# The five best things Disney has done

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 4, 2005, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030 "2005-09-04T09:12:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 4

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030/61 "2005-09-06T17:21:53Z")

</div>

1. I don’t think anyone else has mentioned the **Disney cruise line.** I’ve gone on other cruises, but Disney far exceeded my expectations. Everything was clean clean clean. The atmosphere was 100% Disney–upbeat, kid-friendly and yet captivating for adults. The programs for kids and adults on board were excellent. The shows were the best I’ve ever seen on acruise. And the food and dining experience has to be rated on an entierely different scale–it was so much better than other cruises. Yipes! I sound like a commercial.

2. The **simpler rides** –Winnie the Pooh, Snow White, Small World.

3. The \*\*movie themed \*\* “rides”–Great Movie Ride, Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Catastrophe Canyon, Star Wars…

4. Listening to their customers and adjusting–for instance, restoring the character \*\*Figment \*\* to the Imagination ride.

5. And **Cranium Command** “Don’t mind me, I’m just the hypothalmus, breathe, breathe, pump, pump, blink, blink.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030/62 "2005-09-06T22:12:24Z")

</div>

> [@clnilsen](#):
>
> TMBG did a version of this?!?!?!?
> 
> Where did you find that?
> 
> How cool…
> 
> Chuck

It’s on the [soundtrack to the documentary _Moog_](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=40104911). (If you don’t use iTunes/Apple Music Store, [here’s a link to the soundtrack on Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002XEDYE/qid=1126045276)). The original song is called “Baroque Hoedown.”

Other Chuck

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bomzaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Bomzaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bomzaway)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030/63 "2005-09-06T23:02:14Z")

</div>

> [@Curate](#):
>
> 1. Beauty and the Beast – In 1991 our second daughter was born and, feeling that our first daughter might be feeling a little neglected, I took her to see Beauty and the Beast. She was almost three and it was her first movie-theater movie and she was enthralled. As we left the theater she looked up at me and said, “Thank you for the movie, Daddy. I had a wonderful time.” She’s a senior in high school this year and I’ll remember that moment until the day I die.
> 
> Curate

Great. I got all misty reading that. Same thing happened with my oldest daughter. We packed her off to college last week. I miss that little kid.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Cheez\_Whia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d26b3c/32.png) [@Cheez\_Whia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheez_Whia)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030/64 "2005-09-06T23:35:42Z")

</div>

Pictures for Club 33 exist here:

[http://snopes.com/disney/parks/club33.htm](http://snopes.com/disney/parks/club33.htm)

As for the OP:

1. First talkie animated cartoon and birth of Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie, 1928).

2. Pioneer of color in cartoons (Flowers and Trees, 1932) and invention of multi-plane animation camera (first used in The Old Mill, 1937).

3. First feature-length animated cartoon (Snow White, 1937).

4. Invention of the modern theme park (Disneyland, 1955) and introduction of the first steel roller-coaster (Matterhorn Bobsleds, 1959).

5. Replacing Michael Eisner, 2005.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\
**Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030/65 "2005-09-06T23:36:25Z")

</div>

I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Disney’s uncanny talent for herding people.

Whether it’s making a 45-minute wait for a ride feel more like 5, thanks to the entertainment built into the queue itself, or studying people’s actions to determine exactly where things like trash cans and restrooms need to be, Disney’s taken it from guessing, to a science and onto an art.

Every other park just plops down an interminable zigzag of 4-foot high fencing in the hot sun and posts “Wait from here: xx minutes” and sticks a trash can wherever they have a bare spot. Disney watches people leave a snack stand and wherever people are done with their snack, that’s where they put the cans. Sounds simple enough, but the concept appears lost on the likes of Six Flags, where the trash cans are right at the snack stand, forcing people to either gobble it down right there, or carry the empty cup/wrapper until they reach the next snack stand.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-five-best-things-disney-has-done/320030.md?page=3)
