Some days, it seems that the only thing to stay the same is change. Luckily, that’s just the way Walt Disney liked it. It’s the reason that, among all the wonders at Disneyland during his lifetime, his friends and family say he singled out one attraction as his favorite, proclaiming that it should never cease operation. And fifty years later, it hasn’t… not for long, at least.
That’s what our Modern Marvels series is for: chronicling the complete, in-depth histories of today’s masterpiece attractions; living legends that are renowned the world over. Already, we’ve told fan-favorite stories of Disney’s most spectacular dark ride ever, Mystic Manor; taken the streets of New York to join The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man; faced Imhotep’s curse on Revenge of the Mummy; scaled to the frigid heights of Expedition Everest, and so many more. And now, our most magnificent Modern Marvel yet joins our In-Depth Collection Library.
Image: Disney
Five decades after its opening, Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress is still ever-turning toward a “Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow.” But for all its longevity, this “revolutionary” attraction has never stayed put for too long… From unexpected origins in New York, a cross-country rebuild at Disneyland, and a final flight to its current Floridian home, today we’ll trace the in-depth story of this Modern Marvel and watch as Tomorrowland (and the Walt Disney Company) changed around it.
The optimist
Image: Disney
Walt Disney passed away over fifty years ago. And yet, most people alive today have a pretty good idea of who he was. Perhaps the more fitting question is, what was he? Sure, he was an artist, animator, voice actor, filmmaker, and producer; he was a businessman; a visionary; a dreamer. But to hear his friends and family say it, Walt was one thing above all else: an optimist.
Dedicated to ideals of American enterprise and industry, Walt was an idealist and a futurist practically enamored with the idea of progress. From his early days integrating new technologies and art forms into animation, to his revolutionary Disneyland with its unprecedented design by filmmakers and its industry-changing attractions… On Walt’s dying day, he was still dreaming, but bigger: urban design, mass transit, and his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Those closest to him say that, in his hospital bed, he used the ceiling tiles to explain the gridded layout of his “EPCOT.”
Image: Disney
Walt’s continuous contemplation of progress was brought to life in Disneyland. It’s no coincidence that Main Street, U.S.A. is forever frozen at the turn of the 20th century, immortalizing the brief, fleeting moment when the gas lamp and the electric lightbulb coexisted; it’s no accident that Frontierland and its idling speed and storied foundation stands opposite Tomorrowland with its “new frontiers in science, adventure, and ideals.”
And that reverence to progress is what inspired one of Walt’s first projects to expand the still-new Disneyland…
Edison Square
Shortly after Disneyland opened, plans were already in progress for its first growth spurt. One piece of that puzzle would be a new land constructed in a spur east of Main Street, U.S.A. behind Tomorrowland. True to Walt’s intention, Main Street would continue to represent the amazing moment in American history when the horse-drawn streetcar and the new automobile shared the road.
Image: Disney
But now, those old clip-clopping carriages would continue down Main Street toward the Hub while, with the sound of their “ah-ooh-gah” horns, the cars would break away and pass under a wrought-iron archway aglow with the warm hum of the new electric lightbulb reading: EDISON SQUARE.
This new land would propel guests forward and into the big city, with facades designed to resembled Chicago’s graystones, wooden San Francisco, red-brick Boston, and New York’s brownstones in a cul-de-sac built around Progress Park and its iconic bronze state of Edison himself.
Image: Disney
With 1,093 patents to his name (including the invention of the lightbulb, power utilities, the motion picture camera, and the phonograph), Thomas Edison was a figure worthy of celebration in the eyes of Walt. And it didn’t hurt that Edison was the founder of General Electric – by the 1950s, a massive technological national company – who was excited about the idea of sponsoring an entire land at Disneyland. GE had high hopes for Edison Square and for its headlining attraction…
Harnessing the Light
Image: Disney
Cleverly concealed behind the cul-de-sac of facades forming Edison Square, General Electric’s Harnessing the Light would have been a state-of-the-art attraction and a product showcase for GE. Guests would enter into a prologue exhibit space about Edison and his discoveries, milling about in a museum of invention until a set of automatic doors opened, leading them into a tiered standing theater. Along three tiers, guests would gaze out over a set recreating the typical American home as it appeared in 1898 – just before electricity made its way into the living room.
