Thurl Ravenscroft's narration removed from the DLR

[Waltdisneydude]

I'm aware this change was made aprox. 2 or 3 years ago-Thurl Ravenscroft's narration removed from the Disneyland Rail Road. But only recently have I had the opportunity to discuss this. Why has this happened? I would asume it's a matter of copy rights but it isn't the same anymore.
Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

p.s. I'm sorry if someone has already posted a similar thread I looked the pages over a few times and found nothing.

[jaysin5]

I think it sucks that they removed his voice, He in my opinion is a part of Disneyland. I dont know why they would change it, but it will be surely missed by the Disneyland fanatics.

[Chris]

Unfortunately the narration had to be changed with the addition of new attractions (Pooh) along with changes in Tomorrowland and the Rivers of America (burning cabin). The material was simply dated and obsolete. As much as we appreciated Thurl's spiel, with his passing there just wasn't a way to make the existing recordings work. I do agree that the new voice simply isn't anywhere near the quality of the previous recordings.

The fact that Thurl passed away has no bearing on the ownership of the material. After all, Paul Frees still narrates the Haunted Mansion and Jack Wagner still tells people to "remain seated please" on the Matterhorn.

[PeoplemoverMatt]

Well Thurl's wasn't removed until just about every loading spiel was changed to include 'keep your hands, arms, feet and legs inside at all times and watch your children" and then to repeat everything in spanish. Since the DLRR needed to do that 4 times on its loop, the Thurl spiel just couldn't be tweaked that much to fit the new timings.

This was also the reason why Thunder Mtn's loading spiel was changed as I understood it.

-- PMM

[CLASSIC HM]

Thurl's voice is definitely missed on the Disneyland Railroad. His recording had to be replaced because Country Bear Vacation Hoedown was mentioned and was outdated when Pooh came along. Also, the safety spiel change, the most annoying one is in the Haunted Mansion. Joe Leahy's voice just doesn't flow. I wouldn't be surprised though that the current narration will be replaced in the next year or so. He mentions Mark V Monorails. And I'm sure Disney will want to promote "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage" by mentioning it during the train ride.

[sp 4449]

I hated to see Thurl's narration removed but at least we still have Jack Wagner's voice on the station announcements if they ever remove that I'll cry. a suggestion for the new speil (for new monorails and FNSV) it should be a tribute to thurl's spiel. useing a guy with a deep voice(and no corny accent) and useing some of the old lines such as: "hello folks welcome aboard the disneyland railroad" instead of "Howdy folks" and also the classic no smokeing line that was in both Jack Wagner and Thurl's speils "no smoking please the smokeing lamp is out" I think that would be cool anyway.

SP