Progress City, U.S.A.

The great and mighty Martin Smith has struck again, this time with a new documentary about the Image Works – the creative playground of the future! This electronic wonderland occupied the upper level of Journey Into Imagination’s glass pyramids from its opening in 1982 until the notorious pavilion overhauls of 1998-99. The attraction featured a series of interactive exhibits and games that were on the cutting edge of technology at the time. Even after touch screens and digital technology became commonplace, though, it was still a colorful and exciting area.

Sadly, the upstairs area is still walled off, despite many rumors over the years that Disney intends to reopen it. There is another ImageWorks now, occupying a portion of the lower floor that was formerly used by the Imagination ride itself, and it lacks the charm and artistry that the original exhibit displayed. But don’t take my word for it – see for yourself!

Today’s flashback comes from 1982, when the first show scene had been completed and approved for EPCOT’s Horizons attraction. The first set to be completed was Scene #14, “Urban Habitat.” You remember the one:

To celebrate the first finalized scene for the attraction, what better for a group of talented Imagineers to do than to take a few pictures of themselves goofing off?

“From left to right, John Hench, Tori Atencio, Kathy Knutson and George McGinnis gather ’round the ‘theramin’ — a type of musical organ which makes music from the heat of your hands as they pass over the keys.”

“From left to right, George McGinnis, John Hench, Kathy Knutson, Gil Keppler, Trevor Bryant and Tori Atencio in the futuristic dining area of the ‘Urban Habitat.’”

Horizons would go on to open on October 1st, 1983.

Tomorrowland – A vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying man’s achievements… a step into the future, with predictions of constructive things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure, and ideals: the atomic age… the challenge of space… and the hope for a peaceful and unified world.

Things have been a little backward-looking around here lately, as most of my research recently has been of a historical nature. It also doesn’t help that there’s not a lot interesting going on with the parks currently, and the future plans we do know about do not inspire much confidence. Many Disney fans, myself included, had hoped that with the Pixar merger a new wave of creativity would sweep through the company as John Lasseter and friends fought for a return to Imagineering’s roots. This has, of yet, not come to pass, as all new projects seem to center around ways to either inexpensively insert “franchise” properties into the parks or to expand the company’s DVC properties. The creative problem goes all the way up the management chain, and while the average Imagineer might be as creative and skilled as ever, WDI is not being given the proper direction and funding to create compelling attractions.

This is all to explain why I’ve yet to talk about Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration, the much-ballyhooed new show that debuted at the Magic Kingdom in early May. By all accounts, the show was a travesty. But as much as I’m sure everyone would love to see me spewing vitriol on a daily basis, I don’t really have the energy to deal with it all and, overall, I’d rather see Dick Nunis going down a waterslide.

Sometimes, though, the public comes to the rescue and puts the smack down on my behalf. Reminiscent of the quick closure forced by universal condemnation of 1999’s “Journey Into YOUR Imagination”, Disney has announced the impending closure of Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration.

What’s amazing is that this closure comes after a run of barely six weeks, while the show’s theater itself took about five months to build. Disney will not comment on what will replace the show in the still-brand-new theater, but I can’t believe that they’d give up on the venue as it must have been a multi-million dollar investment.

The whole episode is confusing, and shows how generally discombobulated the management at Walt Disney World has become. First they tore down Tomorrowland’s existing Galaxy Theater to provide parking spaces for management. Then they spent a great deal of money building the new stage in Rockettower Plaza, where it is both out-of-scale and oddly placed. The new stage also lacks seating and shade, leaving viewers standing in a vast, sweltering expanse of asphalt on sunny days. Regardless of the show’s quality, the whole setup is confusing when you consider that the former Galaxy Theater had both seating and shade. Using the Galaxy Theater also wouldn’t have necessitated the addition of the monolithic stage and control booth in Tomorrowland itself like the new show does.

The show itself illustrates just how derivative Disney’s offerings have become; it’s all simply an excuse to incorporate the Living Character Initiative interactive Stitch, which is also in use at California Adventure, Hong Kong Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios in Paris. It’s also pretty much the exact same gag as Turtle Talk, which is already in place at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT, and Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor, which sits right across Tomorrowland from the Stitch show. Same gag, same idea, just more burping. Hilarious. Let’s just hope that guests weren’t already burped out by Stitch’s Great Escape, which uses the exact same character as the stage show and is also right there in Tomorrowland. Variety – the spice of life.

Anyway, the show is gone now so we’ll hope that there’s a miraculous turnaround, the stage is moved to a less obtrusive location, completely rethemed, Stitch’s Great Escape is also rethemed, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor is also rethemed, the Carousel of Progress is refurbished and updated, the empty Skyway station is demolished and replaced with a new attraction, the demolished Galaxy Theater is replaced, the Grand Prix cars are converted to electric and rethemed, and the WEDway expanded. Hey, it could happen.

