Future of Carousel of Progress and Narrators

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Let's get started by bringing in the man who says Florida having flights to the moon shows just how desperate people are to leave this state. Mr. Jim Hill. Jim has it going. It's going well then, though speaking of flight to the moon, uh I wanna remind folks uh that debut at Disneyland in July of sixty seven as part of that theme park's new Tomorrowland project. Uh The Disney World version, uh wasn't an opening day attraction of Magic Kingdom. Uh showed up actually Christmas Day nineteen seventy one. But uh wanted to ask how many people remember that moment in the pre show where you got the emergency, emergency, you know, uh you unauthorized approach. And then you got that image of a Goonie bird crashing on the runway and we're a little bend on the story. Uh that was recycled footage from Waterbirds, a Disney true life adventure. Released to theaters uh july fifty two. Uh, by the way, took home the Academy Award that year for Best Live Action Short Subject. And what was interesting is that moment was stu Played so well. I in the pre show that when they changed over flight to the moon to mission to Mars In nineteen seventy five, they actually carried it over. And in fact Mr Johnson then had additional dialogue to the effect of just as I thought, you know, the w when it happens again, it's like, Oh no, not again and that silly bird trips up our our emergency system every time. But Here's where it it gets interesting. It ties in w to something we talked about on last week's show. Uh, we were mentioning that uh soaring over America. Opened uh in Florida, uh at Epcot on uh May twenty second, the Friday before Memorial Day. And you know, the question is, Well, why is it opening here then? But again, if we pivot to DCA, they're not getting their version of this ride film. Till July second of this year, and it was Uh our partner in crime over on our Patreon project, uh Disney uh unpacked. Jim Schul uh who actually explained this and he said, Well, it's kind of what happened. Uh with uh flight to the moon mission to Mars back in the seventies. It it turns out there's only one team of people and a people who know this thing works and uh it can't be in two places at the same time. Yeah. Exactly. So that the you know, at least back then what they did is they started Uh in uh what was it? They started in Disneyland and they had they that version, Mission to Mars up and running by March of seventy five, and then they fly down to Florida and by June seventh of that same year, Mission to Mars is now in the Magic Kingdom, uh you know, in Orlando. So Uh, they just reversed the order for soaring over America. They they first got the Epcat version up and running and now the team is returned to California and and they're in California adventure right now, getting ready to change over the ride film there. That's fantastic. That's awesome. And I I can't wait for everyone in California to see the new ride because it's very good. There we go. Awesome. Jim, let's do a quick shout out to our subscribers. Thanks everyone who subscribes over to patreon.com slash Jim Hill Media, including John Jones, Skip Gad, Bobby Mahoney, Mary Phelps. Mark Andrew and Melissa Howard Jim This is the Walt Disney Imagineering team writing the script for the new nineteen eighty five scene. In carousel of progress so far they've got Jimmy playing We Are the World. on his Sony Walkman, Grandma watching the first WrestleMania on pay-per-view, and John meeting the boys downtown at the seven eleven to try something called new Coke. True story. Hammered on Google with with with great success. Capturing nineteen eighty five. I'm I applaud the effort. All right. On to the news. Folks, the Disney Dish News is sponsored by unlockedmagic.com from our friends at D V C Rentalstore.com. Disney's now got a whole bunch of updated rides plus new stuff open. And unlockmagic.com has discounted theme park tickets that'll save you enough to enjoy snacks in all four parks. So visit unlockedmagic.com now to save money on your upcoming visit. All right. On to the news. Before we get to Carousella Progress, a couple of things. Um I've been on Millennium Falcon Smuggler's Run with the new Mandalorian and Grogu update. And I've been on it six or seven times now. I've seen uh each destination, I've been in each role, each different seat. It's nice to have the different visuals, Jim. It looks better, it feels better. Uh I I think it's an improved attraction. It's largely the same experience though for for everyone involved. They've added small video screens for the gunner and engineers to look at, where you can see Krogo and Mando coaching you through different things. But substantially it's still the same experience and the same flaws. uh that were on the ride before, mainly that the gunners and engineers sit in front of a large computer panel instead of looking at the screen. That's the fundamental flaw in the ride. And they didn't fix that, right? But overall Very good. You can ask for Grogu mode. When you walk in, so for those of you who want to see what this is like When you walk into the ride vehicle itself, there's gonna be a cast member there. Don't touch any buttons, don't do anything as you're walking in, tell the cast member. that you would like Grogu mode and they will walk you through how to do it. And that's super important. One of the uh fun things on this Que mo Jim is. If the engineer chooses course cunt. as the planet to visit, I think the Cantina song plays in the background. It's a nice little nod. I didn't realize it the first time through because I was trying to absorb everything else that was going on. The second time through I was like, that's a familiar And then the third time through like oh I get it now. Have you seen the video of uh of this by the way? You know, I mean uh think about it, you know, if you weren't pilot, you walked out of this attraction with a crick in your neck, you know, 'cause you were you were doing your job but turning to look at the big screen and you know, again, this is still the same flaw. You're you are still drawn to look at the big screen, but it at least you have something a a bit more dynamic, a bit more interesting directly in front of you if you're a gunner or an engineer now. It's a small improvement for the gunner and the engineer. And I'm glad that they've addressed it. I think they've done as much as they could in the amount of time that they had and with the money that they had to make it a better ride. Fundamentally we're still at like it rather than love it. But at the same time, remember you still have You know, you still get to walk on to the Millennium Falcon. I just wish Yeah, remember when it opened, they actually allowed you time to be in the space and take photos and and that's