Original subtitles

[birds chirping]

[announcer] Remain seated, please.

[in Spanish] Please remain seated.

[♪ theme music]

[♪ epic music]

[in English] There's something brand new on the horizon.

-[thunder rumbling] -[riders screaming]

[♪ upbeat music]

[narrator] Gripping, roaring, bending, twisting,

-not to mention… -[goat bleats]

…uh, whatever it is he's doing up there.

-It's a little unnerving. -[goat bleats]

Anyway… this wild ride

through the rocky outcrops of the American Frontier…

[bird squawks]

…is an express train to fun!

[Southerner] Howdy, partners!

[narrator] With stops all around the world…

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will make you exclaim with glee…

Hold onto your hats and glasses, the wildest ride in the wilderness!

[narrator] And really, this rail-based attraction

was inevitable for the Disney Parks.

This is something that had to come to be eventually,

our railroad, our train at the heart of the thrill attraction.

[narrator] Because Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

all started here.

Which is no surprise, because Walt Disney loved trains.

-All aboard! -[train horn honks]

Trains were a part of his whole psyche, I think.

He had his own backyard railroad

with a featured engine, the Lilly Belle, named after his wife.

So when Disneyland opened, it was a lot about trains

because that was Walt's hobby.

[narrator] And here in Frontierland, was one particularly curious train.

Live pack mules that you could ride on in a pack mule train.

[narrator] No, not the mule train, this train!

[train conductor] All aboard, folks!

[narrator] A place where two tracks converged with Walt's love for trains

and the history of America's Wild Frontier.

He created an area in Frontierland, which was an Old West town.

[announcer] Rainbow Ridge is a Frontier Traffic Center.

Their stagecoaches and conestoga wagons arrive and depart

just as they did in the days gone by.

[narrator] And at the center of it all…

this charming little choo-choo.

Called Rainbow Caverns Mine Train.

This was a vast adventure throughout Frontierland of the desert.

It would take you through the natural vistas of the Old West.

And then you would go inside the mountain,

and there were colored waterfalls in there with stalactites and stalagmites

and it was really lovely.

[narrator] And by 1960, it had become even lovelier.

It evolved into the attraction that came to be called

the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland.

[train conductor] ♪ All aboard the Mine Train… ♪

They're essentially the same attraction,

but Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland was a great expansion of it.

We redesigned the entire desert area and expanded it way out to there.

And it added all kinds of scenes, including a trestle that goes over a river

through a beautiful environment, where there are bears.

[narrator] Many of which came from the imagination

of one of the brightest, funniest and newest artists on the Disney roster.

-[chuckles] -Well, at least new to Imagineering.

I was a man that had been sitting on my…

hind end for, like, 25 years as an animator.

[narrator] But the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland

was one of his first forays into Imagineering.

And Marc Davis played a large part

in creating this beloved early Disney immersive experience.

When he first came to Imagineering, he added a lot of humor.

[announcer] That critter there, that's Itchy Sam.

He's having himself a time.

[laughter]

[narrator] But, as hilarious and delightful as it was,

the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland

did have a couple of issues.

It was quite leisurely.

It was poky, it was slow.

And then there was also the pack mules.

[mules bray]

[narrator] Um, no, the pack mules didn't last long.

Because they tried to nibble at you.

[narrator] Despite the lack of thrills…

guests very much enjoyed the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland,

as it chugged away along the railroad of time,

through the '60s and into the '70s.

But, as a new decade dawned,

something far from poky

-was on the horizon. -[riders screaming]

Because Disney Parks were about to be struck by Big Thunder.

[thunder rumbling]

Which you find quite a bit of in Florida,

where in the late 1960s, Imagineers were hard at work,

designing and building the all-new Walt Disney World Resort.

The Imagineers wanted some differences between Disneyland and Magic Kingdom Park.

So one of the differences was going to be…

there would be no Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.

Why take pirates to Florida when they've been promoting pirates

for several hundred years down there.

