Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: recently I went on a vacation to the most magical
Speaker 1: place on Earth. Not the happiest place on Earth. That's Disneyland.
Speaker 1: The most magical place on Earth is disney World. And yes,
Speaker 1: that's how the company refers to them. And the reason
Speaker 1: I mentioned that is because back on October one, two
Speaker 1: Walt Disney World opened its Phase two theme park. The
Speaker 1: original park, the Magic Kingdom, was Phase one that had
Speaker 1: opened on October one, nineteen seventy one, and this episode
Speaker 1: is publishing on October one, two thousand eighteen. So I
Speaker 1: figure I would do an episode specifically about the concept
Speaker 1: behind the original Epcot and how that was different from
Speaker 1: the theme park that would open thirty six years from now.
Speaker 1: Like back back thirty six years ago, back in time. Well,
Speaker 1: today's Epcot is presented as a proper noun, So Epcot
Speaker 1: is just its name, Big E Small pc Ot, But
Speaker 1: originally the name was actually an acronym. Now there's a
Speaker 1: joke about what that acronym stands for. The joke says
Speaker 1: that stands for every person comes out tired because EPCOT
Speaker 1: is an enormous theme park. It's twice the size of
Speaker 1: the Magic Kingdom, three times the size of Disneyland, and
Speaker 1: there's very little shade in the Florida whether can be
Speaker 1: a bit unforgiving for much of the year, for example,
Speaker 1: when I was there. But in fact, the acronym really
Speaker 1: stood for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, and it was
Speaker 1: one of Walt Disney's dream projects, a truly ambitious goal
Speaker 1: that he had set now before nineteen EPCOT was a
Speaker 1: name only a relatively few number of people had ever heard,
Speaker 1: uh it had not escaped the company and a few
Speaker 1: small or a few partners potential partners. So Walt Disney
Speaker 1: had been interested in creating a prototype city that incorporated
Speaker 1: cutting edge technology. It would have sophisticated urban planning from
Speaker 1: the get go, and this was an idea he came
Speaker 1: up with not long after Disneyland was established in the fifties.
Speaker 1: He had previously explored the possibility of creating such a city.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty nine, he got an opportunity with some
Speaker 1: developers outside of Palm Beach, Florida. He had previously looked
Speaker 1: at New York as a site, but determined that that
Speaker 1: was not a very good site for an amusement park,
Speaker 1: largely because of whether it would probably mean that the
Speaker 1: theme park would only really be an operation for part
Speaker 1: of the year, and he had year long operations because
Speaker 1: it was the most efficient use of the space. So
Speaker 1: he had looked around the Eastern Seaboard. He looked at
Speaker 1: Palm Beach, Florida. It would have been a joint effort
Speaker 1: between Disney's company uh NBC r c A and a
Speaker 1: billionaire named John D. MacArthur, but the plan fell through.
Speaker 1: Our CIA went through some financial difficulties and kind of
Speaker 1: had to withdraw from it, and there were disagreements between
Speaker 1: Roy Disney, who was sort of the financial genius behind
Speaker 1: the Disney Company, and MacArthur. So that didn't go any
Speaker 1: further than that. But Whalt Disney had really started to
Speaker 1: think about this idea of creating a city, and he
Speaker 1: was resolved to give it a shot if he had
Speaker 1: the chance. The first time the public got to hear
Speaker 1: at least a hint about Disney's dream of this community
Speaker 1: of tomorrow would be back in November nineteen at a
Speaker 1: press conference. This was a press conference where the company,
Speaker 1: the Disney Company, revealed that had purchased nearly twenty eight
Speaker 1: thousand acres of land in central Florida. Now, at that
Speaker 1: press conference, Walt Disney announced that they had in mind
Speaker 1: something much more than an entertainment offering like Disneyland. Now
Speaker 1: that's not to disparage Disneyland. I truly love that theme park,
Speaker 1: but rather to say that Walt Disney had a larger
Speaker 1: vision for the Orlando deal. Initially, though, he was rather
Speaker 1: coy with sharing those ideas. They the details for what
Speaker 1: they were planning were pretty sparse at that press conference, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, you can watch that press conference is
Speaker 1: on YouTube. You can pull up the November nine announcement
Speaker 1: of what would become Walt Disney World. At this point,
Speaker 1: it was the Florida project. Walt Disney didn't want to
Speaker 1: commit publicly to any one plan that early in the process.
