Here is the part 4 of my tribute to the Disney MGM Studios, and this time it is about an attraction envisioned for the park, but that never was ...or almost was: the Dick Tracy Crime Stoppers attraction.
Remember Warren Beatty's movie adaptation of the famous Dick Tracy comic strip released in 1990? The stylised movie where Al Pacino and all villains had masks on their faces to look like the characters in the comic strip?
Yes, the one with Madonna playing in it - she was dating Warren Beatty at that time!
Well, everybody at Disney was so much convinced that the movie will be a big hit that Walt Disney Imagineering designed a fantastic Dick Tracy attraction, a whole area in the park, in fact.
An attraction where "Dick Tracy will recruit guests to shoot it out with gangsters bad guys"...
The 1990's press release was saying that " Guests will literally get "into the act" in this new high-tech action-adventure featuring the latest Audio-Animatronics, simulation, sound and special effects." And also: "Guests will join America's favorite comic-strip detective in a high-speed chase with his gangster adversaries." And in what kind of decor this high-speed chase would have take place? Well, this kind of decor that you can see on the rendering below - a really great great one.
Below, two close shots of this artwork to have a better view how detailed it was.
As for the high-speed chase itself, this rendering below will give you a perfect feeling of it.
Here also, two close shots of the artwork.
It looked great, doesn't it? And not only the Dick Tracy Crime Stoppers attraction was envisioned for the Disney MGM Studios, but also for Disneyland, Anaheim for a whole new land: "Hollywoodland". And if you ask any imagineer who worked at WDI at that time who had the luck to see the model, they will all tell you how great the attraction would have been.
Yes, but...the problem was that Dick Tracy's box office didn't reached Disney expectations, and you know what kind of things often happen when an "eagerly anticipated summer hit" finally is not that successful, don't you? That's right, all the plans were cancelled, and we're all still waiting for this Dick Tracy attraction...although...when i look again to that rendering of the decor with a cinemascope format, the right part of it reminds me what anyone can see in the best themed park on Earth: the streets of Tokyo Disney Sea's American Waterfront under the elevated tramway.
Hmmm, apparently may be something from Dick Tracy Crime Stoppers finally survived? Your thoughts?
Artwork: copyright Disney Enterprises Inc.
my father-in-law worked on this ride, and it sounds like a lot of the technology they planned for the ride vehicles ended up getting repurposed for the Indiana Jones attractions.
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