One of the visions Walt Disney possessed for his upcoming theme park is largely ignored by history. During his quest to reinvent the amusement park as something bigger and better, he sacrificed some of the initial plans. Part of the explanation was financial. As the situation played out, Disney already had to barter many of his prized possessions while nearly bankrupting his company. Some of the other reasons were pragmatic. Certain ideas are better in theory than execution.
In the end, the primary reason why some of Uncle Walt’s grand ideas fell by the wayside was a lack of resources. His construction team built Disneyland in almost exactly one year. Any idea they couldn’t block out and bring to fruition quickly was summarily dismissed. That’s why one of his most daring notions fell by the wayside.
Walt Disney wanted more than just an amusement park. He also wanted a zoo, a place where children could interact with animals in a safe environment. Challenges involving infrastructure sabotaged this dream, which led to compromise of the Jungle Cruise attraction, an African Queen-esque river ride featuring permanently immobile animals.
While Jungle Cruise is one of the greatest theme park creations of all-time, it’s also a perversion of Uncle Walt’s vision. He wanted a zoo. Even after he passed away, his loyal team of Imagineers and their later successors remained steadfast about staying true to Walt Disney’s core values. They carefully recorded and categorized all the ideas he postulated over time.
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Less than four years after his death, his company founded the Walt Disney Archives. Their goal was to protect his legacy and, whenever possible, bring his futuristic plans into reality. Walt Disney was a man ahead of his time, and that’s exactly why some of his dreams were a functional impossibility in his lifetime. It’s remarkable that he achieved as many as he did. Even with all his staggering accomplishments, many of his fertile ideas germinated long after he died.
The most noteworthy of these was an interactive environment for kids to learn about nature. It was intended as a place where kids could befriend animals while receiving an education about their surroundings. Walt Disney desired it in 1955, but his staff couldn’t find a way to protect either the children or the animals. A natural habitat for a single species is trying enough. Building dozens of them for various species wasn’t feasible in the 1950s.
Four decades later, a bold team of Imagineers took on the challenge. They embraced their founder’s bold vision. They started work on what would become the fourth gate at Walt Disney World, a place where children could play with fuzzy animals and less fuzzy ones, too. They built a series of structures that brought stability to thousands of animals, honoring their natural environments. And these Imagineers did so in a way that children could watch, play with, and learn from the beasts. Here is a detailed look at the history of the planning of Animal Kingdom, as well as a brief glimpse into its future.
The ten-year park and the Imagineer with the earring
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After the wildly successful launch of Disney-MGM Studios in 1989, then-CEO Michael Eisner felt a sense of urgency in sustaining The Walt Disney Company’s momentum. His grand ambition at the time was to add a fourth gate quickly. By 1990, Disney-MGM Studios was regularly in the habit of turning away potential guests within hours of park opening. Eisner believed that the constant influx of traffic at the recently launched third gate proved the necessity of a fourth one.
While Eisner’s performance as CEO was already controversial, even his detractors acknowledged that the corporate leader respected the ideas of Uncle Walt. As his staff tossed around ideas and debated feasibility for each one, Eisner returned to one of Walt Disney’s greatest incomplete ideas. He wanted to build a theme park that was functionally a zoo as well. Those same feasibility debaters were lukewarm to the idea. Had the premise proved viable, Disney himself would have attempted it 40 years before. He had the original Imagineers spit-balling ideas for him. If they couldn’t do it, the pervasive belief was that it wasn’t possible.
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Undeterred, Eisner picked a lead Imagineer to investigate the potential of a Disney theme park zoo. That man’s name was Joe Rohde. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Some people, myself included, consider him the greatest working Imagineer today. In 1989, however, his legend was just in the earliest stages. By his own account, Rohde transitioned from a high school director to a low-level Disney employee. After several years with the company, he hadn’t left an imprint of note. Then, he garnered a plum assignment working on the Adventurers Club portion of Pleasure Island. Through this project, he earned the trust of his superiors.
