Widen Your World Original Site Text Dump!

Hey

This post is a reproduction of all the written content that was a part of WYW when I discontinued the domain omniluxe.net in 2022. Porting it all over into one post is taking a while but will ultimately make it possible to refer back to all the old stuff when I spend time on new information.

The totality is decades worth of scattered paragraphs about early WDW - absolute facts, impolite opinions and speculative junk written at different times by someone who grew up with the resort in the 1970s, worked there in the 1980s and documented a lot of it in the 1990s. It's probably not well-suited for reading as a single piece and it only covers specific aspects of its broader subject matter. It fixates especially on long-gone attractions, weirder stuff like dark rides or magic shops plus the work of specific designers like Mary Blair, Claude Coats, Rolly Crump and Marc Davis. It adores Tony Baxter.

There's one main premise beneath all the words: Walt Disney World was once the most amazing manmade resort/attraction on the planet - the greatest amount of cool stuff in one physical place with the least amount of mediocrity mixed in (they even put all the golf off to one side in the beginning so it didn't water down the other parts). And it was at its overall apex, with the most successfully integrated configuration of all its components and the least number of critical elements missing, between 1971 and 1996. Its aura in the 1970s, especially, was distinct and crisp and experienced by the least number of people who can still remember it today. It had fewer attractions but more cohesion. Clean beyond belief... almost sparkling. Being aesthetically maintained, directly, by some of WED Imagineering's finest hands for the first few years. That very early version of WDW started to get more nostalgic love from Disney itself starting in the 2010s. They go further now, of course, and may continue? For the 50th anniversary, they definitely made strides. Before that, Widen Your World attempted to convey what that "early WDW feeling" was for the resort's first visitors and to provide context for those who wish they could have seen it firsthand. Now it's a little bit of everything.

This was the first zine & website covering Walt Disney World's history and was the most frequently plagiarized site devoted to the topic. I was used by some of the best lol, including Disney themselves, and a few of the worst! Sometimes WYW is credited as a source when used, sometimes not. If you read the same thing here and some other place, it's from here. If I quote text from a publication, it's attributed as such. All images are either my own, official company images or, again, attributed to their original source. I watermarked a few images years ago when I thought it was worth the effort. It's not. Some people are just gonna take stuff and say it's theirs. That's life.

On the flip side, some of the WDW-centric sites and blogs that arose after WYW began were EXACTLY what I'd hoped to see manifest online. Had they existed prior to 1996, my urgency to create a site would have been tempered. But I'll keep this one around in one format or another, because people still turn to it often and express their appreciation, which is all I could have asked for.

SUPER EARLY WDW STUFF (1958-1966) 

The story of Walt Disney World mostly begins with Walt Disney and Disneyland, the theme park which he opened in Anaheim on July 17th, 1955. After some brief uncertainty it proved to be a massive hit, capturing the imagination of the entire world, defining what it meant to be a theme park, revolutionizing the concept of rides, elevating customer service, creating a new set of cast member (employee) standards from the ground up and much more. It's still evolving today. I'm not recapping Disneyland's history because the world doesn't need more accounts of something so well-documented from someone who wasn't even alive when the place opened. As for the earliest segments of WDW history, such as the Florida land purchases and the formation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, there have been entire books that cover this in great detail. So I'm sketching through the basics (albeit with new information arranged in a new way) below on my way to actual areas of focus, but recommend via the bibliography near the bottom of this page certain titles that expand upon those pre-1971 topics. 

Because of how great a success Disneyland had become in just a few years, Walt Disney soon began thinking about prospects for other physical entertainment environments in other places. In 1958, he hired Harrison "Buzz" Price's* Economic Research Associates to begin evaluating locations for another Disney project in the eastern United States. Disney put substantial time and effort into a mid-1960s plan for a park in St. Louis called Riverfront Square, but before and during that time he was looking at Florida as a likely location for his next venture.  He commissioned two additional reports in 1959 and another in 1961, the result of which was a determination that Ocala would be the ideal site, with Orlando coming in second. After yet another report in 1963 elevated Orlando to the top of the locations, and immediately following a meeting in St. Louis where Walt was insulted by the head of Anheuser-Busch over Disney's refusal to consider the sale of alcohol at Riverfront Square, Walt flew over Central Florida that November and set the wheels in motion for what would become Walt Disney World. At the same time, Walt and his WED Enterprises design team were hard at work on four new attractions for the 1964-1965 World's Fair in New York City, which would have a substantial impact on much of what ultimately was planned for, and transpired in, Florida.

*Price (1921-2010) had an MBA from Stanford and was working with the Stanford Research Institute when first contacted by Walt Disney in 1953 as part of an effort to pinpoint the best location for a Disneyland park.

By mid-1964, the exact location and plots of land that Disney would purchase (using fake company names and operatives with CIA and/or extensive legal backgrounds, chief among them William Donovan, Bob Foster, Paul Helliwell and Phil Smith) had been decided upon, with the center of the site being about 15 miles southwest of Orlando.  Three major parcels for the site were tied down by August and a year later there were less than 300 acres left to secure out of the final count of 27,443. Walt made at least one trip to his land once it had been purchased and met with his associates, having flown to kind-of-nearby Kissimmee under the pseudonym Bill Davis (a name that would be associated 50 years later with Orlando tourism in the form of Universal Orlando's president). Walt was almost recognized once or twice but not enough for word to travel. Very few people in Central Florida besides Disney's own operatives knew who was buying the land. A couple, such as Orlando Sentinel publisher Martin Andersen and Sun Bank president William "Billy" Dial, had been clued in and sworn to secrecy. Orlando had been a quiet citrus and cattle town for most of its history, with some tourism activity related to its location through which people headed south toward Miami, southwest toward Cypress Gardens, northwest toward Silver Springs or, at its own doorstep, Gatorland. But now it was ablaze with rumors regarding who was purchasing all that property. The names and theories thrown out for consideration ranged from the Hercules Powder Company, Ford Motor Company and Boeing. Why so much land, and why the secrecy? The guessing game was intense and often zany, with Orlando Sentinel columnist Charlie Wadsworth hot on the trail of any lead or source that might reveal the identity of his "mystery industry." Disney did make the list of potential buyers in the mix, but was not a prime suspect. Not until Emily Bavar got involved.

Paul Helliwell (1915-1976) was a US Colonel, OSS Officer, CIA Operative and Miami Attorney who helped Walt Disney Productions negotitate with Florida property owners in order to secure parcels for Walt Disney World when the company's identity was still being kept secret from the public and all but a handful of businesspeople, namely those involved with the land acquisitions.  Prior to assisting Disney Helliwell had been instrumental in setting up offshore banks and shell companies to help the CIA with various projects deemed by his employers to be in the interest of national security.  For Helliwell this also meant dealing with organized crime figures and foreign operatives that could advance US programs without an appearance of having been underwritten by the US government.  His experience was key in Disney's secret land purchase operation and also the principles behind WDP setting up its own municipalities within the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

On October 17th, 1965, Bavar, an Orlando Sentinel editor and reporter, printed her firm belief that Walt Disney Productions had purchased the land. She and other reporters from across the country had been invited to visit Disneyland on the occasion of that park's tenth anniversary. During a Q&A session with Walt, she asked if he was behind the Florida land purchases. She said he was shocked by the question and that his answer belied a detailed knowledge of the region's details such as annual rainfall and tourist visitation even as he told her Central Florida was not the kind of place he'd want to locate an attraction. Bavar, referring back to Walt's response years later, said "he wasn't a very good liar." Although few took her story seriously at first glance, within a couple days her editors decided to make her educated guess a front page headline. On October 24th, Florida Governor Haydon Burns confirmed in a public announcement that he'd received official word from Walt Disney: his company was in fact the owner of 43 square miles (27,443 acres) of land near Orlando.

Emily Bavar Kelly (1915-2003) was born in El Paso, Texas and earned a Journalism degree from Texas Women's University in Denton. She joined the Orlando Sentinel writing staff in the 1950s and stayed with the paper until retiring in the 1980s. She continued to write for the Chicago Tribune after her retirement.

Walt Disney might have chosen Central Florida not entirely as the result of research and intuition, but also out of a bit of sentimentality. His parents, Flora and Elias, had been married in Kismet, Florida in 1888. Kismet no longer exists but was located in north Lake County, in the Paisley area. Although their parents moved to Chicago before Walt and his brother Roy were born (respectively in 1901 and 1893), both sons visited relatives just north of Orlando periodically... before Disneyland itself was even built.

As far as history has recorded, however, the first and only time that Walt Disney actually set foot in the city of Orlando was November 16, 1965, when he, Roy and Burns held a press conference in the Egyptian Room of the Cherry Plaza Hotel on the western shore of Lake Eola. While it seems from the standpoint of revelations that Walt and Roy hadn't expected to be attending this type of event at such an early date in the project's lifespan, Walt did make mention of plans to equal or top the amount of investment that he had made in California. But he also stressed that he had too many possible ideas for what might materialize in Florida for him to list them off, and that all of the prospects were preliminary. Between Governor Burns and the reporters, you can see in videos of the event that everyone just wanted to hear Walt say he was going to build another Disneyland (something they could wrap their heads around in terms of scope, size and concept), but Walt didn't cave to the pressure. No concept art was presented at the time and the best verbal indicator for what the thousands of interested parties could hope to see Walt Disney Productions develop in Florida was a unique, family attraction that might include a model community or city of the future.

Try to imagine being the governor of Florida when all of this was happening and, immediately afterward, when the announcement has passed and Walt has returned to California to begin the long process of assigning form to what he will build in Florida, when all the heated speculation as to the owner of the land has concluded and when your entire state is recovering from the biggest announcement to be made there since the advent of television. And now, time for peaceful reflection? Nope, because now you're being deluged with all sorts of inquiries about every single possible aspect of Disney coming to Florida from every conceivable governmental or business interest from all corners of the state, wanting connections, influence, assurances or special insights when you are in fact in possession of not much more information on Walt Disney's plans than the average reporter was during that press conference. Inquiries ranging from the mundane to the borderline insane. That was probably maddening.  Anyway, among the images here you'll find some correspondence that speaks to exactly what Governor Burns was contending with during that time period (the one about legalized bullfights is something else).

Meanwhile, Walt Disney, fresh off A) giving the world a consciously vague introduction to the biggest and most expensive project his company has ever planned to tackle and B) the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair... for which he had produced four original shows... coming to a close, had a lot on his mind regarding what would come next. 

Of course there were ideas Walt had for Florida by November 1965 that he just wasn't ready to share with anyone outside his organization.  Plenty of concepts that he had overseen for the development of not only Disneyland and the World's Fair, but also Riverboat Square in St. Louis and a proposed Mineral King ski resort in Sequoia Valley, California provided him with more than enough content to build two entire theme parks if he so desired without the need for a single "new" proposal. He had already made mention, however, in the Orlando press conference how his team was incredibly capable of coming up with concepts and executing them quickly (he cited It's A Small World, designed for Pepsi-Cola's and UNICEF's World's Fair presence, as an example of something that went from rough ideas to opening for the public in a mere eleven months). Some of the concepts that Disney animator Marc Davis devised, in his then-recent reassignment to the position of Imagineer with WED Enterprises (Walt's self-acronymical theme park design firm), for Mineral King and Riverboat Square would find themselves marked for Florida quickly, most notably a musical show with animatronic bears.

As a practical matter, Walt had clear notions about creating a self-contained destination resort that existed apart from everything around it but would be served by nearby major highways already in existence. One of the reasons he wanted 43 square miles was to ensure that when his guests were on Disney property, their eyes and ears would not be distracted by the sights and sounds of the outside world as they were for guests of Disneyland in Anaheim... where the freeways and billboards and high-rise hotels encroached upon the borders of his kingdom and worked against the illusory qualities inherent to the park's appeal. In Florida this would be entirely avoidable and every component of the project would complement the others. "Twice the size as the island of Manhattan," in Walt's words, and all of it to be orchestrated in full-scale harmony. There would be a theme park comparable to Disneyland, without question. It would contain attractions familiar to Disneyland guests and also some unique to Florida. Themed resorts connected to the park and other features of the resort by Alweg Monorail, Peoplemover lines or boat, golf courses, artificial waterways adjoining Bay Lake (with more islands added to them), water activities such as swimming, skiing, nightly cruises and a "swamp ride." An industrial park, an entrance complex and day guest parking area, and an airport. 

The number of things his company could do to entertain people was essentially limitless with that much acreage in their hands. By 1965, however, Walt was thinking about something more than entertainment - something much bigger than rides, hotels or even theme parks - for his Florida land. He was thinking about a city.

EPCOT - THE CITY

Almost everyone who's familiar with Walt Disney World has heard about EPCOT (in all caps 1967), as opposed to EPCOT (in all caps 2020), the modern day theme park (which opened in 1982 under the name EPCOT Center and also went by just plain for over 20 years), and knows that the acronym stood for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, Walt Disney's name for a futuristic city he wanted to build in Florida. But very few people know exactly why Walt Disney spent the last two years of his life increasingly focused on plans for a city, or how he caught that bug so feverishly so late in the game. I think I've got the answer and this is where I restate my personal theory that the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, where Walt spent so much time, caused him to take a hard left turn from designing things with city-like aspects to them, like a studio campus or a theme park, to actually wanting to build a very specific type of city.

More to my point, I think when Walt Disney first rode General Motors' Futurama II at the fair, he stepped off the ride a changed man - inspired and a little bit on fire. Hear me out on this one. You have Walt Disney in April 1964, overseeing the finishing touches on the soon-to-be four very popular presentations for the Fair. None of the four, however, really tackle the subject of the future, at least not beyond postscripts framed by appliances (Medallion City), and the future was something of immense interest to Disney. Now as he visits some of the other big attractions at the Fair he sees the future "done" by another company in a dramatic style that he himself might have used: bright, bold, colorful and underscored with a sweeping soundtrack. It must have registered with him that this could have been his own project and any visitor to the Fair could have easily mistaken Futurama II for a Disney project given its level of polish and detail. And even though the Tomorrowland section of Disneyland was about to undergo some major upgrades back in California, none of them were as amazing in scope as that General Motors show. The truth was that no upcoming Disney project, as of early 1964, hinted at the possibility of EPCOT and Walt Disney's major projects almost always came with a long paper trail documenting their incubation or an identifiable spark. There's nothing like that for his city. There WAS Harrison Price's 1959 proposal for a Palm Beach Florida model community (City of Tomorrow) conceived with philanthropist John D. MacArthur for Palm Beach County, Florida... which was not that different in physical size than EPCOT, but it didn't portend any of the futuristic elements we think of as being the backbone of the WDW city concept. Those trappings could be found in Futurama II.

Futurama II was the only World's Fair ride, incidentally, to be visited more often than Disney's rides. So it's been weird to me that no one has even suggested the link between GM's "City of Tomorrow" and Walt Disney's Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (which Walt himself even inadvertently called by its older name, "City of Tomorrow," in 1966) in a book or published article (at least not before I first posted it on Widen Your World in 2014), because if you read Steve Mannheim's Walt Disney and the Quest for Community  (2002), which is as detailed a work as you're going to find on Walt's urban intentions, you'll find that Imagineer Richard Irvine remarked upon the strong impact Walt Disney felt the original (1939) Futurama exhibit had on the public. And here, 25 years later, Futurama's sequel ends with an extravagantly detailed, animated and fully lit model of a future metropolis, to which the Progress City model* that Walt has his team building in 1966 bore so much resemblance that one could not rationally think of it as coincidental. Look at photographs and video of Futurama II's City of Tomorrow, with its gleaming towers atop a covered city center laden with green spaces and placing the roadways beneath the areas of public activity, and try not to see Disney's Progress City. You don't have to squint. Look at the parting image of GM's City of Tomorrow as viewed from above at nighttime, with its elliptical shape and radial plan center, that guests saw at the very end of Futurama II and try not to see EPCOT's general outline. This wasn't a coincidence. Rather, this is what drove Walt forward.

* The Progress City model would become the post-show for the relocated Carousel of Progress, at Disneyland, in 1967. 

There's no practical way to disconnect those two city concepts, and GM's clearly had a two-year jump on Disney's. Take the models out of consideration and you'll still find no actual record of Walt expressing any concrete desire to build a city or even a community-like development with specific parameters prior to the 1964 World's Fair. In fact, the one book on city planning that Walt's colleagues and his daughter Diane said he carried with him was Victor Gruen's The Heart Of Our Cities, which was published in 1964. Imagineer John Hench stated in Mannheim's book that Walt had been following Gruen's work for years, but there's no demonstrable evidence of those years being pre-Fair and certainly no trace of Walt directing any drawings or paintings prior to the World's Fair having opened. Even the Palm Beach project record has revealed no plans for anything but an exquisitely orchestrated housing development (in the same way that the Burbank Disney studio was a well-planned improvement over the original Hyperion studio) near the more Disneyland-ish elements. So I'm always going to believe that the primary credit for what Walt did next (and for his doing it in high gear) is due to Futurama II, because it is the most conspicuous missing link between the well-documented ends of a chain... and because it has been essentially impossible for me to disprove. As of 2021 I've been trying for seven years.

General Motors' Futurama II would also have a tremendous impact on a few rides that Walt Disney Productions created for EPCOT Center in 1982 and 1983.  This influence, which could be conflated with plagiarism in some cases, was most obviously on display in one of my personal favorites, General Electric's Horizons (1983-1999).  The specific links are discussed in more detail under the Horizons and Spaceship Earth headings.  As for the similarities between the Futurama II model city and the Progress City model, compare photos of both.

It's probably obvious that, inspiration aside, Walt Disney stood apart from nearly everyone before him in that he wanted to go beyond plans or models and launched into the first steps of actually making such a city come into full-scale existence (as far as he could take it personally) and to do it, at least in part, at his own expense. Throughout his life he had demonstrated a willingness to gamble on a concept, and quite possibly a genuine passion for taking risks in pursuit of an idea. And it was definitely a risk for him to stake his reputation on something that unprecedented after 40 years of defining and refining family entertainment... for him to mark EPCOT as the centerpiece of his entire Florida vision, which itself he must have known was going to be his final major project. At the time of its construction, Phase One of Walt Disney World was built around the notion of EPCOT rising up in the middle of the property a few years later. Of course, it didn't happen the way the company originally mapped it out. The dichotomous theme park that appropriated the EPCOT acronym in 1982 shared very few physical or conceptual qualities with the idea after which it was named and whose space on the property map it ended up occupying. And the explanations given for this over the years have been as varied as the range of rough drafts that broke EPCOT down into a bankable enterprise instead of the more far-reaching gamble originally envisioned by the "world's master showman." 

Disney had been involved in matters of space planning, crowd flow and infrastructure for decades leading into the 1960s.  The Disney Studios, the CarolWood Pacific Railroad, Disneyland and CalArts were some obvious examples where his hand could be seen in the development of real-life environments which would be inhabited, whether for a few hours or a full career, by real-world people.  If you look at where Walt's attentions were in terms of his early 1960s project workload, he was literally into a little bit of everything (animated films, bobsled rides, live-action musicals, submarines, treehouses and World's Fair attractions - nearly all of which have become iconic). Even after the World's Fair and the November 1965 Florida press conference, he was involved in the development of many future attractions such as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion, as well as films like The Jungle Book and The Happiest Millionaire. His top project, though, was given special attention and treatment. Walt had a group designers at the studio working on virtually nothing but the utopian guts of his Florida Project, to plan the conversion of WED artist Herb Ryman's paintings from canvas to blueprints to steel.

EPCOT's signature visual feature was its 30-story hotel structure placed in the dead center of the city's elliptical layout.  This spatial configuration, a.k.a. "the radial plan," was basically an extension of the hub principle employed to success at Disneyland and had a layout that was symmetrical with businesses and community gathering spots positioned with increased density toward the central point. Everything would radiate out from there like spokes on a wheel.  Office buildings, convention centers, the hotel and recreational spaces would sit atop the city center's roof.  Underneath that roof, completely enclosed and climate-controlled, were the transportation center, office space, storefronts and an international shopping area. Along the perimeter of this core would sit high-density apartment buildings, home to some of the city's workers. Just beyond these structures would be an expansive green belt where community buildings, schools, churches, sports and recreational complexes for EPCOT's residents would be located. Further out, surrounding the entire development, would lie the low-density neighborhood areas. There the houses would back up against broad parks where children could play safely, free from traffic.

Although similar to Disneyland because of its hub, EPCOT's layout had clear elements in common with a more modern influence in the form of Victor Gruen's Cellular Metropolis of Tomorrow, which itself borrowed heavily from British stenographer and designer Ebenezer Howard's garden city plans from the early 1900s. The incorporation of green spaces was a primary feature of both, and it factored heavily into Walt's EPCOT and, coincidentally(?), 2019's plans for a 21st-century reworking of EPCOT the theme park.

The purpose of his city, in Walt's own words, was to "build a living showcase that more people will talk about and come to look at than any other area in the world." It was designed for a population of 20,000 who would live, work, learn and play primarily within EPCOT or other parts of Walt Disney World. And the entire complex would be charged with the daunting task of continually forecasting American urban and home life 25 years into the future. American industries would be constantly updating the technologies in both the commercial buildings and the homes, and those industries would be heavily relied upon as financial partners in the venture.

EPCOT's transportation system would consist largely of two technologies that Disney had already been using or developing at the time: the monorail and the peoplemover. The monorail would run straight through the center of the city with a station directly below the hotel. In this "transportation lobby," there would be connecting service to all parts of the community via the peoplemover. This system would radiate from the central lobby on separate tracks to the outer points of the low-density residential areas, with intermittent stations (vs. stops, for the peoplemover never stops). It was projected that residents would only need their cars for making long trips, not for commuting or shopping. While EPCOT contained plenty of roadways, they were all set up to flow effortlessly in counter-clockwise circles, both large and small, as a result of master-planning.  Industrial automotive vehicles would be relegated to streets and parking spaces below the center of the city to keep things practical and looking pretty. It was even predicted that "nowhere in Disney World will a signal light ever slow the constant flow of traffic." What fun would predictions be if they all came true?

As mentioned above, EPCOT was to be the key component of Walt Disney World, the crucial stop on an almost six-mile long stretch of monorail beam that would also visit the theme park area, a 1,000-acre industrial park and a massive entrance complex which in turn connected with a "Jet Airport of the Future." This was Walt Disney World as envisioned by its namesake. This was the plan he sketched out himself and supervised as it was taken further toward a master plan. But it was only about a year after he made the first announcement that Walt died, on December 15, 1966. This was the beginning of the end for the EPCOT and the "Florida Project" as he saw it.

Yet the public knew little about just how he saw it until February 2, 1967. This was when a film he made about EPCOT the previous October was first seen by anyone outside Walt Disney Productions. It premiered at the Park East Theater in Winter Park, FL, where it was screened for Florida business and government figures. It served as a fantastic pitch, something to not only confirm that the company would move ahead with Walt Disney World and whet the appetites of potential corporate sponsors, but to also pave the way for the Reedy Creek Improvement District legislation that the company would successfully seek to have passed later that year in Tallahassee. This legislation gave the company extensive governmental controls over its Florida property. The film served another purpose that the company would find less desirable in the long run: it cemented certain concepts and visuals in the public's collective consciousness. One of those was the Herb Ryman EPCOT painting, this beautiful city Walt had obsessed over and which had been outlined in much greater detail than a key Disney leader would suggest about twelve years later.

In late 1967, the massive model of EPCOT debuted as the finale for Disneyland's Carousel of Progress. The Carousel of Progress was brought to Disneyland for the "whole new" Tomorrowland after a two-year run at the World's Fair. The model, pictured above and below, was called Progress City during its Disneyland years but was for all intents and purposes EPCOT, as the film and later publications demonstrated. When the Carousel of Progress was shipped to Walt Disney World for a 1975 opening, a section of the model came to Florida as well. It was installed as a part of the WEDway Peoplemover and as of 2017 could still be seen by guests riding the attraction.

After the updated Carousel Of Progress and several other new attractions were unveiled at Disneyland in 1967, the primary concern at WED Enterprises (the company's design & engineering arm) was master-planning the first phase of Walt Disney World. This would consist of a Disneyland-type theme park, several resort hotels, a wide array of recreational options, a transportation system linking all of those together and a support infrastructure that would service the same areas. Phase One's five-year development plan would provide the foundation upon which the company would build the remainder of the "Florida Project." As late as 1969, what would come behind beyond Phase One was still projected in basic accordance with Walt's outline. But it was off in the distance and nothing had been done to further define the plans or set any timetables. By 1970, with the opening of Walt Disney World just ahead, EPCOT, the industrial park, airport and entrance complex were firmly in the background.

Walt Disney World opened on October 1, 1971 to rave reviews and, soon enough, great attendance figures. Plans for additions to, and the refinement of, the first phase of the project sprang up almost immediately to meet the demands of guests arriving in greater-than-expected numbers.  This trend continued for a couple years as the company became comfortable with its Florida empire and reacted to its needs.

During this time, EPCOT was barely mentioned to the public. Careful attention was also being given to the context surrounding the precious few EPCOT allusions that did make it into company publications. The planned development of land at Lake Buena Vista (townhouses, apartments and condominiums) was heralded in the company's 1972 annual report as a step toward the development of EPCOT - as was the demand for "WED Enterprises to do consulting work in transportation, recreational and city planning" in 1973. A section of the post-show exhibit space in the Magic Kingdom's Walt Disney Story attraction, which opened in May 1973, had EPCOT city renderings on one wall just as the Disney Story film showed the painting. How it would come to pass, however, was yet to be revealed. All the while, a corner was being turned slowly in Glendale. Around that corner there would be a frequent usage of one particular statement Walt had made: that EPCOT would be a "Community of Tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and new systems."

According to Imagineer Rick Harper, a member of WED Enterprises' promising "second generation," there were numerous meetings convened by then-Walt Disney Productions President Card Walker in 1972 and 1973 where Walt's concept for EPCOT was discussed in great detail and the assembled personnel were tasked with brainstorming ways to deliver on the promise of Walt's 1966 EPCOT film. Harper said Walker felt, six year after Walt's death, that it was time for the company to move forward with his more expansive vision for the EPCOT project and demonstrate real progress on that concept. It was become increasingly clear, however, that a living, breathing community with residents was going to present many thorny issues related to politics, religion and crime - issues for which the company had no appetite (more on this further below in the EPCOT Center section).

