Archives

Contribute to Our Research

Promoting Spaceship Earth, 1982

Making the rounds on Twitter last weekend was this remarkable video, made by the Bell System in 1982 to promote their sponsorship of Spaceship Earth at the newly-opened EPCOT Center. The “Chronicle News Update” contains a chat with AT&T president William Ellinghaus, who presided over the pavilion’s opening ceremony, as well as Disney CEO Card […]

The Renaissance Age

When we old people bemoan the need for ambition, scope, and class in Disney’s current efforts, this is what we mean…

Related Posts…The Dream Called EPCOTThe Progress City Radio Hour – Episode 57 – Town Hall: Davy Feiten, Part IThe Progress City Radio Hour – Episode 52 – Doris Hardoon Town Hall, Part IThe World of MotionPromoting Spaceship Earth, 1982

Tickets, Please…

With the arrival of EPCOT Center in 1982, Disney was forced to take a look at its pricing structure. The old ticket-book strategy wouldn’t work for this new park, with its megalithic corporate-sponsored pavilions. With every corporation paying handsomely for a seat at the EPCOT table, how could Disney tell one sponsor that their […]

A Krafty Birthday

It’s October, which means that it’s Walt Disney World’s birthday month. This year, of course, the resort turned thirty-nine, an anniversary mostly overlooked as Disney musters its resources to prepare to overlook the fortieth anniversary next year (“I gave her Indiana Jones Adventure, she gave me a pen.”) But maybe we can fit in a […]

Tea For TRON and TRON For Tea

Walter Cronkite is one of my heroes. Authoritative yet avuncular, his constant reassuring presence during the events of the later 20th century made him the perfect choice to narrate EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth from 1986 to 1994. So if I love Walter Cronkite, and I love TRON, what would I love the most? Why, Walter Cronkite […]