WEBVTT - The Wonderful World of Audio Animatronics 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.840 Get tests of technology with text stuff from stuff works 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:14.280 dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:18.119 am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm a senior writer with 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.239 how stuff works dot com and I cover all things 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.759 what beat. As my old co host Chris Palette would say, 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.080 stuff what Beeps was the alternative title for tech Stuff. Well, 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.879 today we're going to talk about something that's near and 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:38.320 dear to my heart, and that is Audio animatronics, specifically 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:45.120 their origin with Disneyland. I am an enormous Disney fanatic. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:50.200 I consider myself a Disney fan of film, of television, 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.320 of their theme parks, probably not necessarily in that order, 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.840 maybe film first, then theme parks, then television, but I'm 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:01.720 a huge fan of Disney stuff. And recently, when I 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.040 was on a trip to Los Angeles to attend E three, 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.960 I found myself with a day with nothing to do. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.720 I had hoped to book some meetings that did not happen. 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.840 So instead of just sitting around my hotel room feeling 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.960 sorry for myself in a city where I really didn't 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.280 know anybody, I decided to hop on down to Orange County, California, 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.480 that is the home of Disneyland and to go to 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:28.520 the happiest place on Earth. It was not my first 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.160 time at Disneyland, but this was the first time I'd 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.480 ever gone to Disneyland completely on my own, and I 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.560 was a little worried about that, like, how am I 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.479 going to have fun just by myself. Turns out Disneyland 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.200 did most of the work for me. I didn't have 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.720 to worry so much and had a great time. But 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.800 it also reminded me of how much I love the 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:52.200 technology and innovation that goes behind Disneyland. And honestly, I 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:57.000 could do maybe a dozen episodes about different technologies that 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.760 were pioneered or perfected at the Disney any theme parks, 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.919 because there are a ton of them that Disney either 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.240 directly had a hand in developing or tweeked it in 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.839 a way to elevate it beyond what it used to be. 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.120 There are plenty of examples of that. Today, we're specifically 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:20.480 going to focus on audio animatronics, And for those who 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.040 have not heard what this term is or have any 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.760 idea what it means, this was a system that Walt 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:33.480 Disney's company pioneered to create animated physical three dimensional figures. 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:37.079 So in a way, it's kind of similar to puppetry, right, 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.959 with a puppet, typically you're manipulating some sort of three 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.679 dimensional figure. Beyond shadow puppets and that sort of puppetry, 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.600 which is amazing all on its own, I'm talking about 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:52.680 your traditional hand puppets, rod puppets, and marionettes. That involves 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.639 manipulating an inanimate object in a way to make it 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.840 seem like it has life, that has anima, and that 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.200 you are using some sort of system, whether it's rods 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.040 or you know, the puppet is essentially a glove puppet, 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.320 or you're using strings with a marionette to create this 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.360 illusion of movement. Well, Disney wanted to create something similar, 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.120 only these would run on a mechanical system that would 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:24.160 be painstakingly programmed rather than being under the direct control 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:28.480 of a human being. Those figures, when they're working properly, 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.200 would replicate those same motions and have the same performance 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.440 every single time. So the time the character is doing 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.800 a show, it's exactly the way it was the first time. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.640 So once you perfect a show and you program that 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.040 into these these figures, you then have the perfect show 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.440 every single time you run it, assuming everything is working properly. Now, 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.760 anyone who has been to Disney enough times knows that's 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.120 a big assumption to make. Sometimes things just don't do, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.440 not work really well. I'll tell you about one of 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.280 those times that I experienced firsthand later on in this show. 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.400 But the technology itself is phenomenal, and even when it 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.800 isn't working properly, that does not take away from how 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.960 amazing this tech really is, especially when you consider what 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.440 people had to work with back in the fifties and 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.359 early sixties when they were first developing these systems. It 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.719 is pretty amazing stuff. Now, the reason why Disney wanted 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:32.800 this in the first place is he really loved the 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:38.200 idea of creating a real, three dimensional experience similar to 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.440 what you would get with an animated film. Animated films 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.960 can be perfected right. You can sit there and sketch 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.719 it out and get it just right before you release 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.080 it as a movie. He wanted to have that same 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.760 sort of experience, but in the real physical world. He 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.920 was a stickler for perfection, had very very very high standards, 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.560 and um and the people who were for him, they 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.919 also would end up having very high standards. Everyone wanted 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:09.839 to make sure that they met Disney's expectations. Now, You 