On May 15, 1974, Walker announced to a meeting of the American Marketing Association that Walt Disney Productions would be moving ahead "in a phased program" with the development of Walt Disney's concept for EPCOT. The company reasoned that Phase One of Walt Disney World was essentially being completed ahead of schedule and it was time to turn toward Phase Two. The idea for a World Showcase of nations was introduced - its likely genesis in the International Shopping area concept and of course past World's Fairs. More importantly, EPCOT was now being considered "from the point of view of economics, operations, technology, and market potential." While the future phases of EPCOT were left very hazy, Walker did state that the company was not seeking "the commitment of individuals and families to permanent residence." Rather the company was looking for "long-term commitments from industry and nations."

Or, in other words, there was no longer a plan to build a real city as such. The process of taking Walt's EPCOT apart and concocting something different with the pieces had already begun. WED Enterprises spent about six years tossing ideas around, scrapping many and fine-tuning others. Future World was conceived as the "introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and new systems" part of the project. It was grafted onto World Showcase and EPCOT Center was born. Groundbreaking took place October 1, 1979.

The term "Center" in the name of this new theme park, although it was discarded in the 1990s, was a crucial part of the company's exhausting philosophy at the time (the philosophy itself wouldn't turn out to be crucial at all). Here was the new, circa 1980, take on the old EPCOT: from the very beginning, prior to even its 1971 opening, Walt Disney World was built with EPCOT in mind, and even the development of WDW Phase One had employed a variety of new systems and processes. All of that was true. From the modular construction techniques used in building the hotels to the water hyacinth waste treatment program, Walt Disney World was a sort of testing ground for a half-dozen things that weren't commonplace that the time. But now, in view of the fact that the media had been focusing heavily on the difference between Walt Disney's 1966 EPCOT (a living city) and Card Walker's 1982 EPCOT (a theme park/world's fair), the company had come up with a way of addressing what was a REALLY tricky subject... drum roll... they said that all of WDW was EPCOT. That WDW had been EPCOT from the day it was first built. Because one of its buildings had some solar panels and the Magic Kingdom had an underground vacuum-based trash collection system, all of WDW qualified as a city and EPCOT Center was where the "new materials and new systems" of WDW/EPCOT would be shown to the public. It was a nonsensical rationale to anyone who remembered Walt Disney's film or had seen the initial intended scope of Project Florida. But the company had decided to run with it.

The approach had an inherent flaw about which journalists failed to question Disney management during EPCOT Center's construction and opening. It was that while WDW had dabbled in a handful of experimental processes, none of the cornerstone precepts of EPCOT the city had really been applied to development of WDW in any meaningful ways since the early 1970s, and precious few were being built into EPCOT Center itself. On-property transit for employees from parking lots to their work locations was handled by fossil fuel-burning buses rather than clean, electric Peoplemover systems. The majority of connections for on-property resort guests was also handled by bus instead of monorail. The "pedestrian is king" concept never truly took hold and in most respects was not even supported by sidewalks connecting distant parts of Phase One. Traffic lights did, of course, catch on... exponentially since working roadways into a constant circular flow was apparently too costly or complicated or both (or perhaps not even a consideration as the resort expanded under the guidance of a new generation of planners who weren't versed in the resort's original goals). And the company's much-discussed utilidor concept was only employed one more time on property, in EPCOT Center, and only below a small portion of the park's Communicore area. The Magic Kingdom's AVAC trash-collection system was never replicated in another park. Solar panels made it to only one or two rooftops in EPCOT Center. In short, almost none of those forward-looking concepts that were integral to WDW Phase One and which formed the basis of the weak idea that "all of WDW was EPCOT" were not carried forward past EPCOT Center's opening.

In 1990 ABC's Chris Wallace interviewed Walt Disney Attractions President Dick Nunis for a Prime Time Live segment on WDW. During their conversation, Wallace asked Nunis about EPCOT, the city that never materialized. Nunis, who had years earlier suggested to Orlando-Land magazine editor Edward L. Prizer that the EPCOT plans Walt left behind were sketchy at best, responded by asking Wallace, "Isn't this a city?" He offered by way of example the fact that thousands of guests spent the night on WDW property every evening, and they were real people. Using Nunis' logic, guests at WDW hotels had become the citizens of EPCOT, an extension of that earlier theory that WDW was EPCOT. Others within the company, such as Marty Sklar, have offered more straightforward accounts of EPCOT's end. They assert that Walt's successors really didn't know what to do with his city, or how to do it without him.  He was the one consumed with the passion for the project, and without his hand in the process the only palatable option was to make something out of it that was in keeping with proven formulas; i.e., turn it into a theme park venture that wouldn't scare the stockholders too much.  Not that EPCOT Center itself was without its own nail-biting observers.  Anyone in the company nervous about the park's prospects for success was, really, justified in wondering if the $1 billion park was going to be successful.

That theme park, by the way, became Epcot instead of EPCOT Center in 1995 (and by 2019 appeared to be headed back to EPCOT in caps). In 1996, Disney's newly developed "town" of Celebration - built on what was then WDW property in Osceola County - welcomed its first residents. This planned community has been compared to Walt's plans for EPCOT by many of the company's high-ranking officials. Some reasoned that the spirit of EPCOT was being fulfilled by Celebration, 30 years after Disney's city concept was first introduced.  It was and is difficult, however, to reconcile that kind of reasoning with that 1966 painting, with that model or with Walt's EPCOT film. If Celebration was in any way intended to serve as a stand-in for EPCOT as a community, it didn't deliver on any of the basic experimental principles around which EPCOT originally conceived.

Some of those who worked with Walt doubted that even he could have pulled off a city. Animator Ward Kimball for one, who was Walt Disney Productions' preeminent lunatic  animator for decades, expressed uncharacteristic reservations about EPCOT's potential in an interview with my friend Ross Plesset. John Hench, a WED artist who worked with Walt for many years and who was also fundamental to the development of EPCOT Center, voiced the sentiment that "you can't experiment with people's lives" in the early 1980s when discussing how EPCOT Center differed from the original city plan. That assertion isn't exactly true, given that governments, corporations and doctors experiment with people's lives when they decide how much police protection to give a neighborhood, how much medicine to prescribe you or how much they pay you vs. how much fun they make your workplace, but it does falter for a more specific reason: before Walt Disney died it was already established that anyone living in EPCOT would do so on a temporary basis, most likely for no more than two years. Disney also wanted to make sure that EPCOT's occupants got to experience future living but not actual citizenship with voting rights. This doesn't change the fact that EPCOT would still have been an exercise in the application of authority, control and design upon human nature, but its intended long-range impact was not to be on individual families but the world at large. The experimenting would actually be with keeping a full-scale model city in a constant state of reinvention. By no means would it have been impossible, but it would have been phenomenally expensive and challenging.

One described feature about EPCOT that persisted in rearing its impossible head well into the 21st century was the assertion that it was going to be a "domed city." Howard Means' article for the Orlando Sentinel (linked to above) is an example of this. After reading various newspieces from the past 25 years and comparing those to Walt Disney Productions actual plans for EPCOT, one would wonder how anyone might believe that WDP would cover a billion-dollar city of the future with a translucent dome that would, if built to truly span the city center, represent an engineering feat that shamed the Pantheon just so they could pit air-conditioning technology against the intense greenhouse effect that would result from a massive dome in one of the warmest climates in the USA. It doesn't make any sense at all. None. But there have also been references to this big dome in more scholarly works such as Mannheim's book. He wrote that Walt's EPCOT film contains animation depicting a hemispherical dome enclosing the city's 50-acre core.  What the film actually depicts is a close-up ... concurrent with the narrator's reference to the enclosed, climate-controlled city center ... of a domed skylight structure built into  the city center's flat roof. Depending on which EPCOT rendering you view, there were to have been between twelve and thirty of those domes around the central roof structure.  EPCOT could have ended up full of domes, but none in the plans had a diameter exceeding about 75 feet. The mere fact that there were a series of these small domes shown on the city center roof makes the notion of a larger dome covering the whole of that roof ridiculous, since it would make the smaller ones pointless. When my friend Ross Plessett told me he was going to interview Walt Disney Imagineering's Marty Sklar in 2016, he gave me the chance to throw some questions in. Sklar had worked closely with Walt, Hench and Nunis and even wrote Walt's EPCOT film dialogue, so if anyone could put this stupid dome issue to rest, I knew it would be him. He confirmed that the all-encompassing dome was, yes, just a rumor and he was uncertain of its source. That's as close to solved as I expect it will get.

In the end, combining all the rumors, drawings, interviews, rationales and facts of EPCOT yields a perplexing portrait of magnificent ambitions being tempered by cold corporate feet, of aimlessness and of (to some extent) common sense. It's unlikely that EPCOT will ever go full-scale in anything similar to its original form, but discussions surrounding just what it would have become if built will likely continue. As for how much of a role 1964's Futurama II played in driving Walt to pursue the concept of a future city, no answer really diminishes the immensity of what he intended to build while at the same time no answer can unconnect the dots. The link is inescapable but to me it's mostly just funny that none of his associates ever said, "Oh, yeah, EPCOT pretty much started with that GM show." Even Sklar didn't take that bait.

<> AFTER WALT (1967-1971) <>

It's hard not to feel bad for Florida Governor Haydon Burns. Here's this poor guy, who honestly seems like he's just a little slow anytime he's in front of a camera, dealing with all of the bureaucratic and political workings of Disney coming to Florida when he gets defeated in the summer of 1966 for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination by Robert High of Miami (who then goes on to lose the election against Claude Kirk in November). That's a pretty big kick in the pants for Burns, who was only elected to the office in 1964 - the first governor elected after a change in the Florida election schedule was enacted to keep gubernatorial elections off the ballot in the same year as presidential elections. So, licking his wounds and preparing to relinquish the governor's mansion to a Republican, after serving the shortest term ever for a Florida Governor who didn't die in office, Burns still has a bright spot in his legacy - being the governor who announced the Disney project and sat with Walt Disney in that legendary press conference. And then, just a few weeks later, Walt Disney dies and the entire future of everything that you promised to bend over backwards to see accomplished is now totally uncertain. What a nightmare. But nothing, really, compared to the nightmare that was facing Roy O. Disney and the second echelon of Walt Disney Productions' leadership upon their loss of the company's namesake.

Not many people, even those close to Walt Disney, knew how bad his health was in 1966. Even in his final weeks, according to many of his WED Enterprises associates of the time, he wasn't revealing the severity of his condition. But it was obviously bad. They said he looked and sounded weak, defeated. Right up until the time of his passing on December 15th, however, he was focused on his plans for the Florida Project and reviewing maps of his property. This, with EPCOT figuring largely into the picture, was his last major point of focus.

News of Walt's death resounded across the world and was the subject of hundreds of headlines, but nowhere did it hit more heavily than it did with his family. They lost a husband, a father, a grandfather and a brother. Roy, who had worked side-by-side with Walt since 1923, went from being the largely silent partner in a two-man business empire to the face of the company with little warning. Roy was ready to retire by 1966 and could not have foreseen needing to take the helm of an organization that his younger sibling had run on intuition and creative genius. That prospect would have been daunting enough for anyone regardless of their background. But to inherit the top job with something as massive as Disney World (the second "official title" for the Florida Project before Roy added Walt's name to it in 1968) & EPCOT on the dividing line between concept and reality? Unprecedented.

Fortunately, Roy had a team of capable individuals who had contributed to the construction of many Disneyland attractions and World's Fair Exhibits, to assist him in moving forward. This included not only the WED Enterprises artists, designers and engineers but also experts in the field of construction and infrastructure. At the forefront were Admiral Joe Fowler and General Joe Potter, both former US military leaders with experience in a wide variety of fields prior to their tenure with Disney that enabled them to grasp the size and scope of something like the conversion of a swamp to a major family resort and break it down into workable phases with clear goals and parameters. Admiral Joe Fowler (1894- 1993) served in the US Navy and was first hired by Walt Disney to oversee construction of Disneyland in the mid-1950s. He continued to work for Disney until 1978, past which point he still did some consulting work with the company. General William Everett "Joe" Potter (1905-1988) was hired by Walt Disney after the two met at the 1964-1965 World's Fair, where Potter had overseen the construction of over a dozen pavilions. He served 38 years with the Army Corps of Engineers and was also a governor of the Panama Canal Zone.

In 1992, before Paul F. Anderson ceased publication of his Disney periodical Persistence of Vision, he told me a story that I promised not to share about how Roy Disney was so concerned about Walt Disney Productions' ability to bring Walt Disney World into existence immediately after Walt's death that he held separate meetings with Admiral Joe Fowler and General Joe Potter, and in each meeting said that Fowler and Potter respectively could basically pull the plug on the project simply by stating that it was too large or too difficult a task to undertake. Had either of them expressed serious doubts about the matter, Roy likely would have decided to sell all or most of the Florida land and Walt Disney World as we came to know it would not have existed. I'm finally posting the story (in 2018) because 25 years is long enough to sit on something that doesn't involve national security. But I'm also hoping Paul has already published his account somewhere else by now.

So it's possible that a much smaller version of WDW, more akin to Disneyland in scope, could have easily manifested in view of Walt's vision being so huge and - once you factor in the absolute uncertainty of an airport, industrial park and future city providing a return on investment - a financial risk that could potentially sink Walt Disney Productions. Accordingly, it's difficult to overstate exactly how bold and seemingly atypical a move it was for Roy O. Disney to ultimately pursue his younger brother's last and most complicated dream full tilt. What's much easier to wrap one's head around is the practical approach that WDP took toward developing WDW in phases, starting with elements most likely to provide immediate revenue for the company: a theme park and hotels. Not that this was going to be simple, because in and of itself WDW Phase I would be a true beast of an undertaking: thousands of acres of isolated, snake-dwelling wetlands transformed into a vacation resort. But they had to begin with something and the most guest-friendly features were the most logical starting point. EPCOT itself would be pushed to Phase Two of the Walt Disney World project, giving the company time to establish the resort and fine tune their plans for a "community of tomorrow."

Before the company would do anything physical, however, it came to Florida lawmakers and business leaders on February 2, 1967 with Walt's EPCOT film and the Reedy Creek Improvement District proposal discussed in the EPCOT section above. When the three related legislative proposals were passed on May 12th with final signings by Governor Claude Kirk, the "cities" of Bay Lake and Reedy Creek (renamed Lake Buena Vista three years later) were created. Therefore it was established both that Walt Disney Productions had governing powers over its Florida land and that there would then in fact be residents living on WDW property from the offset, but they wouldn't be living in EPCOT. They would be living in mobile home parks where their rent and utilities were paid by Disney and they would be voting on matters pertinent to the company's interests. I know, I know. Everyone knows. It's the sketchiest thing ever. But remember that in 1967, right after Walt Disney died, the entire state of Florida had already bounced in response to the 1965 Disney announcement and then convulsed in anticipation of what would happen with the company's namesake deceased. If Disney needed special authority to build a city of the future for which codes did not even yet exist, and the choice was to either grant them this power or risk seeing them abandon the project - which was the unspoken premise - then who in the government was going to vote against Disney's request? Also, no one knew then, as we all do now, that EPCOT as a city would never materialize*.

So if the only residents of Disney's two municipalities lived in Disney-underwritten homes and only voted in ways favorable to Disney's interests, what exactly would that mean for Walt Disney World? It would mean that Disney could forego the types of oversight and regulation to which other companies in Florida would find themselves subjected: approvals, inspections, restrictions, fees and permits from/on by local agencies that constitute "red tape." Disney didn't want to be hamstrung by the same types of processes, laws and local personalities it had dealt with when purchasing its Florida land. It could work far more efficiently if it governed itself, and that's what it has done for 50 years and counting. It draws up its own plans, approves them, builds and inspects it own structures and even generates some of its own power. Its self-reliance is one reason that when Michael Eisner learned that Universal Studios was going to build a studio-themed park in Orlando in 1990, Disney was able to design, build and open its own studio park by 1989. As long as the company had the necessary money to build something at breakneck speed, no county or state agencies would slow Disney down with plan reviews, zoning requirements, changes to scopes or negotiated compromises. Disney deals with virtually none of those headaches from outside forces.

* Once Disney announced that EPCOT Center would be a gated theme park instead of a community, Florida theoretically could have repealed the RCID's authority and begun treating WDW as it would any other business instead of allowing one of the most profitable companies in the state to continue operating on land governed by a handful of people whose costs of living were largely paid by that same company. But by the 1980s, Disney's lobbying power was formidable and few in government had the desire (let alone the requisite influence) to undo the concessions. Only a few government officials in Orange County, such as County Commissioner Vera Carter, ever made the slightest bit of headway on the matter of the RCID's liberties being reviewed with new eyes, albeit not lasting, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was a substantial early challenge to the validity of the Reedy Creek Improvement District's reach filed on behalf of the State in 1968, when the RCID planned to issue $12,000,000 in bonds which would help underwrite site preparation for WDW. Appellants for the state contended that the bonds would disproportionately benefit a private enterprise vs. the public and that this aspect of the RCID's powers were in violation of the State's constitution, but the Florida Supreme Court upheld on November 27th that no aspect of the RCID's establishing legislation infringed upon state law. That was the decision which essentially made future challenges to the RCID too unwieldly an undertaking.

With autonomy in their back pockets, Roy Disney and his team continued developing their plans for the first phase of WDW throughout the remainder of 1967 and 1968*.  They also began reaching out to potential corporate sponsors to determine which companies would be interested in taking part in the development of attractions, shops, restaurants or other facilities... a key part of setting down early pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of a theme park empire. An overview of early models and concept drawings shows a rapid succession of master plans and smaller element layouts which varied significantly on the path to groundbreaking and beyond.

Water had played a huge role in Walt Disney's selection of a final site for WDW and Bay Lake was the anchor for the placement of key features. And when groundbreaking for WDW took place on May 30, 1967, all of WDW needed to be built with a strong consideration of how it affected water flow and vice versa. Most of Disney's Florida land was marsh or swampland, which meant that significant excavation could easily lead to flooding depending on underlying conditions. Since the company was creating a lake with the Seven Seas Lagoon, however, it had lots of earth to put in other places it wanted to build up. This enabled the Magic Kingdom's "first floor" to sit below the park's street level and serve as transportation corridors, offices and utility workspaces (kind of like the subterranean areas that the company projected for EPCOT, the city, in the future) with the guest areas an average of fifteen feet higher from the foundation thanks to all that extra dirt. At various points in the resort's planning, ideas for a lot more excavated water features than the Seven Seas Lagoon were drawn up, but for Phase One construction the only other big water efforts outside the Magic Kingdom borders were the 40-plus mile canal system (one company article cited the number as being 55 miles) that provided control over water flow and drainage all across the northern third of Disney's property and the drydock facility near Central Shops at the north end of Bay Lake.

Once the water concerns were addressed for the bulk of the land factoring into Phase One WDW development, the company began clearing land for the parks and hotels. Formal construction began in April of 1969 with the first building being the Walt Disney World Preview Center in the first portion of WDW that would welcome the public: Lake Buena Vista via Preview Boulevard.

<> THE WDW PREVIEW CENTER (January 16th, 1970 to September 30th, 1971) <>

Sparkling white concrete (not the kind with sparkles in it, but concrete that was THAT bright). Aluminum and steel. Glass and green grass. A lake and topiary sculptures. Costumed cast members, oval name tags, Disney characters and colorful souvenirs. The only thing that might have made the Walt Disney World Preview Center more accurate in its encapsulation of what was yet to come at WDW would have been background music and the voice of Jack Wagner. And I suspect it probably had the music if not the voice as well.

On January 16th, 1970, the Walt Disney World Preview Center became the first building on WDW property* open to the public. Near the intersection of Interstate 4 and State Road 535, the modern glass, concrete and steel structure was situated on the southern shoreline of Lake Buena Vista along the then-quiet Preview Boulevard. This roadway would later become Hotel Plaza Boulevard, a main artery serving traffic to the WDW Village and a gathering of hotels.

* This part of Lake Buena Vista, where the Preview Center was located, was originally named Motor Inn Plaza.

Inside the building, a small army of what the company designated inappropriately as "lovely young hostesses" treated guests to a glimpse of what they could expect to see in the fall of 1971, when the $300 million Phase One of the "Vacation Kingdom of the World" debuted. The Preview Center was open daily from 9am to 5pm, and offered visitors a leisurely tour of artists' renderings, an aerial view of Phase One in the form of a huge model and a motion picture presentation that forecast what the first five years of the project would entail. Visitors could also make reservations for a stay at one of WDW's first two hotels, the Contemporary and the Polynesian Village, or purchase souvenirs at WDW's first gift counter.

Fourteen women were selected as the original representatives of Walt Disney World. They came from a pool of 400 applicants who were evaluated by two Disneyland hostesses, Valerie Watson and Holly Hoelscher, and chosen largely on the basis of physical characteristics. "We looked for that fresh, natural appearance that our organization tries to reflect," Watson told Orlando-Land editor Edward L. Prizer in 1970. The publicity photo of the first fourteen Preview Center hostesses appears to be the first official media depiction of an interracial cast member group and it would soon be followed by many more where WDW was concerned. This was a leap forward for the company and doesn't even feel forced in any of the photos I've seen.

The Preview Center officially opened on January 16, but spent the week prior hosting state and local government and business figures by invitation only. When it opened to the public, it hosted 12,000 visitors in three days - twice as many as Disney had expected. Every fifteen minutes, visitors were escorted into a theater to see the film and 625-square foot model, portions of which would be lit from overhead in synchronization with the film's dialogue. 1971's Project Florida, a 21-minute film that aired as part of The Wonderful World of Disney TV program, featured the Preview Center along with footage of construction progress and attractions in development.

The Walt Disney World Preview Center was also the subject of articles in numerous magazines, newspapers and Disney publications. Below is a reprint of how Disney positioned it for their own employees in the April 1971 edition of Walt Disney World News, a pre-opening large-format newsletter that tracked the resort's construction:

WALT DISNEY WORLD - TOP TOURIST ATTRACTION EVEN BEFORE IT OPENS!

Walt Disney World's "Vacation Kingdon" won't open until October, but it is already a major tourist attraction ... and has been since early last year.

More than 800,000 visitors have toured Walt Disney World's Preview Center since it opened in mid-January of 1970, getting a sneak preview of central Florida's "Vacation Kingdom" for the world.  At the same time, guests are being treated to Disney hospitality by the staff of lovely and charming Preview Center hostesses, a brand of friendly hospitality that has become synonymous with California's Disneyland and will likewise permeate the Florida "Vacation Kingdom" when it opens in October.

The $500,000 Preview Center is open without charge every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is located on the shore of Lake Buena Vista at the intersection of Interstate-4 and State Route 535, 15 miles southwest of Orlando.

Guests can view construction progress photographs, see scale models, artist renderings and a colorful motion picture outlining the first five years of the mammoth project.  The Preview Center also features beautifully landscaped grounds, picturesque Lake Buena Vista and a Topiary Zoo featuring sculptured animal-shaped shrubs being grown for the "Magic Kingdom" theme park.

Press information and convention service facilities, a souvenir gift shop, refreshments and executive reception areas also are included in the Preview Center.  More than 600 letters are being received each day inquiring about accommodations and reservations and requesting information about Walt Disney World's "Vacation Kingdom."

Reservations for hotel rooms and camping facilities are being processed and should be directed to '"Reservations Office, P.O. Box 78, Orlando, Florida, 32802.

When the rest of Walt Disney World opened to the public on October 1st, 1971, the Preview Center closed. Most of the hostesses moved on to new jobs at other parts of WDW. One of them, Debbie Dane, had by that time already been chosen as Walt Disney World's first ambassador.

While the Preview Center building still exists and looks little changed from the outside, its original interior elements were removed or destroyed in preparation for future uses. Since 1971, it has had several identities. For many years it was known as the Reception Center where guests staying at the Preview Boulevard hotels were directed to check in. It once housed a post office and most recently served as headquarters for the Amateur Athletic Union. So you can't walk in and see concept art, a scale model or WDW's original souvenir counter. But in a way it's nice that you can still drive into the same parking lot that met the very first WDW visitors and try to imagine that this building is all that exists - the first breath in a big balloon that would soon burst into pop culture history.

PHASE ONE PHASES IN 

Phase One construction of Walt Disney World was, according to the company, the largest private construction project on the planet at that time. The targeted opening date of October 1st, 1971, was set in 1969. By June of 1971 the number of workers on site reached 8,000. Site preparation had taken four years and the total cost of the project by its opening that October would be $300 million (adjusted for inflation, that would be $2 billion in 2020).

In a 1981 interview, Admiral Joe Fowler said that 90% of the problems he faced with the resort's construction were with the unions debating which group would handle which aspects of the project. Much of what was being built at WDW broke from traditional building methods and the gaps in clear ownership required tremendous oversight and negotiation. The project stayed on schedule, however, even as last-minute finishing touches continued right up to the moment of opening... even overlapping with the arrival of guests to the hotels.

The Magic Kingdom wasn't in its intended state of completion when the park admitted its first paying visitors at 8:35am October 1st. It was close, but entire attractions, especially on the Tomorrowland side of the park, were delayed by weeks including CircleVision 360 and Flight to the Moon. The Admiral Joe Fowler riverboat in Liberty Square, in a case of ultimate irony as it was named for the man who had no doubt the resort would meet its deadline, debuted a day late. Peter Pan's Flight opened the day after that... 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea two weeks later. But guests were in the park enjoying fantastic attractions on day one nonetheless.

<> WDW TRANSPORTATION <>

Cars and buses were never meant to serve as primary means of transportation at Walt Disney World, and during the first 15 years of the resort one could see that while both modes were present and not on the verge of replacement, a clear effort was made to provide viable alternatives. Alternatives which, in some cases, would be the only way to get from one place to another unless guests walked long distances not made for feet. That was another age and era, of course. And that's the only era of WDW transportation that WYW looks at because looking at normal cars and buses? No fun!

But it IS fun to look at (and ride) trams, monorails and ferryboats.

<> THE MAGIC KINGDOM (October 1, 1971 to Present Day) <>

Once referred to by the company as the "crowning jewel" of Walt Disney World, the Magic Kingdom has remained the resort's most popular park since its opening date of October 1, 1971.

