Weird Wednesday - Virtual Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

You thought the music to "It's a Small World" would drive you crazy? Try the careening refrains of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, a blacklight-ridden motorized kiddie ride at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. At least, you could try it until 1998, when the Mouse saw fit to toss the toad and replace him with a cute, cuddly, one-crayon-short-of-a-sharpener bear named Pooh.

Enter obsessive compulsive behavior, computers and nostalgia wrapped in the tasty HTML and QTVR layers over on the shrine to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, aka Virtual Toad. Do not lick Virtual Toad, but do be patient as you wait for the actually quite awesome QTVR walkthrough of the doomed ride. Was Mr. Toad scary? Nah, I remember riding it as a kid and being more concerned with the smell of 20,000 Leagues, which was directly across from Mr. Toad and is now a playground.

Is it weird? Well, if you consider fans of "dark rides" weird, then yeah. It's weird and wonderful, really. And how can you not call a mix of QuickTime VR, Walt Disney, an oddball British story and a website/museum/protest weird?

If you're looking for more info on the retired 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride in Orlando, this list of links is pretty complete. On the topic of toads, I would be remiss if I did not mention the all-glorious Hypnotoad.

Tags: disney, mr toad, mr toads wild ride, MrToad, MrToadsWildRide, qtvr, ride, virtual, weirdwednesday