Un article de MiceAge sur la fermeture de l'attraction en 1988 et une réflection générale de ce qu'était Disneyland avant et après (au niveau de l'offre en atttractions):
America Sung By no means is Disneyland a mediocre park or a former champion now in decline. It's still a great park, rightly the jewel of the company. But it's not perfect, and hasn't been for some time. It's been exactly twenty years, to be precise. Last week was the twenty-year anniversary of Disneyland's last day of perfection.
What happened twenty years ago? On Sunday, April 10, 1988, America Sings closed. It's not that I think this show was so amazing that its demise must mean the end of Disneyland perfection. It's that this closure marked the end of the era of "full capacity" at the park. April 10, 1988 was the last day that Disneyland operated all of its attractions and left no empty real estate lying around.
What's empty now? Well, the keelboats are gone, and its dock is empty. The PeopleMover / Rocket Rods track just rots in the sun. No replacement has swept in. The skyway is gone, with two empty buildings remaining. The Motorboat Lagoon sits empty and forlorn. The Chip and Dale tree house ball crawl is history. And let's not forget the shuttered walk-through inside the iconic Sleeping Beauty Castle! Admittedly, this is pretty close to full capacity. The 50th Anniversary did wonders to bring Disneyland back from the brink.
At one point or another between 1988 and 2005, some other notable closures left visible scars on the park. Back then, one could find the sub lagoon empty and unused. For years before that, the carousel building itself was empty, until Innoventions moved in. And this was on top of the empty areas listed above, the ones that are still empty!
Robb's photo shows America Sings shortly after its closure in 1988.And then there are the smaller experiences. Just how often do you see Main Street crowded with Omnibuses, streetcarts, the fire truck, and two or more horseless carriages, all out in public at the same time? You used to. Each was theoretically an attraction unto itself.
Arguments break out all the time on the Internet about when Disneyland hit its peak. My take has always been that attractions do matter (some of the early ones in Walt years would not fly well today, and some blockbuster modern ones like Indy are missing in the middle years). But while the nature of the attractions matter, what matters more is the park operating at its full capacity, firing on all cylinders.
There has not been a day since April 10, 1988, when Disneyland was operating all its attractions and had no empty land. True, choosing that date means no Toontown, no Indy, no Splash Mountain, and no Fantasmic. But it also means no closed restaurants or rides anywhere, and the presence of atmospheric elements like a burning cabin on Tom Sawyer Island or a thundering Cascade Peak.
The burning cabin on Tom Sawyer Island in 1957. And of course, there were no FastPass users clogging the walkways and making uninformed tourists grumpy. The annual passholders didn't exist in 1988; most families visited once a year (which kept crowds more manageable), but they spent more on each visit. Having that kind of audience helped encourage management to keep all rides and all restaurants open very late.
You could go in a different direction and choose Disneyland perfection on the basis of theme. Here 1988 would be a bad choice, since America Sings really did not belong in Tomorrowland (it's one of the attractions I think about when people muse that theme park reception would have been different in the past if the Internet had been around in those years, with critics - myself included - would have been able to weigh in easily).
You'd probably have to travel back in time to Walt's day, or something very close to it (maybe his death in 1966?), to find a high point in terms of theme. Looking at today's Disneyland, one could be forgiven for thinking that Fantasyland has colonized the rest of the park. Winnie the Pooh, cartoon Autopia cars, Tarzan, and Buzz Lightyear are only some of the more prominent ways that the park lands no longer represent what they used to. Other examples over time would be the Toy Story characters in the Golden Horseshoe or Aladdin taking over the Tahitian Terrace.
