The Double Edged Sword

THE VAULT

More than anything, Disneyland is simply a unique mode of experiential design.

Walt Disney was the chief purveyor of a concept still around today, known as Edutainment. Walt wanted to educate audiences without them knowing he was doing it: Disneyland was his story-based answer to many of the challenges he faced as his brands grew out of his own control and became internationally recognized social symbols (Mickey Mouse), popular media-related characters (Zorro, Peter Pan), and even his television writers' creations of concepts that were taking audiences places they may never go in reality (Tomorrowland).

With all these brands burgeoning out of Walt's control and into the control of society and his audiences, as well as media critics, he needed to create a place where all these ideas could "live", and where he could have chief control over how they were being used.

With Disneyland, Walt aimed to create a place where all these brands, concepts and names could live. No matter that sweetly innocent story about Daddy's Days at the Griffith Park Carrousel. It is undeniable that Walt loved his family, and that these events did occur - but just like everything else in the Disney Tradition, many times the realities make far less enticing stories than the myths the storytellers who experienced the realities created in their place.

Disneyland would be a place to hold the brands - and for Walt to control their usage in any way he saw fit. As much as it was a place for him and his Imagineers to dream and do, it was also a place to keep safe his decades of trying, difficult work in bringing first the medium of animation, then the medium of television, to startling life.

If Disneyland is a unique experiment in experiential design, its because Walt wanted a double-edged sword: not only would the park serve as his personal vault, a place to protect his creations in forms he alone could determine (largely because while film and television spawned many jealous copycats and thieves, if not simply interested parties for these brands, the idea of creating a place was brand new and prohibitively expensive - unless you were Walt Disney).


THE GUESTS

The other edge of the sword was that this place could be open to the people Walt loved the most: his audience. Not only could it be his protective place, it was a way to remove his brands, ideas and stories from the reach of the Mintz's of the world, yet still make them available to his audience -- and the last thing he wanted to do was make those people bored.

And so Disneyland, which could have easily become a San Simeon under less creative, innovative direction, became a dramatic departure from anything that had been done before in America. Walt's greatest challenge was movement - both in the physical sense of moving people through an experience and in the sense of the story. If we were going to place all these ideas in one space, a space they would have to share the way a family shares a house, it meant there had to be some kind of story structure - a system, a way for the guests to experience the story on the same level that Wonderful World of Color provided pieces of Edutainment.

Walt wanted his guests to experience the story, without them knowing they were experiencing it. John Hench said it best in his landmark article "Disneyland is Good for You", and the reason is because it places you in a three dimensional story environment and refuses time and again to beat you over the head with its own ideals.



Much is the problem with other destination-based entertainments. Six Flags is the most nefarious example. When you visit a six flags park, you are reminded time and again, often in very crass and avoidable marketing cliches, that you are IN a six flags park.

Walt trusted the guests. The early Imagineers all trusted the guests. They knew they were at Disneyland. They expected experiences here unlike anything they could find elsewhere in the world. It was another double-edged sword, though, because the Disney name was gold. Anything that said "Disney" came with the assumption that it would excel to the level of excellent entertainment (a statute Walt himself set in Animation, Television and Feature Films).

The Imagineers knew that giving guests an experience was their top priority. That experience needed (and needs today) to fit within the story being told. When it doesn't, in the same way as when it does, guests cannot put their finger on the issue, but they know deep down that something is wrong.

In the same way Disneyland can be good for you, it can also be bad for you if the story environment, the progression of experiences, the way each show fits into the next show and how they all relate to the space surrounding them - if these things are not considered (regardless of the reason being marketing, revenue, ego or "business need") the show is affected, the guest experience is affected, and ultimately down the line the revenue is affected.




THE ART OF CHARACTER

In the much maligned argument about adding too much "character" to the Disney experience, we must remember a few crucial cornerstones:

1. Disneyland of 1955 was heavily influenced and often based on entertainment properties.

Indeed, Zorro served as a mascot of Frontierland because Walt wanted the cross-population (note: not necessarily cross-promotion or syngery) of the guest experience. It was one thing to take the guests to the "Old West", but Walt had seen experiences in museums and recreations like this across the country, and even as far away as Europe and had come up with the same feeling as many others - there was nothing in that experience to relate to beyond the history. Walt was an educator, but above all he was a true showman, and an entertainer. By adding "character" to his park, he gave the guests a crucial stepping stone that allowed them to relate to the experiences based on properties, ideas and characters that they already recognized.



2. John Hench himself championed the art of character - after all, if Disneyland is a story place, one of the reasons we create stories is so that our characters have a place to live. Disneyland takes this concept and makes it immediate and real: This is, quite literally, the place where these characters live. Hench, in his book (bible) Designing Disney, writes:

"The art of character at the Disney theme parks lies in maintaining the identity of the forms and colors that express the essential personality traits of these beloved characters."

3. Should everything relate to Disney Characters?

The answer is no, but the problem is that the definition of a "Disney Character" is so often misconstrued. Indiana Jones is not considered a character at Disneyland, but is defined as one because he is an integral personality that plays a part in the guest experience. There is a lot to be said for listening to the guests...but there is also a lot to be said for a designer because that person understands the play space on a conscious level far greater than your typical day guest, for whom the experience is subconscious. Much the same, a film director understands his film on a level deeper than any member of his audience.

So, if we are too narrowly defining Disney "Characters", the solution to this conundrum perhaps lies in no more than very careful, detailed decision making:

1. Pick and Choose who lives where.



Characters do not often determine story. Story determines characters. The long shot paints the close up. There is danger in contradicting elements within any story, or any story place, and the same goes for contradictory characters. Stitch should not appear simultaneously in a Tomorrowland attraction and a stage show fifty feet away, and Frozone should not be parading down Main Street. These are contradictions because Frozone's environment (re: story) and Main Street's environment are inherently different.

That is not a bad thing. In fact, thats a very valuable thing.