Speaker 1: He would say that he had many ideas and he
Speaker 1: wanted 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 hearkened 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 fifteenth, nineteen sixty six, due to lung cancer.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of months after his death, the Walt
Speaker 1: Disney Company sent out press kits to the media, including
Speaker 1: The New York Times, and those press kits included plays
Speaker 1: for 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 prescott where concept images of
Speaker 1: elements of this city, one of those concept images showed
Speaker 1: a collection of buildings laid out around in a hub
Speaker 1: and wheel pattern of what the company referred to as
Speaker 1: the radial design that would be common to all elements
Speaker 1: of this new city. You would see this same sort
Speaker 1: of basic element of design repeated throughout the various incarnations
Speaker 1: each building. Uh 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 Breasts kit, so its 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 East. 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 bottomost layer would be the the the level
Speaker 1: for supply trucks, so trucks carrying important supplies for the
Speaker 1: community would actually travel on the lowest level and they
Speaker 1: would have direct access to things like freight elevators, and
Speaker 1: then commuter traffic would be a level above that, but
Speaker 1: still below ground, and then you would have the ground
Speaker 1: floor where people could walk around. Above that would be
Speaker 1: elevated tracks, and you would have a system that was
Speaker 1: essentially the wed Way people mover. Anyone who's been to
Speaker 1: Disneyland or Walt Disney World is probably somewhat familiar with
Speaker 1: the people Mover, and that would be sort of a
Speaker 1: short distance, slow public transit offering, not not a fast travel.
Speaker 1: But then across from that is an elevated monorail, and
Speaker 1: that was meant to be for longer distances and faster travel.
Speaker 1: So according to the press kit, the Transportation Lobby will
Speaker 1: be located at the very heart of Epcot, directly beneath
Speaker 1: the thirty story theme Hotel. This will be the central
Speaker 1: arrival departure point for all passengers using the monorail or
Speaker 1: the newly designed wed Way people mover. Another drawing showed
Speaker 1: a large indoor shopping district that was meant to hold
Speaker 1: imported merchandise, foreign cuisine, dinner shows, and roving entertainers native
Speaker 1: to many lands. So he started to hear a little
Speaker 1: elements that you might recognize if you've been to the
Speaker 1: Epcot theme park, but these were meant on a much
Speaker 1: grander scale. This press kitt, by the way, was just
Speaker 1: a taste of the concept. Walt Disney, back in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, just a couple of months before he passed away,
Speaker 1: had actually shot a twenty four minute film about this concept.
Speaker 1: The film would premiere in February nineteen six seven, so
Speaker 1: two months after Disney had passed away. In that film,
Speaker 1: Disney would mention that the details of what was going
Speaker 1: on 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 just be one small component of the
Speaker 1: new project, because again the land in Florida was enormous.
Speaker 1: You would also have hotels, motels, recreational facilities, and much more.
Speaker 1: For example, the plans also included an airport of the
Speaker 1: future at the southern end of the property, opposite where
Speaker 1: the theme park was to be located. So the theme
Speaker 1: park was to be at the north end, and this
Speaker 1: airport would have been at the southern end. The airport
Speaker 1: would then feed into what was labeled as an entrance
Speaker 1: complex was a little bit further to the north, and
Speaker 1: that would be the entry point for visitors to Disney World.
Speaker 1: They would go through this kind of like main gates
Speaker 1: in 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 monorail system. And to call it
Speaker 1: ambitious would be a massive understatement. And Epcot was, as
Speaker 1: Walt Disney himself put it in that nineteen sixty six
Speaker 1: film that debuted in sixty seven, the heart of the operation.
