20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – Webpage Content from Widen
Your World
As Captain Nemo's famous metal-plated Nautilus submarines took their final
voyages on September 5, 1994, a chapter of Walt Disney World history
sank in their chlorinated wake. By that time the Magic Kingdom
had already lost attractions unique to Florida (like The Mickey Mouse Revue,
Plaza Swan Boats and If You Had Wings) but it hadn't yet lost such a
high-profile and popular ride, a ride with such an immense
scope and such undeniable appeal. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,
which had been synonymous with the park since 1971 and entertained millions of
visitors annually, was the first WDW giant to fall.
20K (as the ride was called by, first, Disney cast
members and later also by its fans) was a giant not just because it took
up 20% of the real estate in Fantasyland, and did so prominently with a
lagoon that contained 11.5 million gallons of water, but also because it
reached far enough with its content to readily capture the
imagination of its riders even when the special effects were not entirely
believable. Most guests were enthralled to witness divers corralling sea
turtles, an underwater volcano and a giant squid attack firsthand - no matter
what the level of approximation. Furthermore, the attraction was a key
facet of the Magic Kingdom's personality: an anchor component of the park that
nearly all visitors would find themselves passing several times in the course
of a day. Although based on Disneyland's Submarine Voyage, 20K surpassed
its predecessor in theme, size, art direction and execution,
making itself a WDW original in most respects.
20K had helped to define WDW from the offset of "Project Florida,"
one of the resort's early working names. It was on the original roster of
proposed attractions and its concept art was a compelling teaser for the
theme park portion of the resort. Additionally, the ride would go a long
way toward distinguishing WDW Phase One - the Magic Kingdom in particular -
from Disneyland in California.
Disneyland's Submarine Voyage attraction opened in 1959 (it closed in 1998 and
reopened in 2007 with a Finding Nemo overlay). The eight-minute trip via
nuclear-era submarine began in Tomorrowland's scenic lagoon (where frolicked
animated lobsters, sea turtles and myriad species of
fish), "descended" to the ocean floor for a look at sunken
galleons, the wet side of the polar ice cap, giant squid and the lost city of
Atlantis and concluded with a glimpse of a ridiculous-looking sea
serpent. Bubble machines and lighting effects contributed to the illusion
of depth. Guests may have easily fallen for the submersion hoax providing they
didn't look for the water's surface, which could be seen about two feet above
their viewing portholes. The eight submarines, each with a capacity of 36
passengers, never dove as much as an inch from their starting position.
The sea life animation was limited and probably didn't pass for real with any
guests over the age of twelve, but it was well staged... especially the
scenery that was contained in a dark show building disguised as a
waterfall grotto.
Submarine Voyage was popular enough to warrant a planned
East Coast repeat of the attraction in 1967, when designing for WDW began in
earnest. But WED (Disney's Design & Engineering firm) artists
assigned the Florida version a glamorous new facet: guests would travel inside
replicas of Captain Nemo's Nautilus, making the ride a better fit for a home in
Fantasyland. From the offset it was clear that this would be one of WDW's
cornerstone rides, capitalizing not only on the irresistible concept of an
undersea voyage but also tying in directly with a classic work of literature
and the company's highly successful 1954 film adaptation of the 1870 Jules
Verne novel. This added dimension lent the ride a sense of mystery and
romance that its predecessor lacked. It also provided a motif upon which
to base the queue area, loading docks, lagoon and the caverns that hid half the
show area: Nemo's home base of Vulcania. There was a
minor back story issue to contend with, namely that Captain Nemo both in print
and on celluloid was a genius, but also a homicidal madman. So why
he would want to welcome thousands of strangers daily as "guests"
aboard his submarines for a spin around the globe (one that launches from
"secret" island headquarters no less) was pretty much unknown.
WED dealt with this seeming disagreement by not explaining it all. The
inference is simply that, somewhere along the line, Nemo must've had a
Dickensian epiphany and decided to offer sightseeing rides.
The twelve submarines were built at the Tampa shipyards,
60 miles southwest of WDW. Never before or since has a Disney attraction
been synonymous with such a fantastic ride vehicle. Above the waterline,
the subs were strikingly faithful - down to the simulated rivets - to the
Harper Goff-designed Nautilus from the film. At 61' in length they were
1/3 scale replicas of the full-size version. Below the surface, they
were little less detailed, with either side of the hull lined by 20 small
portholes rather than the large main salon window that would have appeared in a
completely faithful recreation. To the front and rear of those small
portholes was a floodlight for illuminating scenery in the ride's open lagoon
at night. The submarines were equipped with drive wheel mechanisms that would
ride atop an inverted-V elevated track, as opposed to a recessed trough like
that of the Jungle Cruise. The interiors were rendered as Industrial Age
function with some Victorian appointments - mainly the red leather cushions -
giving it a little bit of form.
The job site in Florida required little excavation since
the rest of the park was built up to an average of fifteen feet.
Therefore the bottom of the 20K lagoon was able to conveniently rest below
Fantasyland street level without breaking the topsoil - while the perimeter was
either filled in or lined by the walls of the park's tunnels (directly to the
west of the main lagoon were the Kingdom's subterranean employee locker
rooms). The show building was erected over the northeast portion of the
ride track and its southern facade was shrouded within false rock formations
and waterfall pools. The sets were assembled on site with hundreds of
scenic pieces fabricated at Disney's MAPO division in California and Florida's
Staff Shop. From small bits of coral to immense giant squid, nearly
everything was produced in duplicate form so riders on both sides of the
submarine would see the 'exact same' scenery at the exact same time. The
primary building materials for the set items were fiberglass, concrete and
silicon rubber. Ice formations, ancient ruins and diving parties were
installed along the floor of the lagoon or suspended from the ceiling of the
main show building. Within that warehouse a series of catwalks and
bridges permitted work crews access to the mechanisms that would animate many
of the ride's effects.
In spite of the years spent on its planning and
construction, 20K wasn't ready to open with the rest of the Magic Kingdom on
October 1, 1971. According to some first-year cast members, problems with
the lagoon's ability to hold water delayed the ride's debut - a delinquency
noted frequently by journalists visiting the park during its first two
weeks. On October 14, however, guests began pouring into Nemo's subs by
the thousands, ready to embark on a trip unlike any they'd experienced before.
As the company expected, 20K was extremely popular from
the offset. As a result, the permanently sheltered queue area constantly
filled to capacity even on moderately busy days, flowing beyond the turnstiles
and out into Fantasyland's main thoroughfare. The company's first
response to this situation was to add a long green canopy structure that
stretched east from the turnstiles down towards the Mad Tea Party (they added
similar shade devices at the Haunted Mansion and the Hall of Presidents - all
were in place by 1973). So guests approaching 20K often found
that their wait began outside the coral wall of the proper queue area and
underneath that canopy, where they would stand for up to ten minutes before
reaching the entrance turnstiles. Above the turnstiles was a mast flying
nautical signal flags which spelt out "20,000 Leagues" in
semaphore. Just inside, the queue area was a maze of metal railings and
switchbacks ensconced within volcanic rock outcroppings, throughout which were
interspersed the vertical beams upon which the metal roof structure was
supported. Several ceiling fans were mounted to the overhead ductwork.
