By EPCOT Explorer

One of the things that make Walt Disney World so unique is the unexpected art found throughout the resort complex. A couple of areas that this really stands out is in the foyer of Cinderella Castle with its glittering, richly hued glass mosaic murals and also at Disney's Contemporary Resort that features a massive 90-foot-high ceramic mural unlike anything in the world. Join us in today's new article as we take an up-close look at how these murals were created and why they remain as some of the most well-known artistic treasures in the entire world...

By EPCOT Explorer

In some ways, nothing has changed. There’s still grandiose and emotionally charged music. Cultural and natural landmarks beckon and shimmer. Excited passengers gasp and whoop when surprised with a bird’s eye view of the world that they very rarely get to see from such an angle. But in other ways, everything has changed: Soarin’ is no longer flying over California, but is now flying around the world. The scope of the attraction has changed, altering the thematic landscape of EPCOT. In so doing, Soarin’s change is less of a transformation, but a transition from a narrow and specialized approach to an experience that is now broad and sweeping. These changes are both harmful and helpful to how Soarin’ now operates and how it makes a thematic statement that fits into EPCOT. In today's new article, let's attempt to describe and analyze each version of the attraction, and showcase their strengths and weaknesses in this Tale of Two Soarin's...

By EPCOT Explorer

Early in the planning stages for Tokyo Disneyland, WED was a flurry of creativity, simultaneously guiding Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom though its first few years and attempting to broaden the Vacation Kingdom with EPCOT-inspired initiatives. Most notable of the EPCOT projects was the Walt Disney World Showcase, an international exhibition. Learn how an EPCOT inspired World Showcase almost made it to Tokyo Disneyland’s entrance corridor in today's new article by EPCOT Explorer...

By Epcot Explorer

When Disneyland opened its gates, 60 years ago, its foremost purpose was to be an economic boon to Walt Disney and his studio in Southern California. In spite of that singular economic focus, there is much more nuance to what Disneyland was to American society when it opened and what it has become in the six decades to follow. Join us today as Disney Avenue contributing writer Epcot Explorer takes us on a amazing journey to examine Disneyland and its place in American Culture...

By EPCOT Explorer

The mid 1970s were marked with a flurry of creativity and activity for Walt Disney Productions. Main efforts centered on expanding their existing two theme parks, and looking to finally act upon Walt Disney’s plans for EPCOT in some regard. Simultaneously, Disney was broaching the subject of an Asian Disneyland in Tokyo. Despite all of these far flung and grandiose ideas, concentration settled on developing a “ride” system for a public works project. Let's examine the WEDway PeopleMover and the Community Transportation Services Division in today's new article by EPCOT Explorer...

By EPCOT Explorer

Sometimes, when writing and researching you come upon a group of interesting things and have no idea what to do with them, as they are just implicit pieces of a whole body of study. Although that sounds frightfully academic, this even happens in researching something fun, like EPCOT Center and Walt Disney Productions. So… in that spirit, let's take a look at some wonderful, early EPCOT Center photos from it's formative years. You're not going to want to miss these...

By EPCOT Explorer

At WED Enterprises, the 1970s were marked with an unmistakable drive of creativity that produced some of the most well known and iconic Disney experiences that still are held dear, today. This was the decade of Walt Disney World’s opening and all of the efforts to bring the fledgling resort up to operational and thematic speed. This is also the heady decade in which Walt Disney Productions would finally act upon Walt Disney’s idea for an urban community of tomorrow and produce a theme park, EPCOT Center, out of those ideas and plans. Additionally, this is also the decade when Disney looked beyond America and saw potential in building magic kingdoms around the world. Tokyo Disneyland’s creative nexus came about during EPCOT’s formal creation as a unified theme park and would go on to be a thematic entity based in the best parts of her Floridian and Californian sisters. But what of Disneyland, the original Magic Kingdom? Disneyland, too, was also the product of the driving spirit of WED’s enterprise during the mid 1970s and although what was built was slightly less than all of the plans and ideas fostered for the park, the process is astounding and a hallmark of the breadth of WED’s vision and skill. Under closer observation, Tony Baxter was instrumental in the creation of Disneyland’s efforts to expand. Join us today as we look back at Tony Baxter's development and influence on Imagineering’s way forward in perfecting the art of the theme park experience...

By EPCOT Explorer

The New York World's Fair, a billion dollar enterprise, was one of the great spectacles of the 20th century. Among its many outstanding attractions was General Electric's Progressland. Out of all the pavilions that Walt Disney exuded influence over for the New York World’s Fair of 1964, the one that bares the greatest hallmark of Walt’s personal touch was also General Electric’s Progressland. The star of the show was the Carousel Theater of Progress, a depiction of suburban life throughout the 20th century and how appliances and the electric age influenced how the typical American family lived, worked, and played in a quickly changing and dynamic time. Let's take a look back at GE's Progressland Pavilion and at the artistry of corporate showmanship...