it. Yeah, yeah. They don't uh they don't do that now. They're they're trying to maximize capacity. Although I did have about sixty seconds in the time where I was in the Millennium Falcon room, but not yet lined up to board. And I did manage to slide behind the chessboard for a really quick photo. I don't know that you can ha you can take three photos. I took one. Three, you might not have enough time. One is definitely possible, but y everyone's gotta know what they're doing and everyone has to be quick about it. There's no dily or dallying. Other thing we did this week was to see Bluey at conservation station. And that was The offici for that, I think was Tuesday. Monday they did soft previews in the afternoon, but Tuesday was the big day where everyone knew that it was gonna be open. And Jim, I walked First of all, catch the magic in with seven years. It was like Somebody had The Bluey Army to assemble in the parking lot at 6 a.m. like they were mustering their every parent had on a bowie shirt, every kid had a bowie backpack. I would've thought I was in somebody else's theme park. It was that that many people. We had virtual queue group number seventeen, border group seventeen. It's right at seven AM. Um the Wi Fi out By the Tap styles is super effective. At seven fifteen, the bridge to Pandora opened. Uh at eight A. M. They started calling uh groups and they were calling I think twelve groups the first time and then, you know, ten or whatever. So eight o'clock was when the virtual queue started getting called. We were called uh eight seventeen or group seventeen. By eight nineteen we were on the train. took five or six minutes for the train to load. We were at conservation station at eight thirty two and the first show started at eight forty eight. So the first groups Got called at eight. The second group got called around eight fifteen, eight seventeen. We got to the eight forty eight show. So Assume that you've got in terms of transportation and and and the groups from the time your group is called. To the time you get there is thirty minutes. Until the next show. The show started at eight forty eight. The first thing was um a Magic Asparagus was the first game. The second game was Copycat Trade's. Uh third game was Mums and Dads, and the last game was Kippy Uppy, as we would have expected. The show's thirteen minutes long. And so they're packing this in every every game is about three minutes. Which for me is like saying It was like going to a A cardio class at the gym? Where every exercise you have is ninety seconds to three minutes long? For the and if you don't like bluey, it'd be like doing a plank exercise. for three minutes. Unfortunately we all like blue kids loved it. Like kids were going nuts. Parents were crying at how c happy the kids were right in terms of an experience. It's everything you could want in a bluey experience. Right. They've they've nailed that part. The only the only thing that you would think would be an issue with it was the things that we had identified as soon as they announced this was going into conservation station. It's it's the logistics. All of the logistics are the issue. That's it. Other than that's a great it's a great update. The um they do have kangaroos and wallabies. You can't pet them. They're sort of They're getting acclimated right now to people. Eventually we may get to fight them, but right now they have just come over. They're still getting over the jet lag. They're still trying to adjust to people. Can't touch them yet. I will say though that uh Bluey is available for hugs. I didn't think Bluey was gonna be available for hugs. For kids, but you can't you you can. So that's good. Well I again appreciate you there for opening day of this. Uh quick question. Again, if you don't have the T shirt, you didn't have the experience. Was there a retail component or there was. So there's there's tons of merch back in conservation station. I didn't look in Harambe to see any mm although I did walk around Harambe just noticing the crowds. Um so there is there is merch available there. Um there's also an expanded baby care section. In conservation station, uh and plenty of air conditioning inside the main building. Also, they're still doing um veterinarian veterinarian services. In conservation station. So there's more than bluey to look at. But you were there for opening day anecdotally now? Is there any information about how other guests Are are are are having, you know, the sort of experience they're having. Day two is much smoother than day one. Day one virtual queue sold out almost instantly. And on day one, the most striking thing about Blue experience was the number of Cast members and managers in Harambe around The Wildlife Express train explaining to people how it was gonna work. in apologizing to parents who couldn't get in the virtual queue. So imagine you dressed up, you brought your kid in, you didn't know about the virtual queue, and you get there at nine o'clock, obviously there there's no chance of getting a virtual queue. It's sold out. So cast members were trying to do the the best they could there to uh in in terms of recovery. But there had to be One cast member for every ten guests in Haranbe. When I was there. They were mm flooding the zone with uh with cast members to help that. Okay, 'cause what's kind of interesting, I'm just gonna put this out there, is that out ahead of this opening weekend, they were already looking ahead over the horizon to two thousand twenty seven, which again is the year that Disney releases the bluey movie. And the the feeling is As crazy as it is this year, next year you know, w will be exponentially worse. 'Cause the might of the Disney company will then be behind Bluey, and you know, all of the other people on the planet who don't already know about Bluey will be made aware. There's some aborigin folks out in the middle of Australia that may not have heard of Bluey, but There we go. So what's fascinating, and again, just putting this out there that evidently entertainment Uh has been tasked with the notion of okay. This is what we are doing. for the summer of two thousand twenty six. And we will do what we have to to make this work. But what are we gonna do in the summer of two thousand twenty seven? And uh Len. Go ahead. Go ahead. Actually what's fascinating is that The They're eyeballing Uh Camp Mini Mickey Two? Mini Mickey Two Electric Electric Blue Blue. There we go. But the notion of taking a chunk of land inside of Animal Kingdom because again, face it, now that the managers of this theme park have tasted what Bluey can do to daily attendance is this theme park, they're they're gonna pry this character out of their cold dead hands. They're not giving it up. So the notion is What can we do in this park to make this easier for again the the parents who can't get into virtual