Based on Disneyland's winning arrangement of nostalgia, history, fantasy and futurism, Florida's Magic Kingdom did not face the same type of economic uncertainty that followed its older sibling's July, 1955 debut. Within two months of admitting its first guests, the park was drawing monstrous holiday crowds that tied traffic in knots from Winter Haven to Orlando. This successful visitation only dipped seriously once, during the energy crisis that began in 1973, but shortly rebounded with a ferocity that has continued, if not intensified, to the present day. Compare some video from the 1980s and 1990s to a modern-day trip to the park... there used to be days where you could walk through the lands at a casual pace without getting stuck in hordes of other people who thought they'd get to do the same thing... or finding seas of strollers around each corner. And before Fasptass, the only "return time" you'd be concerned with would be for Diamond Horseshoe seating.

No one who has visited both Disneyland and WDW's Kingdoms denies that the former has the upper hand in terms of charm and intimacy. The Florida version was designed to handle many more visitors than Disneyland and was built on a substantially larger scale. The results can be off-putting to people who grew up with the California park and, even after decades of tree growth, visitors to the WDW Magic Kingdom will sometimes notice how some of the buildings look like warehouses that need a little more trimming (and in some cases had trimming added long after they were built) to mask their volume.  The closure of the Skyway, however, helped diminish that perception by making it harder to see the park's big rooftops. The total rebuilding of California elements, like its Fantasyland in 1983, brought additional layered details to DL that have rarely been achieved in any part of WDW and today's Disneyland is so well-manicured and maintained compared to WDW's Magic Kingdom that one could believe they weren't run by the same company. Those disparities notwithstanding, Florida is where Disneyland's designers honed their craft - correcting many crowd flow issues and topping much of their previous work with improved versions of Disneyland attractions (making later renovations less crucial) or all-new creations. It's also where millions of people have had their first exposure to a themed Disney experience and loved it, somehow even without the Matterhorn.

Growing up next to the Magic Kingdom and working there for years certainly made the park personally significant to me, but those were almost coincidental factors. What was of equal meaning is that within the park's 100 acres once existed the most impressive combined applications of spatial design, functional harmony, architectural detail, color theory, thematic content and conceptual diversity that I could personally imagine. Between 1971 and 1986, no other place in my sphere of reference* did so much to entertain, so well, for such multitudes amongst so vast a selection of backdrops and motifs.

* I hadn't traveled anywhere yet, so I based this assumption on the account of others who had traveled the world. No one ever said WDW was more amazing than Paris, and it couldn't be, but the MK had to have possessed intrigue equal to any specific 90 acres of Paris just because the former had animatronic elephants, horrifying witches and a submarine ride.

As the park matured, some of its early attractions, shops and restaurants were closed, replaced or changed at an exponentially increasing pace. From the first losses (Adventureland's Safari Club arcade in 1972 and Frontierland's Westward Ho shop in 1973) to the ones that really began transforming the Kingdom's actual character (The Mickey Mouse Revue in 1980 and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea in 1994), enough rides and other venues have closed to populate an entirely separate park. That doesn't even touch upon a wide variety of plans that were considered for the Kingdom but came short of reaching the construction phase.

Widen Your World has tried to register memories of those lost, forgotten or changed park elements. The Magic Kingdom content below shows a clear bias in favor of components related to the park's first 20 years, mainly in its absence of content related to most later time periods. It was those earliest years when WDW's crowning jewel sparkled with a radiance that was perhaps imperfect but still as brilliant a theme park as one had ever been.

<> Adventureland (October 1, 1971 to Present Day) <>

Adventure - that common theme park noun! When I was a kid in the 1970s, adventure covered a ton of stuff but most of it had to do with going somewhere a little unfamiliar and doing something a little dangerous. It could have been outer space, and there were outer space adventures to be had on the other side of the Magic Kingdom, but in terms of where the word adventure was anchored by name at WDW it was both A) what all the attractions were alternately referred to in guide books and on ticket book covers ("many wonderful adventures in the Magic Kingdom") and B) Africa, India, Indonesia, Asia, the South Pacific, South America and the Caribbean. That's lots of territory... almost anywhere that a 1950s Hollywood film studio might regard as an exotic location, based on how different the people who lived there looked from 1950s white American or British film audiences. Even if the demographically average 1971 citizens of Nairobi or Shanghai had distinct languages and appearances from the typical suburban citizens of 1971 Los Angeles or Chicago, by that time it was possible to expect that the meeting of all those cultures might yield as much understanding of what makes us all the same (as per It's A Small World) as it might an examination of how curious were our differences. But that wasn't the most likely outcome if the meeting of those cultures brushed up against colonialism and took place in a park designed by people who'd spent decades catering to and also developing the taste of, again, 1950s white American or British film audiences.

So, as had been the case at Disneyland in 1955, WDW's 1971 Adventureland was largely a Hollywood art director's version of Tahiti, Bali, China and Trinidad made more navigable than what you'd see in the pages of National Geographic - in this case with abundant trash cans and paved surfaces for theme park visitors. And native populations were mostly out of sight, with the majority of your guides, hostesses and hosts being young (and predominantly white) American kids. They were kids whose siblings, friends and former classmates might have been in Vietnam at the time, fighting a tragic, real war rooted in, among other things, a misunderstanding of how different the Vietnamese were from the Chinese. Since MK construction began just a year after the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive, there was no chance that anything in WDW's Adventureland would harken directly to Vietnam. Had construction begun in the late 1970s, I think there probably wouldn't have been anything that referenced Cambodian, Thai or Balinese architecture built in a Disney park for another quarter century. It was a sensitive time where our nation's collective consciousness surrounding Indonesia was concerned, but Adventureland's Jungle Cruise still took you to the Irrawaddy River (at Disneyland they'd been calling it the Mekong). Where Disney's concerned, even that could have been considered controversial.

Either way it might be hard for many WDW visitors to pinpoint the exact origins of Adventureland's architecture, and in some cases difficult by design. Only a few key structures, such as the Jungle Cruise's Cambodian ruins, can be easily traced to their inspiration. But you clearly know you're not on Main Street anymore the second you glimpse Adventureland's first few buildings and the more diverse vegetation from the Crystal Palace. It's meant to evoke the aura of someplace new and exciting whereas Main Street and even the hub's sheltered pavilions are rooted in something far more familiar to the average American guest. As with most of the Magic Kingdom, not a great deal changed in terms of Adventureland's core "look" for many years after the park's opening. The personality of the land began to shift with alterations that began in the 1990s, leading to what guests experience in the 21st century - still Adventureland, but one that veers from the original plan in ways that no one at WED would have imagined in 1969.

<> The Adventureland Veranda (October 1, 1971 to July 1994) <>

Okay, NOW we're getting somewhere. My areas of true expertise at WDW are always something that only six people care about... I know as much about it as three of them, more than two of them and less than one. In this case, the area is the Adventureland Veranda.

Although the Columbia Harbour House always had the most enviable combination of possible factors (including location, compartmentalization, theming and expansive second-floor coolness) working to make it the most enigmatic Magic Kingdom restaurant, it spent the first 22 years of its lifespan with the Adventureland Veranda at its heels. Having occupied the space that would later be known as the Skipper Canteen, this patchwork cathedral of tropical tile patterns, hardwood latticework and French-colonial lighting fixtures was a wonderful place where guests could relax amidst the romanticized sounds of Hawaii and the acclimatized flavors of Asia - hovering over the Hub canal in one direction and resting next to the roots of the Swiss Family Treehouse in the other.

Whereas Disneyland's Adventureland began abruptly beneath a thatched-roof portal just steps away from that park's riverless hub, with the Enchanted Tiki Room entrance actually positioned before its host land's borders, in Florida there was such a conscious implementation of pacing that the Adventureland entry bridge deposited visitors at the perimeter of this pleasant eatery (whose architecture spoke passively to the experience ahead), while the branches and boughs of the first attraction still lie many yards ahead down a winding path. With this structure to the right and the edges of a dense jungle to the left, it made for a gradual, enticing setup.

The Veranda building managed to look Caribbean, Chinese, African and Polynesian all at the same time - depending on one's vantage point and level of interest in observing the details. It's maybe as great an example as any other in the Magic Kingdom of Disney's ability to interpret popular conceptions of distant locales and, in turn, reinvent those same conceptions. Inside, the furnishings were also melded, with dark wooden paneling, earth-colored tile floors, high ceilings braced by ornate rafters and flowery brass chandeliers.  It was a setting of near-paradisical elegance that borrowed from a wider range of influences than I'm probably aware even decades after first wondering about it.

To the east of the restaurant was an outdoor dining area, a real veranda more or less, that was largely built up on piers that adjoined the canal. In days of yore, a child dining on this side of the building could have easily chucked an egg roll smack into the middle of a passing Swan Boat with little chance of recrimination. To the west of the restaurant was another open-air dining area ensconced within the alcoves opposite the Swiss Family Treehouse, a space which by recent accounts had by late 2010 disappeared due to an expansion of the men's restroom adjoining the Adventureland/Frontierland breezeway. About midway between the Veranda's latitudinal boundaries was another patio, a high, glass-ceilinged decagonal space with a brick floor. Nearby, the Aloha Isle juice bar operated from an enclosed portion of the Veranda's facade. Sometime around 2015 Aloha Isle traded names with the tiki room-adjacent Sunshine Tree Terrace.

The Adventureland Veranda opened with the park, at which time its menu was described simply as "Polynesian" in most print references. A first-year offering, as detailed in WDW News , was Chicken Fiji.  A 1972 entry in that same publication listed the Veranda as serving chicken, ribs and shrimp. In 1976, the park's guide book read "Polynesian entrees, hot sandwiches and soft drinks in a South Seas setting." 

In October 1977, Japanese soy sauce giant Kikkoman stepped in to fill what seemed like a custom-built sponsorship void.  The guide books, however, do not reflect the menu veering off toward anything overtly Asian until 1986, at which time a mention of "oriental sandwiches" hints at the magnetic presence of what we already believe to have been there in 1980, if not sooner... the Teriyaki Burger! This was a piece of beef (but maybe not really beef) sharing its bun with a slice of pineapple and corn-syrup-sticky teriyaki sauce, a concoction which Kikkoman had perfected in 1961. The Shrimp Fried Rice with Egg Roll or South Seas Fruit Salad were among the other choices for a discerning explorer's palate. Years before the park ever experimented with waffle fries, the Veranda served the thinnest, soggiest french fries in the world which, when that Teriyaki sauce got all over them, were just amazing. Also worth mentioning is a highly suspect staple of many a childhood Magic Kingdom visit - the Sweet and Sour Hot Dog. That delicacy, unfortunately, did not survive menu changes during the restaurant's later years.

Below is a representational overview of the Veranda menu from its last year of operation, 1994:

MICKEY'S VALUE MEAL
STIR FRY BEEF WITH BROCCOLI AND WHITE RICE   Includes regular beverage    $5.74  

ENTREES
SHRIMP FRIED RICE AND EGG ROLL    $4.59
SWEET AND SOUR CHICKEN WITH WHITE RICE    $4.84
QUARTER POUND TERIYAKI BURGER    with French Fries or fresh fruit    $3.54
LO MEIN SALAD    lo mein noodles served with garden vegetables and pineapple in an oriental dressing    $3.79

A LA CARTE
FRENCH FRIES   $1.19
EGG ROLLS    $3.04

BEVERAGES
COCA-COLA, DIET COKE OR SPRITE    $1.41 & $1.66
FRESH ORANGE JUICE    $1.26
BOTTLED WATER    $1.84
WHOLE, 1% OR CHOCOLATE MILK    $.61

Cast members at the Veranda were bestowed with the double reward of a relatively tranquil work environment and some of the best costumes in the park. From the mid-70s until April 1994, they wore the turquoise, green and black outfits that whispered "groovy" with a voice rooted firmly in 1969. It was virtually impossible to look bad in those costumes, and for this and other reasons I lament never having worn one during my time as a Kingdom cast member. The costumes were enough to make one overlook the polyester reality, although former cast member Don Gillinger said the mens' version were not uncomfortable if compared to those just down the street at the Pecos Bill Cafe. The women's version, as shown in photos on this page, was almost as wild as the old Tropical Serenade dresses. Later Veranda costumes, such as those worn at Aloha Isle in the 2000s, did not exude the same flair.

Adding to the incomparable atmosphere of the Veranda was its blessedly soothing loop of background music. Foremost in my childhood memories are the gentle strains of steel guitar, in songs like "Hawaiian Paradise" and "Blue Hawaii," that rolled through the dining areas and out onto the Adventureland streets like waves of enchantment. Those tracks and others, which were part of what I'm calling the "Kikkoman Loop" and are detailed further below, were the ones that played for the longest stretch of the Veranda's operating years.

Research conducted by Foxxfur of Passports to Dreams Old and New, however, revealed for the uninitiated in 2008 that there was an earlier loop compiled by the late Jack Wagner (the highly revered "voice of Disneyland/WDW" for decades and the genius who prescribed for the parks so many esoteric compositions) in July 1973. This discovery suggests that the Veranda may have gone without a dedicated BGM track for its first 21 months of operation, but nobody can say for sure. It's also unlikely that more conclusive information on this point will surface*. Those earliest known tracks had a more oriental flair to them and included Percy Faith's "Shrangri-La."   

As for the Kikkoman Loop, I was able to identify some of the tracks as being from conductor and longtime Disney musical collaborator George Bruns' kind-of-rare Moonlight Time In Old Hawaii LP.  Michael Sweeney, a dedicated WDW music researcher and (thankfully) WYW supporter, identified all of the other tracks, and below is a listing of the eleven tracks:

Ua Haav Arve Are - South Sea Serenaders, Beachcomber Serenade: Mood Music of Tahiti and Hawaii
Blue Hawaii - George Bruns, Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii
Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii - George Bruns, Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii
Now is the Hour - Arthur Lyman, Pearly Shells
Harbor Lights - Duke Kamoku & His Islanders, Golden Hawaiian Hits
Song of the Islands - Duke Kamoku & His Islanders, Golden Hawaiian Hits
Moon of Manakoora - Duke Kamoku & His Islanders, Golden Hawaiian Hits
Lovely Hula Girl - Duke Kamoku & His Islanders, Golden Hawaiian Hits
Hawaiian Paradise - George Bruns, Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii
Moonlight and Shadows - George Bruns, Moonlight Time in Old Hawaii
Whispering Sea - Henry Mancini, The Versatile Henry Mancini

If you want to hear a live version, visit WYW's YouTube channel. These songs were not only easing to the senses, they also made the Veranda safer for diners (generally causing them to chew their food more slowly and thoroughly). The Kikkoman Loop was retired in early 1993. It was replaced by a then-current background track for the majority of Adventureland, a marimba-heavy selection of songs that were more upbeat and less romantic.

Here's a weird fact about the Veranda: One 1977 version of the Magic Kingdom guide book had, on its Adventureland page, only two pictures of Adventureland and BOTH of them were of the Veranda, which somehow managed to beat out hippos, pirates, tikis and all other manner of exotic imagery. Wow to that!

The Adventureland Veranda entered into a cyclical operating schedule in late 1993, which kept it closed two days out of the week except in peak seasons. Less than a year later, its doors were permanently closed. A similar approach was taken with Liberty Square's Columbia Harbour House the following year, but that decision was reversed due to apparent guest demands.  In early 1998, the Veranda "reopened" in only the most base sense while Frontierland's Pecos Bill Cafe underwent a major rehab. The Veranda menu items at that time were entirely generic renditions of once-exotic plates, meaning hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries - all free of the embellishments this restaurant once foisted upon them. Beyond that, the Veranda has been used on occasion as a staging area for special events such as children's birthday party packages. One WYW follower said the restaurant reopened briefly during the Christmas 2010 season, but I have no extra information to that end.

Back in the 1990s, the Veranda presented one of the earlier Magic Kingdom case studies in are you serious?  By closing up shop a few months ahead of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea's permanent closure in September and proceeding to sit empty (save for those occasional special events and a couple peak season stints) for the next 21 years, the one-time oasis of South Seas languor served as a nice poke in the eye to park visitors who missed both its atmospheric charm and its great menu items. Everyone working in the park in mid-1990s knew that the Veranda was closed as means of reducing labor costs - other high-capacity restaurants in the park could take up the slack for a fraction of the staffing demands necessary to keep a completely separate location running on a full schedule. But at what price to the park's environment? It's a constant reminder of how a WDW that once infused every possible corner with places to relax and discover unexpected details had set out in the mid-1990s to unceremoniously dismantle as many of those wonderful hideaways as possible**. That wouldn't have been so obvious if all the Veranda ever consisted of was quiet interior spaces, but the building's exterior constituted a quarter of Adventureland's exterior elevations. And for guests entering from the Hub, it was the first quarter. So whereas the average building on Main Street USA housed some ground-level approachability for those wanting to see what lies within, the ex-Veranda building offered nothing more than a nearly endless panorama of closed doors and shuttered windows for a seeming eternity. In other words, you crossed the bridge into Adventureland to encounter a perpetually closed, large ex-restaurant and had to walk all the way around it to get to anything that was operating.

This finally changed in December 2015 when The Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. Skipper Canteen opened in the former Veranda location. The exterior was virtually unchanged as a result but the inside once again had purpose and identity, which is all a restaurant really wants if you've ever spoken to one at length.

* There are plenty of archaeologists out there looking for dinosaur bones and mummies, yet so few trying to shake far more important park BGM information out of old WED recording engineers who might be able to clear this stuff up.

** Someone realized around 1995 that a lot of the park's interior spaces previously marked for merchandise or food sales would make great stockrooms, which they then became.

<> The Jungle Cruise (opened October 1, 1971) <>

Walt Disney World's Jungle Cruise was, in its original state, the best version of the ride ever built before or since. And while Disneyland's Jungle Cruise has seen so much content changed, so many new scenes and upgrades since 1955 that it should rightfully have its very own website, WDW's version saw ZERO new scenes added between 1971 and 2020, when I last updated this paragraph. In Florida there had only been queue upgrades, new boats and spiel changes. Not a single new animated figure was introduced to the ride in over 40 years and some were actually removed. So for it to still be almost the best version in a dilapidated condition means that it must have opened in a nearly perfect state of existence, built to impress for the long run, which was pretty much the case.

Note: Because the Jungle Cruise has been monkeyed with figuratively and literally in terms of its tone and content over the past 50-plus years, WYW is focusing on the attraction's first 25 years of operation. That's when I rode it as a kid, worked the ride and documented its first round of significant changes. Any effort I'd make to be comprehensive on the subject past 1996 would be a mess.

Aside from appearing to be more spread out over a larger area, not very much about Walt Disney World's Jungle Cruise would have tipped 1971 guests off to any big differences between itself and the Disneyland original as they first approached the entrance. The queue building and dock area looked  similar to California's, just wider. As for the ride, a series of scene variations between DL and WDW appeared as the Florida boats drifted into the Amazon and the Congo rivers, but point-for-point there was a fairly balanced set of disparate vignettes. WDW had several new scenes designed specifically for its ride, but California's version still started off with a trip past picturesque Asian ruins that were conspicuously absent in Florida until the final third of the journey. That's when WDW played its ace with the flooded Cambodian temple and made DL's crumbling columns and ancient statuary seem merely cute in comparison. WDW took its Jungle Cruise riders right INTO the the ruins' inky black heart with no assurances as to what lie ahead and claimed the prize for mystique and drama with a Haunted Mansion-y, dark ride-y twist. Bravo, Marc Davis, bravo.

Below you can also find a rundown of other WDW Jungle Cruise scenes that had not yet been discussed much, or at all, online prior to the first version of this page. Some appeared in the ride upon its opening in 1971 and remain, some were only ever realized in California during a 1976 rehab, one was adapted for use elsewhere in the Magic Kingdom and one only existed for a few months in Florida before being dismantled ... and never appeared elsewhere. And since JC was one of the WDW attractions I worked as an MK West 'Operations host' in the 1980s, there is also some sentimentality buried in the never-ending paragraphs.  

The first Jungle Cruise was an original component of Disneyland, which opened in July 1955. Culling thematic material from Disney's True-Life Adventures series (specifically The African Lion, which would be released in theaters that same year) and 1951's The African Queen, artist Harper Goff, landscaper Bill Evans and engineer Bob Mattey were key members of the team crafting a "Tropical Rivers of the World" ride. Goff was instrumental in persuading Walt Disney to abandon early plans to populate the river and its banks with live animals and turn to robotic substitutes.* While the ride's name changed, the basic concept - intrepid skippers chartering boats full of guests down the Mekong, Amazon, Congo and Nile for encounters with creatures both exotic and threatening - was in place at the offset and prevails to the present day.

*  This made Goff one of the first theme park geniuses to champion mechanical wildlife over the tedious real thing, which would often be sleeping out of guests' view and costing a fortune in food and veterinary care.

Early WDW publicity materials and models show that the Jungle Cruise was part of the WDW Phase One Master Plan from the project's first iteration. The Magic Kingdom was intended to be an upgraded version of Disneyland that would also handle a larger number of visitors. The Florida Jungle Cruise added roughly one minute's worth of additional trip time over DL's nine-minute expedition and also included two more boats, in its fleet of sixteen, than the original. A more significant difference in WDW's version was that Marc Davis was the primary designer of the overall experience, while at Disneyland his influence did not set in on the ride until 1964, when figures fleshing out his comical touch were added in the form of the Indian elephant bathing pool, the rhinoceros and trapped safari and an expanded African Veldt. Those same scenes appeared in Florida but they were mixed in with a number of other all-new elements that included Inspiration Falls, giant butterflies, pygmy war canoes, gorillas ransacking a safari camp, a huge python, a Bengal tiger, cobras guarding ancient treasure and a family of monkeys fooling around with the same valuable artifacts. So it's a VERY Davis ride that Florida guests enjoyed from the start, along with a spiel that contained more levity than the DL original.

Here's an early description of the attraction from the April 1971 edition of a WDW pre-opening newsletter called Walt Disney World News:

JUNGLE CRUISE - Exciting Voyage On Twisting "Danger-Filled" Rivers

"Take a last look at civilization ... you may never see it again," smiles the youthful skipper of the Adventureland jungle launch, a slight ominous hint in his jocular words of caution.  With that warning, passengers aboard the unique river launch will take their "final" look at the two-story riverfront building that hugs the shore in Adventureland, serving as the boarding station, and their boat will chug quietly away from the wharf.  They are embarking on a high adventure in an exciting voyage along twisting and "danger-filled" rivers that wind through impenetrable and exotic jungles, the African veldt and ancient Cambodian ruins.  Along the way they will be threatened by fearsome natives and charging hippos, watch members of a lion family gorge themselves on a fresh kill and delight to the antics of a talking parrot that takes disparaging issue with the crocodiles that surround his tenuous and tiny tree-top sanctuary.

This is the "Jungle Cruise" in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park, and, like its namesake at Disneyland in California, the attraction is expected to be one of the most popular in the Magic Kingdom.  The cruise will feature many new and different scenes and situations, however, including the ruins.  The Magic Kingdom, a park similar in design and concept to Disneyland, is the focal point of the 2,500 first phase of the Walt Disney World "Vacation Kingdom," due to open in central Florida in October.  Guests aboard any of of sixteen 30-passenger jungle river launches will travel through jungles reminiscent of the tropical regions of Africa, South America and Asia, and through the grasslands of southern Africa's veldt.  They will come face-to-face with a gigantic python, be menaced by trumpeting African elephants - their ears billowing as they prepare to charge the boat - and they will pass under the plunging, thundering waters of Albert Schweitzer Falls, so close - in fact - that passengers can reach out and feel the mist from the churning falls.  In an exotic rain forest, guests will be treated to the croaking antics of giant frogs, as big as Boston bulldogs, and the fragile beauty of butterflies as large as seagulls, as their launches glide quietly past numerous waterfalls and through a foreboding fog that undulates across the river.

But the "Jungle Cruise" will have its moments of humor, too.  Moments after their boat passes close to a hissing 25-foot python draped in the branches of a tree, guests will be treated to a scene of madcap merriment as a band of exuberant gorillas takes over a deserted safari camp.  Farther along the river, as hosts of lifelike jungle animals watch from the terraced veldt, set among multi-hued rock formations, a frenzied rhinoceros keeps tenacious watch at the base of the tree where he has forced an entire safari party to seek refuge.  As the boat passes through the center of a huge elephant pool, passengers will be entertained by the 'shower singing' of an Indian elephant as he sits and soaks in the waterfalls of his jungle spa.  Nearby, a baby pachyderm is playfully squirting water into the opening mouth of a docile crocodile.  Amid all the excitement, there are the sounds of the jungle animals, including the noisy but unseen claw and fang combat of two ferocious jungle cats.  Nearby, natives rise from the undergrowth, threatening with spears poised, while back around the last bend painted warriors continue the ritual of their ceremonial dances near burning skulls, swaying to the mysterious throbbing of tribal drums.

A highlight of the "Jungle Cruise" will be a trip through the ancient Cambodian ruins, inhabited by giant spiders, a menacing tiger, prankster monkeys and larger-than-life king cobras that sway hypnotically in front of the treasure they guard.  And waiting around the final bend to welcome guests back to civilization is "Salesman Sam," the South American headhunter, dangling his copious supply of shrunken heads, attempting to entice guests to either become a purchaser or a "purchase."  "Sam," as well as most of the natives and animals in the "Jungle Cruise," are products of "Audio-Animatronics," a sophisticated Disney-patented system that gives lifelike actions to three-dimensional figures.  "Audio-Animatronics" is a unique application of space-age electronics, combining and synchronizing voices, music and sound effects with the movement of animated objects.

The Jungle Cruise will be one of approximately 40 attractions awaiting guests in the Magic Kingdom when it opens in October."

That WDW News description suggested that the Jungle Cruise would be equal parts fierceness and silliness, which is more or less how it turned out. Some of the terminology was slightly off ("Salesman Sam" turned out to be "Trader Sam" in the first 20 years' worth of spiels and the falls' Christian name would be dropped) and those African elephants ended up more demure in their behavior, but otherwise there's accuracy. If you caught mention of a few elements that are completely unfamiliar to you, like the flaming skulls, parrot and the bullfrogs, explanations will follow below.