The lovable Wilbur K. Watt, happily rocking in his chair, would show guests around, pointing out how the stove, icebox, and phonograph are all marvels of innovation, though they’re all human powered. Wilbur himself wouldn’t be much more advanced… a simple “electro-mechanical” figure, he’d only be able to perform repetitive actions controlled by simple machines (think of 1955’s Jungle Cruise animals).
Image: Disney
After three minutes or so, another set of doors would open to the left, with guests passing into the next theater – the same home 20 years later, in 1918 with bundles and bundles of wires strung throughout the home from water heaters, refrigerators, lightbulbs, and other early appliances.
Three minutes later, guests would walk forward through time again to 1958 (the “present” when Harnessing the Light would open) showcasing then-modern household marvels of climate-control, television, microwave opens, and more. Just look at the wonders of General Electric and its place in the modern American story!
Finally, guests would pass into a fourth scene, representing the home of the future: luminous walls, prototype personal computers, space scanners, and more! In this final scene, guests would be invited onto the stage to explore the possibilities of progress up close and hands-on… but only for three minutes, when the doors to the left would open again, this time into an epilogue exhibit showcasing the General Electric appliances available for sale.
Click and expand for a larger and more detailed view. Image: Disney
At its heart, Harnessing the Light was about progress, and the hopes and fears that always accompany it. Passing from theater to theater, guests would’ve gotten a sense of just how much life had changed for the average American family in the last sixty years, and how the innovation at General Electric had made life simpler and sweeter. It seemed perfectly positioned as a must-have addition at Disneyland.
Of course, it was never built. That’s why all of Edison Square and its colonial neighbor, Liberty Street, made it into our walk through an alternate-reality Possibilityland of never-built Disneyland rides and lands.
But why did Disney drop the concept?
Rethinking tomorrow
Image: Disney
In the late 1950s, WED Enterprises (today called Disney Imagineering) had a lot on its plate. Opportunities for growth at the young Disneyland were countless, and Edison Square was one of many ideas floated for the park. Certainly, its focus on the future would’ve made it a pet project of Walt’s… except that he had a bigger future-fish to fry.
“A vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying Man’s achievements… A step into the future, with predictions of constructed things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure and ideals. The Atomic Age, the challenge of Outer Space and the hope for a peaceful, unified world.”
Despite his lofty dedication at the park’s opening, Walt had been disappointed with Disneyland’s Tomorrowland from the start. Originally, he’d decreed that it would need to open after the rest of the park in a “Phase II” expansion, but ultimately decided to rush the construction of the land in order to have the whole park open on time.
Image: Disney
As a result, Tomorrowland in 1955 was little more than a corporate showcase with exhibit spaces rented out by companies eager to show their wares:
The Kaiser Hall of Aluminum Fame.
The Dutch Boy Paint Color Gallery.
The Monsanto Hall of Chemistry.
The Crane Bathroom of Tomorrow.
Walt famously disliked that Tomorrowland had become such a bore and was determined to think bigger.
On June 14, 1959, a massive expansion to Tomorrowland opened, adding three new attractions – Matterhorn Bobsleds, Submarine Voyage, and the Disney-ALWEG Monorail – with each grand enough to earn the new E-Ticket designation created just for them. So enormous was this all-at-once unveiling, it was advertised and televised as a Re-Dedication of Disneyland!
Still, Walt was often said to comment that Tomorrowland was “still not complete,” and from that moment on, he must’ve decided to himself that sooner rather than later, the land would need a complete floor-to-ceiling rebuild…
Given all that, it’s no wonder that Edison Square was cancelled. Walt and GE reportedly agreed that, eventually, they’d build a time-traveling showcase, but that it would require some key innovations first… Would you believe that the road to the Carousel of Progress begins in earnest with a singing bird? Read on…
The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room
In Disneyland’s first decade, guests had been blown away by the “electro-mechanical” figures that populated the Jungle Cruise, the Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland, and the Submarine Voyage. But these figures were, by their nature, constrained to repetitive, mechanical motion. On a vacation, Walt picked up a souvenir mechanical bird and challenged his designers to improve upon it. WED Enterprises electrician, Lee Adams, set to work.
He couldn’t have known that his project would be remembered today as perhaps the greatest advance in theme park history.
Image: Disney
We traced the historical development and amazing technology behind Disney’s patented Audio-Animatronics figures in a standalone in-depth feature, but suffice it to say that the incredible technology is literally a pivot point in the industry’s story.
