Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Jonathan Strickland, and I'm here to introduce
Speaker 1: a playlist of ten episodes of my podcast tech Stuff
Speaker 1: that are all about entertainment and entertainment related fields, from
Speaker 1: video games to television series, two films to internet videos
Speaker 1: from yesteryear. So I hope you guys enjoy these episodes.
Speaker 1: You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and
Speaker 1: subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech
Speaker 1: from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little
Speaker 1: bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably
Speaker 1: more than a few puns, because that's kind of how
Speaker 1: I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to tex Stuff, a
Speaker 1: production from my Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive
Speaker 1: producer with I Heart Radio, and I love all things tech,
Speaker 1: and we are going to listen to another special episode
Speaker 1: and this entertainment playlist. This is the Experimental Prototype Community
Speaker 1: of Tomorrow, also known as EPCOT, which currently is closed.
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting story to hear about the origins
Speaker 1: of EPCOT and how it changed from its original concept
Speaker 1: to its actual execution. So I hope you guys enjoy
Speaker 1: this episode, and uh, let's take a listen. Back on
Speaker 1: October one, two Walt Disney World opened its Phase two
Speaker 1: theme park. The original park, the Magic Kingdom, was Phase
Speaker 1: one that had opened on October one, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: and this episode is publishing in October one, two thousand eighteen.
Speaker 1: So I figured I would do an episode specifically about
Speaker 1: the concept behind the original Epcot and how that was
Speaker 1: different from the theme park that would open thirty six
Speaker 1: years from now, Like back back thirty six years ago,
Speaker 1: back in time. Well, today's Epcot is presented as a
Speaker 1: proper noun, So Epcot is just its name, big E, small, PC,
Speaker 1: O T. But originally the name was actually an acronym.
Speaker 1: Now there's a joke about what that acronym stands for.
Speaker 1: The joke says that stands for every person comes out
Speaker 1: tired because Epcot is an enormous theme park. It's twice
Speaker 1: the size of the Magic Kingdom, three times the size
Speaker 1: of Disneyland, and there's very little shade in the Florida
Speaker 1: whether can be a bit unforgiving for much of the year,
Speaker 1: for example, when I was there. But in fact, the
Speaker 1: acron him really stood for experimental prototype community of tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and it was one of Walt Disney's dream projects, a
Speaker 1: truly ambitious goal that he had set now before nineteen
Speaker 1: Epcot was a name only a relatively few number of
Speaker 1: people had ever heard, uh it had not escaped the
Speaker 1: company and a few small or a few partners potential partners.
Speaker 1: So Walt Disney had been interested in creating a prototype
Speaker 1: city that incorporated cutting edge technology. It would have sophisticated
Speaker 1: urban planning from the get go, and this was an
Speaker 1: idea he came up with not long after Disneyland was
Speaker 1: established in the fifties. He had previously explored the possibility
Speaker 1: of creating such a city. In nineteen fifty nine, he
Speaker 1: got an opportunity with some developers outside of Palm Beach,
Speaker 1: Florida up He had previously looked at New York as
Speaker 1: a site, but determined that that was not a very
Speaker 1: good site for an amusement park, largely because of whether
Speaker 1: it would probably mean that the theme park would only
Speaker 1: really be an operation for part of the year, and
Speaker 1: he wand year long operations because it was the most
Speaker 1: efficient use of the space. So he had looked around
Speaker 1: the Eastern Seaboard. He looked at Palm Beach, Florida. It
Speaker 1: would have been a joint effort between Disney's company, uh
Speaker 1: NBC r c A and a billionaire named John D. MacArthur.
Speaker 1: But the plan fell through. Our c A went through
Speaker 1: some financial difficulties and kind of had to withdraw from it,
Speaker 1: and there were disagreements between Roy Disney, who was sort
Speaker 1: of the financial genius behind the Disney Company, and MacArthur,
Speaker 1: so they didn't go any further than that. But Walt
Speaker 1: Disney had really started to think about this idea of
Speaker 1: creating a city, and he was resolved to give it
Speaker 1: a shot if he had the chance. The first time
Speaker 1: the public got to hear at least a hint about
Speaker 1: Disney's dream of this community of tomorrow would be back
Speaker 1: in November nineteen sixty five at a press conference. This
Speaker 1: was a press conference where the company, the Disney Company,
Speaker 1: revealed that had purchased nearly twenty eight thousand acres of
Speaker 1: land in central Florida. Now, at that press conference, Walt
Speaker 1: Disney announced that they had in mind something much more
Speaker 1: than an entertainment offering like Disneyland. Now that's not to
Speaker 1: disparage Disneyland. I truly love that theme park, but rather
Speaker 1: to say that Walt Disney had a larger vision for
Speaker 1: the Orlando deal. Initially, though he was rather coy with
Speaker 1: sharing those ideas. They the details for what they were
Speaker 1: planning were pretty sparse at that press conference, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, you can watch that press conference is on YouTube.
