Recycling Disneyland

10 Things I Miss About Disneyland by Rick VanderKnyff triggers some great memories of all the days I spent in the park as a kid. It’s interesting to see how some rides have been updated, and shocking that a one particular exhibit has vanished.

And meanwhile this summer, a once-defunct ride has been resurrected with a brand-new movie tie-in, as the old Submarine Voyage (1959-1998), initially inspired by a historic 1958 voyage under the Arctic ice cap (remember that, kids?), came back this summer as the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

And on this list of things the author misses, what’s Number One? Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln began as a 1964 World’s Fair attraction before coming to the park; the main show was an Audio-Animatronic Lincoln speechifying before a closed curtain, which dramatically opened near the end of the show to reveal a replica of the Capitol building.

It was combined years ago with a salute to Walt Disney, but has been offline since the space was remodeled as an exhibit for Disneyland’s 50th anniversary. The writer of “10 Things I Miss About Disneyland” thinks it may come back with some surprising twists.

(P.S. I’m surprised the Wikipedia’s lengthy article about Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” fails to mention that it inspired Ray Bradbury’s famous “Downwind From Gettysburg”, in turn, a short story, play and TV production.)

2 thoughts on “Recycling Disneyland

  1. I would like to. I need a source to back up the observation. I looked a bit yesterday without finding one, but I’m sure it’s out there. One obvious place to check is the volume it’s collected in, I Sing the Body Electric, as soon as I find my copy. // Done now. There’s an online accessible edition of Voices for the Future by Thomas D. Clareson (1986), which states this information on page 184.

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