@@meagtaylor3392 well actually there were dozens of signage, indicating that it is a PG-13 rated attraction as well as a cast member at the beginning of the line and at the end of the line morning parents not to bring little children in as it might be too scary for them, and even suggesting other attractions it was the parents choice to bring their child into it. This was the time when they were trying to appeal to an older audience to revive the magic Kingdom.The complaining parents should’ve been told to sit down and shut up.
@williamkennedy9735 yeah but consider that kids are dumb and will think they're brave enough for the attraction to see their favorite character, so the parents would lose even if they refused to let their kid in. At least when it was a non-descript murder alien that wasn't an issue
@@Furufoonot just kids are dumb. Everyone is dumb. Even in the modern day plenty of parents bought tickets for their kids for Deadpool. Disney just thought too highly of everyone. They never made that mistake again
The only bit of gross out humour I didn’t mind was Stitch spitting at guests because him spitting to mislead the cannons is legit what happens in the film so I thought it was a nice little reference.
I hadn't seen the film yet when we visited for the first time. And I still remember the gross smell. I did not enjoy it at all at the time. Though I'm a huge fan of the film now.
so im autistic and after my initial diagnosis as a kid my mom purchased a book i think that like informed you what kind of sensory effects a ride would use and what to expect before getting on (i think this was either before disney listed them on their site or before we had a computer) so we could decided which rides would be too much for me. i remember going through it out of curiosity and while almost every ride had a passage explaining in depth what to expect, stich's great escape just straight up said "if you have any sensory issue, do not go on this ride" lmfao
As a fellow autistic who has been on that experience, I personally enjoyed it, even the nasty chili dog breath.. I grew up watching Lilo and Stitch though and very much love Stitch, so I think that added to my enjoyment of the experience, but a kid also was crying after it to be fair, so it varied, but I will say that stitxh animatronic was hands down one of the coolest and most movement capable animatronics I still to this day have ever seen in person and while i know the ride gets hated on, I feel it deserves to be appreciated for what it tried to give us, because again, I loved it.
As an autistic person the one thing that really bothered me as a child was the harness coming down. Describing it as a "big metal hug" only made it more insulting because it feels so much worse in comparison.
I Will say, it is a genuine shame that the animatronics were trashed like that. The skippys and robo man would’ve been a bit harder to reuse, but what happened to stitch just seems so unnecessary. It was such a good animatronic of a popular character that they still advertise plenty. They could probably put it somewhere in Disney springs, or in a hotel like they did with the goddess animatronic from under new management. I hate seeing Disney repeatedly trash valuable assets like that.
It's been a while so my memory may not fully serve me, but I remember back when those photos were originally taken the poster mentioned that Skippy and Sergeant were archive tagged, which means they were moved to the Disney archives and not fully scrapped! It's also pretty common practice for employees to remove the fur skins from decommissioned animatronics first, since they're stored in a different manner for preservation. (These skins are also made easy to remove for maintenance reasons) So there's a chance that these animatronics still live on in some back end Disney warehouse!
Maybe so but when you see the movie you don't smell Stitch letting out a huge burp in your face, smelling like a chili dog. Would you like if Shrek roared at you smelling his onion, barbecued rat and eyeball stew breath in a Shrek attraction at, say Universal Studios? Don't think so. That's the reason they didn't actually use a fart smell for the fart gun in Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem but instead used banana smell, as people would get grossed by the smell regardless they're kids or adults. Even if I admit I think fart sounds are funny, I don't enjoy the smell wherever I or someone else passed wind.
@@mevb Also Chili Dog might be the least yummy smell for a pretty good meal, like wow thanks the smell of spices going up my nose, a smarter person would've made it like mint given the ongoing joke in the films with that guy getting his mint ice cream ruined
That is true but I feel like gross out humour is a lot more fun and tolerable when it's cartoony and limited to merely sight and sound rather than disgustingly real and perceivable with all 5 senses.
The attraction itself wasn’t great, but there’s no denying how great all of the animatronics were in Stitch. It actually had the most advanced animatronics in all of Magic Kingdom for around a decade until Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened. Those security blasters both weighed over 1600 pounds EACH and still moved quickly and smoothly. And of course the Stitch animatronic was equally great. So yeah, you can say what you want about the attraction itself, but the animatronics were absolutely fantastic.
Definitely agree. As I briefly touched on in the video, it's a very similar thing to Tiki Room Under New Management. Bad attraction, great animatronics.
@ yeah, I actually only caught that version of the tiki room like one or two times. For over a decade beginning in the early 2000s, my family, along with aunt, uncle and cousins (who were the same ages as me and my two siblings) used to go to Disney at least once per year together. On our second year of doing this we went to Disneyland instead of our “home” parks at WDW. On that trip, I saw the original TR for the very first time (which was also my first viewing any of the TR shows in general), and I remember not being too enthralled by it as a kid. When we went back to WDW, we decided to go on the new TR for the first time. Honestly, as a kid who had seen the regular tiki room and didn’t really think it was that great, my child self actually really loved the new version way more than the original lol. I know that is a blasphemous statement to make concerning one of Walt’s creations like TR, but as a kid you don’t think about that stuff at all. All I knew was there were some dope new animatronics of characters I liked in what I previously thought was a boring, kinda outdated attraction, and that was enough for me lol. I now understand the errors of my ways, but as a kid, I much preferred the new version. Sorry I kinda rambled there, but yeah, I guess my point with all of that is that good animatronics are a huge factor in me being able to enjoy a ride/attraction. I could genuinely get enjoyment out of Stitch and the new TR despite their shortcomings. Plus, I only ever did Stitch like maybe five times over the course of ~15 years, so it remained a novel experience for me throughout its run, which was pretty cool considering I’d done every other thing at Magic Kingdom dozens of times before. So yeah, kid me genuinely preferred the new TR lol
From what I know, the main reason why nothing will probably replace Stitch any time soon is because that building was built at a time when asbestos was used and if they were to do a massive renovation on that building (which is also connected to Cosmic Rays), they would also have to remove the asbestos and bring the entire building up to code (It's also the reason why Monsters Inc Laugh Floor and Buzz Lightyear haven't had any major refurbishments). Hopefully they will at some point but it would definitely be a much more expensive/lengthier project than just creating a new attraction.
In older buildings where asbestos was used as insulation (and it is fire retardent), as long as the material remains within the walls, it's perferfectly safe. But if you cut into the stucture and release the microscopic asbestos fibers and particles, it can be a serious health hazard. A LARGE percent of an old building's refurbishment is the asbestos removal itself because it has to be done in a very specific (and expensive) manner, therfore eating up your budget for the "new" attraction.
Space mountain is like that, except it was built before regulations were put in place for how close an object can be to the track of a roller coaster. It’s likely that the track is far closer to the structural beams and other sections of track than legally allowed, but that only gets evaluated by a 3rd party if it closes for 6 months. Hence, space mountain will likely NOT be closing for long any time soon
Hello I used to work in maintenance at MK and I don’t remember there being asbestos in those buildings. There are some places in the park that have it but they are marked very clearly as having asbestos for safety reasons (obviously not in any on-stage areas)
The chili dog smell spray was so thick and potent when i went. The spray got all over my clothes and was genuinely rancid. For the next three days, all i could smell was alien barf. Truly a horrifying experience on my senses.
So I went on Stitch's Great Escape when I was about 7 or 8. I was a HUGE Lilo and Stitch fan and adored Stitch as a character. So I was thrilled to ride it, keep in mind I was a scaredy-cat kid who couldn't handle anything intense at all. The ride... didn't scare me at all. And honestly I adored it from what I can remember. I thought it was so cool to finally meet Stitch and hear him scramble around, and the chili dog burp made me howl. Again I could be remembering it wrong but I do believe it was my favorite ride as a kid. I think I went on it twice? I never got the hate for it, yeah its juvenile and as a horror fan now I think it's a crime I never got to ride its predecessor. But I still adored Stitch's Great Escape and am sad its no longer around.
