The Disneyland Book of Secrets 2014: One Local's Unauthorized, Rapturous and Indispensable Guide to the Happiest Places on Earth (38 page)

Snow White’s Scary Adventures
  (
Opening Day
Attraction)

[
FastView:
 
Dark and scary, this attraction puts you inside the most unnerving scenes of
Walt
’s original animated masterpiece.  Ride it—especially at night!
]

There’s no question that
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
remains one of
Disney
’s masterpieces.  It was the studio’s first animated feature, and the first high-quality animated feature in the world.  The blend of sophisticated animation, story, mood, and music revolutionized industry and public perception of what an animated film could be.

Every animated feature since 1937 owes its existence to the phenomenal success of
Snow White
, which was recognized immediately as a touchstone for greatness.  My father, who was 82 years old when he passed away in late 2011, clearly recalled sitting in a New York City movie theater with his family in 1937, mesmerized by the film.

Snow White’s Scary Adventures
, located in the southwest quadrant of
Fantasyland
, between
Sleeping Beauty Castle
and
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
, was an
Opening Day
attraction in 1955.  It seems appropriate that
Snow White
, the youngest and most childlike of the canonical
Disney Princesses
, whose story unfolds primarily in a humble cottage in the depths of the forest, should have for her attraction a more modest offering, rather than the grand castles of fellow princesses
Aurora
(
Sleeping Beauty
) and
Cinderella
.

Like the other early
Fantasyland
dark rides,
Snow White
used to have a medieval tent-like exterior.  During the lavish 1983
Fantasyland
makeover, when the southern portion of the land was reimagined as a charming European village,
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
was given an impressive timber and stone exterior.

Its most striking feature is
the narrow, gothic second-story window with its spider web of tiny glass panes.  A red curtain covers the window, but every thirty seconds or so, the curtains are pulled apart and the
Evil Queen
glowers down at Guests in all her pale, gaunt beauty, just as she did in the first act of the animated feature, when
Prince Charming
serenaded a timid
Snow White
after their first meeting in the castle courtyard.

As if the
Evil Queen
’s sour face isn’t enough of a warning, 1983 is also the year that the word “scary” was added to the attraction’s name, after years of complaints by parents of semi-traumatized toddlers.  Because
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
is and always was a very dark “dark ride”.

Today’s queue, with its
cold stone tower and chilling glimpse into the
Witch
’s dungeon, gives a hint, along with the new name and the
Evil Queen
’s presence, of the attraction’s literal and metaphorical darkness.  In the fall of 2010 I saw a toddler burst into tears just
looking
at the dungeon.  She pleaded with her father to exit the queue and forgo the scary journey.  In the fall of 2013 a family exited past my sister and me, their frightened-looking toddler all but dragging them by the hand.  The family had been ahead of us in the queue, but the dungeon scene was too much for the little one and she refused to ride.

Parents take note:  Only you know if your child can handle
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
.  But the
Imagineers
presented the queue dungeon scene as a sort of litmus test, and, generally, if a child bursts into tears looking at the dungeon, he or she is
not
ready to ride through pitch-black forest scenes with the
Witch
popping out at them.

W
hen Guests reach the loading zone at this attraction, their attention is caught by the serenity of the forest and the beautifully rendered, homey cottage lit by warm yellow light.  There is a bird house built into part of the thatched roof, complete with perch.  Ordinary objects outside the cottage give it a sense of authenticity, warmth, and humility:  small shovels leaning against the back wall, a carved wooden bench, and a wooden wheel barrow loaded with kindling for a crackling fire.  How charming!  How could anything bad possibly happen here?

Your
wooden mine car, which has two rows and can seat two to three adults or children in each row, transports you first to the homey interior of the
Dwarfs
’ cottage.  There
Snow White
holds a lighted candle and beams from the staircase, and the
Dwarf
s play
The Silly Song
, a comical little tune from the film, on a variety of musical instruments. 
Snow White
herself was added in 1983; the original conceit of
Fantasyland
dark rides was that the Guest represented the hero or heroine, so the hero or heroine didn’t appear.  Most Guests just didn’t get it, and were confused for decades (“Where the heck was
Snow White
?”).

Following th
e cottage scene, you’re off on a journey through the
Dwarfs’
mines, which, though dim, sparkle enticingly with gems of every hue.  This is one of the most stunning segments of
Snow White’s
Scary Adventures
and popular with Guests of all ages.  So far, so good–but it’s all dark from here.

The remainder of this
attraction is spent in the
Evil Queen
’s dank and frankly terrifying dungeon, where we see her transform into the hideous
Witch
, and in fully immersive
tableaux
in dark forests, on lonely river banks, and so forth, with her Grimness popping out at us seemingly from behind every tree. She’s ably assisted in frightening us by bats, snapping crocodiles, and the swaying branches of menacing trees that resemble tortured souls.

The music is ominous,
and the mood is pitch-perfectly sinister.  There’s a startlingly sudden and dramatic end to the journey, with a flash of lightning and the
Witch
’s shriek.  This segment was refreshed in spring of 2010, adding more vivid colors to the characters’ costumes and an impressive rain-and-lightning effect.