The story has to be designed and created before it can be populated with character. Either that, or the characters must bring us the story. If a character has a story to tell, as designers we must make a conscious effort to fit that story within an environment that will be thematically correct from long shot to close up within the context of the overall storyspace (The Park).

It makes sense for Mickey and friends to live at the Magic Kingdom or in Disneyland. It also makes sense for Mickey and friends to appear and occupy space at California Adventure - but you cannot make the cost-cutting choice of making these one and the same. Mickey's appearance at DCA must make sense with the environment in which he has been placed. He must become a part of the story.

If we think of the character appearances in the parks, be it in attractions or as walk arounds, as being a part of the story, there is no reason that these characters cannot fit into those stories. Now, there is a clever piece of manipulation going on here from the marketing executives and the guest survey teams: The guests say "We want to see Mickey". The marketing teams take this and turn it into "We want to see THE SAME Mickey everywhere, THE SAME attractions everywhere, THE SAME 'Disney'. One Disney."

This is not the case. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Pluto (among others) are universally adaptable personalities. Thats the beauty in their design. Their rich forms and colors (as mentioned by Hench) can be adapted to any situation. Stronger characters are inevitably more successful than week ones, so why not make the characters and stories in each space strong and relatable and part of a cohesive whole? This is what Hench meant when he said that Disneyland was good for us. It is good for us because its a living, breathing story, provided to us as the ultimate play space.

Former Imagineer Eddie Sotto (among others) has some excellent views on using the characters to deliver the content.

2. Don't Overplay the Angle

If the parks become nothing but character-based experiences, the guests will no longer be receiving the one real promise Disney makes to them: A unique experience. The answer is, use the characters to illustrate your story points. The oversight is that Mickey will still be there. The magic of "Disney" is that the audience - the guests - are going to take whatever we give them. That sounds like a very negative connotation, and it isn't meant to be, but its simply the truth. The Disney brand is a seal of excellence all by itself. Its that way because the company has been striving to provide excellence to its audiences since 1923. Once you've made the sale, stop selling. Switch to gently reminding instead.

3. The Choice

Now, that said, it leaves the choice in the hands of the design team. Its a personal journey as much as it is a shared one, because like any art form, we are creating something from nothing. If thats the case, it means we can either give them more of the same (and it won't affect the ratings/revenue/business) or we can give them an excellent, over the top, completely unique and unforgettable experience (which likely won't affect the ratings/revenue/business).

The point is, if we do it the second way, we are accomplishing the goals. If we do it the first way, the old way, the comfortable way, we are simply plodding along not accomplishing anything. We aren't being innovative and original, because we have taken the previous idea that the audience will take whatever we give them and put a negative spin on it to the effect that we no longer have to try.

*Please note that the phrase "We" in this article is hypothetical. This blog is in no way associated with The Walt Disney Company, and all views expressed belong solely to the individuals providing them.

Its an honest mistake: the idea can be interpreted one of two ways.



Here is the first way:

"I was doing a film title that required an eagle to fly into a lighted foreground and land on a rock while folding his wings. I was provided with an eagle that was too old to do the stunt, and stumbled on the rocks. We watched the dailies in a dark sweatbox. When the lights came on, I saw that one of the Studio executives was in the booth watching with us. I said "I'll do this over again. We'll get the eagle to land right, so that it looks like a conqueror." The executive said "No! We will use it. That's okay, the bastards won't know any different." That was his attitude toward the people for whom he was supposed to furnish entertainment. He didn't like them. He didn't care."

Here is the second way:

"Liking the guests is the key to everything we do."

"We have discovered that even our restrooms can fit into the themed environment....Just as guests taught us about good queue design, they also taught us about the elements needed for preshows."

If the guests are truly the ones who taught the art of the show to the original Imagineers, we owe it to them now to listen to what they are saying. Guests want to see Mickey. This is a fact. How they see Mickey can either be a good, enjoyable experience that cannot be placed within the confines of words, or it can be generic, one-for-all entertainment. Disney, as a brand, is unique. There is no rhyme or reason to the way the stories are created. They come because they come.



This notion makes anyone accustomed to formulas, spreadsheets, algorithms and survey results uncomfortable. One experience does not equate to the next. They cannot be rated. Disneyland cannot be compared to Magic Kingdom Park because they are teling different stories.

Liking the guests truly is the key to everything we do - but the decision on what we provide them, and whether what we provide them is unique and original, is entirely up to us as designers. Whether or not the so-called results of some so-called guest surveys that amount only to numbers on a paper or in an email reflect it or not, the fact is that guests love Disney. They do not, however, define what Disney is. That is a job left to the people creating the entertainment.

I hope the following words will change your life in the same way that they have changed mine: "If you settle for less than excellence, that's exactly what you will get." - Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser.

Foundations: The Haunted Mansion

Perhaps it is possible to view The Walt Disney Company's achievements in themed entertainment as simply accomplishments in the realm of family fun. If there is no underlying structure, there can be no way of studying the art form in any cohesive, information retaining manner except to observe- but the nature of observing a place or activity is that our minds begin to develop patterns and assign meaning to things.

Because there is no school to study Themed Entertainment Design, we as students of the form must look to other avenues to learn: we must read books, we must talk to the people who are still around (there are a few) and study the actual works (i.e. rides, shows and attractions) that the masters have left behind (there are perhaps fewer).

When a guest visits a space- any space- created by "story designers"- many things happen to them emotionally that cannot be fully explained except by experiencing those same emotions. I use the term "Story Designer" to encompass Imagineers of all trades, because they all design within a framework of story- and those designers who do not work for Imagineering are also included in that term, because they- Universal Creative, Universal Entertainment, Walt Disney Entertainment Design and Anheuser-Busch all design places with story. The art form only originated at Walt Disney Imagineering, but has continued to grow by leaps and bounds at other institutions across the world.

Top: Sam McKim concept painting of The Haunted Mansion for Disneyland. 