I kinda had the same experience, 7 or 8 loved stitch, and i thought the anamatronic was so cool...i will admit i dont remember much of my life back then, mainly due to family issues, and i honestly cant remember most of the teo disney trips i had, in fact the only 2 rides i remember vaguely are magic carpet and stitch. I know i must of loved stich cause i came home with alot of his merch. While it may be a bad ride, when i think of my disney experiences, that will always be inportsnt to me, that i remembered it at all, and enjoyed it
Another stitch fan and young rider at the time! I also was not scared however I DID clearly remember how underwhelming the ride was and how bad the stench stuck in the room, to which I thought to myself even when young…how many times can they get people to reride…?
My family went on this ride in 2009. My sister was, by chance, apparently sitting directly next to one of the smell-sprayer things that blasted out a chilly-dog smell when stitch is “crawling” around behind the audience and burps. It hit her directly in the face. She couldn’t taste anything but the awful smell for hours, ruining the rest of our day and leaving her in tears multiple times that night. She was about 8 or 9.
15:15, while I get that the attraction was really similar, I wouldn’t say that stitch was the only significant new thing. I remember thinking the cannons were so cool and was so curious how they were able to get something so large to move around so smoothly.
Wish the animatronics could be placed into a Disney museum. Would be so cool to see a place where we can reminisce about the great things that are no longer at the Parks.
A lot of the animatronics are reused for other rides though, so not all the animatronics would be in a museum and there might not even be enough for one. Besides, animatronics are definitely expensive, I doubt they would get rid of the animatronic instead of reusing them since it would be a complete waste of money and resources
the main problem with stich's great escape that no one brings up is that this attraction used to many of the special effects from previous alien encounter attraction but all they did was just to recontextualized them to try to make them seem not that scary for kids but they just ended up still scaring them anyway because the effects themselves weren't toned down or removed like they should of to make it popular with kids. so what i'm trying to say is that disney's relentless budget cutting is what killed this attraction
It's _the_ fatal flaw. There was no real way to water down a show based around trapping you in the dark getting poked and sprayed at in any real way to make it truly kid friendly.
i'll give this attraction one thing-- the joke about skippy being arrested for jaywalking is legitimately funny. poor guy can't catch a break lmao the stitch animatronic is genuinely really cute and well made too, it just sucks he was stuck in this dumpster fire of a ride. seeing the dilapidated state he was in after the ride closed was really sad :(
There was enough crying kids on one of my ride throughs when I was younger that a cast member stood and the door and came to unbuckle you and let you out if you wanted to 💀
When I went, the harness I was in malfunctioned and kept coming down farther than it was supposed to. I tried to get help but no cast member did anything and I was just forced to sit through the entire show forced into an uncomfortable position. I don't remember anything other than how painful the harness had been and how much I wanted it to be over. Overall it was just a nice, family trip to disney.
THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING THE DESKTOP BUDDY. He lived in my head (and my computer) rent free and I never hear anyone talk about it in relation to Stitch’s Great Escape
I went on this when I was 10, and got sprayed by the “burp” point blank. All I could taste and smell for the next 2 days was that horrible smell.. it was slightly traumatizing not gonna lie.
To be fair about the People Mover, the tracks are ironic and really make Tomorrowland, getting ride of them would cheapen Tomorrowland and it's too expensive to do anything else with it
As a certified Stitch head growing up, I still have a massive soft-spot for this attraction, even if it did terrify me the first time I went on it. I understand why it closed, but the Stitch animatronic being dismantled like it was is legitimately heartbreaking. If anything deserved to be preserved from the attraction, it was that.
My parents took me to Disney world when I was very young. I only have one memory from the “happiest place on earth”…… being in this stupid attraction, stitch coming out, and having a full out screaming panic attack because I thought I was about to die because stitch was so terrible, and I couldn’t get out of my seat…… ah fun times.
I just remember feeling so underwhelmed… the line was so long and you were just sitting there and getting smells thrown at you. I was into horror movies even as a kid so I wasn’t really scared.
At least you got Stitch. I went on when it was Alien Encounter as a kid it that shit was goddamn traumatizing. Definitely not a ride on the middle of Magic Kingdom lol. My cousin and I got off that ride bawling.
can confirm it was a break room! used to be in there all the time in 2022, i loved to go eat in there before my shift even if it was a bit spooky. when i went on my second college program in 2023 i was told we could no longer go in there but ive heard from other cast members that its still a functioning breakroom. ive seen people take literal naps in the showroom lol
Use it for the Muppets. I mean, you're gonna put Cars in Frontierland, so why not? Continuity doesn't count anymore, right? And there WAS Pigs in Space!
Can I just say something, stitch’s great escape was my favorite attraction ever created as a kid. I loved it so so much and it’s almost everything I would want in a ride. Miss it everyday 😭🥲
This was the only time in my life i went from actively screaming in terror as a kid to gaging on a pungent odor so awful i nearly threw up in a span of about 2 seconds. It was like the wind was knocked out of me. It didn’t ruin my trip to disney world, but i will never forget how terrible stitchs great escape was, ever.
@@LeeanneHughesit was not scary at all no, I thought it was hilarious besides the smell. From what I remember I got extremely nauseous but it was a limited odor, only certain seats had the feature.
I remember when I was in kindergarten, my mom and dad took me and my brother to Disney. I don't really remember anything, except that my mom and dad were pressuring me into going into this ride, and I begged not to go in, but they made me go in anyway, regardless of my fear of the dark. All I remember afterward was crying the entire time because my parents couldn't fathom that a child with sensory issues and a fear of the dark would hate this ride. Thank you for this video, I remembered the ride but not the specifics, this was truly a trip through memory lane.
I enjoyed it. It was perfectly fitting for Stitch and even if it wasn’t super popular, it was somewhere for people to go. For a ride that had to fit the existing footprint they nailed it.
Disney should revisit the Alien Encounter idea now that they own Fox. A similar show where a Xenomorph starts ramping through the theater would be great.
It was the first ride we went on the one time my parents took us, and it was by far my favorite ride of the entire trip. It was intense and scary but in a fun way, and it probably kicked off my lifelong obsession with sci-fi and horror. My parents bought me a huge (to my child self) toy of the alien on my way out that had a wire frame but a semi-soft body and surprisingly detailed coloring on the skin.
Stitch was a part of my rotation when I worked at Tomorrowland (with People Mover and Astro Orbiter). I can confirm the break room has ALWAYS been there. Definitely not temporary. I enjoyed in the latter years that they would only run one theater but the entire attraction is timed to run as both. So whenever you worked the pre-show, in those days, you always got a 7-minute break every other show. The cannons rarely worked... in fact... it was kinda honestly always a surprise when they did. It was funny on slow days when like 4 people were in the show. It was funnier on packed days when people complained when you directed them to fill all available space outside thinking they'd get a shittier seat not knowing there was two pre-shows. I miss OG Alien Encounter, I have a special place in my heart for Stitch though. Also... his nose fell off a lot.
I went on this ride when I was a kid with my family, I was pretty traumatized by it but not as much as my poor mother who’s worst fear is “being stuck in an elevator with a salami burp” the mere mention of this ride still gives her ptsd flashbacks, whoever thought it was funny to lock people in a dark room with chili dog burp smell is an absolute psychopath
my little brother had asthma, he coudn't breathe with how much smoke they blew in our face, it was awful, he was so little too, I felt so bad for him, he was traumatized - there were no warnings we were aware of for people with breathing problems
I have an older cousin who was maybe just a bit younger than Michael Eisner’s own son, whom the original Alien Encounter was meant to appease. I remember him describing what the attraction used to be and how you could feel it breathing on you and what not. He described it before I had ever done the Stitch version so I remember kind of being able to predict where the Stitch version was going based on what my cousin told me about the original. I remember being like 9 getting out of the attraction like “well that certainly was a thing but I don’t ever have to do that again”
I know it could be bodyshaming, but that is one of the less convincing Cobra Bubbles ever you could have ever seen, even if you've went to a local comic convention.
