Why For was the Excavator never built at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park?

Jim Hill

13 years ago

Fluffy-Not-Fat sent me a new Why For question earlier this
week, saying:

As a longtime fan, it’s great that you’ve begun writing
theme park history stories again. Those stories were always my favorite part of
your site.

So now that I’ve kissed your butt a little, I was wondering if you’d take a
request: I’m a coaster enthusiast. And I’d love to see a story on JHM about the
coaster which was supposed to be one of Dinoland U.S.A.’s opening day attractions
that never got built.

Please note the roller coaster that looms in the background of this piece of concept art
for Dinoland, U.S.A.’s Boneyard kiddie play-and-exploration area. Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

You’re asking about the Excavator. Which according to the
initial marketing study for Disney’s Animal Kingdom (which The Walt Disney
Company did back in the Summer of 1993) was supposed to be …

… a rollicking coaster ride through a section of the dig
supposedly too dangerous to enter. Somehow, we’ve gotten in and are having a
real good time.

So how would the Excavator have fit in at DAK? Well, you
have to understand that Dinoland U.S.A. has a very specific backstory.
According to the mythology that the Imagineers created for this Animal Kingdom “land,”
this part of the park started out life as the site of a sand and gravel
company. And Chester and Hester’s was just the local gas station which used to
service & fuel up all of the trucks and heavy equipment that would then
rumble in & out of this worksite.

In the center of this Dinoland U.S.A. concept painting, please note the red backhoe which
has a massive dinosaur bone dangling from it. This is the archaelogical discovery that
set this area’s transformation from sand-and-gravel pit to paleontological playground
into motion. Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

But then one day, as a backhoe is digging up sand to load into
the back of a dump truck, the workmen uncovered this massive dinosaur bone. So
they called in the scientists. Who then discovered that – just below the
surface of this huge sand & gravel pit – is the archaeological find of the
century. An area that’s just loaded with all of these perfectly preserved fossils.

So the wealthy benefactor for a local college immediately
swoops in and buys up this sand & gravel pit – lock, stock and T-Rex bones.
And he then turns what used to be this sand pit’s on-site field offices (i.e.
where the workmen used to go change & shower after a sweaty day of hauling
gravel. More importantly, where the employee cafeteria was located) into a dorm
for the students of that college’s paleontology department. Who will now spend
their summers working this newly-discovered dig.

And if you’re really paying attention as you walk by
Restaurantosaurus, you can see ample evidence of these crazy college students.
From that pyramid of beer cans which has been built right next to those chairs which have been set out on this building’s roof to those piles of shoes,
clothes and underwear which have been placed down by the shore of Discovery River
(which is supposed to suggest that these kids have gone skinny-dipping), it’s
clear that a group of hard-working, hormone-crazed university students are now
calling this place home. At least for the summer.

“And what of Chester & Hester?,” you ask. Well, since
they could no longer rely on selling fuel to all of the trucks that used to trundle
in & out of this sand pit (not to mention selling gas & oil to all the
hard-working men who used to haul gravel here), Chester & Hester had to
kind of reinvent themselves. And since this former sand & gravel pit is now
a world-famous archaeological site … Well, they’re getting lots of looky-loos
lately. Tourists driving out to see if they can spot any dinosaur bones and
then going away disappointed, because (according the backstory that the
Imagineers have put together for Dinoland, U.S.A. ) this site is now closed to
the public.

Sensing that there’s money to be made here if they just give
the tourists what they wants, Chester & Hester transform their remote gas
station into this dinosaur-themed roadside attraction.

“And where does the Dino Institute fit into Dinoland, U.S.A.’s
overall story?,” you query. Well, that same wealthy benefactor who initially
bought this sand & gravel pit for that unnamed university then became
obsessed with the central mystery of this amazing archaeological site. As in:
Why is it that so many perfectly preserved dinosaur skeletons can be found in
this one spot? What exactly happened here millions & millions of years ago?