queues? That sort of thing. And it's like Bluey needs his own Temporary land. A mini land. When does the Bluey movie come out in twenty twenty seven? I want to say it's it's July, late July or early August of two thousand twenty seven. Uh, and in fact what's especially weird about it, Lynn, is that four weeks later, The Simpsons Two comes out from Disney, their second movie. So I I have to admit I'm looking forward to that moment in Disney promotions history, how one pivots from Bluey and Bingo to Bart and Lisa. But yeah. We know that Tropical America is isn't going to open in the first half of twenty twenty seven. So let's say they put Bluey in in July. in Animal Kingdom. Later on that year, Tropical Americas is gonna open. Are there enough things to do in that park to handle those crowds where it'll be the first major new land opening since Galaxy's Edge? Toy Storyland with Bluey and with those two new rods in the least visited of the Disney parks. I would expect that we would see more infrastructure upgrades happening now, if that was going to be the case. Though just putting this out there, you do have your fifty five thousand seat nighttime arena in between Asia and uh the tropical Americas. Can can Bluey Waterski is that a is that canonical in the in the I gotta I gotta watch more shows. There we go. There we go. I I don't know what to tell you. I just I just know that On the heels of how popular Bluey is in California and in this early taste of what he could potentially do in Florida, Animal Kingdom wants to keep this character and uh more to the point, happier to accommodate more parents and children. So it's like, all right, this is what we do for uh the summer of two thousand twenty six. What are we gonna do for the summer of two thousand twenty seven? Epcot's got the space. They should go in communicor hall. And they can move the Incanto stage show to Animal Kingdom to piggyback on The opening of Tropical Americas. That would make the most sense. Absolutely. World Show Place is just sitting there. They could do that too. You put some you put some uh uh some cardboard uh scallop like cutouts like so make it look like the Sydney Opera House out in front. Okay. Let me sketch this out for imagine now. There we go. There we go. But but like I said, you know, Animal Kingdom it's now had a taste of what Bluey can do, and I don't think the managers there will let go of this character Oh no no no no no. Last bit of news coming out of Walt Disney World and this just was announced today. Uh we're getting a new carousel of progress, the last date. for the existing show is July fifth, twenty twenty six. So it closes on the sixth. And Jim, the new scenes that they've announced update the decades that we're visiting. So right now the decades are turn of the century, so nineteen oh one. I think on on a previous show uh we established the fact that the scene one is February fourteenth, nineteen oh one, in a farm outside in Arkansas City, Kansas. Well let me know if we need to go back and find that show. Um but the new scene one is nineteen sixty nine, presumably it's the uh presumably Disney said it's the moon landing. Sorry, I I I wrote these notes um knowing what was happening, but having to couch it in the language of I think Anyway, uh the second scene is nineteen eighty five. The third scene is New Year's Eve nineteen ninety nine going into the new millennium. And then the fourth scene is interesting because remember the current fourth scene Is was last done in the mid nineties, and it still refers to things like car phones and laser discs. And to get around that issue. The new scene four is going to be some point in the distant future. And and what's fascinating about all of this, um uh Len, is that in a weird sort of way, uh, this parallels what we were talking about last week with uh Rock and Roller Coaster starring the Muppets, how uh they over delivered and Uh remember, we first learned about this redo uh August of last year. And and what we heard about was the new uh introductory scene with Walt in his blue cardigan. Uh and uh evidently at that point the plan simply was Walt with Blue Cardigan. Brand new ending scene. You know, just the notion of basic return, right, yeah. Do what you have to. And but you know, there was a interesting moment inside of Imagineering to the effect of look, there are so many issues, there's so many residual story points from back when this was sponsored by General Electric and largely was supposed to promote General Electric Products. Yeah uh so you know if we're gonna redo this show, let's redo this show. And you know, let's, for example, address the I mean, remember the first version of the show. was put together back in the father's knows best era. Mom was always kind of dismissed, and in fact That's the other thing that that's fascinating about it, at least in one scene of this show Mom? Sarah's the narrator? Did you see that? I I my understanding is Sarah's the narrator threat. All of it. That's the other big big change is that John's no longer the main narrator. That's really interesting because I was talking to uh Bethany Beamis, our friend who's the um assistant curator at uh Smithsonian. No, about this. And early versions of the Cure Cell of Progress script. included not only references to technological progress. But also to social progress. So there's a was a line in the one of the early scripts um that got released into the public uh about where Sarah is saying that women who do the same work as men should be paid the same. Uh and the question was, like in this current environment, are the are we getting going to get any commentary or any references to social changes? From the nineteen sixties to the two thousands. My guess is no, that that's just not Not going to be a thing. Okay. Well, I I again it just The fact that they had the option of taking the safe route. Again, just do Walt at the beginning and change the the end scene and leave everything else intact. And the fact that it's like no We're gonna do it. Overall, yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. And a and a brave move on Disney's part. You could argue that it's one of the few things in Walt Disney World that Walt personally helped develop. I mean, I know it's changed a million times since the nineteen sixty four World's Fair, but You know, overall. That that's really interesting. The other the other thing I think that we c we got out of this announcement was that the script must be already written. Oh, gotta be. Because they've already picked years, which means they have some sense of what they're talking about. So this has been in developed a lot longer than we think because the the announcement indicates that they've put a lot of thought into the script already. So uh that's gonna be interesting to see too. Uh do you think they're gonna change