Iago: Zazu, have you finally fixed your computer? Our fans have been waiting a long time since our last Attraction of the Week script.

Zazu: Yes, I know. I do apologize for the delay. This blasted machine seems to have gotten overloaded from that minor adjustment I attempted.

Iago: Well, it serves you right! Trying to reprogram the Tiki Room back to its original state ... ha! That's impossible.

Zazu: Yes, I now realize that you have infected it with a virus that can never be eradicated.

Iago: Look, I told you, I saw Dr. Ima Sticker about that. Let's just move on. What are we gonna talk about this week?

Zazu: Well, all the buzz about that missing probe got me to thinking --

Iago: Missing probe?! Oh my God! I knew I shouldn't have trusted that Sticker broad. She swore up and down that she wasn't gonna breathe a word about that to anyone. Don't these doctors have any respect for privacy? I should have been suspicious when she said that she was a hypocritical oaf.

Zazu: Iago, I'm sure she must have said something about the "hippocratic oath." And just what are you babbling about?

Iago: Uh ... never mind. Forget I ever mentioned it. I'm sure it will turn up one of these days. Probably after I've eaten a few tacos over at El Pirata Y el Perico.

Zazu: No, I'm afraid the probe will never show up again. I understand it was totally destroyed by the atmospheric friction and heat from its target.

Iago: What!? Do you mean to say the doctor told you that I'll never get that thing out of my --

Zazu: Good heavens, Iago, stop right there! Please. I am not referring to your -- your -- nether regions. <gag> I am talking about the Mars Climate Orbiter that NASA lost a few days ago.

Iago: Oh, that. Phew! You had me worried there. Well, what about it?

Zazu: It reminded me of an extinct attraction called "Mission to Mars." Actually, it started out as "Rocket to the Moon."

Iago: Wow, talk about a bad sense of direction!

Zazu: No, no, let me explain. "Rocket to the Moon" opened in July of 1955 at Disneyland. Pre-flight publicity indicated that the two vehicles in the attraction would be named "R.S. Luna" and "R.S. Diana."

Iago: Hey, I think those two are in my little black book. Right before R.S.V.P. I haven't tried calling that V.P. gal yet, but she must be pretty hot stuff. Her phone number's on every party invitation I've ever seen. I hope those initials stand for "Really Sexy Very Pretty."

Zazu: No, you twit! They stand for repondez s'il vous plait.

Iago: Ooh, she's French. Even better.

Zazu: Forget about the ladies! Now where was I? Oh yes. By the time the attraction was launched, the vehicles had been renamed "Star of Antares" and "Star of Polaris." Somehow, one always seemed to end up flying the "Star of Polaris." The cabin capacity was 102, and the pilot was Captain Collins. The theaters were quite visibly shaped as hemispherical domes with prominent ridges.

Iago: Speak English!

Zazu: Er, like Marvin the Martian's helmet without the scrubbrush.

Iago: Thank you!

Zazu: The domes were made from the most modern of high-tech materials available in the 1950s ... stucco over a wood frame, like so much of California's vernacular architecture. And then there was ... the special seating inside....

Iago: The seating? What about it?

Zazu: I know I'm going to regret this, but ... the seats in the theaters were pneumatic, and inflated or deflated to simulate liftoff and weightlessness.

Iago: You mean the guests sat on whoopee cushions? Haha! Now that's my kind of space voyage.

Zazu: Well, not precisely. There was another feature ... they vibrated.

Iago: WHAT?! Disney had Magic Fingers seats?! Talk about a thrill ride! Are any of these still around? Can I buy them on eBay? How could I have missed this attraction?

Zazu: Oh, calm down. The seats simulated the rocket moving, not the earth. Er, moving right along, the attraction was sponsored by TWA from 1955 to 1961, and McDonnell Douglas from 8 June 1962 to 1966.

Iago: Oh, he was great in "Days of Our Lives."

Zazu: That was Macdonald Carey!

Iago: Oh, right. McDonnell Douglas was in Disclosure.

Zazu: No, McDonnell Douglas builds airplanes! Or, more accurately, used to build airplanes.

Iago: Really? Boy, Hollywood's a tough town. One minute you're kissing Demi Moore, the next minute you're an unemployed Rosie the Riveter.

Zazu: <sigh> The pre-show included a 16mm film on the history of space exploration, all the way up through your own flight. And the lobby contained a variety of scales, including one which allowed guests to see what they would weigh on the Moon. Your Moon weight is only 0.165 of Earth normal.

Iago: Hey, can I set my bathroom scale to display my weight in Moon pounds?

Zazu: You don't even have a bathroom.

Iago: Jumpin' Jupiter! I keep forgetting. Remind me to be careful where I step when I go home tonight.

Zazu: Forget about jumping on Jupiter. Your weight there is 2.64 times Earth normal. I doubt you could lift yourself off the ground. Have I mentioned the "Moonliner" yet?

Iago: Is that the new Disney cruise ship that sails the Sea of Tranquility?

Zazu: No, it was Tomorrowland's original wienie.

Iago: Do you mean to tell me that Tomorrowland has had its wienie replaced?

Zazu: Ahem! The "Moonliner" was 76 feet tall and nine feet in diameter.

Iago: Holy cow! Why would they want to replace it?

