This article is about the former version of the ride at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. For the current Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris version, see Snow White's Scary Adventures.
Snow White's Adventures is an attraction currently at Tokyo Disneyland and formerly at Disneyland that opened on July 17, 1955 and Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World that opened on October 1, 1971 and April 15, 1983. It was a much darker version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with Snow White nowhere to be found.
The ride was designed to feel as if you were Snow White, explaining why she did not appear at all in the ride.
Very few guests got this point, considering the ride focuses on the Witch character. The ride had seven Witch models, and only one scene with frightened Dwarfs. It was one of the opening day attractions at the park.
Ride Overview[]
Disneyland[]
For the original 1955 version of the attraction, titled Snow White and Her Adventures, it was intended for park guests to experience Snow White's story through her point of view, which is why she was nowhere to be found in her own attraction. This is the same with Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, and Alice being absent in their respective attractions prior to 1982.
After guests boarded their ride vehicles, they would begin their adventure by venturing the Seven Dwarfs' Mine. Once inside, guests traveled through the mines leading to a forced mural of an endless tunnel and see Dopey holding a Vault Door open. Inside the vault, guests pass by the Dwarf's precious gems and see the Dwarfs' hard at work (though the animatronics themselves featured very little movement). Before exiting the mine, Dopey was seen pointing to a sign reading, "BEWARE OF THE WITCH".
Guests then entered the forest and were surrounded by lovable animals as the Dwarfs' Cottage came into view. Guests then came across a fork in the road with a sign pointing to the Dwarf's Cottage to the left, and the Witch's Castle to the right. Guests make a right towards the castle, and travel through a now-darker forest where they pass under two vultures perched on a branch.
Guests then turn left towards the castle and pass through where they find a passage leading back outside, with a sign signifying the Dwarfs' Cottage. Before guests can exit the castle towards the cottage, a wrought-iron portcullis shut in front of them, blocking their way out. Guests then enter the castle's dungeon with a skeleton chained to the wall that moaned, "Go back..." as guests approached it. Guests then veered away, deeper into the castle, under a stone arch and see a hunched shadow of the lurking Witch right in front of them, creeping across the stone wall plastered with a large spider web. Guests turn left where hanging strings (simulating cobwebs) brush across guests' faces as they pass under another arch and turn left. Suddenly, the Witch makes an appearance, with a large spell book stationed near her, as she poisons the apple in her cauldron. She turns towards guests as they approached her, croaking, "Have an apple, dearie?" before guests jolt away into a dark corner. They then come face-to-face with the Witch in the next chamber; this time, she was partially obscured by a large stone column, again offering the poison apple to guests as she delivered an evil laugh.
Guests manage to escape the castle by crashing through a solid masonry wall. After a short interval of darkness, guests find themselves in the frightful woods where they pass by monstrous trees with menacing faces as well as arm-like branches.
Beyond the forest was the thatched-roof cottage of the Seven Dwarfs, complete with warm light emanating from its windows. As guests approached it, the door is flung open revealing the Witch who is once again offering guests the poison apple.
This leads to the finale, where the cackling Witch tries to send down a giant boulder to crash on top of guests. As they boulder tilts closer to guests, the Witch was struck down by a simulated bolt of lightning. Suddenly, a pair of camouflaged crash doors, within the rock surface below the Witch, open as guests travel through one final stretch of darkness as they hear the Witch falling and screaming to her demise before returning to the boarding area and exiting the attraction.
Sound effects artist Jimmy MacDonald provided the mad cackles of the witch as well as her only line in the cauldron scene, "Have an apple, dearie!", as heard in the 1962 Universal feature, 40 Pounds of Trouble.
Magic Kingdom[]
The queue was similar to Tokyo Disneyland's current queue for the ride. It featured the Seven Dwarfs' mine, with their cottage visible in the distance.
Guests got in the vehicles, which capacity was four passengers. They began by entering the castle in a scene very much like the 1994 ride; however, there was no part where Snow White was seen cleaning (the riders were supposed to be Snow White). Instead, they saw a side of the Dwarfs' cottage as "I'm Wishing", namely the version as heard in the attraction Mickey Mouse Revue, played in the background. Upon entering, with the Queen watching in a nearby window, the guests saw her standing in front of a mirror, but not the magic one. The Evil Queen says, "Magic mirror, on the wall...", before she turned into the Wicked Witch, continuing with, "I am the fairest one of all!". Guest then crashed through the dungeon where two trapped skeletons cry out for help. The Witch was then seen at her cauldron preparing a poison apple. The riders crashed out of the castle, only to bump into the Witch on a boat with the apple. Guests then fled through a dark forest with scary trees and alligator logs.