When the time came to proceed on the fourth gate, Eisner favored Rohde for the zoo study due to the current Vice President of Creative’s ability to unify seemingly disparate teams within and outside the Disney organization. Rohde would later note that his principal advantage in his early days with the company was his willingness to speak his mind during staff meetings. Had he been quieter by nature, the man with the legendary earring would remain an anonymous low-level employee.
The not-quite yes man
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During his investigation, Rohde met with a few zoologists. A myth about this process that isn’t far from the truth is that he kept meeting with people until he found someone who believed it was possible. He first reached out to the executive director of the Bronx Zoo at the time, a gentleman named Bill Conway. This conservationist was one of the true heavyweights of the profession. He would eventually anchor the Wildlife Conservation Society. It wasn’t that this zoologist was indifferent to the idea. It was more that he already had a fulltime job, so he didn’t have the free time to plan for a theme park that might never come to fruition.
Conway placed Rohde in contact with a man who would become seminal to the development of Animal Kingdom. His name was Rick Barongi, and he spent 40 years working in the animal conservation industry before retiring in 2015. If Rohde is the unofficial father of Animal Kingdom, Barongi is a favorite uncle. Rohde warmed to him due to his positive attitude. In situations where other zoologists told the Imagineer that something was impossible or, at least, improbable, Barongi would take a different approach. His favorite reply was, “I don’t see why not.” The entire Disney Imagineering institution is built on that sort of optimism.
The two men worked together to identify potential sticking points in a theme park zoo. Disney’s least popular theme parks received millions of visitors each year. Many animals are so shy that they spook at the sight of a single human. How would Disney build an entire habitable environment for hundreds of different species, some of whom wouldn’t react well to the prying eyes of mankind?
Rohde and Barongi embraced this challenge. They investigated thousands of species, deciding which ones would play well not just with humans but also with other animals. A single misstep in this area would have an unintentional but horrific result. Children enjoying a day at Disney’s zoo might accidentally witness a cute, Bambi-ish animal devoured by a less cute, much hungrier foe. The circle of life sounds lovely when Elton John sings it. In execution, it’s gruesome and less than family-friendly.
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The Imagineer and conservationist invested a great deal of time in solving these sorts of baby/dog/poison logic puzzles. As Barongi later recounted, his quest became a source of amusement/bemusement amongst his peers. They fell squarely into two camps. Some of them felt that the very idea of a Disney theme park zoo was an obvious impossibility. Every second of his life he squandered on the foolish endeavor was a mistake. The rest felt envious about his situation. They had complete confidence that Disney’s resources would allow them to build the planet’s most mainstream zoo. They wished they could join Barongi in the venture.
The latter philosophy, the belief in Disney, proved to be the correct one. And that envy about participating in the process later wreaked havoc with zoos across North America as the opening of Animal Kingdom approached. You’ll understand why in a moment.
The waiting is the hardest part
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Rohde approached Barongi for the first time in 1990. The park opened in 1998. You can fill in the dots from there about how smooth the construction of Animal Kingdom was. To be fair, not everything was Disney’s fault. They always understood that the planning phase for such a monumental endeavor could take several years.
To build the best possible landscape as well as a series of habitable environment for diverse animals, the company would need to perform an unprecedented amount of due diligence for a theme park. Over the course of just a couple of years, they interviewed literally hundreds of zookeepers. They obviously wouldn’t invest so many man-hours and resources into the project unless they felt confident it would proceed.
What no one could anticipate was just how laborious the task would be. Multiple years passed with little tangible progress to show. At the start of 1991, Disney still attempted to keep the project secret from most of its own employees, even as they interviewed zoologists and other animal behavioral experts. Word eventually spread, of course, as non-Disney employees queried on the matter would network with friends gainfully employed there.
Rohde himself expressed confidence that Animal Kingdom would become a reality soon. He recommended Barongi to the higher-ups at Disney, and the conservationist finally became a cast member in 1993 after several years as a secret consultant. His title included oversight of the company’s animal operations. This gave him a job beyond the still in-doubt Animal Kingdom, as he also handled tasks at Discovery Island and The Living Seas. In this manner, Disney protected him in the unlikely event that Animal Kingdom was delayed.
