Disney is continuing to scrub out Splash Mountain from digital platforms where they can ahead of a retheming to a Princess and the Frog-themed attraction. Recently, Disney removed the Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah music from the Disneyland Resort area music. They also removed references to the problematic Song of the South movie from the Disneyland website. While two Splash Mountain songs continue to play at the Magic Kingdom main entrance, Disney has removed a game from its Play Disney Parks app titled “The Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Day“.
Here’s how Disney described the game:
Guests will find their laughing place as they play together through a series of Splash Mountain-themed mini-games featuring some woodland pals from the attraction. After completing these whimsical challenges, guests are rewarded with special photo frames to help them capture their memories. This experience is a great way to turn wait time into play time while waiting in line for the attraction, and it can also be played anywhere at Walt Disney World Resort!
The Disney Parks Blog post that announced the game has also been scrubbed from the internet, with the previous url resolving to a Page Not found error. The since-deleted blog post is still linked to in a Plan Disney article that recommends the game to guests who are waiting in line for the Splash Mountain attraction.
Disney previously announced that Splash Mountain at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World would be getting rethemed to a Princess and the Frog-themed attraction, but hasn’t given a timeline for the project. Disney said that they began working on the retheme over a year ago.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
I have been hearing the talk about Song of the South being a racist movie, some calling it a “Jim Crow” event, and I just am left shaking my head. I have to throw out this question to everyone that is putting out these negative statements; have you ever actually seen the movie!!!??? I have seen it twice, once when I was about 6 and once a few weeks ago at age 63. This movie should be preserved, heralded, applauded, and held up to the light as maybe the first movie to seriously rip at the seams of racism and segregation.
For anyone who has never seen it, it is about a young boy named Johnny, the grandson of a rich plantation owner, whose best friend is Toby, the son of a sharecropper. Together they hear stories from Uncle Remus about Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, and others which he tells to make various points in an entertaining way. In the movie, Johnny is running hand in hand with Toby and it doesn’t matter what his life has to offer him, he would rather be just catching frogs with Toby. What this does is hold a mirror to society to show the clear and important lesson that prejudice is not something that we are born with. It does not exist in the innocence of a young child. It is something that we learn. The biggest part of walking the path of inclusiveness in society is that we have to stop teaching this lesson!
This must have been a very brave thing for Walt Disney to do in 1946. Jack Baskette, who played Uncle Remus, received an Academy Award for his work in this movie, handed to him by Ingrid Bergman herself, yet he was not allowed to go to the movie because blacks were banned from the theaters. How bad is that? I remember as a child, a good friend of my parents was a man named Smitty. He reminded me so much of Uncle Remus; same build, same voice, same twinkle in his eye. While both he and my parents have long since passed, and I don’t remember any particular times with him, there is a spot in my heart where I remember that I loved that man.
I agree that Princess Tiana should have her own ride. I have no doubt that Disney will do an amazing job with it and I can’t wait to see it and ride it, but it should not be at the loss of the gem that is Splash Mountain. They did an amazing job creating this one too. And my advise to everyone is, before you make judgments as to whether or not the movie is racist, watch the movie! And before you hang your hat on the concept that it depicts sharecroppers in a happy light without accurately showing the hardships of these people, remember that it is a children’s movie, not a documentary!