, 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 and 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 the traditional Polynesian version of the song throughout the rest of the room.
- New Guinea, a small, relatively dark room with a rainforest scene and native drummers playing the song rhythmically
- 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 Finale Room was inspired by the final verse of the Christmas hymn, Once In Royal David's City, which says, "When like stars, His children crowned,/All in white, shall wait around."
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 in which the countries appear and the countries that are represented vary in each version of the ride.
- All parks but Hong Kong do not begin with a separate room for the Arctic; the Scandinavian dolls are in the Europe room.
- As a rule, the children sing in the language of the location of each Disney theme park. However in Paris, in addition to French, the song is sung in German and English. In Hong Kong, the song is sung in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.
Topiary sculptures lining the waterway in front of It's a Small World.
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Can-can dancing figures representing France.
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[edit] Magic Kingdom
| Magic Kingdom |
| Land |
Fantasyland |
| Designer |
WED Enterprises |
| Opening date |
October 1, 1971 |
| Ride duration |
13:30 minutes |
| Length |
1085 ft (330.7 m) |
| Sponsored by |
Mattel (1991–1998) |
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Wheelchair accessible |
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- At the Magic Kingdom in Florida, the ride underwent a major refurbishment from May 2004 to March 2005, reopening 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 rainforest scene is in the Latin America room.
- The Goodbye room shows different postcards and parting phrases from different cultures around the world, though in the Magic Kingdom version, there are flowers instead.
- The nearby Pinocchio Village Haus restaurant overlooks the queue area.
[edit] Tokyo Disneyland
The Tokyo Disneyland version of the attraction is similar to the Magic Kingdom version except for these differences:
- The exterior is like Disneyland's, while the interior is similar to the Magic Kingdom version.
- The finale is sung in Japanese and the Japanese version sung in the Asian section is different from the Magic Kingdom version, and the rest of the Disney parks.
- The Goodbye scene is much smaller
[edit] Disneyland Park (Paris)
In Disneyland Resort Paris, the ride is different from, but similar to, the other versions of the ride. The backgrounds and music are all different and there is a new room: a North America room, with dolls representing Canada and the United States. This version also has a complete Middle Eastern section in which the song is sung in Arabic. Although usually in the finale scenes the song is sung only in the language of the location (English in California and Florida, and Japanese in Tokyo), in the finale scene, the song is sung in German and English as well as French, reflecting the fact that a large number of visitors to the resort come from France's neighbours.
[edit] Hong Kong Disneyland
The Hong Kong Disneyland version opened on April 28, 2008 with 38 classic Disney characters (all rendered in the Mary Blair style) added to scenes where their stories originated[7]. This version also features an expanded Asian scene, a Middle Eastern scene and a new scene for North America. The finale features a spectacular "curtain call" with some extraordinary optical lighting effects not seen on any other Disney ride[8].
The song "it's a small world (after all)" is sung in 9 different languages. Among those languages, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Tagalog are unique to Hong Kong Disneyland. The finale is sung in 3 languages: Cantonese, English and Mandarin. The attraction is the largest indoor ride at Hong Kong Disneyland, and the location of the ride is beyond the Disneyland Railroad next to The Golden Mickeys attraction[9].
There are 11 scenes in this ride:
- Welcome
- North Pole
- Europe
- Middle East
- Africa
- Americas
- Asia
- Islands
- Rainforest
- Finale
- Goodbye
The 38 Disney characters that appear in this ride include:
[edit] Holiday season
"it's a small world holiday" lighting display.
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 FASTPASS machines (which have since been removed). 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 (known as "it's a small world" very merry holidays, with similar decorations if not more than the Disneyland version) and Disneyland Paris (where the decorations are very subtle but still worth mentioning as they do add a few Santa hats and such for a nice change of pace for the holiday season).
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 façade incorporated a sophisticated, elaborate multi-media presentation projected on the colored patterns of the outer façade each quarter hour after dusk.
[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 B. Sherman explains that the structure of the song may also play a role:
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- 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].
Additionally, the World's Fair version of the song is the one commonly heard on various Disney compilation albums. The song also inspired a Disney Read-Along.
The song was later given two covers for the dance video game Dance Dance Revolution Disney Mix: a Eurobeat cover by ABeatC All Stars and a Happy Hardcore instrumental remix entitled "IT'S A SMALL WORLD (Ducking Hardcore MIX)" by TOMOSUKE and U1-ASAMI, which featured sampling of Donald Duck and was the hardest song in the game.
[edit] Attraction facts and figures
Disneyland attraction version:
- Animated/unanimated figures: 400
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed 'round the world.
- Ticket Required: "E"
Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World) attraction version:
- Grand Opening: October 1, 1971 (Opened with Magic Kingdom park)
- Grand Re-Opening: March 18, 2005
- Flume capacity: 500,000 US gallons (2,000 m³) of water
- Animated/unanimated figures: 472
- Audio-Animatronics Dolls: 289
- Toys: 147
- Animated Props: 36
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed the seven seas.
Parc Disneyland attraction version:
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed around the world.
Hong Kong Disneyland attraction version:
- Grand Opening: April 27, 2008
- Opening Day: April 28, 2008
- Ride Area: 83,500 sq ft
- Animated/unanimated figures: 514
- Audio-Animatronics Dolls: 202
- Disney Characters: 38
- Toys: 220
- Animated Props: 42
- Slogan: Rediscover the world of laughter.
[edit] Pop culture references
Due to the popularity of the song, the song and ride have been spoofed many times in popular culture.
- In the hit 1994 film The Lion King, the primary antagonist, Scar asks Zazu to "sing something with a little--bounce in it." Zazu responds by beginning to sing It's a Small World when Scar cuts him off by saying, "No! Anything but that."
- In Shrek, when Donkey and Shrek are in Duloc, the song that the puppets sing is a spoof of It's a Small World.
- A fourth-season episode of The Simpsons, "Selma's Choice," involves Aunt Selma taking Bart and Lisa Simpson to Duff Gardens, a Disneyland-style amusement park dedicated to Duff Beer. Its rides include a boat ride in which animatronic children extol the virtues of Duff, singing a song (similar to the original 'It's A Small World') - 'Duff Beer for me! Duff Beer for You! I'll have a Duff! You have one too!'
- In Rugrats in Paris in Reptarland the children, Coco, and Charles (Chuckie's dad) enter a take on "It's a Small World" called "It's a Ooey Gooey World" with a catchy song.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
