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RE: It's A Small World
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Pete Karaiskos
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Dec 12, 2006 20:10 PST
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Valerie Walsh wrote:
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PETE!!!
I have ridden your ride!!! I've been to all the Disney Parks in like the
entire world (because I'm so keen on amusing myself, of course)and the
it's a small world ride is the butt of a ream of theme park jokes in my
family. It's second only to Belinda the Beautiful Beluga Whale at Sea
World. It was the music, in both cases, that was just so God-awful as to
be memorable all these years later. Of course, you know the it's a small
world tune but you have to think of Be-lin-da to the tune of The Love
Boat and then you really have something catchy.
Though the mountains divide...
Val
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Wow... that's great! See, it really IS a small world. The idea behind
the Small World ride at Tokyo Disneyland was to make it cheaper (a real
challenge as it's mostly a bunch of painted plywood with dolls). So
where we had a post with a cap, and the cap was composed of four balls,
largest at the bottom, smallest at the top, the directive was to create
the same effect using three balls. Can you believe somebody the size of
Disney wanted to save on wooden balls? The idea was insane. In the
whole ride, they saved maybe 30 wooden balls. Now I can go to the
crafts store and buy them for about, what 25c ea. With the time to
paint them - maybe a buck each. $30 savings. Compare that to having
designers sitting around re-designing them, and the posts they go on
(had to be shortened), and creating drawings and stuff, calling out
colors and paint schemes and people checking and approving them - vs -
leaving the friggin' balls alone and using the same scheme as the
original Small World. It doesn't get much stupider that that.
I remember one of the things we DID do that was important was to brace
the hell out of everything because of the weather in Tokyo, earthquakes,
hurricanes, and crap like that.
Pete
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