Guide Tour of Mickey’s Toontown, Disneyland Park, California, United States
Mickey’s Toontown is a themed land at Disneyland. The attraction is a small-scale recreation of the Mickey Mouse universe where visitors can meet the characters and visit their homes which are constructed in a cartoonish style. It was inspired by “Toontown” from the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit in which cartoon characters live apart from humans. Mickey’s Toontown is based on a 1930s cartoon aesthetic and is home to Disney’s most popular cartoon characters.
Toontown features two main attractions: Gadget’s Go Coaster and Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. The “city” is also home to cartoon character’s houses such as the house of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Goofy, as well as Donald Duck’s boat. The 3 ft (914 mm) gauge Jolly Trolley can also be found in this area, though it closed as an attraction in 2003 and is now present only for display purposes.
Roger Rabbit was recognized as a lucrative character by Disney after the release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and a set of attractions based on the movie was developed for Disney theme parks. Roger Rabbit was set to be the star of his own land, behind Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland, called Hollywoodland.
Hollywoodland was combined with the concept of Mickey’s Birthdayland, as well as a concept found in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, to form Mickey’s Toontown, which opened in 1993 behind Fantasyland at Disneyland. The area is inspired by Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and resembles a set from a Max Fleischer cartoon. The buildings are stylized and colorful. There are several attractions involving classic cartoon characters, such as the houses of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and a small children’s coaster. There are a few interactive gags.
Compared to other Disneyland areas however, there are few large or technically complex rides or shows, and the houses themselves appeal primarily as play areas for small children. On one of the windows above the library in this land, there is a reference to Laugh-O-Gram Studios, the studio that Disney created before the Disney Studios.
An early entry event called Toontown Morning Madness was held here for guests booking travel with the American Automobile Association (AAA) or book a vacation package with the Walt Disney Travel Company. However, Morning Madness has been discontinued as of 2013 as Extra Magic Hour and Magic Morning are now offered.
On nights that fireworks are scheduled, the land will close early for the day due to its proximity to the launch area for the fireworks. Mickey’s Toontown Depot stays open from park opening to park closing as it also serves as a stop for Fantasyland with the station being next to the Fantasyland Theatre. On non-fireworks days, the land closes with the park.
In April 2019, Disney announced that Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, now open at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, would open at Mickey’s Toontown in Disneyland in 2023. The ride will be housed in a new building within Toontown called the El CapiTOON Theater, a pun of the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood which in turn is owned by Disney. The attraction, which is expected to replace the Gag Factory store, will be the first new attraction added in Toontown since Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin opened in 1994.
In November 2021, Disney announced that Mickey’s Toontown in Disneyland will receive a makeover. The new features will include play experiences for children and families. With the addition of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, a new children’s play area will be added called CenTOONial Park and will feature a fountain. Mickey’s Toontown will close in March 2022 and is scheduled to reopened in early 2023. In 2023 Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway will open at Mickey’s Toontown. The new family-friendly dark ride will increase the size of Toontown as well as the size of Disneyland from 99 to 101 acres (40 to 41 ha).
Gadget’s Go Coaster
Gadget’s Go Coaster is a junior roller coaster at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California. The ride is based on the work of the character Gadget Hackwrench from the Disney animated series Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers at Tokyo Disneyland and formerly at Disneyland. Gadget is depicted on top of a small weather-vane on a building towards Chip and Dale’s Tree House, as well as on a postage stamp in the attraction’s loading area.
When riders walk up to the front entrance, they see the sign. The ride is primarily for children and therefore has very small cars. While two children can easily fit into a single car, most adults would have to travel alone (or with a small child). Guests board a train modeled after a homemade plane.
Once on board, guests hear a safety spiel by Gadget (voiced by Tress MacNeille). Guests travel through Gadget’s salvaged old comb, soup can and thread spool, and over Toon Lake. Near the end of the ride (the fastest turn), cartoon frogs squirt water above guests’ heads. The coaster comes to a stop and pulls into the station. The riders then return to Toontown.
Mickey’s House and Meet Mickey
Mickey’s House and Meet Mickey is a walk through and Meet & Greet attraction at Mickey’s Toontown in Disneyland and Toontown. After the success of Mickey’s Starland, Disneyland wanted to bring a clone of the land behind It’s a Small World. This land also had Mickey’s House along with Minnie’s House, Goofy’s House and Donald’s Boat. This land also had Roger Rabbits Cartoon Spin.
Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin is a dark ride located at the Disneyland theme parks, based on the Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis live action/ animated feature film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Both versions of the attraction are located in Mickey’s Toontown. In September 2021, it was announced that the ride will be updated in Disneyland to include a new plot element of Jessica Rabbit in the role of a private eye who is determined to stop a crime wave in Toontown.
