"it's a small world"
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Image:Its A Small Worldattractionposterdlrp.jpg "it's a small world" (lowercase and quoted) is currently an attraction at Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. Like several other Disneyland attractions, "it's a small world" got its start in the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair, and after the fair closed the ride was transferred to Disneyland; when the other parks opened they, too, had versions of the ride. The attraction was designed by Mary Blair, who was also an art director on several Disney animated features including Cinderella and Peter Pan. Like many Disneyland and Walt Disney World attractions, scenes and characters were designed by Marc Davis, while his wife, Alice Davis, designed the outfits of the dolls.
The name of the ride was originally "children of the world". When Walt Disney demonstrated it to the Sherman Brothers the ride's soundtrack featured numerous national anthems all playing at once. Disney said, "I need one song." In response, the brother songwriting team wrote what is now the most performed and translated song on earth: "it's a small world". Often dismissed as trivial, on second look the song possesses a remarkably profound lyric having been written in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The deep lyric is cleverly disquised by its simple but catchy, melody and is often regarded as the first world anthem.
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Characteristics
Image:SmallWorldFront83 wb.jpg
Exterior
The outer façade of the building at Disneyland is a gigantic clock. On the quarter-hour, stick puppets representing different cultures parade out of the clock, then a bell tolls as a pair of giant doors swings open to reveal two large toy blocks — one block with the hour, and one block with the minutes, written in highly stylized numerals.
The exterior has been slightly redesigned and repainted over the years, first as all-white with gold trim, then in myriad pastel colors, in white with pastel accents, and is currently all-white with gold trim as it was in the 1960s.
The gardens around the building are decorated with topiary animals. Image:SmallWorldFront95 wb.jpg
Show
Inside the building, the ride features stylized animatronic dolls in national costumes singing the title song in numerous languages. At Disneyland, boats carrying the riders visit the regions of the world in separate rooms:
- The Arctic regions with dolls representing Canada and Scandinavia, with the song sung in Swedish. This room appears only in the Disneyland version of the ride, although the Scandinavian dolls are in the Europe room in other versions of the ride.
- Europe, with the song sung in German, English with an English accent, Dutch, Spanish, French and Italian.
- Asia, with the song sung in Japanese.
- Latin America, with the song sung in Spanish.
- Africa, with the rhythm of the song marked with drums then sung in English.
- Oceania and Australia, with the song sung with an underwater gurgling sound by mermaids for the first section of the room (Disneyland and Disneyland Paris only), and English with an Australian accent for the rest of the room. In the Disneyland version of the ride, a room with a rainforest scene and Polynesian drummers appears after the Oceania room. In other versions of this ride, the rainforest scene is in the Latin America room.
- A grand finale with representatives from all the cultures of the world dressed in white versions of their native costumes and singing in English in chorus. A cowboy and American Indian standing together are the only dolls during the ride that represent the United States.
- In the Disneyland Paris version of the ride, there is a North America room, with dolls representing Canada and the United States.
Image:SmallWorldTopiary wb.jpg At the other Disney parks, the path of the flume winds around one large room, emphasizing its theme that the world is small and interconnected. The order the countries appear and which countries are represented vary in each version of the ride.
The ride and its song are intended to be sweet, though many find the repetitive song corny and annoying. Despite this, "it's a small world" remains one of the most popular attractions in the parks.
At the Magic Kingdom in Florida, the ride recently reopened with a state-of-the-art sound system, a few new animatronic figures, and a loading area similar to the ride's façade at Disneyland.
Holiday season
Image:Smallworldholiday.jpg Since 1999, Disneyland has featured "it's a small world holiday." during the Christmas and winter seasons. The attraction is usually closed in September or October to receive temporary holiday decorations inside and outside, only to reopen in early November before the start of the busy Holiday tourist season. The overlay has proved very popular and at one point during its run needed the use of temporary FASTPASS machines (which have since been uninstalled). The attraction is the same boat voyage through many regions of the world featuring choruses of children singing. During the ride, the main theme song is not played fully, but instead the children of the world sing "Jingle Bells" and a bridge of "Deck the Halls" are added to the main theme. The holiday overlay has since been implemented at Tokyo Disneyland. During the 2005-2006 holiday season, in order to remove some of the massive crowds from the main plaza during the popular "Remember...Dreams Come True" fireworks spectacular, a second viewing station was installed at "it's a small world". At the same time, the outdoor facade incorporated a sophisticated, elaborate multi-media presentation projected on the colored patters of the outer façade each quarter hour after dusk.
Parodies
The song and the ride have been the subjects of numerous parodies:
- By Disney's own film The Lion King (in which Zazu, as Scar's bard, sings the song, much to Scar's distress) and Jim Henson's MuppetVision 3D attraction
- In the Disney movie Kronk's New Groove, Yzma and Kronk go to their lab and at the beginning there's a fast-paced song in the background with a parody of it's a small world figures.
- An episode of The Simpsons, "Selma's Choice," featuring Duff Gardens and its Little Land of Duff ride ("Duff beer for me/Duff beer for you/I'll have a Duff/You have one too!")
- An episode of the television series Courage the Cowardly Dog set in "Doc Gerbil's World," an underground river complete with Audio-Animatronics and a repeating, monotonous soundtrack.
- An episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot, where Brad, Tuck, and Jenny are at an amusement park and ride on a ride called The World Ain't So Big.
- An episode of Family Guy as "It's a Tiny World", where Stewie is chained to the floor with hundreds of other children and forced to sing, but the children are later freed by Peter.
- The 2005 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, wherein a display of saccharine, singing "Wonka's Welcome Song" are subsequently torched by the display's own fireworks display (and are later seen in the Doll Hospital and Burn Ward, which was descrived by Wonka as being "relatively new").
- In the film Shrek, Donkey unwittingly activates a souvenier photo-generating kiosk which welcomes the pair to the city of DuLoc via animatronics and a song extremely similar to those of "it's a small world".
- Fun-Fun Universe (from FoxTrot) has a ride like "it's a small world" near 'Souviner-land' that promotes spending and the lyrics are changed ("It's a fun-fun world where children sing/it'a a fun-fun world where bells ring-a-ling/it's a fun-fun world both high and low/it's a fun-fun world, go spend that dough!).
Attraction statistics
1964 New York World's Fair (Pepsi/UNICEF Pavillion) attraction facts
- Grand Opening: April 22, 1964
- Closing Date: October 17, 1965
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Sponsors:
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Disneyland attraction facts
- Grand Opening: May 28, 1966
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Animated/unanimated figures: 605
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed around the world.
- Former Sponsors:
- Ride Length: 11:56
- Ticket Required: "E"
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Magic Kingdom attraction statistics
- Grand Opening: October 1, 1971 (Opened with Magic Kingdom park)
- Grand Re-Opening: March 18, 2005
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Length: 1,085'
- Flume capacity: 500,000 US gallons (2,000 m³) of water
- Animated/unanimated figures: 472
- Audio-Animatronics Figures: 289
- Toys: 147
- Animated Props: 36
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed the seven seas.
- Ride Length: 13:30
- Ride System: Flume Ride
- Former Sponsors:
- Mattel (1991-1999)
Tokyo Disneyland attraction statistics
- Grand Opening: April 15, 1983 (Opened with park)
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Sponsors: Sogo Co., Ltd.
- Ride System: Flume Ride
Disneyland Park, Paris attraction statistics
- Grand Opening: April 12, 1992 (Opened with park)
- Designers: WED Enterprises
- Slogan: The happiest cruise that ever sailed around the world.
- Sponsor: France Telecom
- Ride System: Flume Ride