…It’s here.
At long last, the inaugural episode of the Progress City Radio Hour has arrived. We’re still working on technical matters, and it’ll take a while to show up in iTunes, but for now – enjoy!
 The Disney Look – Summer Options for Supervisory and Office PersonnelOnce upon a time… Dick Nunis was the head of what is now known as Disney Parks & Resorts. Nunis had risen through the ranks back in Walt’s day, eventually receiving the assignment of traveling to Florida to whip things into shape when Walt Disney World’s construction became bogged down and behind schedule. After twisting arms and busting tails in order to get the resort in working order, he continue to rise through the ranks until he was running the entire Attractions division. Then things took a turn. Michael Eisner and Frank Wells arrived in 1984, and shifted the focus of the company drastically from theme parks to the moribund film division. Eisner wasn’t a theme park guy; while his push for prestige eventually led to a wave of expansion in the parks, he seemed at the time much more concerned with building his role as a media mogul. For the time being, the parks were on their own. And so was Nunis. A wave of new executives from the film industry had arrived with no ties to Walt’s era, and Nunis increasingly became the odd man out in the corporate boardroom. As someone who had started at Disneyland in 1955, Nunis was an increasingly rare link to a bygone era. So Nunis wound up in Florida. A stickler for the old principles from Walt’s day, it was perhaps easier on the executives in Burbank if Dick was posted to Orlando. And so it was that, perhaps, Dick Nunis went a little stir-crazy. It would be hard to blame him. Nunis had previously been at the center of everything, fighting to get the parks what they needed to meet Walt’s standards. But as control of what got built in the Disney parks began to slip further into the hands of the insidious Strategic Planning department, an army of accountants, and even the whims of Eisner’s sons, Nunis faced many more obstacles than he had in the past. To Nunis’s credit, he was constantly pushing to create a unique and separate identity for Walt Disney World. This was a vestige of those early days, when the resort was the “Vacation Kingdom of the World” and clearly and obviously different from all other attractions in the area and even its corporate cousin Disneyland. As long as he could help it, Walt Disney World would be a distinct and unique vacation experience. In 1991, though, Nunis went a bridge too far. As the story goes, Nunis had been on a trip to Bermuda. There, it is perhaps no surprise, he saw men wearing Bermuda shorts – even businessmen. Apparently this caused something of a brainwave. Disney’s reputation – especially in Nunis’s day – hinged on a very straightlaced, businesslike appearance. But by incorporating the Bermuda look with the executive dress code at Walt Disney World, the resort’s management would look professional and corporate while also conveying the feel of the sunny tropics. Besides, it would be far more comfortable than wearing a full suit in those humid Florida summers. The result was astounding. George Taylor at Imaginerding recently posted an image from a 1991 Eyes & Ears in which the new dress code was announced. I think you’ll find the picture will be hard to forget. Oddly enough, George posted his article as the following was passed along to me – a summary of the new dress code that was passed out to executives at the time. There were options for men and women, and I think you’ll agree that they’re quite impressive. In the end, there’s only one question – was this a great idea, or the greatest idea?
These dress options were intended, as stated, for supervisory and office personnel at the Walt Disney World Co. Florida property only. The “Bermuda/Walking Shorts Look” was allowed from June 1st through September 30th. Here are the options for the gents:  The Disney Summer Look for the Gentlemen
“This option is subject to fashion each year.” Yup, I’d agree with that. But what of the ladies?  The Disney Summer Look for the Ladies. I like the one on the far right – she seems saucy.
I like the ladies’ guidelines better. The list of poor short choices in #1 is fantastic, if only for the shout-out for jams. The list of materials in #6 makes me wonder what these executives were up to in their off-hours. So there’s a peek at the casual, yet professional, atmosphere of Walt Disney World in 1991. Special thanks to Progress Citizen par excellence Another Voice, who clued me in to this tale and passed along the pretty pictures. Related Posts...Long before the Pueblo Room was a glint in Dick Nunis’s eye, planning was underway for Walt Disney World. Who knows how long Walt had mulled privately over his ideas for a megaproject in the east; but even before the scope of his plans for the Florida scrub became apparent to the public, work was going on at Walt Disney Productions to define what, exactly, this project would be. The following is an internal memo from WED Enterprises that details a planning meeting for “Project Future” that took place on June 14th, 1965. The meeting allowed Walt to present his ideas to the board members and legal staff of Walt Disney Productions, lawyers and consultants from the state of Florida, and Disney’s legal staff from New York City. This would, in turn, allow the staff an idea of the project’s scope and needs so that they could then begin researching and crafting the necessary legal groundwork. This planning would eventually culminate in the special district legislation in the Florida legislature that led to the Reedy Creek Improvement District and the creation of Walt Disney World. Walt’s ideas for the property at this point were spelled out only in the roughest brushstrokes, but you can still get an idea of what he was driving at. While some of these ideas were clearly pie-in-the-sky, there are some interesting thoughts here about the underlying ethos of the resort and I leave it up to you to determine how well the company has carried over those philosophies into the modern day. It’s also amusing to see the concerns that faced the early planners, and how those concerns still rear their heads today.
And so it began… Related Posts... Rick Heinrichs and Tim Burton with some of the characters from “Vincent” (Disney)With Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland approaching theaters, it’s good to remember where it all started for Burton – right at the Disney Studios in the early 1980s, alongside a number of talented but underutilized young animators.
The studio, of course, didn’t really know what to do with Burton, and he would soon depart along with other young animators like John Lasseter. Burton, who also did conceptual work for The Black Cauldron, would make another short for Disney in 1984; Frankenweenie can be seen on the DVD release of The Nightmare Before Christmas alongside Vincent. Burton is also remaking it as a feature film for his next Disney project. You can see, though, in the picture from the article that the oh-so-young Burton was already working on several of the key design styles that would emerge in his later work. Rick Heinrichs would make good for himself too, filling various artistic roles on a number of Burton projects and emerging as an art director on major projects like the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films, the current release The Wolfman, and the upcoming Captain America. Related Posts...Subtitle: 1,001 Arabian Flushes… So ever since the long quest for photographic proof of EPCOT’s lost Danish bathrooms concluded, the hunt was on for those other lone bathrooms of EPCOT’s early days – the restroom complex that would one day be part of the Morocco pavilion.  World Showcase, 1982While the Morocco showcase would not open until 1984, you can tell from this 1982 photograph that work was already underway at that site well before the pavilion’s official “groundbreaking” in 1983.
Of course, there was already something completed on the site – the bathrooms. Here they are, in all their glory, as they were on opening day in 1982:  The Morocco bathrooms at EPCOT, 1982Guests were no doubt grateful for these solitary and mysterious bathrooms – the only such facilities between the United Kingdom and the American Adventure. The complex stood alone – almost like a French Foreign Legion outpost in the middle of nowhere – until it was joined by the rest of the Morocco pavilion in 1984.  The Moroccan bathrooms, with pavilion attached (Photo found here)Of course, the bathrooms of Morocco don’t have the cachet of mystery that the toilets of the lost Denmark pavilion have maintained. Sadly, we’ve all but exhausted the possibilities for porcelain archaeology in World Showcase – until that day where scientists hopefully unearth the plumbing fixtures for the mythical Equatorial Africa complex… Related Posts... |
 From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats.  |
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