Construction began in Spring of 1969. An aerial photo below shows the state of the ride in April 1971. The Cambodian ruins were basically completed, Schweitzer Falls' rockwork was finished and about half of the ride's vegetation had been planted. At that time 135 animated figures were still being tooled at Glendale, California's WED Enterprises and its MAPO division. Some others were being crafted at Bud Washo's Staff Shop in Dr. Phillips, Florida - about a ten minute drive from the park. In place of some beasts were wooden flats, seen below lining the shores of the veldt, serving as placeholders for the animatronics. This made the flats "fake fakes," which would be of interest to Vinyl Leaves author Stephen Fjellman or disciples of Philip K. Dick but probably less captivating to normal people... even though anyone reading this likely doesn't fit the description of normal. Also visible is the concrete riverbed, which averages three to four feet deep and is divided down the middle by a narrow, six-foot-deep trough. Guide poles from the underside of the boats are attached to rubber tires that rest in the trough, which is what prevents the boats from slamming into the shoreline or spinning in circles, as was known to occasionally happen with the Plaza Swan Boats or the Mike Fink Keelboats.

The Jungle Cruise opened with the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.  The attraction was approachable from the same two points as it is today, via a ramped passage from the north and another ramp (by 1973 replaced with steps) from the northeast that lead to an airy plaza which abuts the queue building and a canal-side deck that originally served as a seating area for the adjacent Oasis snack bar.  The sloped pathways brought guests down roughly fifteen feet from the main Adventureland street level. Although the Oasis structure remains, in 1997 the seating area was given over to Shrunken Ned's Junior Jungle Boats, a remote control boat game that occupies a portion of the Plaza Swan Boats canal between the Jungle Cruise and the Swiss Family Treehouse. The plaza was also the original home of Adventureland drumming tikis that later became water elements on the upper Adventureland pathway facing the Enchanted Tiki Room; in their downhill configuration they formed a circle into which guests could venture and get drummed at from all sides. The entrance is still in the same basic place as when first built but the immediate surroundings have changed. The original I.D. sign was a completely rectangular piece mounted to the queue building's second story north-facing exterior wall, replaced a few years in by a mostly green, vaguely art nouveau version, shown below directly over the entrance. That sign lasted from until a major October 1991 rehab. Then a larger sign came in, consisting of a weathered board with spears sticking out of it.  The current sign, tiny compared to its predecessors, arrived in 2000 with the Fastpass changes that shook up the queue structure's facade and functionality.**  The nice "Jungle Navigation Co. LTD" mural (also shown below) disappeared when Fastpass came in, as did a cargo truck that had also arrived in 1994. Fastpass didn't even last very long at WDW's Jungle Cruise, but once everything was moved around for it, the changes stuck.

Along with the Country Bear Jamboree, the Hall of Presidents, The Haunted Mansion and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, the Jungle Cruise was one of the first-year E-ticket attractions with a queue that routinely spilled out beyond the formal entry area during the park's first few years. The two-story entrance building originally sported a split-level queue area, with two separate stairwells that would take guests to and from a covered second floor space from which they could take in a fantastic view of the jungle, looking down onto the little riverside hut on stilts that faces the loading dock, and boats heading into the dense forest canopy of the Amazon. Unfortunately I have not yet seen photographic proof of the upstairs being used by guests, although I did spend time up there as a cast member and saw how it easily COULD have served the purpose, so there's a matter that may never be resolved. Either way, the original waiting space wasn't enough to absorb the excessive first-year crowds and soon an additional first-floor queue space was built due west of the main queue structure. That annex was built at the same time as the adjacent Caribbean Plaza area (and from the main Adventureland street looks like Caribbean Plaza as well), being completed c. December 1973. The stairwells were removed and the second floor outlook became a storage space for extra seat cushions from the boats. The drumming tikis moved up the hill at the same time (but didn't suffer the indignity of being made to squirt water until 1998).

Standing in the Jungle Cruise queue was a pretty boring affair prior to that 1991 rehab. Once guests crossed the threshold they were faced with a series of switchbacks, twists and turns that led past bare walls, other guests and occasional glimpses of the river. There was no background music at that time either, so if the queue was full it promised a lot of nothing. DL's Jungle Cruise queue is now closer to the full embodiment of how cool a ride's waiting space can be, but Florida's 1991 upgrade did include queue music interspersed with radio commentary by Albert AWOL, "the voice of the jungle." A bunch of visual enhancements were also made at that same time, from a series of new destination-based wall murals to the artifact-laden "office" in the center of the queue. All good stuff, most of which is still there. By the way, the MK Imagineering Field Guide book was wrong about several things regarding this and other rides. Among the errors was the statement that the big queue area rehab took place in 1994. The Jungle Cruise did have a 1994 rehab but that wasn't when the queue area effects popped up - all of the upgrades reference on page 41 of that guide were present as of November 16, 1991.

Across the river from the dock is one of two man-made, tree-smothered islands that form the jungle interior and separate various segments of the river from others. Sounds of jungle birds and crickets stream constantly from the greenery. Prefacing all that foliage, a thatched-roof shack rests on a wooden pier.  For 20 years it was a subtly-themed structure - some fishing nets, a hammock and hanging fruit. In 1991 its exterior was blanketed with supplies and equipment: barrels, nets, a gun rack, pith helmet, jacket, rope, a crutch, lanterns and a fishing pole among them (in the 1970s, if WED wanted to "plus" this scene they would have added an animated parrot or something else of relative substance, whereas in the 1990s WDW just threw props and junk onto stuff to the point of overkill and seemed pretty happy with the results).  A small outrigger canoe with a hand-painted sail is moored off the pier's western exposure, at the entrance to a shady inlet that leads to a picturesque little waterfall. A curtain is partially drawn in the shack's doorway, revealing the edge of a bed but little else. Later (1994) additions included a chair on the roof and a sign reading "KEEP OUT!"  These suggested that something was amiss, as did a couple wooden grave markers on the adjacent shoreline.

Between the shack and the load dock is the spur line dock that divides the main boat track from the spur line track where up to two boats could be positioned prior to the ride's opening (on the spur line vs. in the backstage boat maintenance area), thereby making it faster to increase the number of "live" boats when attendance so dictates. A similar setup was used at 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in Fantasyland, which shared many operational features with the Jungle Cruise. Guests in the queue eventually find their attention drawn to the boats cycling through the water in front of them. Facing the river, at their far left is the Unload area where boats returning from the jungle dock and dismiss their riders. Closer in is the jog area, where skippers rest their voices or switch out duty with other skippers.  It's also where they reloaded their revolvers back in the day.  Right in front of guests at the end of their wait is the Load area, where they are greeted by their pilot.

Except for a period between 1975 and 1976 when female employees were introduced to the ride as hostesses, the Jungle Cruise was exclusively male-staffed from 1971 to 1995. On May 21 1995, the ride reopened from a large rehab with its first female lead (an individual who supervises a work group on-site and a title that has since been retired at WDW and maybe even by now brought back). By that September she and four other women were training to pilot the boats. In less than a year the ride was often staffed by as many (or more) women than men. It seemed like it would make for an interesting shift in the ride's character, because - as was the case with Disneyland's Jungle Cruise, WDW's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes and Mike Fink Keelboats - the maleness of the operation had once been a distinguishing feature. It wasn't a vital feature but was in keeping with cinematic and televised stereotypes of the time as far as jungle explorers went.  Only a fraction of the ride's male cast members ever really fit that "explorer" persona and that's the case with the female skippers as well. Some seem to be a great fit for their jobs and others simply DO their jobs.  Having both sexes work the ride, therefore, was a sensible decision that made no measurable changes to the overall nature of the attraction other than to bring a balance.

Every skipper welcomes waiting guests onto their boats in groups of (in the original boats) up to 32.  Riders are helped aboard by two employees on the dock who will channel them through one of two entry points in a boat's starboard side.  The original Florida ride vehicles closely resembled the DL originals - each was covered with a brightly striped canopy (red and white, blue and white or green and white).  Along the interior perimeter of each vessel was a row of vinyl cushioned seating.  There was also a short center row that directly abutted the engine compartment (hidden beneath a steamer engine facade).  The boats ran on natural gas and when I started working at the attraction in 1986, they were equipped with four-cylinder, 60 horsepower Chevette engines.  At the bow end was the wheel and a basic console with the throttle, microphone, lighting controls, a wooden ammo box, a Smith and Wesson .38 special, its holster and a lanyard that kept the guns from tumbling into the water or being appropriated by mischievous guests.  In October 2000 the boats were replaced with near-clones that replicate the modern-day Disneyland version, which themselves had appeared in 1997.  The most obvious change was the conversion to an earth-tone color scheme and the addition of multiple props, spread across the boats, underscoring the notion that the boats transported cargo and supplies to various points on the river.  The real guns were replaced with fakes.  Gone were the brightly colored canopies, vinyl seat cushions and rudders.  The original names of the sixteen boats in the WDW Jungle Cruise fleet: Amazon Annie, Bomokandi Bertha, Congo Connie, Ganges Gertie, Irrawaddy Irma, Kwango Kate, Mongola Millie, Nile Nellie, Orinoco Ida, Rutshuru Ruby, Sankuru Sadie, Senegal Sal, Ucyali Lolly, Volta Val, Wamba Wanda and Zambesi Zelda.  If any of those have changed in the new century, I'm unaware of it.

UNIMPORTANT NOTE: Anyone seated on the outer edge of the boats can take in at least half of the ride's scenery from a nice vantage point. Then there are those guests who are seated on the center cushion. It's the worst place ever to sit. Sorry.

The boat's skipper will typically by this point have begun talking with the passengers. The spiel that skippers have laid out for them when they are trained to work the ride has varied several times over the years. There is the original 1971 version that adhered closely to the 1960s Disneyland model, then some minor modifications that led to the 1991 version, which has itself seen some minor adjustments leading to the current version, give or take the truth. The tone has remained just slightly offbeat on paper even though the focus veered toward environmentalism in the later edits.  Its effect is governed almost exclusively by your skipper's delivery. There are detailed accounts of the spiel itself to be found elsewhere online, so it isn't covered here except in passing. Suffice it to say that a skipper with an aptitude for using the 'script' as clay for their own creation can make for a very entertaining trip.  An opportunity for gauging how well things will go comes as the boats depart civilization and venture into the heart of the Amazonian rain forest. Then skippers - free from an audience of co-workers - set the tone for the rest of the ride with something of relative substance around them on which to discourse.  They can stick to the script and comment on the fact that everything in the Amazon, such as the butterflies, grows larger than life, or they could elaborate with a warning that the butterflies are capable of flapping a human to death in ten seconds.  Or they may abandon all predictability and ad-lib the whole thing in a minimalist fashion ... uttering a few barely audible lines when it suits them and then staring at you silently for a short eternity.  If your skipper can make you a little uneasy, respect that.

The first minute's worth of ride time in WDW's version of the Jungle Cruise is a triumph of staging that takes guests seamlessly from the promise of the half-civilized dock area to untamed realms of nature.  The Amazon environment was unique to Florida prior to Tokyo Disneyland's 1983 opening, and Tokyo Disneyland's Amazon leg is abbreviated by half. WDW's Amazon was originally covered by a man-made armature that allowed the live plant material - as well as synthetic supplements - to form a dense green canopy over the winding river.  Mist fell gently from the overhead growth, combining with some of Disney's typically phenomenal audio augmentation (in this instance an instrumental loop of Debussy-esque flute warbles) to create a beautiful and subdued sense of the unknown. Massive butterflies populate logs and rocks on both sides of the river ... wings gently waving to showcase their majestic coloring. The butterflies remain, and sometimes their wings still move, but the overhead canopy  that added so much to the atmosphere in this area was removed during a rehab in 2000.  You know the planet is doomed when even Disney's Amazon gets deforested.

Midway down the Amazon, the canopy parted at the base of Inspiration Falls. Anyone can tell you that the falls, consisting of multiple cascades spread across a blue-grey outcropping of moss-covered rock rising some twelve feet above the river, were so named because they inspire explorers to venture deeper into the jungle.  Skippers usually slowed the boat down here (and often still do), trying to elicit some reverent "oohs and "aahs" from their crew before proceeding beneath the second and final canopy which, like the first, is now gone.

This span of river between Inspiration Falls and the headwaters of the Congo has for most of the ride's life been more vegetation accompanied by the sound of unseen frogs.  While this area was originally going to feature a Marc Davis gag way more zany than frogs, the frogs actually did exist - hence the reference to bullfrogs in the above pre-opening ride description.  I had reason to suspect this was true since 1986, but it took 20 years to get the matter resolved.  Back when I was trained to work the ride, I saw several attraction maps that were labeled, "Key Plan - Animated Figure Location."  Below is one that I scanned and cleaned up a little (click the image for a larger version).  There are notations for figures F21, F21A through F21D, F22 and F22A through F22E.  But there were no figures in those locations and the maps didn't indicate what they were supposed to be.  The Jungle Cruise maintenance manual, however, sat on a shelf back in the ride's boat storage area and while flipping though it I saw that those figures were supposed to be frogs. There were black and white photos of the figures also. Did they ever appear in the ride? None of the maintenance workers I spoke to could say for sure. Countless inquiries later, a firsthand confirmation that the frogs were once in the ride finally materialized in 2007 via a co-founder of WDW's Artist Prep department named Lee Nesler. Nesler related, through former WDW cast member Dave Ensign, that those frogs were an original (1971) Jungle Cruise component. He said, however, that then-WDW Operations chief Dick Nunis believed the frogs looked "hokey," so they were removed just a few months into the ride's tenure.  They were never used again.  All that remains now is the sound of their croaking and one cousin who hopped away to another corner of the park (that story will pick up later).

Even though no one expects WDW will ever put frogs back into the ride, it is now possible for the world to see some of them as they looked to guests. The third image below is a documentation photo from Imagineering.  It shows a mother frog and two juveniles perched with toadstools atop a fake rock.  The fourth image is a detail from the ride's maintenance manual.  Click on the images for closer looks; these frogs were not only cuter than cute, they moved!  The adults opened their mouths and actually distended their vocal sacs, while the small ones rocked backward and forward on their legs.  If that's hokey, so be it.  Also included is an equally rare bit of Davis concept art that was generously contributed by an anonymous supporter.

One might infer from all of this that the Amazon guests see now is a fraction of its former self.  It remains, nonetheless, a well-orchestrated prelude to the larger animals and action ahead.  In a way, the enveloping canopy once foreshadowed the boats' upcoming foray into the Cambodian temple just as Inspiration Falls is still a rippling forecast of Schweitzer Falls. 

The Amazon bleeds into the Congo with the sight of pygmy war canoes sitting empty on a white sandy beach.  The skipper typically mentions that each canoe is capable of holding 300 pygmies, intimating that 900 could be nearby and possibly lying in wait.  Guests try to pass unnoticed but soon hear the sounds of tribal drums breaking from the undergrowth.  The first sound, it turns out, is a call, and a response comes from another side of the beach.  As this plays out back and forth, it seems certain that the boat's presence has been detected.  The spiel once had skippers try to interpret the drumming (it translated as an invitation to dinner) but in the end this vacated vignette turns out to be nothing more than a distraction.  With their attention drawn back into the shadows of the trees around the canoes, it is that much easier for the massive python just ahead to scare the baby jesus out of the skipper and her/his passengers.

The yellow and brown constrictor, which is twisted poetically around the trunk and branches of a dead tree in the shallows, descends (as an idea) from a less-imposing snake that appeared in DL's Jungle Cruise for many years as part of the Cambodian ruins scene.  Although it barely moves, the size and convincing profile of the Florida serpent are sufficient to raise hairs on the neck of someone seated on that side of the boat; their faces will come within a few scant feet of the python's probing tongue.  Its skin tone has varied since 1971, arguably becoming more realistic.  All these years later, it has yet to apply the "Congo Squeeze" to a single passenger.  The snake was, however, added to DL's ride in 1976, where it became the source of some contemplation for water buffalo.

The river turns again to the right, and the skipper prepares to make a quick stop at camp for supplies.  This sets up the first of Marc Davis' new-for-Florida, full-blown sight gags, the gorillas in the camp.  The first thing you can see off the starboard bow is a flipped blue jeep with its front wheels still spinning, its tracks fresh in the sand.  Cans and boxes are scattered along the shoreline and inside the square-framed yellow tent ... a group of great apes making themselves at home.  A huge male stands upright at a wall-hung mirror, trying on a pith helmet.  A mother sits atop a pile of crates in the back corner, a baby swinging from her outstretched arms.  Two juveniles have appropriated firearms; one is a half-step short of taking a stray shot toward the boat, the other about to blow its own face off.  You can barely hear them from the boat, especially if you have a loud engine or chatty skipper, but the gorillas are most assuredly grunting happily over their newfound toys.

Immediately following the camp scene, on the same side of the river, there is a hollowed-out rock at the water's edge.  If you ever rode the Walt Disney World Railroad and saw a door in the back of a rock as you looked toward the perimeter of the Jungle Cruise, you were looking at the back side of this same structure.  The last time I saw this it was covered in vines.  Skippers periodically reference this as the world's largest pet rock.  The reason there is a big useless stone mass in that spot, or more pointedly the reason why it was conceived and built but perpetually puzzling, is that an extension of the gorilla scene had been designed by Marc Davis and marked for a home in that rock.  It was going to be another big gorilla swinging out over the water, pummeling a crocodile that was stupid enough to swim within reach.  By 1968, when Florida's Jungle Cruise was being master-planned, Davis knew that the medium of three-dimensional animation could be pushed further than it had been even in recent attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean.  He intended to explore wider ranges of motion in the Pirates-like Western River Expedition (where can-can girls would throw their legs skyward for the entertainment of cowboys) and, to a slightly lesser extent, in WDW's Jungle Cruise.  Any Disney maintenance person could tell you that a mechanical gorilla clobbering a mechanical crocodile every 30 seconds for eight to sixteen hours a day would generate some serious wear on the parts, so certainly there was no intention of having the figures make real contact.  The gag, however, would have approximated that effect and remained part of the WDW plan as one of several elements that the ride's original animated figure location plan marked as "in at Year 2."

Unless "Year 2" actually meant 2072, plans for dropping the ape into the rock dissipated before the ride's first big rehab in 1975.  The infrastructure remained, however, and included the first dip in the riverbed (as shown in the photo below) that would have provided space for the crocodile's support framework.  As with the python, the gorilla camp scene - including the gorilla vs. crocodile vignette - made its way to Disneyland in 1976.  But the California crocodile didn't get brained by the monkey, he just came in close like he wanted to grab a banana.  The scene was reworked in 2005 and the croc was purged from the setting, leaving the gorilla to contemplate a bunch of bananas atop a floating crate ... ugh ... so sad.  Tokyo still has both the ape and the crocodile the last time I checked.

At WDW, a battered croc's flailing tail would have signaled the end of the Congo and a transition to the north-flowing currents of the Nile.   To some extent the Nile is the least ambitious river in the Florida version's arsenal, as it largely mimics scenes that were already to be found at DL in 1971.  It may have amped up the aesthetics, specifically in the form of designer Fred Joerger's fantastic rockwork for the African Veldt scenery and Schweitzer Falls, but almost all of the WDW Nile concepts had been test-driven before.

First is a pair of African bull elephants, which are arguably boring even though they shouldn't be.  If, like it was suggested by the pre-opening teaser above and by the upper-crust toucan Claude in the nearby Tropical Serenade's pre-show, the elephants "bellowed forth," then maybe they'd feel more special.  But all they do is blow their noses loudly and stay put.  Even when they had red eyes, in the earliest years, there was no threat of them entering the water and causing panic.  The scene works better in California because you can see more of the animals than in Florida, where sometimes - as the unintended end result of foliage left unchecked - it has looked like the elephants are just sticking their heads through the leaves to be silly.  This perception is only furthered by the fact that - although they are positioned on opposite sides of the river - the elephants don't face each other.  They are the only Jungle Cruise animals that might actually be appreciated more wholly, in their live form, at Animal Kingdom's Kilimanjaro Safaris.

The elephants are followed by another fine rock formation off the starboard bow.  At DL this became the roost of a baboon family, and the Florida version was at some point prepared for the insertion of those same animals even though the animation diagram does not attest to the physical proof. Alas, here the rock is just a bookend that momentarily hides gnus and giraffes from guests' sight.  They are revealed as part of a panorama that's also home to zebras, impala, vultures and, comprising the opposite bookend, the craggy hangout of a lion pride. This African Veldt contains no real levity (outside of playful lion cubs) or tension. Depending on which skipper you listen to, the lions are either "protecting a sleeping zebra" or feasting bloodlessly on the same striped prey. All of the key action has already occurred on the Veldt and everything has come to a standstill; the lions have made their kill and are clustered around it quietly, the hoofed animals have determined that it's safe to go back to eating greenery and the vultures are waiting for their turn with a carcass. With no momentum, this is the Magic Kingdom equivalent of a Smithsonian diorama and illustrates "the basic law of the jungle ... survival of the fittest."

The boats make a hard turn around the lions' cave and swing up on the trapped safari scene.  Before you even see what's happening here you can hear a clan of hyenas yelping. Then you find out that they're spectators, along with some more zebras and gazelle, to a massive rhinoceros who has run five members of a safari up the trunk of a dead tree. At its apex is a 'great white hunter' archetype in a pith helmet, whose jockeying for the top spot appears a likely commentary on his bravery or lack theroef. Below him, four associates crowd in looking for extra room. For the ride's first 25 years, these were four black porters in khaki uniforms and red hats.  When the rhino lunged forward and raised its horn, the porters would rise upward in succession, in past tense here only because in later times there was not always discernible motion. The scene is Marc Davis at the top of his theme park form, and it provides a perfect counterpoint to how "serious" the Veldt scene was.

In 1996 the porters were changed from black to caucasian and each was given a different outfit (one fez remained).  The foreground was made to look like a camp site, and the top of the tree was given an aerial platform ... not the perch of a hunting party but of a documentary crew. The scene continue to see changes like that in the 21st century. The first revision eliminated any part of the ride itself that hinted at colonialism, the later ones just minor updates.  

On to waterborne perils! They start with a pair of extra-large crocodiles, flashing their pearly whites on a beach flanked by ivory-colored native totems. The larger of the crocs, on the left, was nicknamed Old Smiley and measures about fifteen feet in length. His companion was often referenced as Gertrude in the 1970s and 1980s, and later on as Ginger (she snaps).  The twosome hiss harmoniously at passing boats and, unlike those African elephants, appear to be potential threats. They are in fact jointly responsible for a surfeit of "shorthand" teachers across the globe.

Straight ahead lies majestic Schweitzer Falls, a scenic device that doubles as a huge pump to keep the river's 1,750,000 gallons of water circulating. Skippers feign panic as the boats momentarily appear to be headed right into the deluge, then they pull off a hard starboard turn that only exposes guests on the port side to a minor spray. This is typically the only point in the Jungle Cruise where guests will see another boat (outside of the dock area), as the track bends back beneath Schweitzer Falls - providing everyone with a glimpse of the legendary back side of water - after completing a loop around the smaller of the ride's two aforementioned islands. This configuration makes the river one of the Magic Kingdom's three lopsided "figure eight" bodies of water, along with the Rivers of America and the Hub canal. It has been written on other websites that JC employees refer to the two islands as Manhattan and Catalina. That may be true. I can state without hesitation, however, that if a skipper was overheard calling either of the islands by either of those nicknames when I worked there, they would have been laughed at.

The passage into the hippo pool was originally attended by nothing but the recorded sound of crickets. The back half of an airplane was placed among the trees in 1994 (thereby making it safe for future scenic crews to scatter garbage in other parts of the jungle and call it "art direction"). For years the front half of the plane was positioned 4.4 miles to the southeast in The Great Movie Ride's Casablanca scene.

Skippers belie their misgivings about hippopotami just before the creatures surface, ears twitching, on both sides of the boat.  There are eleven in total, adults and juveniles, and although they are cute it appears from the aggression of two full-size versions (mouths agape) that they wouldn't mind taking some guests down for the count.  At this point skippers draw their pistols and pump the charging hippos full of hot lead. Actually just one imaginary slug per beast, but even that was for some time deemed too questionable. In 1999 the guns were removed, then they came back but the skippers weren't allowed to shoot directly at the hippos. They became warning shots fired into the heavens which, as anyone who has been to Africa can tell you, is at best the third-most effective way to calm down a herd of river horses. The first and most direct method, which to my knowledge was only attempted once during the ride's history, is for the skipper to dive into the water with a rubber knife between his teeth and stab the hippos repeatedly. The second is to shoot them right in the face, as it was done back in the day.  This was not anti-environmental grandstanding or impudent trophy hunting, it was the theatrical assertion of self-preserving dominion over an imminent fiberglass threat. 

Back-to-back trouble is in store for guests as they sail past the subdued hippos, right into a headhunter's village. While the pulsating rhythm of native drums flows from the bushes ahead, skippers gesture casually starboard toward a canoe full of skulls resting along the beach. Just past this, beneath the shelter of a thatched, a-frame hut, a group of painted warriors hops around in a close-knit circle, spears in hand. An adjacent, smaller, shelter provides cover for the three drummers. When the ride first opened, there were as foretold skulls on fire atop spears placed around the front yard of the main shelter, making this the most 'Live and Let Die' scene in a Disney ride so far. The flames didn't last for more than a couple years. The remaining abundance of bones and stern faces still speak to danger, but for a moment it appears that boats will make it through unscathed as they had with the unseen pygmies. As the river twists back from the celebrators, that possibility dims ... from behind the bushes on the shoreline of the bamboo-laden tiny island, a Zulu ambush unfolds. There are seven agitators who rise stealthily from crouched positions and begin shouting**** at riders with their spears raised.  The skipper drops hurriedly - most of the time - and urges everyone else to follow suit. You can hear the sound of spears whistling through the air, but miraculously none find their target and the boat manages to coast forward toward the comparatively safe haven of roaring Schweitzer Falls.

**** One of the attackers yelled "I love disco" from the undergrowth, as has been the subject of rumors. The ride itself predates the rise of disco by three years, so our DACS joker messed with the audio sometime between 1974 and 1986, when I worked there and noticed it for myself.

