Now, does everyone know what an Iago is? Red feathers, hooked beak, big mouth? Well, in this story, we're not gonna call him Brer Iago. We're not gonna call him Brer Big Mouth. You know what we're gonna call him? Brer Parrot. And does everyone know what a Zazu is? Blue feathers, hangs out with lions, kind of an egghead? Well, in this story, we're not gonna call him Brer Zazu. We're not gonna call him Brer Egghead. You know what we're gonna call him? Brer Hornbill.
You see, ol' Brer Parrot and Brer Hornbill were friends. Er, make that associates. Er, better say they couldn't stand each other, but they were forced to work together. Now, what happened was that one day, it was really really hot in the Tiki Room. So hot that you could've fried a Parrot egg or a Hornbill egg on the thatched roof. And this made Brer Parrot and Brer Hornbill irritable.
Even more than usual.
So Brer Hornbill, being the egghead that he was, decided it was time for a lecture. Lectures always made him feel better. And since it was so durn hot, he declared that Splash Mountain would be the subject. And so he began...
It was one o' them zip-a-dee-doo-dah days, long 'bout the summer of 1983, and Brer Baxter (that would be Brer Tony Baxter, the Imagineer) was a sittin' in traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway on his daily drive to work. Brer Baxter had a powerful lot on his mind. He was thinkin' about how Disneyland didn't have anything in Bear Country but Country Bears, and the "new" show in Tomorrowland, "America Sings", was gettin' a bit long in the tooth for a bicentennial celebration.
On top o' that, the Santa Ana winds were blowin', and that made Brer Baxter's hot drive even hotter. He got to thinkin' that what he wanted to do was just pick up that ol' America Sings attraction, take the whole thing over to Bear Country, and toss it into the Rivers of America just so he could stand there under the splash.
"Hmm," hmmed Brer Baxter, "That just might work!"
So, when he got to work, he called all the other Brer 'Magineers together and told them his idea. "What say we build a big ol' log flume ride in Bear Country based on all them Brer Brothers from "Song of the South", and use all them critters from America Sings in it, since ain't nobody listenin' to 'em anyway?"
Well, them 'magineers thought this was a pretty crazy idea, but then they were used to that from Brer Baxter, and they had a tendency to prefer things a bit on the crazy side anyway, so they all set to work on it. Right away, they set themselves to finding a name, as they could do that without leaving the donuts. "Song of the South", "Zip-a Dee-Doo-Dah", and "Zip-a-Dee River Run" were all bantered about until finally Brer Eisner stuck his head in the door and said, "It's a mountain... you splash... it's 'Splash Mountian'!" Wall, since nobody argues with Brer Eisner (not even dumb ol' Brer Bear), that was the name that stuck.
Brer Baxter was determined that this had to be more than just a flume ride. He wanted it the biggest, but he knew that some varmint could always build one just a little bit taller and take that claim away from him, so he determined that he would build the best flume ride. Somebody might someday build a better one, but at least "better" was something a body could argue about. But just to give hisself a running start on the gum-flappin', he put in the tallest flume drop ever.
Fifty-four feet. That's like enough feet for 27 ducks! Or 13-1/2 rabbits, or 9 bugs, or 6-3/4 spiders, or 0.54 centipedes! It's also the steepest ever, at 45 degrees. Oh, did I mention that it lands smack in the middle of Brer Rabbit's briar patch? Yessir, this would be a ride hard to follow. Middlin' hard to just build in the first place!
By the time Brer Baxter was done, Splash Mountain included 103 Audio-Animatronics characters, and the largest animated set in any attraction anywhere. The poor carousel building was so shook up it took almost a decade for it to recover, much less how long it takes folks who ride it! Opening day at Disneyland was 17 July 1989, and folks have been lining up to get themselves splooshed ever since. Three years later to the day, folks saw a second Splash Mountain open at WDW's Magic Kingdom, and the fust of October 1992 watched a third open at Tokyo Disneyland. The others were just as big as the Disneyland model, but folks sit side-by-side so they head over the falls twice as fast -- or it seems like it...