the song? No. In fact what's interesting is remember the the only reason that uh Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow was changed uh to Now is the time is it was literally executives at General Electric for lack of a better term, being dicks. They wanted to update the show and it was just an now that song from the nineteen sixties. That's dumb. Give us a new song. And and it it it was especially interesting, Len, because this was during a time when the Sherman brothers were kind of on the outs. Disney and they were like, Oh crap, we gotta go back to Dick and Bob and ask them if they'll do a new song. And uh and the Sherman brothers being the crafty businessmen that they were, this is by the way, you know, this is eighty three or thereabouts. They cut a deal uh with Disney to the effect of, Okay, you want us to update the song, uh which again debuted with the new version when it showed up in uh Florida. We want to write music for Epcot. They got that written into their contract. We revisit Great Big Beautiful tomorrow. We get the right songs for Epcot, which is, by the way, how we got one little spark and Magic Journeys and uh not to mention the march that nobody knows. The uh there's no place like World Showcase. So there's a deep cut for you, cheese. Talking about B side. Wow. All right. All right, Jim. We'll we'll talk more about uh carousel progress in the main segment, but I wanna touch on a couple of universal parks. Bits of news. One is that did you see that Universal Express Pass is being removed from Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure starting July first? Universal says this is it to improve guest flow. My sense here, Jim, and I'd uh love to hear your thoughts on this. Is that the ride capacity and downtime create long waits for the standby queue? And that's negatively affecting guest satisfaction scores. I mean, I I yeah, I you're not wrong about that. I mean if you you know, uh especially over turning plants, you keep track of you know, how long or how often Hagrid's magical creature motorbike adventure is down. I mean it's just it's it's a complex A traction and it's it's down typically every morning, right? For like ninety minutes to two hours. And and so the notion of taking express pass off the table and f Yeah, that's the other thing. This was a very strong revenue stream. for the universal parks in Florida and the fact that you know they were willing to make this sacrifice to give up the revenue that they were making on Yeah, for people who Went out of their way to get the the express for Hagrids. Right. Foreshadowing on this announcement because remember when they announced the single universal express pass, the single ride. Specifically they did not include Hagrid's in that. And so we knew that that it couldn't handle the additional capacity of express pass there. So not not a total surprise here. of other bits of news. Our friend Alicia Stella over at Orlando Park Stop reported a new construction permit for something called Project 680. In Dark Universe. We'd originally said, Jim, that this might be creature from the Black Lagoon. Though Alicia's better connected and says it might be Bride of Frankenstein. And that would be interesting in that the Frankenstein story would be the central premise of two attractions. in the land. I get why we're not doing creature from the Black Lagoon, because that's based in the Amazon, which isn't in the same location as the European village of Darkmore. But but Go rides in in one land that are on the same story. I mean I get like Galaxy's Edge is like that. But if we're really talking about Celebrating universal monsters. In one land. Two rides on the same story. What you think? And also, didn't we hear last year? At IAPA, in fact when we went to that presentation for the new Dollywood ride system, uh you know, weren't the folks there sort of insinuating that they were gonna be selling the same System to Universal for the creature rhyme? That's sort of what I got out of that conversation. Yeah. Although nothing nothing prevents Universal from using that right technology somewhere else. All true. All true. But again, that this was a coaster that could handle dry land as well as a water component. So I'm I I I'm not gonna lie, m Miss Stella is amazingly connected and if she says Bride of Frankenstein is increasing its presence in Darkmoor, uh gotta buy into that. But it's just sort This is interesting based on last year's news. The other thing that might be driving this move towards Bright Frankenstein and away from Christian Blackley Boon is this. That's a really interesting ride system that Dollywood has. It's a boat that turns into a roller coaster. There are two issues that Universal Creative might be worried about that. One is it would have to be an outdoor ride. Or most likely be an outdoor ride because of the splashing involved. Okay. In the water. Outdoor rides close in Florida because of thunderstorms and rain. Um that is a right system that Dollywood is using and I think a couple of other places are using it, but in terms of Time tested technology that we know is reliable. Remember, Epic Universe has problems with ride reliability. They might not want to go with An experimental or a relatively new ride system on an outdoor ride. When Epic Universe desperately needs reliable rides that run through rain. I'm not gonna pull that logic. Yeah. So om omni mover cr Omni mover bride of Frankenstein uh might be the thing that they need here. Okay. Okay. Uh you know, especially after the first you know, a year or so of operation at Epic I can see uh Universal making that sort of decision. So I'm headed there tomorrow, so that's correct. Okay. Last bit of news from Universal. Alicia also notes that more than a dozen construction trailers have been moved over to the Harry Potter expansion pad. At Epic Universe and Jim, the rumor we've heard here is a ride based on the game Quidditch, right? Yeah, yeah. More to the point. Supposedly the experience is something that that uh Potter fans have been asking for forever, that you get to ride a broom. So uh gonna be fascinating to see w what ride system we use to pull that off. Right, and I expect that we'll hear a phase two Epic Universe announcement at some point over the summer. I do know that Disney scheduled its carousel of progress announcement. Coincidentally, Coincidentally. to land on the same day that Universal announced the opening date for its Universal Kids Resort in Texas. Which is July first, so When is the D twenty three parks panel, Jim, in August? But just pencil that in for something for uh Universal Universal's PR team to work on. There you go. All right. Jim we've uh we've we've talked about dues for for thirty minutes here. Just keep the the show running relatively uh quickly in in under an hour. I'm gonna skip uh surveys and listener questions and we'll do it all next week. Let's um let's do the the main show segment next. Okay. We'll do. All right. All right, folks. Then we're gonna we're gonna do that. We're gonna take a quick commercial break. When we come back, Jim gives us the history of changes. To Walt Disney's carousel of progress. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Quince. Okay, so now it's June, which means that the summer heat is finally here. But are you, more importantly, is your wardrobe really ready for the seasonal change? If not, not to worry, just head on over to Quince, where you'll find active wear to formal wear and everything in between. 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Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scale ups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. And we're back. All right, Jim. So again, a complete lucky break for us in that you have prepared all week a story about the history of changes. Walt Disney's carousel of progress, and lo and behold, could not have had better timing. Clean living Jim. There we go. Dumb luck. Okay. And again, just a reminder, we we we sort of got an indication that this was coming August of last year with the news about, you know, the new Walt scene, uh the introductory scene that was going to be uh added to the front of the show. And Uh, this of course came on the heels of the a a figure of Walt that debuted Disneyland July seventeenth of last year, the the seventieth anniversary of the park. That's the one uh that leads off the uh Walt Disney a magical life show in the Main Street Opera House. Uh and Uh what's kind of interesting is that's Walt in his gray business suit. Yep. The guy who you know, uh we saw opening virtually every episode of the Sunday Night Disney TV show. Whereas the Walt that we're getting at the front of the Carousella Progress show, in fact What's kind of interesting, it's it's Walt in a blue cardigan. Uh in fact, you can go on YouTube right now and watch this version of Wold, uh, because it he it's how he appears in a May nineteen sixty four episode of The Wonderful World of Color. And in fact, it's the episode it's called Disneyland Goes to the World's Fair. And it's while showing off all of the attractions that they're building for the fair, and among them, of course, is Carousel Progress. Now as to how we got Uh a carousel of progress. Uh this actually dates back to the first couple of years that Disneyland is open. Uh to be specific, nineteen fifty seven. And uh in fact Len and I talked a little bit about this uh in uh our Maxwell House uh Hills Brothers coffee house. Sure. Well we talked about how right next door to uh Disneyland's coffee house there was the Sight of Future Sights. Which allowed you to peek into where the park was originally going to build Liberty Street. Uh, and that, of course, uh was a new land at the park that was gonna key off of a movie that Disney w was making at the time uh Johnny Tremain. Uh but uh Len, in this same window of time, uh Walt gets contacted by a a gentleman who has a a giant collection of personal belongings of Thomas Alva Edison. Of course the American uh inventor, the the the gentleman who you know uh is credited with the electric light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the storage battery. And here's the thing, you know Walt I bowled this for a time and but just the thinking was that, you know We don't do museums here at at at Disneyland. We do shows. We do ride shows and attractions, but maybe doing something that ties to Edison might be a smart idea. Uh so they developed uh another land, sort of a companion land to Liberty Street called Edison Square. And the idea was to create sort of a little cul de sac off of Main Street that celebrated how America changed with the arrival of electricity. And Uh by the way, uh if you want to learn more about Edison Square, folks, you can head right now over to Ted uh Lenhart's. wonderful Disney Doc's website because Ted has managed to get a hold of a copy of the actual presentation book that Disney created for general electric executives to sell them on the land. And it walks you through that entire iteration of this plan. And I see you have a uh a link in the show notes. I will highlight that for everyone. There we go. There we go. So uh shout out to Ted. We had started preparing this show last week. Again, total coincidence. Yep. Total coincidence that I um but we were asking Ted, hey, you know, do you have a history of documents that talk about Changes to carousel of progress. Oh yes. Ted has carefully. I'm trying to sound sincere here, Jim. There we go. A propos of nothing. Uh and and Ted came through for us. So thank you. Thank you, Ted, for that. There we go. Important to understand here, folks, that this is the late nineteen fifties and this is a Disney company that is still years away from ride systems like the omni mover, the people mover, uh things that will safely and efficiently move thousands of people an hour through a ride show or attraction. Uh this is why all of the shows that the imaginary design for Edison Square, uh again, harnessing the lightning, which again you can read all about over on Ted's side. Uh likewise the shows for Liberty Street, we had the Hall of the Declaration of Independent and the Every every t shirt with that logo would have to be a a double XL just for the words. There we go. And and do you have to put like a well a a taft on because he's the largest president, right? So every double XL shirt With Taft. It would be sponsored Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Smith. It'd like the the text would roll around to the back. Oh my God. This is cheap. Oh, God. Now uh but again, it's important to understand that those shows were walk throughs. And in fact, they were walk throughs Where you would go past wax figures. Uh, and you'd have, you know, voice over narration, you'd have movement. Uh, but only achieved through the use of spotlights, that sort of thing. This is what we had. This is what we had in the fifty in the fifties. And and uh more to the point, this is why when you look at the original version of Pirates of the Caribbean, Rogues Gallery, that's a walk through uh hell. The the the The first versions of the haunted mansion were also walk throughs. And uh and by the way, again, people forget today that the Disneyland did uh early on have wax figures. Uh you know, if you in fact if you Google Davy Crockett Museum, you can see You know, a wax version of Hess Parker is Davy Crockett, uh Bud Epson or George E Russell. Hell there's uh there's a one version of the scene where you get a wax version of our seventh president, Andrew Jackson. But here's the other issue here, Len, is that Walt Disney Productions when they're crafting all these plants for Edison Square. They're really