It's a Small World
"It's a Small World" (stylized in all lowercase) is a water-based boat ride located in the Fantasyland area at various Disney theme parks around the world, including Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California; Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida; Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland. The inaugural version of the ride premiered at the 1964 New York World's Fair before permanently moving to Disneyland in 1966. The ride features over 300 audio-animatronic dolls in traditional costumes from cultures around the world, frolicking in a spirit of international unity, and singing the attraction's title song, which has a theme of global peace. According to TIME.com, the Sherman Brothers' song "It's A Small World" is the most publicly performed song of all time. In recent years, the Small World attractions at the various Disney parks have been updated to include depictions of Disney characters—in a design compatible with the original 1960s design of Mary Blair—alongside the original characters. Fabricated at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank as Children of the World, and created by WED Enterprises, the ride was shipped to the 1964 New York World's Fair, where it was housed at the UNICEF pavilion (sponsored by Pepsi), which featured at its entrance a kinetic sculpture, The Tower of the Four Winds, a 120-foot perpetually spinning mobile created by WED designer Rolly Crump. It joined four other attractions—Magic Skyway (Ford pavilion), Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln (Illinois pavilion), The Carousel of Progress (General Electric pavilion), and CircleVision 360 (Kodak pavilion)—already under development, which were used by Disney to sponsor, fund, and test concepts and to develop ride systems and innovative entertainment, all intended to be dismantled and rebuilt at Disneyland after the World's Fair had closed in 1966. Mary Blair was responsible for the attraction's whimsical design and color styling. Blair had been an art director on several Disney animated features, including Cinderella (1950), Alice In Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953).