And given that a mechanical bird was Walt’s inspiration, it’s fitting that Audio-Animatronics made their introduction with 1963’s Modern Marvel: The Enchanted Tiki Room. Still a classic to this day, the amazing attraction places guests among 150 Audio-Animatronic birds, tikis, totems, and even plants that gradually come alive in a timeless tropical serenade. Each figure – controlled at the time by a personal reel of tape and vibrating reed to open and close circuits powering pneumatic valves – can blink, flap, click, and even breathe.
Image: Gorillas Don’t Blog
Disney placed a single “barker bird” outside of the Tiki Room to entice guests inside like a carnival barker. So inconceivable was the Audio-Animatronic to audiences of the 1960s, crowds would gather to gawk at the seemingly brilliant bird, clogging the entrance to Adventureland and forcing Disney to move the macaw.
Perhaps just as memorable as the enchanted encounter with an aviary of talking birds, the attraction’s theme song “The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room,” was composed by Walt’s go-to songwriters, the Sherman Brothers.
Image: Disney
The wildly infectious, unforgettable tune remains one of the highlights of the Disney Parks’ songbook, and one of the first examples of the Sherman Brothers’ indelible impact on Disney Parks.
With the Tiki Room having taken flight, a new path forward was revealed for WED Enterprises… and it couldn’t have come at a better time!
The 1964 – 65 New York “WED’s Fair”
Image: Disney
Walt – as fascinated with America’s foundation as its future – always considered fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln a personal hero, and was working with WED Enterprises to create a lifelike Lincoln Audio-Animatronic. When New York’s mid-century “master builder,” Robert Moses, visited Disneyland scouting ideas for the World’s Fair the city was set to host, he caught wind of the prototype president and encouraged Walt to develop the unprecedented human figure for a World’s Fair attraction.
Frequent readers of our renowned Lost Legends collection (and particularly, of entries concerning closed EPCOT Center originals) know what happened next.
Notice the size of the people standing around the Unisphere. Image: PLCjr, Flickr (license)
The 1964 – 65 New York World’s Fair is perhaps one of the best known international expos of all time, and for good reason – right on the verge of the Space Age and fueled by the optimism of pre-Vietnam baby boomers, this World’s Fair was an icon of mid-century Americana at the height of corporate influence and classic design.
As never before, corporations would construct massive pavilions in Queens’ Flushing Meadows Park, each dedicated to its area of science and industry, and each throwing open the doors to invite guests from around the globe to see its latest showcase of inventions. Before the Internet, this was your chance to see what the future of transportation, food, energy, and society held… a grand display of optimism, wonder, and possibility.
Click and expand for a larger and more detailed view.
It’s no surprise that WED Enterprises had been contracted by a number of corporations hoping to use Walt Disney attractions to draw visitors to their pavilions. But the one Walt was most excited about? General Electric. With the dawn of the Audio-Animatronic, GE arrived back at Disney’s doorstep. Now was the time to look at Harnessing the Light again, as Disney’s revolutionary Audio-Animatronics could now draw international acclaim and interest in a showcase of GE’s appliances. GE helped underwrite Disney’s development of those human Audio-Animatronics, and the race was on.
Advances
Click and expand for a larger and more detailed view. Image: Disney
For Pepsi-Cola, WED Enterprises set to work developing a family cruise through stylized scenes representing children from all corners of the world. It was the debut of the now-famous flume ride through international waters… and the first ever installation of a wildly high-capacity ride system that would become a staple of Disney’s portfolio.
While Imagineers had originally planned for the stylized dolls in each of the ride’s cultural corners to sing their own respective national anthems, the discordant mess of conflicting, clashing songs was enough to drive the designers wild. Walt turned once more to the venerable Sherman Brothers to create a song that would emphasize the unity of the world. Their product? The eponymous sing-along of the Pepsi pavilion’s Walt Disney’s “it’s a small world” – A Salute to UNICEF and the World’s Children.
Image: Disney
Ford Motor Company contracted Disney, too, resulting in Ford’s Magic Skyway. In the unusual attraction, guests would step onto a moving sidewalk and board a “motorless” Ford convertible cruising alongside them. Then, the convertibles would glide out of the pavilions and along elevated highways around its exterior, then into the pavilion to drive past dioramas of a prehistoric world and spectacular dinosaurs.
