MARK This episode of Yesterworld is sponsored by Audible. Make sure to stay ‘til the end of the video to hear about my first experience using Audible; and use my link, audible.com/yesterworld, or text code ‘yesterworld’ to 500500 to get a free book and thirty-day trial.
(New Tomorrowland dedication ceremony at Disneyland.)
PAUL PRESSLER I officially rededicate Tomorrowland.
(applause)
MARK In 1998, the newly remodeled Tomorrowland made its debut at Disneyland, and along with aesthetic changes and a number of new experiences, the land featured a brand new ride called ‘Rocket Rods.’
GUEST BEING INTERVIEWED It’s really one of the best Disney rides ever.
GUEST’S WIFE Yeah! It was awesome!
GUEST We love it.
MARK But just two years later, the attraction, which had replaced the much-beloved PeopleMover, was closed for what was to be a year-long refurbishment, including enhancements…only to never reopen, leaving behind a legacy of failed endeavors, abandoned ideas, and an uncertain future.
(Opening sequence) --- In 1967, when Disney unveiled its new reimagining of Tomorrowland, it did more than just give the land a welcome and long overdue update, but brought Walt Disney’s original vision of what Tomorrowland could be that much closer to reality.
(Wonderful World of Color)
ANNOUNCER Tomorrowland is a world on the move. The best way to see it all is to ride the WEDWay PeopleMover.
MARK And much like Disneyland’s “it’s a small world” and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, whose first incarnations had been showcased at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, this updated Tomorrowland also featured two brand new attractions with World Fair origins: the Carousel of Progress, which had been inspired by General Electric’s Progressland, and the PeopleMover, inspired by Ford’s Magic Skyway.
(Promotional video for the World’s Fair)
ANNOUNCER A voyage through time and space, from a dark and distant yesterday to a bright and promising tomorrow.
MARK The PeopleMover was a living prototype of transportation Walt Disney envisioned for the future - so much so that Ford declined to continue its sponsorship out of fear of future competition. So with Goodyear as its sponsor, the relaxing 16-minute ride gave guests a one-of-a-kind view and tour through Tomorrowland, and offered a unique glimpse into the land’s various attractions, show buildings, and shops, including a model of Walt Disney’s vision for his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
(Wonderful World of Color)
ANNOUNCER You can get a view of tomorrow - a model city of the future.
MARK For nearly three decades, the PeopleMover grew to become a fan favorite and icon of Tomorrowland, as while other attractions in the land came and went over the years, the PeopleMover’s unique experience endured. It even inspired a similar version at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in 1975. But as the 1990s approached, it was becoming clear to Disney that Tomorrowland was in need of another major update. So they eventually came up with ‘Tomorrowland 2055,’ with a concept revolving around a science fiction city home to intergalactic beings. And much like Euro Disney’s alternate interpretation of Tomorrowland, which had used the unrealized Jules Verne-inspired Discovery Bay as a source of inspiration, Disney believed that by re-theming the land as a fictional depiction of the future, this would save them from another costly overhaul down the road, fixing the problem of tomorrow always becoming today.
(Opening ceremony for Euro Disneyland.)
MICHAEL EISNER Je declare Euro Disneyland officellement ouvert.
MARK Tomorrowland 2055 was so close to a reality that a test mural was painted at the Tomorrowland Terrace, and a new audio track could be heard in the men’s restroom. But unfortunately, due to the initial financial disappointments of Euro Disney, this new Tomorrowland concept was shelved - and along with it, a number of planned attractions and experiences. However, Tomorrowland was still in desperate need of another revitalization, as aesthetics aside, with the closure of Mission to Mars and preparation for Alien Encounter and America Sings’ closure a few years prior, the land now had two completely vacant attractions.
So Disney settled on a less extensive makeover, borrowing many elements from Magic Kingdom’s originally proposed Tomorrowland, which was to be a near carbon copy of Euro Disney’s Discoveryland. But at that point, CEO Michael Eisner had reportedly lost interest in the planned attraction for the abandoned revolving theater, and had already decided that Disney World’s Magic Kingdom would receive the first incarnation of Alien Encounter. So for Tomorrowland’s brand new starring attraction, he settled on another planned attraction that he believed could not only fit well within this new re-theming, but would also be the most cost-effective. So on August 21st, 1995, the PeopleMover was permanently closed to make way for a new take on futuristic transportation.