From speakers in the ceiling, nautical songs such as
"Blow The Man Down" and "Whale of a Tale," played for the
waiting crowds. In the midst of the music, Captain Nemo (Disney's
talented Peter Renoudet, whose voice appeared in other Magic Kingdom
attractions such as Mission To Mars, The Walt Disney Story and Country Bear
Jamboree, gave a marvelous James Mason-esque performance for 20K) provided
occasional comments on the ride that guests were preparing to experience and
discoursed on the sea, its majestic nature and all the cool stuff about
it. For example:
"Modern man's most compelling interest in the ocean
lies in its great potential for renewable resources, not only in
protein-rich food, but also the wealth of minerals, energy and drugs. Our
recent explorations have revealed vast deposits of minerals that can be
mined. At Vulcania, we have tapped the ebb and flow of the tides to
produce clean and efficient electric power. One of the most
promising areas of investigation is in the field of marine
biomedicine. We're discovering many antibiotics and other useful drugs in
ocean organisms. There are many, many other potentialities to be found in
the earth's last frontier. But we must always keep in mind that the
bounty of the sea is not limitless - man must be prudent in his exploration and
utilization of this vast great storehouse of natural wealth."
Nemo's not only a welcoming presence now, it turns out
he's also kind of like an ecologist. As guests digested
his ruminations (if they could, because the din of the crowd mixed
with the hum of the nearby submarine engines could make any sound from the
speakers a muddle), the queue shelter afforded them a panoramic view of
the ride's lagoon area without the sun in their eyes. Park visitors
could also gaze upon the lagoon from three other vantage points: A) its western
rim adjoining the Fantasy Faire tent and Dumbo the Flying Elephant, B) a small
portion of its southern edge adjacent to the ride's eastern exit and C) from
the Skyway. The lagoon was oblong and its perimeter formed by undulating
coral formations broken up by a few sandy beaches with the occasional treasure
chest lying about (Magic Kingdom visitors were able to view this body of
water until summer of 2004, when the company finally decided to dismantle the
lagoon wholesale). Across the liquid expanse was the show building, hidden
within the volcanic rock walls and waterfall grottos, into which the submarines
disappeared and from which they would reemerge at the conclusion of each ride
cycle.
How To Misplace A Lagoon
Some of the exact same seafaring song recordings that
played in the 20K queue area, among them "The Sailor's Hornpipe" and
"A-Roving," could also be heard in the Columbia Harbour House's
(Liberty Square) original background music loop. One had to be unoccupied
by more productive thoughts or activities to notice it, perhaps,
but the fact of the overlap stands.
This begs a question which must have come up during Magic
Kingdom planning: why not locate 20K at the western end of Fantasyland where it
could have abutted the Harbour House restaurant and the Yankee Trader
shop? Those establishments at the north end of Liberty Square were
coastal in architecture, albeit 18th-century Bostonian vs. the 19th-century San
Franciscan facades depicted in Disney's 20,000 Leagues film. Either way,
it would have made compelling thematic sense to provide 20K riders with the
opportunity to dine - just steps away from Nemo's Vulcania - in a
restaurant full of old-world maritime decor. With Peter Pan's Flight
also really close by, most of the park's nautical motifs (save for Pirates of
the Caribbean) would have been pulled together into one corner.
So what if the Fantasyland Skyway station had been built
closer to the Pinocchio Village Haus, where all the Bavarian woodwork and
yodeling could have been consolidated into one section of the park rather than
separated by It's A Small World, which itself could have easily
been positioned opposite Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? 20K could have sat
where the Skyway station was actually erected and given the park a true wharf
district. If you're still not convinced, consider that this arrangement would
have also put every attraction in the park with pipe organ music (Swiss Family
Treehouse, Mickey Mouse Revue, Haunted Mansion and 20K) west of the castle...at
least prior to Snow White's Adventures' 1994 rehab when Snow White's Adventures
got a musical dwarfs scene.
Maybe the park's designers felt that the open vista
across the 20K lagoon would have made it difficult to conceal the Haunted
Mansion's boxy show building (which the elevated Skyway station helped to
accomplish). But the Hall of Presidents' massive, dull roofline was long
visible to anyone on the streets of Frontierland, and the Skyway itself gave
everyone the chance to see just how industrial the park appeared from
above. Since there was nothing futuristic about 20K, its proximity to
Tomorrowland could not have been deemed crucial. There must have been
another reason. Maybe it was something to do with how
West Fantasyland was once going to center around something called
"Pinocchio Street" on early prints. Maybe it doesn't
matter at all.
At about this point most guests would have picked up on
the smell of the diesel fuel that powered the subs. The subs originally
ran on natural gas, but were converted to Perkins diesel engines prior to the
ride's tenth anniversary. For fans of the Disney film - or anyone who
listened closely to the voiceovers while standing in line - the odor was a
clear sign that Nemo's miraculous source of clean and efficient energy had
since been co-opted by the trucking industry.
Nearing the end of the queue, guests were soon greeted by
a ride host called the "grouper," possibly the first of Nemo's
ambassadors that they would have encountered. 20K ride hosts wore blue
and red uniforms that were faithful to those of Nemo's crew in the Disney
film. The grouper's job was to direct guests to one of three holding
areas (at either front dock, center dock or rear dock) immediately prior to
their boarding a sub. Depending on daily attendance projections, 20K
could run as many as nine and as few as three submarines at any given
time. The number of subs online determined which holding areas were used
by the grouper. On an average day 20K could be found running three
convoys, or "packs," of two subs each that would typically load and
unload from the front and center docks. The rear dock, which loaded from
its own small island east of the queue, was typically unused except when the
number of subs on line totaled seven or more. In addition to counting out
two rows (each with twenty guests) per submarine and directing riders to
holding areas, the grouper kept track of how many ride units were running and
had to remember which docks to pre-load for each incoming pack of subs. To
assist in keeping things straight, the grouper would sometimes use a chart like
the one shown below.
Once properly sorted, guests watched as their submarine
pulled into its load/unload station and was tethered in place with a thick
rope tied to a metal cleat on the dock. Hatches to the front
and rear of each sub slowly opened while crewmen waited to lower the hydraulic
ramps that allowed guests to transition safely from the dock to the sub and
vice versa. Exiting riders were directed out one end of the sub by their
driver/helmsman while new riders were brought in the opposite end. Guests
descending the narrow twin stairwells into the submarine would find before them
a long, rivet-encrusted passage constituting the vehicle's sole passenger
chamber.
