It's a small world
| "it's a small world" | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disneyland Park and others |
| Land / area | Fantasyland |
| Type | Boat dark ride |
| Opened | April 22, 1964 (New York World's Fair) · May 28, 1966 (Disneyland) |
| Designer | WED Enterprises
|
| Status | Operating |
"it's a small world" is a boat dark ride at Disney theme parks, created for the 1964 New York World's Fair and moved to Disneyland Park in California in 1966. Guests sail past hundreds of Audio-Animatronic children in the dress of the world's cultures, all singing the same song — written by the Sherman Brothers — in rotation through several languages. It is among the most recognisable attractions on Earth, and by many measures the most performed: the song plays in the parks all day, every day, in a continuous loop.
Versions operate at Magic Kingdom (1971), Tokyo Disneyland (1983), Disneyland Paris (1992) and Hong Kong Disneyland (2008). The attraction's styling, by artist Mary Blair, defined a whole visual language for Disney: flat, saturated colour and shapes of childlike simplicity, from the dolls' faces to the white-and-gold clock-towered façade at Disneyland.
Origins at the World's Fair
The ride was one of four Disney attractions at the 1964–65 New York World's Fair. Pepsi commissioned it for its pavilion, a benefit for UNICEF, the United Nations children's fund; company legend holds that a Pepsi board member — actress Joan Crawford — pressed Walt Disney to accept, and that the project came together in about eleven months. Its Fair name was "Children of the World".
Walt asked staff songwriter brothers Richard and Robert Sherman for a song that could repeat in many languages. Their answer was a slow waltz ballad built on a single repeated verse: "It's a small world after all". The Shermans later recalled considering a faster, per-language version before Walt asked for the gentler one heard today. Reportedly, Disney waived royalty claims on the song in the project's charitable spirit, though the Sherman Brothers' creation has since become one of the most publicly performed songs in history.
The ride
At Disneyland the attraction opened on May 28, 1966, behind a 100-foot façade of Mary Blair-stylised landmarks topped by a 30-foot clock, beneath which a parade of wooden toy figures announces each quarter hour. Boats carry guests through rooms arranged by region — Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, the South Pacific — and a finale in which the dolls of all nations, dressed in white, sing together. The Disneyland ride contains roughly 300 figures; around 100 more sing in holiday dress during the seasonal "it's a small world Holiday" overlay, first installed in 1997.
The Florida version, an opening-day attraction at Magic Kingdom in 1971, places the ride indoors entirely — its façade sheltered under a circus-tent-style canopy inside Fantasyland — while Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong versions follow California's model to varying degrees. Hong Kong's 2008 version was the first to integrate Disney characters among the dolls; Disneyland followed in 2009, adding stylised figures from the animated films to its scenes — a change debated among purists and now simply part of the ride's history.