Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Steve & Amy ride Mr. Toad once again! (2005)

A few weeks ago I talked about the long-gone Mr. Toad's Wild Ride attraction at Walt Disney World. I loved that ride. Well, back in January 2005, I got to ride it once again… sorta.

You see, Disneyland still has a version of the ride, though it's a single-track implementation vs. the twin-track awesomeness of the Florida version. During a conference on the West Coast, Amy & I got to experience Walt's original park for the first time… and ride Mr. Toad!

Disneyland's take is more "refined" and less insane, but it was still gerat to spend some time on the ride. With Baby Tanner on the way, you can be sure he'll be exposed to classic Disney films that most folks have long forgotten… including 1949's The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

Theme Park Thursdays feature photos from one of our theme park adventures in the past.

Circling the entrance to Tomorrowland (2005)

As part of the failed "Tomorrowland 1998" retro-futurist project at Disneyland, the former Rocket Jets ride was removed from the top of the PeopleMover building, while another spinner-type ride called the Astro Orbitor was placed at the entrance of Tomorrowland at ground level. Many have felt this was a design mistake, as it clogs up the entrance to the land, but it remains there to this day.

During our first visit ever to Disneyland in 2005, Amy & I rode the Astro Orbitor… in the rain. (It seems every visit we've had to a Disney theme park on the West Coast has been when it was wet!) In today's photo, you can see Amy piloting her ride vehicle… while my foot literally stands watch on the left side! If you look carefully at the upper left corner, you can also see the abandoned PeopleMover track, which stopped running at Disneyland in 1995. The ride was shortly replaced by the Rocket Rods, which ran on the same track from 1998-2001, but the track remains unused today.

It's time for another Theme Park Thursday photo. This one is from Disney's California Adventure…

Amy loves Disney's California Adventure (2005)

In January 2005, Amy & I got to travel to California for a conference I worked while on staff with Kidology.  For me, it was my first visit to the West Coast.  More importantly, it was my first visit to Disneyland, the mother park!  In typical Tanner fashion, it pretty much rained the entire time we were there.  We got to spend 2 days at the Disneyland Resort, which gave us a chance not only to check out Disneyland, but also explore the park that everyone loves to hate, Disney's California Adventure.

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If you were to take a look at my iTunes collection, you'd notice two genres that are substantially larger in song quantity when compared to an "average" person.  The first is "Christmas", which isn't a surprise for anyone who has participated in my annual Steve's 25 Days of Christmas Music countdowns.  The other is "Disney Theme Park", which features songs, area music, soundtracks, and other related audio from Disney-owned theme parks around the world.

The Official Album of Disneyland (2008)

Thus, you have to understand my excitement when I'm able to add some new audio to this collection.  There is quite a bit of Disney theme park audio out there, and to be honest, most of it is unofficial and obtained via "underground" means.  However, since 1980 Disney has released what they termed "Official Albums" for their parks, eventually growing from a single LP into multi-CD sets that cover Disneyland or Walt Disney World.  Other special sets have also been released to compliment this genre, such as 2009's 5-disc Walt Disney and the 1964 World's Fair set or 2005's elite 6-disc release to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Walt's original park, A Musical History of Disneyland.

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Disney theme parks will often repurpose music and themes among properties on opposite coasts. For example, as I've already written, in 1985 Disneyland's 30th Anniversary Parade soundtrack was tweaked to be used by Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom as the tune for Mickey's Street Parade.

Recently, we've seen this type of repurposing in soundtrack once again with Disney's promotion for Summer Nightastic. This seasonal event started in Summer 2009 as an all-encompassing theme of pre-exisiting shows bundled under the same brand name ("Nightastic") to help Disneyland push their summer activities, as they didn't have any new rides or attractions to promote.

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