Speaker 1: You can pull up the November nineteen announcement of what
Speaker 1: would become Walt Disney World. At this point it was
Speaker 1: the Florida Project. Walt Disney didn't want to commit publicly
Speaker 1: to any one plan that early in the process. He
Speaker 1: did say that he had many ideas and he wanted
Speaker 1: the project to at least be the equal of Disneyland,
Speaker 1: if not superior to Disneyland. But following the conference, there
Speaker 1: were news reports that said the site would become the
Speaker 1: home of a city of yesterday, so presumably meaning a
Speaker 1: community that harkened back to an idealistic vision of Americana,
Speaker 1: kind of like the embodiment of Main Street USA at
Speaker 1: the various Disney parks, and it would also be the
Speaker 1: home of a city of tomorrow, and that it would
Speaker 1: be at least three years before anything of consequence could
Speaker 1: be built on the site of Florida because there'll be
Speaker 1: a lot of preliminary work that would need to be
Speaker 1: done before any foundation could be laid. Walt Disney died
Speaker 1: on December fift nineteen sixty six, due to cancer. Just
Speaker 1: a couple of months after his death, the Walt Disney
Speaker 1: Company sent out press kits to the media, including The
Speaker 1: New York Times, and those press kits included plans for
Speaker 1: what was to become of all that land in Florida.
Speaker 1: And at the heart of this plan was this new
Speaker 1: type of city. It was a say that was designed
Speaker 1: to take advantage of modern technologies from the ground up,
Speaker 1: a city purposefully laid out and integrated so that the
Speaker 1: people who lived and worked there could spend less time
Speaker 1: dealing with day to day frustrations and more time being
Speaker 1: productive and doing what most you know, Americans think of
Speaker 1: as being the truly American activity, pursuing the heck out
Speaker 1: of happiness. So in this press kett where concept images
Speaker 1: of elements of this city. One of those concept images
Speaker 1: showed a collection of buildings laid out around in a
Speaker 1: hub and wheel pattern of what the company referred to
Speaker 1: as the radial design that would be common to all
Speaker 1: elements of this new city. You would see this same
Speaker 1: sort of basic element of design repeated throughout the various incarnations.
Speaker 1: Each building in this particular drawing for this industrial park
Speaker 1: part of the city was shaped kind of like a
Speaker 1: slice of high but you cut the pointy bit off,
Speaker 1: so you've got a flat part towards this pointing towards
Speaker 1: the center, the center being a circular sort of courtyard,
Speaker 1: and each building is like a slightly separated piece of pie.
Speaker 1: This industrial complex was supposed to be a place where
Speaker 1: corporations would partner with Disney. They would have their locations
Speaker 1: here to create a kind of a showcase of industry
Speaker 1: at work. According to the breast kit, so it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be kind of a a stage almost where American
Speaker 1: industry could be shown off, not just for promotional purposes,
Speaker 1: but also a way to interact with the public and
Speaker 1: show off the newest of innovations. Uh Walt Disney was
Speaker 1: a great believer in American ingenuity and innovation, and he
Speaker 1: wanted this to be kind of a stage for those companies.
Speaker 1: Another image included a cutaway concept of what the company
Speaker 1: referred to as the Transportation Lobby. This would actually be
Speaker 1: located beneath an enormous hotel, a thirty story hotel, so
Speaker 1: you have a thirty story hotel. And then where you
Speaker 1: would have the ground level, like where pedestrians will be
Speaker 1: walking around outside, you had the transportation lobby. In this image,
Speaker 1: you can see people walking around on that ground floor,
Speaker 1: and that's the that's the domain of pedestrians. Beneath the
Speaker 1: transportation lobby, you would see parking facilities and highways. The
Speaker 1: road was actually beneath this prototype community of Tomorrow. It
Speaker 1: didn't run through it, it ran under it. Not that
Speaker 1: different from what Elon Musk has proposed with some of
Speaker 1: his tunnel systems that he would like to build under
Speaker 1: various cities. So you could argue that Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: trying to bring to life at least part of this
Speaker 1: vision of the community of Tomorrow. And these highways would
Speaker 1: also include specific sections meant for specific types of vehicles.
Speaker 1: At the bottommost layer would be the the level for
Speaker 1: supply trucks, so trucks carrying important supplies for the community
Speaker 1: would actually travel on the lowest level and they would
Speaker 1: have direct access to things like freight elevators, and then
Speaker 1: commuter traffic would be a level above that. But still
Speaker 1: below ground, and then you would have the ground floor
Speaker 1: where people could walk around. Above that would be elevated tracks,
Speaker 1: and you would have a system that was essentially the
Speaker 1: wed Way people Mover. Anyone who's been to Disneyland or
Speaker 1: Walt Disney World is probably somewhat familiar of the people Mover,
Speaker 1: and that would be sort of a short distance, slow
Speaker 1: public transit offering, not not a fast travel. But then
Speaker 1: across from that is an elevated monorail, and that was
Speaker 1: meant to be for longer distances and faster travel. So,
Speaker 1: according to the press kit, the Transportation Lobby will be
Speaker 1: located at the very heart of Epcot, directly beneath the
Speaker 1: thirty story theme hotel. This will be the central arrival
Speaker 1: departure point for all passengers using the monorail or the
Speaker 1: newly designed wed Way people Mover. Another drawing showed a
Speaker 1: large indoor shopping district that was meant to hold imported merchandise,
Speaker 1: foreign cuisine, dinner shows, and roving entertainers native to many lands.
