Here You Leave Today, and Enter the World of Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy —Sign at the entrance to Disneyland
The opening of Disneyland in the middle of the twentieth century saw Walt Disney unleashing the forces of Imagineering to create a true “virtual reality” world of entertainment and adventure. When the first paying customers entered Disneyland on July 18, 1955, they walked through one of two tunnel passageways leading to Main Street, U.S.A. Many thought they were about to encounter an upgraded amusement park, but Walt Disney knew he had created something much more than that. From Town Square, guests looked down Main Street to see Sleeping Beauty Castle beckoning in the distance. This immediate first impression was designed to have guests feel like they were being absorbed into a cinematic experience, a sensation of knowing they had stepped from their everyday life into an extraordinary world.
According to Disney historian Alex Wright and contributors to The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland, Imagineering consists of the following eight basic principles.
1. Area Development: “The interstitial spaces between the attractions, restaurants, and shops. This includes landscaping, architecture, propping, show elements, and special enhancements intended to expand the experience.”
2. Blue Sky: “The early stages in the idea-generation process when anything is possible. There are not yet any considerations taken into account that might rein in the creative process. At this point, the sky’s the limit!”
3. Brainstorm: “A gathering for the purpose of generating as many ideas as possible in the shortest time possible. We hold many brainstorming sessions at WDI [Walt Disney Imagineering], always looking for the best ideas.” The rules include remembering that there is no such thing as a bad idea and that nothing should stifle the flow of ideas.
4. Dark Ride: “A term often used to describe the charming Fantasyland attractions, among others, housed more or less completely inside a show building, which allows for greater isolation of show elements and light control, as needed.”
5. Elevation: “A drawing of a true frontal view of an object—usually a building—often drawn from multiple sides, eliminating the perspective that you would see in the real world, for clarity in the design and to lead construction activities.”
6. Kinetics: “Movement and motion in a scene that give it life and energy. This can come from moving vehicles, active signage, changes in lighting, special effects, or even hanging banners or flags that move as the wind blows.”
7. Plussing: “A word derived from Walt’s penchant for always trying to make an idea better. Imagineers are continually trying to plus work, even after it’s ‘finished.’”
8. Show: “Everything we put ‘onstage’ in a Disney park. Walt believed that everything we put out for the Guests in our parks was part of a big show, so much of our terminology originated in the show business world. With that in mind, ‘show’ becomes for us a very broad term that includes just about anything our Guests see, hear, smell, or come in contact with during their visit to any of our parks or resorts.”
Source: The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland by Alex Wright and the Imagineers (Disney Editions, 2008).
Virtual reality is most often defined as a simulated sensory experience made possible by computer software, creating a convincing, three-dimensional experience that—at its best—looks, feels, and sounds like the real thing. It can be likened to any virtual environment where someone can literally walk into it and perceive it as true to life. Another word for virtual is enhanced reality. While various applications of simulated virtual reality will be increasingly possible in the future, people actually experienced it at Disneyland in 1955, without the aid of computer-generated special effects or other advanced technology.
Ground was broken for the Disneyland Park in July 1954, with opening day set for only 12 months later. A frenzy of construction activity swept over the former Anaheim, California, orange grove. In just a few months, the outlines of now-familiar landmarks began to emerge, with Main Street, Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Jungle Rivers of the World, and the larger Rivers of America visible. The Tomorrowland site, which lagged behind in construction, lacked the clear identity of the other lands. The Imagineers, specialists using creativity and technical know-how, became frustrated and suggested that the Tomorrowland of 1986 be concealed behind an attractive fence until it was ready. Although Walt Disney agreed to this at first, he changed his mind, saying, “We’ll open the whole park.… Do the best you can with Tomorrowland, and we’ll fix it up after we open.”
At the entrance to the original 1955 Tomorrowland, the first attraction to come into view was a tall clock structure. This was the Clock of the World, which declared that now is the time for the future. This clock was intended to symbolize the incredible futuristic world about to be entered. Standing more than 17 feet tall, the clock looked much like a squeezed soda can topped with a half sphere, gold-spiked anodized aluminum sun and a stylized silver crescent Man in the Moon face. The blue tiles encircling its base depicted the vast universe.
Few passersby stopped to notice that the timepiece showed not only the time in Anaheim, California, but also around the world. Other than serving as a convenient place for parents to meet their kids, the clock rapidly faded into obscurity. The towering red-and-white TWA Rocket was a much more-remembered symbol of Tomorrowland.
The Clock of the World is now gone, with only some first-generation Disneylanders able to recall it. The clock continued to faithfully perform its timekeeping duties until it was removed in 1966, along with the widespread demolition of the original 1955 Tomorrowland. The exiting of the clock was captured in a photo showing the timepiece, minus its top ornamentation, being hauled away with the lower edge of its blue “universe” mosaic tiles broken off at the base.
