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Important: When you delete information from Timeline, it’s permanent.You won’t be able to find your Location History information on Timeline again. If you have other settings like Web & App Activity turned on and you delete Location History, you may still have location data saved in your Google Account as part of your use of other Google sites, apps, and services. Toontown Online, commonly known as Toontown, was a 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on a cartoon animal world, developed by Disney's Virtual Reality Studio and Schell Games, and published by The Walt Disney Company. The game made its official launch on June 2, 2003.

1. Toontown Characters
2. Toontown Online Timeline Images
3. Toontown Online Timeline Maker
4. Toontown Online Timeline Generator

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Disney's Toontown Online.

Disney's Toontown Online was the Walt Disney company's first take on a MMORPG, as well as one of the first to be targeted at a younger audience which became one of the core gameplay concepts. It also had a rather enigmatic development phase which would be revealed by former staff that worked on this game, going through many different ambitious concepts before they were settled on.

It had become one of the most famous MMORPGs of the 2000s in its breakout era, allowing for many updates to be released for the game's decade-long lifespan before it would abruptly close. Despite that, it still manages to have a following and some private servers to this very day.

• 3Initial Concepts
  • 3.3Concept Art
• 51998-1999
• 62000
  • 6.1February-April
  • 6.3Summer
  • 6.4August
  • 6.5September
  • 6.6October
  • 6.7November
  • 6.8Winter
• 72001
  • 7.1Spring?
  • 7.2Summer
• 8Later Scrapped Concepts

Development Timeline

1997/1999

• Unknown Point - Toon Tag is playable at Epcot, Innoventions East.

1998

• Unknown - Development of Toontown Online begins.

2001

• Aug. - Testing begins on Beta 1. The game then was very unstable at the time and a lot of differences could be found.

2002

• Jan. 16 - Testing for Beta 1 ended.
• Sep. 10 - Beta 2 Testing begins on this date. Unlike Beta 1, the game was much more stable and only lasted for one month. Also, a lot more Gameplay elements were implemented during the time.
• Oct. 21 - Beta 3 begins.

2003

• Jun. 2 - The game is finally released to the public.

Internal Material

Initial Concepts

Initial Concept

When designing the setting for their rendition of Toontown, they took inspiration from how it was depicted in the book Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the Toontown attraction in Disneyland, California and Duckburg from the Ducktales series.

Toon Tag

Disney's Toontown Online was originally developed off a Tech Demo known called Toon Tag. It was also playable at the Internet Zone in Disney Innovations East, Epcot for nearly ten years before the attraction was shut down. It involved a game of tag where four different players could either play as Mickey, Minnie, Donald or Goofy looking for others around the map.Very few images of the Tech Demo survive on the internet, and a lot of the elements and graphical style seen in the pictures were repurposed for what would be Toontown Online.

Concept Art

Early Concepts

Toons

The earliest artwork of Flippy using a Throw Gag. Interestingly the blue color would
be brought back in his finalized design in the game's release.

The designs for Toon species were drawn from the 'rich history and traditions of Walt Disney animation', where each of them had to be unique so they can be easily identified. The goal in mind was to make the player feel at home with Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters.

A variety of different options were drawn out.

Toon Emotions

Several different ideas for Emotions were drawn out, with Flippy being used as a mascot. It was officially posted to the Toontown Online website in 2003, albelt in a lower resolution and was featured in a Newsletter. Many of the Emotions on the concept art didn't make it to the final or was added in later on;

• Laugh was originally called 'Laff'.
• The infamous Taunt Emotion matches up with the unused animations and sound from the files.
• The Wink and Idea Emotions were scrapped.
• The Surprize emotion was originally different; it would have been based off what was seen in the 2003 commercial rather than reusing the attacked animation.
• Shrug was called 'Don't Know', and Surprised was called 'The Giant Smile' or 'Big Smile'.
• Really Sad originally had tears coming out of the eyes.

