Progress City, U.S.A.

There’s a question that I’ve seen pop up often over the years in the search results by which people are redirected to this site. With all the hubbub leading up to yesterday’s return of Captain EO to Disneyland’s Tomorrowland, I’ve seen a new explosion of people asking this question:

What does Captain “EO” stand for?

I’m assuming they mean as an abbreviation, not what does he stand for philosophically. Because you do not want to know.

Anyway, to answer that question I’ll quote myself – a citation from my old, old, old original Disney website, WEBCOT:

The name ‘Captain EO’ comes from Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn. Yes, Imagineers sometimes take drugs.

So there you go. Officially, EO doesn’t stand for anything. Not even Earl Owensby. It’s just a shout-out to all those ancient Greeks who happen to be Jacko fans.

And now, because it’s apropos, I repost this video:

While I’m no EO fan, doesn’t the fact that we’re still saddled with Honey, I Shrunk the Audience seem like another instance of Walt Disney World getting a swift kick to the batch while Disneyland points and laughs? Let’s see how John Lasseter would like it if he could only ever see Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management in perpetuity.

I’ll keep reminding myself – we have the WEDway, we have the WEDway…

Donald seems concerned…

There’s been a lot of low-level news lately that I’ve neglected to mention, and one of these stories involves my beloved WEDway Peoplemover. The Tomorrowland classic took a brief refurbishment break when Space Mountain went down for its rehab earlier this year, and has recently opened again with some minor changes.

Visually, the lights along the overhead track have been replaced with LED lighting that is able to fade from one color to another. The overall effect is very moody at night, with dark reds and purples giving an otherworldly feel.

The most noticeable, and most discussed, change is in the attraction’s narration. Gone is the booming 1994 “future of the past” narration; instead, guests now hear a more subdued, descriptive track that does not present a storyline for the land but just serves to point out the various attractions to guests. It’s far less obtrusive than the previous narration, but many fans who grew up knowing only the 1994 ride rehab have objected to the loss of the land’s storyline and the narration’s references and in-jokes. Others prefer the new narration; why not watch this nice fresh video from Orlando Attractions Magazine and we’ll discuss?

What do you think? I don’t think it’s so bad. First, and most importantly, it does no harm. It’s low key and unobtrusive, as opposed to the previous narration that could be a little blaring at times. The biggest drawback for me is the intrusion of character voices with Stitch, Mickey, Buzz and Roz, but that’s just an unfortunate byproduct of what Tomorrowland has become. That’s a much bigger problem beyond a mere single narration track.

What’s interesting is that it’s the first WEDway narration since the original Jack Wagner track that doesn’t try to present some sort of fictional backstory. The 1994 redo and the ORAC-1 “commuter computer” narration from the 1980s both were centered around narrative conceits, while the new narration is not. It is chirpy and light in tone like the ORAC-1 version, instead of the more stentorian tones of Jack Wagner or the 1994 remodel. It also uses the term “peoplemover”, which had been abandoned in 1994 when it was rethemed to become the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. That’s a recipe for fanboy happiness.

And, in case you didn’t notice, there was a shout-out to Progress City. Thanks, guys!

The scuttlebutt on the internet suggests that this is merely a temporary track that’s being used until Space Mountain re-opens later this year. That’s definitely plausible, but hopefully they won’t replace it with something completely over-the-top. While it will indeed be strange at first to ride without the spiel that’s been there – shockingly – for fifteen years now, the many changes that have occurred in Tomorrowland since 1994 made it necessary to create a new narration. While unfortunately we’re still stuck with the character invasion, unlike Disneyland we still have our Peoplemover and that’s something to be really excited about.

Now, for a bonus trip down memory lane, here’s Martin Smith’s tribute to the WEDway. If you never experienced the pre-1994 ORAC-1 narration, enjoy:

Those of you who have been around a while might remember the cell phone video that I posted in April of the vaguely terrifying effect that recent negligence has had on the Carousel of Progress. Father dearest seems to wobble drunkenly in his chair, head lolling about, and his artificial skin is riding so far up his neck it seems that he has some painful glandular issue.

Well, I finally got around to digitizing the longer video that I filmed afterward and I’ve uploaded it to the Progress City YouTube page. Behold:

Time for a rehab, ya think?

When I posted my EPCOT rant last week, little did I realize that there was a bit of a wave of EPCOT discussion sweeping the web already. Specifically, this thread on WDWMagic discussing a recent interview with Imagineer Eddie Sotto. The article itself is revelatory; it’s full of Sotto’s ideas of what Tomorrowland and EPCOT should be, and how the DVC concept could be leveraged into finally bringing Walt’s Progress City to life. It’s all spot-on. Long-time readers will know that I’m always grousing that Disney should put a single Imagineer in a position to supervise EPCOT as Joe Rohde does with Animal Kingdom. I’m convinced now that were I in charge, I would beg Sotto to come back to WDI and transform EPCOT into what it deserves to be.

For those who don’t know Sotto’s work, it includes development on Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure, Tokyo’s Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, Disneyland Paris’s Main Street, the unbuilt Sci-Fi City concept, and outside projects like ABC’s Times Square Studio and LAX’s Encounter restaurant. He left Imagineering in 1999 and, showing just how good his taste actually is, named his design studio “Progress City.”

Anyway, while the discussion of EPCOT on WDWMagic is fascinating, the most interesting (and somewhat infuriating) thing that I discovered was a link to ULTra. ULTra is a personal rapid transit system that will see its first use later this year at London’s Heathrow Airport. In all the talk about what Disney should be doing to re-invigorate EPCOT or solve the transportation solutions at Walt Disney World, this is happening on the other side of the world. Look at this!!

Why isn’t Disney doing this? How can they be falling behind this far? To me, this tech is fantastic. This is exactly what Walt was looking for, what he had planned for EPCOT, and what he was advocating for as early as 1958 in Magic Highway, U.S.A.:

The ULTra is straight out of a Ward Kimball animation, or Tomorrowland 1967, or Walt’s EPCOT film. It builds upon the work that Imagineering once started with the Houston WEDway, combines those ideals with styling from the age of Steve Jobs, and would be perfect to serve the needs of Disney’s guests. Someone slip it to Bob Iger, please?

For more on Imagineer Eddie Sotto, read interviews at Yesterland, Themed Attraction (an extensive, four-part piece), and with Disney and More on his new restaurant, Riviera.