The Year That Changed Disneyland Forever

this video was kindly sponsored by the people over at the magic candle company go-to magic candle company calm and use offer code offhand 15 for 15% off your purchase who doesn't want 15% off I know I do Disneyland opened in 1955 and at that time it revolutionized the entertainment industry no longer were movies and television shows restricted to just your television or the movie theater screen Disney wasn't just a company dealing with movies and animation and music now Disney had opened the world's first theme park or the world's first non Christmas themed theme park Disneyland opened in 1955 and was a massive shift not just for the entertainment industry but also for the amusement and theme park industry the vision that Walt Disney had for his theme park set it apart from all the others various innovations spearheaded by Walt himself helped not only the femen and storytelling but also the efficiency of Disneyland a massive hub in the middle of the park that led to all the different lands sight lines and a berm keeping the outside world from leaking into Disney's Park were serious leaps and bounds ahead of other theme parks at the time and the next leap into the future that Disney would make would come almost ten years later in 1964 this year would see Disney moving from sculpture and statue based Fantasyland ask dark rides to more advanced rides like the Haunted Mansion Pirates of the Caribbean and most importantly forwards magic Skyway great moments with mr. Lincoln and it's a small world this is the story of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair this is the story of the year that changed Disneyland forever before the 1964 New York World's Fair started in 1964 Walt Disney was approached to create four pavilions for the event three of the pavilions would be sponsored by different companies one by Pepsi one by General Electric and one by Ford the 4th pavilion that Walt was in charge of creating was an Illinois pavilion meant to showcase the history of Illinois I guess the Pepsi Cola Pavillion was meant to be a salute to UNICEF and the children of the world who can kind of see where I'm going with this the original version of the ride that would appear at the New York World's Fair was fabricated at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank originally it was known at that point as children of the world Walt Disney knew that in order to draw people to the pavilion there had to be something there that caught people's eye something outside the pavilion that alluded to what they would experience on the inside and of course Walt Disney knew exactly the person for the job Imagineer Rollie Crump Walt had seen various propellers and whirligigs and spinny things in Raleigh's office at one point and knew that's the aesthetic he wanted for the outside of the Pepsi pavilion now I could try to explain to you guys how really came up with the idea for these propellers for what would become the Tower of the four winds but I think it's best explained by Rollie himself then I go into his office and he always said this little stupid propeller going around I kept saying to him how do you do that and he says well it's a secret and so I knew that it was a clip out of them out of the pencil so I probably broke up I don't know how many pencils and clips trying to get the damn thing to work and I could get it to work and I kept going back into his office and I said how'd you do that I'm to do that he said it's a secret and this went on for I guess about six weeks and so finally one day says I'll tell you what releases okay I'll tell you how I did it the personal I'll job said one i'll someone to you I said okay and he gave me the little propeller and then he explained to me about how to do it because I had ruined more little clips trying to make him work and what it was was a ballpoint pen that he would make the dent in and so therefore the pen would would write up a little circle I mean a little thing that was kind of half round I have been using I've been using own nails and the problem was if a pillar would get hot I mean the bits of the pen would get kind of that in the hard part that you dug out so anyway I was thrilled when Walt saw all these amazing homemade propellers in Raleigh's office he asked him to design the Tower of the four winds a massive kinetic sculpture that would stand outside of children of the world in order to draw people in and be a magnificent piece of freestanding artwork on its own in the meantime Imagineers or back then they were known as Wed only had eleven months to create the final version of the attraction and if anyone's good at performing under crunch time it's wet because they built all of Disneyland in about a year so yeah no problem for the fair the outside of the attraction wouldn't have that much theming besides the Tower of the four winds unlike a Disney Lander Walt Disney World where the theming on the outside is pretty apparent but for theming on the inside Walt knew just the person for the job Mary Blair had served as the art director on various popular Disney movies at the time Peter Pan Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland her artistic style was exactly the kind of childlike innocence Walt Disney was looking for for children of the world the scenes and the characters inside of the attraction were designed by Disney legend Mark Davis who you may know of Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean Fame and his wife Alice Davis designed the costumes for the dolls when children of the world was almost finished Walt conducted a walkthrough to see what the ride would be like in its final form the soundtrack for the ride originally featured all of the nation's national anthems playing at the same time when you passed through those scenes this as he probably could have guessed sounded horrible and a little like this so that was gonna be enough two very important people were along with Walt that day for the walkthrough of the attraction his staff songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman Disney needed three things for the new song it needed to be able to be played in a round so that you could start listening at any point and it would still make sense it needed to be able to be translated into many different languages and it needed to be catchy the Sherman Brothers wrote it's