Frontierland

100 episodes of theme parks, abandoned attractions, imagineering rabbit holes, lost concepts, strange design decisions, probably more often than is reasonable, very expensive fake rocks.

And if there ever was going to be one place for us to bring back for episode 100, it had to be Frontierland at Disneyland Paris.

More specifically, it had to be Thunder Mesa.

Because long before Factor Nostalgia became a podcast, Frontierland was one of the places that made me realize just how much storytelling could be hidden inside a theme park.

I remember discovering that Big Thunder Mountain and Phantom Manor weren't simply two rides that happened to sit next to each other, and that the river in between them wasn't merely there because somebody thought a lake would look nice.

They're all part of the same story.

A building could tell you what kind of person had once lived there, a river could tell you what kind of town this used to be, and a graveyard could tell you what eventually happened to the people who stayed.

That fascination is one of the things that eventually led to this podcast in the first place.

Oh, that's right.

Frontierland.

Frontierland.

Don't say that because there is a Frontierland out in the desert.

We're not going out that way.

Okay, Frontier Town.

Town.

We're going.

The only thing I could find is this.

Um, it's news about The Lion King show in the Frontierland Theater, formerly the Chaparral, Chaparral Theater.

I always call it Chaparral, but it's Chaparral Theater.

Um, Rhythms of the Pride Lands, or as we like to call it, Rhythms of the Pride's Lands, uh, will be closing on January the 6th.

So it's just having a bit of a break, and then it's gonna be back in the same spot.

So not really much change there.

But anyone going in January, from the 6th of January to the 13th of February, there'll be no Lion King Rhythm, Rhythms of the Pride Lands show at the Frontierland Theater.

Uh, that's all the news I've got for you, I'm afraid.

What do you think about this, Lynn? I think it bodes well for the future of the Disneyland Resort.

Yeah, I think it's definitely going to be, you know, like you mentioned in the article, the back of house operations, which is if they move more and more off property, that leaves more space for theme park building, possibly back behind Frontierland and behind Galaxy's Edge area.

Not as much Frontierland as much Galaxy's Edge and Toontown, maybe.

I don't know.

We'll see.

[sighs] But it's true every single time.

So one of my favorite, many favorite corners of the whole park, we're heading into Frontierland.

And friends, this one's big enough that we're not doing it in one episode.

We're doing a whole series, four parts.

Part three, we're pulling up a chair for all the dining.

And part four, I've got an incredibly special guest interview lined up that, uh, I am so excited for you to hear.

But today it's just you and me wandering through the wilderness together because at the end of the day, Disneyland really is a living, breathing piece of American imagination, and nowhere is that more true than right here in Frontierland.

Now, I do have a disclaimer for you today.

That's exactly right.

I, I was, uh, I was kind of in the middle of an evolution between being a- an hourly cast member and a management cast member, and I remember thinking, like, it was a great idea because it used to frustrate me the guests would have to walk from Frontierland to me to get their popcorn replaced because it's spilled.

Like, that seemed-

Yeah, yeah.

And, and they would train...

My training took place in Frontierland, probably in other places, but that's the one I've, I've remembered in detail.

They would just drop me off, and if...

They, they used starvation.