Follow TV Tropes

Following

Souvenir Land

Go To

Welcome to a land where the fun never stops!
We have six thrill rides and four hundred gift shops!
— "Happy World Land Theme", Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation

In the real world, every kid and Super Bowl MVP wants to go to Disneyland. Or Universal Studios, etc. Going there is a fantastic experience, with a plethora of themed attractions.

In the cartoon world, every kid wants to go to Souvenir Land, a theme park version of the theme park. Going here is a lot less fantastic. While Souvenir Land is almost always treated as if it was the world's equivalent of the Disney parks, it tends to be noticeably less original and impressive than anything Disney or Universal have built. note 

Other than the almost-mandatory monorail and the occasional train ride, there will be exactly three types of rides:

  • Roller coaster. Sometimes steel, but usually wooden. Always completely outdoors with visible track supports. This doesn't quite fit Universal or Disney— Universal coasters nearly all feature inversions (which, while possible on wooden coasters, are difficult to pull off), while Disney parks typically hide the track in some way, whether by putting it inside a building (Space Mountain, Rock 'n Roller Coaster) or by theming (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Expedition Everest etc.). Six Flags does use this sort of coaster at its parks, often playing up the nostalgia angle, but typically has steel coasters alongside them.
  • Boat rides. In real life, these take two forms: rides that keep trying to splash you, topped off with a big drop at the end, and rides that just use the boat as a form of transportation to show you scenery (Pirates of the Caribbean is one of these). Souvenir Land boat rides look like the latter for most of the ride, then suddenly throw in a big drop at the end (possibly the result of misremembering Splash Mountain). Jungle Cruise is frequently parodied. Oddly, the inevitable "it's a small world" parody note  is rarely one of these, usually happening out in the open.
  • Dumbo-type rides. AKA the ones that spin in a circle through the air. These usually will be depicted as a huge deal, a major attraction on par with the roller coasters, and everyone in the group will want to ride, except for the people who get squeamish on thrill rides. This is the most obvious sign that the writers have not been to Disneyland since they were little kids as, at that age, these rides seemed legitimately impressive. note 

There will generally be no shows or novelty format movies in theaters, though there will occasionally be street entertainment. If there is a parade, it will probably be a) in the daytime and b) clearly based on the Main Street Electrical Parade, which is held at night. There will be no restaurants — all food comes from little carts. Characters will complain that it is expensive, which is Truth in Television.

If there are specific ride parodies, they will almost always be of older rides — you'll rarely see a parody of, for instance, Epcot's Test Track. This has the side effect that, sometimes, the show will parody something that is no longer operating. Again, this is because the writers are working not from a recent guide map, but rather from their childhood memories. Such parodies will be retrofitted into one of the three ride types — if there was a parody of Test Track, for instance, it'd probably be a roller coaster.

To amuse yourself, take out some maps of Disney theme parks and cross out every restaurant, every theater, and every ride that isn't a roller coaster, boat ride, or Dumbo-type ride.

There will be people in (really bad) cartoon character costumes that obscure the face. They can freely wander aimlessly around the park without getting mobbed by little kids and disturbingly determined parents. note  There will usually be no sign of "face characters", who are actors/actresses portraying characters who look enough like normal humans that they don't need masks (think the Disney Princesses, for instance). The park may have a mascot character whose face can be seen absolutely everywhere.

Note, however, that the depiction is often not meant to be a parody or satire, merely an overgenericized example of something that attracts visitors precisely because it relies on exclusive attractions, referencing or parodying which would require additional explanation for the sake of viewers unfamiliar with the original. However, snark often works its way into the depiction regardless, as a stealth rant on consumerism and the ability of entertainment industry to make a profit off any idea, no matter how lame.

Frequently, rides will empty right into a gift shop. This is Truth in Television for both Disney and Universal, where any ride of any significance has its own gift shop which is usually conveniently located right at the ride's exit note .

There is a reasonable explanation for some of this — theme parks are notoriously expensive to keep running and merchandise sales are always the parks' #1 source of revenue, far more so than ticket sales. Therefore, it's vital for a theme park's future to entice its guests to buy the merchandise. This trope is merely the result of such a thing going overboard.

Typically avoided in live action, since it's easier to get permission to use an existing theme park than to build your own for the sake of what's usually just one episode.

Remember where you're parked, and turn down your sun visor or they will paste a bumper sticker on your car.