***** The temple was duplicated for Tokyo Disneyland, opening in 1983, but as a mirror image of the Florida incarnation

After passing underneath the back side of water, the path leads into the Irrawaddy River (since the 1990s it has been called the Mekong).  This is the last of the ride's four "named" destinations and it begins with a turn in the direction of the flooded Cambodian temple.  The approach is augmented by the sound, mentioned in the earlier pre-opening desciption, of two animals having it out in the dense undergrowth.  This scene, including the audio and glimpse of the temple, was intended to serve as a backdrop for the Swiss Family Treehouse, at least if you believe what you read in pop-up books ... a 1972 publication shows the temple hiding beneath some branches.  Whether you could ever see the temple itself clearly from the treehouse, I don't know, but the plaque adjoining the treehouse's master suite does reference the jungle overlook.

Skippers have made a variety of references to the foreboding ruins over the years, with later editions of the spiel actually identifying them as remnants of the Khmer empire in Cambodia.  This structure is a composite of architectural and ornamental features found in that nation's Angkor Wat and Bayon sites, as well as Thailand's Ayutthaya temple.  Its theme park genesis is 2,200 miles to the east in Anaheim, but Florida's completely eclipses the original Disneyland form where you merely ride past bits of temple elements as originally conceived in artwork by Marc Davis.  On either side of the river are crocodiles submerging and surfacing, yet they hardly compete for attention in this setting - the fiberglass and concrete recreations of carved stone wonders are too compelling.  The river ahead leads clearly right up to the temple's entrance and guests can legitimately question why skippers would willingly pilot the boat directly below the crumbling stone beams.  It's reckless in theory, but who cares once they see that their path extends deep into the dark gaping mouth of the building? What could be in there?  How deep does it go?  It's so dark and uninviting that not plowing ahead starts to seem like the wrong idea.

On their way in, boats pass the vine-wrapped face of the Hindu God Vishnu, often "misidentified" by skippers as Shirley.  The sides of the passageway indicate antiquity in their crumbling bas reliefs of scenes from Hindu mythology, incursions of roots from overhead growth and elements of elaborate statuary.  The roof of the temple, which can hardly be discerned by riders, is a terraced area supporting three spires that lend the building a sense of perspective and added grandeur.

Back inside, with skippers suspending their narration to focus on the business of piloting, boats follow the river path that curves to the right.  A growl can be heard just around the corner - soon attributable to a large Bengal tiger that has paused in the center of a hole in the stone wall, standing among displaced stones and more jungle foliage that has reclaimed part of the structure.  Inch for inch, this is the most artfully staged depiction of nature triumphing over man that you're going to find in any theme park. You may be inclined to count the entire Magic Kingdom in this category, but just because the park is often full of overgrowth and smudged surfaces doesn't mean it was planned that way. The temple was deliberate.

The tiger itself is striking, its bright green eyes glowing fiercely in the darkness.  Guests on the starboard side get a nice close-up look... here and just beyond it actually seems, for the first time since the Congo's python, that the wildlife might really lunge right into the boat if it so chose.

Just past this cat, the growling gives way to musical tones. If not the real thing, they are at least evocative of roneat (marimba-ish things) used in that Cambodian court music. The impression is that in the darkness of the ruins there is the echo of something lost to time, which is just plain wonderful and more effective in its minimalism to me than anything else at WDW outside of the Haunted Mansion. As if captivated by the sound, two large king cobras sway back and forth on pedestals situated near the boats' path.  More snakes lie just ahead in a wide alcove, where they stand between guests and a vast spread of glowing treasure.  In the center of the scene is a stone reproduction of the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, crouched in a blissful position among gold artifacts and crystals.  Huge spiders flank this scene, identical cousins to some that used to hang out in the Haunted Mansion from 1971 to around 2007.

In a recess on the opposite side of the channel, a group of monkeys is meddling with more treasure, sticking their heads and hands into urns or climbing into them.  A little monkey yelp is heard for a moment.  It's a fun scene that some riders never see very well because of how and where it's staged and how quickly boats pass it.  A couple other monkeys are out closer to the boats, which then approach a series of damaged sculptures in alcoves.  These might be male cousins of apsaras, or heavenly Hindu nymphs, but maybe only Marc Davis knew for sure. Like everything else in the temple, they're cool and only viewable for a moment as the boats glide out of the tunnel and right into an Indian Elephant bathing pool.

The Indian elephants make up the ride's 'finale' scene. Stuff is going on all around the boats... the elephants are having a great time blasting water from their trunks while a huge one sits in the downpour of a waterfall on rocks that form the back side of Inspiration Falls.  A baby elephant squirts at the open mouth of a crocodile on the shore.  Your skipper barely has time to point out what's happening before her or his attention is drawn to a big elephant just ahead whose head is sticking out of the water while it shoots a stream of water across the path of the boat.  The skipper slows down and tries to time a dry escape once the elephant submerges, but as soon as the boat moves ahead to avoid getting soaked, a second elephant pops up pulling the same trick behind some rocks on the opposite side of the canal.  Guests are now caught in the "Indian Elephant squeeze play" as the first elephant comes back up to squirt everyone.  And, miraculously, the elephant doesn't shoot water from its trunk because it forgot to reload.  It has absolutely happened in the past that guests WERE shot in the face by these elephants due to boat backups and bad timing, but it's rare.  During my time as a skipper this kind of accident could be avoided by keeping boats away from the underwater trip switch (which activated the elephants) until the path ahead was verifiably clear, but not every skipper was thinking ahead like that.  In fact some would pull an opposite trick if their boat was fast enough and cruise through the trip switch at full speed and cross the elephants' stream on the first pass.  Doused guests.  Oops.

The next scene along the river WOULD have been, as described in that pre-opening passage, crocodiles having cornered a (for some reason) flightless parrot on top of a twiggy tree on the island side of the river where a concrete beach did, in fact, get built in anticipation of the scene's eventual installation.  As with the gorilla vs. crocodile scene bound for the Congo, this was going to have been an "In at Year 2" element.

When Ross Plesset and I interviewed Marc Davis in 1999, we asked him if any actual parrot dialogue had been written or recorded and he said it wasn't likely and he didn't recall any particular script ideas.  My guess is that if WED had gone that far, they'd probably have brought in Wally Boag and he'd have ad-libbed some stuff similar to his Tiki Room barker bird "squawking" under the direction of X Atencio or something like that.  But there's no indication that it happened.  Lee Nesler said that the scene was once mocked up on the shoreline for management's review, but they decided not to go with the full installation.

The apparent main reason for this was that the Magic Kingdom was hit so hard with first year attendance that, by mid-1972, the company was looking for all possible ways to increase the park's capacity.  One small outcome of this was that they added some enhancements along the WDW Railroad line between Frontierland and Tomorrowland.  This "Railroad Embellishment," as it was referred to by WED, included deer on the opposite side of the canal on the park's north border, and - on the park side - additional animation in the Indian Village plus a family of rattlesnakes and, finally, some alligators coming out of the water to have a look at a really big frog on a tree stump.  So one of the by-then-removed Amazon frogs being paired up with the crocodiles meant for the Jungle Cruise and together they formed a new scene for the railroad with the crocs posing as alligators (from the train who can tell the difference?)  And they did that simply because they wanted guests to have more things to look at during that long back stretch of the train ride and then, maybe, choose to ride around one more time thereby resulting in a capacity gain for the park.  It's tempting to say that's how WED thought "back in the day," but many Imagineers STILL think that way... they're just hard-pressed to add relatively small but cool items when project budgets are too tight.  The concepts exist, but often they get postponed or eliminated in favor of the larger / wow factor stuff.  And these "Year 2" Jungle Cruise scenes are just proof that it happened in the 1960s and 1970s also.  People like Marc Davis were pushing to get as much animation and detail into the parks as possible, people like Card Walker were ultimately deciding how much money will get committed to a project and people like Dick Irvine and Dick Nunis in the middle trying to make the tough calls about what gets done and what doesn't.  Even Walt Disney had to make those types of decisions back when nearly every park element was reviewed by him personally.  There were Davis scenes for Disneyland's 1967 Pirates of the Caribbean that Walt wanted to see built but that ultimately had to be deferred.  The extent to which Card Walker wanted to see Florida's 1973 Pirates abbreviated (as a matter of cost management) meant that WDW had a lot fewer cool pirate cave scenes (and one less waterfall), but it also created an opportunity for Davis to come up with some Pirates elements for the Magic Kingdom that didn't appear in Anaheim.

Since the crocs didn't quite make it, the final Jungle Cruise scene has always been Trader Sam, standing alone on his pile of rocks at the extreme northeastern tip of the ride's main island under an umbrella, wearing a top hat and not much else.  Sometime in the 1990s the skippers started calling him Chief Namee and the last I heard he's Trader Sam again.  At first it seems like he should be of Indian descent based on geography, but the shrunken heads he's selling suggest that, as that early ride description from WDW News said, he's South American.  If that's the case then this part of the ride is a return to the Amazon and is that the setting for the dock area?  Should anyone even be spending time thinking about this?  Anyway, for someone who chops off heads for a living, Sam seems really serene... a professional who loves his work.

A few more words will end up here eventually, I guess, to finish the Jungle Cruise story up.  I abhor finality.                      

The Jungle Cruise, Altered WDW Attraction, Location: Adventureland, Magic Kingdom, Opened: October 1, 1971, Ticket Required (1971-1980): E

Originators: Marc Davis, Bill Evans, Blaine Gibson, Harper Goff, Fred Joerger, Bill Justice

Fantasyland

Fantasyland has always been my favorite land in any of the Disney parks, and even though Florida's Fantasyland was never quite as dense with detail as the 1983 Disneyland version, WDW's is the one that commands my subconscious. Not the current WDW Fantasyland, of course, but the Fantasyland of my 1970s childhood. By which I'm forever hypnotized.

It contained the most beautiful and the most terrifying imagery in the whole of the Magic Kingdom. The Haunted Mansion was creepy, but nothing inside held a floating candle to the horrific witch in Snow White's Scary Adventures. Tropical Serenade had lovely moments and a tremendous aura, but was just slightly outdone by the Africa scene in It's A Small World and moonlit London in Peter Pan's Flight. And those were just three facets of Fantasyland. There was SO much going on.   

The Mickey Mouse Revue (October 1, 1971 to September 14, 1980)

The Mickey Mouse Revue was one of the initial attractions conceived by WED Enterprises to become a Walt Disney World "first." It was also the first major (ticketed) attraction to close at Walt Disney World. This show anchored the western portion of Fantasyland's main courtyard, in the theater that later housed Magic Journeys, Legend of the Lion King and Mickey's Philharmagic (which draws from the Mouse Revue's basic concept). The Mickey Mouse Revue played to guests for almost nine years in Florida before it was dismantled and shipped to Tokyo Disneyland for an April 1983 opening.

The idea for the attraction carries back to Walt Disney himself, who described such a show during a 1962 interview. When discussing his new audio-animatronic process and its applications in The Enchanted Tiki Room and an as-yet untitled haunted house attraction, Walt said he had similar plans for "all the Disney characters."

"I have in mind a theater," he said, "and the figures will not only put on the show but be sitting in the boxes with the visitors, heckling. I don't know just when I'll do that."

"Just when" turned out to be October, 1971 for Walt's successors. While the show didn't end up with programmed hecklers, it did provide a fantastic venue for 73 Disney characters with musical inclinations. Those characters were represented by 81 separate animated figures (8 of whom were alternate versions that appeared in different onstage locations.)

In the attraction's holding area, which was appointed in hues of rose and pink, the walls were lined with trompe l'oeil paintings of Mickey (and one with Minnie also) in costumes from several of his more famous roles, from Steamboat Willie to the Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. Guests waited here before a host or hostess signaled that it was time to enter the pre-show theater. At that time, they were ushered through a small portal on the east wall and into a room lined with several tiers of viewing platforms separated by lean rails (which will not support your weight or the weight of your children so please please please don't sit on them).

The pre-show was an eight minute film that traced Mickey's career and the use of sound in his films. The first portion of the film was narrated by an animated soundtrack that wiggled and jumped its way across the screen in time with the sounds it was making (an effect similar to one used in Disney's The Three Caballeros, in 1945, where Donald Duck gets mixed up in the soundtrack of a frantic song.) At the end of the pre-show film, the focus was shifted to Mickey's role as host in the theme parks. The final scene was live action footage of Disney characters pouring out through the front of the castle to a jazzed-up version (i.e., with a freaky bass guitar riff that typified most of Disney's early 1970s attempts to prove its hipness to the "younger generation" while simultaneously trying to demonstrate via cheesy Kurt Russell films that boys need not have shoulder-length hair to win the hearts of girls) of the Mickey Mouse March. Mickey came to the front of the scene and urged guests to follow him along into the theater on their right. "Come along folks, it's time for the Mickey Mouse Musical Revue!"*

* The working title for the attraction was The Mickey Mouse Musical Revue prior to its opening. The pre-show film had evidently been shot and overdubbed before the final name was decided upon.

Then guests entered the main theater through one of several pink automatic doors on their right.  The room contained thirteen rows of seats facing an 86-foot long stage.  The proscenium was draped with a huge red curtain and flanked by two smaller stages resembling box seats. Painted in the center of the curtain were the traditional theater icons, the comedy and tragedy masks - traditional aside from the similarities to Mickey, as both masks had mouse ears.

Once everyone was seated, a host or hostess got on the house microphone and reminded everyone not to eat, drink, smoke or use flash bulbs during the show.  The room grew dark and the sound of an unseen orchestra tuning their instruments filled the room while the curtains separated and were pulled back toward the wings.  In the center of the stage, the shadow of Mickey appeared against a secondary curtain.  Then Mickey came into view on his bright red pedestal as it rose from the pit.  The orchestra soon rose around him.

Spread out across 35 feet of stage space, the orchestra's members*, numbering 23, ranged from cartoon short stars such as Minnie, Goofy, Daisy and Pluto to earlier feature film personalities like Dumbo, Timothy Mouse, the Mad Hatter, March Hare, the Dormouse, Gus and Jaq all the way up to more recent (for 1971) film performers like Baloo, Kaa, King Louie, Winnie the Pooh, Piglet and Rabbit.  Their instruments were varied: tubas, tympani and trumpets, ukuleles, kazoos and clarinets.  Kaa played his own tail like a flute, which still seems as absolutely strange to me now as it did when I was six.


*  The figures ranged in height from 12" (the Dormouse) to 6' (Baloo), not counting the long-stemmed Alice flowers.  Mickey stood at 42" tall, and at the time of the show's opening was Disney's most complicated Audio-Animatronic figure.  Mickey was capable of 33 functions, the same as the much taller (6'4") Lincoln figure housed in the nearby Hall of Presidents, but all of the mouse's mechanical grace had to be stowed in a much smaller frame, which was a considerable task. 

The orchestra played a medley of familiar Disney tunes, starting with "Heigh Ho," then moving on to "Whistle While You Work," "When You Wish Upon A Star" and "Hi Diddle Dee Dee."

At the conclusion of that brief overture, Dumbo's tuba intoned the first few notes of "Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf" as the wolf's shadow snuck across the rear curtain toward center stage.  Further right a section of the curtain rose to reveal the Three Little Pigs in a cross-section of Practical Pig's brick house.  The pigs played and sang a few seconds of their signature song before the curtain closed over them and another section lifted to the left.

The next vignette featured Snow White and some forest animals sitting on a wooded hillside.  She sang a version of "I'm Wishing," the same version that emanated from Snow White's Adventure's wishing well at WDW until 1994, while the animals listened in. As Snow White finished, an adjacent area of the hillside came into view from behind another section of rising curtain. Here the Seven Dwarfs stood in their cottage, playing "The Silly Song."  The molds from which these dwarfs were cast were reused many years later to create the dwarfs that now inhabit the cottage scenes in both Disneyland and WDW's revamped Snow White rides, as well those in Disneyland Paris and Tokyo Disneyland...making the latter park home to two complete sets of dwarfs.  In the Mickey Mouse Revue, the dwarfs sang part of the song with Snow White's help before the curtain lowered on their setting.

To the far right end of the stage the curtain rose on a scene from Alice In Wonderland, with Alice standing in the midst of fifteen oversized flowers.  As Alice and the flowers swayed in time, she sang "All In The Golden Afternoon."  Alice's stage voice, like that of most other characters in this production, was a marked departure from her film voice.  Much like the Darlene Gillespie version that plays in Disneyland's Storybook Land, this Alice sounded more mature and polished than a young Kathryn Beaumont.  This scene was the best in the show visually - every inch of it looked like it was crafted of confectioner's sugar and the colors popped like fireworks.

The next scene was from "The Three Caballeros," the show's most animated and comical segment. As soon as Alice's song drew to a close, a flying carpet rose from the pit to the left of the orchestra.  On the carpet were Donald, Panchito and Jose Carioca.  They broke out into the main theme from "Three Caballeros" in a blaze of music and color, with Donald on maracas, Jose on guitar and Panchito firing two pistols.  Each shot sent sparks of bright light streaking across the room. The three had barely begun their song when the lights went out on the carpet.  Instantaneously, Panchito and Jose appeared (still singing) on the small side stage to the audience's right.  Then Panchito fired a pistol and the glow of his bullet raced across the stage, illuminating Donald on the left side stage. Donald shook his maracas vigorously and continued the song like the frantic duck he is. With the sound of another ricocheting bullet, he disappeared and reappeared on the right side stage. Another shot and Panchito and Jose popped up where Donald had been just seconds prior.  Moments later the three were reunited on the carpet, where they quickly finished the song and disappeared as quickly as they'd arrived.  This was definitely a highlight of the show. The sight of Donald wiggling around so fast (in three dimensions, no less) was absolutely infectious.

The next vignette began with the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella, in her scullery maid outfit, standing at the far left side of the stage. The Fairy Godmother sang "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" and waved her wand around. In a shower of twinkling lights, Cinderella was transformed into her princess incarnation. Then the rear curtain lowered as a projection of Cinderella and Prince Charming, as silhouettes, danced across it in a spotlight. They sang "So This Is Love" as they waltzed.  Clusters of hearts framed them on the curtain. And, yes, this was the most boring part of the show.

When the projection faded out, the sound of the orchestra came rising up from the pit. To the right, Brer Fox, Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit rose into view and began singing "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah." Fans of Splash Mountain and Song of the South might wonder how it came to pass that these three resolved to put aside their longstanding homicidal feuding and join each other onstage in song...but remember, Kaa played his tail like a flute! As they sang, the orchestra rose beside them. The Three Caballeros reappeared also, and then the rear curtain lifted to reveal all of the show's scenes at once. The houses of the Three Little Pigs and Seven Dwarfs were gone, leaving all the characters contrasted against a brightening sky in the background. Cinderella now stood with Prince Charming, and everyone joined in the song.  A rainbow gleamed across the horizon as the voices and instruments of all the characters reached a crescendo.

At the close of the song, the entire stage fell dark save for a spotlight on Mickey.  His pedestal spun to face the audience as the other characters sang the "Mickey Mouse Club Alma Mater." Mickey, all choked up, spoke. "Well folks, that concludes our show, we hope you enjoyed it..." Then, as he let out a little mouse laugh, the main curtain was drawn and the show was over.

The total show time came out to only 9 minutes 30 seconds, which made it a relatively short Disney stage production. Yet it used far more characters than any of its predecessors or 1971 counterparts.

The specifics of why the Revue was removed from Florida are not well documented, but it's fairly easy to connect the dots. For one thing, the show opened in 1971 as an "E" ticket attraction, denoting that the company anticipated it to be a top draw...just like the Country Bear Jamboree in Frontierland. But whereas the Country Bear show was so popular that its queue required the closure of a gift shop to keep the line out of the street (see Westward Ho), the Mouse Revue seldom drew a comparable crowd. In 1973 it was changed to a "D" ticket, which is the only time I've ever heard of an attraction dropping its admission rank. When representative of the Oriental Land Co. began touring Disneyland and WDW in the 1970s and choosing attractions that would be replicated for their new Tokyo Disneyland park, the Mickey Mouse Revue made their list. Given the production's massive cast, the least expensive means of satisfying that request would be to send the original overseas rather than create a duplicate version. Given that the show wasn't fully achieving its capacity aims in Florida, and possibly in view of Walt Disney Productions' cash-strapped position due to EPCOT Center construction costs, this particular show's relocation overseas turned out to be a sad concession. It was the only attraction at either DL or WDW that was shipped to Tokyo outright.

As mentioned above there were 81 different animated figures in the show. Eight were duplicates that either appeared in different spots (the Three Caballeros) or in different clothing (Cinderella) during the show. How did the project's head designer Bill Justice settle on the characters who would be represented? Early concept models do show that there were at least three characters slated for inclusion in the orchestra who didn't make it: Horace Horsecollar, Clara Cluck and the Big Bad Wolf.

In order of appearance, here are the players that made the final cut and, where applicable, their instruments:

1. Mickey Mouse - baton, 2. Mad Hatter - bass clarinet, 3. March Hare - same bass clarinet, 4. Dormouse, 5. Winnie the Pooh - kazoo, 6. Rabbit - slide whistle, 7. Piglet - harmonica, 8. Minnie Mouse - violin, 9. Daisy Duck - cello, 10. Ludwig Von Drake** - ukulele, 11. Monty (city mouse) - clarinet, 12. Abner (country mouse) - saxophone, 13. Pluto - high-hat cymbal, 14. Huey - trumpet, 15. Dewey - trumpet, 16. Louie - trumpet, 17. Gus - trombone, 18. Jaq - same trombone, 19. Goofy - bass viola, 20. Dumbo - tuba, 21. Timothy - helps with tuba, 22. Kaa - his own tail!, 23. King Louie - xylophone, timpani,  etc., 24. Baloo - flute, 25. Practical Pig - brick  organ, 26. Fifer Pig - accordion, 27. Fiddler Pig - fiddle, 28. Snow White, 29. Bluebird, 30. Doe, 31. Fawn, 32. & 33. Squirrels, 34 & 35. Quail, 36 through 40. Rabbits, 41. Raccoon, 42. Sneezy - oboe, 43. Dopey, flute, 44. Grumpy - pipe organ, 45. Doc - lute, 46. Bashful - accordion, 47. Happy - mandolin, 48. Sleepy - fiddle, 49. Alice, 50. through 52. Pansies, 53. Daffodil, 54. & 55. Tulips, 56. & 57. Shy Little Violets, 58. White Rose, 59. Red Rose, 60. Iris, 61. & 62. Morning Glories, 63. Dandelion, 64. Tiger Lily, 65. Donald Duck #1 - maracas, 66. Panchito #1 - pistols, 67. Jose Carioca #1 - guitar, 68. Donald #2, 69. Panchito #2, 70. Jose #2, 71. Donald #3, 72. Panchito #3, 73. Jose #3, 74. Fairy Godmother, 75. Cinderella #1 - workmaid, 76. Cinderella #2 - ballgown, 77. Cinderella #3 - ballgown, 78. Prince Charming, 79. Brer Fox, 80. Brer Rabbit, 81. Brer Bear

** The Ludwig Von Drake figure looked a lot like Scrooge McDuck but Imagineering documentation for the show's transfer to Tokyo calls the figure out as Ludwig, and Von Drake DID play a guitar on The Wonderful World of Color, so that's as official as we can get right?

In Tokyo, the Mickey Mouse Revue played almost identically to its staging in Florida for another 26 years. The beautiful holding area art was faithfully reproduced, the pre-show film footage was the same except for the final live-action segment and the show scenes ran in the same order with the same music. The largest difference was that the voices were recorded in Japanese - which actually made it more entertaining. There were some minor changes in the set colors and a handful of modifications to the characters themselves (Kaa's eyes were in slightly more of a hypnotic trance mode in Japan than in Florida, but he still played his tail.) In 2008 news came out that Tokyo Disneyland would replace The Mickey Mouse Revue with its own version of Mickey's Philharmagic. The former production closed May 25, 2009 to make way for the 3-D movie. History will judge whether the switch from a one-of-a-kind show rooted in old-school Disney animatronics and classic film scores, handcrafted by WED Enterprises' best and brightest, for a projection-based show digitally crafted by WDI's 21st century regime was a stroke of genius or just another step along the road to all original WDW attractions vanishing. Or maybe history won't judge. Let's just judge it right now to be safe?

*  The working title for the attraction was The Mickey Mouse Musical Revue prior to its opening. The pre-show film had evidently been shot and overdubbed before the final name was decided upon.

**   The figures ranged in height from 12" (the Dormouse) to 6' (Baloo), not counting the long-stemmed Alice flowers.  Mickey stood at 42" tall, and at the time of the show's opening was Disney's most complicated Audio-Animatronic figure.  Mickey was capable of 33 functions, the same as the much taller (6'4") Lincoln figure housed in the nearby Hall of Presidents, but all of the mouse's mechanical grace had to be stowed in a much smaller frame, which was a considerable task.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (October 1, 1971 to September 7, 1998)

When people write "seriously" about Walt Disney World history, especially people who were actually around during the resort's first 25 years, they often overlook or downplay Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and make their seriousness look uninformed for failing to call out the attraction's unique stature within the world of theme parks. WDW's Toad wasn't just some weird dark ride that was shut down because no one rode it anymore, it was a very popular weird dark ride that took guests down unidentical twin tracks of brightly colored nonsense and unsettling patches of darkness - built around the story of a filthy rich amphibian who loved motor cars - that was only shut down because it was "in the way" of another idea. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Florida stood apart from everything Disney had built before or since (including its same-named Disneyland predecessor) and continues to pick up dedicated fans long after its departure from this world. When its impending closure was announced, the public and media-reported calls for WDW to save Mr. Toad's Wild Ride from destruction may have fallen on the company's least sympathetic and least imaginative deaf ears, but there's no chance that the mistake will ever be forgotten. To the contrary, the absence of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in the 21st century has only made more hearts that much fonder of what I seriously consider the best ride ever built.

