Have you ever wondered how Disney creates those somewhat creepy, incredibly lifelike figures that are so prevalent at its theme parks? From Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean to Mr. Potato Head at Toy Story Midway Mania, Disney wouldn’t be the same without these realistic depictions of humans and animals, known as audio animatronics.
Of course, you will find similar figures, with different levels of realism, all over the place, from other theme parks to pizza chains, and even toys. These moving figures are a huge part of our everyday world. If you were born after the mid-1960s, you might not be able to imagine a world without them. Yet, at the 1964 World’s Fair, intelligent adults genuinely believed that Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln featured a live actor, as a robot that lifelike was simply unimaginable!
Here, we will pull back the curtain to take you inside the world of audio animatronics, from their ancient predecessors through the possibilities of tomorrow. We will look at the vital role Walt Disney played in creating modern audio animatronics, examine how the theme park wars honed their design, and explore the evolution of their inner workings through more than 50 years of technological advancements.
Ancient automatons
The term “audio animatronics” was coined by Walt Disney in the mid-1960s to define a specific type of electromechanical figure capable of lifelike, synchronized movement and sound. Although animatronics are in heavy use by many companies today, the phrase “audio animatronics” is actually trademarked by Disney.
Although Walt might have invented the audio animatronic, he did not invent the automaton. Moving figures of people and animals have been documented since the days of ancient Greece. Famous automaton inventors include, but are in no way limited to, King Solomon, ancient Chinese artificer Yan Shi, Islamic inventor Al-Jazari, and Renaissance artists Giovanni Fontana and Leonardo da Vinci.
The clockwork monk
The Smithsonian Institution’s collection holds one of the oldest automatons still in working order, the clockwork monk, believed to have been created in Spain during the 1560s. Although its origins are murky, the clockwork monk is generally attributed to Juanelo Turriano, Emperor Charles V’s mechanician. As the story goes, the emperor’s son, King Phillip II, prayed by the bedside of his gravely ill son. He struck a bargain with God: a miracle for a miracle. If his son recovered, Phillip would create an earthly miracle. The boy survived, and Phillip arranged for the creation of this most unusual penitent icon.
Not a children’s toy, nor a fantastic piece of whimsy, the clockwork monk is a remarkably somber piece that strikes a deep emotional chord with all who witness it, even in the jaded 21st century. It is a remarkable piece of 16th century engineering, and unusual for its time in that each piece of the figure performs fully independent yet perfectly choreographed movements (as seen in the video below).
The monk stands approximately 15 inches high. Comprised of wood and iron, it is driven by a key-wound spring. Hidden clockworks turn its body, move its head side to side, raise its cross and rosary in the left hand, beat its chest with the right hand, position its eyes to look at the cross as it rises, and cause its sandal-shod feet to walk as rollers hidden in its robes propel it forward in a square pattern. Its mouth opens and closes as if reciting its prayers, and the systems even interact with each other as the monk lifts the cross to its lips and gives it a kiss.
The clockwork monk has been X-rayed and extensively studied since its 1977 arrival at the Smithsonian. Detailed drawings are freely available online. Yet the monk still stands apart as a true testament to the combined power of faith and human engineering.
Descartes and the Industrial Revolution
For most of history, automatons served purposes ranging from whimsy to religious iconography. They were toys for the wealthy and reverent pieces for the religious. They were not, however, considered part of the common workaday world. In the 17th century, philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes changed that view while simultaneously setting the stage for the Industrial Revolution that occurred a century later.
At that time, the Renaissance was coming to an end. A cultural reawakening after the darkness of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance was a time of art, literature, religion, and the development of the scientific method. In the waning years of the Renaissance, men who could combine nature with religion, and science with philosophy, were much heralded for their talents and revolutionary, forward-thinking ideals.
Rene Descartes was just that sort of man. Responsible for the foundation of analytical geometry, the Cartesian coordinate system, and infinitesimal calculus, he was also the father of rationalism and, indeed, all of modern Western philosophy. He was the first to describe philosophy as a system of thought that encompasses all branches of knowledge, to cast ethics as a science, and to develop a methodological system for testing and proving hypotheses.