Image: Disney
True to his promise to Robert Moses, Disney did complete work on the human Audio Animatronic they’d been testing, and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln opened at the State of Illinois’ pavilion. The moving, unthinkable encounter with the nation’s sixteenth president was a highlight of the Fair.
But by far the most impressive piece developed by WED Enterprises was the project they’d created for General Electric… In the video here (a continuation of the one at the top of this page), Walt dives into the surprising ‘sixties science of programming human Audio-Animatronics for what he expects to be the hightlight of the World’s Fair: his “Carousel Theater of Progress.”
On the next page, we’ll step into the attraction Walt proclaimed as Disney’s best. Read on…
Progressland
Images: Disney
There’s something hypnotic about the mid-century style of General Electric’s pavilion at the 1964 – 65 New York World’s Fair. With its criss-crossed lattice dome glowing gold, the winged cornice around its circumference, the brilliant ramp leading to its upper stories… The $17 million pavilion sponsored by GE contained multiple pieces and parts centered around the power of electricity. Fitting, since Post-World-War-II America’s booming manufacturing industries were setting the stage for a booming middle class and their purchase of household electric appliances.
That left GE with a new market of potential customers… and Walt Disney was just the showman to sell it.
By far the biggest draw to GE’s pavilion would be General Electric PROGRESSLAND – A Walt Disney Presentation. There couldn’t be a better time or place for this collaboration. Progressland is a one-of-a-kind technological marvel, ushering guests into a lavish, spectacular auditorium seating nearly 240 people before a glowing, psychedelic “Kaleidophonic” screen of diffraction lenses, flashing to the spectacular tune of the ride’s original song: “There’s a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow.”
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day!
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow, and tomorrow is just a dream away!
And now, as the song continues, something curious begins to happen. Slowly but surely, a gentle, distant rumbling can be heard, and the lights of the Kaleidophonic screen begin to drift away. Of course, it’s all a matter of perspective… in reality, we, the audience, are on the move! Our auditorium of 240 people is just one of six situated around the outside of the pavilion’s core, looking inward toward six stages.
Man has a dream, and that’s the start.
He follows his dream with mind and heart,
And when it becomes a reality,
It’s a dream come true for you and me!
Now, the theater begins to slow as the auditorium aligns with the second stage in the theater: a living room, albeit, and old one. Our first view is of our host – father, John – sitting in a seat with a paper fan in hand. You might do a double take… the “man” on stage isn’t a man at all. He and the rest of his family are Audio-Animatronics… new age inventions straight from Walt Disney himself. He’s singing along to the song:
“So there’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day!
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow just a dream away!”
Image: Roger W, Flickr (license)
It’s the 1890s, and in this four minute vignette, John walks us through the “wonders” of the era: automobiles, phonographs, telephones, those zany Wright Brothers and their “aeroplane” (“it’ll never work!”), and even twenty-story skyscrapers – innovations simply unimaginable even a decade earlier.
Each member of John’s family pops in, too, thanks to two turntables on either side of the screen, concealed by scrims until lit from behind.
And while John and his family may think they’ve got it made, progress keeps marching on. That’s why he sends us on our way, and as the chorus begins again, the ring of theaters begins to roll onward as well…
Images: Gorillas Don’t Blog (above), Disney (below)
By all accounts, Progressland’s ride mechanism makes it the most efficient and guest-friendly attraction ever. With six theaters (each holding nearly 240) rotating to welcome new audiences every four minutes, Progressland could handle a theoretical capacity of 3,600 guests per hour – higher even than the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, which otherwise top daily throughput among Disney attractions… Plus, the semi-continuous loading keeps queues short and the experience intimate!
There’s a sort of brilliance to the theater’s four acts perfectly timed so that that catchy “There’s a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow” syncs up between each scene. And now, the audience realigns to the next stage…
We’re off to the 1920s with transatlantic flight, sports stadiums, radios, electric fans, and indoor plumbing, catching up with each member of the family once more. Progress – and the wonderful products of General Electric – have sure made life easier! It seems that things could simply never be better than this! But then again… “There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow…” And off we go as the theater revolves once more, each audience shifting toward the next stage.
“…just a dream away!” Ah, it’s the 1940s and life has never been simpler – dishwaters, television, and food mixers are cutting edge! It’s almost-unbelievable to think that these inventions seemed so remarkable just 20 some-odd years ago. But just as importantly, we watch as the American family changes… the continuing splendors of GE’s domestic invention make life easier, simpler, and sweeter.
