Trivia / Superstar Limo

• Colbert Bump: For people who didn't get to experience it, they most likely heard of it thanks to Defunctland.
• Creator Backlash: The entire Walt Disney Company, along with Imagineering, regrets this ride. Eisner thought it was a great idea, but it was an in-joke only he got and even he found the execution to be less than favorable once put into play. Some of the actors who lent their likeness like Drew Carey likewise felt offput by the ride, as seen when he and some of his cast from his show toured the park on The Rosie O'Donnell Show and came out looking unimpressed in their demeanor. When it was featured in the Disney made, released and approved documentary series The Imagineering Story in 2019, the series did not describe the ride kindly, with the chief creative executive of the parks at the time saying it was "grotesque" and that it "didn't work". The fact that the ride was shut down the following year and spent four years abandoned before finally being revamped as a Monsters, Inc. ride is a testament to its reception among guests, considering that guest experience ratings improved when the park's only dark ride closed.
• Distanced from Current Events: As originally conceived in 1997, the attraction was going to be a high-speed ride where guests would have to escape from the paparazzi. However, after Lady Diana Spencer died in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris while trying to get away from paparazzi, the original plan was scrapped out of sensitivity concerns. The ride was slowed down and most references to the paparazzi were removed.
• Missing Episode: Michael Eisner apparently recorded scenes of on-ride footage for the original version of the ride before asking to be removed and being replaced by Swifty La Rue, the puppet agent. The unused footage of Eisner will almost certainly never see the light of day.
• No Budget: The Disney Parks division was still feeling the financial stress from the disastrous opening of Disneyland Paris even a decade later, not to mention the cash troubles Disney was experiencing during the post-Renaissance era. These factors caused the budget for California Adventure to be small at the start and repeatedly gutted during pre-production. Hence the many cardboard cutouts and animatronics with limited animations.
• Prop Recycling: The whole attraction was revamped as Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!. Most of the animatronics were redressed as CDA agents and Regis Philbin was redressed as Randall. Many are in the same poses, and some have had limbs either removed or added to be more monster-y.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original narrative for the ride was that the passenger was an up and coming celebrity invited by Michael Eisner to come to a premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater and sign a movie deal, but he warns that it will be called off if the paparazzi catches them doing anything unscrupulous on the ride there. The limo driver would then speed through the LA streets, rushing through a number of comedic scenes while trying to avoid reporters. Once arriving at the theater, Eisner would inform the rider that the paparazzi managed to catch their speeding through the street, showing them an on-ride photo of them that was being used in tabloids.
  • Originally, Grauman's Chinese Theater was going to be the gift shop riders would exit into, with them walking the red carpet of an indoor facade of the famous landmark. Due to budgets cuts, this was scrapped and the theater appeared as a set piece in the ride itself.
  • After Lady Diana's death, Disney briefly consider creating a copy of a Hollywood Studio attraction to take its place, with The Great Movie Ride, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror or Rock 'n' Roller Coaster being the top contenders, but they didn't have the budget for it.
  • Before the decision was made to turn it into a Monsters, Inc. ride, two other proposals for replacements were made. The first was Goofy's Superstar Limo, which would've had Goofy as your chauffeur and the celebrities replaced by one hundred Disney character figurines from Disney Stores all over the country that were being remodeled at the time. This, the Imagineers were hoping, would've helped with the complaint that the park didn't have enough Disney characters. Alas, the idea was dropped after 9/11.
  • The second was called Miss Piggy's Superstar Limo, a version starring The Muppets. Imagineers would've announced the ride by placing an ad in newspapers reading, "Okay. We admit it. Superstar Limo is a really terrible ride. Not to worry, though. We're going to fix this DCA attraction. In fact, we've got two of our best men working on it right now." Right below the text would be an image of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker. The plan was then to re-open the original attraction, but as guests rode through it they would see Bunsen, Beaker, and some Muppet construction workers placed around the ride making measurements and snarking about the ride, and over a gradual period the celebrities would one at a time be swapped out for Muppets, the idea being that attendance would go up as guests would revisit the ride just to see which Muppet would show up this time. If the ride was successful, it would be cloned for Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris. However, Disney's negotiating to purchase the Muppets was still a work-in-progress at the time, and Disney executives didn't think that the Muppets were popular enough anymore to justify the millions of dollars needed for the update, so the idea was rejected.

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