WEBVTT - TechStuff Goes To Disneyland (Not Really) 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to Text Time, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.400 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.760 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:22.280 and I love all things tech. And those of you 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.320 who know a little bit about me know that I'm 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.480 a big fan of Disney theme parks and theme parks 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.120 in general. I'm a roller coaster fiend for example. Now, 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.479 don't get me wrong, I am not claiming to be 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:41.160 the biggest fan of Disney theme parks on our network 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.159 because I sometimes think that Holly Fry actually lives at 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.640 a Disney theme park. I mean I once went to 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:52.720 Epcot down at Walt Disney World and I ran into Holly. 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.040 And I didn't even know she was in Florida at 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.360 the time. I mean I was there completely independently and 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.360 just ran into her in the World Showcase. So while 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.880 I won't take first prize for the biggest theme park 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.600 fan over at I Heeart Radio, I think I can 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.560 at least hold my own anyway. My wife and I 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.959 had plans to visit the Disney parks this year, but 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.280 we've decided to hold off due to COVID nineteen. Now 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.600 the parks have reopened, as I'm sure some of you know, 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.039 and there are a lot of measures in place that 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.360 are intended to keep visitors and cast safe. Cast, by 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.680 the way, is the word that Disney uses for employees, 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.679 as the company treats the theme parks like they are stages, 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:43.039 and every employee is in part a performer on that stage. Now, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.640 all that being said, personally, I worry about opening something 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.560 as big as a theme park during a pandemic, even 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.560 with limits on how many people can come into a 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.280 park per day and mask man dates and temperature checks 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.000 and everything else. I particular really feel a lot of 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.320 compassion for the cast, who run a higher risk of 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.600 catching something because they could potentially encounter thousands of people 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.280 every day that they are at work. So my wife 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.120 and I have put our Disney plans on hold for 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.400 the time being, but I figured I could take the 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.520 opportunity to talk a bit about how some of the 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.880 ride systems work. So my wife and I have put 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.840 our Disney plans on hold, but I figured I could 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.720 take the opportunity to talk a bit about how some 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.720 of the ride systems work. Now, you guys might know 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.840 that I've done a few episodes kind of in this vein. 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.600 In a classic episode of Tech Stuff, Chris Pallette and 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.160 I broke down a special effect called Pepper's Ghost and 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.640 explained how Disney used that in the Haunted Mansion. So 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:46.880 there will be some overlap here, and I'll talk about 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.000 Pepper's Ghost again just briefly, but mostly I want to 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.560 talk about some interesting ride systems associated with Disney, though 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:59.160 some of them originated elsewhere. Now, when Disneyland opened on 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.560 July seven teenth, nineteen fifty five, the list of attractions 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:08.920 available to ride was rather modest. You had snow White 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.760 Scary Adventures. You had Peter Pan's Flight, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:19.799 Storybook Land, Canal Boats, the Jungle Cruise, the Mad Tea Party, Autopia, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.600 and the King Arthur Carousel. Plus you had the river 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.639 Boat and the Railroad. A little later in n the 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:31.280 park would also introduce the Casey Junior Circus Train and 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.519 Dumbo the Flying Elephant. To kind of set the stage, 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.640 let's talk about Peter Pan's Flight. It's a type of 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:43.560 dark ride, and a dark ride takes place indoors. Passengers 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.080 board a vehicle that moves through a series of scenes 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.760 or tableau. Typically, these tell us story or follow a 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.800 narrative arc. That's not always the case. Sometimes it's just 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:58.200 a series of thematically related scenes. Like there are a 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.400 lot of horror house seamed rides that you'll find at 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.360 carnivals and amusement parks that don't really tell a story. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.800 They just have seen after scene of stuff jumping out 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.680 at you. Lighting and sound effects create a certain experience, 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:15.320 and they grew out of stuff that were called mill rides. 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.920 Old mill rides. Now, this is a ride in which 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:22.920 boats would travel down a guide way through an indoor space, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:28.480 typically one that is pretty darn dark. And uh, they 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.960 didn't necessarily have any kind of operator on the boat. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:36.479 They didn't need one because the pathway was set in 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.680 a single direction. There wasn't really any way to get 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.320 off track. This is where we got the old Tunnel 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.360 of Love rides famous in cartoons, and I don't think 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.560 I've ever actually seen one, But in these rides, amorous 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.400 couples would get on a self guided boat in the dark, 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.880 and it was so that they could commence to necking, 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.600 you know, or whatever. I never got to ride on 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.040 one with somebody else, and I assume there's a very 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.080 special kind of pity in the eyes of a ride 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.120 operator who would see me getting on a Tunnel of 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.320 Love ride by myself. But the idea was that these 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.760 rides created a socially acceptable reason for couples to be 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.240 close and affectionate with one another, because the general perspective 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.080 on affection was that should never ever be done in 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.560 public back when these rides became popular. But the genius 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.840 is credited for taking that concept and then evolving it 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.080 into the dark ride format were the owners of an 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.200 amusement park in New Jersey. The park was called the 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:47.720 Tumbling Damn Park d A M. Not that Tumbling Damn Park, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.960 and the owners were Marvin Ripfer and Leon Cassidy in 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.440 n They wanted to build an old mill style ride, 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.320 but they found that if they were to construct didn't 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.760 maintain it, it would be prohibitively expensive. And that makes sense. 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.520 I mean, if your ride involves hundreds of thousands of 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.920 gallons of water, keeping everything ship shape as it were, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:12.920 is going to really cost you, not just to make 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.320 sure it's all watertight, but you know, to maintain the 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.600 ride and the boats and make sure that you're not 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.640 getting mold or wrought and all that kind of stuff. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.400 It's expensive, so instead they commissioned an indoor ride with 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.800 cars kind of like bumper cars, and they would travel 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.240 down a track. The riders would not have control of 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.320 the cars, so you wouldn't be able to steer it. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.160 The track itself was electrified, kind of like the electric 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:43.440 rail on a subway. The cars had contacts that touched 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.560 this electrified rail, and that way the track could provide 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.479 power to the cars, which had electric motors on them 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.520 to power the wheels. It was all pretty simple stuff, 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:58.080 but it was innovative. Legend has it that one rider 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:03.400 said after being on this attraction that the ride was 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.520 really herky jerky, and he felt like a pretzel afterward, 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.520 and so the ride became known as the Pretzel Ride. 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.960 To spice things up, the owners added some effects in 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.680 the ride, so when the car would hit specific points 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.600 along the track, it would trip a switch that would 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.640 provide power to whatever the effect was, which could be 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.400 a light going off or you know, powering an actuator 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:28.840 so that some sort of critter pops up from behind 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.520 a barrier, typically a skeleton that was kind of like 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.600 the go to And thus the basics of the dark 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.240 Ride were born. Now over the next couple of decades, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.679 dark rides popped up in amusement parks all around the world, 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.920 mostly in the United States, most of them following that 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.880 sort of spooky horror theme and having very little coherent 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.360 story to them. But Disney would change that dramatically, and 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:56.440 that brings us back to the dark rides of Disneyland. 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.120 There were several of those that I mentioned. Snow White 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.720 was one Mr Toad Peter Pan, and if you've ever 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.880 been on Peter Pan's Flight at while disney World in Orlando, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.160 you know that ride is on a system that is 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.560 in continuous motion, and I'll be covering that kind of 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:17.360 system later on this episode. But the Disneyland version was 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.240 the type of ride that actually comes to a complete 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.720 stop at the end of a ride cycle, and that 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.360 allows the people who are writing it to get off 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.800 and new passengers to get onto the ride. Right. Operators 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.160 would actually control this. They would you know, hit a 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.800 button to send a vehicle on its way, and otherwise 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.720 they would hold it until people were safely, you know, 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:44.040 secured inside the vehicle. One of the cool things about 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.680 the Peter Pan ride was that, unlike the others on 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.120 this list, it's actually a suspended track ride, so the 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.720 track is suspended above the passengers. The vehicle isn't sitting 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.800 on a track, it's being it's hanging from a track. 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.840 So the rider's cars, those are pirates shipped themed in 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:07.240 the Peter Pan ride, are hanging beneath this suspended track, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.800 and that allowed the rides designers or imagineers as Disney 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.319 calls them, imaginative engineers to create sections where the car 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.120 appears to soar over scenes like the City of London 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.840 or never never Land. The original Disneyland attraction had nine 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.319 of these ships on the track during a day, and 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.520 I had a tenth one in reserve in case something 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.319 went wrong. Each of those ships was made of fiberglass 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.880 and weighed about two fifty pounds or around a d 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.440 and they were able to carry you know, two or 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.960 maybe three people if the people were kind of smallish, 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.160 and a tenth vehicle, like I said, would stand by 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.520 in case one needed to be removed from the ride 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.840 at any given point. There was a company called Cleveland 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:57.400 tram Rail that actually built the track and the drive 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.800 devices for the ride vehicles. And it's interesting because this 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.959 was a company that wasn't known for making amusement park rides. 