First "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" and now "It's a Small World." The beloved and hysterically dated Disney ride, featured at both the charming old Disneyland and the horrifying specter of American doom that is Disney World, that takes you on a wee boat trip through the countries of the world, from darkest Africa through ching-chongiest Asia, isn't disappearing like "Wild Ride," but it's gonna change. Plans are afoot for an update, to both include well-known Disney characters and to accommodate the increasing waistlines of parkgoers. The family of Mary Blair, the ride's designer, along with the many people who are strangely devoted to the automated wonder, is up in arms, claiming that the inclusion of popular Disney folk will cheapen the ride's twee spirit of separate-but-equal internationalism. Atlantic blogger Virginia Postrel, while not mentioning the weight issue, believes that the ride is due for a makeover, because in this increasingly globalized society, the isolationism of its message is, at best, irrelevant.

Seeming to forget that many of the people that go to these parks are from shadowy corners of the country where Catholics are considered exotic, she makes the argument that people are constantly traveling internationally (or at least dealing with pesky immigrants) these days, so we're already way more used to foreign cultures than Blair could ever have imagined. Plus, children all over the world love the Disney characters and their inclusion would prove that some joys truly are universal! I wish they'd just leave well enough alone lest our children never know the wonders of the old-timey, but I'm sure the plans will go forward and we'll soon have Mulan waving to us whimsically and a bit sadly from an old, plastic China. And boy will your fat ass be comfortable. Video of the Disneyland ride is below.