I’m there right now, and I was on the TTA earlier. It just looked so barren. I get it’s a risky move to put another new attraction in Tomorrowland, especially with all the foot traffic brought by the Tron standby queue, but they really should find a way to use the space other than storage.
*FINALLY* , someone makes a video on this. This ride legitimately traumatized me as a kid. Seriously. It’s a story that my family still tells to this day. They lock you in the seat, pitch black darkness, loud disturbing noises, water spitting at you and gross scents coming out of the vents, all while a dangerous creature is supposedly loose and running around the room. It was like torture. I was probably 6-7 at the time and it freaked. me. tf. out. Big time.
I’ve only been to Disney World once in my life, and that was back in 2007. I was four years old and we walked into Stitch’s Great Escape. I have never seen the movie, just the trailer on the Monsters Inc. DVD. So, we were going in there for reasons I cannot remember. Anyways, I was sitting in this giant room wondering what the heck was going on. I just hear a bunch of talking from people and the aliens, and then Stitch starts opening fire. I clinched up in complete fear and my mother looks at my younger brother, Gavin and tells him to say “Aaah” in a lighthearted way. Poor thing starts bawling. The last thing I remember was that Stitch was doing something relatively harmless, so I thought to myself whether the lasers were real or not.
I know people didn't like the og one for it being too scary, but here's an idea: Have it actually be based off of the Alien franchise this time. Think about it: Disney owns the rights to Alien. Not only that, but they actually featured an animatronic of the xenomorph on the great movie ride. Anything's possible!
Oh god, that scene on Great Movie Ride used to TERRIFY me. I loved the rest of it as a kid but I had to cover my eyes every time the tram entered that damn spaceship room.
I get that this ride was bad, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for it. As goofy as this sounds, my first time on this ride kinda helped me overcome my childhood fears and sensory issues. I have autism so my parents did a TON of research before we went to WDW for the first time; they tried to steer me away from this one but I was a huge Stitch fan as a child, so they talked me through everything that was going to happen. By the time I actually sat through the ride, I was too fascinated by the special effects to actually be scared because I already knew what to expect (or maybe because I loved Stitch and it wasn’t as scary to know all the chaos was being caused by a silly little alien). The ride kinda ended up being my “rite of passage” into more intense experiences and we went on it every time we visited WDW until it closed down.
3:40 this newspaper manages to correctly type the films title every time in the article itself but then somehow messes it up for the bit underneath the image and calls it "Lois and Stitch" lol
I went on that ride once. It was a one-and-done for me. The preshows I liked, but the ride itself was horrifying. The restraints and the smell. If that ride was still here today, I’d just go in for the preshows and then duck out after the second preshow. Skippy and the Donut Guy are cute though!
i LOVED lilo and stitch as a kid, and i never had any issues with being too scared of rides before, but this experience was absolutely traumatizing to 6/7 year old me for some reason.😭
2:25 I mean they did warn them, it says it right on the sign and even says it might be too much for some adults. Perhaps I just think about these things but when I hear magic I hear of a tool that can be used for both wholesome good and the most gruesome evil, calming and inert are not words that come to mind.
I went on this ride in 2017 (as an adult). It wasn't too bad, but I can see why it would scare the younger kids. The only thing I didn't like was Stitch "climbing" across the top of the seat harness because it pressed down HARD on your shoulders and it hurt. I'm thankful to not have experienced the chili dog burp in the face as so many others mentioned, lol. I also think it's a great idea, like someone else said, to make a Disney museum. I would love to see what cool stuff they might put in it. I mean, Disney is over 100 years old now. Who knows what they have stored away from the past?
This ride is one of the only memories I have from one of my earliest Disney trips, and I loved it to death. I never was there again any time it was open, but I remember laughing like crazy at it, especially the video at the end. Everyone else in my family that rode it with me hated it, though. I guess elementary school me just had way better taste.
It's kind of depressing that Disney was so proud of the attraction, what with the opening ceremony, constant ads, Stitch on the MONORAIL, etc. Did any other attraction, at least since 1992, get all that (or ANY of it)?
I went on once and remember being so nauseated by the piped-in scent I felt sick and had a migraine the rest of the day. They could have just...not done that part.
I was lucky enough to have experienced Alien Encounter and it was Fantastic! I was a little surprised that Disney would have such a scary attraction. But it was incredibly well done. It was conceived and executed to the max. I was sad to see it go and even sadder to see it replaced with Stitch's Great Escape, which was just lack luster.
With disneys recent pension for blowing large parts of a ride's budget on a single impressive boutique animatronic, I feel like a round theater show highlighting one highly advanced figure could work today
I’m so glad to see my opinion was the popular opinion. This attraction SUCKED! As a kid I hated hearing the other kids scream. And even as a teenager later on before it closed… THAT DAMN CHILLI STENCH WOULD REMAIN WITH YOU FOR THE ENTIRE DAY and probably the day after. Even seeing this footage I’m cringing at the horrible smell and experience. What an insult. From the great Buzzlightyear shooter… TO THIS TRASH!
Course the young crowd would still get scared, it's only natural, even visiting Santa for the first time sets off the too young in tears. I saw kids run up to a bird, it suddenly screeched not directly at them, but almost like it need to cough, but that noise alone and they immediately started crying after.
@@A_A610Keeping the original ride and upping the height requirement would have been a better choice. Just update parts when they broke, maybe get a new animatronic at some point.
I remember watching this attraction at a very young age. I was one of very few kids in the audience funnily enough, and when the lights went out, I didn’t scream or kick...i just froze with fear. I was completely numb for almost an hour after.
Nah nah nah hold on what do you mean on a more important note? What could be more important than a STITCH DESKTOP BUDDY?!?! BRING THAT BACK I'LL BUY YOUR ENTIRE STOCK
OH MY GOSH, I remember going to this when I was younger. I was terrified. EVERY time I shifted, the chair would push me harder. My brain SCREAMED that I was trapped and was going to die. We left the attraction with so much pain im our shoulders.l and backs. Just watching this gave me memories of horrible pain and serious anxiety. ;w;
The only time I went on this ride, I was leaning to the left to speak to my aunt when the shoulder "restraints" came down and locked my head/shoulders in an extremely awkward position. No warning at all and there wasnt a way to get out of it. Imagine getting mangled in that harness as shit flavored tap water projectile vomits toward you. I was so distracted I didnt even remember the chili dog smell that my parents spent the rest of the day complaining about
I'm kind of shocked to hear people hated it. That was my favourite Disney ride and I'd go any chance I could. The animatronic was so life like and it seemed like the level of scary I was comfortable with.
The first time I went to Florida was in December 2011 and I had just turned 9yo, and in our group there was also my 7 or 8yo step-cousin. When we rode Stich's Great Scape, I remember being scared asl but amazed at the same time and left the attraction wanting to go again, while my female younger step-cousin... Well, she was as frightened as a 7yo can be lol Unfortunately as she was scared I couldn't ride it again, and had little memories of the pre-show for example. One thing I remember vividly tho is that awful smell that came from Stich's blurp and the scary sensation of him wandering behind our necks. I understand why it closed and how it was doomed since its inception, but I'm glad at least my personal memories with it were good. Btw I'm happy to see how much your channel has grew in the last 2 or so years. I watch almost every single upload religiously since your first theme park video about the Yeti, back when you had just bellow 2k subs if I recall correctly. Anyways congrats for your amazing job and if you will I'd like to suggest a 30min or longer video about Haunted Mansion. Its history is so amazing, I'd love see new content about it even tho I know the full history like the back of my hand xD Greetings from Brazil and Merry Xmas!
I had never seen Lilo and Stitch, and going on this ride as a child left me genuinely terrified of him. I left the ride and was looking everywhere for Stitch, scared that he was loose.
