Walt Disney Imagineering today revealed new details about two of its upcoming new attractions at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.
You can find the reveals in the latest episode of WDI's "We Call It Imagineering" series on YouTube. Called "Soundscapes," the episode details Imagineering's work with musicians to create the soundtracks that help bring so many Disney theme park attractions to life.
The first bits of fresh information we get in the episode reveals news about the new Country Bear Musical Jamboree, which opens this summer at the Disney World. Disney previously announced that the reworked Country Bears show would feature the Audio Animatronic bears singing Disney songs in a variety of country music styles.
From the episode, we learned that two of those songs will be "A Whole New World" from "Aladdin" as well as "Try Everything" from "Zootopia." Allison Russell and Christopher Scott Thile will voice Teddi Barra and Wendell for the former, while Emily Ann Roberts will voice Trixie for the latter.
Later in the episode, we get our first sanctioned on-ride views from inside Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which opens June 28 at the Magic Kingdom. On the ride, musician PJ Morton gets to hear his song, "Special Spice," which is featured in the flume ride's finale, which we also get to see for the first time. (And yes, as predicted, the "special spice" missing ingredient in the ride is... us.)
The episode also reveals the placement of one of the Tiana animatronics on the initial lift into the salt dome that is now the setting for the former Splash Mountain ride.
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I'm trying to like the song, but it's just not grabbing me, perhaps because it is so generic sounding. It's possible that the tracked-out orchestration that you hear on the ride will help it click, but it's certainly not an earworm like other iconic Disney ride songs.
As far as the scenes, they all look very nice with very convincing animatronics, but I do find it interesting how much that final scene mimics Splash's finale. There was obviously going to be some similarity since they were overlaying an existing attraction, but the lighting, staging, and design, right down to the banner when you enter the room, are straight from Splash Mountain. Contrast that to how much Maelstrom and Great Movie Ride changed during their rethemings. Aside from the overall exterior silhouette, the attraction does not appear to have changed that much. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is unclear.
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TBA looks badass and full of life in my opinion. This brief snippet has me very excited to see what next-level show scenes will be on display once the ride re-opens.