[narrator] Exactly!

So Walt's creative team had a different idea for Florida.

The idea was to take the cowboys to Florida

and give them a similar show in the opposite way.

[narrator] And thus the plan became…

Pirates of the Caribbean, of the West, and the East.

It would be one of three attractions

in a massive themed area called Thunder Mesa.

And it was big.

It took up a whole kind of western section of Frontierland

in the Magic Kingdom.

And the only thing I can describe that was that big in today's Disney knowledge,

would be the Cars Land rock or… or Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

It was a lot of real estate.

[narrator] Which makes sense,

because Walt and Roy Disney did buy a lot of real estate.

Walt Disney World is twice as big as the Island of Manhattan.

[narrator] As plans for the expensive, Floridan Thunder Mesa took shape,

size was no object.

[Tim] You were on this boat

and you're going through all this Western scenes.

There's all kinds of shenanigans going on.

[narrator] But time was.

It was so elaborate, it was going to take some time to create and build.

Certainly past the October 1, 1971 opening of Walt Disney World.

[narrator] And so, with Marc's passion projects

slated for phase two development,

Walt Disney World got on with the business of its 1971 Grand Opening.

And as thousands flocked to the new park…

It was clear they had a problem…

and that was that The Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't there.

[thunder rumbling]

[narrator] What the public was saying,

sent shivers down the spine of Walt Disney World management.

The public was starting to become very vocal about,

if you're gonna go to a Disney Park, go to California,

because the new ride they opened out there, Pirates of the Caribbean,

is way beyond anything in Walt Disney World.

[narrator] But they did have a plan.

And there was no plan for making The Pirates of the Caribbean.

So… panic.

So they knew they had to build a pirate ride

which would be a ton of money,

and they had to do it really fast.

[narrator] Meaning Walt Disney World would now have

Pirates of the Caribbean, and…

a Western-themed Pirates of the Caribbean.

-[chuckles] -Well, you can't have two.

That put a spotlight on what are we gonna do with Western River?

[narrator] Well, they weren't thinking about shelving it, were they?

In Imagineering, there's hundreds of thousands of sketches.

People are sketching all the time.

And half the time, they go into drawers never to see the light of day again.

[narrator] But, the living legend, Marc Davis,

had poured all of his best ideas

into this incredible Western expanse of entertainment.

The ride was absolutely stunning.

[narrator] Well, this man should know.

He worked under Marc Davis on it.

Well, my name is Tony Baxter

and I spent my entire career working for the Walt Disney company.

[narrator] Starting when he was a teenager.

It started with Disneyland as an ice-cream scooper.

And it wasn't that I wanted to scoop ice-cream,

but I really wanted to work at Disneyland.

[narrator] But it didn't take long for this young ice-cream scooper

to realize that the real action didn't happen at Disneyland

but at the Walt Disney Imagineering Facilities

about an hour's drive up the road.

I remember one day, this kid showed up

with this kind of a gravity machine in the back of a vehicle

and set it up and started to describe why he wanted to come to Imagineering.

A few minutes into his demo, I basically told the guys,

"Hire this guy, he's never gonna leave us alone."

I guess Bob Gurr was kind of right.

In that if I didn't get hired, I would've pestered them, uh, forever.

There are people like that.

They have their heart set on something,

and they will never leave you alone until you hire them.

[narrator] And so, they did hire Tony.

[Tony] My first job at Imagineering was working in a model shop

and that was kind of a training ground.

And then I was sent out to Florida, to work on Walt Disney World.

And when I came back from that,

Imagineering was kind of in a, you know, downscaling mode.

And so, I had to find an attraction.

And so, that's where I started working with Marc Davis.

[narrator] On Thunder Mesa, which was now… about to get canceled.

Yeah.

[narrator] But that idea was not acceptable to Tony.

I didn't wanna ever get anything where we're ruling it out.

[narrator] And besides, there was more to it than just the boat ride.

On the front of his attraction, he had the appearance of a mine train ride.