Speaker 1: So you start to hear a little elements that you
Speaker 1: might recognize if you've been to the Upcot theme park,
Speaker 1: but these were meant on a much grander scale. This
Speaker 1: press kit, by the way, it was just a taste
Speaker 1: of the concept. Walt Disney, back in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: just a couple of months before he passed away, had
Speaker 1: actually shot a twenty four minute film about this concept.
Speaker 1: The film would premiere in February ninety seven, so two
Speaker 1: months after Disney had passed away. In that film, Disney
Speaker 1: would mention that the details of what was going on
Speaker 1: in Florida would be this experimental prototype community of tomorrow,
Speaker 1: or at least a large part of it would be.
Speaker 1: The underlying philosophy would be pretty rock solid, But Disney
Speaker 1: did say that the drawings he was going to reveal
Speaker 1: were concepts that could easily undergo a great deal of
Speaker 1: change before they were ever made real. So his plan
Speaker 1: was to build this community, but he wasn't entirely certain
Speaker 1: that it was going to look exactly the way his
Speaker 1: artists had designed it from the get go. He mentioned
Speaker 1: that the Florida project, now called Disney World, would include
Speaker 1: a theme park that would be similar to Disneyland in California,
Speaker 1: but that would be one small component of the new project,
Speaker 1: because again, the land in Florida was enormous. You would
Speaker 1: also have hotels, motels, recreational facilities, and much more. For example,
Speaker 1: the plans also included an airport of the future at
Speaker 1: the southern end of the property, opposite where the theme
Speaker 1: park was to be located. So the theme park was
Speaker 1: to be at the north end, and this airport would
Speaker 1: have been at the southern end. The airport would then
Speaker 1: feed into what was labeled as an entrance complex was
Speaker 1: a little bit further to the north, and that would
Speaker 1: be the entry point for visitors to Disney World. They
Speaker 1: would go through this kind of like main gates in
Speaker 1: a way. But this itself was a pretty large complex.
Speaker 1: In fact, on the map, the complex looks like it's
Speaker 1: larger than what was the planned one thousand acre industrial
Speaker 1: park I mentioned earlier that was actually next in line
Speaker 1: to the north so airport. Then you get the entrance complex,
Speaker 1: then you get the industrial park next to the north.
Speaker 1: Beyond that was Epcot itself, the full city prototype design,
Speaker 1: and then at the very tippy top on the north
Speaker 1: end was the theme park in hotels. Connecting all of
Speaker 1: those elements was the mono rail system. And to call
Speaker 1: it ambitious would be a massive understatement. And Epcot was,
Speaker 1: as Walt Disney himself put it in that nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: six film that debuted in sixty seven, the heart of
Speaker 1: the operation, it was what he was most excited about.
Speaker 1: That's what the Florida project was really focused on. Was EPCOT. Now,
Speaker 1: according to Disney, the city wouldn't just be a showcase
Speaker 1: for the cutting edge technologies of the late nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: It would be a community that would evolve continuously as
Speaker 1: technology advanced. It would never be complete, it would never
Speaker 1: be finished. It would be a community that embraced change
Speaker 1: and advances. So what was Disney proposing beyond these concept
Speaker 1: drawings and these broad ideas. What was the driving force
Speaker 1: behind his vision. I'll explain that in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: In that nineteen sixty six film, Walt Disney said that
Speaker 1: the primary factor that would drive the design principles for
Speaker 1: EPCOT would be public need. That designing the city with
Speaker 1: the public need and mind from the get go would
Speaker 1: create the best chance of building a community that met
Speaker 1: those needs from the start. So ideally, you would take
Speaker 1: all the knowledge accumulated through decades of urban planning and
Speaker 1: use it to lay out a city in a logical
Speaker 1: intuitive way, so that the city is adapted to the
Speaker 1: people living in it, rather than the citizens having to
Speaker 1: adapt to the city. So how was it laid out? Well,
Speaker 1: it goes back to that radial design. Imagine a wheel
Speaker 1: like a bicycle wheel and has a hub in the
Speaker 1: middle and their spokes from the hub leading out to
Speaker 1: the outer edge. That's the basic design of the original Epcot.
Speaker 1: Disney was attracted to this particular design for a few reasons.
Speaker 1: For one, it was really efficient. Having controlled points of
Speaker 1: entry and a radial design allowed for efficient circulation of traffic.
Speaker 1: And for another, it also made it easy to navigate.