In 1994, Animal Kingdom was delayed.
More than 20 years ago, Disney’s theme parks once again proved susceptible to two things utterly beyond their control: death and taxes. The taxes portion is a cheeky way of acknowledging that the American economy struggled mightily that year. Whenever this occurs, many citizens cut out luxury purchases such as vacations, which directly impacts Disney’s bottom line.
On top of the sluggish economic performance that year, Disney lost one of its titans, too. Frank Wells was the President of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until his death in 1994. Wells took an ill-fated helicopter ride, and he died in the crash. Unfortunately for the theme park zoo project, Wells was also one of the strongest champions of it. In his absence, a power vacuum occurred within the company ranks. Simultaneously, Animal Kingdom lost a key supporter for an expensive project. At a time when money was tight, the lack of an ardent proponent proved to be a crippling setback.
Disney wasn’t done with the internal turmoil, either. 1994 was also the year when Michael Eisner sandbagged Jeffrey Katzenberg, the man most likely to replace Michael Eisner as CEO. The cause of this was, once again, the death of Wells. You can read the details here, but the gist is that Disney wound up paying another $270 million to Katzenberg for his treatment. Before that directive, they wasted millions of dollars in legal fees arguing against his claim. In short, one helicopter crash damaged Disney in multiple profound ways. Animal Kingdom as a concept suffered the consequences of all these issues, causing it to sit on the backburner for another year.
The 500-acre fourth gate
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On June 21, 1995, six years after originally discussed and three years prior to actual opening, Animal Kingdom was confirmed. Buoyed by a 20 percent increase in operating income over the previous six months, the company felt the time was right to upgrade Walt Disney World. Thirty years after Walt Disney shrewdly purchased 27,258 acres of Florida swampland on the down low, his successors at the company directed a significant portion of them to this, the proverbial fourth gate. The public relations department trumpeted the $750 million expansion for its revolutionary nature.
Disney emphasized the park’s strongest selling point. Guests of all ages would have the ability to interact with many of the wildlife species they’d watched on their favorite television programs. Disney planned to import animals from parts of the world few Americans ever visit, giving people unprecedented access to these noble creatures.
Michael Eisner, never one to shy away from publicity, saw this press conference as his moment of glory. From his perspective, Walt Disney World now offered four parks. Half of them had his fingerprints all over them, making him the modern day Walt Disney. While his detractors would blanch at the thought of this argument, there’s also validity to it. MGM-Disney Studios and Animal Kingdom were both his initiatives, and 18 years after the latter park debuted, they remain the two most recent gates onsite.
Poaching at Animal Kingdom…but not the animals
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The belief is that more than 1,700 species of animals reside at Animal Kingdom, although the suspicion is that this is a conservative estimate. Once Disney authorized the capital outlay for a new park, the quest became simple. They had to find enough people to work as overseers for countless species, many of which had never lived in North America before. And the job was made that much more difficult by the mercurial climate of central Florida.
Disney proceeded in a way that only the most powerful corporations can. They threw money at the problem. They could do this for a simple reason. As Rohde has mentioned over the years, his small team of Animal Kingdom designers was slender in its early days. While the project was primarily theoretical, he could keep the budget lean. That meant communicating with lots of consultants, none of whom worked for Disney. Prior to its confirmation, Animal Kingdom cost little to the massive bottom line of The Walt Disney Company. Once announced, it was noteworthy for having too few employees.
Rohde and Barongi leveraged all the contacts they’d made during the exploratory phase. They poached a jaw-dropping number of the finest zookeepers on the planet. This is not an exaggeration. Disney briefly caused a panic in the zoo community. Longstanding facilities suddenly found themselves without their best and most experienced staff members. Everyone who was anyone in the industry headed to Walt Disney World to take up permanent residence. Meanwhile, 69 different North American zoos had to put up Now Hiring signs. Disney’s gain was a bloodbath to the zoo community as a whole.
