MAGICAL MILESTONE

CHARLENE MARIA

MATT STROSHANE RONALD GRANT ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Clockwise from top right: Children take part in fall season celebrations at Magic Kingdom; Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse; Mickey; and Cinderella in Magic Kingdom.

KENT PHILLIPS hroughout his life, Walter Elias Disney pushed the boundaries of storytelling. As an animator, Disney elevated cartoons from simply drawn vignettes focused on movement to intricately ren-tdered feature films with fully realized characters and plotlines. He was not only an innovator who pioneered the use of synchronized sound and Technicolor in his movies, but he was also a magician who, among other things, conjured a handshake between Mickey Mouse and the real-life conductor Leopold Stokowski in the 1940 film Fantasia. Magic was hard to come by in the 1940s. The world was at war and times were hard. Americans waited for a peace treaty, hoping their loved ones would return alive after fighting abroad. Though they perhaps

didn’t know it yet, people yearned for a place where they could escape their worries and forget their cares, if only for a day. That’s when Disney, by then a father of two young girls, began ruminating about how he could put the viewer inside of a cartoon instead of in front of it. The way he saw it, there “should be some sort of amusement enterprise built where the parents and the children could have fun together.”

But amusement parks were nothing new. The first one in the United States, Lake Compounce, opened in Bristol, Connecticut, in 1846. It was—and still is—a mishmash of games and rides. It was nothing like the immersive world percolating inside of Disney’s head.

Ultimately, he was thinking about what would become Walt Disney World, which debuted in October 1971. Disney died of cancer five years before he could see his vision fully realized. But, as the park has grown, it has lived up to— and in some cases exceeded—even his wildest dreams.

But Walt Disney World wasn’t Disney’s first shot at the amusement park business. First there was Disneyland, which opened in July 1955 on the site of some former orange groves in Southern California. Disney’s bankers—and his brother, Roy—thought the park would ruin him financially. After all, Disney had borrowed against his life insurance and sold some of his vacation properties to build the attraction. The yearlong construction job was barely complete when ABC went live with a 90-minute television special on the park’s opening day, hosted by Ronald Reagan.

Disneyland seemed full of polish and promise, but the truth was not nearly as pretty. It was a 100-degree day and there weren’t enough drinking fountains because of a plumbers’ strike. Ladies’ high heels got stuck in Main Street’s melting asphalt, and counterfeit tickets doubled the expected visitor count. There were traffic jams, insufficient food supplies, and not-yet-ready ride That day, the Associated Press reported that it was probably the “first time in his career [that] Disney disappointed thousands of youngsters.” Disney assured the press he would fix all the problems in a month. He did, and seven weeks later the park welcomed its millionth visitor. Still, after a decade of operations in Southern California, two things were apparent. First, while Disneyland had hosted its share of celebrities and international dignitaries, 74 percent of its guests lived west

From above: The reimagined fountain at the Epcot entrance; Stormtroopers line up as part of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance attraction.

MATT STROSHANE

MATT STROSHANE

STEVEN DIAZ

KENT PHILLIPS/DISNEY PARKS

Clockwise from top right: Alien Swirling Saucers attraction in Toy Story Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios; smoked salmon potato latke at the 2020 Taste of Epcot International Festival of the Holidays; starship cabin, part of the forthcoming Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience; drinks at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge; exterior of Space Mountain in Magic Kingdom.

of the Mississippi River. According to Walt Disney: The Triumph of the Human Imagination author Neal Gabler, Disney’s cohorts estimated that it would take 100 years for attendance at the park to “saturate the population east of the Mississippi River, which then constituted twothirds of the country’s population.” Second, tourists were spending more than $500 million on hotels and other services outside of Disneyland’s gates. Disney felt that a newer park—located on the East Coast and featuring its own hotels and transportation—would be able to achieve what Disneyland could not.

Central Florida, with its consistently good weather, seemed like a good place to break ground. Disney quietly bought 27,500 acres of swampland in 1965, and locals began wondering what this secret buyer aimed to do with the property. When Disney’s plans became clear (though at the time he only envisioned a City of Yesterday and a City of Tomorrow), Florida Governor W. Haydon Burns called it a “significant day in the history of Florida,” and estimated the state’s tourism and tax revenues would rise by 50 percent.

Disney World opened on October 1, 1971 to what The New York Times described as a “paper thin” crowd of 10,000 people. Traffic was manageable, lines were short, and the weather was balmy. Although some of the rides were out of order and neither of the park’s hotels were open on that first day, the general feeling was that this new Disney attraction was a nice place to escape.

Since then, Walt Disney World has become the largest and most-visited attraction in the world, with an average annual attendance of 58 million visitors at its four parks: the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. Part of Walt Disney World’s success lies in the hands of its Imagineers—a team of creative engineers from various disciplines who are tasked with dreaming up new technologies that bring Disney stories to life. In 1959, they created the first daily monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, a submarine ride that took riders through liquid space, and the world’s first tubular steel-track roller coaster inspired by Switzerland’s Matterhorn mountain. In 1963, they expanded into audioanimatronics, using robotics to animate three-dimensional characters.