MTWR's 1998 demise was a clear signal that nothing was certain about original park attractions or their longevity, and also that devoted pleas wouldn't be enough to save other favorite rides from destruction. It also broadened the perceptible criteria for WDW management's justification of such action; an attraction didn't have to lose its sponsor, as had happened with If You Had Wings and Horizons, to find itself on the chopping block. It didn't have to cost a ton of money to staff and maintain, like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or suffer from chronically depressed hourly counts, like the Walt Disney Story or the Kitchen Kabaret in their later years. All it really had to be was a relatively easy give on the road to an alternate (somewhere in particular) destination. In the case of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, that end point was the Hundred Acre Wood. The company wanted to build a Winnie-the-Pooh ride in the Magic Kingdom - something to advertise, draw new visitors and move merchandise - and felt that the most economically apt starting point was within the walls of an aging, less tangibly valuable attraction.  One of the unfortunate moments in life is the one where you realize that this is how many people at many companies think.  It's rotten, but true: for a business-minded person who didn't grow up with the park, there's no metric for assigning something like Toad a value based on the artistry behind it, its inherent coolness or how many people stepped out of its motorcars forever 1% more puzzled about the universe.  Instead, most of the time these decisions come down to things like 'return on investment' and 'value engineering' - terms that drive creative people insane. Most of the time it's just a sordid matter of the easiest way to save money, make money or make even more money.

So MTWR ended up being the oddball tenant on a piece of commercially desirable Kingdom real estate.  Given the company's 1995 decision to do away with Main Street's charming but sinister House of Magic (in order to use the space as part of the new and infinitely less interesting Main Street Athletic Club sport clothing store), the prospects for quirky old-timers in the path of anything with busier cash registers was already grim.  And in case you're unfamiliar, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was the largest quirky old-timer in the park.  For those fortunate enough to have experienced it in person, Toad's utter weirdness made it one of the key things that defined a trip to early WDW - one of the attractions that made the trip worthwhile.  And it always had a line or, rather, two lines, which often grew so long that in 1993 they replaced the original vehicles with larger ones to increase its hourly ridership.  In a park where capacity is a paramount concern and visitation helps to justify attractions' long-term prospects, how is a ride like that a candidate for replacement?  When its replacement is expected to be (at least) equally popular and have a footprint that leaves room for a gift shop at the exit.

You could reason that, visitation aside, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride above most other MK attractions was in a precarious spot from the day it opened.  Unlike Fantasyland's other opening-year dark rides, Peter Pan's Flight and Snow White's Scary Adventures, MTWR did not draw from "classic" Disney characters with a widespread popularity base.  Mr. Toad, Ratty, Moley and MacBadger hailed from a 1949 Disney adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows , a book which was first published in 1908.  It introduced those characters and others who dwelled along the river bank and the Wild Wood, and gave an accounting of how their daily life was disrupted by their neighbor Mr. Toad's insatiable thirst for motor cars.  While the story grew to be treasured in its native England, it never enjoyed far-reaching stateside success.  Disney's film treatment of the tale - while entertaining and in some ways magnificent - did little to change that.

The first Mr. Toad's Wild Ride opened at Disneyland in 1955.  It was built when the film was only a few years old, and absorbed a motif that was perfect for a Disney incarnation of old amusement park dark rides: a manic spin in a motor car through Foggy London Town.  The ride was put together on a modest budget but became a park favorite, no doubt due to its crazy singularity.  Given the time period, everything about it made sense.

What's inexplicable in hindsight is that Disney chose to build an updated version of MTWR when construction on WDW began fourteen years later. In 1969, Winnie-the-Pooh had already made (three years prior) his screen debut, was a household name and a formidable merchandising presence. It was clear by that time that Pooh's impact on American culture was heavier than that of Mr. Toad. As further evidence of this condition, none of the characters from The Wind In The Willows were given a spot in WDW's Mickey Mouse Revue, while Pooh, Piglet and Rabbit had places in the show's orchestra. So it's remarkable that Disney didn't choose to build on the hungry yellow bear's snowballing popularity by erecting a tie-in ride during Pooh's initial heyday...and even more so considering that Mr. Toad was, again, getting his own attraction. This doesn't even factor in the original three dark ride concepts that WED Enterprises planned for Florida, based on Mary Poppins, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Sleeping Beauty. Toad won out over those also. More than that, it wasn't even a copy of the Disneyland original, but rather a sprawling two-track version with numerous intricacies and details foreign to its predecessor and multiple scenes that could only viewed by riding each track separately. What other Disney ride ever offered that added dimension? Space Mountain, Mission To Mars, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion and the Grand Prix Raceway had either multiple lanes, tracks, theaters, queue or pre-show areas, but WDW's Toad ride presented different scenes and different rooms based on which queue you chose. It was the only time in Disney park history this has ever happened, and it happened for Mr. Toad.

Given these facts, it makes the ride's 27-year existence a happy accident filled with odd stuff not found elsewhere in the dark ride world: a truckload of bobbies shooting it out with a carful of armed weasels, a bare-shouldered barmaid holding enough foamy beer to paralyze a horse, a full-blown gypsy camp in the midst of a musical celebration, a perplexed farmer dropping a bale of hay on riders' heads, an elephant trophy head that trumpeted loudly from its wall-mounted plaque, a scandalous painting of a nude woman and a suit of armor that toppled toward riders on cue. Toad Hall's first expansive chamber was both stately and bizarre - ceilings decked with banners of nonsense heraldry, oak paneling lined with priceless paintings (whose subjects bore more than a passing resemblance to the master of the estate) and as its focal point a teetering marble statue of Mr. Toad himself. Town Square, where previously divergent cars were reunited for a spin around the heart of a busy English village, was stocked with panicked citizens trying to avoid the motorized onslaught of vehicles circling another statue of Toad - this one spinning atop the upraised hoof of his horse friend Cyril. And the whole of the ride presented a constant uncertainty as to just how one's car would escape a particular environment: Would it be through the fireplace, a jail cell wall or a mountainous stack of barrels?  No matter which way riders swerved or ducked, all roads ultimately led to a direct collision with a speeding locomotive in a pitch-black tunnel and an audience with Satan, surrounded by a horde of grinning red devils in the glowing volcanic bowels of hell.

Trying to quantify the beauty of all that lunacy is futile.  Making sense of it is nearly as tough.  According to the ride's own mythology (Disney has 'back stories' for every attraction, regardless of their simplicity), the action that takes place within is predicated on the conceit that it's all part of Toad's imagination, or in their words, Toad's "crazy dream."  It sounds weak at first but has validity. Those who have seen Disney's film treatment of The Wind In The Willows could easily discern that only a fraction of the settings and characters that were present in the ride corresponded directly to the film - fewer still are mentioned in Grahame's book. The ride contained volumes of supplemental material in its depiction of scenes such as the gypsy camp - the origin point for Toad's canary-colored cart and Cyril - and also in Toad Hall's Trophy Room and Kitchen areas where the domestics and service workers (butler in the Trophy Room, ice delivery man and cook in the kitchen) were found in snapshots of Toad's home life that were never touched upon in Disney's 1949 animation. This was some rich territory being mined and much of it had to come from Toad's own, personal, sphere of reference. Under that premise, the ride has to be set sometime after Toad came into possession of his stolen motor car via the weasels he first met in Winky's Pub ... also after his ordeal with the law, imprisonment and escape involving a stolen locomotive. The telltale marks of his documented escapades are rearranged here in a loud, unreal melange, making the dream theory the only "rational" way to account for a motor car being driven down the river where Ratty's house is found, inside a prison cell or through Toad Hall itself.   So, in point of fact, for two minutes you were wheeling around in the noise-drenched highlights of a rich frog's messed-up nightmare. But it's immaterial whether you can overlay any semblance of reason atop the ride.  It is, after all, ultimately derived from a tale about anthropomorphic woodland creatures involved in human-like discussions and events.  So at its heart, it's what delicate people might call a trifle. But, of course, so is Pooh.

In both subject matter and setting, there are many common threads between The Wind In The Willows and the Pooh stories.  The characters themselves invite direct comparisons, with Tigger sharing Toad's exuberance and bravado, Piglet possessing Mole's quiet good nature, Rabbit appropriating Ratty's fussiness and Owl borrowing a portion of MacBadger's grandfatherly wisdom.  A.A. Milne was a great admirer of Grahame's work and produced a variation of it for the London stage in 1930, with Grahame attending the debut performance.  So there is little chance that the similarities in the books are coincidental (the first Pooh book was published in 1926).  Milne was reportedly anxious about Grahame's reaction to the show, fearing that it would disappoint the elderly author, which it did not.  Imagine how Milne might have felt to learn that a ride based on his characters would one day uproot one based on those of Grahame. If, that is, he cared about rides.

Both authors might have been legitimately disconcerted had they known the extent to which their creations would one day be known largely across the globe for what someone else did with them - the same way P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins is recognized almost exclusively as the province of Disney due to the immensely popular 1964 film of the same name and a later Broadway show and sequel. Travers attended the 1964 film's premiere and was dissatisfied, in particular, with Dick Van Dyke's portrayal of Bert the chimney sweep. Yet the Van Dyke Bert was not changed to satisfy Travers and will endure as THE Bert in the general public's collective consciousness, as he already has for over 50 years. Mr. Toad escaped this fate to some extent and has enjoyed several quality, non-Disney retellings since 1949, much like Alice in Wonderland. The Disney versions, however, doggedly persist in at least appearing definitive... especially for those who grew up with them.

What's sad about the way things worked out between Toad and Pooh at WDW is how each of the literary properties couldn't end up with balanced in-park representation. There's no question that a Winnie-the-Pooh ride was a sensible addition to the Kingdom - even a necessary one by some standards. But the crowds that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride drew were sufficient to demonstrate its value. As mentioned above, the ride underwent a 1993 rehab to alleviate that situation; the 36 original ride vehicles, each of which could comfortably sit two adults, were replaced by new models which could accommodate four adults. The change only slightly reduced the average length of each queue because so many people wanted to go on this ride repeatedly. One outcome of the adulation was a series of peaceful gatherings in 1998 by a group that had learned about the impending shutdown. They gathered in the park, some wearing shirts with Toad on them, carrying signs that read "Save Mr. Toad's Wild Ride." The Orlando Sentinel covered the "protests." Cast members got in on the act. It didn't matter - WDW closed the ride permanently on September 7th, 1998.

Therefore the only remaining Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is at Disneyland, on the site of the original same-named attraction. It's not the same rudimentary Toad that opened there in 1955; that original attraction closed along with the rest of DL's old Fantasyland in 1981 and underwent a major renovation. The current version opened in 1983. While its exterior, the fully-dimensional Tudor-style Toad Hall, exceeds in presentation the original medieval tent entrance (and that of WDW's Toad), the Disneyland ride itself is a little compromised.  I say that, of course, as someone who grew up with WDW's version. I'm sure some people who grew up with the original DL Toad love the new one because it beats the socks off its predecessor. But WDW's Toad surpassed both DL versions in every manner except for the tent facade.

Not only was the WDW incarnation larger, with the aforementioned two tracks, but either half of the ride taken on its own was still a more involved and stylistically superior experience compared to the DL attraction. Credit for this goes to Disney artist Rolly Crump for his oddball, hyperchromatic design style. Crump's contributions to DL and WDW are well-documented, with his most enduring work having been many of the toys and kinetic elements of both parks' It's A Small World rides, his wild tiki designs and several key props for the Haunted Mansions*.  Some of the character designs he came up for WDW's Toad evoke the character style seen in 1961's The Saga of Windwagon Smith.  In that short film one sees the genesis of the some animals and people that came to populate Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Florida.  Molly Crum, who served drinks in the Star of the West Saloon, looks a lot like the barmaid in Winky's Pub.  The little dog that spazzed out when the windwagon rolled into town is a close cousin to the panic-stricken dog in MTWR's Town Square.  And Mayor Crum shares nearly the same profile as the constable in the Jail scene.  Only the characters that came straight from The Wind in the Willows film were not subjected to this treatment, and the blend of the two categories somehow worked.

* WDW's Toad ride was in fact the closest that any Disney attraction came to being a realization of Crump's "Museum of the Weird" concept. Although The Haunted Mansion saw a few of his prop designs come to life, MTWR was the first and only full-blown execution of Crump's 'Weird' color scheme married to architectural and design motifs on a serious scale.

Disneyland's 1983 Toad ride attempts to infuse its confined spaces with third-dimensionality through trompe l'oiel painting techniques and a few sculpted pieces added where space was available (it borrows the statue of Cyril and Toad that first appeared in WDW's Toad). But at Disneyland the scenic artwork overreaches in several scenes and the passageways often feel claustrophobic. WDW's Toad was much more open in terms of its floor plan, with larger rooms that enabled several twists and turns in any given space. Town Square alone was massive, with both tracks circling a grassy planter and leaving enough room on the outer perimeter for a wide range of townspeople caught up in the chaos.

The Florida ride's artwork was deceptively simple. Outside of the superb mural in the load area (with its warm, loving treatment of Toad Hall, the countryside and the ride's key characters), the ride was very much like driving through a psychedelic coloring book. Although there was plenty of detail, less effort went toward lending its flat plywood characters and scenery false shadows or extra dimension than was the case at Disneyland. At WDW a few key pieces were completely three-dimensional, but most of the ride achieved its depth by staggering flat pieces out closer to the track - a theatrical technique that worked amazingly well. Disneyland's Toad corridors are too narrow for this same effect to be given a chance to succeed.  While some of the artwork inside is more detailed than was Florida's, it is unfortunately not as outrageous, fun and colorful as what Crump perpetrated in Florida. And Disneyland's generic human characters are missing the cohesive cartoon madness once found in the WDW version.

So unfortunately there's no longer a Disney attraction that truly matches the insanity WDW's Toad sublimely offered for just over a quarter-century.  Without expecting to capture its glory in words, I'll try some further explanation of the ride's main aspects.

Approaching the attraction from any direction, guests could see past the entry facade and sheltered queue to the detailed Load area mural.  At opposite ends of the mural were mirror image train tunnels from which emerged two neverending streams of motor cars, freshly returned from each track's satanic finale.  Lining the bridge over each tunnel were the principal characters from the ride (Toad, Cyril, MacBadger, Ratty, Moley and Winky) along with some gypsies, weasels and bobbies.  Leading away from the tunnels, past each track's Unload, Load and Dispatch points, was an idyllic depiction of the English countryside dotted with thatched-roof cottages and lush rolling hills.  Throughout the Load area and queue echoed the lilting refrain of "The Merrily Song" (the only lyrical music from Disney's Toad film, written by Churchill, Gilbert, Morey & Wolcott) and the constant recorded instructions to "Step out to your right...when the car stops, step out to your right please."  The focal point of the entire scene was stately Toad Hall, with its turrets, parapets and eleven (!) chimneys. Cars funneled into its central Tudor arch portal, where they separated and burst through the first of many walls in their catastrophe-bound journeys.  Both tracks began in the Toad Hall scene, where they had their first of several near misses with both other cars and "obstacles" in their path.  The marble statue of Toad swiveled toward the cars as if ready to crash, while opposite the statue the amicable Moley stood on a high-backed yellow chair and tipped his hat at riders.

From that point on the cars went their own way within the Hall and, as mentioned above, encountered unique situations along each route.  Riders on Track A doubled back from the statue of Toad toward the doors leading to the Trophy Room and riders on Track B headed straight into the fireplace at the opposite of of the room, which gave way and allowed them into the Library.  How the tracks played out scene by scene is charted above on either side of the ride map link.

A few of these areas, such as the two Blackouts and Train Tunnels on either track, were incredibly stark (the Blackouts were literally empty rooms with walls painted black). The Barn and One Way Tunnel scenes were also devoid of scenery save for, respectively, flying chickens and neon-colored warning signs. But most of the other rooms were rendered in full-circle, albeit cartoonish, detail. In the Kitchen, for example, there was a three-dimensional wood block table with a piece of steak and meat cleaver sitting on it...yet it was positioned in a spot that made it all but impossible for guests to see it.  In the Jail scene, the walls were adorned with wanted posters for various Anglican rogues ... aside from Toad himself there were calls for "Liverpool Lill," "Picadilly Pete," "Malcolm the Mutilator" and others. The Town Square environment was stocked with storefronts that could scarcely be appreciated due to the speed and proximity of the passing cars.

Aside from the breakdown of separated scenes, there was a further curious dichotomy between the two tracks that may or may not have been planned. Track A, for example, was the only side with female human characters and it featured not one but five (six if you include the painting of Rapunzel on the north wall of Winky's Pub).  Track B was the only side containing law enforcement figures.  It was also the only side where MacBadger could be found, while Ratty only appeared along Track A (Moley appeared twice for Track A riders but only once - in Toad Hall - for those on Track B.)

Furthermore, Track A took riders through the Gypsy Camp before the Town Square scene, and right before Track A led out of Town Square into Winky's Pub there was a balloon vendor who looked just like one of those gypsies.  Track B took riders across the Barnyard and Barn scenes - past a pig, bull and the aforementioned chickens - before Town Square, and the first building in Town Square that Track B riders passed by was a butcher's shop with a bull's head over the door, plus a suckling pig and chickens displayed in the front window.  If those weren't deliberate echoes, it's a great set of coincidences.  Rolly Crump stated in a 2003 interview with Ross Plesset (into which I inserted ridiculous questions) that he had not engineered any sort of repeating motifs along those lines and thought that they may have been added later by other artists.  The fact that the balloon vendor was an animated prop made out of metal, therefore not an easy addition as something would be if it were just painted in, suggests that it was an original design element. Crump may not have noticed the correlations, though, if they weren't done on purpose.

One thing he did intentionally, without question, was make sure that riders didn't have the same experience on both tracks.  He said the reason for Toad's two tracks began with a dictate from Dick Nunis, then-director of park operations overseeing WDW's development, to build two Toad tracks side by side for Florida.  Nunis requested this because Toad was the most popular dark ride at Disneyland (which helps to explain how it ended up in Florida) and he felt that double the capacity would be needed for WDW.  Crump stated that he wasn't going to build two Toad rides but came up with the idea for one ride with two tracks that would provide guests with different scenery.  If different members of the same family chose separate sides of the queue and compared notes later on what they saw, it wouldn't exactly match up. "I was playing with people's heads on it," Crump said, "that's why I wanted two different stories."

The most perplexing piece of minutiae for me, however, and surely one of the most fascinating things about the ride for anyone who knew about it, was found in the Library scene.  On MacBadger's desk there sat two inkwells and a solitary spindle upon which were affixed a series of small note papers.  Those who remember the first appearance of MacBadger in the film will recall that his time at the desk was spent tallying the various expenses that Toad's estate had incurred as a result of Toad's destructive countryside rampages in the gypsy cart with Cyril.  In the ride, the top note on the spindle actually had a hand-lettered breakdown of one account that had to be settled in the amount of 100 pounds sterling.  The damaged items were "1 Rowboat, 20 ft. clothesline, 1 Canary-colour Gypsy Cart and 6 Chickens."  It would have been a stretch to have expected riders to notice the spindle in the first place, let alone ever detect that there was writing on one of the notes.  But to actually have a straightforward listing of things Toad had demolished, in a place where no one could ever read it, was irrevocably brilliant.  How did one find out about this kind of thing?  You either A) walked through as an employee when the ride was shut down and took notice of it or B) jumped out of your car while the ride was open and ripped it off the spindle not expecting to find writing on it, but you did, and a few months later did it again when you were just as amazed to learn that the purloined note was replaced with another containing the exact same list of items. Either way, MacBadger's accounting process was immaculate!

The names of the cars, which repeated across the entire fleet, were Mr. Toad, Toady, Ratty, Moley, Mac Badger, Cyril, Winky and Weasel.  The original cars were among the most visually appealing ride vehicles ever created: compact, clever and stylish one-seat roadsters that were perfect for whipping around tight corners and leaving chaos in their wake.  The two-seater replacements that debuted in December of 1993 were, by comparison, oafish.  All sense of delicate proportion and toylike charm was given over to boxy 'boats with wheels' that moved through the ride as if dragging anchors.  In all probability the speed difference was negligible, but still noticeable to anyone who'd ridden the old cars ad nauseum.  Not to mention the fact that it deprived the park of one more ride where you could be assured a modest amount of privacy with a companion for at least two minutes.  Once the new vehicles arrived, your chances of getting paired with another couple or some unloved, sweaty single rider were virtually guaranteed if there was any type of line.

There were only a few other changes as a result of the 1993 rehab.  Some of the three-dimensional animation didn't appear to function any longer: Moley in Toad Hall didn't tip his hat, the statue of Toad no longer swayed precariously on its pedestal and the smaller Toad statue on Cyril's hoof in Town Square had also ceased to spin.  Many of the interior scenes were repainted to give off a more radiant black light glow.  For a moment in time the cars bumped over "railroad ties" when first entering the train tunnels, but that effect was quickly retired.  Finally, the ride's original entrance facade and sign were rebuilt with a slightly more elaborate appearance (a statue of Toad was added within the marquee) and in the year following the ride's reopening, decorative planters were added to both sides of the main entrance arcade.  The last of the discernable modifications to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride took place in 1995 and 1996 when the background music tracks in the Load area and Toad Hall, respectively, were updated to match the Disneyland Toad song.  If it weren't for the new vehicles, though, most people wouldn't have known the ride was altered in any respect from its original version.

That is to say, the ride was still criminally fun even in those bulky cars.  Anyone who failed to appreciate the appeal of careening headlong through room after room of menacing ridiculousness, all whilst in the guise of an obsessed amphibian, needed a head check.  And anyone who would willingly opt to see Mr. Toad's Wild Ride gutted to make room for Winnie-the-Pooh would be just as suspect.  Yet someone made the horrible final decision and let the demolition commence.

When rumors of MTWR's impending demise made The Orlando Sentinel's pages in 1997, the letter-writing campaigns and other efforts of earnest fans seemed like bittersweet exercises in futility.  It was reassuring to discover how many people cared about the ride, but sad to feel as if its number was up just the same and that protesting would be in vain.  And in many respects the park no longer deserved such a wonderful thing as Toad, having long since begun the process of expunging itself of magnificent curiosities.  Fortunately, however, with the rumors and warnings there was ample opportunity for those who loved the attraction to set about preserving it in sight and sound.  This at least ensures that it will perpetuate itself in multitude forms as time passes, making certain that in thousands of minds the ride will thrive as a source of fascination despite its physical absence. 

Contemplating the ride from this standpoint is maybe a matter of more gravity than recounting the features of a closed Caribbean Plaza game room, because it means coming to terms with the fact that WDW, which in 1978 was the absolute coolest place on the planet, had in the span of 20 years divested itself not just of some relatively minor oddities but also some of the most fantastic attractions ever built by man, of which Toad was certainly one.

Arguing for the supremacy of one theme park ride over another borders on foolishness (or epitomizes foolishness - you can decide that for yourself), but on a site dedicated to ex-WDW attractions there's nothing too far "out there" where Toad's concerned. I can't actually prove to anyone that Toad was better than The Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, If You Had Wings, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Horizons, World of Motion, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea or The Haunted Mansion. I love, or loved, all those rides, but for me Toad edges them out because its combination of Crump's wacky design elements, two distinct tracks, highly unlikely subject matter and lack of adherence to a rational script made the experience something one step beyond any other ride I've experienced and also made it ripe for riding again and again and again. As a kid it took me a short eternity to remember which line to get into if I wanted to ride through Winky's Pub, and if I chose correctly I got to see the barmaid and weasels on barrels. If I was wrong, no problem, I helped other weasels bust out of jail. Florida's Toad was the end result of Crump pushing the dark ride envelope as far as possible within the parameters of a budget and Disney source material.  He worked beautifully with the former, using inexpensive flats to their best possible effect, and just riffed loosely on the latter ... creating supplementary characters out of thin air and making Grahame's own cast accomplices to a zany black light mindfuck. One's head spins thinking of what Crump might have done had the Oriental Land Company challenged him to top Florida's Toad in Tokyo, and why the Japanese park missed out on that opportunity is a mystery for the ages.

Since Toad debuted in Florida, the Dr. Seuss Sky Trolley (Islands of Adventure, 2007-present) has been the only other Orlando ride to offer the kind of two-track duality first established by Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. But for as great as the Sky Trolley is - and I always try to ride it when I'm in the park - as a 90% outdoor ride it can't throw the kind of intense curve balls that bounced through Toad Hall and the various chambers beyond. It's not THAT kind of ride.

Probably I've spent too much time thinking and writing about Toad. but whenever I find myself realizing that in the grand scheme of things there are far more important things than dark rides (which is, in point of fact, potentially true), there are also reminders that some rides just plain mattered to me and a bunch of like-minded others regardless of whether they should or not. Toad was as familiar to me by the age of thirteen as a family member, and its rapturous effect on my impressionable mind made for a constant in my life: I don't get people who don't get Toad. I've met people little more than half my age who, when they find out I like old Disney stuff, bring up Toad independently as one of their childhood favorites; I automatically know they are good people. Then I've met people older than me who, if I bring up Toad to gauge their interest, laugh the subject off as unworthy of discussion and then I know those people are jerks!
 
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride will persist online and in the memories of those who loved it. Its removal from WDW will remain a black mark on the karmic record of those who caused it to vanish. No matter how strange its existence or how basic its execution, its destruction was completely avoidable. How could the same company who built this amazing ride not see, 26 years later, protesters upset about its impending closure as a sign that opportunities were being overlooked?  Where was the Toad merchandise that would have tested park visitors' true affinity for the ride back when it might have made a difference?  Where was the "Save Toad Hall" campaign allowing guests to buy a piece of Toad's estate in exchange for having their name etched on a plaque in the Town Square scene? Where was the argument that reversing the decision would have generated good will, especially after so many 20K fans were let down by the weightless statements Disney made about Nemo's subs returning between 1994 and 1996? Where was the realization that a long-term win/win was infinitely more desireable than short-term cost savings? And where, honestly, was the slightest indication that the company did not in fact hold Toad fans in contempt by not even giving Winky ownership of the former Round Table and Lancer's Inn next door... the same way Toad ran a restaurant in Paris? I mean, Gurgi from The Black Cauldron could underwrite a snack bar but Winky couldn't?

That inability to detect something bigger afoot is sad, but what's done is done. So when new hires at WDW are walked past Pooh during orientation and asked if they can name five characters from Wind In The Willows (Alison Matthews could!) and then asked if they can name five Winnie-the-Pooh characters, which anyone can do, they get a sense of the thought process that allowed all this to transpire. Again, it's one of the unfortunate moments in life when the company that got rid of a ride this cool comes up with snarky, posthumous rationales for why it had to go down that way. It didn't. The people making the decisions had not two sticks of wit to rub together. That's it.

