WEBVTT - TechStuff ReRun: The Wonderful World of Audio Animatronics 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.360 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.880 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:19.560 How Stuff Works and I Heart Radio and a lot 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.120 of all things tech, and today I'm going to be 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.160 bringing you a classic episode of tech Stuff. Yes, I 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.000 know it is not a Friday when we normally run 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:34.040 classic episodes. But behind the curtain, guys, I'm currently getting 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.640 ready to go on a vacation to Disney World, which 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:39.800 is awesome. I'm gonna be there with my family. I'm 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.640 really looking forward to it. But it meant that I 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:44.960 had a limited amount of time and not enough time 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.479 to create a whole new episode. But I didn't want 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.839 to leave you guys without any episode, so instead I'm 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.840 bringing you one from the fairly recent past that I 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:58.440 think thematically ties into my vacation. This episode is titled 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:03.240 The Wonderful World of Audio Animatronics and originally aired on 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:08.760 June twenty three, two thousand seventeen. And audio Animatronics is 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.000 you know. It's the technology that Disney has used to 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.319 bring to life lots of different characters on its various 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.920 rides and attractions, So this definitely ties in to what 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.120 I am about to embark upon, and I am very 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.120 hopeful that my little five year old niece ends up 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.399 being just as captivated with audio animatronics as I was 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.640 when I was her age. So sit back, relax, and 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:38.520 enjoy this classic episode. I am an enormous Disney fanatic. 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:43.600 I consider myself a Disney fan of film, of television, 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.720 of their theme parks, probably not necessarily in that order, 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.240 maybe film first, then theme parks, then television, but I'm 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.120 a huge fan of Disney stuff. And recently, when I 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.440 was on a trip to Los Angeles to attend E three, 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.360 I found myself with a day with nothing to do. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.120 I had hoped to book some meetings that did not happen, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.240 So instead of just sitting around my hotel room feeling 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.320 sorry for myself in a city where I really didn't 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.640 know anybody, I decided to hop on down to Orange County, California, 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.880 that is the home of Disneyland, and to go to 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.880 the happiest place on Earth. It was not my first 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.560 time at Disneyland, but this was the first time I'd 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.880 ever gone to Disneyland completely on my own, and I 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:30.960 was a little worried about that, like, how am I 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.840 going to have fun just by myself. Turns out Disneyland 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.560 did most of the work for me. I didn't have 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.120 to worry so much and had a great time. But 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.200 it also reminded me of how much I love the 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.600 technology and innovation that goes behind Disneyland. And honestly, I 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.400 could do maybe a dozen episodes about different technologies that 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.640 were pioneered or perfected at the Disney theme parks, because 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.480 there are a ton of them that Disney either directly 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.720 had a hand in developing or tweaked it in a 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.239 way to elevate it beyond what it used to be. 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.520 There are plenty of examples of that. Today, we're specifically 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.839 going to focus on audio animatronics, And for those who 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.440 have not heard what this term is or have any 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.160 idea what it means, this was a system that Walt 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:26.840 Disney's company pioneered to create animated physical, three dimensional figures. 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.080 So in a way, it's kind of similar to puppetry, 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.080 right with a puppet, typically you're manipulating some sort of 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:38.040 three dimensional figure beyond shadow puppets and that sort of puppetry, 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.000 which is amazing all on its own. I'm talking about 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:46.080 your traditional hand puppets, rod puppets, and marionettes. That involves 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:50.000 manipulating an inanimate object in a way to make it 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:54.320 seem like it has life, that has anima, and that 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.560 you are using some sort of system, whether it's rods 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.440 or you know, the puppet is essentially a glove puppet, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.720 or you're using strings with a marionette to create this 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.760 illusion of movement. Well, Disney wanted to create something similar, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.480 only these would run on a mechanical system that would 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:17.560 be painstakingly programmed rather than being under the direct control 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.880 of a human being. Those figures, when they're working properly, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.600 would replicate those same motions and have the same performance 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.800 every single time. So the time the character is doing 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:34.200 a show, it's exactly the way it was the first time. 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.040 So once you perfect a show and you program that 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.400 into these these figures, you then have the perfect show 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.840 every single time you run it, assuming everything is working properly. Now, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.160 anyone who has been to Disney enough times knows that's 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.520 a big assumption to make. Sometimes things just don't do 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.839 not work really well. I'll tell you about one of 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.679 those times that I experienced firsthand later on in this show. 