Sometimes it requires incredible amounts of devotion, of faith, and of mental stamina to be a fan.

Al Huffman / DisneyFans.Com

As a Disney fan, my first real crisis came in 1998. In the short span between one trip to Florida and the next, two of my favorite rides - two of the reasons I wanted to go in the first place - vanished entirely, Delta Dreamflight and Journey Into Imagination. A third which had terrified me as a child but I had just begun to really enjoy, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, closed too. And this was on top of the shuttering of World of Motion - my original favorite ride - and the fact that Animal Kingdom, then brand new, had almost nothing of the sort of experience I liked: indoor, slow moving dark rides.

In retrospect, the extent of my pain and shock from that sequence of events was only fully measurable in recent years. 1998 is when Disney lost my trust and has not and probably will never regain it. There were two effects of that trip, the long term effect being a doubling down of an effort to get to Disneyland. The short term is that I fell into extreme and singular focus on The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Those two rides felt at the time like the last things I had left of my favorite thing in the world, and it was not my Disneyland trip in 2003 and move to Florida in 2003 that I began to find new things, both in Florida and California, to love.

2014 and, to some degree 2013, has been the worst year for theme park fans since the late 90s.

For the longest time it felt like we were clawing out of the abyss late Eisner left us floundering in. In 2006, 2007, and 2008 show quality throughout Walt Disney World began to rapidly improve. Unique,

Al Huffman / DisneyFans.Com

clever details began to return to obscure corners of the park. Its a Small World was beautifully refreshed. The Hall of Presidents was renovated instead of removed and greatly enhanced. The Haunted Mansion got a top-to-bottom polish. Mickey's Toontown Fair was demolished. Space Mountain was improved. The Enchanted Tiki Room was restored. The Orange Bird returned. And everywhere, clever and interesting additions made all of the parks feel less like the budget cartoon clearinghouses they resembled by the end of the "100 Years of Magic" promotion and more like the way they were meant to be.

The irony is that 2014 saw the opening of two terrific new dark rides - The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Walt Disney World and Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts at Universal. By any metric, including that of this bitter old fan, this was a cause for celebration - it had been nearly 15 years since we got so much good stuff in one year in Orlando.

Problem was, the news overall was more bad than good.

Generally speaking, I'm not a rabble rousing theme park writer in the Al Lutz vein. I prefer to expend my energies writing about things I love instead of hate. Starting in 2009 and running through 2011, I began a series a "Year-End Report Cards" precisely to weigh the lasting value of additions and changes to the parks. I missed 2012, and could not bring myself to write one for 2013, when the major changes were a disastrous cut-down of Country Bear Jamboree and the endless scandal of MyMagic+'s amazingly "colorful" roll out. 2014 isn't going to happen either. If you're reading this I know you know enough reasons why.

There's times when being a blog writer you know that a response, some response, is demanded more than a simple good or bad review, yet you're helpless to affect it. What can be said of 2014's myriad scandals besides a long sigh of resignation? A blog post can be a useful tool to disseminate a viewpoint wider than, say, a forum post can, but when Disney's actively going in and ripping out stuff you genuinely care so deeply about that words cannot express your emotions, what good can a blog post - and one on a niche, niche audience site such as this - truly do? What else is there to offer besides head shaking?

Where do you define the limits of your fandom? As an adult, there's been no delayed reaction from the worst of my feelings about the past few years. After all, in 1998 Disney was merely trashing the passions a child who loved green sea serpents and believed in purple dragons and loved rides about airplanes where mannequins lurked in the background. As an adult I spend a large amount of money each year to maintain access to a place I have a lot of emotional investment in. It's an investment that embraces the whole of the place, from its start in the late 60s all the way into the foreseeable future. It's a more complex investment than I once had. Walt Disney World is now more than just Figment to me, it's a huge network of things like swan boats and utilidors and Jack Wagner background music that it was not when I was a child. It's thousands of dollars of research material, millions of words on this site, and nearly ten years of my working life.


Now, no two fans will ever be alike.

My fandom is a product of Disney, specifically the Disney of the late 80s and early 90s. This was by no means a perfect time. Eisner was ascendant, Frank Wells would shortly die, and things I loved as a child, like Dreamflight, were already suspect replacements of what was there originally. But I am a product of Disney of that era, and this was an era when Disney was still a company hungry for validation. They had not yet absorbed ABC and ESPN, to say nothing of Go.com, Video.com, Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. They told me to hold them to the absolute highest standard, and you know what? They came through to me. Consistently. I came of age when one animated classic after another poured out of Burbank, when EPCOT Center was still fairly new, then Disney-MGM Studios changed more in a year than it has in the past decade.

I saw old WDW at the very end of the time when it existed, and I saw it repeatedly. I was in the position to be confused when 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea closed, to mourn the removal of Main Street's beautiful Flower Market, to be crushed by the closure of Journey Into Imagination and many other of my favorite rides.

I was, in short, extremely lucky to be able to travel to WDW every other year for about a decade. I saw it a lot. I probably should've wanted to go somewhere else, but I didn't. I saw it enough to get bored of it, but I didn't. My appreciation deepened. Then the late 90s hit.

If you consider how much changed at Walt Disney World between 1989 and 1999, and then how little has changed between 1999 and now, is it any wonder that the gap between the old school fans and those who began visiting in, say, 2002 is so monumental? It's inevitable. It's sad, but it's what's happened.

This is why it kills me to see the old school fans and the new fans going at it with hammer and tongs over and over and over again on the internet. I'm a product of a company which is now almost totally unrecognizable, and my Walt Disney World is long gone. But I'm nothing but an earlier version of those new school fans who go out of their way to find new reasons to insult and dismiss me.

It's not that I hate current Walt Disney World, but it's no longer my Walt Disney World, and human emotions all being equal I'm going to by definition feel conflicted about it. These criticism don't come out of some desire to "take Disney down a peg" or piss all over your 2013 vacation. I'm upset because I'm genuinely, emotionally, deeply dismayed by these things. I don't require agreement, but empathy would be nice.

I didn't set out here to complain; I want to teach. But the deadening impact of the walls raised between individuals on the internet creates, I fear, fans who see other fans of such a different Disney culture and Disney background that they assume there can be no overlap between them. But I'm a fan too, and I love my stuff just as much as other, newer fans. I just like different stuff. There's no crime in that.

Which is why I've tried a new approach here. Instead of taking the scholarly, remote approach most Disney fans take when trying to discuss these things, I'm going to make it totally, grossly, entirely personal. If you've read this blog enough you probably know my positions, but I feel some take little  time to consider why they are that way. I didn't tumble out of the womb disappointed in a stale state of Future World. It took a long time for that love to curdle into disappointment, and finally apathy. I can't pretend to tell the whole story here, but I'll try to give some insight not into what the passing of these things means not to Disney, but to me.

I did not have a "crisis of faith" in 2014 because my experiences in the 90s told me to expect the worst to begin with. But I'm also too entrenched now to entirely stop caring. Yes, it's harder and harder for me to enjoy a lot of stuff I once did, but it's not as if I don't enjoy myself as fully as possible when I do commit to go there. But unlike when I was a vacationer, that commitment now comes bound in with an ideology. I'm enough of a fan to keep caring and too much of a fan to accept lousy choices.

One reason 2014 hit me hard is because each of the three major disasters has struck a different pillar by which I hold the Disney theme parks to be superior popular art, the thing that makes them better than a Six Flags. That's different for each visitor but for me much of the appeal of the places comes down to three poles: excellent design, historical legacy, and conceptual integrity. That's how I define my fandom.


It's Just Stairs

My first and largest disappointment this year was the design disaster, New Orleans Square.

Now, to be abundantly clear, New Orleans Square is sacred territory for this writer. You are reading this site right now as a direct result of that area. By 2003, my mind was opening to the idea that there was more to these theme parks than I was aware of thanks to writing my Mike Lee and others, but New Orleans Square at Disneyland twisted my head off and put it back on my body differently. It was a life altering event.

Besides the staggering greatness of the West Coast Pirates of the Caribbean and the intimate, quirky original Haunted Mansion, New Orleans Square was epochal. The intimate courtyards had not yet became crowded with sales items and The Disney Gallery was where I bought my first issue of The E Ticket and began to take Disney History very seriously. New Orleans Square was quiet, understated, and perfect. Upon the closure of the Court of Angels in 2013, irritated brand loyalists came out of the woodwork and claimed that the feature was worthless because they themselves had never gone back there, which was of course precisely the point.

Loud tourists, crazed Fastpassers and people whose entire kitchen is Mickey Mouse themed blew past the area daily because to them there was nothing especially "Disney" about an intimate courtyard. What upset aesthetes like me is that, conversely, there was nothing more Disney than the Court of Angels -- Walt Disney, that is. Walt built things because he liked them and trusted his instincts enough to trust that the public would too, and more often than not he was right. The Court of Angels was the symbol of the entire Disney way of doing things, the thing that made Disneyland different than a boardwalk. It was there because it was nice, and simply being nice was more than enough.

The courtyard closed in 2013 to make way for an expanded Club 33 lobby, but that wasn't the worst of it. Club 33, an ageing private club that was probably no longer a secret worth keeping, had changed numerous times since it opened following Walt's passing but had remained strictly faithful to the interior decor of the original WED team and, presumably, Walt's own wishes.

All of this would change with laudable aims of improving the floor plan, access and food of the club. Now, I've never been to Club 33 and certainly now will never want to because the main appeal of the place to me was just that it was so traditional, but really what upset me is not that Club 33 as we knew it was stripped out and replaced with something that looks a lot like a cruise ship interior, it's what these changes meant to the exterior of the buildings which contained the club.

Left: 1966 (Daveland) / Right: 2014 (Andy Castro)

Frankly, it's hard not to see what they did and wonder if they could've produced a poorer effort. Gigantic windows ruin Walt's carefully crafted forced perspective. New features are placed in ways which destroy sightlines and symmetry. As Herb Ryman once appropriately put it, "Bad taste costs no less."

Top: 1966 (Daveland) / Bottom: 2014 (Andy Castro)

This came at the tail end of eight years of compromise and homogenization. I never got to Disneyland in time to see weird little things like The One-Of-A-Kind Shop or Le Gourmet,  but the sort of thinking that slaps Jack Skellington on a sign and calls it a day has totally taken over. In 2006, the beautiful Royal Courtyard, my favorite, became overflow Pirate merchandise. At that time, a tarp was strung up over the courtyard, blocking views of the architecture above and the doors into the courtyard from the street were locked, forcing traffic to proceed directly from one shop to the next. All of this effectively removed the Royal Courtyard.

Court of Angels in the 1980 Annual Report

Then, in 2008, the disastrous Dream Suite project turned The Disney Gallery into a private hotel room. Besides awkwardly dislocating the Fantasmic Dessert Party and removing two more quiet getaways inside New Orleans Square - the front balcony and the central courtyard - this forced The Disney Gallery into an awkward compromise space on Main Street. Since then, the number of unique Disney offerings in that store has shrunk and shrunk while the exhibit space has slowly crawled inwards to just a corner. This was effectively the death of the Disney Gallery. What was once a much beloved merchandise location has become off-limits to guests and the highly profitable merchandise programs it initiated have fallen on their own sword.

Court of Angels was the last to remain standing, but the end was foretold. Periodically converted to sell merchandise, it finally went the way of its peers. In Bob Iger's New Orleans Square, intimacy and charm only came after merchandise and dining sales.

This is the fate of the last area overseen by Walt Disney, the design pinnacle of Disneyland. This was the best area of the defining theme park of the world.

2014 was the year I lost faith in Disneyland. Walt's park had been through rough stewardship in previous times, and of course nothing is ever perfect, but when they say you can never go home again things like New Orleans Square's through trashing is what they mean. My favorite and the defining area of any modern theme park had finally, at last, been compromised. The quiet courtyards and intimate details, but more than that, the staggering scope of the accomplishment represented by that north-south stretch of riverfront property from Pirates of the Caribbean to the Haunted Mansion is something I can only relive in memories.

And now I must find a new favorite theme park area. Somehow.



It's Just Waterfalls

The second disaster was admittedly less significant but struck me through the heart just as strongly, and that was the removal of the Polynesian Village's lobby waterfall centerpiece.

Now, I was at the Polynesian just last week and many of the upgrades I've been seeing around the hotel have been excellent and badly needed. Beautiful volcanic rockwork has sprung up where previously suspect wallpaper and drywall was the norm. The cartoonish volcano pool is being rethought, and even the old name "Polynesian Village" has been restored. Everything about the project seem to be an effort to update but retain the Polynesian's funky retro charm.

And, it must be said, it's not like the Polynesian hasn't successfully reinvented itself before. In the 70s it was a paradise of turquoise and sea-green tiles, wicker chairs, and goofily "modern" design touches, more Vegas than the hotel many know. In the 90s it was turned into the orange-and-earth tones garden it remained until this year. So it's not like the Polynesian has ever been just one thing, unchanging. It's a modern and wildly popular hotel and it has been and will be continued to be upgraded because that's what hotels are.

Davelandweb.Com

I'm saying all this as a preface because I have been attacked and probably will be again for being a stodgy traditionalist who would have all of Walt Disney World unchanged, which is presumptuous guff. But I do believe that we can retain the best elements of the past and combine them with needed refreshments and upgrades to produce a product which is both always relevant and timeless.

The Polynesian waterfalls were the heart of the resort. They were the signature central moment of the resort, as important to its impact as entering Wilderness Lodge through that tiny antechamber and stepping into the golden glow of that lobby. The hiss of the automatic doors and entering a space both interior and exterior, the sound of the rushing water over the rocks, and the dapple Florida sunlight on the interior garden was the defining, unique statement of that hotel.

In the years following its opening indoor/outdoor gardens with waterfalls became a feature of many a hotel around the country, so, yes, it's not that the Polynesian by 2014 was unprecedented and unique. Yet that same logic would have us demolishing Pirates of the Caribbean because it spread the popularity of pirate-themed rides throughout the world. The Polynesian waterfalls were amongst the first and best example of this particular lobby scheme. They were not too tall to become annoying, and the lobby was not too large to lose its sense of vintage intimacy. Entering the Polynesian was like being embraced by the arms of the tropics.

This to me was the legacy item that was destroyed. Yes, it may yet be conceivable to have an attractive Polynesian Village without the falls but there is no getting around the fact that a large chunk of Walt Disney World history has gone off to the trash heap.

I've heard various reports about how "the falls could not be saved" and differing estimates about mold, and asbestos, but this one was all about money, and the proof in the pudding is that the beautiful original waterfalls have been rebuilt as a teeny tiny little mole hill of a waterfall complex. Interior running water is interior running water. Why would Walt Disney World risk the apparent mold infestation we're told the falls were demolished to get rid of? I've used the Polynesian as a general base of operations and hangout since I moved to Florida in 2003, and I can tell you from personal experience that starting in 2006, the waterfall itself would be off about 25% of the time. I've seen Disney turn off, gut, and refurbish those falls and the ones outside three or four times in ten years. It was self-evident that the waterfall system was badly in need of a solution.

Which is why the falls should not have been demolished, but totally rebuilt. They didn't even need to keep that exactparticular waterfall arrangement from 1971, but the garden and the falls in some arrangement should have been retained, because that lobby is the signature element of the resort, and removing it is no less significant than if, say, the monorail was rerouted to go around the Contemporary or if the Grand Floridian's lobby were filled in with DVC units. I can hear the internet now: "You don't understand, the Grand Floridian lobby could not be saved! People forget that Disney is a business."

There's that money claim again, and guess what? It's still the core of my objection. When I look at that little pile of pebbles in the center of the Polynesian I see not a dramatic, modern reimagining but a cheap, lousy replacement. I refuse to accept that the same creative team that restored the original name and typeface to the hotel would also have considered removing the signature visual element of the place to be an attractive option. And since the decision was creatively compromised and certainly wasn't operationally justifiable, that leaves us the last option: budget.

The modern reality of Walt Disney World is that the resort continues to report record profits and attendance year after year, but they cannot be bothered to throw enough money at one of their signature hotels to get a job done properly. What percentage of a stock point would rebuilding the waterfalls actually effect? How many rooms need to be filled for a reconstruction to pay for itself?

And we're not talking about just any hotel here - we're talking about the hotel that's asking, at its cheapest, around $500 a room a night, and more often around $800.

To take this number out of the squirrelly, complex, fluctuating-discount-ridden monetary minefield of Walt Disney World and put it in real world terms, I looked up 25 top hotels in the country, and overall found that their average asking price topped out around $300 a night. For the price of one night in the funky Polynesian I could stay two nights at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue in New York. Prices for Four Seasons hotels in places like Atlanta and Colorado came nearer to the Walt Disney World price range, but the only the mega hotels in the tourist section of Hawaii matched or exceeded the sticker value Disney places on their hotels. And for your money you're not getting a Waldorf-Astoria, you're getting a Disney hotel where the restaurants serve chicken tenders and the lobby is filled with shrieking children.

So let's forget for a moment about Disney, or Disney history, or Walt Disney World, or DVC, about all this nonsense political stuff we get caught up in as Disney nerds. We're talking about a hotel that is pricing itself amongst and often above the finest hotels in the country that still couldn't justify properly and respectfully replacing its signature visual element. This is an embarrassment.

It's Just a Boat Ride

Yeah, you all knew this was coming because we're still smarting from it. It must be said: I never outright loved Maelstrom. I actually liked the Spirit of Norway film at the end more than anything in the ride. But I'm not everybody. I know those younger than I who missed out on World of Motion or Journey into Imagination or Horizons who wept the day its closure was announced.

At this point in most other articles about Frozen in Norway go on to describe the pros and cons of Frozen, its popularity, the decision, the fan reaction, but you know what? I don't have to. You've all read those before, and besides, most authors want to reframe their argument to be specifically about Frozen ("The kids love it!") or specifically about Maelstrom ("EPCOT Center!"), but that's all just a distraction from the core of the apple here, which is that Epcot, thematically, is a joke. The Frozenification of Maelstrom was just the drop that caused the vase to overflow and it's been coming for twenty years now. Epcot is the conceptual integrity disaster of the year, and in a way it's the biggest one, because this isn't just one area of a park or a hotel but it's an entire theme park.

hintofspy

We're talking about a park here which closed and gutted all of its wonderfully designed family favorite attractions. Honestly, most of them were around for mere blips on its lifetime and so never quite hit that multi-generational quota that graduates attractions from being merely good to being classics. There's nothing to compare it to because no Disney theme park in history has ever so thoroughly massacred its own core content. Imagine if Magic Kingdom, tomorrow, demolished Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World, and Space Mountain. That's what happened to EPCOT.

Those of us who loved EPCOT kept going out of either obligation or grim determination that somehow, someday, things would get better. We began to spend more time in World Showcase and things which were once kinda lousy attractions in a park that also had Horizons, like the O Canada film, became treasured heirlooms. We began to skip through Future World and believe that World Showcase was Epcot still. It became a hiding place. From far enough away Test Track does indeed still look like World of Motion. And we were kidding ourselves.

The removal of Maelstrom is not significant on its own so much as it's the final nail in the coffin. People are finally starting to deal with their denial and the locus of the problem is Maelstrom but it's not the be all and end all. Listen: there's nothing inherently sacrosanct about, say, Magic Journeys. It's not like World of Motion was a perfect, unsurpassed achievement. What we were kidding ourselves about, and what Disney screwed the pooch on spectacularly, is that Epcot was in any way relevant and meaningful anymore, that it had become anything but a random collection of stuff.

Myself, I stopped attending. The same author who wrote "An EPCOT Generation Manifesto" cannot be bothered to enter the park anymore because I cannot see the point. There's very little there for me to enjoy. I can count it on one hand: Living with the Land, Captain EO, Impressions de France, American Adventure and Spaceship Earth.

Of those, only Impressions de France has dated gracefully. Living with the Land is passing out information about agriculture that's twenty years behind the times in a pavilion so ludicrously out of date you can't even find a discussion of the word "organic" anywhere in it. A trip to your local Whole Foods is more informative. Captain EO is... Captain EO. American Adventure is an earnest but patchy show and Spaceship Earth is a similar mix of dreadful and sublime.

I'm done kidding myself. For the foreseeable future, at least, Epcot is not going to get better, not while it's still outperforming half of the parks at Walt Disney World, not while it still runs food festivals that jam the park and destroy the atmosphere, not while it makes a mint each day selling alcohol from outdoor kiosks to temporarily morally liberated tourists. Visiting Epcot, to me, is like visiting somebody you admired once who hasn't done a thing in twenty years and reeks of expensive tequila.

ChrystinaNoel.com

It's not going to get better from here on out, now that the average Future World visitor is so bored of its hodgepodge of 90s culture and digital wackiness that all they can bring themselves to do is Test Track or Soarin, and then treat the beautifully crafted World Showcase like the swim-up bar at a pool. EPCOT Center was the most wholly ambitious of the parks because it dared to speak at the level above audiences, to challenge them - in the friendly, low-risk arena of a theme park - to think of themselves and indeed human potential in new ways. Today, for most tourists, it's nothing but a fancy bar district.

I will say this: I do not believe that Epcot is beyond help, but it is beyond my ability to foresee it. Disney has no more interest in addressing audiences intelligently than they do of demanding better from themselves. My experience is that people act as intelligently as you treat them, but almost everything at Epcot is keyed to the most facile understanding of its audience. People see outdated data presented condescendingly and blow it off, then the referees on the sidelines shriek triumphantly: "You see? Nobody goes on vacation to learn!". Meanwhile, very far away, museums and cultural exhibits enjoy a new renaissance.

The tragedy of it is that we are living in the most literate, most informed American society ever, thanks to the rise of the internet and the democratization of knowledge, and Epcot has refused to keep up. It's not even trying. The classroom is empty and there's no office hours because it's off water skiing with Guy Fieri. It's slacking, and Disney has no reason to wake the sleeping babe. A walk through Epcot is like seeing the Rosetta stone handed to an infant. She shakes it, she breaks it, then she asks for an Elsa dress - everyone must have one.


Never Been Better

I still get a lot out of Disney theme parks, which is why I still go. They recharge me creatively, improve my attitude, and surround me with beautiful sights. There's value in that, but the gulf between the experience of being there and the experience of expressing an opinion of being there online could not be greater.

I emerged on the other side of 2014 feeling like a cartoon character after a bomb goes off and everyone's all covered in soot. Having been through the worst of the 90s, I was still not prepared for things to get quite so bad. The Disney Internet, meanwhile, has been at peak toxicity for over a year running. The amount of screaming is very high and the amount of useful discourse is very very low. If you can't go online to mourn with your fellow fans without being abused and attacked, where is there to go? The shrieking in certain quarters, meanwhile, has become so loud and fevered to resemble either desperation or censure. Some Walt Disney World fans it seems would rather shout you down that understand you, as if all fans are created equal or as if likes and dislikes aren't some intensely personal particular reaction.

This essay is intended as a memorial. Perhaps in the future I'll look back and feel much differently but this essay is about how I feel exactly at this moment. 2014 was a singular year, and although I am not defeated - contrary to one common lazy response intended to shut down dissent, I no more wish to stop going to Disney theme parks than they do - I am burned out.

It's not as if there have not been positive rumblings on the horizon. Disney-MGM, in particular, may finally attempt to live up to its potential, and the overall maintenance quality and aesthetic quality of everything - no matter how old or how suspect - has been very high. Yet my heart is heavy. It seems the mere fact of trying to be a fan these days is more Under New Management and less It's A Small World.

I'm burned out because this year has reminded me of the reason I had to quit Disney as a Cast Member to begin with: for all the money, all the time, all of the energy expended on showing your love to a place and a product, Disney does not love me back. These words are just a scream into the abyss among millions, and the internet is an echo chamber.

In 2015 let us try to be sympathetic to our fellow fans. I don't like the Sorcerer's Hat at the end of the street at MGM but I sympathize with those who will mourn it's removal, because they have never known the park without it. And while I do trust that, much like when the Wand over Spaceship Earth came down, some will eventually grow to like the restored view, I still think back. I still think back to that child who loved Delta Dreamflight and was hurt to learn that those who loved If You Had Wings hated it.

Listen, there's no moral relativism when it comes to liking or disliking weird, stupid shit. There's rides I love that will never be a post on Passport to Dreams because I think they're indefensible - Revenge of the Mummy, for example. That does not affect why I love them. As I grow older I'm more comfortable with that. But those of us who grew up with World of Motion should maybe stop feeling superior to those who grew up with Test Tack, as if our childhoods were objectively superior to theirs. They have their reasons, and I have mine.

Disneyland did Frozen right (Andy Castro)

In 2015 let's all try expecting the good but stop ignoring the bad. The fact is that Magic Kingdom is in terrific shape, help is on the way for MGM, Animal Kingdom will shortly be far more complete than it ever was, Disneyland is doing fine overall, California Adventure is still a mixed bag, and both economic and cultural forces are aligned against Epcot for the moment. Perhaps her day may come again, perhaps it may not.

Those are my realistic suggestions. My unrealistic suggestion is that in 2015 let us expect more from Disney. Those people who fill up social media with bile are right: Disney is a business, not a fairy in a garden or an invisible bridge across a chasm. I shouldn't need to #HaveFaith as they make poor decision after poor decision.

I don't work that way. I don't think I owe Disney a thing. I'm their customer, not their servant. I'm paying to help keep the lights on. Okay, maybe just one light in the grand scheme of things, but what of it? Do I need to keep a running spreadsheet of my Disney expenses to be worthy of their interest? This is a premium product and there is no shame in expecting a premium result.

I want to see good projects being led by talented people that expand Walt Disney World without closing other parts of it.

WDW Shutterbug

I want to see tasteful refurbishments to troubled attractions that add substantially to the emotional and physical value of the attraction without having to use legacy elements as "bargaining chips". This isn't a pawn shop, it's a multi-billion-dollar business. Disney is only constrained by the money they're willing to spend here.

Moreover, I want a reason to believe again. It's been a long time since I expected anything good to come rolling out of Burbank. Based on what I see on Twitter and elsewhere, we are all ready for a change. Disney has finally fallen victim to the malaise that's stricken Hollywood since the late 90s: a total lack of conviction. Nobody inside the company seems to be making anything they believe in anymore. Some things slip through the cracks here and there, but I want to see passion projects, not spreadsheet low-risk investments. Disney controls the most remarkable creative staff in the industry and they set them to work toiling out things like Cars Land: beautifully done, emotionally hollow. Is it any wonder so many Imagineers are jumping ship to Universal Creative?

I haven't got a reason to have faith anymore. And me, and many others, I think, could really use one right about now.

Disney history has lots of "one that got away"s.  There's Lake Buena Vista New Orleans Square. There's the Asian Resort, the Equatorial Africa pavilion, Dick Tracy Crimestoppers, WESTcot Center, Beastlie Kingdomme, and more. For the next few weeks we'll be looking at the grandaddy of them all, the original One That Got Away.

If you are a theme park fan you have almost certainly at one point or another heard about the aborted 1971 attraction Western River Expedition. Western River is largely considered the greatest (or second greatest) unbuilt theme park attraction ever, but just as interesting as the attraction is the legend behind it: an earnest, serious effort to outdo the 1967 Pirates of the Caribbean, Western River Expedition was an ambitious attraction done in by just the right combination of bad luck, timing, expense, and its creator, Marc Davis. It's a great story, and a great myth, about a great designer and his best effort.

Until 2011, Western River was largely a "great whatsit" to me. We had all read the stories and seen the art, but it never seemed like an attraction that could actually cohere into actual reality - there were too many things in these tellings that made too little sense. Then, I was given the opportunity to spot-check a number of video presentations ultimately destined for D23's "Destination D" event, one of which was a partial virtual rebuild of Western River Expedition, I finally saw a number of models and made a number of connections that finally made sense of a ride that seemed previously to make very little. Building on the revelations I experienced while trying to mentally order the ride for the video, I'm now able to offer what I think is the most complete and accurate overview of the attraction yet possible.

The first thing which must be said is that besides getting the essential order of many things wrong, many of the online retellings of this ride have done a disservice to Marc Davis by continuing to reprint artwork for scenes that were not included in the final ride. Marc was a brilliant illustrator, and he produced mountains of artwork to demonstrate his ideas, but only a fraction of these were ever seriously earmarked to go in the final product.

Imagine, for example, if Haunted Mansion had never pulled itself out of development hell and we just happened to have lots of pieces of artwork floating around like this:


This would give a false impression of what the whole experience was truly intended to be. That's sort of what happened to Western River Expedition. In my digital tour in this article, you'll see that Western River was not only sensible, but dramatically very well constructed and very soundly conceived. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's get oriented by going myth busting.

I. THUNDER MESA TRUE AND FALSE

Thunder Mesa and Western River Expedition are the same thing.

False. Thunder Mesa was a network of attractions surrounding a very large show building, inside of which was the Western River Expedition. Besides the Marc Davis attraction inside, Thunder Mesa would've offered a runaway mine train, a canoe flume ride, and walking trails and exhibits. It was to be situated on a piece of land carved out just for it in north-western Frontierland.

Western River Expedition was intended to be a twenty minute long attraction.

False. One of the reasons Western River had such a huge show building was because the whole idea was to recreate the vast open desert plains indoors. The ride would've been several minutes longer than the Florida Pirates of the Caribbean but not quite so long as the California Pirates of the Caribbean; probably ten to twelve minutes. This was not an unreasonably scaled project.

In the attraction load area, the Walt Disney World Railroad would have looked down from above.

False. The Railroad did indeed peek into the ride, but not at the point commonly described.

The ride would've had more audio-animatronics than any ride ever.

True and false. WRE was expected to have slightly more figures than Pirates of the Caribbean, but not nearly as many as World of Motion ended up having in 1982. I know it's hard to think in relative terms about some of these things, but cost of figure production alone was not was sunk Western River.

Western River Expedition would've ended in a large, outdoor drop, making it redundant with Splash Mountain.

False. I'm not sure where this idea began, although I will show how it occurred. Western River Expedition itself was, like Pirates and Small World, entirely contained inside its own attraction show building and never would've gone outside. Thunder Mesa was slated to include a canoe-themed log flume which would've climaxed in a long, rapid descent thru outdoor rapids down the front of the mesa. This ride was being developed separately from Marc Davis' interior show, but at some point somebody conflated the two.

Hoot Gibson, an audio-animatronic owl, would have narrated Western River Expedition.

Probably false. There are no pieces of Marc Davis art of Hoot, nor does there seem to be any places in the attraction where he could completely comfortably fit. When Mike Lee interviewed Marc Davis in 1999, he asked specifically about Hoot Gibson and Marc had nothing to say about him.

Of course, there's plenty of stuff in rides like the Haunted Mansion that no real concept art exists of, so that doesn't prove much. What I think is more likely is that Hoot was going to be featured in revised versions of the attraction that Marc was preparing following the opening of Walt Disney World. Since we can't be totally sure of that, these articles attempt to present the version of the attraction which came the nearest to actual realization: the original, 1971 version.

Wasn't the ride revised to make it more "politically correct?"

True. As documented by Mike Lee, at some point Davis prepared a version of the attraction which removed the Native American component all together, instead expanding the showcase "Saturday Night On The Town" sequence to fill the gap. Changing attitudes in America through the 1960s and 1970s would have made the use of native tribes for comedy purposes fairly objectionable, even if I'm not sure that Disney would have been able to attempt a Pirates of the Caribbean-style "purge"as they did in the 1990s. Unlike some, however, I'm not sure that this is what killed off the project, although it inarguably did cause the project to spin its wheels for years.

Western River Expedition never happened because the ride was conceived on an impossible scale.

False. If I had to choose a single thing that killed Western River Expedition permanently and forever, it's because Disney didn't want to be in the business of making rides like this past a certain point.

Following the Energy crisis, Walt Disney World went into full-on money conservation mode, only proceeding with Space Mountain because the ride foundations were up prior to the gas shortage. Throughout 1975 and 1976 the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland were stuffed to capacity due to the popular Bicentennial promotion, and at the end of 1976 WDP announced their intention to move forward with Tokyo Disneyland and EPCOT Center, two projects that monopolized all of their resources for six years.

Marc Davis retired in 1977, and so Western River Expedition was without its core advocate. The timing was simply all wrong to get it built.

But over the years because it was pretty elaborate and never got off the ground rumors have spread that Western River was just too big to come true, which is nonsense. Choose any of the 1982 Future World classics and you have an equally elaborate attraction. Western River was built on a foundation of what Davis knew Disney could do well: rocks, lighting, special effects and a slow moving boat.

If there's any one thing I want readers to come away from this article with, it's the fact that Western River was not some crazily impossible thing. Davis always built his designs and ideas around what he knew the technological limitations of WED were. It not only was possible in 1971, but it's still possible and compelling today.

Now that I can break down the attraction into a full picture of what was intended, I hope that a lot of misunderstanding can finally be erased. So let's go into our first section, and describe Thunder Mesa in some detail.

II. THUNDER MESA: THE EXTERIOR ATTRACTIONS

We've all seen this picture:



Most of you have probably seen this image dozens of times online and blown it off as totally impossible to comprehend, and that's because nobody's ever gone out and shown exactly how each part fits together. So let's start by doing that.

On certain early Magic Kingdom blueprints which make a frequent appearance online, the foundation of the actual Thunder Mesa complex may be observed, like so:


What you're being shown here is strictly a foundation; moreover, strictly a foundation for the interior attraction. The disconnect between the concept art and the final product is very apparent. There's two additional resources to help paint this picture for you; a model and a lineart drawing.

Take another close look at that postcard we've all seen; now, here's what Thunder Mesa looked like... from above:


And here's a gorgeous lineart piece from a slightly different viewpoint:


Okay, now that we've got these in front of us, let's start picking out landmarks we can recognize. There's three major landmarks on the outside of Thunder Mesa. The first is this curious collection of buildings on the southernmost side:


Notice the train running through the center of it. This was supposed to be the "Mesa Cafe", a sort of Western version of the Blue Bayou. The lobby and tables would be housed in the buildings running along the walkway, by all appearances a normal Western town from the front but inside a single connected curved open space. Inside, under the roofs of the town, tables faced out across a bucolic old west town, complete with a forced perspective central "street".

Every so often trains would roll through, carrying passengers up towards the pleateu of Thunder Mesa. In terms of style and execution, I imagine this as being something like a cross between the Blue Bayou and the boarding area of Disneyland's Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland:

Gorillas Don't Blog

Nearby, a gigantic ore elevator and mine shaft entrance burrows into the mountain, providing the entrance to the Western River Expedition boat ride:


A bit further along, a rambling railroad platform sits by a cove that's fed by a gigantic waterfall tumbling down off the top of the Mesa and flowing back into the Rivers of America:


This structure provides the loading and unloading platforms for two attractions, both of which take riders up into the top of the Mesa: a runaway train ride and a flume ride styled after white water canoeing.


Both attractions would bring riders to different areas of the top of the mountain, these areas probably being very much like various tableau and scenes seen along Nature's Wonderland.


Look carefully here and you can see a forest of cacti on the left, probably not dissimilar to Nature's Wonderland's Saguaro Forest. In the center is a Painted Desert, a forced perspective hill that rises up to a vanishing point above a tree line, thus implying that it continues on forever. To give an idea of how this would have worked, until the late 1980s the Walt Disney World Jungle Cruise used the same visual trick on their African Veldt:


On the right we can see a sort of "geyser gulch" the runaway train travels through just before it makes the big trip back down off the Mesa. Across the entire top of paths and trails. The kinship with Nature's Wonderland has no doubt fueled the rumor that Pack Mules were intended to go up the top of Thunder Mesa, but I've found no real suggestion of this in reality and the model we have suggests to me that these were walking paths.

As for the canoes, they would have loaded at a platform just below the train along that sheltered Western cove, then proceeded into a cave in the front of the Mesa, moving through a new version of the Rainbow Caverns as they chug up a lift hill:


Arriving at the top of the Mesa, the canoes would have commanding views of Frontierland and Adventureland, slip down through the valley of saguaros, then began a rapid plunge down a long canyon river, ending in some thrilling white-water rapids before returning to Load:


As it turns out this attraction was among the first assignments for a young George McGinnis, so as crazy as all of this stuff seems there were indeed teams moving forward with these ideas.

Now that we've identified the major components of Thunder Mesa, let's color them in on that pencil overview. The entrance and (possible) exit to the Western River Expedition appear in orange, the canoe ride path in blue, and the runaway train track in red.


Oh, and those pueblo houses, so famous for appearing on the postcard and the 1971 room wall map? Pretty sure those were just for decoration, so sorry guys, no Indian dance circle like Disneyland had.

Sorry, pueblo enthusiasts!

Looking at Thunder Mesa all decoded, it's hard not to notice that both the canoe ride and the train ride would have been rather short; just a few minutes each. It's not hard to notice either how elements of the canoe ride and train ride were squashed together to create Big Thunder Mountain; the rainbow caverns with a lift hill inside them, the race through a forced perspective Western town, the geysers around the train, there's even enough caves along the route to allow for a proposed bat cavern.

It's also easy to see how the boat ride inside the mountain and the canoe ride outside got conflated, leading to the idea that the Marc Davis boat ride ended with a large, outdoor drop a'la Splash Mountain. Thunder Mesa's white water course would have been a totally different kind of thrill than Splash Mountain's straight-down final plunge, but the similarities are there.

It's also hard not to see how Big Thunder Mountain is actually a pretty good compromise for the train and canoe ride. The unique idea of having two different rides which move through different areas of the Mesa is a great one, and that Mesa Cafe with its pastoral outdoor old west town seems to me a huge loss. But that was going to be Thunder Mesa, everyone. That was it.

III. WERE THEY ACTUALLY GOING TO BUILD THIS THING?

Apparently, yes they were. Multiple models were worked up, and I'm told blueprints and schemata were prepared by MAPO. There's even the old story that figure manufacture had begun. This wasn't a pipe dream, it was a buildable concept that Disney was ready to start work on.

They built the attraction's accompanying Train Station in 1972. Had the attraction been built, this structure would have sat near the colorful facades of the Mesa Cafe, and shortly after steaming out of the Frontierland station, the trains would have passed into a cavern in the side of the Mesa.

I've used the model and art above to give a conception of the scope of Thunder Mesa because, remarkably, they all match. There are, however, a few discrepancies. There's this 1969 elevation by Mitsu Natsume:


This thing doesn't square with either the 1970 postcard or the model or line art, so I suspect it's an earlier version of the project. Expand this one, please, and notice that the area where the entrance to the boat ride was to be has been pasted over with an ore elevator without an entrance below it; I suspect this has been modified at some point to be passed off as Big Thunder Mountain concept art.

And then there's the big Magic Kingdom model prepared in 1969. This model has some interesting discrepancies with the park as constructed, but it's overall a very accurate view of what they intended to build and actually did build. Thunder Mesa was there, too:


If you look carefully enough you can see the runaway train track heading down the side of the mountain.

No, they really were going to build this. It even sits perfectly along the bend in the river, the bend that was specifically carved out for it in 1971.


Come back for Part Two when we'll pry the lid off that building and take a ride on the Western River Expedition!

Okay, let's finally go inside Thunder Mesa and dig into the meat of the show. Last time we looked at a model of the Thunder Mesa complex...


Let's look at what was going on inside that thing.


Okay, now, before anyone panics don't worry, I was fooled at first too. What you're looking at is three show buildings - working from left to right I call them A, B and C - which contain the Western River Expedition boat ride. The open space in the center is where the pond, final drop, and boarding area of the canoe ride is located.

To make this easier to look at, and think about several years ago I tried to convert this 3/4 view model into a 2D layout. I made some guesses and took some liberties; this is merely a look at what it could've been like, corroborated by tiny, grainy photos of a model.


Okay, first of all let's address something that perhaps some of you noticed in the last post, which is that none of these models are a perfect match for our blueprint foundation I posted back in the first part:


To begin with, on this blueprint the train track goes straight through the building but appears to slightly curve in all of the models I've been able to find. Secondly, there's a whole section of building on the other side of the train track not accounted for on that blueprint:


You can see it in that interior model, the Walt Disney World Railroad bisecting the two parts of the building.


To me that looks like a ride-through diorama. Not a Grand Canyon-style one; this seems to be based on the seasons. We can see open fields, lightning strikes, a forest and waterfall or stream, and a snow covered landscape.

Mike Cozart informs me (in the comments for this very blog post - thanks Mike!) that this diorama had a number of Davis gags designed for it and which are sometimes misrepresented online as Nature's Wonderland gags - the forest was likely intended to be full of comic bears in the Nature's Wonderland style.

It's also possible this is where the long-gestating idea, championed by Dick Nunis, of the Railroad going through a snowstorm originated. Regardless, it's the sort of thing the east coast railroad has always needed and never has had.

Okay, enough preliminaries. Let's go inside and ride Western River Expedition!

IV. WESTERN RIVER EXPEDITION

Western River Expedition was to be housed in two enormous show buildings with a third, merelylarge show building connecting them. Each of these show buildings were comparable in size to the Pirates of the Caribbean main show room and likely would have felt very similar, only with rock work instead of a Caribbean town: open ceilings, walls covered in cloud projections and perspective effects, a whole little world with a roof on it.

After entering below the giant ore elevator, guests would walk through a mine shaft and exit into Show Building A, which represents a canyon at sunset.

Crossing over a natural arch, guests can look down to their left to see boats returning to the load area, and new boats loading down below them. The ride's soundtrack plays in a lush, Hollywood Western style as the queue winds slowly down to the attraction's loading dock amid trees and brush typical of the American southwest. A stream splashes down alongside the load area.

Casting off from a simple wooden loading dock, the boats drift placidly though a canyon as the sounds of nature overtake the boat.

What happens next depends on interpretation of available materials. We know for sure that the boats approach a cave. If you think Hoot Gibson appears in the ride it's likely at this spot, starting to narrate the scene and setting. Alternately, as we approach the cave we notice nestled in among the rocks are gigantic Western dime novels of adventure and cunning. This strikes me as a weirdly cartoonish concept to introduce at this point in the ride, but we have a beautiful Davis rendering of it and none others from this early part of the ride.

A close look at the model shows splotches of red, yellow and blue on the rocks to the left before the cave, suggesting a kind of indoor variation on the Devil's Paint Pots from Nature's Wonderland. You can look at the evidence and make up your own mind.

The boats pass into a darkened cavern filled with hundreds of stalactites.


A stalactite comes into view shaped like a rabbit. From inside this stalactite, echoing dimly in the cavern, a bit of music plays, imagine perhaps rhythmic drums.


The boats pass more stalactites that resemble increasingly familiar Old West shapes - a coyote, a cowboy, an old man. From inside each stalactite, a bit more of the melody emerges until the entire cavern feels filled with ethereal music and we notice ever more familiar shapes in the flowing rock work.



Exiting the cavern, the boats slip gently through a desert at dusk as they are followed by the Western River Expedition theme music summoned in the caverns. Slightly above the boats off to the left, a railroad track runs - and occasionally a full size train rumbles past, the Walt Disney World Railroad passing through.