It wasn't developed enough to know if it was gonna be fun and thrilling.

I was very inspired by that.

And I knew I had to extract it, while trying to not offend Marc.

[narrator] An intimidating prospect for a young Imagineer,

who'd been working under Marc Davis.

And now, he was proposing throwing out a bunch of his boss's work.

Who would do such a thing?

Spoiler alert! This guy.

With an opportunity to create his first attraction,

Tony applied his trademark persistence…

This guy, he's never gonna leave us alone.

…to convince imposing Disney Executive, Card Walker,

that this small part of Thunder Mesa was a big idea worth saving.

We could build this big Thunder

for about a quarter of what the cost would've been for the Western River Ride

and I think that's where I got the corporate level vote

to go with Big Thunder.

[narrator] And so, thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean,

Thunder Mesa was scaled back, and Tony Baxter needed to dig in

and get his hands dirty, on what was now a mountain of work.

I think this was the first attraction, big attraction,

that was created without any Walt Disney input at all.

So Tony and his team were making handmade models.

[Tim] And you just poured over that, going,

"Oh, my gosh, look where the train's gonna go!

Look what it's gonna do, this is gonna be so exciting, it's so neat!"

[narrator] And finally, after developing, creating, working and reworking…

There were nine different models made

and they were very intricate, very detailed.

In fact, they were using Q-Tips for the rail tracks…

[chuckles] …in these models.

[narrator] Oh, but not for long.

Because on January 15th, 1975,

Tony Baxter was able to witness the opening of…

[Mickey Mouse] We proudly present Space Mountain!

[narrator] Oh, that's the wrong mountain. What happened there?

About halfway through my design on Big Thunder,

all of a sudden, there was this other thing.

We had landed on the moon

and NASA was right near Walt Disney World…

-[launch commentator] Ignition. -…and we knew

people were gonna visit us,

-and then go over to the Cape. -[launch commentator] Lift off!

[narrator] And suddenly, one of Walt Disney's ideas

came out of the drawer.

And they again looked back through the Walt book,

and there was this thing

that was tentatively called Space Mountain.

That was in during Walt's time, he saw it, John Hench had drawn it

and they began to refine it.

And the next thing you knew, both Big Thunder and Western River

were up against something that was topical, tremendously exciting

and doing a roller coaster in complete blackness was unheard of.

[♪ epic music]

[narrator] Soon, people all around the world

would hear of Space Mountain.

And, with only enough budget for one mountain…

Big Thunder was put on the shelf.

More likely… an actual drawer.

And that's where our story… might have ended.

The whole thing crumbled.

[narrator] But all hope hadn't eroded just yet.

Because back on the West Coast in Disneyland,

the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland was still chugging away.

But it looked like it might be coming to the end of the line.

Nature's Wonderland was getting a little bit tired.

[mules bray]

It wasn't thrilling and the animation by even their standards after Pirates,

was first grade versus college level.

-[owl hoots] -[announcer] Howdy hooty,

you're awake, yeah?

Their big measuring stick was

how many clicks does the turnstile do in an hour?

And when it gets down to a certain point,

you'd say, this is not a preferred attraction.

[narrator] And those turnstiles told a story

-of what people really preferred. -[crickets chirping]

Guests, especially young guests, were seeking thrill attractions.

[narrator] Right. Like Space Mountain back in Florida.

Now it seemed the tables had turned, where once Florida had pirate envy…

The Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't there.

…now California had an adrenalin deficit.

So… something had to be done.

[narrator] So once again,

Tony Baxter's employment future looked bright.

When Disneyland finally opened…

well, they… they put Space Mountain in as well.

But that was in Tomorrowland of course.

On the, uh, East side of the park, the West side of Disneyland,

the Mark Twain, you had the Colombia ship, you had the island, it's all great.

-It's a little slow. -[ship horn honks]

[narrator] And Disney management knew exactly what to do.

We need a thrill attraction at Disneyland, in Frontierland

to take the place of Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland.