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.760 But the technology itself is phenomenal, and even when it 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.200 isn't working properly, that does not take away from how 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:12.360 amazing this tech really is, especially when you consider what 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.800 people had to work with back in the fifties and 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.800 early sixties when they were first developing these systems. It 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:24.080 is pretty amazing stuff. Now. The reason why Disney wanted 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.159 this in the first place is he really loved the 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:31.600 idea of creating a real, three dimensional experience similar to 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.839 what you would get with an animated film. Animated films 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.360 can be perfected right. You can sit there and sketch 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.120 it out and get it just right before you release 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:43.440 it as a movie. He wanted to have that same 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.160 sort of experience, but in the real physical world. He 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.320 was a stickler for perfection, had very, very very high standards, 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.360 and and the people who worked for him they also 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.440 would end up having very high standards. Everyone wanted to 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:03.440 make sure that they met Disney's expectations. Now you can 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.880 find animatronic figures in lots of Disney attractions, including The 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.600 Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.920 Great Moments with Mr Lincoln, The Hall of presidents which 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.119 would be over at the Magic Kingdom and Disney World 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.840 and tons more. There are lots of examples. There are 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.920 also some attractions that had moving figures that didn't use 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.080 the audio animatronics system. So, for example, the Jungle Cruise 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.680 ride has animated animal figures. As you ride through, you 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.880 see hippopotamuses and crocodiles and elephants, but these were running 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:43.120 on a very simple mechanical loop system. They were not 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.800 specifically audio animatronic. They they worked on something that was 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:52.320 a little less sophisticated than what would follow. So you 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:57.440 have both at Disney Parks. And I'm also sad that 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.800 I can't have Holly on this up. So Holly, who's 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.719 one of the co hosts of Stuff you Missed in 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:07.400 History Class. Apart from being a brilliant podcaster and an 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:14.160 avid historian, she is an enormous fan of all things 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.560 Disney and uh and she doesn't just give me a 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.600 run for my money, she leaves me in the dust. 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.760 I love Disney, I have been to the Disney Parks 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:28.520 dozens of times, but Holly is a step beyond even 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.400 my own obsession. So I am sad that I can't 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.920 have her here because I am absolutely certain that she 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:39.080 would be here dropping nuggets of knowledge and trivia about 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.600 these various Disney attractions that I have yet to uncover. 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.800 So maybe someday I will be able to have Holly 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.560 on this show and we'll do a Disney oriented episode 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.080 about some other type of tech. In the meantime, there 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.240 are some other podcasts we've done that relate to Disney. 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.280 I did one about the peppers Ghost effect, which is 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:06.520 used extensively in the Haunted Mansion Ride. Pepper's Ghost involves 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.680 reflective surfaces and using lighting in a way so that 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.840 you can create the illusion of a ghostly figure appearing 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.120 before you, but what you're actually looking at is a 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:21.320 reflection of a physical figure that's just lit in a 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:25.760 very bright space, whereas you're in a very dark space. Uh. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.920 The famous ballroom sequence in the Haunted Mansion Ride is 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.080 a big example of Pepper's Ghost. So you can go 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.400 and check out those episodes of tech stuff. If this 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.200 is not enough Disney for you, all right, let's talk 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.720 specifically about what I wanted to concentrate on today. To 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.480 do that, we have to mention Walt Disney because he's 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.480 central to our story. He's kind of our main character 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.800 if this were a narrative. His full name was Walter 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.560 Elias Disney. He was born in nineteen o one in Illinois. 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.640 He grew up in Missouri and attended high school in Chicago. 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.200 He was studying art primarily. When he was sixteen, he 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.320 dropped out to join the army, but they rejected him 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.520 because he was too young. He then joined the Red 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.000 Cross and was shipped over to Europe and drove ambulances 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:21.439 during World War One in France. Once he is his 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.480 work with the Red Cross was done over there, he 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.360 moved back to the United States and he began to 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.559 work for an ad company. He was making film and animations. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.640 Uh then he would go on to create his own studio, 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.360 which saw some modest success, but then it ran into 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:43.000 some hard times and eventually he had to declare bankruptcy 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:48.559 under his first studio. But despite that, he didn't give up. 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.320 He decided to make a go at it again, and 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.520 he and his brother Roy were able to co found 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.880 the Walt Disney Company, and from that moment forward, his 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.200 influence on tech is been considerable, from actual innovations and 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:07.120 technology to how creators can protect their intellectual property. Now, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.400 not all of those influences have been met with enthusiasm. