A fan blog dedicated to cataloging the great former Tower of Terror attraction at Disney's California Adventure. Will occasionally feature the other versions of the Tower of Terror as well. More Tower stuff at a-land-of-shadow-and-substance.tumblr.com
Some Disney attractions, such as the Haunted Mansion, are lucky enough to have the origins of their concepts thoroughly documented. Fans can look back and enjoy seeing the origins of their favorite attraction in old films, movies, books, folklore, and so on. Other attractions, however, are much lighter on confirmed source material. This (probably obviously, given what blog you're on) includes the Tower of Terror, where most of what's known about it boils down to "well, the designers certainly did watch every episode of The Twilight Zone" and "gee those hotel architectural elements sure look similar to some real supposedly-haunted hotels in Los Angeles".
Interestingly, I suspect I have a lead on yet a third plausible influence: the tarot card literally called The Tower.
I'm not familiar at all with the use of tarot in "serious" fortune telling or spiritual ideas, but I do have some vague knowledge of it via its influence on art and literature. Tarot motifs are a fairly common inspiration for artists and storytellers of all stripes, so it's not out of the question that Imagineers would be familiar with the symbolism--especially given how tarot's "spooky" fortunetelling reputation likely intersected with Haunted Mansion development. And when it comes to The Tower's symbolism, the description seems awfully familiar.
The Tower from the Rider-Waite deck, which seems to be the "standard" tarot deck
The artwork itself usually depicts a tall tower being struck by lightning, with building pieces crumbling and people falling. That alone is already a fairly literal translation to the ride.
But then comes the symbolic description. The Tower is one of the most intimidating cards in tarot; it represents terrible chaos, destruction, sudden change, extreme upheaval. The artwork might be themed around the Tower of Babel, thus carrying the implications of the successful made low. The famous Rider-Waite tarot deck even depicts a crown being literally knocked off the building by the lightning! The tall building, built on shaky ground, is torn down alongside ambition and false promises by nature's wrath. The lightning symbolizes harsh truth and reality cutting through illusions.
There's not much positive in the description of The Tower, and seems to be one of the most feared tarot cards--a good basis for a horror attraction. Terrible chaos, destruction, and sudden change also describe what literally happened to the hotel in-universe; one bad storm and the hotel is both physically destroyed and its inhabitants cursed. Furthermore, the Hollywood Tower Hotel was a symbol of the "glitz and the glitter of a bustling young movie town", only to have its beauty stripped and the ugly "dark side of Hollywood" revealed. The majority of the ghosts in the attraction appear to be wealthy too, and the whole "successful made low" aspect makes sense for an attraction whose IP has a reputation for karmic tales.
This "plot" (for lack of a better term) is arguably even more obvious in the DisneySea version of the Tower, which centers around rich jerk Harrison Hightower III and his hotel being cursed by one of the many artifacts he stole and hoarded.
Ironically, at DCA the ride itself met a rather Tower-like fate, being suddenly and (arguably) destructively changed into Guardians of the Galaxy.
Do I have solid evidence for this tarot card inspiration? No. But given how common tarot is as a source of artistic inspiration, and the sheer amount of description that lines up, I'd call this a solidly plausible source of inspiration for this classic attraction.
So, it turns out that "Dreams come true!" and an emphasis on "Wishes!" aren't just slogans that appear endlessly in Disney parks advertising and shows. They're also a big, canonical part of the Twilight Zone! Seriously!
This pair of episodes ("The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" and "Walking Distance"), but especially "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine", have such weirdly direct takes on those concepts that they almost seem to be weirdly not-quite-parodying Disney advertising's uses of the phrases and their implications... all the way back in 1959, long before they probably got overused. Although, Disney has always laid the schmaltzy sentimentality on thick, so perhaps it already was starting to wear thin after only 4 years of the park being open.
That's not the only Disney thing about "Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" either. Tower of Terror seems to have taken the aesthetic, era, and even some of the events in this episode! As far as I can tell, none of the Towers had official Easter Eggs from "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine", but there's so many similarities that I think it was a definitive influence on the designers.
