Hi, I’m Anisha Deshmane, a designer at Schell Games. I primarily focus on location-based entertainment and attraction projects here and was delighted to work on the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood ride update this year. As fall is now upon us, we are celebrating the ending of the first season of the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood ride at Idlewild Park. We were lucky enough to have a part in the refurbishment of the original Neighborhood trolley ride, and have been really excited to see its success at the park this past summer! I’m here to take you on a bit of a behind-the-scenes tour of the ride development as we reflect on a successful first season.

A long Legacy

Idlewild is the third oldest park in the country, operating since 1878! The park was established by the Mellon family as a recreational ground to attract passengers along the Ligonier Valley Railroad. Over the years, it grew to include picnic grounds, games, and electric-powered rides. It really has a fascinating history and has grown up quite a bit since then, but still retains much of its old charm in its antique carousel, children’s rides, and fun midway games.

Idlewild is located about an hour east of us in Ligonier, PA, which coincidentally is a neighborhood away from Fred Rogers’ hometown, Latrobe PA. Idlewild was Mr. Rogers’ childhood park, and it makes total sense that when the time came, he chose to put a trolley ride through the Neighborhood of Make Believe at Idlewild. Idlewild has been recognized as the Best Children’s Park in the World, and focuses on entertainment for children under 12 years old. Due to the very cold Pennsylvania winters, Idlewild is also a seasonal park, open from May to September.

The original ride opened in 1989, and was originally designed to only stay up for five years. On the ride, guests rode Trolley, who took them through the Neighborhood of Make Believe to visit all the neighbors and invite them to a Hug ‘n’ Song Party. It was such a success that the folks at Idlewild kept it running for a full twenty-five years! Thousands of happy guests later, Idlewild decided it was time for an update. Luckily, the Mr. Rogers generation now has kids of their own who are huge fans of the new characters in Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, so the goal for the update was pretty straightforward: bring the trolley ride into the new generation, by updating the characters and scenes to reflect the new show.

The Development

The updated Neighborhood embraces many original elements that the older generation will remember, carrying on the tradition and legacy of Fred Rogers to a new generation of preschoolers growing up with the spin-off show, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. Nestled in a forest environment, guests are transported into the Neighborhood of Make Believe to meet Daniel Tiger and all his friends from the award-winning PBS show.

I’m sure many of you readers are familiar with the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood show and games that Schell Games has worked on in the past, so we’ve had a great relationship with the folks at Fred Rogers Productions! When Idlewild approached the folks at Fred Rogers Productions, they asked us if we could help out. With Jesse’s background in themed entertainment and Schell Game’s work with Daniel Tiger, it was a great place for us to bridge the two! The three teams worked super closely together for months to make sure that the new ride was just as special as the original to preserve Mr. Roger’s legacy.

In redesigning the ride, the heart of the original experience was the most important to keep. Guests loved the intimacy of the ride and especially enjoyed being able to talk to and sing with each of the characters. The new ride maintains those elements, especially the Hug ‘n’ Song, which provides a great emotional conclusion to the experience. Fred Rogers Productions was instrumental in finding that feeling in the script and ensuring that Mr. Rogers’ legacy was present during every step of development. We went through many iterations on the script and rode through the ride at site visits during the off-season to read through the script at each scene and make sure the timing was right.

Daniel's Voice

Originally, Trolleys only had a live host to help facilitate conversations with the guests and characters, but since Daniel plays such a central role in the show, having Daniel ride Trolley with guests was one of the biggest changes to the ride. Even early versions of the update had Daniel riding the trolley in some way, as interacting with him would be an incredible addition to the ride experience. We couldn’t have a full animatronic or costumed character on the ride due to space issues, and wanted to avoid a screen with video, because we felt it would be distracting. We found a happy medium in having guests “imagine” that Daniel Tiger is riding trolley with them, and having him “appear” via audio voiceover. Adding Daniel’s voice to the trolley added a layer of richness and depth, allowing the guests to speak with Daniel throughout the ride, as well as the characters at each scene. The ride already had track triggers for each scene but no way to trigger on-board audio at specific moments. An RFID trigger system and updated sound system were added to both trolleys to trigger Daniel’s voice in various places to allow for conversations to happen between Daniel, the Trolley Driver, guests, and characters at each scene.

Updating the Neighborhood

All of the scenes were given new animatronic characters from the show, which are actuated, marionette-style layered 2D elements. We wanted to match the characters and their animation style as much as we could, since they are primarily animated as 2D cutouts as well. LifeFormations, an animatronics company in Cincinnati, Ohio helped to build these new characters true to the characters in the show.

One of the biggest challenges, however, was bridging the transition between the 2D flat marionette-style animatronics and a very lush, natural environment. The scenic updates ranged from refinishing foam or a coat of paint to completely rebuilding structures from scratch, but we couldn’t update every scene to match the sets in the show, and didn’t want to cover up the beautiful forests surrounding the ride. One of the original structures had been completely demolished by a tree the previous season, which gave us a great opportunity to set a new tone with the scenes. Working on fabrication with Weber Group, Inc., we figured out a way to transition between the 2D characters by adding dimensional, printed set pieces around them. This helped soften the edges between the flat characters and the real world around them. By incorporating both 2D and 3D setwork, the scenes help give context and grounding for the layered characters in the surrounding woods.

Thanks for reading! If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out the ride, you still have a few weekends to do so before Idlewild closes for the winter! If not, we hope to see you out there next summer!