If it's obviously terrible and not even enjoyable, it's either a Crappy Carnival or Trashy Tourist Trap that will rip you off without the merchandise.

Compare and contrast the Amusement Park of Doom.


Examples

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Tropical Land in Magic Kaito and Case Closed - notably, the creator is a huge Disneyland fan in real life, and actually spent one summer being a background painter for Pirates of the Caribbean. In its first Magic Kaito appearance it was apparently small enough for its one roller coaster to pull double-duty as the wraparound monorail, but later stories gave it add-ons like an ice rink and SeaWorld-esque shows. The Case Closed movies expand it to straight-up Disneyland size, with a central hub and six or seven themed sub-areas.
  • Happy Place in Dogby Walks Alone.
  • Magical Land from Azumanga Daioh seems to be a big deal, but all that's ever heard of are its rollercoasters. (Watch how Sakaki reacts to it when you see the souvenir picture.)
  • Fairy Park in Pretty Cure All Stars DX 2. It's a park designed around the Mascots of the series. And it's ran by the Mascots, as well.
  • Smile Land, a quite philosophical take on one of these (with a side of Take That!), is the setting of episode 19 of Ergo Proxy.
  • In one episode of My Love Story!! Takeo, Yamato, Suna, Suna's sister Ai, and a man who has a crush on Ai named Oda go to "MM Land" (which is likely a reference to Mickey Mouse). Yamato originally feared going because she didn't want to jinx her romance with Takeo but is convinced to. Most of the episode is about Oda trying to get Ai to confess to Takeo. The theme park apparently revolves around characters that look suspiciously like cat versions of Mickey and Minnie (which in turn makes them look like Ortensia).
  • One foodgasm-induced Imagine Spot in Food Wars! transforms a group of judges into school girls spending the day at "Yukihee Land," as the dish was a roller-coaster of flavors.
  • During the Judgement arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Polnareff reveals one of his dreams was to become a cartoonist and become bigger than Disney, which would lead to the opening of his own "Polnareffland". The anime adds a visual, showing a Disney-esque theme park with Silver Chariot imagery.

    Comic Books 
  • DC Comics has Winkyworld (obviously Disneyland as there's also EuroWinky), Funny Stuff Park (named after a defunct DC humour title, and with cartoon characters from that book) and Happyland (which similarly has Sugar and Spike on the logo, but is actually a front for Intergang).
    • The DC villains, The Extremists, were originally robots created for Wacky World, a theme park from an Earth-like world in another dimension. They were based on real villains from that world and animated by the only surviving member of the "real" group. Survivors of this world, now on ours, treat Mitch Wacky as some sort of god. Too bad Mitch got his neck stepped on. Ouch.
  • Finder has many domed cities dotted around its world, one of which (conspicuously the most intact and well-maintained) is taken up by Munkeyworld, an enormous distillation of all that is best and most over the top about theme parks. The whole place is very carefully managed to make sure the customers are kept in a prime state of consumerism, right down to making sure potential employees meet a set of non-offensive criteria, and whipping up the crowds into a hunt for mischief makers like Jaeger, with fabulous prizes for the one who catches him!

    Comic Strips 
  • Fun-Fun Mountain (and other parks with the "Fun-Fun" brand) from FoxTrot was the trope namer when it had a different name.
    • Fun-Fun Mountain had an attraction called Souvenir Land, so it's still sort of the trope namer.
  • Sherman's Lagoon:
    • One series of strips has Sherman and Megan taking Herman to "Walrus World". Sherman dons a walrus hat, one of the rides there is called "Walruses of the Caribbean", and when Sherman asks mascot "Wally the Walrus" if they can get a picture of him with Herman, Wally responds that it'll cost twenty bucks. Sherman punches him, resulting in them getting chased by security.
    • Hawthorne has also opened a couple as two of his get-rich-quick schemes. For example, one series of strips has him opening "Crabbyland". Its slogan? "The crabbiest place on Earth." Rides include a roller coaster called "The Crazy Crustacean", bumper cars, and a ride called "The Ride of Terror" that promises that riders will see things that will shock, horrify and revolt them - and then proceeds to take them right into Hawthorne's bachelor pad.
    • Before that, he opened a theme park called "Six Crabs Underwater Adventure" (the name being a reference to the Six Flags parks), where according to him family is first. Rides include the "Crazy Crustacean Cage" and "The Cookie Heaver" (you have to sign a waiver before you ride it), the prize for winning the Ring Toss is the old pop bottle that you have to get the ring to land on, the concession stand only serves things that crabs like to eat, and the gift shop sells Hawthorne plushes (just pull the string and it says one of Hawthorne's "famous homespun sayings"... with age-appropriate substitutes for the profanities). There's even a "costumed character" mascot in the form of a large crab.
    • As part of the storyline where Megan makes a voodoo doll of Sherman, she for whatever reason becomes angered when Sherman announces that he and Ernest are going to "Six Flags Underwater" and uses the voodoo doll while he and Ernest are on a roller coaster.

