Posted in: Conventions, Disney, Movies | Tagged: d23, disney, pirates of the caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean Ride

It Is The Pirates Of The Caribbean's 50th Anniversary, So Let's Celebrate

If you love the festering, janky mess that is the Pirates of the Caribbean ride as much as I do, then you were incredibly excited about the ride's 50th anniversary this year. So of course the ride got its 50th celebration panel at D23 this weekend. And it was an absolute joy for Disney fans everywhere, especially if you love the older dark ride attractions that make up a large portion of the "traditional" rides at the Disney parks.

The panel included members of the film production teams as well as cast members who worked on the ride, and several of the Disney Imagineers who worked on the attraction in all of its variants,. Those same imagineers also worked on many of the parks' other attractions, which makes this panel possibly the coolest room to have been in during D23 this weekend. Seriously, this panel of people were responsible for Disneyland Paris, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Tikki Room, and Shanghai Disneyland. The panel was hosted by Michael Singer and included panelists Marty Sklar, Orlando Ferrante, Kim Irvine, Luc Maynard, and Nancy Seruto.

First, for some ride history. The original version of Pirates of the Caribbean opened Disneyland in 1967, and was the last attraction whose construction was overseen by Walt Disney himself. Disney died three months before it opened. The ride, which tells the story of a band of pirates and their troubles and exploits, was replicated at the Magic Kingdom in 1973, at Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, and at Disneyland Paris in 1992. Each of the initial four versions of the ride has a different façade but a similar ride experience. A reimagined version of the ride, Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure, opened at the Shanghai Disneyland Park in 2016. The famous "we want the redhead" wench auction scene from the ride came under fire recently and has since been removed from the ride experience.

The original Pirates of the Caribbean is the attraction you have to thank for the song "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" which was written by George Bruns and Xavier Atencio. It also became the basis for the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, which debuted in 2003 and star Johnny Depp. Since 2006, Disney has incorporated characters from the film series into the Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, and Tokyo Disneyland versions of the rides.

You can watch the panel in full thanks to Inside the Magic below.

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