Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Friends on the Other Side of Splash Mountain


With Splash Mountain in the news recently, I was inspired to make a Princess and the Frog Splash Mountain sculpture.  Riding in the front of the log are Naveen and Tiana in their frog form, inspired by the Brer Rabbit hood ornament found on the Splash Mountain logs.  Of course I had to include Dr. Facilier, the breakout villain character from the film.  Seriously, Keith David owns every animated character he plays.  This sculpture is made using materials found at the beach (including shells, rocks, and shark teeth) as well as glue and paint.

Thoughts about changes to Splash Mountain's theme have been swirling around for years.  Given that Splash Mountain already has similar looking Frog characters, a shift to Princess and the Frog is pretty easy to imagine.  I would think that if a change is ever made, new ways of implementing characters to the environment would be introduced.  Na'vi River Journey at Disney's Animal Kingdom famously uses multi-plane projections, and even has leaping frogs on leaves catching insects.  Splash Mountain could very well have its own jumping frogs, lightning bugs, and swirling shadow creatures in the event that Princess and the Frog ever took over Splash Mountain.

On June 25, 2020, it was announced that Splash Mountain would indeed change to a Princess and the Frog theme in Florida and California.