    Films — Animation 
  • The kingdom of Duloc from Shrek has some Disneyland-like elements, particularly the "Main Street"-type entrance and a "Small World" parody, as part of Jeffrey Katzenberg's Take That! against his former employer.
  • Fun World in BĂ©bĂ©'s Kids. Though the Robin Harris comedy routine the movie is based on takes them to Disney World, the film was not made by Disney.
  • A Goofy Movie: An extremely brutal version (which is a Disney production, if the title character doesn't give it away). Goofy takes his son Max to Lester Possum's Park, which is a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Mickey Mouse (who had a cameo in the previous song number). Along with the cartoon costumes, they also brutally make fun of the Country Bear Jamboree attraction. The attack seems less like self-parody and more like extreme Creative Differences with the people running the park.
  • Super Silly Fun Land, the bizarre theme park in Despicable Me, in which Gru is forced to ride a crazy roller coaster along with the girls in his care, and in which he destroys the game stand and "wins" Agnes her stuffed toy unicorn. Defictionalized in various Universal Studios parks.
  • Pretty Cure All Stars DX2 takes place in a Pretty Cure theme park by the ocean.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Wallyworld from National Lampoon's Vacation, filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA.
  • Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra: One of the Egyptian cities is apparently this.
    "Wanna buy a sphinx?"
  • The main setting and source of the title in Adventureland.
  • Nope has Jupiter's Claim, a Wild West amusement park owned by former child star Ricky "Jupiter" Park. While the theme comes from his days as a lead in the Kid Sheriff films, he also capitalizes on the visiting UFO- to disastrous results.
  • Tomorrowland is perhaps surprisingly not this, though the original entrance to the titular Tomorrowland is hidden inside the "It's a Small World" ride at the World's Fair.
  • Zombieland has Pacific Playland. Two of the main characters put in a lot of effort to get there but it looks like a standard carnival. The Pacific Playland scenes were filmed at Wild Adventures in Valdosta, Georgia. Wild Adventures is one-third water park, one-third second-tier zoo, and one-third this.
  • The Way, Way Back takes place in a water park that hasn't been updated since the early '80s.
  • Escape from Tomorrow is a horror film about a man who'd just been fired going on a family vacation to a Disney theme park, and slowly losing his mind in the process as the park's shiny happy facade slips away. Notable for having actually been filmed at Disneyland and Disney World — without Disney's permission. (They backed down from trying to get the film pulled from release after realizing that this would just make everybody want to see it.)
  • Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore has Playland. Kitty Galore uses a Dumbo-type ride to beam her "call of the wild" code that hypnotises dogs into acting evil across the world via satelite.

    Literature 
  • Serutanland from Bored of the Rings, home of Dickey Dragon.
  • Averted in the mystery novel Dreamworld— the titular theme park is obviously the Brand X version of Disney World, so the level of technology, variety of attractions and attention to detail is on par with the real thing.
  • Land of Adventure from Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest is equal-parts Disneyland, SeaWorld and Amusement Park of Doom. A lot of the rides and attractions based off of mythological legends, with many of its "cast members" being real Enchanted-Americans, and prizes are given to the park-goers after running through simulated adventures. The "of Doom" part comes in when it's revealed that the park is run (and attended) by cultists who worship the Lost God.
  • Gratuity's mother in The True Meaning of Smekday loves "Happy Mouse Kingdom", an obvious parody of Disney. Subverted in that it's probably nicer than the actual Disney.
  • The Faerie Aerie, in "The Gypsies in the Wood" is a Souvenir Land in Victorian London (constructed inside The Gift, an exaggerated version of the real-life Crystal Palace), based on a series of books about faeries. It includes actors portraying the characters from the books, some as face characters and some in goofy suits.
  • Tom Gates has Dino Village, a small dinosaur-themed park. Its main attraction is dinosaur-themed parody of “It’s A Small World”, complete with ending at a amusement park.
  • The Supervillainy Saga: In Tales of Supervillainy: Cindy's Seven there's World Emperor World (WEW). It is a Disneyland-esque theme park in the fictional country of Londonium. Cindy loses track of her daughters for a few minutes and they come back drenched in steampunk supervillain memorabilia.