-[narrator] Wracking their brains… -[announcer] Big Thunder.

…and searching Imagineering's drawer for ideas…

-[announcer] Big Thunder. -…once more…

Tony Baxter steps in.

[narrator] Tony Baxter stepped in!

And they said, "Well, we really liked what you were doing in Florida

for that thing called Big Thunder.

Could you make that work at Disneyland?"

And I was so thankful that there might be a way to keep it going

rather than shutting it down, while Space Mountain happened,

that I said, "Well, yeah, sure."

[narrator] And so finally,

the train had left the station, albeit a little late,

-thanks to the re-routing through Florida. -[inaudible laugh]

But not to worry,

because all the hard work was already done.

All Tony had to do was take his plans and bring in the bulldozers.

Oh, that and one other little thing.

I never realized it was gonna require

completely sending all the blueprints through backwards.

Because the only space at Disneyland

was over where Nature's Wonderland existed and that was on the other side.

So all the dips and turns and everything had to be totally reverse engineered.

And imagining Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for Disneyland,

Tony Baxter and his team drew inspiration from Bryce Canyon in Utah.

Very whimsical looking.

And it was gargantuan in scale.

When the Imagineers were building Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,

it was one of the largest undertakings

and largest developments to occur at Disneyland, in a long time.

I mean, it took up a very, very big footprint,

while the park is open and operating by the way,

and where Big Thunder sits, it sits basically in the middle of Frontierland.

So you're trying to build this mountain,

while you're having an operating park happening around you.

So it was a big, big deal.

[narrator] A big deal and a big attraction.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad made some big promises.

[announcer] Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

is perhaps one of the most thrilling and imaginative adventures of all.

It's in keeping with Disney tradition, an experience,

a show with runaway mine trains

that whisk guests through dark tunnels and mineshafts.

Past raging waterfalls and into deep canyons.

Face to face with an avalanche.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be an adventure that's as downright wild

as the reckless days of a gold rush.

Currently under construction for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

[narrator] What? Walt Disney World?

Well, it turns out Card Walker and Disney management thought,

"Why not learn from our mistakes?"

The Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't there.

[narrator] And just decided to do both parks at the same time.

So Tony Baxter… re-reversed his plans.

At Anaheim, you do a ton of right turns.

In Magic Kingdom, you're gonna take a lot of left turns.

They are just true mirror images of each other.

[narrator] The movement might be the same, but the vistas are slightly different.

Because, well, they wouldn't wanna make this too easy for themselves.

In Florida, the Imagineers echoing Walt, didn't want to just repeat themselves.

So they gave it a different environment based on Monument Valley in Arizona.

It's very similar rides,

but they still are unique and different from each other.

[narrator] However, they were exactly alike in one important way.

I love our story, I think it's so different

than a lot of other stories.

[narrator] The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad story.

Because there had to be a reason for it taking off and going crazy.

[narrator] There really did.

And so, what is the… uh, story?

It's not just about a bumpy, twisting coaster.

[narrator] Ooh, but don't worry, there's plenty of that!

There were mine train rides at other parks,

but Disney, of course, was not going to do anything like the other parks had done.

Start putting you into a story world, which is in this case,

an Old West Mining Company and a mountain.

[narrator] And some greedy miners who dug… too deep.

If you dig deeper,

the spirits of Big Thunder Mountain are gonna come after us and curse us.

[narrator] And with this curse, comes devastation.

We experienced havens, mining equipment disappeared,

trains started to drive themselves…

-[goat bleats] -…and goats started to chew on dynamite.

[narrator] But this isn't just any goat.

At least in California, I think the star of the show

is our surprising little goat with a dynamite stick.

[goat bleats]

The name of our goat is Billy.

-[narrator] Well, unofficially, at least. -[goat bleats]

I don't think we would be Big Thunder Mountain Railroad without Billy.

And it's grown its own subculture.

He's kind of the symbol of who we are as a team, kind of our team leader.

