The World Report - Mar 10, 2003

The World Report
Page 1 of 1

by Stephen Halpin (archives)
March 10, 2003
With EPCOT's 20th' anniversary occuring last October 1st, Steve looks at the history of the park.

The History of EPCOT - Part 1

Well after a long, self imposed hiatus I felt is was time to start writing again for Laughingplace. Its good to be back and I want to start by thanking Doobie and Rebekah for their support and friendship.

One of those Disney milestones has been going on this year with little or no fanfare. This past October 1 EPCOT celebrated its 20th anniversary. In fact I visited the park with a friend on Oct 1 and many Cast Members didn’t even realize that EPCOT was 20 years old. This anniversary has encouraged me to take out all of my EPCOT material and read about the making of the park and its subsequent years of operation. So over the next several weeks I will be sharing some EPCOT history with you. "The 21st Century begins Oct 1" as the pre-opening ads proclaimed. So let’s take a look at how the EPCOT of today came into being.

If you have seen One Man’s Dream at the Disney-MGM Studios or have watched the Disney Channel I am sure you have caught the brief snippet of film of Walt Disney standing in front of a large map and discussing the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow or EPCOT. Walt’s vision was to have a showcase where people could live and work and be a part of the cutting edge of what American dreaming and ingenuity could provide. The film itself was the last time that Walt stood in front of the cameras and what we see on the film is really one of the few times that Walt expressed his ideas publicly about his dream of EPCOT. Meanwhile, several things were happening at this time at Walt Disney Productions. Walt Disney Productions had invested a lot of money to purchase land in Central Florida (27,443 acres or about 43 square miles). And the company’s plan was to build the Magic Kingdom, two hotels and a campground to start odd the Florida Project. Walt knew that the Magic Kingdom would generate the publicity and the money needed to help finance EPCOT. In fact, Walt left a lot of the details of the Magic Kingdom to others saying that they already knew how to build the Magic Kingdom from their experiences at Disneyland. Meanwhile, Walt spent a lot of his time dreaming about EPCOT. A layout was drawn, a model built but the actual question on how to create a city and have it be a showplace was hard to answer. Aside from the few drawings and the model, Walt shared with a very few people what he was planning for EPCOT. At the same time that all this planning was going on, Walt Disney was very sick. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer and on December 15, 1966 Walt Disney died. Legend has it that on his deathbed Walt shared with his brother Roy some of his ideas for EPCOT, drawing pictures of the site with his finger pointing towards the ceiling tiles. But many of Walt’s plans for EPCOT died with him.

Roy Disney, who was planning to retire, stepped into his brother’s role at the company and vowed to complete the Florida project that he named Walt Disney World. Roy, who was 71, was not comfortable with running the entire company himself so he enlisted Donn Tatum, who was executive VP of Administration, and E. Cardon (Card) Walker, who was VP of Operations, to run the company together as the Disney Troika. The plans for EPCOT were pushed aside momentarily and the company spent the next several years bringing Walt Disney World to life. Walt Disney World opened to the public on October 1, 1971 and was dedicated on October 25. On December 20, 1971 Roy Disney passed away having made his brothers dream a reality. The reigns for Walt Disney Productions were passed to Donn Tatum. Tatum was a quiet man who came from the Roy camp of the company was named CEO while Walker, who was outgoing and had the support of Lillian Disney and her daughters, was named COO. At this time Ron Miller, who was Walt's son-in-law, was named head of production at the studios. It was Card Walker, with the backing of the Disney Family, who felt it was important to move forward with Walt's greatest dream. Card Walker had a lot of influence within the company and with the Board of Directors. In 1980 Walker eased Tatum out as CEO and into a ceremonial role dealing with investors. Walker was named CEO and Ron Miller was named President and COO of Walt Disney Productions.

With Walt Disney World a success there were many ideas being floated around about usage of the acreage at WDW. Among the executive staff Walker encouraged the company to move ahead with Walt’s dream of EPCOT. But how to proceed? Walt left very little in terms of tangible plans and no one really had the vision necessary to bring a city to life. The decision was made to talk to people with experience in urban planning. One of the people who took a look at the EPCOT project was Ray Watson. Ray was an architect who had spent most of his career with the Irvine Company which had turned hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland into commercial and residential real estate. Watson would later play a greater role at Walt Disney Productions when he became Vice Chairman to Ron Millers CEO. It was Ray who would later tell Ron Miller that he was being let go and it was Ray who would eventually broker the deal that brought Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to Walt Disney Productions. But at this point Ray was asked to look over what Disney had on EPCOT. Walder reported that while the idea was a good one there were going to be problems. First off the experimental city/showplace was going to be very expensive. Not only because of the costs to build it but because it would have to be ever changing to stay current . Then there was the problem of the people living there. How do you ask people to put their lives on display for the whole world to see and constantly make changes to their rather personal living space. Watson also reminded Disney that while they were able to maintain a certain amount of control over what people did in their theme parks (at one time people wearing offensive t-shirts were asked to turn them inside out) you would not be able to have the same type of control over peoples lives. It was decided that the idea of a city might not be possible in the way that Walt envisioned it.

Meanwhile in the early 1970's WED Enterprises was working on a project for the Transportation and Ticket Center called World Showcase. World Showcase was to be a worlds fair like theme park that would allow visitors to experience other cultures. World Showcase was to be made up of two half circles (think Communicore) in which the layout would allow each country to have a space of the same size. At the same time half hearted attempts were made at trying to do something that looked like EPCOT. Lake Buena Vista added town homes and golf homes and was heralded in the 1972 Annual Report as a step towards realizing the dream of EPCOT. In 1974 Card Walker (then President and COO of the Walt Disney Company) announced that EPCOT was now being looked at "from the point of view of economics, operations, technology, and market potential." Walker also went on to say that the company would not be looking for individuals to become permanent residents of the project. No date was announced and the details were still very sketchy but the statement was plain. EPCOT would not be a city but some other type of showcase for American technology. Over the next 5 years the idea of EPCOT was thrown around at WED Enterprises. The decision was made to make EPCOT a showplace for new ideas and look at what American companies were working on for the future. To further enhance the project, World Showcase was merged with the EPCOT project so that the two parks would become one. Groundbreaking took place on October 1, 1979 and EPCOT Center (the center only recently being added) would consist of Future World and World Showcase. The company told the press that in reality all of Walt Disney World was EPCOT, Walt’s original vision, that WDW was a living city with prototype component’s throughout the property. It took nine years for the company to move from the opening of Walt Disney World to the groundbreaking of EPCOT Center to get to this point. And the fun was just beginning.

Next Time: What the Disney Company said EPCOT Center would be and the construction of the park.

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-- Stephen Halpin

The World Report reports on all aspects of Walt Disney World.

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The opinions expressed by our Stephen Halpin, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.

-- Posted March 10, 2003