Listen to the Episode:
Welcome to Episode 4 of the Retro Disney World Podcast. We appreciate your support and hope you have been enjoying each and every episode. Be sure to check out some of the previous shows along with our latest. Thanks for listening!
Introductions
The regular crew is all here, Todd, Brian, How & JT are all present and accounted for. We discuss the original Fort Wilderness sign whereabouts and also a little Fort Wilderness Railroad trivia is brought up thanks to some viewer mail. We also speak of a eBay auction of an original Resort Wall Map from the 70s and then How analyzes the monorail loading zone at the Contemporary along with the missing elevator.
Main Topic
Our main topic this month is the conception, history and early years of EPCOT Center.
We look into the original vision of how it wasn’t really thought to be a theme park and that Walt wanted this to be the community of tomorrow. Brian and the gang also discuss the 1966 film Walt made to promote the concept and also get people excited about what was going to happen in Florida.
How talks about the original EPCOT Center mailer that was sent to him prior to park opening and we also touch on the Magic Kingdom Club. This episode is loaded with tons of early EPCOT facts and ideas, some failed concepts and missing characters – Be sure to listen to this episode carefully, as you may miss all the great information Brian shares with us.
Audio Puzzler
Congratulations to William Winikus for winning the Episode #3 Audio Puzzler, the answer was the Magnetic Mystery Mine on Tom Sawyer Island. William wins the “brand new” bar of retro Contemporary Resort Soap. If you think you know the answer to the audio puzzler this month, email us! podcast@retrowdw.com – There is an opportunity to win one of TWO retro EPCOT souvenirs with this months episode. All correct answers will be entered into a drawing in December 2015 for a Paul Hartley reproduction map from wdwmap.com!!
Viewer Mail
We received a great email from Jim, who is a current cast member at Walt Disney World. Jim gave us some great feedback and also mentioned how he uses the podcast to motivate him with his job at the Magic Kingdom, in Tomorrowland. We always love hearing positive emails and comments on how you listen to the show or what it does for you – Send your questions to podcast@retrowdw.com
Film Restoration
We watch and discuss a retro film that has been restored with Pixcel and Imageworks. Follow along with us as we add color commentary to the October 14th, 1982 EPCOT Center Film that has been restored to glorious perfection.
Listener Memories
Keep the calls coming, sharing your memories and giving us feedback. If you would like to call and leave us a message, please dial 978-71-RETRO.
Tweet at us, send us a Facebook post or message, tag us on Instagram or send us your thoughts.
We hope you have enjoyed this episode! If you have any questions, suggestions or find errors please email us podcast@retrowdw.com.
Next Month
Be sure to check back with us very soon for Episode #5 – We discuss World of Motion and learn how it’s always fun to be free.
Until next time… “Please remain seated. Your time machine vehicle is rotating for your trip back to Earth.”
Links to some of the source material I referenced in the show:
1) Michael Crawford’s Progress City USA articles on EPCOT’s variations in the concept stage is here:
http://progresscityusa.com/2010/04/20/epcot-origins-1977-master-plan-5/
http://progresscityusa.com/2010/05/09/epcot-origins-%E2%80%93-the-tripartite-plan-1975/
http://progresscityusa.com/2011/06/19/epcot-origins-a-model-future-1978/
2) The book “The Florida Project” is not actually called that. It’s called “Project: Future” dealing with the land acquisition and legislative approvals for the development of the Florida property is here: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Future-Inside-Behind-Creation/dp/0615347770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424792557&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Florida+Project
3) “Building A Better Mouse”, an EXCELLENT book detailing the construction of the American Adventure pavilion specifically and EPCOT in general is here: http://www.amazon.com/Building-Better-Mouse-30th-Anniversary/dp/1479379476/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424792611&sr=8-1&keywords=Building+a+better+Mouse
Great episode!
And nice work restoring the EPCOT film. It’s so great to have a resource like RetroWDW to help squelch the pangs of nostalgia.