For those of you who will now never have the pleasure of having seen Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration, I give you…

When I was but a young Disney nerd in the pre-internet era, I was always hungry for details about the mysterious lost attractions from Disneyland’s past. Chief amongst these was the legendary Flying Saucers ride, which operated in Tomorrowland from 1961-66 and is still spoken about with wistfulness by those who were there at the time. To a kid, the idea of personal flying saucers seemed beyond the scope of known science – I always wondered, “How did they do that?” Well, here’s how they did it.

Our invention relates to an air supported vehicle and means by which it is supplied with a sustaining cushion of air which is constantly replenished from a source external to the vehicle.

Another object of our invention is the provision of an air supported car or vehicle which carries no motor, propeller or fuel, and thus is free from their weight, and the considerable hazards of high speed rotating parts and fire.

Another object of our invention is to provide air pressure generating, distribution and control means by which a high volume of low pressure air can be maintained in a distribution plenum chamber below a planar deck over which our car may move, with limited areas of applied pressure directly below the car, and without material loss of air from areas not covered by our vehicles.

Another object of our invention is to provide valves in the deck above our distribution plenum chamber which automatically open when the vehicle is over them, and close when the vehicle moves to uncover them. Another object is to actuate these valves without tangible mechanical contact with the vehicle.

Other objects of this invention are to provide launching means to initiate flight of the cars as well as means to remove the sustaining air cushion, so as to drop the vehicles to the deck.

Another object is to provide a manually controlled distribution valve in each car for effecting steering of the car by means of peripheral, tangential jets derived from air under pressure in the car plenum.

Still another object is to provide a collecting or gathering boom capable of collecting cars while in flight on the flight deck into a restricted area for loading and unloading passengers.

A further object is to provide a car of light weight construction in which the essential parts are an area to accommodate a passenger in a balancing position, and a car plenum chamber.

The Flying Saucers were designed by Karl Bacon and Ed Morgan from Arrow Development, who helped create a lot of the earliest ride systems for Disneyland. The Flying Saucers were cutting edge for their time, and Disney paid for it with constant breakdowns and logistical hurdles. They didn’t make the cut when Tomorrowland was redesigned in 1967, and many young fans of that era still mourn their loss. One of these longtime fans is Pixar head John Lasseter, who sought to revive the Flying Saucer concept when selecting rides for California Adventure’s upcoming Carsland area.

Flying Saucer… Truck Tires? Coming soon to California Adventure

The patent for the Flying Saucers – a.k.a. the “Air Car and Supporting Apparatus” – was granted on May 17th, 1966. And now you can build your own at home!

                          

Ten years ago yesterday, on a drizzly and humid Orlando morning, Disney fans gathered in Florida’s Magic Kingdom to bid farewell to one of the park’s original and most beloved attractions. Scores of fans and protesters, many with matching t-shirts, buttons and posters, took their last opportunity to see a favorite attraction and to voice their displeasure with the park’s management. On September 7, 1998, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride took its last daredevil excursion to nowhere in particular, and I was there.

The events leading up to and surrounding the demise of J. Thaddeus Toad and his adventures were a bellwether event for Disney fans; for many, they were the “shot heard ’round the world” that signaled the declaration of a war between fans and management that, in many ways, continues to this day. While the changes in corporate management that began with the ouster of Michael Eisner in 2005 have gone a long way towards healing this deep rift, many fans still harbor a deep level of distrust for management born of the Toad era and cemented by many even greater missteps to follow.

On the heels of Walt Disney World’s 25th anniversary in 1996, fan-management relations were still fairly cheery. There had been missteps – the grating new Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management show was looming on the horizon – but the property as a whole was still growing in fairly exciting ways. Yet, at the Magic Kingdom, there were areas of concern for long-term fans. Many of the out-of-the-way shops and attractions that gave the Magic Kingdom its unique texture were slowly disappearing in favor of more marketing-driven concepts. The park was slowly growing more homogenized, and guests were far less likely to discover the exotic hidden away in some unseen corner.

Main Street was hit hard by these changes; in 1995, guests lost the fan-favorite Magic Shop and Penny Arcade along with the Main Street Bookstore in order to make way for the generic athletic apparel of the Main Street Athletic Company. The Main Street Cinema followed in 1998, becoming another run-of-the-mill merchandise location. Perhaps the first salvo in this battle was not recognized for what it was until much later; in 1994, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea went down for a rehab from which it never returned. One of the flagship attractions of Walt Disney World’s debut, and still very popular in 1994, the submarines were closed as a cost-cutting measure that was at the time unacknowledged by the Magic Kingdom management. The ride was “on hiatus” for years, as its once-scenic lagoon filled with garbage and decay.

