Audio-animatronic wins at the end of 2015

2015, I'd say, was a moderate success for Disneyland. </understatement> The diamond celebration, with it's new shows and additions to attractions, has brought in huge crowds.

Over in Florida, things went pretty well also, with several refurbishments, updates, and -finally- the removal of the giant hat.

Two updates that happened towards the end of the year have made me very happy. One has already been praised widely elsewhere: the addition of the Three Caballeros audio-animatronics at the end of their boat ride in Epcot. The other was more of a personal victory - Splash Mountain's hitchhiking alligator, an audio-animatronic that has been having a good deal of trouble the past year or so, was given a complete overhaul and looks better than ever, giving me some hope about the future of the rest of the cast.

The story of the old Mickey Mouse Revue birds has been explained on nearly every Disney news site. I won't repeat it here. Instead, I'll just say that they're great looking and great moving audio-animatronics, especially for being so old. They're fantastic! I can't wait for an opportunity to see them in real life.

Take a look at them here:

At Disneyland, the cast of Splash Mountain hasn't been doing well the past few years.

For instance, here was the state of affairs on my last trip a few weeks back: a couple frogs were missing, the other frogs were broken, most geese have broken parts and aren't moving the way they were back in 1989 (check this video at 1:49 for reference), the first Brer Bear was broken, the first Brer Fox was missing, a couple opossum children were missing, and the remaining ones weren't working all that well, the handcart wasn't working (again), laughing Brer Rabbit was frozen, the fox in the Laughing Place was broken, Mrs Opossum's eyes were completely misaligned, a figure was missing from the steamboat, the can-can geese were frozen (they were in that state for five months straight), and lights were out all over the place, shrouding multiple scenes in darkness (including the first Brer Rabbit and the Boot Hill Boys).

(Just looking at a list, it doesn't seem that bad- after all, these are only a few problems out of a cast that numbers over 100, and many of that cast seem to be working fine. Figures being missing or broken is a fact of life at Disneyland. But no other attraction has so many problems with their cast and with the lights - Pirates, small world and the Tiki Room also have large casts, and maybe one or two figures might be down or out on a given trip. Splash Mountain has got it rough. This is largely due to safety regulations for the maintenance Cast Members. Before much can improve, these safety measures have to be taken.)

A lot of these figures do go down for maintenence and get fixed, but even then they don't look or move so great, and they always seem to be broken again a month later! The first Brer Bear, the handcart, and the Boothill Boys, to name a few, seem to need constant fixing. The hitchhiking gator also had constant bad luck. He never looked great, was often out for maintenance (50/50 whether he'd show up or not on a particular visit), and was found earlier this year with his whole torso put on backwards:

But then a miracle happened - the gator went under refurbishment again, but when he emerged in November, he looked and moved as though he was brand new!

Old photo, but gives you an idea of him

He was super bright and squeaky-clean, probably repainted and given a good wash. He was moving fantastically: he looked like he was hitting all of the "key frames" that he was meant to hit, not only moving a half of the way or a quarter of the way there, like some of the geese. All of his moving parts seemed to be working. I don't think he looked better in the summer of 1989. Every time passing by him on that trip, I gave him a smile, a thumbs-up, or a celebratory fist pump.

He's beauty, he's grace

This gives me hope for the rest of the critters - this 1974 alligator looks and moves like he was built yesterday. If Disney would first construct the appropriate safety structures for the Cast Members then go through each Audio-animatronic cast member on this ride and fix them like they fixed this gator, the attraction would look great! Updating the lights to LED, like Disney has been doing on other attractions, would keep the lights from going out as quickly. The past few refurbishments have been to update the safety measures and hopefully they'll continue to do so during the one coming up in February. This ride could sparkle again.

Picture Sources:

Both pictures of the gator: Doo-dah Landing