It's a Small Ride

It's a Duff world after all!

Of the many attractions created for the Disney Theme Parks, "it's a small world" remains one of the most famous/infamous. Originally one of several Disney company-designed attractions that made its debut at the 1964 World's Fair, and later exported to all the "Magic Kingdom"-style parks aside from Shanghai's, it's a sunshiny indoor boat ride with a universal brotherhood theme, as the boats drift past tableaux of adorable Audio-Animatronic dolls representing children, and their cultures, from all over the world (thoroughly indulging in Culture Equals Costume), and performing the Sherman Brothers' intentionally catchy and simple song of the same name. Owing to its cutesy optimism and the song, which is viewed by some as Awesome Music and by others as an Ear Worm, people tend to love or hate this ride, which has made it ripe for parody — even by the Disney company itself. The ride or its Expy are usually either portrayed as annoying or secretly (even not-so-secretly) evil to some degree.

Will likely be paired with a Mr. Alt Disney depending on the parody and may overlap with Hostile Animatronics if the animatronics attack riders!

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Examples:

Parodies in Other Disney Media

• Epic Mickey has the Gremlin Village levels, all of which are based on sections of "it's a small world"- the Gremlin Village itself is meant to be Fantasyland, but this is the only ride represented. The area culminates in a battle with the Clock Tower on the ride’s exterior, which has finally snapped after hearing the ride's song one time too many- for good measure, a creepy version of the song plays for the fight.
• Hamster & Gretel: In "Earworm", a flashback is shown with the family going on It's a Big Big World. Dave is shown to love it but the rest of the family didn't. The song is later used to break the titular heroes out of their jingle-induced trance.
• In Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama, one of Drakken's experiments involves torture, which involves a man being driven crazy by animatronics obviously based on the ride.
• The Kingdom Keepers: In the first novel, Disney After Dark, "It's a Small World" plays a key role in defeating the Overtakers, with a clue hidden in the tableaux. When the main characters ride it, many of them quickly hate the song, and Maleficent enchants all the dolls to attack and bite them on sight.
• Kronk's New Groove: Used for a brief Bait-and-Switch gag. In a Call-Back to the first film, Yzma takes Kronk on a rollercoaster to get to her new secret lab. He goes in cheering with his hands up, clearly expecting a thrilling ride like the entrance to the last one... but is thoroughly confused when he's greeted with an Incan-themed version of "it's a small world", complete with the music.
  Kronk: [staring dumbfounded at the dancing robots] Huh?
  Yzma: Wait for it.
  [They suddenly go down a massive drop.]
• In The Lion King (1994), Scar demands the imprisoned Zazu sing something cheerful, but the bird's initial choice is the one song Scar can't stand: "It's a Small World".
  Scar: No! No, Anything but That!!
• In the DVD bonus Virtual Safari of The Lion King 1 ½, one of the sections is "It's a Bug World". Uncle Max is horrified by the Ear Worm song, but Ma finds the moment charming. When the cart gets stuck mid-ride, Timon prompts Pumbaa to push the emergency button. However, Pumbaa pushes a red button that causes the ride to go out of control, eventually resulting in their cart being ejected into the wild.
• Phineas and Ferb: In "The Lake Nose Monster," Perry enters his secret lair through a new attraction called "Lair Entrance: The Ride," because a focus group of five-year-olds preferred it to Perry getting a bonus check. He rides a log through a slow river while animatronic animals sing about him getting a new mission. It even ends with signs saying "Aloha" and "Come back" as a reference to the exit of "it's a small world."

Films — Animated

• Rugrats in Paris: EuroReptarLand has the ride "Ooey-Gooey World", where the boats travel down a river of green slime and brightly-colored animatronics sing. Coco takes the babies on the ride and hates every second of it, while Phil and Lil steal slime and shove it down their pants.
• Shrek spoofs the ride in the form of an information booth that introduces visitors to the kingdom of Duloc by opening up to reveal a miniature theater with little animatronics singing a song with a similar tune when a lever is pulled. This doubles as a parody of the F.A.O Schwarz toy store's "Welcome to the World of Toys", which also features animatronics and an annoying, catchy tune on a loop.
  • The booth returns in the Scared Shrekless TV special, but since Duloc has been completely abandoned ever since Lord Farquaad died, the booth has been updated to reflect this. By contrast to the movie, where Shrek thought the song was stupid, he actually likes it this time.

