Love the Disney parks? Love screaming your way through Space Mountain or The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror? Curious to know some of the SECRETS and stories behind your favorite rides? Then there’s one show you’ll want to binge in just a few days…

…Behind the Attraction! This brand new show will be streaming on Disney+ in just a few short days. While you may have heard of it and how it’ll give you a behind-the-scenes look at some of your favorite rides, the show isn’t exactly what you might expect.

When you think about a show that reveals all kinds of Disney ride secrets, you might be thinking it’s something serious — like an hour-long documentary that takes you through every detail of Space Mountain with a very weighty and professor-like tone. The Imagineering Story may even come to mind, which was an incredible show that shared all kinds of amazing stories from Imagineers and more about the story of the Disney company and its parks.

But this ain’t your typical documentary show folks! Behind the Attraction takes a unique tone when it comes to Disney and its theme parks. Instead of taking things SUPER seriously, the show actually injects a lot of humor into its stories and encourages you to chuckle along! Check out the trailer below and you’ll get a sense of what we mean!

We first got a glimpse of this trailer during a Disney press conference we were lucky enough to attend all about this show, and when we first saw it the humor is truly what stood out! And that humorous tone totally makes sense. Brian Volk-Weiss, one of the show’s executive producers, shared that the first half of his career was spent mainly in comedy.

He said he’s always had an issue with documentaries that take happy subjects and treat them like they’re the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Volk-Weiss noted that this is a show about attractions, so why wouldn’t it be fun?!

When asked to describe the show in one sentence Volk-Weiss noted that it is a show focused first and foremost on entertaining its audience. But, hopefully, fans will have learned something by the end of each episode as well!

Volk-Weiss even addressed how this is different than The Imagineering Story by noting that Behind the Attraction really tries to get into the fun of these attractions and looks at some more things focused on pop culture.

What can you expect to see and learn about in this show? Well, Volk-Weiss put it perfectly when he said that Disney attractions are basically like icebergs. Fans get to see the tip of the iceberg when they ride the attractions, but if they knew ALL of the giant infrastructures that makes them work they’d be truly amazed. Behind the Attraction is aimed at taking guests a few feet underwater to see more of that iceberg, and have fun along the way.

For example, at one point during the conference, Volk-Weiss was asked about the most interesting piece of information he learned when working on the show. He responded by saying he once thought he had a master’s degree in Disney, but working on the show made him realize he’s closer to 5-6th grade education! Volk-Weiss shared how one Imagineer told him how they’ve moved cables and plumbing through part of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage attraction for attractions that won’t be built for 15-20 years. It’s fascinating to see how Disney thinks incredibly far in advance.

Jeanette Lomboy (Vice President/Site Portfolio Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering) shared that some of the stories shared in Behind the Attraction are ones that guests never get to hear and that the Imagineers were asked questions about things they typically don’t get asked about. Dave Durham (Executive, Creative Ride Engineering at Walt Disney Imagineering) said that this show was really a chance for the Imagineers to tell their stories and not bite their tongues! Fans will get to hear more about the history, successes, challenges, and more behind some of their favorite rides in a unique and new way.

As the trailer shows, Dwayne Johnson is actually one of the executive producers on the show. When discussing his role in the show, Volk-Weiss noted that to say Johnson was awesome and joy would be an understatement! Vanessa Hunt (Senior Design Asset Specialist at Walt Disney Imagineering) shared that Johnson actually visited Imagineering’s art collection when working on Jungle Cruise to learn more about the creation of the ride and was so excited to be there!

So, what should you expect when it comes to Behind the Attraction? Well, it is a 10 part series and 5 of the episodes will start streaming on July 21st on Disney+. Volk-Weiss shared that some of the episodes will start with a close-up look at a tiny detail and then expand on the context and story of the ride or feature from there. He said that it’s sort of like a connect-the-dots game. And fans will get to keep connecting those dots when they visit the parks and see some of the things discussed in the show in action!