What does all of this have to do with audio animatronics? Descartes was also the first to describe the living body as a machine. He suggested that bones, muscles, and other biological materials could just as easily be replaced by pistons, cams, and cogs. While this was part of a larger argument concerning the duality of the body and mind, in which he described the mind/soul as nonmaterial and existing outside the realm of biology, society was ready to grab hold of the “man as machine” concept. A new era of mechanical toys was born.
Harnessing the power of mechanical energy as derived from Newton’s Laws of Motion, mechanical toys were not new in Descartes’ day. However, the focus began to shift from whimsy to realism, creating startlingly lifelike (for their time) reproductions of animals and men.
Perhaps one of the most realistic was the Digesting Duck, created by French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739. Powered by a complicated system of flexible rubber tubing, levers, and cams, the gilded copper duck could flap its wings and splash in water. But its most impressive feat was its ability to eat from a person’s hand and then deposit dung pellets onto a silver platter. Although crude and even gross by today’s standards, the duck drew rave reviews in the royal courts of Europe, even prompting philosopher Voltaire to suggest that a trip to France would be incomplete without seeing its marvel.
The automaton revolution went global, with toymakers in Japan and China eagerly embracing the craze. As the 1700s drew to a close, many of the automaton models became prototypes for the massive machines that marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
The Golden Age of Automata
Automata, or automatons, really came into their own during the Industrial Revolution. It was a time of massive, quick-moving changes in all phases of manufacturing and production. Toymakers eagerly adapted such new inventions as steam power and a plethora of machine tools. In addition, the economic boom and falling prices meant that more of the population had more disposable income to spend on novelties.
However, the true Golden Age of Automata came just after the close of the Industrial Revolution, during the years 1860 through 1910. In France, hundreds of small family-owned businesses exported thousands of automatons, particularly singing birds, across the globe. These pieces marked a return to the whimsy of the ancient automatons, coupled with the lifelike realism honed just before and during the Industrial Revolution. Many of these pieces draw extremely high prices on the secondhand market today.
Walt Disney
Walt was born during the Golden Age of Automata, on December 5, 1901. However, there is nothing in the historical records to suggest that he ever came across one of these elaborate pieces during his early life. Automatons were not cheap, and the Disney family was decidedly working class. Walt was only four when the family moved from Chicago to a farm in Marceline, Missouri. Although by all accounts his childhood in Marceline was idyllic in many ways, it did not include such luxuries as expensive imported toys.
After the end of the Golden Age in 1910, public interest in automatons waned. The business went on, creating some highlights such as Sparko, the robot Elektro’s robotic dog, that could bark, beg, and sit. The pair appeared at the 1939 World’s Fair. In general, though, the rapid succession of World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II created economic and sociological changes that made the automaton somewhat passé.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney thrived. After a stint as a cartoonist for his school newspaper, he attempted to enlist in the army at age 16, but was denied due to his age. He then drove an ambulance in France for the Red Cross before taking an art studio position in 1919. After a couple of tries at running his own studio in Kansas City, Walt pooled resources with his brother Roy to open a cartoon studio in Hollywood in 1923. One thing led to another, culminating in Walt’s first Academy Award in 1932 for the creation of Mickey Mouse.
Although there were certainly trials and tribulations, and Walt repeatedly had to put his own livelihood on the line for a new project, his talent and contributions were undeniable. His first feature length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, proved his star power upon its 1937 release. During World War II, most of the studio’s resources went into creating military training films, but after the war, Disney returned to what it did best, churning out animation while also veering into full-length dramatic films that blended animation with live action.
Walt discovers the automaton
In the late 1940s or early 1950s (sources disagree as to the exact year), Walt took his family on vacation to either New Orleans or Europe (sources also disagree as to the location). In an antiques shop, he discovered a mechanical singing bird created in the 1850s. As the story goes, he was so intrigued that he bought the bird, brought it back to his studio, and directed his team to disassemble it to see how it worked.
