ANAHEIM, Calif. — As Walt Disney Co. set out to renovate It’s a Small World at Disneyland, the company’s Imagineers had one thing in mind: Don’t mess it up.
Despite being one of the park’s oldest attractions, the ride is among the most popular — drawing about 6.7 million riders a year.
The challenge was to give the beloved attraction new vibrancy without altering the stylized look created by the Disney artist whose childlike illustrations influenced such classic animated films as “Cinderella,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan.”
The Imagineers consulted illustrator Mary Blair’s original drawings for inspiration as they undertook one of the most ambitious updates of the ride since it opened at the park in 1966.
After a year-long renovation, it reopened Friday with a new scene that depicts the “Spirit of America,” a relocated rain forest and 29 added Disney and Pixar characters inserted in the countries where their stories take place.
Whether the public will embrace the changes remains to be seen.
Some Disney purists have howled at the notion of Disney characters intruding on It’s a Small World — saying that their presence would destroy a historic work of art. Even the Blair family wrote a letter that labeled the move a “gross desecration.”
But Marty Sklar, executive vice president of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts and Imagineering ambassador, said the changes were subtle.
“None of this jumps out at you. That was one of the principles we set out to accomplish: that this is not going to become a Disney character ride,” he said. “The characters seamlessly appear in the scenes. They don’t say, ‘Look at me, look at me, look at me.’ ”
Change was unavoidable. The ride was built by Walt Disney for the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York and transplanted to Southern California. After nearly 45 years, it was showing its age.
The water flume, which in its day represented a milestone in ride design, had been patched so many times that the boats would get hung up. Disney needed to close the attraction to replace the leaky water channel and the boats. The company wouldn’t say how much the renovation cost.
In Small World, the characters — which look like children playing dress-up — show up in the settings of their original stories: Peter Pan and Tinker Bell fly over one tower of the London Bridge; the Pinocchio marionette appears in a puppet show in Italy; Aladdin and Jasmine ride a flying carpet in the Middle East scene.
