One of my personal little hobbies of mine is coming up with ideas for Disney attractions being added to Disney parks. I've done this a lot on various Disney theme park forums, although I haven't been nearly as active as I once was. I have even done it once here, in the form of ideas for how I would improve Disneyland. This was back in 2015.
One of my most recent ideas for an attraction is this one that I would put in WDW's Magic Kingdom, in the Storybook Circus subsection of Fantasyland. It is called "Mickey's House of Wonders". I thought of this in honor of Mickey's 90th(!) birthday.
Before I delve into the verbal tour of the ride itself, a little bit of background: This ride concept is based (loosely, in my opinion) on this one attraction concept dating back to the 1970s, as part of a land for Disneyland that never was: Dumbo's Circusland, which was to have been built where Toontown is today. Here is a scale model of the land in question:
As you can see, it was to have had a relocated Dumbo ride (on an elevated platform, rather like Tomorrowland's rocket ride at that time). Casey Jr. would have a stop here as well (likely a second one, to go with the one in Storybook Land).
Anyway, one of the new concepts for this land was to have been something called "Mickey's Madhouse", a dark ride/roller coaster hybrid themed around old Mickey cartoons, where Mickey and the gang perform antics set to frenetic ragtime music. Here is how the exterior of the ride would have looked:
(Other attractions to be added would include two more dark rides, one called Circus Disney, where Disney characters of every stripe perform circus acts, and the other a Pinocchio ride, which ultimately did open in 1983 as part of the new Fantasyland.)
Although Dumbo's Circusland never came to fruition as envisioned, I feel as though that Storybook Circus is a heavily-modified version of that; it does feature a relocated Dumbo (actually, two sets of Dumbos) and one of the concepts for "Circus Disney", the Flying Goofys, was rethemed as a kiddie coaster, known as "The Great Goofini's Barnstormer".
The fact remains, however, that Storybook Circus' location, ironically, is something that happened in reverse of Disneyland: it goes where Mickey's Birthdayland/Starland/Toontown Fair once stood. Although the land was really only meant to be temporary, I'm a little disappointed with the park now being without a land devoted to Mickey and the gang. On the other hand, however, there still is a ride themed to Goofy here (which was held over from Toontown Fair), so...
This ride concept of mine, "Mickey's House of Wonders", is something like a variation of the Roger Rabbit ride at Disneyland in terms of frenetic pace and attitude. The coaster aspect of "Madhouse" is dropped, and so is the name "Madhouse", which doesn't really fit Mickey.
Originally, my ride idea was called "Mickey's Fun House". My main difficulty with this is that I really don't have a lot of information to go on in terms of the attraction concept. I can't find any information on "Madhouse", no concept art (aside from the exterior artwork) or longer descriptions (short of "A trip through old Mickey cartoons") or anything. When I brought up this concept on various theme park forums, they couldn't find anything either, so they thought it would just be better to just do a new ride from scratch (hence why I said it was loosely based on an old concept). My main concern with doing things from scratch is I have nothing to go on to help me out here.
I tried to replicate the concept as best I could, with actual vignettes of old cartoons, but the forum members' argument (not an unreasonable one, either) was that the concept of this attraction as envisioned for Circusland apparently doesn't really fit the circus motif; it seems more suited to something like Toontown. But of course, there is no Toontown at WDW anymore. There is a Toontown at Disneyland, but there is not that much space for it, and besides, rumor has it that a copy of Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, based on the 2010s Mickey cartoons and being added to Disney's Hollywood Studios, replacing the Great Movie Ride, is being added to that Toontown. In fact, an announcement should be made any day now. My concept and the rumored Runway Railway concept are the same thing, just based around different time periods. But I digress...
The forum people's argument was that, as it is going in a circus setting, my ride should have reflect that. They came up with an idea for the ride in question, but I was not entirely happy with it based primarily around the circus; I wanted to include classic shorts elements, too (not just black-and-white, but color cartoons, too). However, they seemed pretty adamant that it should be about the circus first and everything else second. As I said, my idea was more "shorts vignettes" than "circus", which they insisted was out of place here and, again, seemed to fit in Toontown better. The fact is, I have a habit of overthinking my ideas because I want everything to be just right and be realistic (probably ultra-realistic). I like to do things as if they could happen, even if they don't.
So I tried, all alone with no help at all, to tie shorts elements into these people's circus concept as best I could. To help loosen the theme, I even dispensed with "Fun House" and renamed it "Mickey's House of Wonders". But still, I can't help but feel that the concept of old cartoons in a circus setting could work if I only had enough information to go on.
Next time, we'll go into the ride itself. Stay tuned...
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