Toy Story Midway Mania!

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"Toy Story Mania!" redirects here. For the video game, see Toy Story Mania! (video game).
Toy Story Midway Mania!
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250px
Toy Story Midway Mania! at Disney's Hollywood Studios
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Area Pixar Place
Status Operating
Opening date May 31, 2008 (2008-05-31)
Replaced Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It!
Disney California Adventure
Area Paradise Pier
Status Operating
Opening date June 17, 2008 (2008-06-17)
Tokyo DisneySea
Area American Waterfront
Status Operating
Opening date July 9, 2012 (2012-07-09)
General statistics
Attraction type Shooting dark ride
Designer Walt Disney Imagineering
Theme Carnival Midway Games, Toy Story
Music Randy Newman
Jennifer Hammond
Riders per vehicle 4
Rows 2
Riders per row 2
Duration 5-6 minutes
Disney's Fastpass available at Tokyo DisneySea
FastPass+ available
Handicapped/disabled access Wheelchair accessible
Assistive listening icon.svg Assistive listening available
Toy Story Mania at Tokyo DisneySea

Toy Story Midway Mania! (marketed as Toy Story Mania![1]) is an interactive 4-D theme park attraction, located at three Disney theme parks: Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, Disney California Adventure at the Disneyland Resort and Tokyo DisneySea at Tokyo Disney Resort.

Designed by Walt Disney Imagineering and inspired by Disney·Pixar's Toy Story franchise, the attraction was first unveiled during a press conference at Walt Disney World in January 2007. The Florida version opened officially on May 31, 2008,[2][3] while the California version officially opened on June 17, 2008.[4][5] The Japan version of the attraction opened on July 9, 2012.[6]

Story

Andy gets a new carnival play set for his birthday, and once comes down stairs for dinner, his toys come to life and assemble the carnival games.

The California ride formerly had a single rider line, however it closed on January 1, 2010.[7]

Concept

Park guests wear 3-D glasses (Carnival Games Goggles) aboard spinning vehicles that travel through virtual environments based on classic carnival midway games.[8][9] Ride vehicles seat up to eight in four back-to-back pairs. Small children are also able to ride on an adult's lap if they are facing forward with their legs securely underneath the safety bar.

Mini-games

The attraction features five mini-games after a practice round, each of which includes at least one "Easter egg" that can trigger additional targets or gameplay changes. These games include: Pie Throw Practice Booth (pie toss target practice game, a no points introduction), Hamm & Eggs (egg throw game now featuring Buttercup from Toy Story 3) Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts (dart throw game; once Bo Peep's Baa-loon Pop), Green Army Men Shoot Camp (baseball throw / plate breaking game), Buzz Lightyear's Flying Tossers (ring toss game), and Woody's Rootin' Tootin' Shootin' Gallery (suction cup shooting game).

Each guest's score is recorded by an onboard display screen as points are acquired with individual toy cannons firing simulated projectiles at virtual targets. Toy Story characters including Woody, Hamm, Buzz Lightyear, Rex and Trixie appear during the attraction's different games.

Similar technology has been used in Disney attractions such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold at DisneyQuest and several Buzz Lightyear attractions. According to Disney, it is the first attraction created simultaneously by Walt Disney Imagineering for two theme parks.[10]

The line at both parks features a large Mr. Potato Head Audio-Animatronics figure that interacts with guests through pre-recorded snippets of dialogue performed by comedian Don Rickles, who voiced the character in the Toy Story films. The sophisticated figure identifies people in the audience, sings and tells jokes.

Former Mini-Games

Only five mini-games can be used at a time at Toy Story Midway Mania! The Following games have been featured as part of Toy Story Midway Mania! in the past, but have been since replaced:

  • Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop (dart throw game) Replaced May 21, 2010 with "Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts" (updated with the release of Toy Story 3)[11]

Timeline

  • Late 2005 to Early 2006: Rumors start circulating that a Toy Story dark ride will be coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney California Adventure.
  • January 2007: Toy Story Midway Mania is announced at a press conference for Disney's Hollywood Studios. The ride is also announced for Disney California Adventure as the first part of their expansion.
  • 2007: Construction begins on the ride in California and Florida.
  • May 31, 2008: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
  • June 17, 2008: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Disney California Adventure.
  • January 1, 2010: Single Rider line is removed at Disney California Adventure.
  • May 21, 2010: Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop is replaced by Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts to promote the release of Toy Story 3.
  • July 9, 2012: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Tokyo DisneySea along with the new Toyville Trolley Park.
  • September 15, 2014: Rumors begin circulating that a third track will be added to the Hollywood Studios ride as a FastPass+ track. This will add more capacity to the ride making the lines move a lot faster.
  • March 5, 2015: Rumors are confirmed that a third track will be added to the Hollywood Studios installment to add more capacity to the popular attraction. The rumors come after many months of suspicious activity reported at the nearby Soundstage 1.[12]