By EPCOT Explorer

When considering how a Magic Kingdom creates her environments, there are countless schemas of how the park goes about placing a guest, or a viewer, into a setting that is believable, compelling, and usually otherworldly. No matter the way an attraction positions itself and its thematics, the end result is the same: a believable place or scenario is created, implied, and enjoyed.  This is the crux of a Magic Kingdom: belief is suspended, and we, as willing participants in a fantasy, are taken to a destination usually rooted in the expected cultural conscious. This doesn’t mean the environments are conventional or expected, but they are built upon genres and a cultural wellspring. How else would we willingly accept the sudden changes of time of day, context, or environment, when stepping into a ride vehicle? An experience in the Magic Kingdom is meant to be trasnsportive and preclude some basic logic. Continue after the page break for more...

By EPCOT Explorer

History pops up in the most unusual places, from time to time.

In comparing photos and videos, I’ve come to notice that the Enchanted Tiki Room’s figures have undergone a colorful transformation of sorts over the years. While this isn’t exactly a scientific study (I hope to expand my findings, in the future) what is here is a interesting look at the artistic changes made on the tikis over the years. See what I mean after the page break...

By EPCOT Explorer

You are about to see some unique photos of Walt Disney World’s Pirates of the Caribbean in the throes of an evacuation and not under regular show lighting. (If you don't enjoy seeing attractions behind the scenes, please don't continue reading this article.) In 2015, WDW's Pirates of the Caribbean had been suffering from some operational problems causing the attraction to be evacuated more frequently than usual. Pirates has undergone a major refurbishment since this period which brought it back up to operational standards. While that refurbishment didn't necessarily bring any large scale aesthetic or thematic changes, it did correct some major problems with the Audio Animatronics and greatly enhanced the set lighting and effects we see today. In 2007, The Haunted Mansion underwent a refurbishment of the same length, and to be frank, that refurbishment totally revitalized that attraction, bringing it up to the level of quality and care that these classic rides deserve. Join us today for a rare look at this classic attraction during a 2015 evacuation...

By EPCOT Explorer

Although the ideas and plans surrounding EPCOT in its formative states deal holistically in futurism, technology, and industry, the project was equally peppered with an international flair and a driving cultural theme. From the earliest concepts of Walt Disney’s EPCOT City, areas of the complex were to be dedicated to international shopping and cuisine. This was an inclusion of Walt’s own choosing, as various attempts to make Disneyland support an international venue to exhibit and showcase had faltered. Walt Disney always had an eye toward international fellowship in his productions, both the product of an optimistic message that his studio fostered, but also as a reaction to the calamitous 20th century itself. From an ethos of a peaceful future in the earliest iterations of Tomorrowland, to the “prayer for peace” that is “it’s a small world”, the idea of any EPCOT entity bearing a home for international culture and learning comes from what Walt Disney set out to do with themed entertainment. Continue after the page break for Part II of a Tale of Two EPCOTs...

By EPCOT Explorer

EPCOT has always had the rare distinction of having its conceptual core rooted in Walt Disney’s litany of personal products and projects. As one of the last ideas to come from the world’s greatest showman, The Walt Disney Company has always striven to tie EPCOT, as an entity, to their founder so as to appear respectful to his legacy and grand plans for the Walt Disney World Resort. Of course, the Florida property itself was the engine for Walt’s original idea for a grand center of urban planning and industry, so the narrative of both city and resort are highly intertwined. All of this remains inherent, even today, despite the city never materializing, and instead a theme park being built bearing the iconic and storied acronym. Continue after the page break for part 1 of a Tale of Two EPCOTs...

By EPCOT Explorer

Sometimes you just get a strange idea about something very simple and fairly obvious. This is one of them. A few months ago, I visited EPCOT to say goodbye to Maelstrom. As I always do, I took numerous photographs of Spaceship Earth, but this time I focused on the mirror column that graces the front of the structure. And as I did so, I realized how many people stopped to take a picture of themselves, reflected on the structure. Noticing that sparked this odd but, hopefully interesting line of thought: Spaceship Earth’s mirror column offers an architectural trick to make the building seem like it is floating… but it also offers a chance for symbolic introspection. Continue after the page break for more...

By EPCOT Explorer

40 years ago, Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland finally opened it’s long awaited and much needed expansion that added highly valued and exemplary attractions to the Magic Kingdom’s roster. Adding Space Mountain, the Carousel of Progress, the Star Jets, and a few months later, the WEDWay PeopleMover, Tomorrowland was elevated from being a paltry afterthought, to a showplace for space age optimism, ideas, and fantastic aesthetics. Continue after the page break as we take a look back to Tommorrowland of 1975...

