A GIANT AT THE FAIR: Walt Disney in the July 1964 issue of “McCall’s” magazine. The text reads: “Once Upon a Time… in the Magic Land of Hollywood… there lived the Greatest One-Man Show on Earth! Yesterday he invented Disneyland, and the likes of us. Today he’s the genie of the New York World’s Fair. Can you guess what he’s dreaming of next?”
Walt Disney World almost didn’t happen, at least not without the New York World’s Fair. The event, held in Flushing Meadows outside of New York City, was an international festival dedicated to “Peace Through Understanding” and a showcase of American industry. In a 1964 television broadcast of “The Wonderful World of Color,” Walt Disney analyzed the history of fairs through animated depictions: sites of trade and commerce developed into stages of talent and art that would gradually evolve into a cultured and industrialized monolith of growth and progress. But Disney’s involvement in the fair, while not as old as the Roman and Druid celebrations, does predate the actual New York exhibition substantially.
The New York World’s Fair, 1964, with its centerpiece: the Unisphere. Looks a little Epcot-y, no?
In 1959, Disneyland was on the forefront of development. At just four years old, the park boasted a brand new series of attractions with a staggering price tag of $2.5 million. These attractions, at least from Imagineering’s standpoint, were the latest in what would become an ever-growing string of major technological developments. The Matterhorn Bobsleds were the world’s first steel rollercoaster; the Submarine Voyage featured the world’s 8th-largest submarine fleet; and the Monorail would advance efficiency in mass transportation for decades to come. By 1963, the park’s designers were starting to push boundaries yet again; this time, they would not only make the impossible a reality, but would breathe life into their attractions.
The mouse that started it all? More like the bird that started it all!
On a holiday with his wife, Lillian, to New Orleans, Walt spotted a small mechanical bird that was perched in a gold cage. After purchasing the item from a trinket shop, he brought the figure back to his staff and asked Ward Kimball, fellow train enthusiast, to dissect the bird and figure out how it worked. From there, Audio-Animatronic technology was born. For the first time, Imagineers could take their mechanical figures (that previously populated the Jungle Cruise attraction) and allow them to move their mouths and faces in time with a pre-recorded soundtrack. The Enchanted Tiki Room, opened in Adventureland in 1963, combined movement and sound in a fifteen-minute show that featured singing birds, flowers, and tiki gods that moved in time with lights and music. From here, additions to the park temporarily stopped…. Walt was planning something. Something very big.
Walt Disney admiring his birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room
It was around this time that he had his heart set on opening a second Disneyland, but on a much bigger scale. Disneyland’s success attracted dozens of motels, restaurants, and tourist shops that crowded the surrounding area and made Anaheim look like a “cheap Las Vegas,” according to Walt. He looked east in search of Manifest Disney (see what I did there?) and began looking at locations for an “East Coast Disneyland.” But before Walt settled on Florida for his Vacation Kingdom, he wondered whether or not East Coasters would even be interested in something like a Disneyland, or Disney entertainment in general. The New York World’s Fair gave him the opportunity to test out Imagineering’s attractions and storytelling on a much larger audience. By teaming up with many influential corporations, Walt would not only push his Imagineers’ technology and artistry forward, but would also secure the confidence to build Disney World.
Walt was born in Illinois, the same state as our sixteenth president. He was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln and of the patriotic ideals he defended. So when approached by the State of Illinois to create a pavilion for the upcoming fair, Walt had his chance to finally realize an old dream. Earlier ideas for additions to Disneyland included a Hall of Presidents, a show that would exhibit the leaders of the free world in mechanical format; the technology, at the time, did not exist, but practicing with the creation of an animatronic Lincoln would test the feasibility of a cavalcade of presidents.
Blaine Gibson fabricating Lincoln from his life mask. He would go on to sculpt all 43 presidents for the Hall of Presidents.
The Lincoln figure would deliver a speech on the virtues of freedom and solidarity, accompanied by a dramatic rendition of the Capitol building in the background and a moving scoring of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” To do this, Imagineers studied writings on Lincoln’s speeches in order to identify what his voice would sound like and what mannerisms he would use. Blaine Gibson, a master sculptor, acquired an actual life mask of Abraham Lincoln from 1865 that was used as a reference for the sculpting of the figure’s face and head. The figure required Imagineers to rethink the hydraulics system used in the Enchanted Tiki Room that would, according to Imagineer Bob Gurr, “double the functionality and cut the weight in half.” After considering these needs, Gurr designed an internal facial structure that resembled an airplane fuselage and allowed the president to have 16 different facial movements.
Abraham Lincoln giving his address… “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”
The figure was tested in a dry run in front of Illinois state officials. When the president stood up from his chair to give his address, a hydraulic line containing red fluid broke in his chest and poured onto his white shirt. The officials claimed that Disney was trying to recreate Lincoln’s assassination, but Walt promised that it would be fixed for the fair’s opening. He scolded his Imagineers, saying “Only clear fluids from now on!!” The final figure premiered to rave reviews at the fair, with many audience and press members claiming that the figure was indeed an actor and could not possibly be a robot. The success of the figure would lead to the eventual creation of the Hall of Presidents for Magic Kingdom’s Liberty Square.
An updated Abraham Lincoln figure at the D23 Expo, based in truth from Blaine Gibson’s original
Disney’s second pavilion, The Carousel of Progress, also held inspiration in past ideas for Disneyland. Walt had conceived a courtyard branch off of Main Street called Edison Square that would exhibit America’s progress through the Age of Electricity. Although it was never built, Walt took this concept of progress and change to General Electric, the company founded by Edison and J.P. Morgan, that would go on to sponsor the Carousel of Progress at the fair. The show is held in a rotating theater with four stages that show an American family household in the 1890s, the 1920s, the 1950s, and sometime in the fictionalized future. The show’s theme song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” was written by the Sherman Brothers, composers for Mary Poppins, and highlighted the central theme of the entire show. The program connected past and future in the general vein of ingenuity that would bring generations of the same family together over several decades. The attraction now resides in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, just steps away from Space Mountain in Tomorrowland.
