Splash Mountain

Opening Date: 1989

There are three Splash Mountain rides. There’s the original one in Florida’s Walt Disney World, there’s one in California’s Disneyland, and there’s another in Tokyo Disneyland. As of March 2023, the WDW version is permanently closed, and will be rethemed and reopened as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The Disneyland version is still open, although it is scheduled to be closed and rethemed in the near future. Tokyo Disneyland’s Splash Mountain is still open, and the park has not yet indicated whether it will also close and retheme.

The decision to retheme Splash Mountain came amidst a long-running controversy due to its inspiration: the 1946 live-action/animated film Song of the South. The movie, which has never been given a home video release in the United States, depicts a Reconstruction Era South. It portrays its black characters as carefree and subservient to white plantation families in post-slavery America. In doing so, it reinforced a idealized depiction of the social and racial castes at the time.

None of this is explicit in the Splash Mountain attraction; the Disney Imagineers removed the Uncle Remus character from the equation and replaced him with Br’er Frog as the attraction’s narrator. But in the end, the well was too poisoned for the attraction to stand on its own. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is scheduled to open in 2024.