Disneyland IX: The Scary Rides

If you have ever gone to Disneyland and spent any time at all in Fantasyland (a place ostensibly for children) with any degree of consciousness, you just can’t tell me that it’s not the most terrifying place one earth. Like many “children’s” literature and entertainment, it’s filled with allusions to the horrors of adult life: alcoholism, broken families, and abandonment.

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
This ride’s story is, I’m convinced, about drunk driving (which may or may not have been the intention of “The Wind in the Willows” writer Kenneth Grahame, but who cares…). The ride takes one through Mr. Toad’s chaotic path (in his car) almost crashing into his friends Rat and Mole, into a bar SERVING BEER (this ride is for 2-year-olds), into court where he is sentenced (with perhaps the the rodent equivalent of a DUI), back out in the world at which point he drives into a moving train, dies, and winds up in HELL. In this Catholic HELL, we meet the Devil and lots of scary demons. Thanks Disneyland for further traumatizing me with your Christian visions of the afterlife. Children of alcoholic parents will know where dad is going to end up!

Snow White’s Scary Adventure
We see little of Snow White here as most of the ride takes us through the journey of her evil step-mother who was so traumatized by our youth-oriented beauty culture that she stepped over the line of sanity by deciding to take the matter into her own hands with murder. The poor woman never got the help she needed (had she, perhaps she would have become a feminist and kept Snow White from becoming a bored houseprincess). In this age and day, people speak about erectile dysfunction or ED almost everywhere from office, home, sports fields to the house of overnight viagra congress. Spewholesale viagra 100mg http://amerikabulteni.com/2017/12/14/abd-otoriteryan-rejime-mi-kayiyor/ts possessing expert knowledge should only be purchased from authorized medical centers. cialis should not be considered as a curse. By making changes today, you can start strengthening your wholesale cialis price page link immune system and have a healthier gut. The attacks also recur with out any regular rate of recurrence and such situations need medical attention right away. amerikabulteni.com viagra cialis The ride abruptly ends just after Snow White eats the apple (before the Prince and everyone shows up) and when the Dwarves are chasing after the evil queen. At this weird juncture, the little car drives out to the light of day with a storybook that says “…and they lived happily ever after…” Did they run out of money? Or does Disneyland just like traumatizing kids by taking out the happy ending?

In my day of traveling to and fro rides like the Haunted Mansion, the ole Matterhorn, and Pirates of the Carribean (which we went on twice because the first time our boat was filled with Japanese men flashing away…I couldn’t look at a single skeleton without a red dot floating around), I must say Snow White’s Scary Adventure and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride most touched my fear bone. At 32, I have to ask myself why?

When I was four I came to Disneyland for the first time and was terrified by the Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion. I feared that maybe people went into these places and never came back (I actually thought the people coming out of the rides were clones of some kind…where I got this from I don’t know, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” maybe?).

The chill is still there. And maybe I should give Disneyland some credit, after all it’s hard to find a good horror film these days. The attractions are given so much detail and care that these worlds really do transport me to the fear and mysticism of my childhood fantasy life. You don’t get that at Magic Mountain.

Just for today, I respect the magic and horror of Disneyland.