Walt was highly interested in the possibilities that the little bird represented, and he was curious to see if a human character could be done. In 1951, a team headed by machinist Roger Broggie and sculptor Wathel Rogers was given the sizeable task of creating a nine inch tall human figure that could dance, move, and even talk, dubbed Project Little Man. They brought in actor Buddy Ebsen to provide vaudevillian dance routines for the Little Man to perform, but quickly realized the limitations of the cam and lever technology. Instead, Broggie theorized, a life-sized figure would provide enough room for integrated hidden systems with a more sophisticated blend of electronics and pneumatics. Walt was intrigued, but also wrapped up in his latest and most unlikely project—the development of a full theme park. Project Little Man was put on hold.
Disneyland
As Walt told the story, while on one of his weekly outings with his two daughters, Sharon and Diane, at a local amusement park, he decided that there must be a better way. He sat on a bench while they went on rides, and he looked around at all the other parents doing the same thing. He also noticed how dirty and ragged the park seemed. He envisioned a family-oriented park with high standards of cleanliness and maintenance, along with rides that all generations could enjoy together.
Originally planned for a small plot of land across from the studio, the Disneyland dream grew and evolved into something much larger. The park opened on a 160 acre plot in Anaheim, California, on July 17, 1955. Yet the park held only a handful of moving automatons (remember, the “audio animatronic” had not yet been invented), such as the animals of the Jungle Cruise and the barely moving figures of the original Peter Pan’s Flight.
Enchanted Tiki Room
Walt continued to grow, tweak, and “plus” his park, putting a great deal of effort into his tinkering. In particular, he kept returning to the idea of creating a next generation automaton that would synchronize lifelike movements with speech, or at least some sort of vocalization. Finally, in 1963, he realized that dream when he opened the Enchanted Tiki Room. Light years ahead of his own automatons, themselves a vast improvement on what had come before, the birds of the Tiki Room were the first true audio animatronics.
For the first time, more than 200 birds, tikis, and flowers were able to perform together in a tightly choreographed show that repeated throughout the day. The secret was in electromechanics. The entire show was recorded on magnetic tape. Without getting too technical, specific sounds on the tape triggered a set of electrical reactions within the figures that resulted in the opening or closing of pneumatic valves that created movement. A vast hidden room filled floor to ceiling with computers was required to run the magnetic tape system. The show still operates nearly identically today, albeit with some technological enhancements.
The show was so groundbreaking, so revolutionary, that people literally stopped in their tracks to marvel at the barker bird outside. Visitors eagerly lined up to pay 75 cents for the experience, a princely sum in those days. It is safe to say that the Tiki Birds were an immediate hit, and Walt was heady with excitement.
1964 World’s Fair
In 1960, three years before the Enchanted Tiki Room opened, Walt began making plans for the 1964 World’s Fair. Disneyland attendance was growing rapidly, but he wanted to introduce the experience to people on the other side of the country. He also wanted proof of concept for his new audio animatronics, which were then in the development process. Always a risk taker, Walt put up not just one, but four separate audio animatronic attractions for the fair.
- It’s a Small World: The dancing dolls of It’s a Small World were not quite as groundbreaking as other audio animatronic introductions that Walt made at the fair, but the overall attraction was a smash success. One of its biggest contributions to the theme park industry was its innovative use of boats to create a “people-eater” capable of pushing hundreds of guests through per hour.
- Ford Magic Skyway: In a prototype for what would become the PeopleMover technology (still in use in an updated form at the Magic Kingdom under the name Tomorrowland Transit Authority), the Ford Magic Skyway used convertible Ford and Lincoln cars, including brand new Mustangs, all with their engines removed. The Ford Magic Skyway took guests into the past, through then-new speed tunnel technology (then dubbed a “time tunnel”) into a series of prehistoric scenes featuring dinosaurs and cavemen. Both the humans and the animals were audio animatronics, adding an unprecedented level of realism to the proceedings. The dinosaurs were later reused in the Disneyland Railroad’s Primeval World diorama. By all accounts, the figures were incredible, and in the first year of the fair the Ford Magic Skyway climbed to third place in its attendance rankings.
