Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I took a look back at a former Toontown attraction with Mickey’s Toontown at Disneyland finishing its glow up this week.
Mickey’s Toontown is set to reopen at Disneyland on March 19, after closing for a little over a year to be spruced up as a part of the addition of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway to the land. Having been virtually untouched since the land opened in 1993. From the concept art, it seems like the land will be nicely cleaned up to open things up a bit as well as just bring the land a bit closer to the modern age. For the last year, the only open Toontown has been the last to open in Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1996 as a near duplicate of the one in Disneyland, one of the rare times that the park didn’t one-up its Disneyland equivalent.
Via Disney Wiki
During the Disney Decade of the 1990s, Roger Rabbit played a major role as one of the principal residents of Toontown. He appeared in countless shows during the time and even got his own ride at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland in Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. At Disneyland, he was a minor character in some shows, but at Tokyo Disneyland they went all in and created Roger Rabbit’s Toontown Hour, which was actually the second show at Tokyo Disneyland to feature Roger Rabbit after Roger Rabbit’s Dancing Time Warp.
Opening in 1997, Roger Rabbit’s Toontown Hour followed a pattern that Tokyo Disneyland loved in that the stage for the show rolled into view of guests, helping build the anticipation as one saw all the characters come strolling in. The general conceit of the show was that they were “filming” a TV show that Roger Rabbit was hosting along with his friends Chip, Dale, Donald, Goofy and Minnie. Well, at least I think that’s what the show was about because the show was all in Japanese, so I definitely missed a few things along the way, but there were “cameramen” on each side of the stage who were fake-filming the show.
Via Mirai
Throughout the show, each of the members of the gang got their own segment/song, with Chip and Dale coming first, doing a parody of what sounded like “Working on the Railroad” by Alvin and the Chipmunks. They ran around the stage area to the beat of the song and helped whip the crowd into the frenzy for some fun. With the crowd now rocking around on their feet, Goofy worked his way into the picture in a very fun exercise outfit and performed a Richard Simmons-esque number that the crowd all danced along to.
I couldn’t quite catch the tune of the other songs, but next Donald popped up to sing all about the weather, though it surprisingly didn’t feature a lot of sprinklers coming down as many of the Tokyo shows like to do. Following that, Minnie got her own song that showcased her cooking skills to all of the guests in attendance.
Via YouTube
To close things out, the host of the show, Mr. Roger Rabbit, came out with a guitar and started playing some ‘50s hits. He was rocking around the entire stage and all the kids started bouncing as cast members brought them up to dance with the characters and just partake in a great time.
I couldn’t find video or really any other information on it, but it does appear that the show was also successful enough to have a Christmas version of it as seen in some of the pictures above. Shows themselves don’t often get that kind of overlay, so I thought that was particularly fun
As a whole, the show didn’t break any new ground in the world of theme park shows, but it served its purpose well as a great time waster for people looking to have a little break during their time roaming the park. It seems like it brought a lot of life to Toontown as a whole, so it was kind of surprising that when the show closed in 1999, that there was no show to replace it, nor has there even been one. Toontown is pretty small, so I would imagine that there wasn’t a ton of room to move around, creating more of a congestion headache than anything else. Anyway, Roger Rabbit’s Toontown Hour served its purpose in helping to welcome Toontown to Tokyo Disneyland and creating a fun experience for guests of all ages.
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!