As for how they accomplished the smooth interactions between complicated animal ecosystems, that’s a topic worthy of an entire article on its own. What’s undeniable is that Animal Kingdom was a project Walt Disney’s people once considered so impossible that they chose artificial animals instead. Forty years later, a team of many of the world’s finest conservationists pulled off the task so deftly that the achievement seemed effortless. It wasn’t, of course, but that’s how fine a job they did.
The best opening you could hope for
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One of the most legendary days at Disneyland was also arguably its worst one. It was also the first one. The lingering memory of that debacle drove Imagineers and park planner operators to consider everything prior to the opening of a new location. In the case of Animal Kingdom, Disney could only control so much. The media grew obsessed with the ambition of the project.
Disney announced the opening date of April 22, 1998, which was fitting. It was Earth Day. Reporters requested a historic number of press credentials. Few of them believed that the company could pull off such a difficult task. Everyone wanted to see how well the animals, many of which were natural enemies, could co-exist. The same was true of normal theme park tourists. They too were curious about the new endeavor that was supposedly half-amusement park and half-zoo. On paper, it appeared to be the most novel Earth Day ever. Plus, Disney was pulling out all the stops for its latest offering. Opening day visitors would be met by performing African bands, given a grand opening lithograph, and taken along a path comprised of rose petal confetti.
The gates for the park were due to open at 6 a.m., an hour earlier than the standard operating hours Disney had previously announced. They did this in anticipation of massive crowds, but even longstanding cast members expressed surprise at what happened next. The park capacity at the time was somewhere between 15,000 and 22,000, depending on which media report was reliable.
Within 75 minutes of Disney’s opening the gates to Animal Kingdom, the park had already exceeded maximum capacity…and by A LOT! A Disney spokesperson confirmed to the news services that they counted paid attendance in excess of 28,000 during this brief window when the gates were open.
The scary thought is that this total doesn’t reflect two other types of guests. Approximately 5,000 reporters utilized their credentials during this period. Disney employees had sagely tipped them to get in line as soon as possible. Otherwise, they would have missed the story entirely due to the quick closing of the gates.
The 33,000 guests mentioned above also didn’t include one other group. Annual passholders to Walt Disney World didn’t count as part of the paid tickets the company reported. It’s fair to say that Disney’s Animal Kingdom exceeded capacity by as much as double on its opening day. Even using the most favorable numbers, at least 10,000 too many visitors took part in the opening day festivities. And all of this happened by 7:15 a.m. It was a bad day to sleep in.
What’s memorable about the day beyond the shocking lack of crowd control was the fact that the opening of Animal Kingdom occurred without incident. The park was full of broadcasters, with many of the media credentials going to television and radio services broadcasting live from the newest theme park at Walt Disney World. Cast members cleverly roped off sections of the park to give all these media outlets free reign during their broadcasts. They rarely interfered with standard guests.
The animals themselves were on best behavior. To the credit of all the conservationists Disney had poached from popular zoos, the habitats they built for the fledgling animal communities all held up under the stress of continuous interactions with other animals as well as humans. This was surprising to all involved. In the build-up to the grand opening, the media had savaged Disney over reports of animal fatalities. Whether those issues were overstated or the company’s newest cast members learned from the incidents is up for debate. What’s inarguable is that everyone got along on day one.
The only true problem was one that was avoidable for reasons you’ll see in a moment. The members of the press seeking to accentuate potential controversies at Animal Kingdom felt annoyed by the lack of animal issues on day one. Disappointed that their planned headline wasn’t available, they found another source of discontent.
Some of the opening day guests simply didn’t GET Animal Kingdom as designed. They thought of it in simplistic terms as a theme park with animals. These visitors rushed to the rides in parts of the park such as DinoLand U.S.A. and Asia’s Kali River Rapids. Once they’d ridden the few true rides at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, they expressed confusion that the park had so little to do. Meanwhile, the guests who interacted with the animals felt a sense of awe at the achievement of Animal Kingdom. Those people wound up in articles written by optimists. The people who left the park by noon, annoyed by the crowds and lack of E-ticket rides, wound up starring in articles written by negative media outlets.