And the only way to solve this particular mystery is – of course
– to travel back into time and then attempt to observe whatever it was that actually
caused this massive dino die-off. So this wealthy benefactor then pours
billions into the creation of the Dino Institute, which specialized in chronological research. Which then results in the invention of
the Time Rover. And then … Wait a minute. We’re kind of getting away from what was
supposed to be the main focus of today’s Why For column. Which was the
Excavator.

Anyway … In the initial
mythology that the Imagineers worked out for Dinoland, U.S.A., the Excavator
was supposedly to be a piece of equipment which was left over from this archaeological
site’s sand-and-gravel-pit days. It was this series of ore cars that had once
been used to haul materials up out of the heart of this pit over to the area
where the dump trucks got loaded up. But over time, due to over-digging, as the
sand in this pit began to shift, the Excavator began to be really unsafe to
operate.

So the sand and gravel company then basically shut this series
of ore cars down. And the Excavator stands empty and abandoned for a few years,
becoming even more rickety and unsafe. And then that wealthy benefactor buys
this sand-and-gravel pit and sets all of these crazy college students loose on
this massive archaeological site.

Close-up of initial Disney’s Animal Kingdom concept painting
which shows where the Excavator was originally supposed to
be built inside of the borders of Dinoland, U.S.A. Copyright
Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

“And what do these college kids do with this obviously unsafe
piece of industrial equipment?,” you ask. Why they fire it up again, of course.
Not only because the Excavator is fun for them to ride. But also because they’re
now using these old, rusty ore cars to haul some of the larger dinosaur bones
that they’ve discovered around this archaeological site back to base camp.

Which explains the whole ” …. section of the dig supposedly
too dangerous to enter” part of the Excavator’s mythology. And for the ” … Somehow,
we’ve gotten in and are having a real good time” part of this backstory … As Guests
moved through the queue for this proposed Dinoland, U.S.A. attraction towards
the load / unload area, they were to have walked past literally dozens of “Condemned”
signs. Not to mention all sorts of safety barriers that this
sand-and-gravel-pit’s workmen had set up that the college students have recently
pulled down.

As for the layout of this proposed DAK thrill ride, the
Imagineers were looking to one-up Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. So instead of rolling
past a T-Rex fossil that was sticking out of this attraction’s rockwork …

… On the Excavator, your ore car was actually supposed to
zoom through a massive dinosaur skeleton.

And before you came back into the load / unload area, your
ore car was supposed to loop by Chester & Hester’s. Where one of the folk
art dinosaur sculptures that they’d built for their roadside attraction would
suddenly lurch to life and then menace a trainload of tourists.

This sounds like a really fun attraction, don’t you think?
So why wasn’t Dinoland, U.S.A.’s Excavator ever built?

Well, to be blunt, the Imagineers learned a lot of hard
lessons on Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Chief among these is that – when you’re
building an attraction which is supposed to be used to display animals – much
of your budget is going to spent on things that the public never ever sees or
appreciates. Perimeter fencing and safety moats, for starters. Not to mention all
of those back-of-the-house barns where your ridiculously expensive menagerie then
goes to bed down for the night. Which has to be custom-built because (of course) a
facility that fits a giraffe isn’t going to work for an elephant or a hippo.

And as the projected cost of what was then-known-as Disney’s
Wild Animal Kingdom began to mount (quickly moving from its originally-budgeted
$600 million to over $850 million), pieces of this project began falling by the
wayside. First to be dropped was Beastlie Kingdomme, which was cut as an
Opening Day “land” for this theme park back in January of 1994.

Next to be pushed back was the Excavator. Mostly because the
Imagineers felt that – if they just reused the ride vehicle & track
layout which had been developed for the Indiana Jones Adventure (which – let’s
remember – was supposed to open at Disneyland Park in March of 1995) for Countdown to Extinction / Dinosaur … Well,
that was a way to get a thrill ride into Disney’s Animal Kingdom’s opening day
assortment of attractions without then having to spend all of the time &
the money necessary to design & develop a custom-built coaster like the
Excavator.