The sound of Captain Nemo's pipe organ played
throughout the cabin, the soing being the title theme from the film
as a short cycle of music which would repeat for the duration of the
ride*. Over this recording guests would soon hear from their
helmsman. He was positioned above them, two-thirds of the way toward the
front of the cabin, on a platform that placed his upper torso in the
submarine's "sail," from which he could look out the vehicle's two
convex bubble windows as he piloted the vehicle. On a microphone he
instructed incoming guests to continue all the way down the length of the
passage before selecting their seat.
Note: Guests heard the voices of two different
"helmsmen" during each ride. The first was that of their
aforementioned driver, a real employee, who would address them at the beginning
and end of the experience. The second was the recorded helmsman whose
voice was part of the ride's narration tapes. The two seldom sounded
anything alike, and only the latter exchanged words with Nemo as part of the
storyline.
The "room" was divided by a partition which formed the seat backs,
and to which the circular seat bottoms were hinged. Upon reaching their
individual cushions, passengers lowered them into place and sat facing their
own private 1' porthole, each equipped with its own air vent. Through the
portholes guests would usually peer upward first, just to verify that they were
indeed below water. The sight of the surface was always there to greet
them. Those on the port side of the sub could view the rock wall
below the dock structure, which was encrusted with barnacles and other minute
bits of sea life. Guests facing starboard would see the iron and wood
supports of the spur dock which separated the ride's loading & unloading
lane from the spur line, where inactive subs were often docked. Beyond
those support beams guests often faced the portholes of a parked submarine;
they may have also glimpsed a member of Nemo's crew (taking his break in the
solitude of an empty, opposing vessel) staring back at them.
Back in their own sub, the helmsman issued the standard
requests (no eating, drinking, smoking or flash photography) as the loading
ramps were lifted up and the hatches at both ends of the sub were
lowered. This reduced the cabin's illumination to just a few white,
overhead globes and whatever light filtered in through the portholes. At
night this made for a mysterious, inky interior right from the beginning of the
ride, which reduced the dramatic impact of the deep dive simulation (when subs
entered the darkened show building) later in the ride. During daylight
hours, the gradual dimming of the cabin made for a more measured and effective
experience. Soon the cabin was filled with the sounds of the Nautilus
being prepared for its next voyage, beginning with Nemo's directions to
"secure ship for sea." As an unseen deck hand removed the
holding rope from an exterior cleat on the surface, the submarine slowly began
a forward roll out of the loading area.
Once each sub reached the end of the dock and entered the lagoon, Nemo ordered
the crew to take the vessel three degrees down. Through the portholes
guests saw a mass of bubbles generated by machines on the lagoon floor.
This effect could work amazingly well if - as with the Disneyland original -
guests didn't see the surface of the water above them. That depended
entirely on how far they leaned into the window and, of course, whether they
looked up. Regardless, the sight of bubbles going up was a convincing
enough means of making people think they were going down for
it to be employed again at Epcot's Living Seas pavilion in 1986 (the trick was
used in the hydrolators leading to Seabase Alpha), where it was arguably the
best part of a painfully lame pavilion. As the bubbles cleared away and
the sounds of the sub's horns and mechanics died off, a placid aquatic vista,
called the fish plains, came into view. Varied, colorful coral formations
inhabited by a range of exotic - albeit nearly motionless - fish. One
fish struggled in the grips of an anemone, many others floated amidst seas of
kelp. Crabs and lobsters quarreled with each other atop rocks.
Nemo introduced himself over the speaker system, welcomed
guests aboard the Nautilus and briefed them on the trip ahead ("We are
proceeding on a course that will take us on a voyage 20,000 leagues under the
sea. Enroute we will pass below the polar ice cap and then probe depths
seldom seen by man"). He didn't explain that by 20,000 leagues he
and Jules Verne meant a measurement of distance rather than depth.**
Soon the animal life increased in size with the
appearance of great green sea turtles and grouper. Aside from assorted
small fish dotting the lagoon, the animals all had some basic animation
elements to them. Air lines caused them to rock, move their flippers or
open their mouths. The giant clams that followed the grouper released
streams of bubbles. It was obvious to most riders that the animals were
mounted to either rock formations or the "sea floor," but there was still
- as with many Disney attractions - a lingering desire to question whether any
given creature might, somehow, be the real
thing. Another consideration playing into the illusory effectiveness was
the depth-of-field beyond the fish in the foreground. The further the
submarines progressed into the lagoon, the greater the appearance of
broad vistas in the distance. This was achieved with forced perspective
and, inside the show building, aided by the designers' full control over the
set lighting. Despite the chlorination, the main lagoon's more distant
backdrops were often hard to discern because the natural light caused heavy
diffusion.
After the clams, as guests absorbed the vacant
expressions of moray eels poking their heads out of a reef, Nemo took the
opportunity to promote his sonar hydrophone technology. He stated that
this development proved that "fish actually talk." Riders were
summarily treated to some sound effects that, while not being the least bit
intelligible, certainly could have been talking fish...or ape
chatter sped up on tape. The submarines then happened upon harvesting
parties from one of the Nautilus' satellite ships. Divers in gear
emulating suits from the film were seen tilling beds of seaweed (a necessary
component of Nemo's "good as Cuban" cigars) and roping sea turtles
that were exhibiting the good sense to seek a forceful escape. Pumps on
the ocean floor provided the divers with a constantly replenished source of
oxygen. In Nemo's words, his men were "harvesting the abundance that
nature has sown here beneath the sea. Kelp beds are cultivated, sea
creatures corralled and protected - just as terrestrial shepherds protect their
flocks from ravenous wolves."
This was the first point in the attraction where the
sequence of show scenes varied significantly from Disneyland's Submarine
Voyage. In that original version, the divers - who were of course not under
Nemo's employ - appeared slightly later in the ride and were seen salvaging
treasures from shipwrecks. That subtext stood in sharp contrast to the
agrarian undertakings represented in 20K. The depiction of Nemo's crew
tending to aquatic gardens, rather than pursuing submerged wealth, helped
reinforce the ride's already hinted-at underlying conceit: the Nautilus
was being applied toward the latter-day end purpose of fostering an
appreciation for the sea and its natural resources. It was like a
well-funded underwater commune. Whether gold and silver gains were still
used as ballast aboard ship, as in the film, was not addressed during the ride.
At this stage the recorded helmsman reported surface
storms to Nemo, who ordered the vessel eight degrees down. The last thing
guests saw before the dive was a shark caught in the grip of an octopus.
From atop a rock, the octopus held the shark at tentacle's length" in a
face-off. Guest may not have realized it, perhaps the ride's designers
didn't either, but this vignette foreshadowed the attraction's climactic
scene...four minutes ahead of time. More on that later.
The Nautilus "dove" again with the aid of more
bubble machines. This time the effect was augmented, particularly in the
daytime, by the submarine's penetration of the darkened show building.
When the bubbles trailed off, guests were left staring into an inky
blackness. The only sights were those lit by fixtures mounted above the
waterline. Nemo commented on the Nautilus's ability to evade storm
activity and reflected on the fate of roughly a dozen ocean floor shipwrecks,
now visible to his passengers, that were "not so fortunate."