But still not sweet enough. Because “there’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow…” And on we roll to the house of today – yes, it’s a mod Christmas in the 1960s for a finale showcase of the groovy, far-out GE products available now… and maybe a few to watch out for in the years to come.
Image: Disney
Oh, there’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day!
There’s a great, big, beautiful tomorrow just a dream away!
One more rotation returns the audience to the flashing Kaleidophonic screen (actually a sixth position – a carbon copy theater next door loads a new crowd), but our first-hand view of the wonders of General Electric isn’t over yet! After all, any trip through progress to today incites one important question: what’s next?
Exiting from the carousel’s sixth and final position, guests are invited up a speed ramp to a futuristic display of nuclear fusion (a great introduction, of course to the Atomic Age) and finally into the pavilion’s magnificent dome, hosting GE’s Skydome Spectacular – the largest projection screen on Earth!
Driven by Walt Disney’s name, GE’s innovation, and the spectacular Audio-Animatronics technology it displayed, GE’s Progressland was among the most-visited pavilions at the World’s Fair. Even moving more than 3,000 people per hour with ease, guests would queue for an hour or more to experience the 45-minute attraction (and its headlining 22 minute carousel show).
Of course, we didn’t go into much detail about Progressland’s scenes… because, as progress dictates, everything was about to change…
Coming Home
The 1964 – 65 New York World’s Fair had kicked off an unprecedented period of innovation at WED Enterprises… the four attractions Disney had developed for the Fair were spectacular enough that, for a time, Walt considered leaving them in New York after the Fair’s closure and operating it as a “Disneyland East.” Eventually, however, he decided that the four attractions should come home.
He had Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln duplicated during the Fair’s second summer, so that it was showing both in New York and in a custom-built theater in the Main Street Opera House at Disneyland.
Image: Disney
After the Fair ended, “it’s a small world” was shipped West and installed in Fantasyland with its remarkable and beloved Mary Blair inspired exterior.
While, at first glance, it appears that the Ford Magic Skyway didn’t get to Disneyland, it did make the trip to California… just in pieces. The dinosaur dioramas were installed along the Disneyland Railroad, expanding the Grand Canyon diorama to include the new Primeval World. The technology behind the ride’s constantly moving aerial highway was borrowed too, and we suspect most Disney fans will recognize its Californian cousin…
New Tomorrowland 1967
Click and expand for a larger and more detailed view. Image: Disney
Armed with the advances of the New York World’s Fair, Walt got to work on a long-languishing project: finally revitalizing Tomorrowland. If Disney wanted Tomorrowland to sincerely represent cutting-edge innovation, American ideals, and the promise of tomorrow, it would need more than a facelift. Walt’s grand visions for the land meant it would need entirely reimagined.
New Tomorrowland opened in1 967 with new buildings, new colors, new textures, and new attractions. Dressed in the sleek, white, symmetrical look of the Space Age, New Tomorrowland was truly a vista of ‘60s and ‘70s futurism: white and red, with streamlined Googie architecture, sprawling planters, white spires, and a form and function united.
Image: Disney
A “World on the Move,” New Tomorrowland was a world of kinetic energy and frenzies motion, with eyes drawn ever skyward. Beneath the spinning Rocket Jets, the Magic Skyway technology was transformed into Walt’s idealized mass transit of the future and dearly departed Lost Legend: The Peoplemover.
And there, at the end of Tomorrowland’s grand entry, stood a circular building, slowly rotating…
Image: Disney
Read on…
Revolving
Image: Disney
Walt Disney never lived to see the opening of New Tomorrowland in July 1967. He passed away unexpectedly from lung cancer on December 15, 1966. However, his DNA lived on in most every square foot of the revitalized land he helped shape. Perhaps the most significant icon of his spirit? The centrally-located Carousel of Progress.
Image: Disney
When the Carousel of Progress opened alongside Disneyland’s New Tomorrowland in 1967, it represented just one piece of the grandest redesign in Disneyland’s history alongside revered Lost Legends: The Peoplemover and Adventure Thru Inner Space.
