Another Casualty of the Obesity Crisis

It appears that the world is getting too big for the It's a Small Word ride at Disneyland:

Heavier-than-anticipated loads have been causing the boats to come to a standstill in two different spots, allowing for an extra-long gander at the Canadian Mounties and the Scandinavian geese, said Al Lutz, whose website MiceAge first reported the refurbishment plans.

"If these boats get stuck . . . they have to send someone back in there to lighten the load on the boat," said Lutz, who has been on the ride when a guest or two was asked to disembark.

"They've even built a platform next to that [Mounties] curve because they've had so many problems."

Disneyland plans to add an inch of depth to the water channel and design more-buoyant boats, Lutz said.

Of course, it's not the expanding waist lines of Americans and tourists. It's the "layers and layers of fiberglass have built up where maintenance teams have patched and re-patched problem areas, said Disneyland Resort spokesman Bob Tucker."

Layers of fiberglass. Riiiight. That would explain the need to redesign many of its costumes and to start stocking them in larger sizes to accommodate ever-expanding waistlines of the cast members (Disney doesn't have employees. They're called cast members. It's all a big show, you know?).

But here is the insult that gets added to the injury:

So when somebody gets booted from the boat, Lutz said, Disneyland ride operators make sure the guests don't leave disappointed: They hand them a food ticket.

Overweight tourists getting free food tickets? At the rate the world is growing these days, it will be a large world, after all.

Sounds like it's time to head over to The Little Land of Duff ride where allowances for extra weight are built into the ride's design. But then there's that song.