[narrator] But the question everybody wants to know, is, uh… why?

-I don't know. -[narrator] Well, Julie knows.

A lot of our guests love riding our attraction because of the goat trick.

[narrator] That's right. The goat trick.

The goat trick, when they stare at the goat

while they go around the tight curve there,

which makes it seem like you're going too fast.

-As soon as you see the goat… -[♪ upbeat music]

…turn all the way to your right,

and through physics, it almost feels like you are spinning faster than what you are.

It's grown this cultural thing, where people will ride it

and be obsessed on the goat, you know.

So the goat trick has come into, uh, its own.

-And we have goats on all of the rides. -[goat bleats]

But I think the position at Disneyland, for some reason,

has lifted it

out of being just another character along the track, into notoriety.

-[goat bleats, shrieks] -[narrator] Don't look in its eyes, or do!

Anyway, the menagerie of mechanical animals in many ways,

was Tony Baxter's tribute to his mentor

and the original beloved attraction that Tony had just bulldozed.

And the goat kind of came to life as an homage

to what Marc Davis would've done.

I have to say that if we had been able to give it to Marc,

it would've been ten-fold probably more.

You can see classic Marc Davis moments in the attraction.

I have always loved Marc's love of critters and animals.

And here you are on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,

"Wow, we're going really fast

and this train's running away and we're in this mine.

And there's an explosion here!"

And then… there's a possum sort of swinging in the tree.

And you're, like, "Huh? That's weird."

[narrator] Well, they are possums. Definitely don't look into their eyes.

-[possum squeaks] -[narrator] Anyway…

There's something brand new on the horizon.

…on September 2nd, 1979,

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad finally opened at Disneyland.

[♪ grandiose music]

And then, about a year later, in Walt Disney World.

And guests flocked to these exciting new attractions.

[riders screaming]

And as for that old measuring stick…

How many clicks does the turnstile do in an hour?

[narrator] Well, we'll let the turnstiles do the talking.

Oh, and this reporter.

I counted them and we came up with the number for you, umpteen thousand.

But seriously, judging from their comments,

Big Thunder Mountain is a very big success.

[narrator] It surely was.

[reporter] There is so much going on during the ride

that you can't possibly see it all in one trip.

[representative] Our shows create an interest to go back again and again.

And that's kind of the magic of Disney World and Disneyland.

[narrator] Having brought Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

to its wildly successful destination in two parks,

it was time for Imagineers to put their feet up and relax.

No. [chuckles]

Uh… actually, it was back to the salt mines.

Or in this case, the gold mines.

After Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was a tremendous hit

at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World,

of course they wanted one at Tokyo, Disneyland.

[narrator] And in 1987, that's just what they got.

Tokyo is similar to the one in Florida, that's Monument Valley.

[narrator] But it's similar to both its predecessors

in one very special way.

The unbridled optimism of its cast members.

[in Japanese] We came to the West in search of gold during the Gold Rush.

We haven't hit gold yet,

but we're not giving up on our dream.

And as miners, we're working right here on Big Thunder Mountain.

[narrator in English] Out of all three Asian resorts,

Tokyo Disneyland is the only one to feature a Big Thunder Mountain.

-No, no, no, no, no, no, no. -[laughter]

[narrator] Well, at least if we're going strictly by name.

-[in Japanese] Yes. -[narrator in English] Because in 2012,

Hong Kong Disneyland installed what could best be described as…

Big Thunder's spiritual cousin.

It's called Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars.

While it is not a Big Thunder attraction, there are many similarities,

geysers and the mountainous terrain,

and certainly the Frontierland Western theme.

In an area called Grizzly Gulch, it's reminiscent of Big Thunder Mountain.

It's also reminiscent of the Old Mine Train,

because it's populated with bears, Grizzly, get it?

[bears growling]

And they're very reminiscent of the bears that Marc Davis had designed,

way back when for the Mine Train.

So it's kind of a fun mash-up.