Suits

During development, Cogs were originally called Suits and were businessmen rather than just robots. From the beginning, they were designed in four different types; Social, Money, Legal and Corporate. A rough sketch of the enemies and the types belonging to them were first drawn up in many different shapes and body sizes;

Many of the ideas made it to the final, though there are some changes:

• Suits had an unequal number of types rather than each of them having eight.
• There was originally a Corporate Suit called a Blowhard, which is someone that would go on to dominate politics.
• The Mover and Shaker was originally in the Corporate type, as opposed to a Social (Sellbot).
• A Head Honcho Suit was scrapped likely due to it being too similar to The Big Cheese in terms of theming.
• The Kissup Suit was scrapped for being too similar to The Mingler.
• The Two-Face was originally called '2-Faced'.

Later, the types of Suits were decided and all equalized into eight.

Some changes still remain in the height chart.

• The Social type was renamed to Sales at that point.
• There originally seemed to be a 'fourth' body type, used by the highest-ranking Suits before they were replaced.
• The Cold Caller and Downsizer were originally conceptualized to be feminine, while the Micromanager was masculine.
• The outfit colors of the Sales and Corporate Suits were switched.

A much later version of the suits used for 3D modelling reference, with the finalized Corporate outfit colors has some interesting changes:

• The Money Suit is likely an early version of the Number Cruncher, because it shares the same head shape. It had no numbers around the mouth and had a different and bigger body type.
• The Legal Suit matches up to that of the Bigwig, except without the wig. The face resembles that of the Sellbot Headquarters Factory entrance.
• The Cold Caller originally had no blue hair.

This is the finalized design of the Downsizer Suit before they were redesigned.

Suit Encounter Demonstration Storyboards

Infamous storyboards of Flippy fighting a Downsizer were created to demonstrate Suit battles in Toontown Online.Notably, a digital version of the seltzer bottle storyboard would wound up be added into the Toontorial in the final game. And, Flippy and the Downsizer from the anvil storyboard would be added onto the Toontown Beta website.

The very first conceptual art of Flippy fighting a Cog. The original design of Flippy and Dog Toons in general were slightly different, taking design notes from Mickey Mouse and Goofy at this point. A slightly later artwork shows Flippy, with a somewhat later design using an Anvil on a Cog.

Originally when Suits were defeated, they were supposed to turn into clowns that would run away in fear and shrink to a smaller size. According to the Spotify leaks and filenames in the final referring to them as 'suits', they were conceptualized halfway through development.

The idea was negatively received by The Walt Disney Company, considering that they were executives of a corporation, and came off as a mockery of it. It was so lambasted that Roy E. Disney sent an angry letter to Jesse Schnell ordering the project to not be released. The solution was resolved when Suits were changed to robotic businessmen, where Bruce Woodslide noticed that giving them bolts in their design would be enough to distinguish them from the original plan.

Fighting With Other Toons

This artwork shows a concept of other Toons participating in Cog Battles, which details a rough idea of the setting and other appearances of Toon species. The gags present in the artwork appear in the final, with the exception of the fire hydrant, which may have been reworked into the Fire Hose. Interestingly, Toons are seen wearing Accessories there, which would not be added until very late into the game's lifespan.

The Carltoon Ritz Hotel

Map

Initial Rough Draft

A VERY early rough map draft of Toontown was drawn, which seemed to be a very rough draft of the Work Vs. Play theme that was carried through development. The four corners would also be the basis for what would be the Cog Headquarters in the final.

Interestingly, the Factory locale idea would be revisited as Sellbot Headquarters, and the City locale would be loosely used for Cashbot and Lawbot Headquarters.

Alpha MockupWhen other neighborhoods started to become implemented, this map came to be.

Near-Final Map

The map with eight different neighborhoods were drawn and became the basis for the map in the Shticker Book. Due to only six Neighborhoods coming out, only six of the neighborhoods were able to be released.

The blurred-out locations had remained to be a mystery in the fandom for years until YouTuber LoopyGoopyG managed to get a full and unblurred graphic in 2017, revealing the locations. The map shows an interesting number of changes and scrapped locations;

• Next to Daisy Gardens and Toontown Central was originally Goofy Coliseum. It was supposed to be a playground based off of the 1973 illustrated children's book 'Goofy the Sportsman'. The playground was supposed to include activities mentioned in the book, such as pole vaulting, chariot racing, and canoeing. It was ultimately canned because the development team hadn't finalized their ideas for sports, and they couldn't figure out how to turn it into a neighborhood.