'Round about this time, Brer Parrot started to yawn, and he asked Brer Hornbill iffin' he was finished yet.
Brer Hornbill asked, "Have you passed out from boredom yet?"
Brer Parrot said, "Nope."
So Brer Hornbill said, "Then I'm not finished." And he continued...
Now Splash Mountain does have one little bit of trivia that is maybe worth staying awake for. Like a couple of other attractions, Splash Mountain has a resident photographer who hangs out by the waterfall taking pictures of folks as they plunge to their doom -- least from their expressions it seems that way. Howsumever, not just everyone goes over the falls with quite the same sense of decorum, if you get my drift. Diligent Disney cast members screen the photos so that nobody gets undisnical surprises in their photos, and folks whose log gets bleeped out can get right back on for another try, but some of those photos....
Now I ain't sayin' where I heard this, and I ain't sayin' what the URL is, but folks say that there's a web site out there called "Flash Mountain" where a few of these naughty pictures have snuck off to hide. And hide is the correct word -- some of the Brer Ladies show off their hide and come out as Bare Ladies instead. Go look for it if you've a mind to, but don't tell 'em I sent you -- please! And if you don't think this goes with the theme of "Splash Mountain", just think of the film "Splash" instead.
One of the more interesting effects on Splash Mountain wasn't meant to be a part of that attraction at all, but a different one: The Disneyland and Walt Disney World Railroads! As them as have been know, the train tunnels right through the middle o' Splash Mountain. This works well today, but when the "Wet One" was being built, they couldn't run the trains through. (Afraid of giving too many guests 'Magineering Cooties, I expect.) So what was the railroad to do?
"The Reverse Route" was the answer. Commemorated by special posters under the Main Street Train Station, the Reverse Route operated forwards from Toontown Station to Main Street, then backwards from Main Street back to Toontown! (Make that Videopolis Station instead o' Toontown for Disneyland.) It sorta slowed things down, but at least the railroad fans could get their dose without having to drive down the street to Knotts Berry Farm. The train crews didn't much cotton to it though. As Brer Conductor said to me one day, "It's hard enough to just make it around without some Brer Fool leaning out too far with his camera and getting whacked on a tree. Now I gotta do that looking one way while I'm looking the other way to make sure the track is clear. Plus we're all on half hours since we can only run one train at a time this way." Needless to say, the full circle trip was resumed as quickly as possible, to everyone's relief.
Speaking o' safety, can you imagine just how much trouble a person could find if they tried to stand up in one o' them logs? Worried me too until one day I watched some Brer Fool up and try it. She was just about to go down one of the smaller drops when she decided she's had all the splashin' she needs, stands up with her Brer Kid, and they steps outta the log! Wall I mean to tell you, I ain't never seen a raft o' logs come to a faster stop in all my borned days! Before you know it, there's Brer Castmembers runnin' every which way tryin' to find Brer Fool afore she can git herself into any more trouble. Might impressive how fast that mountain reacts to such damnfool silliness!
For the sake of any Brer Engineers listenin', more'n half the mountain was built underground. Yup, even the one in Florida where there ain't that much underground to have, shorta the water table. You see, there are tanks under there big enough to hold all the water that mountain can use. Stop them big ol' 500 horsepower pumps and the system drains right promptly. Takes about 12 minutes to start 'er up agin, but then they hafta watch each and ever' log go over the falls to make sure it's safe for folks to try again, so they don't do that much. Got twice as many pumps as they need just to make sure the water stays wet, too.
In fact, the 'Magineers even went to the trouble to design a special shape for them logs, so as the folks riding don't get splashed any more'n they need to. Got a guv'ment patent on the shape and ever'thing. Then after all that, they decided folks wasn't gettin' wet enough, so they added a big jet to the pool by the briar patch. Not every log that falls makes it shoot off -- it's sorta random, with the frequency going up as the temperature does. Of course, it does make the main street of WDW's Frontierland look like an open sewer (without the smell), but I guess that's just part of the scenery.
Folks even say that the shadows near the top give a look like a hidden Mickey, but I'm not so sure. Course, I've generally been torn between admirin' the scenery from that height and screaming long 'bout then, so I can't say for sure. Y'all let me know iffn' ye ever chance to look.
