It's a Big World after all

Dear Bro,

I seem to remember from our days in Southern California that you and I visited Disneyland on several occasions to attend to a day of fun at the amusement park. Between the Matterhorn and Space Mountain I don't think we rode too many of the other rides, but I remember when we took Michelle we always had to ride that kid pleasing, worst song in the world playing, boat ride through badly designed figures of Children from countries around the world entitled "It's a Small World".

The only redeeming quality of the ride was that the air conditioning was always turned up full blast, thus creating the coolest spot in the park on a hot summer's day. Of course, while riding though the building you had to listen to the song "Small World" with it's repetitive chorus that, though originally written by the Sherman brothers (Robert & Richard) to promote world peace, would probably be the most effective interrogation tool at Guantanamo if they put it to use.

Well, it appears that for 2008 the ride is going into a major overhaul that will require a year of upgrades until it can reopen. What gives? Are the animatronic (Disney's word.. not mine) native figures all going on strike? Have the Asian countries of the world filed suit in court against Disney because the Asian room on the ride sings "Small World" only in Japanese?

Nothing quite that exotic or political... I assure you....

It appears that Disneyland is having major problems with backups on the ride because the boats keep "bottoming out" as they pass through the building. You see, when the ride opened in 1963, the ride was designed for the average American male and female, who weighed about 175lb and 132lb respectively. Well, as you know, since then McDonalds has replaced General Foods on the Dow Jones Industrials top 30, and as an indirect result the average American couple that rides this one is probably 175lb plus 135lb each, thus causing the boats not only to sit lower in the water as they attempt to float past the numerous singing automated (my word) children, but in many cases scrap along the bottom of the tank like a u-boat in a crash dive.

Here's an idea, when they re-open the ride in 2009, not only should they made the water deeper but they should have boats that you have to peddle to keep them moving. You could plug it as an "eco-friendly" ride as the peddle power could be harnessed in some way to power the ride, plus it would burn a ton of calories....

"It's a small, green, healthy world after all"
"It's a small, green, healthy world after all"
"It's a small, green, healthy world!"