Speaker 1: Orienting yourself in such a layout was relatively easy. You
Speaker 1: had an identifiable central point and predictable layouts surrounding it,
Speaker 1: so even if you got a little turned around, it
Speaker 1: would be pretty easy to find your way back to
Speaker 1: a familiar point and then figure out where you were
Speaker 1: from there. So at the center, the hub part, the
Speaker 1: middle of the circle would be the sort of the
Speaker 1: downtown section of this community would be a sort of
Speaker 1: a business complex. It's where you'd find office buildings, corporate jobs,
Speaker 1: things like that. It's also where you would find major
Speaker 1: cultural centers, museums, theaters, entertainment complexes, restaurants would be in
Speaker 1: this section, nightlife locations, clubs, that kind of thing would
Speaker 1: be there. It would incorporate all the elements we associate
Speaker 1: with a ibrant downtown area of a major city. At
Speaker 1: the very center of the sub would be that hotel
Speaker 1: I mentioned, the thirty story tall hotel, and that hotel
Speaker 1: would also have a deck measuring seven acres in size,
Speaker 1: and that seven acre deck would also have recreational areas including,
Speaker 1: according to the concept drawings, ponds, there be parks. The
Speaker 1: deck would be several stories above the pedestrian level of
Speaker 1: the city center, so you'd have to go into the
Speaker 1: hotel and go up to the right floor to get
Speaker 1: out on that deck. And incredibly, the entire section, this
Speaker 1: whole downtown part of epp Cut was supposed to be
Speaker 1: enclosed in a climate controlled dome. There's the center of
Speaker 1: Epcut was a city in a bubble, which, if you've
Speaker 1: experienced Florida heat and humidity, was likely a big selling
Speaker 1: point to a lot of the people who were thinking
Speaker 1: about this design because being able to stroll around a
Speaker 1: shopping plaza or walk to work or just wandering downtown
Speaker 1: without being subjected to the swamping mess that is a
Speaker 1: Florida summer was a truly futuristic idea. Now, on the
Speaker 1: ground level of the city, the only way to really
Speaker 1: get around would be by foot. You might be able
Speaker 1: to use something like an electric UH scooter or a
Speaker 1: bicycle as well, although that was more intended for further
Speaker 1: out from the center, but we'll get to that. So
Speaker 1: you'd really be the pedestrian UH wandering around here because
Speaker 1: all the car traffic would be below you. It would
Speaker 1: be underground, and all the public transit would be above
Speaker 1: you on elevated rails, either the people mover on its
Speaker 1: own elevated track or the monorail on its elevated track,
Speaker 1: And those last two the people move around the monorail
Speaker 1: would also be electric powered vehicles, so at least in theory,
Speaker 1: they would operate quietly and they would not generate pollution,
Speaker 1: although I got to back that up a little bit
Speaker 1: because you have to generate the electricity that runs the system.
Speaker 1: So depending upon how you generated the electricity, you can
Speaker 1: still be generating a lot of pollution. It's just to
Speaker 1: be in a different part of the chain, right, a
Speaker 1: different part of the ecosystem. It would be in the
Speaker 1: electricity generation part, but not the direct operation of the vehicle.
Speaker 1: But you still have to look at the big picture.
Speaker 1: You can't just look at tiny sections and just say
Speaker 1: this is automatically better. But it was an interesting idea.
Speaker 1: The monorail would have a station under the hotel at
Speaker 1: the transportation center, as I mentioned, so it would still
Speaker 1: be located on kind of the ground floor of the
Speaker 1: city itself. Right, the transportation center would be on the
Speaker 1: pedestrian level of this city, and the hotel would be
Speaker 1: essentially like the lobby of the hotel as I would imagine,
Speaker 1: it would be floor too. Now on the outskirts of
Speaker 1: this sector, the center, the hub of the city would
Speaker 1: be high density apartment housing. So this would be for uh,
Speaker 1: folks who are working right there in downtown. Might be
Speaker 1: for single people who are working within that city. It
Speaker 1: could be people who are working in the theme park
Speaker 1: and who aren't you know, they don't they don't have
Speaker 1: their own families, but they need a place to live.
Speaker 1: But this would give them very quick access to that
Speaker 1: theme park because again the theme park would be connected
Speaker 1: by monorail to the north. So uh, this was not
Speaker 1: the main part of housing. It was just one element
Speaker 1: of it. The only a small percentage of Epcot's population
Speaker 1: would be living in these high density apartments, according to
Speaker 1: the promotional film. Now the next section out from the center,
Speaker 1: so you've got downtown, you know, the high density apartments.
Speaker 1: Immediately surrounding downtown. Around that was a green belt of parks.
Speaker 1: So the next layer out, if you're thinking of it
Speaker 1: like a target, the next ring outside of the bull's
Speaker 1: eye was the screen elt. So you had parks, you
Speaker 1: had golf courses, sporting fields, you know, football fields, baseball diamonds,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And this would be the section
Speaker 1: of Epcot that would serve as the location also for
Speaker 1: things like schools and churches, and it would be the
Speaker 1: play space for the city where people could come and
Speaker 1: spend time outside. So this is no longer in the bubble.