Sometimes the future can be treated rather shabbily.—Gary Dehrer
To realize his Disneyland vision, Walt Disney assembled a talented team of Imagineers, who would transform ideas and dreams into reality. Looking up at the second-floor windows along Disneyland’s Main Street, you can see painted signs with the names of people and their businesses. While the businesses are somewhat fictitious, the people are not. These are names of Imagineers—such as Harper Goff, Ken Anderson, Herb Ryman, and Sam McKim —and others who played significant roles in making Disneyland happen. Even Walt Disney’s father, Elias Disney, has a window with his name painted on it with “Contractor Est. 1895” listed.
Goff, with his background in designing movie sets, would lend a hand with Main Street and the Jungle Cruise ride. Anderson, trained as an architect and all-around designer, worked on many last-minute Disneyland projects. Ryman, a versatile artist who rendered the dazzling overview of Disneyland in 1953, would later help conceptualize New Orleans Square. McKim, a multitalented artist, rendered concept sketches for Disneyland and other Disney projects.
These and many other Imagineers to follow helped dream and bring Disneyland into existence.—Gary Dehrer
Eight basic Imagineering principles were essential to the creation of Disneyland’s virtual reality: Area Development, Blue Sky, Brainstorm, Dark Ride, Elevation, Kinetics, Plussing, and Show [see sidebar, “Eight Principles of Imagineering”].
1. Area Development. The original 1955 master plan for Disneyland envisioned Main Street, U.S.A., as the initial experience funneling people to a central plaza hub and then drawing them into one of four adjoining lands: Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Creating an expansive and interactive 60-acre venue such as Disneyland was a monumental undertaking; with no other prior experience, the Imagineers were faced with a Herculean task.
In reviewing Walt Disney’s plan to have everyone enter Disneyland at Town Square, amusement-park experts questioned why there was only one entrance. They warned that this would create unnecessary congestion. They also questioned the expense of Town Square, especially since it was not going to produce any revenue.
Disney responded that this entry space was designed to create an essential first impression and special mood for his guests. All guests had to enter the Park the same way to share an identical illusion. Even the Main Street transportation, which included a fire wagon and horse-drawn trolleys, was not intended to make any money but to help add to the overall sensory experience. Town Square was to serve as the gateway to Disneyland’s virtual reality.
The dramatic, one-two punch of the Main Street environs with Sleeping Beauty Castle looming down the street convinced Disney that he was on the right track in lifting his guests to a higher entertainment experience.
Disney was able to use his experience in animation and films, especially his extraordinary storytelling skills, to add believability to his Park creation. He grasped the importance of quickly altering the perception and attitudes of guests entering Disneyland, thereby drawing them into a new reality. This is similar to what video-game designers would be doing decades later using an interactive electronic visual format.
2. Blue Sky. Disneyland was the first project for Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), which was created on December 16, 1952, as part of WED (Walter Elias Disney) Enterprises. Walt Disney, considered to be the foremost Imagineer of modern times, had built a major animation and film studio by the early 1950s. WED was to address all Disney activities outside the film studio and this would come to include Disney parks, resorts, special attractions at World’s Fairs, cruise ships, and other diverse entertainment activities. Disneyland offered the Imagineers an opportunity to demonstrate that anything is possible.
He was creating something to bring people across disciplines—engineering, animation, scriptwriting and filmmaking—together to tackle specific projects. Early in the development of the Disneyland project, Walt Disney realized that creating his park illusion or “show” needed mechanical know-how as well as artistic expertise. To make his “big dreams” a reality, he would have to enlist an army of Imagineers, versed in an ever-widening range of disciplines. The Disneyland show needed not only people who could design and illustrate the dream, but also writers, architects, interior designers, engineers, lighting experts, graphic designers, set designers, craftsmen, sound technicians, landscapers, model makers, sculptors, special-effects technicians, master planners, researchers, managers, construction experts, and more.
Disneyland was first envisioned as a “place for people to find happiness and knowledge.” Here, people would not be watching a movie, but rather participating in it. They would be walking through a tunnel and emerging in another world. Even the landscaping and specially scaled architecture would add to the credibility of this dream place. He was intent on creating an illusion of time and space taking people away from their daily cares on a journey of imagination that was different from anything they had ever experienced before.
In explaining the secret of his success, Walt Disney had one word for it: curiosity. “There’s really no secret about our approach,” he said. “We keep moving forward—opening up new doors and doing new things—because we’re curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We’re always exploring and experimenting.” And curiosity was forever wrapped in endless “Blue Sky” possibilities that begged to become realities.
