Wandering around YouTube and saw this little gem as a recommended video.

Hosted by Harry Anderson, the special starts off with a lot of Back to the Future music as its score.

Harry boards the parlor car of one of the DLRR trains, and it takes him back in time. Funny how the park opened in 1955 and all.

Out the windows, he gets to see Disneyland in construction and then he goes ever forward to see new attractions and various opening ceremonies. Even though we’ve seen a lot of this footage before in its original context, some great old clips are trimmed down here and juxtaposed for maximum impact.

I had a suspicion there would be Star Tours content from almost the beginning, when the ‘jump back in time’ scene steals the lightspeed tunnel from the original ST, and we even hear Rex’s voice at one point saying “Hi there!”

If you want to jump at that point yourself, skip to the 37 minute mark… I assumed it would all be presskit footage, then suddenly they showed a few pristine moments of the Threepio version of the safety rules, complete with Ree-Yees and his camera. Nice!

The representation of the onboard ride itself is all presskit stuff, but like other specials of the era, they didn’t use the John Williams music, replacing it with a more 80s track instead.

But I recommend watching the entire special in order… especially the “What a Wonderful World” montage about Walt’s passing in 1966.

And they interject lines of dialogue from Disney cartoons in cute ways too. Captain Hook says “So, you want a splash, Mr. Starkey? I’ll give you a splash!” and then we smash cut (splash cut?) to footage of Splash Mountain’s debut.

When the trip gets back to its own present (1990-ish), Harry talks about upcoming attractions and what years they are predicted to debut. Funny how few of them actually came to pass. Dick Tracy’s Crime Stoppers?

Enjoy!