Films — Live-Action

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a Serial Numbers Filed Off send-up with an animatronic display that sings a similar song ("Wonka's Welcome Song")...and then catches fire.
• Scooby-Doo: One of the attractions on Spooky Island is "It's a Dead World After All".

Comic Strips

• FoxTrot: At Fun-Fun Universe, Andy and Paige go on a boat ride where animatronics sing "It's a Fun-Fun World".
  Andy: That gets my vote for scariest ride.
• In the Doctor Who Magazine strip "Welcome to Tickle Town", the eponymous theme park has a VR ride that warns its imprisoned guests about the horrors of the war-ravaged world Tobias Tickle is protecting them from. The accompanying song is clearly meant to fit this tune:
  Oh the world outside is a scary place,
  It's a big fat grave for the human race,
  There's no hope you'll survive,
  When the plague rats arrive,
  It's mad, bad world outside

Comic Books

• Doom Patrol: As Casey travels through Dannyland for answers, she briefly passes through a Doom Patrol-themed variant of the ride called "It's a Doomed World" that uses members from current and previous runs in place of the usual kids. It breaks down halfway through, forcing Casey to travel the ride by foot.

Literature

• The Discworld novel Hogfather, the Hogswatch display in Crumley's Department Store includes clockwork Dolls of All Nations singing a song called "Wouldn't It Be Nice If Everyone Was Nice?" When Death makes his dramatic arrival, he accidentally damages some of the clockwork, with the result that the dolls now appear to be hitting each other. The kids waiting to see the Hogfather much prefer this version.

Live-Action TV

• In his 1977 ABC special and 1981 Midnight Special hosting gig, Andy Kaufman performed "It's a Small World" backed by an all-black troupe of African drum players. While the latter performed stone-faced, Kaufman sang with Excited Kids' Show Host cheerfulness, making for possibly the only subversion of this trope in that the song itself isn't actually mocked, just a touch exaggerated.
• In the Red Dwarf episode "Blue" Kryten helps Lister get over missing the currently-absent Rimmer by using Rimmer's journals to create the dark ride "The Rimmer Experience", which not only paints a completely self-serving picture of the man but also ends with miniature dancing Rimmer dolls singing a catchy third-person "I Am Great!" Song.

Music

• Muse's music video for "Invincible" has the band on an aquatic dark ride with cutesy animatronics reenacting scenes from Western history; mostly battles and other scenes of violence. Then as the song reaches the bridge and the ride reaches the present day, the ride suddenly becomes a sci-fi story with an alien invasion.

Rides

• The Simpsons Ride: Featured at Krustyland is "Happy Little Elves in Panda Land", a fantasy kiddie ride complete with singing elf animatronics. Sideshow Bob's killer panda mech matches the theme and design of this ride, suggesting it originally came from Happy Little Elves before being refurbished.

Video Games

• Psychonauts 2: The level "Fatherland Follies" can be best described as "it's a small world" with Grulovian propaganda. Taking place inside the mind of Gristol Malik (who infiltrated the Motherlobe under the guise of Nick Johnsmith and replaced Truman Zanotto's brain with his), the ride tells the story of the fall of Grulovia from Gristol's perspective, painting Ford Cruller as the villain and revealing his plan to bring back Maligula to restore Grulovia to its former glory. Said ride features animatronics, a section where the ride car goes over water, and cheery music that Raz finds obnoxious, as he breathes a sigh of relief after destroying the phonographs playing it.

Web Animation

• The Queer Duck episode "The Gayest Place on Earth" features a send-up of the It's a Small World ride called "Our Gay World" where the animatronics sing about how there are gay people everywhere.
  It's a world of maries, it's a world of queers
  There are queens out in Queens
  There are bears in Tangiers
  So grease up for Greece
  Bring Crisco to Frisco
  It's a gay, gay, gay, gay world.