    Live-Action TV 
  • One episode of That '70s Show had the cast visiting a glorified carnival called Fun Town. There's a fair amount of Truth in Television surrounding this one. Wisconsin (where the show is set) is something of a tourist attraction mecca, and both permanent and traveling carnival attractions are long standing. For example Bay Beach has existed for over a century.
  • Dinosaurs: Wesaysoland from the episode "Variations on a Theme Park" is this mixed with Crappy Carnival. The rides are nearly all under construction, it costs 6 dollars for ice on a stick (minus the ice), there's a nine-hour waiting list for strollers and the mascot is Moolah the Cash Cow. The whole thing was thrown together in a day to take advantage of the newly invented concept of vacation.
  • After being forced by ABC (read: Disney) to do an episode set at Walt Disney World, the producers of Roseanne immediately turned around and did an episode about a creepy Naziesque theme park that brainwashes its employees.
  • The original opening montage for Step by Step features the cast visiting an amusement park. The actual park in question is Six Flags Magic Mountain, located an hour north of Los Angeles and nowhere near the ocean - but that didn't stop the show's producers from utilizing some of the worst special effects ever to paste in a beach to cover up the parking lot of the actual park.
  • Parodied in Father Ted with 'Funland' the world's worst amusement park. Among the rides are 'The Ladder of Death' (climb up a ladder) and 'The Tunnel of Goats'. The 'Spider Baby' (a spider in a pram) is probably apocryphal though.
  • The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: In "Tourist, Go Home", a millionaire wants to make the town into a tourist site, starting with the museum. The captain is against it, until he finds out that he will have an important part in it. The revamped museum ends up as a sideshow mocking the captain, which angers him.
  • The Married... with Children episode "The Good-bye Girl" has Kelly get a job as a greeter at TV World, a Chicagoland park with such attractions as "Steven Bochco's Hall of Failures" (which has just added the Capitol Critters exhibit according to Marcy) and "Commercial Land", where Kelly eventually plays "The Verminator" in a recreation of a bug spray commercial and Bud goes from heckling her to playing a cockroach in a Goofy Suit.