Back outside in the simulated night air, the music has taken on a minor key. A chorus of singing voices may be heard, until the boats turn a corner and reveal a stagecoach holdup taking place on a bridge spanning the Western River:


The Bandits holding up the Stagecoach, complete with their own personal mariachi and theme song, seem too busy with their latest crime to stop and rob us too - but, the leader in a top hat menacingly suggests to us, all in song, that he may meet us again soon.

Amongst those who have researched Western River Expedition, my placement of the stagecoach holdup sequence is unusually early. Yet if what I'm seeing on the model is correct, this is where the scene was supposed to go, and to me the proof is the rendering above. The view above shows the scene as it would have appeared to the Walt Disney World Railroad, and we can clearly see from the model that the Railroad peeked into the ride at this point. Certainly the Railroad is what motivated the placement of the Stagecoach itself high up that bridge. This is why I choose this version of the scene, as opposed to the many variants Davis drew.

Passing underneath the Stagecoach, boats wind their way through the open prairie at nightfall. White clouds gently rake a periwinkle blue sky. All around, large shadowy buttes dot a landscape and open sky awash in twilight blue.

A group of Buffalo curiously investigate the home of some prairie dogs.


Nearby, a cowboy sings to calm his cattle under the night sky. His tune is a slow-step version of the Western River Expedition theme. The cattle join in, bellowing along with his tune.


Framed in natural rock arches, coyotes howls pick up the tune. The underscore music swells.


The cowboy's team rest nearby around a campfire, bringing another guitar and harmonica into the mix. Picking up the tune is the cook at the chuck wagon...


...and an entire chorus of cactus!


The placid strumming of the cowboy song transforms into a honky tonk piano. Raucous shouting may be heard, and gunfire.

Now, here comes the part where some interpretation is needed. The "Town of Dry Gulch" sequence coming up next is the sequence of the ride that Davis did an extraordinary volume of work for; it's also the one which he drew a lot of gags that did not end up in the final version of the show. Davisophiles have been circulating this work online for years, because it's brilliant stuff, but this has also given a bloated picture of how long this sequence was intended to be.

Davis also revised the scene at least once, in the process extending it out around the corner into the next scene. As far as I can tell in the 1971 version of the ride, the only one Disney got anywhere near actually building, the town was a simple two-sided affair, with clapboard buildings in both sides of the ride flume and the bridge over the river at the end:


So that's the shape of the town I'm going to be working with here. Also, to fully understand this scene we have to (finally) bring in discussion of Mary Blair's work on the ride.

It's well known that Marc wanted to use Mary Blair's art to color-style the ride. Unlike with It's A Small World, however, the ride wasn't necessarily going to end up looking like a piece of Mary Blair art. The fact that Davis would from time to time put out pieces of Western River art with similar Mary Blair bold colors has led to yet more confusion.

Western River Expedition was intended mostly to be made up of rock work and desert scenery, and it was going to be WED-style stylized naturalistic rocks and scenery, with Blair vivid colors. The "Night on the Town" sequence in Western River Expedition would be the height of the ride's intense color stylization.

The right side of the town set would be bathed in bright blue moonlight, the houses standing out against the hue with green clapboard and yellow windows.


This blue-toned side of the town would be filled entirely with Cowboys drinking and carousing, shouting and singing.



Surrounded by torches, a Snake Oil salesman at the end of the street demonstrates his wares with the help of a native chief, with music provided by a nearby brave and squaw on banjo and trombone.


The left side of the street is bathed in a fiery red by the setting sun. On this side, a bank robbery and gun battle is underway.


Robbers have pulled the entire safe out of the bank and are using it as a shield.


The sheriff hangs out of the Tonsorial Parlor, returning fire. (This gag is lifted almost directly from For A Few Dollars More, and I must admit I did not expect Davis to be a potential Sergio Leone fan)


His Calamity Jane-style deputy hides behind a building, taking an absurdly long time to choose her targets.


And, at the end of the street:


The Blue/Red split that mirrors the tone of the scenes found on either side of the river is the boldest stylization found on the ride, and even more remarkable for being conceived in the form of a sunset. I've done a watercolor interpretation of what this could have looked like in person. Because this will no doubt be misconstrued by somebody as authentic concept art, I've put a big, dumb watermark over it to hopefully prevent more misinformation being circulated about this ride.


Boats turn a corner towards the left and pass through a narrow canyon between two buttes. The sounds of the honk-tonk piano and gunfire fade as now pounding native drums take up the rhythm of the Western River Expedition theme.

The transition out of the Dry Gulch scene and into the next is made by passing under a bridge:

thanks to Jaime Maas

 We come across a group of plains Indians. They sway back and forth mysteriously to the pounding of their drums as a Shaman dances crazily, only slightly distracted by the shapely lass to his left. Far up above atop a butte, a rain dance is performed, and it's remarkably effective, sending cascading rain down... atop only the butte, at first. Water pours down the side of the butte, widening into flowing rivers and rushing towards the boats.


Storm clouds glower overhead and bolts of lightning tear the sky as rain can be seen falling on the distant plain. The little boats move slowly towards a dark canyon straight ahead.

Thunder and lightning rip the sky far above as we slip slowly into the narrow space. Flood water begins to pour into the canyon from the buttes above to the left and right, spattering on jagged rocks.


The boats turn another corner and begin chugging up a huge waterfall. The eyes of unknown animals flash in the dark around them.


Arriving at the top of the waterfall, the boats move slowly through a great forest at the top of the butte on the edges of the plain. The rain continues to fall, but the rain dance was too late - the lightning has already set the trees ablaze.


The tall trees have already begun to topple and the boats pass below several as they creak and groan, flames dancing atop each one when into view comes:


The bandits stop the boat and demand your money. After a moment's hesitation, the boats slip down a waterfall to escape, splashing down in a darkened cave.


The canyon at sunset  where we began comes back into view, and with it returns the triumphant, Hollywood version of the Western River Expedition theme. Boats return to the little wooden dock where they boarded and passengers disembark, back through a mine shaft, emerging at the base of the huge Thunder Mesa complex.



V. THE 1974 VERSION AND MUTATIONS

The Fall 1973 Oil Crisis killed off a lot of stuff at Walt Disney World that it shouldn't. Disney should have kept building hotels, but the Asian and Persian got axed. They should have built more rides, but following 1973 anything that wasn't a roller coaster had no hope of getting off the ground. Everything that wasn't being actively constructed as of Fall '73 got put on indefinite hold, and once the race towards EPCOT Center's starting pistol was fired in early '77, many projects were abandoned. Western River Expedition was one of them.

But it wasn't really until 1976 that the curtain was pulled over Western River Expedition for good. In that year, Walt Disney Productions changed their age of retirement, and perhaps sooner than he expected, Marc Davis was out. He did return for a time in 1977 to plan additional attractions, including designing nearly all of the sight gags for World of Motion, but when Marc left, Western Rive Expedition was without a mastermind and it faded quickly.

Now, most histories, including Disney's official history published in "The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at its Peak" strongly imply (or outright state) that the attraction's less-than-austere treatment of Native Americans is what killed it off, a suggestion I've done some work in this series to debunk. However, the fact remains that in the mid-70s, Marc did see fit to make a few changes. He removed nearly all of the Indians from his ride.

The first group to go were the three in the Medicine Show; Marc replaced the Chief with a generic Strong Man and lost the comedy of two Indians playing banjo and trombone:


The Medicine show gag was neither here nor there on the offense scale, but it was carefully placed to foreshadow the Rain Dance sequence, which was perhaps a bit more problematic with the short swarthy Medicine Man gawking at a tall, buxom Squaw. So Davis dropped the entire Rain Dance scene.

We do know he kept the lone Indian irritated on the bridge with the guns-blazing cowpoke, and it's because we can see it in the next piece, which shows an expanded version of the "Bank Robbery" tableau. This version would extend around the corner past the original Dry Gulch scene, and fill both sides of the river. I flipped it earlier in this article to give some notion of the original '71 Robbery scene, of which I have no good, wide view of.


Across the way, more sheriffs and townsfolk continue the shootout. "Calamity Jane" has been relocated here. This is where the oft-repeated tidbit of a gunfight on either side of the boats comes from, an idea repeated in Phantom Manor's "Ghost Town" sequence.


Notice the punctured water wagon at the end, obviously intended as a visual transition into the rainstorm / flood sequence to follow.

And, as far as changes made to purge the ride of politically incorrect content goes, that was it. The ride simply always was more "Cowboys" than "Indians". Once I finally got a better idea of the actual flow of the ride, I realized that not only this issue, but the entire Dry Gulch sequence has been greatly inflated in importance from years and years of retelling. The bulk of the ride would have been the same sort of stuff that the bulk of Pirates of the Caribbean in California is: rocks, special effects projections, music, and evocative atmosphere.

Amazingly enough, after being killed for good on the East Coast, Western River Expedition popped back up on a proposed 1978 expansion for Disneyland, the "Land of Legends", intended to connect Bear Country to Tony Baxter's Discovery Bay.


There's a tempting land if ever I've seen one... the idea of Western River sitting alongside dark rides for Ichabod Crane and Windwagon Smith is a daunting one. Much like Discovery Bay and Dumbo's Circus, ballooning costs on EPCOT Center killed off this obscure but delightful idea.

And then there's the rarely discussed plans for a small Old West-themed theme park at Walt Disney World, sometimes called Frontier Kingdom, located southwest of the Seven Seas Lagoon. practically no information about this exists, but Western River Expedition is usually cited as one of the major rides. However, as we know, it was all for naught and nobody has yet been able to get Western River into production since 1971.

Come back next week for a final discussion of Western River Expedition and Marc Davis' intentions with this ride.

VI. MARC DAVIS AND THE WESTERN RIVER EXPEDITION

Let's talk about Marc.

Whenever I've spoken to or heard from somebody who worked directly with Marc Davis, the most common way I've heard him described is "extremely serious". This seems to directly contradict his reputation as the master of zany visual comedy and weird jokes, but the description is pretty consistent. Despite the obvious levity he brought to project after project, it's clear that he thought hard about the medium he was working in.

Here's a guy who studied to be an artist in a traditional mold who was brought into Disney in the 30s due to his superior drafting skills as part of a classically trained support group behind Ham Luske, Jack Campbell, and Grim Natwick in the creation of Snow White. Snow White, the most complex, subtle animated character ever attempted at Disney at that time, started Davis off on a career path of animating leading ladies: Cinderella, Alice, Tinkerbell, and Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. He had some opportunities to show some range too: Brer Rabbit, Cruella deVille, and Maleficent hint at Davis' extraordinary skill, but he largely was given technically demanding women's roles while artists like Ward Kimball and Frank Thomas cut loose with comedy characters.

In later interviews, Marc never had too much to say about his leading ladies. He had very complimentary things to say about Sleeping Beauty's effort and design, and I've often wondered if his dual role in that film (animating both Aurora and Maleficent) was a result of some kind of bargain to land a better character role. He left feature animation after his work on Chanticleer bottomed out.

excerpt from his autobiographical "A Thumbnail History of Marc Davis"

In contrast, Marc characterized his time at WED Enterprises as the part of his professional career where he was truly satisfied. He was, I believe, the first of the Imagineers to really take a critical look at what made Disneyland tick. After Walt sent him out to look at the place and gather ideas, he made it a habit: careful observation of how people acted and reacted inside the parks. The lessons learned in Enchanted Tiki Room he carried over to Country Bear Jamboree. Lessons learned in Country Bear Jamboree he carried on to America Sings. The enjoyment he took in this new medium, and level of serious thought he devoted to it, is evident in much of his work. You don't come up with powerfully communicative, funny stuff like the Trapped Safari at Jungle Cruise without putting a lot of thought into how to pull it off.

But I think what Marc really wanted was to be able to do what Claude Coats did. It was the fusion of Claude's sensibilities for atmosphere and color and Marc's sensibilities for comedy and visual communication that elevated Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. But if you really have to choose a style that makes those two attractions work, it's Claude's. Marc learned the power of a richly developed atmosphere from Claude, and Western River Expedition was his chance to put his learning to good use and do it all himself.

So despite their obvious affinity for each others' styles - Marc and Claude continued to work together, on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and again on Enchanted Snow Palace - Marc would always get a little cagey in describing Claude Coats in later years, and I think this is why. You can call it jealously if you like, but Marc wanted  to offer more than gag and character designs.

So it's interesting to examine how things Marc always said about Pirates of the Caribbean ended up being transposed in transformed ways into Western River Expedition. He praised Coats' haunted grotto in Pirates as being "very effective", so Western River has two caverns, but each one with a very different effect.

The first cavern takes the place of the "time travel" conceit from Pirates in favor of a more artful approach to drawing us into a fantasy.

Rock formations in the opening cavern suggest one Old West image after another, and as we pass each, a piece of the Western River Expedition theme begins to play one part after another until there is an entire musical piece. In this way, the Old West of the prairie, cowboys and indians, and Dry Gulch seems to come out of our own subconscious associations as we see seemingly familiar shapes in rocks. There's no need for a big pile of cursed pirate gold because Davis artfully prompts us to make the leap into fantasy ourselves.


The second cavern repeats the spooky atmosphere of the Pirate caves but this time adds all of the waterfalls which make the Disneyland caverns so memorable. I think the idea of motivating the waterfalls as being the result of a flash flood, thereby making them a direct threat to riders, is ingenious. And then there's the trip up the waterfall.

Marc always called out Walt's trip up the waterfall at the end of Pirates as an element he pointedly did not like, so what's it doing in Western River Expedition, the dream project he had total control over?

I think Marc probably noticed something about the "Up the Waterfall" scene which can still be observed in the park today, which is that people expect a big payoff for going up the waterfall. They raise their arms in anticipation of a big drop. If you read his objection to the scene again, you'll notice that his specific complaint is that guests "sit there wondering what the hell [to] do next". This is why using the trip up the waterfall to build suspense at the climax of the ride solves his stated objection. Western River Expedition cleverly uses the up-the-waterfall gag to raise suspense for a coming confrontation as our situation goes from bad to worse. He turned an (apparent) liability into an asset.

Other items from Pirates of the Caribbean got a total rethink. The idea of turning the fiery finalie into a natural disaster is an interesting one, but Davis zeroed in on the beautifully effective "swaying timbers" scene for expansion into literally an entire burning forest about to come crashing down onto the boats. Western River was as much an experiment to place every element from Pirates into its most dramatically effective order as it was a plan to "outdo" it. Perhaps they would have seemed redundant sitting next to each other in the same park at first, but I think Western River Expedition was up to enough genuinely new stuff to earn a place as a standalone piece.

Oh, and about Pirates of the Caribbean in Florida. I don't think it's necessarily a coincidence that when Marc was tasked with designing a cut down version of the attraction for Magic Kingdom that the stuff he excised is the stuff that would have been most redundant with Western River Expedition. Ride up the waterfall? Gone. Slow atmospheric build to the start? Gone. Slow crawl underneath burning timbers? Gone.

If anything, the fact that the FL Pirates dispenses with all of the atmosphere building and gets us right to the meat and potatoes of the ride - the town under siege - makes even more sense considering exactly how much of Western River was supposed to be atmospheric vamping. So, yes, the pitifully small budget contributes as well, but in 1971 and 1972 when designs were underway, Western River Expedition was still officially being prepped for construction at Magic Kingdom. Davis seems to have been going out of his way to make both attractions complimentary instead of competitive. It's unfortunate that Pirates was left holding the short end of the stick in 1973, but that's what happened. I suspect we'd be having a very different discussion about this if WRE got off the ground.

In fact, nobody ever seems to mention that if Western River Expedition was Marc's first stab at reworking Pirates, and Florida Pirates of the Caribbean was his second, he went back and did it all a third time: for Tokyo Disneyland, in 1983. Tokyo's Pirates makes for very interesting direct comparisons for those who know Disneyland's well and with Marc in mind. This time he got to leave in the Blue Bayou, shortened but dramatically redesigned the haunted caves, lengthened the town sequence and the munition storehouse shootout, but dropped the trip up the waterfall.

I'm going to such lengths to point all this out because if Marc is mentioned in the fan community these days it's for one of two things: conceiving crazy character gags and for saying "[Walt Disney] didn't like the idea of telling stories in this medium. It's not a story telling medium. But it does give you experiences. You experience the idea of pirates."That's a brilliant quote, but as far as Marc is concerned that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Because the two attractions Marc had total control over, Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings have heavy on character gags but light on atmosphere, and because of that perniciously complex quote about story, Marc often gets painted as a guy against all forms of in-park storytelling, heavily lobbying for attractions full of crazy gags and characters.

Nobody ever points out that he began to push Claude Coats-style atmosphere heavier and heavier in 1969 and 1970.

The gorgeous interior of the Florida Tiki Room? That's Marc Davis. The deep, dark queues of the east coast Pirates of the Caribbean? That's Marc Davis. The fact that he designed the entirety of the Florida Jungle Cruise, which is the Jungle Cruise most devoted to atmosphere, is not widely known. In fact, the 1971 Jungle Cruise is the ride where he began to paint Coats-style scenic layouts, some of which you have seen in last week's article. Every rock and every figure in that Jungle Cruise is placed exactly where he wanted it.


Enchanted Snow Palace, too, was built on the rock of atmosphere. A shimmering symphony of Yale Gracey light effects, Buddy Baker music and eerie but beautiful atmosphere, it was intended to be an adult counterpoint to It's A Small World. Yet this was designed nearly concurrently with America Sings, which is wall to wall crazy animals. The guy had range.

And then we come to Western River Expedition. Here's a ride that's mostly atmosphere. The character gags take up only a short section in the middle. It's based on Pirates of the Caribbean yet it reorders and reemphasizes large and small things from Pirates to improve the clarity of the storytelling. Western River was Marc swinging for the fences. Yet what's largely happened to it in the popular imagination is it's become a collection of online curiosities, most of which were not intended for the ride, like:


In other words, it's been streamlined into the mainline narrative of his work at WED as the master of random gags. But if we take Marc at his word, then his ideal attraction concept, his personal baby, is a ride with a rigorously conceived dramatic arc, the best kind of theme park narrative. Marc's right: it's not a story with traditional leading characters and a dramatic denouement, but I think Western River Expedition represents one of the most carefully put together "theme park stories" ever. It's not book or film storytelling, but it is Disneyland storytelling.

This is why I've worked so hard to give a complete, correct version of the experience of the ride. Because I think understanding what it really was supposed to be is a key to understanding the way Marc thought about a medium he loved. I mean, he could have gone on after his WED Enterprises career ended and worked with independent animators like Don Bluth and Richard Williams, but he didn't. What he kept doing was designing characters and concepts for Independent Theme Parks like Circus World and designers like Gary Goddard. Disney be damned, he kept working in his chosen field.

1982 piece for Goddard Design Group

In this respect, the tragedy of the failure of Western River Expedition's development cycle is compounded. We were not just denied a great attraction, but a terrific insight into one of WED Enterprises' most engaged critical thinkers.

I hope these articles have gone some way in the direction of helping to improve the understanding about and discussion surrounding this ambitious project and its primary creator. Untangling the webs of misinformation around Thunder Mesa has been daunting but keenly personally rewarding. Western River Expedition may never get built, but in design and conception it's reams and reams of intensely valuable, brilliant thought about the possibilities of a medium that could use a few more masterpieces.


Western River Expedition Series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

There's a really funny story in Patton Oswalt's new book, Silver Screen Fiend. In it, Patton and a childhood friend go to a movie theater to see the 1996 Bruce Willis film, Last Man Standing. Last Man Standing, as you likely don't remember, is a remake of Fistful of Dollars, which itself is a remake of a Japanese samurai movie called Yojimbo, so that the film in question is a remake of a remake. Ah, but it doesn't stop there, because Yojimbo itself is a riff on an American novel by Daschiel Hammett called Red Harvest. So Last Man Standing is a remake of a remake of a remake.

Anyway, Patton casually explains this to his friend before the movie begins and it totally destroys the movie for this poor guy. He spends the entirety of this inconsequential Bruce Willis movie sweating out what it all has to do with Italians and Japanese. Afterwards, he's angry at Patton for spoiling the film for him by revealing this tiny piece of trivia.

Experiences and perceptions have a lot to do with expectations, don't they? For the past few weeks I've been ruminating on a post which was forwarded to me by friend and sporadic Disney blogger Ian Kay, written by Film Crit Hulk, a highly insightful film writer who none-the-less gets angry and WRITES IN ALL CAPS.

Hulk was writing about the culture of spoilers in film and TV viewing, and in doing so he delineates 4 levels of film viewing which most viewers fall into, or between. I think this criteria can spread to all media forms, but because I think it's especially pertinent to talking about Disney theme parks, so I'm going to outline them here:

Group 1 is a group who view media very naively, and are powerfully and very directly affected by what they see. This is you seeing Star Wars or The Lion King when you were 7. Group 1 does very little thinking while watching films, and their emotional engagement is very strong and hard to shake. Many, many adults spend their whole lives in Group 1. You probably know somebody who won't see "downer" or "challenging" films because they're simply unable to escape from the effect these stories have on them.

Group 2 viewers have seen enough media that they know the ins and outs of how stories are constructed. They don't really worry if Anna will be de-iced in Frozen because by now they understand that children's films have something of a safety net. But they still view media largely as emotional experiences which distract from daily life. They will try, constantly, to recapture that feeling of when they were Group 1 viewers - and, when a film really delivers that feeling, as Lord of the Rings and Guardians of the Galaxy did, these experiences are often handsomely rewarded by a hugely grateful groups of adults.

Group 3 viewers are, simply put, usually professional critics. They have viewed such a body of media in their field that they've become adept at deconstructing the qualities of the product as they watch it while still trying to leave the door open for a Group 2 or Group 1-style experience. Most viewers cannot and will not cross the threshold into 3 because there's a fear that the quality of the experiences will suffer and, often, it does - it becomes far easier to pick out bad goods. The flip side is that the great experiences stop being merely fun and become transcendent, religious - and stimulating. This is the high the critic craves, and it drives them into increasingly obscure corners to find it.

Group 4 are Industry people. Veteran TV cameramen, video game programmers, newscasters - these people are so used to troubleshooting and running the wires behind the scenes that when they view media they see nothing but the strings. They can assess exactly, specifically, technically where it succeeds or fails. These people are the auto mechanics of the entertainment world.

The whole point is that all 4 categories are equal - one is not better than the other - but Groups 1 and 2 often simply cannot comprehend the viewpoint of Groups 3 and 4. Personally I've been hearing the same line forever - "You always over analyze things! Why can't you just relax and enjoy the movie?"

It's the same way with theme parks. Get me or HBG2 talking about Haunted Mansion and you end up on a spaceship launching off to some unknown conceptual destination. He'll talk about theology. I'll talk about Sergei Eisenstein and Moby Dick. And somewhere, people's eyes are spinning around in their sockets.

And the answer is, no, I can't just relax and enjoy it, because I'm on the other side of the looking glass now. I sit somewhere between 3 and 4, perhaps nostalgic for my days as a 1, but aware that I feel inherently more fulfilled for having made the journey.

Now, about theme parks.

Theme parks, and Disney ones especially, are a strong drug. That specific blend of total sensory assault, giddy excitement and surging nostalgia produces a high better and stronger than any chemical, and it can last for as long as you're able to pay. Who hasn't, at one point, wished they could just live at the Polynesian Village? Or above New Orleans Square? Just like Star Wars, Disney is handing you down the key to a golden kingdom where time seems to go haywire, simultaneously rushing past like a freight train and standing still, even reversing. For sentimentalists, this is the ultimate high. Anyone who's ever read Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine should recognize the causes of his grateful, almost tearful attachment to Disneyland, a personal magic door into his better place.

And here's the thing: it was that way for me too. But it isn't any longer. And that has not "ruined" these places for me. It's made them stronger.

The way Disney parks are designed and indeed marketed, they tend to produce a Group 1-style response in almost everybody. There's multiple reasons why. There's the excitement of being on vacation and, for many, the sacred feeling of a family vacation or indeed yearly ritual. This is our time to (fill in the blank). The park, meaning the physical cluster of concrete structures, is a sort of stimulus/social lubricant that can result in quality experiences and genuine bonding.

The average person who's walking around Epcot right now, today, as you're reading this cannot afford - literally cannotafford conceptually, cannotafford emotionally, and cannot afford financially - to analyze the experience. After traveling from Nebraska and trading on Jane's college tuition to bring the family to Epcot, if the product were anything less than exemplary in their view the result would be catastrophic. Very intelligent people pay lots of money to shut off their brains and walk under Spaceship Earth into a place where mortgages and crime don't exist. In any other situation these people would be in Group 3 or 4, but today, for now, they're resolutely Group 1.

If you go online and read Disney fan discourse, you're going to be reading a lot of emotional appeals. Often they're gussied up at some attempt at "objectivity" but they're anything but. Gran Fiesta Tour is great because Timmy clapped his hands on it, a memory you will always treasure. The Circle of Life at The Land is a family favorite because Grandpa fell asleep. We got engaged during Wishes. These people are arguing from an entirely gut, emotional point of view. They're trying to validate reliving moments, but what they're not doing is discussing things.


After so many years of going - first as a tourist, then as a Cast Member, then as a local Annual Passholder where I can drive in and see Main Street without spending a hot dime - the bulk of my experiences in these places are no longer the sanctified vacation experiences most have. I haven't had a Walt Disney World vacation in 15 years but I've probably spent 4000 times the amount of time there I spent on vacation. Oh yes, I've been there, but for merehoursat a time and the stresses of the real world don't leave because I know being back at work is just 12 hours away. Or I already am at work.

Where most visitors look at a building in Frontierland and see a charming old west saloon, I see and appreciate the illusion of an old west building, but my knowledge goes deeper. I know that it's fiberglass and lathe over a steel girder superstructure, and that behind that blacked out window is a green file cabinet, and that in the attic above the Trading Post is a shitty old couch I crashed on, once, because I've crawled thru the whole thing. And over there, a few feet away, is where a guest took a swing at me on New Year's Eve while I was working two-way traffic on an hour of sleep and earning barely above minimum wage. And ten feet past that is the lamppost where I found the stroller in the bush during that ten hour stroller parking shift in April 2004. And over there is where the sewer erupted on Christmas Eve and sprayed 34 people with raw sewage. And I even have X-Ray vision and can "see" the cast Corridor that runs behind the building, and the shop on the other side, and the street beyond that.

A certain breed of Disney fan would find that view disrespectful, but those aren't even the bad memories - they're just the accumulated detritus of years and years spent at these places, willing or not. When you're on vacation, you don't see the strings. You don't notice that the flute player in the Haunted Mansion has a busted actuator in his left arm because you don't know and don't care. You see and experience symbols, not things. When I look at these places, I see specific things from the inside out and back again.

This is why everyone thinks these parks were always in perfect working order when they were kids - when you're on vacation, you don't see chipped paint and blown out lights. you don't have time. Stuff was still broken and beat up at Magic Kingdom in the 1970s - its just that there wasn't any internet or annual passholders to report it.

January 1975 - and look at all the crooked, blown out lights!

I used to do this sort of willful obstruction too. I used to sit at home after a Walt Disney World vacation and become paranoid because I couldn't remember the color of the pavement at EPCOT Center. If I couldn't remember it, did it exist? Did I get the absolute most out of my limited time there? Did I dream the vacation?

But Walt Disney World and Disneyland are bigger things than your memories or the moments you spend there.

They're also magic tricks and fiberglass bricks, wooden beams holding up the set, those beautiful murals outside the sets in Horizons, and nasty stanchion poles and trash compactors and computer systems that crunch numbers and a broken down car in the Cast parking lot. And the more I became aware of the secret Walt Disney World, the vibrant life behind the "life", the more I loved it. For a while there I was a hardcore Group 4'er. Now I'm more like a 3.5. But once you pull back that curtain, it's impossible to go back to being a Group 2 or Group 1. Your eyes never see it the same way. It gets inside you and changes you from the inside.


And this is, I think, the main source of discord in the Disney online community: occasional, high spending 1 and 2 consumers getting very upset with more regular, casual, or professional Group 3 and 4 thinkers. Annual Passholders can show up for reasons of boredom, or for social obligations - as an Orlandian you spend a lot of time meeting out-of-town friends inside theme parks. It makes sense, because who would want to catch a movie at a crappy strip mall when they could be spending their precious vacation hours inside Epcot?

I've "had" to go into theme parks to meet friends where I'd rather go literally anywhere else, and it was even worse while I worked in these same places. That sounds like the most disingenuous complaint, but these are crowded, exhausting places to be for a social obligation. Would you want to go back to your workplace to spend your day off?

I admit that I'm coming around to the notion that jealousy plays into it, too, for some commentators. A Disney park, for them, is a ritual place, sacred ground, which they only see, God willing, every few years if the chips come down right. And yet here's another group who could be there every day and all they see are the paint chips and blown out lights. How rude! How ungrateful! Jealousy sours into resentment. All of these Walt Disney World locals are a bunch of haters! And worse of all, because of social media, you know every single time they're there.

And some people do so want that Disney high to last forever that they take the step of moving to Orlando to be near to Disney. But eventually, they start to become Group 3's, too. One day they walk into the Confectionery on Main Street and realize that that $35 they spent on fudge would have been better spent on rent. And that fudge they were sure to come and buy on every single Walt Disney World vacation, it vanishes forever. The real fudge can still be bought but their fudge, their vacation fudge, can never be reclaimed. They start, day in and day out, to imperceptibly see the place differently.

Exquisite fairytale castle? SEEN IT!

It all comes down to that, I feel. Fans fight each other in these endless loops of aggression because they see the place fundamentally differently. Vacationers only see the places through the tourist filter. Then somebody like me, where I've been crammed through so many filters and sieves that I'm surprised any bit of that childlike awe at the accomplishment of the place is left. It's not about opinions but experiences and perceptions.

I think the rancor is unfortunate, and not just because there is something wonderfully human and optimistic about those who construct a place entirely out of memories. Why wouldn't they be mad? To them, Dumbo wasn't a fiberglass elephant circling a concrete pit, it was the smile on their three-year-old's face in the early morning Florida heat. I find that perspective to be very moving, but it's also inherently limited, because they weren't really seeing the place, but some alternate reality warped by time, perception, and that Disney high. They're no more seeing the physical space of Walt Disney World than Raoul Duke saw The Flamingo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. So, if I opine that Dumbo isn't a very good ride, then to them I'm not talking about a fiberglass elephant but their personal memory of their personal happy place, the weave of memory is too tight to peek through.

And goodness knows I don't wish I could get that too, sometimes. I don't think my viewpoint is noble so much as inevitable. I haven't experienced a truly new-to-me theme park in 14 years. This summer, I'll finally be going to Disneyland Paris, and I'll have to be deprogramming myself out of my old habits - I'll have to remember to go into shops, for one, or pace myself to spend 16 hours in a theme park instead of 2. I'm curious if my critical apparatus will turn off.

I secretly don't think it will. I'm too fond of analyzing.

Now, I'm no fool. I'm not expecting this article to stop people on the internet from arguing, and besides, some people are only out to make others miserable anyway. But I do think it's time for the Groups 1 and 2 and Groups 3 and 4 to recognize that, for others, it literally is not the same place. Annual Passholders and those with a critical eye don't have your same memories, and to vacationers, even the most prolific and profligate spenders have only a fraction of the experience of others. One viewpoint is not a corrective to the other. The point is that both sides are needed - and need to recognize each other - to create an honest, healthy whole.

(Updated April 8, 2015 with three new tropes)

Theme Parks have been at it for a long time now. Technically for about 60 years, but theme park-style experiences go back even further, to the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and Coney Island, and on. There was even an early chain of amusement park attractions - Hale's Tours - that were pretty similar, in concept, to rides like Back to the Future and the Hogwarts Express. And, once you take into consideration the unique style that Universal Creative has cultivated since the 1980s, and the way the WED house style, and WDI house style, and the Universal house style have cross-pollinated and informed each other, there's a pretty rich history of traditions to draw on.

Or, to put it another way, there's a whole history of rhetorical devices, narrative conceits, motifs, and cliches that theme park attractions draw on to communicate with us strongly and basically visually. We can call these tropes. And no, I'm not going to pull a TV Tropes here and catalog every single device or theme that's been used in the history of human endeavor. I'm after most or all of the big ones, however. So no, you wont see "Exit Thru the Gift Shop" here because they're as much formal expectations at this point as they are narrative cliches, which to me would be like calling editing in films a "Trope". For this same reason you won't see things like a Themed Queue or Ride Vehicle. I want to dig into the deeper predictable patterns of the experience.

So myself and my friend Brandon (@DCAlover on Twitter) put our heads together and came up with a pretty extensive list of the various reasons and ways rides have been dropping us down waterfalls, spinning us in circles, and running us over with trains (or garbage trucks piloted by Stan Lee) for generations.

--

Invisibility Cloak On - A classic of WED design. In Pirates of the Caribbean, we're expected to be concerned about getting exploded or shot in the face, but the pirates don't seem to see us - are we really there or not? Often results in a weirdly voyeur-like experience.
Examples: Pirates of the Caribbean, Horizons, World of Motion, Primeval World, Swiss Family Treehouse

Harold Isn't Going To Like This - a.k.a. The Fourth Wall Won't Save You, and the opposite of Invisibility Cloak On. Often used in scary or intense attractions to "imperil" riders, especially Universal shows, although Disney pioneered the form by killing guests with a train! It's any time a dangerous or villainous character notices and/or pursues the riders.
Namer: Matterhorn Bobsleds
Examples: Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Revenge of the Mummy, The Haunted Mansion, Jaws, Indiana Jones Adventure, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man

Captain Rex Day - Every day is Captain Rex Day, because every day is your guide's first day of doing something highly dangerous! You're nearly guaranteed to hear this if your theme park experience includes a live actor.
Namer: Star Tours
Examples: Jungle Cruise, Poseidon's Fury, Cranium Command

The Nickel Tour - Arguably the foundation conceit of most theme park attractions, this trope claims that the attraction is actually a tour of an imaginary, specific indoor facility or location. It's the next logical evolution away from the "themed scenery" mode of attractions like Mine Train Thru Nature's Wonderland or Jungle Cruise, which often include multiple, abstract locations.
Examples: The Haunted Mansion, The Living Seas, Back to the Future, The Disney-MGM Backlot Studio Tour

Not a Tape - There's many reasons why that recorded narration you're hearing isn't meant to be that recorded narration you're hearing. It could be... spooky ghosts! Or the invisible crew of your tiny submarine! Or the thoughts of Paul Frees suspended in inner space! How about a radio transmission?? Please don't think about this too thoroughly.
Examples: Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Indiana Jones Adventure, Adventure Thru Inner Space, Space Mountain

Three Hour Tour - Happens every time a narrated ride, often a leisurely one, claims that those ten minutes you just spent looking at fiberglass critters in relative comfort constituted days or weeks of your life. There is never any apology or rationale given for this timeslip. You are now old.
Examples: Disneyland Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Mike Fink Keelboats, Sailing Ship Columbia, Kilimanjaro Safaris

Easy On The Curves - Wouldn't you know it, it's the darn finicky cutting edge / patched together / shopworn technology going and breaking down and/or messing everything up! I never could have anticipated this happening in a theme park. Your Uncle who only buys products from The Vermont Country Store and writes with a typewriter was right all along.
Namer: Indiana Jones Adventure
Examples: Alien Encounter, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, Stitch's Great Escape, Dinosaur, Timekeeper, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem!

Eisner Institute - You know what's boring? Going somewhere and having something amazing and impossible happen. Wouldn't you much rather go to an institute or research center where there's drywall and doors with names on them and then have something whimsically unexpected go horribly wrong once you're there? Wouldn't that be so much better?
Namer: Michael Eisner, the patron saint of institutions
Examples: Test Track, Journey Into Your Imagination, Body Wars, Back to the Future, Mission: Space, Dinosaur, Alien Encounter, Honey I Shrunk the Audience...

We Have To Save Elroy - A normal theme park demonstration is interrupted when - oh no! - a plot device occurs! Being the red-blooded Americans that we are, the entire audience is enlisted to help. "Elroy" can also be a macguffin (the gift in Despicable Me) or a red herring.
Namer: The Funtastic World of Hannah-Barbera
Examples: Despicable Me Minion Mayhem, Transformers the Ride 4D, Ghostbusters Spooktacular, ET Adventure, Kilimanjaro Safaris

Little Red is OK - Corollary to We Have To Save Elroy, where of course "Elroy" is always OK at the end. Sometimes other trams/boats full of people will be shown to have perished, but the nearest any theme park ever got to actually doing off a supporting character was the unlucky submarine 13, crushed by a giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Namer: Kilimanjaro Safaris

Torturing the Recruits - At Imagineering in the 90s and early naughts, if you weren't going to an institute you were always some kind of recruit. You apparently got drafted by walking in the door. What could be more lighthearted??
Namer: Stitch's Great Escape
Examples: Alien Encounter, Men in Black: Alien Attack, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Mission: Space, Body Wars, Ghostbusters Spooktacular

Background Action - Mostly-Universal-Specific Corollary to Torturing the Recruits, where you're supposed to be playing extras in a film shoot of some sort. Unlike real movie extras, you don't get a free lunch out of it.
Examples: Earthquake: The Big One, Revenge of the Mummy, Backdraft, Disaster!, Twister: Ride It Out!, Catastrophe Canyon

Sherrie Wants To Kill You - Sherrie may look pleasant sitting at that desk near Bill McKim, but she actually wants to murder you by driving you into a wall. Sometimes an innocent-looking secondary character, sometimes the main antagonist.
Namer: Test Track
Examples: Snow White's Scary Adventures, Revenge of the Mummy, Alien Encounter, Tower of Terror (TDL), Indiana Jones Adventure

You Die At The End - Especially if you go to hell.
Examples: Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Adventures, Fata Morgana (maybe), Men in Black: Alien Attack (maybe)

I Got Some In My Mouth - Nothing could possibly make any ride more cutting edge and intense than spritzing the audience with water, right? Nobody's ever done that before! Bonus points if the water is supposed to be dripping blood, as in Revenge of the Mummy (Hollywood).
Namer: Alien Encounter
Examples: Mickey's Philharmagic, Jurassic Park, Stitch's Great Escape, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, Toy Story Midway Mania, Revenge of the Mummy, Muppet-Vision 3D, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Ellen's Energy Adventure, Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts, Captain EO

Beware of Glass - Inexplicable Universal-only subset of I Got Some In My Mouth, where being spritzed with water can also represent glass shattering nearby.
Examples: Terminator 2 3D, Revenge of the Mummy, Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man

EllenBot - It's a bad idea to cast a recognizable person in your attraction because their audio-animatronic incarnation will probably look nothing like them. Is that Tim Allen or a Country Bear??
Namer: Ellen's Energy Adventure
Examples: The Hall of Presidents, Superstar Limo

The Book Report Ride - An attraction which shows exactly the same events which occurred in the source film in the same order. You know these well.
Examples: Peter Pan's Flight, The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh, The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, The Seas With Nemo and Friends

Ride the Movies - This is what happened after that movie you saw probably recently! Sometimes, the theme park attraction is the proper direct sequel to a film, but represents an alternate universe if the source movie got another sequel, as in the case of Terminator 2. Or, the story can be dropped into a specific point in a movie chronology rather than being set "after" the main events of the story.
Namer: Universal Studios Florida
Examples: Back to the Future, E.T. Adventure, Indiana Jones Adventure, Men in Black: Alien Attack, Star Tours, Jaws, Stitch's Great Escape, Revenge of the Mummy, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, Jurassic Park The Ride

It's Not About Finding Hot Tubs - Subset of Ride the Movies, and differentiated from the Book Report, where an attraction specifically tells you that the events depicted therein take place after the movie -- but everything that happens is just something that happened in the movie.
Namer: Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Examples: Radiator Springs Racers, Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy

The Enchanted Tales Razor - The rule that states that no explanation is sometimes better. Named for Enchanted Tales with Belle, where a straightforward character meet and greet is burdened with an absurd time travel conceit which not only makes no sense, but conveniently vanishes after it's no longer needed.
Examples: Enchanted Tales with Belle, Mission: Space

Why Did It Have to be Tourists - "You're sending a bunch of wet behind the ears tourists out in the SCOOP?" Or: any time a beleaguered hero has to save your miserable ass because you were a bunch of dumb tourists. You are lower than dirt.
Namer: Indiana Jones Adventure
Examples: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Star Tours, Transformers the Ride 4D, Dinosaur

Where Have You Been?! - A Harry Potter-specific subset of Why Did It Have to be Tourists. Harry Potter is constantly saving your ass. There's no moment when he isn't. Dementors? Voldemort? Whomping Willow? Harry Potter saved your ass. Theme Park Harry Potter is more competent than movie Harry Potter, book Harry Potter, and fanfic Harry Potter rolled into one. That time you nearly fell trying to buy a carton of milk in Target? He saved your ass that time too. Harry Potter is the hardest working guy in theme parks. He hates you so much.
Namer: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
Examples: Hogwarts Express, Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts, Harry Potter and You In Line For Butterbeer, Harry Potter and the........

I'm Bill Paxton - Most commonly used in Universal attractions where an actor appears on a screen to address you before the main experience; also snuck into Disney rides in the 90s.
Namer: Bill Paxton in Twister: Ride It Out!
Examples: Steven Spielberg in E.T. Adventure, Angela Lansbury in Murder: She Wrote Mystery Production Theater, Ron Howard in Backdraft, John Michael Higgins in Test Track, Wallace Langham in Countdown to Extinction / Dinosaur, Gary Sinise in Mission: SPACE, Jeffrey Jones in Alien Encounter, Patrick Warburton in Soarin Over California

The Hunky Tuna Tostada - Corollary to I'm Bill Paxton. Any time a highly recognizable celebrity or entertainer pops up unexpectedly in the middle of an attraction experience for a cameo, it's always going to take the audience out of the experience, even if it's intended strictly as a joke.
Namer: Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management
Examples: The Timekeeper, Disaster, Ellen's Energy Adventure, Revenge of the Mummy, Superstar Limo

Mission: Tortilla - OK, listen, maybe you didn't like all those institutes or research centers,  but Eisner sure loves industrial tours, because that's where people who actually have to work for a living are! Fascinating! Bonus if you get a free food sample for showing up.
Name: Mission Tortilla Factory
Examples: Universal Studios Tram Tour, Boudin Bread Factory, Disney-MGM Studios Backlot Tour

Expiration Date - In an effort to show how not-lame and with-it a theme park institution is, a new attraction opens featuring the latest music, or cool visual style, or hottest sitcom stars. Inevitably, it's absurdly dated within five years. The defining example was probably the "fountain of fashion" at the exit of Adventure Thru Inner Space, but this was also less of a problem before the 90s, when sponsors and Disney replaced attactions pretty regularly. Interestingly, supposedly Universal designs their studio park attractions to have a shelf life of ten years.
Examples: America Sings, Innoventions, Wonders of Life, DisneyQuest, Food Rocks
(Suggested by 'Judah Ben-Hur')

After These Messages - is practically an extinct park trope, but it was once the norm. Enough sponsorship money being thrown around can result in, for a price, your very own ride-through corporate advertisement, complete with a catchy theme song. Probably the best example is the rotating furniture showroom known as the Carousel of Progress, but plenty of other attractions toed the corporate line, dispensing approved nuggets about microwaves, textiles, and agriculture. Interestingly, one of the last of these - Horizons - subverted the trope by being lavishly funded by General Electric but presenting no overt product placement.
Examples: Kaiser Hall of Aluminum Fame, Monsanto Home of Future Living, Adventures Thru Inner Space, Listen to the Land, Universe of Energy

Parkception - Universal has been up to a lot of this lately, but it's actually Disney that started the whole current boom. More than an attraction that's aware it's an attraction, it's a miniature amusement park, often depicted of being below theme park quality, inside a theme park. The first one, of course, was Jurassic Park, but it's Disney that set the template with their kitsch tributes Chester and Hester's Dino-rama and Paradise Pier. Lately, miniature amusement parks have sprung up around The Simpsons Ride and Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem.
Examples: Dino-rama, Paradise Pier, Krustyland, Super Silly Fun Land
(Suggested by Hastin)

Feel free to propose any we may have missed in the comments! If I like one, I may add it to the article!