- Progressland: General Electric’s Progressland was a massive pavilion topped with a 200 foot wide dome. While its focus was the story of energy, complete with a highly impressive demonstration of plasma fusion, the Carousel Theater was definitely one of its highlights. Inside the revolving theater, guests could observe the daily lives of families in four different eras: the 1890s, the 1920s, the 1940s, and “today” (the modern conveniences of 1960s living). Of course, this show was quickly exported to Disneyland as the Carousel of Progress. The human and animal audio animatronics in this show were nothing short of spectacular, and Progressland became the second most attended show in the fair’s first year.
- Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln: Built for the Illinois pavilion, Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln was Walt’s shining success of the 1964 World’s Fair. The Abraham Lincoln figure was the first of the A-1 series of human audio animatronics. Although it was based on the same concepts as the tiki birds and other audio animatronics of its era, the complex human figure required a number of significant changes to the existing technology.
Realistic human movements require more than the simple on-off positioning that the Tiki Room’s digital system used, so Walt and his team developed a more complex analog system that varied the voltage supplied to the actuators. In addition, the pneumatic valves were not sufficient to move heavier pieces, so they were replaced by hydraulics. For Lincoln, as well as the humans in the Carousel of Progress and the Ford Magic Skyway prehistoric scenes, the Imagineers wore heavy harnesses that recorded their movements on magnetic tapes. As in the Enchanted Tiki Room, the entire system was controlled by those tapes.
Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln was considered Walt’s crowning achievement to that point in part due to a single moment in the show. Unlike its predecessors or contemporaries, the Abraham Lincoln figure began the show seated in a chair, and then stood up to present its address. The movement from a seated position to a standing one ushered in a whole new age of audio animatronics, and the show quickly climbed to number one in attendance.
The Florida Project
Walt was never one to sit still, and by the time the World’s Fair was over, he was busily planning his next project, the one that was to surpass all others: the Florida Project. Since the early 1960s, Walt had been dreaming of a clean, elegant, streamlined, high-tech city that would stand in stark contrast to the urban decay he was witnessing all around him.
White flight was in full swing at that time, as racial violence, collapsing industrialism, falling real estate prices, and the new interstate highway system drove affluent white citizens out of the cities and into the suburbs. Inner cities were left to decay, inhabited by poorer minority residents who could not afford to maintain them, leading to the increasing phenomenon of the crumbling urban ghetto.
Walt believed in America’s cities, and he believed that under the right master planning conditions, he could create a prototype as clean, safe, and well-run as Disneyland. After several scouting trips, he settled on Florida as the ideal location for his prototype city, which he dubbed EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). Walt busily bought up nearly 28,000 acres of swampland under dummy corporation names, and in October 1966, he laid out his grand plan in a 25-minute film. He also formed the Reedy Creek Improvement District in an unprecedented deal with Florida lawmakers, founding two tiny cities for voting and management purposes and gaining immense control over the future development of his property.
Digital Animation Control System
Sadly, Walt passed away just two months after recording his Florida Project plans on film. The company tried mightily, but could not figure out how to bring Walt’s grand ideas to fruition. So they decided to focus on the Disney World portion of the project, building the Magic Kingdom theme park that was always part of the plan.
Meanwhile, the company continued to adapt to rapidly changing technology. The next major development in audio animatronics occurred in 1969 with the introduction of the Digital Animation Control System (DACS), and it was a true game changer. For the first time, audio animatronics could be controlled by computer disks rather than magnetic tapes. In tandem with the Anicon-Animation Console, which debuted at the same time, Imagineers could now program and control the audio animatronics with the push of a few buttons.
