WEBVTT - Celebration Florida: The Story of a Utopia that Never Was 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:11.399 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.120 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.720 and Jerry's here too, and that makes this the happiest 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.400 podcast on Earth. Stuff you should know. 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.920 I think we need to CoA this one. Unfortunately. 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.600 Yeah, there's a lot of like really dark violent discussion 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:29.000 in here. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.479 What else just the violence? You know, you'd think of 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:41.000 a podcast episode about Disney's own branded neighborhood would be 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.400 safe for all ears, And it is except for the 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:46.840 five percent of it where we talk about the awful 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:47.879 crimes that have happened there. 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.760 Yes, Yeah, which will be okay, something something I think 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.280 that was a good good thing to do. But something 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.040 to know about Celebration Florida if you don't know anything 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.520 about it. We're talking about a town that Disney built, 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.800 not figuratively but literally. Yeah technically it was in Walt Disney, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:07.920 but the Disney Company did. Okay, so get off my 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:15.959 back because it was this town meant to be. Outside 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:22.679 of real life, everyone outside of Celebration is fascinated with 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:27.640 anything that can possibly be construed as dark or twisted 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.039 or bizarre or awful. It's almost like people want to 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.120 root for it to be messed up. I don't get it, 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:36.600 but it's all over the place. 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.679 Yes, is it really interesting? Okay, yeah, if. 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.400 You read articles about it. I think every major publication 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.240 within the last ten or so years has at least 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:49.400 one article about the dark side of Celebration Florida. And 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:50.640 it's all the same stuff. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:51.360 Yeah. 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.240 I mean, I think if you are doing a thing 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.320 where you're like, Hi, we're going to build a town 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.240 that harkens back to the good old days of peach 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:05.440 pie and picket fences and the ultimate eden for your 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.440 for your family to live in, and then these kind 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.320 of things happen, then of course it's going to get 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.840 I'm not saying they're asking for that kind of treatment, 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.359 but when it's billed as such a you know, Wonder 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.520 Years sort of thing, right, that's like if the Wonder 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.160 Years had episodes with murder and sexual assault. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.639 Right, what the very special two parterre of different. 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.079 Strokes, Oh exactly. 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.040 It was stunning. Yeah, it kind of puts a target 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.320 on your back. Even though these people just want to 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:37.799 be left alone, they want to go live off in 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.360 their own bubble. It's kind of the point of the 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.120 whole thing. And as a matter of fact, people who 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.080 live in Celebration I'm not sure if they still do, 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.919 but at the heyday, toward the beginning of it, people 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.760 definitely referred to it as living in the bubble. Yeah, 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.040 And I say we get to the backstory first, because 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.160 there's a very interesting backstory about the Disney companies and 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.360 Walt Disney in particulars machinations that ended up leading to 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.120 Celebration Florida being established. I love this stuff. 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.200 Some might say the backstory is the best part. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.239 I don't know who would say that, but sure it's 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:13.160 good for sure. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.640 All right, So let's go back in time then to 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:21.000 the mid nineteen sixties, specifically sixty four and sixty five, 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.880 when Disney, Walt Disney, the real person, was like, Hey, 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.240 this is Disneyland out here in California is a huge hit. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.919 Let to do the same thing in Florida. And so they, 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.960 the corporation that is, went in and very quietly, one 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.640 might even say, in a clandestine manor bought up about 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:45.120 forty three square miles over twenty seven thousand acres in 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.720 the Orlando area through I guess, I mean, were they 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.920 shell companies or just different arms or set up just 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:52.400 to do this. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:54.960 They were shell companies set up just to do this. 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:56.440 They were aliases used. 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.120 Yeah, and one of the companies was called not Walt 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.640 Disney Llc'. 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.560 Ricky Rouse Enterprises. Like it was all legal. But the 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.040 point that they were doing that for was because if 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.640 any landowner at the time had been like, oh, Disney's 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.800 buying up a bunch of land, I'm sure they're gonna 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.600 need my parcels, so I'm gonna triple the asking price, 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.120 it definitely would have happened. So they were very smart, 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.560 and by the time people caught on, they'd finished their 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.040 buying spree and they were finally outed in the Orlando Sentinel. 