Walt Disney Imagineering has accomplished a lot of things over the years. Their innovations made the Disney parks the real life fantasies they are today. Over the years Imagineers have been granted over 150 patents. Here are some of the most significant ones from over the years.
1. Walt Disney’s first patents
I don’t know if Walt Disney is officially considered an Imagineer but, as the man behind the Mouse and an inventor himself, he certainly deserves status as an honorary member. The first patents Walt filed haven’t had the wide-reaching ramifications of some of the others on this list, but they’re significant just for being the first. Walt Disney’s first design patent and first utility patent were filed within days of each other in 1931. The design patent was for the design of a toy figure, and the utility patent was a method and apparatus for synchronizing photoplays, utilizing stop motion for animated films. You can look at pages from the patents above, each of which has an appearance of a familiar-looking rodent…
2. Audio-Animatronics
Probably the biggest innovation that came from Imagineers was Audio-Animatronics, the form of robotics used in shows and attractions at the Disney parks to animate things three-dimensionally. The original concept came from Walt Disney himself, after he bought a mechanical bird in New Orleans and started thinking about the possibilities of robotics in his theme parks. The first attraction to spring from it was The Enchanted Tiki Room, which included Audio Animatronic birds singing. That was only the start, though. At the 1964 World’s Fair an Audio Animatronic version of Abraham Lincoln gave part of the historical figure’s famous Gettysburg Address. The robotic figure was featured in the “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln” exhibit as the first human Audio Animatronic figure.
Since Abe, Audio-Animatronics have had a bigger and bigger presence in the Disney theme parks. Notable attractions that use it include Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, The Hall of Presidents and Star Tours — The Adventures Continue. More recently Audio-Animatronics have even become interactive, with characters like Remy from Ratatouille, Wall-E and Lucky the Dinosaur now able to talk and play with attendees.
3. Autonomatronics
Not too long ago Autonomatronics was registered as a trademark by Walt Disney Imagineers for more sophisticated Audio-Animatronic technology. Whereas the original Audio-Animatrons just used hydraulics to operate robotic figures for a pre-programmed event, Autonomatronics can use cameras and other sensors. Those sensors feed signals to a high-speed computer, which makes choices about what the machines will say and do. Otto, who debuted in 2009, was the first figure to be able to hear, see and sense actions in its vicinity. Check out a video of Otto here. He was followed by characters like Remy, Wall-E and Lucky, mentioned above.
4. The Circle-Vision 360° film technique
Circle-Vision 360° is a technique created by Disney Imagineers that utilizes nine cameras for nine big screens in a circle, creating a unique viewing experience for people in the theater. One example is O Canada!, shown above, but the best-known is 1967’s America the Beautiful, a unique tour of America that was housed in Tomorrowland at Disneyland for a time. At the 2011 D23 Expo, then-president of the Disneyland Resort George Kalogridis shared with attendees that CircleVision would come back to Anaheim for an updated version of America the Beautiful, but there haven’t been any updates about that since.
5. FastPass
The FastPass virtual queuing system, introduced in 1999, is the innovation theme park fans probably see in action most often. Walt Disney Imagineering’s conception and execution of a system that allows guests to avoid waiting in long lines for popular attractions was revolutionary for Disney and certainly for all theme park attendees. It’s not a perfect system, but it makes the theme park experience better for many and should only improve over time.
6. Drones?!
There was a lot of noise made when Amazon revealed that it was developing drones to ship packages same-day to customers. The Disney parks’ potential use of drones hasn’t received nearly that amount of attention. Recently published patent applications revealed that new technology will be used, at the very least, over lagoons to create virtual projections for nighttime shows. Current shows like Fantasmic at Disneyland and Hollywood Studios and World of Color at Disney California Adventure do something similar, using fountains to project virtual screens. However, that method has several flaws. The new patent points out that images can’t be updated quickly for seasonal purposes and the height of the current projected water screens is limiting.
Disney’s solution is something they’re calling ‘flixels,’ short for floating pixels. An army of unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones) with projection screens and light diffusers will work together to create spectacular 3-D images. The drones should be able to either follow a script or be controlled by someone on the ground. The picture above shows something even more innovative, a drawing in the patent demonstrating how drones could possibly even hold a giant marionette puppet. That would be puppeteering on a whole new scale. Walt Disney himself probably could never have envisioned something like that. Hard to imagine, but exciting to think about. Just another in a line of incredible innovations from Walt Disney Imagineering.