General Electric’s sponsorship followed the now-permanent attraction to California, likely in a 10 – 12 year commitment (typical of Disneyland sponsorship). The sets and Audio-Animatronic “performers” for the attraction were all originals from the Fair re-installed in the nearly identical Carousel Theater. At the close of the show, guests would disembark and follow a curving pathway around the building to the Theater’s second floor, where they’d get a bird’s eye view of something astounding.
Image: davelandweb.com
Rather than duplicating GE’s Skydome Spectacular, the redesigned finale at Disneyland offered guests an unbelievable look at the full, massive, sprawling, 6,900 square foot model of Progress City – based on Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Guests could spend as much time as they liked on the Theater’s second floor looking out over the model and imagining that Walt’s EPCOT may one day come to be…
While Carousel of Progress was a spectacular testament to Disney’s legacy in a New Tomorrowland shaped by – but never stepped in by – Walt, it had one fatal flaw: Disneyland’s guests.
Image: Disney
In 1971 – just four years after the Carousel of Progress’s Disneyland debut – the brand new Walt Disney World opened as “the Vacation Kingdom of the World.” Right away, a stark contrast arose between the two Disney properties. Especially back then (but still today), an enormous percentage of Disneyland visitors were from Southern California or the adjacent states. In other words, while Disney World became an international resort destination, Disneyland remained a simple day-trip for the region, catering to generations of locals.
Which is all well and good… except that, even by the early 1970s, audiences were dwindling at the Carousel of Progress, and GE’s research suggested that 80% of visitors to their attraction were Californians, most of whom had already seen the show many times. That wasn’t a very good use of their pricey sponsorship and advertising dollars, especially while the brand new Magic Kingdom in Florida was catering to ever-rotating international audiences who would eat up GE’s advertising.
Image: Disney
General Electric badly wanted their Carousel of Progress to return across the country and take up residence in the new Magic Kingdom where audiences from around the globe would see their product lineup. Killing two birds with one stone, relocating Carousel to Orlando would also help flesh out the park’s Tomorrowland which, when Magic Kingdom opened, was even more stark and empty than Disneyland’s had been in its own opening year.
The show closed at Disneyland on September 9, 1973, after a run of only six years…
Disneyland, A.C. (After Carousel)
1974. Image: Werner Weiss, Yesterland.com
Before we follow Carousel of Progress to its final home in Florida, let’s wrap up the story of what became of California’s Carousel Theater. Disney intended to repurpose the revolving theater for a new show celebrating America’s bicentennial. “America Sings” opened in June 1974.
Naturally, the show re-used the Carousel Theater’s six stages and six audiences (though it did reverse the theater’s direction to counter-clockwise). A wonder in its own right, America Sings featured 115 Audio-Animatronics figures of anthropomorphic animals and, through and through, is a classic Marc Davis attraction.
Image: Disney
Hosted by Sam the eagle and Ollie owl, the show transported guests through the Deep South, the wild West, the 1890s, and modern times with spectacular singalong presentations and Sam’s “Yankee Doodle” as the uniting song between scenes. “America Sings” was a smart re-use of the Carousel Theater, even if it didn’t quite fit in Tomorrowland. In 1986, two of the show’s singing geese quartets became trios – two of the geese were pulled and stripped to their robotic underbellies to become Droids in the queue of a Lost Legend: STAR TOURS just a few hundred feet away along Tomorrowland’s main entry (still identified by their duck feet).
America Sings closed in April 1988 so that the remaining Audio-Animatronics could be redressed in Southern duds and installed in the under-construction Splash Mountain where they were reprogrammed to sing along to the attraction’s “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” musical score.
The Carousel Theater remained closed for a decade… just one of a handful of abandoned, rotting attractions sitting in the land during its darkest period – the 1990s. Michael Eisner had plans to completely rebuild Disneyland’s Tomorrowland and turn the Carousel Theater into “Plectu’s Galactic Revue,” but his plans for a Possibilityland: Tomorrowland 2055 were shuttered.
Image: Disney
Instead was built the dreaded subject of its own Disaster File: Tomorrowland 1998, casting the land in brown, green, and bronze. With a green marble wedge added to the building’s exterior, the Carousel Theater became a West Coast campus of Epcot’s Innoventions. Guests entered in batches via the continuously-revolving first floor. Inside, the entire theater had been opened up, creating an outer ring of revolving “pre-shows” that then funneled guests into the stationary core and a staircase up to the second floor, with both levels littered with interactive elements.