By EPCOT Explorer

“The idea of Disneyland is a simple one. It will be a place for people to find happiness and knowledge. It will be a place for parents and children to share pleasant times in one another’s company; a place for teachers and pupils to discover greater ways of understanding and education. Here the older generation can recapture the nostalgia of days gone by, and the younger generation can savor the challenge of the future. Here will be the wonders of Nature and Man for all to see and understand. Disneyland will be based upon and dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and hard facts that have created America. And it will be uniquely equipped to dramatize these dreams and facts and send them forth as a source of courage and inspiration to all the world. Disneyland will be sometimes a fair, an exhibition, a playground, a community center, a museum of living facts, and a showplace of beauty and magic. It will be filled with accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world we live in. And it will remind us and show us how to make these wonders part of our own lives.”   –Walt Disney




If you’ve spent any time as part of the Disney community, online or otherwise, debates and discussion about the nature of Disneyland or any of the parks practically define the terrain of popular thought. One of the most fundamental of these questions in the community is the role of history. Disney is a very historical company. Walt brought his enterprise to fame during the early decades of the 20^th century, when Hollywood boomed and grew into the monolithic entity that it now is, not only for American culture, but the greater entertainment culture of the world. Disney’s early films, while not all ‘high art’ (I would place Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Fantasia into that category, however.) have come to be seen as the bedrock for Disney’s legacy in the entertainment world. Disneyland is no different. With this in mind, Disneyland deserves preservation. And Disneyland IS a museum that holds vital parts of this entertainment legacy. Continue after the page break for the rest of this story...

By EPCOT Explorer

For almost all of my life, I’ve been a fan of Disney. Mickey Mouse presided over my first birthday. Childhood birthday gifts and holiday tidings usually brought a Disney film on VHS. And since the ripe old age of two, my family and I have spent time in the Vacation Kingdom of the World, happily just 230 miles up Florida’s turnpike and the perfect distance away to still be a satisfying and enchanting weekend escape that maintained the mystery of a far away destination, but close enough to capture my attention and establish a sense of familiarity that makes a return to WDW so comforting. That is the real crux of my involvement in Disney. Disney World was the physical manifestation of the incredible feeling and mood and happiness that Disney, as a whole, brought. EPCOT Center dominated the formative years of my interest and is still the cornerstone of my ongoing proclivity for themed design and Disney history. EPCOT provided a linkage to how the real world worked. Its optimistic drive and broad creative aims inspired an understanding in not only the exhibitive aims of the park but in how Disney used technology and art to convey a message and create an environment. Enjoyment and appreciation of EPCOT, funnily enough, broadened interest in the rest of the Disney world and the Magic Kingdom.

In an attempt in getting me excited (was that even really needed?!) for one of our earliest trips to WDW, my parents bought me a ‘Disneyland Fun’ VHS so as to familiarize me with what we would soon be visiting. Although for a park a continent away, the familiar visuals and localities on screen did their job and ‘Disneyland Fun’ became my mental image of the Florida property, despite glaring differences. That’s not our castle. Our Haunted Mansion looks scarier. We don’t have Star Tours in Tomorrowland, that’s over in MGM! And where is EPCOT!?

And so, I was aware of “an other”. There was an other Magic Kingdom out there. One that was seemingly older, had more in it, and yes, lacked an EPCOT. Despite that “flaw”, I was interested.  And as I got older and learned more about Disney World, so came knowledge of Disneyland. Here was Walt Disney’s original park…. While Disney World captured my immediate attention for research and, ultimately, this entire blog, Disneyland was always revered, in my mind, as the gold standard for history and the park that set down the precedence for what thematic entities followed. Of course, with that, came a desire to visit.

Florida, sadly, is very far away from California. My family and I have always been very lucky when it comes to traveling and we have seen much of the east coast.  While always an event to plan around, a vacation up to New York City or Washington DC was always more economical and feasible than an odyssey out west. Being from a family of teachers, and a student of history myself, who can complain when your destinations take you the very epicenter of what you study? And with Disney World just within reach for an easy getaway, Disneyland was really a world away. Happily, however, my chance to aim for Disneyland came earlier this year…. And as evidenced by this writing, I made it after almost twenty years of waiting and wondering.  What follows, and what this entire post is meant to be, is a reflection of Disneyland, as seen through the eyes of someone who grew up entrenched by Disney World, or, frankly, any other Disney park. This is not history; this is going to be an opinionated thematic analysis of Walt Disney’s original Magic Kingdom as seen by someone for the first time. Continue after the page break for the rest of the story...

By EPCOT Explorer

As early as 1975, the EPCOT Theme Center (Future World) boasted a Space Pavilion that would have featured a massive omnimover detailing the perils and positives of man’s history in space. Today, let’s take a look back at EPCOT’s long, and frankly, painful history of the Space pavilion concepts designed for the park...

By EPCOT Explorer

Thanks to a loyal reader, I’ve fortunately come into some fantastic and rare pictures of EPCOT Center in its formative years. The photos you are about to see are from all years of EPCOT’s construction, dating back to 1979, and just up to a few months before the turnstiles were thrown open to the Vacation Kingdom’s second gate. Continue after the page break and have a look at these amazing pictures...

By EPCOT Explorer

The Polynesian is currently in the throes of a radical aesthetic change. Refurbishment work began earlier this year to begin the process of removing some of the older features of the resort, with most of the changes centered in the Grand Ceremonial House. By the time the work is complete, the waterfalls that graced the entrance will be woefully gone, replaced by a more open area adorned with Japanese float lamps, and a large statue of the nameless (but popularly called “Tiki Shrug”) tiki deity that has served as the resort’s mascot since 1971. Continue after the break for more...