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.720 I think in I don't know, sixty five maybe as 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.880 surely the people who were behind this buying spree, you 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:37.800 said something about them, like Walt Disney saying like, hey, 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.400 let's try Disneyland in Florida. He definitely wanted to do that, 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.400 but he wanted to do it on just such a 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:49.599 vastly larger, more sweeping, more imaginative scale that it was 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.920 almost like, it's just amazing that this man ever lived. 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:56.760 And there's tons of criticism of him, rightfully so in 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.159 a lot of ways, but his imagination and like what 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.840 he got done and what he gave the world is 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:04.360 just it's remarkable. 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.119 Yeah. And one thing we need to point out about 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.039 this land is it was not like you know, prime land, 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.400 especially in nineteen sixty four, before there was Disney World there. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.800 It was not the Orlando that we know today. And 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.800 this land, like a lot of it was swampland that 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.440 they had to spend a lot of money and time, 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:28.320 you know, dredging, draining, building canals and making it a 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.000 you know, a habitable place. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.880 Yeah. I saw that they moved ten million cubic yards 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.760 of dirt. Yeah, they had to develop twenty thousand of 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.799 the twenty four thousand acres because it's just basically swamp. 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:47.040 And it dug fifty miles of canals and they were 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.760 doing all this. Like you said, Orlando wasn't the Orlando 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.080 that it is today. Orlando is the way it is 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.880 today because of what they were doing during this period. 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:56.039 This is what started it. 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.560 Yeah, I don't think anyone is under any misc inceptions 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.200 about like what built that town. Sure, and it was 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.960 a guy with a little pencilly mustache, but the town 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.160 that ended up there celebration is not what the original 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.520 plan was. The original plan was way cooler because if 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:21.160 you've ever been to Epcot, their Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.320 one of their theme parks there, and you walked around 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.200 and looked at the vision for this idylic society, that 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.360 was what they were trying to build. They were it 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:32.719 was supposed to be a neighborhood where people lived, and 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.800 it actually Epcot was a real place and not a 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:36.360 theme park. 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.000 Did you see that the photo spread of the Epcot model, 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:42.719 the original Epcot model I sent you. 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.440 Yeah, a couple of those houses were pretty sweet. 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.320 Isn't that sweet? Yeah, it was really cool. And I 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:53.719 saw that Walt Disney planned for Epcot, the Experimental Prototype 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:58.719 Community of Tomorrow, to never be finished, to never be complete, 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:03.440 to always be trying new stuff ABTNS I think is 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:08.719 what he said. Yeah, and it didn't quite go that way. 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.000 They after he died, and when they finally did build Epcot, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.360 they called it that and they it is like meant 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.080 to demonstrate future cool technology and then also kind of 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.480 confusingly all the countries and nations of the world at 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.240 the same time. But it is a really cool park, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.320 but it's nothing like what he wanted. The people don't 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.920 live there, it's not like an experimental community, and that 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.720 would actually become Celebration later on. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:37.720 Yeah, I mean he kind of wanted it to be 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:42.320 like Tomorrowland, which is, you know, people parking their cars 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:46.080 in tunnels underground, moving around on the monorails and the 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:52.800 people movers and again just sort of this idyllic suburban 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.559 but like a new type of suburbia. And in fact, 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.200 what would eventually go to be called in the eighties 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.400 and the early eighties new urbanism, which was this you know, 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:03.760 we'll get well, I guess we can get to that 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:04.840 right now, huh. 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.960 Sure, yeah, because they kind of prefigured it. 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.120 Right, Yeah, for sure. New urban urbanism came along in 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.040 the early eighties, and it was based on this idea 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:21.240 of you know, nice looking architecture houses with you know, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.200 where different people of different income levels would live very 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.200 walkable set up in a nice grid and you could 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.480 walk to the store and to the playground and to 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:33.200 work into school and it's super safe and it you know, 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.160 this was just sort of again that a deal like 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.160 idyllic vision of the future, right. 