3. Brainstorm. Brainstorming was used to shape and define the Park, as well as to solve practical problems. The collaborative-thinking process energized the designing of Disneyland as the Imagineers pursued ideas both good and bad. Brainstorming represents a continuous process where success is many times intermingled with failure, as evidenced by Disneyland’s 1955 opening. Two of Tomorrowland’s brightest ideas—the freeway Autopia and Rocket to the Moon—both experienced initial failure. Bob Gurr, a young Imagineer with a bachelor’s degree in industrial design but scant mechanical knowledge, was put in charge of the Autopia’s first fleet of cars. On opening day, the Autopia drew a good-sized crowd, but by closing time, half of the cars were disabled. By the end of the first week, only two cars were still moving.
Walt Disney came by to inspect the ravaged car fleet and said, “Well, we’ve got to do something.” Gurr responded that he didn’t have a place to repair the broken cars. The Park, by this point, was already built, so there was no place to construct a shed. Some outside-of-the-box thinking was in order. Half an hour later, a tractor showed up towing a small wooden shed. The driver asked Gurr, “Where do you want your damn garage?” An enhanced Autopia with its sporty cars and meandering freeway is still thriving in the twenty-first century.
4. Dark Ride. Of all the rides in Fantasyland, Walt Disney’s favorite was Peter Pan. He particularly appreciated its fly-through concept, with its tiny galleon cars suspended on ceiling cables allowing passengers to soar over landscapes. It was one ride that he rode over and over again. Peter Pan was an original 1955 dark ride housed completely inside of a building.
Dark rides formed the backbone of Fantasyland’s entertainment experience, as special effects could be used to further create illusion and magic. In 1965, John Hench, one of Disney’s first and longtime Imagineers, rendered a concept sketch that would evolve into Space Mountain, housing a dark-ride roller coaster. The Space Mountain ride was finally achieved in 1975 as Tomorrowland continued to be reworked. Hench said, “The ride is above all an experience of speed, enhanced by the controlled lighting and projected moving images. But it evokes such ideas as the mystery of outer space, the excitement of setting out on a journey, and the thrill of the unknown.”
The power of dark rides pulled guests deeper into the Park experience, whether it was riding with Mr. Toad or flying with Peter Pan. Guests would themselves pass through the live-action scenes and physically experience being part of the story. The rides and attractions were designed to work in harmony to produce a series of sensations. Arguably, the Park setting and attractions worked well to subliminally capture moods and influence attitudes that are so important in creating virtual reality. Fantasy would become real.
5. Elevation. Imagineering ushered in the concept of three-dimensional storytelling. Imagineers detailed the images and settings they felt important to telling stories through mood and sensation.
Even Main Street, U.S.A., had a story to tell. John Hench explains, “Mood is created mainly by the sensation of carefully orchestrated and intensified stimuli, of color, sound, form, and movement. Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A., which represents the main shopping street in an idealized American turn-of-the-century small town, is a good example of mood created by sensation that results in enhanced reality.”
Disney historian Jeff Kurtti notes, “While the first Imagineers had no formal training in urban design, the nature of the animator’s art made them natural systems architects. As storytellers, they ‘wrote’ the park, giving it consistency of narrative that is matched by few other public spaces.” As the architectural elevation drawings of Disneyland were made into real buildings, Walt Disney was achieving an unprecedented breakthrough in entertainment, causing people to directly experience and interact with a virtual world as stories and adventures came alive. The Imagineered elements of storytelling created a virtual-reality setting by placing Park guests in a fantasy, larger-than-life environment. Transferring imagination into blueprints and then into an actual park virtual experience was a singular achievement that foreshadowed a future world as yet unknown.
6. Kinetics. On an inspection tour of Disneyland when it was under construction, Walt Disney spent several hours riding around in a Jeep accompanied by several people, including Joe Fowler, his construction boss. Departing from Town Square, Disney and his small party drove over to Sleeping Beauty’s unfinished castle, where he described all of the attractions and how everything would look in full color. He was describing the kinetics of Fantasyland and how the carousel horses would be leaping.
Disney realized that transferring stories from film to real-life three dimensionality would be challenging but knew his guests could use their imaginations in the Park just as they did in movie theaters. Thus, the Park experience would become believable, allowing guests to trust and enjoy the attractions and illusions.
The Jeep visited all the lands, and everyone could feel the enthusiasm of Walt Disney. When the Jeep returned to the Park entrance, Disney looked back down an unpaved Main Street and remarked, “Don’t forget the biggest attraction isn’t here yet.” When asked what that was he responded, “People. You fill this place with people, and you’ll really have a show.”
7. Plussing. Walt Disney said of Disneyland, “It’s something that will never be finished, something I can keep developing, keep ‘plussing’ and adding to. It’s alive.”
