Hollywood Land: Never Built Disneyland

Never Built Disneyland 

Walt's Plane and Earful Tower Disney's MGM Studios

Disneyland was set to recieve a massive expansion in the 1990s, involving multiple new lands and eventually an elaborate second park known as Westcot. But the main addition to Disneyland in anticipation of this would be Hollywood Land.

Be sure to check out the rest of Never Built Disneyland, and today we will be exploring the never built Hollywood Land themed expansion of Disneyland.

Disney at the start of the 1990s had just opened Disney's MGM Studios to massive success in Walt Disney World and was looking to capitalize on it in their other parks. The problem was Disneyland really had no place where any of the attractions from the new park would work. So they decided to make one themselves.

Disney intended to add a Hollywood themed land to the park between Main Street USA and Tomorrowland, to add a home to attractions from Disney's MGM Studios, both past, and present.

Echo Lake Dino Gertie Disney's Hollywood Studios

The land would practically serve as a miniature version of the Disney World studios theme park. While no concept art was released for the land itself, rumors said it would feature icons from the park like Gertie, the Chinese Theater, and more.

It would feature multiple attractions from Disney's MGM Studios, most notably the Great Movie Ride, as well as a few rides that were planned to be added to both parks at about the same time.

Disney began planning rides based on both recent hit movies and a future film they expected to be a massive success.


A large section of the land was set to be dedicated to rides based on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The land was set at about the same time period as the film allowing you to be transported into the world of the film, with rides that would take you into both the Hollywood from the film and Toontown.

There would also be a major ride in the land based on a then-upcoming Disney film, Dick Tracey, known as Dick Tracey's Crimestoppers. But we will go into more detail on the original rides of the land in future entries of this series.

Great Movie Ride Western Scene Disney's Hollywood Studios

This land was set to be part of the Disney Decade, but ended up canceled in the aftermath of the dire financial situation that Disney Parks found themselves in following the failure of Euro Disneyland.

A much lower budget and less elaborate Hollywoodland would eventually open in Disney California Adventure, but without many of the elaborate attractions planned for this ride. Its cancelation would prevent the park from having a ride based on the flop that Dick Tracey turned out to be.


If this land had happened, many classic Disney rides would have never happened, most notably Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin and Indiana Jones Adventure. These both adapted concepts from this land and turned them into classic rides still enjoyed today.

Be sure to come back next week when we explore Dick Tracey's Crimestoppers. Also, check out the full series so far here.


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