After I completed my time on Disneyland park, Paris, I moved on to several unrealized projects. For confidentiality reasons those projects cannot be discussed here. But during that time I designed several different ride vehicles and track layouts along with preliminary planning of the related rides.
One of those projects was for a Winnie-the-Pooh attraction that, although unrealized, formed the basic storyline for the same attraction at Disneyland. The greatest challenge for any Winnie-the-Pooh attraction had always been the storyline. The Winnie-the-Pooh property’s greatest appeal is to young children yet, the frightening Heffalumps and Woozles seemed to dominate too many of the previous concepts.
After carefully reviewing most of the films the answer seemed obvious to me. Ride-through attractions work best as traveling stories. Each of the films opened with a view of the Hundred Acre Woods map. A number of locations were drawn on the map. It just so happened that the top portion of the map coincided with locations from the film “Winnie-the-Pooh and the Blustery Day,” while the bottom of the map matched locations from “Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger Too.” These two films would provide an excellent basis for the storyline and the map gave us a plan.
By starting at Christopher Robin’s tree house one could make a clockwise tour through the Hundred Acre Woods and (if the timing were right) just happen upon vignettes of Pooh and his friends in the midst of some adventure at every turn. I made a few minor changes to the map and presented it as the storyline.
Work on the attraction was ultimately suspended, but years later my version is essentially the same storyline used at Disneyland. Although I can’t show work that has not been produced, this attraction, in the same basic form, has been. Shown here is a marker drawing of the map showing the ride path.
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