Changes

Splash Mountain was originally developed as an attraction for Disneyland. In the summer of 1983, Imagineer Tony Baxter was trying to figure out a way to attract guests to the park's scarcely visited Bear Country land in Disneyland<ref name= "Jack1"> http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2010/06/splash_mountain_part_one_1.html </ref> . Also on his mind, was the fact that the America Sings attraction in Tomorrowland was about to close, with its 114 Audio Animatronic animals. To add to all of that, Dick Norris who oversaw Disneyland wanted his Imagineers to create a log flume attraction for the park<ref name= "Jack1"/>. FinallyOn top of all this, while stuck in rush hour traffic Tony was also concerned about the closing of America Sings and its 114 Audio Animatronics. Baxter thought would later recount:  {{Quotation| I kept thinking, ‘What a terrible waste of all those Audio-Animatronics characters. Isn’t there something we can do with them?’”| Tony Baxter} <ref name= "avenue"> http://www.disneyavenue.com/2015/06/making-of-splash-mountain.html </ref>} Finally, while driving to work on day, Baxter came up a solutionto all three of these problems.The Working with Bruce Gordon and John Stone, the attraction Baxter he came up with was to be a log flume ride called Zip-a-Dee River Run<ref name= "Jack1"/>. The ride would be based on the 1946 Disney film Song of the South, which was chosen because its main characters- Brer Fox, Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit- had been popular walk-around characters since the parks opening. By choosing Song of the South, Baxter also knew that he would be able to reuse the Audio Animatronic animals located in America Sings, thus solving two problems with one attraction<ref name= "avenue"/>. Although Dick Norris had demanded a log flume ride, Imagineers were not initially sold on the idea, with many feeling that log flume rides were beneath Disney since they were in almost every average amusement park. Eventually however, it was decided that Disney’s log flume would be different, because of due to the story they would tell<ref name="Korkis"> https://www.mouseplanet.com/10394/Splash_Mountain_Double_Anniversary</ref>.  According to Stone:{{Quotation| ""The three of us—Tony, Bruce Gordon and myself—literally spent the next three days in Tony's office preparing about 30 storyboards and outlining the entire project"|Imagineer John Stone}} Although the designs for Splash Mountain came together in a matter of weeks, it would be six years until the attraction would open to the public <ref name= "avenue"/>. Along the way, in 1984 the name of the attraction was changed to Splash Mountain. Michael Eisner suggested the change in order to promote the new Disney-Touchstone film "Splash" <ref name= "Korkis"/>. Although Eisner's other suggestion of adding a mermaid to the ride (to further tie in with the film) was rejected, the new name stuck <ref name="Jack1"/>. On July 17, 1989, Splash Mountain opened in Disneyland and the attraction proved so popular that Michael Eisner decided to add it to Tokyo Disneyland and The Magic Kingdom.