Animated Concept Art from Western River Expedition: Saloon Singer

Western River Expedition at Walt Disney World was planned to be a kind of sequel to the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. The building designed to house WRE was named Thunder Mesa, and themed to look like rocky cliffs and bluffs. Along with WRE, Thunder Mesa was reportedly going to be home to three other attractions - a runaway mine train ride (that idea would eventually become Big Thunder Mountain Railroad), and hiking and pack mule trails winding up the side of cliffs.

Thunder Mesa Art

To ride the Western River Expedition park guests would enter inside Thunder Mesa thru a cave-like passage, and board small boats much like Pirates of the Caribbean at the Disney parks. Part of the journey would take them through a western town called Dry Gulch. It's here the guests would witness all types of rowdy cowboy activity. Like a lively scene from the front porch of a saloon...

"Saloon Singer" by Marc Davis

... so now here's this concept art animated to look like audio-animatronics with simulated show lighting...



Closing Comments...

Long time Disney composer Buddy Baker (he did the music for the Haunted Mansion) was supposedly going to write the music for WRE. To the best of my knowledge no WRE music was ever recorded. So for my animation the saloon singer is Tammy Grimes from a 1963 episode of the TV western The Virginian entitled "The Exiles." Here's Tammy's performance if you wish to check it out...



I learned it's really hard to animate a piano player. If I was in charge of programming an animatronic piano man I'd be asking (more like begging) that we use some sort of motion capture to do the job.

Lastly if you want to learn more about Western River Expedition please visit Widen Your World. This was the first place on the internet to seriously document the history of WRE.

The Western River Expedition is Coming

Howdy to all you folks out there in blog-o-land!

*chirping crickets*

Is anyone still out there?

Well if you are reading this, and you enjoyed those Haunted Mansion concept art animations I did a few years ago I've got something else brewing. I'm animating Marc Davis's art from the never built Western River Expedition.

Marc Davis and a model of a Western River Expedition show scene.

For you people not up on Disney theme park history, Western River Expedition was a epic attraction designed by legendary Disney animator and Imagineer Marc Davis that was originally supposed to be built for the opening of Walt Disney World. Due to many factors the project got pushed back, and then back again, and was eventually abandoned.

That's only brief summery, and so if you want to learn more about the history of Western River Expedition check out this Wikipedia entry which also has a few great links to further WRE content from across the vast interweb.

So anyways to spark your interest for the new animations, here's a little tease of of what's coming in August...



Please leave a comment, and let me know how interested you are in this project. Encouragement can only help in getting these animations completed.

Howe Caverns Brochure

I think this summer I'll go underground, and by underground I mean as in posting numerous cave brochures (are you out there reading this Todd?).

I've mentioned previously I've collected a lot of cave brochures, and although they don't make for very popular posts I thought I might as well use them up.

So anyway for those that are still reading let's look at Howe Caverns brochure...


If you watched the video above (thanks NetGeo) you saw what the Howe Caverns tour guides wear today (which is basically a nylon windbreaker). But did you notice what the uniform looked like in this retro brochure? Here I'll help you out...

It reminds me of a doorman at some fancy apartment. This was a classic look, and I'm sorry to see it's gone.

I love those "cave models." They make it look like they are the only people in the cave, and they are free to roam as they please (and possibly get married too).

Penn's Cave Brochure

The brochure's front and back, or vice versa

The authors of the book Roadside America (they also have a swell website too) described Penn's Cave as one of this country's "lazy-man's cave tours" since you ride in a boat throughout the tour.

So if Penn's Cave is "America's only all water cavern" that you "See it by boat" who are those people seen in some of the brochure pictures standing by the cave formations? Are they part of an exclusive unadvertised VIP tour? Or maybe that chick and dude are professional cave formation models who you actually see on the tour.

Penn's Cave has a spooky legend too (see above). If I was the owner I'd add a few special effects enhancements to capitalize on this. It's called showmanship people.



I wasn't going to bother to post this map portion of the brochure, but then I thought what the heck. Here you go all you smartphone users, if you find yourself in the vicinity of Penn's Cave maybe you'll find this map helpful.

The Toy Newspaper

Whoa, April is almost over and I haven't made a single post this month. Time still flies even when you're not really having fun.

Anyways, in my last post I posted a mock newspaper movie promotion, and now I'm back with another one I've managed to scrounge up.

Here's a mock newspaper promotion for the vaguely raciest 80's comedy The Toy (1982)...





... and as always here's a little something from YouTube.

Capricorn One Newspaper

Did Capricorn One (1978) help create, or simply add fuel to the fire of those wacky moon landing hoax conspiracies? I don't know the answer to that. In fact I've never seen the movie, but I did find this promotional mock newspaper...

Click to read all about it

If you clicked the image to actually read that thing you noticed that every single article mentions the movie's cast and/or crew. I don't know why they thought they needed to "tip their hand" like that. They should have played it completely straight like it was actual news. I don't think anyone would have mistaken it for a real newspaper since this was on the back...


I think all those listed Metro Detroit movie theaters are all gone now. Well as always here's the TV spot...

Police Academy Official Entrance Exam

In my last post I had a quiz, and now I'm back with an exam.

It's the official entrance exam for the original comedy "classic" Police Academy (1984)...


It's not quite as funny as that Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) mock quiz I posted last time, but hey, where else on the internet are you gonna find this thing.

There's a rumor that a Police Academy 8 is in development, and is supposed to be released in 2012. So mark your calendars, or consider yourself warned.

Anyways, here's the trailer for the original just because...