History Trivia / DisneyThemeParks

** Everybody recognizes Music/MichaelJackson as ''CaptainEO'', but there's also Anjelica Huston as the Supreme Leader and [[Film/TheProducers Dick Shawn]] as Commander Bog.

* Animal Kingdom was originally planned to have a mythology-themed area called [[http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2001/01/01/309.aspx Beastly Kingdom]] where Camp Minnie-Mickey is now, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen but it was ultimately scrapped]]. In a way, the forthcoming Camp Minnie-Mickey replacement -- an ''Film/{{Avatar}}''-themed pavillion -- is something a return to that concept (land of fictional creatures).
* Ride revamps that were considered but not implemented once it was clear the films involved didn't warrant the theme park treatment:
** Retheming the Journey Into Imagination ride (Epcot) to ''Film/{{Flubber}}''. As ill-fated as the actual, first revamp turned out to be at the end of TheNineties...
** Retheming the Submarine Voyage/20,000 Leagues Under the Sea rides (U.S. parks) to ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire''. Instead, the Florida subs were shut down for good and the land reclaimed for New Fantasyland, while California got a ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' retheming.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen

* The original design for Disneyland incorporated numerous orange trees already present on the property. Walt's staff marked trees to be kept and trees to be removed with different colors of ribbon. Unfortunately, all of the trees were destroyed - the bulldozer operator was colorblind.

* NoExportForYou: There's been four video games based on Tokyo Disneyland: ''Mickey no Tokyo Disneyland Daibōken'' (''Mickey's Great Adventure in Tokyo Disneyland''), ''Tokyo Disneyland: Mickey no Cinderella Shiro Mystery Tour'' (''Mickey's Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour''), ''Tokyo Disneyland: Fantasy Tour'', and ''Adventure of Tokyo Disney Sea''
* Steve Martin worked at the Main Street Magic Shop at Disneyland in the 1960s, learning comedy (and borrowing a few acts from) the Golden Horseshoe Revue show.
* As far as celebrities hosting Disney attractions go, Martin Short is the only one to have hosted something in both halfs of Epcot. ''The Making of Me'', a short film in the former Wonders of Life pavilion in Future World where he gives the audience TheTalk, and the current version of the Circlevision film ''O Canada'', which pretty much has NoFourthWall ([[DontExplainTheJoke partly because the theater it's shown in is circular]]).

* Early concepts for Disneyland called for Adventureland to be where Space Mountain is now (directly east of Main Street - it was built directly west instead). Some prototype maps even show parts of it existing on ''both'' sides of MSUSA.
* The Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World was originally planned as a [[WhatCouldHaveBeen fully-functioning city]] rather than a theme park, and was a major part of Walt Disney's personal plans for "The Florida Project." After Walt died, the idea fell by the wayside for over a decade. When the plans were revisited, the prospect of building Epcot as a functional city exactly as Walt envisioned it was simply too impossible, so it was re-tooled into a theme park. The basic idea of Disney forming their own city was not forgotten however, and the idea was later realized when Disney created the town of Celebration, FL.
** Coincidentaly, the original idea for Epcot also inspired the design of [[FinalFantasyVII Midgar]].
* The skeletons inside Disneyland's ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' attraction when it first opened were real human remains. Walt Disney was dissatisfied with artificial prop-skeletons available at the time, so he acquired actual skeletons for the ride prior to his death. All the real skeletons have long since been laid to rest - the skeletons in the ride now are artificial.
* The gold parts of the outer facade of "it's a small world" in Disneyland are covered in 24K gold leaf. The facade's construction used up ''all the gold leaf available in the entire United States'' at the time. Although much, ''much'' more expensive at the outset than gold paint would have been, it has already paid for itself by never needing to be replaced or retouched.
* ''Main Street Electrical Parade'' has temporarily returned to Magic Kingdom twice since originally being replaced by ''Spectromagic'', most recently in 2010 where they brought it back for the summer until popular demand saw them changed it to an open-ended run. [[BlatantLies That's what they told everyone at least]]. The not so well kept secret was that Spectro was in desperate need of refurbishment, and since they needed to get MSEP out of California Adventure because of concerns over crowd control before WorldOfColor opened, they figured bringing it back to Florida was the best way to handle both situations. As of July 2013, the "open ended run" has been going for over 3 years. However, the refurbished Spectro floats have been spotted backstage at MK signalling its return is imminent, athough no one knows exactly when.

* The Animal Kingdom was originally planned to have a mythology-themed area called [[http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2001/01/01/309.aspx Beastly Kingdom]] where Camp Minnie-Mickey is now, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen but it was ultimately scrapped]].

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* When the original "it's a small world" was built in Disneyland Anaheim, it took ''all the gold leaf currently available in the United States'' to embellish the outer facade. Although much, ''much'' more expensive at the outset than gold paint would have been, it has already paid for itself by never needing to be replaced or retouched.

* ''Main Street Electrical Parade'' has temporarily returned to Magic Kingdom twice since originally being replaced by ''Spectromagic'', most recently in 2010 where they brought it back for the summer until popular demand saw them changed it to an open-ended run. [[BlatantLies That's what they told everyone at least]]. The not so well kept secret was that Spectro was in desperate need of refurbishment, and since they needed to get MSEP out of California Adventure because of concerns over crowd control before WorldOfColor opened, they figured bringing it back to Florida was the best way to handle both situations. As of April 2012, the "open ended run" is now going on almost 2 years. However, the refurbished Spectro floats have been spotted backstage at MK signalling its return is imminent, athough no one knows exactly when.

* The Animal Kingdom was originally planned to have a mythology-themed area called [[http://www.theneverlandfiles.com/tnf/disneyworld/beastlykingdom.php Beastly Kingdom]] where Camp Minnie-Mickey is now, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen but it was ultimately scrapped]].

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* As far as celebrities hosting Disney attractions go, Martin Short is the only one to have hosted something in both halfs of Epcot. ''The Making of Me'', a short film in the former Wonders of Life pavilion in Future World where he gives the audience TheTalk, and the current version of the Circlevision film ''O Canada'', which pretty much has NoFourthWall.

WhatCouldHaveBeen: Walt's original plan for Epcot would be a cleaner, safer, more organized city, just as Disneyland had been a cleaner, safer, and more organized theme park. Sadly, he died before his plan could come to pass, and Epcot became another park.

** He was also a guide on the [[HurricaneOfPuns pun-tastic]] Jungle Cruise.