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Toy Story Midway Mania! (also known as ''Toy Story Mania!'') is an interactive 4-D

theme park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

attraction, located at three Disney theme parks:

Disney's Hollywood Studios Disney's Hollywood Studios is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division. Based on a concept by M ...

at the

Walt Disney World Resort The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, ...

Disney California Adventure Disney California Adventure Park, commonly referred to as California Adventure or by its acronym DCA, is a theme park located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Park ...

at the

Disneyland Resort The Disneyland Resort, commonly known as Disneyland, is an entertainment resort in Anaheim, California. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Products division and is home to two theme parks (D ...

and

Tokyo DisneySea is a theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, just next to Tokyo. It opened on 4 September 2001, at a cost of 335 billion yen. The Oriental Land Company owns the park, and licenses intellectual prope ...

Tokyo Disney Resort The (local nickname ''TDR'') is a theme park and vacation resort located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, just east of Tokyo. The resort is fully owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company under a licence from The Walt Disney Company, who const ...

. Designed by

Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc., commonly referred to as Imagineering, is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construction of Disney theme parks and attra ...

and inspired by

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...

's ''Toy Story'' franchise, the attraction was first unveiled during a press conference at

Walt Disney World The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando and Kissimmee. Opened on October 1, 1971, ...

in January 2007. The

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

version opened officially on May 31, 2008, on the same date that the Buzz Lightyear action figure launched onboard

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

flight STS-124 (whose objective was to deliver the largest module of the space station - '' Kibō'', the

Japanese Experiment Module Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

pressurized section, developed by JAXA), while the California version officially opened on June 17, 2008. The Japan version of the attraction opened on July 9, 2012.

Concept

Park guests wear 3-D glasses (Carnival Games Goggles) aboard spinning vehicles that travel through virtual environments based on classic carnival midway games. Ride vehicles seat up to eight in four back-to-back pairs. Small children are also able to ride on an adult's lap if they are facing forward with their legs securely underneath the safety bar.

Mini-games

The attraction features five mini-games after a practice round, where the player can hit targets from 100 to 5,000 points. Each mini game includes at least one "

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...

" that can trigger additional targets or gameplay changes. In order, the games are: # Pie Throw Practice Booth (pie toss target practice game, a no points introduction) # Hamm & Eggs (egg throw game featuring Hamm and Buttercup from ''

Toy Story 3 ''Toy Story 3'' is a 2010 American computer-animated comedy-drama film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It is the third installment in the ''Toy Story'' series and the sequel to '' Toy Story 2'' (1999). It wa ...

'') # Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts (dart throw game; replaced Bo Peep's Baa-loon Pop) # Green Army Men Shoot Camp (baseball throw / plate breaking game) # Buzz Lightyear's Flying Tossers (ring toss game) # Woody's Rootin' Tootin' Shootin' Gallery (suction cup shooting game) Each guest's score is recorded by an onboard display screen as points are acquired with individual toy cannons firing simulated projectiles at virtual targets. ''Toy Story'' characters including Woody, Hamm,

Buzz Lightyear Buzz Lightyear is the main character in the ''Toy Story'' franchise created by Disney and Pixar mainly voiced by Tim Allen. He is a Superhero toy action figure based on the in-universe media franchise consisting of a blockbuster featur ...

, Rex, Trixie and many more characters appear during the attraction's different games. Similar technology had been used in Disney attractions such as ''Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Buccaneer Gold'' at

DisneyQuest DisneyQuest was a chain of indoor interactive theme parks in the United States operated by the Disney Regional Entertainment subsidiary of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. The DisneyQuest project was designed as a way for the Disney brand to rea ...

and several

Buzz Lightyear attractions Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (also known as Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters at California, Tokyo and Hong Kong, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast at Paris and Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue at Shanghai) is an interactive shooting dark ride attractio ...

. According to Disney, it is the first attraction created simultaneously by Walt Disney Imagineering for two theme parks. The line at both parks features a large Mr. Potato Head

Audio-Animatronic Audio-Animatronics (also known as simply Animatronics, and sometimes shortened to AAs) is the registered trademark for a form of robotics animation created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequent ...

figure that interacts with guests through pre-recorded snippets of dialogue performed by late comedian

Don Rickles Donald Jay Rickles (May 8, 1926 – April 6, 2017) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known primarily for his insult comedy. His film roles include ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958) with Clark Gable, Carl Reiner's ''Enter La ...

