Innoventions Tragic History

It was 1974. Disneyland wanted to do something  special to commemorate our country’s bicentennial. The Disney company constructed a giant carousel theatre in Tomorrowland that had a rotating stage. “America Sings” was the attraction and  in this theatre the audience sat stationary while the stage rotated showing six different scenes with animatronics figures that sang various patriotic folk songs.

Animatronics figures in America Sings

Deborah Stone was an 18 year old cast member from Texas that was supposed to greet and farewell the audience attending the show. When the lights went out, and the show began, and the stage began to rotate, you could hear horrific screaming. Deborah had gotten too close to the rotating walls, she was pulled into them and was crushed to death. This attraction was briefly closed to clean up the accident, and it reopened 2 days later and continued to run until the 1980’s.

Around the 1990’s this theatre reopened, this time calling the Building / Theatre “ Innoventions” this time to follow suit with the Tomorrowland theme. The rotating stage no longer had all the patriotic animals (they were placed in Splash Mountain) and replaced them with a creepy looking robot name Tom Morrow who was the host of the new show in the theatre. He was to help show off futuristic technology that we would see shortly in our own homes in the near future, “The Home of Tomorrow. ” Cast members always complained about how Tom Morrow would malfunction, and come on in the dark and at times when no one was around or controlling him. Some people think it was Deborah letting everyone know that she was still there.

 

Tom Morrow

I got to see creepy Tom Morrow back in 1998 and my family still has footage of him buried deep in our archaic VHS collection. Upon my return to Disneyland last month I discovered that they have once again changed “Innoventions.” The building is still called Innoventions but they have gotten rid of both creepy Tom Morrow and the huge rotating stage. 

Iron Man props now can be seen in Innoventions

Now that Disney has bought Marvel, they have now put in all sorts of props from the Avengers in there. They still have futuristic technology that you can explore on the lower level but unfortunately most of their “future” presentations are now outdated. You can still see the track where the notorious stage ran on in the lower level. Even though I was not able to see an apparition of Deborah or experience any paranormal activity, I simply had a solemn sense of reverence for those who accidentally passed away while working here. I am not the type of person who would try to entice a paranormal experience.

Do you think the Disneyland cast member rumors of this attraction being haunted is legit?