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.400 Disney is one of the reasons why the United States 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:20.640 has such incredibly extensive intellectual property protection laws, stuff like 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:25.040 copyright and trademark laws that protect well beyond the lifetime 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.000 of the creator. UH. A lot of that has to 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:33.520 do with Disney, as a corporate entity, lobbying to extend 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:40.640 those parameters. So Disney's impact on technology has been enormous 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:46.200 in both very specific ways that relate to particular technologies 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.760 to the way that those technologies are protected under intellectual 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:55.079 property law. So Disney's use of sound with animation was 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.800 a huge leap forward in the nineteen twenties, Steamboat Willie 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:02.240 being the first cartoun was sound, and Disney himself voiced 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.440 the iconic character of Mickey Mouse, who struck a chord 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:12.440 with viewers and propelled Disney into enormous success. Over the 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.679 following decades, he would see a lot more success, including 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.720 going into feature length animation, which had not been done before, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.960 and he was able to UH succeed with Snow White 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.959 and the Seven Dwarves. And he also continued to see 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:30.120 success with short form stuff. Now, depending upon the account 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.520 you read because there are a couple of different versions 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:38.840 of the story. We actually begin either in France or 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.800 the French Quarter in New Orleans. The story goes that 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.720 Disney was on vacation with his family, and as he 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.320 was on vacation, he decided to look into some uh, 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:56.000 some antique shops, and he came across some various clockwork toys, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.920 like wind up birds and that sort of thing. One 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.960 specific toy he came across in an antique shop was 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.960 a bird cage that had a mechanical bird inside of 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.800 it that would chirp and sing, and it would make 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:14.720 little motions that you could describe as being somewhat robotic. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.600 They were pretty primitive motions, but you know, close enough 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:19.920 to being an actual bird that you knew what it was. 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.800 It was. It wasn't like it looked like a a 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:27.640 monstrosity or anything like that. He thought it was absolutely charming, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.160 and he felt that there was a lot of potential 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.720 there that he could use to create three dimensional physical 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:38.840 animated figurines potentially and a theme park. That was one 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.280 of the things he had been considering around this time, 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:46.520 although Disneyland had not yet become a reality. So he 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.800 brought the antique bird cage with the mechanical bird inside 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.520 of it back to his company, and he went to 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.440 some of his uh top thinkers over at the Walt 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.360 Disney Company and said, figure out how this thing works. 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.960 So they took it apart and they took a look 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.079 at it, and they began to formulate ideas of how 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.600 they could create their own technology that would also allow 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:16.319 for animation of this type sort of this automated puppetry 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.920 that I was talking about. Now. Disney was really excited 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.160 about this prospect of having fully realized, three dimensional characters 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:28.120 capable of delivering a performance consistently. And Jack Gladish, who 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.600 was one of the engineers who would work on developing 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.040 audio animatronic technology, one of many, as it turns out, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.560 would say that Disney wants joked to him, I'm tired 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.760 of finicky actors. I want to develop a fully animated, 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:44.920 articulated human being to use in place of motion picture 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:49.840 actors and actresses. So this was Disney having a bit 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.200 of fun saying that, Hey, the real reason why I 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.160 want to develop this technology is because then I can 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.080 get rid of all these pesky humans that keep on 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:02.000 asking questions or having issue whereas the animatronic ones will 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.679 just do what we tell them to do. And it's 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.200 kind of funny because there's another famous director who said 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:14.560 something very similar about Disney's cast. That famous director was 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:20.560 Alfred Hitchcock, who of course made incredible films of thriller 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:25.720 and psychological horror genres, things like The Birds and Psycho, 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:30.920 that sort of stuff. Alfred Hitchcock reportedly once said Disney 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.560 has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:38.800 he just tears him up. So Hitchcock's joke and Disney's 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.120 joke were very similar in that respect, this idea of 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.600 the frustrated director who has to contend with the delicate 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.680 sensibilities of actors and actresses. But in truth, Disney just 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:51.840 thought this was a really cool technology and he saw 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.760 a lot of potential in it, and he was always 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:58.000 looking at new ways to make use of the immense 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.760 talent he had attracted to the A. Walt Disney Company. 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:03.880 Whereas a lot of these people started off in the 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.600 animation department where they were working on various films and 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.280 shorts for Disney, they would eventually move into very different 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:16.040 departments and develop stuff like the actual Disneyland theme Park 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:20.880 disney World later on, as well as visual effects and 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.640 props and sets and things of that nature for the 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.840 various live action films that Disney was getting into as well. 