In 2012, two books were published within two weeks of each other, each with dueling viewpoints but which come to similar conclusions. The first, Disney's Most Notorious Film: Race, Convergence, and the Hidden Histories of Song of the South by Jason Sperb, is an excellently written cultural history. Sperb, however, falls into the trap so many other Disney critics have fallen into since the 1940s by working himself into an aesthetic lather over the racism of the film, and the presumed racism of Walt Disney. Contrasting the Sperb book, Jim Korkis'Who's Afraid of Song of the South? is a production history from the perspective of an unabashed fan who comes down on Disney's side.

Every Disney blog, it seems, has a post about Song of the South. This is mine. Now, of all of the eras of Disney animation, the period of fevered creativity and pinched budgets between 1941 and 1949 interests me the most. I own three bootleg copies of Song of the South, because each has slightly different visual qualities. I've been showing it to everyone who will sit for it for over a decade.

I'm not convinced of the film's greatness, but I think it's a really interesting movie.

And I'm not going to come down on the side of either Sperb or Korkis. I'm not convinced that Walt Disney was as malicious - or as naive - as he's often portrayed by film academics. However, I'm also not going to follow in the footsteps of so many other Disney bloggers and act the know-nothing when it comes to having to confront the problematic aspects of the film either.

Song of the South is not an easy movie to level with. Merely watching it requires that one take a position, and ask tough questions that don't yield ready answers. These are generally the criteria for a deep dish cinema masterpiece, not a frivolous nostalgia piece occasionally touched with brilliance. It would hardly seem to be worth the effort for a film whose cultural expiration date is long past. But engaging those questions and coming out the other side is the reason it's still worth discussing.

Let's begin by prodding the sensitive underbelly first. It all began a long, long time ago...


1) The Song of the South Problem

The default position of many Song of the South advocates is to either ignore or hand-wave at the basic problem of racism in this film. After all, it's easy to counter, the film was reissued in 1986 and met with no real opposition, the concerns of racism in the film are just overly sensitive allegations. No problem. Don't see any problem here.

This is bullshit.

The key issue comes down to representation, which is still something worth fighting over, because images carry power. Non-white, non-straight people are still fighting for better representation in films and popular culture. But truthfully, the fact that representations of persons of color onscreen have improved dramatically in the past few generations does not enter the Song of the South equation, either. The key character in question, Uncle Remus, no longer is forced to stand alone amongst a relatively narrow group of peers.

In 1946, Remus represented a complex, unusually central role for a black entertainer in a major Hollywood production. By 1986, an era when black actors were striving to escape from a screen ghetto of limited representation, Remus was an impossible throwback. In 2015, when we expect diverse and complex casts in major motion pictures, Remus looks more like a figure of fantasy, which isn't too far from how he was perceived in 1946.

This isn't to suggest that strides cannot still be made in these areas onscreen, but simply to point out that Remus, taken in isolation, is no longer the gigantic problem he once was. We're more likely today to admire Baskett's dignified, moving performance in the midst of a maelstrom of a film of absurdly old-fashioned attitudes than to perceive this sort of Uncle Tom stereotype to be a normal or common perception of a black man. He's so far from our modern reality he's become fiction again.

No, it isn't Remus, it's his context in the movie which is problematic, and the reason it's problematic is because the film splits its black characters between the "culturally black" animal comedy trio of Br'rer Rabbit, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear and the "manifestly black" cast of actors who represent the labor force on the plantation. The "Br'er" critters have craft and power - they have an agency in their own plot which is not reflected in the plantation laborers, Remus included.

This lack of agency in the story is exactly why it's possible to mistake Song of the South for a film set in the Antebellum period, before the Civil War. There's plenty of scenes between the white, upper class family and the black laborers, but if the word "slave" never appears, neither does the word "employee". We never even find out what they're growing on the old plantation, nor do we ever see Uncle Remus doing any real work, or are told how he gets by or what he's retained, exactly, to do.

We do see him living in what appears to be slave quarters near the house, although we never discover where the rest of the labor force lives. There isn't even a date to clue us in to when the film takes place. All we see are black laborers doing something, white people running the place, and a living situation that looks like it dropped out of Gone With the Wind, David O' Selznick's 1939 bad taste extravaganza. The title actually cues us to think of Gone with the Wind. They even sound kinda similar. It's a clear cue to the movie buying public: "Did you like that film? Here's something similar."

In other words, the film doesn't do anything to dispel the impression of Remus as an old slave, perhaps one beloved and trusted as a member of the family, but undoubtedly a man treated as a piece of property. His attempt to leave the plantation at the climax of the movie is so underdeveloped that it hardly seems to matter, and arrives long after most of the damage has been done.

Not helping matters is Hattie McDaniel, a wonderful actress familiar from films of the 1930s, essentially reprising her role of Mammy from Gone With the Wind. Like most vintage movie fans, I love Hattie - any appearance by her is a reason to celebrate - but she isn't given much of interest to do here. Her character may be hired help, but all the film ever gives us images of Hattie singing and baking. Simply put, to expect post-Gone With the Wind audiences not to process such an image as "slave" is the equivalent of putting Anthony Hopkins in an orange jumpsuit behind a Plexiglas wall and asking us to remember that he's not a serial killer. It doesn't work that way.

Many commentators also like to bring up the happy singing field workers, although this is a case where I'm not sure if this accusation isn't somewhat off base. Truth is, we don't see them clearly enough or often enough to decide if they're jolly or simply singing. But the fact is that by then in the film, it's given any critic looking for a racism angle more than enough rope to hang it. Audiences and critics turn to Song of the South looking for evidence of the racism of noted white guy Walt Disney, and the film over delivers. I've even seen multiple online articles indicate that the reason the father leaves suddenly at the start of the film is to fight for the Confederacy!

But if we want to point accusing fingers anywhere for this state of affairs, it isn't at lazy audiences or inattentive critics, it's at Walt Disney himself. Disney hired left wing screenwriter Maurice Rapf to temper the unfortunate inclinations of the screenplay by Dalton Reymond, and Rapf told Walt directly: he would have to be very clear about the situation and social context of the film, or risk appearing to endorse slavery. This, incidentally, is the key event for Jason Sperb, who takes Walt's "refusal" to clarify the situation as evidence that he didn't care if the film offended anyone.

And so, in maybe one of the worst story decisions ever made at Walt Disney Productions, Walt gifted us millions of words of commentary on a film that in some ways seems hardly deserving of it. How simply it all could have been, if not avoided, then greatly reduced. All it would take is uttering the word "sharecroppers" or giving us a date. But the film refuses.


The sad fact is that there were likely other factors playing into all of this. In the 1940s, with home video still a generation away, films were basically temporary things. They were expected to go out, make their money, and then probably vanish forever. The possibility that future generations from a very different culture would be sharpening our rhetorical knives over this film was not even a realistic consideration. Walt had to do what was right for the film in 1946. And, the fact is, in 1946 and even well into the 60s there were many places in the South where films had, historically, been given a hard time at the box office due to their perceived progressiveness.

MGM released Cabin in the Sky in 1943 and 20th Century Fox had Stormy Weather in 1944, two all-black musicals which today look like two of the best Hollywood musicals ever. In the Jim Crow South, there's places where these wonderful films were refused distribution outright, which meant they had no chance of returning a profit to the studio in certain sectors. Disney met with 20th Century Fox producers to discuss Stormy Weather, so right there goes Sperb's fantasy that Disney simply didn't care. In this case, he may have simply chosen the path which guaranteed a financial return for his shaky motion picture studio, which, shamefully, was to choose no path at all.

Is Song of the South racist? By our modern standards, yes it is. It's foolish to ignore this, because it's the whole reason the film isn't available, which by extension is the whole reason to discuss it. It's reductionist, naive, and to most modern eyes, about blissfully servile slaves. To try to pretend that that just isn't there in the film isn't fooling anybody.

And yet! And yet.

And yet it's also just as foolish to insist that that is all that Song of the South is. Because for all of the cultural hand-wringing over Uncle Remus, he is undeniably Walt Disney's surrogate in this film. He's the most compellingly drawn character, and the only character in the film to have an emotional arc.

The film allows us nearly no empathy for the white characters: Bobby Discoll's character is an annoying wimp and spends most of the film wearing a "dramatic" expression that suggests constipation. His mother is a hysteric who consistently makes the wrong decisions, and his grandmother does nothing to prevent a bad situation from getting worse. We don't blame Johnny for wanting to spend all of his time with Remus; we do, too. Baskett's Remus and Glenn Leedy's Toby are the most likable characters in the movie.


Remus is our identification point, and he's Disney's too. He's a wise but humble storyteller whose stories not only teach valuable life lessons, but save the boy's life and even appear to reshape reality. We can also enjoy the way in which Remus is a master manipulator of his white employers, always making careful allowances to maintain the fiction that his suggestions were their ideas, all along. That's not exactly progressive, but it's something.

This does not obliterate everything I've said before, but it does complicate it. I'm in no position to judge if the Walt Disney of 1946 was racist or not, never mind the Walt of 1926 or 1966. You aren't, either. People aren't that simple. All we have is the film, an alarmingly troubled work about a heroic stereotype. It's not simple enough to come off as a total fantasy, but it's not complex enough to allay our modern unease and easily put the film in its place. So now we have to deal with that.

2) Song of the South Into the Present Day

Audiences in 1946 didn't see it the same way we do. Coming out the other side of a world war, the American film  industry was at an all-time productive high. The post-war era in American pop culture is a fascinating one, and tough, serious film making like Rebel Without a Cause sat cheek to jowl with blistering satires and totally absurd escapist fantasies. The all-star movie musical roared back to life with a vitality it hadn't had since the pit of the Great Depression. Song of the South is one of these escapist films.

If we pay close attention to fashion and dress, it's possible to realize that Song of the South is set right about the turn of the 20th century, or in other words the world into which Walt Disney was born. The 1950s saw a revival of interest in "The Good Old Days", visible in such films as The Jolson Story, The Music Man, Night and Day, Man of a Thousand Faces, and reaching its most immortal expression in Disneyland's Main Street, USA.

Song of the South represented to 1946 audiences an escape into a pre-modern fantasy world, of a world before automobiles and airplanes and mechanized warfare, a dimly remembered cultural fantasia. Today's audiences are, depending on one's perspective, either more informed or more cynical, which makes the acceptance of these nostalgic fantasies tougher to take. We're more likely to look for and expect to see the downsides of a reconstruction south presented even in a fantasy film in ways that 1946 audiences likely would not. This would not last long, however.

According to my first edition copy of Leonard Maltin's The Disney Films, Song of the South was reissued without incident in 1956. Throughout the 1960s, Disney kept Song of the South more or less out of view. The Br'er Rabbit animation segments were featured in episodes of Disneyland and Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear could be found in New Orleans Square, but it would not be until 1972 that it was reissued.

Many modern commentators have opined that Song of the South was not reissued during the 1960s due to the turbulent political situation at home, but I think that's stretching the point a bit. If there's any secret reason the film didn't re-appear during the 60s, it may be because Walt Disney remade it - as Mary Poppins, in 1964. Now, Poppins is quite a different film, but the basic situation of a central, mythologized figure who brings animation and magic to a young boy and girl and in doing so mends a broken family strikes a familiar cord.

It's possible that Walt saw a way to recycle a mythology he found special meaning in into a less controversial, more technologically sophisticated film, and he was willing to do it with either Mary Poppins.... or Eglantine Price. Poppins in the finished film is actually extremely remote and mysterious, not at all like the jovial, magnetic presence of Remus. At the suggestion of the Sherman brothers, the emotional core of Mary Poppins is the father, who isn't even present for most of Song of the South.

Given the comparative excellence and sophistication of Mary Poppins, it's possible that this film could have totally eclipsed Song of the South. Today Song of the South could be one of the studio's many obscurities from the 1940s, like So Dear To My Heart or The Reluctant Dragon. But, in 1989, Disney did the one thing that will ensure that demand for Song of the South will never dry up and its legend will loom ever larger - they opened Splash Mountain.

From the perspective of 2015 it seems incomprehensible that Disney would green light an attraction based on a film they had no intention of releasing, but things were different back in 1985.


Back in the 80s, Song of the South had become a perennial money maker for Disney. Reissues in 1972 and 1980 had been wildly successful in a way the film just wasn't in the 1940s, and another was slated for 1986. In other words, audiences in 1989 were expected to recognize the Disney Uncle Remus characters alongside such characters as those from Cinderella and The Jungle Book.

In fact, the entire original version of Splash Mountain at Disneyland is designed based on this assumption. The characters are introduced very casually - the dynamic between Br'er Rabbit, Fox, and Bear isn't even set up, visually or verbally, since we're just supposed to know who is who. Pumpkins, red earth, mint juleps, willows and cattails belong unambiguously to the deep Georgia south of the film.

At Disneyland, the journey through Splash Mountain begins in an old barn, pointedly one of the few structures explicitly built for the interaction of humans and animals. From there, the queue moves past a fireplace with a cast iron pot, and is routed so guests must walk across the hearth. This represents the fireplace where Remus tells Johnny the Br'er Rabbit tales in the film, and to make the connection clear, a direct Remus quote from the film is painted on the wall above the fireplace. Although Remus is never referenced or seen in the attraction, to the familiar observer, the signposts and connections to Song of the South are many.

Daveland at Disneyland

I'd give a lot to know when exactly Eisner instituted his ban on Song of the South. If the stories told about that key visit to Imagineering are correct, then the design for Splash Mountain had been solidified by 1985 in time for it to be seen by Michael Eisner and Breck Eisner and green lit. Song of the South was re-issued both in theaters and internationally on home video in the 1980s, and of course the Disneyland ride is a direct continuation of what riders would be expected to recognize from the film.

But when Splash Mountain appeared at Walt Disney World in late summer 1992, there were changes both obvious and subtle that reflect Song of the South's status as banned goods. Relocated to Frontierland from a dedicated "Critter Country", holes and tunnels became mine shafts and saw mills. A musical score which previously was a fairly conservative recreation of Daniele Amfitheatrof's 1946 orchestral arrangements was re-imagined as homespun, bluegrass ditties. The final version of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah" employs a gospel singer.

More pointedly, the Florida version of Splash Mountain works overtime to introduce riders to the core characters as if they had never existed before. Disneyland's Splash Mountain starts in media res; Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear are out to get Br'er Rabbit because that's what they always do. Comparatively, Magic Kingdom's version uses framed portraits and signs to introduce us to the cast of characters and locations before the ride even begins, then makes all of the characters chatterboxes. We splash down into the cartoon world and see Br'er Fox and Bear spying and plotting about Br'er Rabbit; Br'er Rabbit sings about leaving home and then a porcupine sings about his decision to leave home being a bad one. Two rabbits and a roadrunner six feet later repeatedly remind us of what Br'er Rabbit is up to. Absolutely nothing is left to chance.

Perhaps even more pointedly, the Florida Splash Mountain removes nearly all of the Uncle Remus quotes from Disneyland's queue and jettisons the hearth, making the film's central character seem more like a distant echo. Instead it creates a character who functions as a sort of replacement Remus - Br'er Frog, an incidental character from the film, now sets up the story seen in silhouette in a (brilliantly framed) introductory queue tableau.

In other words, the Magic Kingdom Splash Mountain goes to great lengths to cut its ties with Song of the South, giving us a new world for Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear to exist in, one unique to Frontierland. They even changed the color of Br'er Rabbit's fur from brown to grey, almost as though they were afraid anyone riding would make the connection.


Despite appearing in its own Critter Country separate from Westernland, the Tokyo Disneyland Splash Mountain repeated the "bluegrass" aesthetic of Magic Kingdom's version, thus creating a "Splash Mountain Universe" that the Disneyland version doesn't quite belong to.

Generally, I view creative decisions as just that - decisions, existing in a timeline of the creative process, which must be made because decision must be made, but I can only conclude that the 1992 Splash Mountain seems to be a deliberate attempt to remove the ethnographic origin of the Uncle Remus characters from the "Disney Splash Mountain Universe". Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox, in particular, speak in the 1946 film and 1989 attraction with cadences, phrases, stammering and stuttering very obviously directly descended from African-American comedy conventions of a bygone era. And let's not forget that James Baskett himself appeared on Amos 'n Andy.

Jess Harnell's Br'er Rabbit sounds a great deal like Johnny Lee's Br'er Rabbit, but what he doesn't sound like, is black. Br'er Rabbit's attractive sass and swagger is totally gone, as are his memorable film dialogue lines retained for the 1989 Splash Mountain, like "'I'm gonna bust you wiiiide open!". With his grey fur and stock hijinx, the 1992 Br'er Rabbit could just be a Bugs Bunny clone with all of Bugs' gender queerness removed.

Even with a core cast that's been literally whitewashed, Splash Mountain is the single thing that's probably kept Song of the South alive in the public consciousness. As Bob Iger said in 2009, the film actually is"antiquated" and "fairly offensive", yet literally thousands of people can ride through a major thrill attraction based on it every day of the year. And these same people can now go on the Internet and discover that those clever, well realized characters and world come from a film Disney doesn't want you to see. In any other circumstances Song of the South probably would've ridden off into the sunset reserved for all entertainment whose cultural expiration date is long past, but Splash Mountain is like a billboard off a major highway advertising a place you can't go to.

And yet despite all of that, there's one defiant scrap of Song of the South left in the Magic Kingdom attraction, and everyone who exits the ride walks past it. It's a tiny, framed black and white photo of Br'er Rabbit gesturing to the Briar Patch from the film. More people likely see it in a single day than have seen the film in three decades.

1986 reissue poster

3) Give Us Dirty Laundry

Nothing spreads faster in our Internet culture than bad news.

Now, in my decades of talking about this movie to people, I've come to the conclusion that most Disney fans, and indeed most people born during or slightly before the ban was instituted, have never seen the Song of the South. They haven't sought out the bootleg DVDs or watched it on YouTube. Disney fans are, if nothing else, above all loyal. But everyone, and I mean everyone, knowsabout the movie.

Or at least they know that it's "banned". What I've realized is that fewer seem to know what it's banned for. Unacceptable racial attitudes, yes, but that's where the understanding ends and the hyperbole begins.

Since the early 2000s and the wide spread of Internet culture, one of the default understandings of Walt Disney has become popularized by shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken. Charges of racism, juvenile exploitation, and antisemitism are seemingly bolstered by the fact that there's a "forbidden" Disney film out there - Song of the South - so racist, so I've been told, that the NAACP picketed the film upon its release.

 In other words, there's a popular mythology growing out there which positions Song of the South as Disney's version of Birth of a Nation - an abominable film of undisguised hatred. And that doesn't describe Song of the South at all. For starters, the bulk of the film it isn't even entertaining enough to be offensive.

Part of this comes from the fact that Walt Disney hasn't been a fashionable guy to admire in a long time. Today, admiration for filmmakers behind the scenes like David O. Selznick or Daryl Zanuck is limited to a subset of movie fans, and today we're more likely to speak about directors like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford than the money and organization men who believed in them. A great deal of Disney history today seeks to highlight the geniuses who worked for Walt. This very blog is as guilty of it as anyone - look at the number of posts I've tagged Marc Davis and the number I've tagged Walt Disney.

Since the 1970s, renegade geniuses who did their own thing and beat the odds have replaced the kind of unusual institutional bodies who made films through the end of the 1960s. Walt Disney couldn't even draw Mickey Mouse and is only credited for directing one film - and it's a lousy one. It takes some knowledge of film history to understand him as the creator of so much of the first half of the 20th's century's most potent popular art.

The Walt Disney Company has largely allowed this to happen in the past fifteen years. The Walt Disney Story was closed before Splash Mountain even opened. One Man's Dream, which opened in 2001 and has been updated only once, gives people an overview of Walt's accomplishments but no real personal sense of the man. Neal Gabler's 2005 biography of Walt Disney, positioned by Disney as a definitive Walt book, is a crashing bore, thicker than the complete works of Shakespeare, and seems to be written from an ambivalent perspective about the man's legacy. Saving Mr. Banks, the 2013 film, is widely derided by fans as a fantasy but at least attempts to give some sense of who Walt Disney was.

This means that in popular culture the character of Walt exists in a vacuum, and it's pretty much filled up with the kind of rumor mongering and character assassination that popular culture has been pumping into that vacuum for some time. If you're a Disney fan you've likely been asked point blank if Walt Disney was an anti-Semite (or a Nazi sympathizer) by somebody in the past fifteen years. Walt Disney, noted white guy, has become Walt Disney, likely racist, and Song of the South is his dirty laundry.

This is why I worry that keeping Song of the South out of circulation does as much damage as it does good. By removing consumer's ability to choose for themselves, then the choice to keep it under wraps becomes an eternally self-renewing cycle. It isn't available because it's racist. It's racistand so it isn't available.

This decision to withhold it is really our loss. We're being denied the pleasure of James Baskett and Hattie McDaniels' performances, and the voices of the Hall Johnson Choir. We aren't allowed to see the perfection of Ub Iwerks' special effects, 40 years before Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Song of the South is the first Disney animated film stylized after Mary Blair's artwork, and the character animation is among the best and funniest the studio ever gave us. It's also the only color film and one of the last films shot by Gregg Toland, on the short list of the greatest cinematographers of all time. This last point, in particular, is very painful for cineastes because Toland is famous for his dark chiaroscuro effects in Grapes of Wrath and Citizen Kane, and the dark, fire lit passages of Song of the South turn into a blurry mess in all available copies of the movie.

Surely all of those positives are worth something to history. They can't be worth tossing out entirely. But how do you reconcile a film whose reputation requires handling with kid gloves with the massive, moving target of a modern multinational corporation in the shooting gallery of pubic life?

4) Disarming the Loaded Gun

But to get to the core of the reason why Disney hasn't let Song of the South out yet, we have to compare the problem that Song of the South represents to how they've handled similar problems.

Disney has a spotty record when it comes to self-censorship. Things pop on and off the forbidden list randomly, more or less depending on who's paying attention. In the early 2000s, Roy O. Disney requested that cigarettes be removed from certain cartoons - Saludos Amigos and Melody Time - while permitting the cigar smoking in Three Caballeros and Pinocchio to remain. At the same time, he asked that the opening sequence of Make Mine Music - The Martins and the Coys - be removed due to offending sensibilities, but more likely because of cartoon violence and gun play that no child who's ever seen a Tom & Jerry cartoon would bat an eye at. Melody Time and Make Mine Music are still censored in the United States, while Saludos Amigos was presented without cuts on the "Walt & El Groupo" DVD release a few years later.

On the Walt Disney Treasures DVD releases, much stronger material was presented with little but a comment or two from Leonard Maltin, including a number of suppressed Pluto cartoons where his master is a bossy Aunt Jemima type, and several examples of pretty hardcore wartime propaganda like Education For Death.

In a similar vein, the VHS release (and as far as I can tell,  subsequent home video releases) of The Lion King have zoomed in several shots in the "Be Prepared" sequence to make the goose-stepping hyenas a little less apparent.

Closer to home, at some point Disney did major censorship to Dumbo, removing entirely the jive-talking crows from all but their final appearance in the film to sing "When I See An Elephant Fly". And the famous black centaurettes have been missing permanently from Fantasia since the 1960s. Yet despite this, there's never really been any attempt to remove the humiliating "What Makes The Red Man Red?" sequence in Peter Pan.

The reason Disney can't - and I'm not saying they won't, I'm saying that they cannot - release Song of the South has to do with, surprisingly, the success of their home video department.

If I asked you to, I bet that it'd be easier for you to come up with a list of places where you cannot buy Disney movies and DVDs than places you can. Electronics shops, mega marts, pharmacies, gas stations, automotive repair stores, supermarkets... children's entertainment on home video is a gigantic market segment and, best of all, it's recession proof.

During the DVD boom of the early naughts, films of all stripes were flying out the door, but once the market collapsed, home video has returned to levels of business fairly comparable to what it was like in the 1990s. If you grew up in the VHS era, as I did, think back to what movies your friends and family likely owned on VHS, and you're going to be picturing rows and rows of movies in those distinctive white puffy clam shells - Disney movies. Mixed in there was going to be, say, your friend's dad's copy of Goodfellas, or maybe Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or something. In other words: hit movies, and kid's films. Then as now, that's what moves copies of films on home video.

Why? Because kids are easily bored and any parent knows that a bored kid is a recipe for disaster, so it's good practice to keep a bunch of them on hand. To kids, the word "Disney" means a good way to spend time. For adults, it means nothing more than "probably safe for your kids".

As Disney fans we tend to forget this, but for the vast majority of the consumer population Disney movies are used as electronic babysitters. Disney even has a special feature on their discs to facilitate this, and they market it like it's a huge benefit - Disney's FastPlay, in which an inserted disc will play assorted trailers, ads, the feature film, and even bonus material clear through, exactly like a VHS.

They've been using it for 12 years now, and if you look carefully, most other animation studios have followed suit with their home video releases, so they must be hearing from people that this is what they want.

This is the market that Disney fears. It isn't the people who are going to line up to attack a 70-year old movie, and it isn't pointy headed geeks like we who are worried about the aspect ratio of Melody Time, and it isn't the think piece in Huffington Post they're worried about, it's Joe and Jane Blow.

Disney movies are sold everywhere, which means they've locked their product into a massive distribution network that empties out into places like a Publix in Hollywood, Florida. It just isn't practical for them to do a small release of a film like Song of the South, because for Disney releasing a product - any product - on video is the equivalent of pressing a huge red button that vomits 10 million copies of everything into every store in the United States.

If you were collecting the Walt Disney Treasures DVD releases, you've experienced this. If you wanted one of the discs, you had to get to your retailer of choice money in hand on release day. The Treasures discs came in on the truck with all of the other Disney releases for that day, and when they were gone, they were gone.
 
Given this scenario, it's easy to see Jane Q. Public thoughtlessly throwing a shiny new Blu-Ray copy of Song of the South into her basket at Target because there's a fun looking rabbit on the cover, and turning into a raging consumer volcano upon discovering that the film features less than flattering depicting of - are those slaves? It's not nerds, but Moms, that Disney lives in constant fear of. They have spent generations building up goodwill and brand recognition to potentially degrade it by releasing something that's not really okay to most Americans.

So, if Disney is even going to think about a release of Song of the South, they have to find a way of releasing it in such a way that nerds can find it but casual Disney consumers cannot.

They could, for instance, sell it directly to fans at the D23 Expo, which given the cost to get in is all but guaranteed to screen out anyone who's going to be walking into Song of the South blindfolded. This would certainly bolster D23's tenuous claim to be "by fans, for fans", although it would encourage scalpers and bootleggers - but doesn't the current strategy do that already? If anything, the opportunity to purchase a legitimate copy of Song of the South direct from Disney could be a powerful incentive for some to attend.

Disney could also contemplate a limited distribution strategy through, say, their Disney Movie Club, which they're already using to make available such less-marketable titles as Pollyanna and The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Using this method it's still not impossible that Song of the South could end up in "The Wrong Hands", but the risk is far less than a wide release.

An even safer bet could be a direct digital download with, say, a click-through acknowledgement and an attached video disclaimer with Leonard Maltin.

Or, they could use a DVD boutique label.

Boutique labels are an interesting abnormality in the history of home video. The basic concept dates from the laserdisc era, when laserdiscs were an expensive product with a limited consumer base. The true money was in the inferior VHS format and the video rental business, and so while studios poured money into releasing their movie titles on magnetic tape, they often pawned off the rights to release their cult or classic films of more questionable commercial prospects to companies like Image Entertainment or Voyager on laserdisc. This, in turn, allowed these companies to lavish more time and attention on these cult items, and market them especially to collectors and nerds.

The long term benefits of this splitting of the market segment had undeniable benefits in film culture. Successful laser releases of catalog films meant that more and more older films were going to be restored and preserved. At the same time, the cinephilic bent of the format meant that more and more consumers were demanding not only better, but definitive releases of films.

Laserdiscs introduced the notion of alternate cuts, like the duelling versions of Jacques Tourneur's Curse of the Demon, and the now highly marketable Director's Cuts, like the long version of Lawrence of Arabia. Films which had previously existed in altered and truncated versions began to be put back together. Our modern, improved opinion of directors like Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone stems from reconstruction efforts which began as attempts to sell laserdiscs.


This is the model the industry is returning to, by the way. Video stores no longer exist, but the big multi-million dollar agreements of today are over streaming services, while the shrinking video market is increasingly being split up amongst boutique labels. Three of the best today are Olive Films, Twilight Time and Shout! Factory. And then there's Criterion. If you've come all the way to this blog I likely don't need to tell you what Criterion is, but just in case, here it is.

Criterion was the label for art house movies. Their first release ever was Citizen Kane. They pioneered the concept of added-value content on disc, recording the first ever commentary track - for King Kong. They printed essays about the films on the rear on their laserdisc sleeves. And they cleverly assigned each release a number - subtly encouraging collectors, like Pokemon, to get them all.

The impact of Criterion on our modern cinephile culture cannot be underestimated. For the first time, fans like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson could watch a movie and then listen to its director speak about it on a commentary track. Criterion releases were film school in a box and paved the way for our current home video standards - director involvement, correct aspect ratios, high picture quality, and bonus features. As a result, each Criterion film release has, for some, acquired the character of the canonization of a saint.

The respect and prestige conferred on Criterion means that a Criterion release of a film or director can actually turn the conversation of the film around. In the late 1980s Criterion released a gigantic laserdisc set of Terry Gilliam's costly, controversial Brazil and it's probably on the basis of their release, and then again on DVD and Blu-Ray, that the film has graduated slowly from curious cult item to established classic.

Isn't this what Song of the South needs? A careful release that will turn its image around while keeping it out of the hands of casual consumers? A release will confer instant prestige on a troubled film?

This strategy comes with a certain degree of insurance against wandering hands. To begin with, Criterion goes to great lengths to design unique covers which reflect the films inside, a world away from Disney's standard "a bunch of characters looming" method. The upshot is that the release would look nothing like a normal Disney movie. And, of course, Criterion releases are priced at a premium price point - more than twice the price of other movies. All of these factors tend to keep Criterion discs out of mass market retailers like Target and Wal-Mart, where the majority of Disney product moves.

Well, that's how I'd do it. There is no perfect solution to the problem. As I said at the start, Song of the South is a film which demands an interpretive scheme - it demands that the viewer have a point of view. You cannot watch it passively. Even with a careful release and thoughtful roll out, those who want to view Walt Disney as a racist and The Walt Disney Company as an evil corporation will find plenty of ammunition in it. But what does it matter? They were going to take that position anyway. Meanwhile others who may have judged the film harshly based on reputation will be given a chance to re-evaluate their position and make up their own mind. It won't happen right away, but bit by bit the film can be pulled back into respectable company. Hey - it happened for TRON.

Disney's point of view is that the film doesn't exist. By keeping it out of sight they hope it will eventually just go away. It isn't going to work this way. Escape From Tomorrow was allowed to go out unchallenged because Disney correctly guessed that it wasn't a good enough film to be more than a passing novelty.

But Song of the South is a film they advertise to tens of thousands of people a day inside their parks. And what's more, most people who see it tend to like it. By failing to take a position, Disney is fleeing the problem like Br'er Rabbit hopping away from the briar patch. And, just like Uncle Remus said, any place they go will never be far enough away.

Looking Back at Tomorrow

There's some things, in terms of theme park music, that you can pretty much rely on. The specifics may shift, but they're always gonna be playing Japanese-sounding music at the Japan Pavilion in EPCOT. Main Street USA has always had its gay nineties waltzes. They're always gonna have movie music playing on Hollywood Boulevard. These are easy things to guess.

But wait. What does "the future" sound like?

That's a moving target. If you asked somebody in the late 1950s they may have given you an orchestral score laced with theremin music. In the 70s it may have been experimental Moog synthesizers, and in the 90s it could have been ominous, New Age-inflected atmospheric tones.

When I first began my work gathering up theme park music, the musical history of Tomorrowland was a total blank slate. There's a track that's well known to park goers because it played all through the 1990s during the age of the "New Tomorrowland"; it's well known for including the classic park anthems "Bubble Shuffle" and "Behind the Waterfall". Many a young sci-fi nerd made indelible memories listening to Bubble Shuffle while cruising past the Tomorrowland Speedway in the TTA car, and perhaps also noticed the same tracks playing at Wonders of Life and Fountain View Espresso at Epcot. Behind the Waterfall by David Lantz is one of the few immortal Disney tunes not written expressly for the company, joining Baroque Hoedown in an exclusive club.

The Disney internet was still too small to mourn the passing of the "Bubble Shuffle" New Age loop in fall 2003, when it was replaced with the music which as of this writing currently plays in Tomorrowland. Made up of classic Tomorrowland music cues like "Miracles From Molecules" and arranged in a pleasingly spacey style by composer Dan Foliart, it also currently plays in Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland, and Hong Kong Disneyland. But that was where the knowledge ran out. If you wanted to know what played in Tomorrowland before the "New Age" loop, you were out of luck.

So it's with a measure of pride that I can present this early musical history of the area to you. It's been a long time coming.

In the Beginning: 1972 - 1975

It actually took a good amount of work to confirm that there was any music playing in Tomorrowland to begin with. As I've covered in this blog before, many areas of Disneyland did not (and still don't) have formal area loops. Jack Wagner was hired to provide the park background music in 1970, but the west coast Tomorrowland did not receive a full area loop until 2005 - and it was the Dan Foliart loop. Nobody I talked to could remember far enough back, and good luck finding somebody who thought to bring a tape recorder to Magic Kingdom and do some documentation back in 1973.

Despite this, I was convinced that something had played. Check out this late 1971 photo:


See those tall, brown speakers bolted to the central light columns? Disney wouldn't bother to run audio cable underground and up through a light pole for no reason. Something had to be playing, or at least was supposed to be playing, even if nobody really noticed it.

I heard all of the theories. Some thought the original Tomorrowland loop was music from Kaleidoscopic Vibrations: Electronic Pop Music From Way Out, which was the Perrey and Kingsley record which Baroque Hoedown was originally released on in 1967. This had some appealing logic to it, but then of course nothing much on the album sounds very "spacey", Baroque Hoedown included. Did Disney really have an electronic version of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg playing in Tomorrowland?

One former Cast Member claimed that the early area music was the entirety of Wendy Carlos'Switched-On Bach, which is such a specific memory that I still think this famous and recognizable record could have played in one of the area shops, which had their own music sound systems. But this seemed to get me no closer to the area music.

Thankfully, Mike Cozart had been in touch with Jack Wagner before he died about the early Magic Kingdom area music and had ended up with some materials Jack had compiled for his own records of his work for Disney. As it turned out, Mike not only had Jack's list but had already identified the source music for a few of the tracks!

As it turned out, the tracks that Mike had were from the Capitol Media Music line. Media Music was a line of production music releases produced by Ole Georg and released through Capitol, where Wagner already had contacts. Production music LPs are a fascinating subset of music releases, in that they are intended to be licensed on an individual album or track basis and used for things like television commercials and radio station segments. Many filmmakers who cannot afford to hire composers use production or library cues to fill out their films. This was a frequent practice of George Romero who filled out the entirety of Night of the Living Dead with library cues. Probably the most widely seen film to make heavy use of library music is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the tinned, slightly cliche quality of the library tracks add to the comedy of that film.



The Capitol Media Music releases themselves are still the gold standard for library music, and they're extremely evocative. All of the goofily retro music heard in Ren and Stimpy came from Ole Georg's back catalog, and the tracks are still in use today by any production wanting to evoke a vintage atmosphere. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Jack Wagner used the Media Music releases to create a handful of the most evocative psuedo-futuristic area tracks ever created.

None of this makes it any easier to actually figure out the Capitol Media Music line, however. Each piece of the Media Music library was sorted into "Releases", which were numbered. There could be two or three "Releases" a year - say Release No. 5, Release No. 6, and Release No. 7. Within each "Release" would be twelve to fifteen individual albums, each grouped to a theme. Capitol sold these to production houses as entire "Releases", in which case the purchaser would receive the full raft of fifteen LPs. They also loaned each disc out individually, and would require the discs to be returned upon completion of the order.

In other words, if you're looking for a specific track from the Media Music library, you need to remember a lot of easily confused data: the "Release" set, the individually numbered record from the Release, and the name of the track. This is why, when I finally get to listing the music here, you're going to be seeing things like "Capitol Media Music Release 12 Number 6".

To make things even stickier, these same pieces of music were released at least three times more. Some of them reappeared in the "Hi-Q" 45 RPM series, with new and different releases interspersed. Then, the new Capitol production music line in the 1970s - "The Professional" - included the original Media Music tracks with yet more updated tracks and styles. And Ole Georg himself is now selling rights to some of, but not all of, the tracks through CDs.

Okay, so that's where the music came from. Now the trick was to figure out how to get it.


Thankfully Jack's document included the run times of each track, so matching the track to the release had an additional check on authenticity. Thankfully, I also at the time was living in Los Angeles, which is the best place in the country to find old production library LPs because as the production houses closed or moved to newer sound formats they sold off their old records. So with help from Michael Sweeney, C33, Mike Cozart, and me driving around in my car, I can finally allow you to read, and hear, the earliest Tomorrowland music.

This is dated March 1972, and it's likely that there was simply no music in Tomorrowland for its first few months. Please note that the loop is incomplete; the bottom of the list indicates that it's continued on a second page which is now lost.

Tomorrowland Area Music 1972 - 1983
Running Time Unknown

01) Primary Project (3:29)
   MM R11 06 Tom Eliot

02) Jet Propulsion (1:27)
   MM R4 06 Dan Kirsten

03) Tomorrows Machinery (1:20)
   MM R4 06 Dan Kirsten

04) Cosmic Labs (1:46)
   MM R4 06 Dan Kirsten

05) Valley in Bloom (3:17)
   MM R15 02 Jan Kimberly

06) The Great Epic (2:18)
   MM R15 02 Jan Kimberly

07) Point of Vista (3:16)
   MM R14 04 Jack Mayborn

08) Roots Revisited (3:38)
   MM R14 04 Jack Mayborn

09) Majestic Mountain (3:36)
   MM R15 02 Jan Kimberly

10) Sea Living (2;02)
   MM R5 01 Dan Kirsten

11) The Valley (1:56)
   MM R5 01 Dan Kirsten

12) Majestic Scenery(2:05)
   MM R9 03 Henrik Neilsen

13) A Proud Nation (1:43)
   MM R9 03 Henrik Neilsen

14) National Geography (2:37)
   MM R13 04 Jan Kimberly

15) Fast Western (1;17)
   MM R5 01 Dan Kirsten

16) Dignity of Man (1'12)
   MM R9 03 Henrik Neilsen

17) Clean Environment(:30)
   MM R9 03 Henrik Neilsen

18) Nature in Motion (1:50)
   MM R9 03 Henrik Neilsen

[Continued...?]

Sources:
Capitol Media Music Release 4 Number 6 World of Progress
Capitol Media Music Release 5 Number 1 Scenic
Capitol Media Music Release 9 Number 3 National Parks/Environment
Capitol Media Music Release 11 Number 6 New Industry
Capitol Media Music Release 13 Number 4 Huge Nature
Capitol Media Music Release 14 Number 4 Grand Scenic
Capitol Media Music Release 15 Number 2 Majestic Vistas

I believe that the loop is missing only one track. It comes out to a running time of about 39:30, which is just enough time to include one of the many :30 tracks (intended for commercials) on the Environment/Ecology or National Parks releases. This would bring the run time up to an even 40:00, which is the average length of many of the original Walt Disney World loops (Caribbean Plaza, Frontierland, probably Main Street, etc). Regardless this must be regarded as and will always be a partial playlist - although the tape master still exists, it has decayed beyond the point of usability.

It's a unique loop. Wagner took his cue from the majestic architecture of the area and crafted a loop of grand, sweeping music not too far off from the sort of music which would play ten years later outside EPCOT Center.


The WEDway Peoplemover: 1975 and 1976

Now, in researching this loop I watched home videos, listened to live recordings, and spoke to everybody in a position to possibly remember, and everybody tells me that the main sound heard in Tomorrowland that they can remember is the echoed music coming from the Peoplemover.

My best guess is that the 1972 loop would have been audible through the summer of 1975, when the WEDway came online. It's clear that once those blue cars started rolling, that whatever music was intended to play down on the street level was drowned out totally, and Disney may have turned the 1972 "Concourse" music way down at that time, or even removed it. The WEDway music became the defacto music of Tomorrowland.

There have been two distinct music loops which played along the WEDway track. When the ride opened in Summer 1975, it used the same music that the Disneyland model had used since 1967, which was simply an endless loop of George Bruns'"Monorail Song" and "Nation on Wheels" from episodes of Disneyland.

In 1976, Jack Wagner expanded the Peoplemover loops on both coasts with music from Capitol Media Music. These loops were not identical. Magic Kingdom's loop was expanded out from the original WED track, while Disneyland's much longer Peoplemover got an entirely new loop. Many of the California Peoplemover tracks still play in the waiting area of Disneyland's Autopia.

Finding the correct tracks and moreover track names for the east coast park was trickier, and Michael Sweeney and I pretty much ended up buying every Media Music LP we suspected could have a match. As it turns out, a track which had previously been identified as "Outdoor Life #1" is actually "Outdoor Life #2" and was re-named when Ole Georg released the tracks to CD in the late 1980s. Our list uses the track names for the original LP releases.

The WEDway continued to use this loop until it closed in 1993 to make way for the "New Tomorrowland". As part of the conversion to New Tomorrowland, the WEDway speakers were taken off their unique loop and changed so that they played the same music heard in the rest of Tomorrowland, and it has remained that way ever since.

