Why For are the ride vehicles for Luigi’s Flying Tires being retooled

Jim Hill

12 years ago

Pirate Pete wrote in this weekend to say:

Have you been following what's been going on with the
Luigi's Flying Tires ride at DCA's Cars Land? Why exactly did they remove the
balls from that attraction? Was it a safety issue?

Pirate Pete —

The balls weren't removed from this reimagining of
Disneyland's classic Flying Saucers ride because of safety concerns. But —
rather — because they were slowing down the load / unload procedure for what
was already a very slow loading / low capacity attraction. And given the large number
of Guest complaints that this newly-retooled theme park was getting from people
who've literally spent hours in line on to then have a two minute-long
experience aboard Luigi's Flying Tires … Well, the Imagineers knew that they
had to do something.

Mind you, what's kind of ironic about this is that the Spring
2012 decision to add all of those beach balls to Luigi's — give this new DCA
attraction a colorful, kinetic element (which was then supposed to distract Guests
from noticing that the Flying Tires don't exactly zoom around. That this
supposedly thrilling, interactive ride is really more of a mild, slow-moving
experience) — came very late in the game. With the Imagineers reportedly drawing
their inspiration from a piece of archival footage that they'd discovered of Disneyland's original
Flying Saucers attraction which showed this Tomorrowland attraction filled with
colorful balloons. Which were then knocked into the air as Guests deliberately
drove their Flying Saucers through those piles of balloons that were scattered
around the floor.

Of course, what the Imagineers didn't initially realize was
that this archival footage of Disneyland's Flying Saucers attraction had come
from a 1960s era episode of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color."
And because the film crew which had been tasked with filming this then-still-new
Tomorrowland attraction had decided that the Saucers were (all of their own) a
little too slow-moving & bland-looking to give them the sort of colorful,
dramatic footage that they really needed for this TV show … Well, that's when
the decision was made to pour hundreds of balloons to the air cushion pen that
Disneyland's Flying Saucers floated around in.

So as you can see, even back in the early 1960s, Disney
insiders were looking for ways to make this floating-on-air attraction appear to be far
more exciting & colorful than it actually was.

Anyway … Now that
all of those beach balls are gone, what are the Imagineers going to do to try
and improve the ride experience that Guests have once they climb aboard one of
Luigi's Flying Tires? Given all of this
attraction's safety protocols (i.e. each vehicle must be individually visually inspected
to make sure that all occupants are restrained by a safety belt before the Cast
Members are then allowed to fire the underground engines which then provide the
cushion of air that these oversized tires ride on), it's always going to be a
very-slow-to-load attraction. So what WDI is now concentrating on is trying to
make Luigi's Flying Tires an overall far more satisfying ride experience.

"And how exactly are they going to pull that off?,"
you ask. Well, you have to understand that — during the initial test phase of
Luigi's Flying Tires — each of these Flying Saucer-like ride vehicle was equipped
with a joy stick-type control mechanism.
Which — depending on what direction you pushed this joy stick in — sent your
Flying Tire floating off towards that side of the attraction.

John Lasseter in an early promotional video for Luigi's Flying Saucers. Please note
— directly to the left of Lasseter — the original joy stick / ride control mechanism for
this DCA attraction. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

The only problem was the Disneyland Resort Cast Members who
were recruited to take part in the early, early onsite tests for Luigi's Flying
Tires found this joy stick-like ride control system confusing / difficult to
use. And the Imagineers figured that — if Cast Members (some of whom literally
spend 8 hours a day dealing with the balky ride control systems on various DCA
& Disneyland attractions) couldn't figure out how the ride control system
on Luigi's Flying Tires actually operated … Well, what chance did members of
the general public have?

So during the test-and-adjust phase for this new Cars Land
attraction, the Imagineers actually removed these joy sticks from all of the
control consoles on the Luigi's Flying Tires ride vehicles. Though — that said
— there's still 20 pounds of hardware hidden deep down inside of each of these Tires which was
supposed to respond every time you pushed that joy stick.

The Imagineers are hoping that — if they remove the rest of
that joy stick hardware (and thereby decrease the weight of each of these ride
vehicles by 20 pounds) — that single change will make Luigi's Flying Tires that
much more satisfying an attraction. That — because all of these ride vehicles will
soon be lighter — they'll then be able to zoom around the air cushioned floor of this
Cars Land attraction that much quicker. Which will make for a far more
satisfying Guest experience.

Tony Shaloub at Uptempo Studios earlier this year recording the
audio components for Luigi's Flying Tires. Copyright Uptempo

That's WDI's hope, anyway. But let's remember that these are
the same folks who brought Tony Shaloub back in at the last minute to record
all of these "Cars" – inspired Italian parody songs. With the hope
that this new musical element would then add an additional layer of fun to this
DCA attraction.

But the hard fact of the matter is — no matter how many
beach balls WDI adds and/or Italian-inspired comical songs they play — there's
just no getting around the fact that Luigi's Flying Tires (just like the
classic Disneyland ride which inspired it) is always going to be a slow loading
/ low capacity attraction with a short ride time which is also short on thrills.
Which means that DCA's Guest Relations staffers are pretty much guaranteed to
be getting a steady stream of complaints about Luigi's Flying Tires from people
who feel that they spent far too much time in line to then experience such an
underwhelming attraction.