• Near Donald's Dreamland and Minnie's Melodyland was a place called Funny Farm, where everything was in black-and-white reminiscent of old cartoons. According to the ToontownGlobals.py in the source code, Funny Farm has a zone ID of 7000, was planned to have assets in phase archive 8, and is listed as 'not done yet' in dnaMap, the array list that indexes street and playground data. This suggests it never got past the concept stage.
  • In case players somehow end up here, the game clones Toontown Central (hence the famous glitch that teleported players into a broken Toontown Central). For the Field Offices update, some shopkeeper NPCs were added under the zone ID 7000, as a fallback. The game explicitly says so :

• Under Toontown Central, Donald's Dock and Daisy Gardens was an area called Construction Zone. It was based off of many early cartoon depictions of construction sites. The plan was that players could climb and jump around wacky construction sites with dangerous events. This possibly was cut due to technical limitations, but may have also been because the development team deemed it unnecessary. ToontownGlobals.py also lists it as having assets in phase 8, and as having no street or playground data. Its zone ID is 6000.

• • Interestingly enough, the location name itself was originally spotted at ToonFest 2006 held in Burbank with the blurred out location in its place on a computer likely of a developer build of the game. When asked about the location to the staff there, they did not want to say anything about it.
• The Cog Headquarters were all mixed up, and was likely planned at this point of development instead of a singular location consisting of factories focusing on different Cog types.
  • Cashbot Headquarters was located in Daisy Gardens instead of Donald's Dreamland.
  • Sellbot Headquarters was located in The Brrrgh instead of Daisy Gardens.
  • Lawbot Headquarters was originally located in the scrapped Construction Zone location instead of The Brrrgh.
  • Bossbot Headquarters was located in Donald's Dreamland instead of Chip 'N' Dale's Acorn Acres.

Features

• Jellybeans were originally Simoleons, which were counted in 'zillions' after playing minigames. The name was decided on around the release of The Sims in February 2000, which uses the same currency and was likely changed to avoid comparisons.
• 'Hysterical Markers' were gold plaques on buildings that would present a humorous text message and backstory to the Toon when near them. The feature may have been an early form of the building names found on streets and the Knock-knock Joke Doors.
• Cog buildings works just like the final, except that silver plaques would be present on there and it would originally give an idea of how many Suits are present rather than just showing building floors.
• There was originally a feature where Toons could send messages via interactable mailboxes on Streets, which likely was cut in favor of the Whisper feature.
• Shticker Books originally contained a Friend List feature which would be moved to a separate button.

Playgrounds

Playgrounds were originally called Safe Zones, and worked much like they do in the final game. Though, each of them planned to have a specific gimmick in the form of an unstructured activity solving.

Neighborhoods

A total of 15 neighborhoods were originally planned, each of them having a street and an important gimmick specific to them.

Toontown Central

It was originally called Downtown Toontown in development, and was planned to be separated into different districts amidst the large size. A lot of features were planned for the Playground but were cut for time or technical limitations;

• Toon Hall was originally bigger and had multiple rooms. There was originally a Toon Services place where the player can take a photo of their avatar for use in their Shticker book, and an option to retire your toon and start over. The starting over option was put into the Pick a Toon menu.
• A long, corridor called the Hall of Fame containing experienced Toons in potraits was planned, where clicking on them would show the stats of the things they have accomplished. It was reworked into the Toon Platoon system found in the Toon Headquarters.
• A scrapped Mayor's Office location would have been for Toons that have accomplished an immense task, where the player could talk with Mickey Mouse ran by a server administrator rather than a pre-defined set of phrases.
• Another removed location and feature was the Zoning Office where it included a large map of Toontown with locations of each and every one of the Suits.

A second part called North Toon Square was considered as an additional location, with some more features;

• There was originally a Toontown News location which showed newsletters of three different themes. The feature would have been reworked as Toon News...for the Amused!
• The Carltoon Ritz hotel was considered as a location for toons since the beginning of development.
• A tutorial and combat practice area called 'Goofy's 'How-to' Cartoon Academy' was planned, showing gameplay basics of fighting against Suits.
• Toons could originally have their look changed at Ludwig Von Drake's Spastic Surgery Center, which was scrapped entirely and wasn't brought back in the game's life.