But half-a-s
econd later your mine car hurtles back into the bright light of the unloading zone, leaving you blinking and wondering what just happened.  A mural tries to reassure you that everyone lived “happily ever after,” but it’s too little too quickly to deliver a real happy ending.

All in all,
for older children and adults, this attraction is good scary fun, but for very sensitive or impressionable tiny ones, it can be too much.

A
Disney
dark ride is outstanding at creating particular moods and sensations and submerging Guests in another world.  It’s not just that the
Witch
looks scary.  The experience is far more intense than simply looking at a scary picture book.  The
Witch
is turning to you, looking at you, speaking to you–and the 2010 refurb introduced menacing color effects to her transformation scene.  The Guest is completely enveloped by the three-dimensional attraction.

As one of the southern-most
Fantasyland
attractions,
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
is closed during the nightly fireworks, but reopens after they conclude.  For tweens, teens, and adults who really want a good fright, ride this attraction right before park closing, when it’s dark outside and you feel almost like the only ones in
Fantasyland
.  This amps up the scare factor significantly.

Because it succeeds so well in putting
Guests into the film and evoking visceral reactions,
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
is, in the author’s opinion, superior to nearby
Peter Pan’s Flight
, and has a much shorter line.  If you can only catch one or two of the village dark rides, make this one of them, especially if you’re a fan of the 1937 film. 
Did You Know?
  Each wooden ride vehicle is named for one of the
Seven Dwarfs
.  Guests often hope that they will ride in a car with their favorite
Dwarf
’s name on it. 
Did You Also Know?
  Unlike many public places, where you’re told not to touch this and not to touch that,
Disneyland
is designed to reward Guests who have a natural curiosity and daring, and never really feel that they’ve “seen” something until they’ve touched it.  See what happens, for example, if you try to take the golden apple on display at the entrance! 
Did You Also Know?
  According to the 1937 animated feature, the formula for the
Evil Queen
’s transformation into the evil
Peddler
/
Witch
is: 
Mummy Dust
,
Black of Night
,
Old Hag’s Cackle
, and
Scream of Fright
, finished with a
Blast of Wind
and a
Thunderbolt
to mix it well! 
Dark Vision:
  This is an
extremely
dark ride, just as the fairy tale source material is dark.  The tale of
Snow White
continues to resonate with audiences today, and is more satisfying when it is presented in a manner that embraces, as
Walt
and his team embraced, the darkness at its heart.  Compare, for example, the tepid response to “Mirror, Mirror”, Relativity Media’s comical, PG re-imagining of
Snow White
, with the electric buzz surrounding “Snow White and the Huntsman”, Universal’s gorgeously gritty and dark 2012 film, in which
Snow White
leads armies against a queen who wants the princesses’ heart not as proof of her demise, but as a grisly snack that promises immortality. “Snow White and the Huntsman” received Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effecs and Best Costume Design.
Storybook Vision:
  There are urban legends that the
Disney Studios
built and/or owned the so-called “Snow White” cottages on the 2900 block of Griffith Park Avenue in L.A.  These charming–but tiny–1931 dwellings were built by architect Ben Sherwood in the storybook style that was popular in Southern California during the early decades of the 1900’s–especially in Hollywood.  Although
Disney
’s
Hyperion
studio was located nearby (from 1926 – 1940),
Disney
neither built nor owned the Griffith Park Boulevard cottages.  It is true (as confirmed by
Dave Smith
,
Disney
’s
Chief Archivist Emeritus
, in a January 2013
D23 Fanfare
column) that some
Disney
animators rented the cottages as living spaces, since the cottages were so close to the studio.
Ham Luske
, supervising animator of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, was an occupant of one cottage.
Hidden Mickey Alert:
  See if you can find a
Hidden Mickey
on the turtle on the left as you enter the
Dwarfs’ Cottage
.  At its most basic, a
Hidden Mickey
is a configuration of two small circles and one larger circle such that the large circle looks like
Mickey
’s head and the tiny circles look like
Mickey
’s ears.  They’re hidden throughout the resort.  In some cases
Imagineers
built them into the structure, props, or décor of the attraction.  In other cases, Cast Members seeking to
plus
the Guest experience have added a temporary
Hidden Mickey
to the landscape of their attraction, shop, or restaurant. See
Steven M. Barrett
’s book
Disneyland’s Hidden Mickeys
for more on this topic. 
FastPass:
  Like all
Fantasyland
attractions,
Snow White’s Scary Adventures
doesn’t offer
FastPasses
.  However, except on peak attendance days, lines are seldom longer than 10 – 20 minutes, so no
FastPass
is needed. 
Kid’s Eye View:
  Even though I’m older, it’s still kind of scary.  I don’t think that kids under six should go on it.  People think it’s for little kids but it’s not.  I think you should wait to go on it if you have little kids. 
Teen’s Eye View:
 
Snow White
is really kind of cool, but it’s probably scary for young children, since the evil queen is popping up around every corner.