Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And Julie we
Speaker 1: need we need to kick off by talking about a
Speaker 1: little urban legend. Yeah, concerning one Walt Disney, and that,
Speaker 1: of course, is the idea that buried in the secret
Speaker 1: high tech vaults underneath Disney World and Epcot Center. The
Speaker 1: Magic Kingdom, the Magical Kingdom's laity is that the Magic Kingdom?
Speaker 1: It is California, the Magic Kingdom? Are they the Magic Kingdom?
Speaker 1: Already you've exposed my knowledge of the Disney franchise. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: the myth is that's somewhere underneath one of these magical
Speaker 1: cities that composed this Magical Kingdom. They're like robot tendered vaults,
Speaker 1: and there you will find Walt Disney's frozen body that
Speaker 1: it's in. It's being preserved until such time as we
Speaker 1: can bring him back to life so that he can
Speaker 1: save us from the uh, the harsh realities that faces
Speaker 1: in the future. That's right, he's just waiting for technology
Speaker 1: to catch up and and reanimate him. Yeah. Plus, somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna make fantage of three. So yeah, yeah, So I
Speaker 1: mean this is of course an urban legend. This is
Speaker 1: complete um who whoie if you will, I mean, for
Speaker 1: for starters. Just an important factor is that Dr James Bedford,
Speaker 1: seventy three year old psychology professor, was the first person
Speaker 1: frozen in this matter through Ennis, and that was on
Speaker 1: January twelfth, nineteen sixty seven. Walt Disney died December fift
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six. You know, so we got roughly a
Speaker 1: year there before it was even really possible. Um So,
Speaker 1: so there's that, all right, right, So the confluence of
Speaker 1: events helped perpetuate this myth, not to mention the fact
Speaker 1: that he was highly private and actually his funeral arrangements
Speaker 1: were not publicized, and so people started to stir up
Speaker 1: all of these rumors. Yeah, and people, you know, people
Speaker 1: generally like the idea of a of of rich people
Speaker 1: being kind of crazy and Richard Branson yeah, or or also,
Speaker 1: I mean the whole um Howard Hughes, uh deal, you know,
Speaker 1: the millionaire And I think that that's part of it too,
Speaker 1: Like people think of Howard Hughes and they think of
Speaker 1: Walt Disney, and they kind of they kind of bring
Speaker 1: the two together in their mind into some um um
Speaker 1: version of like an an eccentric billionaire from the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's those this whole thing too about Walt
Speaker 1: Disney being like a guide in the wool futurists. Yes,
Speaker 1: the real deal, And that's what we're really going to
Speaker 1: talk about in this podcast now that we've swept the
Speaker 1: urban myth out of the way, because that's the thing. Disney, um,
Speaker 1: you know, mostly is known for Disney World, Mickey Mouse
Speaker 1: maybe more becoming more affiliated with Pixar today and you know,
Speaker 1: and some of these are great products, but the man
Speaker 1: himself was was so much more interesting than any of
Speaker 1: these one things and for a while was a really
Speaker 1: powerful force, uh as far as futurist thinking goes, and
Speaker 1: just in contemplating and just advocating how technology can can
Speaker 1: shape the course of our future and and better everyone's life.
Speaker 1: Well not it's just not just the future, but public opinion, um,
Speaker 1: even even our government. And we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that later, but um, you know, I mean this
Speaker 1: is a guy who was an absolute optimist when it
Speaker 1: when it comes to technology, and he kind of felt
Speaker 1: like you could solve any problem with technology, you just
Speaker 1: had to put it in place, so which you have
Speaker 1: this guy with a lot of money, a lot of imagination,
Speaker 1: and this absolute faith in the future right now. He
Speaker 1: was born in NT one to give you a little um,
Speaker 1: you know, time for nineteen o one through nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: and he indeed started off with the whole animation thing, uh, drawing. Um.