Speaker 1: This is outside the bubble. And then outside of that
Speaker 1: would be the low density housing, the suburbs of Epcot.
Speaker 1: These would be for homes with uh for families, and
Speaker 1: it would actually hold the majority of Epcot's residents. Most
Speaker 1: people would be living out in these suburbs. Each residential
Speaker 1: area would surround the end of one of those spokes
Speaker 1: I talked about. So if you again imagine a bicycle
Speaker 1: that has spokes leading out from the center wheel, or
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we should say a wagon wheel because there
Speaker 1: has fewer spokes. Uh, each spoke would be surrounded by
Speaker 1: green space. Uh. The spoke itself would represent the act
Speaker 1: for the people mover, So the people mover track would
Speaker 1: go uh out and back from the hub along these spokes.
Speaker 1: Surrounding that track would be this big green space kind
Speaker 1: of like again more parks, golf courses, recreational facilities. And
Speaker 1: on the outer edge of this would actually be the houses.
Speaker 1: And then on the back side of the houses would
Speaker 1: be a road where people could drive their cars before
Speaker 1: going underneath to get to the downtown area if they
Speaker 1: needed to drive their cars. Although Disney's plan was that
Speaker 1: for day to day use, you would not even use
Speaker 1: your car. You would use the people mover transit system
Speaker 1: to get in and out of Epcot. You would only
Speaker 1: use your car if you needed to go further or
Speaker 1: you know, you just want to go take the family
Speaker 1: for a drive. People would either work in the business
Speaker 1: center or in the industrial complexes that were south of
Speaker 1: the community, or in the theme parks that were north
Speaker 1: of the community. In the concept, every citizen of Epcot
Speaker 1: would be guaranteed a job, and the community would be
Speaker 1: home to around twenty thousand people. The community would be
Speaker 1: a model for a city unit, and future cities might
Speaker 1: consist of several communities designed in this way, all linked
Speaker 1: together by monorail lines. And this was an enormously ambitious idea.
Speaker 1: Walt Disney himself admitted that the challenge was far too
Speaker 1: big for any one company to take on by itself.
Speaker 1: Epcot would have to be a joint effort between many
Speaker 1: different companies to become a reality. These would have to
Speaker 1: be companies that wanted to have a spot in that
Speaker 1: industrial complex, for example, where they could experiment with different
Speaker 1: approaches to prototyping and pioneering news systems and practices. The
Speaker 1: theme park would help bring in money to help support
Speaker 1: the infrastructure and would provide employment to many of the
Speaker 1: residents of Epcot. And leading up to this, Disney and
Speaker 1: his team had learned a lot. They learned lessons from
Speaker 1: building out the company's movie studio buildings in Burbank, California.
Speaker 1: They learned even more during the construction and launch of Disneyland. Disneyland,
Speaker 1: you may know also employs the hub and spoke design,
Speaker 1: that radial design. You've got the castle in the center
Speaker 1: and the different lands like fantasy Land, tomorrow Land, frontier Land,
Speaker 1: adventure Land on the outskirts. It follows that same idea
Speaker 1: and it has that identifiable center with the castle that
Speaker 1: lets you figure out where you are in relation to
Speaker 1: everything else pretty quickly. Uh. Walt Disney learned he wanted
Speaker 1: more control over the environment after he built Disneyland, because
Speaker 1: when he built Disneyland, what followed were all these hotels
Speaker 1: and motels popping up around from other, you know, business owners,
Speaker 1: and it became kind of a tourist trappee area around Disneyland,
Speaker 1: and Walt Disney didn't like that at all. He felt
Speaker 1: it marred the appearance of disney Lands. So with Florida,
Speaker 1: he wanted to exert a lot more control over the
Speaker 1: environment so that people would experience it the way he
Speaker 1: wanted them to and that they would not have their
Speaker 1: view of whatever it was that he wanted to look at,
Speaker 1: for example, the Magic Kingdom, they wouldn't. He didn't want
Speaker 1: that marred by Tachi hotels or restaurants. And the company
Speaker 1: had landed some pretty darn good deals with the state
Speaker 1: of Florida. Before this announcement was made. There were lots
Speaker 1: of tax incentives. There were agreements between city, county, and
Speaker 1: state levels of government and the Disney Company. The groundwork
Speaker 1: was laid from a political and administrative side, and the
Speaker 1: stage was set and Disney's plan for a futuristic city,
Speaker 1: one that would cater to pedestrians and serve as a
Speaker 1: platform for American industry and ingenuity, which would then be
Speaker 1: incorporated directly into the homes themselves. People would have the
Speaker 1: latest appliances and they would get updated frequently. It was
Speaker 1: gonna be an incredible city of the future. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have your workplace nearby, recreational facilities at at a just
Speaker 1: a short walk away. It was a phenomenal, phenomenal goal.
Speaker 1: Walt Disney was really gung ho on this and the
Speaker 1: whole idea of the American dream, an American industry and engineering.
