Many years ago, Disney World retired one of my favorite rides, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”

It used state-of-the-art special effects like bubbles to convince people that they were in a submarine that was diving many feet below the ocean’s surface where terrible and wonderful things were happening, most of them involving mannequins dressed as divers.

The level of verisimilitude was not high, in other words, but I loved it.

Yes, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is gone and yet “Jungle Cruise,” completely devoid of the magic of bubbles, lives on.

“Jungle Cruise” is ostensibly a trip by steamer down various tropical rivers of the world.

Its goals were educational at first, but it soon turned jokey, possibly because animatronic animals always look less like they belong in the jungle than in a window display at Macy’s.

“Jungle Cruise” is no cheesier than “20,000 Leagues” was, I guess, but it is more cynical.

The river guide’s line of blasé patter suggests that he is in on the joke, the joke being that the ride is as far from a true tropical experience as Rainforest Crunch ice cream is from true tropical cuisine.

I seem to remember that headhunters and witch doctors are featured in the ride, which means that Disney must have taken its ethnographic cues from such pioneering anthropologists as the Three Stooges.

Still, Disney reportedly intends to make a movie out of it.

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, that “Toy Story” duo, are set to star.

Yes, Disney continues to try to mine its theme park rides for film ideas, despite the fact that this strategy has only definitively worked once (namely, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise).

I might go see a movie in which Hanks and Allen play two bored Disney World river guides who are going through a midlife crisis together. But that’s not the movie that’s going to get made.

The movie that’s going to get made will have a scene in it that involves Allen getting walloped in the crotch by an orangutan, complete with the sound of nutshells cracking.

To add insult to injury, the sound guys probably won’t even use tropical nuts.

When Disney makes movies like these, it does so with the same goal that Johnson & Johnson pursues when it makes Lactaid – it wants to aid digestion in people with delicate constitutions. Which is to say, it wants to make the safest movie possible.

The only notable thing about the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie was Johnny Depp’s performance and Disney execs reportedly came close to firing Depp from that film because of the eccentricity of that performance.

Yes, the scuttlebutt on the franchise is that the franchise was almost scuttled because of executive discomfort with the only thing that would ultimately make the franchise worth watching.

Now Depp is more popular at Disney than Donald Duck. But eccentricity has gained no ground.

If only they would listen to me.

I have 11 foolproof movie premises based on Disney attractions.

I can produce colleagues who will verify that a fool wrote them and a fool proofed them.

“Hall of Presidents: Judgment Day” – A freedom fighter must stop a robot assassin who intends to travel back in time and persuade William Henry Harrison not to wear a coat and hat to his inauguration.

“Unstoppable Monorail” – Two dedicated Disney Safety and Security employees must figure out a way to stop a runaway monorail from crashing into the lobby of Grand Californian Hotel at speeds in excess of 29 mph.

“A World of Laughter, a World of Tears” – An FBI agent attempts to understand how terrorist mind control experts could have programmed so many people to experience homicidal thoughts when they hear what is possibly the most insidious music ever composed: “It’s a Small World.”

“Attack of the 50 Foot Duffer” – A gigantic man in khakis and a polo shirt mistakes the Spaceship Earth geosphere for a golf ball. In the film’s thrilling climax, the man is finally convinced to remove his cleats.

“Universe of Energy: The Musical” – This dinosaur-filled attraction, narrated by Ellen DeGeneres, is given this big-screen treatment. In the film, DeGeneres travels back to the Jurassic era, where she has to escape the unwelcome attentions of the Annehecheosaurus.

“Living with the Land: The Movie” – A bored horticulturist misuses the attraction’s hydroponics systems. He later realizes the extent to which illegal substances have damaged him when he hears himself extol the virtues of the Doors’ boxed set.

“Die Hard: Die Younger” – An 8-year-old John McClane must foil a terrorist’s plot by finding all the clues that have been hidden on major Disneyland attractions before his E coupons run out.

“Tales of the Gold Rush” – A grizzled prospector whose claim has gone bust pans for a different sort of gold when he opens a theme park and charges $12 for a fast food hamburger.

“Epcot’s United Kingdom: The Documentary” – A delightful travelogue showcasing all the quaint features that have come to be associated with this historic region including bangers and mash, bagpipes, tea time, castles, Yorkshire pudding, meat pies, kilts and austerity measures.

“No Country Bear Jamboree for Old Men” – The damaged and oddly coiffed hitman Anton Chigurh may have met his match when he encounters a family with weirder hair and rarer birth defects than his: a brood of Appalachian singing bears.

“Jurassic Poultry” – Billionaire and dinosaur enthusiast John Hamden uses prehistoric genetic information to help a theme park executive create a portable snack food for Frontierland. It all goes awry, however, when a saboteur shuts down the farm’s security system and unleashes a rafter of 20-foot-tall turkeys upon the land.

IMAX winners

The winners of last week’s IMAX contest were Marc Cornett, Margi Miller, James Bransfield, Ron Upton and Carey Baker.

They correctly answered the following trivia question (and were randomly chosen from all correct answers received):

The title of the first IMAX short film (“Tiger Child”), and Charlie Sheen’s recent assessment of what runs through his circulatory system (tiger blood), have one word in common. What is that word?

The answer, of course, is “tiger.”

Here’s hoping they enjoyed that special IMAX preview at Rave Motion Pictures on Thursday.