Something that didn’t occur to me until just recently is the ending of Mr.Toad’s Wild Ride in Disneyland California is very dark, but I never thought much of it because my brain automatically normalized it into being the regular story from the film. Not until recently did I really examine the attraction, and I realized I had “died” during the Mr.Toad attraction.

Image from: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2018/09/look-closer-mr-toads-wild-ride-at-disneyland-park/

Mr.Toad’s REALLY Wild Ride

The Mr.Toad attraction is one of the few attractions that was opened on opening day and is still around today. It’s based off of the story “The Adventure of Ichabod and Mr.Toad”, but it does not tell the entire story. Instead of trying to cram the entire movie into a 2 minute ride, they decided to pick one scene and run with it. Interestingly enough, Disney chose one of the darkest and twisted scenes, but added flare to it to make it child-friendly.

Image from: https://www.waltdisney.org/blog/1955-2015-disneylands-mr-toads-wild-ride

The ride begins not subtly at all, as you crash through the library and into a fireplace. The theme of car crashes continues as you later crash into a pile of explosives. After that, you’re headed to Winkie’s pub for a beer.

Image from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Sa-XFP9L0

You’re headed to court after this, where you are of course found guilty (probably because of the many crashes you caused and drunk driving), and you are sent to what you thought would be prison, but it’s actually train tracks. Probably the most obvious part of the ride, is that you do in fact get hit by a train.

Image from: https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/theres-wild-ride-at-disneyland-that-even-freaks-out-employees.html/

The darkest part of the ride, literally and figuratively, is the next part. You arrive in Hell. This could pass as just a scary place for children, but as you grow older you notice more of the devils, demons, fires, and more.

A lot of blogs I’ve seen describe the ending as “but you luckily escaped Hell”, but I really don’t think that’s true. I think they just needed an unloading zone and the ride had made its way back around, I don’t think it’s part of the story. For it to make logical sense, then yes, the ride ends in Hell and you’ve died. Oh, the Disney magic. This is not to bash on Disney at all, as I ride this ride every time I visit and would be sad if it was taken away. I just find it funny how a lot of us have normalized it and pushed to the back of our brains what’s really going on. It makes classic and vintage Disney from the 1950s stand out way more when it wasn’t so politically correct.

Confirmed by Disney

According to the E-Ticket produced by the Walt Disney Family Museum about Mr.Toad’s Wild Ride, they even admit that this storyline is exactly what happens. They’ve refurbished it in the past and added new expansions to it, but the orignal and today’s story still ends the same. They wanted to have an “increasingly claustrophobic” experience to mimic the story of Mr.Toad, who gets into a lot of trouble and has to find a way out. The message of the story and the ride is “you play, you pay”. They hide it from children though by adding lots of funny sounds, faces, and vibrant colours.

So, next time you ride this ride, see if you can spot the car crashes, drunk driving, train scene and the hell scene. It might change your perspective on the ride but it sure makes it a whole lot more interesting.

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