In late 2024, Walt Disney World and Disneyland will be releasing its newest attraction, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. The ride will be based on the 2009 movie, The Princess and the Frog, along with all of the characters and concepts featured throughout the film. While some people are elated for this new attraction to arrive, others are reminiscing about Splash Mountain, the beloved ride being replaced by Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

The Splash Mountain ride is based on the 1946 Disney movie, Song of the South. The movie focuses on a young boy named Johnny, who visits his grandmother’s plantation in Atlanta, Georgia, and meets a plantation worker named Uncle Remus. 

In Song of the South, Uncle Remus tells stories about adventures with various animated characters to the young boy throughout the movie. It may have seemed like a sweet and light-hearted film back then, but as years passed, people began to realize that the movie was missing some important details. 

While the movie became somewhat popular, having a total gross income of $60 million, it quickly became a controversial film. 

Uncle Remus may have been singing songs and having fun adventures with Johnny, but it seemed as if Song of the South had glanced over the hardships of slavery that Uncle Remus and other African-Americans were experiencing during the late 19th-century. In the 1800s, enslaved people were fighting to gain freedom, and working tirelessly on a ranch in the South.

Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a former congressman from Harlem, said that the film was an “insult to American minorities [and] everything that America as a whole stands for.“

For 34 years, Disney has gotten away with only featuring the animals from Song of the South in the Splash Mountain ride, and not Uncle Remus, therefore, ignoring the apparent racism that is portrayed throughout the film. 

Before Walt Disney World officially closed the attraction on January 23, 2023, Disney fans gathered emotionally around Splash Mountain to see its final run as a ride. 

According to Rolling Stone, the hashtag “#goodbyesplashmountain” had one million views on TikTok, as people were saying their final goodbyes to the ride. Dozens of people were writing comments such as “RIP Splash Mountain” about the log-flumed attraction. 

Now that Walt Disney World has shut down their Splash Mountain, the Disneyland version is set to be closed on May 31. Although people will never forget Splash Mountain, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has the potential to be just as successful.