Like its older sister – Epcot’s Innoventions – Disneyland’s version quickly became a lame duck of exhibits that didn’t recieve the updating or care needed. Eventually, the second floor was more or less vacated to make way for Marvel super hero meet-and-greets.
If you can imagine, things have only gotten worse.
Image: Disney
In 2015, what remained of Innoventions closed to make way for Star Wars Launch Bay, a sincerely pointless Star Wars “exhibit” / meet-and-greet space with the mismatched Marvel meet-and-greets remaining on level two… until they closed. Now, the desolate Launch Bay takes up the first floor, while the second is merely dark and roped off. Plus, during the transition to Launch Bay, the revolving mechanics of the building’s outer ring were apparently permanently cemented, meaning it will never rotate again… a truly sad sort of finality for a building once dedicated to moving forward.
So for Disneyland’s Carousel Theater, the only remaining question is when the building will be demolished. Launch Bay is already a waste of space, and once Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge land opens in 2019, Launch Bay (and curiously, Star Tours?) will be redundant. There’s almost no doubt that – eventually – whatever floor-to-ceiling rebuild of Tomorrowland that comes next will see the Carousel Theater, its neighbors Autopia and the Submarine Voyage, and the Peoplemover torn out to make way for something new.
The good news is that while Disneyland’s Carousel Theater may have degraded over decades to its now-inevitable doom, the story of Carousel of Progress isn’t over…
Magic Kingdom
Image: Disney
Straight from its Disneyland closure in late 1973, Carousel of Progress opened in the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland on January 15, 1975 – the same day as Space Mountain. GE re-signed a 10-year sponsorship deal on one unexpected condition: they wanted “There’s a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow” axed from the show.
To their thinking, the Sherman Brothers’ song might subconsciously convince guests (er, potential GE customers) that they ought to wait to see what innovations came next before making a purchase… GE requested a new song that emphasized that now is the time to be – and to buy! Fittingly, the Sherman Brothers scored a new theme, “The Best Time of Your Life,” promising:
Yesterday’s mem’ries may sparkle and gleam
Tomorrowland is still but a dream
Right here and now you’ve got it made
The world’s forward marching, and you’re in the parade
Image: Disney
Now is the time; now is the best time
Now is the best time of your life
There’s so much to cheer for,
Be glad that you’re here for it, the best time of your life!
Though the new song was undoubtedly still catchy, it did (inherently and intentionally) lack some of the futurism and optimism that made Carousel of Progress – and Walt Disney – so phenomenal.
Another change? Magic Kingdom’s theater was constructed without a second story. Instead, a narrow “loft” gives the park’s Peoplemover a place to circumvent the spinning theater. As for the Progress City model, it was severed with a small piece of it installed as to be viewed from Magic Kingdom’s Peoplemover when traveling above Mission to Mars (later, a Lost Legend: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter and its unfortunate replacement; the subject of its own Disaster File: Stitch’s Great Escape).
Upon its 1975 installation, the “Christmas 1960” finale was (naturally) updated to “New Year’s Eve in the 1970s” and Rover was given a new breed.
In 1981, the finale was updated once more to “New Year’s Eve in the 1980s.”
Image: Disney
As the ’80s continued, GE’s 10-year sponsorship of Carousel of Progress came up for renewal… and instead of continuing to support the Walt Disney original, they shifted their sponsorship to a brand new attraction that literally served as the sequel to Carousel of Progress… Yes, as the 21st century nears, we’ll take one final look to the horizon and see Disney’s brave sequel and what may lie ahead for Carousel of Progress… Read on…
New Horizons
On March 10, 1985, GE’s 10-year sponsorship deal expired, and the attraction briefly closed to remove references to GE and its logos. In actuality, GE hadn’t abandoned their exploration into progress and optimism; they’d simply moved onward.
Image: Disney
It’s ironic: Disney and GE had really gotten their start together at the New York World’s Fair in 1964, and in the tradition of the best carousels, things had come back around again. In 1982, Disney opened its own “permanent World’s Fair” as the second theme park at Walt Disney World – EPCOT Center.
Like the World’s Fair that so influenced Disney history, EPCOT Center was populated by pavilions dedicated to areas of science and industry, sponsored by corporations: communication (Spaceship Earth), innovation (Communicore), ocean exploration (The Living Seas), agriculture (The Land), Imagination, transportation (World of Motion), health and wellness (Wonders of Life), and energy (Universe of Energy).