Trolley

In the game's early development stages, there was never a Trolley and an arcade-based minigame hub was originally considered. Four different styles were originally decided before being ultimately reworked;

• • A video arcade which would either be called 'Goofy's Games', 'Hewey, Duey and Louie's Tooncade' and 'The Mickey Mouse Club' would have contained a diverse selection of arcade machines and separate rooms with activities like chess.
  • A carnival tent called 'Clarabelle's Carnival', 'Mickey Midway' or 'Goofy's Games' was also planned which would have contained carnival-styled games like ring toss, shooting gallery or darts.
  • A third option in the form of a Magic Portal would transport the Toon to an area drastically different from the place of Toontown they're in was also a plausible option. Pleasure Island from the animated Disney adaptation of Pinocchio was the first option where Toons would play minigames with a slightly edgier style and would potentially get donkey ears when entering the area. Another option was Sorcerer Mickey's where the entrance would be shaped like his trademark hat he wore in Fantasia, and the minigames would have a magic theme to them.
  • A casino area, optionally called 'Scrooge McDuck's Lucky Duck Casino' was considered to be a satirical depiction of Las Vegas or with focus on the negative connotations on a casino. Games 'of chance and skill' like Poker, Blackjack and Go Fish were also considered, but was the least respected idea due to the games' respective gambling nature. It was a good idea to scrap it because gambling in video games would have made this illegal for children.

It's also worth noting that a bus was part of the idea, which may have been a loose inspiration for the Trolley.

Minigames

Minigames were originally planned to be based on old Disney cartoons, nearly all of them having a unique theme. All of the minigames concepts never made it into the final game;

Scrapped Ideas

Throughout the game's lifespan, Jesse Scnhell came up with a extensive list of ideas before he had left upon the game's launch in June 2003;

• Toons could play tag with Fish underwater. The idea was likely retooled in a rather loosely fashion as Starfish Treasures in the Donald's Dock Playground.
• An ice skating minigame was considered, but may have been remade as the Ice Slide Trolley Game.
• A shuffleboard battle game called 'scuffleboard' was planned.
• A Neighborhood by Goofy where the player could walk on walls and ceiling. This may be referred to as Funny Farm, or an even earlier draft of Goofy's Coliseum.
• Toons could originally drive cars around the neighborhood. They were remade into Karts for Goofy Speedway.
• A collectible card game was also planned, which may have been used to take advantage of them delivered via newsletters.
• A 'Toon Vs. Toon' arena was considered, likely for the Goofy Coliseum location as it would fit the theme.

1998-1999

Early Toontown Central Render

A VERY early render of Toontown Central was posted by Bruce Woodside as part of the Toontown Online Preservation Project. This image likely predates the Pre-Alpha image due to having a different style of Toontown Central.

• The Ritz Carltoon hotel was present.
• The Toontown Toon Central hall was taken from Toon Tag.
• There was no Trolley.
• The hi-rise buildings in the background originally had a blue color scheme in comparison to grey.

Pre-Alpha Image

The oldest known screenshot of Toontown Online was posted by Jesse Schnell in 2013.

• The Laff Meter was originally represented by health and was very placeholder-y.
• Trees were originally modelled in 3D as opposed to being 2D textures.
• There was no Shticker Book or SpeedChat.
• Comic Sans MS was the textual font being used.
• The green rabbit's shirt was a lot more shorter.
• Toontown Central was completely different, and was a simplistic testing environment. It had a cityscape of hi-rise buildings in the background that looked more realistic without the mechanical feeling.
• Toons originally had the ability to grow up to '30 feet tall', which was likely when the Just For Fun ToonTask effects were created.

Navigation GUI Concept and Features Pitch Ad

From a slightly later build, the Navigation GUI was different.

• The model of the tree has been simplified to a 2D texture at this stage.
• The screenshot uses the early textures of the Toontown Central streets.
• The 'Hey' above the health bar was removed.
• The GUI originally was divided into four features with the press of a button rather than being included on the corners of the game.
  • The Shticker Book looked very different in the form a magazine-like book.
  • The Gags were moved to the Shticker Book.

Around the same build as the previous screenshot

• The 15-neighborhood plan was still implemented at this point.
• The Race Game was very different; it was played like a hopscotch game rather than on a board.