[announcer] Well, stay seated, folks.

And as the story goes, the settlers of Grizzly Gulch

struck gold on August eighth, 1888.

There's a lot of eights in that.

So with the auspicious number eight holding a lot of importance

in the local Chinese lore

because they think that's a very lucky number.

Four, on the other hand, is an unlucky number.

So instead of going down shaft number eight

to see where all of the gold was found,

you go down to the dangerous shaft number four.

[riders screaming]

[Mark] There's a mine and all of that.

But the difference here is really the thrill.

You're going forward and you look like you're gonna climb this large mountain.

And suddenly…

it all reverses and you're suddenly going flying backwards for half the time.

So I think it's a very different kind of experience there.

[narrator] But, getting firmly back on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Track,

when it comes to versions around the world,

we simply must talk about this one.

In 1992, it got probably its most exciting incarnation.

[riders screaming]

[Tim] And that is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Disneyland, Paris.

[narrator] But Big Thunder Mountain is based around the American Wild West,

which you wouldn't think is of particular interest

-to the French. -No.

[bird squawks]

[narrator] But what is… is the cinema.

And thanks to those same films that inspired Walt Disney, it turns out…

They love the Wild West, and they love what John Ford is showing them in movies,

and John Wayne and…

uh, they know Monument Valley, and they know the Grand Canyon.

[narrator] And so, with an enthusiastic audience,

Tony Baxter suddenly found himself in a position

to make the biggest Big Thunder Mountain of his career.

You know, it's very seldom that a designer gets to do, uh, redesign

the same project four times. [chuckles]

[narrator] But in Paris, not only would the attraction be bigger…

Every other park, it was added after the park was already built.

So in Paris, I was determined we're going to put it front and center.

[narrator] Actually, he was even able to do a little bit better than that.

It's on an island.

[narrator] In the very center of Frontierland.

Because it changes the experience. You board land side,

you get in the vehicle and say, "How am I gonna get out there?"

And so, the attraction begins by plunging you down into darkness

as you're really traveling beneath the river.

And then coming up into the attraction.

[riders screaming]

And then at the end of the attraction,

after you think you've had all the thrills you could possibly imagine,

we plunge you down beneath the river to give you a great finale

and bring you back up.

So it not only changed the place-making of the attraction

and how wonderful it sits as the centerpiece of Frontierland,

but it really amped up the thrill of the attraction as well.

For sure, Big Thunder Mountain is the perfect mix between sensations

and the scenery is absolutely breathtaking.

You get this beautiful sense on colors everywhere.

You feel like you're in the middle of Monument Valley.

I mean, it's absolutely gorgeous. It's my favorite by far.

[narrator] But it's not just its good looks

that separate this Big Thunder from the rest.

Frontierland at Disneyland Paris

is wholly different from the Magic Kingdom or Disneyland,

in the sense that it has a very definitive storyline.

We tried to connect all the stories within the land.

[narrator] And oh, what stories.

It's about a gold baron.

Henry Ravenswood who owned the mine.

Whose, you know, very elaborate house is up there on the hill,

and it's falling into disrepair, that would be Phantom Manor,

their version of the Haunted Mansion.

[thunder rumbling]

That in turn changed of course, Phantom Manor.

This whole finale act

where going out into… rather than the graveyard,

you're going out into the Western town.

So tying it back to what you're seeing in Frontierland.

So all of those elements are very cleverly, I think,

story-wise, integrated at Disneyland Paris.

[narrator] Which brings us back to the storyline

of the original attraction, with plot twists like…

Goats started to chew on dynamite.

[narrator] Yeah, that's pretty much the highlight.

-Yeah. -[goat bleats]

When the attraction opened,

it was really about the wildest ride in the wilderness, this runaway train.

[Southerner] This here's the wildest ride in the wilderness!

[narrator] And of course, there's nothing at all wrong with that.

But in Disneyland…

it was a story that had, well…

-[cheers and applause] -…remained unchanged since 1979.