Ah yes, Stitch's Great Escape. The Disney attraction of all time .w. By the time I first experienced this show, I had a heavy infatuation with Stitch, so I loved it unconditionally. As I grew, however, I began to understand why everyone else hated it, and why it was just a massive dumpster fire of a show... but I still loved it because of that. The last time I exited the the theater, I heard a kid say "I am never doing that again!" XD And of course, the corpos continue to squander their own real estate by leaving the space abandoned to this day 💀
I remember riding this as a kid and somehow raising my arm up through the harness at one point in the show which then became extra uncomfortable/scary once the effects that moved the harnesses started. I could hardly pay attention to the show because kid me was scared my arm was gonna get stuck or chopped off or something. I finally managed to struggle my way through putting my arm back down but that definitely became a core memory for me lol.
I loved both iterations of this ride! Nearly everything made for teens and adults is a motion-sickness inducing roller coaster or motion simulator, but Alien Encounter was a much needed low-motion teen/adult attraction.
For me the worst part was the restraints were very uncomfortable and a bit strong I get claustrophobia and barely enjoyed the show .. to be honest the animatronic was big and spectacular the movements and the lasers arms were "alive" and was worth the visit. But better with a regular seats .. something pushing you to the seat all the time is not good
The problem was that the tone of the show they were going for did not match with the existing infrastructure recycled from a show purpose built to be genuinely terrifying. Instead of resulting in a more family friendly take on Alien Encounter that retained just enough bite for adults while still being appealing to younger kids, it retained too much of the scary experience to be any real improvement for sensitive audiences while also watering down the original experience with more crude and juvenile humor too immature for audiences that liked the original. The original Alien Encounter knew what it wanted to be and committed to the bit. Stitch tried to water down the experience for an audience it was never designed for, and failed at doing what it was supposed to.
Disney did take the "stitch crossed over and is now ruining everything" gag and ran with that for a long time. It's not geico caveman levels of overused but it had to have gotten annoying at some point. How many times can you see thing slobbering and climbing everything? Actually mabe I'm just too old for this..
Wow, great video! Thank you for this mini documentary. I was in 4th/5th grade when this ride came out and honestly, my reason for enjoying it was getting out of the Florida heat. Being in a cold, air conditioned room was so nice 😅😂 Hopefully the live action Lilo and Stitch movie catches on and who knows? Maybe they could do something new with the building? You mentioned urban exploration in your video, and I think that is also a fascinating concept. I think Disney should consider capitalizing on pre-approved urban exploration tours, where official tour guides allow small groups of people to explore closed and run down areas, as long as you sign a liability waiver. Imagine if the building wasn’t a full blown attraction, but they used it as an urban exploration activity at night for curious adults to see old and decommissioned technology. Instead of being abandoned, they could literally make money off the building being in the condition it’s in. 😂
When I was young, I loved it after figuring out you can keep the restraints from crushing you if you sit up in the seat while they are coming down. I am so glad I got to experience one of the scariest rides ever, even if it was Stitch themed. We also went on it often BECAUSE of the short wait.
i remember very specifically being dressed in my belle ballgown dress my grandma made (i was 4), and then getting so scared from the stitch ride that i passed out… or fell asleep. anyways, i was scared of stitch for 10 years and refusing EVER to go take pictures with him. ah… good times.
I remember going on this attraction when I was only 8 yrs old because I was such a big fan of Stitch as a character. I knew it wasn’t going to be just a kiddie type of ride like Alice in wonderland or Disney’s jungle cruise. The ride itself was actually fun instead of scary so I don’t know what the other kids was expecting from a brand attraction based off a franchise center around an alien😅.
14:21 I went to Disney about eight or nine years ago when I was maybe 13 or 12 and I distinctly remember stitches escape freaking me out so bad. When it was completely dark and all the sensations were happening all at the same time, I was actually so scared because it was so intense and no other ride has ever had that effect on me. I remember getting that tickle effect and for some reason that reminded me of what a moths wings would feel like??? Idk I’ve always been afraid of moths so that tickles sensation is what I imagined it would feel like so that really messed me up. I didn’t get to the point of crying though.
I remember the inside of this attraction smelled awful, it smelled like rotting vomit. And on an unrelated note, the pizza they served at the disney’s art of animation hotel smelled the exact same.
Disney's original plan was to use the Alien creature design from the 20th Century Fox movie franchise (as they did at the Disney-MGM Studios park in the Great Movie Ride) for Alien Encounter. But for "reasons" that's not what happened.
The fact that Disney didn't realize one of the most common childhood fears is the dark is kind of baffling to me.
I guess they figured that children knowing what was in the dark would offset their fear.
@@meagtaylor3392 well actually there were dozens of signage, indicating that it is a PG-13 rated attraction as well as a cast member at the beginning of the line and at the end of the line morning parents not to bring little children in as it might be too scary for them, and even suggesting other attractions it was the parents choice to bring their child into it. This was the time when they were trying to appeal to an older audience to revive the magic Kingdom.The complaining parents should’ve been told to sit down and shut up.
@@williamkennedy9735
The only thing worse than kids are parents.
@williamkennedy9735 yeah but consider that kids are dumb and will think they're brave enough for the attraction to see their favorite character, so the parents would lose even if they refused to let their kid in. At least when it was a non-descript murder alien that wasn't an issue
@@Furufoonot just kids are dumb. Everyone is dumb. Even in the modern day plenty of parents bought tickets for their kids for Deadpool.
Disney just thought too highly of everyone. They never made that mistake again
The idea of stitch vandalizing Disney World during the opening day was actually pretty cute imo
Great idea pulled off fairly well!
The only bit of gross out humour I didn’t mind was Stitch spitting at guests because him spitting to mislead the cannons is legit what happens in the film so I thought it was a nice little reference.
I hadn't seen the film yet when we visited for the first time. And I still remember the gross smell. I did not enjoy it at all at the time. Though I'm a huge fan of the film now.
so im autistic and after my initial diagnosis as a kid my mom purchased a book i think that like informed you what kind of sensory effects a ride would use and what to expect before getting on (i think this was either before disney listed them on their site or before we had a computer) so we could decided which rides would be too much for me. i remember going through it out of curiosity and while almost every ride had a passage explaining in depth what to expect, stich's great escape just straight up said "if you have any sensory issue, do not go on this ride" lmfao
As a fellow autistic who has been on that experience, I personally enjoyed it, even the nasty chili dog breath.. I grew up watching Lilo and Stitch though and very much love Stitch, so I think that added to my enjoyment of the experience, but a kid also was crying after it to be fair, so it varied, but I will say that stitxh animatronic was hands down one of the coolest and most movement capable animatronics I still to this day have ever seen in person and while i know the ride gets hated on, I feel it deserves to be appreciated for what it tried to give us, because again, I loved it.
I liked this ride though sadly
As an autistic person the one thing that really bothered me as a child was the harness coming down. Describing it as a "big metal hug" only made it more insulting because it feels so much worse in comparison.
As a kid with many sensory issues, I HATED IT. I even tried again years later and HATED IT again.
I’m also autistic and I had a meltdown on this ride so I can say that was very accurate
I Will say, it is a genuine shame that the animatronics were trashed like that. The skippys and robo man would’ve been a bit harder to reuse, but what happened to stitch just seems so unnecessary. It was such a good animatronic of a popular character that they still advertise plenty. They could probably put it somewhere in Disney springs, or in a hotel like they did with the goddess animatronic from under new management. I hate seeing Disney repeatedly trash valuable assets like that.
It's been a while so my memory may not fully serve me, but I remember back when those photos were originally taken the poster mentioned that Skippy and Sergeant were archive tagged, which means they were moved to the Disney archives and not fully scrapped! It's also pretty common practice for employees to remove the fur skins from decommissioned animatronics first, since they're stored in a different manner for preservation. (These skins are also made easy to remove for maintenance reasons) So there's a chance that these animatronics still live on in some back end Disney warehouse!
