History Ride / TheTwilightZoneTowerOfTerror

* CreatorCameo: Disney imagineer Joe Rohde, who led the development of Animal Kingdom, plays Harrison Highwater III in the Tokyo version of the ride.

* '''Disney's Hollywood Studios (Ride/WaltDisneyWorld, Florida, United States)''' and '''Walt Disney Studios Park (Paris, France)''' are the ''Twilight Zone'' versions of the ride. The original at WDW (pictured) is the most relatively popular iteration featuring the "5th Dimension Scene" where your elevator travels ''horizontally'' across to one of the drop shafts on the other side. A streamlined version of the original made to save money and space opened at '''Disney California Adventure (Ride/{{Disneyland}} Resort, California, United States)''' in 2004 and Paris in 2007, with a [[ArtDeco Pueblo Deco]] exterior unlike Florida's pseudo-gothic architecture. Disneyland's Tower was later re-themed into ''Ride/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyMissionBreakout'' in 2017 [[note]]The attraction followed the release of ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2''[[/note]] and Disney Studio's Tower was updated with ''A New Dimension of Chills'', where the little girl that was killed with the cast now haunts alongside the Tower and three elevator plots.

* LongRunner: The original attraction in Florida has been in operation since 1994 while the other incarnations opened between 2004 and 2007. Subverted with the California version which only lasted 13 years before being converted into ''Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout''.

In 1939, the Hollywood Tower Hotel was the premier getaway for showbiz A-List. The legend goes that on the stormy [[UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve Halloween]] night of that year, five people: a celebrity couple, a little girl with her nanny and a bellman, were all aboard one of the main elevators when the building was struck by lightning, making entire wings of the hotel vanish and their elevator plummet into oblivion. The hotel has been closed and left abandoned since that horrible accident. Decades later, the hotel is now a haunted, broken-down relic of Hollywood's Golden Age looming over Tinseltown at the end of Sunset Boulevard. Anyone with the nerve to visit, however, will immediately discover the seemingly desolate lodging is strangely open for business inviting you to stay using the still-operating maintenance service elevators. Once onboard, guests experience what happened that horrific night years ago as they traverse past the confines of reality and into their very own special episode of ''The Twilight Zone''.

* AbandonedArea: The hotel and the grounds have been left to rot since that fateful night in 1939 with no one ever tending to the place. At least no one ''living''.

* AlliterativeName: '''H'''arrison '''H'''ightower III, and with him, Hotel Hightower.

Ever dreaded being in a falling elevator? Well, Imagineers at Ride/WaltDisneyWorld developed a thrill ride that simulates that very experience and turns it into a horror story. Submitted for your approval, ''The Twilight Zone Tower of Tower''; a popular simulated freefall drop tower at Ride/DisneyThemeParks based on the classic anthology series, ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 The Twilight Zone]]''. Opened in 1994 at Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-[[Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer MGM]] Studios until 2008), it was an instant hit among parkgoers and remained a Disney park icon since. ''Twilight Zone'' creator, Creator/RodSerling (voiced by Mark Silverman) hosts the attraction taking you on a bizarre, horrifying tour of the "5th Dimension".

In 1939, the Hollywood Tower Hotel was the premier getaway for showbiz A-List. The legend goes that on the stormy [[UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve Halloween]] night of that year, five people: a celebrity couple, a little girl with her nanny and a bellman, were all aboard one of the main elevators when the building was struck by lightning, making entire wings of the hotel vanish and their elevator plummet into oblivion. The hotel has been closed and left abandoned since that horrible accident. Decades later, the hotel is a haunted, broken-down relic of Hollywood's Golden Age looming over Tinseltown at the end of Sunset Boulevard. Recently, however, the hotel has mysteriously become active inviting you to stay using the still-operating service elevators. Once onboard, guests experience what happened that horrific night years ago as they traverse past the confines of reality and into their very own special episode of ''The Twilight Zone''.

* MissingFloor: Your service elevator rapidly rises and plummets 13 stories up and down the tower…''only there is no 13th floor''.[[note]]"...spooky"[[/note]]
** In the boiler room loading area, the needle indicating which level the elevator is on moves past the 12th floor referencing the missing floor in the season 1 episode "The After Hours".

* NeverTrustATrailer: Promos for the ride often exaggerate its horror by showing riders plummeting aboard an elevator that doesn't have seats or restraints. This of course isn't how the actual ride is for obvious reasons.

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The "5 permanent guests" are seemingly bound to the hotel [[JacobMarleyApparel as they were the night of the accident]] for all eternity appearing and disappearing in a [[SnowyScreenOfDeath TV static]] effect.
** Some fans have interpreted the hotel's cast members to be "ghosts" as well.

* SignsOfDisrepair: The hotel's neon sign has one or two of its letters left crooked, burnt out and flickering when lit from the lightning strike.