Speaker 1: I forget what the first character was, but it looked
Speaker 1: at There are a couple of characters that he came
Speaker 1: out with, one of which ended up getting taken away
Speaker 1: from him due to to some rights issues. But then
Speaker 1: he settled on nicky Um. But he was not he
Speaker 1: was not really a gifted artist per se. I've heard
Speaker 1: I've read some descriptions what they said. He could really
Speaker 1: barely draw Mickey, you know, But but he had all
Speaker 1: these ideas, you know, and he'd get this idea and
Speaker 1: he'd be like, all right, here's Mickey, Let's get some
Speaker 1: talented people to make this happen. Let's get some some
Speaker 1: high end production stuff lined up, and will will produce
Speaker 1: this thing. So he was he was big. I've also
Speaker 1: seen that as one of his criticisms, that he was
Speaker 1: more of an idea starter, you know, that someone that's like,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, I got this idea for a party.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have X, Y and Z go do it
Speaker 1: and then I'll show up, you know, kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: Um and he uh so he was, but he was
Speaker 1: a big idea man. And he left the money stuff
Speaker 1: to his brother Roy, who and there was also this
Speaker 1: kind of older brother younger brother dynamic there because Walt
Speaker 1: was the younger brother, so he was the wild imagination
Speaker 1: kid and Roy was the older brother who looked after Walt. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got the pragmatic part, you've got the kid
Speaker 1: with moxie. Yeah. And apparently throughout I was reading about
Speaker 1: this in the book Reality Land by this guy David Cone,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's really good, but it goes into
Speaker 1: a lot about that, Like there were basically like two
Speaker 1: factions within Disney, uh for for for a long time,
Speaker 1: and there was like Roy's guys and Waltz guys. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like gangs. Yeah, it was like rival gangs,
Speaker 1: one with calculators and the other, um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: dream goggles. I was gonna dream goggles. That's nice standard
Speaker 1: issue in corporate Disney back in the day. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's interesting to look at it from
Speaker 1: the historical perspective and realized that Disney was sort of
Speaker 1: fed um on futurism from the get go or future
Speaker 1: futuristic is m I guess that you could say there's
Speaker 1: sort of a difference. UM. And you know, here's this
Speaker 1: guy born in nineteen o one, as you say, died
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six. He saw a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: progress and he again he had the imagination, he had
Speaker 1: the moxie, he had a vehicle, Mickey, and he the
Speaker 1: money to to do what he wanted to do. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, you have all of these things
Speaker 1: happening in in the United States concerning space race right right,
Speaker 1: which is really sort of fueling his own ambition, not
Speaker 1: to mention you know, national pride being part of this equation,
Speaker 1: and you actually look at the timeline and you can
Speaker 1: see where Disney is starting to think that he needs
Speaker 1: to take this issue on himself. UM. And certainly it
Speaker 1: was actually one of his animators who came up with
Speaker 1: some of the ideas about space exploration as a topic.
Speaker 1: But you know, he was a big proponent of of
Speaker 1: UM making this sort of technology known to people, and
Speaker 1: and really big into planning and designed to UM, which
Speaker 1: which a part of that apparently came out of when
Speaker 1: they when they established Disneyland in California. UM he began
Speaker 1: to notice that, like they didn't really plan out hotel
Speaker 1: arrangements and so like it went from after Disneyland was
Speaker 1: built and went from there being like eighty available rooms
Speaker 1: in the in the area surrounding area to just you know,
Speaker 1: countless hotel to the point where they're they're having to
Speaker 1: worry about skyscrapers rising up to where you don't really
Speaker 1: have like the pristine because because they have the different
Speaker 1: areas of Disneyland are are broken up to be like
Speaker 1: periods of the past, and so there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: skyscraper peering over, you know. And uh, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: he wasn't happy with the city planning going going around
Speaker 1: outside the park so part so he had this idea,
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, well even if we start start fresh,
Speaker 1: start new, then we'll plant everything out. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have this idea that if you if you plan it,
Speaker 1: if you design it enough, then then humans can do it.
Speaker 1: You know, we can. We can we can start fresh,
Speaker 1: and we can create a system that absolutely works well.
Speaker 1: And that's what I really love about you know, part
Speaker 1: of his vision is that you know, you employee technology
Speaker 1: so that humans can have easier lives, they suffer less,
Speaker 1: And that really is sort of the crux of UM
Speaker 1: where he was coming from. But just to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about the conditions during the nineteen fifties, UM,
Speaker 1: because yeah, this is this is crucial. It's really big,
Speaker 1: and you've got the space race is heating up. You've
Speaker 1: anxieties about overpopulation, technology, atomic warfare, the environment. All of
Speaker 1: these different problems are sorting or straightening and come up.
