Disney's Animal Kingdom at Ten
Page 1 of 5
Click here for a much larger version of this picture
The idea that germinated into Disney�s Animal Kingdom was hatched inside a small trailer between two buildings on the Walt Disney Imagineering lot in Glendale, CA by a handful of creative imagineers led by the enigmatic and charismatic Joe Rohde. This is the story of how Joe Rohde and a team of dedicated and driven imagineers brought a new species of theme park to life.
�I was just wrapping up the Adventurer�s Club [at Pleasure Island in Walt Disney World] and I felt like I really wanted a project that I could lead,� Joe begins. �I felt it was time for me to demonstrate whether I could take a group of people and an idea that didn�t come from somewhere else and lead it to completion. In late �89 I went to Marty [Sklar, former Vice-Chairman and Principal Creative Executive of Walt Disney Imagineering] and asked to be given the opportunity to lead an idea from zero through creative development. I was presented with three options � a series of Epcot Center renewals, a workplace concept that Michael [Eisner] was pushing and this animal thing that didn�t have a name but Michael was very interested in it. I really liked the animal idea but it wasn�t popular within Imagineering. Most people thought it would be a zoo and we had this giant white paper commissioned on why a zoo wouldn�t work.�
Click here for a much larger version of this picture
�We had a tiny conference room and we put up these boards for 3�x5� cards up,� Joe continues. �We spent two weeks doing nothing but talking through the implication of the word animal. What does it mean? What emotions does it convey and what activities does it imply? We had to determine how broad the word would be defined to tell us what would be included and excluded from the project. We also had to consider what happens when you put Disney alongside the word. We then put the word Kingdom at the end and had to determine how to turn those three words into a place and what kind of place it would be. We literally scribbled on hundreds of index cards before we boiled it all down to a philosophical proposal � if we are going to do a park about animals and it is a Disney park then it needed to be more than just live animals. We knew we had to leverage what Disney does that is so special for guests which is stories with arcs, set development, scenic design, complex ride systems that allow for massive throughput, special effects and so on. The park needed to present the animals in a narrative context rather than a catalog format which is more typical of zoos. We also had to consider the business purpose of this project which was to encourage people to stay longer at Walt Disney World and so it was important that Disney�s Animal Kingdom couldn�t be switched out for one of the other parks.�
Click here for a much larger version of this picture
�Our first presentation was on these 4� by 8� boards that were covered with index cards that conveyed the overarching ideas that we were developing that were all based on our universal love for animals and how that manifests in different forms,� Joe explains. �Nature was the absolute value for us and we developed ideas based on the influence of animals encompassing elements like our child-like love for animals as creatures of storytelling and mythology, playmates as pets and our physical appreciation of the beauty of animals which became the safari and this notion of getting to know the world and rules by which the animals live.