Above: This sign appeared outside the attraction in the years between ground breaking and the opening. Text by Marty Sklar. 

The Haunted Mansion

We enter an old, immaculate mansion on the outskirts of a booming colonial village. The grounds are kept immaculately, but the gravestones are very close to the front door. Immediately upon entering, we are witness to supernatural activities. A portrait in the antechamber ages before our very eyes, in a way allowing us to simultaneously see the past and the future of this place.
An apparition- or rather, the voice of an unseen presence, guides us into a doorless chamber. The room physically grows to occupy more space than seems possible, and we are taken deep inside the mansion, where we are informed that there is no way now to turn back without experiencing what lies ahead. A plethora of carriages approaches to take us further into the mansion, seeming to emerge from a black void, which holds endless possibilities.

At first, the spirits seem weary. They do not show themselves directly, though they watch us with distanced eyes. A hallway of “portraits” watches our vehicles as they pass beneath, and the ghostwriters in the library are interested, too. The ghosts show us their footsteps, indicating their movement, and then the wallpaper itself seems to watch. An eerie candelabra floats into our sight from time to time, seeming to follow us through the mansion, devoid of an owner.
In the parlor, a newly arrived corpse attempts to pry open his coffin. He is there perhaps as a gesture from the ghosts? From them to us, to say, hey, he’s new here too, and perhaps you can adjust together? Or is it one of them, disguised, yet another watching form, as they observe us?

Regardless, they soon lose their interest, but they deem it okay for us to continue. We are soon enough witness to an ill-advised séance, conducted by the medium called Madame Leota, and she summons the spirits to us directly, asking them to appear.

Our ghost host leaves us, explaining that the spirits are “assembling for a swinging wake”, and that he is expected. Only at this point do the spirits fully materialize, though we aren’t sure if we are being put on or if we are actually seeing a haunting. However, something is amiss. From the ballroom, where we nearly come to fully believe the sights before our eyes, without our tour guide we end up wandering into the attic of the old mansion.
Here, the still-beating heart of a bride gets louder and louder as we twist and turn through the piles of old cobwebbed junk, and the portraits build up to the bride herself- the payoff being that she is still there, happy and hoarding her riches, having cut off each of her husband’s heads.



From there, the only choice we have is to move out onto the roof of the house. Behind the mansion, in the forest, a graveyard has come to life. The spirits appear to be fleeing. Staring in wonder, we stumble off the roof. Below, the only human character in the attraction, the groundskeeper, watches in horror as the spirits hold their jamboree. The entire reason we were allowed to enter the house, and the reason the ghost host was able to escort us in as far as he was, is perhaps that the groundskeeper has been standing here mortified the entire time, maybe even for years, and was thus absent long enough to permit our entry or stop us from venturing deeper. Though he knew the house was haunted, he has clearly never seen the spirits themselves until this moment, and his young age also suggests that perhaps his fear stems from being new to the job.
We move through the graveyard, which has an entirely different tone than the scenes inside the house- now, not only are we seeing the spirits, but we are engaging with them. In the ballroom, they played much as a scene from a film- in front of us, for our enjoyment. Here, they seem to be in the middle of a much more personal affair. The ghosts are partying for their own sake, and not to see us amused, though the same effect they had on us in the ballroom and in the attic, they are also having here on the groundskeeper.

An important note here is that we also return to the musical thesis of the attraction- as if the spooks had planned this moment from the beginning, but were unsure if we could be trusted until Madame Leota, the wise old disembodied head/medium that occupies the dark void of the attic, agreed that we could be and summoned the spirits to appear for us- presuming, apparently, that the spirits are what we had come to see.
Our ghost host catches up to us only at the tail end of the graveyard scene, where the reappearance of a central object- much as with the candelabra, but this time a crow- allows for the final transition into the payoff of the entire attraction.
Our host reminds us, essentially, that there are still ghosts who either don’t like it here very much, or have unfinished business in the real world, and are thus trying to hitchhike out of their “ghostly retreat”. He mentions that the spirits, looking for more ghosts to fill up the mansion, have selected us, his (perhaps) accidental tour guests, to fill the “quota”. It is unclear whether they hitchhike with the intent of leaving the house themselves or the intent of keeping us in the house with them, but what is clear is that a part of the mansion will “follow you home”. If this is an attempt to bring us back to the mansion or a more selfish motive is present is also left to us to decide.



In another contradictory situation, what is said to be a younger version of “Leota” beckons to us from high in a crypt, where she reminds us that we must bring our death certificates if we decide to retire to the mansion. The “little leota” seems less pushy than the hitchhiking ghosts, but nonetheless seems to genuinely want for us to remain at the mansion. Our host then makes the final and most contradictory notion of all by raising the safety bar and asking us to watch our step as we leave the attraction.

This line is delivered with a certain fleeting tone: does the Ghost Host really not want to allow us to leave, or is he trying to save us from remaining in the house? Is he himself one of the hitchhiking ghosts?

All of these and many more questions go unanswered, because The Haunted Mansion is the antithesis of attraction design. It offers no answers, only raises questions, only gives snippets of archetypal imagery and flashes of things from our past and collective memory, and follows only a loosely undulating narrative. It has no story, only events tied together by theme. Like a John Ford western, the events form the theme of the story, but avoid plot and all the things that come associated with it.

The theme then plays out to its natural (some have said “mathematical”) conclusion: in essence, we come expecting to see ghosts, to be afraid. The ghosts are afraid of us, but once they learn to trust us, they show themselves, so we see them. Then, having seen them, our meeting having been completed, some of them invite us to stay while others attempt to follow us home.
The through-line is, of course, the experience we expect when we arrive.

Though we expect to see ghosts, and to be taken deep into the frightening mansion, we do not expect that they will interact with us directly in the final scene. It is this element of surprise, present throughout the Mansion and many other great attractions, that ties together seemingly random images and events into a cohesive “story”. We use the word “story” because there is no term better, though it isn’t story telling as much as it is narrative structure being placed upon a series of images.