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.480 So you had people who started off as animators kind 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:36.320 of specializing in different areas. This was the dawn of 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.960 the imagineering age. There was no such thing as an 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:44.280 imagineer yet, no one had called it that, but eventually 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.280 Disney would end up referring to people who worked in 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:52.560 this sort of field as imagineers. They were thinking outside 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.960 the box, using engineering and creativity married together to create 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:02.160 really interesting experience is that you could not find anywhere else. 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.600 That was the value that Disney wanted to create to 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.520 justify charging people admission to come and check it out. 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:16.560 So he was really excited about this potential opportunity, and 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.560 he had a lot of potential ways of using this 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.400 technology already at this time. He was he was thinking ahead. 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.080 One of those was the fact that he wanted to 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.680 open up an amusement park that would eventually become Disneyland. 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:32.400 He thought, well, I need to have attractions for people 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.800 to come and experience at this park, and he thought 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:40.640 this technology could potentially provide some of those experiences. He 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:46.960 also had an ability to contribute to a massive event 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.320 that would happen in the mid nineteen sixties, that is, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.840 the nineteen sixty four World's Fair in New York that 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.920 was going to end up requiring a lot of work 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.520 on Disney's part. Years in advance, he knew that he 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.720 was going to be providing four attractions for this World's Fair, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.080 and he knew that the entire attention of the world 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.320 was going to be on New York for this event. 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.680 So he wanted to make absolutely certain that the attractions 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:20.439 that his company designed were phenomenal and unlike anything anyone 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.000 had ever experienced, and for that he needed to pioneer 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.560 a new technology. So all he had to do from 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:34.440 that point forward it was just invented, No big shakes, right, 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:41.280 So to start. One of the earliest experiments with this 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:46.240 idea of animating a three dimensional figure was what would 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.200 eventually be called the Dancing Man or the Little Man project. 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.040 This would be of a figure that measured about nine 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.399 inches tall and was meant to dance based upon this 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.719 automated system or mechanical system, at least if not fully automated. 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.240 The story goes that Walt Disney approached the artist Ken Anderson, 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.159 who was working for Disney. Anderson would become instrumental for 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:20.399 the design and implementation of various elements in Disneyland, and 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.439 he said, you know, you know what, You're working on 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:24.000 a lot of stuff, but I wanna I want to 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:26.560 pay you out of my own pocket for a project 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.040 that I really believe in that's not really a company 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.280 project yet. I want to create scenes that evoke the 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:38.080 American way of life. And Disney had a very idyllic 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.639 sense of what that meant. That small town feel that 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.000 you get when you walk down Main Street, USA, if 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.960 you're ever at Disneyland or disney World and you're walking 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.760 down Main Street, especially if you're doing it at a 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.960 time when there's not a huge crowd there, it evokes 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:59.720 the sense of a small town maybe early nineteen hundreds, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.000 around the time when Walt Disney himself would have been 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:07.600 growing up, where things appeared to be simple and elegant. 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.320 That's what Disney wanted to create, and so he talked 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.679 to Anderson, said, I want to have this idea of 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.320 building this kind of experience in miniature where people can 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.840 look at the different miniatures we design and different elements 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.199 of it actually come to life, so at first he 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.840 wanted to get some paintings, some sketches of this. So 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.040 Anderson got to work and one of the first things 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:35.280 he created was a Norman Rockwell esque scene of a 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:39.679 soft shoe dancer performing on a stage, a small stage, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.919 so something that you might see in an old Vaudevillian theater. 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.760 And Disney immediately connected to it. He thought, that's exactly 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.200 what I wanted to see. And he felt that this 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.240 was a figure that if they could create a three 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.440 dimensional version of it and build it in a miniature 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.400 set and it could move of around do its little 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.080 dance routine for people, that would be phenomenal. So he 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:10.560 took Anderson's design and he then decided to UH to 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.919 work with a couple of other folks over at Disney. 