Breaking the Fourth Wall Archives

Walt Disney World has opened a new ride in its Hollywood Studios Park. Maybe you're not able to visit Orlando, Florida at the moment, but we have a treat for you, thanks to the folks at Attractions Magazine who shared their ride video with the world: you can vicariously ride Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway by watching this full POV ride video. Turn down the SCIFI.radio stream, using the handy dandy controller on the upper right of the screen, so you can hear Goofy, Mickey, Donald, Daisy, and the whole Disney gang. https://www.youtube.com/watch?vSvfypxnHD-o OK, you turn the SCIFI.radio stream back on now. The new ride, which opened March 4, 2020 in Orlando, FL, is an amazing combination of animation, audio-animatronics, and that odd thing called Reality. This new ride replaces The Great Movie Ride in Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM Studios Park). It appears to start with the rider either at the cinema either watching a Mickey Mouse cartoon, or being in one. The fourth wall is broken almost immediately - and literally, and that's the point. Guests are invited into a cartoon world by passing through a hole blasted in the wall at the cartoon train station, and from that point on they are a part of that world themselves. It's a special treasure of an experience that only Disney could deliver. It all starts with Engineer Goofy driving a train as he passes Mickey and Minnie in their car on their way to a picnic. A bump in the road tosses Pluto and the picnic basket out of the car, and Minnie's home-baked pie hurtles into the air, and of course there's nowhere for it to go but into the smokestack of Goofy's steam engine, plugging it shut. Naturally this isn't good for the train engine, and after a major explosion, the train breaks apart with different passenger cars going different directions - which implies that this is one of those Disney rides that may have so many variations that each time you ride it's slightly different. If that's the case, the rest of the ride video shows us just one of the possible paths. In this video, once the train loses its engineer, you pass through what appears to be inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, or its predecessor, the half-forgotten Rainbow Ridge Pack Mules, or within a Disney western like The Apple Dumpling Gang or One Little Indian. From there it's off to something like the Beautiful Briny Sea in a sequence more than a little reminiscent of the Lagoon of Naboombu from Bedknobs and Broomsticks, blended with Finding Nemo, The Little Mermaid, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. When the train returns to dry land, we visit a city, and we get to see Mickey Mouse, Pete, and Donald Duck once again before stopping at Daisy Duck's dance studio, where train cars (and their passengers) waltz and conga, with an amazingly fluid animatronic Daisy Duck teaching dance class. Eventually the train cars are reunited with the engine, and of course, Engineer Goofy (being Goofy) doesn't seem to notice that anything was ever awry. At last, the riders pass by Mickey and Minnie, calmly enjoying a picnic in the park. This reporter has two predictions: the ride will be fun, and it will let out in a gift shop. We always want to hear from you. Talk to us in the comments section below. What do you think of the new ride? Are you looking forward to going on Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway? Did you ever get to see the Great Movie Ride? Will you miss it? Oh, and if you're closer to California than Florida, you'll have to wait a couple of years. The ride is coming to Disneyland's Toon Town in Anaheim, California, but doesn't open until 2022. {image via Disney} -30-

Take a Ride on Disney World’s “Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway”

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