To celebrate the transformation of Disneyland and Magic Kingdom’s water flume ride into a new adventure inspired by Walt Disney Animation Studios fan fave The Princess and the Frog, io9 went to the bayou and beyond with Disney Parks to explore inspirations rooted in New Orleans culture.
Disney Imagineers had press tag along to all the places where their teams work to fully immerse creatives in the environments, history, music, art, and food of the city that inspired the movie and now Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The ride, which will open in 2024 at the Disney Parks on both coasts, will give audiences a new chapter in Tiana’s story with friends old and new, while she prepares to celebrate Mardi Gras in her city with her Tiana’s Foods collective. Soundtracked by familiar songs and a new theme, the attraction’s construction is underway as Imagineers move full steam ahead.
Here’s a look at the research locations we visited in New Orleans and what we learned about the ride.
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To emulate the water ride’s new look, we went to the real swampy wetlands that serve as inspiration for the environments we’ll soon we getting on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Surrounded by Spanish moss trees, green-hued water, and lots of critters, we got a sense of how the ambiance of the ride will shift to the river vibe we see in The Princess and the Frog movie, where Tiana and Naveen meet Ray and Louis. This time around Tiana won’t be a frog; she’ll be leading visitors on a journey to find a key missing ingredient for her Mardi Gras celebration.
For those worried that the ride time has changed, fret not! Creative director Ted Robledo revealed that’s one thing that remains. “The ride that you knew—I believe at Disneyland was around nine minutes-ish, and that Magic Kingdom gate was 10 minutes-ish. That stays the same.” He also shared that guests have a longer story to look forward to, starting from the moment they enter the queue.
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On our Cajun Encounters tour, we saw so many gators along with turtles, raccoons, birds, and more. Here’s a look at us seeing them out in the wild and maybe not under the friendliest of circumstances. Real gators aren’t as nice as the movie’s Louis the Gator, and might consider eating his critter friends. Circle of life, am I right?
Imagineers told us that more wildlife, including an otter, a rabbit, a raccoon, a beaver, an opossum, and frogs will be featured alongside band leader Louis from the film. Executive creative producer Charita Carter shared, “We have 17 new characters and all of those characters will be represented as audio animatronics—and then of course, what we call our hero characters. But then the main characters, like Tiana and Naveen and of course Louis, will all be physical animatronics,” she said. “And of course Mama Odie!” she added, noting that the beloved hoodoo priestess would not be left out; in fact, her magic may have a big part in the experience.
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Going back to the critter band, we found out that they will be playing music on handmade instruments like the ones above in the Jazz Museum of New Orleans. Music, of course, will play a huge role in the attraction, and back to perform and score instrumentals is the original trumpeting performer for Louis (and seven-time Grammy winner) Terence Blanchard. Robledo discussed how important it was to have Blanchard back to score the various genres of music that the ride will feature, like jazz and Zydeco, Louisana’s blend of rhythm and blues. “To us, more than a ride, it’s the story and it’s the journey. It starts before we get on the boat and so we’re taking advantage of our queue to start that story, both through the audio and the music you’re hearing. That’s what Terence is going to be helping us with, to get people in that place at that time, in that region.”
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During a talk at the Jazz Museum we were able to see the unveiling of Prince Ralphie’s animatronic, Naveen’s little brother from the film. “Everything that you have seen will be manifested in a physical form,” Carter elaborated. “Naveen’s little brother Ralphie, he will be physically there with a physical drum set that we were inspired by, from stuff that we saw.”
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Here’s the original 1920s-era drum set Imagineers used for reference. Carter was excited to have her team work in close collaboration with institutions like the Historic New Orleans Collection/Williams Research Center of historical artifacts and the New Orleans Jazz Museum. “When I think about Walt Disney Imagineering, [I think about] how we create ways that the world has an opportunity to experience new backgrounds,” she said, explaining the importance of every department of her team exploring the city so they could bring a piece of that through their medium on the attraction. “We walk the museum, walk the streets [to] better understand [New Orleans]. It breaks down barriers when you think about culture and race, the lifestyle and language. We had a whole team just understanding how dialect changes from ward to ward, how even music changes and art changes.”
