by Jim Korkis
One of the major influences Rohde cited was mid-nineteenth-century American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church:
Church’s paintings were the IMAX movies of the mid-19th century. These paintings did not hang in a museum [or] church, they traveled the country. … In the paintings were thousands of teensy-weensy details…so people spent an hour that they paid for in an artificial space, wandering in a painting. That sounds remarkably familiar to me.
These paintings were exhibited in theaters. Audiences would buy a ticket and fill an auditorium. The proscenium of a theater stage before them was covered by a curtain. Sometimes accompanied by music, the curtain would be opened to reveal the massive 18-wheeler-sized painting by Church.
When audiences looked into the painting, they would discover another, smaller painting, and another, and another, all the way down to the size of a nickel. Audiences would look into the painting for an hour or more at a time discovering new secrets and images all the time.
Rohde said:
The word picturesque refers to [late Baroque artist] Claude Lorrain, who invented the romantic idea of the landscape. Without Lorrain you don’t have the picturesque tradition, and without the picturesque tradition, you really don’t have the arts at all.
When you ride through [Killimanjaro Safaris], you do not realize the degree to which this is a manipulated landscape. The height of the little hummocks and rises in the hills just happen to be slightly higher than the sightline of a person in a vehicle, so even though there are unimaginable numbers of those trucks driving around, you are [only] aware of six.
Landscape was considered the highest form of art in the 18th century because it combined all the appeal of sculpture, all the color of painting, with the process of movement through space. So when you ride on a vehicle through our lovely crafted landscape, you are in fact experiencing what the great philosophers of the 18th century considered to be the highest form of art.
[We] continually talked about Giovanni Bernini, because who in the history of the world has taken absolutely rigid, inflexible material—marble!—and rendered it in such a way that it appears to be weightless? To get the sense of uplift, the sense of swirl, the sense of suspension that makes [Pandora’s floating] mountains not hang over you, but lift above you, rise above you? That’s not easy.
We even talked about commissioning Dale Chihuly at one point [to help in] solving this problem of these organic soft glowing plants that embody the entire nature of this palace. It’s simply not enough to go look at natural bioluminescence, because natural bioluminescence isn’t this psychedelic.
Animal Kingdom
The Bugs Are Tough
Bugs make up nearly ninety percent of what it referred to as the “animal kingdom” so it seemed natural to showcase them in some manner. However, there were several other different ideas for the use of the interior of the Tree of Life.
CEO Michael Eisner himself told the Imagineers to talk to John Lasseter about the newest Pixar animated feature film in production, A Bug’s Life, scheduled for release in November 1998. The animated film was released after It’s Tough to be a Bug, “a creepy, crawly bug-eyed adventure” opened a full seven months earlier.
The final concept was that guests would wander through the roots of the tree into a theater space that had been hollowed out by the bugs and seats approximately 430 guests. Guests then don “bug-eye” spectacles in order to see the world in three dimensions through the eyes (or multiple eyes) of their insect hosts.
Senior principal production designer Zsolt Hormay, who led an international team of sculptors to carve the animals on the exterior trunk and was also in charge of the bugs in the queue line for the attraction, said:
I get calls all the time. Any leeches? No leeches! Any cockroaches? No cockroaches!
The Imagineers used Flik the ant and Hopper the grasshopper from the film as key figures in the attraction, but also added the Termite-ator, an acorn weevil; Chili, a quill-throwing Chilean tarantula; Rolly, a dung beetle, and stink bug Claire de Room to accompany a cast of hundreds of butterflies, beetles, ladybugs, hornets, spiders, and larvae.
Some of the bugs appear on film. Some appear as elaborate audio-animatronic characters. Some only exist as puffs of air and rollers built into the theater seats. The swatter effect is created by fifty high-speed fans hidden thirty feet overhead in the rockwork folds of the theater.
When the acid-spraying termite apparently squirts guests in the face, the harmless water spray comes from the seat in front of you. Imagineers chose an industrial smell officially labeled “earthy” for the stinkbug’s distinctive effect.
Show writer Kevin Rafferty said:
It was a matter of getting our special effects to match the bugs. All the acts we feature in the show are based on what they do in nature. There really are acid-spraying termites and quill-throwing tarantulas.
At the end of the show, an announcement over the PA system states, “Will all honorary bugs remain seated while all the lice, bed bugs, maggots, and cockroaches exit first.” To the left, the EXIT sign appears to be lit up by fireflies leaving the theater.
The 3-D animated portion of the show was produced by visual-effect studio Rhythm and Hues. This firm, which filed for bankruptcy in 2013, began doing work for Disney in 1982 when they provided the computer animation for the original Universe of Energy and later created the “Big Bang” segment for Ellen’s Energy Adventure.
Walt Disney Imagineering handled the special effects including the audio-animatronic characters, wind, water, and foul smells. At the time, Hopper was the most sophisticated and advanced audio-animatronics character that Imagineering had ever created and could perform a wide array of movements that make him as lifelike as possible.
Actor Dave Foley re-creates the voice of Flik as he did in the original film. The voice of Hopper is not Kevin Spacey as it was in the film but Andrew Stanton, a co-director of the original film.