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.480 Yeah, So this is what Celebration ended up being. It's 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.680 considered a new urbanist town. But again, like I think 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.160 Epcot opened in nineteen eighty two, right, yeah, and it 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.440 would be that was a full decade or so before 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:59.240 they even really started to think about building celebration. But 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.520 in the meantime, I have to say, I want to 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.760 give the obligatory shout out anytime we mentioned Epcot to 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.800 the I think it's on Dangerous Minds website about the 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.840 group of friends who hid out in the Horizon's ride 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.719 at Epcot in the late eighties and photo documented their 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.440 time there. It's really cool to check out. And then 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.959 one other thing there I found this year's back. But 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.480 they planned an airport, and there actually were flights that 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.200 went directly to Disney World for a very brief time, 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:35.520 I think in the early seventies. But on the landing strip, 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.480 you know rumble strips when you'd like start to go 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.840 off of the highway on the shoulder, it's got those 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.920 those ripples that like make it sound and wake you up. 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.960 They created a rumble strip on the runway for the 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.800 plane to run over that when you run over it, 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:52.040 and you can do this in your car. I think 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.680 at about forty five miles an hour it plays when 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.480 you wish upon a star as a rumble strip. 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:02.200 Yeah, they have those in row in different countries and 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.120 it's not like a solid strip, but it just hits 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.960 various you know, tiny little bumps that caused musical notes. 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:09.600 That's neat. I didn't know that. 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:10.640 Yeah, it's pretty cool. 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.080 Okay, So back to it. So we've got Epcot in 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.000 nineteen eighty two, and by the mid eighties there was 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.400 a guy named Michael Eisner running this show, right. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:21.640 Yeah, and we should point out that, you know, one 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.040 of the big reasons that the original Epcot idea of 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.040 a like a lovable real space when the other direction 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.040 is because Walt Disney died in the interim, and after 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.240 that everything kind of changed and that's when it became 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.400 a theme park. But yeah, Eisner would come on board 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.960 in the early I guess mid eighties and eighty four, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.800 big new urbanism guy was a big architecture guy, still is, 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.559 and things were like, this was the early to mid 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:52.400 eighties when Disney World was really really in a big, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:57.880 big growth pattern I guess, you know, hotels and expanding 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:00.720 the park and all kinds of stuff. And they said, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.200 all right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.439 gonna lop off part of this southeast corner of the 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.800 property on the east side of I four, and we're 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.880 just gonna reserve that for now think about what to 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.600 do with it. And they started to get a little 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.680 nervous that they were taking too long to think about 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:19.640 it and that the state may come in and be like, hey, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:21.760 you're not developing it like you said you would. We're 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:22.240 taking that. 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:27.400 Back, right, So they decided to build a community. They 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.240 kind of took up that part of EPCOT that had 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.960 been cut off of the actual executed plan and see 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.880 what they could do with it. Right, So they in 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.000 nineteen eighty five they started they started figuring out how 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:44.160 to do this, and they put out a request for bids. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.640 I can't remember what the last word is, but sure 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:53.040 like a brief, Yeah, a request for proposal RFP. 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.360 Yeah, those those business things that we've never had to do. 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.560 No, thank god. And then for architects. Firms submitted their 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:06.800 ideas and I think two were selected to put together 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.319 the final plan, and the whole thing started to take 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.240 off from there, starting in nineteen eighty five. I saw 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.160 that as far as at the beginning, they were starting 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.720 to like kind of test names for the place, like 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.520 right off the bat and focus groups. Terrible names. Tell 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:25.040 them some of the names. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:31.320 The Golden Oberon Jubilee. Okay, where do you live? You know, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:36.000 Golden Oberon Jubilee or Godge goch what else? 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.720 Odyssey, Ventura, Horizon's Landmark or Oval? 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:47.559 How about Aurora, Solaris, Rainbow Majestic. 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:51.720 Seriously, they sound like CIA projects. 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.480 Yeah, that's ASRM, not to be confused to ASMR. 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:01.800 Right. I also saw Fantasia Jubilee in hyperionra Like they 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.160 were just I don't know what they were doing, Like, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.679 how could you even waste money on a focus group 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:07.600 with these ideas? 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:07.839 Right? 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:12.920 So finally they're like, well how about something shorter? 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:13.680 Right? 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.599 Horizons? No, they used that on the ride already a 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.680 Maritown that's a little on the nose. Yeah, somebody said 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:26.640 celebration and they went celebrations it man, celebrations it uh 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.920 And they fired that person so that they couldn't take 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:31.160 any credit for coming up with the idea, and they 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.480 told everybody Michael Eisner. 