"One does not argue about The Wind in the Willows. The young man gives it to the girl with whom he is in love, and, if she does not like it, asks her to return his letters. The older man tries it on his nephew, and alters his will accordingly. The book is a test of character. We can't criticize it, because it is criticizing us. But I must give you one word of warning. When you sit down to it, don't be so ridiculous as to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on my taste, or on the art of Kenneth Grahame. You are merely sitting in judgment on yourself. You may be worthy: I don't know. But it is you who are on trial."

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (October 14, 1971 to September 5, 1994)

As Captain Nemo's famous metal-plated Nautilus submarines took their final voyages on September 5, 1994, a chapter of Walt Disney World history sank in their chlorinated wake.  By that time the Magic Kingdom had already lost attractions unique to Florida (like The Mickey Mouse Revue, Plaza Swan Boats and If You Had Wings) but it hadn't yet lost such a high-profile and popular ride, a ride with such an immense scope and such undeniable appeal.  20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, which had been synonymous with the park since 1971 and entertained millions of visitors annually, was the first WDW giant to fall.

20K (as the ride was called by, first, Disney cast members and later also by its fans) was a giant not just because it took up 20% of the real estate in Fantasyland, and did so prominently with a lagoon that contained 11.5 million gallons of water, but also because it reached far enough with its content to readily capture the imagination of its riders even when the special effects were not entirely believable.  Most guests were enthralled to witness divers corralling sea turtles, an underwater volcano and a giant squid attack firsthand - no matter what the level of approximation.  Furthermore, the attraction was a key facet of the Magic Kingdom's personality: an anchor component of the park that nearly all visitors would find themselves passing several times in the course of a day.  Although based on Disneyland's Submarine Voyage, 20K surpassed its predecessor in theme, size, art direction and execution, making itself a WDW original in most respects.

20K had helped to define WDW from the offset of "Project Florida," one of the resort's early working names.  It was on the original roster of proposed attractions and its concept art was a compelling teaser for the theme park portion of the resort.  Additionally, the ride would go a long way toward distinguishing WDW Phase One - the Magic Kingdom in particular - from Disneyland in California.

Disneyland's Submarine Voyage attraction opened in 1959 (it closed in 1998 and reopened in 2007 with a Finding Nemo overlay).  The eight-minute trip via nuclear-era submarine began in Tomorrowland's scenic lagoon (where frolicked animated lobsters, sea turtles and myriad species of fish), "descended" to the ocean floor for a look at sunken galleons, the wet side of the polar ice cap, giant squid and the lost city of Atlantis and concluded with a glimpse of a ridiculous-looking sea serpent.  Bubble machines and lighting effects contributed to the illusion of depth. Guests may have easily fallen for the submersion hoax providing they didn't look for the water's surface, which could be seen about two feet above their viewing portholes.  The eight submarines, each with a capacity of 36 passengers, never dove as much as an inch from their starting position.  The sea life animation was limited and probably didn't pass for real with any guests over the age of twelve, but it was well staged... especially the scenery that was contained in a dark show building disguised as a waterfall grotto.   

Submarine Voyage was popular enough to warrant a planned East Coast repeat of the attraction in 1967, when designing for WDW began in earnest.  But WED (Disney's Design & Engineering firm) artists assigned the Florida version a glamorous new facet: guests would travel inside replicas of Captain Nemo's Nautilus, making the ride a better fit for a home in Fantasyland.  From the offset it was clear that this would be one of WDW's cornerstone rides, capitalizing not only on the irresistible concept of an undersea voyage but also tying in directly with a classic work of literature and the company's highly successful 1954 film adaptation of the 1870 Jules Verne novel.  This added dimension lent the ride a sense of mystery and romance that its predecessor lacked.  It also provided a motif upon which to base the queue area, loading docks, lagoon and the caverns that hid half the show area: Nemo's home base of Vulcania.  There was a minor back story issue to contend with, namely that Captain Nemo both in print and on celluloid was a genius, but also a homicidal madman.  So why he would want to welcome thousands of strangers daily as "guests" aboard his submarines for a spin around the globe (one that launches from "secret" island headquarters no less) was pretty much unknown.  WED dealt with this seeming disagreement by not explaining it all.  The inference is simply that, somewhere along the line, Nemo must've had a Dickensian epiphany and decided to offer sightseeing rides.  

The twelve submarines were built at the Tampa shipyards, 60 miles southwest of WDW.  Never before or since has a Disney attraction been synonymous with such a fantastic ride vehicle.  Above the waterline, the subs were strikingly faithful - down to the simulated rivets - to the Harper Goff-designed Nautilus from the film.  At 61' in length they were 1/3 scale replicas of the full-size version.  Below the surface, they were little less detailed, with either side of the hull lined by 20 small portholes rather than the large main salon window that would have appeared in a completely faithful recreation.  To the front and rear of those small portholes was a floodlight for illuminating scenery in the ride's open lagoon at night. The submarines were equipped with drive wheel mechanisms that would ride atop an inverted-V elevated track, as opposed to a recessed trough like that of the Jungle Cruise.  The interiors were rendered as Industrial Age function with some Victorian appointments - mainly the red leather cushions - giving it a little bit of form.

The job site in Florida required little excavation since the rest of the park was built up to an average of fifteen feet.  Therefore the bottom of the 20K lagoon was able to conveniently rest below Fantasyland street level without breaking the topsoil - while the perimeter was either filled in or lined by the walls of the park's tunnels (directly to the west of the main lagoon were the Kingdom's subterranean employee locker rooms).  The show building was erected over the northeast portion of the ride track and its southern facade was shrouded within false rock formations and waterfall pools.  The sets were assembled on site with hundreds of scenic pieces fabricated at Disney's MAPO division in California and Florida's Staff Shop.  From small bits of coral to immense giant squid, nearly everything was produced in duplicate form so riders on both sides of the submarine would see the 'exact same' scenery at the exact same time.  The primary building materials for the set items were fiberglass, concrete and silicon rubber.  Ice formations, ancient ruins and diving parties were installed along the floor of the lagoon or suspended from the ceiling of the main show building.  Within that warehouse a series of catwalks and bridges permitted work crews access to the mechanisms that would animate many of the ride's effects.

In spite of the years spent on its planning and construction, 20K wasn't ready to open with the rest of the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.  According to some first-year cast members, problems with the lagoon's ability to hold water delayed the ride's debut - a delinquency noted frequently by journalists visiting the park during its first two weeks.  On October 14, however, guests began pouring into Nemo's subs by the thousands, ready to embark on a trip unlike any they'd experienced before.

As the company expected, 20K was extremely popular from the offset.  As a result, the permanently sheltered queue area constantly filled to capacity even on moderately busy days, flowing beyond the turnstiles and out into Fantasyland's main thoroughfare.  The company's first response to this situation was to add a long green canopy structure that stretched east from the turnstiles down towards the Mad Tea Party (they added similar shade devices at the Haunted Mansion and the Hall of Presidents - all were in place by 1973).   So guests approaching 20K often found that their wait began outside the coral wall of the proper queue area and underneath that canopy, where they would stand for up to ten minutes before reaching the entrance turnstiles.  Above the turnstiles was a mast flying nautical signal flags which spelt out "20,000 Leagues" in semaphore.  Just inside, the queue area was a maze of metal railings and switchbacks ensconced within volcanic rock outcroppings, throughout which were interspersed the vertical beams upon which the metal roof structure was supported.  Several ceiling fans were mounted to the overhead ductwork.

From speakers in the ceiling, nautical songs such as "Blow The Man Down" and "Whale of a Tale," played for the waiting crowds.  In the midst of the music, Captain Nemo (Disney's talented Peter Renoudet, whose voice appeared in other Magic Kingdom attractions such as Mission To Mars, The Walt Disney Story and Country Bear Jamboree, gave a marvelous James Mason-esque performance for 20K) provided occasional comments on the ride that guests were preparing to experience and discoursed on the sea, its majestic nature and all the cool stuff about it.  For example:

"Modern man's most compelling interest in the ocean lies in its great potential for renewable resources, not only in protein-rich food, but also the wealth of minerals, energy and drugs.  Our recent explorations have revealed vast deposits of minerals that can be mined.  At Vulcania, we have tapped the ebb and flow of the tides to produce clean and efficient electric power.  One of the most promising areas of investigation is in the field of marine biomedicine.  We're discovering many antibiotics and other useful drugs in ocean organisms.  There are many, many other potentialities to be found in the earth's last frontier.  But we must always keep in mind that the bounty of the sea is not limitless - man must be prudent in his exploration and utilization of this vast great storehouse of natural wealth."

Nemo's not only a welcoming presence now, it turns out he's also kind of like an ecologist.  As guests digested his ruminations (if they could, because the din of the crowd mixed with the hum of the nearby submarine engines could make any sound from the speakers a muddle), the queue shelter afforded them a panoramic view of the ride's lagoon area without the sun in their eyes.  Park visitors could also gaze upon the lagoon from three other vantage points: A) its western rim adjoining the Fantasy Faire tent and Dumbo the Flying Elephant, B) a small portion of its southern edge adjacent to the ride's eastern exit and C) from the Skyway.  The lagoon was oblong and its perimeter formed by undulating coral formations broken up by a few sandy beaches with the occasional treasure chest lying about (Magic Kingdom visitors were able to view this body of water until summer of 2004, when the company finally decided to dismantle the lagoon wholesale).  Across the liquid expanse was the show building, hidden within the volcanic rock walls and waterfall grottos, into which the submarines disappeared and from which they would reemerge at the conclusion of each ride cycle.

How To Misplace A Lagoon

Some of the exact same seafaring song recordings that played in the 20K queue area, among them "The Sailor's Hornpipe" and "A-Roving," could also be heard in the Columbia Harbour House's (Liberty Square) original background music loop.  One had to be unoccupied by more productive thoughts or activities to notice it, perhaps, but the fact of the overlap stands.

This begs a question which must have come up during Magic Kingdom planning: why not locate 20K at the western end of Fantasyland where it could have abutted the Harbour House restaurant and the Yankee Trader shop?  Those establishments at the north end of Liberty Square were coastal in architecture, albeit 18th-century Bostonian vs. the 19th-century San Franciscan facades depicted in Disney's 20,000 Leagues film.  Either way, it would have made compelling thematic sense to provide 20K riders with the opportunity to dine - just steps away from Nemo's Vulcania - in a restaurant full of old-world maritime decor.  With Peter Pan's Flight also really close by, most of the park's nautical motifs (save for Pirates of the Caribbean) would have been pulled together into one corner.

So what if the Fantasyland Skyway station had been built closer to the Pinocchio Village Haus, where all the Bavarian woodwork and yodeling could have been consolidated into one section of the park rather than separated by It's A Small World, which itself could have easily been positioned opposite Mr. Toad's Wild Ride?  20K could have sat where the Skyway station was actually erected and given the park a true wharf district.  If you're still not convinced, consider that this arrangement would have also put every attraction in the park with pipe organ music (Swiss Family Treehouse, Mickey Mouse Revue, Haunted Mansion and 20K) west of the castle...at least prior to Snow White's Adventures' 1994 rehab when Snow White's Adventures got a musical dwarfs scene.

Maybe the park's designers felt that the open vista across the 20K lagoon would have made it difficult to conceal the Haunted Mansion's boxy show building (which the elevated Skyway station helped to accomplish).  But the Hall of Presidents' massive, dull roofline was long visible to anyone on the streets of Frontierland, and the Skyway itself gave everyone the chance to see just how industrial the park appeared from above.  Since there was nothing futuristic about 20K, its proximity to Tomorrowland could not have been deemed crucial.  There must have been another reason.  Maybe it was something to do with how West Fantasyland was once going to center around something called "Pinocchio Street" on early prints.  Maybe it doesn't matter at all. 

At about this point most guests would have picked up on the smell of the diesel fuel that powered the subs.  The subs originally ran on natural gas, but were converted to Perkins diesel engines prior to the ride's tenth anniversary.  For fans of the Disney film - or anyone who listened closely to the voiceovers while standing in line - the odor was a clear sign that Nemo's miraculous source of clean and efficient energy had since been co-opted by the trucking industry. 

Nearing the end of the queue, guests were soon greeted by a ride host called the "grouper," possibly the first of Nemo's ambassadors that they would have encountered.  20K ride hosts wore blue and red uniforms that were faithful to those of Nemo's crew in the Disney film.  The grouper's job was to direct guests to one of three holding areas (at either front dock, center dock or rear dock) immediately prior to their boarding a sub.  Depending on daily attendance projections, 20K could run as many as nine and as few as three submarines at any given time.  The number of subs online determined which holding areas were used by the grouper.  On an average day 20K could be found running three convoys, or "packs," of two subs each that would typically load and unload from the front and center docks.  The rear dock, which loaded from its own small island east of the queue, was typically unused except when the number of subs on line totaled seven or more. In addition to counting out two rows (each with twenty guests) per submarine and directing riders to holding areas, the grouper kept track of how many ride units were running and had to remember which docks to pre-load for each incoming pack of subs. To assist in keeping things straight, the grouper would sometimes use a chart like the one shown below.

Once properly sorted, guests watched as their submarine pulled into its load/unload station and was tethered in place with a thick rope tied to a metal cleat on the dock.  Hatches to the front and rear of each sub slowly opened while crewmen waited to lower the hydraulic ramps that allowed guests to transition safely from the dock to the sub and vice versa.  Exiting riders were directed out one end of the sub by their driver/helmsman while new riders were brought in the opposite end.  Guests descending the narrow twin stairwells into the submarine would find before them a long, rivet-encrusted passage constituting the vehicle's sole passenger chamber.

The sound of Captain Nemo's pipe organ played throughout the cabin, the soing being the title theme from the film as a short cycle of music which would repeat for the duration of the ride*.  Over this recording guests would soon hear from their helmsman.  He was positioned above them, two-thirds of the way toward the front of the cabin, on a platform that placed his upper torso in the submarine's "sail," from which he could look out the vehicle's two convex bubble windows as he piloted the vehicle.  On a microphone he instructed incoming guests to continue all the way down the length of the passage before selecting their seat.

Note: Guests heard the voices of two different "helmsmen" during each ride.  The first was that of their aforementioned driver, a real employee, who would address them at the beginning and end of the experience.  The second was the recorded helmsman whose voice was part of the ride's narration tapes.  The two seldom sounded anything alike, and only the latter exchanged words with Nemo as part of the storyline.

The "room" was divided by a partition which formed the seat backs, and to which the circular seat bottoms were hinged.  Upon reaching their individual cushions, passengers lowered them into place and sat facing their own private 1' porthole, each equipped with its own air vent.  Through the portholes guests would usually peer upward first, just to verify that they were indeed below water.  The sight of the surface was always there to greet them.  Those on the port side of the sub could view the rock wall below the dock structure, which was encrusted with barnacles and other minute bits of sea life.  Guests facing starboard would see the iron and wood supports of the spur dock which separated the ride's loading & unloading lane from the spur line, where inactive subs were often docked.  Beyond those support beams guests often faced the portholes of a parked submarine; they may have also glimpsed a member of Nemo's crew (taking his break in the solitude of an empty, opposing vessel) staring back at them.   

Back in their own sub, the helmsman issued the standard requests (no eating, drinking, smoking or flash photography) as the loading ramps were lifted up and the hatches at both ends of the sub were lowered.  This reduced the cabin's illumination to just a few white, overhead globes and whatever light filtered in through the portholes.  At night this made for a mysterious, inky interior right from the beginning of the ride, which reduced the dramatic impact of the deep dive simulation (when subs entered the darkened show building) later in the ride.  During daylight hours, the gradual dimming of the cabin made for a more measured and effective experience.  Soon the cabin was filled with the sounds of the Nautilus being prepared for its next voyage, beginning with Nemo's directions to "secure ship for sea."  As an unseen deck hand removed the holding rope from an exterior cleat on the surface, the submarine slowly began a forward roll out of the loading area.

Once each sub reached the end of the dock and entered the lagoon, Nemo ordered the crew to take the vessel three degrees down.  Through the portholes guests saw a mass of bubbles generated by machines on the lagoon floor.  This effect could work amazingly well if - as with the Disneyland original - guests didn't see the surface of the water above them.  That depended entirely on how far they leaned into the window and, of course, whether they looked up.  Regardless, the sight of bubbles going up was a convincing enough means of making people think they were going down for it to be employed again at Epcot's Living Seas pavilion in 1986 (the trick was used in the hydrolators leading to Seabase Alpha), where it was arguably the best part of a painfully lame pavilion.  As the bubbles cleared away and the sounds of the sub's horns and mechanics died off, a placid aquatic vista, called the fish plains, came into view.  Varied, colorful coral formations inhabited by a range of exotic - albeit nearly motionless - fish.  One fish struggled in the grips of an anemone, many others floated amidst seas of kelp.  Crabs and lobsters quarreled with each other atop rocks.

Nemo introduced himself over the speaker system, welcomed guests aboard the Nautilus and briefed them on the trip ahead ("We are proceeding on a course that will take us on a voyage 20,000 leagues under the sea.  Enroute we will pass below the polar ice cap and then probe depths seldom seen by man").  He didn't explain that by 20,000 leagues he and Jules Verne meant a measurement of distance rather than depth.**

Soon the animal life increased in size with the appearance of great green sea turtles and grouper.  Aside from assorted small fish dotting the lagoon, the animals all had some basic animation elements to them.  Air lines caused them to rock, move their flippers or open their mouths.  The giant clams that followed the grouper released streams of bubbles.  It was obvious to most riders that the animals were mounted to either rock formations or the "sea floor," but there was still - as with many Disney attractions - a lingering desire to question whether any given creature might, somehow, be the real thing.  Another consideration playing into the illusory effectiveness was the depth-of-field beyond the fish in the foreground.  The further the submarines progressed into the lagoon, the greater the appearance of  broad vistas in the distance.  This was achieved with forced perspective and, inside the show building, aided by the designers' full control over the set lighting.  Despite the chlorination, the main lagoon's more distant backdrops were often hard to discern because the natural light caused heavy diffusion.

After the clams, as guests absorbed the vacant expressions of moray eels poking their heads out of a reef, Nemo took the opportunity to promote his sonar hydrophone technology.  He stated that this development proved that "fish actually talk."  Riders were summarily treated to some sound effects that, while not being the least bit intelligible, certainly could have been talking fish...or ape chatter sped up on tape.  The submarines then happened upon harvesting parties from one of the Nautilus' satellite ships.  Divers in gear emulating suits from the film were seen tilling beds of seaweed (a necessary component of Nemo's "good as Cuban" cigars) and roping sea turtles that were exhibiting the good sense to seek a forceful escape.  Pumps on the ocean floor provided the divers with a constantly replenished source of oxygen.  In Nemo's words, his men were "harvesting the abundance that nature has sown here beneath the sea.  Kelp beds are cultivated, sea creatures corralled and protected - just as terrestrial shepherds protect their flocks from ravenous wolves."

This was the first point in the attraction where the sequence of show scenes varied significantly from Disneyland's Submarine Voyage. In that original version, the divers - who were of course not under Nemo's employ - appeared slightly later in the ride and were seen salvaging treasures from shipwrecks. That subtext stood in sharp contrast to the agrarian undertakings represented in 20K. The depiction of Nemo's crew tending to aquatic gardens, rather than pursuing submerged wealth, helped reinforce the ride's already hinted-at underlying conceit: the Nautilus was being applied toward the latter-day end purpose of fostering an appreciation for the sea and its natural resources.  It was like a well-funded underwater commune.  Whether gold and silver gains were still used as ballast aboard ship, as in the film, was not addressed during the ride.

At this stage the recorded helmsman reported surface storms to Nemo, who ordered the vessel eight degrees down.  The last thing guests saw before the dive was a shark caught in the grip of an octopus.  From atop a rock, the octopus held the shark at tentacle's length" in a face-off.  Guest may not have realized it, perhaps the ride's designers didn't either, but this vignette foreshadowed the attraction's climactic scene...four minutes ahead of time.  More on that later.

The Nautilus "dove" again with the aid of more bubble machines.  This time the effect was augmented, particularly in the daytime, by the submarine's penetration of the darkened show building.  When the bubbles trailed off, guests were left staring into an inky blackness.  The only sights were those lit by fixtures mounted above the waterline.  Nemo commented on the Nautilus's ability to evade storm activity and reflected on the fate of roughly a dozen ocean floor shipwrecks, now visible to his passengers, that were "not so fortunate."  Within this "graveyard of lost ships," sharks circled ominously among the broken masts and shattered hulls.

The sharks were the first creatures in the ride to actually be seen "swimming around," suspended from cables which hung from rotating wheels above the waterline.  Unfortunately these cables tended to collect bits of fake seaweed that circulated through the lagoon, which - as you might imagine - went some distance toward deflating the illusion.  Theoretically, an accumulation of that debris would be noted on any given morning during a show quality check performed by ride personnel, and a cleaning would immediately follow at the hands of the maintenance staff.  Toward the latter years of the ride's lifespan, however, such attention to caretaking had become a rarity.  So the sharks often swam with clusters of dark stringy crap hovering directly over their dorsal fins.  Still, the eerie sight of the ocean floor strewn with the wreckage of so many once-proud galleons was staged so masterfully, the sharks hardly mattered at all.   

This was another key difference between the California and Florida versions.  While 20K's animation effects improved only slightly on the Disneyland original, and its illusion of diving was no more convincing, the art direction for 20K's sets was far more lush and delicate than it was in Submarine Voyage.  As with the lagoon scenes, the depth-of-field in the Florida show building was greater than in California and provided a more substantial canvas for the forced perspective scenery.

As the submarine glided past the sunken ships, a member of the crew informed Captain Nemo that the vessel had "raised the polar ice cap" and that there was a clear channel at 40 fathoms.  Sonar beeps began to echo through the cabin.  The submerged sides of ice floes came into view of the portholes.  A Viking ship protruded from one of the formations, oars frozen in place.  All of this was beautifully lit by the rainbow incandescence of the Aurora Borealis, which Nemo lauded as a "rare visual phenomenon;"  He had truly come into his own as a lover of not just the aquatic world, but of nature as a whole.  No sooner did guests have a moment to reflect on the tranquility, though, than they were treated to the sound of the sub crunching against the icebergs.  "Take her deep," Nemo ordered.

The Nautilus then descended - minus bubble effects -  into a pitch-black abyss.  Luminescent jellyfish, oar fish, viperfish, deep sea anglers and other glowing creatures were all that could be seen in what Nemo termed a "realm of eternal darkness."  The trick was achieved via black light, an effect which several other Fantasyland attractions used more extensively.  It was at this point in the ride that the helmsman piloting the sub could really contribute to the sense of drama.  When the vehicle scraped the ice, he could make the white cabin lights flicker and then go out just as the sub was entering the black light area.  Since that scene was bereft of illumination, guests would be left in complete inky nothingness.  If the helmsman kept the lights out until Nemo's red alert two minutes later, and then actually turned on the red cabin lights, he scored extra points.

After the sub reached its maximum depth limit, Nemo pointed out that there were "limits beyond which man and his puny efforts cannot survive."  He directed a return to 80 fathoms.

Upon reaching that more sensible depth, guests saw the remains of an ancient civilization coming into view.  Collapsed pediments, broken walls and scattered pieces of classical statuary littered the ocean floor, among them the golden head (Zeus? Poseidon?) of a bearded god.

Nemo commented that the ruins "betrayed the hand of man," which - unless you subscribe to the antiquated notion that fish are adept at masonry and have mastered the corbelled arch - might have seemed obvious.   He went on to surmise that this might well have been "the legendary lost continent of Atlantis."

The Atlantis scene was 20K's pièce de résistance.  Painstakingly detailed and romantic to the point of sensuality, the landscape of fallen temples and toppled columns seemed to stretch on forever into the background.  It was the sole part of the ride that I, as a 20K helmsman, would climb out of the sail to view when running a dead (devoid of riders) sub around the track -  it was just that cool.  As guests progressed through the sunken city, Nemo briefly explained the legend of a "remarkable" society that had been laid to waste by a volcano.  He tempered this statement with the concession that the existence of Atlantis was held by some to be mere fantasy, along with "legends of sea serpents and mermaids."

Naturally, as soon as he uttered that phrase, the gyrating green tail of some unidentifiable creature came into view amongst the rubble.  Its lengthy body snaked through the scenery as one of the crew, Mr. Baxter, asked Nemo to clarify that sea serpents were indeed relegated to the world of fantasy.  Nemo, apparently forgetting that he'd just salivated over the prospect of discovering a fabled lost city, took the opportunity to chide his underling for suggesting anything sensational - "if you think you're seeing sea serpents, or mermaids, you've been submerged too long."

By this time guests were witnessing the visual punchline: that long, green scaly tail culminated in the upper torso of a googly-eyed sea serpent, sitting squarely between a trio of mermaids in a gold-strewn treasury.  Two mermaids were swimming around the beast holding strands of pearls that wrapped around its neck, while the other sat atop an urn admiring herself in a mirror.  A massive outpouring of gold coins, jewel-encrusted plates, vases and other artifacts had flowed from open vault doors on the scene's perimeter.

EXPOSURES
(another thing in the middle of the page)

If you were to ask me what's strange, I would have an answer for you:  It's strange that Fantasyland - home to so many rides that were ostensibly meant for children - once contained the Magic Kingdom's sole three attractions depicting exposed breasts.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (20K) was the most obvious and easily explained example, as the mermaids in the Atlantis scene were merely faithful to most mythological treatments of such creatures.  Covering their chests might have been puritanical given the context. 

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, directly across the street from 20K, not only had a barmaid in Winky's Pub with prominent cleavage but also a painting of a completely nude woman on the pub wall.  Her breasts were partially obscured by her long, flowing hair (she was identified as Rapunzel), but she was clearly meant to be tantalizing.  Given the pace of the ride, it's conceivable many guests never saw her.  Just the same, it was an unexpected and deliberate element of the pub scene.