Web Comics

• Skin Horse: During a mission to Whimsey World, a parody of Disney land, in the "my house is me" arc, the "World of Love" song is mentioned several times and treated with groans and dismay frequently.

Web Videos

• In Stampy's Lovely World, Stampy builds a ride called "It's a Lovely World", filled with statues of his friends.

Western Animation

• Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: In "Monsters are Fun", the carnival has the eponymous ride with cute-looking monsters singing "We're the cutest monsters you've ever seen. We are joyful and jolly and never mean." Outraged at the ways the monsters (including himself) are depicted, The Gromble assigns Krumm and Oblina to scare the humans on the ride. Jealous that he wasn't chosen for the assignment, Ickis scares the humans instead. It turns out that the humans liked being scared and the barker takes advantage of this so that the humans will pay more to ride it.
• Codename: Kids Next Door: Numbuh 3's favorite ride at Rainbow Monkey Land is a Small World-esque boat ride which is based around Romeo and Juliet.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: In "Human Habitrail", Courage chases after a Mad Scientist gerbil who abducts Eustace and Muriel. On the way, Courage ends up having to go on a ride that has animatronics singing "It's Doc Gerbil's World!" ad nauseum. Courage gets so agitated by the song that he eventually just plugs his ears with large balls of cotton up until he finds the gerbil's lab.
• The Fairly OddParents!: In "Love at First Height," Timmy's too short to ride a roller coaster and gets redirected to some lame children's rides. One of them is "It's a Dull World", a slow boat ride where the kid goes into a tunnel and comes out one second later, disappointed.
• Family Guy: In an effort to appease Stewie, Peter takes him to Disney World. However, Stewie runs off and is captured by a staff member who has him chained and forced to act as an animatronic on "It's a Tiny World" (the alternative being doing a Christmas movie with Tim Allen). It takes Peter going on the ride for him to break free.
• The Loud House: Dairyland Amoosement Park features the "Seas of Cheese" ride, featuring animatronic cows singing the praises of lactose.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot has the "World Ain't So Big" ride, which is obviously a parody of this, down to the song sounding annoying. The animatronics inside the ride end up latching to Jenny, which annoys the heck out of her.
• The Oblongs: In one episode, when the family goes to an amusement park, one of the rides they go on is about child labour in third world countries, where children sing joyfully about the horrible working conditions they have.
• Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain: In "A Walk in the Park", Elmyra takes Pinky and Brain to Duckyland, which is home to the "Happy Sappy Children of Many Lands" ride. The Brain's plan to Take Over The World in this episode is to switch the ride's song with a message that will hypnotize the riders into worshipping him. This plan fails because Brain accidentally puts in an audiocassette of "Baloney's Greatest Hits" instead of the one with his message. The episode ends with Brain being so traumatized by the experience that he vows never to return to Duckyland, citing that not even world domination is worth going back.
• Rick and Morty: In the episode "Anatomy Park", Morty is sent by Rick into the body of a homeless man named Ruben where Rick has built a theme park called Anatomy Park. Several of the rides are parodies of Disney park rides including "It's A Small, Small Intestine". The ride is a boat ride through the small intestine that contains animatronics resembling blue children singing about the function of the small intestine. According to one of the park employees, the ride and its song goes on for miles, relatively speaking.
• The Simpsons: In "Selma's Choice", she is tasked with looking after Bart and Lisa at Duff Gardens theme park. There they ride the "Little Land of Duff", which is full of animatronics singing about a two-line song about Duff Beer. Bart, creeped out and annoyed, wants off; when he can't leave, he dares Lisa to drink the ride's "water". When Selma, shooting down their resultant argument, tells Lisa to do so too, she does — and starts hallucinating. Interestingly, the Duff Beer song is written as a perfect counterpoint to the Small World song — both sets of melodies and rhythms fit together when sung at the same time.

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