Within this "graveyard of lost ships," sharks circled ominously among
the broken masts and shattered hulls.
The sharks were the first creatures in the ride to
actually be seen "swimming around," suspended from cables which hung
from rotating wheels above the waterline. Unfortunately these cables
tended to collect bits of fake seaweed that circulated through the lagoon,
which - as you might imagine - went some distance toward deflating the
illusion. Theoretically, an accumulation of that debris would be noted on
any given morning during a show quality check performed by ride personnel, and
a cleaning would immediately follow at the hands of the maintenance
staff. Toward the latter years of the ride's lifespan, however, such
attention to caretaking had become a rarity. So the sharks often swam
with clusters of dark stringy crap hovering directly over their dorsal
fins. Still, the eerie sight of the ocean floor strewn with the wreckage
of so many once-proud galleons was staged so masterfully, the sharks hardly
mattered at all.
This was another key difference between the California
and Florida versions. While 20K's animation effects improved only
slightly on the Disneyland original, and its illusion of diving was no more
convincing, the art direction for 20K's sets was far more lush and delicate
than it was in Submarine Voyage. As with the lagoon scenes, the
depth-of-field in the Florida show building was greater than in California and
provided a more substantial canvas for the forced perspective scenery.
As the submarine glided past the sunken ships, a member
of the crew informed Captain Nemo that the vessel had "raised the polar
ice cap" and that there was a clear channel at 40 fathoms. Sonar
beeps began to echo through the cabin. The submerged sides of ice floes
came into view of the portholes. A Viking ship protruded from one of the
formations, oars frozen in place. All of this was beautifully lit by the
rainbow incandescence of the Aurora Borealis, which Nemo lauded as a
"rare visual phenomenon;" He had truly come into his own as a
lover of not just the aquatic world, but of nature as a whole. No sooner
did guests have a moment to reflect on the tranquility, though, than they were
treated to the sound of the sub crunching against the icebergs.
"Take her deep," Nemo ordered.
The Nautilus then descended - minus bubble effects
- into a pitch-black abyss. Luminescent jellyfish, oar fish,
viperfish, deep sea anglers and other glowing creatures were all that could be
seen in what Nemo termed a "realm of eternal darkness." The
trick was achieved via black light, an effect which several other Fantasyland
attractions used more extensively. It was at this point in the ride that
the helmsman piloting the sub could really contribute to the sense of
drama. When the vehicle scraped the ice, he could make the white cabin
lights flicker and then go out just as the sub was entering the black light
area. Since that scene was bereft of illumination, guests would be left
in complete inky nothingness. If the helmsman kept the lights out until
Nemo's red alert two minutes later, and then actually turned on the red cabin
lights, he scored extra points.
After the sub reached its maximum depth limit, Nemo
pointed out that there were "limits beyond which man and his puny efforts
cannot survive." He directed a return to 80 fathoms.
Upon reaching that more sensible depth, guests saw the
remains of an ancient civilization coming into view. Collapsed pediments,
broken walls and scattered pieces of classical statuary littered the ocean
floor, among them the golden head (Zeus? Poseidon?) of a bearded god.
Nemo commented that the ruins "betrayed the hand of
man," which - unless you subscribe to the antiquated notion that fish are
adept at masonry and have mastered the corbelled arch - might have seemed
obvious. He went on to surmise that this might well have been
"the legendary lost continent of Atlantis."
The Atlantis scene was 20K's pièce de résistance.
Painstakingly detailed and romantic to the point of sensuality, the landscape
of fallen temples and toppled columns seemed to stretch on forever into the
background. It was the sole part of the ride that I, as a 20K helmsman,
would climb out of the sail to view when running a dead (devoid of riders) sub
around the track - it was just that cool. As
guests progressed through the sunken city, Nemo briefly explained the legend of
a "remarkable" society that had been laid to waste by a
volcano. He tempered this statement with the concession that the
existence of Atlantis was held by some to be mere fantasy, along with
"legends of sea serpents and mermaids."
Naturally, as soon as he uttered that phrase, the
gyrating green tail of some unidentifiable creature came into view amongst the
rubble. Its lengthy body snaked through the scenery as one of the crew,
Mr. Baxter, asked Nemo to clarify that sea serpents were indeed relegated to
the world of fantasy. Nemo, apparently forgetting that he'd just
salivated over the prospect of discovering a fabled lost city, took the
opportunity to chide his underling for suggesting anything sensational -
"if you think you're seeing sea serpents, or mermaids, you've
been submerged too long."
By this time guests were witnessing the visual punchline: that long, green
scaly tail culminated in the upper torso of a googly-eyed sea serpent, sitting
squarely between a trio of mermaids in a gold-strewn treasury. Two
mermaids were swimming around the beast holding strands of pearls that wrapped
around its neck, while the other sat atop an urn admiring herself in a
mirror. A massive outpouring of gold coins, jewel-encrusted plates, vases
and other artifacts had flowed from open vault doors on the scene's perimeter.
EXPOSURES
(another thing in the middle of the page)
If you were to ask me what's strange, I would have an answer for you:
It's strange that Fantasyland - home to so many rides that were
ostensibly meant for children - once contained the Magic Kingdom's sole
three attractions depicting exposed breasts.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (20K) was the most obvious and easily explained
example, as the mermaids in the Atlantis scene were merely faithful to most
mythological treatments of such creatures. Covering their chests might
have been puritanical given the context.
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, directly across the street from
20K, not only had a barmaid in Winky's Pub with prominent cleavage but also a
painting of a completely nude woman on the pub wall. Her breasts were
partially obscured by her long, flowing hair (she was identified as Rapunzel),
but she was clearly meant to be tantalizing. Given the pace of the ride,
it's conceivable many guests never saw her. Just the same, it was an
unexpected and deliberate element of the pub scene.
Still, it was Peter Pan's Flight ... surely the most child-oriented of the
three rides in question ... that handled things in the most perplexing
manner. The mermaids in Neverland, seen lounging atop rocks in their
private lagoon, had bare chests from 1971 until 1990. In Disney's 1954
film version of Peter Pan, however, the mermaids wore seashells
just like Ariel would in 1989's The Little Mermaid. Only
after The Little Mermaid was released did the figures in the
ride receive seashells. So why did they sit uncovered for nineteen
years when their 1950s celluloid counterparts were decidedly more chaste?
Figure it out if you can.