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.360 Did I'm surprised that they didn't literally name it like 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:38.760 Mouseville or something. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.760 H Yeah, I mean, that's better than Odyssey Ventura Horizons. 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.000 I mean it sounds like a Horsey book like tweet. 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.440 Oh that's good stuff, all right. So they also, you know, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.560 it was a good move for Disney at the time 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:58.640 because in the mid nineteen eighties had a little bit 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:04.000 of a black eye because of this tens of millions 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:09.040 of dollar infrastructure money that Disney didn't steal, but they 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:15.120 kind of kept, yeah, or used for themselves. 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.440 Yeah, essentially, So, as we'll see in a second, Disney 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.440 was granted essentially the same status as a city or 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.200 a town. A municipality in Florida has a lot of 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.280 the same rights, and one of the things it can 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.520 do is apply for state money for its projects. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:31.800 Right. 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:37.360 So Orange County apparently went to go apply for a 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.360 bunch of grants to help to build low income housing, 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.760 and they found that they were too late. That Disney 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.200 itself had hoovered up all of the money that was 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.520 earmarked for Central Florida fifty cities and towns had hoovered 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.440 up all of that almost sixty million dollars for its 0:14:55.520 --> 0:15:00.600 own infrastructure. Yeah, Like, Central Florida was not happy about 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.320 this at all. Orange County had to actually go to 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.640 Disney and be like, can we borrow one point eight 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.040 million of that for this low income housing project? Disney like, sure, sure, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.440 at eighty percent interest. So it was a big scandal. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.400 So them announcing celebration was a big like, hey, look 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.800 over here kind of thing. Look, we're still a big 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.240 part of this, We're sinking money into this area. Don't 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.440 be mad at us kind of thing exactly. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.880 And that sort of quasi governmental group that you spoke 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:28.960 of was the made a lot of news in the 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.120 past few years. The Reedy Creek Improvement District, you may 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:35.080 have if you're outside the state of Florida, you probably 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.400 never heard those four words until twenty twenty two when 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.320 the governor of the state of Florida got into a well, 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.760 got into a fight with Disney and dissolved it, and 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:50.440 it is now the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. The 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.400 irons is on the oversight, Yeah, for sure. The irony 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.480 here is is the Reedy Creek Improvement District came about 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.600 in nineteen sixty seven because Disney Company successfully lobbied to 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.880 get this whatever new designation, in large part on the 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.880 strength of that original Epcot plan. So they oh, really, 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.480 they gave them this because of this EPCOT. You know, 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.720 neighborhood idea bailed on that and then ended up being like, hey, 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:18.640 we got our own little mini government here. 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.200 Yeah, very much so, I mean like it. It was 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.080 a government up until very recently, like they could tax 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:29.040 residents and businesses in the area. They One of the 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.280 reasons why they were granted this was so that the 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:35.600 company could undertake things like infrastructure programs like providing sewer 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:40.440 and water and stuff like that, generating power they could 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.320 have as long as the improvement district goes around. They 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:47.160 were allowed by law to have built a Mickey Mouse 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.200 nuclear power plant if they'd wanted to. Like, they were 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:53.400 that legal. It was a city essentially, right, So yeah, 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.400 it was a big deal to have that taken away. 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.200 But the upshot of that part was they were able 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:05.600 to use some money to help build celebration. But then secondly, 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.480 the people who live in the Reedy Creek Improvement District 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.960 are able to vote to decide what happens with Disney 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.080 World and stuff like that. But that amounts to less 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.960 than sixty people who live in that district, and they 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.680 all work for Disney, so they all vote the way 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.800 Disney wants them to vote well with celebration. They were 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.119 planning on bringing like twenty thousand families in and that 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.640 would really dilute Disney's vote about their own their own 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.000 theme park, their own business. So they were like, you 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.439 know what this is actually outside of Reedy Creek. 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.640 Yeah. And by the way, you know that nuclear power 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:42.480 plant would have had mouse heres at the top of 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:43.120 the silos. 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:49.120 Do they have high voltage like towers and they're they're 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.600 in the shape of Mickey Mouse. Yeah, around that area. 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:53.800 It's really something to see. 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.399 Yeah, So here's what they did. Like you said, twenty 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.679 thousand families is what the original proposal was or was 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.080 it twenty thousand people twenty thousand residents? I think? 