Progress City, U.S.A.

I feel that I am perhaps the last individual in the Disney blogosphere to post any sort of public comment about the recent controversy surrounding the rumored changes to Disneyland’s version of it’s a small world. This is due to a number of reasons, but mostly, as a grizzled veteran of Eisner’s last decade at the helm of the Walt Disney company, I have attained a degree of scandal fatigue. Quite simply, I have seen so many desecrations and obscenities foisted upon the art of themed entertainment and design that I have become inured to such grand disappointments.

I fought in the Toad Wars of 1998, had the first website devoted to saving Horizons and wrote a letter so incensed by Journey Into YOUR Imagination that I got a call at home from the then Vice President of EPCOT Center. I watched Disney built a park with amazing theming but little to do (Animal Kingdom), minimal theming and nothing to do (California Adventure) and no theming and nothing to do (Disney Studios Paris). I consider Hong Kong Disneyland something of a gated botanical gardens. After wands and hats and Pop Century, I had no store of indignation left.

Young revolutionaries on the barricades - the last Toad-In, September 7, 1998.
I seem distracted.

But just as things looked bleakest, there was a ray of hope. Paul Pressler left to destroy another company. Michael Eisner left to hang out with Bette Midler and trade baseball cards. John Lasseter and the Pixar squad rode in on their white horses to give the triage badly needed by a dying WDI and dead Feature Animation department. Even Bob Iger, Eisner’s hand-picked successor, proved me wrong and wound up not being a proxy for the departed CEO but a fairly bold new leader who embraced a far more progressive view of new technologies than his predecessor. Surely, everyone would live happily ever after.

Still, all was not well. The management purges and noxious politics of the last decade had left Imagineering paranoid and factionalized, split between the embattled creatives who had managed to survive in the hope of better days ahead and those who, bolstered by political maneuvering and their ability to “play the game” successfully had risen through the ranks. Not since the Augean stables had an organization so desperately needed a flushing out of the dross and a complete rebuilding.

While change came, however, it came slowly. Sub-par attractions still filtered out into the parks, and more alarmingly, newly announced attractions started to have a noticeably Pixar-centric tilt. The “toonification” of the parks amped up in earnest, and areas that once whisked guests away to adventure in fantastic but real-world settings became new venues for promoting the Franchise of the Month. It seemed that at our moment of greatest triumph, the folks from marketing had won after all. The parks were going to become ads for character merchandise, and the days of the great non-”property” rides like Pirates or Mansion might never return.

Oh noes.

There remained reasons for optimism, though, and obviously a great deal of wonderful, devoted and creative staff continue to try their best to keep the company living up to Walt’s ideals. I’ve tended to cut them slack even in times of irritation, and even though I might disagree with their choices I’m usually eager to see where they’re going in the hopes that the ship will eventually get turned around completely. So, for a while, my crusading came to an end.

Recently, though, rumors emerged of something so strangely unnecessary, blinkered and contrary to both good taste and Disney legacy that I felt that old activist drumbeat once more. Something had been planned so purely based in concepts of “marketing” and “brand awareness” and intended to move merchandise that it can’t help but to raise the hackles of fans. Something that strikes right at the nexus of several “sacrosanct” movements in Disney park history, and something that was neither asked for or needed.

So why not? Once more into the breach, dear friends. Start your petitions and phone calls, emails and letters. Grab the pitchforks and light up those torches, because they’re going to screw around with it’s a small world.

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There’s a subject that has been a steady source of discussion on Disney fan forums for at least a decade now - what is going to happen to the Carousel of Progress? This attraction, one of Walt’s own, now exists only at Walt Disney World in Orlando and, at least seemingly, has teetered on the verge of extinction for years. So let’s take a step back and look at the problem that has kept old-school Disney fans on edge for all this time. What is going to happen to the Carousel of Progress? And more importantly, what should happen to this legendary attraction?

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It was seventy years ago today, on November 21st, 1937, that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at Hollywood’s Carthay Circle Theatre. Many of Hollywood’s royalty were in attendance that evening, but mixed among them were the anonymous and unknown animators who had struggled to create the film. As they watched the audience watch the film unspool, they realized that they had succeeded in achieving what many had claimed was impossible - the creation of a feature-length animated feature that would engage and affect audiences as much as a live action film.

Disney fans probably know all the stories and what was at stake; every ounce of the studio’s resources had been sunk into the film. Walt himself had mortgaged his home; he constantly struggled to find additional funding as the film’s budget skyrocketed from the original $500,000 to a then-astonishing $1,500,000. While not everyone echoed the sentiments of those who referred to the film as “Disney’s folly”, few could probably have anticipated the massive public response that followed Snow White’s release.

