Progress City, U.S.A.

So, you’re watching C-SPAN, getting a taste of the NASA Information Technology Summit, and naturally there’s a presentation by Walt Disney Imagineering about the new Fantasyland project in Florida.

Naturally.

Jack Blitch, Vice President and General Manager of Walt Disney Imagineering – Florida, made an appearance at the NASA conference to discuss the use of technology in planning new attractions. Not to be snarky, but I think the old WED model shop in the 60s and 70s could have probably figured out when there was a stray girder poking out of the structure, but I digress.

Blitch’s demo is actually a pretty interesting look at how WDI operates in the modern age; since most of what we know of Imagineering comes from Walt’s days, via his televised walkthroughs of their workshops, it’s interesting to see how computers have changed the process. Around 1:10:00, Blitch shows some of the models of the new Little Mermaid attraction in Fantasyland (including that elusive fifth dimension of space/time – money!) and there’s even a brief VR walkthrough of the queue and part of the attraction. It’s an amazing little peek at what we have in store for the future.

Note that Blitch only mentions Mermaid, the “Be Our Guest” restaurant, and the dueling Dumbos as part of the expansion. This is indicative of a number of changes underway with the expansion plans, which we’ll discuss soon. Also note the irony that this Summit is taking place in National Harbor, Maryland – the site of Disney’s announced but currently MIA resort project.

Not to go too avant garde here, but isn’t this the sort of thing that maybe we could stand to see a little more of? Heaven knows that instead of soft-selling us the gauzy-lensed propaganda videos featuring heaps of magic, dreams, wishes, and princesses, Disney could regularly give us a look at the real magic like this. It might appeal to some fans, don’t you think?

Herbert Ryman was working on Disneyland projects right up to the time of Walt’s death in 1966, doing quite a bit of artwork for both the New Orleans Square and New Tomorrowland expansions. It seems only natural, then, that Herb would begin work on Walt Disney World when development began on the new resort. Much of Walt’s attention before his passing was devoted not to the Magic Kingdom park, but rather to his city of the future – EPCOT. Tragically, Walt seems to have died without seeing much artwork for the Magic Kingdom; this sketch of Cinderella’s Castle from January of 1967 is one of the first pieces of art done specifically for the new project.

Sketch of Cinderella Castle by Herbert Ryman, 1967

It doesn’t seem like Herb did very much art for the Magic Kingdom itself; certainly, it’s hard to find nearly as many renderings for early Walt Disney World as one can find for Disneyland. One section that Ryman worked heavily on, though, was Liberty Square. Based on many of his original designs for the unbuilt Liberty Street at Disneyland in 1956, the area featured the Hall of Presidents – itself based on an attraction originally intended for Disneyland. Herb had presented ideas for this attraction to Walt way back in 1954, and he was pleased to see the concepts take shape decades later in a format very similar to his original design. Ryman’s renderings for Liberty Square are wonderful, full of detail and excitement that makes the actual area seem rather lifeless by comparison.

Rendering of Liberty Square’s “Concord Bridge”, 1969

Ryman did a magnificent rendering of an alternate concept for the Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion which you can find in the art book A Brush With Disney.

Oil painting of the Richard F. Irvine, 1971. This painting might be familiar if you’ve stayed at the Dixie Landings resort at Walt Disney Room; prints of it and other Ryman pieces are featured in various guest rooms.

Sketch of proposed covered bridge in Adventureland, never built

Concept for Tomorrowland Entrance, 1970

Perhaps the most famous piece of art for Cinderella Castle, this was painted in 1969 and was featured prominently in much of the park’s early marketing and on numerous souvenirs

Ryman left WED in 1971; the official story is that he retired, but it seems that instead he was ushered out. He flew to Orlando on his own dime to attend the opening of Walt Disney World, and after that took a long journey in Europe to see how things had changed since his adventures there in the 1930s.

Herb would return to Disney, though, in 1976. This time, he would be working on a project that would utilize all his skills as an artist and draw extensively on his life experiences and far-ranging travels – EPCOT Center.

