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EPCOT: Origins – The Tripartite Plan, 1975

By 1975, Walt Disney Productions had given up any pretense that it was ever going to build Walt’s city of the future in Florida. The stirring images of Progress City had disappeared from their promotional materials, and by July of that year a Disney spokesman publicly stated that “the concept that was originally envisioned is […]

Around The Disney World, 1977 – Tokyo Disneyland

Tokyo Disneyland conference room at WED Enterprises

We’ve seen what was happening at EPCOT Center in 1977, but sometimes it’s interesting to look at where projects were in their development relative to others. In many ways, Tokyo Disneyland and EPCOT Center were twin developments; their design and construction overlapped through the late 1970s and early […]

EPCOT: Origins – Master Plan 5, 1977

EPCOT Center’s path from concept to execution was, in so many ways, far more tortured than most Disney fans know. Far from a merely difficult transition from Walt’s concept for a futuristic city to a permanent World’s Fair (or, as modern revisionists would have it, a straight shot from Walt’s mind to the park that […]

Elseworlds – EPCOT Center’s French Circlevision?

Have you ever looked at a picture that you’ve seen a million times before, only to note something random that you have to have seen before but had never noticed? Check out this picture from 1980 of Imagineer John Hench, and see if you notice anything:

John Hench with an Imagineering model of EPCOT Center’s […]

Euro Disney’s Future That Never Was

Way back when, it was the tradition for every new Disney theme park – or even major attraction! – to get a big opening special. Euro Disneyland was no exception; it got its ballyhooed stateside debut when The Grand Opening of Euro Disney aired on CBS on April 11th, 1992.

This particular special is not […]