All businesses do this with those animontrics
Or in a parade.
The images of the trashed stich remind me heavily of the FNAF 3 phantom animatronics
13:43 I'm sorry have people not seen the movie? Stitch is a bit of gross out character in the first one it adds to the crazy alien feel
Maybe so but when you see the movie you don't smell Stitch letting out a huge burp in your face, smelling like a chili dog. Would you like if Shrek roared at you smelling his onion, barbecued rat and eyeball stew breath in a Shrek attraction at, say Universal Studios? Don't think so.
That's the reason they didn't actually use a fart smell for the fart gun in Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem but instead used banana smell, as people would get grossed by the smell regardless they're kids or adults. Even if I admit I think fart sounds are funny, I don't enjoy the smell wherever I or someone else passed wind.
@@mevb Also Chili Dog might be the least yummy smell for a pretty good meal, like wow thanks the smell of spices going up my nose, a smarter person would've made it like mint given the ongoing joke in the films with that guy getting his mint ice cream ruined
That is true but I feel like gross out humour is a lot more fun and tolerable when it's cartoony and limited to merely sight and sound rather than disgustingly real and perceivable with all 5 senses.
Idk man Disney adults are so far up their own ass that they refuse to like anything actually fun and would rather spend all day watching kids cartoons
@@mevb TF you are talking about? I would love Shrek to Burp in my face, that would be the funniest shit ever
The attraction itself wasn’t great, but there’s no denying how great all of the animatronics were in Stitch. It actually had the most advanced animatronics in all of Magic Kingdom for around a decade until Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened. Those security blasters both weighed over 1600 pounds EACH and still moved quickly and smoothly. And of course the Stitch animatronic was equally great. So yeah, you can say what you want about the attraction itself, but the animatronics were absolutely fantastic.
Definitely agree. As I briefly touched on in the video, it's a very similar thing to Tiki Room Under New Management. Bad attraction, great animatronics.
@ yeah, I actually only caught that version of the tiki room like one or two times.
For over a decade beginning in the early 2000s, my family, along with aunt, uncle and cousins (who were the same ages as me and my two siblings) used to go to Disney at least once per year together. On our second year of doing this we went to Disneyland instead of our “home” parks at WDW. On that trip, I saw the original TR for the very first time (which was also my first viewing any of the TR shows in general), and I remember not being too enthralled by it as a kid.
When we went back to WDW, we decided to go on the new TR for the first time. Honestly, as a kid who had seen the regular tiki room and didn’t really think it was that great, my child self actually really loved the new version way more than the original lol.
I know that is a blasphemous statement to make concerning one of Walt’s creations like TR, but as a kid you don’t think about that stuff at all.
All I knew was there were some dope new animatronics of characters I liked in what I previously thought was a boring, kinda outdated attraction, and that was enough for me lol. I now understand the errors of my ways, but as a kid, I much preferred the new version.
Sorry I kinda rambled there, but yeah, I guess my point with all of that is that good animatronics are a huge factor in me being able to enjoy a ride/attraction. I could genuinely get enjoyment out of Stitch and the new TR despite their shortcomings. Plus, I only ever did Stitch like maybe five times over the course of ~15 years, so it remained a novel experience for me throughout its run, which was pretty cool considering I’d done every other thing at Magic Kingdom dozens of times before. So yeah, kid me genuinely preferred the new TR lol
From what I know, the main reason why nothing will probably replace Stitch any time soon is because that building was built at a time when asbestos was used and if they were to do a massive renovation on that building (which is also connected to Cosmic Rays), they would also have to remove the asbestos and bring the entire building up to code (It's also the reason why Monsters Inc Laugh Floor and Buzz Lightyear haven't had any major refurbishments). Hopefully they will at some point but it would definitely be a much more expensive/lengthier project than just creating a new attraction.
Does that mean that Buzz Lightyear and Laugh Floor both still have Asbestos
In older buildings where asbestos was used as insulation (and it is fire retardent), as long as the material remains within the walls, it's perferfectly safe. But if you cut into the stucture and release the microscopic asbestos fibers and particles, it can be a serious health hazard. A LARGE percent of an old building's refurbishment is the asbestos removal itself because it has to be done in a very specific (and expensive) manner, therfore eating up your budget for the "new" attraction.
Space mountain is like that, except it was built before regulations were put in place for how close an object can be to the track of a roller coaster. It’s likely that the track is far closer to the structural beams and other sections of track than legally allowed, but that only gets evaluated by a 3rd party if it closes for 6 months. Hence, space mountain will likely NOT be closing for long any time soon
You’re so correct I’m not willing to risk cosmic ray’s 0_0
Hello I used to work in maintenance at MK and I don’t remember there being asbestos in those buildings. There are some places in the park that have it but they are marked very clearly as having asbestos for safety reasons (obviously not in any on-stage areas)
The chili dog smell spray was so thick and potent when i went. The spray got all over my clothes and was genuinely rancid. For the next three days, all i could smell was alien barf. Truly a horrifying experience on my senses.
Boo hoo
Honestly cant believe nobody else mentioned that rancid smell. For me that was the absolute WORST about this attraction.
Did you not have other clothes?
Chromosome. have you ever heard of skin?
@@patpat4937 have you not heard of showers?
So I went on Stitch's Great Escape when I was about 7 or 8. I was a HUGE Lilo and Stitch fan and adored Stitch as a character. So I was thrilled to ride it, keep in mind I was a scaredy-cat kid who couldn't handle anything intense at all. The ride... didn't scare me at all. And honestly I adored it from what I can remember. I thought it was so cool to finally meet Stitch and hear him scramble around, and the chili dog burp made me howl. Again I could be remembering it wrong but I do believe it was my favorite ride as a kid. I think I went on it twice? I never got the hate for it, yeah its juvenile and as a horror fan now I think it's a crime I never got to ride its predecessor. But I still adored Stitch's Great Escape and am sad its no longer around.
I agree, I thought it was really fun. It perfectly captured stitch’s personality
100% agree. I think it gets way too much hate
I kinda had the same experience, 7 or 8 loved stitch, and i thought the anamatronic was so cool...i will admit i dont remember much of my life back then, mainly due to family issues, and i honestly cant remember most of the teo disney trips i had, in fact the only 2 rides i remember vaguely are magic carpet and stitch. I know i must of loved stich cause i came home with alot of his merch. While it may be a bad ride, when i think of my disney experiences, that will always be inportsnt to me, that i remembered it at all, and enjoyed it
Another stitch fan and young rider at the time! I also was not scared however I DID clearly remember how underwhelming the ride was and how bad the stench stuck in the room, to which I thought to myself even when young…how many times can they get people to reride…?
That Chilli dog Burp Truly gave me Ptsd cause holy fuck did that make me wanna die
My family went on this ride in 2009. My sister was, by chance, apparently sitting directly next to one of the smell-sprayer things that blasted out a chilly-dog smell when stitch is “crawling” around behind the audience and burps. It hit her directly in the face. She couldn’t taste anything but the awful smell for hours, ruining the rest of our day and leaving her in tears multiple times that night. She was about 8 or 9.
15:15, while I get that the attraction was really similar, I wouldn’t say that stitch was the only significant new thing. I remember thinking the cannons were so cool and was so curious how they were able to get something so large to move around so smoothly.
I was thinking the same. The cannons felt more cartoony than Stitch himself throughout the show
Wish the animatronics could be placed into a Disney museum. Would be so cool to see a place where we can reminisce about the great things that are no longer at the Parks.