From the Disney Channel, in 1988:

It’s hard to believe that 1988 was the last time the Disney company publicly celebrated Mickey’s birthday – in this case, his 60th. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, Disney park celebrations were often centered on specific anniversaries or events. In 1981 it was Walt Disney World’s “Tencennial”. In 1984 it was Donald Duck’s 50th birthday. Walt Disney World celebrated its 15th birthday in 1986, and 1987 marked the bicentennial of the United States Constitution. This approach gave the celebrations the feel of a real “event,” and the result was that they were far more distinctive than today’s “Celebrate Dreams”, “Celebrate Wishes”, and “Celebrate Celebrations” approach.

Despite this clip’s justification for the “Happy Birthday from Across the USA” theme of Mickey’s birthday parade, the actual reason for the theme was that it allowed for the re-purposing of 1987’s “All-American Parade.” Not that I can blame the company; this was a massive and lengthy parade with many elaborate floats and set pieces and it was re-used several times in the late 1980s.

Of course, the other in-park recognition of Mickey’s 60th was the all-new Mickey’s Birthdayland, a “temporary” attraction that would eventually turn into today’s Mickey’s Toontown Fair.

Artist’s rendering of Thunder Mesa, circa 1969

No, this isn’t a big article about Western River Expedition. I’m not yet ready to make that rite of passage that every Disney blog eventually must face. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do since day one, but I just haven’t had that breakthrough of research yet to make it any more than a rewrite of articles posted elsewhere.

Instead, I was going through some documents and cleaning up some artwork and just came across this rendering – an image very familiar to most retro Disney fans. Thunder Mesa and the Western River Expedition has become, over the years, something both legendary and symbolic for fans. It’s the one that got away – the magnum opus of several legendary imagineers that would pick up where Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion left off. And, as of about 1973, there was little to no chance that we’d ever see it become a reality.

But looking at this image filling my monitor, I forgot about the attraction as a bit of history or a mystery to be researched, and just thought of what it would really be like if it were real. Go ahead – click and open up the large image, let it fill your screen, and think… that could be real. Like, really real. Let it fill your field of view. It’s a vista just as if you were standing on the Rivers of America. It could be real, regardless of what later naysayers and revisionists (coughMartySklarcough) would tell you. Sure, it’s huge – but so is Mount Prometheus in Tokyo.

So forget all the baggage, and just look at that picture. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Gather ’round, young ones, and I’ll tell you a tale of the distant days of yore when the Disney Channel featured programming related vaguely to Walt Disney and the Disney films and parks.

One staple of those great days was interstitial segments that aired between programs (the channel had no commercial breaks back then), which would feature “breaking” news from various segments of the Disney empire. Back before the days of the Web, or Twitter, or blogs or D23 or the Progress City Radio Hour, fans found out about new film and television projects when Disney darn well felt like it. Nowadays Disney will hold a press event to announce projects that we might have known about for a year or more; or, if you’re Rich Ross, you throw a massive media announcement to unveil a film slate that had actually been officially announced six months prior.

Back in the day, though, any new issue of Disney News or new featurette on the Disney Channel might bring astounding news of a new attraction, animated feature, or entire new Disney park. Needless to say, when those between-show breaks came up on the Disney Channel I would sit with my fingers crossed that one of these “Dateline Disney” pieces might show up. The trademark soundtrack of the opening logo, with its beeping telegraph, would send me sprinting to the television to see what was in store. If you were very, very lucky, it would be something from Walt Disney Imagineering.

This particular segment is one that sticks in my mind, because it seems like it came on fairly often. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we got kind of sick of it after a while, because we were ready for some fresh news. Still, this promo did its job in getting us fairly wound up to see Dreamflight, which opened in the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland in 1989. Maybe it did too good a job, because I can remember the rather crushing disappointment when we actually got to ride the attraction.

Anyway, here’s a neat little look at a bygone age. Everybody sing! “We’re gonna take you flyin’…”