by Martin Sklar
The WEDWay system accomplished a brilliant marketing one-upsmanship for Ford. While its rival, General Motors, sat its Futurama visitors in a chair-ride, three abreast, Ford’s pavilion guests rode in a real automobile. The cars were kept spick-and-span in an area between the embarkation and debarkation areas (in theme park terms, between the “load” and “unload” areas), where each was vacuumed and wiped clean between pass-throughs. Only convertibles were used in order to speed up entry and exit and avoid banging heads on rooftops. During the Fair’s two, six-month seasons, almost fifteen million people rode in 178 Ford automobiles, many experiencing a Ford product for the very first time. During the first year alone, Ford estimated the cars had traveled the equivalent of thirty-four times around the world.
But there was an even greater exposure for Ford’s cars. John Hench designed a marquee featuring two elevated, glass-enclosed tubes that carried the cars outside in opposite directions, sweeping across the exterior of the pavilion and thus exposing all the Ford automobile styles to a huge area of the fairgrounds. Even if they did not enter the pavilion, World’s Fair guests saw Ford cars showcased just by walking by. They watched the convertibles emerge from the pavilion inside two glass tubes above the entrance, glide in opposite directions before reentering the building and disappearing back inside. Fair audiences had been introduced to one of Walt Disney’s favorite, and most effective, visual concepts: the wienie.
I learned so much from this experience, especially from the opportunity to travel with, observe, and listen to John Hench. We had some amazing adventures. One day, we were riding with the Ford test track drivers on a banked track in Romeo, Michigan, at 120 miles per hour. Suddenly our driver took his hands off the wheel and turned around to talk to us in the backseat. Scary! At that speed and with the angle of the track, the car held steady and “drove itself.” Another interesting moment occurred when we visited Ford’s “Advanced Styling” unit. When we found two designers working on reversible seat cushions, John asked them if either one had any inkling if the public was interested in this feature. “No,” both designers responded. “Then why,” John inquired, “are you doing it?” “Because we like it,” they said. “Well,” John pursued, “has anyone ever tried this before?” “Oh, yes,” the designers answered. “It was on the last Packard ever built!”
Before it was destroyed by fire in 1962, the Ford Rotunda visitor’s center in Dearborn was a major tourist attraction—the fifth most popular in the United States in the early 1950s. (Niagara Falls was number one, before Disneyland.) The Rotunda was originally designed by famed architect Albert Kahn for the Chicago “Century of Progress” World’s Fair in 1933, then disassembled after that Fair and moved to Dearborn, where it was seen by some eighteen million people.
Typically, a visit to the exhibits and demonstrations included a trip through the River Rouge assembly plant. It was located so close to the Rouge River that at one time, iron ore was shipped in by barge, turned into steel in the plant, and ultimately emerged as a finished car. The only problem was that when we observed some of the 1961 action along the assembly line we noticed parts that did not fit and assembly workers using crowbars to force the closure of doors; there were even cars pushed off the line at the end because they would not start. John Hench made a recommendation that chilled our Ford hosts: “Never show another potential customer your River Rouge assembly line.” “But we host a million people every year,” they protested. “Well,” John countered, “I can’t imagine they will buy a Ford car when they see how they are built!”
The four pavilions that Walt and the Imagineers helped create—along with GM’s Futurama and the Vatican Pavilion, which displayed Michelangelo’s Pietà—were all in the Top Ten favorites at the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair. While I spent most of my time working on the Ford Pavilion, I also had assignments on two of the other Disney projects. Walt was so proud of the work of the Imagineers’ creation for UNICEF, “it’s a small world,” that he asked me to compose a twenty-eight-page booklet saluting their accomplishment. It was called Walt Disney’s “it’s a small world”—Complete Souvenir Guide and Behind the Scenes Story. It turned out so well that it was sold at the Pepsi-Cola–sponsored pavilion. The photo of Walt surrounded by the small world “dolls”—taken by the great Look magazine photographer Earl Theisen for its cover—is still one of my all-time favorites.
In writing the souvenir booklet, I developed several key phrases that have identified the show in five international Disney parks: Join the happiest cruise that ever sailed around the world…A Magic Kingdom of all the world’s children. The iconic graphic depicting a boatload of children of many cultures and colors, flying the colorful flags of various nations, was created by graphics designer Paul Hartley to accompany Walt’s introductory message in the souvenir guide. Even today, a blowup of this graphic stands at the entry to every version of this uplifting show.
My second major responsibility for the World’s Fair resulted in lifelong friendships with several wonderful people from GE spanning the three-decade connection between the companies. One was Dave Burke, a marketing and PR executive who represented GE’s corporate staff in relations with Disney. Another was Ned Landon, the spokesman for the GE scientific community, specifically the GE Labs in Schenectady, New York.
My assignments included several shows within a big GE pavilion called Progressland. It featured Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress show that was one of the most popular attractions at the Fair. The pavilion also included Progressland, a whole “community” of experiences for visitors.