Like at Walt Disney Presents in Hollywood Studios or at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco
A lot of the animatronics are reused for other rides though, so not all the animatronics would be in a museum and there might not even be enough for one. Besides, animatronics are definitely expensive, I doubt they would get rid of the animatronic instead of reusing them since it would be a complete waste of money and resources
*Cough* America Sings, *cough* Splash Mountain,
the main problem with stich's great escape that no one brings up is that this attraction used to many of the special effects from previous alien encounter attraction but all they did was just to recontextualized them to try to make them seem not that scary for kids but they just ended up still scaring them anyway because the effects themselves weren't toned down or removed like they should of to make it popular with kids. so what i'm trying to say is that disney's relentless budget cutting is what killed this attraction
It's _the_ fatal flaw. There was no real way to water down a show based around trapping you in the dark getting poked and sprayed at in any real way to make it truly kid friendly.
i'll give this attraction one thing-- the joke about skippy being arrested for jaywalking is legitimately funny. poor guy can't catch a break lmao
the stitch animatronic is genuinely really cute and well made too, it just sucks he was stuck in this dumpster fire of a ride. seeing the dilapidated state he was in after the ride closed was really sad :(
There was enough crying kids on one of my ride throughs when I was younger that a cast member stood and the door and came to unbuckle you and let you out if you wanted to 💀
...I wish Obhad that cast member. :( I was going into a serious panic attack with the chairs crushing me.
@ same, I guess I cried loud enough they let me out. My autistic butt was having none of it 😅
When I went, the harness I was in malfunctioned and kept coming down farther than it was supposed to. I tried to get help but no cast member did anything and I was just forced to sit through the entire show forced into an uncomfortable position. I don't remember anything other than how painful the harness had been and how much I wanted it to be over. Overall it was just a nice, family trip to disney.
@ oh my goodness!!!!
THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING THE DESKTOP BUDDY. He lived in my head (and my computer) rent free and I never hear anyone talk about it in relation to Stitch’s Great Escape
I went on this when I was 10, and got sprayed by the “burp” point blank. All I could taste and smell for the next 2 days was that horrible smell.. it was slightly traumatizing not gonna lie.
Damn
That burp is still one of the worst things I ever smelled. Couldn’t stop smelling it for several days.
14:33 the idea that Disney is/was the king of unintentionally traumatizing children is just so funny to me, am I a monster 😂
no
@@sydnamon5986 I was one of those traumatized kids, and it’s hilarious looking back on it 😂
@@AlIRounder Oh absolutely! Never letting my dad live it down!
20:57 "After all, they wouldn't just leave the area abandoned for years?!"
California Disneyland People-Mover has entered the chat...
that is a bit different because they would have to shut down the entirety of tommarowland to do anything to that
The building that formerly housed Disney Quest coughs quietly in the back.
Half of Epcot clears its throat awkwardly.
To be fair about the People Mover, the tracks are ironic and really make Tomorrowland, getting ride of them would cheapen Tomorrowland and it's too expensive to do anything else with it
1 missed call from Discovery Island
As a certified Stitch head growing up, I still have a massive soft-spot for this attraction, even if it did terrify me the first time I went on it.
I understand why it closed, but the Stitch animatronic being dismantled like it was is legitimately heartbreaking. If anything deserved to be preserved from the attraction, it was that.
My parents took me to Disney world when I was very young. I only have one memory from the “happiest place on earth”…… being in this stupid attraction, stitch coming out, and having a full out screaming panic attack because I thought I was about to die because stitch was so terrible, and I couldn’t get out of my seat…… ah fun times.
I was also trying to escape my seat out of fear 😭
I just remember feeling so underwhelmed… the line was so long and you were just sitting there and getting smells thrown at you. I was into horror movies even as a kid so I wasn’t really scared.
According to my parents, I SUCCEEDED in escaping my seat 💀💀💀
At least you got Stitch. I went on when it was Alien Encounter as a kid it that shit was goddamn traumatizing. Definitely not a ride on the middle of Magic Kingdom lol. My cousin and I got off that ride bawling.
can confirm it was a break room! used to be in there all the time in 2022, i loved to go eat in there before my shift even if it was a bit spooky. when i went on my second college program in 2023 i was told we could no longer go in there but ive heard from other cast members that its still a functioning breakroom. ive seen people take literal naps in the showroom lol
Use it for the Muppets. I mean, you're gonna put Cars in Frontierland, so why not? Continuity doesn't count anymore, right? And there WAS Pigs in Space!
Muppet Encounter would go hard
@@GeorgesSpaceYes!
Make it the exact same ride, but this time it’s Kermit. Kermit spits on guests, scuttles around like a little gremlin, etc etc
@@leightonpetty4817 I love that idea! Maybe Animal could be the “stitch” Kermit is funnier though
@@leightonpetty4817 HIRE THIS PERSON, DISNEY
when i was a kid, that chili dog smell made me sick for the entire rest of the week
worst ride ever
it still haunts me sometimes
Can I just say something, stitch’s great escape was my favorite attraction ever created as a kid. I loved it so so much and it’s almost everything I would want in a ride. Miss it everyday 😭🥲
I remember being scared of it when I was a kid lol but I'm glad I got to experience it
This was the only time in my life i went from actively screaming in terror as a kid to gaging on a pungent odor so awful i nearly threw up in a span of about 2 seconds. It was like the wind was knocked out of me. It didn’t ruin my trip to disney world, but i will never forget how terrible stitchs great escape was, ever.
Oh so it was the smell? Was it really scary?
@@LeeanneHughesit was not scary at all no, I thought it was hilarious besides the smell. From what I remember I got extremely nauseous but it was a limited odor, only certain seats had the feature.
@@LeeanneHughes Anything can be terrifying to a young enough child
I remember when I was in kindergarten, my mom and dad took me and my brother to Disney. I don't really remember anything, except that my mom and dad were pressuring me into going into this ride, and I begged not to go in, but they made me go in anyway, regardless of my fear of the dark. All I remember afterward was crying the entire time because my parents couldn't fathom that a child with sensory issues and a fear of the dark would hate this ride. Thank you for this video, I remembered the ride but not the specifics, this was truly a trip through memory lane.
I enjoyed it. It was perfectly fitting for Stitch and even if it wasn’t super popular, it was somewhere for people to go. For a ride that had to fit the existing footprint they nailed it.
Dude I remember how rancid the Stitch Burb Effect smelled. Never set foot back in there again.
That’s what I remember most 😭😭😭
Disney should revisit the Alien Encounter idea now that they own Fox. A similar show where a Xenomorph starts ramping through the theater would be great.
The spit spray on the original ride was blood from a maintence worker getting mauled. Bring that back and make it a chest burster scene.
This is the attraction I remember the most. That little rodent grabbing my arm in the dark is a vivid memory of mine.
I’m still so dissapointed I could never ride Alien Encounter it sounds like an amazing horror experience
It was. I got to be at both. Alien encounter was badass.
It was the first ride we went on the one time my parents took us, and it was by far my favorite ride of the entire trip. It was intense and scary but in a fun way, and it probably kicked off my lifelong obsession with sci-fi and horror. My parents bought me a huge (to my child self) toy of the alien on my way out that had a wire frame but a semi-soft body and surprisingly detailed coloring on the skin.
I think the spitting is fine since stitch is established to do that. But the burp seems a bit annoying as sokeone who finds gross out humor annoying.
The burp would be fine if they didn’t have a RANCID SMELL CANNON imo … honestly what were they thinking 😭
Stitch was a part of my rotation when I worked at Tomorrowland (with People Mover and Astro Orbiter). I can confirm the break room has ALWAYS been there. Definitely not temporary. I enjoyed in the latter years that they would only run one theater but the entire attraction is timed to run as both. So whenever you worked the pre-show, in those days, you always got a 7-minute break every other show. The cannons rarely worked... in fact... it was kinda honestly always a surprise when they did. It was funny on slow days when like 4 people were in the show. It was funnier on packed days when people complained when you directed them to fill all available space outside thinking they'd get a shittier seat not knowing there was two pre-shows. I miss OG Alien Encounter, I have a special place in my heart for Stitch though. Also... his nose fell off a lot.
