Progress City, U.S.A.

“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.

On this day in 1886 (!), Isaiah Edwin Leopold was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he would later run away from home to join the vaudeville circuit, he would change his name to Ed Wynn to save his family the embarrassment of having an actor in their midst. While Disney fans will know Wynn for his later work with the studio, the actor had already lived through several careers before he came to Disney to voice the Mad Hatter for Alice in Wonderland in 1951.

Wynn rose through the ranks of vaudeville to star in the Zigfield Follies as early as 1914; he continued to write, act, and produce on Broadway for decades. He was a popular radio show host in the 1930’s and a TV host in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, winning an Emmy in 1949. As Wynn prepared to retire, his son Keenan persuaded him to try serious acting and he made his debut in Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight on the anthology series Playhouse 90. He would continue to work in film and television until his death in 1966.

Wynn’s vaudeville fame no doubt appealed to Walt Disney, who had grown up while Wynn was a big star on Broadway. Disney was obviously a fan of the old vaudeville stage, and Wynn would appear in Disneyland’s own “Golden Horseshoe Revue” for its 10,000th performance in 1962. Wynn would make eight films for Disney, most prominently Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins, but also The Absent Minded Professor and Son of Flubber, Babes in Toyland, Those Calloways, That Darn Cat!, and The Gnome-Mobile.

This long list of Disney credits gets to something I often think about - the fact that for a great portion of the 1950’s and 60’s, Disney had a fairly steady stock company of actors and filmmakers creating a constant stream of live-action films for the company. While the old studio system was dying elsewhere, Walt was running a shop that centered around contract players and in-studio production talent. While such a system has its benefits and its shortcomings, at its best it can result in a consistent supply of familiar faces producing dependably entertaining films. It requires constant quality control and the occasional freshening though; Disney’s own system would return to bite the studio after Walt was gone. When his eye for quality and urge to push the envelope was lost, decay set in and what was comfortable and familiar in the 1950’s became trite and threadbare by the 1970’s.

Every film geek knows the thrill of seeing some favorite character actor show up in a bit part, and for me that experience began with watching these films as a kid. A lot of actors from this period in Disney history tend to pop up as character actors in other major studios’ films in this and previous eras. Similarly, as a budding film geek it was fun to spot familiar composers, writers, directors, and even set designers and effects technicians from film to film.

While I would never suggest that Disney eschew the urge to continually explore new material and bring in new talent, I’ve always rather hoped that they’d make a return to these early roots and establish a small internal production group that could foster new talent and produce a series of films with a similar continuity. Even an anthology television program, produced for ABC or the Disney Channel and centering on the fictional town of Medfield could provide a reliable source of entertainment and a touchstone with Disney’s past. Keep it interesting, avoid cliche and general cheeseballery, and hire talented people with good ideas - actually think about what you’re making and you can avoid the stream of tapioca that most people think of when they think of Disney post-Walt. How else are kids of the future going to know about 121-year-old vaudevillians?

Happy Birthday, Ed!