This technology gave previously unimaginable levels of realism to audio animatronic shows, added the ability to also control the lights, sound system, and special effects from the same computer, and eventually moved everything into a single control room for each park. DACS has been updated and improved over the years, but remains largely the same system that was introduced in 1969.
Epcot
Florida’s Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, and was an instant success. Building and improving upon the lessons learned from Disneyland, the Imagineers took advantage of every opportunity to tweak or plus attractions with continually evolving technology. But EPCOT was never far from the company leaders’ minds. With the Magic Kingdom performing well, Disney decided to go ahead with Walt’s concept, albeit in a very different package. EPCOT Center was developed as a theme park.
Celebrating the twin ideals of a clean, streamlined future and harmony among the nations of the world, EPCOT Center (now Epcot) opened in 1982. From its beginnings, the park focused heavily on emerging technology, particularly the then-nascent personal computer revolution. A major draw was CommuniCore, billed as the hub of EPCOT Center. One of CommuniCore’s most popular displays was the massive bank of computers inside EPCOT Computer Central, which ran most of the park. First the much maligned Astuter Computer Revue, then the Backstage Magic show, explained EPCOT Computer Central to the mostly computer naïve crowd.
Although it had a different focus, the World Showcase was no less technologically advanced. In fact, the American Adventure contained (and still houses) two of the most impressive audio animatronics of their time. When checking on Thomas Jefferson’s progress on the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin became the first audio animatronic to actually walk—and up several stairs, no less! Meanwhile, famed cowboy and actor Will Rogers also showed up in audio animatronic form, twirling an actual lasso.
The Wicked Witch of the West
Due to his previous stint at Paramount Pictures, which Universal had approached for a possible partnership, then-CEO Michael Eisner was well aware in the mid-1980s that Universal was planning to bring its movie theme park concept to the Orlando area. Thanks to the Reedy Creek governance system that Walt had set up, which enabled the company to bypass much of the permitting process, Disney was able to beat Universal to the punch. The company opened its own movie park, Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios), in 1989, a full year ahead of Universal.
An opening day attraction that is still open today is the Great Movie Ride, a romp through scenes from some of the most iconic films of all time. The Wizard of Oz scene features the Wicked Witch of the West, the first in Disney’s new A-100 line of audio animatronics, bringing a tremendous lifelike quality that was previously impossible to attain. One improvement was that rather than a single actuator controlling four fingers, each finger now contained its own individual actuator. But the bigger secret was found in something known as compliance technology.
Previously, audio animatronic movements had to be very precise, slow, and deliberate. Faster movements, coupled with the sudden stops that were an inherent limitation of the technology, caused the figures to shake and shudder unnaturally. With compliance technology, however, body parts could continue slightly past their programmed stop point, slow to a stop, and return to their intended position. This created a shock absorption effect that removed the shaking and shuddering.
A-100 audio animatronics are still the standard for most attractions today, although they have been refined and improved numerous times. Perhaps one of the most stunning examples of an A-100 is the series of Captain Jack Sparrow figures that were installed at Pirates of the Caribbean in 2006. Especially when compared to the existing pirate figures, they are a mind-bogglingly realistic depiction of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack.
The theme park wars
When Universal caught wind of Disney’s plans for its own movie park, rather than shrinking into the shadows, the company threw down the gauntlet, announcing its intention to divide up its signature tram tour into separate standalone attractions for its Orlando park, which opened in June 1990. Two of Universal Orlando’s opening day attractions, Kongfrontation and Jaws, proved that while Disney might own the trademark on the audio animatronics name, it did not have the lock on the technology.
Kongfrontation featured two 39-foot tall animatronic gorillas, weighing in at 8,000 pounds and 13,000 pounds respectively, each capable of performing an incredible 62 separate functions. But even more impressively, in order to make the storyline believable, Kong had to function “inside the envelope.” The envelope is the safety zone around every ride vehicle, and intrusions into that zone typically cause safety faults. But precision programming allowed the animatronics and trams to work together to bypass the intrusion system at just the right moments. Even today, 13 years after its closure, Kong remains one of the most technologically impressive examples of animatronics ever created.