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:14.200 can find animatronic figures in lots of Disney attractions, including 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.200 the Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.520 Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, the Hall of Presidents, which 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.719 would be over at the Magic Kingdom, and Disney World, 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.440 and tons more. There are lots of examples. There are 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.520 also some attractions that had moving figures that didn't use 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.680 the audio animatronics system. So, for example, the Jungle Cruise 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:40.320 ride has animated animal figures. As you ride through, you 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:45.520 see hippopotamuses and crocodiles and elephants, but these were running 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.760 on a very simple mechanical loop system. They were not 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.400 specifically audio animatronic. They they worked on something that was 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.960 a little less sophisticated than what would follow. So you 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:04.080 have both at Disney Parks. And I'm also sad that 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.560 I can't have Holly on this episode. Holly, who's one 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.400 of the co hosts of Stuff You Missed in History Class. 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:15.120 Apart from being a brilliant podcaster and an avid historian, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:21.839 she is an enormous fan of all things Disney and 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.520 uh and she doesn't just give me a run for 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.719 my money, she leaves me in the dust. I love Disney. 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.320 I have been to the Disney parks dozens of times, 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.599 but Holly is a step beyond even my own obsession. 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.640 So I am sad that I can't have her here 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:42.120 because I am absolutely certain that she would be here 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.599 dropping nuggets of knowledge and trivia about these various Disney 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.239 attractions that I have yet to uncover. So maybe someday 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.240 I will be able to have Holly on this show, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.960 and we'll do a Disney oriented episode about some other 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.279 type of tech. In the meantime, there are are some 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.280 other podcasts we've done that relate to Disney. I did 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:09.480 one about the Pepper's Ghost effect, which is used extensively 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:14.760 in the Haunted Mansion Ride. Pepper's Ghost involves reflective surfaces 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.720 and using lighting in a way so that you can 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.000 create the illusion of a ghostly figure appearing before you, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.240 but what you're actually looking at is a reflection of 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:29.120 a physical figure that's just lit in a very bright space, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:33.720 whereas you're in a very dark space. Uh. The famous 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.080 ballroom sequence in the Haunted Mansion Ride is a big 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.080 example of Pepper's Ghost. So you can go and check 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.360 out those episodes of tech stuff. If this is not 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.400 enough Disney for you. All right, Let's talk specifically about 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.720 what I wanted to concentrate on today. To do that, 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.640 we have to mention Walt Disney because he's central to 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.720 our story. He's kind of our main character if this 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:01.640 were a narrative. His full name was Walter Elias Disney. 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.160 He was born in nineteen o one in Illinois. He 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.280 grew up in Missouri and attended high school in Chicago. 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.800 He was studying art primarily. When he was sixteen, he 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.000 dropped out to join the army, but they rejected him 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.160 because he was too young. He then joined the Red 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:23.600 Cross and was shipped over to Europe and drove ambulances 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:28.040 during World War One in France. Once he is his 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.080 work with the Red Cross was done over there, he 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.960 moved back to the United States and he began to 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:38.160 work for an ad company. He was making film and animations. 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.240 Uh then he would go on to create his own studio, 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.960 which saw some modest success, but then it ran into 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.600 some hard times and eventually he had to declare bankruptcy 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:55.160 under his first studio. But despite that, he didn't give up. 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:57.920 He decided to make a go at it again, and 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.160 he and his brother Roy were able to co found 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.480 the Walt Disney Company, and from that moment forward, his 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.800 influence on tech has been considerable, from actual innovations and 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:13.720 technology to how creators can protect their intellectual property. Now, 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:17.000 not all of those influences have been met with enthusiasm. 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.000 Disney is one of the reasons why the United States 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:27.280 has such incredibly extensive intellectual property protection laws, stuff like 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.640 copyright and trademark laws that protect well beyond the lifetime 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:35.600 of the creator. UH. A lot of that has to 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:40.160 do with Disney, as a corporate entity, lobbying to extend 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:47.240 those parameters. So Disney's impact on technology has been enormous 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:52.760 in both very specific ways that relate to particular technologies 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.439 to the way that those technologies are protected under intellectual 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:01.720 property law. So Disney's use of sound with animation was 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.400 a huge leap forward in the nineteen twenties, Steamboat Willie 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.840 being the first cartoon with sound, and Disney himself voiced 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:13.040 the iconic character of Mickey Mouse, who struck a chord 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:19.040 with viewers and propelled Disney into enormous success. Over the 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.280 following decades, he would see a lot more success, including 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.360 going into feature length animation which had not been done before, 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.560 and he was able to uh succeed with snow White 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.559 