Speaker 1: And again, space race really important because I think of
Speaker 1: the timeline ninety seven fruit flies were launched into space
Speaker 1: by the US UM and then in nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: ten years later, you have the first artificial satellite spot Nik. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: and we know that was launched space by other than
Speaker 1: USS ARE And this is important to to keep in
Speaker 1: mind that, I mean, it's easy to forget even reading
Speaker 1: about it, and in knowing you know about just how
Speaker 1: polarized our ideas were during the Cold War. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was a time where if you were if you
Speaker 1: were if you were an American and and you knew
Speaker 1: about the Cold War because there's also a huge chance
Speaker 1: you were just preoccupied with everything else in life, and
Speaker 1: you know, the lightening weren't reading all the papers. But
Speaker 1: if you were, you were tuned into what the Cold
Speaker 1: War was and what was going on, then you had
Speaker 1: this very very stark, stark idea of what the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union was. I mean, they were, uh, in many people's minds,
Speaker 1: this great enemy that represented just tyranny and the loss
Speaker 1: of the individual and the loss of freedom and and
Speaker 1: uh and you know the kind of polarization you see
Speaker 1: in uh in some of these uh, these fantasy works
Speaker 1: that came out of out of Disney studios, right, and
Speaker 1: so you know, to your point, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you see that, you know, the USSR is making big
Speaker 1: strides here in the space race, especially this butt Nik
Speaker 1: starts to freak everybody out on a national level. They
Speaker 1: start to say, this is something that we need to
Speaker 1: be doing as well. We need to have a space program.
Speaker 1: So here you have Disney who began to produce TV
Speaker 1: shows to help support the opening of Disneyland. Um so
Speaker 1: a very smart move. Right a year in advance of
Speaker 1: Disneyland opening, he starts to decide, okay, well, I've got
Speaker 1: these four different parts of Disneyland that I really need
Speaker 1: to get people on board with and and you know,
Speaker 1: take the time and money to come in is at us.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to promote promote Fantasyland, Frontier Land, adventure Land,
Speaker 1: and tomorrow Land. And tomorrow Land. Is this sort of
Speaker 1: like his brain child, right, And he's able to assemble
Speaker 1: what he calls imagineers, which I kind of love. Um,
Speaker 1: he's got a top animator, Walt Kimball, who actually pitched
Speaker 1: the whole tomorrow Land to him. You've got rocket scientists
Speaker 1: and other experts who get to craft space exploration futurist
Speaker 1: programs that promote these technologies that the US hasn't fully
Speaker 1: adopted yet. Just really fascinating. Oh and I had to
Speaker 1: jump in there real quick talking about the different sections
Speaker 1: of Disneyland. This is great quote where a parent was
Speaker 1: like over the gates to Disneyland that said, here you
Speaker 1: leave today and into the world of yesterday tomorrow in
Speaker 1: fantasy And there was a promotional brochure that to the
Speaker 1: park had nothing of the present, like nothing of the
Speaker 1: present exists in Disneyland, which which is in a way
Speaker 1: it's awesome because it's like, you know, it's like we're sold,
Speaker 1: you know, forget about what you're facing right now. We're
Speaker 1: just gonna focus on how awesome the past was and
Speaker 1: how super awesome the future is going to be. But
Speaker 1: it's also kind of like the most anti Buddhist statement
Speaker 1: I could I could possibly imagine, because because you know,
Speaker 1: the whole you know, like meditation, as we've we've spoken about,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all about like, stop worrying about the past,
Speaker 1: stop worrying about the future, and just live in the moment.
Speaker 1: While Disney was like, stop living in the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: come to this, don't be here now. Um. And actually
Speaker 1: in the opening to uh when it opened, Disney said
Speaker 1: to all who come to this happy place, welcome, Disneyland
Speaker 1: is your land. He didn't really sound like this, but
Speaker 1: here age relives fond memories of the past as you
Speaker 1: spoke about, and here youth may savor the challenge and
Speaker 1: promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals,
Speaker 1: the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America,
Speaker 1: with the hope that it will be it will be
Speaker 1: a source of joint inspiration to all the world. So
Speaker 1: you see these things coming out children future, this sort
Speaker 1: of manifest destiny which is hidden a bit in in
Speaker 1: his agenda, that comes out in Space X where shan
Speaker 1: that certainly comes out in frontier Land when he talked
Speaker 1: about David Crockett so uh so in a way, it
Speaker 1: was kind of like and identifying that the the children,
Speaker 1: the use of that day and age kind of had it.
Speaker 1: We're facing this identity crisis of who they were. There
Speaker 1: were all these different forces going on. There's all this
Speaker 1: fear about the future, and he saying that hold on,
Speaker 1: look at these past models. This is who you are,
Speaker 1: this is your heritage. And then look at this model
Speaker 1: of the future. This is what you can accomplish with technology.