Fatties Sinking Disney's 'Small World Ride'

Just when you thought the world condition couldn't get any worse comes news of Disneyland's iconic Small World boat ride suffering from an obvious signs of the times, even if Disney says it a'int so.

The L.A. Times reports that the California theme park is "upgrading" the canal that those little boats float down in order to 'deepen the channel', and while the park says it has nothing to do with the number of fat tourists taking to the less-than-high seas of Disneyland, it's hard not to argue the reasons are for just that. I mean, it's a known fact that the average American is something like 40lbs heavier now than we were back in the say 1960s, the era of slim business suits, loungewear and housewives still wearing pearls and hourglass-shaped A dresses.

The park plans to add at least an inch in depth to the water channel and upgrade to more buoyant boats.

"If these boats get stuck, they have to send someone back in there to lighten the load on the boat," said MiceAge site owner AL Lutz according to the Times. Lutz reportedly has been on the ride when a guest or two was asked to disembark.

"They've even built a platform next to that [Mounties] curve because they've had so many problems."

But Disney officials say the boats get stuck because "layers and layers" of fiberglass have built up where maintenance teams have patched and re-patched problem areas.

Patches of fiberglass? Then why not just replace the boats themselves without the massive remodel? Or, perhaps Disney, being a global omnimedia leader, should use its influence to call us out for what we are, a nation of fatty fats who have become so wide and thick, we're sinking boats...

But would the brutal honesty get us off the sofa, away from the computers and on the treadmill? Fat chance.

Posted by JD on November 9, 2007 10:59 AM