Still, it was Peter Pan's Flight ... surely the most child-oriented of the three rides in question ... that handled things in the most perplexing manner.  The mermaids in Neverland, seen lounging atop rocks in their private lagoon, had bare chests from 1971 until 1990.  In Disney's 1954 film version of Peter Pan, however, the mermaids wore seashells just like Ariel would in 1989's The Little Mermaid.  Only after The Little Mermaid was released did the figures in the ride receive seashells.  So why did they sit uncovered for nineteen years when their 1950s celluloid counterparts were decidedly more chaste?  Figure it out if you can.

None of these situations was morally dubious unless you were offended by partial nudity (and granted, in the 1970s, the number of people in middle America who would think that was unacceptable was pretty high), but given this amount of nudity in Fantasyland you'd think the other Magic Kingdom lands would full of the stuff.  But they weren't.   Not a single Pirates of the Caribbean buccaneer had his full chest exposed, and the heavily-pursued town maidens kept their apparel on as well.  None of the Jungle Cruise natives revealed their posteriors, and most of the Plains Indians along the Rivers of America and WDW Railroad were heavily dressed...even in summertime.  Consider also the voyeuristic possibilities inherent to the Carousel of Progress, where guests were invited to gaze through the bedroom and bathroom walls of a robotic American family.  The only flesh therein, however, was Cousin Orville's shoulders and feet protruding from the bathtub.  Even RCA's Home of Future Living, where walls were missing throughout the entire house, passed on the opportunity to show us people in their underwear.  Such was the peculiar distribution of nakedness during the Kingdom's infancy.

Just beyond the treasury scene, Mr. Baxter brought to Nemo's attention a spat of "unusual turbulence," which came along with the amplified sound of bubbling.  The source was quickly identified as the same volcano that had brought Atlantis crumbling to the ocean floor.  A series of top-heavy columns, glowing red from a lava flow just out of sight, swayed precariously from the disturbance.  As many of the columns were near the Nautilus and threatened against a safe passage, Nemo ordered his crew to a red alert.

The Nautilus avoided a collision with the ruins, but the next threat to its well-being was already on the horizon: another of Nemo's fleet was being attacked by a giant squid.  "Good lord," Nemo exclaimed, "It's one of ours; its hull has been crushed like an eggshell."  Indeed, a submarine marked XIII - streams of bubbles escaping from cracks in its metal plates - was locked in the grip of a monstrous, red architeuthis.  This scenario echoed the previous ride scene where the octopus held the shark motionless.  But whereas that octopus seemed comical, the squid and its single glaring eye were terrifying...certainly to me in early childhood.  Comparing the scale of the creature to the submarine it held, and the size of a full-sized person to that of a 20K ride vehicle, this squid even made the one Captain Nemo battled in Disney's 20,000 Leagues film look playful.

Guests then heard one of the crew warn of another squid attacking their own submarine.  Nemo immediately directed the use of "full repellent charge," which riders may have recalled from the film as an allusion to the Nautilus' electrical defense field - strong enough to ward off cannibals but not always effective on squid.  Massive red tentacles appeared just outside the portholes, shifting up and down as they tried to wrap around the submarine.  They were met, however, with the flash of an electric shock. Before they could ensnare the Nautilus completely, Nemo ordered the sub to the surface.

In another flurry of bubbles, the Nautilus quickly rose from the depths and guests were reacquainted with daylight (except at night).  The sub had returned to the placid lagoon adjacent to Vulcania, where the ocean floor was populated by stingrays and ling cod.  Nemo, apparently no longer the least bit shaken over the loss of life associated with a sister submarine's destruction, casually informed guests that they would soon be docking.  He expressed his pleasure at having hosted everyone on a "memorable voyage," and thanked them for sailing with his crew.  Guests were asked to remain seated until the cabin lights were switched on, at which point Nemo gave the "all ashore" call.  And the pipe organ kept playing.

Guests would typically debark the submarine via the portal opposite from that through which they'd entered, as the submarines most often docked in the same position and another group of guests was likely waiting to step down into the sub right behind those leaving.  It was difficult for anyone waiting for the rest of their party to exit 20K to know where exactly to camp out, since one could never state with certainty whether the sub they'd ride would exit from the west (opposite The Round Table ice cream shop) or the east (next to the Mad Tea Party).  This made 20K one of the four Magic Kingdom attractions with exit points variable enough to keep separated parties looking for each other for a while, with the other three being Flight to the Moon / Mission to Mars, the Walt Disney World Railroad and the Liberty Square Riverboats.

Because of its experience with Disneyland Submarine Voyage, Walt Disney Productions knew what it was getting into, so to speak, when it built 20K: a ride with substantial intrigue that took a large staff to operate and maintain.  It was also comparable to Adventureland's Jungle Cruise in many regards, being water-based and needing a dock crew in addition to boat pilots (the two attractions even squared off during the summer with friendly competitions to see which could move the greatest number of guests on a daily basis), plus a dedicated crew "behind the scenes" who tended to the upkeep of the vehicles and scenery.  What seems phenomenal now is that rides of this description were ever built in the first place.  Compare the number of people needed just to operate 20K on a normal off-season day, which would be no fewer than twenty, to that required to keep the four closest rides up and running (the Mad Tea Party, Mr. Toad, Snow White and Dumbo all ran from one pool of employees) on the same day, perhaps ten, and you get a sense of 20K's magnitude.  Factoring in extended operating hours for the summer and holidays, the ride took a small army to run it smoothly.  When theme park rides are designed now, a projected minimum staffing requirement of twenty operators would probably be enough to kill a project while it was still on paper...especially if it wasn't a thrill ride, and 20K was not.

The makeup of the 20K operating team was predominantly males between the ages of 17 and 25, many of whom were also in college at the time.  They would be assigned one of four basic tasks or positions:

- Tickets / Greeter: From 1971 to 1980, when most MK attractions required a ticket for admission, 20K had someone manning the entry turnstiles to take guests' E tickets.  After 1980, this position was absorbed into the pre-existing Greeter role.  The Greeter was stationed out in front of the attraction where he would answer guest questions, park strollers and tend to the queue.  Every hour on the hour he took a turnstile reading so the ride's capacity could be tracked.

-  Grouper: As mentioned in the ride description above, this employee directed quests at the head of the line toward a holding area for incoming subs.  The Grouper was responsible for making sure each sub had as close to 40 passengers as possible, and also for accommodating wheelchair guests who would be approaching the dock area via the ride's eastern exit.

- Dock: Each of the three submarine docking positions had two ramps control boxes, each of which had to be manned if a sub was loading or unloading at that station.  Dock employees were responsible for communicating with sub drivers via hand signals, roping subs into place as they docked, lowering a ramp for guests entering or exiting the sub, directing guests into or out of the sub, raising the ramp again, signaling to the sub driver that it was clear to lower the hatch, removing the rope from the sub and then dispatching the sub via hand signal when all subs in the dock were ready to sail.

- Driver: Also called the helmsman, 20K drivers manned the sail of the submarine.  They activated the submarine's forward and rear hatches, gave courtesy and warning spiels to guests at the beginning and end of each ride, then piloted the submarine along the 1,600-foot track.  Along the way, they activated Nemo's narration tapes in conjunction with the show scenes that guests were viewing, adjusted the cabin lights and attempted to maintain ideal spacing between their sub and others in the "pack," or group of subs sailing in tandem.

All of these positions were overseen by a lead, who was responsible for keeping everything in check: tending to staff issues such as call-ins, lunch breaks and shift overlaps; monitoring the ride's hourly capacity via turnstile readings and surveys of the queue, dock and sub packs; bringing subs online from drydock or the spur line and taking subs offline; dealing with guest issues or complaints; and reporting to upper management on matters of imminent concern.

The lead also had to dispatch employees from 20K to do parade crowd control in the afternoons, usually from 2pm-3:30pm.  This was a common occurrence in the Operations department, which provided the manpower for placing stanchions along the parade route, roping off the path and keeping guests clear of the parade itself once it kicked off.  Due to the generally hot and disagreeable weather, however, the assignment was not a popular one for most 20K helmsmen.  

Another function of the operations staff was the daily animation checklist, or show quality check, which - as mentioned above regarding the sharks - was intended to be the most consistent means of letting the maintenance staff know when basic animated features of the ride were not working properly.  The checklist, one page of which is shown here, also referenced an element which never made it into the attraction: the "Dolphin Wheel."  One could infer that this would have been the inverse of the shark wheels from the Graveyard of Lost Ships scene, with dolphins - attached to a rotating, floor-mounted disc - swimming in circles through the Fish Plains scene.

20K was a complex attraction to maintain; given its size it would have required a formidable amount of upkeep even if it was just a static built site.  But with the underwater animation, behemoth ride vehicles and the element of water itself (which needed to be crystal clear if riders were to see anything through the portholes), it was a foregone conclusion that there would be a tremendous investment of time needed to keep the ride in top shape.  From its opening until the day it closed, divers made regular visits to the lagoon for spot repairs to lobsters, and mechanics were constantly tending to its submarines. The attraction also underwent regular downtimes, or rehabs, to allow for renovations that could not be performed overnight or with water in the lagoon.

Rehabs generally took place with all Disney rides every three or four years.  From the mid-1970s until 1993, 20K had at least five full-fledged rehabs.  Next to paint jobs on Cinderella Castle and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, 20K's rehabs were the most visible in the entire park because of the vantage point of the lagoon as viewed from the Skyway; there was simply no way to hide such a huge undertaking.  This gave park guests several opportunities over the years to look down into the drained lagoon and photograph workers repainting the coral reefs or replacing multicolored strands of kelp.  As seen in the adjacent photo from 20K's 1987 rehab, from the collection of Robert Boyd, the hues adorning the rockwork are incredibly vivid.  The reason for this was that the colors dropped out by about 50% when viewed underwater, so everything had to be exaggerated. 

The most prominent 20K rehab ran from September 1975 through Spring of 1976.  This shutdown was made not just to correct mechanical problems but also to improve the ride's animation and filtration systems, as well as to cosmetically embellish many of the main lagoon's rock formation and shoreline elements.  This was one of the first projects personally overseen by then-upstart WED designer Tony Baxter (hence the ride narration's "Mr. Baxter"), who had collaborated with Claude Coats on this and several other WDW attractions in 1971 and would soon be masterminding huge changes to Disneyland and WDW.  Baxter personally oversaw a large crew of crafts persons who - working from his scale models - sculpted entirely new reefs along the west side of the lagoon.  Inside the show building, the ice caverns were also completely rebuilt and sections of Atlantis were reworked.  On the rocky cliffs adjoining the show building's exterior waterfalls, a flock of seagulls was added - complete with head turn and wing flap animation, to augment the coastal illusion.

Baxter's team also added one thing to 20K that guests would never be able to enjoy...a nesting seagull tucked into a piece of volcanic rock above the ride's lead office.  The bird could only be viewed from either the sail of one of the submarines or by someone standing on the side of the lagoon opposite from the dock.  You couldn't glimpse it from the dock, the Fantasyland footpaths or the Skyway.

This photo, which I took through the dirty sail window of a sub in early 1989, gives a blurry indication of the gull's nesting spot.  The bird was even animated with head rotation just like its counterparts on the show building's cavernous facade.  As a teenage sub helmsman, this was to me little more than a passing curiosity.  As an adult, the fact that the bird was there is a source of endless fascination.  Well, not endless.  It's a mild fascination, actually, but still more than simple curiosity.  Kind of.

Aside from the lagoon and show scenes, rehabs were the ideal time for the maintenance division to give the submarines themselves an overhaul.  Almost all repair work performed on the subs was conducted in the drydock area, which was positioned due north of the lagoon on the other side of the palm-laden hill.  That's where the original natural gas engines were switched over to diesel engines, where the subs were repainted and where their air-conditioning and audio systems were serviced.  Subs were constantly being worked on, whether there was a rehab taking place or not.  Since no more than nine subs could be running the main track at any given time, the remaining three were available for maintenance around-the-clock.

Subs were transferred to drydock via a spur line track that joined the main track in the Black Light scene.  In order to transfer a sub from the main line to dry dock, the driver had to pull forward of an unseen track switch within the show building, using lights mounted along the catwalk as a guide, and signal via radio that he had cleared the switch.  Then the lead or another designated employee (who had hiked to drydock from the Lead Office by passing Dumbo and walking along a narrow footpath that took them behind the Fantasy Faire tent and over the forested berm) would activate the switch from drydock and raise a large solid metal gate that kept light from penetrating that darkest of all the ride's show scenes.  The driver would see a light signal box, through his rear window, change from red to green along with (during daylight hours) the open gate.  Then he would put the sub into reverse and pull back into one of three channels in drydock.

All other subs had to accommodate this process by giving the sub being taken offline a head start into the show building, otherwise they would end up going into a hold pattern and screwing up the experience for their passengers.  On busy days, with nine subs cycling, a seamless transfer of a sub to or from drydock with no disruption of the show quality for guests was the ultimate and most elusive goal: achievable, but only with much experience and confidence. Once the sub in question was in drydock, the lead would then shut the metal door and reverse the switch, notifying the rest of the drivers that it was okay to proceed with normal cycling.  Then the driver of the now-docked sub would climb out one of the hatches, join the lead and head back to the attraction (or go have a vinegar-laced chicken sandwich in the nearby employee cafeteria.Only one of the channels in drydock was, in reality, a true "dry dock."  The southernmost lane dead-ended in a chamber from which all water could be pumped out, allowing maintenance workers full access to the vehicle's exterior.  The other two channels were constantly filled with water outside of rehab periods, when the rest of the ride was also drained.

A similar process was followed when transferring subs to or from the spur line that ran parallel to the passenger-loading dock.  That was the ideal location for storing any three subs that were simply going offline due to either light crowds or the end of the day's operation.  It was also less complicated in the sense that the entire procedure could be handled from the dock, plus the spur line could be accessed from either side of the lagoon.  Glass balls floating in the lagoon served as signals to let drivers know which position the spur line switches were in, and lights at the head of the spur line served as backups.  Subs docked along the spur line were a great place for helmsmen to take a break in total solitude.

WHEN I WORKED AT 20K (a quick recap of stuff from a prior century)

In September 1988 I came to 20K searching for something new.  I had passed my second anniversary in the Magic Kingdom's Operations West (Adventureland, Frontierland and Liberty Square) department and was getting a lot of shifts at the Jungle Cruise, which is where many male Ops West cast members were scheduled until they accrued enough seniority to base themselves elsewhere.  I had previously worked at other 'west side' attractions like The Haunted Mansion and Diamond Horseshoe, but once I was trained at the Jungle Cruise about half my shifts fell there and I just got tired of the constant spieling.  Facing an unknown number of months drifting down the Nile before a relocation might come along, I pursued a transfer to the Operations East (Fantasyland and Tomorrowland) as an easy detour.

At MK East, I'd heard the most pervasive assignment for males was 20K.  The supervisor who processed my transfer actually tried to talk me out of requesting it as my first ride, believing I'd hate it and end up returning to MK West.  What he and most of the 20K guys evidently didn't know was that their ride, contrasted with the Jungle Cruise, was a cakewalk.  For starters, the ride units were air-conditioned; this alone made the subs far preferable to driving a jungle steamer.  But there were additional perks: the 20K uniforms were light and all-cotton (a rarity in the Kingdom), the ride sat very close to the employee cafeteria and locker rooms, and there was no unholy spiel to deliver hour after hour... just a couple lines to recite at the start and end of the ride.  Any guy who complained about 20K as a bad job was an idiot.  Even after they trained me at other 'east side' rides like Snow White / Mr. Toad and Space Mountain (supposedly the elite MK East assignment), I asked to go back to those blessed green sea monsters.

Learning how to operate the attraction was easy.  With the subs on a track, it was basically a forward or backward proposition.  The most complicated parts of the job were A) taking subs on- and off-line as described above, B) docking at a speed which wouldn't snap the mooring rope and C) cueing the narration tapes at the right times. 

To bring a sub into drydock from the main track required patience, and - if it was accomplished during normal operating hours - a creative manipulation of all the other active subs' trip times.  If executed improperly it often led to delays in both the Ling Cod portion of the lagoon and the final scenes of the show building, which effectively killed any dramatic tension that would otherwise attend the climax.  Most 20K leads (front-line supervision) were able to manage the process expertly via two-way radio communication, as it was generally the most exciting part of their shift and they gave it their full attention.  It took disinterested or dumb helmsmen to screw it up, but we had quite a few.  

Piloting the submarines was similar to driving through a car wash: There was a lot of water, a slow-moving vehicle going into and out of a dark tunnel and a lot of time on the driver's hands (if most car washes don't have huge red squid tentacles getting electrocuted, some DO have spinning red bristles).  Sheer boredom or inattention on the part of a driver, however, made it easy to get going too fast in certain subs.  Momentum itself played a part, plus some subs had less accelerator governance than others.  This led to some guys bringing the sub back into the dock so fast that they misjudged the amount of time needed to brake.  Often they would overshoot the front dock position and have to back themselves up before the dock hand would rope them.  At other times that dock hand would also misjudge the situation and throw the rope on a sub that was plowing by too quickly, and the rope would snap.  That was a cardinal sin in the eyes of management, as the potential for injury was substantial (see: DL's Sailing Ship Columbia), and all instances of broken ropes were thoroughly investigated.

Getting the narration tapes activated in sync with what the guests were seeing at any given moment was a real feat, as guests seated at the head of the sub were always seeing something completely different from those near the tail.  So ideally you had to time it so guests in the dead center were getting the optimum experience: when Nemo says "the giant clam," guests in the front of the sub should have been seeing clams already for five seconds, guests in the center should be seeing them at that moment and guests at the tail end should be seeing clams within five seconds.  It could work out nicely if you cared to pay attention, but many helmsmen were more concerned with attaining a top speed than with mastering the finer points of the experience.

20K was one of the few WDW rides never staffed by women (there was one exception in the 1970s), having closed before the trend toward coed operations fully permeated the final holdouts of Magic Kingdom gender division such as the Jungle Cruise.  As such, the attraction operated much like a depraved fraternity, with radio signals like "914" devised to alert fellow skippers when a pretty girl was in the vicinity and salacious discussions of the Toad Complex ladies a constant occurrence in the Lead office.  I was able to stay on the fringe of that without losing respect because I -  it was agreed - created the best graffiti my co-workers had ever seen.  It was a trade-off for not fronting misogyny.  It was in this environment, nonetheless, that I found myself accompanied one afternoon by two Swedish women in the extremely cramped sail of my submarine.  The ride had only just begun when they jointly decided they were feeling claustrophobic and would be better served with a view through the large bubble windows comprising the "windshield."  Of course I could not leave the sail because all the controls were up there, so they had to squeeze into the space with me for the duration of the ten-minute ride.  There was cheering from my co-workers when I pulled my submarine into the dock, because through the window it looked like I was 3/4 of the way toward reforming ABBA. Then I got yelled at for allowing guests to climb up there.

That sort of occurrence was rare, of course, and the typical shift was filled with many hours of either standing on the dock sniffing diesel or standing in the sail with one hand on the accelerator and the other somewhere between the narration controls, the microphone and one's nostrils.  Disney had designed the sail so helmsmen were forced to stand for the duration of the ride: there was a dead-man switch on the throttle, so if you didn't apply constant pressure the sub would begin to slow down and eventually stop.  This meant you couldn't climb back into the rear of the sail which, although tiny, would allow you to rest your legs.  Some helmsmen tied rags around the controls the keep constant pressure on the throttle, but that was a slipshod affair.  You could also try working the accelerator with your shoe or even by taking your shoe off and letting your foot do the work, but this compromised your ability to truly relax.

I realized that were it not for the dead-man switch, the sub could pretty much be left at the same rate of acceleration once it left the dock. I asked my grandfather, who was a carpenter, if he could make some tiny wooden wedges for me. He produced the perfect solution to my lazy problem: submarine cruise control via pine slivers.  With one of these wedges, I could set any of the subs at my preferred speed and shove myself up into the back of the sail.  From that location I could reach forward as necessary to activate the narration tape segments and, in between times, stuff my mouth with Saltines crackers that I'd taken from the cafeteria.  It would be audacious to suggest that the crumbs resulting from my perpetual snacking were the root cause of many subs being populated by tiny yellow cockroaches, but they may have been a contributing factor.

There were a few other reasons why I enjoyed being up in the sail more than my co-workers (most preferred dock duty by far).  For one thing, I was partial to the ride's aesthetics, and those were best observed from a sub rather than by standing on the dock.  Piloting the vehicles through the lagoon and caverns might have been repetitious, but a constantly changing vantage point was far better than one that was fixed.  Another factor was the sense of solitude the sail could provide in the midst of the most crowded theme park in North America.  There may have been 40 people below my feet every trip, and tens of thousands more just a few yards away, but the sail felt isolated enough for me to forget all about them if I chose to.     

Working the dock, on the other hand, left one in direct proximity to both the masses and the elements.  This was great if you wanted to socialize with guests.  But you could also end up manning one of the ramp control boxes at extreme ends of the dock, leaving you out in the blistering sun or, between December and March, exposed to the bitter cold wind that glanced off the surface of the lagoon and reminded you that Florida can indeed be nasty frigid at times.  Fortunately, 20K's winter-wear collection extended beyond the standard-issue light denim jacket; helmsmen could outfit themselves in black knit turtlenecks, scarves, wool pea coats and knit caps.  This made dock duty far more bearable and, when you finally rotated back into one of the subs, also made your nose run.

On the busiest days, the ride would often employ an additional staff position to keep tabs on the progress of the sub packs as they moved from the loading docks into the lagoon and beyond. Employees in this position, known as Rear Dock Control, would provide a running update via radio to all the sub helmsmen. This was particularly helpful to those driving subs through the show building, as they might need to tailor their speed to make sure they didn't emerge from the caves too soon and end up sitting idle in the Ling Cod  (between the show building and Rear Dock) portion of the lagoon while subs in the docks were still loading.  Unfortunately, many helmsmen used RDC duty as an opportunity to hone their stand-up skills, driving their co-workers insane with impersonations of Gallagher, Eddie Murphy or Andrew Dice Clay.  The leads would generally try to suppress this kind of nonsense, threatening the guys with write-ups and reminding them that all radio communication was monitored by the FCC (I don't know if that was true).  But it managed to persist, as any sub operator could verbally snipe from the privacy of their sail and maintain relative anonymity.  It was - again - a far cry  from the Jungle Cruise, where supervisors would literally hide in the foliage to catch skippers in the act of deviating from the approved spiel. 

Although the guest experience was 90% predetermined by the ride's audio tracks, the sub's interior and the show scenes that played out beyond the portholes, the helmsmen were largely in control of how well those three components meshed.  We could also tamper with the guests' psychological and physical well-being.  One easy means of accomplishing that was to, sometime when the sub was in the show building, pretend you were talking into your radio and trying to let someone know you'd detected a leak which was causing you to lose speed.  Almost invariably several guests seated directly below the sail would take immediate (and often worried) interest in this faux distress signal and totally stop paying attention to the show as they looked anxiously around the cabin to see if there was water coming in.  Working a squirt gun into the act added to the fun.

Another trick, but one that required two demented helmsmen working in reckless concert, was to make two subs collide.  This stunt, which was only possible if you and the other driver were a pack of two or the last two subs in a pack of three, pivoted on both timing and a complete disregard for the possible consequences of your actions.  It worked like this: The driver in the first sub (you) floored it once you entered the show building, while the driver in the rear sub simultaneously started to slow down.  Once you got into the Black Light scene (the only place where guests couldn't easily tell what speed you were traveling - or which direction), you signaled some code word into the radio, such as "daisies," and threw the sub into reverse.  It would take a while for the sub to coast to a stop and actually move backwards, but it would do so before you got to the Atlantis scene.  Once he got your signal, the other guy would throw his sub into full throttle.  If you timed it right, both subs would slam into each other at a decent clip in total darkness and all hell would break loose; a massive thud would echo through the cabin, the lights would go out and guests would scream as they were knocked out of their seats and into each other.  Then you and the other driver would make some cursory apology for the disruption, failing to cite a cause, and go about the rest of the ride as if nothing had happened.  It was perhaps the most irresponsible thing two Disney employees could do to that large a group of guests without any concrete "proof" of malicious intent.  I never did it myself, of course, but have it on good authority that it happened on more than one occasion. 

It was far more common, naturally, for helmsmen to enact jokes on each other, especially with new employees.  A typical scenario took place inside the show building, where one could lie in waiting for a particular helmsman's sub to coast into the building and then spring out of the darkness onto the windshield and watch him jump.  Guys were always slipping something vile (small snakes, half-eaten churros) into someone else's sail through the little flap on the outside meant for communication between the helmsman and the dock crew.  And it wasn't that unusual to see someone being thrown into the lagoon on his last day.

20K was, in short, a great place to work.  The potential for monotony was ever-present, but it was generally offset by the perks of being involved in such a unique operation.  Few other sights in the service industry could have competed with the view from a Nautilus sail across the lagoon at twilight, watching other submarines plow silently through the rippling water as their underwater lights cast an eerie glow beneath the surface and the skies behind the waterfall grotto sank into a majestic expanse of dark blue.  And few other jobs in the Magic Kingdom afforded an individual such an opportunity to "play" with such a totally cool set of toys as those same beautiful subs.

Here's something that nobody ever talks about: 20K and live mermaids.  It's well known among many Disneyland fans that older visitors to the park reminisce a lot about the live mermaids that used to swim through the Submarine Voyage lagoon in the 1960s, and simultaneously lament the fact that they were retired because the chlorine content of the water was bad for their hair and skin.  But before those mermaids could lounge around and wave to guests on the mainland, they had to swim across the lagoon to a coral plateau in the center of the works.  What if WDW's designers had found a way to incorporate the same concept but eliminated the need for the ladies to take a punishing chemical bath on their way to and from the job site?  I think they did.

Look at this little inlet positioned to the south of 20K's Ling Cod scene, directly between where submarines exit the caverns and guests walked out of the attraction toward the Mad Tea Party.  If it doesn't look custom-built for a mermaid or two, I don't know what would.  Of course I haven't been able to ask anyone involved in the ride's conception whether this is just errant guesswork or, possibly, that something else was destined to sit atop that nice bit of rock; perhaps an animatronic sea lion could have sat there and barked madly into the sky?

But at least one early park blueprint alludes to something like this in an even more conspicuous configuration, with the inlet more pronounced and positioned where mermaids, were they in fact an intended element, could be seen very easily by Fantasyland guests along the main park pathway.