If you've ever been to Florida's Walt Disney World, and you've ever been to Epcot, and if you've ever been to the Mexico pavilion, then there's a small, small chance that you might possibly be interested in this. (I know, not great odds, eh?
For as cheesy and as low-brow as El Rio Del Tiempo was, it was one of my favorite attractions. It was a low tech boat ride like "it's a small world" - but instead of singing dolls, there were big video screens that took you through a late 1970s early 1980s era travelogue of Mexico, with cheesy cliff diving and cheesy markets and even a cheesy-but-great mariachi-esque song, too, la la lala la ... well, it's tough to translate into words. But it's great. And cheesy.
I didn't even realize that the ride had closed (apparently on January 2), or was slated to be reworked. They might just revoke my Disney fan license for this infraction. I shouldn't admit this in print. (Although it might earn a sliver of respect from our non-Disney fan majority of readers ...)
Anyway, it appears that Donald Duck, José Carioca and Panchito from the 1945 animated movie The Three Caballeros have been added to the attraction to spice it up.
Here's a YouTube video of the cheesy original:
And here's video of the new spiced up version:
From what I can tell on the internet, the animation was done by Eric Goldberg - who did the Genie in Aladdin. Rob Paulsen provides the voice of both Panchito and José Carioca, as well.
Theme park historian Kevin Yee has a great column at MiceAge.com comparing the old and new rides.
Wow. Interesting stuff. (Well, to me, at least ...)