Entering the Toontown Cab Company, the queue winds its way through darkened Toontown streets and alleys, passing through the Ink and Paint Club’s backstage areas like Jessica Rabbit’s dressing room and the prop cage, then past the window of Baby Herman’s apartment. In a window on the upper floors, the shadows of the Toon Patrol can be seen plotting to Dip the city with the queue passing above their Dip refinery.
Exiting this area, the guests return to the Toontown Cab Company and approach the loading area. Characters’ voices can also be heard throughout the queue, including two points where the Toon Patrol can be heard discussing their plans, one in the alley in front of the Ink and Paint Club and the other in their hideout. Jessica can also be heard talking on the phone outside her dressing room door.
At the start of the ride’s queue, some license plates hanging on the wall have code-like puns of various Disney characters or slogans. Guests board a yellow Toon cab named Lenny the Cab, the twin cousin of Benny the Cab. Each cab seats two people, and the cabs are dispatched in groups of two. Once the traffic light in the loading area changes to green (with the hand on its side pointing left), the cabs leave the loading area.
The ride begins with Stupid, Greasy and Wheezy dumping barrels of Dip into the streets, sending Roger Rabbit and Benny spinning out of control, and the guests’ cab drives into the Dip as well. At this point, the steering wheel of the cab becomes active, and the cab can then spin around, much like Fantasyland’s Mad Tea Party. Nearby, Smarty has tied up Jessica and placed her in the trunk of his car.
The cabs then crash through a China shop run by a bull, who is trying to protect some of his stock. Upon exiting the shop, the cars travel down Spin Street, where Toon fire hydrants, power cables, mailboxes, and streetlights laugh and dance around.
Next, the cabs enter the Toontown Power House, where they pass a furnace with an abstract face and encounter Roger having an electricity fight with Psycho. Passing through a series of explosions, the cabs “fall down” from Toon skyscrapers. Heading closer to street level past a group of stairs, Roger promises to fix things.
The cabs then enter the Gag Factory, going past various jokes and gags, and a weasel named Sleazy holds a large metal gate open for the cabs, intending to “put them out of contrition”. Jessica manages to free herself and assault Greasy and Wheezy. Stupid then tries to drop a safe onto the cabs. Just as the Dip Machine (operated by Smarty) is about to Dip the cabs, they narrowly escape and Roger saves the day by stretching his arm out and using a portable hole to allow the cabs to return safely to the Toontown Cab Company, going through a cartoon “The End” title card to return to the loading area.
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is a trackless dark ride located in Mickey’s Toontown at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The attraction is the first ride-through attraction at a Disney theme park to be themed to Mickey Mouse. It is based on the stylized world from the character’s 2013 animated television series. The version of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios was first announced in July 2017 at the D23 Expo as one of 23 planned changes to Disney Parks.
The premise of the ride is where guests are invited inside the theater to watch the film premiere of a brand new Mickey Mouse cartoon, Perfect Picnic. After entering the auditorium, guests are introduced to a new short film premiere from Mickey and Minnie called Perfect Picnic. The animated cartoon short begins with Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto preparing for a picnic at Runnamuck Park, singing “Nothing Can Stop Us Now”. While packing Mickey’s car, Minnie accidentally packs Pluto with the picnic basket in the trunk.
Once the train stops at the loading station, guests board one of four cars behind the locomotive. The train then departs the station and makes a left turn, passing the park on a musical sunny day before entering a tunnel. The cars exit the tunnel into a desert with Mickey and Minnie on horses trying to round up the cars. Despite their attempts to help, Mickey and Minnie become tangled in their ropes, with nearby vultures roosting nearby. The cars then enter an amusement park where Mickey and Minnie float in attached to some balloons. Before they can make their way down, the twister logo on the side of the park’s wooden roller coaster comes to life, sending everything into a frenzy.
Each car moves into a dark room with the tornado at its center. Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto are seen swirling around. In the next room, the duo lands on a tropical island where a volcanic eruption occurs. Each of the four cars enter a scene where Mickey and Minnie are shown to be caught in a rapid downstream heading toward a waterfall. Guests are seemingly following close behind and fall with them into the water, emerging moments later in an underwater reef. It is filled with a variety of animated sea life moving to doo-wop music with some playing instruments and including a blue squid playing his trumpet.
The scene transitions into a sewage system where the water drains away, and the cars move into another room depicting the downtown of a large city at night. Pete can be seen with a jackhammer doing construction work and laughing, while Donald Duck is spotted in a delivery van honking at the traffic the train cars are causing.