and the Seven Dwarves, and he also continued to see 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.720 success with short form stuff. Now, depending upon the account 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.120 you read, because there are a couple of different versions 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:45.439 of the story, we actually begin either in France or 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.400 the French Quarter in New Orleans. The story goes that 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.320 Disney was on vacation with his family, and as he 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.920 was on vacation, he decided to look into some uh 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:02.600 some antique shops and he came across some various clockwork toys, 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.600 like wind up birds and that sort of thing. One 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.560 specific toy he came across in an antique shop was 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.560 a bird cage that had a mechanical bird inside of 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.439 it that would chirp and sing, and it would make 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:21.320 little motions that you could describe as being somewhat robotic. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.199 They were pretty primitive motions, but you know, close enough 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.520 to being an actual bird that you knew what it was. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.400 It was. It wasn't like it looked like a a 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.240 monstrosity or anything like that. He thought it was absolutely charming, 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.760 and he felt that there was a lot of potential 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.320 there that he could use to create three dimensional physical 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.440 animated figurines potentially and a theme park that was one 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.920 of the things he had been considering around this time, 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:53.120 although Disneyland had not yet become a reality. So he 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.400 brought the antique bird cage with the mechanical bird inside 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.120 of it back to his company and he went to 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.040 some of his uh top thinkers over at the Walt 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.240 Disney Company and said, figure out how this thing works. 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.560 So they took it apart, and they took a look 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.720 at it, and they began to formulate ideas of how 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.200 they could create their own technology that would also allow 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:22.960 for animation of this type sort of this automated puppetry 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.520 that I was talking about now. Disney was really excited 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.760 about this prospect of having fully realized, three dimensional characters 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.760 capable of delivering a performance consistently. And Jack Gladish, who 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.200 was one of the engineers who would work on developing 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.640 audio animatronic technology, one of many, as it turns out, 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.200 would say that Disney wants joked to him, I'm tired 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.160 of finicky actors. I want to develop a fully animated, 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:51.520 articulated human being to use in place of motion picture 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:56.440 actors and actresses. So this was Disney having a bit 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.800 of fun saying that, Hey, the real reason why I 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:00.760 want to develop this technolog jeus because then I can 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.679 get rid of all these pesky humans that keep on 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:08.600 asking questions or having issues, whereas the animatronic ones will 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.280 just do what we tell them to do. And it's 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.840 kind of funny because there's another famous director who said 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:21.160 something very similar about Disney's cast. That famous director was 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:27.160 Alfred Hitchcock, who of course made incredible films of thriller 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:32.319 and psychological horror genres, things like The Birds and Psycho, 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:37.520 that sort of stuff. Alfred Hitchcock reportedly once said Disney 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.160 has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor, 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:45.400 he just tears him up. So Hitchcock's joke and Disney's 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.720 joke were very similar in that respect, this idea of 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.200 the frustrated director who has to contend with the delicate 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.280 sensibilities of actors and actresses. But in truth, Disney just 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:58.439 thought this was a really cool technology and he saw 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.360 a lot of potential in it, and he was always 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.599 looking at new ways to make use of the immense 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.880 talent he had attracted to the Walt Disney Company. Whereas 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.000 a lot of These people started off in the animation 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.680 department where they were working on various films and shorts 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.520 for Disney. They would eventually move into very different departments 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:23.360 and develop stuff like the actual Disneyland theme park disney 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:28.280 World later on, as well as visual effects and props 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.680 and sets and things of that nature for the various 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.360 live action films that Disney was getting into as well. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.080 So you had people who started off as animators kind 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:42.920 of specializing in different areas. This was the dawn of 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.600 the imagineering age. There was no such thing as an 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.880 imagineer yet, no one had called it that, but eventually 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.880 Disney would end up referring to people who worked in 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.200 this sort of field as imagineers. They were thinking outside 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:04.160 the box. You using engineering and creativity married together to 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.760 create really interesting experiences that you could not find anywhere else. 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.240 That was the value that Disney wanted to create to 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.120 justify charging people admission to come and check it out. 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:23.200 So he was really excited about this potential opportunity, and 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.160 he had a lot of potential ways of using this 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.000 technology already at this time. He was he was thinking ahead. 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.680 One of those was the fact that he wanted to 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:36.280 open up an amusement park that would eventually become Disneyland. 