Originally Posted By Hista98 So i've been wondering ths for a while, but does anyne know why, when eastern airlines dropped it's sponsership ,they had to change the name?? I don't think the song or ame had anything to do with eastern ,and people have said it was less of a ride due to the changes, so why do it?? same with dreamflight?? anyone know??
Originally Posted By trekkeruss Just a guess, but since the whole attraction was basically a promotion for the airline, maybe Eastern owned the rights to the name and the song.
Originally Posted By brotherdave If You Had Wings was a 'quaint', but fun ride. It had its moments, but, by and large, it was a promotion for Eastern Airlines. When Eastern dropped their sponsorship in 1987 (and eventually went bankrupt a few years later), IYHW was temporarily changed to "If You Could Fly". All Eastern references were dropped and a new song was used in the attraction. But, the attraction itself remained the same. In 1989, Dreamflight replaced "If You Could Fly" and was sponsored by Delta Airlines and gave riders a 'comical history' of flight. Most of the ride was a 'commercial' for Delta, but it still was fun. Delta sponsored the attraction until 1996. The attraction was then gutted of all Delta references and then renamed "Take Flight". It was replaced with Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin in 1998. Check these sites about more on these attractions: <a href="http://www.waltdatedworld.bravepages.com/id29.htm" target="_blank">http://www.waltdatedworld.brav...id29.htm</a> <a href="http://home.cfl.rr.com/omniluxe/iyhw-main.htm" target="_blank">http://home.cfl.rr.com/omnilux...main.htm</a>
Originally Posted By danyoung I'd guess that if Disney was going to make a change due to a dropped sponsor, they might as well make the change big enough to seem as if it's a new attraction, even though it was really the same thing.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn Similar changes occured to other attractions after sponsor changes, including Space Mountain, Spaceship Earth, The Land, etc.
Originally Posted By MPierce I though this was going to be a response to the Benny Mardones song "Into the Night".
Originally Posted By brotherdave Actually, the Carousel of Progress had only one sponsor, which was GE. I believe GE dropped the sponsorship of the attraction when Horizons opened at EPCOT Center in 1983. CoP went sponsorless ever since.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<If You Had Wings was a 'quaint', but fun ride. It had its moments, but, by and large, it was a promotion for Eastern Airlines. When Eastern dropped their sponsorship in 1987 (and eventually went bankrupt a few years later), IYHW was temporarily changed to "If You Could Fly". All Eastern references were dropped and a new song was used in the attraction. But, the attraction itself remained the same.>> If You Had Wings was a GREAT little attraction. Having never ridden Adventures Thru Inner Space at DL, it kind of filled that role albeit with a totally different theme. We rode that thing so many times as kids because in the ticket book days, it was FREE, and the line was never longer than 15-20 minutes. The wings of man ... Eastern, we'll be your wings ... yep ... remember it well. <<Actually, the Carousel of Progress had only one sponsor, which was GE. I believe GE dropped the sponsorship of the attraction when Horizons opened at EPCOT Center in 1983. CoP went sponsorless ever since.>> That's right. GE's sponsorship of CoP actually went on a bit longer than '83 (I think and am almost sure) before they dropped it. It could have been '85 as most sponsors signed ten year deals and CoP debuted in '75. But they were definitely the only sponsor.
Originally Posted By mickey_ring I've always wondered... In the 70s, Eastern's colors were navy blue and white. WDW Tomorrowland was navy blue and white. Any connection there, or what?
Originally Posted By brotherdave Please note, that I'm not in any way trying to make "If You Had Wings" seem like it wasn't fun. It was. But, by today's standards, it certainly would be considered a "quaint" attraction. And, I remember riding it many times, too, because it was "FREE"!!! The parts I remember being the best were the Bahaman traffic cop directing traffic to a flock of flamingo's, the '3-D' waterfall room, the Speed Room, and the majestic flight over the mountains. It really offered some lovely scenery of the Caribbean region. I really miss that ride, too, but realize that today's audience would probably just ignore it.
Originally Posted By brotherdave Oh, and that great song!!! "If you had wings, had wings, had wings, had wings!!!" It was probably the most memorable song from WDW in the 70s after It's a Small World!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<I've always wondered... In the 70s, Eastern's colors were navy blue and white. WDW Tomorrowland was navy blue and white. Any connection there, or what?>> No. Just a happy coincidence.
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 And when you went through that tunnelly thing, or was it a runway? Anyway it felt like you were going really really fast, but if you looked down, you were barely moving at all. My first encounter with an illusion. Oh well, the first time I saw Hall of Presidents, I thought those guys in the back who were wispering to each other during Lincoln's speech, were really rude. Who ever heard of AAs. But at least I didn't think they resurrected Lincoln to be there.
Originally Posted By brotherdave "If you had wings, you could do many things, you could widen your world if you had wings... If you had wings, had wings, had wings. If you had wings, had wings, had wings, had wings, had wings..."
Originally Posted By danyoung What I most remember from the early ride was the noise from all of the film loop projectors, dozens of them throughout the ride, ratcheting incredibly loudly, even fighting the music at times for supremacy. I thought even back then that Disney should have done a better job at soundproofing the projectors - that clattering was really annoying!!
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn What I really liked about the ride was that it was free. Back in the day, they had a ticket system to ride each ride. They had 'E' tickets for the big rides, 'D' for the pretty-good rides, 'C' for the ride-rides, etc. (Hence 'E'-Ticket coasters, etc). Each ticket was priced differently. If You Had Wings allowed you to board with the free ticket.