(Clip from Back to the Future.)
DOC BROWN Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
MARK Construction of Disneyland’s new Tomorrowland went forward, and was set to debut in the spring of 1998. And in addition to the mysterious new attraction replacing the PeopleMover and aesthetic alterations throughout Tomorrowland, Captain EO would be replaced by Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!, which had been at Epcot since 1994, and the original Rocket Jets would become the Discoveryland-inspired Astro Orbitor. However, as it became clear that the platform would not be able to support the weight of the new structure, it was disassembled and rebuilt at the land’s entrance with a new installment known as ‘The Observatron’ to take its place.
And by late 1997, the PeopleMover’s replacement was finally announced as ‘Rocket Rods XPR,’ and would be a high speed adventure in which guests would ride in futuristic transport vehicles of the future. And around the same time, guests riding the monorail would be able to hear a voiceover teasing the ride.
(Clip of the ride circa 1997.)
ANNOUNCER Beginning in spring 1998, sleek five-passenger vehicles will race across these speedways.
MARK And on May 22nd, along with Disney’s New Tomorrowland, Rocket Rods officially opened to the public at a cost of 25% of Tomorrowland’s total makeover budget of an estimated $100 million.
(Guests being interviewed.)
GUEST 1 It was fun!
GUEST 2 Yeah.
GUEST 1 It was great.
FEMALE GUEST (laughs) It was fun! I’d do it again.
MARK You would enter Rocket Rods through the newly remodeled Circle-Vision theater, and in addition to a number of retired and newly repainted ride vehicles and schematics on display, a documentary about the history of transportation would play on the screens within the story of this fictional ride of the future. And after passing through a tunnel and winding up a golden staircase, you came to the loading area of Rocket Rods.
The experience of this new attraction started out exhilarating, as your vehicle did a wheelie and accelerated from zero to 35 miles per hour. However, as you approached the first turn, the thrill was cut short as your vehicle had to slow down to turn the corner, revealing the flaw of using the unmodified PeopleMover track layout for a high-speed adventure. From there, you raced past Star Tours and its extended queue, with the PeopleMover’s previous view of The Star Trader now blocked off and replaced with a low-budget effect using a mirror to appear as if you were about to collide with another vehicle, helping disguise yet another slow turn. And with the view of the Starcade’s recently closed second floor also blocked off, you speed past Space Mountain with little time to take in the view, but then get a fantastic view of Tomorrowland and race through the still under construction Innoventions. This was, of course, assuming that you weren’t subjected to the ride’s frequent instances of coming to a complete standstill.
(Video demonstrating the ride stopping in the middle of Star Tours.)
RIDER Aww, come on.
MARK The rest of Rocket Rods consisted of speeding above Tomorrowland, and the ride ends with strobe lights and a blast of air as you pass through the attraction’s queue and arrive back at the loading station.
(Promotional video)
HOST This ride, Ron, is one of the big stars of the new Tomorrowland - and I, for one, am ready to rocket into the future.
MARK For all of its moments of genuine fun, Rocket Rods was unfortunately riddled with problems - many of which stemmed from the PeopleMover’s original track, as there wasn’t enough money in the budget to modify the original layout, forcing the ride vehicles to endure the stress of being in a near-constant state of speeding up and slowing down. And in addition to wearing down the vehicle's tires at an exponential rate and wreaking havoc on the vehicle’s engine, this would cause the attraction’s computer system to stop the ride dead in its tracks if any of the vehicles were off from its calculated position, leading to frequent downtime for maintenance and evacuations for computer system resets.
(Clip from Jurassic Park)
HAMMOND Please shut down the system.
MARK Making matters worse, all of these factors - combined with the vehicles only being able to hold five guests per load - led to a ride that regularly had a much higher than anticipated wait and became such a problem that for the first time, Disney began offering a single rider’s line to fill in any empty seats available. And at the height of Rocket Rods’ issues, it’s even rumored that a brake shoe broke off a vehicle and flew halfway across Tomorrowland.