Basically, its Eisenstein meets John Ford before Eisenstein’s theory became “corrupted” by story itself.



The narrative structure of the mansion is a catch 22 because it isn't important to your average guest- atleast that is what the suits will tell you. The reason is, because the average guest doesn't know that they are experiencing a story environment. The most important case in point for this argument, though, is Disney's California Adventure. During its construction, the attitude became apparent among the creative leadership that the park didn't need to tell a cohesive story.

Now, almost ten years after the fact, the 1.2 Billion dollar "Re-Imagineering" project should pretty well answer the question: Don't expect the average guest to praise your efforts and call your attractions "magnificent examples of storytelling"...but if you don't provide them with a quality experience, they will speak up about it, and you may find yourself pulling a DCA.

In short, our audience may not understand the technical grammar of the experience- but if we as story designers fail to understand it, and fail to implement it, we will fail to provide them an experience that will be remembered as meaningful.

"You know, since we're born, the first thing we fight for in life is that feeling of being alive -- and it's the last thing, too. We never want to give up that experience of being alive. This is the secret of Disneyland: Everywhere in the park, it's like a pat in the back telling you: "You're okay. Life is good." - John Hench.

A History of Form

All art forms represent interpretations of language. In the most essential form, art is a translation of the language of human thought- inspired, arguably, by the divine, or by some other spiritual presence in our lives. Some call this presence God, while others simply refer to it as energy- and others still choose not to refer to it at all, and instead point to their own egos for the answer to their inspiration.

The "language" of the cinema began development when Edison first introduced the film camera to the Americas. One can even point to the previous, jarring work of the Lumiere Brothers in France, who began recording films possibly as early as 1895. Max and Emil Skladanowsky had begun showing projected images on the first of November that year in Berlin, but because the Skladanowsky's projection system was considered primitive, the official birth of the cinema as we know it today occured on December 1, 1895 in Paris. That day, at the Salon Indien du Grand Cafe, the Lumieres showed ten short films to a paying audience using a projection device called the Cinematographe, which was invented by Leon Bouly.

(Scene from "The Arrival of the Train")

The audience was said to have jumped back in their seats at the sight of the approaching train, in a short film entitled "The Arrival of the Train". Because the jarring nature of "cutting" was still years (and countries) away*, these films weren't much more than moving images of singular events projected onto the wall of the cafe.



*Sergei Eisenstein discovered the concept of Montage in the early 1920s. He and Lev Kuleshov pioneered the concept, and Eisenstein called it "the very essence of the cinema".

As the cinema evolved, so did its interpretations and its interpreters. By the time D.W. Griffith began making films like Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), the form was well on the way to becoming a "master" art form; that is, a form that combines all others for the most powerful tool of communication ever discovered. More than any others, these two Griffith epics were the ones that paved the way for narrative cinema.

As the Cinema evolved, it led to yet another combination of forms: the drawing or painting and the moving image itself. When combined and projected at any steady rate, it made the drawings capable of movement. Since drawings didn't have to be subjected to the laws of captured footage, animation was born as an art form. With animation's birth comes into the picture a young man born in Chicago at the beginning of the last century, and raised on farms and in small towns across the midwestern united states. This man began drawing at a young age, and though he was never very good at it, he had a talent of creative leadership that few have been able to meet and none have been able to surpass.

Walter Elias Disney started to become interested in drawing and particularly in animation for many reasons. He stated many stories to reporters and television shows- most notably his own, which aired its first broadcast on October 27, 1954. We can only speculate, but like so many other American Dreamers of his generation, he came to Hollywood with nothing in his pockets but a few quarters and some lint, and built an entertainment empire that rose first from the green hills of Glendale, and later from the orange groves of Anaheim.

Walt was constantly interested in the next thing. He cared never to repeat himself, because he saw this as fear, and said that fear usually meant failure. Because Animation nearly drove him to the brink of insanity, Disney moved down a new path, and into a new form. As he had revolutionized short cartoons, invented and then revolutionized feature length animated films, and was in the process of revolutionizing television, Disney wanted to revolutionize the idea of family amusement. He wanted to build a new concept in the form, called a "Theme Park".



Before Walt Disney, Amusement parks consisted of dirty, unkempt ride supervisors and noisy, unsafe machinery. They often attracted unsavory elements, and many of these unsavory elements stayed on long after the show had left any particular town. Disney wanted to provide a place where people could have fun in a safe, quiet, controlled environment. In short, he wanted to bring the same language and form he had used to create animated films for the entire family and apply it to a three-dimensional space. This being Walt Disney, of course, that wasn't enough.

Walt, without knowing it, created the new "master form". The way that cinema had become the ultimate form of expression, his theme park would find a way to bring the screen to startling life, and to place people in the middle of a true cinematic experience. Disney formed WED Enterprises, which later became Walt Disney Imagineering, on December 16, 1952. WED's designers had begun life in the grammar of film. Most were set designers and craftsmen from rival studios, and a few story men came from Walt's own studio.

These were the men that would take the roadside carnival and reinvent it. They would give new life to an ancient form of fun, and making fun would, by their hand, become far more than a national pastime. Human beings are storytellers by nature. To take the physical world we live in and bring the stories that make our souls more soulful out into it was an art form that had yet to be explored. It was a combination of film and architecture, and the languages of those two worlds meshed in a way they never had before.

If we trace the roots of the word itself, "Imagineering", we find numerous uses throughout history. The first recorded usage comes from a rural Alabama newspaper article from January 1942. It references the word in presenting the idea that "war brings new words-- or atleast brings old ones back in new attire". Another early reference comes from an advertisement for the artist Arthur C. Radebaugh in an Ohio newspaper in 1947.

(The work of Arthur Radebaugh, who called himself the first "Imagineer".)