Mind you, there used to be people who worked at Walt Disney
Imagineering who knew things like this. Veteran Imagineers who had actually
worked on the original Disneyland version of Flying Saucers and who could speak at
great length about how difficult it was to operate & properly maintain this
particular Tomorrowland attraction. Which is one of the main reasons that the
Flying Saucers only operated at
Disneyland from August of 1961 through August of 1966 before Walt
himself pulled the plug on this problematic ride.

John Hench and Walt Disney onsite as the demolition
of Disneyland's original Tomorrowland gets underway
in September of 1966. Copyright Disney Enterprises,
Inc. All rights reserved

You get that, right? That Walt Disney himself — when he was
putting together his final plans for 1967's New Tomorrowland — deliberately
decided not to include a revamped version of the Flying Saucers as part of his
Disneyland redo because — even back then — this ride for slow to load,
difficult to operate and didn't deliver all that great a Guest experience.

Which perhaps explains what I witnessed on the night of June
13th of this year. Which was the night that the Disneyland Resort's PR staff held their big
Cars Land Media Party.

Let me take a moment to properly set the stage here: I'm in
line for Luigi's Flying Tires. And as I'm making my way through this
attraction's queue, I realize that there's something very familiar about the older gentleman who's
directly ahead of me in line. Eventually I realize that this guy is Disney
Legend Ron Dominguez.

This obviously isn't how it actually went down. But — rather — its Charles Boyer's fantasy
of how young Ron Dominguez learned about what Walt Disney had in the works for the
orange groves that his family opened in Anaheim. Boyer painted this image for the
cover of the Disneyland Line (i.e. that theme park's employee newsletter) which
was published on July 17, 1980 for the 25th anniversary of this theme park.
Walt Disney Company. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved

For those of you who don't know: Dominguez literally is a
native Disneylander. His family actually owned 10 acres of the land that Walt
Disney had to purchase in Anaheim in order to build the Happiest Place on
Earth. And to hear Ron tell the story, the Dominguez family manse (which had
been built in Orange County back in the 1880s) was originally located in New
Orleans Square, somewhere between Pirates of the Caribbean and Cafe Orleans.

Anyway, given that Ron was looking for a summer job back in 1955, four days
before Disneyland opened to the public, Dominguez took a position as a ticket
taker at this theme park's front. And Ron then stayed on at the Disneyland
Resort for the next 39 years, eventually rising through the ranks to become
Executive Vice President of Walt Disney Attractions for the entire West Coast.

So you get what I'm saying here, right? If there's ever a
person who knew his early Disneyland history, it's Ron Dominguez. By that I mean,
this guy lived it firsthand.

Ron Dominguez (on the right, wearing the dark tie)
rides the Tomorrowland Skyway with his then-boss
Dick Nunis in the Fall of 1980 as they discuss the
upcoming reimagining of Disneyland's Fantasyland
section. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc.
All rights reserved

Which is why — when Ron finally made it to the part of the Luigi's
Flying Tires queue where you can actually look out and see the ride vehicles — I just had to
laugh. Dominguez took one look at those Flying Saucers-like ride vehicles and
then loudly said "Oh, God. Not these things again." And with that,
Ron turned around and — after saying "Come on. We're getting out of
here" to the pair of women he was traveling with that night —
Dominguez quickly exited the queue.

Okay. I know. That's the reaction of a single individual.
But you gotta remember that — back in 1962 — Ron Dominguez was actually named
supervisor of Tomorrowland. So if
there's ever been a person who's intimately aware of how difficult Disneyland's
Flying Saucer attraction was to operate, it's this guy. So the fact that Ron
would immediately turn tail and run at the mere sight of Luigi's Flying Tires
… Well, that doesn't exactly bode well for the future of this Cars Land
attraction.

I'm told that — after all of the ride vehicles for Luigi's
Flying Tires have been lightened up (which should be completed sometime later
this month) — DCA's going to commission yet another Guest survey to see if the
lightened-up versions of these tires are delivering a better Guest experience.
And if not … Well, it'll be interesting to see what the Imagineers do next
here. Whether they do what WED did back in the mid-1960s, replace this Flying
Saucers / Flying Tires ride with something that's easier to operate / more of a
Guest satisfier. Maybe take that nearby expansion pad (which has been set aside
for the DCA equivalent of DHS's popular Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater restaurant) and
combine it with the property that Luigi's Flying Tires currently occupies to
create a Cars-themed attraction which has a far higher theoretical hourly ride
capacity as well as being a better overall Guest experience.

Does that answer your question, Pirate Pete? I hope so.

And just in case you're wondering, folks: Yeah, we're doing
a little experimenting with JHM's content. Seeing how this site's readers might
respond to Why For being a daily — rather than weekly — column. So if you've
got any Disney or theme park-related questions that you'd like to see answered
as part of this week's experiment, please send them along to
whyfor@jimhillmedia.com.

Your thoughts?