* UpdatedRerelease: The ride in Florida has gone through 4 revamps of its system with the current one introducing randomized drop sequences.

->'''Creator/RodSerling''': A warm welcome back to those of you who made it and a friendly word of warning, something you won't find in any guide book; the next time you check into a deserted hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy you're filling or you may find yourself a permanent resident...of the Twilight Zone.

Not to be confused with the RealLife [[http://i2.wp.com/farm6.staticflickr.com/5815/23038449772_8c0fcb6e57_z.jpg?resize=600%2C450&ssl=1 Hollywood Tower Apartments]], a landmark [[UsefulNotes/LosAngeles L.A.]] apartment complex said to have also partially inspired the ride as well.

* CreepyBasement: The hotel's boiler room where the service lift ride vehicles are located. Full of cobwebs, rusty pipes, busted or barely functioning equipment; it really makes an unsettling atmosphere.

** Many ads also depict the hotel staff as rather [[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies ghoulish looking and zombie-esque]], but guests will then see that clearly wasn't in the park's makeup budget.

** The giant neon sign in Florida is situated ''in front of'' the elevator doors, where the top hotel corridors are supposed to be. This was possibly meant to give riders, who would be facing the back of the sign when the elevators doors open, a bit of SurrealHorror.

** You enter the Library on what can be assumed to be "The First Floor", and then make your way to the boiler room. When you approach the elevator, the indicator shows that you are now ''at the basement''. [[note]]In the Florida version, the true basement is the unload area of the attraction, adjacent to the gift shop, and you're on the second floor when you enter the lobby.[[/note]]

* {{Expy}}:
** If the MadeForTVMovie is anything to go by, the little girl in the preride video is one of Creator/ShirleyTemple.

* ItsAllAboutMe: The Hightower Hotel's lobby is filled with "heroic" portraits of Harrison's adventures and how far he (and his butler) went to acquire the hotel's artwork, namely through shameless plundering.

* LaserGuidedKarma: The backstory for the Japanese version of the ride has its VillainProtagonist, Harrison Hightower III, stealing the idol, Shiriki Utundu, from its sacred resting place in an African region. It comes back to bite him in the ass hard as the idol kills him and curses his soul and the hotel indefinitely.

* TooDumbToLive: Funny enough, ''you''. The ride's premise has you visiting an old, abandoned hotel that, right from the get-go, you know clearly something is very wrong with the place. Yet you still willingly "check in" whilst being given not-so subtle clues left and right that the hotel is not only haunted but is possibly out to get you as well. Ultimately subverted, of course.

* Opened in 2006, the '''Tokyo [=DisneySea=] (Ride/TokyoDisneyResort, Urayasu, Japan)''' version has an entirely new storyline completely devoid of ''Twilight Zone'' references and is just titled ''Tower of Terror''. Set at Hotel Hightower in New York, guests learn of the disastrous accident that befell the hotel on New Year's Eve, 1899. The hotel's owner, Harrison Hightower III, had stolen a sacred African idol which in turn killed him aboard one of the elevators, forever cursing the hotel along with any who enter.

* AbandonedArea[=/=]HauntedHouse: The hotel and the grounds have been left to rot since that fateful night in 1939 with no one ever tending to the place. At least no one ''living''.

* AlienGeometries[=/=]{{Bizarrchitecture}}: Since the Hollywood Tower Hotel is in ''The Twilight Zone'' of all places, there's bound to be some irregularities and paradoxes in the layout that just make no sense.

* DoomyDoomsOfDoom[=/=]{{Foreshadowing}}: The hotel's directory in the lobby had some of its letters falling to the bottom of the glass casing spelling "EVIL TOWER U R DOOMED". They have since been removed, but fans have actually made online petitions to bring them back.

* EvilElevator[=/=]{{Hellevator}}: The Tower didn't get its name from nothing.
** Implied with the latter on one elevator in ''A New Dimension of Chills'', the girl warns you to 'not scream', lest the demons possessing that one take you to oblivion.

* ForeignRemake[=/=]InNameOnly: ''Tower of Terror'' at Tokyo [=DisneySea=] has a completely different setup from the American and French versions as Japanese audiences are not familiar with ''The Twilight Zone''. That and the company that runs the park didn't want to pay royalties to Disney ''AND'' CBS (later Paramount Global).

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The "5 permanent guests" are seemingly bound to the hotel [[JacobMarleyApparel as they were the night of the accident]] for all eternity appearing and disappearing in a cool [[SnowyScreenOfDeath TV static]] effect.

* EveryoneIsRelated: Harrison Hightower III, from Japan's ''Tower of Terror'', is allegedly a relative of George Hightower, one of the many murdered husbands of Constance Hatchaway from ''Franchise/TheHauntedMansion''.