Walt Disney never claimed to be a master of invention, but he was quite the entrepreneur when it came to reinvention. Here was a man who spent his life doing two things. He would attempt feverishly to outrun himself and then attempt to reinvent the work he had just outrun. Time and again he pronouced to his brother and his family that he was done with animation or with television or especially with striking workers or money men, and time and again he turned his energies to his frustrations and literally outdid them. When he became frustrated with the state of his animated short cartoons, Disney created the world's first animated feature-length motion picture. When he grew incensed at the Hollywood Studios' view of television, he created "Disneyland" (later Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color), which in turn saved his dying business results at the box office.

When Walt became agitated over his sunday outings with daughters Sharon and Diane, he turned his energies to creating a perfect environment where "children and parents can have fun- together".

Or so the story goes.

Much like the persona of Walt beamed into viewer's living rooms every sunday night on his television program, much of the myth surrounding Disneyland was as concocted as the place itself. We'd all like to believe that this was the truth, but the real truth is actually shrouded in a somewhat more abstract and indescribable emotion. Walt Disney created Disneyland for the same reason the Lumiere Brothers projected images of "The Arrival of the Train". As all humans do, he had an intrinsic need to create.



Disneyland was the one project that Walt never became upset enough to outrun. He loved it from its very inception, in a locked room at the Studio. He loved it through the difficult times during its construction and especially the financing of the park, which Disney nearly broke the bank attempting to secure. It was Walt's love that created this new art form, and the people he lovingly chose to carry out his dream that invented the language to carry the new master form through the next half century, and with a little luck, beyond.

Some Not-so-small Background

Walt Disney knew that the secret to creating the best entertainment was to hire the best artists for any particular genre or style. When he moved his animation studio to Hyperion, he hired 8 of the world's top animators. These men, under the tutelage and guiding hand of his old friend and technical animation guru Ub Iwerks, would go on to create the first series of Mickey Mouse shorts as well as the revolutionary Silly Symphonies.

When Walt decided it was time for a new revolution and he set his eye to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt eventually ended up hiring his famed nine old men of animation. Les Clark, Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas, Eric Larson, John Lounsberry, Ward Kimball, Milt Kahl, Wolfgang Reitherman and Marc Davis would have their hands (though not all of them for every project) in most of the major releases from 1937 until The Rescuers in 1977.

Finally, in December 1953, Walt Disney had decided that his dreams had outgrown the two-dimensional plateau of the motion picture screen, and it was time to create another brand new genre of entertainment. This time, he would have full control. There would be no one to cede control from him as Charles Mintz and George Winkler had with Oswald. There would be no Pat Powers, no executives in New York trying to purchase not only his chief characters but his entire studio. Walt Disney had been thinking in three dimensions.

The story goes that on sunday afternoons, Walt would take his two daughters (Sharon and Diane Disney) to Griffith Park- a sleepy, sprawling public grounds located on the far side of Mt. Lee in Los Angeles. Minutes from the studio and close to the family's home, the park was convienent and provided relaxation to a stress-ridden, snappy Walt Disney.

On these afternoons, Walt would sit on the bench as the girls rode the carousel (which is still there today). As the legend goes, he began to consider making a place where he could have fun with his daughters. A place where the parents wouldn't have to just sit on the bench and eat peanuts- a place where families could really spend time together that was fun and clean and provided a new kind of entertainment.



At first, Walt's new dream occupied the site where the Walt Disney Feature Animation Building now stands- across the street from the studios in Burbank, on a site called Riverside Park. Today, the famous and iconic hat building stands where Walt once envisioned his "Mickey Mouse Park". Even in those early drawings and ideas, the park was to be surrounded by a train.

Soon enough, Walt's overactive imagination needed a bigger place than Riverside Park to hold it, and Walt sent agents scouring the area for a site large enough to hold what he was now calling Disneyland. The term had originated with Disneylandia, a series of scale models that Walt had created, and he intended to tour his pint size view of turn-of-the-century America across the country. Disneyland, before it was a theme park or a television show, was a traveling exhibition featuring trains and tiny moving models. Disneyland was growing.

Walt's scouts came back with an answer: Anaheim, a bustling little town off Interstate 5, forty minutes south of Los Angeles. In what was previously an orange grove, Walt Disney announced two milestones in the history of entertainment: He formed a new division of the company, WED Enterprises, and announced his plans to build Disneyland, a new concept in entertainment altogether.

"I want it to be like nothing else in the world, Herbie, and it should be surrounded by a train," he quipped to Herbert Ryman in a moment of intense reflection. Herbie would create the first view of the park from the air over a single weekend in September 1953. Walt phoned Ryman on friday evening and explained that he had a new idea, and would Ryman please come down to the studio for a meeting.

"I'd very much like to see the plans, Walt. Where are they?" Walt laughed. "You're going to draw them."

Ryman had left the studio in a dispute sometime before, and his answer proved his bullheaded nature: "No, I'm not."

Walt walked to the corner of the room where the two had been talking. He stood for a moment with both hands on his hips, before turning slightly back to Ryman. "Like a little kid," he turned and asked "Will you draw them if I stay here with you?"

Walt was in the throes of his new idea. He was a man who had constantly to reinvent himself and his product. Disneyland was just the latest in a string of ideas that had been changing the entertainment industry since the mid 1920s- but Disneyland was going to be the first enterprise, the first idea, that belonged entirely to Walt.

WED Enterprises, which in December 1952 consisted of a handful of artists and art directors hand picked from the studio staff, holding up in a locked room on the lot at Burbank, was the company formed personally by Walt to build his dream. Also concerned- mostly at Roy's urging- to the rights of the name Walt Disney and who they belonged to, and for the first time recognizing his own name as a brand, Walt gave the rights to WED. The name of this new company were, after all, the initials of the man responsible for that brand: Walter Elias Disney.



In February 1965, the rights to Walt's name and two attractions at Disneyland that he owned personally were transferred to Retlaw, Inc, an entirely separate entity from The Walt Disney Company and from WED Enterprises. Until 1982, Retlaw controlled the Disneyland-Santa Fe Railroad and the Disneyland Monorail, and Retlaw was a separate company with separate staff and leadership from Disneyland or WED. In 1982, The Disney family sold Retlaw's remaining divisions to the company, as well as the rights to Walt's name.