If you’re wondering what each of these episodes will focus on, here’s a peek at the list of the episodes, their titles, and a description provided by Disney about what will be discussed in each:

• Jungle Cruise: Join a skipper for the story behind Jungle Cruise, and try to spot the backside of water! When Walt decided to create the original immersive attraction, he tasked Imagineers with building a river in the Southern California desert AND the mechanical animals to populate it. Lead designer Harper Goff and horticulturist Bill Evans scrambled to get it all built-in time for Disneyland® Park’s grand opening in 1955. Guests have been cruising its waters ever since. Dwayne Johnson also appears in this episode where he discusses his childhood memories of the attraction and his favorite joke from the skippers.

• Haunted Mansion: Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion — enter if you dare! When Walt Disney developed the attraction, he didn’t specify if it should be funny or scary. Ultimately, it became a perfect blend of both. Haunted Mansion proved so popular that it inspired several later iterations, including the chilling Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris and the weird and wonderful Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland.
• Star Tours: Lightspeed to Endor! A long time ago…Disney created Star Tours, a thrilling simulator attraction that takes guests to a galaxy far, far away. It inspired Imagineers to build a whole new land — Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. There, guests can use the Force to explore the remote outpost of Batuu and the cutting-edge attractions Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror: Discover the ups (and downs!) of creating this gravity-defying attraction set in the eerie world of Rod Serling’s renowned “Twilight Zone” television series. Then hold on tight as Imagineers reimagine the Disney California Adventure version as Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! Learn what it took to build the attraction — and what it takes to ride it!
• The Castles: Castles are at the heart of Disney Parks around the world. The original at Disneyland® Resort in California quickly became a symbol of The Walt Disney Company on par with Mickey Mouse. Hear the unique story behind each one and learn how Imagineers designed and built them.

• Disneyland Hotel: Disneyland® Resort with no hotel — what?! It almost happened. Check in to see how Walt got it built. Envisioned as an extension of the Park, funding for the hotel proved hard to come by, so Walt struck a deal with producer Jack Wrather. Jack would own the hotel, but Walt’s name would be on it. Together, they made it into an immersive experience, setting the stage for all Disney hotels to come. After Jack’s death, The Walt Disney Company bought the Disneyland® Hotel. Today, Disney operates dozens of hotels worldwide.
• Space Mountain: You’re about to hear the story of Space Mountain in T-minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…launch! Walt’s vision of an attraction that simulates space travel was a design challenge Imagineer John Hench tackled head on, creating a signature structure now in Disney Parks around the world. Imagineers continued the tradition by creating another thrilling indoor attraction, the landmark TRON Lightcycle Power Run at Shanghai Disney Resort.

• “it’s a small world”: It all began at the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair! If a chance encounter between an Academy Award®-winning actress and Walt Disney hadn’t taken place, this beloved attraction might never have been created. With its signature, unforgettable song, its flume boat ride design, and Audio-Animatronics® figures, it was a huge success. Versions were designed and built-in Disney Parks around the planet, proving that it really is a small world, after all!
• Trains, Trams, and Monorails: All aboard! Everything moves at Disney Parks, especially the guests — by land, water, and air! Walt loved locomotion of all kinds — trains, trams, monorails, and boats. They’re all fun, but Walt also believed the monorail could help cities end traffic. The vast transportation network at Walt Disney World Resort is a testament to that. Every Disney Park built since has continued this tradition, creating transportation systems to whisk guests efficiently to their destinations.

• Hall of Presidents: This unprecedented presidential attraction in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom brings our commanders in chief to life. Walt created the world’s first human Audio-Animatronics® figure based on his childhood hero, Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe helped launch this revolutionary technology that populates Disney Parks today. Who knows what the future holds for this mesmerizing Disney technology?

So, whether you’re looking to learn ALL the secrets about your favorite rides or just looking for a bit of a laugh with a side of knowledge, it sounds like this show will have a little something for everyone! You can catch it on Disney+ on July 21st.

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Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. Today, we were invited by Disney World to attend their media preview/press conference about Behind the Attraction. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ

Will you be tuning in to watch Behind the Attraction? If you do watch the show, be sure to come back to this post and tell us the most interesting thing you learned from watching the show!

The post Disney+’s Upcoming ‘Behind the Attraction’ Show Isn’t What You’d Expect first appeared on the disney food blog.