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:10.000 They built out systems for overhead cranes, cranes that would 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:16.160 transport heavy materials above industrial sites, and these cranes would 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:20.920 go on trolleys along tracks, and they were using a 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.120 similar system for these these rides on Peter Pan's Flight. 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.120 So the motorized trolley would sit on a girder rail, 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.560 and the trolley had an electric motor that had one 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:37.720 whole horsepower to it. The wheels on the trolley would 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.080 pinch the rail on either side, and thus you had 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.280 what was called a friction drive. The wheels would have 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.040 enough pressure on that rail and would provide the gripping 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.080 power necessary for things like the vehicle to to go 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.720 up an incline so they could climb an altitude, or 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:01.040 to break so that it wouldn't just slide down a 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.240 downward slope out of control. That would be disastrous. The 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.720 ships hung from the trolley by a pair of masts, 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.040 and the connecting points on the trolley itself were hinged, 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.240 so the ships could maintain a level position as it 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.679 moved around the track relative to the ground, instead of 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.679 swinging like out at a weird angle. But that swinging 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.280 bit became something of a problem. You know that that 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.080 pivot meant that you could swing the ships left and right, 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.760 and kids found that out and with a little wriggling 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.520 started to cause them to swing all sorts of ways, 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.760 and that could sometimes cause the ride to stop. For example, 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.560 in one case, someone was making one of these rides 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.760 swing so hard that it swung out and hit the 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:48.960 interior wall of the attraction, and a component on the 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.559 ride got embedded in the dry wall of the interior wall, 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.280 and so the whole thing got stuck and they had 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.760 to stop the ride. The track segments are electrical blocks, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.120 so you can think of the the entire ride being 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.640 a series of electrical blocks, and each of those blocks 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.040 have their own electrical circuit that supports one vehicle at 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.120 a time. So as a ship moves from block one 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.560 to block two, another ship can move into block one, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.520 and the ship that wasn't block two has moved into 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.320 block three, and if you time it just right, that 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.360 allows for an uninterrupted trip from London to Neverland. The 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.920 original Peter Pan ride at Disneyland was missing one important 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.000 character among all those tableau that it moved through, and 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:42.200 that character was Peter Pan himself. The reason for the 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.000 emission was actually on purpose. The original imagineers thought of 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.640 the ride as taking place from the perspective of Peter Pan, 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.760 so the passengers were effectively taking on the role of Pan. 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.600 The problem was passengers didn't really get that, and so 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:00.680 a lot of them walked away one or why Peter 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.960 Pan was absent on his own ride. It would take 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.920 nearly thirty years, but Disneyland's ride would eventually add Peter 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:13.600 Pan into the experience in nineteen eighty three. The other 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.040 versions of the ride, like the one at while Disney World, 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.480 would sidestep that problem entirely. They built Peter Pan into 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.560 the ride from the very beginning. They would also install 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.040 a different drive system to achieve the same sort of 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:30.200 effects that were at the Disneyland ride, but without having 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:35.080 to contend with the numerous maintenance problems that the tram 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.880 rail system had in the original Disneyland version. And it 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.120 was also a very loud system. Imagineer said that the 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:48.880 original drive system on the Disneyland ride was was distractingly loud. 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:51.760 Another ride system that would find its way into a 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.839 couple of different Disney attractions came from the Matter Horn, 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.920 which was the first steel to roller coaster it opened 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:05.520 back in nineteen fifty nine, or steel tubular coaster if 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.360 you prefer so. It's housed in a replica of the 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.480 matter Horn the Mountain in Switzerland, but it's at one 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:17.480 one scale. And this actually would end up being another first. 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:21.600 It was the first coaster housed inside an enclosed structure. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.120 Most roller coasters are outdoors. And you might wonder why 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.160 Disney would build a matter Horn themed attraction in the 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.880 first place. Because I'm a Disney fan, or at least 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.400 I think of myself as such, and I wondered why 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.760 there was a matter Horn ride. But at the time, 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.560 in nineteen fifty nine, Disney's movie studio was getting ready 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.200 to release a live action film called Third Man on 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.880 the Mountains set on and around the matter Horn. Now 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.960 I had not heard of this film, so I guess 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.480 it didn't quite reach the level of instant classic. I'm 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.360 sure there are many Disney fanatics out there who are 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.040 very familiar with the movie. This one was a new 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.520 one on me. Uh. Though. To be fair, when it 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.880 comes to the live action films, particularly of the nineteen 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:09.400 fifties and sixties, I lost track Man because that studio 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.880 made a ton of them. However, the matter Horn Ride 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.480 is still at the park today, even if people don't 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.560 remember the movie that inspired it. The coaster cars on 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.680 the matter Horn are little bob sleds that whizz around 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.960 the track actually tracks, because there are two intertwined tracks 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.160 on the matter Horn Ride. The tubular track allows for 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:34.720 a much smoother experience than traditional wooden rail based coasters. 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.840 The Bob sleds wheels could be made from a hard 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:41.800 plastic material like you know, nylon, rather than metal, and 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.000 the wheels would fit against the track, on top of 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.960 the track, underneath the track, and on the sides of 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:51.640 the track, on the tubes as it were, and that 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.120 would anchor the coaster car to the track, allowing it 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.280 to take really steep turns without any fears of the 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.800 coaster flying off because it was really there. With those 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.760 wheels and those various orientations, the original Bob sleds could 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.360 hold up to four people each. Now Bob Ger, an 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.680 imagineer who really was sort of a car guy before 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.480 he came to work with Disney, helped install the system 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.720 for the matter Horn Bob sleds that would allow for 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.480 more than one sled on the track at a time. 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.200 The ride had track mounted wheels that can make contact 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.200 with the bob sleds as they moved along the track. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:32.360 So these wheels are built into the track itself, and 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.760 the wheels can either slow down a bob sled or 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:37.960 it can give them a boost. You know, if the 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.280 wheel is turning really quickly and the bob sled rolls 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.120 up to it, then the bob sled gets a push 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.560 from these wheels, or if the wheels are moving very slowly, 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.760 they can break b R a k E the bob 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.600 sled and so Gert calls them booster breaks. With the 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.040 booster breakes, the bob sled speeds could be controlled a 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.520 bit better, and it was safe to have more than 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.359 one bob sled on the same track at the same time. 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.600 That was another first. A lot of the roller coasters 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.199 before that you only could allow one car to go 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.040 on the track because otherwise you could be inviting disaster. 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.120 But with the system, even if a car were stopped 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.240 on part of the track, you could use the booster 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.600 brakes to stop other bob sleds so that there aren't 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.159 any collisions. The company that actually developed this technology was 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.600 Ero Development. That was a company that partnered with Disney 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:34.040 on many of Disney's early rides. Walt Disney himself would 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:38.320 inform ger Bob ger in nineteen sixty one that he 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.199 was going to build out a much larger version of 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.280 this an attraction for the World's Fair that was going 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.960 to happen in a few years in nineteen sixty four. 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.600 That particular event would also feature attractions like It's a 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.720 Small World and the Carousel of Progress. And this attraction 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:59.080 was the Ford Magic Skyway, in which passengers would climb 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.879 into what look like a forward car and ride along 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.639 a track, and along that way they would see stuff 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:10.399 like animatronic dinosaurs and the futuristic City on either end 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.639 of the journey. It was essentially a time travel narrative. 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.560 Some of those set pieces would later find their way 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.520 into other attractions at Disney Parks. Now, the forward cars 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.280 of this ride weren't really cars. There were no motors 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.919 in them. The engineers had stripped them down to be 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:31.239 as lightweight as possible. They installed a flat plate on 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.959 the underside of the chassis of these vehicles, and the 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.080 track that the car would travel down had these booster brakes. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.320 These wheels set up in the track every three feet 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.919 or so, so the car frame would roll up to 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.200 one of these sets of wheels, and those sets of 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.160 wheels would give the car frame the push it needed 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.000 to roll further down the track, or it would slow 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.879 down the vehicle in order to make it come to 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.080 a stop and let people off, depending on whatever was needed. 