Did You Know? Part III
When I was in the 8th grade I did a report on the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Little did I know at that time how much the Walt Disney World Company’s participation in that fair would make an impression upon me.
Over the years I have recognized the fact that just as in life, you never stop learning about the world around you.
To this day I am finding out things I never knew and when I come across something interesting I feel compelled to share with my subscribers.
So here is another edition of “did You Know?”
Biggest Impacts of the 1964 New York World’s Fair
Let’s not ignore the fact that Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and other Disney resorts around the world would probably be quite different had it not been for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Did you know the following three things had the biggest impact on The Walt Disney Company?
Audio-Animatronics - Until the fair Disney had never created a human figure for one of its shows. Then there was Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Carousel of Progress, and the cavemen in Ford’s Magic Skyway attraction. Think of all the human audio-animatronic human figures that followed in their footsteps.
Ride Capacity - This is often not mentioned as a big deal but two attractions; It’s a Small World and Carousel of Progress were huge in opening up the Imagineers’ eyes to improving ride capacity. Each one of these two attractions…a boat ride and a rotating theater were able to accommodate over 3000 guests per hour, which at the time was double the best that any Disneyland attraction could provide.
Transportation - It was the WEDway PeopleMover technology that was used to transport Ford cars at its pavilion. This led to this technology later being installed not just at Disneyland and Walt Disney World but did you also know in 1981 it was installed at what is now known as George Bush International Airport?
Tom Fitzgerald
The 1964 New York World’s Fair was a major influence in the career of Tom Fitzgerald, currently Portfolio Executive Creative Director and Chief Storytelling Executive for Walt Disney Imagineering.
Tom’s family lived in Briarcliff Manor, a small town about an hour from the fair in Westchester County, New York. Tom visited the fair several times, starting when Tom was just eight years old. Tom was hugely mesmerized by the shows he saw. Among his favorite attractions were Progressland and It’s a Small World. To this day Fitzgerald will say, “That Fair was what convinced me I wanted to be part of the Disney team.”
A quick elevator talk on Tom Fitzgerald….better yet…bulleted items.
Tom joined Walt Disney Imagineering in 1979, and has supervised story development and production of many of Disney's most popular park attractions and shows.
In 1989 he was made executive producer of Theme Park Productions, which provides conceptual development, production, and post production of all film and video presentations for Disney parks.
In 2001 he was given the added responsibility of executive vice president and senior creative executive for Walt Disney Imagineering, being responsible for the creative direction of the Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Paris.
For Star Wars, Tom Fitzgerald worked closely with creator George Lucas on the original Star Tours attraction and was the voice of G2-9T.
Abe? Abe?!?
As much as there were so many successes at the Fair there were some anxious moments as well.
One moment occurred at the State of Illinois pavilion where Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln was situated. On opening day the Lincoln audio-animatronic decided it would neither move nor speak. Pretty embarrassing when you think of who was in the audience….the Governor of Illinois, several US senators, the rest of the audience, the media, and a gentleman by the name of Robert Moses.
Robert Moses had sold the concept of an audio-animatronic Lincoln to the State of Illinois. It took several days for the imagineers to get Abe to do his thing.
Anxious Moments.
The Carousel of Non-Progress
Prior to opening day, Walt Disney did a walkthrough of the Carousel of Progress as he had planned to host a special event that evening. The walkthrough was not exactly as Walt had expected. The show started but abruptly stopped….frozen.
Walt met with his imagineers and mentioned that the walkthrough was to discuss with them some tweaks he wanted done but of course with the show not operating, these tweaks were probably not going to take place.
The imagineers went to work and that evening in front of GE (the sponsor was General Electric) Directors before the show Walt gave a disclaimer saying that the show was still in test mode and anything could happen…and crossed his fingers.
The imagineers had come through and the show went off without a hitch.
So now you know a few more things about the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
See you next time.