a small world and Walt loved the song so much that he decided to rename children of the world to it's a small world after the world's fair ended it's a small world was moved to Disneyland in California and the rest is history and that's just one of the many stories from the New York World's Fair but I've talked about it's a small world and great moments with mr. Lincoln the Illinois Pavilion attraction before I will be sure to link the other World's Fair related videos down in the description but let's talk about one ride I haven't talked about yet and as the title suggests how these attractions change Disney and Disney Land forever but before we talk about the fourth attraction we need to talk about Edison Square Edison square was Walt's proposed expansion to Main Street USA at Disneyland in this new expanded area guests would be treated to a show that was called harnessing the lightning hosted by an electromechanical man named Wilbur K watt the attraction would show guests the evolution of the use of electricity in the average American home starting in the late 19th century to the present 1960 at the time and even into the future after each time period was over the audience would get up and walk to the next one but the idea didn't really work out and was eventually scrapped when the World's Fair rolled around General Electric approached Walt Disney to develop a show for the pavilion Walt fought back to the original Edison Square show concept and realized it would be perfect to bring into the present as the Carousel of Progress an attraction that would follow one family throughout the decades and show how electronics and electricity and appliances changed throughout the years when the World's Fair ended the attraction would move from New York to California back to Disneyland specifically to Tomorrowland the show would remain there in the carousel theater until the 1970s when General Electric noticed that most of the people watching the Carousel of Progress show had probably already seen it before GE wanted more new people to see their products instead of just the same Californians over and over and over again so ge asked is need to move the Carousel of Progress from Disneyland to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando which is where the show remains to this very day and if you look closely in the third scene you can see that the refrigerator is still a GE refrigerator referencing the earlier times back when GE sponsored the attraction maybe there are some more appliances that I missed but I know for sure that that fridge is General Electric but now that I've given you a crash course and we've covered all of the attractions at the New York World's Fair built by Disney I feel like I should explain how it influenced Disneyland and of the Disney parks for that matter forever when describing how the New York World's Fair changed Disney Imagineering and the theme park industry forever I feel like the term innovation is fitting let's start by talking about audio-animatronics early less complicated versions of audio animatronics could already be found at Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room you see in the late 1950s Walt and his wife Lillian were taking a vacation down to New Orleans the real one not the land while in the Big Easy Walt decided to visit a small old curio shop in the corner of New Orleans this shop sold all sorts of weird and crazy trinkets but Walt's I was set on one in particular a small brass birdcage with a tiny brown and orange feathered bird inside not only could the bird inside this cage sing his lovely birdsong but he could also move on his own this small mechanical bird was something Walt knew he needed somewhere in his theme parks and was the inspiration for audio animatronics more specifically the birds in the teak but the Tiki Room birds had some limitations at the time they were realistic-looking animals yes but they could only do a certain small amount of movements and whenever the birds or tikis or flowers would move there would be a noticeable loud mechanical clicking sound which is still around more or less to this very day in that attraction and this obviously wouldn't do Walt wanted the audio-animatronic figures to do more movements to be quieter and most importantly on top of it all he wanted to make a human audio-animatronic Walt had always been fascinated with the life of the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln Walt and Walt the one that we know is on the right side actually dressed up as Abraham Lincoln during their elementary school years when it came to developing the first human-like animatronic Walt could think of no other subject than Lincoln it was at that time that a very important person Robert Moses approached Walt Disney about contributing attractions to the World's Fair Walt was ecstatic and gave Robert Moses a tour around the studios to show him what we´d was working on at the time at first nothing really sparked Moses's interest until Walt showed him a prototype electronic figure of Abraham Lincoln Moses absolutely loved it and told Walt that they absolutely had to have the animatronic Lincoln at the fair and Walt of course being the man that he was knowing that the animatronic figure was still many years from completion agreed to feature mr. Lincoln at the New York World's Fair just two years later there's a popular urban legend out there that while developing great moments with mr. Lincoln Walt decided it was best to have a test showing that way if there were any bugs or problems they could fix them and iron them out before the World's Fair opened now back then and mostly still to this day different parts of the animatronic were powered by different actuators sort of like small motors these actuators were either pneumatic powered by air or hydraulic powered by hydraulic fluid and back during the 1960's most hydraulic fluid was red in color you might be able to see where I'm going with this during one of the test screenings of great moments with mr. Lincoln one of the hydraulic actuators in Lincoln's chest ruptured this resulted in red fluid spraying all over the inside of Abraham Lincoln's just staining his white shirt and people at this test showing were shocked that Walt Disney would recreate the assassination of Abraham Lincoln out of all the moments in his life Walt didn't like this very much and