    Roleplay 

    Theme Parks 
  • Disney Theme Parks
    • Bizarre Real Life example: In Disney's Animal Kingdom park, there is a small area within the "Dinoland U. S. A." section of the park. And it is essentially the Souvenir Land version of Animal Kingdom. The ride Primeval Whirl is a parody of Dinosaur, the other thrill ride in that subsection of the park, and Triceratops Spin takes on Dumbo. Who says Disney doesn't have a sense of humor?
    • Jungle Cruise is a parody of itself. Well, more accurately, the modern Jungle Cruise is a parody of the original Jungle Cruise — while the ride was originally played straight (Walt Disney didn't want to deal with all the complexities real animals would cause in a small area of a park, so he went with robotic ones), the current version is one big comedy routine having fun at the scenery's expense, especially in light of guests being able to ride among actual animals over at the aforementioned Animal Kingdom. Sample lines:
      "Do you know what kind of flamingos those are? They're plastic flamingos, that's what."
      "I wonder where this tunnel comes out... well, we're in Disney World, so probably at a gift shop."
      "Parents, don't forget your children. Forgotten children will be taught to sing and have their feet glued to the floor of "it's a small world"."
      "Have you ever seen the backside of a waterfall? Well, I have. Day... after day... after day..." (starts to cry)
    • This routine was the inspiration and main subject matter of the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Skipper Dan", which is about an acting prodigy whose career stalled and left him stuck working on the Jungle Cruise ride.
    • Also, at night, they'll do a parody of Fantasmic!
    • Most of the Turn of the Millennium Disney theme parks (namely California Adventure, Walt Disney Studios Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland) were accused of being this due to opening with a limited number of attractions — the first had a lot of off-the-shelf carnival-style rides and clones of shows and rides from the Florida Disney World complex, and Disney park signatures like Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain never made it to Hong Kong — but a full contingent of shops and restaurants. Thus you pay to get in, and then there's not much to do that doesn't require more money. This was due to severe penny-pinching the company's resorts division was undergoing at the time, egged on by the initial failure of the elaborate Disneyland Paris in The '90s. California Adventure and Hong Kong Disneyland would substantially expand in The New '10s, however, and Walt Disney Studios Paris is set to follow suit in The New '20s.
  • In some of the Universal Studios attractions:
    • The queue line for Shrek 4D advertises a place called "Dulocland", which is shown to be a money-grubbing Disneyland parody. In particular, one of its marketed attractions is "Fairy Tale Adventure" - an experience that's said to consist of "74 gift shops and 1 ride".
    • Krustyland from The Simpsons Ride is a poorly-put together theme park designed to shake as much money out of its customers' pockets as possible.
  • Warner Bros. Movie World in Australia, is just a minor step up from being this.
  • Lagoon, in Farmington, Utah. Their old wooden coaster is still THE big attraction, there's a large carnival-midway area, and they do have a flying ride similar to Dumbo. There are a couple of modern inversion rides, but they seem to exist solely to justify the existence of the gift shop.
  • If this site is any indication, Nara Dreamland in Japan played this trope straight as an arrow before closing down in 2006 and subsequently becoming an Abandoned Area occasionally scouted by urban explorers. Monorail? Check. Theming that looks like they bought it from Disney's surplus warehouse? Check. Rides that are even cheaper knockoffs of their Disney counterparts than a Dingo Pictures film, and others that are completely out of place? Check and check, please!
  • The Singapore Zoo is not even a theme park, and yet this is in full force. It's hard to turn anywhere and not see a stand or proper store selling stuffed toy animals, and there are themed restaurants and souvenir photo opportunities aplenty. Plus "Ah Meng" everything — Ah Meng being the late orangutan mascot of the zoo.
    • Any zoo is liable to become a bit Souvenir Land-ish in its children's area, where domesticated livestock and small inoffensive wildlife such as locally-commonplace varieties of tortoise make their inevitable appearance. Even the animal feed which can be purchased to hand out to goats or throw to the ducks will be identical to every other zoo's, and badly overpriced to boot.
  • A version of this appears as a small section in Adventure Island's "Adventureville" dark ride.

    Video Games 
  • In The Curse of Monkey Island, the Demon Pirate Lechuck converts Monkey Island into "The Carnival of the Damned" as part of his scheme to recruit unknowing pirates into his undead army (since the first thing a sailor on shore leave is ever looking for is a family-oriented theme park). In the endgame, Guybrush is transformed into a seven-year-old version of himself and has to deal with rigged carnival games, corrupt mascots in costume and a snow-cone stand attendee with unnerving armpit hair.
  • In Ace Attorney Investigations, the Gatewater Hotel chain of the earlier games has now become a far larger corporation, opening its own theme park called 'Gatewater Land'. It contains a haunted house and western-themed area along with an artificial lake where parkgoers including a certain blue-suited, pointy-haired lawyer and his friends can go boating. Since it's partially funded by the police, it also has the Blue Badger and company as its mascots, and finding out exactly who is in all those badger suits is a large part of the third case.
  • In Backyard Skateboarding, there is Shark Belly Shores, which is a theme park with two big rides: the Kooky Kraken (a rollercoaster which ends at a bench) and a carousel. There is also a water wheel and half-pipes for skating.
  • RollerCoaster Tycoon lets you build one of these. Since the game relies on the numeric excitement ratings of individual rides to judge how well guests like them, you can more or less get away with it.
  • Ryan Amusements in BioShock 2. There is exactly one ride, a Haunted Mansion style ride that's purportedly designed to scare kids into never wanting to leave Rapture, but consists of a series of Objectivist lectures, illustrated with exaggerated animatronic scenes. The rest of the park consists of a "Hall of the Future" that has all of three scenes and forces guests to backtrack to get out, a gift shop that either has been thoroughly looted or carries a paltry amount of merchandise, and a restaurant. Granted, it's still exactly the right size for a single level in a BioShock game, which is what mattered, but there aren't even any of the usual blocked-off passageways to give it a sense of originally being bigger.
  • Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition has Babeland, which includes all three types of rides mentioned above in various stages of completion. And nothing else either.
  • Banjo-Tooie has Witchyworld, a decrepit, unsafe theme park known for terrible sanitation, bribing authorities, and employing pickpockets. Oddly enough, Boggy's family still thinks it's a pretty awesome place.
  • Theme Park Tycoon 2 in Roblox allows players to design a stereotypical theme park like the ones described here. You can add your favorite theme parks rides (including a Dumbo-like Planes ride) and build all kinds of roller coasters (including steel and wooden), and water and dark rides. However, you cannot build theater shows nor set up meet-and-greet characters or parades. You can add food/hat stalls, but no proper restaurant or gift shops. Also the visitors pay for each ride they ride.
  • Kingdom of Loathing:
    • Uncle P's Antiques once sold an item that gave players a map to the Magic Commune, an amusement park owned and operated by hippies. It features such attractions as Freegans of the Mysterious Island, Mary Jane's Wild Ride, and the Electric Lemonade Acid Parade.
    • The Mr. Store item for April 2015 offered access to Dinseylandfill, a stench-aligned zone that's a combination amusement park and landfill. Tacky and disgusting!
  • Overwatch has Blizzard World, an amusement park map based on every Blizzard Entertainment property (except Overwatch itself). Naturally, it's littered with merchandise carts and gift shops.

