Splash Mountain From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Splash Mountain is a combination log flume and dark ride attraction at three Walt Disney Parks, based on the 1946 Disney film Song of the South. Each Splash Mountain features a peaceful introductory section of floating through outdoor scenery with short indoor dark ride segments, leading up to a climactic steep drop into the "Briar Patch" and splashdown into a pond, followed by a dark ride segment finale with large cast of audio-animatronic figures singing portions of the motion picture's soundtrack. Stories The ride presents scenes taken from the animated segments of Song of the South. It tells the story of the adventures of Br'er Rabbit, a mischievous rabbit who leaves his home at the Briar Patch to look for his laughing place. Unfortunately for him, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear, the antagonists of this story, are determined to catch him. The stories are similar but not identical in each of the installations at different parks. Passengers board a log that seats four rows of two abreast. The story starts off with an intro from Br'er Frog (replacing Uncle Remus), who warns of the troubles ahead. Br'er Rabbit outsmarts the two a few times, but in the end, they manage to catch him and take him to Br'er Fox's cave at "Chickapin Hill". The transition into the Laughing Place takes place in the dark and the log is taken out of the water and onto steel beams like a roller coaster. Br'er Rabbit outfoxes them one final time, by tricking them into throwing him into his home, the Briar Patch. Log drop and pond splashdown In all three parks, riders are next sent down the big drop into the Briar Patch, into a large pool splashing variable amounts of water onto the riders. Before the riders drop, for anyone entering Critter Country (Disneyland and Tokyo) or Frontierland (WDW) to see, the log vehicle is led onto a track that it follows until the drop has been completed. This means that during the drop itself, the ride vehicle never touches the water that is falling down the hill. Just beyond the top of the 52 1/2 foot plummet, as the riders realize they are picking up speed into the splash-pond, an on-ride camera takes pictures of the guests in their log. Photos can be purchased after disembarking. The log drop ends with a splashdown into the pond in the Briar Patch, returning the log to the flume that carries it through the ride. The size of the splash and the amount of water that enters the log wetting the riders is highly variable. When the log is full of riders, especially adults or heavier riders, the splash can be quite large, resulting in riders being soaked. When the log seats are not all filled, or when the log contains mostly children or lightweight adults, the log does not ride as deep and the splash is smaller. The riders at the very front of the log usually get soaked the most, although the water patterns are unpredictable, so sometimes, though rarely, even riders in the back can get soaked while riders in front stay dry. Usually, the soaking is only moderate, leading riders to a false sense of confidence that can result in a big surprise if they happen to get fully soaked one time. Additionally, at the Magic Kingdom, water cannons shoot a stream of water upward as each log plummets into the Briar Patch. This usually does not soak the falling log; instead, the water cannon tends to get logs which have just started the ride and are passing by the big drop on a lower flume section. Dark ride segment After the splash into the pond, the log floats peacefully through the landscape of the mountain scenery and enters a tunnel, into an indoor dark ride segment, featuring a large cast of audio-animatronic characters singing a medley of songs from the film Song of the South; finally passing a Mississippi River style showboat with a lot of critters singing the ride's main theme song, "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", to celebrate Br'er Rabbit's safe return. Production At the time it was built, Splash Mountain was one of the most expensive projects created by Walt Disney Imagineering ($75 million). The Splash Mountain project was an idea of imagineer Tony Baxter's to lure guests to the often empty "Bear Country" land and make use of the America Sings audio animatronics which had been playing to empty houses. Tony and his team immeadiately watched "Song of the South" and took scenes and songs from the film to make them fit for a log flume ride to be placed in the southwest corner of the park. When the time came to pitch the attraction, Michael Eisner and his son came in to hear the proposal, which was a good move on Michael's part since Splash Mountain, or as Tony called it "Zip-a-Dee River Run" was targeted towards the teen audience. Michael approved the attraction (the first he approved) but insisted that the attraction's name be changed. No one was really happy with Zip-a-Dee-River Run, so Michael suggested placing a figure of the mermaid character from the Touchstone Pictures hit Splash in the attraction and naming the attraction after the movie. The imagineers insisted that the mermaid was inappropriate for Disneyland but wanted to keep the title of Splash, after all that is what happens on the ride. So Michael added Mountain after Splash and that is how the name of the attraction came into being. The audio-animatronic characters were adapted from the America Sings attraction in Disneyland Park's Tomorrowland that had run from 1974 through 1988, having replaced the Carousel of Progress after that show was moved to the Magic Kingdom Park at the Walt Disney World Resort in 1973. When America Sings closed in April 1988, according to Alice Davis, wife of the late Marc Davis, production of Disneyland's Splash Mountain had gone way over budget and the only way to recover was to close down America Sings and use the characters from that attraction. The characters from America Sings were used in most parts of Splash Mountain, but some audio-animatronic figures in the earlier ride segments were specifically designed for the Splash Mountain ride story. When the ride was first put together, nearly all the animatronics were wired and put in place. Dave Feiten was then brought in to animate and fix story and staging problems. Feiten then moved nearly all of the animatronics to new locations and then took out 10 animatronic figures and removed them from the ride completely to improve the show. Originally the show scene "Sticky Situation," which portrays Br'er Rabbit stuck in honey, was planned to be the infamous Tar Baby scene from Song of the South. The scene was changed to avoid the same notorious racial controversies that have plagued the film. Like a number of Disney attractions, much of Splash Mountain takes place outside of park boundaries. Guests are kept oblivious to the transition between the visible Chickapin Hill and the warehouse-like show building that houses most of the experience, and clever landscaping within the park prevents guests from glimpsing the behind-the-scenes structures. In the Walt Disney World version, there is a "Hidden Mickey" during the show boat scene toward the end of the ride. Mickey can be seen lying on his back in the clouds. Also, there is a Hidden Mickey in the room with jumping water, the hole in which Chickapin Hill flows is a side profile of Mickey's head and there is a bird house with an icon cut out of it in the garden scene. Furthermore, there is one near Br'er Frog when he is fishing on the alligator, visible as you pass him, and one composed of three barrels half-way up the second crankhill. There is also a hidden Dumbo in the first part of the cave. The article text above is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Splash Mountain".