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The State of Florida has reportedly filed a suit in court to keep Walt Disney World from turning Magic Kingdom’s Splash Mountain attraction into a Princess and the Frog-themed ride.
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In 2022, Florida’s government was no stranger to the legal system and controversy. In March 2022, the Sunshine State passed Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, and immediately, The Walt Disney Company issued a statement, denouncing the decision to make the bill a law, setting into motion a rift between Florida and Disney that’s still very evident to this day.
After Disney’s statement, Gov. Ron DeSantis began taking steps to remove some of Disney’s power, as it pertained to the Reedy Creek Improvement District, Disney’s self-governing entity that oversees the goings-on at the Walt Disney World Resort and the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In April, DeSantis and the Florida legislature succeeded in passing a law that will effectively dissolve Reedy Creek and a handful of other special tax districts in the Sunshine State, as of July 1, 2023.
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Now, Florida’s government is reportedly continuing its legal trend into 2023, as the Sunshine State has filed suit to make Splash Mountain a historical landmark, thus protecting it against Imagineering’s efforts to move forward with the planned retheming of the attraction into a Princess and the Frog-themed attraction, called Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
Credit: Disney Parks
The State of Florida is in good company. Nearly 100,000 Splash Mountain fans have signed a petition at Change.org, in the hopes of halting Disney’s retheming of the massively popular Disney log flume attraction.
The retheming was first announced in June 2020, and almost immediately, it was met with opposition from Disney Parks fans who just want things left as they are. The wildly popular Splash Mountain attraction was inspired by Disney’s Song of the South, which has been at the center of controversy for years. But no controversial part of the film is used in the Splash Mountain attraction, and as such, fans want it left alone.
Although the SATIRE report that states that Florida is attempting to make the attraction a historical landmark is clearly nothing more than a site’s creative approach to sharing its disagreement with Disney’s decision to reimagine Splash Mountain, wouldn’t it be grand if a magic like that could take place and leave Disney’s Splash Mountain exactly the way it is?