Cheech Marin does the voice of Chili, French Stewart the voice of the Termite-ator, Tom Kenny the voices of the Dung Beetle brothers, and Jason Alexander as the voice of Weevil Kneevil. Corey Burton is the announcer and the voice of various bugs. P.T. Flea is voiced by John Ratzenberger, Pixar’s “good luck charm,” who does voices in all their movies, and pops in briefly here for one line.
Animal Kingdom
Africa the Theme Park
On the Animal Kingdom team’s first research trip to Africa, their guide took them to a Masai village in southern Kenya. The team made its way to a ring of huts set against the side of a hill.
Imagineer Joe Rohde recalled:
Standing outside is this Masai gentleman in his robe. He looks inside the vehicle, sees all our cameras, and says, “Hmmm, many cameras. You pay much money.” He looks at the video camera and says, “Big, big camera. You pay very much money here.” So we ended up paying $80 for the privilege of photographing this Masai village.
We’re photographing the way the walls are assembled, the intersection of the wattle and the roof, and the crack pattern in the mud. He watches us for ten minutes and says, “So where are you chaps from?” When we tell him we’re from Disney, he says, “Ah ha, theme parks! My name is Ben and I’m the headmaster of the village.”
And we’re thinking, ‘Boy, all of a sudden you’re speaking English a lot better.’ He was portraying the type of character we all expected to see on our visit to give us a better show. So we ask, “Can we take a picture inside?”
They open up the gates and we go inside and find all of these people in their native costumes singing this Masai welcome song. One of our crew starts getting out the video camera and when they see that the video camera has not been set up yet, they all stop and wait for him. Once he’s set up, he gives them a cue and then they all start singing again.
That’s when we thought, ‘Well, Africa is half theme park already.’
On their six research trips to Africa, the Imagineering team kept being struck by how many elements of a typical
theme park had been incorporated into the different tourist areas.
While in Kenya at Lake Nakuru, a popular safari park, this idea was starkly apparent. When word went out over the radios carried by the Land Rover drivers that a leopard had been sighted, the news created a traffic jam.
Nearly fifty vehicles converged on the tree where the leopard was perched. Dozens of tourists leaned out of windows to photograph the animal that was roughly three hundred feet away.
Senior concept designer Kevin Brown said:
That’s when we realized that the tourists’ Africa is a theme park but just not a particularly well-run one. We knew the experience we could provide in Animal Kingdom would be as good or better than that.
The research was intensive. The Imagineers took family-oriented package safari trips, from the lowest to the highest end, to get a full exposure of what a family might experience on such excursions.
They also created their own East African itinerary. They felt it was important to experience things as a group, just like theme park guests would. One discovery was that truly wild places were not accessible to the average tourist.
Joe Rohde said:
The highlight of the trip was the hippos—big and strong and mean. One surged out of the water with a snort and chased our boat, mouth open. We boated slowly over stretches of water where tell-tale eddies betrayed hippos lurking beneath—lots of them.
This evening was the first time I have felt the exhilaration I expected from Africa. Fifteen-foot crocodiles and massive hostile hippos crashed through the water. As sunset drew on, the animals became more aggressive. We rocketed along, skirting the primeval banks to find our way home.
Animal Kingdom
Safari Village
Safari Village was meant to be the thematic heart of Disney’s Animal Kingdom and serve as the central hub. Encircled by Discovery River, Safari Village is a lush, green island that serves as a magical departure point for each of the different realms of the park.
As the original promotional material stated:
It is a mix of tropical and equatorial styles featuring references to the Caribbean but also Polynesian influences. Strong, bright colors dominate the landscape. Animal forms decorate every possible surface of the one-storage structures smothered in many-hued tropical foliage.
A unique vocabulary of animal images, inspired by folk art from around the world, gives the Village a playful look that celebrates the beauty and power of animals. Safari Village’s shops make it the natural center of the park. It’s also the ideal place to encounter a unique brand of live entertainment celebrating the special connection between humans and animals.
Safari Village has folk art-inspired forms on every available surface including walls, ceilings, windowsills, and gable ends.
The buildings are not just ornamented with animals; each facility has its own theme. Island Mercantile features animals that migrate and work—whales and wildebeests, bees and beavers. Creative Comforts features animals with stripes and spots. Beastly Bazaar has animals from fresh and salt water cavorting throughout.
The clever theme of the Flame Tree Barbecue restaurant is predator and prey—prey are painted on the tables and predators on the chairs. Pizzafari’s dinning rooms each have different themes. One room is dedicated to animals that hide in their environment. Another room is dedicated to animals that carry their houses on their backs, like turtles, snails, and hermit crabs. One room is based on animals that hang upside down.
For Safari Village, Imagineer Joe Rohde wanted to create a place no one had ever seen before. There are nine separate color schemes on Pizzafari alone.
Senior show designer Katie Olson said:
Jenna Goodman and I said, “You want it bright? We can do bright.” When we did color design for Harambe we pored over books of photographs, trying to make sure we were rendering exact copies of a village in Kenya.