All of this is important to our lesson today primarily because these lessons in history make it clear that Walt was extremely concerned about his legacy. He wanted the rights to his name to be in the control of people he trusted- no one better than Retlaw, which was a private company with no stockholders. Walt had to strike a balance between what he did to preserve that legacy and what he had to do to achieve the creation of his dreams.

The Walt Disney Studios, Disneyland (The TV Show), and the entire image of "Uncle Walt"- the homespun, kindly old uncle that appeared in a trillion living rooms in the fifties and sixties, were all very much bargaining chips that helped Walt secure the resources needed to create Disneyland and continue to add to it as the years passed.



Walt hired the very best people to turn his imagineerings into reality, and one of the very best people was an artist named Mary Blair. Mary came to the studio as a conceptual artist in 1940. She and her husband Lee Blair, an animator who had worked for both Ub Iwerks Studios and Harman-Ising Studios before migrating to Disney, spent time in 1942 traveling with Walt and Lillian in South America as part of a Presidential Goodwill Tour, and created concept art for Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.

Mary went on to earn credits on Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan for "color styling". She is also credited for work as Art Supervisor, Background and Color on such classics as Song of the South, Make Mine Music and So Dear to My Heart.

Mary resigned from the studio in 1953, after the completion of her work on Peter Pan, to work as a freelance graphic designer for numerous major corporations and destinations worldwide. Walt, however, had grown fond of her, and her sense of color was second perhaps only to John Hench. Walt invited Mary back to lead the design of the UNICEF pavilion for the 1964/65 World's Fair in New York.

Mary's sense of color was inherent, and it came very naturally to her. Walt recognized this talent, and knew that Mary's sense of placing odd colors together would work perfectly with the new show, where the children of the world would unite to remind us of the idea that the commonalities we share are far greater than the differences.

Mary Blair led the design on what would become "it's a small world". Her color palette was so odd perhaps because she was color blind, which had a lot to do with her unique sense of style. Mary brought her geometric sensibility to the new attraction, and combined odd colors to create a very unique feeling for the show.

She went on to work as an Imagineer many more times over the years, returning to WED to create the entrance murals for the new Tomorrowland in 1967, and murals for Disney's Contemporary Resort near Florida's Magic Kingdom in 1971. Mary passed away suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage 26 July, 1978. Her sense of design and color was responsible not just for "it's a small world", but also for the look and feel of Disney's animated features from Saludos Amigos through Peter Pan, a time when most of the Disney classics were created.




Fast forward to the 35th anniversary of Florida's Magic Kingdom Park. Imagineering Ambassador to the World Martin A. Sklar hosts a question & answer session in the remnants of the Walt Disney Story Theatre in Orlando. Here, he reveals plans WDI had yet to confirm to the media that "it's a small world" would soon take up residence at the new park in Hong Kong. In order to make the story relevant to chinese audiences, Sklar tells those in attendance, Hong Kong's version will feature dolls (still in Mary Blair's distinctive style) modeled after important Disney characters.

Hong Kong's official numbers are 220 dolls and "over 200" toys. Of these, 38 will be Disney characters. They will be placed in their countries of origin.

Now, WDI has a publicity nightmare of Toad-like proportions on their hands, as rumors swirled all around the internet that not only would the "refurbishment" of small world turn into a "re-imagineering" of the famous world's fair attraction, but that in addition to the Disney characters, Imagineers would also be removing the rainforest section of the ride, adding Mickey & Minnie Mouse, and replacing the rainforest with an "Up with America" tribute scene.

Perturbed fans have been posting in their blogs for weeks what a travesty of commercialization it would be for the Imagineers to "desecrate" Blair's artistic masterpiece. Re-Imagineering - perhaps the best and most informed Disney-related web log on the internet, even provided quotes on the situation from a large number of animation professionals.

While I hate to disagree with the views published in the online journals I revere as being some of the finest in terms of current writings about this industry and it's leaders, I think a clear examination of the facts of our current situation is order, before we can jump to any conclusions about whether or not the proposed changes to the classic attraction are warranted.



At the conclusion of the 1964/65 World's Fair in New York, as was always the plan, Walt Disney set a plan in motion to relocate three of the four attractions he had developed to his family fun park in Anaheim, California. Technically, some piece of all four attractions made the trip: the "Primeval World" sequence from Ford's Magic Skyway pavilion opened on the Disneyland Railroad track in 1966.

The Carousel of Progress found a new home adjacent to the diorama in Disneyland's Tomorrowland, Great Moments with Mister Lincoln took up residence (somewhat ironically) in the Opera House, and "it's a small world" took up residence in a newly constructed show building at the back of the park, in the far corner of Fantasyland.



Walt Disney never took a step backward. He was enamored and humbled at the same time by the lessons he and his staff learned at the World's Fair. Many have viewed the fair, perhaps accurately, as a "field test" for Disney styled entertainment on the east coast. As soon as the fair became successful, many of Walt's most talented Imagineers began work on "Project X', later "The Florida Project". Housed in a locked room at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, planning for Project X included a theme park element that was initially referred to as "Disneyland East". The main thrust of the Florida Project of course, was EPCOT. The last media footage Walt Disney ever appeared in was a film was a sequence scripted by Marty Sklar for The Wonderful World of Color television program, in which Disney described his Florida-based plans for a futuristic city.

The land purchased by the company in Florida amounted to an area twice the size of Manhattan Island. When Disney passed away on December 15, 1966, the dream of his futuristic city was already crumbling. Faced with serious implications of an already announced project, the company began a period of intense grieving. For several months, there was uncertainty as to whether the company- particularly WED Enterprises (known today as Walt Disney Imagineering) could or would continue to exist.

As fate would have it, WED decided to move ahead with the Florida Project, though in somewhat abated form. Now, the main attraction for opening day would be a grander, larger, more exquisite version of Walt's original Disneyland. For many years, in a term that can be traced back to Walt Disney himself, the park was called "Magic Kingdom". From 1971 until 1979, Walt Disney World was the official name of the property, but it was also typically referred to as "EPCOT", and plans weren't fully abandoned for the city of tomorrow until planning began on EPCOT Center, the theme park that would be a permanent World's Fair, to be constructed at the center of WDW property.



Among the attractions in the Magic Kingdom available to guests on October 1, 1971 was a nearly full version of "it's a small world". This was to be a rarity in the Magic Kingdom: due to budgetary constraints, lack of firm leadership (atleast not as firm as Walt's leadership) and most importantly the serious creative strain that the Imagineers were placed under. Most of the attractions in the park were sliced down versions of the shows to be found at Disneyland. There were no Pirates at all, and none of the major mountains guests the world over associate with Disney today had yet been created*.

*From 1958 until the 1975 grand opening of Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom Park, the Disney Mountain range consisted of one solitary peak: The Matterhorn at Disneyland.

With the opening of the Magic Kingdom, the Imagineers finally proved to themselves that they could design a relatively successful themed environment without Walt at the helm; however the park is even today the most problematic version of Disneyland ever created. To begin with, in order to accommodate more guests, the scale and size of the pathways had to be enlarged. One of the reasons Disneyland was (and continues to be) so successful had to do with finding the perfect scale. Disneyland surrounds you, and provides an idealized version of small town America*, where as Magic Kingdom Park's scale is almost the same size as that of the outside world. This results in almost no dramatic tension, no suspension of disbelief- you've essentially passed beneath the berm and come out in a world much the same as the one you just left!



*While many scholars as well as official company history will point to Marceline, Missouri as the inspiration for Main Street, USA at Disneyland. While Marceline did have profound effects on the young Walt Disney, who spent four of his earliest years there, Main Street is actually based on it's primary designer's experience. Harper Goff was an artist and designer at Walt Disney Imagineering and is perhaps known best for his design of the Nautilus submarine for Disney's live action production, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

So, the version of Small World placed at Florida's Magic Kingdom does lack slightly compared to the Disneyland (World's Fair) original.

As our brief case history has proved, the Walt Disney Company- Not, mind you, Walt Disney Imagineering, but the company itself- has a tendency to gloss over the truth and facts of a situation for an idealized, alls-well-that-ends-well viewpoint. It was this viewpoint that concealed the real reason for the removal of Mister Toad's Wild Ride in Florida (Money) and the real reason behind the Haunted Mansion's recent refurbishment (Not story or creative purposes).

This seems to be a culture issue: after all, it is an entertainment company. The idea that Mary Blair's artwork is being relished and treasured makes a wonderfully happy ending, which is what any entertainment company wants- but to the legions of forum writers and bloggers and hostile "fanatics", adding anything to "it's a small world" is ignoring the real problem of its continued upkeep and refresh rate. Assuredly, they would like you to believe that The Walt Disney Company is trying to create another happy ending.

Beginning with last year's considerable re-imagineering of Spaceship Earth, Walt Disney Imagineering has begun its long awaited turnaround into a real themed design firm. What we are seeing here is the same renaissance climate that occurred in the late 1970's with EPCOT Center, where young Imagineers meet with the legends and create something beautiful. Now, though, park management and corporate interference hasn't subsided. It simply didn't exist the way it does today- this being a product largely of the Eisner/Pressler era that never went away- and therefore the Imagineers of yesteryear had it a bit on the easy side politically speaking, compared to the current crop of young hopefuls.

We are seeing things that we've never seen: the biggest sign of an imminent Renaissance is California Adventure's recent approval for 1.3 BILLION dollars in funding to recreate the experience across the esplanade and make it flow and fit. 1.3 Billion dollars is a sum that even Bill Gates might find hefty, and for Bob Iger to approve such an astounding budget presents a first in Disney history: they've now admitted that they have made a mistake. A very, very big mistake.

The idea that a time of extreme change at Walt Disney Imagineering really began to be publicly visible last year, starting with the promotion of Bruce Vaughn and Craig Russell. Vaughn was previously the executive in charge of research and development at WDI. That says a lot about where the company plans to take its themed experiences over the coming years.

The next major announcement triggered euphoria for Disney fans and all aspiring Imagineers- the genius designer behind Islands of Adventures’ Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man attraction was coming to Imagineering. Not only would Scott Trowbridge be coming to Flower Street, he'd also be taking Vaughn's old job, as the Vice President of Research and Development. Next, WDI did something it should have done a trillion years ago- it put Spaceship Earth on the re-imagineering list and set some very talented show producers to work on the project.

Meanwhile, Toy Story Mania designers Kevin Rafferty and Chrissie Alley- the former a show writer and the latter a show producer- were digging in their heels on the most interactive, high technology experience yet to be imagined in any theme park-- and the project would open at roughly the same time on both coasts.



For all of these good moves, Walt Disney Imagineering did take a few steps backwards in the first months of this year. First of all, they still seem to find difficulty into controlling the accountaneers at Walt Disney World. Perhaps of all eleven Disney theme parks, the three that are in the worst amount of trouble are at Walt Disney World. Disney's Hollywood Studios (though similar placemaking plans to California Advernture in scope seem to be floating around, for which Toy Story Mania is a proving ground) continues its identity crisis, Magic Kingdom continues to languish and be less about fantasy as a theme and more about t-shirts as a marketing tool, and Epcot...well, they just haven't got the faintest idea about what to do with Epcot.

At DHS, plans have been announced for an American Idol attraction. Talks swirled among the Imagineering-faithful that plans had once more been dusted off for a themed attraction based on Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, which would have occupied the space now buttonholed for American Idol. For a show whose popularity ratings continue to fall, and for what most journalists and reviewers deemed would pass as a fad, why would WDI want to place such a show into an already confused theme park?