Image: Disney
But one attraction was developed as the keystone: the “thesis” of EPCOT Center’s Future World, intentionally combining all of those areas of exploration into one single, epic dark ride into humanity’s future. General Electric swapped their sponsorship to the king of all Lost Legends: HORIZONS. Make the jump to that in-depth feature to pick up the story… literally. Because aboard Horizons, guests watched the family from Carousel of Progress adapt to expanding explorations of the seas, the land, and space…
In other words, while Carousel of Progress followed one family through the 20th century, Horizons picked up the story by tracing the same family in the 21st century… in the photograph above, you might recognize the mother, father, and even Rover! Horizons was a truly inspirational spiritual sequel that will forever live on as a shining example of EPCOT Center’s idealism and futurism.
And by the way, it isn’t the only way the Carousel of Progress lived on in EPCOT Center… After all, the park’s Japan pavilion was built with (and to this day, still contains) a revolving theater meant for a four-act Audio-Animatronic show; one that never opened… at least, in the United States. But that’s a story for later…
Science or science fiction?
Image: Disney
Believe it or not, Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress outlived its own sequel. When the look of the ‘70s-born future faded from interest in the 1990s, Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland was redesigned from scratch in one of the most intriguing original mythologies ever written by Imagineers.
Redeveloped as a “future that never was,” the land left its scientific roots behind. The sleek, white, geometric walls and white-and-red NASA rockets disappeared. Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland was recast as a metallic alien spacesport of landed UFOs, silver fins, technicolor interstellar antennas, mechanical palm trees, and pulp serial Buck Rogers rockets. In other words, the land once centered around science turned instead to science fiction, inviting the likes of Lost Legends: The ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter and Timekeeper to wrap the entire land in one overarching story. Tomorrowland became a “living” alien spaceport as envisioned by 20th century comics.
Image: Disney
Carousel of Progress survived, albeit with a new “cogs and gears” exterior only loosely tying it to the rest of the new mechanical sci-fi land. Along with its gentle recasting in this New Tomorrowland ’94, its finale was updated once again… this time to “Christmas in the House of 2000.”
Image: Disney
But for Disney fans, this mid-90s update is most important for another reason. Carousel of Progress was given a retro touch thanks to the grand, triumphant return of “There’s a Great, Big, Beautiful Tomorrow.”
When the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City halted most tourism to Walt Disney World, the Carousel of Progress closed briefly, re-opening in the dreaded and doomed “seasonal” operation that so often marks the imminent end of an attraction… however, it returned to full-time work soon after and continues today.
Image: Disney
Fans forever stress over the ride’s future, certain that its valuable real estate will eventually be called upon to host the hottest intellectual property. And indeed, it’s worrisome that the ride’s finale – ostensibly meant to showcase the possibilities of the future – has been moored at “Christmas, 2000” for about twenty years too many, when a simple set rebuild, new costumes, and some new talking points would make the scene fresh once more… a simple update tops the wish list for many Disney Parks fans.
Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress is humorously (but accurately) celebrated as the longest running stage show (and with the most performances!) in the history of American theater… a pretty phenomenal label! We invite you to sit back and enjoy this spectacular point-of-view video of the entire show as it currently exists:
Just a dream away!
But now, even as Tomorrowland readies for another transitional shift, Carousel of Progress seemed poised to survive. And that’s the way Walt wanted it… he called it his favorite attraction and decreed that it should never cease operation. And you can see why. Deeply rooted in his own ideals of progress and optimism, the ride is a living, breathing reminder of Walt Disney’s philosophy. And, steeped equally in nostalgia and futurism, the ride is perhaps the best reflection of Walt’s spirit, too.
That’s the reason the Sherman Brothers say their original song is the closest they’ve gotten to capturing a “theme song” for him.
Image: Disney
And indeed, as long as the Carousel of Progress keeps turning, we can imagine that there truly may be a great, big, beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day.
Now we want to hear your thoughts. Use the comments below to share your experiences with the Carousel of Progress. Have you had the chance to experience this Walt Disney original? Does it capture a piece of Walt’s legacy and hopes for his parks that’s otherwise dwindling away? Or is it an antiquated remnant of yesteryear that represents fans’ misguided hopes of turning Disney Parks into “museums” of dated, stagnant attractions? How could, should, and will this classic evolve as Tomorrowland continues to shift around it?