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.000 He thought, well, I need to have attractions for people 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.400 to come and experience at this park, and he thought 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:47.200 this technology could potentially provide some of those experiences. He 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:53.560 also had an ability to contribute to a massive event 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:55.960 that would happen in the mid nineteen sixties, that is, 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.440 the nineteen sixty four World's Fair in New York that 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.520 was going to end up requiring a lot of work 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:07.120 on Disney's part. Years in advance, he knew that he 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:12.320 was going to be providing for attractions for this World's Fair, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:15.680 and he knew that the entire attention of the world 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.920 was going to be on New York for this event. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.280 So he wanted to make absolutely certain that the attractions 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:27.120 that his company designed were phenomenal and unlike anything anyone 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.600 had ever experienced. And for that he needed to pioneer 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.160 a new technology. So all he had to do from 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:41.040 that point forward it was just invented, No big shakes, right, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.880 So to start. One of the earliest experiments with this 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:52.840 idea of animating a three dimensional figure was what would 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.880 eventually be called the Dancing Man or the Little Man project. 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.680 This would be of a figure that measured about nine 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:06.040 inches tall and was meant to dance based upon this 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:11.320 automated system, or mechanical system at least if not fully automated. 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.800 The story goes that Walt Disney approached the artist Ken Anderson, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.720 who was working for Disney. Anderson would become instrumental for 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:27.040 the design and implementation of various elements in Disneyland, and 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:29.040 he said, you know, you know what, You're working on 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:30.639 a lot of stuff, but I wanna I want to 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.160 pay you out of my own pocket for a project 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.640 that I really believe in that's not really a company 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.879 project yet. I want to create scenes that evoke the 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:44.679 American way of life. And Disney had a very idyllic 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.240 sense of what that meant. That small town feel that 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.600 you get when you walk down Main Street, USA. If 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.560 you're ever at Disneyland or disney World and you're walking 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.359 down Main Street, especially if you're doing it at a 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.560 time when there's not a huge crowd there, it evokes 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:06.400 the sense of a small town maybe early nineteen hundreds, 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.639 around the time when Walt Disney himself would have been 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:14.199 growing up, where things appeared to be simple and elegant. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.960 That's what Disney wanted to create, and so he talked 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.280 to Anderson, said, I want to have this idea of 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.919 building this kind of experience in miniature where people can 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.440 look at the different manatures we design and different elements 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.800 of it actually come to life. So at first he 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.479 wanted to get some paintings, some sketches of this. So 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.720 Anderson got to work and one of the first things 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:41.880 he created was a Norman Rockwell esque scene of a 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:46.320 soft shoe dancer performing on a stage, a small stage, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.560 so something that you might see in an old Vaudevillian theater, 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:55.359 and Disney immediately connected to it. He thought, that's exactly 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.800 what I wanted to see. And he felt that this 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.840 was a figure that if they could create a three 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.080 dimensional version of it and build it in a miniature 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.040 set and it could move around and do its little 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.679 dance routine for people, that would be phenomenal. So he 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:17.119 took Anderson's design, and he then decided to UH to 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.440 work with a couple of other folks over at Disney. 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.919 He UH went to a sculptor who was working for 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.639 the company at the time. As a sculptor's name was 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:35.720 Charles Clarence Christodoro and Christodorro's dad was a famous agricultural 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:40.360 scientist and farmer who had written extensively about agriculture. Christodorro 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:45.000 himself had become a notable sculptor, working both in the 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:49.640 public spaces, designing statues that were shown in San Diego 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.879 and other areas of California, and also working in the 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.000 movie industry. He had worked for Disney once during the 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.919 nineteen thirties, left the company, and then came back in 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.000 the early nineteen fIF these. He was given the sketch 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.200 and told to make a physical model of the dancer, 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.160 which he did. He sculpted a physical model based upon 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:15.320 the the Ken Anderson painting and gave that to Disney. 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.439 Disney then took the model over to the machine shop, 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.439 and he also brought in the animation department. Now, right 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:22.960 now seems like it would be a good time to 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.120 summarize all the areas that came together to make audio 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.440 animatronics even possible. And I realized I haven't even gotten 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.000 to what audio animatronics can do and how they do it. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.880 But it's important to understand the different departments to kind 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.520 of get a grip on why it was so complicated 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.840 and why it called for a multidisciplinary approach, because that's 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:48.000 exactly what audio animatronics were. It required people of vastly 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:52.920 different disciplines and knowledge base in order to make this happen. So, 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.840 in no particular order, here are some of the departments 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:02.399 at Disney that worked on pioneering audio animatronics. First, there 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.240 was the Sound Department. Now it might seem weird that 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:10.240 I'm starting with the sound department instead of the Mechanical 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.480 Shop or animation, but the reason for that is the 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.520 Sound department was in charge of the audio animatronic projects 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:24.120 because those depended so heavily on that audio component. I'll 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:28.280 explain more about how in a little bit. The Sound 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:33.400 department was ultimately the one that was holding onto the project, 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:38.280 the project leader that was the head of development. This 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.239 would end up actually causing some issues later on. There 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.919 would be some disagreements between the Sound Department and some 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:49.160 other departments, and they were run by different unions, which 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.480 also meant that they would run into these weird problems. 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.000 There was a story in one of the articles I 0:21:55.080 --> 0:22:01.239 read about how the mechanical department, the Mechanic Shop, they 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.439 might be working on an audio animatronic figure and they 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:06.679 would need to disconnect it so that they can make 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.480 an adjustment before reconnecting it. But they weren't allowed to 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.760 actually disconnect the figure because that was a union job 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.280 that one of the sound department guys would have to do. 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:19.320 So they'd have to go and get someone from the 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:23.520 sound department to come over to the machine shop disconnect 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.440 a tube, wait until the mechanical shop people had made 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.840 their adjustments, reconnect the tube, and then they could proceed. 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.000 By union rules, the machine shop folks were not allowed 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.440 to do that on their own, so it got very 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:43.320 frustrating at times. Then you've got the Animation Department Disney, 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:46.000 of course famous for animation. This was the group of 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.240 artists who had studied movement extensively. If you're going to 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.639 animate movement, you have to understand how movement works, or 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.000 else you can't replicate it properly and it's not going 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.399 to look right when you watch an animated film. And 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.920 more importantly, they had been studying animated movement in film itself. 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.280 As it turns out, film or at least magnetic tape, 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:10.280 would become incredibly important with audio animatronics. They leverage their 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:13.119 expertise to help design not just the physical objects that 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:17.640 would be animated and the actual motions those objects would make, 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:23.840 but also the very technique for programming the objects, and 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.960 i'll explain more about that in a little bit. Then 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:29.720 you had the modeling department. These were the people who 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:33.320 would make three dimensional models and sculptures of the various 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:36.200 components that you wanted so that other departments could use 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:39.399 that as a reference. And then you had the machine shop. 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:43.200 The machine department had to fabricate all the physical pieces 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:47.080 that would be used in these various figures, and then 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.760 you also had props and costumes that would end up 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:53.639 outfitting these different figures. So there are a lot of 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:59.919 different moving parts, both metaphorically and literally, as it turns 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.639 out when you get to audio animatronics, in order to 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.560 make it possible, and all of those groups had their 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:08.920 own leaders and their own priorities, but the fact that 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:11.399 they were able to collaborate and create a system as 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:15.000 intricate as audio animatronics is pretty amazing all on its own. 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:18.600 And we haven't even gotten to the technology yet. So 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:21.760 I want to get to that technology, and I will 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:25.560 in just a moment, but first let's take a quick 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:35.000 break and thank our sponsor all right. So you got 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:38.240 the machine shop and they were creating the Dancing Man 0:24:38.480 --> 0:24:42.879 or the Little Man, and Disney decided that he needed 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:46.200 to have someone in charge of figuring out the animation 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:48.600 for this, like figuring out what moves would need to 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:51.680 be animated, so he tapped a guy named Waffle Rogers 0:24:52.119 --> 0:24:54.560 to work on the animation for it Now. Rogers was 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:58.000 born in Stratton, Colorado, in nine and he was a 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:01.880 sculptor and engineer. He attended an art institute in Los 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.560 Angeles and was recruited directly out of school to the 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:07.879 Walt Disney Studios in nineteen thirty nine. He worked as 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:12.399 an animator on films like Pinocchio and Bambi. During World 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:15.760 War Two, he took leave of the Disney Company and 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:18.280 served in the United States Marine Corps as a staff 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:22.119 sergeant in the photographic section. And when he wasn't animating, 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:25.680 he was tinkering. He was creating toys and model trains, 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:29.959 and Walt Disney was also a model train fanatic. He 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:33.600 loved model trains, including trains large enough to ride on, 0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:37.280 and he had a couple at his at his property, 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:41.760 like he had a private little railroad track because he 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:46.040 just loved trains, and he loved that romantic image of 0:25:46.080 --> 0:25:49.800 travel by train. Um a lot of the things that 0:25:49.840 --> 0:25:52.480