They wouldn't. They didn't. Simply put, with the new financial structure, WDI-Florida is still very much in contractor mode. In California, due to their physical closeness, they have always had a much more easy control factor. In Florida, the parks are owned by the park management and the moneymen. Because of that fact alone, Imagineering has a very difficult time proposing its new ideas. Executive Management seems to have taken the stance of "We'll call you if we need anything..." but what they fail to understand that Imagineers have a clear grasp on is that the Studios, like any Disney Theme Park, isn't a "family park". It isn't a venue for their wild merchandising schemes. It isn't a giant store, and it most certainly is not a place with the time or energy for fads like American Idol. The Hollywood Studios is a story environment. Every detail, every place and thing within the space, is designed and placed specifically to tell a story. Disney-MGM Studios' original story was "The Hollywood that never was, and always will be..."

The Hollywood Studios story is broader in scope*, but has filmmaking as a major component of that story. Now, the park is about entertainment as a whole: as an industry that built the city, but its also about television (The Twilight Zone), music (Rock N' Roller Coaster) and theatre (Little Mermaid, Playhouse Disney). American Idol is about television. Studios is about entertainment. But American Idol is also about to take up the prime real estate of the park, and its about to make things even more confused in an already unclear environment. This will be the subject of a later post, but here, I'd just like to use it to make a point.



*It is nonetheless a wonderful sign that the logo itself didn't try to go for "hip & edgy". Perhaps we can look to California Adventure's Hollywood Boulevard for a lesson in why to avoid that design aesthetic.

At the Magic Kingdom, characters and meet and greets run rampant. They are attractions within themselves. Increasingly, they are the only attractions. Characters have themed costumes for every single special event, most of which are very expensive and time consuming to maintain. In addition, instead of paying the power bills of a new attraction, we now must pay talent fees.

I point to just one pointed example of the burdgeoning issues at Disneyland East, wherein for the past two consecutive Holiday seasons, Magic Kingdom president Phil Holmes has axed the budget for the Country Bear Christmas seasonal overlay. The resulting saved funds were instead appointed to host Mickey's Pirate and Princess Party- which will most likely not see a fourth run because the event has failed to so much as return its investment.

Within the company, California is a long, long way from Florida. Florida has isolated itself, and Jay Rasulo has installed his heads of state and given them power in ways that would seriously frighten most of America. The year of a Million Dreams runs rampant- as evidenced by the apparently bargain basement last ditch attempt at marketing the "event" that involves ruining beautiful sightlines like the one down Sunset Boulevard towards the Tower of Terror with awful blue dreams lightpost decorations. One cannot traverse a street or plaza inside or outside any guest area in Walt Disney World without being confronted by hundreds upon hundreds of these terrifying banners.

The Oasis area outside the main entrance of Animal Kingdom, the plaza, monorail station and kennel at Epcot, and every inch of ground on the approach to Magic Kingdom and DHS are covered with the horrendous blue diamond banners that portray a set of "dream-blue" mickey ears and the YOMD logo and typeface. I've never seen an advertising campaign run quite so mortifyingly rampant as this one has, and its not a pleasant thing to see.

The most vexing problem with the banners? The guests don't care. To open a new attraction like Everest, one may just as well host a movie premiere. In effect, we need to take our cues from the guests. Hard selling didn't work at Carnivals. The guests are already here. If we really want to make them feel special, use seasonal entertainment based around the YOMD theme. The Dream Squad is a wonderful idea, one of those treasured highlights of a Disney vacation much like the Golden Horseshoe at Disneyland. We're ignoring the fact, though, that the guests are already there. They have already been convinced by the marketing campaign to pay their hard earned dollars to enter the parks in the first place. The payoff has to be unique, immersive experiences (Toy Story Mania and Spaceship Earth are wonderful examples at WDW, as the Nemo Submarine Voyage is at Disneyland)-- not blue banners. Not people giving away prizes. Certainly, the latter should be something thats done all the time- a piece of extra magic that plusses the experience and doesn't require advertising to bring people in.

Saying my peace on the Year of a Million Dreams, we don't go to the movies for the popcorn. We go for the film. We don't go to the theme park so that people will be nice to us and offer us special prizes. We go for the attractions. If you're like me, you go, too, for the previews...which, in effect brings us to "it's a small world."

*Overall, the idea of seasonal or live entertainment in the parks is an undeniably important part of the experience, and so is the "general atmosphere" (see John Hench's "Disneyland is Good for You"), but these things are not the main show, and should not be looked at as such. They help to achieve a balance in the designs that could not otherwise exist.

Imagineering Ambassador to the World Martin A. Sklar issued a letter to the public stating his beliefs and the reasoning that Tony Baxter, Kim Irvine and himself have used as they have imagined a new, updated "it's a small world." There are no points in Marty's letter that I disagree with. I'd like to point out just a few of the more pertinent ones now.

1. Walt Disney was the greatest "change agent" ever to walk down Main Street, USA.

2. Let us not forget that the entire team at Imagineering was responsible for the success the attraction enjoyed at the World's Fair. Rolly Crump, Marc Davis, Blaine Gibson, the Sherman Brothers and Harriet Burns all combined their talents with Mary Blair's and without each one's contribution, we'd have no "it's a small world".

3. This wasn't an overnight situation. Tony Baxter has been working with Marty Sklar for the past eight years on this project. Just because the public has only now been informed of whats happening doesn't mean that considerable thought hasn't been put into the project already.

4. Rumors of the addition of Mickey & Minnie, the removal of the rainforest, the additions of dolls that break with Mary Blair's artistic style and the addition of a tribute to America are all hereby refuted as being false.



Thank you for your patience. I know it has been a long time again since the last post. This one has taken quite some time to put together, but I hope you have found it enlightening and informative.

Next time, we will delve even deeper into the "it's a small world" debate, and hopefully shed some light from that one golden sun on the situation by exploring WDI's reasons for wanting to plus this prototype themed show.