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:05.080 Oh was it? Okay? 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.600 Sorry, still it's a lot, yeah, a lot of people. 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.520 So they announced this publicly in nineteen ninety one as like, hey, 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:13.760 this is going to be open for business if you 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:18.520 want to essentially live in a Disney World like environment. 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.200 They held a lottery in nineteen ninety five for families 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.320 to buy plots. I think for the four hundred and 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.600 seventy four spots. They had about five thousand entries into 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.560 that lottery and it should be no surprise that most 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.800 of those people were like big Disney people that were thinking, like, 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.120 what could be better than living in like a Disney neighborhood. 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.280 Yeah, or essentially like a Disney Yeah, Disney neighborhood, like 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.680 in the every sense of the word. And the first 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.840 family moved in in nineteen ninety six, Larry and Terry 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:52.840 the Habers. Isn't that cute? 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:54.280 Yeah? 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.600 And a few months later Downtown was finally completed and 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.920 it was a big deal, like everybody knew about Celebration 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.160 and it was being built. I think Disney ultimately shelled 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:09.240 out about four billion dollars yeah, for the creation of Celebration. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:10.320 In the eighties and nineties. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.120 Yeah, yeah, I guess so in like late nineties dollars. Yeah, 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:15.840 you want to take a break? 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:19.080 Oh yeah, gosh, we have to. 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:22.040 Yeah, I know. It was kind of rhetorical. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:23.520 All right, we'll be right back. 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:40.560 Softly, jaw. 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:52.479 Soff. All right. So when they started mapping out what 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.280 they wanted Celebration to look like, they really reversed course 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.840 on the whole Epcot idea, which was again a little 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.399 more like Tomorrowland, and they were like, you know, what 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.760 we need to do is make it like Chuck was 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:06.679 talking about. 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.760 Frontier Land and Act one not quite. 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.040 Frontier Land, somewhere in the middle, which is to say, 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:15.359 you know, old small town America. Pick at Vince's. You know, 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.240 they talked about a new American town of block parties 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.359 and Fourth of July parades, spaghetti dinners and surprise, it 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.720 didn't say pancake breakfast, school bake sales, lollipops and fireflies 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.600 and a jar. So you know, they're selling and I'm 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.200 not making fun of this, they're there, but they were 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.720 selling an idea as much as they were selling houses. 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:36.560 They were selling a way of life. And they're like, 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:41.080 who cares If this is this idyllic past never actually existed, 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.440 We're going to make it exist here and you can 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.120 come live here. And if you like Disney, it's gonna 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.600 knock your socks off. And so they modeled it kind of. 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:50.359 And the reason I laughed because it reminds me of 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.360 the real Seymour Skinner when he comes back and claims 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.040 is his identity. Yeah, he becomes principal and he says 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.840 that he loves and bees and skin and knees. And 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.480 if that's corny, then corn me up. That's just kind 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:06.840 of what they reminded me of. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.879 I remember apart from that episode where he said whoever 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.320 introduced him said, we would like to introduce the real 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:18.479 principal Seymour Skinner, Principal Seymore Skinner or something like that. 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.080 Yeah, no, Superintendent Chalmers, So that for sure. Yeah, so 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.080 I don't remember where I was headed with that point. Oh, 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.680 that they modeled it on Main Street, USA, Like, yeah, 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.520 you first come into Disney World, like super cute pastel 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:38.040 storefronts with wholesome stores behind them, just like everything's kind 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.000 of close together so you can walk and feel like 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.600 you're part of a community. That's what they went with. 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.960 And apparently Walt and Roy Disney were kind of obsessed 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.040 with that turn to the century, turn of the twentieth 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.399 century America because they spent about five years in a 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:56.200 town called Marceline, Missouri, the Disney family did from nineteen 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.880 oh six to nineteen eleven, and that's kind of where 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.000 they were inspired to love that kind of life. That's 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.600 what they're trying to recreate with Celebration for sure. 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:07.240 Oh. 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:14.240 Absolutely, they're they're literal, like municipal seal or whatever. I 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:16.680 guess that's what you call it. Right, Yeah, municipal seal. 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:21.880 Yeah was a girl riding a bike with a little 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.800 dog chasing her and a literal picket fence and a 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.280 tree and it's just you know, it's that that's what 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:32.560 they were selling. They hired, you know, branding specialist. They 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.159 hired some really high profile architects and a lot of 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:38.600 the you know, I'm not saying again it sounds like 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:41.600