creating an attraction. with one sponsor in mind, and that's General Elector. Um And There's always a danger when you do that, because what happens when the executives at that company aren't all that enthusiastic for for what you're pitching and and Yeah. Yeah, what's step two in that master plan, right? All right. Okay. And and this is the thing, that Edison Square is supposed to be the celebration of old time America with General Electric. And in If it was gonna do something at Disneyland, it it wanted a show that talked about the future, not the past. And so uh from fifty eight through sixty, the managers continually tinker with Edison Square, figuring that, you know, all right, uh maybe the the board of directors at GE will go for this version, but they kept getting a Polite but firm thanks, but no thank you. Because I again, you know, uh general electric kept looking at harnessing the lightning with its static, you know, wax figures and its story focused on the past, and it's like no Uh, this isn't how we see ourselves as a corporation as we move from fifty to sixty. Yeah, so at this point we've gone from Fez Parker in Frontierland to But Nick gets launched, we're in the space race. There we go. There we go. They don't want it. Yeah. The whole focus of the country changed in like three years. There we go. And but here's the interesting thing. Nineteen sixty, word breaks about the world's fair that's going to be held in Flushing Meadow in Queens. In sixty four. Uh and I and more interestingly, in this same window of time, Wed starts making advances with a brand new technology called audio animatronics. uh which will allow yeah tractions to the G parks to be built around authentic looking mechanical figures that move. And and Walt being ever the promoter and salesman, he now approaches the executives at at General Electric and says, Okay. Hang on. Center building harnessing the lightning at Disneyland in Anaheim. What if We first build this thing at Flushing Meadow. Uh you know, it's it's your show for the sixty four Worlds Fair. And instead of putting it in a cute little cul de sac off of Main Street, we we house it in a sleek, modern looking building, and and instead of wax figures that don't move, we have our state of the art mechanical figures and and w but yet, we make the last scene of the show something that showcases the latest and greatest for GE products and Uh and then to nail home that this is not a show that's set in the past, but rather the future. They literally call The P G Pavilion for for the world fair progress land. And and GE executives are Yes, please whoever came up with that name on that day. Like they that that was that was good work that day. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh now mind you, there is language in the agreement that Walt has GE executive signed to sponsor Progress Line that effectively says Soon the show is over, Octur of Sixty Five. Walt Disney World owns a show. We get to take it, we get to do whatever we want with the shows and the figures, like say pack them up and immediately take them in an on. And uh and another reason why you want to go over to Ted Linhart's Disney Doc site is Ted actually has The document that Disney prepared for GE executives saying, you know, explaining about the Progress Land at Disneyland project. And and that's the the beauty part of it. Disney sells them on that idea and they buy it. But uh we'll talk about that part of the story in a second. But first this. Okay, we're back. Uh and just to recap, folks, Len and I were talking about how Disney after convincing GE executives to first sponsor the creation, uh of the carousel of progress for uh the sixty four world's fair Then convince these same executives to pay to pack it up, to ship it from Flushing Meadow out to Anaheim where it become a brand new attraction. Disneyland. Now Downside of that deal is again, remember, this show originally created to be built off of uh Main Street in Edison Square. Uh Walt realizes this is a non starter, so it's like don't worry about it. It's progress land. We'll put it in our most progressive part of the park. Tomorrowland, which oh, by the way, we're building a brand new version of Tomorrowland that's gonna be open in the summer of sixty seven, and your attraction uh will be one of the centerpieces of this. And the and the other little interesting bit. Of salesmanship that that Walt did here was he put it out Well look. Seventeen million people. Have seen the Progress Line show when it was part of the World's Fair on the East Coast. But if we take I again the show that you've already paid for. And bring it out to to California. There's a brand new audience of people out there that have never seen this thing before. And California's growing at this time, right? It's on it's in T V shows, it's in pop culture, it's in music. GE wants to be part of that market. That's it exactly. So they say yes. Uh Carousel Progress opens July of sixty seven. Jump ahead. Four years. Well, Disney World opens in October seventy one and these very same executives of G are like Gee Um We kinda wanna be part of the new thing down in Orlando. Uh and since Disney is now thinking long range and about how they would really love to have General Electric be part of Epcot. It's like absolutely. Well what would you like to do? And uh also not not to lie, uh Disneyland has also been watching attendance steadily decline for the West Coast version of Carousel of Progress, and but they have this giant theater go round building uh that with its six theaters uh can accommodate Thirty six hundred people an hour. Yeah. That's a that's a lot of people. Yeah. So it's a notion of look, we should make the most of of this setup. Uh and more to the point, we have the American Bicentennial coming up in nineteen seventy six. Let's look at doing a a show there. So Negotiations begin. And but uh at the same time, as we mentioned earlier in the show, if Carol Center progress is moving to Florida, G UE wants a an updated end scene, uh which again d focuses on new GE products. They also want a new theme song, which we we we talked about that the the Sherman brothers doing. So Disneyland's version of Carousel of Progress closes September 9th, 73. America Sings uh opens in that same theme park June twenty-ninth, seventy-four. We don't get Uh Walt Disney World's version of Carousel up until January of seventy five. Uh in fact it was made part of the expansion of Tomorrowland uh tied to the debut of Space Mountain. And I also worth noting here that Disneyland version of Chao of Progress on didn't run for very long. It was only open in that park for six years. Uh, July of sixty seven through September seventy three. And honestly, the thinking was uh that was probably what was gonna happen with the Walt Disney World version, uh, especially six