Just about then, Brer Parrot's head began to droop, and he showed signs of dozing off. This was a real good sign for Brer Hornbill. He always knew he had done a good job o' lecturin' when Brer Parrot got sleepy. It made him feel real superior-like. So Brer Hornbill shouted, "We're done, Parrot!"
But Brer Parrot was suddenly wide awake. "Not jes' yet," he said. "You know what Joel Chandler Harris said: 'Watch out when you're getting all you want. Fattening hogs ain't in luck.' I know a few bits o' useless information myself." And Brer Parrot began to lecture in his annoying voice....
For one thing, I know that Splash Mountain is based on the 1946 Disney Movie "Song of the South," which, in turn, is based on the Uncle Remus stories collected and written down by Mr. Joel Chandler Harris. Mr. Harris was a journalist for the Atlanta Constitution, and 1998 marks the 150th anniversary of his birth on December 9, 1848, and the 90th anniversary of his death, on July 3, 1908.
Harris worked on a plantation in his youth, where he heard the stories of the slaves, based on traditional African tales and folklore. He recorded these stories in the slaves' dialect. Harris said of the dialect, "The difference between real dialect and lingo is that the first is preservative, while the latter is destructive, of language. Judged by this standard, the Negro dialect is about as perfect as any the world ever saw."
There has been a lot of controversy over Disney's "Song of the South" and, as the NAACP stated, "The impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship," which confuses those of us who know it was set in the 1880s long after slavery was over and done with. Disney has not released the film to the home video market in the United States, but it has been released in some European and Asian countries.
Most folks don't know this, but Brer Rabbit's given name was Riley Rabbit. Possibly because he was such a Wily Wabbit. <insert Elmer Fudd laugh here> Anyway, in German his name is Vetter (Hansi) Hase, in Spanish it's Rabito, and in Finnish it's Veli Kani. The Italians call him Fratel Coniglietto, and the Dutch call him Broer Konijn.
Now, here's a last bit o' birdie trivia for ye, Brer Hornbill. Mr. Harris's Atlanta home is now a museum called the Wren's Nest. And the reason it's called that is because Mr. Harris once found a wren's nest in his mailbox. It was considered bad luck to disturb a wren's nest, so Harris allowed Jenny Wren to raise her triplets right there in the mailbox. He wrote about it in the Atlanta Constitution in 1895. Think about that the next time you ride Splash Mountain and see all the cute little critters' mailboxes.
Well, Brer Hornbill couldn't believe his brer ears. Brer Parrot had actually made some sense. This annoyed Brer Hornbill no end. "I'm a-floored," he said. "How the heck did you know all that Joel Chandler Harris trivia, Brer Parrot?"
And Brer Parrot replied, "I sub-let that mailbox during the '96 Olympics. You think it's hot here? Try a mailbox in Hotlanta during the Summer."
To which Brer Hornbill responded, "You ain't nothing but trouble. I'm gonna run next time I see you a-flyin' this way."
And Brer Parrot said, "You can't run away from trouble. Ain't no place that far."
Well, Brer Hornbill jes' kinda stewed over on his perch. This made Brer Parrot feel awful bad for Brer Hornbill, who never liked to be upstaged when it came to lecturin'. So he said, "Tell ya what, Brer Hornbill. We've done enough talkin' 'bout Splash Mountain for one day. Let's go ride it instead. Last one in the log's a rotten egg!"
So the two birds spent the rest of the day getting splooshed. They even found their Laughin' Place. Funny how even the most annoying company is more tol'able when you're wet. As Joel Chandler Harris said, "We cannot all live at the sign of the wren's nest, we cannot all be perfectly happy day in and day out, but we can do as Mrs. Jenny Wren does -- we can make a show of contentment."
The music selected to accompany this page is "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" by Ray Gilbert and Allie Wrubel from the Walt Disney film Song of the South. I wish I knew who sequenced this midi, as it's particularly nice.
Would you care to read some more about Brer Rabbit? Here's some mighty fine spots to look: