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By Michael - July 24th, 2011 
Corporate sponsorships had gone a great way towards paying for EPCOT Center when it opened in 1982, and with so many tens of millions of dollars apiece sunk into the new park the sponsor companies were keen to recoup their investment. It’s remarkable how extensively these corporations tied their identities into EPCOT; “their” attractions showed up in annual reports to investors, advertisements, and other publicity campaigns. Sponsorships were often a prestige line-item for corporate management teams, and perhaps after shelling out so much of their investors’ money to underwrite theme park attractions they felt it necessary to illustrate just what those dollars had purchased.
Continue reading The Horizons Story, Part I
By Michael - July 7th, 2011 I want to go to there.
For those who wonder why so many of us who were there at the time are completely obsessed with the EPCOT Center of the 1980s, how about this – a simple souvenir button, which probably cost 50 cents or less at the time, with absolutely spectacular art. [...]
By Michael - June 28th, 2011
We recently showed a picture of the Epcot model from 1978, which included the “Transportation” pavilion that would later become World of Motion. I’ve come across this rendering of that same pavilion, which I believe to be by Imagineering artist Collin Campbell, and I thought it would help to shed a little light [...]
By Michael - June 19th, 2011 For those of us in the lowly demographic called “fandom”, true insight is only gained through extreme displays of excess and obsessiveness. This especially holds true when researching older Imagineering projects, and most particularly projects that were somehow altered or never came to be. So little artwork or information escapes from Fortress Disney, that [...]
By Michael - May 25th, 2011 When Epcot Center opened in 1982, Disney characters were famously kept out of the new park. There were the big-headed World Showcase dolls and, of course, Dreamfinder, but no Mickey and Minnie. But with its vast, open areas, Epcot Center needed something happening to enliven the sprawling plazas between the pavilions.
Someone, apparently, also through that it needed robots. Lots and lots of robots.
Continue reading To GYRO And GERO In The Wabe
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Four Decades of Magic
Essays about the first forty years of Walt Disney World, including two pieces by yours truly. Available in print and for Kindle. |
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