The cars veer left into a room designed as a dance studio, and Daisy Duck leads them into a waltz followed by a conga. The cars dance their way into a back alley and into a factory, as Minnie warns not to enter. The cars then appear to be stuck on a conveyor belt moving toward a smashing machine. Mickey and Minnie eventually manage to pull a switch that shuts down the factory and transforms it into a moonlit night at the park.
The cars reverse and turn around, moving into another room where Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto are finally having their picnic. The lead car reattaches to the locomotive helmed by Goofy, who tells guests that his “guided tour” has concluded and thanks them for staying with him. Goofy waves goodbye, closes the back window and is heard discovering a lever wondering what it does. Just before the train returns to the station, he pulls it, triggering a small explosion inside his cab followed by his signature holler, giving riders one last laugh. Guests leave the station and pass through the same movie screen returning them to the real world, which now shows the “The End” title card.
Disneyland Railroad
The Disneyland Railroad is a 3-foot (914 mm) narrow-gauge heritage railroad and attraction in the Disneyland theme park of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, in the United States.
The railroad has been consistently billed as one of Disneyland’s top attractions. Its route is 1.2 miles (1.9 km) long and encircles the majority of the park, with train stations in four different park areas. The rail line, which was constructed by WED Enterprises, operates with two steam locomotives built by WED and three historic steam locomotives originally built by Baldwin Locomotive Works.
The attraction was conceived by Walt Disney, who drew inspiration from the ridable miniature Carolwood Pacific Railroad built in his backyard. The Disneyland Railroad opened to the public at Disneyland’s grand opening on July 17, 1955. Since that time, multiple alterations have been made to its route, including the addition of two large dioramas in the late 1950s and mid-1960s. Several changes have been made to its rolling stock, including the conversion of one of its train cars into a parlor car in the mid-1970s, and the switch from diesel oil to biodiesel to fuel its locomotives in the late 2000s.
Beginning at Main Street, U.S.A. Station adjacent to Disneyland’s entrance, where a pump-style handcar built by the Kalamazoo Manufacturing Company can be seen on a siding, the trains of the Disneyland Railroad travel along its single track in a clockwise direction on its circular route.
Once the signal light in the locomotive turns green, the journey from the Main Street, U.S.A. section begins with the train traversing a small bridge, passing by the Adventureland section, and going through a tunnel before arriving at New Orleans Square Station in the New Orleans Square section. While the train is stopped at this station, where the locomotive takes on water from the railroad’s water tower if needed, a sound effect of a telegraph operator using a telegraph key to enter Morse code can be heard emanating from the old Frontierland Station depot building.
After the journey restarts, the train travels past the Haunted Mansion dark ride attraction, enters a tunnel through the Splash Mountain log flume attraction, and crosses a trestle bridge over the Critter Country section. It then moves over another trestle bridge that wraps around the Rivers of America in the Frontierland section, and rolls through another tunnel before reaching Mickey’s Toontown Depot between the Mickey’s Toontown and Fantasyland sections. While the train is stopped at this station, a non-functioning water tower can be seen on the opposite side of the track to the station’s depot building.
Once the journey resumes, the train moves across an overpass and passes by the façade of the It’s a Small World water-based dark ride attraction before reaching a fuel pump disguised as a boulder, where the train stops if the locomotive needs to be refueled. From this point, the train cuts across an access road and goes underneath the track of the Disneyland Monorail before stopping at Tomorrowland Station in the Tomorrowland section.
When the journey continues, the train goes across another access road and enters a tunnel containing the Grand Canyon Diorama followed by the Primeval World Diorama. As the train runs alongside the Grand Canyon Diorama, the main theme from On the Trail, the third movement of Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, can be heard; and as the train runs alongside the Primeval World Diorama, music from the 1961 film Mysterious Island can be heard. Shortly after leaving the tunnel, the train arrives back at Main Street, U.S.A. Station, completing what the park refers to as The Grand Circle Tour.
Disneyland
The Disneyland Park, is the first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17, 1955. It is the only theme park designed and built to completion under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. It was originally the only attraction on the property; its official name was changed to Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the expanding complex in the 1990s. It was the first Disney theme park.
Since its opening, Disneyland has undergone expansions and major renovations, including the addition of New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now Critter Country) in 1972, Mickey’s Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019. Opened in 2001, Disney California Adventure Park was built on the site of Disneyland’s original parking lot.
Disneyland Park consists of nine themed “lands” and a number of concealed backstage areas, and occupies over 100 acres. The park opened with Main Street, U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland, and has since added New Orleans Square in 1966, Bear Country (now known as Critter Country) in 1972, and Mickey’s Toontown in 1993, and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in 2019.