The truth was somewhere in the middle. On opening day, Disney’s Animal Kingdom went as well as Disney could have hoped. It was clearly a source of intrigue for both the local Florida community and the rest of the country. The park was lacking in some key regards, though. This would become true in the coming years. After starting with solid park attendance of 8.6 million during its first full year in 1999, Animal Kingdom fell in popularity each of the next three years.
Dragons and unicorns and dinosaurs. Oh my!
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History shows that the first public confirmation of Animal Kingdom was a bit ambitious. What it lacked in terms of rides may have cost the park during its early days. Also, the continuing perception of this issue is an idea Disney park planners combat to this day.
Eisner himself stated that Animal Kingdom would be a “celebration of animals that ever or never existed.” That’s because Disney feared that their newest park could exist as its own entity without a bit of aid. What they worried about was that the basic zoo concept wouldn’t seem special enough for demanding theme park tourists, customers who expect more from the Disney brand.
In order to elevate the concept and also provide a few novel attractions, Disney planned to add mythological and prehistoric animals to its menagerie. The linchpin idea was that the fictional rides as well as the ones from millions of years ago would provide different storytelling avenues for Imagineers. That way, they could protect their interests while hedging their bets if the animals didn’t prove enough of a draw.
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Lost in the annals of history is Beastly Kingdom, which the world now knows as…Camp Minnie-Mickey? As bizarre as that sentence reads, it’s true. While Expedition Everest stands today as the notable entry in the fictional beings portion of Animal Kingdom, the first announcement for the park explicitly stated that there would be many of them. In execution, none of note existed during the first eight years that the park was open.
What was the source of this disconnect? Beastly Kingdom wasn’t a part of Animal Kingdom for a lack of trying. To the contrary, Imagineers invented several memorable concepts for this part of the park. The grand ambitions for Beastly Kingdom would have involved “realms” for the good and evil creatures from folklore.
Attractions such as Fantasia Gardens and Quest of the Unicorn would highlight the side of the angels. The former ride, obviously based on the movie Fantasia, would have combined music and the animals appearing in the film. Think of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, only with crocodiles and hippos from Dances of the Hours. Those are obviously real animals, but fake ones would have comprised other parts of the ride. Chief among them were centaurs, fauns, and pegasi from Pastoral. The latter was to be a labyrinth. Clever children who reached the middle would get to meet with the legendary unicorn that lived there.
Image: Disney
On the dark side of Beastly Kingdom, theme park tourists would interact with the more foreboding mythical creatures of legend. Nearly two decades before a Ukrainian Ironbelly lorded over the streets of Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Florida, Disney wanted to let there be dragons. Their planned evil realm would feature Dragon’s Tower, a vault of gold akin to the one seen in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
The only thing preventing theme park tourists from reaching the treasure would be an avaricious dragon. This fire breather would function as the final boss standing in the way of Scrooge McDuck-level riches. It was as ambitious as it was prescient. And the next time you ride Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, you should remember that Animal Kingdom could have easily beaten the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to the punch.
The legacy of Beastly Kingdom is understated. Artists started designing elements of the park long before Eisner killed the Phase II expansion. They unfortunately named one of the parking lots Unicorn. The exterior entry display also features a dragon’s head. Throughout the park, other dragons, unicorns, and other mythical creatures continue to make unlikely appearances on sign posts, logos, and other corporate paraphernalia.
Answering the age-old question of who’d win in a fight…
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What kept Beastly Kingdom from becoming a crucial part of Animal Kingdom? As the project advanced, park planners determined that they couldn’t meet the original launch date for the fictional realm. They quickly devised a Plan B. Beastly Kingdom would become the first expansion of Animal Kingdom, the Phase II if you will. Once they’d proven that the theme park zoo concept was viable, they could then Disney-fy it by adding these new mythical attractions. They’d lead with the zoo then bring the Magic Kingdom aspect into the equation at a later date.
As so often happens with plans for an indefinite time for the future, they fell by the wayside. The expense of Beastly Kingdom would be tremendous, and it would occur soon after Disney had finally finished accruing construction expenses for Phase I. As much as Disney loved the idea of a village residing under an intimidating Dragon Tower above, executives had to make hard choices.