WEDway Peoplemover BGM 1976-1993
Running time Approx. 13:30

01 Neutral Strings #2 [3]
   Comp. Neil Amsterdam

02 Neutral Strings #3 [3]
   Comp. Neil Amsterdam

03 Outdoor Life #1 [1]
   Comp. Henrik Neilsen

04 Outdoor Life #2 [1]
   Comp. Henrik Neilsen

05 Monorail Song [4]
   Comp. George Bruns / Walt Disney Productions

06 Nation on Wheels [4]
   Comp. George Bruns / Walt Disney Productions

07 Industry in Motion #1 [2]
   Comp. Neil Amsterdam

[1]Capitol Media Music Release 7 Number 8 "Outdoor Life / Supersoundic Strings"
[2]Capitol Media Music Release 8 Number 5 "Industry in Motion" 
[3]Capitol Media Music Release 8 Number 7 "Neutral Strings in Motion"
[4]Walt Disney Productions / Disneyland Forever

 1983 saw Tomorrowland's first big image make-over, and with it came a new loop and the era of "New Age" Tomorrowland began, but that's a story for another time. Perhaps our next post?

The New Age Era, 1983 - 1993

The year was 1983, and Tomorrowland was looking a little bad.

EPCOT Center had just opened the year before, and compared to the friendly new face on tomorrow WED had achieved just south of Magic Kingdom, the fact that Tomorrowland was still selling a 60s version of the future was ever more apparent.

In truth the project hadn't really ever ended. For the opening of Space Mountain in 1975 Flight to the Moon had been reworked into Mission to Mars and America the Beautiful had been updated for the Bicentennial. New Circlevision films had popped up pretty regularly, and the Canada Circlevision film from the 1967 Montreal Expo had even been shown occasionally during "Canada Weeks". This was before it was reworked yet again and installed permanently at EPCOT.

1983 saw the first true "New" Tomorrowland. Space Mountain was given a new post show and EPCOT-style musical soundtrack. ORAC-1 took over for Jack Wagner on the WEDWAY Peoplemover. American Journeys, another reworking of America the Beautiful, moved into the Circlevision theater. The whole area was given a new color scheme, and the problematic entryway fountains were turned off. And, Jack Wagner created a new piece of music for the area.

The music sound system of Magic Kingdom had seen its first efforts to standardize and improve in the early 80s. EPCOT Center had been by far the most musically complex theme park ever created, and for the first time WED had managed to create a theme park with wall to wall music that was evenly audible through the entire area. What they had learned was headed back to Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland.

New speakers had appeared all through Tomorrowland during the re-painting process, and soon debuted a new kind of Tomorrowland music. Jack Wagner had experimented with "New Age" synth music in the 1983 Tokyo Disneyland Tomorrowland, and created an entirely new one for Magic Kingdom, this time using music entirely from one artist.... surprise! It was Mannheim Steamroller.



Tomorrowland Area Music [ca. 1983 – 1990] 

01.  Chocolate Fudge [1] 
02.  Pass the Keg (Lia) [1] 
03.  The First Door [2]
04.  The Fourth Door [2]*
05.  Going to Another Place [2]**
06.  Toccata [3]* 
07.  Mere Image [3]* 
08.  Four Rows of Jacks [4] 
09.  The Third Door [2] 
10.  The Fifth Door [2] 
11.  Morning [3] 
12.  Midnight on a Full Moon [3]* 
13.  Dancing Flames [4] 
14.  The Cricket [3]* 
15.  The Sixth Door [2] 
16.  Door Seven [2]***

[1] Fresh Aire by Mannheim Steamroller (American Gramaphone, AG-355-S, 1975)
[2] Fresh Aire II by Mannheim Steamroller (American Gramaphone, AG-359-S, 1977) 

* Denotes a track which fades into the next track
** Track 5 is followed by five seconds of wind sound effects from the end of the record fading into the next track
*** Followed by approx. 15 seconds of silence
Based on a reference recording by Mike Lee made in 1990. Identified and compiled by Nomeus and Foxx.


Most people who went to Disney in the 90s remember this as the New Tomorrowland music, and in fact it hung on all the way up to 2003, when the current Foliart loop began playing. To help fill in the record a bit, I'm going to wander out of the usual time period of this blog and provide a brief overview of how we ended up listening to Behind the Waterfall until 2003...

The New Tomorrowland Loops, 1994

When Tomorrowland went down to be rebuilt in 1993, the sound scape was simplified. The 1976 WEDway "Lounge" track, which had survived all through the "New Age" era, was removed and the Peoplemover track speakers were wired to play the same music as the rest of Tomorrowland, which is why an entire generation remembers Behind the Waterfall from the TTA.

When New Tomorrowland debuted in late 1994, it did not do so to the relaxing sounds of Peter Arkenstone and Vangelis. A short, 15 minute suite of music by Raymond Scott played, appropriate to the machine age look of the refurbished area. You know Raymond Scott from dozens of Looney Tunes shorts and Ren and Stimpy. It's the music which usually plays when a factory is shown.

According to MagicMusic forum user sds910, all of the tracks came from a 1989 CD called "The Raymond Scott Project, Vol. 1", which most reviews online seem to indicate is of extremely unsatisfactory quality. The tracks used were, in order: 01, 03, 21, 20, 13, and 12. This played for a few months.

Soon that 15 minute loop was replaced by a 30 minute loop especially recorded for Tomorrowland by George Wilkins, in a clever pseudo-imitation of Scott's style. This still floats around online, usually identified as "Old Tomorrowland Music", in a group of ten tracks. Here's a sample:



The Wilkins track did not last long either, apparently not even making it through 1995 before the music reverted to the good old Bubble Shuffle tracks. Why?

If we use the Internet Archive and access the official Raymond Scott website at RaymondScott.Com, if we go back far enough we eventually find listed under live performances:

Tomorrowland - DisneyWorld: (Orlando, FL) six Scott Quintette compositions and recordings blatantly used as musical template for constantly-running soundtrack loop at renovated theme park attraction; infringement settled out of court (1995-96)

Busted! It looks like the Scott estate had been after Disney for a while,  for if we backtrack to the F.A.Q. section of the website we find this pointed remark:

Was Raymond Scott's music used in the Disney film HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS? 

The film score was written by noted klepto-composer* James Horner, who cleverly appropriated Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" in approx. 17 scenes, without crediting Scott. Disney was threatened with a lawsuit by Scott's publishers, and after a year of negotiation, the matter was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Although the film's screen credits were not revised, the film's cue sheets (music logs) were revised to reflect a dozen or so uses of "Powerhouse." This means Scott's heirs and publishers earn performance revenue through ASCAP when the film airs on TV and elsewhere. (* see New Yorker Magazine, March 9, 1998)

This is presumably why Esquivel music continued to play in the exit area of Space Mountain up to 2005, and possibly rights-free for Disney!

In some ways this is one of those cases where you don't realize that a piece of music is inappropriate until you hear what was intended. And while the Raymond Scott and Wilkins tracks are undoubtedly more in the style of New Tomorrowland, I don't regret having lost them. I don't know anybody who loved the 90s version of Tomorrowland who didn't feel that the New Age loop worked for it. I think the secret is that it softened an area which otherwise could feel frenetic and impersonal. The 1994 Tomorrowland sometimes seemed more sarcastic than genuinely optimistic, but the soothing, upbeat New Age music gave it back a beating heart which perhaps it would have otherwise lacked.

 

Let's get detailed.

I think that until the opening of Disneyland Paris in 1992, Magic Kingdom was the theme park with the most interesting, unique collection of...... signs.


Signs are interesting things in theme parks. They don't often get a lot of attention and coverage, but they really belong to that category of theme park grace notes which visitors would miss if they weren't so nicely done. Magic Kingdom's original crop of signs were, in many ways, dead simple. Many of them were simply flat, painted surfaces in a variety of evocative shapes. Especially since the 1990s, theme park signs have become increasingly dimensional and elaborate, sometimes turning into light shows or kinetic sculptures.

Yet its the dead simplicity of those early Magic Kingdom signs which appeals to me. They often had nothing more to work with than typefaces, shape, and color. But sometimes, that's all you need. Indeed, some modern theme park signs are better than the attractions they lead to or the architecture they adorn. The earliest Magic Kingdom signs worked with the architecture like a hand inside a glove.

Consider Adventureland, the Magic Kingdom area with probably the nicest collection of signs and typefaces. Fantasyland went all-in on Gothic letters and Tomorrowland was a sea of handsome, sans-serif fonts. But in Adventureland, the rules could be loosened or broken.

Let's take a moment to consider why this is. At Disneyland, Adventureland goes heavy on the "Tiki" styling: carved masks, skulls on poles, and a rugged outpost feeling. At Disneyland Paris, it's adventure literature of a long ago childhood brought to life. Tokyo Disneyland has a bustling tropical plaza.

Magic Kingdom's Adventureland is the only Adventureland which is feminine, which may partly explain why I favor it. It's all flowing lines, layered details, and complex carvings. It has architecture which manages to evoke the Caribbean, Asia, India and the South Seas without specifically replicating any single element of these cultures.

In other words, in the place of the elephant gun and dive bar ethos best reflected at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom's Adventureland evokes lazy evenings on tropical verandas being fanned with banana leaves, and lazily turning fans. It's a Henry Mancini exotica record frozen in architectural form.


A diverse range of fonts were selected to convey this impression, and largely the main rule seemed to be that anything that went heavy on serifs and looked "fancy" would do nicely. It's a broad range of styles which reflect the notion of a romantic (if unspecific) tropical fantasy.


Let's take a close look now at one specific example, how its signage changed over the years, and how this subtly affects the meaning and presentation of the attraction: The Jungle Cruise.

1962 / Daveland.Com

 By the time the Magic Kingdom was being built in 1971, Disneyland had years before pulled down their original Jungle Cruise boathouse (above) and replaced it with a series of huts and thatched roofs to allowed greater queueing space. So it's perhaps interesting that when WED built a new boathouse in 1971 that was more or less an architectural copy of the original one.

Here's a photo from Jerry Klatt showing the original Magic Kingdom boathouse, pre-expansion. We get a very good view of the original sign, picturesquely suspended on the side of the second floor:


The sign can be read, but not in any real clarity. Thankfully the same font that's used here was used for years afterwards for the ride's advertisement on the side of the Main Street omnibus, tasteful placards which were reproduced in The Poster Art of the Disney Parks.


That's Windsor EF Elongated, a font which saw active duty until fairly recently on the directional signs around the entrance of Magic Kingdom. It's an old font - over one hundred years old now - while still looking restrained and modern. Based on Jerry's photograph, the modern digital version of the font and the spacing and kerning of the omnibus poster example, we end up with this for the Jungle Cruise's original "logo":


It's perhaps a little too easy to fault this one for being too plain. Jerry's photograph does demonstrate how in this original 1971 arrangement, it was possible to enjoy the simple, rather spare Victorian design of the boathouse, which was fancy in a rather simple way. It was old fashioned in an unspectacular way, and the Boathouse still is amazingly effective at conveying the idea that it's been there in the middle of nowhere for a long time without finger pointing. Windsor as a typeface choice is similarly classical yet restrained, echoing the original concept for a simple building which is the embarkation point for a huge adventure.

The first changes came in 1973, shortly ahead of the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean. The entire queue was reworked, expanded out towards the new ride, and the entire area where you see those rope switchbacks in Jerry's photo was covered with a roof. Because the 1971 sign would now be located so far away from the pedestrian space that it would not be seen, a new one was created, and it's a doozy.


For years I thought this had to be a hand-lettered logo, simply for being so weird. I was somewhat right, in the sense that any sign produced in 1973 was going to be painted and cut by hand, producing eccentricities. But it actually was a real font, and a contemporary one in 1973: Barker Flare, which has been digitized by Canada Type as Plywood. I produced mine by tracing from a photo.


This is one of my favorite attraction signs ever.

Barker Flare is idiosyncratic - it's completely modern in design, with those upward thrusting serifs on the R, L and E. It wouldn't be out of place alongside a hippie poster's bubble text.

Yet it's also undoubtedly old fashioned, placing it in the era's love for Victorian and Victorian-style fonts, such as the elongated version of Rubens used for the Haunted Mansion's marquee. There's something to it which suggest the organic, flowing curves of art nouveau.

And it's that art nouveau connection which so easily suggests, especially in the context of the ride it was affixed to, the reaching vines of the jungle without being too overt about it. In other words it was a precise middle ground between being modern looking while still looking a little old fashioned while also looking vaugely, indefinably exotic - perfect for a modern, but wholly old-fashioned excursion into the unknown.

That's right, don't forget that in 1973 there was no hint that the Jungle Cruise was taking place at any time other than right now. Yes, it was a Hollywood-style escapism as well, but with details like red-striped candy colored boat canopies and a bright orange camping tent for the gorillas to cavort in, we clearly weren't back in the Great Depression, either.

So it's interesting to note that not only was the Magic Kingdom Jungle the first to get "sent back" to the 1930s, but that this was accomplished in 1991 with relatively few changes. By far the bulk of them came to the queue, which besides gaining vintage music, got an entirely reworked entrance area. If you never saw this in person you may be shocked at how elaborate this was, because it's all gone now.

Al Huffman

A giant mass of pilings anchored a huge mast which on one side supported a gigantic sign. Spears were stuck in the sign as though they had been thrown out of the jungle and become lodged there.

Al Huffman

A vintage delivery vehicle welcomed visitors, along with boxes for delivery and an engine being worked on. At this time the familiar "boat rudder" marquee also appeared at the top of the hill, beckoning visitors to come check out the Jungle Cruise, just as it does to this day.

With the new theme and new time period, a new logo also appeared.


Given the fact that I've heaped praise on the weirdo 1973 sign you may be forgiven for thinking that I wouldn't like this one, but I do. The hand-lettered look and complex capitals conveys a vintage atmosphere which sets the stage for what's to come. The wave that the words inscribe suggest a relaxing experience while the informal quality of the letters suggests that it won't be entirely serious. And, best of all, it's never been used by a Jungle Cruise in any other park, so it belongs wholly to the Magic Kingdom ride.

Certainly given the tone of the ride and the two terrific logos it's had since, one could be forgiven for thinking that the short lived, handsome 1971 logo is just too darn serious.

Amazingly enough, the huge sign and theming outside the Jungle Cruise lasted eight short years. By 1999 the area was being reworked for the introduction of Fastpass. The vintage car was re-painted and moved to the Africa area at World Showcase, where it sits today, doing nothing. It did nothing outside the Jungle Cruise too, but at least there it was lending atmosphere to one of the park's best rides instead of sitting in the corner of the worst "pavilion" in World Showcase. A new sign appeared, smaller than any of the ones which preceded it but making good use of natural wood grain:


There was no logo change this time. After twenty years, the Jungle Cruise finally had a graphic identity she could live with. In some ways, the Jungle Cruise is an abnormality. Most rides don't change their signs, ever. Here's a ride that's had three good ones and not one of them is at all similar to any of the others.

In our day to day world, signs are functional and not much else - does anybody seriously frequent, say, a Chinese takeout place with a sign you'd be willing to hang in your house? In theme parks the attentively designed, carefully crafted signs are part of the thoroughly manicured impression the parks exude. They help create the "play space" where everything is beautiful and everything, even the smallest detail, has been put in place entirely for the pleasure of the viewer.

"The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

Thought for the week:

"Movies are terribly easy to make. It's much harder to put on a play. Oh yes.

What's hard to do is to make a very good movie. Even a good movie is easier to make, because if you have a good camera man, if you have the cast that happens to be right, if you have a story that happens to be vaguely interesting - that is the art form that works in our day and age.

It would be very hard to write a great play in blank verse today, but I think it was pretty easy in Elizabethian days to write a good verse play. Not a great one, but a good one. It's damn near impossible now because it has nothing to do with our culture. But somehow, a good movie gets itself made even by a lot of second rate people."

December 20, 1968 - The Horse In The Gray Flannel Suit

As America exited the war years of the 1940s and began to navigate the rocky terrain of the 1950s, a new and creeping social unease began to spread. Many men returning from combat found it difficult or impossible to re-acclimate to civilian life, and even worse: while they were gone, everything changed. Women had entered the workforce and were hesitant to return to submissive roles as housekeepers. Russia's threat began to loom large, and the massive strides in mechanization and industrialization which had made the manufacture of war machines possible had created a new kind of job where conformity was key: the corporate office.

While we look back at the 1950s as a romantic era of rock n' roll, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, on the ground it was not so pretty. Part of the price of waging war and then simply being able to carry on was conformity: everyone was expected to put on a happy face. In this environment, stories of the day to day struggles of small men in big companies became new myths. The most important of these was The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit, released in 1955.

Gray Flannel Suit was such a big success that it sparked a cycle of "Flannel Suit" movies: Executive Suite, Desk Set, and The Power and the Prize followed suit. By the end of the decade the genre was well enough established to inspire outright parodies (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) and cynical deconstructions (The Apartment). Madison Avenue and advertising agencies were a popular setting in the post-war corporate boom culture, a setting lately re-invigorated by Mad Men. The trope even crops up in North by Northwest.

What does this have to do with Disney's The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit? Well... nothing. It's about an advertising man who buys a horse to get a promotion. At no point does the ad man (Dean Jones....... again) become a horse to be a horse in a gray flannel suit, nor does the horse itself ever get near a grey flannel suit except the ones Dean Jones wears. Heck, the advertising angle practically vanishes from the movie after a certain point. The horse is gray, however.

About ten minutes into this movie I paused it and jotted down some guesses about where it would be going. Dean Jones is a single dad to an under confident young girl who, it is dramatically revealed, perceives herself to be...

homely...!

....and so Dean has to find some way to get her a riding horse and save his advertising career at the same time. In my estimate, I guessed that Dean Jones would come across an enchanted artifact that would turn him into the Horse In The Gray Flannel Suit, allowing his daughter to go on to fame and fortune while resulting in high-larious office hijinx. In the end, the curse is lifted and everyone learns the true meaning of family.


Instead I got a rather straightforward, if pleasantly shot, equestrian show drama. Geared at young girls, the film spends long stretches focusing on the riding and training, care, and feeding of horses, courtesy of riding pro "S. J." Clemens, played by Diane Baker. S. J. becomes a surrogate Mom to young Helen Bolton and beau to her father Fred (Jones), all while the three steadily rise up the ranks of the horse shows. Young Kurt Russell is in sight as a hunky but wholesome prospective boyfriend (with a sports car!), and just about the most exciting thing that happens is that Helen's horse Aspercel (named for a stomach acid reducer) gets loose and Dean Jones ends up in jail for riding him back home in his underwear.

Pleasingly full of autumnal tones in a convincingly rendered New England setting, Horse has an abundant case of the cutes. There isn't even anything unintentionally awful - in the last third a Chinese Gardener materializes out of nowhere to provide "comedy" for about a minute. Probably the most unfortunate thing in the whole show is the Boltons' nickname for their horse Aspercel: Aspie! As you probably know, Aspie is a term used inside the community for those with Asperger syndrome. Even the entertainment value of seeing Dean Jones repeatedly shout "Aspie!" at a horse, regrettably, soon wears off.

This movie isn't half bad but I can't see too many people remembering it fondly. It goes down easy and smooth and ends before you know it. Two hours after watching it, I had to think carefully about whether or not I had seen it yet. Aspercel may as well be a sedative.

December 24, 1968 - The Love Bug

You've probably heard this one before, via Snopes.com:

"Two of those big huge 18-wheelers were involved in a collision at very high speeds; one tail-ended the other one really really hard, so hard that the two trucks were basically fused together. The proper authorities dragged the trucks (still connected) to wherever it is they take them, I guess a junkyard, and then just left them there until someone could figure out what to do with them. After a few days, a stench started to emanate from the wreckage, and no one knew what it was. It got worse each day. When they finally pulled the two trucks apart, they found that a VW Bug, its passengers still inside, had gotten smashed between the trucks during the accident."

March 21, 1969 - Smith! [Unavailable]

"Smith!""Johnnyboy!""Brewster?""Chief?!""McCloud!?"

Okay, here it is, the first film we're going to skip.

I vacillated on this one for a while: Smith! can be purchased through the Disney Movie Club and/or Disney Store, but it's not yet available for rental in any form and I'll be darned if I'm going to make anyone buy a 1969 Disney Western just to keep up with a blog series.

Smith!, which I've never seen, stars Glenn Ford as a rancher who defends a Native American named "Johnnyboy". And yes, while Smith! remains unseen, celebrating it briefly here is an adequate excuse to walk around your house and bellow "Smith!" at the slightest provocation.

A side note: up until 1969, Walt Disney Productions had been managing a steady release of around six pictures a year, with one film each year slated as a "tentpole" and released around Christmas. That's not bad for a small studio. In 1969, they only managed three pictures, and none of them featured Dean Jones. Of course 1969 also saw the Haunted Mansion finally open at Disneyland plus the start of real steady construction in Florida so it's not like this is Disney resting on their laurels - an obscure Western, a raccoon movie, a classic attraction and Kurt Russell in one year is the sort of year I wish I'd see Disney pull off in 2014. Still, one wonders if the slackened pace indicates that the Studio was finally using up the last little bit of left over Walt Disney concepts.

June 11, 1969 - Rascal

"I've got to de-raccoonify him!"

This one really took me by surprise.

All I really knew about Rascal is that it featured a raccoon - I thought it would be another Winston Hibler Special, a weird little comedy/documentary along the lines of Charlie or Perri. What I was not expecting was a rather sweet little period piece, but that's what I got. And maybe that surprise completely disarmed me but I was entirely captivated and charmed by Rascal from beginning to end.

I admit, I'm a nostalgic at heart so this sort of thing hits home easily for me. Set in the Midwest in 1919, Rascal is the cliche "last summer of innocence" story. This time director Norman Tokar is given a new producer - True Life Adventures producer James Algar - and his output is significantly better here than in Grey Flannel Suit. Tokar seems to have really come to life when allowed to go outdoors in his movies - the only moments where Millionaire seems to have any life is daylight exteriors. In Rascal, out of nowhere pops great period atmosphere and really effective natural light photography. As awkward teenager Bill Mumy rides his bicycle with Rascal on the front the shots are both beautiful and appealingly casual, unfussy. It's a reminder that sometimes getting great photography amounts to nothing more than showing up at the right place.


Algar seems to have contributed a healthy love of period detail. Rascal is overstuffed with design detail that wouldn't be out of place on Main Street USA. Gaslights still flicker and a major plot point is an obnoxious local automobile enthusiast. A sequence in a small town market house is on board seemingly only to include yet more period detail. Rascal rides in a little basket that brings money up to a cashier located in an isolated loft, exactly like those inside the Disneyland Emporium. If the mechanics aren't vintage, they're darn close replicas.

Rascal may be the title character and is treated to extended scenery-chewing cute animal sequences, but the story here remains tightly focused on the core characters of the film: Bill Mumby's awkward teenager Sterling and his flaky absentee father, traveling salesman Williard, played by Steve Forrest. Sterling's mother has recently died, and Dad's devil-may-care attitude towards life leaves Sterling home alone for the summer with only Rascal and his dog to keep him company. Sterling slowly builds a canoe in the living room, and when Dad returns from his periodic and long term trips the two boys totally trash the house over the course of the summer. As Rascal grows from a raccoon kit to a yearling over the course of the summer, he becomes increasingly uncontrollable.

One thing I love about this film is that all of the drama has a completely understated edge. The neighbors squawk about the unconventional nature of life in the North household and we keep expecting one or another of the local villains to show up and snatch Rascal like Toto in The Wizard of Oz; this never happens. A schoolteacher and a local priest show up to intervene; Father arrives with a new jug of top-quality cider and the adults instead spend the night getting thoroughly drunk. Even the final dramatic sequence where sister Theo convinces Father of his need to settle down and raise his son we expect shouting but get instead a quietly dignified scene. This is a very well played movie and by Disney standards this alone is a marvel.


Typical of Rascal's easygoing grace is a scene where Steve Forrest must decide on a housekeeper. He sits at an upright piano, talking over the prospects to his dead wife's photograph. As each prospective housekeeper is mentioned, Father plays a few characterizing notes on the upright: crashing chords, a hymnal, an Irish jig. It's the sort of casual integration of character and content you'd expect to find in a John Ford film; the tunes tell us more about Father than they do about the housekeepers. The most gently moving moment in the film comes when Father rejects the authoritarian Mrs. Satterfield: "She'll break your son's heart."

Moved along by a gorgeous Buddy Baker score, Rascal delivers gentle lessons and emotional understatement where we have reason to expect ponderous sentiment, and it's not a minute too long either: there's no padding in its 85 minutes. As far as accomplishments go it may be a slight one, but Rascal turned out better than anyone had any reason to expect. It's the nearest the Disney studio got to another Summer Magic.



Rascal, by the way, is based on Sterling North's Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era, a Newbery Honor-winning book. The real-life house the events took place in is preserved as the Sterling North Museum, and the various fences and guards Sterling put up to keep Rascal inside the house may still be seen. In a bizarre twist of fate, the same book was adapted into a 52-episode anime by Nippon Animation as part of their "World Masterpiece Theater" ongoing television show. "Rascal the Raccoon"'s wild popularity created demand for imported raccoon pets, and is thus credited with accidentally introducing the North American raccoon into Japan.



Not a bad peripheral legacy for a Disney obscurity.

For next week: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, King of the Grizzlies, and The Boatniks.

"The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

Week Five of the "Age of Not Believing" is now upon us, so it's time to collect some thoughts before the midterm break.

I began thinking about the idea for this series after seeing The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band for the first time. It was included in a set of 4 DVDs with two Disney movies I genuinely wanted - Darby O'Gill and Happiest Millionaire - and if readers thought I was rough on that film in my review here they should've been there upon my first screening. But something happened in those two hours that had never before happened to me in a Disney film: I was mad.

I had been bored before, I had been disappointed before, but I'd never seen a Disney film that made me actually mad. Mad enough to write.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that there was a whole swath of Disney that I had next to no contact with. My childhood had a Disney bias - I caught a lot of vintage material on the Disney Channel in the 1990s, back when they actually showed the back cataloge, and I was especially impressed with Darby O'Gill and Blackbeard's Ghost, but unlike the many Disney 50s live action comedies I rented or watched I realized that I had no experience with the 60s material and, as such, no nostalgia. I was coming to the bulk of these films totally fresh and, realizing this, I also realized I could leverage this fact against my otherwise fairly decently developed film knowledge to maybe create some interesting writing.


What I mean to say about all this is that I don't come to these films necessarily to praise them. There's a lot of writing about, say, Charlie the Lonesome Cougar online that's more about the age the author was when she or he first saw it and very little about what's on screen. Nor am I out to grind an axe or prove some larger cultural thesis, which is the other dominant mode of a lot of serious Disney writing, and a critique is not always an attack.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. Disney films are built on nostalgia, and once we see them, then they become nostalgic memories of our own. This is why Main Street, USA still works - there's nobody left to actually be first-hand nostalgic for what it depicts, but it is designed to evoke nostalgia and then becomes nostalgic, so the emotional affect works in two directions simultaneously. We respond to an idea then the idea becomes an ideal, a self-actualization. Everyone who enters Disneyland is doomed to be nostalgic for Main Street.

This is why Disney markets the diverse material we're covering here under banners like "Movies We Remember" or "Relive the Magic". It's not so much about the film as it is about the viewer. Are the Disney films of the era we're looking at in this series, except for maybe a few exceptions, museum pieces or heirlooms? Would a ten year old of today respond to The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes? Would they even recognize the titular computer?

December 24 1969 - The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

If there's such a thing as a unified Disney Theory, than Medfield College is the nexus of everything. Yes, it is also the setting for The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber, but then don't forget that The Shaggy D.A. is set in the town of Medfield, and thereby probably The Shaggy Dog is too. Then there's the Merlin Jones series, set in the possible alternate-universe Medfield of Midvale College. And then there's the Merrivale College of The World's Greatest Athlete. Then don't forget the Medfield College of the 1997 remake Flubber, which itself also draws in the Imagination Institute chronology at Epcot, by which time the town of Medfield has effectively annexed the entire Honey, I Shrunk the Audience franchise as well as Dreamfinder, Figment, and a former Python.

There's a lot of stuff in there, and my my mind the original Walt Disney "Professor Brainnerd" films are nothing to sneeze at, but the Dexter Riley trilogy - The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Now You See Him Now You Don't, and The Strongest Man in the World are most fondly remembered. For better or worse, they truly capture an era.

By 1969, the times they weren't changing, they had changed - and left Disney in the dust. The top three grossing movies of 1969 were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, and Midnight Cowboy, and Disney wasn't even in the top 25 box office draws anymore. American Film was in the midst of what some call the "second golden age", an era when intellectual and artistic potboilers like The Godfather and Chinatown were becoming the big hits. Disney couldn't do anything remotely approaching that - they made movies about talking mice. Still, some tentative efforts were being made to meet their audience halfway, as seen in The Love Bug. Despite its ga-roovy title and hippie extras, there isn't too much about Love Bug that screams "late 60s" - this despite being set in San Fransisco, whose Haight-Ashbury district was then sitting under a permanent cloud of pot smoke. At least, I don't think that's a pot cloud Dean Jones runs into after Herbie.

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes does that one better by bringing a pack of likable kids into the center of the film. Introduced eavesdropping on the absurd contingent of old fuddies who run their constantly broke private college, instead of the fatherly Fred MacMurray of the Walt-era Medfield films having all the fun, Tennis Shoes is powered by this group of teens.

Okay, so they're not exactly 60s-style rebels. About the only political persuasion these kids seem to express is that Dean Higgins is a rube and they make some mildly topical jokes. A telephone is answered as if a boarding house is a pizza service - that joke was cutting edge in 1935. Still, to Disney's credit, the kids drive the whole narrative and even once mention Playboy.

When it comes to plot contrivances, Tennis Shoes exists firmly in the "lightning can do anything" genre, although the nearest cousin to its basic plot as far as I can tell from Disney is the Baby Weems segment of The Reluctant Dragon: average schlub gets an amazing ability, turns the world upside down, then loses it at an inopportune moment. In this case Dexter Riley gets electrocuted by a giant 60's mainframe computer after being out in the rain and somehow transfers the computer into his brain.

As visually creative as Disney is, the way they show the school's realization of this is weird and lazy. Doctors examine his eye as see a montage of the computer's blinking lights; when they look into his ear they see, well:


I'm pretty sure young boys in 1969 or now don't have fantasies about women riding around in bathtubs on wheels but who am I to judge.

Once he becomes The Computer, Kurt Russell packs Dexter Riley with lots of interesting performance touches, from eerily precise head movements to the strangely credible way Riley is shown memorizing entire encyclopedia. In the third act after getting dropped on his head, the computer part of his brain starts malfunctioning, and Russell here delivers an extended, scenery chewing performance modeled on HAL-9000's death rattle in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He's convincing enough that we wonder how the computer's memory death doesn't adversely affect Riley physically.

Cesar Romero's villain A.J. Arno isn't given much to do. If the Dexter Riley subplot is recycled from Baby Weems then A.J. is nothing but Silky from Blackbeard's Ghost given yet another spin around the block. Just about the most menacing activity Disney can come up with for a small town empire of crime is running illegal back-room gambling dens; were these super common in the late 1960s or something? Arno is nearly undone when The Computer starts listing the earnings of his gambling dens on television after being prompted by the password...


...APPLEJACK! Sorry, I had to. Arno and his cheap thugs get their comeuppance in a bale of hay and then later by driving onto a poorly disguised Disney Studio lot from Buena Vista Drive and being stopped in front of the sound stages. This is mostly interesting for providing views of the vacant lot of land which would one day house the Burbank St. Joseph Medical Center.

In my notes I wrote down that Tennis Shoes"feels like a TV episode", and that's because that was the medium of director Robert Butler. He keeps Tennis Shoes humming along at a good pace - nearly every scene has a "flip" optical transition familiar from 60s television comedies and they keep the film feeling lively, similar to George Lucas' use of the wipe to keep Star Wars moving at a quick pace. The film begins in media res and ends there, too.

Personally I'm relieved that these Disney movies are starting to move faster. There's really no justification of something like Monkeys, Go Home! to fill up more than 90 minutes of your life. Actually, there was, and it was that all of these movies were destined to be recycled on The Wonderful World of Disney in a year or two, and the longer they were, the more they could be broken up into chunks for television airings. I wonder if the gradual increase in the length of televised commercial breaks accounts for the overall shortening of the Disney movies.

And with that, folks, Disney exited the tumultuous sixties and went blazing into the 1970s with that renowned classic leading the pack...

February 11, 1970 - King of the Grizzlies

"It was time for an introduction to the wonderful world of solid food."

What was the deal with Winston Hibler?

Here's a guy who came up in the story department at Disney and is credited with work on some genuine classics but is mostly remembered for those nature movies where a genial narrator blathers over footage of romping animals. He made a seemingly bottomless well of these for Disney, most of which sound like the sort of thing that you'd honestly think I made up if they weren't corroborated by online documentation. A quick search on IMDB brings up such titles as:



Little Dog Lost
Chico, the Misunderstood Coyote
Lefty, the Dingaling Lynx (srsly)

The Hound That Thought He Was A Raccoon
Ida, the Offbeat Eagle (stop)
Sammy, the Way-Out Seal
The Pidgeon That Worked a Miracle

And oh yeah, King of the Grizzlies. This one is bad. This is the sort of thing you'd be punished with in middle school if your teacher was out sick a whole week. Watching it I began to feel like I was in middle school. All that was missing was the whir of a 16mm projector.

King of the Grizzlies defines "television filler". The unengaging saga of a baby grizzly bear who grows up to be King of the Grizzlies (who knew that post was open to election?) and the mystic connection he has with a native American working as a cattle rancher, I had had enough of this one after about ten minutes but stuck around for the full 85 out of loyalty to this series.

To be fair, this film was made by two units: an animal unit and an actor unit. The actor unit is fine, occasionally managing some evocative shots and interesting scenes. The actors here are much better than in Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar, although they're working from a script that could've been written on a post-it note. You don't even have to watch the movie half the time; Hibler's droning narration spells out every plot point for you. Wahb the bear isn't nearly as fun as Good-Time Charlie anyway.

While waiting for this film's run time to expire we are treated to such riveting sequences as the "Wahb uses a tree as a toboggan" scene ("That trip made Wahb feel a little wobbly", Hibler helpfully intones on the soundtrack), and of course the seminal "Burying Shorty" scene. Twenty minutes into the movie Wahb's entire family is killed by a rancher and we are so bored we hardly even register alarm.

Grizzlies is full of weird editing to make the basic illusion work; bears are evidently less trainable than cougars. But in reality the basic problem is that the concept and style of Charlie worked to dramatically push the film along but King of the Grizzlies doesn't. Charlie was just a big cat, not a mystical king of the wilderness. The main human actor was some random schlub instead of a human protector. The disarming effect of the documentary style of Charlie hinged on the fact that Charlie could turn into a real danger at any moment as he got older, Wahb is a total fantasy creation embodied by an inarticulate animal. King of the Grizzlies needed to be something like an animated movie to work. As a live-action Hibler Special, it's dead on arrival.

July 1, 1970 - The Boatniks

"This chicken is indestructible."

There isn't much that can be said about Ron Miller that has not been said before. Publicly humiliated and forced out of the Walt Disney Company in 1984 in what basically amounted to a family feud inside a corporate takeover, Miller is today a controversial figure - a close associate of Walt's associated with a string of visible failures but also with Diane Disney Miller and the Walt Disney Family Museum. Many of the projects Miller began during his brief presidency of Disney became Michael Eisner's earliest successes. But just looking at his filmography, it doesn't seem like Miller every really wanted to work for Disney.

Of the three producers for Disney we've been examining in depth here since 1967, Bill Walsh was the most accomplished, Winston Hibler was the most conservative, and Ron Miller was all over the place. Miller was most willing to mash up things with Disney that most people would try to keep separate, producing such out-of-the-box movies as Freaky Friday, Candleshoe, and Escape to Witch Mountain. As his career progressed Miller got bolder and bolder in his choices, eventually leading to a series of "dark" adventure-dramas that remain something of a black eye on the company: Watcher in the Woods, TRON, The Devil and Max Devlin, and finally the one that cost him his job: Something Wicked This Way Comes. He didn't even last long enough to suffer the repercussions of The Black Cauldron.

Miller produced The Boatniks and I think it's supposed to be a kind of Disney version of the kind of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink style of comedy popularized by Blake Edwards in the 1960s, something like a family-friendlier version of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or Casino Royale or The Party. Of course, to have a comedy like that you have to be willing to break some rules and offend some sensibilities, which makes the idea of a Disney version even more absurd - but really, is it any more absurd than a Disney film that's also a horror movie? Boatniks may not be funny, per se, but it does do something nearly no other Disney film of its era is willing to do: try anything for a laugh.


Ostensibly about the tribulations of a tedious Coast Guard Ensign Robert Morse - a very long way from How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying - the center of the whole film is yet another pack of Disneyized criminals on the run. In this case instead of Silky's gamblers, Joe Smooth's reformed mobsters or A.J. Arno's..... gamblers, we have jewel thieves whose grand plans to conceal their jewels inside food inside a picnic basket and yacht to Mexico goes non-dramatically pear shaped.

Boatniks has a huge array of gags in it, and about one in sixteen actually works. If you sat in your living room with a tape recorder and tried to cue the "sad trombone" music every time a joke misfired, the tape recorder would probably explode around minute 45. I nearly gave myself a neck cramp from shaking my head for 100 minutes.

To be fair, some jokes do land, and they're actually funny. But the entire film is such a soul-deadening chore to watch that it isn't worth the few clever laughs and weird moments. The film goes nowhere - it's a succession of random blackout sketches of varying length. Imagine Monty Python and the Holy Grail except almost nothing is funny. And nothing is played for even minor irony. Typical of this film's jokes is a sequence where the jewel thieves, having lost the picnic basket of jewels at the bottom of the sea, think to call in a favor from a Japanese friend to get an authentic pearl diver. The Diver arrives in Los Angeles - a geisha straight out of a sixteenth-century wood print. Those backwards Japanese! Of course then she strips down to a bikini as Morse salivates on the other end of a pair of binoculars. Later, she puts the hoodlums in their place - it's revealed she learned perfect English by watching TV last night. Joke? Joke??

If that wasn't racist enough the film then goes on to top that by having Phil Silvers put in a call to Trans-Mexican Airlines, which is run by two sleepy stereotypes sitting in a desolate shack with a sign reading "Sancho Panza Airport" on the roof. When their aqua-plane is rented, the pilot chases his giant family of Mexican children out of the plane - which they've been using as a house.

All of this comes to a climax with what may be the most boring chase scene ever filmed, where a dramatic escape to scored the leisurely Hawaiian music and the jewel thieves make use of a yellow submarine (get it?? LIKE THE SONG) to slowly effect an even more boring escape. As they board their Mexican flight, they're offered coffee, tea, or tequila. After the jewels are thrown out of the airplane in a joke we can see coming half the film away, Silvers quips: "Maybe the movie will be good" and pulls down an in-flight movie screen the side of a small window shade.

It wasn't.


The Boatniks concludes week five of our series and next week I will be taking a break. The Age of Not Believing will continue the following week, with the new post going on on the long July 4 weekend. Blogging on the Fourth of July? That's politics!

For July 5: The Wild Country, The Aristocats, and The Barefoot Executive

"The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

December 15, 1970 - The Wild Country

What is a "Disney" movie anyway?

We can't pretend this isn't a problem the studio itself was never without - not when something like Victory Thru Air Power sits cheek-to-jowl with Pinocchio. I ran into this a few weeks ago when I ran headlong into two friends and eventually the conversation drifted into favorite/least favorite Disney movies. I kept bringing up the sort of films I love that also happen to be Disney movies - Three Caballeros, Melody Time, Mary Poppins, Parent Trap, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantasia - while I could not get either of them to see past the Lion King, Frozen, Mulan, Toy Story and so forth. For them, a Disney movie was an animated adventure-comedy made relatively recently that was fun without being especially demanding of its audience. Similarly thy could not see their way towards accepting my view of a Disney movie as being a very diverse thing.

I suspect that whatever Disney has mutated into by 2044 will have its fans too, and they will look back with equal befuddlement at our own era's inexplicable cycle of gruesome, dark, long Disney action-blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean. What Disney is, then, is in open negotiation with the audience - perhaps tonight you'd like an overlong sentimental musical comedy with an animated sequence? Or a sassy talking animal movie starring Cheech?

The Disney of Walt's era faced similar problems. Yes, he made lighthearted comedies and nature films, but he also put out some pretty darn good serious dramas and adventures like Third Man on the Mountain and Those Calloways. Audiences today are likely to look askance at a family adventure-drama produced by Walt Disney, but it was once part of the Disney canon.

That's the case with The Wild Country. It's one of "those" Disney movies you have to join their movie club to own on DVD. Even the streaming version is presented in a rather ugly full-frame aspect ratio, direct from the VHS. The print they used is just okay, full of buckles and flecks. This film looks exactly like the odd-fit-in-the-box it is. I suspect Disney profits the least from these midcentury wilderness dramas of all their backstock, because The Wild Country isn't so much released as it is available.

It's a shame because this is a good movie, and not in a vacillating "good-for-Disney" way. What looks to be an uninteresting setup and weird cast actually works very well. Even the direction can't be faulted: The Wild Country wears its 100 minutes easily, moving from scene to scene rapidly, sometimes audaciously. Director Robert Totten worked primarily in television, in shows like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Kung Fu, but unlike The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes' Robert Butler, The Wild Country doesn't feel like an episode in some ongoing serial, it feels vast and wide - which makes its existence only in a full frame version even sadder. While I can't speak to Totten's other credits, this is easily the best directed film released by Disney since Walt died. Wide, gentle framings are well composed without quite recalling the painterly effect of John Ford - instead, favoring a wide angle lens and understated but terrifically effective tilts and pans, The Wild Country periodically echoes mid-period Sergio Leone, especially Once Upon A Time in the West.


Totten's direction isn't the whole show here but Jack Elam's wild-eyed coot both recalls Leone and nearly steals the rest. Introduced with his pants down, literally, Elam's charm gets a full workout here as the fearsome looking but cuddly neighbor. This was an odd period in Elam's career - he was already showing up as a kind of signifier of Western films in movies like Once Upon A Time in the West and Pat Garret & Billy the Kid but was still in the process of shedding his tough guy persona and moving into over comedy roles - compare Elam here with his one-scene role in Never a Dull Moment. Ultimately it's Elam who provides the sense of warmth and home that The Wild Country so restlessly seeks. He ends his role by giving cooking tips on bear fat.

