Under The Mouse Ears

by Sam. 10.30.21 As a kid, I remember walking around the OLD Epcot (i.e. Horizons, obviously World of Motion, etc) and marveling at the things us youths at the time referred to as "those Learning rides". Everything was slow and boring... a welcome AC break for parents from all those thrill rides at the Magic Kingdom. Where else could you learn about dinosaurs in the ploddy World of Energy; or ride up into the Epcot ball in Spaceship Earth.. all at the speed of a turtle? There was virtually no end other than Figment. I mean, he was of course my homey. Figment is my boy. But all that changed when the Wonders of Life pavilion opened in 1989, introducing Epcot's first thrill ride: Body Wars! So yeah. This is gonna be a Body Wars blog, right? Meh. Maybe later. How about we talk instead about the quieter, less interesting attraction in the Wonders of Life... Cranium Command! You know, that ride that you went on when the Body Wars line was too long.  The Wonders of Life in happi...

Theme Park History: Walt Disney and the beginning of his 'World' Derek Potter, Dec 2013 From Theme Park Insider: https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201312/3819/ When the Magic Kingdom opened its doors in 1971, it marked the beginning of an era for Disney, the theme park industry, and the state of Florida. The park would eventually eclipse its predecessor, both in size and popularity. The modest sized city of Orlando would quickly be transformed into an international city visited by more than 50 million people per year. Disney World's opening is a story over 10 years in the making. It involved a near five-year search for a site, secret land dealings, questionable business tactics, controversial political deals, a gargantuan engineering feat, and the death of Walt, the heart and soul it all. Disney World was not built as intended, meant to be not just another theme park, but also a city that would be a model for the future. While Walt's utopian would never come to pa...

 by Sam 10/29/21 Way back when Walt bought all that Florida property, most people (including probably most of Disney's 'money people') thought it was for some amazing theme park. In reality, it was for a pretty way out there idea. Walt Disney's 'Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow' was some fairly Orwellian stuff of the future. But when everybody started to balk at it, the eastern version of Disneyland became a stark reality. In order to build Walt's EPCOT, it would take building a Magic Kingdom first. With an Epcot coming though, it's obviously important to put as many strange and bizarre means of transportation throughout. Monorails are one thing... but you need more than just that. And it's not like there was no solid precedent for Walt's wacky ways to get around. While the Disneyland monorail opened in 1959, it was beat by another, older model to get from one place to another.. The Disneyland Skyway opened on June 23, 1956. Purchased...

by Sam Terito 10.28.21    As anybody in the Disney blogosphere knows, you can't have a Disney blog without a post on Discovery Island. Many a visitor to WDW in the 70's and 80's has a fleeting childhood memory of getting on a boat and going to some island somewhere they saw parrots and other random tropical animals. The place they're likely thinking of was a rather popular attraction for a good while, open from 1974 all the way until a burgeoning new park called Disney's Animal Kingdom quietly took it's place in 1998; closing for good a year later on April 8, 1999.  Interestingly enough, the island is one of the few islands on property that isn't man made. From 1900 to 1937, the island was known as Raz Island, named after the family that lived there. In the late 1930s, it was purchased for $800 by a man named Delmar "Radio Nick" Nicholson, who renamed it "Idle Bay Isle" and lived there for 20 years with his wife and pet crane. It was late...

The Story of Disney's Once Abandoned Resort by Sam. 10.27.21 In the book Disney War by James B Stewart (which is an absolute MUST read by anyone who's a fan of 'backstage' Disney), we learn a few things about the way the company once viewed on-property resorts. There was the super expensive Magic Kingdom resorts (Contemporary, Polynesian, and Grand Floridian) and then kinda just everything else. The first moderate resort built was Caribbean Beach in 1988, but then they did something interesting. Other than signing a 99 year lease for Marriott to operate the Swan and Dolphin, Disney decided to develop on-property budget resorts for people who know their plans might not include a lot of hotel-ing.. but instead, a lot more park hopping. Just get a look at that weird but oddly beautiful 1990's deco weirdness. If you look at the history of how the resorts were developed, it's clear that Disney didn't know if they wanted to be in the hotel business with both feet....