None of these situations was morally dubious unless you were offended by
partial nudity (and granted, in the 1970s, the number of people in middle
America who would think that was unacceptable was pretty high), but given this
amount of nudity in Fantasyland you'd think the other Magic Kingdom lands
would full of the stuff. But they weren't. Not a
single Pirates of the Caribbean buccaneer had his full chest exposed, and the
heavily-pursued town maidens kept their apparel on as well. None of the
Jungle Cruise natives revealed their posteriors, and most of the Plains
Indians along the Rivers of America and WDW Railroad were heavily
dressed...even in summertime. Consider also the voyeuristic possibilities
inherent to the Carousel of Progress, where guests were invited to gaze through
the bedroom and bathroom walls of a robotic American family. The only
flesh therein, however, was Cousin Orville's shoulders and feet protruding from
the bathtub. Even RCA's Home of Future Living, where walls were missing
throughout the entire house, passed on the opportunity to show us people in
their underwear. Such was the peculiar distribution of nakedness
during the Kingdom's infancy.
Just beyond the treasury scene, Mr. Baxter brought to
Nemo's attention a spat of "unusual turbulence," which came along
with the amplified sound of bubbling. The source was quickly identified
as the same volcano that had brought Atlantis crumbling to the ocean
floor. A series of top-heavy columns, glowing red from a lava
flow just out of sight, swayed precariously from the disturbance. As
many of the columns were near the Nautilus and threatened against a safe
passage, Nemo ordered his crew to a red alert.
The Nautilus avoided a collision with the ruins, but the
next threat to its well-being was already on the horizon: another of Nemo's
fleet was being attacked by a giant squid. "Good lord," Nemo
exclaimed, "It's one of ours; its hull has been crushed like an
eggshell." Indeed, a submarine marked XIII - streams of bubbles
escaping from cracks in its metal plates - was locked in the grip of a
monstrous, red architeuthis. This scenario echoed the previous ride scene
where the octopus held the shark motionless. But whereas that octopus
seemed comical, the squid and its single glaring eye were
terrifying...certainly to me in early childhood. Comparing the scale of
the creature to the submarine it held, and the size of a full-sized person to
that of a 20K ride vehicle, this squid even made the one Captain Nemo battled
in Disney's 20,000 Leagues film look playful.
Guests then heard one of the crew warn of another squid
attacking their own submarine. Nemo immediately directed the use of
"full repellent charge," which riders may have recalled from the film
as an allusion to the Nautilus' electrical defense field - strong enough to
ward off cannibals but not always effective on squid. Massive red
tentacles appeared just outside the portholes, shifting up and down as
they tried to wrap around the submarine. They were met, however, with the
flash of an electric shock. Before they could ensnare the Nautilus completely,
Nemo ordered the sub to the surface.
In another flurry of bubbles, the Nautilus quickly rose
from the depths and guests were reacquainted with daylight (except at
night). The sub had returned to the placid lagoon adjacent to Vulcania,
where the ocean floor was populated by stingrays and ling cod. Nemo,
apparently no longer the least bit shaken over the loss of life associated with
a sister submarine's destruction, casually informed guests that they would soon
be docking. He expressed his pleasure at having hosted everyone on a
"memorable voyage," and thanked them for sailing with his crew.
Guests were asked to remain seated until the cabin lights were switched on, at
which point Nemo gave the "all ashore" call. And the pipe organ
kept playing.
Guests would typically debark the submarine via the
portal opposite from that through which they'd entered, as the submarines most
often docked in the same position and another group of guests was likely
waiting to step down into the sub right behind those leaving. It was
difficult for anyone waiting for the rest of their party to exit 20K to know
where exactly to camp out, since one could never state with
certainty whether the sub they'd ride would exit from the west (opposite The
Round Table ice cream shop) or the east (next to the Mad Tea Party). This
made 20K one of the four Magic Kingdom attractions with exit points
variable enough to keep separated parties looking for each other for a while,
with the other three being Flight to the Moon / Mission to Mars, the Walt
Disney World Railroad and the Liberty Square Riverboats.
Because of its experience with Disneyland Submarine
Voyage, Walt Disney Productions knew what it was getting into, so to speak,
when it built 20K: a ride with substantial intrigue that took a large staff to
operate and maintain. It was also comparable to Adventureland's Jungle
Cruise in many regards, being water-based and needing a dock crew in addition
to boat pilots (the two attractions even squared off during the summer with
friendly competitions to see which could move the greatest number of guests on a
daily basis), plus a dedicated crew "behind the scenes" who tended to
the upkeep of the vehicles and scenery. What seems phenomenal now is that
rides of this description were ever built in the first place. Compare the
number of people needed just to operate 20K on a normal off-season day, which
would be no fewer than twenty, to that required to keep the four closest
rides up and running (the Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad, Snow White and Dumbo all ran
from one pool of employees) on the same day, perhaps ten, and you get a sense
of 20K's magnitude. Factoring in extended operating hours for the summer
and holidays, the ride took a small army to run it smoothly. When theme
park rides are designed now, a projected minimum staffing requirement of twenty
operators would probably be enough to kill a project while it was still on
paper...especially if it wasn't a thrill ride, and 20K was not.
The makeup of the 20K operating team was predominantly
males between the ages of 17 and 25, many of whom were also in college at the
time. They would be assigned one of four basic tasks or positions:
- Tickets / Greeter: From 1971 to 1980, when most MK
attractions required a ticket for admission, 20K had someone manning the entry
turnstiles to take guests' E tickets. After 1980, this position was
absorbed into the pre-existing Greeter role. The Greeter was stationed
out in front of the attraction where he would answer guest questions, park
strollers and tend to the queue. Every hour on the hour he took a
turnstile reading so the ride's capacity could be tracked.
- Grouper: As mentioned in the ride description
above, this employee directed quests at the head of the line toward a holding
area for incoming subs. The Grouper was responsible for making sure each
sub had as close to 40 passengers as possible, and also for accommodating
wheelchair guests who would be approaching the dock area via the ride's eastern
exit.
- Dock: Each of the three submarine docking
positions had two ramps control boxes, each of which had to be manned if a sub
was loading or unloading at that station. Dock employees were responsible
for communicating with sub drivers via hand signals, roping subs into place as
they docked, lowering a ramp for guests entering or exiting the sub, directing
guests into or out of the sub, raising the ramp again, signaling to the sub
driver that it was clear to lower the hatch, removing the rope from the sub and
then dispatching the sub via hand signal when all subs in the dock were ready
to sail.
- Driver: Also called the helmsman, 20K drivers manned the sail of the
submarine. They activated the submarine's forward and rear hatches, gave
courtesy and warning spiels to guests at the beginning and end of each ride,
then piloted the submarine along the 1,600-foot track. Along the way,
they activated Nemo's narration tapes in conjunction with the show scenes that
guests were viewing, adjusted the cabin lights and attempted to maintain ideal
spacing between their sub and others in the "pack," or group of subs
sailing in tandem.
All of these positions were overseen by a lead, who
was responsible for keeping everything in check: tending to staff issues such
as call-ins, lunch breaks and shift overlaps; monitoring the ride's hourly
capacity via turnstile readings and surveys of the queue, dock and sub packs;
bringing subs online from drydock or the spur line and taking subs offline;
dealing with guest issues or complaints; and reporting to upper management on
matters of imminent concern.
