OUR STORY SO FAR: 75 years of films, TV shows and videos have taught us that all Disney stories end happily, right?
Well, not this time, kiddies.
After five years of hard work and planning, Marc Davis watched as his dream project – “Western River Expedition,” an audio animatronic extravaganza that could have been the best thing WED ever did – slowly fell from favor.
But what could Marc do? Times had changed. Where once Disney theme park guests had gone gaga over elaborately themed attractions like “Pirates of the Caribbean,” now the big draws at the park were sleek thrill rides like “Space Mountain.”
So – in spite of the fact that its construction site had already been cleared and that his proposed attraction had been heavily hyped as “Coming Soon” to WDW’s Magic Kingdom – Davis had to face facts. “Western River Expedition” wasn’t going to happen. At least not in Florida.
But was there a chance that his dream attraction might find a home elsewhere? Like – say – that other Disney theme park in California?
For a while there, it really did seem possible.
Things just don’t get much more ironic than this.
“The Walt Disney Story” opens at WDW’s Magic Kingdom in April 1973. As part of the post-show area of this attraction, the Imagineers spent several thousand dollars to create an elaborate exhibit that proclaimed “Western River Expedition” as the next big thing for the Florida resort.
Meanwhile, back at corporate headquarters in Burbank, Disney Chairman Card Walker was trying to save the company several million dollars by canceling the attraction altogether.
But what could Card do? For five years now, the Mouse had been saying that “Western River Expedition” (“WRE”) would be “Coming Soon” to Walt Disney World. As a result, the proposed ride had a lot of folks – both inside and outside of the company – who eagerly awaiting the arrival of the attraction. These people wouldn’t be too pleased if Disney didn’t deliver after all those years of hype.
The gas crisis had bought Card a little time. Then the emergence of Tony Baxter’s plans for “Big Thunder Mountain Railway” had given Walker an affordable alternative attraction to build in WDW’s Frontierland.
But what about “Western River Expedition”? Did Walker dare to just cancel the project outright? Given that Roy Disney himself had put “WRE” into development, that didn’t seem like the politically savvy thing to do.
Plus – given that Marc Davis was considered to be a genius by many at WED – pulling the plug on this proposed attraction was almost sure to cause an uproar at Imagineering.
Card couldn’t afford to get into a war with WED in late 1973 / early 1974. Walker needed to keep all of his Imagineers happy so that they help him figure out how to pull off Epcot. (Back then, Card didn’t have a clue as to how to go about building Walt’s future city.)
So Walker did what most every good corporate leader does when faced with a tough situation: Rather than do something that might potentially come back and bite him in the ass, Card made a decision not to decide. So the WDW’s “Western River Expedition” attraction were never officially canceled. Plans for the proposed ride were just put on hold. Permanently.
Marc Davis found this situation absolutely maddening. He wasn’t going to allow five years of work just to be swept under the rug by some cute corporate maneuvering by Card. So Davis did whatever he had to, to keep “Western River” alive.
The first thing Davis did was sell the folks in charge of Disneyland on the idea that “WRE” might make a nice addition to the Anaheim park. Marc must have done a pretty good job – for, in the December 1974 issue of “Backstage” magazine (A quarterly publication produced *BY* Disneyland cast members *FOR* Disneyland cast members) – there’s an article that lists the many different attractions that were then under consideration for construction in “The Happiest Place on Earth.”
Among these attractions was:
* “Space Mountain” – an Anaheim version of the then-still-under-construction WDW thrill ride.
* “Mission to Mars” – a redo of Disneyland’s “Flight to the Moon” attraction.
* “Pinocchio’s Village” – a proposed expansion of Fantasyland, which would feature a new dark ride as well as a new restaurant location.
* “Liberty Square” – which would have included WDW’s “Hall of Presidents.”
* “The UFO Show” – which would have been staged upstairs over “America Sings.” Aired with air guns, guests would have boarded cars and tried to shoot “eerie, un-human, gremlin-like targets.”
(Sound like any modern day WDW Tomorrowland attractions you know? That’s right. “Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.” It only took 25 years, but this unusual attraction idea did finally make it off the drawing board.)