The pavilion ended with a bang—literally. It was Ned Landon’s assignment to work with GE’s scientists to create an actual demonstration of nuclear fusion—diminished, of course, so that it could harm no one—but real, nonetheless. John Hench insisted that every “bang” had to be measured and recorded, on the off-chance that a guest would claim injury from the minuscule radiation. He was right: there were nuisance lawsuits, but the data proved that the demonstration was completely harmless. And Ned Landon celebrated his ninetieth birthday before his passing in 2011.
My job was to work with designer Claude Coats and special effects expert Yale Gracey to create the setup for the demonstration. It was simply called “The Dome Show” because it was projected on the interior ceiling of the pavilion. We introduced audiences to the power of the sun, as a lead-in to the actual creation of “sun power” in Ned Landon’s demonstration.
In retrospect, the other show I wrote (and rewrote, and rewrote) for Progressland epitomized the frustration we often experience in working with corporate sponsors. Progressland was designed like a main street in a community, with storefronts and small interior spaces that offered boutique presentations. My assignment was to tell a story about atomic energy utilizing a talking toucan—brought to life by Disney’s patented three-dimensional animation system, Audio-Animatronics. My frustration finally boiled over when I had written eight scripts, all rejected by GE, and was about to launch into number nine. Who is the audience for this show? I demanded of the GE liaison, after he objected to most of what would interest the general fairgoer. His answer stopped me cold. “Four people,” he admitted. “My boss, his boss, the VP my boss reports to, and the executive VP who heads our division.” Fortunately, not many visitors to Progressland stopped by to sample our “atomic boutique.” (I understand the executive VP was very pleased with the exhibit.)
One of the lessons I learned in our creative work for the World’s Fair was never to underestimate the talents of my Disney associates. To ensure the success of the four Disney experiences, Walt called on the whole company—not just the Imagineers, but also Studio writers like Larry Clemmons (Carousel of Progress) and James Algar (Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln); songwriters Bob and Dick Sherman (“it’s a small world” and “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” for the Carousel of Progress); operations staff from Disneyland under Dick Nunis’s direction to run the “it’s a small world” Pavilion; and many so
und, projection, lighting, and electronics personnel.
One of my early assignments resulted from a call from Walt. I had written and recorded a twenty-minute slide presentation that we used to give Henry Ford II and other Ford executives an idea of the scope of the pavilion, with emphasis on the ride attraction—“the wienie,” as Walt called it, the “beckoning finger” that says “come this way!”—a technique the Imagineers use at key junctions throughout the Disney parks. Walt wanted George Bruns to write the music and called to request that I run the presentation for George.
I was thrilled, as George Bruns was a king of Disney music composition. His “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,” sung of course by “Davy” himself (the aforementioned Fess Parker) had helped fuel the national craze for the TV show and coonskin caps in the mid-1950s. When George arrived at WED, we sat down in a small conference room. I explained to George, who was a hefty man, that the narration was recorded, but I had to punch up the slide film visuals. And so we began.
After five minutes, a sound like logs being sawed in half filled the conference room. George was fast asleep, and snoring like a “b’ar”! What to do? There was no sense in continuing to run the presentation; I already knew it by heart. So I woke him up, and asked, “Anything else you need so you can write the score, George?” “Nope,” he answered, “I’m all set.” And in fact, he was. The piece he composed and conducted for the Magic Skyway ride was easily one of the musical highlights of the whole Fair.
Walt’s objectives in devoting his, and his creative staff’s, energies to the World’s Fair in the early 1960s are, in retrospect, quite clear. First, he wanted to show that the kind of entertainment he had been creating for Disneyland for almost ten years would play anywhere—especially in New York City. Thus, the Fair truly was a stepping-stone from west to east; from Anaheim, California, to Orlando, Florida. Second, he wanted to expand Disneyland, and in one form or another, the four Disney-designed Fair attractions were reincarnated in Anaheim.
In fact, Walt’s vision for using a temporary event as a testing ground for permanent attractions proved to be a stroke of genius. Three technologies that would play key roles in the future growth of Disney parks around the world were introduced, or took a giant leap forward, at the New York World’s Fair:
Audio-Animatronics: Disney had never created a “human figure” for one of its shows until it presented Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the state of Illinois; the families of GE’s Carousel of Progress; and the cavemen in Ford’s Magic Skyway attraction.
Ride Capacity: The boat ride in “it’s a small world” and the Carousel of Progress rotating theater each generated theoretical capacities of over three thousand people per hour—almost double the largest previous capacities for an attraction in a Disneyland.
Transportation: The WEDway PeopleMover technology used to transport Ford cars at its pavilion became an attraction in Disneyland and, later, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. As a “real-world” transportation system, it was installed in 1981 at the Houston (now George Bush) Intercontinental Airport, transporting travelers between terminals.
Undoubtedly, the strongest statement about Walt’s dedication to growing his theme park relates to the “name fee” that WED Enterprises charged for using Walt Disney’s name during the course of the Fair. The fee was set at $1 million, to be paid by GE and Ford. It would be considered a down payment for sponsorship participation in the future. GE chose to continue; Ford declined.