The lead also had to dispatch employees from 20K to do parade crowd control in
the afternoons, usually from 2pm-3:30pm. This was a common occurrence in
the Operations department, which provided the manpower for placing stanchions
along the parade route, roping off the path and keeping guests clear of the
parade itself once it kicked off. Due to the generally hot and
disagreeable weather, however, the assignment was not a popular one for most
20K helmsmen.
Another function of the operations staff was the daily
animation checklist, or show quality check, which - as mentioned above
regarding the sharks - was intended to be the most consistent means of letting
the maintenance staff know when basic animated features of the ride were not
working properly. The checklist, one page of which is shown here, also
referenced an element which never made it into the attraction: the
"Dolphin Wheel." One could infer that this would have been the
inverse of the shark wheels from the Graveyard of Lost Ships scene, with
dolphins - attached to a rotating, floor-mounted disc - swimming in circles
through the Fish Plains scene.
20K was a complex attraction to maintain; given its size
it would have required a formidable amount of upkeep even if it was just a
static built site. But with the underwater animation, behemoth ride
vehicles and the element of water itself (which needed to be crystal clear if
riders were to see anything through the portholes), it was a foregone
conclusion that there would be a tremendous investment of time needed to keep
the ride in top shape. From its opening until the day it closed, divers
made regular visits to the lagoon for spot repairs to lobsters, and mechanics
were constantly tending to its submarines. The attraction also underwent
regular downtimes, or rehabs, to allow for renovations that could not be
performed overnight or with water in the lagoon.
Rehabs generally took place with all Disney rides every
three or four years. From the mid-1970s until 1993, 20K had at least five
full-fledged rehabs. Next to paint jobs on Cinderella Castle and Big
Thunder Mountain Railroad, 20K's rehabs were the most visible in the entire
park because of the vantage point of the lagoon as viewed from the Skyway;
there was simply no way to hide such a huge undertaking. This gave park
guests several opportunities over the years to look down into the drained
lagoon and photograph workers repainting the coral reefs or replacing
multicolored strands of kelp. As seen in the adjacent photo from 20K's
1987 rehab, from the collection of Robert Boyd, the hues adorning the rockwork
are incredibly vivid. The reason for this was that the colors dropped out
by about 50% when viewed underwater, so everything had to be
exaggerated.
The most prominent 20K rehab ran from September 1975
through Spring of 1976. This shutdown was made not just to correct
mechanical problems but also to improve the ride's animation and filtration
systems, as well as to cosmetically embellish many of the main lagoon's rock
formation and shoreline elements. This was one of the first projects
personally overseen by then-upstart WED designer Tony Baxter (hence the ride
narration's "Mr. Baxter"), who had collaborated with Claude Coats on
this and several other WDW attractions in 1971 and would soon be masterminding
huge changes to Disneyland and WDW. Baxter personally
oversaw a large crew of crafts persons who - working from his scale models -
sculpted entirely new reefs along the west side of the lagoon. Inside the
show building, the ice caverns were also completely rebuilt and sections of
Atlantis were reworked. On the rocky cliffs adjoining the show building's
exterior waterfalls, a flock of seagulls was added - complete with head turn
and wing flap animation, to augment the coastal illusion.
Baxter's team also added one thing to 20K that guests
would never be able to enjoy...a nesting seagull tucked into a piece of
volcanic rock above the ride's lead office. The bird could only be viewed
from either the sail of one of the submarines or by someone standing on the
side of the lagoon opposite from the dock. You couldn't glimpse it from
the dock, the Fantasyland footpaths or the Skyway.
This photo, which I took through the dirty sail window of a sub in early
1989, gives a blurry indication of the gull's nesting spot. The bird was
even animated with head rotation just like its counterparts on the show
building's cavernous facade. As a teenage sub helmsman, this was to me
little more than a passing curiosity. As an adult, the fact that the bird
was there is a source of endless fascination. Well, not endless.
It's a mild fascination, actually, but still more than simple curiosity.
Kind of.
Aside from the lagoon and show scenes, rehabs were the
ideal time for the maintenance division to give the submarines themselves an
overhaul. Almost all repair work performed on the subs was conducted in
the drydock area, which was positioned due north of the lagoon on the other
side of the palm-laden hill. That's where the original natural gas
engines were switched over to diesel engines, where the subs were repainted and
where their air-conditioning and audio systems were serviced. Subs were
constantly being worked on, whether there was a rehab taking place or
not. Since no more than nine subs could be running the main track at any
given time, the remaining three were available for maintenance
around-the-clock.
Subs were transferred to drydock via a spur line track
that joined the main track in the Black Light scene. In order to transfer
a sub from the main line to dry dock, the driver had to pull forward of an
unseen track switch within the show building, using lights mounted along the
catwalk as a guide, and signal via radio that he had cleared the switch.
Then the lead or another designated employee (who had hiked to drydock from the
Lead Office by passing Dumbo and walking along a narrow footpath that took them
behind the Fantasy Faire tent and over the forested berm) would activate the
switch from drydock and raise a large solid metal gate that kept light from
penetrating that darkest of all the ride's show scenes. The driver would
see a light signal box, through his rear window, change from red to green along
with (during daylight hours) the open gate. Then he would put the sub
into reverse and pull back into one of three channels in drydock.
All other subs had to accommodate this process by giving
the sub being taken offline a head start into the show building, otherwise they
would end up going into a hold pattern and screwing up the experience for their
passengers. On busy days, with nine subs cycling, a seamless transfer of
a sub to or from drydock with no disruption of the show quality for guests was
the ultimate and most elusive goal: achievable, but only with much experience
and confidence. Once the sub in question was in drydock, the lead would then
shut the metal door and reverse the switch, notifying the rest of the drivers
that it was okay to proceed with normal cycling. Then the driver of the
now-docked sub would climb out one of the hatches, join the lead and head back
to the attraction (or go have a vinegar-laced chicken sandwich in the nearby
employee cafeteria.Only one of the channels in drydock was, in reality, a true
"dry dock." The southernmost lane dead-ended in a chamber from
which all water could be pumped out, allowing maintenance workers full access
to the vehicle's exterior. The other two channels were constantly filled
with water outside of rehab periods, when the rest of the ride was also
drained.
A similar process was followed when transferring subs to or from
the spur line that ran parallel to the passenger-loading dock. That was
the ideal location for storing any three subs that were simply going offline
due to either light crowds or the end of the day's operation. It was also
less complicated in the sense that the entire procedure could be
handled from the dock, plus the spur line could be accessed from either
side of the lagoon. Glass balls floating in the lagoon served as signals
to let drivers know which position the spur line switches were in, and lights
at the head of the spur line served as backups. Subs docked along the
spur line were a great place for helmsmen to take a break in total
solitude.