Speaker 1: It was what he was most excited about. That's what
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: sponsor in that nineteen sixty six film, Walt Disney said
Speaker 1: that the primary factor that would drive the design principles
Speaker 1: for Epcot would be public need. That designing the city
Speaker 1: with the public need and mind from the get go
Speaker 1: would create the best chance of building a community that
Speaker 1: met those needs from the start. So ideally, you would
Speaker 1: take all the knowledge accumulated through decades of urban planning
Speaker 1: and 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 vibrant 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 at 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: epp Cut was a city in a bubble, which, if
Speaker 1: you've experienced Florida heat and humidity, was likely a big
Speaker 1: selling point to a lot of the people who were
Speaker 1: thinking about this design because being able to stroll around
Speaker 1: a shopping plaza, or walk to work, or just wandering
Speaker 1: downtown without being subjected to the swampy mess that is
Speaker 1: a Florida summer was a truly futuristic idea. Now, on
Speaker 1: the ground level of the city, the only way to
Speaker 1: really get around would be by foot. You might be
Speaker 1: able to use something like an electric UH scooter or
Speaker 1: a bicycle as well, although that was more intended for
Speaker 1: further out from the center, but we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: So you'd really be the pedestrian UH wandering around here
Speaker 1: because all the car traffic would be below you. It
Speaker 1: would be underground, and all the public transit would be
Speaker 1: above you on elevated rails, either the people mover on
Speaker 1: its 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 could
Speaker 1: still be generating a lot of pollution just to be
Speaker 1: in a different part of the chain, right, a different
Speaker 1: part of the ecosystem. It would be in the electricity
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: uh folks who are working right there in downtown. Might
Speaker 1: be for single people who are working within that city.
Speaker 1: It could be people who are working in the theme
Speaker 1: park and who aren't you know, they don't they don't
Speaker 1: have 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 apartment um according
Speaker 1: to the promotional film. Now, the next section out from
Speaker 1: the center, so you've got downtown, you have the high
Speaker 1: density apartments. Immediately surrounding downtown around that was a green
Speaker 1: belt of parks. So the next layer out, if you're
Speaker 1: thinking of it like a target, the next ring outside
Speaker 1: of the bull's eye was the screen belt. So you
Speaker 1: had parks, you had golf courses, sporting fields, you know,
Speaker 1: football fields, baseball diamonds, that kind of stuff. And this
Speaker 1: would be the section of Apcot that would serve as
Speaker 1: the location also for things like schools and churches, and
Speaker 1: it would be the play space for the city where
Speaker 1: people could come and spend time outside, So this is
Speaker 1: no longer in the bubble. This is outside the bubble.
Speaker 1: And then outside of that would be the low density
Speaker 1: housing the suburbs of Epcot. These would be for homes
Speaker 1: with UH for families, and it would actually hold the
Speaker 1: majority of Epcot's residents. Most people would be living out
Speaker 1: in these suburbs. Each residential area would surround the end
Speaker 1: of one of those spokes I talked about. So if
Speaker 1: you again imagine a bicycle that has spokes leading out
Speaker 1: from the center wheel or maybe maybe we should say
Speaker 1: a wagon wheel, because as fewer spokes uh, each spoke
Speaker 1: would be surrounded by green space. UH. The spoke itself
Speaker 1: would represent the track for the people mover, so the
Speaker 1: people mover track would go UH out and back from
Speaker 1: the hub along these spokes. Surrounding that track would be
Speaker 1: this big green space kind of like UM again, more parks,
Speaker 1: golf courses, recreational facilities. And on the outer edge of
Speaker 1: this would actually be the houses. And then on the
Speaker 1: back side of the houses would be a road where
Speaker 1: people could drive their cars before going underneath to get
Speaker 1: to the downtown area if they needed to drive their cars.
Speaker 1: Although Disney's plan was that for day to day use,
Speaker 1: you would not even use your car. You would use
Speaker 1: the people mover transit system to get in and out
Speaker 1: of Epcot. You would only use your car if you
Speaker 1: needed to go further or you know, you just want
Speaker 1: to go take the family for a drive. People would
Speaker 1: either work in the business center, or in the industrial
Speaker 1: complexes that were south of the community, or in the
Speaker 1: theme parks that were north of the community. In the concept,
Speaker 1: every citizen of Epcot would be guaranteed a job, and
Speaker 1: the community would be home to around twenty thousand people.
Speaker 1: The community would be a model for a city unit,
Speaker 1: and future cities might consist of several communities designed in
Speaker 1: this way, all linked together by monorail lines. And this
Speaker 1: was an enormously ambitious idea. Walt Disney himself admitted that
Speaker 1: the challenge was far too big for any one company
Speaker 1: to take on by itself. Epcot would have to be
Speaker 1: a joint effort between many different companies to become a reality.