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.280 He UH went to a sculptor who was working for 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.040 the company at the time. As the sculptor's name was 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:29.119 Charles Clarence Christodoro, and Christodorro's dad was a famous agricultural 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.760 scientist and farmer who had written extensively about agriculture. Christodorro 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:38.359 himself had become a notable sculptor, working both in the 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:43.040 public spaces, designing statues that were shown in San Diego 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.280 and other areas of California, and also working in the 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.359 movie industry. He had worked for Disney once during the 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.280 nineteen thirties, left the company, and then came back in 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.480 the early nineteen fifties. He was given the sketch and 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:00.359 told to make a physical model of the dancer, which 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:04.280 he did. He sculpted a physical model based upon the 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:09.119 the Ken Anderson painting and gave that to Disney. Disney 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.280 then took the model over to the machine shop, and 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.000 he also brought in the animation department. Now, right now 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:16.919 seems like it would be a good time to summarize 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.600 all the areas that came together to make audio animatronics 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:23.919 even possible. And I realized I haven't even gotten to 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.400 what audio animatronics can do and how they do it. 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.240 But it's important to understand the different departments to kind 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.920 of get a grip on why it was so complicated 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.240 and why it called for a multidisciplinary approach, because that's 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:41.400 exactly what audio animatronics were. It required people of vastly 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:44.800 different disciplines and knowledge base in order to make this happen. 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.119 So in no particular order. Here are some of the 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:55.639 departments at Disney that worked on pioneering audio animatronics. First, 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.520 there was the Sound Department. Now it might seem weird 0:21:58.560 --> 0:22:01.959 that I'm starting with the sound owned department instead of 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:06.040 the mechanical shop or animation, but the reason for that 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:10.600 is the Sound department was in charge of the audio 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:17.280 animatronic projects because those depended so heavily on that audio component. 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.399 I'll explain more about how in a little bit. The 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:26.280 Sound department was ultimately the one that was holding onto 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.640 the project, the project leader that was the head of development. 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.400 This would end up actually causing some issues later on. 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.159 There would be some disagreements between the Sound department and 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.920 some other departments, and they were run by different unions, 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.879 which also meant that they would run into these weird problems. 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.399 There was a story in one of the articles I 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:54.639 read about how the mechanical department, the Mechanical Shop, they 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.840 might be working on an audio animatronic figure and they 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.199 would need to disconnect it so that they can an 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:04.320 adjustment before reconnecting it, but they weren't allowed to actually 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:08.320 disconnect the figure because that was a union job. That 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:10.640 one of the Sound department guys would have to do. 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:12.720 So they'd have to go and get someone from the 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.880 sound department to come over to the machine shop, disconnect 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.840 a tube, wait until the mechanical shop people had made 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:24.639 their adjustments, reconnect the tube, and then they could proceed. 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:28.359 By union rules, the machine shop folks were not allowed 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:30.840 to do that on their own, so it got very 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:36.720 frustrating at times. Then you've got the animation department, Disney, 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:39.399 of course famous for animation. This was the group of 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.639 artists who had studied movement extensively. If you're going to 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:46.040 animate movement, you have to understand how movement works, or 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.400 else you can't replicate it properly and it's not going 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:51.800 to look right when you watch an animated film. And 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:56.320 more importantly, they had been studying animated movement in film itself. 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:59.600 As it turns out, film or at least magnetic tape, 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:03.479 would be come incredibly important with audio animatronics. They leverage 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.440 their expertise to help design not just the physical objects 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:10.520 that would be animated and the actual motions those objects 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:16.320 would make, but also the very technique for programming the objects. 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:19.240 And I'll explain more about that in a little bit. 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:22.960 Then you had the Modeling department. These were the people 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:26.000 who would make three dimensional models and sculptures of the 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:29.360 various components that you wanted so that other departments could 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:32.000 use that as a reference. And then you had the 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.399 machine shop. The machine department had to fabricate all the 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:40.040 physical pieces that would be used in these various figures, 0:24:40.119 --> 0:24:42.760 and then you also had props and costumes that would 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:46.680 end up outfitting these different figures. So there are a 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:52.800 lot of different moving parts, both metaphorically and literally, as 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:55.679 it turns out when you get to audio animatronics in 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:58.720 order to make it possible, and all of those groups 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:01.960 had their own leaders and their own priorities, but the 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:04.320 fact that they were able to collaborate and create a 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:07.760 system as intricate as audio animatronics is pretty amazing all 0:25:07.760 --> 0:25:09.960 on its own. And we haven't even gotten to the 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:14.240 technology yet. So I want to get to that technology, 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:18.320 and I will in just a moment, but first let's 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:27.760 take a quick break and thank our sponsor. All right, 0:25:27.840 --> 0:25:30.640 So you got the Machine Shop and they were creating 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:35.720 the Dancing Man or the Little Man, and Disney decided 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:38.679 that he needed to have someone in charge of figuring 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:41.560 out the animation for this, like figuring out what moves 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:43.879