WHEN I WORKED AT 20K (a quick recap of stuff from a prior
century)
In September 1988 I came to 20K searching for
something new. I had passed my second anniversary in the Magic Kingdom's
Operations West (Adventureland, Frontierland and Liberty Square) department and
was getting a lot of shifts at the Jungle Cruise, which
is where many male Ops West cast members were
scheduled until they accrued enough seniority to base themselves
elsewhere. I had previously worked at other 'west side'
attractions like The Haunted Mansion and Diamond Horseshoe, but once I was
trained at the Jungle Cruise about half my shifts fell there and
I just got tired of the constant spieling. Facing an
unknown number of months drifting down the Nile before a relocation might come
along, I pursued a transfer to the Operations East (Fantasyland and
Tomorrowland) as an easy detour.
At MK East, I'd heard the most pervasive assignment
for males was 20K. The supervisor who processed my transfer actually
tried to talk me out of requesting it as my first ride, believing I'd hate
it and end up returning to MK West. What he and most of the 20K guys
evidently didn't know was that their ride, contrasted with the Jungle Cruise,
was a cakewalk. For starters, the ride units were air-conditioned;
this alone made the subs far preferable to driving a jungle steamer.
But there were additional perks: the 20K uniforms were light and all-cotton (a
rarity in the Kingdom), the ride sat very close to the employee cafeteria and
locker rooms, and there was no unholy spiel to deliver hour after hour... just
a couple lines to recite at the start and end of the ride. Any guy who
complained about 20K as a bad job was an idiot. Even after they trained
me at other 'east side' rides like Snow White / Mr. Toad and Space Mountain
(supposedly the elite MK East assignment), I asked to go back to those blessed
green sea monsters.
Learning how to operate the attraction was easy. With the subs on a
track, it was basically a forward or backward proposition. The most
complicated parts of the job were A) taking subs on- and off-line as described
above, B) docking at a speed which wouldn't snap the mooring rope and C) cueing
the narration tapes at the right times.
To bring a sub into drydock from the main track required
patience, and - if it was accomplished during normal operating hours - a
creative manipulation of all the other active subs' trip times. If
executed improperly it often led to delays in both the Ling Cod portion of the
lagoon and the final scenes of the show building, which effectively killed any
dramatic tension that would otherwise attend the climax. Most 20K leads
(front-line supervision) were able to manage the process expertly via two-way
radio communication, as it was generally the most exciting part of their shift
and they gave it their full attention. It took disinterested or dumb
helmsmen to screw it up, but we had quite a few.
Piloting the submarines was similar to driving through a
car wash: There was a lot of water, a slow-moving vehicle going into and out of
a dark tunnel and a lot of time on the driver's hands (if most car washes don't
have huge red squid tentacles getting electrocuted, some DO have spinning red
bristles). Sheer boredom or inattention on the part of a driver, however,
made it easy to get going too fast in certain subs.
Momentum itself played a part, plus some subs had less accelerator governance
than others. This led to some guys bringing the sub back into the dock so
fast that they misjudged the amount of time needed to brake. Often they
would overshoot the front dock position and have to back themselves up before
the dock hand would rope them. At other times that dock hand would also
misjudge the situation and throw the rope on a sub that was plowing by too
quickly, and the rope would snap. That was a cardinal sin in the eyes of
management, as the potential for injury was substantial (see: DL's Sailing Ship
Columbia), and all instances of broken ropes were thoroughly investigated.
Getting the narration tapes activated in sync with what
the guests were seeing at any given moment was a real feat, as guests seated at
the head of the sub were always seeing something completely different from
those near the tail. So ideally you had to time it so guests in the dead
center were getting the optimum experience: when Nemo says "the giant
clam," guests in the front of the sub should have been seeing clams
already for five seconds, guests in the center should be seeing them at that
moment and guests at the tail end should be seeing clams within five
seconds. It could work out nicely if you cared to pay attention, but many
helmsmen were more concerned with attaining a top speed than with mastering the
finer points of the experience.
20K was one of the few WDW rides never staffed by women
(there was one exception in the 1970s), having closed before the trend toward
coed operations fully permeated the final holdouts of Magic Kingdom gender
division such as the Jungle Cruise. As such, the attraction operated much
like a depraved fraternity, with radio signals like "914" devised to
alert fellow skippers when a pretty girl was in the vicinity and salacious
discussions of the Toad Complex ladies a constant occurrence in the Lead
office. I was able to stay on the fringe of that without losing respect
because I - it was agreed - created the best graffiti my co-workers had
ever seen. It was a trade-off for not fronting misogyny. It was in
this environment, nonetheless, that I found myself accompanied one afternoon by
two Swedish women in the extremely cramped sail of my
submarine. The ride had only just begun when they jointly decided they
were feeling claustrophobic and would be better served with a view through the
large bubble windows comprising the "windshield." Of course I
could not leave the sail because all the controls were up
there, so they had to squeeze into the space with me for the duration of
the ten-minute ride. There was cheering from my co-workers when I pulled
my submarine into the dock, because through the window it looked
like I was 3/4 of the way toward reforming ABBA. Then I got yelled at
for allowing guests to climb up there.
That sort of occurrence was rare, of course, and the
typical shift was filled with many hours of either standing on the dock
sniffing diesel or standing in the sail with one hand on the accelerator and
the other somewhere between the narration controls, the microphone and one's
nostrils. Disney had designed the sail so helmsmen were forced to stand
for the duration of the ride: there was a dead-man switch on the throttle, so
if you didn't apply constant pressure the sub would begin to slow down and
eventually stop. This meant you couldn't climb back into the rear of the
sail which, although tiny, would allow you to rest your legs. Some
helmsmen tied rags around the controls the keep constant pressure on the
throttle, but that was a slipshod affair. You could also try working the
accelerator with your shoe or even by taking your shoe off and letting your
foot do the work, but this compromised your ability to truly relax.
I realized that were it not for the dead-man switch, the
sub could pretty much be left at the same rate of acceleration once it left the
dock. I asked my grandfather, who was a carpenter, if he could make some tiny
wooden wedges for me. He produced the perfect solution to my lazy problem:
submarine cruise control via pine slivers. With one of these wedges,
I could set any of the subs at my preferred speed and shove myself up into the
back of the sail. From that location I could reach forward as necessary to
activate the narration tape segments and, in between times, stuff my mouth with
Saltines crackers that I'd taken from the cafeteria. It would be
audacious to suggest that the crumbs resulting from my perpetual snacking were
the root cause of many subs being populated by tiny yellow cockroaches,
but they may have been a contributing factor.
There were a few other reasons why I enjoyed being up in
the sail more than my co-workers (most preferred dock duty by far). For
one thing, I was partial to the ride's aesthetics, and those were best observed
from a sub rather than by standing on the dock. Piloting the vehicles
through the lagoon and caverns might have been repetitious, but a constantly
changing vantage point was far better than one that was fixed. Another
factor was the sense of solitude the sail could provide in the midst of the
most crowded theme park in North America. There may have been 40 people
below my feet every trip, and tens of thousands more just a few yards away, but
the sail felt isolated enough for me to forget all about them if I chose
to.