Winnie the Pooh belongs in Fantasyland, right?The lands used to stand for reality. Tomorrowland was not meant to be future fantasy, it was meant to be optimistic futurism, i.e., reality. Frontierland was to be the 1860s, again a representation of reality. Adventureland was to be the jungles and exotic locales that Westerners knew little about, once more something from reality. Critter Country and its forebear Bear Country did not exist in Walt's time. New Orleans Square did, and it was solidly based on a real place. Main Street was, and largely still is, based on a turn of the century American town. While Disney live-action films did land in Disneyland (True-Life Adventures for the Jungle Cruise and Nature's Wonderland, the Swiss Family Robinson, Davy Crockett, etc), the animated films were strictly held to Fantasyland.
The question becomes whether the strong theme of 1966 makes a better Disneyland than the beefed up 1988. In 1988, the theme has begun to drift, but you can also find several things missing in 1966, such as Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Captain EO, and Star Tours. It could be reasonable to find a date between 1966 and 1988 as the high point. Maybe 1986, when Adventure Thru InnerSpace closed to make way for Star Tours? Or 1975, before they started clearing land for Space Mountain (why hate Space Mountain? Because it represents the start of roller-coasters and height requirements at Disneyland, and the splitting up of the family that Walt abhorred. The Matterhorn was around before then, but had no height requirement).
The short-lived brown Space Mountain of the late 1990s.I choose the simpler argument. 1988 was the last time Disneyland operated at full capacity, and thus had the most modern rides possible in the "full capacity" years. I'm aware that the argument about theme represents a compromise for me, but there doesn't seem to be a way to choose a winner without compromise.
And you know what? I'll admit it. As much as America Sings was out of place in Tomorrowland, it was fun. It was old-school Disney, vintage Marc Davis, and just a rollicking good time; I do miss it. The slide since then has had its ups and downs, and Disneyland is nowhere near unworthy of our attention at any point, but to my mind, there has been a slide nonetheless.
We'll miss you, America Sings!
Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair - Eagle Sam
Pop Goes the Weasel - Ollie and the weasel
Act 1, The Deep South
Dixie / L'il Liza Jane / Camptown Races - Geese Quartet
My Old Kentucky Home - Colonel Houndstoothe - Bassett hound in rocking chair
Polly Wolly Doodle - The Swamp Boys - gator trio, frogs and harmonica-playing raccoon
Single Girl - mother possum
The Birmingham Jail - coyote
Down By The Riverside - hens, foxes, Swamp Boy frogs
Act 2, The Old West
Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill / I've Been Working on the Railroad / Fireball Mail - Geese Quartet
The Old Chisholm Trail - Saddlesore Swanson
Who Shot That Hole in My Sombrero? - Sombrero-wearing dog
Billy, the Bad Guy - The Boothill Boys - vulture duo
Home on the Range - Tex Ranger (a dog)
Act 3, The Gay '90s
She May Be Somebody's Mother / The Bowery / After the Ball is Over - Geese Quartet
Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight? - Geese Quartet & Mother Rabbit
Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey - Showgirl Pig
Sweet Adeline - Blossom-Nose Murphy (goose) & Geese Quartet
The Old Grey Mare - The Old Gray Mare & Geese Quartet
Bird in a Gilded Cage - Bird in a Gilded Cage and Fox
Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay - Storks, Geese Quartets (male and female), Pig, Bird in a Gilded Cage and Fox
Act 4, Modern Times
Ja-Da / At the Darktown Strutters' Ball / Singin' in the Rain - Geese Quartet
A-Tisket, A-Tasket / Boo-Hoo - College Quartet (male wolf, male fox and two female cats)
Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar - piano pig
Hound Dog / See You Later Alligator - rooster, stork, porcupine, hound dog and alligator
Shake, Rattle and Roll - rooster and frog
Twistin' U.S.A. - Motorcycle storks
Joy to the World - Modern Times cast (except Piano Pig and College Quartet)
Epilogue
Yankee Doodle (reprise) - Eagle Sam
Auld Lang Syne - Sam and Ollie
Exit Music: Stars and Stripes Forever
Before the iPod we had LPs. 
Sujet: 
Ven 7 Mar 2008 - 2:36