The core family itself does decent work. Steve Forrest is given another shot at a "Dad" role and although he's never quite as good as in the charmed Rascal he's convincingly strained holding the family together. Your desire to see things turn out well for Forrest is what drives the entire last half of the film, and he doesn't let his director down. Forrest is even given an astonishingly drawn out fight with the chief baddie Woodward, giving Totten a chance to show off some evocative camera work. It goes on so long that The Wild Country may qualify as something of a Disney equivalent of They Live.

Ron Howard is okay as the main kiddie identification point. Howard isn't quite able to pull off the conflicted emotions of his older brother Virgil - he comes off as a sullen whiner for a lot of the run time, but then again most kids his age are that way in real life anyway. Still, his big heroic scene at the end comes off as a fully earned shock - I'm surprised Disney actually went for such a level of violence. His real-life brother Clint Howard, instantly identifiable even as a tyke, is a one-note character constantly obsessed with replacing his dog Ralph. That this running "joke" does not detract from the engaging drama elsewhere is a sign of good film craft.

The film builds to a big climax during a tornado, and unlike other tedious effects-driven climaxes in Disney films this one works like gangbusters because the audience is by now fully invested in the safety of this family and the obvious effects matter less. Totten gets away with a truly audacious moment: as the family hides in their root cellar, the door is closed and the screen goes entirely dark for what feels like a long time until Ron Howard manages to strike a match. The dislouge scene continues for the duration that the match burns, and when it goes out, the screen is again plunged into darkness. I have no idea if this was inspired by the similar "blackout" sequence in Wait Until Dark, but it has a similarly striking effect.

Coming after so much medicore comedy, The Wild Country is a breath of fresh air. It's a quietly commendable movie that doesn't pull back from the rough stuff and quality filmmaking when it has no reason to aspire to anything better than the standard Disney product. I expected the lazily plotted animated films, the tedious nature documentaries and the leaden-whimsical comedies, but I didn't expect to get a solid, exciting wilderness drama out of Disney in his era. I'll probably never watch it again, but The Wild Country was an welcome surprise and fully recommended.

December 24, 1970 - The AristoCats

"Saul Steinberg once drew a bedraggled cube with a trail of bubbles overhead. In the largest bubble was a perfect cube, its sides impeccably straight. The cartoon was dreaming about its platonic ideal. If Saturday morning TV cartoons dreamed, the feature in the top bubble would be The Aristocats." - Time Magazine, 1971

There's something vaguely, indefinably wrong about the AristoCats. I say this as a admirer of Wolfgang Reitherman's other "Lazy Sunday in the Park with Woolie" movies - Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, and Jungle Book. This movie is broken and I'm not sure why. It feels like a lackluster sequel to a movie we never saw.

On second thought, maybe that's it - The Aristocats is a sequel to every Disney movie of the 60s, but nothing is assembled with any care - Sterling Halloway, a horse left over from Mary Poppins, Phil Harris, Pat Buttram, cute animals who are CATS instead of dogs, Sherman brothers... instant classic, right? If anything, ArtistoCats proved that Walt Disney was more than an assembly of random parts, no more than pushing a bunch of furniture together in an open space immediately qualifies as a house.

Even so, AristoCats is somewhat better than its dire reputation suggests - where the animation department can never thrill us, it can charm us, and the AristoCats spits out charming gags quicker than Michael Eisner printing Bette Midler contracts.

The film's most typical gag is Pat Buttram's hilariously precise hound dog - he's funny when he gets around to his jokes but he takes forever to get there. Each scene in the film is practically its own seven-minute short film, each punctuated with leisurely fades to black. These short chunks vary in quality from absolutely tedious to pretty good, but none of them are based on anything other than a one idea joke, for example "old people dancing!" or "crazy chase!". Unfortunately they never go out on top form, generally peaking in comedy a minute or two before they end and trailing off into some sort of variation on characters standing around reflecting on how crazy all of those preceding jokes were. AristoCats' staunch refusal to end any sequence on anything resembling a "topper" gag eventually reduced this reviewer to impotent limb flailing.

Following the rules of this tired assembly of material from better movies, midway through the film we get a jazz number because I Wanna Be Like You was so successful. Never mind the Paris 1910 setting, suddenly we get an English mop-haired hippie cat with love beads and psychedelic colors. Bless the film, Everybody Wants To Be A Cat tries and tries, but Scat Cat's band never end up getting anywhere near a good time. Their "midnight howl" keeps switching styles and genres until they literally bring the house down with zero of the sense of escalating chaos that destroyed King Louie's temple. Just to prove that white guys still run the studio, the sequence also has some racism seasoned over it, care of the Chinese Siamese with plays his piano with chopsticks because what will those crazy Chinks go and do next? Despite all of this, Everybody Wants To Be A Cat is the most boring part of the film - it creates so much noise and racket yet never raises more than a minor stir.

Actual lyrics: "Shanghai Hong Kong Egg Foo Young / Fortune Cookie Always Wrong"

The best sequence, by contrast, involves a charmingly animated duo of geese from Ollie Johnston. Most of the characters in Aristocats move just like people in animal suits - an effect sadly only enhanced by the endless parade of medium shots -  but this fact slips past us until these geese show up, imaginatively blending avian and human movements in a way that puts the rest of the show to shame. That this sequence climaxes with a drunk goose - and I don't care who you are, a drunk goose is always funny - is just a cherry on top.


Perhaps what's missing is any sense of stakes or dramatic action. Depending on your perspective, the chief dramatic action of the film - where Edgar the butler drugs and abandons the cats in the countryside because seriously who leaves their inheritance to animals - is either dramatically mediocre or entirely justified. Yet there's no stakes - he doesn't seem to be intent on, say, drowning the cats, merely losing them, and there's no particularly salient reason why he chooses to act when he does besides moving the first act along. Madame Bonfamille isn't, for example, deathly sick, giving Edgar good reason to move his inheritance along. The only dramatic stakes is that Madame will - gasp! - miss her cats, but since she's already bequeathed millions of francs to them, we don't put much faith in her emotional state at any given moment. Even the cats don't seem too much worried. This zero-stakes adventure creates the feeling that Reitherman is repeatedly bellowing "Hurry up, take your time!"

There's also some weirdness about voice nationality that's carried over from Jungle Book. At least Jungle Book is set in British India so the mix of British and American voice actors feels, at best, somewhat possible - certainly no less objectionable than the all-American cast of, say, Lubtisch's To Be Or Not To Be portraying resistance Poles. It's a long-standing convention of Hollywood films that Americans can stand in for nearly any ethnic group. But The Aristocats' summer of 1910 in Paris is epically bizarre. Dutchess' three kittens speak a blend of American and British-accented English, and Duchess herself is a French kitty with a Hungarian accent. Their mouse friend Roquefort has a French name but has Sterling Halloway's distinct midwestern nasal weeze. By the time we reach Pat Buttram as a farm dog who's clearly just wandered in off Green Acres, there's no reason to even try to reconcile any of this. The animation staff clearly just didn't care; if you were funny, you got to be in the movie.

Imagine a version of Aristocats with just a few tweaks. Imagine a version where the butler's plan is to kill the cats is better thought out and nearly successful. Or a version where there's an urgent reason to return to the Bonfamille villa. Watching the film, I conversely began entertaining the idea of the same casual wobble of a story -- set in 1917, and when the cats leave Paris there's more than a suggestion of the Great War raging out somewhere in the distance. This would justify the multi-national cast and set off the pleasantly banal, low-stakes story of monied cats with the real-world Fin de siècle. At least this approach would add an extra layer of resonance to the otherwise remarkably lightweight trifle. Although Disney seems to have gone out of their way to avoid the issue, circa 1910 the world of moneyed priviledge was being pulled down around the AristoCats anyway.

The vanished world of the Aristocats.

AristoCats has quite a toxic reputation, and frankly a worse one than perhaps the film deserves. Taken on its own and isolated from the glories of, say, Lady and the Tramp - another low stakes animal story that still manages some real emotional resonance - AristoCats is good enough. Not great, but good enough. The bones of a better film are in there, but it just fails to deliver the full package.

Traditional wisdom says that this gaping hole was Walt Disney, but I'm personally not satisfied with that explanation. Yes, had Walt been alive, AristoCats would not have been made in the way it was if it was made at all. But simply saying that the animation department was helpless without their leader is a lazy excuse. For one, the animation department was capable of good solo work before Walt's passing and will be capable of good work later. And other divisions of the company were doing well too. Yet somehow the animation unit was getting so lazy that The AristoCats makes Blackbeard's Ghost look like a Hitchcock thriller. No, this is the one where it's too easy to try to lay the blame on somebody else up and dying to save the "Old Men" from the brunt of the blame. If the AristoCats is a mess, it's the animation department's mess, and maybe it's time to stop exonerating a group of great artists when they try too little and dream too small.


March 17, 1971 - The Barefoot Executive

Time for a confession: I'm not a monkey movie person. I'm not even sure if that's a fully sanctified film subgenre, but monkey movies are made often enough to suggest that they make enough money and that there are people out there who are, in fact, monkey movie people. I simply don't really enjoy the illusion of seeing chimps and orangutangs do their stuff onscreen, treated as if they're fully functioning actors: they bare their teeth, and the movie reacts as if that's a smile instead of an unnerving grimace. The whole thing feels undignified.

Still, The Barefoot Executive, while no King Kong or Monkey Shines, comes close to a monkey movie ideal I didn't know I was harboring, at least as far as comedies go. Raffles the chimp is introduced as an irritable grouch obsessed with lousy television; he won't even let poor Kurt Russell watch Star Journey (circa 1970 that counts as a major nerd offense). Russell's slow realization that this chimp can pick the top performing television shows would be, if it were just a bit nastier, the sort of joke that Mad Magazine would've run with in their golden era. As it is it's got a bit more bite than the typical Disney feature, although this is no Network.

In 1970 television was in the era of Laugh-In, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and the various spin-offs of the Andy Griffith Show (direct or conceptual). Those are the readily recognizable ones to modern eyes; most of the rest of the top 20 rated programs were things like The Dean Martin Show and The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, ie nothing that anybody of today would probably willingly watch if they were curious. Yet by 1970 demographics were shifting, and nobody quite knew why. 1970 is also the year when shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Odd Couple appear, shows dominated by good writing and character, instead of situation, driven comedy. Just a few months after the premiere of Barefoot Executive, the infamous "Rural Purge" was underway at CBS and the era of the cornpone comedy was forcibly retired.

Director Robert Butler got his start on television, and so did cinematographer Charles Wheeler. Of the four credited writers, two-thirds of those credited with "story" were staff writers on Bewitched. The people behind this film had good reason to write it the way they did, and occasionally the banal surface of the film ruptures and something venomous spills out. Despite the inter office politics and self importance of the TV industry, the average person on the street in Executive thinks TV is as idiotic as the film makes it look. The network's breakout hit is something called DEVIL DAN, and it's chosen  by an animal and put on the air by a teenager after a shortcut to the top. When the executives find out, they have to get rid of the chimp more as a matter of internal pride than any scandal to cover.

Somebody had a lot of fun on Barefoot Executive raiding the entire Disney film vault to find the clips that populate this world's airwaves; depicted as an incoherent Gilliam-esque swirl of abstract images and idiotic highlight clips, we believe Kurt Russell's disillusioned teen when he all but states that television is crappy.

Director Butler delivers a much more cinematic film than Tennis Shoes this time around, adding some satisfying scope even if the pacing is much more pedestrian than before. This is a visually dark movie, especially compared to Tennis Shoes.... practically the whole thing seems to be capturing the glitz and glamor of Downtown Burbank. Is the visual style intended to set us up for the moral ambiguity the film flirts with? So much of the cast and crew of Tennis Shoes returned that we can easily imagine Roy Disney announcing "Round up the usual suspects!"

Although he's ably supported by the Disney infastructure and given a decent director with a good script, Barefoot Executive demonstrates just how good Kurt Russell is. Quick: name another movie almost totally supported by a nineteen-year-old (really!). Russell is one of the few actors to work in genre fare to give their characters a genuine emotional interior, and although Executive demands only a fraction of his talent, his remarkable range would be best demonstrated in his unsurpassed trilogy of thriller for John Carpenter in the 80s: Escape From New York, The Thing, and Big Trouble in Little China. He's easily the best actor "launched" by the Disney studio - and unlike, say, Julie Andrews, Russell was able to escape his typecasting in these films. While it's impossible to see Andrews in anything else and not think "Mary Poppins", it's almost weird to see these early Russell Disney movies when today we might think of him in Tombstone, or Death Proof, or Tango & Cash.


Underneath the whole thing is a "youth empowerment" subplot that was not improved by my having watched A Hard Day's Night in the same week. Russell's night school grad badgers the uniformly white, old men in power about Alexander the Great but still has to have a rigged system to get ahead. Because it's another Kurt Russell Disney movie, he has another idiotic theme song, this time breathlessly sung by an offscreen chorus. A sample:


Compared to the Beatles' casual flaunting of authority in the anarchic Hard Day's Night, this whole thing just comes off as embarrassingly dated and labored, as if those 1971 kids were supposed to be sitting around watching this in a Soho theater, passing a joint, and nodding righteously. "He's right, man - it's the system!" And that song doesn't help at all - it's no Can't Buy Me Love, for sure.

Where Barefoot Executive falls short is that it never quite lives up to the scathing promise of its premise. This is a film that treats a room full of executives very much like the generals in the War Room of Doctor Strangelove and expects us to applaud when they're all ejected from an airplane over a remote jungle region by a monkey. And while a director like Kubrick, Lester or Edwards may have been content to let Russell ride away on his motorbike with the chimp, the girl, and the million dollars in the end, Disney has Russell clear his conscience and we are told that a rescue operation is underway. No room for moral ambiguity in a Disney movie; the kids are Good, the execs are Comedy Relief Oldies, and the film is a firm G, no questions asked. With a bit more venom in its bite and a tighter pace, Barefoot Executive could have been a minor classic..... as far as monkey movies go, at least.

For next week: Scandalous John, The Million Dollar Duck, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks

 "The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

June 22, 1971 - Scandalous John

To cop a Roy E. Disney-friendly nautical allusion here, if up until now this series has ridden smoothly over various waves and bumps and mediocre movies, with Scandalous John I officially hit the doldrums. Too pleasant, amiable, and decently crafted to dislike, but too sedate to get too excited over, I have nearly nothing to say about this movie. It's a reviewer's nightmare - a professional bore of a programmer.

Scandalous John is the molasses-in-winter paced story of an 80 year old cattle rancher who is forced to go on a "cattle drive" (he intermittently rides the single cow, a bull) to show down with a businessman who's trying to foreclose on his ranch land. Straining for a Don Quixote allusion, he brings along his "ranch hand" Pedro, in absurd traditional Mexican garb, who rides a donkey and gawks at the "scandalous" weirdness that ensues. Although all of the marketing materials for John heavily flog this Quixote-like part of the film, it seems to me at best a minor distraction. For one, Don Quixote was a tragic lunatic in a bitter satire of chivalry, and John McCanless is essentially a noble old timer in the modern world. He's given away nearly all of his ranch to impoverished families, he throws money to Mexican children, and lives in a decaying fort.

What Scandalous John is really about is the vanished world of the West. Pedro is thrown out of his friend's truck at the doorstep of the McCanless ranch; it's the last car we'll see for 30 minutes. McCanless goes through the solemn military rituals of yesteryear - loading his gun, saddling his horse, raising his ranch's flag - before galloping out and hogtying Pedro. Later, he rides his horse into town and rides direct into several modern department stores, allowing several bit actors scenes where they sputter and protest in traditional Disney fashion. In the movie's best scene, McCanless corners his adversary in a train car. One by one he insults his business partners and throws them off the caboose, except an entire Mariachi band whom he pays before throwing off.

The elegiac tone is conveyed from the opening scenes and greatly helps to justify the funeral pace of the proceedings. Director Robert Butler has grown in leaps and bounds since The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes; in John, allowed a more leisurely pace and possibly a freer hand by producer Bill Walsh, he uses Leone-like wide landscape shots and long takes at golden hour to establish the end-of-an-era mood. Extended scenes take place in single shots as Butler lingers and lingers on John and Pedro playing guitar together or reminiscing. Aided by Rob McKuen's sedate, whispery score, the film feels like a lost battle on a lonely field even before the narrative begins.


Weirdly, Scandalous John contains more than a whiff of Once Upon a Time in the West - the themes of modernity vs. wilderness, illegal vs. legal behavior, even a villain on a train are all present in Leone's film. The end of the era theme can be extended by being set in the modern world - men on horseback contrasted with mid-60s menswear stores, pistols with contracts. At one point, John and Pedro end up being mistaken for paid performers at a Ghost Town amusement park; in another they have to "save" a woman from a circling group of deadbeat youth. Two native Americans sit on a nearby couch, drinking beer and watching impassively. That can be a metaphor for the whole film, really: a good idea that doesn't always make a good scene.

June 30, 1971 - The Million Dollar Duck

Is it possible to find something funny without really thinking it's all that funny? Despite never once earning my genuine laughter, I was highly entertained by the infectious weirdness of Million Dollar Duck's comedy. For example: while being pursued by the Treasury Department, Dean Jones is escaping on the back of a telephone utility vehicle's extended maintenance basket. As the chase veers into the long Griffith Park tunnel that would become famous in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Back to the Future Part II, Jones rides the platform like a surf board and careens it into the wall of the tunnel, sending a shower of sparks onto the windshield of the pursuing government employees. They register only minor annoyance.

That isn't funny, but the combination of things onscreen does, indeed, produce humor - both from forces inside the film but also ones outside the film. The lack of comedy creates a sort of anti-comedy which itself becomes funny, exploited in such modernist anti-comedy best personified by David Wain. I laughed, but I also marveled at the superior weirdness of the moment objectively.

I mean really.

The film doesn't start off weird. An uncreative, poorly animated title sequence credited to Ward Kimball sets zero expectations for fun ahead. The film's dour opening reel establishing the depths of Dean Jones' poverty moves at a snail's pace, not enlivened by Sandy Duncan's borderline-offensive airhead wife (she makes applesauce with garlic!). Jones, in his new 20% longer "Seventies" hair, stares dourly at his college diploma and looks worried when his son keeps demanding a puppy. Yet his fortunes turn around when he brings home an irradiated duck who lays - surprise! - eggs with golden yolks. This leads to Dean to unimagined riches until he - blah blah blah - discovers that what really matters is family. Can you believe Disney's been making this same basic movie for a half century?

Where Million Dollar Duck really takes off is when the film begins to imagine what having a gold-producing duck would actually be like in the 1970s. For Aesop, of course, the metaphorical goose that laid the golden egg was a shortcut to riches - gold was money. But in 1970, in a wealth-obsessed country that's been off the gold standard for nearly four decades, actual pure gold is almost worthless. It has to be refined and traded into the government for cash, and then you need to be able to show where you got it. That's why crooks find it easier to print money than try to manufacture gold. This nearly trips up Jones and his equally cash-strapped friend Lee Montgomery until they discover - haha - that Jones' airhead wife can tell the truth, and nobody will believe her (take that, stupid women!)!

Million Dollar Duck is famous as one of only three films Gene Siskel walked out on during his career, which really makes me wonder if he was assigned Monkeys, Go Home! or The Boatniks, because as far as dumb Disney comedies go this one rates as "almost okay". Unlike in his last two Disney movies, Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit and Love Bug, Dean is actually required to be funny here, and he pulls off some pretty good bits. Still, one wonders if there's ever been a leading man so thoroughly committed to being upstaged by a host of animals and objects than Dean Jones. Had these Disney films continued on would he eventually played second banana to a toaster, or a sea monkey?

The film is most amusing in its sometimes truly bizarre visual gags. The Million Dollar Duck stands on the positive and negative terminals of a car battery and lights up like a lightbulb, which inexplicably impresses two teenage slackers: "Hey, he likes it!". They then go on to use the duck to power a variety of car parts, you know, in the way that teenagers would. In another gag, news of the gold-laying duck causes a worldwide financial panic (for reasons never explained), prompting a call to the treasury department from - gulp - President Richard Nixon?? On cue, a framed Nixon portrait in the office appears to have a stern expression. The juxtaposition of Richard Nixon with such a trite, tired piece of comedy business immediately makes something that isn't funny, funny.


A Nixon impersonator shows up again later during a second flurry of global panic, following a tactless joke where an excited Chinese diplomat announces, again for no reason, that China will be able to make cheap golden eggs made out of plastic (???). I was hoping for a third cameo, but then again when an appearance by Richard Nixon is the comedy highlight of your movie, than maybe your movie has bigger problems than that.

--

This brings us to late 1971. In September, the last touches were being applied to the Magic Kingdom theme park which was the centerpiece of the most ambitious Disney project up until that time: Walt Disney World in Florida. Disney had been heavily promoting Walt Disney World for over two years. All of their 1971 theatrical release posters included reminders of the vacation destination along their bottom, and in early 1971 they had prepared a special promotional film - Project Florida - which was inserted into the middle of a television airing of The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin earlier in the year.


From its earliest days onward, Walt Disney World was a huge success, just as Disneyland had been and would continue to be. Yet October 1, 1971 marks an important moment in the history of the Disney company, in the sense that now, with two outdoor entertainment operations on either side of the United States, Disney's role would increasingly be recreation-oriented. When it was just Disneyland and the Burbank studio, Disney was a movie studio with a remarkable, one of a kind attraction. From October 1971 on, they would be a theme park conglomerate that also made movies. The long shadow that Disneyland and Walt Disney World cast in American popular culture would ensure that more adults and children would be admitted into the world of Disney through Main Street, USA and under a train station than ever again through, say, the white gilded book opening at the start of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The theme park product began to overshadow the film product in influence and longevity.

Yet, despite the name on the place, who really deserves the lion's share of the credit for Walt Disney World is Roy O. Disney, who persisted in his brother's dream when most other companies - emphatically including the Disney of today - would have cut their losses. Roy rode every ride, kept the show going, imported talent and resources into a desolate swamp, and then stood next to Mickey Mouse and dedicated the Magic Kingdom not just to his brother, but to the entire company that had kept the ball rolling in the years since his death. Then he died, two months later.

The company Roy Disney left behind was a company that finally was assured a steady stream of income from Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but also now a split identity, in competition with its own legacy for dominance. 1971 is the year Disney stopped being a little movie studio and began to head towards being a corporation, a vast thing of many faces. And it shed both of the Disney brothers, its founders, along the way.

December 13, 1971 - Bedknobs and Broomsticks

"We live in a world of fakery and false images."

There's something about movies that are almost great, or especially weird, that gets me fired up. While I have absolutely no motivation to go out and defend a nearly flawless film like, to keep our conversation relevant to Disney, Mary Poppins, I have in the past mounted a huge defense in favor of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. In our modern lexicon we call these cult movies - films lacking in some basic DNA that makes them fully accepted by wide audiences, but fervently admired by a niche crowd. Bedknobs and Broomsticks is the only true "cult" film of the Age of Not Believing era we're covering here, and the reason why the series takes its name from this film. Bedknobs is no classic, and its frankly all the better for it.

Bedknobs is often knocked as a sub par Mary Poppins, but I think there's more to it than that. It's true and often repeated that Walt licensed the rights to the rights to the Mary Norton books to use as a possible replacement should Poppins fall through. What isn't much discussed is that Walt didn't have a lot to do with Bedknobs in the end, and I suspect had he been forced to use it he would've ended up pushing the material into the shape destined for Poppins, which itself doesn't have much to do with the P. L. Travers books that were their ostensible source. Walt Disney was one of American cinema's greatest adapters of material, and he used source texts as springboards into his own fascinations. This is why Poppins is stuffed to the gills with turn-of-the-20th-century flavor. Had Bedknobs been made in 1965 instead of 1971, we likely wouldn't even recognize it.


In many ways Bedknobs is a dark reflection of Poppins. While Poppins is relentlessly cheery even in the sooty skies of London, Bedknobs is dim and dangerous. Poppins is episodic, while Bedknobs is a continuous line of action. Poppins pulls together all of those components in the final two reels in an emotional climax that feels miraculous, while the chief threat of Bedknobs - the Nazi invasion - is drearily anticipated from the opening credits onwards. Where Poppins ends with a note of reconciliation, Bedknobs features of collection of war-torn families who tentatively come together. And while Mr. Banks in Poppins exclaims in the opening reel:

"It's grand to be an Englishman in 1910
King Edward's on the throne; it's the age of men!"

..his counterpart in Bedknobs, Emelius Browne, feels his best friend in the world is an unexploded bomb. The social and economic structure Mr. Banks feels such mastery of in Poppins will of course turn against him and chew him up, but he emerges in better family and social standing than ever. The England of Bedknobs teeters on the brink of oblivion. London is being blitzed by the Nazis and the sort of beautiful house we see in Poppins is abandoned, a family very much like the Banks hauntingly absent. Poppins is a film of middle class values affirmed; Bedknobs redeems those low on life's social ladder.

This accounts, I think, for the intense attraction some Disney fans have to Bedknobs. When Disney put out Poppins, it was the astonishing highpoint of the studio's art in the Age of Walt. Deprived of their leader and under assault, Disney was in a similar place as the England of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. A studio in decline made a film about an empire in decline.

To make one last comparison without hopefully over laboring the ways in which Bedknobs is actually a departure from Poppins, it's the treatment of magic. Mary Poppins herself is essentially an enigma, the ways she works largely mysterious. She controls events which only make sense in retrospect, and her emotions are volatile and unpredictable. In Bedknobs and Broomsticks, magic is entirely down to technicals, including equipment, intonation, and word choice. Instead of the beneficent but still opaque Mary Poppins, we have Eglantine Price, who basically amounts to Disney's first female nerd. Her lack of experience and steep learning curve keeps the film emotionally centered on her quest to find the spell of Substutiary Locomotion.


You can tell that many talented people at the Disney Studio worked on and enjoyed Bedknobs enough to campaign for its resuscitation, and the Sherman Brothers stand at the front of that pack. While it's true that their Poppins score benefited immeasurably from the constant rewriting process Walt insisted on that's largely absent from Bedknobs, it's easily their best work this side of that perfect songbook. Songs build over and over on twisty, obscenely clever lyrics in classic Sherman style, usually employing music and song to push the film along steadily unlike the more typical "stop and sing" style songs that populate Poppins.

Actually, if there's a major problem with Bedknobs it's that the Sherman songs aren't quite fully allowed to build and flow in the way they should. Songs with a pleasantly pokey patter like With A Flair are constantly interrupted by dialogue and visual gags in a way that suggests an attempt to "modernize" the otherwise classical material, as if somebody went to see Company a few nights before Bedknobs began production and decided to shoehorn a Sondheim-esque approach into the Sherman songbook. thankfully these songs play uninterrupted on the essential 1971 LP release.

Another change here is the three orphans taken in by Miss Price. Compared to the Poppins kids, obviously cast on their ability to look cute and gape on cue, the Bedknobs kids are refreshingly unsentimental. Charlie, the eldest, is an incorrigible swindler, barely held in check by Carrie. Paul, the youngest, believes in Miss Price's magic, but in the matter of fact way that real children believe in everything. At no point is the illusion of magic dependent on a carefully timed cutaway to the kids gaping, and they play an active role in the movement of the story and the discovery of the spell for Substutiary Locomotion - no passive recipients of magic, them.

Also refreshingly unsentimental is the adventure on the Isle of Naboombu. While the "Jolly Holiday" interval in Mary Poppins - simultaneously the most famous and least essential element of that film - was a pastoral, pastel reverie of cafes and carousels, the Isle of Naboombu is genuinely dangerous. From the alarming and entirely unanticipated introduction of fishing hooks into The Beautiful Briny Sea to the ludicrous soccer match, nothing is there just to be cute - these animals are dangerous, both to the humans and to each other. The animals talk and act like dimwitted thugs and delight in causing physical harm. While supervising director Ward Kimball, well into his "what do we do with you now" career at Disney, can perhaps be attributed to this tonal shift, the animation overall has a tougher edge that we're used to seeing at Disney. In the climax of the sequence, as the Star of Astorath is stolen and King Leonidas lights out after the Brits, there's a tension rarely achieved in Disney films of the era.


A sequence at the center of the film encapsulates everything I find fascinating about this film. Looking for the other half of the Spells of Astoroth, the band of travelers is picked up by a cheap hood in Portobello Road and led to the underground lair of Bookman, played by Sam Jaffe in a one-off scene. Bookman at first seems to be a confused kindly old professor - until the door is locked and the knives come out, at which point he pivots dramatically into a sort of nerd Don Corleone. Bookman opens up whole worlds hidden inside Bedknobs, and is a twisted mirror image of Eglantine Price in his self-interest and obsession with Astoroth. Bookman gives Price and Browne the information they need, but plainly intends the cost to be great. It's a weird little scene in the middle of the movie, but the implications and echoes travel deep. Without Bookman, the effects of Substutiary Locomotion wouldn't be as fascinating as they are - so weird, so feared, yet wonderful to see.

Which brings us to David Tomlinson, the actor on whom the emotional effect of Mary Poppins is most dependent, and as Emelius Browne he's in rare form. A pathetic man on society's lowest rung, Tomlinson brings genuine depth and sadness to Browne's quiet sense of defeat and self-regret. While his big spell-casting scene where he finally has to believe in something doesn't have the same impact as Mr. Banks' big scenes, his journey from charlatan street performer to solider is believable and moving despite being only a small component of the climax.


That extended climax, where the Nazis finally make landfall in the dead of night, doesn't have much of a sense of dramatic weight but it's carried entirely by the deployment of themes recurring throughout the entire film - the characters' perception of themselves as failures, the strength of belief vs skepticism, and the clash of ancient and modern finally comes down to a microcosm of the war as all of British history rallies to attack the German soldiers. The ghost army that descends in the night manages to be rather eerie despite remaining firmly kiddie-friendly, and if the big showdown leans a bit too heavily on the comic blackout gags (it does), the retreat of the Germans brings the film to a satisfying close.


Which brings us to the postscript, where newly motivated Emelius Browne ships off to war to fight for England while the orphans-no-more and Price, a family in the making, will wait at home. This brings back the Old Home Guard, unseen since the start of the film, for a fully earned march off the glory set to Sherman's invigorating military march.

I think this final scene and the Old Home Guard song is especially effective for Disney fans because of the sad underlying awareness that the "Old Home Guard" is as much the old guard of Disney as it is of Pepperidge Eye. 1971 is the official end of line for the "cursory Walt involvement" projects that Disney had been working on since 1968, and the start of a new era: Disney without Walt, without Roy.


Bedknobs and Broomsticks was the most expensive film ever made by Disney at that point and earned back only a slim 17 million at the box office - a far cry from the 75 million that greeted the fairly inexpensive Love Bug. Robert Stevenson would not make another film for Disney for three years, and never another film of this level of charm, ingenuity, and coherence. Bill Walsh, the man responsible for so many of the best live action Disney films, was similarly set back by the financial failure of Bedknobs, and the Shermans would not return to Disney in a regular role until the early 1980s to write songs for EPCOT Center.

When the Old Home Guard marches away at the end of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, what we're really seeing marching away from us is the last of Old Disney, Walt Disney's most trusted collaborators out on one last sunset patrol. Bedknobs and Broomsticks isn't just an overachieving cult film, it's the end of an era. And now Walt Disney Productions, adrift after the death of both Disney brothers, would have to believe very hard, much like Charlie, that there was something wonderful in them, too.

"Who wrote the stories of the old brigade?
Who knows the glories of yesterday's parade?
Who's standing firm in your own front yard?
The soldiers of the Old Home Guard, that's who!
The soldiers of the Old Home Guard..."



For next week: The Biscuit Eater, Now You See Him Now You Don't, and Napoleon and Samantha

"The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

The folly of attempting this series really began to sink in early. Around Week Three, it began to feel like I'd never escape awful dramas like Family Band or lousy comedies like Never a Dull Moment. By Week Five, with King of the Grizzlies and The Boatniks in immediate succession, I was ready to throw in the towel. It seems like most of the people I knew "following along at home" gave up well before then. I don't blame them. Life is too short to watch three Disney movies that you know will be mediocre a week.

It's not like Disney was incapable of surprising me. I was entirely dreadingThe Wild Country, which turned out to be one of the better products of its era. Generally when writing these reviews you expect to see a good one, a bad one, and an okay one. If I see two good ones and a bad one then it's way above average.

This week was way below average. Way way below. So let's make this one mercifully short and plow right on through.

March 22, 1972 - The Biscuit Eater

If there's a cinematic equivalent of a long, drawn out, groan of exhaustion, then The Biscuit Eater is it.

Some time ago on this blog I went into some detail on my "bad movie" criteria. Ever since the publication of The Golden Turkey Awards in 1980, Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space has more or less been the "official" worst movie, despite recent competition from such worthy contenders as Manos: Hands of Fate and Troll 2. Despite this, there's one thing these movies tend to have which in some way invalidates their claim of worse-ness: entertainment value, intentional or not. Plan 9 is just plain fun to watch. That doesn't make it good, but it does make it tolerable. I don't fear the lousy B movie, the cut-out birds of Birdemic, or the offensively stupid; I fear the competent, professional, bore.

The Biscuit Eater is set in what may be the 1930s, in rural Georgia, a landscape dominated by fields, nasty neighbors, folksy black folks, and a gas station that doesn't sell gas. It follows the attempts of two friends to train a cast off dog that's rather inexplicably proclaimed to be Just No Good by nearly everyone in the movie, given the dog's penchant for eating eggs. No biscuits are eaten by the dog at any time, although "biscuit eater" is frequently used as an insult, and in a climactic third-act scene, the main characters themselves do make and eat biscuits.


I can't point to a single thing wrong with this movie that makes it so depressingly mediocre. The cast is fine, it moves quickly, it's even got some okay outdoor photography, but at no point does the film ever seem to have a good reason to exist. Director Vincent McEveety, whom we previously saw at work in Million Dollar Duck, shoots everything in what the French called the plan américain or 3/4 shot. It's the sort of movie that saps you of your will to live.

Biscuit Eater is the sort of film that somebody like John Ford could've made something of in the 1930s - a total movie studio sausage, films with this little going on need some atmosphere to tie everything together, and this film has none of that. Never charming enough to rally our sympathy but not bad enough to entertain or frustrate, Biscuit Eater is 90 minutes you could've spent doing anything else with your life.

July 12, 1972 - Now You See Him, Now You Don't

Since starting this series, I suppose I've become something of an expert on Disney comedies. Not a connoisseur - I don't think you can be a connoisseur of something you don't enjoy. But I've seen enough of them now to pick out their tricks, know their beats, and find some comfort in their redundant tics. Down on their luck heroes? Yep. Absurd plot contrivance? Yes. Zany animal comedy? Sure. Borderline offensive yet remarkably dull stereotypes? Yep. Seen 'em all, multiple times a week.

So it is no small thing when I say that Now You See Him, Now You Don't is one of the Disney studio's funnier comedies. In a style where the humor "highlight" can be something like monkeys wearing wedding dresses or pictures of Richard Nixon, Now You See Him has that rarest of elements - a good script that pays off what we came to see and doesn't waste our time.

Now You See Him plays on our familiarity with the source material, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. In this case it's not so much a sequel as it is remake where some of the principal elements are retained, yet shifted, while others are totally inverted. It's like playing the same basic material upside down and backwards.

Now You See Him begins exactly the way Tennis Shoes did: an adorably scruffy group of teenagers tune in on the board meeting of their deadbeat Dean Higgins while he rants, cuts funds, and complains about money. Suddenly, something goes wrong, and Higgins suspects he's being spied on - the kids must jump into action to steal away the flower arrangement that conceals the walkie-talkie, which goes undetected because apparently Dean Higgins didn't see the first movie. Later in the film they use the same trick on A.J. Arno; apparently Cesar Romero didn't either.


This opening sequence sets us up to expect old tricks in new ways, and the film cherry-picks through Tennis Shoes to find the possibilities left open in that first film. The main plot contrivance, involving the invenion of invisibility paint, occurs at only ten minutes into the film, through a truly Goldbergian series of accidents; one suspects that even if Medfield manages to win the science award, the circumstances leading to the creation of the invisibility paint will be impossible to reproduce. But it's really just one in a succession of appealingly random callbacks, thrown in just because, well, the first movie had that too. Even A.J. Arno returns with a hilariously flimsy explanation: "Weren't you arrested?""Oh that - that was just a mistake."

I must admit, perhaps it's pure desperation that's affecting my judgement. According to my notes, it's been since the last Dexter Riley film that a Disney comedy got a genuine laugh out of me, and that was over a month ago. Perhaps pure comedy starvation caused me to find more to enjoy in Now You See Him than is really there.

What makes these things funny, anyway? The Disney house style is pretty consistent, especially as far as these comedies go: stay pretty wide, make sure the set is lit, make sure the image is in focus, then let Kurt Russell/Dean Jones/Joe Flynn show up and do their stuff. Very often the films are shot in the same places, the same stock sets, and the same furniture pieces show up over and over again. Where variables like the director and cinematographer change, chances are very good that other variables are consistent. Eventually, the simple act of watching these things becomes a secret game between the production team and the audience: which situations will they recycle? Fans of the Roger Corman / Vincent Price "Poe" cycle of films will know the game well: where will Roger put those  twisty red candles he bought in 1959 this time? Is the rubber spider still in one piece?


Walt Disney Productions was pitched on a scale of a family operation, and very often the same few people did the same job for every Disney movie. This means that the same cooks in the same pot tended to come up with a product that was fairly homogeneous. The same editors cuts pretty much everything, the same group of old white guys approved each production. Whomever poor Evelyn Kennedy was, she did the music editing on every single Disney movie I've seen in this series so far. Can you imagine a movie studio with one technician who does the same job for every movie?

The result is that there's not even much of an aesthetic difference between an adventure-drama like Scandalous John and something transparently silly like Million Dollar Duck. They're all just Disney Movies, and Disney Movies circa 1972 are chipper, sluggish, and guileless in an amazingly consistent way.

Now You See Him sometimes feels like the victory lap of the invisibility effects devised for Bedknobs and Broomsticks. The vapor-screen process was nothing new, although the Bedknobs effects are startling, they're just one component of a remarkable climax. The same special effects in Now You See Him are fascinatingly arbitrary, employed for entirely goofy if frankly more amusing ends. Robert Stevenson, Bill Walsh, and the Shermans staged a beautiful parade in Bedknobs; Now You See Him is the baggy pants clown at the tail of the parade. The invisibility effects in Now You See Him are cleverly devised enough to impress while not being good enough to actually dazzle. You spend the film watching these effects in amusement but never once saying "how did they do that??"

However the script really goes to town on the invisibility gag. While Tennis Shoes really just came up with a few excuses to have Dexter use his new human computer abilities, every other scene in Now You See Him is some sort of silly concept of a special effect. The film ends the way every Disney film has ended since The Love Bug: with a car chase, except this time it's Arno and Cookie in an invisible car.

These Disney comedies live or die on making their audience crack a smile. That doesn't make them ambitious or old fashioned or good or bad or anything but frighteningly similar. It may not be noble, but Now You See Him, Now You Don't is one of the most successful of these movies, and if you're in the mood for it, it's exactly what you want.

I wish I could say the same of many other of these.

July 19, 1972 - Napoleon & Samantha

Napoleon & Samantha offers and object lesson in what's missing from the otherwise somewhat similar The Biscuit Eater - both films are set in a vague time period which could be contemporary but seems far away from modernity. Both include (but are not "about") a bond between two children, in this case between a young boy and young girl (Samantha isn't written to be a tomboy but because she's played by Jodie Foster the character does have that edge) and an animal that bonds them. They both feature Johnny Whitaker as the boy.

Let's begin with direction. Biscuit Eater was shot in a deadening succession of medium shots. Absolutely nothing was framed in any way to suggest the feeling of a place - just actors existing in whatever vague environment wasn't blocked out by the contours of their head.

Director Bernard McEveety - father of The Biscuit Eater's  Vincent McEveety - has at least some inclination of what a tripod is for, using a variety of high and low angles, wide shots, and some effective zooms to convey the feeling of the small pacific northwest town the film is set in. The intense traditionalism and isolation  of the community becomes important in the third act, when the town turns against Michael Douglas' (yes, THAT Michael Douglas) youth character Danny.

The first third of this film is terrific. Anchored entirely by Will Geer as Whitaker's Grandpa, the two lead an idyllic life, even accumulating a lion, until Grandpa's health fails him. Geer's death bed scenes are terrific, humane and understanding without being patronizing. Whitaker's empathy with Geer allows him to play several scenes well outside his range and age as Napoleon first processes grief. Napoleon hires Danny from a line at an employment agency because Danny needs $4.50 to buy a textbook, and the adventure begins.


Sadly once Geer exits the film much of the spark leaves as well. Whitaker and Foster end up alone in the wilderness with their pet lion, Major, to help them fend off predator attacks recycled from The Incredible Journey. This film was produced by Winston Hibler and this is Hibler territory for sure, complete with a comedic appearance by stock-footage squirrels.

Once the two kids and one cat crest the mountain to Danny's farm, the film shifts once again, to become the all-Michael Douglas show. At the very least this sequence has the considerable charm of Douglas as the "hippie" kid Danny, and even Buddy Baker's score pulses with sixties rock grooves as Danny is arrested and then escapes from the Cops in a motorcycle-vs-car chase that's appealingly extended.

In the end Napoleon and Samantha rates as "just okay" as far as Disney features go. Films like this put reviewers in a fix: everybody in front of the camera is either young or inexperienced, so it's hard to justify being too hard on them, yet the format of a review demands some sort of appraisal. Johnny Whitaker is memorable but simply isn't a very good actor. Compared especially to the two Disney "stars" he most resembles, Bobby Discoll and Kevin Corcoran, Whitaker simply lacks technique. In the "exciting" bear attack scene he basically ends up shouting and gesturing while the trained lion and trainers do all the dramatic work. Jodie Foster in her first theatrical film brings an interesting edge to Samantha despite being required to trudge around in an appallingly short skirt. Foster would shortly emerge as a remarkable actor, but she's a long way off here even from her teenage roles for Disney in Freaky Friday or Candleshoe. Still, it's alarming to consider that the little girl we see here in Napoleon & Samantha will be playing a child prostitute in Taxi Driver just four years later.

That leaves Michael Douglas, who isn't required to do much and does what he can with a nothing part. Danny is supposed to come off as enlightened and intelligent - in one scene he's introduced reading a book on a tree stump in the middle of a goat pasture - and his crazy chase with the cops is both well-intentioned and fun. This is sub-pre-career Douglas, before even his start as a producer, so we should not judge him too harshly. Napoleon & Samantha may be entirely disposable but for as bad as these Disney movies can get, it isn't too bad.

October 18, 1972 - Run, Cougar, Run (Unavailable)

November 26, 1972 - Chandar the Black Leopard of Ceylon (Unavailable)

Here's another batch of two that we'll not be reviewing because they are, officially, unavailable. Run, Cougar Run appears to be an amiable James Algar animal movie - this time, with no jovial narration, about a mountain lion and her three cubs attempting to escape from a group of hunters. Alfonso Arau, who played Paco in Scandalous John, returns with his formidable guitar to provide the human interest.

