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The Dream Called EPCOT

In 1981, The Walt Disney Story – the attraction which once occupied the area in the Magic Kingdom where the Town Square Theater currently resides – took a brief absence as its queue, theater area, and postshow area were appropriated to become The EPCOT Center Preview Center. In the year leading up to EPCOT’s October, [...]

Promoting Spaceship Earth, 1982

Making the rounds on Twitter last weekend was this remarkable video, made by the Bell System in 1982 to promote their sponsorship of Spaceship Earth at the newly-opened EPCOT Center. The “Chronicle News Update” contains a chat with AT&T president William Ellinghaus, who presided over the pavilion’s opening ceremony, as well as Disney CEO Card [...]

The Renaissance Age

When we old people bemoan the need for ambition, scope, and class in Disney’s current efforts, this is what we mean…

Tickets, Please…

With the arrival of EPCOT Center in 1982, Disney was forced to take a look at its pricing structure. The old ticket-book strategy wouldn’t work for this new park, with its megalithic corporate-sponsored pavilions. With every corporation paying handsomely for a seat at the EPCOT table, how could Disney tell one sponsor that their [...]

A Krafty Birthday

It’s October, which means that it’s Walt Disney World’s birthday month. This year, of course, the resort turned thirty-nine, an anniversary mostly overlooked as Disney musters its resources to prepare to overlook the fortieth anniversary next year (“I gave her Indiana Jones Adventure, she gave me a pen.”) But maybe we can fit in a [...]