HIS NOSE FELL OFF? 😭
It’s disappointing to hear it was a failure because as I’m watching the beginning, it sounds awesome
And the big stitch looks awesome
I went on this ride when I was a kid with my family, I was pretty traumatized by it but not as much as my poor mother who’s worst fear is “being stuck in an elevator with a salami burp” the mere mention of this ride still gives her ptsd flashbacks, whoever thought it was funny to lock people in a dark room with chili dog burp smell is an absolute psychopath
my little brother had asthma, he coudn't breathe with how much smoke they blew in our face, it was awful, he was so little too, I felt so bad for him, he was traumatized - there were no warnings we were aware of for people with breathing problems
I have an older cousin who was maybe just a bit younger than Michael Eisner’s own son, whom the original Alien Encounter was meant to appease. I remember him describing what the attraction used to be and how you could feel it breathing on you and what not. He described it before I had ever done the Stitch version so I remember kind of being able to predict where the Stitch version was going based on what my cousin told me about the original. I remember being like 9 getting out of the attraction like “well that certainly was a thing but I don’t ever have to do that again”
You gotta respect the amount buildup, planning, decorations, all just for this one attraction
I know it could be bodyshaming, but that is one of the less convincing Cobra Bubbles ever you could have ever seen, even if you've went to a local comic convention.
It's not "bodyshaming" to say someone is miscast.
Babe wake up new George Browning Disney history video
George is the goat.
alien encounter was a GREAT and needed attraction, it only needed an age restriction
I’m there right now, and I was on the TTA earlier. It just looked so barren. I get it’s a risky move to put another new attraction in Tomorrowland, especially with all the foot traffic brought by the Tron standby queue, but they really should find a way to use the space other than storage.
*FINALLY* , someone makes a video on this. This ride legitimately traumatized me as a kid. Seriously. It’s a story that my family still tells to this day. They lock you in the seat, pitch black darkness, loud disturbing noises, water spitting at you and gross scents coming out of the vents, all while a dangerous creature is supposedly loose and running around the room. It was like torture. I was probably 6-7 at the time and it freaked. me. tf. out. Big time.
I’ve only been to Disney World once in my life, and that was back in 2007. I was four years old and we walked into Stitch’s Great Escape.
I have never seen the movie, just the trailer on the Monsters Inc. DVD. So, we were going in there for reasons I cannot remember. Anyways, I was sitting in this giant room wondering what the heck was going on.
I just hear a bunch of talking from people and the aliens, and then Stitch starts opening fire. I clinched up in complete fear and my mother looks at my younger brother, Gavin and tells him to say “Aaah” in a lighthearted way. Poor thing starts bawling.
The last thing I remember was that Stitch was doing something relatively harmless, so I thought to myself whether the lasers were real or not.
I know people didn't like the og one for it being too scary, but here's an idea: Have it actually be based off of the Alien franchise this time.
Think about it: Disney owns the rights to Alien. Not only that, but they actually featured an animatronic of the xenomorph on the great movie ride.
Anything's possible!
Oh god, that scene on Great Movie Ride used to TERRIFY me. I loved the rest of it as a kid but I had to cover my eyes every time the tram entered that damn spaceship room.
It’s the fact that I too went to Disney in 2005 as a 5 year old in the summer and SOBBED after riding this attraction 🥲
I get that this ride was bad, but I’ll always have a special place in my heart for it. As goofy as this sounds, my first time on this ride kinda helped me overcome my childhood fears and sensory issues. I have autism so my parents did a TON of research before we went to WDW for the first time; they tried to steer me away from this one but I was a huge Stitch fan as a child, so they talked me through everything that was going to happen. By the time I actually sat through the ride, I was too fascinated by the special effects to actually be scared because I already knew what to expect (or maybe because I loved Stitch and it wasn’t as scary to know all the chaos was being caused by a silly little alien). The ride kinda ended up being my “rite of passage” into more intense experiences and we went on it every time we visited WDW until it closed down.
3:40 this newspaper manages to correctly type the films title every time in the article itself but then somehow messes it up for the bit underneath the image and calls it "Lois and Stitch" lol
I went on that ride once. It was a one-and-done for me. The preshows I liked, but the ride itself was horrifying. The restraints and the smell. If that ride was still here today, I’d just go in for the preshows and then duck out after the second preshow. Skippy and the Donut Guy are cute though!
19:37 MICHAEL? DON'T LEAVE ME HERE! MICHAEL? MICHAEL!!!
i LOVED lilo and stitch as a kid, and i never had any issues with being too scared of rides before, but this experience was absolutely traumatizing to 6/7 year old me for some reason.😭
2:25 I mean they did warn them, it says it right on the sign and even says it might be too much for some adults.
Perhaps I just think about these things but when I hear magic I hear of a tool that can be used for both wholesome good and the most gruesome evil, calming and inert are not words that come to mind.
This scared the shit out of me as a kid I was starting to think I was crazy and this didn’t actually exist.
I went on this ride in 2017 (as an adult). It wasn't too bad, but I can see why it would scare the younger kids. The only thing I didn't like was Stitch "climbing" across the top of the seat harness because it pressed down HARD on your shoulders and it hurt. I'm thankful to not have experienced the chili dog burp in the face as so many others mentioned, lol.
I also think it's a great idea, like someone else said, to make a Disney museum. I would love to see what cool stuff they might put in it. I mean, Disney is over 100 years old now. Who knows what they have stored away from the past?
As much as I LOVE Lilo & Stitch, this attraction can go pound sand.
This ride is one of the only memories I have from one of my earliest Disney trips, and I loved it to death. I never was there again any time it was open, but I remember laughing like crazy at it, especially the video at the end. Everyone else in my family that rode it with me hated it, though. I guess elementary school me just had way better taste.
It's kind of depressing that Disney was so proud of the attraction, what with the opening ceremony, constant ads, Stitch on the MONORAIL, etc. Did any other attraction, at least since 1992, get all that (or ANY of it)?
I went on once and remember being so nauseated by the piped-in scent I felt sick and had a migraine the rest of the day. They could have just...not done that part.
I always dubbed this attraction ‘Five Nights at Jumba’s’ post-closure after seeing that infamous broken Stitch image.
I remember going on this ride as a child, I was horrified lmao
I was lucky enough to have experienced Alien Encounter and it was Fantastic! I was a little surprised that Disney would have such a scary attraction. But it was incredibly well done. It was conceived and executed to the max. I was sad to see it go and even sadder to see it replaced with Stitch's Great Escape, which was just lack luster.
How is Allen these days?
@KingRidley Oh, you know..... Allen is kind of alien these days. Thanks for catching that. Don't you love spell checkers?
With disneys recent pension for blowing large parts of a ride's budget on a single impressive boutique animatronic, I feel like a round theater show highlighting one highly advanced figure could work today
Damn... actually didn't know people hated this attraction. Loved this attraction when I was a kid
I’m so glad to see my opinion was the popular opinion.
This attraction SUCKED!
As a kid I hated hearing the other kids scream.
And even as a teenager later on before it closed… THAT DAMN CHILLI STENCH WOULD REMAIN WITH YOU FOR THE ENTIRE DAY and probably the day after.
Even seeing this footage I’m cringing at the horrible smell and experience.
What an insult. From the great Buzzlightyear shooter… TO THIS TRASH!
Course the young crowd would still get scared, it's only natural, even visiting Santa for the first time sets off the too young in tears. I saw kids run up to a bird, it suddenly screeched not directly at them, but almost like it need to cough, but that noise alone and they immediately started crying after.
So then they should have just kept it as Alien Encounter instead of watering it down in a vain attempt to make it kid friendly.
@@A_A610Keeping the original ride and upping the height requirement would have been a better choice. Just update parts when they broke, maybe get a new animatronic at some point.
I remember watching this attraction at a very young age. I was one of very few kids in the audience funnily enough, and when the lights went out, I didn’t scream or kick...i just froze with fear. I was completely numb for almost an hour after.