The entrance to The Carousel of Progress
The third pavilion, the Magic Skyway, was created exclusively for the Ford Motor company and featured an unprecedented storyline. Guests would board brand new Ford convertibles and journey back in time to the age of the dinosaurs to see such events as the birth of a triceratops family, a battle between a tyrannosaurus rex and a stegosaurus, the discovery of fire, and the invention of the wheel. Guests would zip into the future to glance over a futuristic city and then arrive back to the present. The time travelling cars would go on to inspire the PeopleMover system, an all-electric mode of localized transportation in Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland. The most technologically advanced ride system of all four Disney pavilions, the Magic Skyway would be influential in furthering ride capacity that would be crucially instrumental in the theme parks. The dinosaurs, a monumental animatronic achievement in their own right, can now be found along another unique mode of transportation: the Disneyland Railroad. While taking the Grand Circle Tour of Disneyland, the section of track between the Tomorrowland and Main Street train stations holds two dioramas: one of the Grand Canyon and one of the Primeval World, featuring the same massive dinos that originally populated the Magic Skyway.
Walt Disney giving fantastic life advice on “The Wonderful World of Color.” These dinosaurs, by the way, are named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
The Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus duke it out in a scene inspired by “Fantasia”
And, finally, we reach “it’s a small world,” also known as the Happiest Cruise that Ever Sailed. Walt originally had the idea for a Disneyland attraction that would feature the different cultures of the world in a single ride, each with ethnic children singing their national anthems. During a test phase, the transitions from one country to another made the multiple anthems sound like cacophony that muddled the experience. Seeking solidarity, Walt commissioned the Sherman Brothers to write a song that reflected unity and simplicity, and so the world-famous tune was born. The fascinating part of this song is not its incredibly catchy melody, but its unique orchestrations that reflect each country’s musical styling and instrumentation. Ireland has bagpipes, India has tablas and sitars, and Brazil is filled with guitars and percussion.
The soundtrack to “it’s a small world.” I’ve chosen some of my favorite cultural renditions of the famous tune, so get your headphones out! Check out these spots: 3:42, 9:14, 15:51, and 20:04
The pavilion was sponsored by the Pepsi-Cola company as a tribute to UNICEF and, most notably, the children of the world. Artist Mary Blair, whose work can also be found in Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and the Contemporary Resort’s central mosaic, gave the sets a colorful, animated look as though the guest is peering through a child’s eyes. Imagineer Rolly Crump designed the kinetic centerpiece of the pavilion, the Tower of the Four Winds, that would never stop spinning and moving throughout the duration of the fair. Although the tower was too costly to bring back to Disneyland at the fair’s conclusion, it would go on to inspire the kinetic elements of the ride’s facade. At the ride’s opening day in Fantasyland, children from over forty different nations poured water from international rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans into the ride’s waters.
The Tower of the Four Winds, in graphic concept stage (left) and constructed for the fair (right)
All four Disney pavilions ranked in the Top 5 Most Popular exhibits at the New York World’s Fair. While many of the attractions’ elements found their way back to Disneyland, Imagineering’s greatest achievement was the further advancement of ride systems and audio-animatronics that would go on to be incorporated into 1967’s Pirates of the Caribbean and 1969’s The Haunted Mansion. But perhaps the most influential result of Disney’s involvement in the World’s Fair was Walt’s confirmation that East Coast audiences loved Disney entertainment. This, in combination with the collaboration between Imagineering and American corporations, would go on to inspire both Disney World as a whole and specifically EPCOT, Walt’s city of the future. At a time when Mary Poppins was topping box offices and award ceremonies, the Wonderful World of Color was leading family television, and Disneyland was looking toward the future, the World’s Fair confirmed that Disney’s entertainment empire was rooted in imagination and achievement and that their conquests knew no boundaries.
From top to bottom: The Ford Motor Company Pavilion, which housed the Magic Skyway; General Electric’s Progressland; “it’s a small world” in Disneyland
To see the original television debut of Disney’s World’s Fair attractions on the Wonderful World of Color, check out the above video. It’s one of my favorite Walt Disney videos for a number of reasons, so if you find that you’re bored, watch it! You might feel inspired!
Jack Shean says
Great blog! I never knew that the 1964 World’s Fair was where Walt Disney’s tested many of his ideas for Disney World. An interesting fact to note about the 1964 World’s Fair was that its site was originally a poor industrial area that was the inspiration for the Valley of Ashes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. I am looking forward to learning more through your immense knowledge of all things Disney.
Robert Cowell says
It’s creepy how realistic the animatronic Lincoln is! It seems like the Imagineers are a blend between artists and engineers. The attention to detail is incredible.
Hailee Strom says
The development of Audio-Animatronics is so incredibly cool! I had no idea that this technology was originally created by Imagineers. It’s ingenious and incredible. I also think it’s incredibly smart of him to test Disney’s popularity through the New York World’s Fair. No doubt if he could see it now he would be proud as can be.
Ryan Hannon says
Wow, you definitely covered a good amount of topics!
Admittedly, I don’t know too much about the history of Disney (as of now, I have a feeling I’ll be learning), and it was really cool to hear about things that went on behind the scenes of his iconic works. I especially liked the antidote about the bird in a birdcage, and how that led to the idea of Audio-Animatronic technology was born.
Well done, and I can’t wait to learn more