This one appears to be a great deal better than the average studio animal adventure, and can be viewed in total on YouTube.

 Chandar, in comparison, has totally vanished.

This is one of those movies that IMDb says exists. Wikipedia mirrors the IMDb information, but aside from those two source-points, this film is totally nonexistent. We know it's another Winston Hibler film and that's about it. The secondary source I've used on this project - Richard Holliss and Brian Sibley's remarkably through The Disney Studio Story - doesn't even mention it despite including every Walt Disney Educational title and every theme park or souvenir movie.

Intrigued, I backtracked to the 1971 and 1972 Walt Disney Productions annual reports, where no mention of Chandar could be found either. Does this film exist?

While we can't say with any confidence than anything titled Chandar, the Black Leopard of Ceylon and produced by Winston Hibler is entirely promising, at the very least the film offers the promise of Sri Lankian landscapes and an escape from the American Southwest/Pacific Northwest where all of these Disney animal adventures are set. More than anything, in an era when information about nearly everything in instantly available and can probably be downloaded, there are corners of film history that the bright light of the digital age has still not illuminated.

Next Week: The Magic of Walt Disney World, Snowball Express, The World's Greatest Athlete, and Charley & the Angel

"The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

December 22, 1972 - The Magic of Walt Disney World

This film was released bundled with Snowball Express, for those who want to recreate the experience at home.

Promoting the theme parks with documentaries is an old idea, going back to at least 1954, but the two Disney theme park theatrical films are really in a class of their own. Relatively widely known today is the terrific 1956 Disneyland USA, thanks to a pristine transfer for DVD in 2008. The 1956 film is great and invaluable, but the one I'd do unspeakable things for a perfect copy of is the 1972 Magic of Walt Disney World. It's the Citizen Kane of theme park promotional films.

For longtime fans of the Florida property, the opening of the film is almost unbearably poignant. Narrated by Steve Forrest in what is bizarrely enough his final Disney gig, as Buddy Baker's melancholy "Walt Disney World" theme rises and the camera soars over a brand new Cinderella Castle, it's impossible to not get a little choked up.

Compared directly to the Disneyland we see in Disneyland USA, which is often unrecognizable, The Magic Kingdom has changed comparatively little since 1972. Things are missing all around - no Tomorrowland, no Pirates, no mountain range - but even a casual visitor would readily identify the bulk of the park. As a result, Magic of WDW has something Disneyland USA doesn't quite rise to, which is nostalgia. It may be because the early years of Disneyland today seem so alien and remote, a park a bit closer in tone and execution to something like Pacific Ocean Park than the space-age wonderland it became. Disneyland USA is consistently mind boggling and through, but it doesn't quite make the leap to lived experience that you get in Magic of WDW.

If you watch enough theme park promotional film of the era, eventually you get to where you've seen all of the same shots over and over. The same basic footage found in From The Pirates of the Caribbean To The World of Tomorrow or Disneyland Showtime ended up being used over and over until well into the late 80s. If you're a fan of theme parks this means you spend a lot of time seeing the same stuff. The film which this is ostensibly the companion piece to is The Magic of Disneyland, a 1968 16mm compilation of all of the best shots of Disneyland in the Disney film library. The Magic of Disneyland is terrific, but for seasoned fans, it's also all literally been seen before.

The Magic of WDW greatly benefits from being entirely new footage and also benefits from  being obligated to cover a wider scope of material in a limited amount of time. The attractions which receive the most luxurious coverage are The Hall of Presidents, Country Bear Jamboree, Mickey Mouse Revue, and Jungle Cruise, where not a single reused shot from Disneyland may be found. By leapfrogging over something like Haunted Mansion, the film is able to spend its time highlighting the recreation and lagoons which have always been Walt Disney World's secret weapons - the shots of the sunlight sinking below Fort Wilderness or a sidewheeler steaming across a dusky Bay Lake are extremely powerful evocations.


The distinctions between what's a great sell and merely a good one are hard to delineate. Perhaps ultimately the most marvelous thing about The Magic of WDW is what's not there as much as what is. With wide, circling shots of the park, the barren Tomorrowland, the empty Frontierland, the dead-end Adventureland are all on full display. The park we see here is similar enough to be affecting but different enough to be novel.

Disney made other terrific promotional films - there's A Dream Called Walt Disney World, from 1981, and A Day at Disneyland, the early 90s in-park souvenir video. A personal favorite of mine is Disneyland Fun, a Sing-Along VHS that has enough of a following to have attracted a DVD release. But for my money none of them quite touch The Magic of Walt Disney World for the indefinable quality that brings viewers there. And it does it all without a single appearance by a Disney character squawking into the camera.

December 22, 1972 - Snowball Express

We've reached a milestone here with Snowball Express: this is the final Dean Jones film in our series, and with the conclusion of this entry we have watched the bulk of his career at Disney.

There's two films he made for Disney before the death of Walt - That Darn Cat and The Ugly Dachshund - and he'll return in a few more years for two more dips into the well, with The Shaggy D.A. and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. In both of those films, Dean is a sort of second banana to another Disney star - a fairly convincing older Kirk Cameron in D.A. and yet another spin as the third ring in a circus dominated by a crazy mechanic and prop vehicle. As a result, it's fair to say that we've seen the section of Jones' career which fixed him in memory as a representative of the era at Disney. With Snowball Express, he passes that honor onto Don Knotts.

Yet looking at the world of performances in Disney films, it's both a better and more diverse field than you may suspect. Take Steve Forrest, who for a few years seems to have been groomed to be a Disney star in the vein of Fred MacMurray - the Classic Dad. He's excellent in Rascal and fine in The Wild Country, But that's where the trail ends before Forrest goes back to TV work. Then there's David Tomlinson, the "secret weapon" packed into Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Other actors did similarly excellent work in less distinguished movies - Brian Keith is terrific in Scandalous John, but that film was a flop and is rarely seen today. And of course Kurt Russell is terrific in everything he's in but we think of Russell's career as a bigger thing than just Disney whereas Dean Jones is thought of exclusively for his time at the Mouse House.

Make no mistake: if this blog series had a mascot, it would be Dean Jones. So what makes him the definitive Disney actor of the era?

Well, for one, I've found that these Disney films tend to rise or fall on a strong leading actor and a sense of some kind of atmosphere. Jones was, strictly speaking, reliable. I feel that calling him "reliable" is almost an insult in light of the work he did in impossible situations: how many other actors could realistically have a reconciliation with a car? Watch the other Herbie movies: plenty of other actors failed where Jones succeeded.

So we can also say that Dean was reliable in ways that were complimentary to the kind of movies Disney made but probably seemed an unmarketable skill set in other studios.

And, Jones had some range. Not a lot, but the movies he starred in didn't require much. He could be dramatic on cue, evoke sentiment, and quietly carry the story with dignity. The actor Jones most often reminds me of is Jimmy Stewart, especially in his younger years. Not a performer of incredible range, with the right material and director Stewart could be incredibly effective, even scary. Jones has a similar physical build, a similar common-guy persona, and a similar skill set.

In that vein, Snowball Express may be the best use of his talents of them all. With no talking dogs, cars, or invisible pirates to distract, Jones carries the entire film, and he does it very well. Paired again with the master of lackadaisical wide shots Norman Tokar and producer Ron Miller, who inexplicably were allowed to continue making films after the abominable Boatniks, Snowball Express is fondly remembered for good reason - it's the most watchable and enjoyable Disney comedy of its era.

A ten minute prologue which begins with a defeated Dean Jones as another Man in the Grey Flannel Suit surrogate and ends with Jones stalking towards the camera shouting "Silver Hill, Colorado!" shows Jones receiving an inheritance and saying goodbye to his hated desk job in a way most of us dream we could. His "Grand imperial Hotel" turns out to be a rambling dump, but he's determined to turn it into a ski resort - against all odds.

That almost everything in Snowball Express works is a surprise. Perhaps enervated by the unusual climate and location, Tokar and cinematographer Frank Phillips create an endless winter, the snowdrifts visually offset by the decaying Hotel Imperial in a way which, bizarrely, puts me in mind of Doctor Zhivago. The art department really went to town on the decaying Hotel Imperial, and that hotel has more atmosphere than the last three Disney movies put together. Johnny Whitaker, who spent most of last week proving that he cannot carry a film alone, provides a perfect comic foil for Jones and his wife Nancy Olson. Harry Morgan is nearly unrecognizable as a washed out drunk living in the barn behind the house. Even the resolution is somewhat surprising - the film allows Jones to lose, over and over, even when we're positive he's about to succeed, only to demonstrate that he's already won.


Snowball Express is a difficult film to write about. It works well, but it's hard to describe any comedy with little on its mind besides good natured jokes without stepping on the jokes by describing them. What can be said is that Snowball is literally the product of plugging together every component that ever worked in another Disney movie into one film. There's an unexpected windfall (Million Dollar Duck) of a property inheritance (Monkeys Go Home), computer antics a'la Dexter Riley, a beleaguered but determined father (Absent Minded Professor), a sassy son (take your pick), a climatic race (The Love Bug), and the grizzled sidekick who saves the day (Blackbeard's Ghost). It shouldn't work at all, it should feel like desperate tire spinning like Million Dollar Duck does, but the unusual location, snappy editing, a funny script, and Dean Jones all conspire to pull it off.


If anything the comparative excellence of Snowball demonstrates that Disney already had all of the elements of a successful version of that one movie they kept making laid out in front of them and for one reason or another failed to capitalize on the constituent parts. Snowball Express makes it all look easy. Along with Now You See Him, Now You Don't it's the most successful and purely enjoyable "Disney Live Action Comedy" of its era.

February 14, 1973 - The World's Greatest Athlete

Comedy is a fickle thing. For every W.C. Fields, Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, or Jerry Lewis, there's a whole herd of comedians waiting in the wings to whom time has not been as kind to. Some are forgotten but still talented, but a great deal have simply been rendered obsolete by social change and taste. A relic like The General may be one of the few silent films of its era to command audience attention, admiration, and money today, but in 1927 it was a bomb. The comedy that beat it at the box office? Hands Up!, a forgotten (and lost) western, roundly praised in tones much more glowing than those afforded Keaton's masterpiece.

I'm saying all of this in the earnest hope that at one point in time, The World's Greatest Athlete was at least... funny. That may be needlessly optimistic. The New York Times wrote of it in 1973 as it inexplicably played at the Radio City Music Hall: "It should be stressed, however, that this ribbing of the Tarzan myth runs a good, clean course that should grab all red-blooded sports fans up to and including the 14-year-old group. It might be added that everyone from coach Amos to Jan-Michael Vincent, in the title role, athletically tries without much success to make all this good-naturednonsense funny."

The World's Greatrst Athelete stars John Amos as a beleaguered college coach on the ropes with his employers who discovers a (white) Tarzan surrogate during a safari to Africa which mostly involves Amos and his irritating henchman Tim Conway standing in front of process screens. If nothing else, it's momentarily heartening to see Amos as the comedy star of a Disney film. Black actors in Disney films prior to this moment appeared in roles ranging from invisible to demeaning, with the exception of James Baskett in Song of the South, and the years between the release of that film and our own time has made appreciating his performance very difficult. Amos' race isn't even a peripheral concern in Greatest Athelete - it only seems to be there to get Amos to Africa where he can discover Nanu, the athletic jungle boy who runs faster than a cheetah. Whatever good will is generated by Amos, however, quickly dissipates as the film introduces an African Witch Doctor, played by Roscoe Browne, in full cartoon mode.

Athlete unspools for a soul-deadening 93 minutes through every expected stock plot situation. The only surprise comes at the one hour point when the Witch Doctor Gazenga shrinks Tim Conway, for no reason whatever, to three inches tall. Conway stumbles around through unfunny situations in impressive "giant size" sets, in a complication that seems to have been invented to get an extra ten minutes into the run time. I laughed at all of this exactly once - in a gag where Conway tries to "muscle into" the frame during a TV interview with Amos, and even that joke was repeated again - and again - and again - grinding what was the only funny, spontaneous moment of the film into submission.

About halfway through this most supremely unfunny of comedies I began to get an alarming feeling that all of this was starting to feel familiar - the endless panning shots, the endless zoom shots, and the endless panning shots that end as zoom shots were too much like something I had seen before.

A quick check on IMDb proved me to be correct - Robert Scheerer also directed the inane, endless Grand Opening of Walt Disney World TV special, a 90 minute extravaganza that reportedly sent Roy O. Disney into a rage. Badly, quickly shot in a Magic Kingdom still under construction and punctuated with lousy wide shots and crash zooms, The World's Greatest Athlete is just what you're looking for if you want more of the comedy stylings from the team behind this:

"Life is a kumquat!""What?""As somebody said?"

And this:

"Come on , Herbie!"

World's Greatest Athlete wears out it welcome at about minute 40 but it keeps on trucking like the titular character. It quickly becomes a sour experience. The tenacity of coach Amos and Conway quickly becomes exploitative and unsympathetic, and we end up wanting to see Nanu return to Africa, which he ultimately does. Amos quits his job at Merrivale and travels to get away - this time to China, which we know because he sits right by the Great Wall, because this film trades almost entirely in generalizations. There, he sees a young Chinese boy who runs faster than a horse, and the see-it-coming-a-mile-away joke complete the cycle as he takes off after the boy to bring him back to America.

I'd like to point out in 1966, Disney changed their plans to feature Louis Armstrong as King Louie in Jungle Book for fear of causing offense by casting a black man as a monkey. This same company made a movie in 1973 where an African Witch Doctor stops a photo shoot to place a bone in his nose. Progress?????

Comedy may be hard, but watching The World's Greatest Athlete is even harder. It features not one funny joke, one amusing scene, or one likable character. It's embarrassing to see Disney trading on the goodwill generated by their name to be passing stuff like this off on the general public.


March 23, 1973 - Charley and the Angel

One of my favorite movie stories: in the early 80s, a young director named Robert Zemeckis had a script for a lighthearted fantasy comedy script he was shopping around town. Every studio turned him down; in the early 80s in the wake of Animal House, the only comedies studios were interested in making were raunchy sex comedies. "Take it to Disney!", every studio suggested. Out of options, Zemeckis took the movie to Disney. Card Walker flipped out. "Are you crazy? You've got this scene with the guy and his mother in the car -- this is incest! We can't make this movie!"

That script was called Back to the Future.

At a certain point from the 60s onward, as movie studios raced to stay ahead of social trends, Disney was the only studio in town for a certain kind of movie. The early 70s was the era of disaster movies, The Godfather, and The Sting. The Exorcist was causing what can be mildly described as mass hysteria in theaters. The highest grossing comedy around was Blazing Saddles. Nothing the rest of the motion picture industry was doing was remotely compatible with Disney's simple comedies.

So for a script like Charley and the Angel to have a shot at getting made it really had to be a Disney movie. As far as Disney movies from the early seventies go, it's a good one, and it dominated the box office throughout Easter 1973. Still, being a Disney film comes with come conditions and Disney sometimes giveth as much as it taketh away. Charley & the Angel compactly demonstrates the upsides and downsides of being Disney in 1973.


Set in the Great Depression at the tail end of Prohibition, Charley features an alarmingly hoarse sounding Fred MacMurray as an uptight hardware store owner who's visited by an angel played by Harry Morgan sent from heaven to deliver his final judgement. Heaven, however, can't quite make up its mind how and when it will do Charley in, and in true Hollywood tradition the imminent end of his life gets Charley to thinking about all the things he wishes he'd done....


You've probably seen one of these movies before, but what you probably don't know is that they have an official name: film blanc, derived from the better known film noir. Both styles emerged from the golden age of Hollywood and both styles deal with folly and mortality, but while film noir is all deceit and annihilation, film blanc is about transcendence, ennobling the human spirit in its darkest moments.

The most famous film blanc of all, and the film Charley & the Angel most resembles, is It's a Wonderful Life, but there are many others. There's the well-remembered Topper and Topper Returns, as well as Blithe Spirit, representing one common variation on the theme that protecting angels are ghosts. Others play on a Faust variation, such as the charming but non-PC Cabin in the Sky, while others such as Peter Ibbetson play on darker themes. Morality is a common thread: Ernst Lubitsch's Heaven Can Wait beautifully redeems a kind-hearted playboy but makes no judgement on his sexual profligacy.

One reoccurring theme in Film Blanc is heaven-as-bureaucracy. In Fritz Lang's film Liliom from 1934, Charles Boyer ascends to heaven past mechanical-looking angels after committing suicide and finds himself in a celestial duplicate of the Paris police stations he'd haunted in life - down to the same old guy behind the desk with the same defective stamp. Maybe the grand daddy of all films blanc is Powell and Pressburger's over-the-top A Matter of Life and Death, where heaven is some weird black and white stentorian Tomorrowland observatory looking out over a Technicolor world.

There's a bit of this left over in Charley. Charley's angel reports secondhand confusion in heaven as Charley continually avoids heaven's fatal blows, the official decision on his doom, is, as they say, mired in delays. This is exactly the sort of uncertainty films blanc often play with - as the creepy, Nosferatu-like angels in Liliom say, it would be too easy if death were the end of everything.

Not to detract from MacMurray, but Harry Morgan as the angel is nearly the whole show here. Morgan delivers his lines in an amusing clipped dialect that I suppose is intended to recall the era he hails from - the turn of the 20th century. He occasionally offers insight into the afterlife of an angel - he only vaguely recalls his life on earth - and gets into some amusing hi jinx with roller skates. Occasionally only his iconic hat, cane and gloves materialize, briefly turning the film into an Invisible Man movie.

The film gets into murky water the Disney studio is ill-suited to traverse in the final third, when Charley's young boys are encouraged to get jobs and end up running liquor to a speakeasy. The operation is overseen by Richard Bakalyn, who by now has become Disney shorthand for "=gangster". Then the Big Boss unexpectedly arrives to take over the operation and a harebrained car chase ensues, introducing a horrible Vito Corleone impersonation and deflating the easygoing mood.

This is what I mean when I say that Charley & the Angel represents the benefits and drawbacks of Disney in 1973. No other studio would touch a film like this, but Disney is repeatedly stuffing things into Charley just because, well, it's what they do. There's a gangster because, um, it's a Disney movie. There's a lame car chase because, um, it's a Disney movie. One reason why films blanc have found and retained a loyal fan base is because the supernatural subject and heavy atmosphere often bring out the best in film art. The movies aren't just uplifting and lighthearted; the subject matter nearly demands cinematic audacity.

Compared to even a studio sausages like Cabin in the Sky or Peter Ibbetson, Charley is remarkably tamped-down. While it never affects the film badly from the perspective of a Disney film, as a film fan I was disappointed to see promising material end up so predictable. As it stands it's a rare dramatically successful film from this studio in this era, but with a bit more dramatic weight and a director unburdened from the need to make a film of a certain look and house style, Charley could have been exceptional.

The film is based on a book called The Golden Evenings of Summer, which I've looked for details about online, and the book seems to be a Dandelion Wine-style nostalgic reverie with no angels of any kind. If this is true, then Disney deserves credit for building a film up around it that plays well to their strengths just as quickly as we point out their weaknesses. Charley's main pleasures may be atmosphere instead of incident, but it's a fairly pleasant way to spend your evening.

  The Final Week of The Age of Not Believing will be coming soon. The films are One Little Indian and Robin Hood.

 "The Age of Not Believing" is a movie review series tracing the history of Disney in the years following the death of Walt Disney. It covers three films a week in an effort to see all theatrical Disney films released between January 1967 and December 1973. The entire series can be found here.

June 20, 1973 - One Little Indian

That kid's face on the poster pretty well summarizes how appealing this movie is.

On February 27, 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in a bid to raise awareness of their cause and protest the ineffectual American government. It was, in a larger sense, the start of a new era in the United States for an awareness of ongoing discrimination against native peoples.

The Western, the traditional carrier of the Americans vs. Natives dramatic conflict, was dying out, and even if it hadn't been, the general perception of the Wounded Knee protests as a turning point would have made the form totally untenable, except in revisionist westerns.

As it is, Hollywood wouldn't even touch the subject until the early 90s wave of "enlightened" Westerns which either featured exclusively white on white violence (Tombstone) or extended the treacly branch of peace (Dances With Wolves). Disney themselves fanned the flames by producing Pocahontas in 1995, a star-crossed lovers fantasy which just so happened to be set against the backdrop of the European colonization of North America. This time the general American population protested loudly, while some Native groups gave the film a tentative thumbs up for its message of cross-racial cooperation.

Back in 1973, while all this was just beginning, Disney was producing a low budget Western called One Little Indian. Do you think they were using these political events to tap into the zeitgeist and produce a film of lasting meaning? Nope. This is a movie where a guy gets dragged by a camel crotch-first into a cactus.


Starting in medias res, One Little Indian is a well-shot and fast paced adventure that never colors outside the lines. The film is structured as a chase, with military defector James Garner being pursued by a villain who's so poorly sketched we're not even sure why the guy goes to such great lengths to catch his prey. But this is a Western and the driven, obsessive villain has been around since the earliest days of these "oaters".

The One Little Indian of the title, incidentally, isn't so much an Indian as a kid on the lam effecting a handy disguise. There's some vaguely defined objective to his quest - he has to get to a reservation where his mother awaits - but the film blows past this so quickly it never registers as a real end goal. Meanwhile, James Garner is set to be court-martialed for refusing to destroy an Indian village; he's captured and hung but the not-Indian boy manages to destroy the gibbet and save his life. Perhaps seeing an opportunity to cut twenty minutes out of the film, the commanding Army officer decides he's already been hung once and spares his life.

This, incidentally, did happen in real life often enough, but never to my knowledge with this result. Usually they'd go back and keep trying to hang the convicted until it worked.

The real star of the movie is Rosie the Camel, the tempestuous steed Garner chooses to escape with. In what appears to be an awkward attempt to append a Disney cute-crazy animal story to a mediocre Western, Rosie gets the bulk of the better scenes and even dies in the final reel. Although One Little Indian is fast moving and never unpleasant, this conceit just plain doesn't work. We don't care for the camel half as much as the
film thinks we do. Even the poster has the camel as the star, as if the idea of a camel in a Western is inherently hilarious. These are the sort of conceptually mediocre touches that consistently drag Disney product down. "Oh ho ho, look, a camel in a Western!""Oh oh boy, Tim Allen has a spider on his head!"

Bernard McEveety is back in his final film, and to be fair he acquits himself much better than he did in Napoleon & Samantha. Many shots in One Little Indian have a pleasantly Fordian quality, and Jerry Goldsmith (!!!) turns out a decent score which classes the whole enterprise up a good deal.

About halfway through the picture, Garner runs across an isolated farm where Vera Miles and her daughter Jodie Foster are packing up to leave on the next stagecoach following the death of Miles' husband. For an extended sequence at the dinner table, the rest of the film melts away... the not-charming kid, Rosie the camel, the deserter subplot, the need to watch this Disney movie and the entire Age of Not Believing blog series vanishes and we see Garner and Miles, two good actors playing a scene with humanity and warmth. It's old-fashioned film values that work as well today as it did in 1973. It's the sort of simple pleasures that more Disney films could stand to have.



November 8, 1973 - Robin Hood

The early passages of this review concerning the context and development of Robin Hood is indebted to Andreas Deja on his blog Deja View, which is a treasure trove of animation history and theory. I'm honored to be able to present some of his observations and material in this new context.

Robin Hood is very much the inverse of The Aristocats. Aristocats is full of good material that never coalesces into a satisfying whole. Robin Hood is a mixed bag of the inspired and the mediocre which somehow becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

I really like Robin Hood, but I'm not really sure why. It's wildly inconsistent. The story is an absolute mess. Of all the Disney feature films, this one feels the most like a Saturday morning cartoon.

Yet posterity has largely reflected my inflated opinion of it. It's the only of the Disney 70s films to be still widely watched. If you asked people to start listing Disney movies they'd eventually hit Robin Hood, well behind the major 90s hits but still ahead of something like The Fox & the Hound or The Rescuers. It's well remembered and it's one of those Disney movies that gets a new video release every few years without having to be retired to the "Vault" to artificially inflate demand.

What's more, in speaking to others about this film, I got fairly near-unanimous agreement: it was generally well liked and mostly acknowledged for not being very good. So, we must ask: what is it about this particular film that manages to overcome its limitations - and the toxic reputation of Disney in the 70s - to work, generation after generation?

We'll get there, but first, I'd like to go back in time to discuss what made this movie what it is. To say Robin Hood was a troubled production may be a mild understatement: it was a mess.

In his episode of the early 80s Disney television show "Disney Family Album", Ken Anderson describes the genesis of the idea this way:

"I thought I'd put everything together. What did the animators most enjoy doing? They most enjoyed working in the manner we did on Song of the South. Where could I get animal creatures that were somewhat like Song of the South and in what kind of a picture? Sort of a charade - a burlesque of some well known fantasy story - like a Robin Hood - ah ha!"

A great deal of Anderson's early development work on Robin Hood is very interesting. Ken worked hard on getting a variety of shapes and forms into his characters - Robin is a small, scruffy fox who is virtually loomed over by the villainous Prince John. The Sheriff of Nottingham is fat but forward-heavy and tall whereas Lady Cluck is short and bottom-heavy wide. Nearly all of the Robin Hood characters have brilliantly iconic silhouettes - shapes that define and sell their personalities.


Ken's early design for Robin has a youthful appearance: a hat too large for his head, thin neck, and long nose (he also wears pants, which the final Robin does not, because what's better than a pantsless criminal?). This early model sheet has the cavalier attitude down pat - I especially like Robin shooting arrows with his feet. In a 1973 interview Milt Kahl casually revealed that they went through eight different models for Robin Hood in the film, and three different voices - Tommy Steele, Brian Cox, and the final choice of Brian Bedford. This early version is clearly the Tommy Steele version.

Now, as cute as these Robins are, to me the champion in the film Robin Hood is Milt Kahl, who animated Robin and Marian and had his fingers in a lot of other character designs and actions as well. Milt's early passes on Robin retained Ken's youthful fox, with an effect that reminds me a bit more of a character we'd see in An American Tail than in a Disney film from 1973. To his credit, Milt fought to push Robin in an older, more handsome direction - with a thicker neck, less pointed nose, and more mature body language. Milt also went to great lengths to retain the sense of an anatomy of a real fox, which he was relatively alone in the production for insisting on. Robin Hood carries the picture on his confident shoulders, which I'm not sure the jangly Tommy Steele version could have. Milt's perfectionism saved the picture.

Equally brilliant although less frequently seen onscreen is Kahl's Maid Marian. A worthy companion of Kahl's other great leading lady - Lady of Lady and the Tramp - Marian manages to be vivacious and romantic despite remaining 80% covered in a ludicrous outfit the entire run time (if you think it's easy to draw over-dressed characters, try it sometime). Kahl improved Anderson's interesting design - which fluctuated radically between a two-eared headdress and a typical princess cone hat - by adding a virginal veil framing her entire upper body, suggesting flowing feminine hair and simultaneously handing himself a nightmare technical job of having to animate loose material flowing and shifting weight. Despite being a floating face and hands inside a dress, Marian has the screen presence of a star. Robin's festive reds and greens contrast and compliment Marian's oranges, pinks and purples. The two have real screen chemistry and are the two most accomplished and interesting character designs to hail from the animation unit in the 70s.

 As a production, Robin Hood is just plain unfinished. In the opening sequence, the animation unit hearkens back to past glories of the Walt era with the traditional "storybook" open; but this turns out to be a ruse. The book that opens is the classic story of Robin Hood - not the story that will be told - and we zoom in, past the text, towards the ornamental rooster at the top of the page. The zoom ends with an abrupt cut to an animated image, strongly suggesting that a planned transitional effect where Allan-a-Dale would've come to life on the page during the zoom was budgeted out for time or money. That's in the first minute of the film, and it's a fairly accurate summary of what's coming.

Past Disney animated films had cut corners. In 1959, Walt wanted to shutter animation production entirely in the wake of the failure of Sleeping Beauty, and the 60s films are full of small scales and smaller ambitions. But Robin Hood has an unprecedented amount of stuff that's recycled, reused, or just plain old jettisoned. The most infamous of these is in the "Phony King of England" number, which has new animation here and there but is mostly made up of action reused from The Aristocats and Jungle Book. There's a small cottage industry made up just of YouTube videos showing splitscreens of these recycled shots, so there's no reason for me to go over them again here.

(Milt Kahl)

What's interesting to me isn't that these shots are retraced animation, it's the suggestion they supply that this sequence was not intended to appear in Robin Hood at all. Written by Johnny Mercer, an enormously talented songwriter with no Disney credits until this one, it's written in a way that suggests an imitation of Roger Miller's three effective folk songs fused with a hoedown sensibility that comes out of nowhere.

"Phony King of England" is funny and effective and it peps up the end of the second act very nicely, but the actual production of the number remains suspicious, especially in light of a discarded expanded (and greatly superior) ending presented on the Robin Hood DVD and Blu-Ray. Not presented on the discs but shown in episodes of Disney Family Album are snippets of animation for this sequence, so we know it at least entered production. At some point it was then removed for a streamlined ending which reprises the exact same "is he dead or isn't he" gag from the end of The Jungle Book and jumps directly to the wedding. To me, "Phony King" looks suspiciously like a late addition to bring the running time back up from this deletion and add a song for Phil Harris. Or, a less conventionally "Disney" film was pushed into a more conventionally successful shape with a low-stakes finale and crazy song.

Maybe one of the most intriguing things about Robin Hood is its complete refusal to play by the traditional beats of the Robin Hood legend. Robin doesn't even have a band of Merry Men in this one; he spends all of his time bumming around in the forest with Little John. There is no traditional quarter-staff fight over the stream; Robin and Little John begin as friends. Instead of a disguised criminal, Friar Tuck is an actual Friar with an actual church and congregation. Will Scarlet is nowhere to seen, having been cut with the rest of the merry men. The geography doesn't even make much sense: we see Prince John, presumably a fixture in London, traveling into Nottingham to collect taxes. Then a castle in Nottingham, housing Maid Marian, suddenly seems to belong to John, as if he's based out of Nottingham. Most versions make it clear that the Sheriff of Nottingham is the local governing official and so the castle presented in the film belongs to him; the Disney version treats the Sheriff as more of a police captain, ie the Sheriff in the traditional American old west style. The film plays less like a standard Robin Hood telling and more like somebody's half-remembered, half made up version of the story.


In a way, however, Disney's alterations go far in making the Robin Hood story less of a specific historical fantasy and much more of a fairy tale, their traditional genre. Nearly every previous screen version of Robin Hood eventually becomes a story of politics; Anglos versus Saxons, rural areas versus city areas, and noble born versus low born. The Disney version dispenses with all that and basically turns the story into a Western. Robin is the good, disguised avenger, like the Lone Ranger. Prince John could easily be a corrupt governor or a congressman. Allan-A-Dale is basically just Roger Miller, voice of the people and wandering folk singer, Bob Dylan surrogate. There's even a stage coach heist. Supposedly Woolie Reitherman disposed of the Merry Men because he wanted Robin Hood and Little John to be like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In the process of making this alteration, the film was successfully deformed into an entirely different generic convention. This is why nobody balks at a hoedown in the middle of the movie: it's the same old trope in an unfamiliar setting.


Pretty much the one thing that was carried over intact from the traditional Robin Hood tales is the archery tournament, and in his one case Disney's Robin Hood is very, very close to the scene in the 1939 film, close enough to suggest that somebody remembered it well or had seen it recently. The procession of archers, the disguise, Lady Marian in the box, the splitting of the arrows, and Robin's capture and escape are represented faithfully, even if Errol Flynn did not have a chicken who can double as a line tackle against rhinoceros.

Even so, the Disney Robin Hood gets up to some pretty strange capers. Remembered from the 1939 film was Robin's disguise at the tournament; the fox Robin is practically a master of disguise. Making good use of the potential for crazy outfits and weird accents, the Disney animators turn him into a veritable Professor Moriarty of Sherwood. Ken Andersen's concept art for Robin's disguise as a stork is a visually wonderful contrast between a short Marian and absurdly tall stork; the final animated form simplifies this greatly. Elsewhere, the Disney animators introduce the traditional vaudeville comedy convention of the drag act to the myth. Robin Hood seems to appear in absurd disguises and with crazy voices more often than not. Singular to the Disney version, this hasn't caught on in any other telling of the outlaw myth.

Given all of the above, why does the darn thing work at all? What makes Robin Hood more easily digestible and more popular than any other Disney film of its decade?

That simplicity has drawbacks, but it has benefits too. With the situations entirely stock, the film narrows in on the animated performances like a laser beam. Despite the myriad charms of the film, I think the performances in Aristocats are pretty weak. It's hard to remember a single unique thing
about O'Malley, for example. Robin Hood has terrific heroes and three great, unique villains in a story and setting that's just so-so. Roger Miller's opening "Whistle Stop" tune sets just the right lazy mood: Robin Hood is, as ever, just an excuse to hang out with Robin in the forest. There's no danger because there's no stakes and the arrows always miss.

There's the fact that Robin Hood is easily the most approachable of the Disney films for very very young children. It's the first Disney film I can remember in complete detail. There's nothing really scary and the storytelling is easily comprehensible. Most other Disney films put kids through the emotional wringer, but Robin Hood is lazily companionable.

In the process of extracting a narrative skeleton from Robin Hood, Disney created something new: the idea of Robin Hood as a stock fantasy situation. Largely presented as a historical epic since the pioneering 1922 Doug Fairbanks movie, Disney's version paved the way for a million generic Robin Hood stories since. Muppet Babies Robin Hood. Backyardigans Robin Hood. Veggie Tales Robin Hood. Take your pick. This is why Disney's film feels like a Saturday Morning cartoon to us today; we grew up in the wake of this vastly simplified version of the tale.

Yet really the remarkable accomplishment here is that Disney made a film where talking animal characters have as much on-screen gravity as human characters. Marian is severely underused but she has the charm and magnetic screen image of a beautiful woman. Robin Hood himself was the first animated crush of many young women. This is a real accomplishment on the part of Milt Kahl, suggesting that animation had moved beyond requiring human characters to create audience sympathy. These animated animals are thoroughly human, and thus attractive. They're the first non-human animated characters to have..... sex appeal.


And once we hit on that, we come to the reason why, in the Age of Not Believing, Robin Hood must come last: in a sea of tepid comedies, unadventurous adventures, and tedious formula, Robin Hood is, against all odds, the one film to have a genuine artistic legacy: modern anthropomorphic art.


At this point I have to break the article with a bit of a warning. I'm going to venture down a path that a lot of Disney fans try their best to ignore: the real links connecting the Disney film Robin Hood to the modern-day Furry community. Indeed, just talking about the Furry community is unreasonably difficult, given the various ways in which salacious bad press has gathered around what's more or less just another nerd subset. For several years that was one of my social scenes, and although I did not then nor do I now easily identity as such, I still have many friends who are self-professed Furries. They're not deviants, they are warm, intelligent, interesting people.

The Reputation.

I'm going to try to do this as even-handedly and fearlessly as possible. If you've come this far with this blog series without giving up, you've faced much tougher challenges. This is only about 70% as tough as sitting through Boatniks, for example. Still, this is a crucial part of Disney history that most fans try to rush past, lest the beatific reputation of their company be tarnished. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's a complex and interesting story.

It's worth pointing out, to begin with, that in 1973 there was still no truly commonly understood genre as "furry characters". Indeed, it's very hard to draw a firm line in the sand between Robin Hood and, say, Lady and the Tramp to say "this is where the idea originated". Robin Hood is still very much in the traditional "funny animal" style of Brer Rabbit or Donald Duck - human-like animal critters who could talk and wear clothes. Bugs Bunny is another early "funny animal" who is alarmingly close to the modern understanding of "furry", but then again even Bugs' early design and attitude is a rather obvious lift from another Disney film - the 1935 Tortoise and the Hare.


What can be said about Robin Hood is that its characters mostly do not resemble the strongly humanoid body types of modern "furry" characters, putting them more firmly in the "funny animal" category. Kahl fought to keep Robin's shape expressively foxlike: he has cute short legs and a long, gangling midsection that bounces expressively when he moves. Allan-a-Dale and Lady Cluck are extravagantly avian, and look and move nothing like people in animal suits. Just about the most
humanoid morphic element of any character in the film is its visual treatment of female characters: Robin and Little John don wigs in their gypsy disguises (nowhere else to we see any indication that female characters in this animal world have long hair in the human fashion). Little John also dons fake breasts. Later on we see Lady Cluck, who has an ample bosom, despite being a chicken. Putting boobs on birds may be an unlikely first, but this film went there.

It's interesting to visually compare the designs of Robin Hood with those of their nearest precedent, Song of the South. The animated character designs for Song of the South were done by Marc Davis, who had just come off several years working on Bambi trying to find the appropriate middle ground between animals and people. He went in a super cartoony direction with Song of the South, focusing on contrasting sizes and body types to create three comedy characters in a parable setting. His Brer Fox is basically a lanky guy in a funny hat with a fox head. Fast forward to the 1970s, and Davis is still more adept at anyone at using funny animals in unique ways, although this time it's in theme parks - at Country Bear Jamboree and America Sings. Of course, perhaps the link between Davis' approach and Robin Hood can be attributed to Ken Andersen who worked with Davis on Chanticleer, an aborted "first pass" at an animal-only fantasy at Disney.

Davis sketch - note "real" bear up top.

So it's fair to say that Robin Hood isn't really a "furry" movie in the strictest sense - it's still a funny animal movie, a tradition that runs through the 19th and 20th centuries very strongly. But it's absolutely a turning point, and not just because Lady Cluck had boobs or because Maid Marian was attractive. It's the first time that humanistic animal characters were used in a dramatic situation without undermining its effect.

Now, yes, I know, I've already characterized this film as low stakes and companionable, but at the very least we can say that we are concerned that Robin may not survive his leap into the moat in a way that we are not when, say, Goofy falls off a building. The animals of Robin Hood are both identifiably human and identifiably mortal. And they did set precedents. When Don Bluth left Disney in the late 70s he took the tricks developed in Robin Hood along with him. For Disney, Robin Hood was a one-off fluke and they went back to animating funny but anatomically correct animals in The Rescuers and Fox and the Hound, films much nearer the style of Bambi or Lady and the Tramp. Bluth, conversely, took the confident waggle and body shape Milt Kahl gave Robin and used it for the heroic Justin in The Secret of NIMH.

At that time Disney was still pretty much the only game in town and Robin Hood the only real example of a certain type of funny animal. In discussing their upcoming film An American Tail, Steven Spielberg told Bluth that he wanted it to be a film of humanoid animals, and the example he used was Robin Hood. Bluth begged the contrary - he wanted it to be a film like The Rescuers. Spielberg had to go see The Rescuers first, and then he agreed. It's a little known but telling anecdote from an era when Spielberg was trying very hard to position himself as "The Next Walt Disney".

Back to our main story here, The Secret of NIMH was a seminal event in the nascent furry community, as was the release of Animalympics in 1980. Hopelessly counter cultural to the end, it's hard to even find a timeline of events about the development of the Furry community, but a quick look at this useful article on the Furry Wiki shows that the community was still calling itself the "Funny Animal Fandom" in the mid 70s and wouldn't even develop the word "Furry" until the late 80s. This places it evenly paced with the development of other early nerd groups like Trekkers and comic fans in the mid-70s, and there's always been a lot of messy overlap between Furries, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, D&D, and, yes, Disney fans. We're all part of the same cultural stew.

How did furries organize enough to start developing 'zines by the late 70s and conventions by the early 80s? In the pre internet world how did enough people find each other with an interest that's always been sort of an awkward secret? Well, we can thank Disney for that too.


In the process of researching Walt Disney World I've spoken to enough people who were there and seen enough old photos of Funny Animal Fans at Disney to have gotten an idea of how this happened. First, some context. Back in the early seventies, what we now know as the Entertainment department wasn't as carefully monitored or controlled as it is now: practically anyone who could fit into one of those character suits was pressed into service at one time or another. The daily "parade", known as the Walt Disney Character Cavalcade, was presented throughout the 70s and basically consisted of whomever they could find to throw in an animal suit piling into various Main Street vehicles and heading down the street just doing whatever.  I've spoken to a woman who worked in the Tomorrowland Terrace who left twice a day to be Peter Pan in the parade; she'd run around the parade route, run into shops, whatever.

This means that anyone who was young, clean shaven, and enthusiastic could get a job at Disneyland or Walt Disney World and if if your particular dream was to wear an animal costume, then Disney needed you even more. It was a mecca for young men with a certain set of interests, literally the only place you could be paid to dress up as characters like...... Robin Hood. Furries are famous today for hand-making elaborate mascot outfits and this is the root of this part of the fan community. After all, getting a Starfleet Insignia shirt and Spock ears was no huge feat in the 70s, but where else could you actually be Goofy?

The Furry community coalesced from there, out of these pockets of like-minded individuals who found themselves doing the same thing for the same reason at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.  It's no big secret in Orlando that the city is a prominent Furry Community hub, and one of those reasons is because, them as now, people move across the country for an opportunity to get paid for wearing a Pluto suit.

(The other big component, lest I be accused of dispersing incomplete information, was Sci-Fi conventions. The mid-70s Star Trek cartoon prominently featured Lieutenant M'Ress, a shapely woman with a cat head and tail. The first "Funny Animal Fandom" APA, Vootie, showed on its cover a furry Mister Spock.Themed room parties held at Sci-Fi conventions developed into full-scale specialist events.)

This history is also Disney's history. Although Funny Animal Fans and, later, Furries, are a bigger thing than just Disney, it's rare for a corporate entity to be so heavily involved in the creation of a massive fan group. And Robin Hood is just the middle act of the evolving history of Disney's impact on Furries starting with the Silly Symphonies, on to Song of the South, then Jungle Book and Robin Hood, then The Disney Afternoon and The Lion King, to whatever the next touchstone will be. It's just one word and facet for a part of a basic art genre - anthropomorphic art - that's been around for millennia.

Looking on from the Disney community side of things, I will say this. One thing the Disney community often craves is validation. After all, Disney is often synonymous with "dumbed down", and cartoons with "juvenile". That's why you see Disney people drawing connections to fine art, or urban design - subjects which already have polite company's "seal of approval". To this way of thinking, insisting on the links between Disney fans and the Furry community is counter productive, given the reputation Furries have not just in the wider world, but in other nerd groups. But just like the views that see only infantile simplicity in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or lowbrow carnivals in Disneyland, these views are reductionist and wrongheaded. Even years after the company's ascent to successful corporate conglomerate and cultural touchstone thanks to a wave of Disney films in the 90s, Disney's still kinda an embarrassing thing to like.

