Some three years after Splash Mountain closed, a reference to the problematic attraction remains at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In fact, the Splash Mountain reference remains in place some 19 months after a Splash Mountain/Song of the South reference was removed from the very same exhibit that the present-day reference is a part of. Here’s the latest, and the reason why we don’t think Disney will try to remove this particular reference.
Splash Mountain References Remain in Walt Disney World
Back in March 2024, as Disney made final preparations to open Tiana’s Bayou Adventure that Summer, we couldn’t help but notice a glaring reference to the problematic Song of the South movie that the Splash Mountain attraction was based on.
It took Disney a little while, but they removed the reference by September 2024, replacing a Song of the South reference with a reference to The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. I’m assuming that the old Song of the South reference was something that Disney overlooked initially, but then corrected.
Now, a reference to Song of the South characters that were utilized in the Splash Mountain attraction remains to this day, just steps away.
Back in October 2023, Disney added a new display in the Walt Disney Presents exhibit. The display featured a scale model of Disneyland as it appeared on its opening day back in 1955. The model was commissioned for the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland earlier this millennium and sat in the Disneyland Opera House through early 2023.
While visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios recently, we noticed that the scale model still had references to Splash Mountain characters that originated in the Song of the South movie. Along the border of the scale model, a number of Disney characters can be found, including Br’er Fox, Br’er Bear, and Br’er Rabbit. Here’s a closer look, followed by our thoughts on the characters still being part of a display at Walt Disney World.
Before I close out this article, I wanted to offer a few thoughts about this and another remaining Splash Mountain reference still in place to this day at Walt Disney World. I’ll start with the Splash Mountain reference above at Walt Disney Presents. I don’t think it’ll change.
While these characters were not a part of Disneyland when it opened, the inclusion of these characters on the border of the scale model shows how important they were to the company at one time. While the Song of the South movie has been something that The Walt Disney Company has tried to distance itself from throughout history, Disney thought that the characters could be divorced from the source material.
Back in 1987, before Splash Mountain opened, Disney acknowledged that the ride could be problematic due to the source material, Song of the South, being so controversial. That said, they thought guests would look past the problems of the source material and focus on the critters instead. For decades, it seems like that’s what happened. According to an LA Times article, Disney officials said they “do not expect the ride to provoke criticism because it uses only the animated animal characters”. As it turns out, Disney would eventually be proven wrong.
Ultimately, it would take more than 30 years for Disney to address the attraction. It’s hard to ignore the timing of the announcement. The June 25, 2020 announcement was made during a summer of civil unrest. Disney has said that a rework of the attraction was planned for more than a year, and one lead Imagineer, Carmen Smith, eventually said that the idea for a Princess and the Frog-themed attraction to replace Splash Mountain began in 2018.
In the June 2020 announcement, Disney took on the topic of inclusion straight on. They said that the reimagining of Splash Mountain “is of particular importance today”. Disney said that “the new concept is inclusive – one that all of our guests can connect with and be inspired by, and it speaks to the diversity of the millions of people who visit our parks each year”. Imagineer Carmen Smith continued to drive home the point in that initial announcement, saying “it is important that guests be able to see themselves in the experiences we create”, and noted that Disney worked with cultural advisors and other experts to guide them during the development of a Princess and the Frog ride.
During the development of the ride, Disney had two CEO’s. In a March 2020 shareholder meeting, Disney CEO Bob Iger talked about Song of the South when a shareholder asked if it would be included in the Disney+ catalog. Iger said, “I’ve felt as long as I’ve been CEO that Song of the South — even with a disclaimer — was just not appropriate in today’s world…It’s just hard, given the depictions in some of those films, to bring them out today without in some form or another offending people, so we’ve decided not to do that.” Just a few months later, Disney announced that Splash Mountain would be closed permanently.
In a March 2021 interview, then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek noted that Splash Mountain was based on the problematic Song of the South movie and that the movie depicted “happy slaves”. Chapek said that Disney had to have the courage to change the attraction, and they did.
Ultimately, the messaging was clear: Splash Mountain had to go. That said, references to the attraction that was so problematic still remain to this day at Walt Disney World, including the reference at Walt Disney Presents, as seen above.
Another reference to Splash Mountain exists in the Magic Kingdom entrance background audio loop, of all places. To this day, the Ev’rybody Has a Laughing Place song remains as part of the background music for Magic Kingdom, years after Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah was removed from the same loop. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah was removed from the finale section of the Festival of Fantasy Parade back in 2022 when the parade returned following the COVID-19 shutdowns.
For some reason, the Laughing Place song and the aforementioned references to the characters on the scale model remain in place. Seemingly, those references are deemed ok by the company, while others are a step too far.
Without knowing the ins and outs of how Disney makes these decisions on which Splash Mountain references are acceptable and which are unacceptable, we’re left with an irreconcilable inconsistency. In fact, this inconsistency was the basis for a March 2022 article that we wrote titled ‘I’ is for Inconsistent, Not Inclusion.
All of this to say, I don’t expect the final Splash Mountain references at Walt Disney World to be removed. I’d imagine that the characters on the border of the Disneyland scale model will remain in place, as depicted during the commissioning of the scale model some 20 years ago. As for the Laughing Place song, if Disney hasn’t removed it yet, I’m not sure they’re going to.
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!
no one cares!!!!!
I hope they add more references to Splash Mountain, like they just did in their social media by showing the animatronics from the ride.