from that point on into the future they would only ever use clear hydraulic fluid in order to avoid any misunderstandings but during the World's Fair great moments with mr. Lincoln was a massive success people couldn't believe their eyes the 16th president standing right before them giving a speech Ford's Magic Skyway one of the more forgotten Disney World's Fair attractions also featured animatronic cavemen but these figures weren't as lifelike and realistic as Lincoln but this World's Fair really did end up changing the fate of Disneyland and the Disney parks for all of history because of audio animatronics and not only that but Walt discovered there were more efficient ways of moving people through attractions than just walking or the Fantasyland dark ride style carts it's a small world convinced Walt to change the at the time walk through Pirates Wax Museum in New Orleans Square to a ride through dark ride style boat ride with audio-animatronic figures based more on the lifelike animatronic of Lincoln than the simplistic animatronics of the cavemen the then proposed House of illusions or haunted house attraction went from a walkthrough featuring different parlor tricks and illusions as you moved through the house to a ride through dark ride featuring you guessed it animatronics and these two rides Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion would go on to shape the public consciousness of what was Disneyland now we probably all know how popular Pirates was and we just do we don't talk about what they tried to do with the Haunted Mansion but these two attractions have transcended the parks and there are some people out there who don't know that the movies are based on theme park attractions and Disney even to this day continues to be an innovator in animatronics we've all seen that totally vague but absolutely Spiderman animatronic in that video and people's minds are being blown by that new Bell animatronic that they're building for the Beauty and the Beast attraction for Tokyo although I don't think it's fair to say that only animatronics came out of the New York World's Fair because of the New York World's Fair people on the East Coast were now way more accepting of Disney now that they know what he could do the success of his pavilions at the World's Fair convinced him that time was right to build an East Coast Disneyland and he had already had an idea brewing in the back of his mind for many many years an idea that was fleshed out in the now lost ending of Ford's Magic Skyway a utopian city of the future clean efficient and futuristic Ford's Magic Skyway was the public's first glimpse into the mind of Walt Disney and their first peek at the experimental prototype community of tomorrow Epcot or you could also call it what we call it today Progress City because that helps you know differentiate it from the theme park who knows without a World's Fair we may have never had a Walt Disney World and for sure we wouldn't have fantastic attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World like it's a small world great moments with mr. Lincoln the Hall of Presidents the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean and we absolutely wouldn't have that scene in Iron Man 2 where Howard Stark pretends to be Walt Disney talking about the World's Fair yeah that's it that's in there so what about you guys what is your guys's favorite thing to have come out of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair you could probably guess what mine is but I want to hear from you guys do you like primeval world at the Disneyland railroad constructed from bits and pieces of the Ford's Magic Skyway it's a small world of great moments with mr. Lincoln heck the Carousel of Progress at the Magic Kingdom make sure to comment down below like and subscribe to this video if you enjoyed it and I could say something about there being a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day but I'm sure we all know about that by now instead let me say this if one day a man with the last name of a biblical character approaches you and asks you if you want to build a pavilion for a World's Fair or Expo I would say yes to that man because chances are you just started a chain reaction that would lead to Eddie Murphy starring in a burble movie based on an attraction that would have never been possible without you saying yes to that man okay okay I'm kidding I'm kidding guys I think Eddie Murphy's haunted mansion is at worst a four out of ten it's okay [Music] hello everybody thank you all so much for watching my rather long-winded video on the 1964-65 New York World's Fair and the effect it had on the Disney parks in the future remember that if you donate even just one dollar over on my patreon before the end of the month you will get your name featured in a video next week plus you get early access to episode audio so if that interests you head over to my patreon link in the description and donate even just one dollar like I said and remember that this video is indeed sponsored by the magic candle company you can get candles inspired by the world's fair attractions like great moments with mr. Lincoln or it's a small world over there or at least ones inspired by New Orleans square and Liberty Square the lanes that these attractions reside in also remember that you can head over to the subreddit or the discord both will be linked in the description and I will be doing a video about both of them very soon so head over there if you want to be a part of those videos I'm not gonna say exactly what they are but they will be interactive and again everybody thank you just all so much for watching this video I will see you guys all in the next one of course goodbye I'm sorry it took me so long

Channel: Offhand Disney

Views: 127,139

Keywords: Walt, Disney, World, Disneyland, 1964, 1965, 64, 65, New, York, World's, Fair, Great, Moments, Mr., Lincoln, its, small, world, Ford's, Magic, Skyway, Primeval, Railroad, Pirates, of, the, Caribbean, Haunted, Mansion, Orleans, Square, Adventureland, Carousel, Progress, Tomorrowland, Enchanted, Tiki, Room, Audio, Animatronic, History, Secrets, Details, Experimential, Prototype, Community, Tomorrow, EPCOT, City, Past, Documentary, Travel, Anaheim, California, Adventure, Kingdom, Orlando, Florida

Id: 9UjjVykm86c

Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 25 2019