I suggest that it's time the early history of the furry community and the influence of Walt Disney Productions on the notion of what a "funny animal" was and what they could be in the 20th century be folded back into the Disney historical narrative. Once we accept that not all furries are crazed sexual deviants the links between Disney and Furry become less creepy and more fascinating. Could John Hench have foreseen the world of the "fursuiting" community his character costumes for Disneyland would help create when he first sat down at the drawing board in the sixties? Could Walt?

Robin Hood and Maid Marian and the film and world they inhabit still stand tall in the Furry pantheon for good reason - they're wonderfully realized characters. The links between the film and the Furry subculture flatter the film, not demean it. The Disney Animation staff made such compelling people out of those animals that even today they can stir interest and recognition in people who otherwise have no interest in anthropomorphic animals.


Hey, it's okay, you can admit it. We're all a little Furry for Robin Hood.

This concludes the main series of posts in The Age of Not Believing. The next post on this blog will be a look back at the entire series, with rankings of best and worst films. There will also be a bonus film review - Superdad. See you then!

Phil Harris, Andy Devine, and Robin.

Well, nobody's perfect.

I spend a lot of time talking about Magic Kingdom on this blog because I believe it's a remarkable place. Walt Disney was right; you can only do Disneyland once, and Walt likely took the secret to doing it twice with him to his grave. Magic Kingdom is the park where the foundations for how to do theme parks moving forward would be laid, while expanding and, at least for 1971, improving on a lot of what had come before.

But that doesn't mean it's free of black eyes; really, no theme park is. And having spent as much time pulling the place apart to see how it ticks as I have, I've collected observations of flaws, eccentricities, and just plain bad choices but never had any good place to collect them.

I'm going to try to keep this focused on problems having to do with design, or aesthetics, or operations, with special attention paid to choices which disrupt already existing areas or which cause huge complications down the line. What you won't see a lot of is nagging on things which have markedly better, or different, versions elsewhere: we all know that Pirates at MK isn't as good as any other version, or that Disneyland's Small World facade is a huge deal in all of the other castle parks and which many miss at Magic Kingdom. I've got more interesting things to discuss here.

Let's begin the countdown.

10) Walt Disney World Railroad's Cement Overpass (1971)

It never really occurred me when I was a kid that there's actually nothing to look at along the Railroad at Magic Kingdom. The long trip past trees, some more trees, and some plastic wildlife never really struck me as a problem until I saw Disneyland's Railroad, which has unique scenery, intriguing views into Fantasyland, and ends with the Grand Canyon and dinosaurs. It's hard to top any ride that ends with dinosaurs.

I always thought that the point of the Florida train ride was that it was a simulation of what rail travel could have been like, and especially at night as the train creeps through the bamboo outside Adventureland, it's easy to forget that you're not chugging though a boundless wilderness filled with hostile creatures. The front two-thirds of the ride has never been the problem, as it has always offered a good view into Tomorrowland and Frontierland, a look at Walt Disney World's marvelous Seven Seas Lagoon area, and a fine, if not exactly thrilling, bamboo thicket.

But the back third - what's always been called the back stretch - has never been fine. Since 1971 it's been an unsimultated ride through a swamp, unsimultated because it really is a swamp. In the earliest years the spiel on the Railroad attempted to present this as a view of what this area looked like before Walt Disney World was built, which is just about the best spin you can put on it. This most disappointing stretch of the ride climaxes with the ultimate disappointment: a ride underneath a concrete overpass!

Dick Nunis hated how spare the Magic Kingdom railroad was compared to its Disneyland counterpart. He relocated scenes intended for the Jungle Cruise to the back stretch, and kept pushing for a Matterhorn that the train could ride though and see a blizzard. I've long joked that the addition of a few dummies plus a silk flame in a barrel could improve the overpass with a simulated hobo encampment.

It isn't hard to guess why it's gone nearly fifty years looking the way it does. The concrete overpass is the main way into the Magic Kingdom for employees and service vehicles, so it falls under the umbrella of facilities, not guest show, and as a piece of infrastructure, it's super duper important. The bridge can't be closed to be rebuilt into something better themed without massive complications, complications which understandably are best to avoid. It's one of those problems that falls between poles and thus doesn't get addressed.

Ever notice that the supports are designed to resemble a train trestle?

I think the solution need not be any more complex than a plain tunnel around the train, perhaps a vintage wooden one, with a simple facade on the side the train approaches to block views of the concrete overpass and the buses which regularly traverse it. It could probably even be built without needing to close the ride. It's one of those fairly easy fixes that gets put off forever because there's no immediate tangible benefit to them. But I wish Magic Kingdom would see their way clear to committing to smaller scale issues like this. We're coming up to the big 50 with this park and should be way past the era of exposed concrete overpasses.

09) Open-Air Mad Tea Party (1971)

I think everyone agrees that the Magic Kingdom's Mad Tea Party is sort of in a quandary. The roof has never been very nice and it's always been in an odd spot, at least compared to Disneyland's near-perfect tea cups. But I've always found spinning around under that roof to be attractive, and now that I've seen Disneyland Paris' Mad Tea Party, which has a beautiful roof but a sluggish turntable and unattractive teacup designs, I think it's fair to say that Magic Kingdom's has it where it counts.

But that doesn't wave away the fact that WED Enterprises botched the Mad Tea Party big time in 1971, when it opened without a roof on it. The park was characterized by an overall lack of shade in general for her first few years, but no ride was as severely impacted as the Tea Party.

It is incomprehensible to me that this was done by a company so thorough that they built a multi-million dollar tunnel underneath this same theme park, yet opened a totally exposed teacup ride in a region characterized by brutal heat and apocalyptic rain showers. The cups would bake out in the sun, their fiberglass seats becoming uncomfortable, their central metal rings impossible to touch, then liters of water would fall into the cups every day, requiring the ride to close, and stay closed, while each cup was carefully mopped out after the rain had passed. According to some opening year cast members I've spoken to, the area underneath the tea cups flooded more than once.

As we know, Disney worked fast once the problem was recognized, and by 1973 the tea cups had their roof. One could write this off as part of the normal cycle of working the kinks out of any large, new venture. Given how much went right in 1971, it's remarkable how little went wrong. But this one still makes me laugh as much as it boggles my mind. With the Mad Tea Party, we see a company run by a bunch of California boys finally having to learn what bad weather is.

08) I Love A Parade Route (1971)

Have you ever noticed that the parade route at Magic Kingdom makes no sense?

I didn't at first. When you grow up with something its easy to assume that that's just the way it's supposed to be. Seeing Spectromagic blaring its way through Liberty Square and Frontierland was the sight of many a Walt Disney World trip for me. But after seeing Disneyland, and enjoying the way the parade route there does not affect the atmospheric west side of the park, it occurred to me what the cost of running a parade route through it really is.

For one, the Frontierlands of Disneyland and Disneyland Paris benefit from a variety of planters and landscape features which do a far better job creating the atmosphere of an old west mining town. The parade route running through those western facades and so near the river really precludes many features which at Magic Kingdom could visually soften the area and improve its atmosphere.

Also, and especially at Magic Kingdom where the least successful areas of the park feel less like environments and more like freeways, it robs the west side of the park of a sense of intimacy. It creates wider walkways and more clutter in the part of the park that doesn't benefit from them. And why the heck does the parade go there, to begin with? Doesn't it make just as much sense to limit the parade route to Fantasyland and Main Street?

I puzzled over this for years until I remembered some very old photographs I had seen. As it happens, Magic Kingdom's parade route is ported over directly from Disneyland's parade route in the 1960s. The parades at Disneyland in this era started on Main Street, turned left through Frontierland, and ended over by the Haunted Mansion! The parade route did not seem to change to its current route, from Small World to Main Street, until the 1970s, which is about when Disney began building very tall and wide parade floats.

Here's Disneyland's Christmas Fantasy parade making it way past the Aunt Jemima Pancake House in the 60s:

Davelandweb.com

So Magic Kingdom, interestingly, has retained the "bones" of some Disneyland history long since past. I'd love to see a Magic Kingdom with a relocated parade route to reflect Disneyland's. It's easy to imagine how much more pleasant Liberty Square and Frontierland could be with spreading trees and more benches. Of course, given that the staff entrance to Magic Kingdom is on top of where a relocated parade barn would need to go and New Fantasyland is taking up the rest of the space, this is one change we'll never see at Magic Kingdom, but it's interesting to know where it came from.

07) Stitch's Supersonic Celebration Stage (2009)

Everything old is new again!

That's good news for the Peoplemover and the Carousel of Progress, but it's bad news for remembering mistakes that were made long, long ago.

The background here is that in 1980, Magic Kingdom turned what was originally an open seating area West of the Carousel of Progress into an open-air stage, the Tomorrowland Theater. This stage was, in a word, lousy. The backstage facilities were no more than some permanently-parked trailers, the seating and "walls" were pounded into asphalt with pegs. The seats were standard metal baseball bleachers. If, like me, you ever went up on the stage, you could hear its simple metal framework shifting and creaking under your weight.

Disney-Pal

The Entertainment Department hated using this creaky old thing, and who can blame them. Disneyland's Tomorowland gets a lot of energy from the stage and bandstand in the center of the land, so the idea of moving the Tomorrowland stage to a central location and rebuilding it as a more permanent venue was a good one. But literally everything else about this idea was misbegotten.

Entertainment's plans for the stage were originally extremely plain. What little ornamentation exists on the side and front of the humongous box was added by Imagineering late in the game. The entire structure is out of scale for the area it inhabits, introducing aesthetically irrelevant purple boxes. But the fatal mistake was that the whole thing was built with no seating and no shade structure. Although everything else about the original Tomorrowland Stage was cheap, the stage did at least have shade canopies and seats, meaning that people could be persuaded to sit and see whatever happened to be playing in that theater.

The new stage opened one especially hot Spring in 2009, an open air theater sitting in a sea of concrete in the hottest, most punishing area of Magic Kingdom. The show it opened with, Stitch's Supersonic Celebration, has developed quite the toxic reputation in Disney circles, partly because it closed after only a few weeks and partly because Stitch Mania had already played itself out by 2009. But really, it didn't have much to do with the show. Any show that asks its audience to stand or sit on a concrete expanse in Florida in the sun is not going to do well.

This photo from Attractions Magazine really says it all.

Attractions Magazine - 2009

 In many ways it was a hilarious replay of what happened with the Mad Tea Party in 1971 - except the Tomorrowland stage never got a roof, or seats. It's now back in nightly use as a dance party venue, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this stage go the way of the dodo if any of the Tomorrowland expansion plans ever materialize. It's one of those "enhancements" that cost a lot of money, didn't work out for anybody, and many would rather it be quietly swept under the rug.

06) Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom (2012)

Disney really has been struggling with bringing interactive media into its theme parks. While the panic began way back in the 80s with the ascendancy of Nintendo into daily life, the latest generation of kids who grew up clutching smartphones replete with cheap, addictive games like Angry Birds sent Disney into an all-out panic tailspin in the late 00s, and instead of pushing forward immediately with park improvements that could encourage kids to look up from their smart phones, they responded by launching competing cheap distractions of their own.

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom is a great idea. The notion of discovering secret, out of the way pockets of Magic Kingdom and battling monsters there is a great one. But instead of carving out new quiet areas and encouraging real exploration, Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom drop its game portals thoughtlessly into any existing area it could find. Portals are often just steps away from major pedestrian paths, usually hidden in such a way that isn't really hidden at all.

But really the biggest problem with Sorcerers is that it's a lousy game. Since the 80s, various companies have tied to compete with traditional controller-driven game play under the notion that the controller is an artificial imposition and that a superior game would somehow dispense with the buttons. Since the 80s, these experiments have always been a failure, and the reason is because a game pad is nothing but the most convenient way to make a game easy enough to play to allow the player to focus on the truly compelling elements of gaming: rhythm, timing, and strategy. You can't focus on perfecting the rhythm of sword blows if you have to swing a big heavy sword.

Simultaneously a similarly misguided idea was born that, since the best video games are often cinematic, one way to improve games would be to make them like interactive movies. This line of thinking led to the infamous Full-Motion Video games or FMV, which combine the thrill of watching a low budget movie with occasional button pressing. This type of game is even less immersive than even the crudest video games. Sorcerers combines both of these bad ideas into a phenomenally dull game.

The actual game play involves holding up (nifty) collectible cards pointed at a screen, except instead of watching something enjoyably trashy like a Troma film (as in the case of many of the better FMV games), you're watching a straight-to-DVD Disney sequel. The main way to improve your game play is to collect better cards, which can be traded or, of course, bought. There's no skill involved in actually playing the game outside of building a deck of powerful cards. This may seem to be superficially similar to playing card games like Magic or Yu-Gui-Oh, except in those cases you're strategizing against a person who has cards you don't know about. Sorcerers is no more complex or satisfying than assembling a burn deck. I had a burn deck when I was a kid and after using it three or four times I realized I wasn't actually playing the game even if I won. I had the same sinking realization the first time I set out to play this game.

But really the most regrettable thing about the game is the damage it does to the environment of the theme park. If you had to walk down obscure side paths that led only to a Sorcerers game portal or through a network of themed rooms that would be one thing, but none of the game play stations are at all hidden. This means that simply by walking around the theme park you're constantly seeing poorly animated Disney villains on televisions poking out of windows, and hearing things like explosion sound effects. In an environment as carefully crafted and thoroughly controlled as Magic Kingdom, that's not just out of place, it's downright disrespectful.

05) The Grand Prix Raceway / Tomorrowland Speedway (1971)

Walt Disney really liked highways, and as a man of his generation, who can blame him? They were cutting edge, brand new, and America was really good at building them in the 1950s. When Disneyland opened with its own micro-highway in Tomorrowland, the notion of being able to drive a tiny car on a modern highway was intoxicating to many Southern California kids. Astonishingly, the ride was so popular that at its height Disneyland ran three Autopia rides - the Tomorrowland Autopia, Fantasyland Autopia, and Midget Autopia.


Given how of its time the romance of a space age road was, on paper it makes sense to re-theme the car ride into something more modern by 1971. The late 60s and early 70s in America saw the start of the true mainstream fascination with motor sports which is with us today, reflected in films like Grand Prix and The Love Bug. Racing culture derived from the gear head car kids of the 1950s, so it can be claimed with a great degree of accuracy that the racing theme of the Grand Prix Raceway is the next evolution of the modern highway of the Autopia.

But, but. The Disneyland Autopia has aged surprisingly well and the Raceway has not. Already by the 1960s, the Autopia was becoming pleasantly lush and today it's a veritable forest - the most dense area of scenic vegetation in Disneyland outside of the Jungle Cruise. This makes a ride on it surprisingly rewarding - perhaps a reminder less of space age super transit than charming drives in the country. While LA's freeways have widened from two to four to sixteen lanes, the Autopia now looks cute and cuddly.

The Magic Kingdom Speedway isn't bad in the scenic department, but it's hard to call it "pleasant", exactly. The track replicates the wide open spaces and long turns of a real grand prix track, and although four decades on it has nicely mature trees and beautiful views of the castle, it's still a stark open expanse of concrete. The Grand Prix theme means that the Magic Kingdom's car ride accommodates four lanes of traffic, instead of the more intimate two at Disneyland, and features such decorative items as a large paved embankment and one whole overpass. Its placement nearer the center of the park means it's impossible to avoid the sights, sounds and smells of the ride, whereas at Disneyland the ride is reasonably well isolated in the far corner of Tomorrowland.

This is one case where the new idea that was sound on paper made an even bigger mess in practice. Raceways, whatever else may be said of them, are not aesthetically beautiful places and Disney proved it not only by building this attraction but by building a real raceway in front of the park in the 1990s. It's a shame that one of the few Magic Kingdom attractions to effectively never change is such a dud visually.

04) How To Misplace A Mountain (1992)

This one's tough to talk about, because Splash Mountain is a Magic Kingdom classic and deserves a place in that park, as do Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and Br'er Bear. It's wildly popular, well designed, and is still - still - a major headliner attraction at the park.

But it just doesn't fit there.

Consider for a moment the disjunction between the homespun aesthetic of Splash Mt and the rustic river town of Frontierland. Frontierland is frontier men and fur trappers; Splash Mountain is a homespun quilt. There's a few attempts to blend it into the environment - many of the tunnels are now mine shafts and the music has a "bluegrass" twang to it - but the more you notice it the more and more apparent it is that the design team on this ride was just destined to get clobbered trying to fix the problem.

Splash Mountain gets in through a side door, I think, thanks to the fact that Country Bear Jamboree already existed in the area, and being descended from Marc Davis designs for America Sings and Song of the South, Splash Mountain fits in just enough to not seem like a gross contradiction. Until you realize that the red Georgia clay of the mountain is down south, not old west, and the romantic South isn't "Frontierland" no matter how you try to define it.

What elevates a poor thematic placement into the top five is that it makes mince of the careful architectural and conceptual progression of Magic Kingdom's river district, the true heart and most accomplished area of the park.

Liberty Square sweeps from upper New England (The Haunted Mansion) down through Philadelphia and Virginia (The Hall of Presidents) before heading west and transitioning to Frontierland at St. Louis (The Diamond Horseshoe). It then proceeds through the frontier territories, perhaps Kansas and Colorado, before arriving at cowboy vernacular architecture (Pecos Bill Cafe), then heading direct for the great Southwest pueblo architecture and monument valley (Big Thunder Mountain). This means that Splash Mountain's "deep south" is inserted directly into the section of the progression which once had a unified southwest and desert rock look. Lots of trees and an orange-red color help ease the intrusion, but an intrusion it indeed is.

The progression, of course, was intended from the start and would have ended with Thunder Mesa instead of Big Thunder Mountain, but of course Big Thunder was designed to replicate the sort of rock work we would have had surrounding Western River Expedition, so the careful progression was retained into the early 90s.


Just as unfortunate, Splash Mountain is out of scale for Frontierland. This part of the park was designed to sit on a lower elevation than Adventureland and by the time the facades ramble out towards Pecos Bill, they were originally quite short. The need to have the pedestrian path cross over the main drop of Splash Mountain means that a large hill was added at the end of the street, spoiling the forced perspective of the Pecos Bill facades until they were rebuilt at double height a few years later. More significantly, the elevated view of Big Thunder Mountain from the top of the Splash Mountain hill steps on the forced perspective of Big Thunder Mountain, which originally rose gracefully at the end of the otherwise flat Frontierland area like a beacon and looked absolutely colossal.

Really the only upside of Splash Mountain's placement is the absolutely terrific views of Liberty Square and Cinderella Castle from the top of the main lift hill and pedestrian bridge. That's the reason why it's there, and it's understandable and obvious. Of course, we can ask if the view of the castle is really all that important - Disneyland's faces some trees and, far away, the Matterhorn, and Tokyo has a general view of Westernland, and nobody thinks that there's something seriously missing when they ride those versions of the ride.

In many ways this is a tough call because the spot it was built is really the only place in Magic Kingdom it could have realistically went without building a self-contained Critter Country, which of course could not be directly on the big river, an important feature. Still, if I could move that mountain to an equally appropriate place in the park, I would.


The gorgeous stretch of land between Country Bear Jamboree and Thunder Mountain, with spreading trees, flowers, and split-rail fence, was one of the few areas in that Frontierland to feel genuinely rustic. And it seems to be a shame to lose that beautiful original train station, and that sense of a town way out on the edge of nothing, in the bargain.

03) The Emporium Expansion (2001)

This one was brutal.

I probably don't have to explain what this one was, because even to new visitors, it's obvious that the giant facade which fills what was once Center Street shouldn't be there. This isn't to say that it looks out of place, per se, but there's something about its interior being extraordinarily out of scale and the way it unbalances the neat, four-block symmetry of Main Street that just draws attention to itself.

Two other castle parks have lost their West Center streets: Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland. Disneyland's is the least objectionable, having retained all of their old architecture and simply filled the street with an open-air cafe. Even later additions of increasingly disruptive shade structures at least retain the sense of there being a street, even if it is an impassible one. Hong Kong filled their center street with a shop in the style of Magic Kingdom, but did actually find an okay compromise by making the structure a glass-domed Victorian greenhouse which still allows you to look up at the original architecture it displaced. If anything it looks even more out of place on Main Street than the Emporium expansion, but it manages a more pleasant overall effect.

The thing about the Emporium expansion is that it didn't need to be so severe. There was no compelling reason to destroy those opening day facades, slap a roof on the space, and put up a new front. Relocating part of one stock room was all that was required to expand the Emporium west, through the old Barber Shop, and wrap it around the back of the West Center street facades to connect on the other side. This would likely have resulted in much more, and more pleasant, floor space while maximizing an area that everyone enjoyed. Heck, they could even have done what Disneyland Paris did and wrap the Emporium around the existing barber shop and added another entrance. Crazy talk, I know.

And that's the thing: when you look at old photos, family photos and promotional photos of Magic Kingdom, you see the Flower Market and Center Street a lot. I've watched dozens of reels of 8mm home movies and seen probably thousands of amateur photographs and Center Street is one of those things that everyone bothered to photograph, along with the monorail, the castle, and the parade. I've seen enough family photographs in there over the years to know that it was like the Court of Angels at Disneyland - a space of hallowed ritual.

Shops come cheap and easy at Disney World; they may appear in corners, under tents, or in the open air. But people don't buy things if they don't first and foremost like what they see. Atmospheric, accomplished areas like West Center street are the reason for profit, not an opportunity to profit. When theme park operators forget this, they not only shoot themselves in the foot by deracinating the value of their parks, but they rob future generations of the glory of the Disney art of the show.

02) Cinderella Castle Stage (mid-70s)

This is one that seemed harmless at the time, but has grown and grown to the point where it's done real damage to the park it once enhanced.

The castle forecourt has always been used as a stage in one way or another. Originally the area between the forward sweep of the ramps into the castle was a mildly raised platform used for band performances. In the mid-70s, a small stage went up in that space, used for Kids of the Kingdom performances and marching band shows. Sometimes, it was used for a bit more. By the 1990s it would host the occasional special event show for the Christmas parties.


The first real change came in 2001, an elaborate stage show called "Cinderella's Surprise Celebration", which ran five times daily and featured permanently parked bright cartoon gifts on the stage. For a show introduced to celebrate the birth of Walt Disney, Surprise Celebration was a poorly written embarrassment. This was the one where Peter Pan defeats Captain Hook by dropping him through a hidden trap door on the castle parapet - and if that sounds intriguing to you, it was accomplished by having the Hook actor duck out of sight.

The show pointedly departed from its predecessors on the point of being loud. It could be heard from everywhere the the hub area and in most of the entrance areas of the various lands. For better or worse, this is the show which killed off the Main Street vehicles - guests were allowed to congregate on the road in front of the castle, and operations responded by simply deciding to stop using the vehicles instead of going up against the heavy-hitting Entertainment department for use of the tarmac.

The next show, Cinderellabration, raised the stakes by adding a taller, more elaborate stage, daytime fireworks, and annexing the entire Hub as the viewing area. This show was billed as a "gift" from Tokyo Disneyland to Magic Kingdom to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Disneyland (no, Disney couldn't explain this logic either) and Entertainment decreed that those huge trees in the middle of the hub must go because they interfered with sight lines for the stage. And so the beautiful original hub was paved.

Cinderellabration was mostly a crashing bore, frequently putting the tiara-ed kids it was directed at to sleep, and so was retired quickly. Dream Along With Mickey, the show which replaced it, returned to the basic format of Cinderella's Surprise Celebration, featuring an appearance by Captain Hook and Smee and having Maleficent crash the party. Mickey and friends originally wore blue and silver outfits appropriate to the Year of a Million Dreams sweepstakes promotion which coincided with its opening, and since Disney's newest hard ticket event was the Pirate and Princess Parties, the show dutifully broke down into Pirate and Princess sections. And it ran seven times a day, meaning the interior of the castle was inaccessible from 9:30 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon. There's people who have been to Walt Disney World multiple times and don't know you're even allowed to walk through the castle.

A show which has the audience shouting marketing slogans to defeat the forces of evil, Dream Along With Mickey is a show that could only be loved by a Marketing executive, but it's become a Magic Kingdom stalwart. It if makes it to Spring 2016, it will have been running for ten years, and of course the Hub being emptied of all features except standing room for the castle stage paved the way for such questionable features as the similarly disruptive Move It, Shake It dance parade.


This means that maybe the most important land in the Magic Kingdom - the first one - has been subjugated to a supporting role as the host for a variety of inappropriate parades and shows. No other Disneyland-style park has thrown the period atmosphere of their Main Street under a bus so thoroughly. Walking onto Main Street at Disneyland and Disneyland Paris is a joy because it looks and feels like what it's supposed to be - horse drawn carriages, the rattle of a vintage car, the calming music all contributes to the sense of this being a real city. Without the grace touches, including Center Street mentioned above, Magic Kingdom's street sometimes feels like a funnel towards a castle where Mickey Mouse is screaming at you through a bullhorn.

Now that the Hub is finally being rebuilt into something which better balances atmosphere and traffic, Magic Kingdom really needs to start assessing the appropriateness of what they're subjecting their paying customers to. Main Street doesn't need a blaring dance party, three parades, and an endless character breakdown, it needs to be allowed to be itself. Character shows can happen in other places, too.

The introduction of the stage to the castle in the mid-70s began a slow degradation and increasing disregard for the thematic authority of one of the few Magic Kingdom areas to have a valid claim to a connection with Walt Disney. If I could go back in time and prevent one thing from happening at Magic Kingdom, it would be this. A beautiful Main Street, twinkle lights in the trees, that view of the turning carousel through the arch of Cinderella Castle, and the ability to walk up to and walk through a fairy tale castle is a right you should have by paying your ticket to walk into this place. It's so important and I don't think most people know what they're missing by trading it for a poorly written character show or a better view of some fireworks.



01) Mickey's Birthdayland (1988)

It really is remarkable that such a quickly built little trifle has had such a remarkably extensive legacy.

If we take a step back and think about what it offered and what it begat for a moment, it becomes apparent that the core of the Mickey's Birthdayland, the Meet Mickey attraction, doesn't make much sense. If you simply go from the bulk of the material that made Mickey famous - the clever and brilliantly executed cartoons - a dressing room doesn't seem to be a logical place to encounter him. Mickey Mouse should be out having adventures, not perfecting his look in front of a mirror. The combination of the suburban house and dressing room, with or without the stage show from the original incarnation of Birthdayland, implied less "dynamic beloved character" and more "retiree".

So there's the immediately problematical fact that Birthdayland codified a Mickey attraction which doesn't do the guy any favors at all. I know people who absolutely loathe Mickey Mouse because for their entire life he's been nothing but a character who toes the line and tells you what to buy, or how to feel. He deserves better. In the past there were several efforts to raise his profile in the parks in a way more consistent with his character. Bill Justice's Mickey Mouse Revue had huge pacing problems, but Mickey conducting that cartoon orchestra was and remains irresistible, and if Mickey didn't have much to do besides conduct, at least you could watch him doing it throughout the show,  putting him on par with a Tiki Bird or Mr. Lincoln.

In the late 70s, Bill Justice and Ward Kimball worked on an attraction called Mickey's Madhouse, which was intended as a tour of a cartoon studio in black and white where riders could see such films as Orphan's Benefit being "filmed". This would have combined a Mr. Toad-style dark ride with a car on a roller coaster track, providing a few thrills along the way. Notice that both of these attractions were headed up by former animators.

By now every Disney park has a "Meet Mickey" attraction, and it's a shame, because the proliferation of this specific idea of what a Mickey attraction is means that a more inventive one is unlikely to ever get built. Pretty much the most appropriate venue for Mickey Mouse available today is Fantasmic, which prioritizes his heroic and resourceful qualities. Mickey's Philhamagic is a telling example of the rest: it's named for him, he's on the marquee, he's the first thing you see upon entering the building - and it's a show starring Donald Duck.

And yet we should also discuss the lasting physical legacy of Mickey's Birthdayland: tents. Many, of course, are quick to point out that Birthdayland used tents because it was meant to be a temporary attraction, but one wonders how long that temporary status lasted: a week? A month? Remember that by the time the Disney-MGM Studios opened the concept to use the park as a real movie studio had already been abandoned, so it's not as though Disney in the late 80s wasn't used to putting a spit shine on a bad decision.

And so Mickey's Birthdayland gifted us with tents. Tents that will never ever go away.

The Mickey's House - Stage Show - Meet Mickey attraction lineup proved to be extremely popular, so much so that Birthdayland was "promoted" to permanent area status in 1990 and called Mickey's Starland. Nothing changed; it still had the same low budget look. The area was rebuilt into Mickey's Toontown Fair in 1996 as a "birthday gift" for the 25th anniversary of Walt Disney World, which made the whole area much more permanent and introduced some clever touches but increased the volume of the noise and clutter.

The three north most Starland tents were retained for Toontown, becoming the queueing area for the "Meet Mickey" attraction (now upgraded from a dressing room to a Judge's Tent). Additional meeting areas were packed in around the Mickey attraction, eventually settling on a lineup of three Princesses - who, like Mickey, just hang around in tents all day - as well as a selection of Tinkerbell pixies.

By 2001 the Toontown tent complex had become the single most profitable structure per square foot at Magic Kingdom. Mickey was the anchor, pulling crowds into Toontown, then dispersing them through a variety of shops and photograph locations. This profitability would ensure that the tents would survive yet another round of renovations- Storybook Circus.

Storybook Circus managed the impossible, which was to turn an area of Magic Kingdom which had no business ever existing into something which feels like it belongs there. It accomplished this by leveling everything and starting over. Of course, before this could be done, the cash cows - Mickey and the Princesses - had to be relocated to Main Street, where Mickey received a much more appropriate attraction and the Princesses didn't. They would have to wait for their own lavish attraction, which would displace the Snow White's Scary Adventures dark ride.

Despite the fact that the reasons for the success of those tents were being scattered to the winds, it was proclaimed by fiat that the tents must remain due to their profitability. What had previously been the Princess Tent was transformed into Pete's Silly Sideshow, a permanent venue for Mickey, Donald, Minnie and Daisy with a nicely done circus theme. The crowds never quite returned to their original levels. What had previously been a bustling store where Princess dresses and Mickey dolls flew off the shelves now seems nearly abandoned after nightfall. The Sideshow meet and greet has started closing early.

The legacy of Birthdayland is not just a legacy of questionable designs but questionable practices. It initiated the concept of having to wait in line to see a character, which has destroyed any sense of spontaneity these encounters used to have. And particularly at Walt Disney World, there's no such thing anymore as just coming across Pluto, Goofy, or Baloo, and the fact that they are kept out of sight in locked rooms means that demand for them is artificially inflated.

The Mickey attraction has given us Mickey's Birthdayland and Mickey's Toontown Fair, and it wasn't until 2012 that Imagineering was able to pry those cartoon aesthetics out of Magic Kingdom - nearly 25 years. And in the bargain it also led to the closure of the Snow White dark ride, which is one of those things that ought to be a birthright of Disneyland-style parks.

Now that the power of the circus tents is on the wane, it really would be a nice gesture to finally lose them and build a permanent ride in that spot. The three Storybook Circus tents take up about as much room as the Mermaid ride next door. The basic problem is that the use of tents, no matter how nicely you build them or how intricately you theme them, still evoke temporary structures and, by extension, cheapness. Cheap ideas and cheap aesthetics are what Birthdayland initiated, yet it must be said that the new Magician Mickey and Fairytale Hall attractions are far above its standard, leaving just those three tents as symbols of Birthdayland's enduring legacy.

We may not ever be able to at this late date scrub Birthdayland loose from the Disney parks, but finally seeing the tents fall would mean that its most objectionable aspect - its aesthetics - will finally be banished to that great theme park in the sky.

--

I've been accused not unfairly in the past of being extremely tough on Imagineering when I dip my toes into the world of critique. Long posts like this are never easy to write, and I hope that my evident respect for the parks manifest elsewhere on this blog will help balance the grumpier aspects of this piece. Those are my ten big regrets. If you could change or move anything at Magic Kingdom, what would your choice be?

I get a lot of questions about the Contemporary Resort. It makes sense; the amount the hotel has changed since 1995 is insubstantial compared to how much it changed between 1971 and 1995, and for those of us looking back from the modern day the lists of things which were supposedly once in the Contemporary is daunting.

But the trouble is, I didn't know the Contemporary at all until the 90s, and can only remember it reliably from around 1998 on. It was simply never a place I went. So I was equally as puzzled as everyone else about the mysteries of this hotel, and the work required to pull the information together seemed considerable. However, after doing similar work on the WDW Village, Lake Buena Vista Club, Polynesian Village and Golf Resort it seemed time to make amends with Walt Disney World's flagship hotel and tell its story.

Besides my usual resources and my own collection, the hero of this post really is Jerry Klatt, who not went to the Contemporary fairly often at its height but had the presence of mind to take photographs of things nobody else cared to photograph. A combination of his library of photos and documents and his memories helps make this piece possible.

The Contemporary Resort really is the icon of early Walt Disney World, and it remains one of a kind. Designed by Welton Becket and Associates, and softened with colors and art from Walt Disney Productions, the Contemporary has aged better than most buildings of its ilk. And while it's true that Welton Becket's designs from the era have aged more gracefully than most, it's also true that it's a bit too easy for those of us who grew up riding a monorail through that thing to take it for granted. It's a gamble to call anything anywhere "The Contemporary", but this building lives up to its name. Fifty years on, it still looks like some cavernous space station beaming monorails into its belly.

But the Contemporary wasn't just a big crazy structure; it was meant to be a full-service hotel in the most cutting edge way possible. So let's step inside and track just what was where as we we journey back to the Contemporary Resort in the 70s.

1971: What Was Intended
Yes, we have to speak about this in terms of what was supposed to happen, because as always when talking about early WDW demand was so much higher than anticipated that plans had to change constantly, like overnight.

The Contemporary opened up incomplete. On October 1, 1971 cranes hung over it like vultures. Disney had been so concerned about completion of the hotels in time for the 1971 holiday that they had bought out US Steel's contract in early 1971 and taken over the installation of the hotel rooms and operation of the US Steel plant themselves. This was around the same time that Disney fired nearly all of their construction contractors - and hired back the entire construction crew under their new company, Buena Vista Construction. This happened after Dick Nunis found one too many crews not doing the job fast enough to get the park open.


The Entrance Area

This is one of those things you wouldn't think would have dramatically changed, but it has. The original Contemporary Resort drop-off area was actually inside what is now open lobby space. After approaching from World Drive, cars would make a wide oval around the front of the hotel and drive directly through its west-facing side. Cars could be parked underneath the hotel in the covered area:

DisneyPix.Com

Here's a nice aerial image courtesy Martin Smith showing the general layout of the original parking lots and grounds in front of the hotel. If you look closely you can spot the pull-through area and a car driving out of it:


Card Walker greeting Henry Kissinger outside the front doors of the lobby in 1975:


One nice thing about the original entrance area was the huge gold "Contemporary Resort Emblem" on the side of the hotel above the entrance. The best view of this is probably in Kraft Salutes Walt Disney World's 10th Anniversary:


As Dean Jones parks his car and crosses to the left, we get a better view of it. Notice how the production crew of this TV special have set up a "red carpet" and trees in open space in front of the actual drop-off area, allowing for the shooting of this scene without interrupting arrivals and departures at the hotel. Those sneaky Disney people!


What I don't have is any real good images of the original lobby area, but it's not hard to imagine what it was like based on these images from Welcome to the "World" (1975) and The Mouskateers at Walt Disney World (1978).



The Convention Center

One of the key markets Disney entered in 1971 was the Convention Center business,  and they cleaned up on it. The Contemporary offered up to ten rooms with convention space with names like Yellowstone Room, Great Smokies Room, Pacific Room, and the Gulf Coast Room.


The key room was, and still is, the Ballroom of the Americas, seating 1400 with a hydraulic stage and closed circuit television. This is the stage where Nixon held his famous "I am not a crook!" press conference.

The Ballroom could also be split into two smaller rooms, The Atlantic and The Continental. The area  outside the Ballroom offering a bar and reception area was called The Hemisphere Lounge.


Not much of original Contemporary is left today, but the ceiling of the Ballroom of Americas remains untouched, still studded with reflecting inverted pyramids. They reflect a room long since passed by by history; the original fleet of ballrooms on the Level of the Americas have been all but retired by the expansion of the Convention Center in 1990.

The Marina Pavilion

The original recreation area of the Contemporary featured trees in a grid pattern, a rectangular Olympic swimming pool, and a circular Teen swimming pool. You knew that the circular pool was the Teen pool because that's where they played rock music. Groovy!

Combined from film restored by Retro Disney World

The Marina Pavilion originally offered four sections each with a different shop. Bay N' Beach sold sunscreen, water toys, flotation devices and souvenirs. The nearby Boat Nook rented catamarans, sailboats and of course Bob-A-Round boats.

Retro Disney World

The two sections of the Marina Pavilion facing south and the white sand beach were The Dock Inn and The Sand Bar. The Dock Inn sold hamburgers, chicken tenders, soft drinks and the like. The Sand Bar offered the usual fleet of the Contemporary's four "signature" cocktails plus beer and wine. These two establishments were the original "fast food" options at the Contemporary and would regularly run to midnight in the first few years. Night time usually bought live music to the Dock Inn.

Retro Disney World

The Marina Pavilion is still there, though it's quite different now in look, feel, and contents. The airy feel of the original Contemporary marina area has changed quite a lot since the earliest years.

Grand Canyon Concourse

Disney knew from the start that they were up against a significant challenge when it came to the central area of their flagship hotel. The basic idea for all of the elements of the original Walt Disney World development was that everything would reflect the theme of the "Vacation Kingdom of the World". This meant that each item around the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake was meant to reflect a specific type of vacation - a South Seas retreat, a camping trip, a golf vacation, a tip to Disneyland, etc.

Once Disney approved Walton Becket's dramatic "leaning slab" A-frame, the search was on to fit this ultramodern hotel into the decided upon theme of the complex. Once the notion was floated that the central atrium would feel like the "Grand Canyon", the theme began to fall into place. The Contemporary would reflect American National Parks of the Southwest - another type of vacation, to be sure. A Mary Blair-inflected Southwest motif would dominate, adding a playful touch to the hotel. With glass walls on the north and south ends and a glass ceiling above, the notion for the Concourse was to create the feeling of being outside but in a huge air conditioned space. They loved to boast in promotional materials of how they hired to landscape architect to design the Concourse interior instead of an interior decorator!


Remember that all of this was happening concurrently with the gradual ascent of the American shopping mall as a major structuring component of American life. Victor Gruen had opened the original indoor mall - the Southdale Mall in Minnesota - in 1954, roughly concurrent with the opening of Disneyland. Gruen's concept for the mall was pretty comparable with the community-oriented, invigorating goals of Disneyland, and both would be fed by a steady stream of middle class families driving postwar cars on brand new highways.

The "Mall" was still enough of a novelty in the 70s to not be an insult to compare a public space to one, and the Grand Canyon Concourse is one of the finest such spaces of its era. When they're done right there is a unique excellence to the Mall - with their silk plants, trickling fountains and canned music they are the nearest many of us got to having a personal local Disneyland. Many of the best Gruen malls localized colossal public space around oversize art pieces, in the manner of Gruen's native Austrian city squares. That's more or less what we have in the Concourse to this day.


Cheaper, smaller, thoughtlessly designed malls proliferated across America following the "Mall Boom" of the 1980s, deracinating the value of the concept, but a good mall is a thing of beauty, and I consider it no insult to say that the Contemporary is a really good mall. It still has an energy and vitality missing from many public spaces today.

Okay, let's figure out exactly what was on the concourse in 1971.


North Side - the Plaza Shops



1) Monorail Club Car - a long, thin enclosed bar facing Bay Lake, Steve Birnbaum lets us down in his 1982 guide by not providing a picture, but he does describe it as "a cozy, companionable sort of place for serious drinking". Jerry Klatt was able to extract this account of the place from former bartender Sully Sullivan:

"The Club Car was the only true bar on the property when I worked there. Nothing but the TV, no entertainment, no fireworks to watch like the Top of the World had, just a TV and a place to drink.

The bar was straight inside the door and just inside to the right was the bar with 8 stools and to the left was the lounge area with 42 seats. The bar could serve 50 seated at a time but I often served folks standing at the bar, especially if there was a game on the TV. It was the fastest paced bar on the property and was considered an interview position as many of the bartenders could not keep up the fast pace of drinks. Due to its limited size, keeping glasses clean was an ongoing problem. It was a flat out workout when it was close to capacity. But the money was great, tops bar on the property in MHO. I loved working there and the Top of the World.

TOW had a liquor gun so mixing was not as much fun and people tended to sit and wait for fireworks so the turnover was slow during that time. Much better during show times. Monorail Club Car was hands down the best to work and had the best tips but at the end of the night you knew you worked 8 hours slinging drinks. The entrance was about 20 feet past top of the escalator. I loved that bar..."

I've seen two menus from Monorail Club Car. The first is from April 1974:

Bay Lake Hurricane - As cool and refreshing as the breeze from our own Bay Lake. A wonderful change-of-pace specialty consisting of Rum, Cranberry Juice and Lemon Juice. $2.25

Black Beard's Grogg - Beware Matey - this one's for the daring only. A tall cool grogg consisting of Rum, Pineapple Juice, Cream of Coconut and Blackbeard's secret ingredient. $2.25

Moon Rover - A taste tantalizing delight that's out of this world. The Contemporary blending of Rum, Galliano, Pineapple Juice and Lemon Juice. $2.25

The Great Grand Canyon - a GREAT thirst quencher and a GRAND blend of Rum, Galliano, and Lemon Juice. A surprising taste sensation you'll not forget. $2.25

The next is from January 1975. Given the name and era, I'd put money on our Monorail Club Car being the namesake inspiration for Walt Disney World's infamous "Monorail" fleet of drinks:

Monorail Red - a tantalizing blend of tequila, Galliano, and fruit juices. $2.50

Monorail Pink - a cool and refreshing array of fruit juices, combined with gin and cream for a wonderful change-of-pace. $2.25

Monorail Purple - a sparkling blend of champange, brandy and grape juice. $2.50

Monorail Yellow - a tall, cool grogg consisting of rum, pineapple juice, and cream of coconut. This one's for the daring only. $2.25

Monorail Club Car seems to have hung on until 1987, when it was removed and its floor space turned into retail. More's a shame, because simple drinking spaces are few and far between at Walt Disney World, now more than ever.

2) Kingdom Jewelers, Ltd - a small jewelry store clad entirely in emerald green. Check out those mirrors!


 3) & 4) The Contemporary Man / Woman - intriguing earth-hued counterparts to the Polynesian Princess and Robinson Crusoe, Esq at the Polynesian, this fleet of four high-end clothing shops is exactly the sort of thing you would not expect a small movie studio to try to get in on, but they did. All of these shops also prefigure the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village, opening just a few years later and building on Disney's experience in offering big-ticket shopping. The Contemporary Woman offered mid-price casual wear and bathing suits, while The Contemporary Man offered tuxedo rentals and "resort wear".

