Midway to Main Street | 5 Rushed Disney Projects @MidwaytoMainStreet | Uploaded October 2017 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Today with all of the advanced technology that goes into new attractions and all of the study and thought that goes into new projects at the parks, it’d be no surprise to see Imagineers take years to put something together. However there have been instances where attractions and parks of the resorts were hastily thrown together. Here are five examples of rushed Disney projects.
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First up is pretty minor, but it’s also pretty clever, and a wonderful example of the kind of last minute rushes that Disneyland faced before its grand opening. When Walt set July 17th 1955 as the opening day for Disneyland, he was giving Imagineers and construction workers about one year to build the entirety of the park. Overall, the one part of the park that was least developed was Tomorrowland, and that included a lack of foliage for the area.
Walt didn’t want to open the land with no greenery, so what did he do? He instructed imagineers to find all of the weeds and overgrowth from around the park that would have otherwise been discarded, and had them planted in the land. In order to add some legitimacy to the move, he also had them setup little placards with the plants latin names.
Disney would find themselves in a similar situation sixteen years later as they prepared to open their first east coast resort, Walt Disney World. This time however the problem would be a bit larger. The Contemporary Resort on the Seven Seas Lagoon wasn’t schedule to open until a few weeks after Disney World would open, so the fact that it wasn’t complete wasn’t much of a problem. However it was important to Disney for the exterior of the building to look finished, as guests would be able to see the site and they didn’t want arrive just to find a dirt covered construction zone.
As the story goes in David Koenig’s Realityland, Dick Nunis, who was overseeing the project, found that quickly planting a few trees the night before the opening around the hotel wasn’t enough to make the resort look presentable. So instead, he had four and half acres of sod trucked over to the property. With just sixteen hours to go before the press would arrive, he tasked anyone he could find, from construction workers to executives, with laying down the sod. Nearly one hundred people worked through the night, and by 6am the lawns of the Contemporary resort were completely finished and ready for the media.
When Walt Disney set out to create Disneyland, he wasn’t trying to create another amusement park or circus show, he was trying to create something that surpassed it. And you know what? He did. The Disneyland experience was without question a step up from either of those. Yet in Disneyland’s first year of operation Walt was dead set on adding one of those, a circus show, to the park.
There was some question internally as to why, as most people were coming to the park for a unique Disney experience, but at the end of the day Walt got his way. Thinking it would make for a great tie-in with the Mickey Mouse Club, Disney began to plan a circus in October of 1955. Just fifty-two days later, on Thanksgiving day and for an additional entrance fee of fifty cents, the Mickey Mouse Club Circus opened in Disneyland back where the Matterhorn resides today.
If there’s one theme that carried through the early years of Michael Eisner’s tenor as Disney CEO in the 80s, it was that he was very focused on trying to win over the teenage demographic.
Teens loved music, so clearly Disney would benefit from a music venue. Disneylands Videopolis was a five thousand square foot, three million dollar, dance venue that could hold up to three thousand guests. It featured musical acts such as Boy George, Janet Jackson, and the New Kids on the Block. It was built in just 105 days and as Imagineer Carl Bongiorno put it, the Videopolis was “The first, the fastest, and the finest.” The videopolis would entertain guests for a decade before being re-themed in 1995 to the Fantasyland Theater.
Sure, small world isn’t the fastest project ever attempted at Disney, but in under just one year Walt and his imagineers created an attraction that has become one of, if the the most, iconic rides ever. It features a song that is well known outside of the realm of Disney fandom, and is said by some to be the most played recorded song in human history. The boat ride mechanics used in small world would influence a number of attractions that would follow it.
It was an eleven month project, but it’s legacy has lasted more than half of a century and is bound to continue on into the future.
Today with all of the advanced technology that goes into new attractions and all of the study and thought that goes into new projects at the parks, it’d be no surprise to see Imagineers take years to put something together. However there have been instances where attractions and parks of the resorts were hastily thrown together. Here are five examples of rushed Disney projects.
Check out Realityland by David Koenig!
📗amzn.to/2zP79u7
New here? Be sure to subscribe!
🔷goo.gl/x17zTL
My Patreon!
❤patreon.com/RobPlays
My Disney Podcast!
🎧ttapodcast.com
Follow me on Twitter!
📱Twitter.com/RobPlays
First up is pretty minor, but it’s also pretty clever, and a wonderful example of the kind of last minute rushes that Disneyland faced before its grand opening. When Walt set July 17th 1955 as the opening day for Disneyland, he was giving Imagineers and construction workers about one year to build the entirety of the park. Overall, the one part of the park that was least developed was Tomorrowland, and that included a lack of foliage for the area.
Walt didn’t want to open the land with no greenery, so what did he do? He instructed imagineers to find all of the weeds and overgrowth from around the park that would have otherwise been discarded, and had them planted in the land. In order to add some legitimacy to the move, he also had them setup little placards with the plants latin names.
Disney would find themselves in a similar situation sixteen years later as they prepared to open their first east coast resort, Walt Disney World. This time however the problem would be a bit larger. The Contemporary Resort on the Seven Seas Lagoon wasn’t schedule to open until a few weeks after Disney World would open, so the fact that it wasn’t complete wasn’t much of a problem. However it was important to Disney for the exterior of the building to look finished, as guests would be able to see the site and they didn’t want arrive just to find a dirt covered construction zone.
As the story goes in David Koenig’s Realityland, Dick Nunis, who was overseeing the project, found that quickly planting a few trees the night before the opening around the hotel wasn’t enough to make the resort look presentable. So instead, he had four and half acres of sod trucked over to the property. With just sixteen hours to go before the press would arrive, he tasked anyone he could find, from construction workers to executives, with laying down the sod. Nearly one hundred people worked through the night, and by 6am the lawns of the Contemporary resort were completely finished and ready for the media.
When Walt Disney set out to create Disneyland, he wasn’t trying to create another amusement park or circus show, he was trying to create something that surpassed it. And you know what? He did. The Disneyland experience was without question a step up from either of those. Yet in Disneyland’s first year of operation Walt was dead set on adding one of those, a circus show, to the park.
There was some question internally as to why, as most people were coming to the park for a unique Disney experience, but at the end of the day Walt got his way. Thinking it would make for a great tie-in with the Mickey Mouse Club, Disney began to plan a circus in October of 1955. Just fifty-two days later, on Thanksgiving day and for an additional entrance fee of fifty cents, the Mickey Mouse Club Circus opened in Disneyland back where the Matterhorn resides today.
If there’s one theme that carried through the early years of Michael Eisner’s tenor as Disney CEO in the 80s, it was that he was very focused on trying to win over the teenage demographic.
Teens loved music, so clearly Disney would benefit from a music venue. Disneylands Videopolis was a five thousand square foot, three million dollar, dance venue that could hold up to three thousand guests. It featured musical acts such as Boy George, Janet Jackson, and the New Kids on the Block. It was built in just 105 days and as Imagineer Carl Bongiorno put it, the Videopolis was “The first, the fastest, and the finest.” The videopolis would entertain guests for a decade before being re-themed in 1995 to the Fantasyland Theater.
Sure, small world isn’t the fastest project ever attempted at Disney, but in under just one year Walt and his imagineers created an attraction that has become one of, if the the most, iconic rides ever. It features a song that is well known outside of the realm of Disney fandom, and is said by some to be the most played recorded song in human history. The boat ride mechanics used in small world would influence a number of attractions that would follow it.
It was an eleven month project, but it’s legacy has lasted more than half of a century and is bound to continue on into the future.