Speaker 1: These would have to be companies that wanted to have
Speaker 1: a spot in that industrial complex, for example, where they
Speaker 1: could experiment with different approaches to prototyping and pioneering. News
Speaker 1: systems and practices. The theme park would help bring in
Speaker 1: money to help support the infrastructure and would provide employment
Speaker 1: to many of the residents of Epcot. And leading up
Speaker 1: to this, Disney and his team had learned a lot.
Speaker 1: They learned lessons from building out the company's movie studio
Speaker 1: buildings in Burbank, California. They learned even more during the
Speaker 1: construction and launch of Disneyland. Disney Land, you may know,
Speaker 1: also employs the hub and spoke design, that radial design.
Speaker 1: You've got the castle in the center, and the different
Speaker 1: lands like fantasy Land, tomorrow Land, Frontier Land, Adventure Land
Speaker 1: on the outskirts. It follows that same idea and it
Speaker 1: has that identifiable center with the castle that lets you
Speaker 1: figure out where you are in relation to everything else
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Uh. Walt Disney learned he wanted more control
Speaker 1: over the environment after he built Disneyland, because when he
Speaker 1: built Disneyland, what followed were all these hotels and motels
Speaker 1: popping up around from other, you know, business owners, and
Speaker 1: 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 Disneyland, So with Florida, he
Speaker 1: wanted to exert a lot more control over the environment
Speaker 1: so that people would experience it the way he wanted
Speaker 1: them to and that they would not have their view
Speaker 1: of whatever it was that he wanted to look at.
Speaker 1: For example, the Magic Kingdom, he 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 in 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 in 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
Speaker 1: we'll I'll explain, but first let's take another quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. On April, Roy Disney held a
Speaker 1: 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 in its entirety. But Walt's death also meant the
Speaker 1: Epcot project as it was intended was doomed to die.
Speaker 1: Roy Disney held a meeting with some of the head imagineers.
Speaker 1: Those are what Disney 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 inner g
Speaker 1: and leadership behind this project, Epcot really didn't have what
Speaker 1: it was going to need to get through the numerous
Speaker 1: challenges that the company was going to face in order
Speaker 1: to actually build out the city. And it wasn't just
Speaker 1: that Walt Disney had a lot of enthusiasm and a
Speaker 1: lot of energy, but it's also that he inspired confidence
Speaker 1: in other people, confidence from companies that would need to
Speaker 1: partner in order for this project have come to life.
Speaker 1: Walt could convince people to buy in to his goals,
Speaker 1: but with his death, landing those partnerships with companies, which
Speaker 1: would be an absolute necessity to get the project of
Speaker 1: this size moving, would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible.
Speaker 1: So without Walt, there really wasn't a chance for Epcot
Speaker 1: as the original vision had laid it out. Epcot Center,
Speaker 1: the theme park, as the story goes, grew out of
Speaker 1: two different park ideas proposed by imagineers John Hench and
Speaker 1: Marty Sklar. One was a project called the World Showcase,
Speaker 1: which would bring select nations of the world together into
Speaker 1: a theme park. Each nation would have its own section
Speaker 1: or pavilion, and each nation would employ people from those
Speaker 1: countries to work in their respective countries pavilion. The other
Speaker 1: concept was one called Future World, which would showcase cutting
Speaker 1: edge technology and combining them together would create sort of
Speaker 1: what they thought of as a permanent World's Fair as
Speaker 1: an amusement park, and that would become Epcot Center. So
Speaker 1: Epcot Center would incorporate some of the principles that were
Speaker 1: in the original Epcot concept, like that that shopping district
Speaker 1: Downtown was very similar in some ways to what the
Speaker 1: World Showcase was going to be, but this was going
Speaker 1: to be a theme park, not an actual community where
Speaker 1: people would live. So gone was the climate controlled Downtown Center.