Speaker 1: So what the heck happened? Why did this vision that
Speaker 1: Walt Disney had, Why did this never materialize in this way?
Speaker 1: How did we go from an experimental small city to
Speaker 1: a much more modest in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 1: theme park that incorporates some but not all of these
Speaker 1: grand visions. And what's going on with that Cot now, well,
Speaker 1: I'll explain, but first let's take another quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. April nineteen sixty nine, Roy Disney held
Speaker 1: a press conference. At that conference, he renamed the Florida project.
Speaker 1: It had been called disney World. He renamed it Walt
Speaker 1: Disney World in order for it to be a direct
Speaker 1: reference to his brother. He wanted to honor his brother,
Speaker 1: who had passed away in nineteen sixty six. He also
Speaker 1: talked about the launch of what was called Phase one,
Speaker 1: which would be this new theme park which we call
Speaker 1: the Magic Kingdom today. So this was the Florida equivalent
Speaker 1: to Disneyland. There was no real mention of Epcot at
Speaker 1: this press conference. That was a project Walt Disney had
Speaker 1: estimated would take probably about fifteen years to build out
Speaker 1: for its entirety. But Walt's death also meant the EPCOT
Speaker 1: project as it was intended, was doomed to die. Roy
Speaker 1: Disney held a meeting with some of the head imagineers.
Speaker 1: Those are what he refers to as their designers and
Speaker 1: engineers are imagineers imagination and engineering together, and at this
Speaker 1: meeting it became clear that without Walt Disney's energy and
Speaker 1: leadership behind this project, Epcot really didn't have what it
Speaker 1: was going to need to get through the numerous challenges
Speaker 1: that the company was going to face in order to
Speaker 1: actually build out the city. And it wasn't just that
Speaker 1: Walt Disney had a lot of enthusiasm and a lot
Speaker 1: of energy, but as also that he inspired confidence and
Speaker 1: other people, confidence from companies that would need to partner
Speaker 1: in order for this project have come to life. Walt
Speaker 1: could convince people to buy in to his goals, but
Speaker 1: with his death, landing those partnerships with companies, which would
Speaker 1: be an absolute necessity to get the project of this
Speaker 1: size moving, would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. So
Speaker 1: without Walt, there really wasn't a chance for Epcot as
Speaker 1: the original vision had laid it out. Epcot Center, the
Speaker 1: theme park, as the story goes, grew out of two
Speaker 1: different park ideas proposed by imagineers John Hench and Marty Sklar.
Speaker 1: One was a project called the World Showcase, which would
Speaker 1: bring select nations of the world together into a theme park.
Speaker 1: Each nation would have its own section or pavilion, and
Speaker 1: each nation would employee people from those countries to work
Speaker 1: in their respective countries pavilion. The other concept was one
Speaker 1: called Future World, which would showcase cutting edge technology, and
Speaker 1: combining them together would create sort of what they thought
Speaker 1: of as a permanent World's Fair as an amusement park,
Speaker 1: and that would become Epcot Center. So Epcot Center would
Speaker 1: incorporate some of the principles that were in the original
Speaker 1: Epcot concept, like that that shopping district Downtown was very
Speaker 1: similar in some ways to what the World Showcase was
Speaker 1: going to be, but this was going to be a
Speaker 1: theme park, not an actual community where people would live.
Speaker 1: So gone is the climate controlled Downtown Center, probably the
Speaker 1: harshest blow of them all, if you asked me. Gone
Speaker 1: were the houses, Gone were the apartments. The proposed transportation
Speaker 1: systems were no longer really necessary, or at least there
Speaker 1: was no easy way to incorporate them into the design
Speaker 1: of the park, which is a shame because, as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, it's twice the size of the Magic Kingdom,
Speaker 1: three times the size of Disneyland. Walking around Epcot is tough.
Speaker 1: If you walk around the entire park, it it'll it'll
Speaker 1: hurt you. Tutsis in the original Epcot concept residents would
Speaker 1: use bicycles or electric scooters to travel the last mile
Speaker 1: between homes and public transit systems. Those would be right out,
Speaker 1: although depending on the time of year, you can sometimes
Speaker 1: find a an offer to take segue tours of parts
Speaker 1: of the park. I didn't see it on my last trip,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if they're still doing it, but
Speaker 1: in the past they have. But in the theme park's
Speaker 1: Future World section, there were originally nine pavilions, not not
Speaker 1: on opening not all nine were available on opening day,
Speaker 1: but there were nine pavilions that were meant to embody
Speaker 1: certain fundamental aspects of industry and the future. So here
Speaker 1: are the original nine pavilions of Future World. And I'm
Speaker 1: not going to go into all the different countries of
Speaker 1: World showcase. Uh. There are eleven of those currently and
Speaker 1: there's plans of possibly opening up another one, maybe two
Speaker 1: in the near future. Uh. The next one that's rumored
Speaker 1: to be under consideration is India. But let's get to
Speaker 1: Future World first. You have the iconic geodesic sphere structure
Speaker 1: that everyone associates with e cut and that is Spaceship Earth.
