Don't Expect Tokyo Disneyland to be Changing its Splash Mountain Anytime Soon

News broke today that the Walt Disney Company will be redesigning one of its most popular attractions in Disneyland and DisneyWorld, Splash Mountain.

The log flume ride, which features characters from the controversial 1946 film "Song of the South" will be rethemed to star the characters from the 2009 animated film, "The Princess and the Frog," which features Disney's first Black princess.

Fans have been urging Disney to retheme Splash Mountain because of the racial stereotypes from the film it is based upon. "Song of the South", which is best known for the song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah",  has long been criticized for its offensive portrayals of African Americans as well as a romanticized view of the antebellum South.

It’s currently one of the few properties the company has not allowed to be purchased or released on their streaming service, Disney+.

I’ve seen the film. There are definitely problematic elements in it. Some have said that there are valuable lessons taught in it as well. But it’s a tough watch in 2020.

While many were celebrating the news, which is certainly worthy of a celebration, I was not yet ready to give Disney a standing ovation yet. After all, calls for this ride to change its theme began years ago, and only now, after everything that’s happened, Disney finally decided to change it. If you don’t think the Walt Disney Company is opportunistic, you don’t know the Walt Disney Company.

Also, since the movie has been locked up in the vault, the current customer likely has no knowledge of who these characters are. So changing it to “The Princess and the Frog” was the smart choice even though I think that movie has problematic elements to it.

The announcement today included concept art but given the COVID-19 shutdown, there is no definite timetable of when the changes will be made.

But while the announcement included the rides in both Anaheim and Orlando, the one location that was missing was Tokyo.

And I wouldn’t expect Tokyo to change it anytime soon.

I’m also not sure how much power the Walt Disney Company has to change it either, because it technically doesn’t own Tokyo Disneyland.

In case you didn’t know, the park is owned by The Oriental Land Company, which licenses the theme from The Walt Disney Company. They signed a licensing agreement with Disney in 1979 where OLC agreed to pay 10% of its admission revenues and 5% of its food and souvenir revenues as royalty to Disney.

I’ve done as much research on the deal as I can and from what I can tell, while the two companies have a great relationship when it comes to Imagineering, it’s not clear who has the final say of what goes in the park and how rides are changed. Judging by the fact that Tokyo wasn’t included in the announcement, leads me to believe that The Walt Disney Company doesn’t have the authority to retheme it or some serious negotiating has to take place.

I’ve spoken with two former employees who told me that while OLC couldn’t violate Disney licensing by changing the looks of characters and such, they had doubts that Disney could just come in and retheme a ride.

And to be honest, in Japan, the ride isn’t necessarily perceived as racist. Obviously they didn’t go through the antebellum South, so the theme and characters don’t have much meaning other than being about a fox and a hare.

So given that there isn’t much of an uproar in Japan and the fact that Disney may or may not have the authority to just come in and change a ride, I don’t expect Japan to be retheming Splash Mountain anytime soon.

So if you’re someone who yearns of an antebellum Southern theme Splash Mounting, and I’m definitely raising an eyebrow towards you, then you’ll find it in Tokyo.