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:06.440 The car models that were simulated included Lincoln's, Mercury's Falcons, Comets, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:11.400 and a brand new sports car called the Mustang. This 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.800 same propulsion system would later be used for the People Mover, 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.879 an attraction in tomorrow Land at Disneyland and the Magic 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.080 Kingdom in Orlando, and that lets people get a view 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.679 of other stuff that's going on in Tomorrowland. Now, the 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:29.359 Disneyland version of that attraction closed back in to make 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:33.160 way for an ill fated ride called Rocket Rods. I'm 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.520 sure there are people in California wincing as I mentioned that, 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:39.200 But the Walt Disney World version of the People Mover 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.159 is still going strong, or at least it was the 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.360 last time I was there, which was not long ago. Now, 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.560 when we come back, will jump on a Doom Buggy 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.840 and we'll talk about how those work in the Haunted Mansion. 0:19:50.880 --> 0:20:01.280 But first, let's take a quick break. The next innovation 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.560 I really want to talk about is called the omni mover, 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.320 which is sort of the foundation for a ride system 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.040 and found in rides like the Haunted Mansion. It was 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.600 named by Bob Gurn, although he was not the only 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:16.720 person to work on it. It was actually a group 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.880 effort by numerous brilliant imagineers, and it was an approach 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.639 to solving a crowd management problem, particularly for dark rides. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.399 So dark rides have a limited capacity. I mean every 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.480 ride does right. You only can fit so many people 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.359 on a ride within a given amount of time. And 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.199 traditional dark rides had vehicles that had to come to 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.720 a stop for unloading and loading, and there had to 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.359 be a great deal of space between vehicles to avoid collisions. 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.359 And each vehicle can only carry a certain number of people, 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.280 which is all dependent upon the specific ride, of course. 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:53.199 And if you look at how long it takes on 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.960 average to unload and load a vehicle, you can factor 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.760 in the number of guests who can ride a vehicle 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.200 at any given time, count the total number of vehicles 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.439 that are active on the ride, and how long the 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.480 ride takes from start to finish, and you do a 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.679 little math, you can come up with how many people 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:15.160 can ride a specific attraction within a certain amount of time, 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.120 such as an hour, and you can call this the 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.600 theoretical hourly ride capacity. Now, you know, in reality the 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:24.720 number is going to be a little bit lower than 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.840 the theoretical capacity because you know, stuff works in the 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.760 real world, and then sometimes stuff doesn't work, so you're 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:36.040 never gonna really hit that ideal number. On most days, 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.119 you'll just get, you know, somewhere in the range. But 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.040 the dark rides at Disneyland, the stuff like Peter Pan 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.800 and Mr. Toad and snow White, had capacities of around 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.840 five hundred two maybe upwards of one thousand people per hour. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.080 That really depends upon which source you're looking at, but 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.960 most sources actually put Peter Pan closer to around seven 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:01.880 hundred fifty riders per hour. So if you have more 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:05.000 than people in line ahead of you, you're gonna be 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.080 waiting more than an hour to get on that ride. 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:09.720 And Peter Pan is one of those rides that tends 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.919 to get super long lines, partly because it's also a 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:16.119 ride that thematically doesn't have any scary parts in it, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.440 whereas a lot of dark rides did have scary parts, 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.400 so it's very popular with kids. Plus the soaring thing 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.960 is kind of fun anyway. What if you could design 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:27.600 a ride so that, you know, barring certain circumstances, the 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.880 vehicles would remain in motion and never come to a stop. 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.480 What if each vehicle on the ride was actually part 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.440 of a larger moving system, so you can actually pack 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.280 in tons of vehicles on this ride and you never 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:42.840 have to worry about collisions because they're all moving or 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.840 stopping all at the same time. They're they're not independent 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.919 of one another. What if you paired that system with 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.480 a moving sidewalk so that guests could step on the 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.199 sidewalk when they were getting ready to get on or 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.040 get off the ride, and the sidewalks moving at the 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:03.080 same speed as the ride vehicles are moving, so from 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.720 the perspective of the ride vehicle, the sidewalk appears to 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.480 be stationary, or if you want to reverse that, from 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.480 the perspective of the sidewalk, the vehicles appeared to be stationary, 0:23:12.000 --> 0:23:14.040 makes it easier to get on and off. All of 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:19.520 this would be a brilliant approach to expediting guests getting 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.960 to experience a ride. Bob Ger would work with another 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:26.840 imagineer named John Hench to design the Omni Mover system, 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:30.119 and technically they designed it for a different ride. It 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:32.960 would only get used for the Haunted Mansion a little 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.040 later on. In fact, originally the Haunted Mansion was going 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.680 to be a walk through attraction, but that has its 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:42.440 own problems because people walk at different speeds, you can't 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.960 really predict what the capacity of such an attraction is 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.760 going to be. This ended up being a nice solution 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:51.040 to that. So they had developed the Omni mover for 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.880