Technology

Toy Story Midway Mania! is one of the most technologically sophisticated attractions yet developed by Walt Disney Imagineering, costing an estimated $80 million to design and build.[8] It marks the company's first use of industrial ethernet for a ride's control system.[13] Many of the parts for the attraction's control system came from two of Disney's corporate sponsors, Siemens AG and Hewlett-Packard.[13]

The control system is divided into three components: one for the ride vehicles, one for the games and one more for the attraction's special effects.[13] Programmable logic controllers in the vehicles alert the control system wirelessly via ProfiNET RT to the vehicle's speed and location. The central controller then sends its instructions back to the vehicles using a hard-wired network within the track. The one-way communications flow adds a factor of safety, even though the wireless network is protected against outside interference, such as a denial-of-service attack.[13]

The attraction features more than 150 PCs, which includes one HP Windows XP PC for each of Midway Mania's 56 game screens, as well as others that control the special effects at each game.[13] At the game screens, two tracking systems provide the game control system with the vehicle's exact location, making sure that gameplay is not affected by even minor differences in vehicle position. According to Jody Gerstner, executive director of show and ride controls, "The game doesn’t care if the car parks in the same spot every time. It just needs to know where each car has actually parked, and it can compensate."[13] Additional sensors in the spring-action shooter provide information on its orientation, which is fine-tuned using data on the position of the ride vehicle at the screen and the rotation of the seats on the vehicle base.[13]

All three sub-systems work together to handle any contingency. For example, if a delay or other vehicle stoppage is detected (such as might occur if the loading and unloading of the ride vehicles is taking longer than expected), the control system can command the affected game screens to launch a non-scoring practice round, so that guests may continue to shoot targets while they wait. Similarly, it can instruct the show control system to play an audio spiel telling guests about the delay.[13]

As the games are software-based, changes can be made to the attraction's lineup of games without significant effort. In April 2010, Disney Parks announced plans to replace "Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop" with "Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts." The change took place on May 21, 2010.[14] The new game includes one of the new characters from the Toy Story 3 feature film, which was released in June 2010.[14]

Locations

File:Toy Story Midway Mania.JPG
Toy Story Midway Mania at Disney California Adventure

Operational changes

In October 2014, Disney's Hollywood Studios began testing a new procedure that would require all riders to have FastPass reservations for the attraction.[15] The test, scheduled to last only a few days, eliminated the standby line that is used by visitors who have not already obtained a FastPass ticket for the ride, either because they had all been claimed or they were holding FastPasses for other attractions.[15] Some analysts suggest that this process could become more common in years to come as amusement parks attempt to keep guests from getting frustrated or waiting in extremely long lines.[15]

Name variation

The attraction is being referred to as both Toy Story Midway Mania! and Toy Story Mania!. While the attraction marquees and some in-park signage read the former, the latter has been used in press releases to the news media,[16][17] used in both resorts' advertisements, and on the disneyland.com, disneyworld.com, and official promotional website for the attraction, along with attraction merchandise. Websites for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World both identify the attraction with the registered trademark "Toy Story Midway Mania!" as of September 2014.

Music

Music for the queue area was arranged and recorded by Jennifer Hammond at Capitol Studios with a live orchestra. More than an hour of music was recorded, all based on the first two Toy Story scores composed by Randy Newman.[18]

Merchandising

Disney Interactive Studios released a "Toy Story Mania!" video game in September 2009 exclusively for the Nintendo Wii console.[19] The game features gameplay and levels similar to those in the theme park attractions, along with original levels and features.[19] Jakks Pacific also released their "Plug It In & Play TV Game" version of "Toy Story Mania!" in 2010 featuring the original levels & Infini-D technology (Infini-D glasses are included). A version for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was released on October 30, 2012.[20]

See also

References

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  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ http://touringplans.com/disney-california-adventure/attractions/closing-dates
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  12. ↑ http://www.mynews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/on-the-town/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2015/3/5/disney_soarin_toy_story_expansions.html
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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