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Seventy-Nine years ago today, on November 18, 1928, Steamboat Willie debuted at the Colony Theater in New York (in front of a film titled Gang War, which I find amusing). While it was the third Mickey short to be animated, it was the first to be released with synchronized sound and is considered his official debut (the two earlier films would be re-released with sound afterwards). There’s an interesting story about the determination of Mickey’s official ‘birthday’ on 2719 Hyperion.

Disney had put all his resources on the line to obtain the rights to use Pat Powers’ Cinephone sound system, starting a long trend of Walt putting everything he had into making huge technological leaps. The unprecedented success of the Mickey shorts would provide the foundation for everything that came later; Walt would later famously say that it “all started with a mouse.” It’s fairly amazing to think that the multi-billion dollar corporation that exists today really did begin with the single showing of this animated short.

Ub Iwerks’ hilarious and fluid animation - he animated these first shorts almost singlehandedly - infuses Mickey with far more personality than the slicker animation of later Mickey films. Yet while Steamboat Willie remains iconic, it’s rarely shown or seen in its entirety. This is a shame, as these early black and white Mickey cartoons show a character far removed from the incredibly bland, fey, and dull creation Mickey would later evolve into.

Mickey has become an icon and ceased to be a character. While Donald constantly became more interesting and amusing as a character, Mickey became bland and corporate and is now usually represented as a manic, mincing meth fiend who is always giggling uncontrollably. Hopefully as new leadership at Disney helps the company get in touch with its roots, we’ll see more of the Mickey of Plane Crazy and less of Mickey and the Seal. Think of it as an intervention, even if it’s for a seventy-nine year old mouse.

Happy birthday Mickey…

“Here in Florida, we have something special that we never enjoyed at Disneyland . . . the blessing of size. There’s enough land here to hold all the ideas and plans we can possibly imagine.” - Walt Disney

Walt Disney used these words when he presented his Disney World concept to a thrilled public close to his death in 1966. Indeed, at that time, the land that Disney had purchased under several dummy corporations seemed limitless. Still today, there is a scale and largesse in Florida that is seen nowhere in other Disney parks. Yet, through the 36 year history of the property, particularly starting during the Eisner era, there was significant property abuse: poor planning and a cavalier attitude about building have eaten up acres of Florida swamp. This column will be a regular one here at Progress City looking at the Blessing and Curse of Size at WDW, how Disney has used this space effectively and abused it conversely.

But let’s look on the bright side first - the area of the property that uses space most to its advantage - the Phase I Magic Kingdom resort area.

This space is all very reactionary to the clausterphobia of Anaheim, and is the work of an Imagineering department at the top of their game, with Walt tossing around his last ideas prior to his death. In some ways, I believe this area to be the best thing WDI ever did. They use space so much to their advantage for dramatic effect.

First, there are the obvious points: the castle is huge compared to Disneyland, it was designed to be seen from the toll plaza and start anticipation and excitement. There’s a lake in front of the theme park instead of a parking lot! In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, this allows for people to be seperated from their everyday lives. Before the MK resort busses, the only way you could get to the Magic Kingdom was by monorail or ferry. You were already being transported into fantasy before you entered through the park gates. This was a big concept floating around WDI at the time not only with this plan, but with EPCOT (the city) and the failed Mineral King Resort Project in California, where guests would have parked in a subterranian parking deck and been transported up the mountain.

In addition to the modes of transportation, you are being surrounded by fantasy with the hotels, an extension themselves of the Magic Kingdom. Unlike the later-built Yacht and Beach Club (much discussion to come) that had no relevance to the park it was butting up against, every hotel constructed or even planned represented a land in the Magic Kingdom - The Contemporary for Tomorrowland, The Polynesian, The Asian, and The Persian hotels for Adventureland, Fort Wilderness and the Wilderness Lodge for Frontierland, and the Grand Floridian for Main Street. I don’t exactly know where the never-built Venetian hotel was supposed to fit into this, but I digress.

All of it has purpose, all of it fits together seamlessly. There are no scale issues either. Keep in mind that the Contemporary and Cinderella’s Castle are only 200 feet tall, and the Seven Seas Lagoon is not that large of a lake. Forced perspective of the islands that Disney built along with the lagoon, the scale consistency and lack of any reference point otherwise, makes these icons, or Walt’s term “weenie,” seem larger than life.

In addition, the infrastructure is superb. As you can see from the map, the roadways are not in the way, they’re spare - and when the park opened, there were no traffic lights. The goal was to have none on the property, obviously this changed over time. The Central Shops, power plant, water treatment plant, monorail and train roundhouses, and so on are tucked far beyond the berm and kept from the eye. The monorail was constructed with long straightaways - one for the Asian, the plot that ended up being the Grand Floridian, and one for the Venetian (note the long straightaway from the Contemporary to the TTC).

This is Disney planning and spatial usage at its height. In the future I’ll go into more detail about all I’ve mentioned, and move on to other parts of the properties, and see where things started to go South. Until then, this is Beacon Joe signing off.