Speaker 1: Probably the harshest blow of them all if you asked me,
Speaker 1: Gone were the houses, Gone were the apartments? The proposed
Speaker 1: transportation systems were no longer really necessary, or at least
Speaker 1: there was no easy way to incorporate them into the
Speaker 1: design of the park, which is a shame because, as
Speaker 1: I 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 industry and the future. So here are
Speaker 1: the original nine pavilions of Future World. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into all the different countries of World Showcase. Um,
Speaker 1: there are eleven of those currently and there's plans of
Speaker 1: possibly opening up another one, maybe two in the near future. Um.
Speaker 1: The next one that's rumored to be under consideration is India.
Speaker 1: But let's get to future world. First, you have the
Speaker 1: iconic geodesic sphere structure that everyone associates with have cut,
Speaker 1: and that is Spaceship Earth. It's still there, it's still
Speaker 1: a ride, it's still operating. The theme of Spaceship Earth
Speaker 1: is communication and how the development of communication tools has
Speaker 1: shaped human history, at least in an idealistic vision. It
Speaker 1: is also about the capability of communication to bring us
Speaker 1: closer together. Uh. I don't necessarily think that communication has
Speaker 1: brought everybody closer together, but it certainly has facilitated lots
Speaker 1: of flame wars. Next, we're a pair of buildings behind
Speaker 1: Spaceship Earth that were originally called Communicore, although they later
Speaker 1: became known as Interventions, and even that got stripped down.
Speaker 1: So now you've got on one side what used to
Speaker 1: be one part of Interventions is a meeting greet section
Speaker 1: for various Disney characters. There's also a Starbucks over there,
Speaker 1: and uh a drink station. Uh. The other side is
Speaker 1: still interventions. But Communicore was meant to be the home
Speaker 1: of cutting edge technologies, specifically with a consumer focus, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure one reason it got paired down is that
Speaker 1: technology changes really really quickly. So you would install an
Speaker 1: exhibit and then it would go obsolete not long after
Speaker 1: the installation, because real world technology would catch up or
Speaker 1: pass whatever it was that was on display. So very
Speaker 1: challenging to keep that going. In fact, you could argue
Speaker 1: that for pretty much all the future world, you call
Speaker 1: it future world, the future is always coming, and if
Speaker 1: you don't keep upgrading your park and updating it, then
Speaker 1: it quickly ends up becoming a relic. You could argue
Speaker 1: that parts of Upcut 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 down,
Speaker 1: and the actual theater you were in would turn into
Speaker 1: kind of a very slow moving ride and take you
Speaker 1: two from scene to scene, and the pavilion would change
Speaker 1: in nine to become Ellen's Energy Crisis and then Ellen's
Speaker 1: Energy Adventure, and that version of the attraction was hosted
Speaker 1: 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 nine 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 night that integrated
Speaker 1: the various concepts of future world into what it would
Speaker 1: be like to live in a typical home in America
Speaker 1: in the future. And I 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 and the
Speaker 1: entire building was demolished the following year, and where that
Speaker 1: used 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 Imagine Works has been shut down, part of it
Speaker 1: has been turned into a lounge for Disney Vacation Club members,
Speaker 1: and the rest is unused. Although I understand you can
Speaker 1: actually glimpse it at certain sections of the Imagination Pavilion,
Speaker 1: you just can't go into it anymore, which is kind
Speaker 1: of sad. The ride is typically only operational during really
Speaker 1: businy busy days, so it's kind of seasonal. The Living
Speaker 1: Seas opened in nineteen six, so four years after the
Speaker 1: park had opened. It was the world's largest aquarium when
Speaker 1: it opened is no longer that. It included a ride
Speaker 1: that would involve visitors going into chambers that were meant
Speaker 1: to look like special elevators. They were called hydro laders,
Speaker 1: and they appeared to descend in a watery tunnel and
Speaker 1: actuality 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 uh, the illusion that you
Speaker 1: were descending in water. But then can we get on
Speaker 1: an omnimover style ride and you would ride past several
Speaker 1: aquarium scenes before 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 UH the Land and the Seas would
Speaker 1: Nemo and Friends. Much of the theming has transitioned away
Speaker 1: from what Walt Disney's original vision was all about, largely,
Speaker 1: I think, because all all 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
Speaker 1: think I rode three rides and there might be one
Speaker 1: more 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 there's more I
Speaker 1: could talk about, but you know I've I've gone on
Speaker 1: long enough about this, so instead let's just wrap up.
Speaker 1: If you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
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