King Arthur Carrousel
| King Arthur Carrousel | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disneyland Park |
| Land / area | Fantasyland |
| Type | Carousel |
| Opened | July 17, 1955 |
| Designer | Dentzel Carousel Company
|
| Status | Operating |
King Arthur Carrousel is a carousel in Fantasyland at Disneyland Park in the Disneyland Resort, California. It opened with the park on July 17, 1955, but the machine itself is far older: it was built by the Dentzel Carousel Company and had operated at Sunnyside Beach Park in Toronto, Ontario, since 1922. The carrousel — the spelling Disney uses — stands in the courtyard behind Sleeping Beauty Castle and turns beneath a medieval-style canopy hung with scenes from Sleeping Beauty.
History
The carousel has a place in Disneyland's origin story. Walt Disney often described conceiving a park of his own while sitting on a bench at the merry-go-round in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, watching his daughters ride while he had nothing to do. A carousel was therefore a non-negotiable part of the new park, and in 1954 Disney bought the Dentzel machine from Toronto and shipped it to California.
The Toronto carousel was a menagerie machine, carrying a mixture of horses and other animals on three rows. Disney wanted every rider to be a knight, so the brief given to Arrow Development, which refurbished the ride for Disneyland, was to convert it to horses only — and jumpers only, every horse posed mid-gallop. The platform was widened from three rows to four, and the additional horses were gathered from other antique carousels around North America, including Stein and Goldstein and Looff machines and a Coney Island carousel. Some of the figures collected date to the late nineteenth century. The non-horse animals removed from the Dentzel were not wasted: their sleigh-style bench seats were reused on the nearby Casey Jr. Circus Train.
For its first twenty years the horses were painted in varied colours — browns, greys, black and white. One white horse proved so much more popular than the rest that in 1975 all of the horses were repainted white, and they have remained white since. A lengthy refurbishment completed in 2003 reduced the mounted herd to 68 horses plus one bench chariot, with the remaining antique horses held in a rotation of restoration off the ride; each horse is individually carved, differently posed, and has its own name and distinct gold-leaf and jewel detailing.
The horses
Because the herd was assembled from several makers' carousels, no two horses are alike; each has a different face, saddle and trappings. The lead horse, on the outside row, is Jingles, named for the bells carved into her straps and saddle. Jingles is traditionally described as Walt Disney's favourite horse on the ride, and in 2008 she was dedicated to Julie Andrews, who rode her in a ceremony marking the actress's connection to Mary Poppins — a film in which a carousel sequence features prominently.
Every horse is a jumper: the brass poles pass through the figures off-centre and the overhead crank mechanism drives each one up and down as the platform turns, so the entire herd gallops continuously. The carrousel carries more than 3,000 lights on its canopy and rounding boards, and its centre panels carry hand-painted vignettes. Unlike many antique carousels it has no band organ; recorded orchestrations of Disney melodies accompany the ride.