“So once Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in April of 1998,
why didn’t the Imagineers then circle back around to the idea of building the
Excavator?,” you ask. “I mean, clearly WDI thought that this theme park needed
a coaster / runaway mine train ride. Otherwise they never would have built
Expedition Everest. So why didn’t they just go ahead with construction of the
Excavator?”

Well, you have to remember that – right after Disney’s
Animal Kingdom opened – two of the main complaints that Guests had about this “Nahtazu”
was A) there weren’t enough rides, shows and attractions here to warrant
calling DAK a full-day theme park and B) very few of Animal Kingdom’s
attractions were kid friendly.

So given that WDI felt that it had to address these
particular Guest concerns quickly, the Imagineers took the DAK expansion pad which
had been set aside for the Excavator and then built Chester & Hester’s
Dino-Rama right on top of that. Which was this brand-new mini-land that featured
kid-friendly carnival rides like TriceraTop Spin and Primeval Whirl.

And as for the Excavator ride concept … Well, for a time, it
was part of the initial ride line-up for Hong Kong Disneyland. In the official November 1999 announcement of
this 126-hectare theme park, Adventureland was supposed to have been home to a
high-profile attraction which was supposed to have given Guests …

… the opportunity to venture into a wild untamed world and
ride a roller coaster through a dark jungle filled with mysterious surprises.

And according to what I’ve heard from the Imagineers who
actually worked on this proposed HKDL attraction, this coaster was initially
supposed to have been the replacement for Adventureland’s Jungle Cruise. Which
(back in 1999, anyway) was thought to be too slow, low tech & old-fashioned
to really appeal to the sophisticated folks who live in Hong Kong.

So in the place of The Jungle Cruise, the Imagineers wanted
to build a thrill ride that took the Excavator’s ride system and then married
that to all of the AA figures that Guests see as they roll through DAK’s “Dinosaur”
ride. Now place this coaster / runaway mine train inside of a thick,
Primeval-looking jungle and you’ve then got a thrill ride which would blow the doors
off of Universal‘s Jurassic Park River Adventure.

And as for this proposed coaster’s post-show area (i.e. where
the kids who were too small to ride could wait while their parents / older
siblings were experiencing this HKDL attraction) … Well, WDI was looking to possibly
reuse that Boneyard play-and-exploration area which they had initially designed
& built for Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park.

But as happened with Disney’s Animal Kingdom back in 1994,
the financial realities that the Imagineers were dealing with when it came to the
Penny’s Bay worksite eventually resulted in a severe reduction-in-scope on this
particular project. So instead of building a version of Disneyland which would
have replaced Frontierland‘s placid Rivers of America with a whitewater raft
ride (which – for all of you Disney’s America fans out there – was WDI just attempting
to repurpose the Lewis and Clark Expedition attraction concept which had initially
been developed for the Native American section of this history-based theme
park) … What Hong Kong Disneyland wound up with instead was a super-sized
version of Adventureland. But instead of
having Frontierland’s steamboats and canoes float past Tom Sawyer’s Island,
this theme park’s central waterway had Jungle Cruise launches chugging past Tarzan’s
Treehouse.

But that’s kind of the nature of the beast when it comes to
Disney theme parks. The Imagineers propose something during the initial
development phase of a project. And then the construction timeline shifts
and/or the budget gets revised. And as a direct result, an attraction which
sounds like it would have been a heck of a lot of fun never quite makes it off
of the drawing board.

Anyway, that’s the story of DAK’s Excavator. Please remember
that if you have any Disney-related questions which you’d like to see answered
as part of a future edition of this JHM column to send your queries along to whyfor@jimhillmedia.com.

Your thoughts?