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Today on the Obscure Disney Podcast we are going to where the birds sing words and the flowers croon; The Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room. As an attraction it was revolutionary and we discuss the whole experience.

Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room is an attraction located in Disneyland at the Disneyland Resort, in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, and in Tokyo Disneyland at Tokyo Disney Resort. Opened in 1963 at the Disneyland Resort, the attraction is a pseudo-Polynesian themed musical animatronic show drawing from American tiki culture.

The attraction opened June 23, 1963, and was the first to feature Audio-Animatronics technology, a WED Enterprises patented invention The attraction was sponsored by United Airlines for its first 12 years; in 1976, sponsorship passed over to Hawaii’s Dole Food Company, which remains the sponsor to the present day. Dole also provides the unique Dole Whip soft-serve frozen dessert sold at a snack bar near the entrance.

The show was originally going to be a restaurant featuring Audio-Animatronics birds serenading guests as they dined. The “magic fountain” at the room’s center was originally planned as a coffee station (there is still a storage compartment within the base of the fountain) and the restaurant would have shared its kitchen with the now-defunct Tahitian Terrace in Adventureland and the Plaza Pavilion restaurant at the corner of Main Street, U.S.A. since all three are actually part of the same building. Since ownership of the attraction was separate from the rest of the park, a nominal admission charge of $0.75 was levied. Because computers have played a central role in the attraction since its inception, Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room was also Disneyland’s first fully air-conditioned building.