2000

February-April

Design Document

May

Summer

Gag UI Concept

August

Tutorial Details

A slightly later and redone Toontorial sequence was planned which is drastically different from what was seen in Beta 1, dating on August 25, 2000.

Quite a few differences can be found:

• SpeedChat was originally called 'Quicktalker'. A similar name, the 'ToonTalker' was used in Beta 1.
• You could originally modify your toon after Mickey shows you around Toontown, rather than the other way around.
• There was originally a battle tutorial with Goofy, where it was likely reworked into the final game's ToonTorial sequence.
• Healing is listed on the tutorial elements, yet in the final it is only done via use of another Toon.

September

Safe Zone Activities

October

Specification Document

November

Reaction from Disney

It was at the point when Suits were renamed to 'Robots'. In order to not waste their work, Bruce Woodside added bolts to the original Suit designs to make them look more robotic, which turned out to be a good decision.

Winter

Late Playground Renders

Between the Safe Zone Activities from September and the Designer's Atlas from February 2001, the renders of the Playgrounds are made, except in a very early state.

Toontown Central

Daisy Gardens

2001

Spring?

Beta 1 Installer Screenshots

From the installer of Toontown Online Beta 1 in September, they show drastically earlier images of the game.

Create-A-Toon was slowly starting to take its final form in this build, in comparison to the Alpha leaks.

• The background was different, which had a Piet Mondrian painting in the background.
• The Mickey Mouse model looked lower-poly, resembling that of the Toon Tag build.
• There was a suspender-type outfit from the earlier builds that was available on the Create-A-Toon.

• Toon Name Tags were yellow instead of orange.
• The font for Toon name tags used Comic Sans MS instead of ImpressBT.
• The Laff Meter had a slightly different design, and used the cat instead of a dog likely for placeholder purposes.
• The starting Laff Meter was originally 50 instead of 15.
• The shirt textures were different and brighter, some of them would end up being scrapped.
• Toons originally had colored gloves, a design that would remain on Gus Gooseburger and Chicken Louie NPCs.

• The Trolley seemed to be unfinished, where it had placeholder-y blue textures on some parts.
• The Trolley games sign was different.
• The running on the trolley glitch seemed to be present in this build.

Quite possibly the earliest screenshot out of the batch, resembling that of the earlier builds.

Toontown Characters

• Donald's Dock looks very incomplete, where the foundation is set but the textures are in a placeholder state while the sky is teal rather than cloudy. The door, window and lamp textures are also reused from Toontown Central.
• The BigWig's outfit was purple rather than blue; that matches with an early draft of the Legal Suits (Lawbots) that had textures that would be used for Sellbot outfits. The outfit also lacks any screws and bolts, which would become a staple for Cogs to distinct them from real businessmen.
• The unused squirt animation is present in this screenshot except with the Seltzer instead of Fire Hose.
• The Toon was colored white, which cannot be obtained in the final except with the No Color Just For Fun ToonTask reward.

Summer

Developer Images

A few developer images were released.

Toontown Online Timeline Images

• Most of the final shirt textures have been implemented.
• The infamous 'sign lamp' is seen in The Brrrgh.
• The ImpressBT font is being used for notices, while the text font still uses Comic Sans MS.
• The Laff Meter didn't show the health visually being decreased.

Later Scrapped Concepts

The Toontown FY10-11 Story

https://old.reddit.com/r/Toontown/comments/ivz2aa/the_toontown_fy1011_story_taken_from_the_toontown/From the Toontown Online Development Archives, there is a story diagram detailing the plans that would happen throughout 2010-2011.

Many of the plans had happened over the timespan, with the notable exception of the 'Supreme Cog Leader' which never appeared at the end of the fiscal year of 2011.

Additional Field Offices

https://old.reddit.com/r/Toontown/comments/geysmx/in_light_of_recent_events_take_this_neverbefore/Besides Sellbot Mover and Shaker Field Offices, there were planned to be ones for other Cog Types.

References

Toontown Online Timeline Maker

• Toontown Preservation Project
  • Toontown Newsletters, Developer's Spotlight
• /u/TalesOfToontownPast - Reddit

Toontown Online Timeline Generator