General Electric and the Disneyland attraction that wasn’t…

Image: x-ray delta one, Flickr (license)

If you ever look at a classic Disneyland map from the late 1950s, you might notice something unexpected. There’s a notation about an upcoming section off the corner of Main Street. It was named Edison Square, and it was intended as an attraction celebrating the evolution of mankind. There’s just one problem. General Electric bought Disney off, and so Edison Square never debuted.

Okay, that’s a bit unfair. What happened was that Disney and General Electric had a working agreement on what would become Walt Disney’s favorite attraction, the Carousel of Progress. Long before it became a staple of Walt Disney World, however, it was known as the key part of Progressland, the General Electric Pavilion. The two corporations had agreed on the concept in 1958 but less than a year later, it was readily apparent that the 1964 World’s Fair was going to be a big deal.

In order to make a splash there, GE lobbied Disney to hold off on creating something at Disneyland until after the exhibition. That meant a five-year delay for a park that was only five years old at that point, so it was a huge request. The Disney team saw the value in the argument, though. If they did something spectacular, General Electric would pay for it, the World’s Fair hype would operate as free marketing, and then they could present it as a Disney theme park exclusive afterward. Also, they didn’t feel like the current technology they had in place was good enough just yet. A delay gave them a few years for the science to catch up with their vision for the attraction.

The nuclear robot family

Image: roger4336, Flickr (license)

The idea was a recounting of the evolution of mankind over the past century from humble beginnings to their new status as people capable of outer space travel. Because General Electric was the driving force behind the project, it would focus on electricity. Specifically, it would demonstrate the steps taken for mankind to achieve the dream of “push-button living.”

The simple goal required a ton of planning. This is obvious since the initial pitch for the attraction occurred in 1958, six full years prior to the World’s Fair. To plus the concept enough to make it worthy of the event, Disney and General Electric recognized that the key ingredient was the credibility of the characters onstage. The Progressland effects had to be the best anybody had ever seen.

Imagineers had a few years to work on the Audio-Animatronics (AAs). Their attempts to perfect the technology would have ramifications for Progressland as well as another exhibition at the World’s Fair. Eventually, they managed to create a believable cast of humans as well as an especially cute dog. That wasn’t the only trick to Progressland, though. To tell the story as both companies envisioned, it would require four acts. Disney eventually settled on splitting them into seasons so that there would be a hook to each scene. The problem was that guests had to move from one story to the other seamlessly and quickly.