Safari Village has a little bit of a tropical feeling, but we just said, “I think lime green would look really good with this color,” and we tried it. At first, it was a little difficult breaking all the rules, but once we got into the rhythm of it, it became a really fun project.
It didn’t have to be recognizable as anywhere in particular and that gives you a lot of freedom. But you have to still respect the form of the architecture. We used a lot of Caribbean color and references like Mexican wedding dresses and Oaxacan carved animals. If the color design successfully supports the overall story we are telling, the environment becomes that much more magical for our guests.
Designers journeyed to Mexico to find basket weavers who could fashion wicker kangaroos to hold merchandise. In Oaxaca, Mexico, four hours down a dirt and boulder road, they found a family that carves and paints fantastically shaped animals. Imagineers ordered 300 bats, 120 bugs, and 150 butterflies to hang in Pizzafari.
Principal production designer Ken Gomes actually relocated to Bali to oversee the production of more than one hundred hand-carved articles that were shipped to Florida each month. Gomes became part of village life, attending weddings and funerals and acquiring the native name of Wayan (“second-born”) Sin Ken Ken (“no problem”).
Gomes said:
The sense of community is refreshing. The talent and skill in Bali are incredible resources. They don’t realize how gifted they are.
Animal Kingdom
Animal Births at DAK
In early January 2018, Disney announced the birth of a Nile hippopotamus named Augustus weighing 168 pounds.
Animals are bred at DAK through the Species Survival Plan (SSP) which is overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to help vulnerable species with a declining population. The purpose of the program is to ensure a diverse, healthy population of threatened and endangered species for years to come.
Eight white rhinos have been born at the park since its opening. Kendi was the first white rhino born at Animal Kingdom and at eight years old gave birth to Tom in 2007, the sixth white rhino born at DAK and named in honor of Dr. Tom Foose, president of the International Rhino Foundation (IRF).
At one time white rhinos were nearly extinct, numbering less than 100 animals. Thanks to conservation efforts there are now approximately 11,300 worldwide, with 196 in North American zoos.
Since the park’s opening, the resident elephant herd has produced seven calves including Tufani (the first baby elephant born at DAK), Tsavo, Kianga (“Sunshine” in Swahili), and Nadirah.
Many of the elephants giving birth in zoos and wildlife parks are first-time mothers—just as the elephants at Disney’s Animal Kingdom are—and it is not unusual for first-time elephant mothers both in the wild and in wildlife parks to lose their first calf, either through a still birth or following the birth.
Artificial insemination is playing an important role in the effort to breed elephants in North America, particularly because it allows for elephant reproduction at zoos and wildlife parks without having to move animals from one place to another to attempt reproduction naturally.
Dr. Beth Stevens, vice president of Disney’s Animal Kingdom and president of AZA, said:
African elephants are endangered and difficult to breed, and having a successful birth is a significant event both for the species and for our talented and experienced team of elephant experts who have been working on this breeding program for more than five years.
The giraffe herd births total eleven including Makena (“Happy One” in Swahili) who was the first calf for her mother, four-year-old Malaika, who was also born at Animal Kingdom. Other giraffes born at the park include Marley, AJ, Rori, Imara (“strong” in Swahili), and Bonsu whose name is inspired from the Akan language in Ghana and means “biggest and strongest fish in the sea.”
Over the twenty years the park has been open, births have included a colorful baby mandrill in 2011; a Western Lowland gorilla in 2010 named Lilly in honor of the late Alecia Lilly, Ph.D., who was senior scientist and vice president of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International; a Tamm
ar wallaby; meerkats; springbok gazelles; Red River hog piglets; and many others.
The first Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra born at DAK was Kidani in 2008. Kidani was named after Kidani Village, the latest expansion at the Animal Kingdom villas. In May 2018, a pair of Grévy’s zebra foals (named Zalika and Youka) were born and added to the herd. Grévy’s zebras are the most endangered of all zebra species, so these births are an important part of the survival plan for the species.
In August 2017, Sohni, a Sumatran tiger at the park, gave birth to a pair of cubs: a female named Anala (Hindi for “fiery” inspired by her personality) and a male named Jeba (Malay for “pause” inspired by the stripes on his forehead that resembles a pause symbol).
The Disney Animals, Science, and Environment team created a special new backstage area where Anala and Jeda learned how to walk, swim, and climb before entering the Maharajah Jungle Trek. These were important births because fewer than 500 Sumatran tigers still exist in the wild. The Disney Conservation Fund has provided nearly four million dollars to support the conservation of cat species and their habitats.
PART TWO
The Walt Disney World Resorts
Time magazine in its October 18, 1971, issue published roughly two weeks after the opening of Walt Disney World, stated:
But it is the hotels, shops, beaches and other recreational facilities at Disney World that really set the new complex apart from Disneyland and its imitators.
Disneymen call their creation a “total destination resort”—not just a stopover, in other words, but a place to spend a weekend or a week. The prices at Disney World seem reasonable enough. Hotels range from $22 to $40 for a room large enough for a family of four. Package plans include one that offers three days and two nights at a hotel, three free days in the amusement area, free transport and $18 worth of sailing, riding or others sports—all for $61.50 per person ($25 per child).