Renovations of Disney's most well known amusement park ride, Small World, sparked huge controversy with Disney fans everywhere. Created over 40 years ago, this ride was originally intended to promote world peace and acceptance of all cultures throughout the world.
The "Small World" ride debuted at the 1964 World's Fair in New York as a benefit to the United Nations Children's Fund, and moved to Disneyland two years later. When Walt Disney dedicated the ride in 1966, he invited children from around the world to pour water from their homelands into the ride's stream in a gesture of unity (Flaccus, 2009).
Two years ago, the original ride was remodeled, adding figures of Disney characters, such as Aladdin, Nemo, and Ariel, throughout the journey. In addition to the dozens of cartoon characters, Disney also incorporated some of its hit soundtracks into the classic "Small World" melody and added a completely new section depicting the "spirit of America", which includes a replica of LA's Hollywood Bowl.
In our ever-changing world, all companies are forced to continuously modify and improve their products to give them a new twist and keep consumers around. Disney said that they added their cartoon characters among the other human dolls in the ride for this very reason; they wanted to keep it appealing to younger audiences.
However, some fans were angered by the reconstruction of the ride because they viewed it as a marketing ploy that essentially ruined the pure message that was originally intended by the ride. Others were upset that Disney would insert fantasy worlds into a ride that is supposed to be dedicated to cross-cultural understanding.
"Disney wants to brand the diversity of the entire world and somehow say that it's Disney derived," said Leo Braudy, a cultural historian at the University of Southern California. "It seems a bit crass to put this brand on something that was meant to be a sort of United Nations for Children."
Even the son of the ride's original designer, Mary Blair, was outraged by the changes made to "Small World", calling the new characters featured in the ride "a gross desecration of the ride's original theme."
"The Disney characters themselves are positive company icons, but they do NOT fit in with the original theme of the ride," wrote Kevin Blair, in a letter to Disney executives. "They will do nothing except marginalize the rightful stars of the ride, 'the children of the world.'"
Disney designers, who spent over a year working on the ride's renovations, countered their critics' concerns. They said that routine repairs gave them an opportunity to add another dimension to the message of cross-cultural understanding by working in references to Disney movies that are based on foreign fairy tales or set in faraway lands, such as Aladdin (Flaccus, 2009).
The designers try to put peoples' concerns at ease by insisting that the changes made to the ride are subtle and conform to Walt Disney's original philosophy and style, while keeping the attraction from becoming "like a museum," said Kim Irvine, director of concept design for Walt Disney Imagineering.
"It's what Walt always wanted," she said. "He always said the park would always be changing as long as there was imagination in the world."
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