Working the dock, on the other hand, left one in direct
proximity to both the masses and the elements. This was great if you
wanted to socialize with guests. But you could also end up manning one of
the ramp control boxes at extreme ends of the dock, leaving you out in the
blistering sun or, between December and March, exposed to the bitter cold wind
that glanced off the surface of the lagoon and reminded you that Florida can
indeed be nasty frigid at times. Fortunately, 20K's winter-wear
collection extended beyond the standard-issue light denim jacket; helmsmen
could outfit themselves in black knit turtlenecks, scarves, wool pea coats
and knit caps. This made dock duty far more bearable and, when you
finally rotated back into one of the subs, also made your nose run.
On the busiest days, the ride would often employ an
additional staff position to keep tabs on the progress of the sub packs as they
moved from the loading docks into the lagoon and beyond. Employees in this
position, known as Rear Dock Control, would provide a running update via radio
to all the sub helmsmen. This was particularly helpful to those driving subs
through the show building, as they might need to tailor their speed to make
sure they didn't emerge from the caves too soon and end up sitting idle in the
Ling Cod (between the show building and Rear Dock) portion of the lagoon
while subs in the docks were still loading. Unfortunately, many helmsmen
used RDC duty as an opportunity to hone their stand-up skills, driving their
co-workers insane with impersonations of Gallagher, Eddie Murphy or Andrew Dice
Clay. The leads would generally try to suppress this kind of nonsense,
threatening the guys with write-ups and reminding them that all radio
communication was monitored by the FCC (I don't know if that was true).
But it managed to persist, as any sub operator could verbally snipe from the
privacy of their sail and maintain relative anonymity. It was - again - a
far cry from the Jungle Cruise, where supervisors would literally hide in
the foliage to catch skippers in the act of deviating from the approved
spiel.
Although the guest experience was 90% predetermined by
the ride's audio tracks, the sub's interior and the show scenes that played out
beyond the portholes, the helmsmen were largely in control of how well those
three components meshed. We could also tamper with the guests'
psychological and physical well-being. One easy means of accomplishing
that was to, sometime when the sub was in the show building, pretend you were
talking into your radio and trying to let someone know you'd detected a leak
which was causing you to lose speed. Almost invariably several guests
seated directly below the sail would take immediate (and often worried)
interest in this faux distress signal and totally stop paying attention to the
show as they looked anxiously around the cabin to see if there was water coming
in. Working a squirt gun into the act added to the fun.
Another trick, but one that required two demented
helmsmen working in reckless concert, was to make two subs collide. This
stunt, which was only possible if you and the other driver were a pack of two
or the last two subs in a pack of three, pivoted on both timing and a complete
disregard for the possible consequences of your actions. It worked like
this: The driver in the first sub (you) floored it once you entered the show
building, while the driver in the rear sub simultaneously started to slow
down. Once you got into the Black Light scene (the only place where
guests couldn't easily tell what speed you were traveling - or which
direction), you signaled some code word into the radio, such as
"daisies," and threw the sub into reverse. It would take a
while for the sub to coast to a stop and actually move backwards, but it would
do so before you got to the Atlantis scene. Once he got your signal, the
other guy would throw his sub into full throttle. If you timed it right,
both subs would slam into each other at a decent clip in total darkness and all
hell would break loose; a massive thud would echo through the cabin, the lights
would go out and guests would scream as they were knocked out of their seats
and into each other. Then you and the other driver would make some
cursory apology for the disruption, failing to cite a cause, and go about the
rest of the ride as if nothing had happened. It was perhaps the most
irresponsible thing two Disney employees could do to that large a group of guests
without any concrete "proof" of malicious intent. I never did
it myself, of course, but have it on good authority that it
happened on more than one occasion.
It was far more common, naturally, for helmsmen to enact
jokes on each other, especially with new employees. A typical scenario
took place inside the show building, where one could lie in waiting for a
particular helmsman's sub to coast into the building and then spring out of the
darkness onto the windshield and watch him jump. Guys were always
slipping something vile (small snakes, half-eaten churros) into someone else's
sail through the little flap on the outside meant for communication between the
helmsman and the dock crew. And it wasn't that unusual to see
someone being thrown into the lagoon on his last day.
20K was, in short, a great place to work. The potential for monotony was
ever-present, but it was generally offset by the perks of being involved in
such a unique operation. Few other sights in the service industry could
have competed with the view from a Nautilus sail across the lagoon at twilight,
watching other submarines plow silently through the rippling water as their
underwater lights cast an eerie glow beneath the surface and the skies behind
the waterfall grotto sank into a majestic expanse of dark blue. And few
other jobs in the Magic Kingdom afforded an individual such an opportunity to
"play" with such a totally cool set of toys as those same beautiful
subs.
Here's something that nobody ever talks about: 20K and
live mermaids. It's well known among many Disneyland fans that older
visitors to the park reminisce a lot about the live mermaids that used to
swim through the Submarine Voyage lagoon in the 1960s, and simultaneously
lament the fact that they were retired because the chlorine content of the
water was bad for their hair and skin. But before those mermaids could
lounge around and wave to guests on the mainland, they had to swim across the
lagoon to a coral plateau in the center of the works. What if WDW's
designers had found a way to incorporate the same concept but eliminated the
need for the ladies to take a punishing chemical bath on their way to and from
the job site? I think they did.
Look at this little inlet positioned to the south of
20K's Ling Cod scene, directly between where submarines exit the caverns and
guests walked out of the attraction toward the Mad Tea Party. If it
doesn't look custom-built for a mermaid or two, I don't know what would.
Of course I haven't been able to ask anyone involved in the ride's conception
whether this is just errant guesswork or, possibly, that something else was
destined to sit atop that nice bit of rock; perhaps an animatronic sea lion
could have sat there and barked madly into the sky?
But at least one early park blueprint alludes to something like this in an even
more conspicuous configuration, with the inlet more pronounced and positioned
where mermaids, were they in fact an intended element, could be seen very
easily by Fantasyland guests along the main park pathway.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Extinct WDW Attraction
Location: Fantasyland, Magic Kingdom
Opened: October 14, 1971
Closed: September 5, 1994
Ticket Required: E (1971-1980)
Descendant of: Disneyland's Submarine Voyage
Space Later Became: Fantasyland Expansion / Under The Sea - Journey of the
Little Mermaid
Contributing Attraction Personnel: Tony Baxter, Claude Coats, Marc Davis, Bill
Martin, Peter Renoudet, John Zovich
Bibliography for this Page: WDW Eyes & Ears, WDW Souvenir Publications
This page incorporates information and/or images provided to WYW by Paul F.
Anderson, Robert Boyd, Ty Bumgardner, Mike Cozart, Mike Hiscano, Dave Hooper,
Ross Plesset, Bill Schmidt, David Shuff and Rose Zettler
All images copyright The Walt Disney Company.
Text copyright 2026 by Mike Lee
First draft of page posted online December, 2004
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