* “Western River Expedition” – Just like the version that had been originally been proposed for construction in Frontierland at WDW’s Magic Kingdom. In Anaheim, “WRE” was being viewed as a possible replacement for the “Mine Trains through Nature’s Wonderland” ride.
Unfortunately for Marc, WED also had another candidate for that valuable piece of Disneyland real estate. Which ride was this? You guess it, kids.
Tony Baxter’s “Big Thunder Mountain Railway.”
It’s important to note here that Disneyland management didn’t do this just to humor Marc Davis. They must have seriously considered adding “Western River Expedition” to the Anaheim park. For a few years in the mid-1970s, the “Disneyland Showcase” preview center actually featured a “WRE” model as well as some of Marc’s concept paintings.
But – if Card wasn’t willing to spend the money to build “Western River” in Orlando – what made Marc think that Walker would ever cough up the cash to build the same show in Anaheim? Why make all this effort when it was obvious that “WRE” wasn’t ever going to happen while Card was calling the shots?
No one – outside of Marc himself – knew what drove Davis to be so dogged about “Western River.” A lot of the older Imagineers admired Marc for his determination. (However, it should also be noted that some of the younger folks at WED thought Davis’ endless attempts to get “WRE” built verged on ridiculous.)
Mind you, Marc didn’t spend all of his time between 1974 – 1978 just trying to get Disneyland’s version of “Western River Expedition” off the ground. He also worked up a new show for that park’s “Carousel of Progress” theater: “America Sings.”
This audio animatronic tribute to American popular song opened in June 1974. Intended to be the signature attraction for Disneyland’s Bicentennial celebration, Marc really pulled out the stops with “America Sings” – designing over a hundred new AA figures for the show. Thanks to Marc’s intimate knowledge of what Disney’s robotic figures were capable of, Davis had his “AS” characters do things no AA figures had ever done before: dance, strum electric guitars, even walk upstairs.
Marc also worked up plans for a wonderful new ride-through attraction for Disneyland’s Fantasyland: “The Enchanted Snow Palace.” Riding in boats similar to those featured in “it’s a small world,” guests would have taken a cool but colorful trip through a winter wonderland. As music from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite” echoed through the glacier- shaped show building, guests would have glimpsed lovely snow fairies, encountered horrible ice giants as well as made a trip through the chilly chambers of the Snow Queen.
Davis also worked up concepts for a new set of AA animal sequences to be added to Disneyland’s “Mine Trains through Nature’s Wonderland” … until he learned that Disneyland had decided to close Anaheim’s mine trains to make way for Tony Baxter’s “Big Thunder Mountain Railway.”
Not “Western River,” mind you. But “Big Thunder Mountain.”
Marc was doubly disappointed when he learned that Walker had just cut a deal with the Oriental Land Company to build another Disneyland. Davis knew that the Japanese were just wild about the American west. So he proposed to WED management that they show his “Western River Expedition” plans to the Japanese businessmen who were funding the Tokyo Bay project.
What Marc heard next broke his heart.
“Actually, what the Oriental Land guys would prefer is ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ But they don’t want a special Japanese version. They say they just want an exact duplicate of the Disneyland ride.”
Not a new ride. Not even an improved version of an old ride. But an exact duplicate of Disneyland’s then 11 year old “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride.
Marc had had enough. For 10 years, he’d been trying to get WED and Disney Productions management to take on “Western River Expedition,” a project that would have challenged the Imagineers to do their best work ever.
The Mouse wasn’t interested in attractions like that. Back then, all they wanted was affordable new thrill rides for the park and / or faithful recreations of decade old attractions.
Rather than keeping fighting, Davis packed it in in 1978. Since being an Imagineer just wasn’t much fun anymore, Marc retired from WED and went home.
All his wonderful concept drawings for “Western River Expedition” were filed away in the Imagineering Research Library. All the miniature Thunder Mesas were stashed on the back shelves of WED’s model shop. Even the “WRE” model in the post-show area of WDW’s “Walt Disney Story” was hidden away from sight.
And that should have been the end of “Western River Expedition.”
But it wasn’t …