It was in this uncertain atmosphere that rumors began to emerge in the fall of 1997 that Disney would be closing Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in order to add an attraction featuring Winnie the Pooh. Those who were not Disney fans at that time might not be aware how ubiquitous Pooh had become at the time; a huge marketing crush had made the portly bear more popular than ever and Disney didn’t miss a chance to cram him and his neurotic backwoods pals down the throats of consumers. One could easily compare the Pooh marketing of the era to today’s High School Musical overkill, and it only made it more maddening to fans to have the marketing darling of the day sweep in to replace a popular existing attraction.

    

While the reach of the internet was far less vast in those days than it is today, the nascent Disney online fandom rallied to the cause and the centerpiece of fan efforts was Save Toad. The Save Toad movement, spearheaded by Miami-based Disney fan Jef Moscot, began a year of protest, distributing pins and t-shirts and mailing hundreds of postcards to Disney management. Press coverage followed, but as time passed Disney continued to maintain that no decision had been made to the fate of Mr. Toad.

The crowd gathers for the final Toad-In

Despite these evasions, Disney finally revealed that Toad would close on Labor Day, 2008. The announcement, which came only a week before the closing, was designed to give fans only a short time to respond. But respond they did, gathering for a final Toad In on September 7th. To say the occasion was bittersweet was an understatement; fans gathered to discuss Toad memories and ride one last time under the constant oversight of a cadre of Magic Kingdom managers. Cast Members were stationed throughout the ride, hiding in the corners to ostensibly prevent crazed Toad fans from doing anything untowards. In the end, fans were ushered out of the park at closing time by cast members – some sympathetic and some oblivious – and Mr. Toad was no more.

An unknown Toadite and myself on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. We were the second-to-last car ever to witness the antics of Toad on that side of the attraction.

Why did the loss of this attraction strike such a chord with fans? Why did people travel from across the country to bid farewell to a rather simple and technologically outdated dark ride?

The original iteration of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride opened at Disneyland in 1955, only six years after Disney’s animated retelling of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s classic, The Wind in the Willows, debuted in theaters. The film adaptation, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, never became a particularly beloved entry in the Disney canon, which makes it all the more peculiar that when building Walt Disney World sixteen years later the Imagineers decided to revisit Mr. Toad. This was not always the plan; originally the “funny ride” slot in the Fantasyland lineup was intended to feature a ride based on the story of Ichabod Crane and the legend of Sleepy Hollow. In the end, it was decided that Disneyland’s dark rides would be re-created in Florida to save some development money and thus Toad came to Walt Disney World.

Orlando’s version of Toad was expansive; it was far larger than its counterpart at Disneyland. In fact, the attraction was built with two tracks that, unlike any other ride in Disney history, presented completely different show experiences. And what experiences – Toad presented a psychedelic melange of scenes that took us from Toad Hall to gypsy camps, from prison to Hell itself! It was inhabited by a motley crew of woodland creatures, villainous weasels, gunslinging British bobbies and buxom barmaids. The beer flowed, the bullets flew, and the portrait of Rapunzel hung on the wall, her modesty barely concealed by her flowing locks. It was quite a ride.

And yes, the ride ended with guests being struck by an oncoming locomotive and being sent to Hell, where a brightly painted Satan loomed overhead. What other ride at Disney could claim such a dramatic finale?

You don’t see that in Toy Story Mania

It made little to no sense, even if you had seen the film on which it was based, and it was magnificent. There was a sense of reckless insanity and borderline seediness to it, and as a child one wavered between horror and bewilderment. Where will modern children gain knowledge of Edwardian barrooms and the perils of the horseless carriage? What ride contains anything approaching Rolly Crump’s unhinged color scheme or character design as distinct as the oddball denizens of Toad’s London – the sneering weasels and sleazy mustachioed barman Winky?

Without Toad, Fantasyland is far less exciting and the Magic Kingdom is poorer for it. The ride had an edge without trying to be “edgy” – as a child you had a feeling you were seeing something a bit over your head. Surely you weren’t meant to sneak a peek at that buxom barmaid – yet there she was!

As stated, the demise of Toad began the long war between Disney fans and management. Soon after came the arrival of Journey into YOUR Imagination, something that even those fans who refused to lament Toad’s departure could not countenance. Horizons, a masterpiece of epic Imagineering, closed soon after and began its slow decay. The real megaton blast in this conflict came when Eisner and acolyte Paul Pressler opened their “masterpiece”, California Adventure, in 2001. This time not only did fans stay away, but the general public did too. The ill will engendered over the previous several years finally came home to roost for Eisner, who was pushed out of office in 2005 partially by a fan and stockholder revolt led by Roy Disney.

While it remains to be seen whether current management will truly rebuild the burnt bridges with fans, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever see another attraction as unique as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Its sheer madcap atmosphere and bizarre design sensibilities seem unique to its era, and it’s definitely not something that would make it through the gauntlet of focus groups and marketing flacks that new attractions must survive. Here’s to you, J. Thaddeus – you are missed.