years. Yeah. Well, especially since Epcot was gonna be opening in eighty two and This is another little interesting bend on this story. There was serious talk Lynn. In um in the late eighties, early nineties about moving carousel progress over to future world. You can kind of see it make sense. The question is where would you put it? Well, now this is where it gets interesting. What they were talking about is you know, remember, we've had a house of the future uh be part of you know future world a couple of different times. Right. And the notion was that well, what if we create a walk through version Of the house of the future. in the scenes that illustrate the new products, we have the family that we know and love from the carousella progress. But now, you know, as opposed to sitting in the audience and looking up at these figures, you know, thirty, forty, fifty feet away. They're five feet away? Oh, okay. So imagine you're walking through innovations. Mm-hmm. And there are scenes with the family. So it's walk through, you get a high throughput. Yep. Mm-hmm. It's air conditioned, so people can get a break from the sun. Yeah. You interspersed the G product placement, 'cause inventions was a lot about product placement too, right? It was. It was. You could do the old scenes, you could add in some new scenes. I I could see this as an innovations thing. Yeah, and you know, the and again, the hope was that it would still be GE, 'cause remember, GE actually sponsored Horizons, which opens to the park in eighty three, and in a lot of ways that attraction is considered a spiritual sequel to Carousel Progress. A hundred percent, yeah. Yeah, in fact, what is it? Rex Allen, uh the original narrator, makes a cameo in uh Horizons. We even get the uh the theme song played in the in the the nineteen thirties section of the attraction. I mean you could argue that spaceship earth and the original world of motion. Follow the same DNA as well. Also true. Now kind of interesting bend on this story. When they're talking about doing this, when they're talking about moving the carousella progress figures over to Epcot, uh that then leaves the Carousel of Progress building T in Tomorrowland, which but at the same time, this is when they're talking about building the tomorrow that never was, but always will be. Oh, the Jules Verne version. HTL. And what's kind of interesting about that. is that this is when they're looking to put the flying saucers. Into that building. Well Yeah, what Len's referring to is the original flying size or Disneyland didn't last all that long. Sixty one to sixty six. And even when Disney brought it back for DCA, uh Luigi's flying tires. Wow, that was less than three years that ran there. It's got the shelf life of a a can of Campbell soup. Like it's not not that long, really. Yeah. All right. So anyway. Disney World's version of Caro Solo Progress closes August of of ninety three With this redo being ready, the flying saucers. Uh, but at then again, of course, in that same window of time, Disneyland Paris experiences really severe financial issues and suddenly there's a reduction of scope done. on uh the entire new Tomorrowland and at this point The decision is made like nope, no flying saucers. We're just gonna take the attraction That's there and and again, weirdly, uh sort of the formula that the the Len and I initially thought was going to be done with this latest redo. It's like, all right, change the opening, change the end scene and keep everything the the the same. All right. Now This brings us to the the other interesting issue about this redo because Uh when Disney brought back the carousel of progress, they hired Jean Shepard. to be the host. And this is the famous broadcaster who who had the long running show in W O R in Chicago. Uh folks today probably know him best as the the writer, narrator of The a Christmas story movie, um which uh wanna remind folks came out in November of eighty three and bombed Uh, and you know, there's a lot of folks today that assume that Disney uh picked Gene Shepherd to be the the narrator because by then uh Toy Story had you know they were doing those twenty four hour movie marathons on T B S and T N T and it's like Lannon uh that's not true. Uh you know, they the the first time that uh they did a day long Uh again, a marathon of of uh a Christmas story was ninety seven. And again, this attraction opened in ninety three. So Disney just got dumb lucky. So I I I I just wanna talk about something I had heard last year when initially the notion was we do our wallet introductory scene and we change out the end of the attraction. That's it. And the notion is all right, we want to preserve as much of possible of Gene Shepherd's work in this thing. But how do we How do we change the narration of the end of the show? And um Len, what I was told is that Disney this time around was gonna use AI. But the thinking was that there were there were hundreds of hours of Gene hosting his radio show in W O R. And that the what they could do is build the script and then go through and harvest You know, all all of the appropriate words get because again, it was only for one four minute long scene. And people also need to understand that about carousel progress. Twenty one minute long experience that takes you through th six different show scenes. So each of the scenes of the show are are less than four minutes long. So it's not a huge amount of dialogue you're looking to replace. Why do we need Gene Shepard? Like why do we need to use AI to fake Gene Shepherd instead of hiring an actual person who's alive right now? Well that was early on. It's like we want to preserve what you want some continuity or some Callbacks to the original show. And and by the way, you know, uh it's not that Disney hasn't done this before. In fact, uh we lose uh Don Rickles back in April of two thousand seventeen. Uh, he was ninety years old. But but the thing is, two years later, Toy Story Four comes out in in June of of two thousand nineteen. And it's like, Well how does Mr. Potato Head say new lines? in uh this movie. And and Len, you'll love this. The the genius move on Pixar's part is they turn to the imaginaries and say, Don recorded hours and hours of stuff for Toy Story Midway Mania, right? For the for the Parker? Can we listen to all of those recordings? And they did. And they went through all of the stuff that that that Rickles had recorded for the you know the Carnival Barker uh animatronic figure. Built a performance out of that. Here's my c here's my concern. If I'm a Disney imagineer and someone comes to me and says, We need you to use AI. to recreate the voice of Don Rickles. I would be afraid that the ghost of Don Rickles would then haunt me for the rest of my life because of what I've done to his legacy. Like like every time I would walk up the stairs, I would hear the