Disney ends Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Florida
By Brad Liston
ORLANDO, Fla., Sept 2 (Reuters) - Walt Disney World has been targeted by Southern Baptists, animal-rights activists and anti-homosexual groups, but the biggest protests by far have come from fans of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which Disney officials said on Wednesday would soon join the ash heap of history.
One of the Walt Disney Co's (DIS - news) worst-kept secrets has been its plan to scrap the 27-year-old Fantasyland ride in favor of one featuring Winnie the Pooh.
Disney officials, who were not available for comment, issued a statement confirming Mr. Toad would be closed next Monday.
''The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh will debut at Fantasyland in summer, 1999, replacing Mr. Toad's Wild Ride,'' the statement said.
''It's just horrible,'' said Jef Moscot, a 26-year-old computer systems administrator from Miami who has led the fight to preserve the ride. ''Disney is ruining the park by closing a classic ride in favor of the next big thing.''
Many of the ride's fans, who have picketed the park weekly since the rumor of Mr. Toad's demise swept their ranks last April, consider the ride a treasured memory of childhood that they enjoyed revisiting as adults.
''My parents took me on the ride when I was four and I can still remember it,'' said Wayne Story, of Melbourne, Fla. ''Everything else in the Magic Kingdom was all happy, smiley, happy. Mr. Toad was a little more subversive. I still love it.''
Riders on the low-tech adventure follow the bowler-hatted amphibian from the Kenneth Grahame children's novel ''The Wind in the Willows'' on a stolen motorcoach as it crashes into a train. Next stop is Hell, inhabited by red devils and a pitchfork-bearing Satan.
''I guess Satan has become too politically charged to include on a children's ride,'' said Laurie Stacy, 31, who was among the hundreds of self-described ''Toadies'' who have revisited in recent days.
On the new Winnie the Pooh ride, which will open next year, riders climb aboard honey pots and meander through a blustery day in the Hundred-Acre-Wood.
This was not the first time Disney has closed a ride, but park officials acknowledged no other closing has provoked as much clamor. The ''Take Flight'' feature at Tomorrowland, which is closing to make room for a Buzz Lightyear ride, has not raised a ripple of protest.
But the hundreds of picketers, the thousands of letters and e-mails that poured into Disney officials from chairman Michael Eisner on down, the web sites and the T-shirts saying ''Ask me why Mickey is killing Mr. Toad'' could not save the ride.
Disney has been the target of numerous protests recently. Southern Baptists protested over family-values issues; animal rights activists targeted the company over its handling of animals at its new Animal Kingdom attraction, and anti-gay activists threatened to disrupt Gay Days at the park.
But unlike other protests targeting Disney, which included threats from the radical anti-abortion group Operation Rescue to close the park last June, the communication between Toadies and Disney officials has been positive.
''Some of the employees see the T-shirt and say, ''Hey, you're a Toady. Me, too. We know a lot of people love Mr. Toad, but what are you going to do?'' said Tim Meyer of Winter Park, Florida.
Winnie the Pooh, the creation of writer A.A. Milne, is the most heavily marketed character in the world, according to Disney officials.
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