It wasn’t a matter of money for Walt Disney—it was a matter of commitment. If you were with him, you were “family.” If you chose a different course, you could buy your own ticket to get into Disneyland.
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The New York World’s Fair was a watershed in many ways for the Imagineers. When we began work on the pavilions in 1960–61, there were only one hundred Imagineers. Over the years, I have been told many times by creative designers and engineers that their visit to the World’s Fair as a kid set the course for their future. That “sensory overload” visitors experienced became the dream that triggered many a career for youngsters like Tom Fitzgerald, now executive vice president, senior creative executive for Imagineering.
Tom’s family lived in Briarcliff Manor, a small town about an hour from the Fair in Westchester County, New York. They visited the Fair several times, the first being when Tom was eight years old. “When I saw the Disney shows, it was a huge revelation to me,” Tom recalls. “They were so unique… The art direction, the sets, the Audio-Animatronics figures, the music, the actors that voiced it all, and the wizardry of moving audiences in cars, on boats, and rotating theaters—who else but Disney could do that to the level that Walt did?
“We saw all four of the Disney shows…GE Progressland was pure magic! And I loved small world—the color, the animation, the song, the wonderful boat,” adds Fitzgerald. “My grandparents had given me a silver dollar, and I used it to buy the 45 record from the show. I played it over and over.
“That Fair,” says Fitzgerald, “was what convinced me I wanted to be a part of the Disney team.”
Those of us taking the red-eye flights from Los Angeles to New York and back carried such a quantity of construction drawings, props, audiotapes, and so much more that today, we would not be able to pass through security. WED leased apartments in the new LeFrak City alongside the Long Island Expressway. Don Edgren, whose engineering career at Disney had begun as a consultant in the early days of Disneyland, was our resident-in-chief; Don spent three years in New York as the Disney rep, interfacing with the contractors on the Ford and GE pavilions and managing construction of the “it’s a small world” building. Many of us would make our appearances at midnight or seven in the morning after a red-eye flight, find the room we had been assigned to, and pass our friends heading out to work at the site as we arrived.
Once I arrived about 1:00 A.M. and tumbled into the sack. I had been told that the silver-headed Vic Green would be my roommate in the second bed. That morning I was up bright and early. Having shaved and showered, I knew that Vic was going to be late if I didn’t act, so I shook him awake. “Vic—wake up! We’re going to be late!” The gray-domed person in “Vic’s bed” rolled over, looked me in the eye, and said: “I’m not Vic Green, and I’m not going to work this morning!”
I also quickly became educated about dealing with the unions in New York in the 1960s. Working with an electrician in the far reaches of the ride area at the Ford Pavilion, where the show’s dinosaurs roamed, I was setting sound levels when the electrician announced that he needed some piece of equipment, and would “be back in ten minutes.” I became very familiar with the roaring of Tyrannosaurus Rex during the next two hours, while I waited for the electrician to return.
Compounding the issues we faced were short construction time frames, causing the overlap of tasks and trades. For me, the problem came to a head a few weeks before the Fair’s opening, concerning the installation of the Ford ride’s narration. It was the first year of the Fair; I had written and recorded a narrator with a spiel somewhat similar to the one Walt would record for year two. The challenge had been writing dialogue for the theoretical timing of each scene. What I really needed was the opportunity to ride through the show—not once, but over and over again. I still had time to revise the length of each scene’s piece by rerecording based on actual timing.
Unfortunately, running the vehicles through the pavilion was one of the true challenges of the Ford Pavilion. Running the ride meant stopping the work of not only my favorite electrician, but also painters, iron workers, welders, engineers, laborers, and clean-up workers. As much as riding in those Ford cars was the key to Ford’s success and popularity with Fair visitors, the narrative storytelling was the tail wagging the dog.
Finally, there was no more flex time in our schedule: I had to do my tests, or there would be no audio emanating from the car radios. I had been promised “ride time,” and arrived in New York Sunday evening for an ea
rly start Monday morning. But Monday passed with no ride movement, as did Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, at last the vehicles moved—in fits and starts, but never a complete cycle. Desperate, I appealed to Don Edgren, who promised, and delivered, several complete cycles of the track by early Friday afternoon.
My helper was a talented young member of the Audio-Animatronics installation team. Although only in his early twenties, Jim Verity was a third-generation Disney employee—his father and grandfather had worked at the Studio. As we circled the track, I sat in a car with my tape recorder, playing the narration. Jim’s job was to walk rapidly alongside the auto, holding a can of black spray-paint; my signal told him where to spray a mark along the unpainted cement walkway, parallel to the track. At each mark, a mechanism would be installed later, triggering the start of the recording for each scene.
You can imagine the satisfaction I felt at midafternoon that Friday. Now I could catch my 7:00 P.M. flight to Los Angeles, pleased that finally I could record a narration track that would turn on and off precisely where I wanted it to.
I said my good-byes to Don Edgren, and as a last check before departing for the airport, asked Jim Verity to accompany me on a walk around the ride track. It took only moments to discover what the next trade group had accomplished in meeting their schedule after we had completed our job: they had painted the entire walkway black! Not one of my markings was visible; my entire week in New York had been painted out.