Jaws was no less impressive, especially when you consider that the animatronic sharks had to perform underwater—kind of like giving the Jungle Cruise hippos a lifelike realism and dispatching them to attack the boats. At 24 feet long and weighing three tons apiece, the sharks also took off with the force of a Boeing 747. Clearly this was not your father’s theme park boat ride! The original version of the attraction, which had Jaws taking a bite out of the boat before exploding in a 10 foot fountain of blood and shark chunks, never worked reliably, and the ride was shuttered for three years for a complete overhaul. The final version was not *quite* as ambitious, but nonetheless went on to become a beloved favorite for many Universal visitors (you can read all about it in this article).
Over the years, other theme parks threw their hats in the animatronic ring, as did feature film companies, pizza chains, and toy manufacturers. All were impressive in their own ways, and all contributed to the concept of the modern animatronic. But it was Disney that fired the next major volley in the battle of the animatronics.
The turn of the millennium
Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, bringing its own impressive new technological advancements. One of the least heralded but most intriguing is Hopper, the nine foot tall audio animatronic star of It’s Tough to Be a Bug. With 74 independent motion functions, he was the most sophisticated audio animatronic ever developed up to that time.
Universal fought back in 1999, when Triceratops Encounter opened with its second park, Islands of Adventure. Located in the Jurassic Park area, Triceratops Encounter gave guests the opportunity for up close and personal individual interactions with a freestanding Triceratops animatronic. Each of the three animatronics was 24 feet long and 10 feet tall, and was capable of interacting in revolutionary new ways including breathing, blinking, and even twitching its muscles.
As the new millennium opened, the theme park wars showed no signs of slowing down. Arguably one of the most impressive achievements was Disney’s Lucky the Dinosaur, a free-ranging audio animatronic introduced in 2004 as part of the company’s Living Character Initiative. The stated goal was to allow guests more freedom of interaction with the characters.
Lucky carried his power source and control system with him, carefully concealed in the cart he towed. Rather than relying on hydraulics, his body was controlled electrically. A hidden operator programmed most of his movements on the fly in response to guest interactions. It was a real step forward in audio animatronic technology.
Although Lucky seems to have been retired, he set a new standard in what was possible in audio animatronics. The Expedition Everest Yeti, Toy Story Midway Mania’s Mr. Potato Head, and similar next-generation audio animatronics owe a huge debt to what Lucky accomplished.
Animatronics of the future
At the D23 Expo in 2009, Disney coined a new term, “autonomatronics,” to describe an entirely new breakthrough in audio animatronic technology. The first autonomatronic, debuted at the Expo, is a revolutionary new figure named Otto. Driven by sensors, cameras, and other input devices, Otto has the capacity to sense how many guests are in a room and even determine whether a particular person is smiling, as well as reacting on the fly to guest interactions. While Otto has yet to make an appearance in the parks, the technology was incorporated into the 2009 remake of Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland.
In addition, projection-enhanced audio animatronics are on track to become the gold standard. Debuted on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and set to be an important part of Frozen Ever After, these figures blend the latest generation of realistic audio animatronics with computer rendered 3-D animation. This allows the figures to make previously unprecedented facial movements, singing and speaking in a whole new way.
Meanwhile, Universal Orlando will make another bid for the animatronics crown in 2016, when Skull Island: Reign of Kong opens at Islands of Adventure. Although little has been confirmed, the persistent rumor mill claims that not only will the ride feature a bigger and badder King Kong animatronic than ever before, but that the animatronic will actually have the ability to run! If this is true, it will take animatronic technology to a whole new level and leave its competitors scrambling to catch up.
Animatronics have come a long way since the early days of the automaton, but with the lightning speed at which technology changes today, it is entirely possible that our current marvels will be obsolete in 10 years. Where do you see animatronic technology going next? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
