Disneyland Animation: Toy Story Mania

So as a huge fan of both Disney and animation, it is natural that I am a fan of Disney animation. Of course this includes the classic feature films. There is no doubt in my mind that films like Snow White or Pinocchio are not only excellent animated films, but some of the greatest films in the history of cinema. This of course also includes the excellent animated short cartoons from the studio. However in this new series of posts I am going to look at some animation done for the Disney theme parks (mostly Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure, but with exceptions). These parks are full of animation and in this series of posts I will share the history of various rides and attractions in these parks that include animation.

The first of these rides we will look at is Toy Story Mania. This ride is located in Disney's California Adventure and features what I like to call interactive animation. Naturally this is a type of animation that you can interact with. This type of animation is seen mostly in video games, but it is also ideal for theme park rides. This ride is a lot like a video game in fact.

The idea begin with two imagineers, Kevin Raffey and Robert Coltrin in 2005. They were currently looking to do something new for the Radiator Springs part of California Adventure. They were inspired by the new ride at Disneyland, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. They wanted to do something like this for the Cars characters. However this just never panned out. One day they were walking through Paradise Pier and got an idea to do an interactive ride based on midway games. With an idea like this Toy Story immediately jumped to mind. The idea was that the characters from this popular movie series would host their own midway type games. Unlike Astro Blasters, this ride would feature full computer animation rather than cut outs of the characters.

The idea began development in August, 2005 and by that September the idea was being shown to Disney C.E.O. Bob Iger and Pixar head John Lasseter. They both loved it and the ride began production.

Imageneer Sue Bryan was put in charge of creating the game play. This task did persent some problems for her and her crew. For instance it was decided early to make this ride into a shooter game, but there was the problem of not everybody being the same height and not all being able to reach the gun. There was also the challenge that because you spent so little time at each section of the game, each section had to be made simple. For instance in the ring toss section both the size of the rings and the targets had to be changed.

Toy Story Mania is a true delight of a ride and a definite recommendation for those going to this park.

Resources Used

-Michael J. Ruhland.