, who voiced the character in the ''Toy Story'' films. The sophisticated figure identifies people in the audience, sings and tells jokes.

Former mini-games

Only five mini-games can be used at a time. So far, only one game has left the attraction. On May 21, 2010, the original dart throwing game, Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop, was replaced with "Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts" (updated with the release of ''

'').

Timeline

*January 2007: Toy Story Midway Mania is announced at a press conference for Disney's Hollywood Studios. The ride is also announced for Disney's California Adventure as the first part of their expansion. *2007: Construction begins on the ride in California and Florida. *May 31, 2008: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Disney's Hollywood Studios. *June 17, 2008: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Disney's California Adventure. *January 1, 2010:

Single Rider Single rider refers to lines at theme parks attractions for people riding by themselves, reducing the amount of time spent waiting in line for an attraction. When a single-rider line is in use, empty seats on the ride vehicles are filled using i ...

line is removed at Disney's California Adventure. *May 21, 2010: Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop is replaced by Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts to promote the release of Toy Story 3. *July 9, 2012: Toy Story Midway Mania officially opens at Tokyo DisneySea along with the new Toyville Trolley Park. *March 5, 2015: Disney officials announce plans to expand the Hollywood Studios version of the ride to improve capacity *May 2016, The third track officially opens at Disney's Hollywood Studios. *April 6, 2017: FastPass is added at Disney California Adventure. *June 23, 2018: With the opening of

Pixar Pier Pixar Pier is a themed land at Disney California Adventure, based on that of Victorian era, Victorian boardwalks that were once found along the coast of California. Despite its name and the presence of a nearby man-made lake, Pixar Pier is not a ...

, the ride reopened with a new exterior paint job and a new entrance to the ride's regular and fastpass queue. *June 30, 2018: With the opening of

Toy Story Land ''Toy Story'' Land (known as ''Toy Story'' Playland at Walt Disney Studios Park) is a themed land at Walt Disney Studios Park, Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland, and Disney's Hollywood Studios. The area is based on the Disney·Pixar f ...

, a new entrance to Toy Story Mania was opened inside the new park expansion, and the old entrance was closed and converted to emergency exits.

Technology

At its debut, Toy Story Midway Mania! was one of the most technologically sophisticated attractions yet developed by Walt Disney Imagineering, costing an estimated $80 million to design and build. It marked the company's first use of

industrial ethernet Industrial Ethernet (IE) is the use of Ethernet in an industrial environment with protocols that provide determinism and real-time control. Protocols for industrial Ethernet include EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, POWERLINK, SERCOS III, CC ...

for a ride's control system. Many of the parts for the attraction's control system came from two of Disney's corporate sponsors,

Siemens AG Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...

(from Spaceship Earth) and Hewlett-Packard (from Mission: Space). The ride was the biggest system that had been built at the time and ran on one of Disney's most advanced automation systems to date. The control system is divided into three components: one for the ride vehicles, one for the games and one more for the attraction's special effects. Programmable logic controllers in the vehicles alert the control system wirelessly via ProfiNET RT to the vehicle's speed and location. The central controller then sends its instructions back to the vehicles using a hard-wired network within the track. The one-way communications flow adds a factor of safety, even though the wireless network is protected against outside interference, such as a

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...

. The attraction features more than 150 PCs, which includes one HP

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

PC for each of Midway Mania's 56 game screens, as well as others that control the special effects at each game. At the game screens, two tracking systems provide the game control system with the vehicle's exact location, making sure that gameplay is not affected by even minor differences in vehicle position. According to Jody Gerstner, executive director of show and ride controls, "The game doesn’t care if the car parks in the same spot every time. It just needs to know where each car has actually parked, and it can compensate." Additional sensors in the spring-action shooter provide information on its orientation, which is fine-tuned using data on the position of the ride vehicle at the screen and the rotation of the seats on the vehicle base. All three sub-systems work together to handle any contingency. For example, if a delay or other vehicle stoppage is detected (such as might occur if the loading and unloading of the ride vehicles is taking longer than expected), the control system can command the affected game screens to launch a non-scoring practice round, so that guests may continue to shoot targets while they wait. Similarly, it can instruct the show control system to play an audio spiel telling guests about the delay. As the games are software-based, changes can be made to the attraction's lineup of games without significant effort. In April 2010, Disney Parks announced plans to replace ''Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop'' with ''Rex and Trixie's Dino Darts.'' The change took place on May 21, 2010. The new game includes one of the new characters from the ''

'' feature film, which was released in June 2010.