Speaker 1: It's still there, it's still a ride, it's still operating.
Speaker 1: The theme of Spaceship Earth is communication and how the
Speaker 1: development of communication tools has shaped human history, at least
Speaker 1: in an idealistic vision. It is also about the capability
Speaker 1: of communication to bring us closer together. Uh. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think that communication has brought everybody closer together, but
Speaker 1: it certainly has facilitated lots of flame wars. Next, we're
Speaker 1: a pair of buildings behind Spaceship Earth that were originally
Speaker 1: called Communicore, although they later became known as Interventions, and
Speaker 1: even that got stripped down. So now you've got on
Speaker 1: one side what used to be one part of Interventions
Speaker 1: is a meeting great section for various Disney characters. There's
Speaker 1: also a Starbucks over there, and uh a drink station. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other side is still Interventions. But Communicore was meant
Speaker 1: to be the home of cutting edge technologies, specifically with
Speaker 1: a consumer focus, and I'm sure one reason it got
Speaker 1: paired down is that technology changes really really quickly. So
Speaker 1: you would install an exhibit and then it would go
Speaker 1: obsolete not long after the installation, because real world technology
Speaker 1: would catch up or pass whatever it was that was
Speaker 1: on display. So very challenging to keep that going in fact,
Speaker 1: you could argue that for pretty much all the future
Speaker 1: world you call it future world, the future is always coming,
Speaker 1: and if you don't keep upgrading your park and updating it,
Speaker 1: then it quickly ends up becoming a relic. You could
Speaker 1: argue that parts of Upcot kind of fall into that category.
Speaker 1: Next was the Universe of Energy that was all about
Speaker 1: our energy sources, things like fossil fuels and renewable energy.
Speaker 1: The pavilion featured moving theaters. You would go and sit
Speaker 1: down and the actual theater you were in would turn
Speaker 1: into kind of a very slow moving ride and take
Speaker 1: you two from scene to scene, and the pavilion would
Speaker 1: change in nine to become Ellen's Energy Crisis and then
Speaker 1: Ellen's Energy Adventure, and that version of the attraction was
Speaker 1: hosted and narrated by Ellen Degenerous. This attraction is now closed.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's being dismantled. It's being demolished to make
Speaker 1: way for a new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. And
Speaker 1: when I was at Upcut, they were busy disassembling the
Speaker 1: old building. In fact, I actually went there on two
Speaker 1: different days and the whole front facade of the building
Speaker 1: was gone the second time I went. Then there was
Speaker 1: the World of Motion, and as the name suggests, that
Speaker 1: was all about the future of transportation. Had an omni
Speaker 1: mover vehicle kind of like the systems that are in
Speaker 1: things like the Haunted Mansion, and this omni mover vehicle
Speaker 1: would take guests through a ride that was all about
Speaker 1: the the importance of transportation systems and various vehicles. That
Speaker 1: pavilion was shut down and replaced in nineteen by test track,
Speaker 1: so it no longer exists. Next, we have the Land Pavilion, which,
Speaker 1: like Spaceship Earth, still exists at upcut. Thank goodness, we've
Speaker 1: we've actually landed on our second pavilion that's still around.
Speaker 1: Not all the original attractions that opened with the Land
Speaker 1: are still there. However, the Land is all about agriculture
Speaker 1: and food technology, or at least it used to be.
Speaker 1: It still has the Listen to the Land boat right
Speaker 1: in it, although now it's called Living with the Land.
Speaker 1: But it's the same essential thing where you look at
Speaker 1: different ways of growing and cultivating food. But gone is
Speaker 1: the film symbiosis that was there on opening day. It's
Speaker 1: no longer there. Gone is Kitchen Cabaret, also known as
Speaker 1: Food Rocks when it was overhauled. In place of that
Speaker 1: attraction is now the ride Soaring. But Kitchen Cabaret was
Speaker 1: a show that had animatronic food characters that would sing
Speaker 1: various songs with hot tunes like Veggie, Veggie, Fruit Fruit.
Speaker 1: I kind of loved that attraction, but to be fair,
Speaker 1: I also went to Epcot when it was first opened
Speaker 1: and I was very young. In addition, a few other
Speaker 1: pavilions were built after the initial opening in nine eight
Speaker 1: two That included Horizons that opened in nineteen three that
Speaker 1: integrated the various concepts a future world into what it
Speaker 1: would be like to live in a typical home in
Speaker 1: America in the future. It was meant to show how transportation, communication, energy,
Speaker 1: and all the rest would come together to make our
Speaker 1: future is incredible. And the ride featured a user interface.
Speaker 1: You could actually choose options in the ride, and the
Speaker 1: ride would show you different things based upon your choices.
Speaker 1: It was actually pretty nifty. It was sponsored by GE,
Speaker 1: but GE pulled its sponsorship in The ride would be
Speaker 1: opened and closed for the next few years, you know,
Speaker 1: operating seasonally, but it closed permanently in nine The entire
Speaker 1: building was demolished the following year and where that used
Speaker 1: to be is now where Mission Space sits in Upcut.