Didn’t “Project: Future” call out that Anheuser Busch story as not the total truth? I saw an article that also covered it at: http://www.disneyhistoryinstitute.com/2013/04/walt-disney-and-riverfront-square-part-6.html
Really enjoyed the info about Epcot and had not heard the info about Reagan’s inaugural parade. Video is great. The pictures of Nancy Reagan are great. She looks totally exasperated to be part of it. President Reagan looks to be loving it.
Listened to this episode today (I’m listing to all the back/past episodes). With the “EPCOT film” being present in its entirety on the Walt Disney Treasures’ “Tomorrowland” DVD set, I’m not sure why you thought you had to restore it. That DVD set which I own is pristine, not faded out at all, and much improved over any YouTube clips or other excerpts that have existed of it in the past. Something that DESPERATELY needs restoring, though, is “The Magic of Walt Disney World” (1972) which is the best documentary on the place that the company ever released, bar none. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the gold standard of WDW promo pieces. It’s a crime that this has not been restored to pristine condition. I’ve watched on 16mm in the 1970s as well as the poor quality one on YouTube. It needs to be restored and released to the public!!
P.S. The giant-head characters used in World Showcase when EPCOT center opened were indeed the “America on Parade” dolls repurposed and originally used in the 1976-77 Bicentennial parade in the Magic Kingdom (and Disneyland). There is a hard cover “America on Parade” book by David Jacobs, published by Abrams – and a shorter soft cover one published by Disney – which show all those giant-head characters in their original parade costumes.
I was lucky enough to visit Epcot Center a month or so before it opened to the public. A friends mom working at Disney and was able to get her son and I into the park. It was more for testing and all food was half price, at least what was open.
I was only 15 at the time so my memory is pretty sketchy for most of that day but some of things I do remember;
Seeing Spaceship Earth for the first time was an awesome experience. We had no idea what it was but it was so cool.
When we were using the World Key kiosk we were one of many that accidentally connected to a live person, then quickly ran as we thought we did something wrong, hahaha.
Odyssey was open and you could get pizza there, we learned that from Blip of course.
We rode both Spaceship Earth and World of Motion which both broke down numerous times while we rode it, but it made the experience even more exciting for some reason.
I remember running all over the place just to look around. This was one of the few times I was not with my parents and family so of course you felt free to do whatever.
I do not remember any of World Showcase, so I am thinking that area was probably not accessible that day.
I sure wish I had a camera back then or at least had some brochures.
I really love the podcast and have been binge listening! My first visit to WDW was in ’73 with the family and we went fairly regularly each summer (we are from NY). I was quite fanatical about the parks back then and have several cassette tapes of sound I recorded around the park (everyone thought I was such a weirdo – this kid walking around with my Panasonic mono tape recorder and recording my observations and sounds of the park – lots of pics but video cameras weren’t around yet and 8mm film was expensive!). At any rate, I have recently become a member of a few Vintage WDW fan pages on FaceBook and this inspired me to dig into my fairly sizable box of stuff I collected over those years and to share pics of my collection. Among the Ticket books, and pictorial souvenirs, magazines, Eastern airlines memorabilia, etc, I found my Epcot Center Preview ticket and was surprised to see it was supposed to be for Florida Residents only, like you mentioned in the latest podcast I listened to “One Little Spark”. I wasn’t a resident but was able to make the trek out to the build site – it was something I will never forget. I was happy to see that the preview movie that you watched in the theater on main street before taking the ride out was put on YouTube. I only had my cassette tape audio of it and it was great to see it again. I am desperately trying to track down the pics of Dedication Day – that was my first trip to Epcot and it just happened to be ON my birthday.
Regarding World Key – was it always in Commuincore? I know they definitely had kiosks in World Showcase – I have audio of “Bit” (yes that was his name) and it’s “circle of fifths” musical arpeggios it would play when you touched the screen. I also have audio of some poor guest services person on the other side of the camera when I just HAD to know who did the monorail voice over! This was before the web, folks… I recently saw a video on YouTube of a kiosk in Communicore, but “Bit” was now voices by a child and the graphics were different. (There is a horrible video of William Shattner on YouTube as well using World Key with the interface I remember.) At any rate, thank you for your time, dedication and memories!
Regards,
Gian (John) DiMauro