(Clip from Coneheads)
OTTO Nice distance!
MARK Disney realized that they had a serious problem on their hands, so the ride was closed for a refurbishment just a month after opening. And despite returning three months later, the ride was still an operational nightmare. There were even reports that the track and support columns were beginning to show signs of structural damage, as the tracks had not been built to withstand the much heavier and faster ride vehicles. So less than two years later, the ride was again closed for an extensive refurbishment that would last until spring of 2001 and would include the ride vehicle lighting effects originally planned before budget cuts.
(Movie clip)
TONY I wanna overhaul your entire engine.
CUSTOMER (EISNER’S FACE SUPERIMPOSED) How much money is this gonna cost me?
TONY (chuckles)
MARK However, spring of 2001 came and went, and the ride had yet to reopen. But on April 28th, verifying what many had begun to suspect, Disney announced that Rocket Rods would remain permanently closed, never to reopen. It wasn’t long before the Rocket Rod vehicles were destroyed for parts, with the exception of one being put on display in Disney’s California Adventure and another which is believed to have been sold to a collector. And in 2005, the former Rocket Rods theater and show building was converted into Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, a spinoff of Magic Kingdom’s Space Ranger Spin, with several of the ride vehicle elements in the gift shop Rocket Rods had exited into being simply re-themed. And thankfully, the two PeopleMover cars on display in the ride’s queue - believed to be the only remaining originally connected sister cars, 10B and 10C - were spared and have since been restored to their former 1967 glory.
(Clip from Toy Story 2)
AL It’s amazing! You’re a genius! It’s just like new!
MARK Today, while Space Mountain and the rest of Tomorrowland has mostly been rid of the Discoveryland color palette many found unappealing, traces still remain throughout the land, and though it’s been closed for well over a decade, the former PeopleMover and Rocket Rods track remains in a state of abandonment, almost as if frozen in time, with the ride’s views into various show buildings and attractions having since been boarded up, as Disney is in a bit of a pickle. To remove the tracks would involve a delicate and costly process, as its support structures are physically built into the land’s buildings and foundation. And while it’s been suggested to simply bring back the PeopleMover, the weather-beaten and rusting track would have to be completely torn down and rebuilt in order to meet current safety standards, and is more or less unusable in its current state.
(Footage of Star Wars: Path of the Jedi, showing Stormtroopers standing on the track as part of the show.)
So for now, the former attraction remains abandoned and exists as a painful reminder of what was and what could have been. --- Thank you all so much for watching. I wanted to quickly share my story and experience of using Audible. As a New Year’s resolution, I’ve made it a personal goal to get back in the habit of reading books about creators and visionaries within the subjects I have a passion for. And as a subscriber recently recommended the Jim Henson biography, I knew where to begin - and from the very first page, I was invested. But I was also struggling to find the time to sit down and actually read it…and around the same time, I saw that Audible offered a free audio book of my choice when trying out their service. And while I’ve always preferred reading from physical copies, I couldn’t resist giving it a try.
It wasn’t long before I realized how much of a life-changer Audible can be, as I could use the time I spend in the car, at the gym, or even walking our dog Frodo to finish the book and look forward to the next. And as there are many inspiration and fascinating books I’ve read in the past that I wanted to revisit, with members getting one free book credit per month, I now have the time to do just that and find other inspiring titles from their incredible selection of audio content - as Audible members get to keep their books forever, and if they pick a title that doesn’t fit, they can swap it for another without hassle.
The Jim Henson biography is more than just an entertaining look at his life and how the Muppets came to be - it’s an inspiring story of following your dreams. And I not only recommend you checking it out, but invite you to join me in reading this fascinating exploration of Jim Henson’s life story - and I would love to hear your thoughts or favorite part of the book in the comments, or through any social media platforms. So if you wanna give Audible a try for yourself and get a free book of your choice and 30-day trial, use my link, audible.com/yesterworld, or text code ‘yesterworld’ to 500-500, all of which can be found in the description below.
So what about you? Did you get a chance to ride Rocket Rods, and if so, what are your memories? Thank you all again so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time.