The original $750 million projected budget for Animal Kingdom had spiraled out of control, as history indicates usually happens with Disney theme parks. As opening day approached, Michael Eisner faced a seemingly impossible choice. He had blueprints for two parts of the park, both of which he’d personally promised when he announced the intention to create Animal Kingdom.
One of them was Beastly Kingdom. The other was Dino Land U.S.A. You already know how this plays out. The difficulty is in understanding why he selected one of the most often-criticized parts of any Disney theme park over one with seemingly limitless potential. The explanation is one that seems comical in hindsight, but it’s also the very business model Disney has used to dominate the theme park industry.
In May of 2000, Disney would release their most ambitious animated project in decades. The project was simply named Dinosaur, and it would be the company’s attempt to prove that they could best Pixar at their own game, computer animation. Controversial director Paul Verhoeven had first pitched the project in 1988, and it had gestated behind the scenes at Disney for several years before proceeding in the late ‘90s.
Eisner recognized an opportunity for synergy, the tethering of a potential film franchise to a newly incorporated theme park land. This strategy had worked many more times than it’d failed for Disney, so his decision was understandable at the time. Unfortunately for him, Dinosaur lacked the one thing that differentiates Pixar from its derivatives: a quality story. It disappointed at the box office, and the glorified carnival region of Animal Kingdom continues to lag behind the other, more engaging parts of the fourth gate.
Animal Kingdom’s Tomorrowland
The only constant is change. The maxim is tired, but the underlying philosophy is sound, particularly within the walls of Disney’s corporate offices. Innovation equals revenue, and money drives their business just as much as creativity. Over the past several years, Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios have jockeyed for a strange position. Neither of them wants to stand as low gate on the Walt Disney World totem pole.
Their traffic numbers are virtually indistinguishable. From 2010 through 2014, Hollywood Studios claimed 49.64 million visits. Animal Kingdom’s numbers during that timeframe were 50.07 million. In 2011, park planners attempted something unprecedented to differentiate Animal Kingdom. They bestowed it with something unique. After watching their failed Harry Potter negotiations lead to a globally popular license reinvigorating Universal Studios Florida, Disney tried once more.
On September 20, 2011, it was announced that the fourth gate would receive an update that had virtually nothing to do with animals. Instead, it would hearken back to the fictional beasts once considered. Animal Kingdom would add Avatar: the world of Pandora. The James Cameron film had dazzled movie lovers with its breathtaking visuals, ultimately becoming the number one movie of all-time domestically and globally.
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The novelty of this relationship was that Disney hadn’t released Avatar. That windfall went to 20th Century Fox. Disney committed an entire block of their Project X land to an intellectual property they didn’t own. Sure, they’d built rides for film franchises such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, neither of which they owned. They’d never gone all-in with an entire region of park space, one of their greatest commodities, though. The explanation was simple. One of the stumbling blocks with Harry Potter was that Disney didn’t want to commit to such a project. They quickly appreciated the error in judgment. Avatar would afford Disney some redemption.
While Walt Disney could build the entirety of Disneyland in a year, the technological hurdles of implementing a 3D world as a theme park land have proven difficult, even to the geniuses in Disney Imagineering. Construction didn’t even begin for more than two years. Builders eventually broke ground on Pandora in January of 2014. The following year, Disney finally offered more concrete details at their annual D23 Expo. They confirmed two attractions, Flight of Passage and Na’Vi River Journey, both of which would simulate key sequences from the first movie.
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Disney is currently making progress with what they promise will be the most forward-thinking expansion in the history of theme parks. The bold claim is already getting tested by recent additions at Universal Studios Florida and the recently opened Universal Studios Hollywood. Each passing month Disney fails to open Pandora to the public is another chance for somebody else to beat them to the punch, so the delays are troublesome.
Disney’s bold move to refresh Animal Kingdom seems riskier than ever now. Did they overreact to a missed opportunity with Harry Potter? At this point, nobody knows for certain, but it’d be nice if just one new addition to Animal Kingdom opened without a well-publicized delay. Their Tomorrowland is starting to feel more like a Never Never Land.