Hey, this thing needs some love.

Just like your house at home,

you need to repaint it, you need to rebuild something.

[narrator] The Imagineers had to rebuild the entire track actually.

Things just wear out over time.

[narrator] Luckily, things had come a long way

for bent steel roller coasters.

[Ray] The track, back in the '70s, was all hand-fabricated.

In the rehab, it was all done digitally, and then computer machines bend the track.

Because computers figure out all the geometry and all the forces

and they're able to do it seamlessly.

[narrator] But redoing an entire track sounds neither quick nor easy.

Which meant, like, complete closure of the attraction.

-[insects chirping] -[animal shrieks]

And it was decided that anything else that needed attention at that time

was gonna be done too.

[narrator] Which of course included the story.

And so, we went in and looked,

"Okay, what can we do in there

that would be fun and exciting and different?"

[narrator] And here's what they came up with.

Barnabas T. Bullion is the proprietor and owner, if you will,

of Big Thunder Mining Company.

He established a town called Rainbow Ridge right next door.

[narrator] But hold on one second, there's something about that face.

Who happens to look, by the way, a little bit like Tony Baxter.

-[♪ dramatic music] -[people exclaiming]

I have certainly seen the rendering they have done.

And I felt the facial expression on that painting was pretty severe.

[narrator] Meh, maybe it's just a coincidence.

Well, whoever he's modeled after,

Barnabas T. Bullion was a big deal in Big Thunder Mountain.

And he's also a member of an organization called S.E.A.,

Society of Explorers and Adventurers.

[narrator] This exclusive international society

is comprised of fictional characters

featured in Disney attractions around the globe.

Like Captain Mary Oceaneer.

Doctor Albert Falls and Harrison High Tower III,

to name a few recognizable ones.

Yeah, that is a thing.

[narrator] But don't be fooled

by the pleasant demeanor of this mining baron.

He's not necessarily the most, um…

uh, you know, positive character in the fact that he is, uh…

he went into a mountain and maybe he shouldn't have.

He wants that gold.

He doesn't care how it gets out, but he wants that gold

and he wants the money for himself.

[narrator] But, as Tony Baxter, ooh, sorry…

Barnabas T. Bullion lords over the mountain,

it's Ray here who, like the great Tony Baxter before him,

needed to dig in and get his hands dirty.

As a Creative Director, I'm the guy who's kind of looking at

and herding everybody to a common goal.

[narrator] But Ray wasn't just directing traffic on the Big Thunder refurb,

he was also… timing it.

I had to ride the ride maybe 15 times a night,

every night after the park closed, to adjust the show timing.

[narrator] And Ray took his sweet time, perfecting the timing.

We had time.

[narrator] But what they didn't have was an ending to the attraction.

The finale was not operating at that time.

[narrator] Well, if you're looking for ideas,

a good place to start would be… the drawer.

Hundreds of thousands of sketches put into drawers,

never to see the light of day again.

[narrator] For one particular idea, the light would shine again.

And it just so happened to be one of Ray's old ideas.

I'd done a bunch of sketches a few years before that.

[narrator] And they were really quite dynamite!

Uh, literally, dynamite.

It had always been kind of this danger, the rocks and caves are falling in on you.

Now, we decided to go with some exploding dynamite effects.

[explosion]

Stuff is literally exploding at you, dynamite going off all around you.

[narrator] In a very precise manner of course.

We were able to scan digitally all our caverns.

We were able to scan all the spaces.

We were able to texture map everything.

And so we were able to create these crazy effects and crazy projections

that weren't possible… back in the '70s.

[explosions]

[narrator] Well, with a dynamite ending and a brand-new track…

[riders screaming]

…Big Thunder Mountain Railroad had never been better.

Putting a smile on the faces of guests and Imagineers alike.

-In fact, it insighted so much joy… -[cheers and applause]

…that the attraction soon inspired a comic book,

honoring the great creator of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

There was a series of comics on Big Thunder,

in which I appeared to be the villain. [chuckles]

I was looking at it in line at a restaurant one night, with horror.