DAVID ROARK

DAVID ROARK

DAVID ROARK

With it, they created a musical revue that involved hundreds of talking birds, singing flowers, and chanting tikis. Later, they gave voices to long-gone American leaders in the Hall of Presidents and swashbucklers in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Today Disney offers a new class of interactive audio-animatronics, giving visitors the ability to not only listen to their favorite characters, but to speak with them too.

It has been said that the Imagineers generate far more innovations and inventions than can be used in the company’s theme parks and resorts. One of the patents they’ve filed is for a responsive theme park ride system that can read a guest’s facial expressions and personalize the experience accordingly. The technology can adjust the speed or movement of a ride to combat a guest’s motion sickness, or it could show the rider customized content based on his or her interests and age. Sometimes, these innovations aren’t used because they aren’t cost effective. No matter what technology the Imagineers are working on, their goal is always the same: to make the customer feel like they are a part of something or being transported somewhere, not to draw their attention to a whiz-bang gadget.

Disney’s love affair with innovation also extends beyond its amusements to everyday experiences. Magic Bands worn on guests’ wrists allow families to unlock their hotel rooms, enter the theme parks and water parks with a valid admission, check in at FastPass entrances, view and purchase photos on a Disney PhotoPass account, and charge food and merchandise to a credit card, among other conveniences.

For all its dazzle, Disney still has its critics who believe this hyperplanned world where characters come to life, shops abound, security is paramount, and entertainment—and everything else—is easy to come by has led to a “Disneyfication” of other urban spaces. Communities like nearby Celebration or developments like the South Street Seaport in New York City come to mind as locales with a form of faux historic “character” that gives way to chain stores and restaurants. In response, Walt Disney might say that in a time of unchecked urban sprawl, his parks offer a unique vision of what a community could be, and that the point of a Disney vacation is not to struggle with the ugliness of modern life, but to immerse oneself in a dreamlike Fantasia.

Innovation and Disney have become practically synonymous over the years. Perhaps that’s why the company declined to participate in this story. For decades, it has had a lock on envisioning and creating the technologies that have made Disney movies such beloved classics and Disney parks a ritualistic family trip. To open a door on how they create that magic, and to foreshadow the future tricks they might have up their sleeve, might strip those creations of their undeniable charm— never mind the competitive concerns. The goal has always been to keep improving and never look back.

“We keep moving forward, opening up new doors, and doing new things because we’re curious,” Walt Disney once said. “And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We’re always exploring and experimenting.”

And for a half-century, millions of guests have been happy to go along for the ride.

Animal Kingdom scenes, clockwise from above: Inside the Avatar Flight of Passage ride; guests can visit Masai giraffe calves and an array of wildlife in their natural habitat as part of Kilimanjaro Safaris; explore bioluminescent flora within Pandora: The World of Avatar.

DAVID ROARK

MATT STROSHANE

Disney World parks and landmarks, such as Cinderella’s Castle (above) and Spaceship Earth (left) have taken on an “EARidescent” glow as part of “The World’s Most Magical Celebration,” a fiftieth anniversary event hosted by Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

HALF-CENTURY CELEBRATIONS

What does Walt Disney World have going on to mark its major milestone? Here’s a taste of what’s happening.

Walt Disney World was sold out on its birthday—October 1, 2021—but that doesn’t mean you missed out on the celebrations. For the next year-and-ahalf, the resort will commemorate its half-century in what it’s calling “The World’s Most Magical Celebration.” Crews have refreshed parkways, painted entrances, and conducted general upgrades to the complex in anticipation of birthday revelers.

According to Disney, four of its iconic buildings have been transformed into Beacons of Magic: Cinderella’s Castle sports golden bunting and sparkles with pixie dust at night; Epcot’s Spaceship Earth is illuminated from within and surrounded with stardust; the Hollywood Tower Hotel shines like the golden age of imagination; and Animal Kingdom’s Tree of Life twinkles with fireflies to celebrate the magic of nature. This lighting will remain as a permanent feature long after the celebration is over.

The shine is not limited to those landmarks; Disney has shared that its teams have made other decorations that shimmer all day and into the night. It’s such a big deal, they’ve coined a new term—EARidescence (get it?)—to describe what visitors will see on their visit. Mickey and Minnie Mouse both have shiny new looks for the party, too.

In Epcot—which has been under heavy reimagining—recent openings include an expanded France pavilion (headlined by the much-anticipated Remy's Ratatouille Adventure ride) and a new out-of-this-world dining experience called Space 220 that offers diners a space station-like experience. Epcot also recently launched Harmonious—the largest nighttime spectacular ever created for a Disney park. Still in-the-works for Epcot are projects like the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind roller coaster and a new Play! Pavilion that promises to be devoted to immersive fun. Whatever happens, it’s certain that Disney has pulled out all the stops it can, when it can, in the most magical way it can. «