Speaker 1: The Imagination Pavilion also opened in nineteen eighty three. It's
Speaker 1: still at Upcut. It was themed around creativity and imagination
Speaker 1: had a ride in which you encountered a character called
Speaker 1: dream Finder and his friendly little critter named Figment. The
Speaker 1: ride has been revamped a couple of times. The section
Speaker 1: called a Man and Works has been shut down, part
Speaker 1: of it has been turned into a lounge for Disney
Speaker 1: Vacation Club members, and the rest is unused. Although I
Speaker 1: understand you can actually glimpse it at certain sections of
Speaker 1: the Imagination Pavilion, you just can't go into it anymore,
Speaker 1: which is kind of sad. The ride is typically only
Speaker 1: operational during really busney busy days, so it's kind of seasonal.
Speaker 1: The Living Seas opened in NINETI, so four years after
Speaker 1: the park had opened. It was the world's largest aquarium
Speaker 1: when it opened. Is no longer that it included a
Speaker 1: ride that would involve visitors going into chambers that were
Speaker 1: meant to look like special elevators. They were called hydro laders,
Speaker 1: and they appeared to descend in a watery tunnel and actuality.
Speaker 1: You weren't going anywhere. The floor would shake a bit,
Speaker 1: the walls would shake a bit, and some bubbles through
Speaker 1: the windows would create the the illusion that you were
Speaker 1: descending in water. But then can we get on an
Speaker 1: Omnimover style ride and you would ride past several aquarium
Speaker 1: scenes before were getting to an open area where you
Speaker 1: could look at different sea creatures. The ride got re
Speaker 1: themed as Finding Nemo Ride in two thousand four. The
Speaker 1: Wonders of Life Pavilion joined Future World in nine and
Speaker 1: was themed around life and health. The Human Body had
Speaker 1: a ride called Body Wars, which used the same technology
Speaker 1: as the popular Star Tours rides would later on. There
Speaker 1: were other attractions in that pavilion as well, like a
Speaker 1: show called Cranium Command, which was absolutely brilliant and I
Speaker 1: loved it. In two thousand four, the Wonders of Life
Speaker 1: Pavilion would switch to seasonal operations. In two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: it closed permanently and the entire thing was gutted. Disney
Speaker 1: now uses the building for special functions. For example, on
Speaker 1: my most recent visit, it served as the festival center
Speaker 1: for the Food and Wine Festival. Today, Future World has
Speaker 1: Spaceship Earth. About half of interventions UH Mission space test
Speaker 1: track imagination sometimes, but Land and the Seas would Nemo
Speaker 1: and Friends. Much of the theming has transitioned away from
Speaker 1: what Walt Disney's original vision was all about, largely, I
Speaker 1: think because a lot of those attractions depended heavily upon
Speaker 1: sponsorships from other companies, and some of those companies don't
Speaker 1: even exist anymore. They've gone out of business. Some of
Speaker 1: them pulled their sponsorships. Maybe they felt they weren't getting
Speaker 1: a really strong return on their investment, or they needed
Speaker 1: the money for something else, but whatever the case. Right now,
Speaker 1: to me, Epcot feels like a park that lacks a
Speaker 1: real identity, and there's honestly not that much to do
Speaker 1: from an attraction standpoint when you go to Epcot, Like,
Speaker 1: you can walk around the whole park of Epcot and think,
Speaker 1: I rode three rides and there might be one more
Speaker 1: in the entire park that I haven't gone on. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of shops you can go to,
Speaker 1: and there are restaurants you can go to, and there
Speaker 1: are a couple of films you can watch in the
Speaker 1: World Showcase, but there's not a whole lot to do.
Speaker 1: Just when you consider how big that park is, there
Speaker 1: are some big plans for the future, including a potential
Speaker 1: new countries in the World Showcase. Like I mentioned, the
Speaker 1: Guardians of the Galaxy ride is going to be the
Speaker 1: largest indoor roller coaster in the world as far as
Speaker 1: I understand it, But it doesn't sound like it's going
Speaker 1: to get closer to what Walt Disney's original vision was.
Speaker 1: In fact, it sounds like it's moving even further away
Speaker 1: from that. Now. There are other things I could talk
Speaker 1: about in this episode. I could talk about Celebration, Florida.
Speaker 1: That is an actual residential area on Disney World property,
Speaker 1: but it's also a radically different realization of the suburbs
Speaker 1: of Epcot that Walt Disney had in mind. For one thing,
Speaker 1: the whole idea that people would use public transit and
Speaker 1: that they would use bicycles for that last mile that
Speaker 1: went right out the window over in Celebration, that is
Speaker 1: a very that's very much a you need a car
Speaker 1: to get around kind of place. So that was our
Speaker 1: episode about Epcot. Hope you guys liked it. If you
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future episodes, reach out to me.
Speaker 1: You can send me a message on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle is tech stuff h s W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Y Text Stuff is
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