    Web Video 
  • Joueur du Grenier: Across several amusement park games, the idea of Fistiland (Motto: "Fun all the way to the bottom!") developed, an amusement park ticking off most of the boxes: overpriced and hideously unhealthy food, prices that go as high as the game allows, crappy rides (one is a boring track that blasts heavy metal at the riders for several hours, another sends riders flying off) that undergo maintenance never, dead animals, an annoying mascot (a giant statue of which sprays water on visitors that pass under its legs) who eventually became the Big Bad of the ten year anniversary video as Thanus... and to top it all off, the thing is based on fisting, as in the sex act.
  • Tiger Balm Garden in Vaguely Recalling JoJo is also called Polnaland. The workers there even have Polnareff's signature hairstyle. Dio, Giorno and Diavolo are seen in the background, having a good time at Polnaland.

    Web Animation 
  • Homestar Runner - Strong Bad imagines one of these, called "Strong Bad's Mount RidesPlace! USA" in the Strong Bad Email "theme park". Since he can't afford to build it, he settles for "The Strong Badian Riverquest Safariventure", a Jungle Cruise clone so pathetic, it just takes place in a cardboard box on a small puddle of water with Strong Bad giving lifeless commentary.
    Strong Bad: Don't forget to experience the fury of... our gift shop.