And the person that was with me snapped a photo.

And when he sent it to me, they both looked identical.

And he said, "So, what was it you were saying about not looking

like the way the character is drawn?"

[narrator] Whether he likes it or not,

Tony Baxter has been rightly immortalized into Disney history.

So I've kind of accepted it.

[narrator] But of course, Tony Baxter's character

is by no means Big Thunder's G-O-A-T.

The literal greatest of all time is of course, the goat.

And in fact… a fan made this for me… [chuckles]

…because she was so enamored of Billy.

It's beautifully done, it looks better than the real thing.

[goat bleats]

[narrator] And just like the attraction itself,

Billy the Goat's legacy is born of a rich history.

-Stretching back to… -[train conductor] All aboard, folks!

…right here. Where earlier mine trains once meandered

and the legacy of Marc Davis can be seen to this day.

I think Big Thunder's a great hand-off really,

between the first generation of Imagineers and the second.

You know, you think of Marc Davis

and his original thinking of a Western-themed land

and all the attractions that would be in that.

And how Tony was inspired by that,

it really brought some of that thinking into the idea

that became Big Thunder Mountain.

[Jim] Guests going to Disneyland today

can see remnants of Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland.

-[animal honks] -[narrator] That's right.

In an homage to his mentor…

[train horn honks]

…Tony reused parts of the very first thing

that inspired Big Thunder Mountain.

The biggest element that we were able to salvage

was the little town of Rainbow Ridge.

[Ray] The entire little town of Rainbow Ridge,

which is at the end of the ride,

it used to be the dispatch point for the little trains

that were on that attraction.

So some of those things were held over and reused in Big Thunder Mountain.

It's amazing to think that they are there to this day.

[narrator] It surely is.

They are still there to this day, right, Ray?

All of the buildings in that little town at Rainbow Ridge were rebuilt.

They were termite damaged.

[narrator] But never fear, because Ray knew exactly where to go…

the drawer of course.

So we dug out all the blueprints from Imagineering and we went through,

worked with the carpenters and the crews,

and recreated those buildings from the ground up.

[narrator] With Ray's faithful reproduction,

the spirit of the Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland lives on.

[train horn honks]

As it also does in Walt Disney World.

We have this beautiful painting of Big Thunder Mountain,

kind of the Thunder Mountain Range.

And so as you look at this painting,

it has the original Western River Expedition Mesa.

You then see Magic Kingdom's Big Thunder.

And behind that, into the clouds, you see Disneyland's,

you see Tokyo's and you see Paris's with its distinctive arch in the water.

All of that, and the whole kind of Big Thunder range,

including the range that never got built, is there on display in the park today.

[narrator] But if you wanna know how Disney Park fans across the world feel

about Big Thunder, there's only one thing that really counts.

[♪ dramatic music]

Well, it's the turnstiles, obviously.

Because to this day, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

is one of the most popular attractions

in the four Disney Parks where it operates.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is an all-time Disney classic.

It's an attraction that people just cannot get enough of.

And really shows how much all the work and imagination

the Imagineers put into it, paid off.

[narrator] And for that young ambitious former ice-cream scooper…

He's never gonna leave us alone.

…Big Thunder Mountain secured Tony Baxter's legacy

as a leading Imagineer for decades to come.

Sometimes you will meet people and you can just tell.

I had no idea where he would wind up

but look at all the things that he did for Disney thereafter.

I worked my entire career for the Walt Disney company,

primarily at Imagineering.

And worked my way up to Senior Vice President

in the Creative Development Department.

[narrator] Oh, there's more to come from Tony.

But for now…

Okay, Big Thunder, done it. Home run.

[narrator] In fact, you could probably say that Tony hit the bullseye.

-[goat shrieks] -Uh… goat's eye, goat's eye.

[goat bleats]

[♪ closing theme music]