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The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror |
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, more commonly known as Tower of Terror, is a simulated freefall thrill ride. It is based upon the television show The Twilight Zone. The version of the attraction located at Disney's Hollywood Studios opened in 1994 and the version located at Disney's California Adventure opened in 2004.
A similar attraction without a Twilight Zone theme opened at Tokyo DisneySea in Japan on 4th September 2006. Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Resort Paris in France will open a fourth version of the attraction on December 22 2007 as the centerpiece of its movie studio-based park.
The attraction is themed to resemble the fictional Hollywood Tower Hotel. The story of the hotel, adapted from elements of the television series, includes the hotel being struck by lightning on October 31, 1939, mysteriously transporting an elevator car full of passengers to the Twilight Zone. The exterior of the attraction resembles an old hotel with a blackened scorch mark across the front of the facade where the lightning destroyed part of the building. All of the cast members wear a costume that resembles that of a 1930s bellhop. At over one thousand dollars per uniform, it is the most expensive costume in the various theme parks.
At 199 feet, it is the second tallest attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort, shorter only than Expedition Everest's 199.5 feet. (From 1999 to 2007, Tower of Terror was third tallest, as the wand decorating Spaceship Earth temporarily added 41 feet to that 180-foot tall attraction.) The Tower of Terror is 199 feet high at Walt Disney World because of FAA regulations that require a fixed red light beacon to be added to the top of any 200-foot or taller building. Imagineers thought that the beacon would take away from the hotel's 1939 theme. At the Disneyland Resort, the 183-foot attraction is the tallest attraction at the resort, as well as the tallest building in Anaheim.
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