Zazu: Oh, stop it! It was a ship. A rocketship. Like other ships, it was christened with a bottle of champagne; probably the last such bottle enjoyed inside the park until the opening of Club 33. Designed with help from Werner von Braun and Willy Ley, the "Moonliner" was actually a scale model. It was calculated that it would take a vessel three times that size to actually make the flight depicted. A near twin of the "Moonliner" was built at the same time as Disneyland's and it was erect-- er, it was placed at TWA headquarters in Kansas City. It now graces a trailer park in Missouri. Go figure!

Iago: What happened to the one in Disneyland? I think it's my idol.

Zazu: I'm afraid it's a fallen idol. Both the attraction building and the "Moonliner" were demolished in 1966 in the name of progress. The Carousel of Progress, to be exact.

Iago: I thought you said the attraction became "Mission to Mars," not "Carousel of Progress."

Zazu: I'm getting to that.

Iago: At this rate, you'll get there next year.

Zazu: Be quiet and listen. "Flight to the Moon" opened in the Summer of 1967, in a new building on the site of the former Flying Saucers. Cabin capacity was 162. Like its predecessor, the flight included fairly close views of the farside of the Moon, including the ruins of an alien civilization who had once colonized there.

Iago: Was it like Star Tours, where you sat in the cabin and looked at a movie in front of you?

Zazu: No, it was quite different. Circular rear-projection "scanner screens" in the ceiling and floor showed a view outside the Lunar Transporter. The floor screen showed you where you had been, and the ceiling screen showed where you were going. In both "Flight," and later in "Mission to Mars," auxiliary screens over the doors showed additional scenes. "Flight" also had something else that "Rocket" didn't: Mission Control. This was the first attraction that mixed live actors with animatronics. Sometimes, they mixed too well. Cast members would borrow a white coat, sneak in, and sit in one of the vacant chairs in Mission Control. The head of the animatronic Mission Control crew was Mr. Tom Morrow.

Iago: Is that the same Tom Morrow who gets paged on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority and in Star Tours?

Zazu: Indeed. The original Mr. Morrow looked like a human being, but the name is currently being used for an animatronic robot character at Innoventions. In "Flight to the Moon," Mr. Morrow, using "telescopic cameras and special electronic equipment," would show "a scientific team exploring the surface of the moon," as per a Disneyland TV special that aired shortly after "Flight to the Moon" opened. As I recall, the team collected rock samples and photographed a large crater.

Iago: So who was on that scientific team? Neil Armstrong?

Zazu: No, Iago, Mr. Armstrong didn't even land on the Moon until 20 July 1969, and "Flight to the Moon" opened in 1967. They were actors.

Iago: I guess that makes sense. The attraction was set in the future, because it was in Tomorrowland.

Zazu: Yes, well it made sense in Disneyland for the first 14 years. However, by the time "Flight to the Moon" opened at the Magic Kingdom in Florida, it was 1971, two years after man had landed on the Moon. So, in 1975, both the East and West coast versions of the attraction were rethemed as "Mission to Mars." The new head of Mission Control was Mr. Johnson, after the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which in turn was named for President Johnson.

Iago: Oh please! Even I'm tired of talk about the president's johnson.

Zazu: <pause> You know, you have a dirty little mind.

Iago: It's the only one that would fit.

Zazu: Fit's you all too well if you ask me. Now where was I? Ah yes. As it turned out, all three incarnations of this attraction -- "Rocket," "Flight," and "Mission" -- were pretty poor predictions of the real tomorrow. TWA no longer takes reservations for travel to the moon; there is no manned trip to Mars being planned; and the prediction of the elimination of L.A.'s smog in 1971 was more than a little off. The Disneyland version closed in 1992, and here in Florida, "Mission to Mars" closed in October of 1993, and re-opened as "Alien Encounter" on 20 June 1995.

Iago: What happened to the one in Disneyland?

Zazu: <cough> In 1998, it became a pizza place.

Iago: A pizza place?!

Zazu: Yes. Redd Rockett's Pizza Port. It could have been worse. They could have turned it into Pizza Planet. Oh, and a new version of the "Moonliner," about two-thirds the size of the original, stands near the entrance to the restaurant.

Iago: Only two-thirds the size? Well, it certainly isn't new and improved. Unlike the Tiki Room. Face it, Zazzy boy, this place has my stamp all over it now.

Zazu: Yes, if only I could cancel that stamp ... oh, that reminds me, you received a letter. I do wish you would stop having your personal mail sent here.

Iago: I only have the bills sent here. All the good stuff, like the Victoria's Secret catalog, goes to the treehouse. What can this be? ................... Oh no!

Zazu: What's wrong?

Iago: It's from Dr. Ima Sticker. She says she wants her probe back immediately. If I don't produce it by tomorrow at noon, she's sending over a scientific team from NASA. I will be ordered to show them the surface of the moon, and their mission will be to collect samples and photograph a large crater.

Zazu: Hold on just a minute. NASA?!

Iago: Yes. The National Avian Search Administration. Deep Space Division. Eeeeeew.

Zazu: Egads! What will you do?

Iago: Are you in the mood for tacos?

The music selected to accompany this page is "Fly Me To The Moon" by Bart Howard.

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