Soon, guests arrived in the Seven Dwarfs' cottage to see forest animals peering in at them. The furniture inside the cottage all have frightened faces on them. The guests then passed the Seven Dwarfs, (in their only appearance, with the same Dwarfs figures that would later be reused in the Stormy Climax scene for all subsequent versions of the Snow White rides) walking up the stairs to their room to investigate a frightening shadow, and the Witch was waiting in the doorway with the apple. The guests then entered the Diamond Mine, where the witch tried to topple over the timber beams while asking, "Enjoy your ride?" A minecart would also nearly crash into the vehicles. Her final appearance was on top of a doorway, pushing an enormous jewel onto the riders while cackling and saying, "Goodbye, dearie!" Riders would then enter a room full of flashing cartoon-like strobe lights (similar to the ones in Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin) with the Witch's cackling, bizarrely distorted and sped up and skipping like a broken record, echoing in their ears, thus either implying that the witch had killed you, similar to the train in Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, or perhaps that you had simply awakened from a nightmare and the cackling representing the last strains of the visions echoing in your mind before they vanish. Guests then returned to the load area and disembarked.
Disney legend Ginny Tyler did the voice of the Queen/Wicked Witch in this version, while Jimmy MacDonald and Dallas McKennon did the voices of the Seven Dwarfs. The same actors also voiced the Dwarfs in the Mickey Mouse Revue.
Tokyo Disneyland[]
Tokyo Disneyland represents a mix of the American versions at the time of the park's opening, although it is largely based on the pre-1994 Walt Disney World version. It begins in the castle where the Queen transforms into the Witch, moving on to the dungeon and passing her on a boat. After going through the forest, guests enter the cottage and instead of seeing the dwarfs passing up the stairs seeing the shadow, the Seven Dwarfs are seen performing "The Dwarfs' Yodel Song", as in the version from the Tokyo Disneyland version of Mickey Mouse Revue, with Snow White watching from the stairs (similar to the beginning in Disneyland and in Disneyland Paris). Exiting the cottage, guests find the Witch outside waiting for them, then enter the mines (mix in the Disneylands in California and Paris and Similar to the Pre-1994 version). They approach the cottage again to find the Witch is once again waiting. The ride ends like Disneyland's version, with the Dwarfs and Witch on the cliff.
Refurbishment and Aftermath[]
In 1982, Disneyland closed the ride and the rest of Disneyland's Fantasyland and the ride reopened on May 24, 1983 as Snow White's Scary Adventures.
On October 14, 1994, the Magic Kingdom version was closed for refurbishments and reopened as Snow White's Scary Adventures. This version was a lot more lighthearted and faithful to the original film, with Snow White appearing 5 times, the Dwarfs celebrating, a happy ending, and fewer scenes with the witch. Snow White's Scary Adventures still lives on in Disneyland Park, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. The Magic Kingdom version closed on May 31, 2012 due to the Expansion of the Fantasyland section, and was replaced with both the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Princess Fairytale Hall, the following year.
On February 2, 2015, rumors claimed that Snow White's Scary Adventures was to be a part of the Shanghai Disneyland Park, along with other old attractions (such as Pinocchio's Daring Journey and the Mickey Mouse Revue), but was scrapped due to being extremely intimidating to some visitors at the Disney parks. However, on June 16, 2016, along with the opening of the entire park inside of the Enchanted Storybook Castle, the Once Upon a Time Adventure attraction was created, in which visitors could walk around the history of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (similar to Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough).
On January 7, 2020, the attraction at Disneyland closed for an extended refurbishment. Walt Disney Imagineering installed new scenes and updated the attraction's audio and visual technology. The attraction's exterior was also refreshed to complement the nearby Sleeping Beauty Castle. On December 21, 2020, the film's 83rd anniversary, Disney announced that the ride would be renamed Snow White's Enchanted Wish, and would include state-of-the-art audio and visual technology, including new music, LED black lighting, laser projections and a new animation system. The attraction reopened under its new name on April 27, 2021.
v - e - d | ||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|