    Western Animation 
  • Tiny Toon Adventures: Happy World Land is indecisive. On the one hand, some of it looks rather cool; it's home to one of the only arguable precognitive parodies of an actual ride currently found at Walt Disney World. On the other hand, as the park's anthem puts it:
    Welcome to a land where the fun never stops.
    We have six thrill rides and four hundred gift shops...
  • The Simpsons has had several over the course of its long life;
    • In "Old Money" Grampa goes to a theme park called DIZ-NEE-LAND complete with a sign saying that it isn't affiliated with the Walt Disney Company.
    • The name of Duff Gardens ("Selma's Choice") implies a Busch Gardens parody, but parts of it parody Disney attractions like "It's a Small World" and "The Hall of Presidents". It's also worth noting that this one is meant to be crappy, with the longest line being for the complaints booth.
    • Itchy & Scratchy Land is a straight Disneyland/Walt Disney World parody, and surprisingly thorough in spoofing real stuff at the parks in The '90s, like Disney Dollars, the Pleasure Island adult nightclub complex at the Florida resort, and the Walt Disney Story attraction. The episode also briefly showed "Euro Itchy & Scratchy Land" in a cutaway gag; it's completely abandoned, save for a French ticket master calling out for customers because his last paycheck bounced and his "children need wine" — a reference to the (then-topical) disastrous early years of what is now called Disneyland Paris.
    • "Hungry Hungry Homer" opens with a trip to Blockoland (a lampshaded Expy of Legoland), where everything is made out of "Blocko"s, including the water for the scenic boat ride.
    • "I'm Goin' to Praiseland" had Ned Flanders opening a Christian Souvenir Land, a parody of Heritage USA, which closed in 1989. (It may or may not also reference the Holy Land Experience, which opened in central Florida in February '01; the episode aired in May). Within a few days it is on the verge of shutting down, as visitors are turned off by its preachiness and wholesomeness, until an apparent miracle at the park (actually the result of a gas leak) causes attendance to skyrocket.
    • EFCOT ("Special Edna") is a parody of Epcot, though the attractions parodied were pulled from an assortment of different Disney parks. It takes the "older ride parodies" to ridiculous extremes — there's a parody of a Disneyland attraction that closed in 1967 (sponsored by real-life but long-defunct Eastern Airlines), and there are no parodies of attractions that were operating at the time save for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and the IllumiNations light show. It starts looking less like a mistake and more like an intentional nostalgia trip. (At the episode's end, Homer runs off to the real Disney World.)
    • Plaster Mountain, which includes "Mr Frog's Mild Ride", "Dilbert's Flying Cubicle" (the circling ride), and "It's A Long Line".
  • SpongeBob SquarePants has Glove World, perhaps a reference to Mickey Mouse's gloves. One episode revolves around SpongeBob and Patrick trying to work up the nerve to go to the newest roller coaster, the Fiery Fist O'Pain.
  • EuroReptarland in Rugrats in Paris. It does have a "face" character, the Princess.
  • In the Family Guy episode "The Courtship of Stewie's Father" Peter took Stewie to Walt Disney World, although the writers clearly had only ever been to Disneyland. note 
  • The Fairly OddParents! parodied Disneyland with "Kidney Land" in the episode where a shrunken Timmy is messing around inside Vicky's body.
    • The show also had "Escalator Land" That apparently consisted of a continuous up and down line of escalators
      US President: When do we get to the ride?
      Timmy's Dad: This is the ride! Wheee!!
    • Adrenaland, where people had to be resuscitated from going on one of the rides.
  • An episode of Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain had the mice accompanying Elmyra on her class field trip to a Disneyland parody called Duckyland, with Brain intending to put a subliminal message on the audio at the Happy Sappy Children of Many Lands Ride. First, though, he's forced to go through some rides Elmyra wants to go on, and endures a lot of pain doing so; then, when he finally does switch the tapes on the ride, he finds out that he made a mistake in trusting Elmyra to bring the tape for him, because she instead brought a Baloney the Dinosaur tape. By the end of the episode, he says that even world domination is not worth it for him "to come back to this Hieronymus Bosch-inspired nightmare world."
    • Before Elmyra joined in, Pinky is at one point tempted by Snowball to leave the Brain. The bait was Pinkyworld, a theme park contained inside a corporate headquarters. This is mouse-sized...
    • Pinky's apparently a sucker for these. "Brain Noir" has Billie use one of these to try and win his heart; it was originally meant as just an innocent device to aid Brain in taking over the world.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures had Moose-World. Likewise, there were theme parks located in California, Florida, and Hong Kong. Sound familiar?
  • The Venture Brothers has Brisby Land, which fits the characteristics of the Disney Theme Parks, although with more sinister dealings and being a subject of ire to displaced revolutionaries.
  • Futurama has Luna Park ("The happiest place orbiting Earth") and Past-O-Rama. The former includes a boat ride about whalers... on the moon, the ridiculousness of which is pointed out on the ride's song.
    We're whalers on the moon/We carry a harpoon/But there ain't no whales/So we tell tall tales/And sing our whalin' tune
  • Hey Arnold! has Dinoland which pops up now and then. A sort of run-down amusement park with one episode revolving completely around Arnold and Eugene getting stuck on one of the rides.
  • The roadside attraction that captures the title character of Get Muggsy! seems to be an extreme example of this. No rides are seen, just animals in cages and souvenir stands.
  • The Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon had Fun World, which had the standard rides and offered souvenir rings. That were used to brainwash people to think like robots.
  • Totally Spies!: As part of a nefarious scheme to brainwash tourists into becoming his slaves, the evil mime Jazz Hands opens "Mime World" on a remote tropical island (perhaps as a Shout-Out to Jurassic Park). One of the most popular attractions there is the "Mime Petting Zoo," with little animals performing mime routines with white makeup and lipstick smeared on their faces. (Yes, it's every bit as creepy as it sounds.)
  • A Fractured Fairy Tale had a take on "Sleeping Beauty" with the prince—a loose caricature of Walt Disney—choosing to not wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss but to market her and the castle as a tourist attraction, souvenirs and all.
  • Gravity Falls: This is Gideon’s plan after he takes the Mystery Shack from Stan. It even has the logo in the same font as the Disneyland logo.
  • My Dad the Bounty Hunter: Chillion-5 is home to a popular amusement park that has enslaved the indigenous life forms as an attraction and as slave labor.


 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Top

Super Silly Fun Land

Gru and the girls go to a theme park with your average roller coaster.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (2 votes)

Example of:

Main / SouvenirLand

Media sources:

Report