Contemporary Woman North Entrance

5) The Spirit World - maybe the best-named vintage shop ever at Walt Disney World, Spirit World offered those small bottles of liquor you can buy at airports as well as regular size bottles at a significant markup. Disney expected most people in the market for anything more would be using room service's in-suite bar setups. Jerry also remembers that they could sell and ship fresh citrus, much as many farms in Florida still do.

6) Plaza Gifts and Sundries - had a million little items lined up in its windows. This store also contained an on-site Florist and all of the usual Contemporary Resort souvenirs.

 7) Fantasia Shop - was the children's clothing shop, also stocking stuffed animals and records. The entrance was around the corner from Plaza Gifts and Sundries, facing the escalators to the Monorail Station. The two shops informally flowed together.

VideoFromGeorge

South Side - The Grand Canyon Concourse Terrace
You've seen pictures of it forever, and seen photo after photo of seas of diners without really knowing what you're looking at. Our goal here is to put an end to that. Let's learn what was really down there in 1971.



9) Grand Canyon Terrace Cafe - the restaurant nearest the Mary Blair mural, Disney must have known that they had a lot of confusing nomenclature on their hands because the October 1971 issue of Walt Disney World News calls it the "Terrace Coffee Shop" and goes on to describe it as:

"Located just a few steps away from the Grand Canyon Plaza specialty shops, the Terrace Coffee Shop is open around the clock for your convenience. Special deserts are a daily feature."

By April 1972 when the first GAF Guides arrived, this restaurant was described as: "Grand Canyon Terrace Cafe - breakfast, luncheon, dinner." So basically what we're looking at here is the original Contemporary moderate-priced restaurant, similar to the Polynesian's Coral Isle Cafe. In this 1971 picture you can see the covered area at the rear of the restaurant has bar-style seating under a distinctive, zig-zag glass topped structure. You can see the wait staff (blue dresses) moving through the space. It's important to establish what this started off as, because it didn't last long, and tracking these changes is even worse than figuring out what went where.


10) Grand Canyon Terrace - this was the Continental-style fine dining restaurant which occupied the raised section in the foreground of the above early photograph. If you look at the Pana-Vue Slide scan from further on up, you'll spot the raised section's distinctive cream colored carpeted area. You'll also see a couple of staircases that are roped off on both sides of the restaurant. The rear section of the Grand Canyon Terrace, and El Pueblo behind it, would not be ready until early 1972, by which time plans were already changing, but more on that later.

Speaking of which, I'd like to advocate for a moment for the return of carpeted staircases and ramps connecting different areas of restaurants which were always roped off. These mysterious features added an inexplicable air of drama to many restaurants of my childhood, and largely were done away with by the mid-90s.


Carole S. DePinto of Orlando-land Magazine published this review of the Grand Canyon Terrace in December 1971:

"The food is tremendous! Couldn't find one thing wrong with it. And it wasn't that I was too enthralled by the surroundings to notice. The menu here doesn't go into great detail and it's not too expensive either. German-born executive chef Joe Mannke has gone to great pains, as only a dedicated chef enjoys doing, to develop dishes which are tastefully different yet appealing to all.

Don't dine here alone if you want to discover a great Chateaubriand. The menu states that it's a heavy Western double cut served with buttered garden fresh vegetables, sauce Bearnaise and berny potatoes. The platter comes heaped high with two or three cooked-to-perfection vegetables - like broccoli and asparagus spears. The potato is a huge puff with a crispy coating.

The fresh herb garden on the grounds is not a secret and I began to wonder if they didn't have a vegetable garden growing somewhere too. A rare treat! We ordered hearts of artichokes with sauce vinaigrette as a tasty go-along with the crisp tossed salad. Not overpowering - just right!

Oysters Casino is the only hot oyster appetizer listed on the menu - $2.25. I wanted very much to try Oysters Rockefeller so took a chance on the kitchen stocking spinach. They sent out a substitution, much to my surprise, and I was in no way disappointed with the new taste experience.

After a big meal it's only right to be relaxed and a little bit sleepy. But watch out! When you least expect it the whole concourse comes alive with trumpet, guitars and Latin voices of the Los Gallos Mexican Mariachi Band, led by the smiling Estevan Hernandez, who speaks very little English. They're from Guadalajara."

Disney blazed tracks for distribution of food, liquor, and wine that sleepy Central Florida had never seen or tasted before. In our post food revolution world where fresh herbs and seasonal vegetables are the norm, it's strange and interesting to consider that many in this part of the country had never tasted such delicacies.

11) El Pueblo - this restaurant was supposed to open in 1971, but would not be ready until January 1972. We'll come back to this one.

12) & 13) Canyon Terrace Lounge - a sunken bar and lounge which offered live music starting at 7 pm and lasting until closing time at 2 am, this small enclave was situated directly across from the entrance to the Grand Canyon Terrace. For at least a few months in late 1971, the Terrace Lounge offered the accomplished jazz organist Jackie Davis as its in-house performer.


Here's a good photo of this spot from early 1972. This was taken from the far side of the monorail platform facing East. The trees in the foreground are part of the Grand Canyon Terrace's extended seating area. Past the trees we can see the original Lounge.



Here's a great photo from Jack Spence taken in 1972 showing the entire original Canyon Terrace. On the left is the Canyon Terrace Lounge. On the right in the middle raised platform and behind it is the Grand Canyon Terrace. And in front is the coffee shop / Canyon Terrace Cafe.


Got it? Great. Because right after Jack took that photo they went and changed it all.

1972 and 1973: The First Changes
Disney officially billed the stretch of operations from September 1971 (previews begin) into Thanksgiving 1971 (their first major holiday) as the "shake down" period. Attendance and occupancy exceeded all expectations, and Disney hadn't even finished the darn hotels yet. There were simply too many people to effectively house and feed. And there were other problems.

This is what the standard Contemporary room looked like in October 1971. The Polynesian Village rooms looked effectively identical except for textures and colors. They were innovative in design, with recessed lights and selectable pre-programmed settings, for example a dim evening setting with the in-room table highlighted in a pool of brighter light.


Guests largely didn't like these rooms. Given the incredibly elaborate, very fully themed interiors of the Magic Kingdom, they expected the Polynesian to look more tropical than it did, and wished for softer rooms at the Contemporary. And they seemingly could never figure out how to work the lighting in the rooms and loudly complained about the lack of floor lamps.

Compounding the problems, the cement for the north wing of the hotel, which was then called Bayside, had been poured incorrectly, and the entire wing had to be closed and gutted in early 1973. The rooms were rebuilt using traditional methods to match the rest of the hotel, and while they were at it, Disney spent money to upgrade the colors and textures of the rest of the rooms, too.

By January 1972 the Plaza Shops were finally fully open, and there were many shops at Magic Kingdom that still had not yet opened up. El Pueblo finally bowed, underneath the monorail tracks facing the Seven Seas Lagoon. Orlando-land magazine outlined the challenges in February 1972:

"People here are eating more than at Disneyland", [the Disney spokesperson] said. One obvious reason is that they can't run back to their motel for a quick bite without driving miles.

This has often taxed the Disney hotel dining rooms. The Polynesian Village's Papeete Bay Verandah continues to pack them in. They're designing additional restaurants for the Polynesian. Opening the Top of the World has helped the feeding situation at the Contemporary. So too has [El Pueblo], adjacent to the Grand Canyon Terrace in the concourse."

January 1972: The Top of the World Supper Club

"From the Top of the World, you can see forever... or so it seems. Beyond Bay Lake, the forests appear to be unbroken, running on and on into the haze until there is nothing. So much land, it makes you wonder: where have all the people gone? Look out on the other side and there, far below, is the Magic Kingdom. A toy village, no more. And a toy train crawling towards it. Beyond the village, only vastness of trees and lakes ... on forever." - E.L. Prizer, January 1972

Besides two meeting rooms (the Rocky Mountains and the Shenandoah), the Top of the World came equipped with the Mesa Grande Lounge (shortly to be renamed the Top of the World Lounge), and the supper club itself.


The elevator lobby opened to a mirrored wall and a crazy octagon mural at the far end, feeding directly into the foyer between the two establishments. Yes, it's that photo everyone scans because it's super wacky:


A clearer view of the wacky octagon posted by the Disney Parks Blog a few years back. The center was silk flowers! Even as a defender of the original Contemporary's aesthetics, this is all a bit too much for me.


The Lounge had the best view of the Magic Kingdom while the stage faced off towards where Animal Kingdom would one day be. Between celebrity acts, a full band played and couples danced. It must have been very posh.


You can hear this group, who were pretty remarkable, and see Shari Lewis (!) performing at the Top of the World in this home movie restored by Retro Disney World:


1975 Contemporary Resort - Top of the World Show with Shari Lewis from RetroWDW on Vimeo.
An early menu for Top of the World includes Fresh Filet of Pompano en Papilotte, Orange Glazed Roast Long Island Duckling, Roast Prime Rib of Beef, Supreme of Chicken Rossini (foie gras stuffed chicken breast), and Tournedos Choron (filet mignon). Minus deserts, the menu offered appetizers, Top of the World salad, and entree for $8 a person, about $45 today.

Spring 1972: The Gulf Coast Room Opens

The Gulf Coast Room had technically been there since 1971, but sometime in early 1972 Disney put up some new wallpaper in what had previously been a conference room, hauled in some tables and chairs, and began offering jacket-required Continental-style dining inside the Room.


This was the sort of restaurant that had a closet of jackets in case the man in the party failed to arrive with his own, and the main attraction was that nearly every dish was served table side flambe. Steve Birnbaum called it "one of the most elegant of Walt Disney World's continental restaurants" and describes "Grilled lamb chops, New York strip steaks with herb butter, seafood en brochette, sauteed red snapper, and veal marsala" as restaurant standouts. A 1978 menu shows entrees ranging in price from $8.95 for Shrimp Scampi to $20.50 for Rack of Lamb, putting this near the top of Walt Disney World restaurants, price-wise.

A roaming violinist, later a guitarist, serenaded diners with requested tunes.


Spring 1972: El Pueblo Opens

Located underneath the monorail tracks behind Grand Canyon Terrace, the evocatively-named El Pueblo was a small, low room that terminated in a wall of sunroom-style windows looking out towards Seven Seas Lagoon. Being located to the immediate south of the Grand Canyon Terrace kitchen, it was the original space in Walt Disney World to offer a dedicated buffet. The Spring 1972 GAF guide says it offers "Continental breakfast and a Mexican buffet". By June, the buffet had become Italian, making mince of the original name but at least likely filling more seats.

Confirmable photographs of this room in its original form are hard to come by, and given its size I doubt there was very much to see in there besides a pretty good view, but this home movie camera accidentally captured a view into El Pueblo from the Grand Canyon Concourse, there on the bottom of the frame:

Retro Disney World

By mid-1972, the addition of three more restaurants gave Disney some wiggle room. The Continental menu that Grand Canyon Terrace opened with was effectively shuttled downstairs to the Gulf Coast Room. The revised Grand Canyon Terrace menu offered a more egalitarian selection of "excellent steak, chicken, flounder, and prime rib dinner".

Spring 1972: Canyon Terrace Lounge Closes

With Top of the World taking over Lounge duties for the Contemporary, Disney closed off and immediately demolished the original concourse Lounge. The entire complex on the left side of the Concourse would close, and stay closed, for the rest of the year, to be rebuilt into a new restaurant.

Early 1973: Room Refurbishments

Many of the Contemporary rooms had been completed by this time. The addition of new textiles, fabrics, traditional lamps and some framed Mary Blair wall art brought the rooms up to Disney's new theme resort standards. They would retain this basic look for nearly fifteen years.

Lorraine Paulhus

Spring 1973: The Outer Rim Opens

The Outer Rim began life, believe it or not, as a steakhouse. There's a lot of cool things about the original Outer Rim structure. It had a tall sign with an awesome logo on it: (ignore the text that says "Cocktail and Seafood Lounge", it was added in the 80s)


This is a cropped photo from later in the life cycle of the Concourse but it does do a great job showing the cool architecture. Check out the awesome circular "sky lights" on the roof of that hexagonal kitchen!


The outer wall of the restaurant was covered with little cut-out windows which contained dimensional Mary Blair dioramas:


With a back-of-house area that small, Outer Rim had to offer something simple and good. A December 1973 "Walt Disney World News" says it offers "prime rib and fried chicken entrees", which sounds about right. A June 1975 menu reads:

Outer Rim Appetizers
Gulf Shrimp Cocktail - 2.25
Macedoine of Fruit - .75
Cream of Mushroom Soup - .75
French Onion Soup - .75

Entrees - Roast Prime Rib of Beef Au Jus
(Creamed Horseradish, baked potato, seasonal vegetables and tossed garden greens)
Contemporary Cut, a generous slice, or English Cut, three thin slices - 7.25
Grand Canyon Cut, to satisfy hearty appetites - 9.25
Children under 12 - 3.95

Accompaniments
Sauteed Mushrooms in Red Wine - 1.00
Baked Potato - .50

Our Wine Recommendation
Beaujolais, Louis Jardot - 8.75 and 4.50

Desserts
Pecan Pie - .75
German Chocolate Cake - .75
English Trifle - .80

The Outer Rim would continue offering its limited dinner menu through the bulk of the 1980s and would remain physically present until 1995, making it one of the longest-lived facilities to remain essentially unchanged in the history of the hotel. Traces of it continued to linger all the way up until 2007.

So by 1973, the original Grand Canyon Terrace was effectively no more. The same late 1973 Walt Disney World News doesn't even contain the name. Instead, they call it "The Terrace Buffet" and describe it as this: "features every evening. Select from lasagna, spaghetti, zucchini and other taste treats. Buffet serves from 5:30 to 10 pm".

At the same time El Pueblo, now called The Pueblo Room, is said to offer "delicious entrees each evening including New York Steak, prime rib and baked chicken". In other words, sometime in 1973, El Pueblo and Grand Canyon Terrace switched menus, with the buffet seating in the higher capacity area outside the monorail tracks.

The Terrace Buffet was in nearly constant use all day long. The same home movie camera which captured that furtive view into El Pueblo also shows us a chef set up at a table in the Terrace Buffet passing out food to breakfasters:


By 1973, the buffet had come to the Grand Canyon Concourse, and it's still there today, in pretty much the same location, no less.


Summer 1973: Fiesta Fun Center


Displacing the original "Sunshine State Exhibitorium" off the lobby, the Fiesta Fun Center offered a snack bar comparable to the original Dock Inn out by the pool, and absorbed the late hours of the Dock Inn, often remaining open past midnight. The reason everyone remembers the Fiesta Fun Center, however, was its remarkable collection of arcade machines and other diversions.

Jerry Klatt took this photo standing from the entrance looking into the Fun Center very near its final years of operation. The distinctive red and orange snack bar seating can be seen to the right.


Off to the left there's a kiosk where a caricature artist worked with the aid of an overhead projector, allowing you to see the artwork as they drew it. There was also a small movie theater. For just $1 anybody staying at the Contemporary could wander down and see a print of The Love Bug, Mary Poppins or Song of the South. By 1979 the movie theater had closed (or relocated) but Disney had installed a Shooting Gallery in its place, which Mike Lee still appears to have the best picture of:


This Shooting Gallery was a stock installation by MacGlashan Enterprises, the company which owned and operated the shooting galleries at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom.  Disney bought MacGlashan, who continued to operate independently, in 1969. MacGlashan invented the light gun shooting gallery in 1977 and designed the infa-red galleries for Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland, and Magic Kingdom. Similar Shooting Galleries operated around the country through the 1990s.

A good view of the original colors and lighting of the Fiesta Fun Center, as well as some of Bill Justice's original Three Caballeros wall art, comes from the 1978 TV special "The Mouskateers at Walt Disney World":


This terrific 1973 photo contributed by Joey v. shows the Bill Justice character art mural just inside the entrance of the Fiesta Fun Center. Check out the female parrot and rooster Bill created for Jose and Panchito, and also note than Panchito is colored in the same way he was in the original iteration of the Mickey Mouse Revue.



1977: The Atrium Bar
Following the opening of the Vacation Kingdom and stabilizing demand for food and hotel rooms, Disney's next major goal for Florida was the development of Lake Buena Vista, which climaxed in 1975 with the Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village. Building on the retail and dining experience gained in 1971 and 1972, Lake Buena Vista's network of shops and cafes was one of Disney's most interesting experiments of the era intentionally the polar opposite of the Victor Gruen-inflected Grand Canyon Concourse.

One of the most successful such establishments was Captain Jack's Oyster Bar, so Disney followed up with another oyster bar in 1977 at the Contemporary: Coconino Cove. A brand new glass enclosed atrium sprouted up on the South side of the hotel:


Let's map the concourse again. There's been some changes so get out your pencils.

Remember how the Terrace Cafe, the coffee shop nearest the mural, was a waitress service family restaurant? Well, sometime in early 1975, they decided to dispense with the table service and switch to a cafeteria style menu. So now the little covered counter I took the time to specifically point out in 1971 has become one of those installations where you slide your tray along, pull items off the food line, and pay at the end. This is how the Crystal Palace worked prior to the late 90s, for those of you who remember that.

You can just barely see the food line at the very bottom of a 1976 photo of the monorail and concourse mural:


To go with their new style of service, the restaurant has a new name. What was once The Terrace Cafe is now The Terrace Buffeteria.

But wait, it gets more confusing! The Terrace Buffet, which was still serving its Italian buffet, adopted the old name, becoming the new Terrace Cafe. So the Terrace Buffeteria was a cafeteria and the Terrace Cafe was a buffet. Got that?

Let's go back to our map. See why I made these now?


Spring 1977: Coconino Cove

Here's the uncropped version of Jerry's October 1977 photo, showing how Coconino Cove sat behind the original 1971 trees and seating arrangements and alongside the 1972/3 Outer Rim:


In April 1977, Walt Disney World News described Coconino Cove thusly:

"Located on the south end of the hotel, the new lounge has the same Indian motif decor and deep colors as the rest of the concourse area. The twelve-foot-high ceiling and an abundance of plants add to the atrium's outdoor feeling.

Guests enter Coconino Cove through doors in the existing window wall. Once seated at the fruitwood-finish round tables, they have an eye level view of sleek monorails gliding through the building. The south wall is all glass, offering an excellent view of Bay Lake and the wooded areas surrounding it. Above, pointed, triangular skylights let the sunbeams and moonbeams filter in day and night.

The lounge is open each evening, with dancing and musical entertainment provided by Amos and Charles 8:30 pm - 1:30 am."

Amos and Charles were John Charles and Rick Amos. John Charles continued at Walt Disney World into the early 90s and has recently appeared on the Disney Magic.

1978: The First Big Rebuild
For reasons that should be abundantly clear to anybody who has read this far so far, the Contemporary was the first Disney hotel to get a total rebuild of its restaurant complex and it happened in early 1978.

Don't worry - this time there were no name or location changes. It was aesthetics only, and right about now is the time when the Concourse finally starts to resemble the ones we know better. Replacing the original modernist black seating areas and puffy half round booths, Disney committed to extending and elaborating the Southwest decor and themeing of the Grand Canyon Concourse.

Russes on Flickr

Glazed ceramic tile, Southwest-style wooden canopies and oversized lamps dominate this phase of the Contemporary. This photo has a pretty clear view into Coconino Cove.  Notice that the Terrace Cafe has retained the elevated central section from 1971 but has now added the third raised section on the South side. The popular buffet now has a permanent food service line underneath the covered canopy on the lower tier.


The Pueblo Room has a new, elevated woven rug sign. You can still access the Pueblo Room by walking along the window wall, between Coconino Cove and around the elevated Terrace Cafe.


This is not a good picture from the Terrace Cafe. Okay, the face the kid is making is pretty funny. But I mainly included this so you can see another of the Mary Blair dioramas surrounding Outer Rim. See it there in the back on the right?

An elevated view from the window wall looking back towards the mural:


The covered area in the bottom foreground is the buffet at Terrace Cafe. We can see the Terrace Cafe circular sign near the entrance on the right. One thing I really like about this era of the Concourse is that every establishment has a super cool elevated sign, but none of the signs clash with the overall decor or each other. It feels like a little neighborhood of establishments instead of a big neon sign trying to flag you down.

An elevated view of Terrace Buffeteria. Notice that the food line is now fed by an entrance along the Concourse mural, basically identical to what the current food facility in this space uses. From there the food line appears to split into two sides and terminate at the cashier (blue dresses). You can see some folks waiting in line just below the concourse mural.


Terrace Buffeteria's awesome sign at the entrance near the elevators:


There have been other good designs for the Concourse, of course, but this specific one hits home the hardest for me. It harmonizes with the basic design of the hotel without fighting for attention, harmonizes with the Mary Blair mural, and softens the space with silk plants, wood grain and textiles to make it more inviting than the original Concourse was. This one is the gold standard as far as making that colossal, intimidating space feel cute and homey.



The original geometric trees continued on on the Plaza Shops side of the Concourse for at least another five years, as seen in this 1980 photo:

Disney Pix

In June 1981, just shy of its tenth anniversary, the Contemporary retired the first of the resort's attractions which was identifiable of its era. Nine years of rotating entertainer appearances at the Top of the World came to an end. I've never heard any specific stories to corroborate why this happened, but it's not hard to read between the lines.

In the early 70s, entertainers appeared for one or two week runs. By the end of the 70s, Disney was booking entertainers in runs of three weeks to a month. In the 1970s, the Vegas-style supper club was already a dying concept, and would die out entirely by the 1980s. Combined with the tendency towards un-Disneylike behavior of performers bored and marooned on Disney property in 70s era podunk Orlando, and Disney's need to house and rely on their talent to show up every night, it isn't hard to see why the mouse was fed up with their non-Mouskateer star attractions

"Broadway at the Top", starring Disney cultivated talent, ran until 1993. Its arrival heralds the official end of the first decade of the Contemporary.


Intentionally or not, Disney gave themselves a heck of a problem when they decided to call their modern hotel "The Contemporary" back in 1969. With a name like that, they were setting themselves up for trouble. But for better or worse, the Contemporary has always attempted to reflect its era. At the best of times its managed to combine classicism with a modernist edge, and managed to stay with the social curve. The Top of the World began as a Vegas stage, became a musical revue, then a California fusion eatery and now serves what we call "New American" cuisine. That does track with social changes of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and 00s.

But at its worst, the Contemporary can feel embarrassingly dated, and not in the cuddly, charming Polynesian Village way.

But I feel that the Contemporary, as an establishment, is perhaps under valued as a uniquely Walt Disney World phenomenon. Only Disney would have dared to try something like this with no experience in the hotel industry, and only Disney would have bothered to keep at it for fifty years. It's hard to find even thirty hotels as old as the Contemporary is and still standing with a mostly unchanged layout and retaining a significant portion of their original architecture. Were the Contemporary owned by any major hotel company, they would've demolished it in the 90s and built something new.

So it does stand for something, and that does have meaning, if only that it's cool that it's still there and still pretty interesting. There's better hotels and, since opening day, always have been - it's pretty impossible to put anything up against the Polynesian, in 1971 or now. Wilderness Lodge is bigger and more beautiful. The Swan & Dolphin are weirder. But the Contemporary is iconic of Walt Disney World, for being unique, and for being of its time. Cinderella Castle is great, but it's just a bigger castle, one of what is now many. There's nothing like that big A-frame anywhere else. Respect it.

You didn't expect me just to stop at 1981, did you?

While I was doing my photo gathering and my fact checking for The Contemporary Resort in the 1970s, I noticed something that was sort of funny. There's hardly an element anywhere in the hotel that somebody hasn't taken a photograph of and posted as being "from the 1970s" - including stuff from the California Grill. It's true, there's a lot of history at that hotel, and it can be tough to discern exactly what came from which era. Which is why I knew I had to go further than 1981 from the start.

This article picks up exactly where my previous article left off and will bring the Contemporary up to what I consider its fourth distinct version, the big "turquoise and purple" reboot in 1995. That version of the Contemporary stuck around until about 2007, and is well documented elsewhere online and in recent memory. It's funny, from the perspective of a historian attempting to crunch history, to see photos of the post 1995 remodel labeled as "old Contemporary" or "original Contemporary". It's an ironic fate for a hotel with such a name to be always so behind the forward curve of history so as to seem to each new generation of visitors to be untouched from 1971, but really there's very little - outside of the Mary Blair mural - left from her earliest years.

This is going to be a much quicker moving overview than the first, for no other reason than that it's a much less involved story to tell. So catch up with the history of the first ten years of the hotel if you haven't already, and then it's time to move on to:

1987 - 1989: The Second Big Rebuild
Not much changed at the Contemporary through most of the 1980s. The 1978 rebuild of the south side of the Grand Canyon Concourse removed all of the original "shattered glass" indoor trees, but the north side - the Plaza Shops area - remained untouched. Then, sometime around the opening of EPCOT Center, the old trees were replaced with silk trees, familiar from many a mall across the land:


By the mid-80s, changes were brewing in Walt Disney World hotels. The old guard of the 1970s were out and Michael Eisner and Frank Wells were in. Eisner had a specific mandate to expand Walt Disney World's fleet of hotels, and already plans for "Moderate" and "Budget" hotels were rolling forwards.

In late 1986, a Walt Disney World press release read:

"A multi-million dollar roof-to-lobby remodeling is making one of America's most famous hotels, the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World, even more of a favorite place to stay. The multi-year project will not only change the appearance of each of the 1,050 guest rooms in the 15-year-old resort but will also touch most other guest areas of the structure.

First evidence of the change is in the lobby, which has been completely redone with new furniture and appointments. New costumes for the Contemporary Resort staff complement the rich new appearance guests see as they enter the building.

First impressions of a world-class hotel will be reinforced as guests see the totally remodeled rooms. Warm new carpeting and wall coverings blend with the all-new bleached-oak furniture, paddle fans and lighting. Bathrooms have been completely remodeled, as well, and now feature luxurious, black granite sinks. Each room's balcony has a new ceramic tile floor.

The design, says Contemporary Resort Manager Dale Stafford, was chosen because of its residential feel: 'It gives our guests a feeling of coming home after as busy day in the parks.'"

Changes were already underway on the concourse. In 1986, The Spirit World liquor store was remodeled and reopened as Concourse Sundries and Spirits, featuring one of the most iconic signs from olden Walt Disney World:


Notice the three windows displays of liquor outside:


Nearby, the Fantasia Shop and Plaza Gifts & Sundries were officially joined together under a new name with a new central Mickey statue: Fantasia.


1987 saw the closure of Monorail Club Car bar as the entire original Contemporary shop complex was demolished and replaced with a new structure, with an open, airy top. "Bay View Gifts" took over the former Monorail Club Car space, while The Contemporary Man, The Contemporary Woman, and Kingdom Jewelers continued on:


Here's a good view of an oft-forgotten feature: the various levels of the Concourse Towers were each painted a different shade, suggesting the layers of the Grand Canyon. This appeared sometime around 1983 and lasted until 1995.


By 1988, the Terrace Cafe had changed its name to the Character Cafe, to reflect the fact that it hosted the popular character breakfast and buffet, but the name seems to have lasted at most a year or two, because by 1988 the entire South side of the Grand Canyon Concourse had closed.

Meanwhile, elsewhere at Walt Disney World, the massive Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin complex was rising west of EPCOT Center. Designed by Michael Graves, the Swan and Dolphin combined pink and green colors, lattice, indoor trees and silk plants, and bizarre geometric shapes into a highly distinctive whole.

David Simpson

I've never found any documents linking Michael Graves to this specific refurbishment at the Contemporary, but none the less when the South Grand Canyon Concourse reopened in 1989, it had a look which was very similar to the Swan and Dolphin, not yet open:


For the 1989 remodel, the three-level restaurant terrace which had been constructed in 1978 was flattened. The Terrace Cafe / Character Cafe became the new Contemporary Cafe, and annexed the Pueblo Room for additional seating. You can see the entrance to the restaurant leading directly towards where the Pueblo Room once was:

DisneyPix.Com

The Contemporary Cafe continued offering its popular breakfast in the morning and Italian buffets at night. Characters could be found at each meal.


Terrace Buffeteria was entirely rebuilt, abandoning its food line service and installing a trendy open kitchen, a gazebo-like central dining area, some light poles and trees and those weird not-quite-umbrella things over some of its booths. It became The Concourse Grill.

DisneyPix.Com

Look all the way over to the left of that photo. That covered area housed six booths, three on each side, but the three facing the mural were seated by the Concourse Grill and the three on the other side "belonged" to the Contemporary Cafe. Only a small potted plant served to divide the two spaces. The trend in the 80s was for casual, open seating, but this "wall of potted plants" method continued until 2007, even after the Contemporary Cafe was replaced by the boisterous Chef Mickey's.

Outer Rim survived the transition but gone were the Prime Rib dinners and in was seafood cocktails, beer, and televisions. In these photos by Jerry Klatt you can see the minimally altered 1972 architecture existing alongside the upgraded 1989 restaurants.


Sitting behind the Contemporary Cafe you can still see the sign for Coconino Cove. The windows have been frosted. The Cove lounge disappears from Birnbaum guides around this time, so it's extremely likely that the space was dismantled or simply used for private events only from 1989 onwards. Also closing at this time was The Gulf Coast Room, downstairs. It was converted back into a conference room and remains one to this day.


Now we must switch our scene to the Walt Disney World Village for an unexpected interlude. Since 1975, the Shopping Village had attracted a mix of tourists and locals for its relaxed atmosphere and casual mix of high end boutiques. Certain features had quietly become Central Florida institutions: the Village Wine Cellar, which back in the 70s was just about the best wine store around (and they offered a membership club), and the Village Lounge, which quietly began booking top name jazz talent and slowly became so much of a mecca for Floridian music students that they had to institute a cover change.

Prior to 1989, Walt Disney World had operated under a "good neighbor" policy in Central Florida; they had even offered buses to Sea World, Cape Kennedy Space Center, and Cypress Gardens. In 1989, Disney turned insular, opening three direct challenges to local entertainment offerings: Typhoon Lagoon (to compete with Wet n' Wild), The Disney-MGM Studios (to undercut Universal Studios Florida), Pleasure Island (to compete with the downtown Orlando nightclub complex Church Street Station), and even a movie theater. As part of the creation of Pleasure Island, The Walt Disney World Village switched names to the Disney Village Marketplace, and began to renovate its high end boutiques and restaurants into explicitly family-friendly locations.

One such restaurant to change was the Village Restaurant, which had developed a reputation for an excellent, relaxed meal in a sunroom-like environment. To capitalize on the growing demand for character dining at Walt Disney World, Village Restaurant would become Chef Mickey's, an around-the-clock character dining hall. Still served a la carte, the dining room would periodically erupt into noise as Chef Mickey himself would parade through the room to the cheers of children hoisting Mickey Mouse hand puppets which could be fashioned from the children's menu.


Walt Disney World's clientele, which had previously been substantially adult, was starting to skew younger and younger. One by one, fine dining restaurants around the resort began to close or be converted into more populist concepts. The end of the road for the original vision for Walt Disney World of relaxed elegance was at hand.

1991: The Convention Center Expands

The Convention Center opened in 1991 and its largest ballroom, the colossal Fantasia Ballroom, displaced the Ballroom of the Americas as Walt Disney World's single largest meeting space.

(Look carefully in the photo below and you can see the original sunroom-style windows where the Pueblo Room seating was; they've since been rebuilt into standard flat windows.)


The original drive-through lobby dropoff area would be truncated by the extension of the Level of the Americas to bridges leading down into the new convention center, so a new outside Porte Cochere was built outside, instead of under, the west-facing wall of the Towers:


At this point the lobby was extended forward to meet the new drop off area. When you walk out the side doors of the current Contemporary Resort lobby and walk towards the bus drop-off, you're walking where cars used to drive! This should explain a lot.


The Convention Center is one of Walt Disney World's most distinctive spaces, even 25 years later, making it among the most successful pieces of architecture built for Disney in its era. Where so much of the interior of the modern Contemporary feels strange and forced, the Convention Center remains effortlessly airy and unique.


1995: The Third Big Rebuild
Since 1988, the Eisner administration at Disney had made remarkable strides in developing and expanding the concept of what a "themed hotel" could be. Starting with the hotels at Euro Disney Resort in 1992, and especially the Wilderness Lodge and Boardwalk hotels in 1994 and 1996, a new standard was set where the very best hotels could be themed as well or better than any area of any theme park. The Eisner administration was instrumental in creating this expectation, and still has built many of its best examples.

In the early 90s, efforts to deepen and improve the theming at the Polynesian Village were underway, and the Golf Resort, which had only ever sought to create a pleasant country club atmosphere, was given a mild Snow White motif in 1987 (along with a new name: The Disney Inn), and sold outright to the US Military in 1994. But the Contemporary Resort wasn't really ever themed, not in the way that the Yacht Club or Dixie Landings was, anyway. How do you upgrade the Contemporary to be a "theme" hotel?

This blurb from a January 1995 issue of "VISIONS", which was a sort of in-house "newspaper" for the Contemporary, lays out pretty fully what Disney hoped to do with their most distinctive resort.

"When you stepped through the front door and into Disney's Contemporary Resort, you knew, of course, that you were stepping into a first-class Resort. But did you know that you were stepping into one giant modern art gallery?

As a lasting tribute to Walt Disney's vision to combine the best of science and art, Disney's Contemporary Resort has no shortage of the latter.

The lobby's look was visualized and created by an Independent design firm from Philadelphia to inspire the mood of a modern art and set the tone for the resort. The soft hues and marble textures illicit a progressive "contemporary" feeling.


Take a few moments to peruse to collection of limited edition prints adorning the walls of the lobby and elsewhere. This impressive collection was acquired through an independent professional art consultant, who traveled extensively in search for the right piece.

You'll see such works as The Five Seasons by Roberto Juarez, Grape Leaves by Ellsworth Kelly, and Nella Pupilla by Judy Pfaff, plus many more. We're sure you'll enjoy this varied collection.

Tucked away in a far corner of the Convention Center is a meticulously realistic sculpture depicting an immortal scene from Disney's animated classic Fantasia. A single frame of two-dimensional celluloid is brought to vivid three dimensions. (Actually, this was in the lobby, but maybe in early 1995 its final location had not yet been determined - ed.)


At the center of the 4th floor Concourse is the world's largest mosaic mural. It took artist May Blair and her assistants more than eighteen months to design and create, and is based on the Native American lifestyle of the Southwest. It is composed of 18,000 one foot square tiles. In true artistic fashion, you can see a five-legged goat inside the mural. According to Indian beliefs, only the gods could create perfection, and all man made creations must be made with an intentional imperfection.

The modern art collection also includes less traditional forms. In fact, it's literally right under you; the furniture. Fitting in perfectly with the lobby's ultra-progressive look is a collection of ultra-modern furniture. Created with sharp angles and sloping curves, they instantly conjure visions of the future.

The sofas in particular were imported from Italy and designed by renown Baghdad-born artist Zaha Hadid. They're named The Woush and The Wavy, for obvious reasons.

DisneyPix.Com

If one of the goals of art is to reflect ourselves back at us, this furniture seems to reflect our future selves back at us. After strolling the hallways in your quest for fine modern art, take a break and relax on this unusual furniture. This, you see, is functional art, meant to be enjoyed by the eyes as well as the rest of the body. Perhaps if this furniture represents the decor of tomorrow, you could be sitting on the future.

With such a wide-ranging collection of modern art, we're sure that there's something here for everyone. From the serious art scholar to the casual enthusiast, art touches all of our lives and makes the world a much more interesting place."

DisneyPix.Com

Besides the obvious strain that writing those paragraphs placed on its author, we can detect several distinctly Eisnerian themes in that body of text. The most obvious is that there is no reference to Mary Blair as being a Disney employee, never mind a Disney Legend. Her mural, instead of being the thematic and conceptual centerpiece of the hotel, is just one of many works of modern art. And instead of her status as a home-grown Disney talent being valorized, her work is validated by sitting alongside other works of modern art, called out by name.

The blurb has an almost apologetic "it's art and it's fun!" tone to it that Disney would never pursue today. The key phrase, repeated over and over again, is "Independent", as in, "pointedly not done by Disney", with the implication being that Disney could never successfully do these things themselves.

So 1995 is the official end of the line for all of the Southwest architecture and design at the Contemporary and the start of its "chic" and "retro chic" phase. Besides "The Woush" and "The Wavy", the lobby also gained a new feature - an espresso bar, called Contemporary Grounds, often not too much more inhabited than it looks here:


The Fiesta Fun Center got a new updated look, with fresh-for-1995 graphics and architecture, and became the Food and Fun Center, although it still offered essentially the same snack food in pretty much the same footprint.


For the "Food & Fun Center" iteration of the concept, the game machine area was darkened up quite a lot. A prize redemption counter sat in the far left corner, where the Shooting Gallery once stood.

DisneyPix.Com

Throughout the hotel, the rooms were once again refreshed, this time in cool modernist beige and tans. The hallways were done in alternating colors of purple, turquoise, tan, and grey. The main pool was rebuilt with flowing curves and a new slide.


On the "4th Floor Concourse"

Most of the changes this time occurred in the Restaurant side of the Concourse. Early 1995 directories show the shop complex still contained all of individual stores - Contemporary Man, Woman, and Kingdom Jewelers - but by mid 1996 the entire shop had been unified under the name Bay View Gifts, abbreviated BVG in a stylish, 90s-style "serif thin" font.

Meanwhile, by early 1995 the restaurant side had been rebuilt yet again, even while the actual layout changed at best minimally.



4) The Outer Rim Lounge

The Mary Blair Concourse dioramas were removed at this time, and their windows filled in and smoothed over - only three small windows at the top of the Outer Rim hexagon remained as a reminder of what was once there. The old Southwest architecture was removed and the entire space given a new open bar under what could be described as a colossal leaf.

DisneyPix.Com

5) The Concourse Steakhouse

Economically built out of the basic infrastructure of the Concourse Grille, Concourse Steakhouse was essentially the same restaurant as the previous Concourse Grill. The wooden central structure became an abstract white canopy and the indoor trees were removed, but this one changed in look and name only from its 1989 incarnation.


One feature fondly remembered by many was the restaurant's display case near the entrance.

DisneyPix.Com

An October 1998 menu includes Chicken Pizza, Contemporary Chopped Salad, T-Bone, Prime Rib, Filet Mignon, Glazed New York Strip, Mango BBQ Glazed Pork Ribs, Beef Short Ribs, and Jambalaya, with most entrees in the $20 price range.

6) Chef Mickey's

The big one. Common wisdom is that Chef Mickey's "moved" from the Village to the Contemporary, but it's far easier to say that the Contemporary Cafe simply expanded again, taking on the name as it did so. This time it swallowed up the Coconino Cove atrium area.


This is when the huge buffet and napkin twirling appeared. It's fascinating to think that Chef Mickey's takes up a space which was once home to, counting the back half of Outer Rim, four separate restaurants.


The California Grill

Topping off the hotel, both conceptually and literally, the California Grill opened in October 1995 to rave reviews. Replacing the stuffy "club" atmosphere of the Top of the World, California Grill was a significant demarcation point in Walt Disney World history.


The 1990s were the site of a major food reawakening across the United States, a movement which began in California in the 70s, went national in the 80s, and went populist in the 90s.

Prior to the 90s if you wanted top line food anywhere in the country, you put on your most expensive clothes and went to a place where the menu was likely as not printed in French. The rise of what we now recognize as "California fusion" dispensed with the formalities, exaggerated the presentation value, and focused heavily on local, in-season ingredients. Prior to this there really didn't exist much of a stopgap between the "family restaurants" of the 1960s and serious dining rooms. It wasn't until the spread of California fusion techniques that a true option for high end food in a more casual milieu was created.

Walt Disney World offers a good example of the distinction. On the low end of the spectrum were the "Snack Bars" and "Cafes" such as Pecos Bill at Magic Kingdom or The Dock Inn at the Contemporary. The next level up was the "Coffee Shops" such as Town Square Cafe and Coral Isle Cafe, and the "buffeterias" like Crystal Palace. The next step up from there brings you to the "serious food" locations like Papeette Bay Veranda and Flaglers, with the trio of top-top flight jacket and tie restaurants beyond that: The Empress Room, The Gulf Coast Room, and Victoria & Albert's.

Of course California Grill was and remains an expensive restaurant, but it symbolizes the democratization of fresh, excellent food at Walt Disney World in the 90s. You didn't need a jacket and tie to get in, and the servers were young, informed, and friendly. It remains a symbol of central Florida dining because in 1995 there was simply nothing like it anywhere, and it paved the way for later successes like Flying Fish and Jiko. For many living outside of New York and Los Angeles, California Grill would be their first encounter with anything of its type. For its time, California Grill extended and validated the legitimacy of the name on the sign of this hotel.


When you lay out the story of this hotel in the way I've done here, you can see that it's always existed on and in a wave. And while it may never have been "Contemporary" per se, I'm not sure that that was the point. The point was to have dramatic, unusual architecture and designs for the pure pleasure of having it, a sort of modernistic grown up Fantasyland. And to my mind, since the big 1978 overhaul of the concourse I detailed in the last article, the 1995 iteration of the hotel is the second-nearest it's ever come to actually making sense. It's never been perfect - the design of and the fact that Chef Mickey's devoured four separate restaurants is a noteworthy example - but for the 1990s it was an exciting, interesting place to be.

Michael G. Smith

Since then, as taste has changed, Disney has attempted to combat the perceived sterility of the space by putting characters everywhere, which is their usual response and which never, ever works (see: the Transportation & Ticket Center). But looking at these photos over time, it's just as easy to see that it wasn't always that way. The whole reason why Disney filled the space with warm Southwest colors, twinkling lights on the ceiling, and an artificial forest was to warm up and humanize an otherwise bleakly architectural space. And while it would be foolish to reproduce those designs in the modern age, they also did work, and the concepts behind them are still correct.

In the first part of my article I brought up Victor Gruen and the indoor shopping mall, and said that I considered it no insult to suggest that the Contemporary was a really good mall. The same distinction applies here. In the 90s as the hold of the mega mall waned, those centers of commerce responded to their own decline by rationalizing that if people were no longer going to their malls, the outdated decor must be the reason. And so they stripped out those large atriums filled with hanging abstract mobiles, trickling fountains, and silken indoor trees. And the death of the mall only accelerated. Today it's hard to find a mall that has the romance that those darkened, abstract proto-Disneylands held 25 years ago.

It's impossible not to see the correlation with the Contemporary. With no more lounge seats, warm colors, weird indoor trees and unique boutique shops, is it any wonder that the Grand Canyon Concourse today often seems abandoned? To appeal to people you need to first not lose sight of the fact that any public space needs to invite interaction. Right now, the Contemporary is at the shallow spot between the waves, as it was in the late 80s. But for a place called the Contemporary, it's ironic that the path back to having an attitude that matches the name on the door doesn't lie in the present, but in the past, in the foundations best expressed at the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. Make it beautiful, make it fun, give people a place to sit and enjoy it, and they'll be back again.