The plot goes thus: Barbara is a former movie star who obsessively wishes to return to her glory days in the 1930s. She spends most of her time binge-watching all her old films in her private study, which looks a lot like Tower's libraries. Her house is a grand gothic mansion, lavishly decorated with carved doors and flower arrangements reminiscent of the 30s and shown to be in sharp contrast with the sleek "present day" (i.e. 1950s) studio offices she visits. Her housekeeper and friend/agent desperately try to get Barbara to move on from the past, but she refuses. Finally, one day they discover her missing from her closed-off study, only to look in horror at the still-running movie screen to see it now projecting the mansion they're in--but now with Barbara as her ideal movie self, surrounded by her old characters and friends, happily running off into movie land after waving them goodbye with a scarf. When they leave the study, her scarf is still where she dropped it on the ground in the supernatural film.
The final narration is a real kicker:
"To the wishes that come true, to the strange, mystic strength of the human animal, who can take a wishful dream and give it a dimension of its own. To Barbara Jean Trenton, movie queen of another era, who has changed the blank tomb of an empty projection screen into a private world. It can happen... in the Twilight Zone."
That could damn well near run in front of a Disney fireworks show.
Admit it, you heard this in your head too.
Admittedly, as I watched this episode, the message seemed really muddled. For most of its runtime, it seems like the moral is going to be about having to move on from the past--but then Barbara gets her wish to re-live her glory days, and it's presented as a mostly happy ending. Her friend and her housekeeper will probably miss her (and have a lot of explaining to do about her disappearance), but there's not really shown any reason she shouldn't take the opportunity to go to her dream world permanently. "Mixed message" is putting it mildly, especially given that this episode is followed by, and definitely contradicted by, "Walking Distance". I'll get to that episode in a second.
Like I mentioned earlier, I think Tower of Terror got a lot of ideas from this episode. The idealized (or at least glamorous) era is the 1930s, and Barbara's house basically makes it look like she's living in Tower of Terror's lobby. Furthermore, the guests end up supernaturally inside a television episode, much like Barbara ends up in her old films. The common interpretation of one of the Tower ghosts as a movie star might also owe a bit to this episode, but that's more of a reach. I'd actually seen this episode before, back in 2002, but never noticed all the similarities until now.
It also feels really fitting that an almost cloyingly "Disney" episode (what with all that talk about wishes) would lend so much to the literally Disney ride.
Now, as for "Walking Distance"...
I really wasn't excited about rewatching this one. Not only had I seen it before, but I feel like it's one of the most heavy-handed, over-hyped, over-discussed Twilight Zone episodes of all time. I honestly considered either skipping it, or not blogging about it. However, it formed such a shocking contrast with the previous episode, and also might have inspired a scene in Tower of Terror, so I had to still mention it.
In this story, Martin is an advertising executive disgruntled with his life. Upon taking a drive in the country, he stops to have his car serviced, only to find that the service station is walking distance from his childhood hometown, which he fondly remembers, especially in contrast to his current hectic life. When he walks there, however, he finds himself literally back in his childhood past. The episode then proceeds to VERY heavy-handedly hammer home how Martin no longer fits in and cannot stay in the past. Eventually, Martin's father explains to him that he can't stay in the past, but perhaps he should reevaluate the present and learn to find joys in his own time.
The end narration is:
"Martin Sloan, age 36, vice president in charge of media. Successful in most things, but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives: trying to go home again. And also, like all men perhaps, there'll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he'll look up from what he's doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and places of his past. And perhaps, across his mind there'll be flit a little errant wish that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and merry go rounds of his youth, and he'll smile then, too, because he'll know it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man's mind that are a part of... The Twilight Zone."
Huh, there's those wishes again. Also, I can't help but think about how Main Street USA was Walt Disney doing his best to bring nostalgic memories of his childhood into physical form, and how in many ways Disney Parks are where anyone can to an extent indulge their childhood memories. The fact that a Twilight Zone attraction ended up in such a park feels either ironic or incredibly appropriate--maybe both.
The most extreme awkwardness of this episode, though (besides how eye-rollingly heavy handed it is about its message), is that it's directly in contrast with the seeming message of the previous one. Barbara getting to live in the past is a happy ending, but Martin instead needs to find joy in the present. Perhaps these are two halves of the same coin... Martin's story shows why Barbara's wish might be the wrong choice. Or, you know, it's just inconsistent writing.
As for the Tower of Terror connection, I believe the mirror scene from DCA/Paris was inspired by a shot from this episode. When Martin walks away from the gas station (and into the Twilight Zone), it is shown as a reflection in the mirror. Likewise, the second generation of Towers used the mirror as the transition into the Twilight Zone.
My takeaway so far has been that a lot of Season 1 ended up in Tower of Terror, despite the pre-show using the season 4-5 opening theme. I wonder why...
