Ever wonder why the carousel theater in Disneyland was retired? To answer that question we have to look at it's proposed replacement, Placu's Fantastic Intergalactic Revue
Welcome to the first in a new series of articles here at TPE. Inspired by the now-concluded Epcot Center's Cancelled Attractions series and the current Disney's Animal Kingdom's Cancelled Attractions we have started a third series exploring canceled rides from the Disney Parks, Never Built Disneyland.
Today we start that series with a look at a concept for an original Tomorrowland carousel theater show.
This ride would have been a part of the proposed 1990s replacement for Tomorrowland, Tomorrowland 2055. This proposal was based on the original concept for Tomorrowland, basing it off of a specific year in the future, just now pushing the date forward as the original date had already passed.
Mainly, this proposed bringing rides from other Disney Parks to Disneyland, but it would also feature a brand new attraction replacing America Sings. This would have been Placu's Fantastic Intergalactic Revue, or Galactic Revue, the name changed between galactic and intergalactic in different press releases and it is uncertain which would have been the final name. For clarity, we will be referring to it as with Intergalactic for the rest of the article.
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This would have been a carousel-style stage show featuring a series of different musical acts from across the galaxy. Think of it as a space-themed version of the Country Bear Jamboree, but instead of different bear acts, it is aliens performing different genres of music. Above is the only publically released concept art for this attraction, which has vivid bright colors reflecting the alien worlds this show would have represented.
This show would have continued the tradition of animatronic musical stage shows that had dated back to classics like the Carousel of Progress and the Enchanted Tiki Room. Instead, this art form has pretty much died off. Since this was proposed, the only new animatronic musical stage shows have been overlays on the Enchanted Tiki Room. As a result of the failed Disney Decade, we lost not just individual projects, but a type of attraction that had been a part of the Disney Parks for decades of their history.
This attraction only filled the bottom floor of the building, with another animatronic show filling the top floor.
This was one of the many attractions planned for the ill-fated Disney Decade announced by Michael Eisner. Unfortunately, this fell victim to the financial hardships the company faced following the early failure of the Euro Disneyland Resort. It, along with every project of the Tomorrowland 2055, was canceled in favor of a smaller budget Tomorrowland refurb. This took inspiration from 1990s Future World and Discoveryland from Euro Disneyland, but mainly only involved aesthetic changes to the land, not new attractions (except Rocket Rods, but that's a story for another day).
This renovation permanently removed the carousel theater from Disneyland, instead turning it into an expo center, known throughout the years from various names from Innoventions to its current name, Star Wars Launch Bay. The spinning mechanism is likely still in place, but it had not been in active use for years, and much of the infrastructure has been permanently changed for its current usage.
Would you have liked to see Tomorrowland 2055? What would you like to see happen to Disneyland's carousel theater now? Let us know in the comments.
Also, this is the first in a new series, chronicling attractions that were never built in Disneyland. For a similar already existing series here at Theme Parks and Entertainment, please check out Epcot Center's Canceled Attractions which is a subseries of Attractions from Neverland.
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