The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was first unleashed on the world on June 24, 1994, at what’s now known as Disney’s Hollywood Studios—located near Orlando, Florida. A so-called “thrill attraction,” the ride is fully contained within the façade of the 1930s-style Hollywood Tower Hotel, where visitors can participate in a “lost” episode of Rod Serling’s classic anthology series, The Twilight Zone.

After being loaded into one of the hotel’s elevators, passengers are greeted by Serling’s voice, which guides them through the building and, ultimately, into another dimension. They’re then treated to a randomly programmed drop sequence that sends them repeatedly plunging down an elevator shaft.

Although the Tower of Terror was successful enough to be incorporated into Disney’s California, Paris, and Tokyo theme parks, it took a while for the creators of the original ride to settle on The Twilight Zone as the source of inspiration. In the late 1980s, several concepts were proposed, including a Stephen King attraction and a haunted hotel tour modeled after Vincent Price’s 1958 film House on Haunted Hill.

Another idea was to have Eddie Murphy provide the voice of the animatronic host of the Creature’s Choice Awards. As “Eddie Frankenmurphy,” he would present awards to various film monsters, and at one point, do his famous impression of James Brown.

Disney Almost Turned ‘Young Frankenstein’ Into the Ride That Became Tower of Terror

One of the more interesting attractions that was conceived during that time was a Mel Brooks-themed ride. In 1989, Disney CEO Michael Eisner approached Brooks about a collaboration, hoping to get Brooks to make movies for him. Brooks took several trips to Disney’s Imagineering headquarters and settled on something based on his 1974 classic Young Frankenstein.

Castle Young Frankenstein, as it was initially referred to, would’ve featured a Bavarian village area that led to a drawbridge, and of course, the aforementioned castle, where the action was supposed to take place.

Eventually, Castle Young Frankenstein evolved into Mel Brooks’s Hollywood Horror Hotel (a.k.a. Hotel Mel). Through TV monitors, guests were to be informed that Brooks was making a movie inside a massive abandoned hotel (not unlike the Hollywood Tower Hotel). From there, they’d ride through on golf carts, where they’d encounter the Universal Monsters, like Frankenstein’s monster, for example, who’d be found in the bathroom, trying to use the Mummy’s wrappings as toilet paper.

Unfortunately, the Imagineers weren’t able to come up with a coherent story to tie everything together and decided that the cost of the animatronics would’ve been too expensive. By September 1991, Disney announced that they’d chosen The Twilight Zone as the focus of the upcoming attraction, and the rest is history.