Disneyland has been compared to an animated movie, where main attractions are much like “key frames” in a film. Disney even went so far as to devise ways to fade from one Disneyland attraction and then focus guests into another, much as a film moves from scene to scene. John Hench said of Disney, “He would insist on changing the texture of the pavement at the threshold of each new land because, he said, ‘You can get information about a changing environment through the soles of your feet.’” Thus, through continuous plussing, the Disneyland experience would be both ordered and harmonious, not chaotic or confusing.
From opening day in 1955, Disneyland was meant to undergo continuous innovation and upgrading. Walt Disney and his Imagineers envisioned that Disneyland would embrace ongoing change and newly emerging technologies, while retaining its original footprint of a wondrous “magical kingdom.”
Imagineering plussing kept the park vision alive, with each “frame” being reedited to achieve the best real-life experience possible. Virtual reality is all about “plussing” an environment so that it is constantly being changed and improved.
8. Show. Crucial to the virtual-reality creation was its cast of characters. To further create his Disneyland illusion, Walt Disney instituted his Disneyland University, which would train Park personnel to not just do their jobs, but to perform as though they were onstage. Employees were expected to be happy and cheerful, further creating the feeling of an optimistic world. They would follow special protocols and a dress code to help guests feel comfortable about participating in the show.
Adding to this inclusive effect were Mickey and Minnie Mouse, along with other Disney cartoon characters, who would join guests in the Park. These costumed walk-around characters were meant to mingle with guests, posing for pictures but remaining silent. The physical impact of the walk-around characters enhanced the show and produced a convincing and compelling fantasy environment for adults and children alike.
In 1955, Walt Disney had made Disneyland a living virtual reality. It would pull generations of people into Town Square to start altering their moods and sensations, and then down Main Street, U.S.A., and on into the Park, enabling them to escape into their imaginations through carefully Imagineered experiences, settings, stories, and adventures. Imagineering architecture, landscaping, and storytelling created not only a compelling “show,” but also a living virtual world.
Walt Disney, who died in 1966, had a family apartment over the Fire Station overlooking Town Square in Main Street, U.S.A., where he would sometimes stay overnight at the Park. Staff members knew that, when the front window lamp was on, their ever-watchful boss was on board. Few guests took notice of the apartment lamp, as there were many lights along Main Street. Today, if you look up to the second-floor Fire Station apartment, you realize that the lamp in the window behind the curtain is always on.
In assembling his team of Imagineers, Walt Disney had created an extension of himself that would pursue his dreams and the future long after he had died. Disneyland is a living virtual world that is a portal into an optimistic future. It is “another world” where everything is all right, people are innately good, and anything can be handled. In this sense, all of Disneyland is indeed a bright and hopeful Tomorrowland.
Gary Dehrer is a retired principal of the San Bernardino City Unified School District (San Bernardino, California), a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, author of Building a Championship Family (New Horizon Press, 2007), and a lifelong visitor to Disneyland. He resides in Yucaipa, California. E-mail gpdehrer@yahoo.com.
This article draws from his essay “Tomorrowland,” to be published in the 2011 World Future Society conference volume, Moving from Vision to Action.
• Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas (Walt Disney Company, 1994). Thomas chronicles Disney’s keen attention to detail in perfecting an enhanced park experience, as with tree placement, the scale of the trains, and noise level of cars in his dark rides. He also observes that Walt Disney challenged those around him to go the extra mile in their work, but that this was not always well received. According to Thomas, Walt Disney viewed the Park as a living motion picture that could change and grow with its guests.
• Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler (Vintage Books, 2006). Gabler’s candid assessment of Walt Disney offers an excellent companion to Bob Thomas’s insightful biography. Gabler feels that Disney saw the Park as an interlocking series of movie sets, whereby guests were to be absorbed as participants in a cinematic experience. He sees Disneyland as both transforming and therapeutic in helping people feel good about themselves and in love with life, and he sees Walt Disney, as the master animator, pulling his audience or guests into his own creation.
• Walt Disney’s Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park by Jeff Kurtti (Disney Editions, 2008). Kurtti’s book is an informative overview of the men and women who created the Disney theme-park concept. Beyond Disneyland’s “architecture of reassurance” is a carefully crafted encounter with virtual reality. Kurtti writes, “Nothing looks fake. Fabricated, yes; fake, no. Disneyland isn’t the mimicry of a thing. It’s a thing.” Once through the entry tunnels, you are quickly absorbed into Disney’s imagineered world of fantasy.
• Designing Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show by John Hench (Disney Editions, 2008). Hench, a legendary Disney Imagineer, had a 65-year Disney career, from 1939 to until his death at age 95 in 2004. In this book, he relates how the 1955 Disneyland was to be a venue for a succession of new attractions within the park’s original Main Street and four lands framework. Hench suggests the enhanced simulated reality is achieved through carefully orchestrated and intensified color, sound, form, and movement.—Gary Dehrer