1964 World’s Fair

In 1960, three years before the Enchanted Tiki Room opened, Walt began making plans for the 1964 World’s Fair. Disneyland attendance was growing rapidly, but he wanted to introduce the experience to people on the other side of the country. He also wanted proof of concept for his new audio animatronics, which were then in the development process. Always a risk taker, Walt put up not just one, but four separate audio animatronic attractions for the fair.

• It’s a Small World: The dancing dolls of It’s a Small World were not quite as groundbreaking as other audio animatronic introductions that Walt made at the fair, but the overall attraction was a smash success. One of its biggest contributions to the theme park industry was its innovative use of boats to create a “people-eater” capable of pushing hundreds of guests through per hour.

• Ford Magic Skyway: In a prototype for what would become the PeopleMover technology (still in use in an updated form at the Magic Kingdom under the name Tomorrowland Transit Authority), the Ford Magic Skyway used convertible Ford and Lincoln cars, including brand new Mustangs, all with their engines removed. The Ford Magic Skyway took guests into the past, through then-new speed tunnel technology (then dubbed a “time tunnel”) into a series of prehistoric scenes featuring dinosaurs and cavemen. Both the humans and the animals were audio animatronics, adding an unprecedented level of realism to the proceedings. The dinosaurs were later reused in the Disneyland Railroad’s Primeval World diorama. By all accounts, the figures were incredible, and in the first year of the fair the Ford Magic Skyway climbed to third place in its attendance rankings.

• Progressland: General Electric’s Progressland was a massive pavilion topped with a 200 foot wide dome. While its focus was the story of energy, complete with a highly impressive demonstration of plasma fusion, the Carousel Theater was definitely one of its highlights. Inside the revolving theater, guests could observe the daily lives of families in four different eras: the 1890s, the 1920s, the 1940s, and “today” (the modern conveniences of 1960s living). Of course, this show was quickly exported to Disneyland as the Carousel of Progress. The human and animal audio animatronics in this show were nothing short of spectacular, and Progressland became the second most attended show in the fair’s first year.

• Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln: Built for the Illinois pavilion, Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln was Walt’s shining success of the 1964 World’s Fair. The Abraham Lincoln figure was the first of the A-1 series of human audio animatronics. Although it was based on the same concepts as the tiki birds and other audio animatronics of its era, the complex human figure required a number of significant changes to the existing technology.

Realistic human movements require more than the simple on-off positioning that the Tiki Room’s digital system used, so Walt and his team developed a more complex analog system that varied the voltage supplied to the actuators. In addition, the pneumatic valves were not sufficient to move heavier pieces, so they were replaced by hydraulics. For Lincoln, as well as the humans in the Carousel of Progress and the Ford Magic Skyway prehistoric scenes, the Imagineers wore heavy harnesses that recorded their movements on magnetic tapes. As in the Enchanted Tiki Room, the entire system was controlled by those tapes.

Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln was considered Walt’s crowning achievement to that point in part due to a single moment in the show. Unlike its predecessors or contemporaries, the Abraham Lincoln figure began the show seated in a chair, and then stood up to present its address. The movement from a seated position to a standing one ushered in a whole new age of audio animatronics, and the show quickly climbed to number one in attendance.

The Florida Project

Walt was never one to sit still, and by the time the World’s Fair was over, he was busily planning his next project, the one that was to surpass all others: the Florida Project. Since the early 1960s, Walt had been dreaming of a clean, elegant, streamlined, high-tech city that would stand in stark contrast to the urban decay he was witnessing all around him.

White flight was in full swing at that time, as racial violence, collapsing industrialism, falling real estate prices, and the new interstate highway system drove affluent white citizens out of the cities and into the suburbs. Inner cities were left to decay, inhabited by poorer minority residents who could not afford to maintain them, leading to the increasing phenomenon of the crumbling urban ghetto.

Walt believed in America’s cities, and he believed that under the right master planning conditions, he could create a prototype as clean, safe, and well-run as Disneyland. After several scouting trips, he settled on Florida as the ideal location for his prototype city, which he dubbed EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). Walt busily bought up nearly 28,000 acres of swampland under dummy corporation names, and in October 1966, he laid out his grand plan in a 25-minute film. He also formed the Reedy Creek Improvement District in an unprecedented deal with Florida lawmakers, founding two tiny cities for voting and management purposes and gaining immense control over the future development of his property.