Nah nah nah hold on what do you mean on a more important note? What could be more important than a STITCH DESKTOP BUDDY?!?! BRING THAT BACK I'LL BUY YOUR ENTIRE STOCK
OH MY GOSH, I remember going to this when I was younger. I was terrified. EVERY time I shifted, the chair would push me harder. My brain SCREAMED that I was trapped and was going to die.
We left the attraction with so much pain im our shoulders.l and backs.
Just watching this gave me memories of horrible pain and serious anxiety. ;w;
Really wish Alien Encounter was still there.
UGH, I went on this ride in like Fall 2008 and I hated it. The chili dog burp stunk to holy hell. Those animatronics deserved better.
The only time I went on this ride, I was leaning to the left to speak to my aunt when the shoulder "restraints" came down and locked my head/shoulders in an extremely awkward position. No warning at all and there wasnt a way to get out of it. Imagine getting mangled in that harness as shit flavored tap water projectile vomits toward you. I was so distracted I didnt even remember the chili dog smell that my parents spent the rest of the day complaining about
I'm kind of shocked to hear people hated it. That was my favourite Disney ride and I'd go any chance I could. The animatronic was so life like and it seemed like the level of scary I was comfortable with.
The first time I went to Florida was in December 2011 and I had just turned 9yo, and in our group there was also my 7 or 8yo step-cousin. When we rode Stich's Great Scape, I remember being scared asl but amazed at the same time and left the attraction wanting to go again, while my female younger step-cousin... Well, she was as frightened as a 7yo can be lol
Unfortunately as she was scared I couldn't ride it again, and had little memories of the pre-show for example. One thing I remember vividly tho is that awful smell that came from Stich's blurp and the scary sensation of him wandering behind our necks. I understand why it closed and how it was doomed since its inception, but I'm glad at least my personal memories with it were good.
Btw I'm happy to see how much your channel has grew in the last 2 or so years. I watch almost every single upload religiously since your first theme park video about the Yeti, back when you had just bellow 2k subs if I recall correctly. Anyways congrats for your amazing job and if you will I'd like to suggest a 30min or longer video about Haunted Mansion. Its history is so amazing, I'd love see new content about it even tho I know the full history like the back of my hand xD
Greetings from Brazil and Merry Xmas!
Great video George! The first one of yours I’ve watched, but you’ve earned a new sub. Keep up the deep looks!
evil being, you have unearthed a suppressed memory of being on this ride.
I had never seen Lilo and Stitch, and going on this ride as a child left me genuinely terrified of him. I left the ride and was looking everywhere for Stitch, scared that he was loose.
Ah yes, Stitch's Great Escape. The Disney attraction of all time .w.
By the time I first experienced this show, I had a heavy infatuation with Stitch, so I loved it unconditionally. As I grew, however, I began to understand why everyone else hated it, and why it was just a massive dumpster fire of a show... but I still loved it because of that. The last time I exited the the theater, I heard a kid say "I am never doing that again!" XD
And of course, the corpos continue to squander their own real estate by leaving the space abandoned to this day 💀
What?! This show was a highlight of my trips! It was so cool and light-years ahead of any other show.
It scared me so much that when Stitch called our room for a wake up call the next day...I still felt fear. Awful ride.
I remember riding this as a kid and somehow raising my arm up through the harness at one point in the show which then became extra uncomfortable/scary once the effects that moved the harnesses started. I could hardly pay attention to the show because kid me was scared my arm was gonna get stuck or chopped off or something. I finally managed to struggle my way through putting my arm back down but that definitely became a core memory for me lol.
I loved both iterations of this ride! Nearly everything made for teens and adults is a motion-sickness inducing roller coaster or motion simulator, but Alien Encounter was a much needed low-motion teen/adult attraction.
I went on this ride as a kid and was absolutely terrified
For me the worst part was the restraints were very uncomfortable and a bit strong I get claustrophobia and barely enjoyed the show .. to be honest the animatronic was big and spectacular the movements and the lasers arms were "alive" and was worth the visit. But better with a regular seats .. something pushing you to the seat all the time is not good
The problem was that the tone of the show they were going for did not match with the existing infrastructure recycled from a show purpose built to be genuinely terrifying. Instead of resulting in a more family friendly take on Alien Encounter that retained just enough bite for adults while still being appealing to younger kids, it retained too much of the scary experience to be any real improvement for sensitive audiences while also watering down the original experience with more crude and juvenile humor too immature for audiences that liked the original.
The original Alien Encounter knew what it wanted to be and committed to the bit. Stitch tried to water down the experience for an audience it was never designed for, and failed at doing what it was supposed to.
Disney did take the "stitch crossed over and is now ruining everything" gag and ran with that for a long time. It's not geico caveman levels of overused but it had to have gotten annoying at some point. How many times can you see thing slobbering and climbing everything? Actually mabe I'm just too old for this..
YAAAAAAASSS THE RIDE TRAUMATIZED ME AS A CHILD
as a child who rode this ride, I can confirm, absolutely terrifying lmao
I actually loved this attraction, I'm so nostalgic for it
I never been on it, but the pictures look cool and the videos of it look cool
Wow, great video! Thank you for this mini documentary. I was in 4th/5th grade when this ride came out and honestly, my reason for enjoying it was getting out of the Florida heat. Being in a cold, air conditioned room was so nice 😅😂
Hopefully the live action Lilo and Stitch movie catches on and who knows? Maybe they could do something new with the building?
You mentioned urban exploration in your video, and I think that is also a fascinating concept. I think Disney should consider capitalizing on pre-approved urban exploration tours, where official tour guides allow small groups of people to explore closed and run down areas, as long as you sign a liability waiver. Imagine if the building wasn’t a full blown attraction, but they used it as an urban exploration activity at night for curious adults to see old and decommissioned technology. Instead of being abandoned, they could literally make money off the building being in the condition it’s in. 😂
When I was young, I loved it after figuring out you can keep the restraints from crushing you if you sit up in the seat while they are coming down. I am so glad I got to experience one of the scariest rides ever, even if it was Stitch themed. We also went on it often BECAUSE of the short wait.
i remember very specifically being dressed in my belle ballgown dress my grandma made (i was 4), and then getting so scared from the stitch ride that i passed out… or fell asleep. anyways, i was scared of stitch for 10 years and refusing EVER to go take pictures with him. ah… good times.
I went to Stitch as a kid back in 2010-ish, and truthfully I remember really enjoying it. Then again I was like...7.
Ok I went to this as a kid and never went back to Disneyland. The stitch animatronic sit “water” into my mouth… whatever the heck “water” it was.
12:28 so it actually had a smell? My nose doesn't work so I always assumed it didnt.
I remember going on this attraction when I was only 8 yrs old because I was such a big fan of Stitch as a character. I knew it wasn’t going to be just a kiddie type of ride like Alice in wonderland or Disney’s jungle cruise. The ride itself was actually fun instead of scary so I don’t know what the other kids was expecting from a brand attraction based off a franchise center around an alien😅.
14:21 I went to Disney about eight or nine years ago when I was maybe 13 or 12 and I distinctly remember stitches escape freaking me out so bad. When it was completely dark and all the sensations were happening all at the same time, I was actually so scared because it was so intense and no other ride has ever had that effect on me. I remember getting that tickle effect and for some reason that reminded me of what a moths wings would feel like??? Idk I’ve always been afraid of moths so that tickles sensation is what I imagined it would feel like so that really messed me up. I didn’t get to the point of crying though.
I remember the inside of this attraction smelled awful, it smelled like rotting vomit. And on an unrelated note, the pizza they served at the disney’s art of animation hotel smelled the exact same.
Justice for Skippy 😢
Disney's original plan was to use the Alien creature design from the 20th Century Fox movie franchise (as they did at the Disney-MGM Studios park in the Great Movie Ride) for Alien Encounter. But for "reasons" that's not what happened.
And now they own the rights to Aliens, but there’s no way they add it into the parks for the same “reasons” back then.
@@Ihartwalrusguy Nah. They would use it for the park.