Toy Story Midway Mania has been a hit attraction since it opened in early June 2008. Lines can easily reach up to 45 or more minutes on any given day. Many Guests love this attraction for its characters, interactive ability, and its repeatability.
With Toy Story 3 on the way, John Lasseter had approached WDI about the idea on updating Toy Story Midway Mania with some of the new characters from the latest Toy Story movie.
The attraction was built with reprogramming in mind. But it is a lot harder than just "flipping a switch". “Changes like these involve a lot of people: writers, creative, animators, software engineers and others,” she said. “Plus we needed to pull the new game and animations together in about eight months, compared to the three years from concept to opening day we had to work out the games when designing the original attraction.” - Sue Bryan, WDI senior show producer and lead game designer
New poster replacing Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop
How would they do this without impacting the Guest experience? A plan was arranged where Toy Story Midway Mania would open roughly two hours after California Adventure opens from Mon-Fri for three weeks. Once the Park closed, the WDI team would come in and start their programming, installation and testing of the new game. They did this for roughly for 8 hours. But that would put them leaving the attraction around 3am. The rest of the time was then dedicated to the Maintenance crew to do their work on getting the vehicles ready for the day's Guests. With such a short time work frame, cooperation from all departments was key to make this a success.
Two other new characters in the attraction are Mr Prinklepants, a hedgehog dressed in a lederhosen and Dolly the doll. They can be found in the prize booth opposite of the Spanish speaking Buzz Lightyear.
Another thing they had changed was the high score Game Brain display. What once would show the top 3 scores now displays the top scorer in the vehicle that is parked there.
Another addition to the attraction are repeats of the posters that can now be found on the walls in the "holding" spots for the vehicles as they are approaching the station.
Now the only way to see and play Bo Peep's Baaa-loon Pop is in the Toy Story Mania game for the Nintendo Wii
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