whisper Like and you'd be like, did I did I hear that I might imagine that that would be my concern with offending Don Rickles. Everyone else maybe Gene Shepard, I think he'd be you'd be okay. If that's what you think is the best thing to do, right? But Don Rickles would take it personally. Just to put a cap on the story, we are weeks out now. From Toy Story Five arriving in theaters. And by the way, uh they couldn't do the same trick twice. So what's interesting is Jeff Bergman, veteran voice actor, uh gentleman who is the official voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, he's the one. who's doing Mr. Bad ahead going forward. So Jeff S the talented future. But but anyway, that sort of brings us to where we are today with Carousella Progress, which again to applaud The Imagineers, uh you know, and again, just looking this at this as sort of a parallel project to the company just did with you know rock and roller coaster starring them up it's they they buried the needle in the other direction they didn't go with the easy Fix. Um I I have to admit though, I'm gonna be intrigued to see this thing's supposed to close on July fifth. Is that what we're hearing? Last day's July fifth. Uh July sixth is the first day of closure and opened sometime in twenty twenty seven. Okay, so there you go. Supposedly This thing will be back up and running in months? Eighteen months. Yeah, I'm thinking middle Yeah, if you if you just want to put a date on it, Memorial Day twenty twenty seven, it would be the best guess you have, and I don't we don't know anything specific about timelines, but you know, Memorial Day twenty twenty seven is seems to be a popular uh popular guess. But yeah, I mean it just I I I'm gonna be fascinated given this aspect of Sarah Taking a portion of the narration on who are they gonna hire uh to be the voices of the narrator this time? 'Cause obviously the the Gene Shepard thing's going in the rear view. Uh so to me what's always fascinating is when Disney picks a moment like this and looks you know, it's just like I'm I mean I remember Disney was you know, uh Disney featuring animation Florida was working on John Henry, the animated shirt that was directed by Mark Hen. And I you know, I remember you know, it's a the notion of we need an authoritative uh African American performer to be the narrator of this thing. And and I remember somebody slipping me the list and it was people like Morgan Friedman and uh James Earl Jones and Alfreda Woodard. That's a thing. Disney Disney really puts a lot of thought into the these narrator roles. So it'll just be fascinating to see who wind up as the new voice of John and Sarah. It's interesting that that the narrators we've been talking about are all men. There's no reason why it has to be a man. No for narration as in fact it would certainly address a lot of the issues uh that this uh earlier versions of the show Definitely been kind of dismissive of women. I mean, I I just I love the fact that Terry's gonna be a narrator. I mean, that that's great. That's fantastic. Yeah, I think the other announcement is if you go back and think about the other recent Disney announcement for the Magic Kingdom, where we're getting a fourth ferry boat. You could look at the changes to Carousel progress. as a way to take an underutilized attraction And ensure there's enough capacity. For when villains land and Parsland uh open when Piston Peak opens. Because the center of the gravity, the word that uh which is a phrase that you use that I love, is going to shift West. Oh. When those two lands open. And if We're going to get three to five thousand more people in the park per day. They're going to need places to go. including places with air conditioning and seats. Yes. The carousel progress accommodates a lot of them. Thirty six hundred people an hour. People an hour. Yeah. So if you look at the combination of those environmental factors, right? Capacity, air conditioning. A place to sit. Away from the sun, on the opposite side of the park from where all this new stuff is going. And you add in the fact that Uh we're going to have a Walt Disney animatronic here, which means that's never going away. This change this change ensures that we have carousella progress for fifty more years, which is that in fact I want to credit Mr. Shul with pointing that out, 'cause he he was saying pretty much the same thing about the show in the opera house that You know, why once you put an animatronic walt in place That's never going anywhere. You know, that nobody in the company would dare rip that out. You know, and unless the a the Walt Hanner Trunk walks off the stage and kills a guy. You know, that that's the only thing And even then you'd be like probably deserved it. There we go. There we go. Well clearly Wall would not have done that unless he was provoked. Okay. Well I'm excited. I mean I think the the stuff that we've seen over the past couple of weeks in the Walt Disney World have been really, really good updates and Imagineering's done a great job. Yeah. This is one of those Rides to me like rock and roller coaster where Bar is going to be set very high. And I know that imagineering has the work cut out for it, but If the recent past is any guide, they're up for the challenge. I'm excited to see this. I'm I'm very excited we have we'll have something new next year as well. Same thing here. All right, folks. That's gonna do it for the show today. You can help support our show by subscribing over to patreon.com slash Jim Hill Media, where our latest exclusive show is a walk around Disneyland in ninety nine degree heat. Are you testing the limits of my deodorant? And there's a link in the show notes. Disney Journey is the YouTube channel, a friend of the show, Jim Schulter we just talked about. And his newest show is The California where Walt Disney walked. Covering Golden Oaks Movie Ranch, Walt's Bison Herd. And his involvement creating California Institute of the Arts. Click the link in the show notes for that. And you can find more of Jim at Jim Hellbee.com and more of me, Len at Titoriingplans.com. Also check out the case four with Chris Cox. Podcast where Chris Jim and I debate one theme park topic at a time and you get to vote on who's right. Were produced spectacularly by Eric Hersey and David Gray. Judges who be quoting the line, Now that's what I call a dog. At the end of the obstacle course at Poochella twenty twenty six. Well all proceeds going to the nonprofit saving much organization on Saturday, June sixth, at Asbury Field. That's in the corner of seventh in Alger. In beautiful downtown Marysville, Washington. While Eric and David are doing that, please go into iTunes and Raider Show and tell us what you'd like to hear next for Back Patio Jim. This is Lynn. We will see you on the next show. S See It's another year for me and you