The Fascinations of Wildlife
Wildlife held incredible interest for Walt Disney. His True-Life Adventures were an homage to all manner of wild creatures, and Bambi brought animals more realistic than cartoonish to the big screen. Walt loved to surround himself with animals anywhere he could. Cast Members long remembered his fondness for the miniature horses at Disneyland. His daughters remember him feeding blue jays in the evenings. When squirrels began munching on the family’s fruit trees, rather than allow the gardener to poison them, he instructed that they simply plant more.
Though Walt didn’t live to see Disney’s Animal Kingdom, this park is surely something he would have adored. One can easily picture Walt doting on the baby elephants or sneaking in a handful of treats to feed to the birds. Animal Kingdom is an innovative blend of theme park and zoo, which is exactly the type of creation Walt would have loved.
Carriages at Walt Disney World
Image: d.k.peterson, Flickr (license)
Animal Kingdom isn’t the only place that you’ll find animals in the parks. Horse-drawn trolleys run in most Disney parks around the world. You can take a horse-drawn carriage ride on other locations around Walt Disney World as well, including Port Orleans and Fort Wilderness. At Fort Wilderness, you’ll find the Tri-Circle-D Ranch where all the Disney horses reside. You can walk through the stable and take a peek at these massive beasts, or go for a short pony ride along the ranch’s trails. Longer horseback rides around the Fort Wilderness property are available as well.
Unceasing Perfectionism
Walt’s perfectionism is a major part of what set his parks apart from the unkempt carnivals that pop up in parking lots. He exhibited intense attention to detail. When inspecting the design of Disneyland, he once requested that a Brazilian pepper tree with a spread of about 30 feet be moved farther from the walkway. The tree’s six-ton root system was boxed up and moved back six feet to accommodate his request.
Author Neal Gabler described Disney accurately as a “perfectionist visionary.” He wanted everything in his parks to embody his idealized images down to the last detail, and he nearly always got what he wanted.
Though Walt isn’t around to demand his level of personal perfectionism today, the parks still adhere to an incredibly high level of detail. Managers are known for their insistence on picking up trash as soon as they spot it. Cast Members adhere to a strict dress code that keeps them uniform right down to their nail polish. Disney’s pixie dust sheen is still the result of a lingering need to make things perfect – just as Walt would have done.
Disney parks, by their very nature, will always have a certain air about them that hearkens back to their creator. If you want to get a sense of Walt in the parks, just look to these key elements.
Comments
Good article. Always nice to know that even though it is a huge profit centered corporation that the people that work there from the ground up still hold his ideals.
I would also add his love of technology and staying on the cutting edge. I think Walt would absolutely love Soarin' and seeing how far animatronics have come in Frozen Ever After.
Another thing that I think that is inspired by Walt is making sure that everything is family friendly. Most of the rides have short height requirements if they have them at all. Most everything can be enjoyed by everyone from an infant to a grandparent.