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At the the Historic New Orleans Collection/Williams Research Center we got to take a look at real designs for Mardi Gras floats from the 1920s, the era of Tiana’s own celebration. It was tantamount to the design process of scenes we’ll be getting on the ride. “I can tell you probably upwards of maybe 10 to 12 or more Imagineers have been through this exhibit to learn, to understand,” Smith said. “Yes, the immediate core team has been here, but we’ve had dozens come through, as you would. We really want a team that has an understanding of why we’re here, why the story is important, [from] architecture to graphics to color to style.”
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As a fan of the film I was geeking out when we went to Mardi Gras World, a huge warehouse of floats from the annual festivities, and saw the Tiana statue the city dedicated to the film. It’s so exciting to see where her story will go from where we left off in the 2009 film. Robledo gave a sense of what Imagineering wanted to explore: “There’s so much of her story that was touched upon in the film, the relationship with her father, a World War I veteran; her relationship with her mother, [who] we like to say was the entrepreneurial inspiration for her to be the successful businesswoman that Tiana is today in our story.”
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In the early days of development for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Carter reached out to the YAYA (Young Aspirations Young Artists) organization—a group that since 1988 has been on a mission to empower creative young people through visual arts education—to find New Orleans talent that could collaborate in making Tiana true to her roots. “At the beginning of our process, when we were what we call ideating what this adventure, what the story [of] the next chapter will be about, we wanted to see how somebody who was a native to New Orleans—how it resonated with them. And so we had the idea of let’s commission an artist, pitch our story to them, and have them give elements of that story back to us,” said. Then, she introduced the artist whose work would become the heart of the attraction because they represented all the colors of New Orleans. “One particular artist, who had just this amazing sense of movement and rhythm—you know, our attraction is this flume ride and you’re moving and it’s thrilling. We had to go with Sharika Mahdi who’s just really amazing with her movement in her particular art.”
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Mahdi’s involvement with the attraction was previously announced; her first painting is homed at famed restaurant Dooky Chase, which was led by the “Queen of Creole Cuisine” and Tiana inspiration, the late Leah Chase. Combining Chase’s legacy with the artistic sensibilities that Mahdi infuses in her vision of New Orleans, under the guidance of Carter, really speaks to the power of women who are behind Tiana’s new story. Mahdi is the living embodiment of New Orleans’ legacy, which is emphasized in her art. “I wanted to include imagery of those things and represent the movie that represents the state of Louisiana, the city of New Orleans but also, in my artistic style,” she shared while presenting her final painting in her Tiana’s Bayou Adventure series. “So this is part of our past connection. I wanted to put a mother and daughter as the centerpiece with the father. The theme of this piece is family and family tradition; I wanted to make sure that was centered, and then surrounding it I wanted to include flourishes of what represents Louisiana.”
You really have to look at every fine detail in Mahdi’s piece above. Even as a first-time visitor to New Orleans, I recognized so much of how the city moves and exudes life is beautifully represented there. “When I think of being from Louisiana, of course I grew up in shotgun houses,” Mahdi recalled, paying homage to her past and the history of her city as she motioned to other figures including Tiana, “...the Mardi Gras Indians, the steamboat, the streetcar, of course you have representation of the bayou swamps with the alligator. You have the famous beignets, a little bit of French Quarter with St. Louis Cathedral, the spoon and pots in the back the whimsical nature of that, and then you have it spliced with music notes from the piano—which is which I think is very iconic of New Orleans. I wanted to tell the story of family tradition because I feel like we’ve talked about how that’s such an important part of herself, having a family support for her, because she was a dreamer like many of us. She represented many of us little girls and women who had a strong mother there and father Source: Gizmodo