Locations

, beneath the

Incredicoaster Incredicoaster is a steel roller coaster at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, California. Manufactured by Intamin, it opened to the public as California Screamin' in 2001. It is the only roller coaster at the Disneyland Resort with an inver ...

roller coaster, a space formerly occupied by themed midway games and food service locations. The area is designed to resemble a Victorian-era seaside carnival. Pixar Pier replaced Paradise Pier on June 23, 2018, and the attraction located in California is the main attraction of a "Toy Story" themed area in the new land. *

, inside the studios' former

soundstage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie stu ...

s, which were most recently used for the park's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – Play It! attraction. The original facade, as well as the original surrounding area, resembles Pixar Animation Studios' campus in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 ...

. The attraction's entrance was relocated to

on June 30, 2018, with the Pixar Place area closing. *

: Located in the New York area of the American Waterfront in a new area called Toyville Trolley Park.

Operational changes

In October 2014, Disney's Hollywood Studios began testing a new procedure that would require all riders to have FastPass reservations for the attraction. The test, scheduled to last only a few days, eliminated the standby line that is used by visitors who have not already obtained a FastPass ticket for the ride, either because they had all been claimed or they were holding FastPasses for other attractions. Some analysts suggest that this process could become more common in years to come as amusement parks attempt to keep guests from getting frustrated or waiting in extremely long lines.

Name variation

The attraction is being referred to as both ''Toy Story Midway Mania!'' and ''Toy Story Mania!''. While the attraction marquees and some in-park signage read the former, the latter has been used in press releases to the news media, used in both resorts' advertisements, and on the disneyland.com, disneyworld.com, and official promotional website for the attraction, along with attraction merchandise. Websites for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World both identified the attraction with the registered trademark "Toy Story Midway Mania!" as of September 2014. As of February 2019, the attraction is known as "Toy Story Mania!", except for the Disney California Adventure version which is still known as “Toy Story Midway Mania!”

Music

Music for the queue area was arranged and recorded by Jennifer Hammond at Capitol Studios with a live orchestra. More than an hour of music was recorded, all based on the first two ''Toy Story'' scores composed by Randy Newman.

Merchandising

Disney Interactive Studios Disney Interactive Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher owned by The Walt Disney Company through Disney Interactive. Prior to its closure in 2016, it developed and distributed multi-platform video games and interac ...

released a "

Toy Story Mania! Toy Story Midway Mania! (also known as ''Toy Story Mania!'') is an interactive 4-D theme park attraction, located at three Disney theme parks: Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort, Disney California Adventure at the Dis ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

in September 2009 exclusively for the Nintendo Wii console. The game features gameplay and levels similar to those in the theme park attractions, along with original levels and features.

Jakks Pacific Jakks Pacific, Inc. is an American company that designs and markets toys and consumer products, with a range of products that feature numerous children's toy licenses. The company is named after its founder, Jack Friedman, who had previously fo ...

also released their "Plug It In & Play TV Game" version of "Toy Story Mania!" in 2010 featuring the original levels & Infini-D technology (Infini-D glasses are included). A version for

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

and

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...

was released on October 30, 2012 and developed by

High Voltage Software High Voltage Software, Inc. (HVS) is an American video game developer based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Founded in April 1993 by Kerry J. Ganofsky, the company is best known for developing ''Lego Racers'' (1999), '' Hunter: The Reckoning'' ...

References

External links

Disney California Adventure - Toy Story Midway Mania!

Disney's Hollywood Studios - Toy Story Mania!

Tokyo DisneySea - Toy Story Mania!
{{Tokyo DisneySea American Waterfront (Tokyo DisneySea) Amusement rides introduced in 2008 Amusement rides introduced in 2012 Amusement rides based on film franchises Audio-Animatronic attractions Dark rides Disney's Hollywood Studios Disney California Adventure Pixar Pier Paradise Pier Pixar Place Pixar in amusement parks Tokyo DisneySea Walt Disney Parks and Resorts attractions Toy Story Land 2008 establishments in Florida 2008 establishments in California 2012 establishments in Japan