World of Motion

   World of Motion was an opening day pavilion in Future World at EPCOT Center.  The pavilion opened with the park on October 1st, 1982 with GM as the sponsor.  General Motors actually signed on in December of 1977 as the first sponsor to back EPCOT Center.  This was a move to try and compete with Ford Motor Company, which sponsored a WED designed pavilion at the 1964-'65 New York Worlds Fair.    This ended up being the second most popular pavilion at the Fair.  So GM wanted to definitely have its own pavilion at the new EPCOT Center.

     The cylindrical show building housed an attraction that was a animitronic powerhouse, which included around 180 animitronics and over 30 show scenes.  The ride portion was fifteen minutes in length and the post show was fairly expansive, with many exhibits to easily occupy your time there.  This pavilion was a people eating machine,  with the hourly capacity of over 3000 people and the Transcenter able to hold an ample amount of guests as well.

     The attraction itself depicted the history of transportation through animitronic show scenes, with a heavy emphasis on screen based images as well.  The difference between World of Motion and the other animitronic based attractions was the use of humor in the scenes.  The comedic elements contained in the show scenes were heavily influenced by Marc Davis as well as Ward Kimball.  Some of the elements were direct decedents of the never built Western River Expedition which Marc Davis spent many years designing and developing.  The humor in the scenes does play a contradiction to the mostly seriousness of the narration, voiced by Gary Owens.

Traveler by Sea "Undaunted by age old myths"

"Fast, Dependable, Safe Travel...

...to the new Frontier"

     I remember as a child being confused on which scenes were from Spaceship Earth and which scenes were from World of Motion.  I would look for the Mona Lisa tapping her foot while da Vinci works on his flying machine in Spaceship Earth in the renaissance scene.  I think it was more a fact of the chronologic portrayal of the topics presented more than the similarities of the scenes themselves.

"Infallible combination of man and machine; the bicycle"

The horseless carriage 

"The sky's the limit!"

  

   The next area of the attraction, were the speed tunnels that were reminiscent of the extinct If You Had Wings at Magic Kingdom.  These speed tunnels enveloped your ride vehicles and gave you the sensation of movement with scenes that included whitewater rafting, bobsledding  and undersea exploring.  With additional scenes involving computer graphic images which made for a pretty disorienting experience,.

   These tunnels led into the final scene of the attraction; the CenterCore.  This massive scene featured a six story model depicting a city of the future and was located in the center of the pavilion. Your ride vehicle would travel almost all the way around the scene in a circular motion as your eye was drawn to the sparkling and moving lights all over.  The grandeur and scale of this scene was a fitting end to the ride through portion of the experience. As in typical EPCOT Center fashion it portrayed the future in a truly marvelous and epic scope as to get you excited to jump headlong into future technologies and products to get to this wonderful time as soon as possible.

    Right before you enter the unload area you are treated to a depiction of a morphing of your ride vehicle into a sleek rounded futuristic craft of some sort.  This portrayal of the vehicle was created by a pepper's ghost effect a la Haunted Mansion with the hitchhiking ghost scene.

      GM held sponsorship of this pavilion even though attendance was on a steady decline in the early '90's.  The decision to opt for a whole new experience in the space was ultimately made to keep GM on as a sponsor and to renew interest into the pavilion, and the park as a whole.  And on January 2, 1996 the World of Motion would close for good.

     I will have to do another post on the postshow area by itself.  There were so many things to experience and observe in the Transcenter that this post would get tiresomely long.  So  to hopefully keep your interest, I will end it here.  Thanks for reading!
 




      

Drinks of The Past part 3

        This is the third part of my drink recipe posts from the past at Walt Disney World.  Here you can find Part 1 and Part 2.  These recipes are from the Cooking Around Our World  cookbook from 1986.
 
        Not all of the beverages in this cookbook contain alcohol.  For example, the Tavern Lemon Sherbet Punch is from the Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom, which of course does not serve alcohol.  The drink includes lemon juice, lemon sherbet, club soda, and strawberries. Blend with ice and enjoy.

         A lot of the places where these drinks were served are either not in existence, or operate under a different name.  The Coconino Cove was an oyster bar located at the far southern end of the Grand Canyon Concourse in the Contemporary Resort.  The sprawling Chef Mickey's now occupies the space where it was located.  Chef Mickey's also swallowed up the Contemporary Cafe, as well as the Pueblo Room.

     There seemed to be many more places to eat and drink in the original hotels before the massive expansion of hotel rooms on property beginning in the eighties.  Which led to many of the small establishments closing as demand was spread around property.
   
     I hope some of these drink recipes will take the heat out of the summer, and make lounging on the patio a lot more enjoyable.  While, of course, dreaming of Walt Disney World of yesteryear. The next part in my recipe series will start to focus on the appetizers served in the restaurants around Walt Disney World.  Enjoy!

The 15 Years of Magic

       The 15 years of Magic celebration ran from October 1st, 1986 through September 30th, 1987.  At this time in Walt Disney World history there were still just two parks in existence.  Both parks celebrated the milestone with entrance displays unique to the park in which it resided.  The logo that was developed for this celebration combined both parks icons.  Spaceship Earth and Cinderella Castle combined to form this iconic logo.  The anthem for this birthday celebration was "Only Just Begun".  Which is a pledge that there is much more magic to come in the future.

The ARTimals

    I have been busy as of late, so sorry about the lack of posts.  These pictures of some very interesting costumed characters were taken on Discovery Island at the Animal Kingdom around 1999.  These characters used to participate in a short lived parade named The March of The ARTimals.  It was the Animal Kingdom's take on the parades that were found in the other parks. Some of you might be thinking wait a minute, there is no parade at Epcot. But at this time the Tapestry of Nations parade was taking place at Epcot as well.  Both of these parades were similar in the fact that they did not celebrate Disney characters, instead they were more of a tribute to the park areas that they represented.  Being that Tapestry of Nations had a world unity message consistant with World Showcase, and the March of the ARTimals were representations of animals found in that park.
   

     The Marh of the ARTimals parade was around from the opening of the park until around July of 1999.  I am sure that by then the plan of having a parade including Disney characters resembling the Magic Kingdom and MGM Studios parades was in full swing. Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade opened on October 1st of 2001 to help celebrate the Hundred Years of Magic.  This parade included the mandatory dose of  Disney characters that the guests clamor to see.

         These characters were found roaming Discovery Island after the March was disbanded, as well as some of the floats and prop pieces becoming displays around that part of the park.  I am sure these colorful costumes are around still, but I can not remember seeing them recently at the Animal Kingdom.  Thanks for checking this out, if you have seen them about let me know by posting in the comment section.

Eastern Airlines and Walt Disney World

      Right around the opening of Walt Disney World, Eastern Airlines started servicing the Orlando area. To promote the tourism to the east coast Disney project, Eastern was brought on board as a sponsor and named the "official" airline of Walt Disney World.  This was a mutually beneficial relationship in the fact that Eastern was able to use the Disney name and characters in it's advertising and Disney received sponsorship money.  It was an estimated ten million dollars that Eastern put forth to sponsor an attraction in Tomorrowland named "If You Had Wings", which opened on June 5, 1972, eight months after the Magic Kingdom officially opened.  This attraction was designed by Claude Coates, and offered  to guests without a ticketed entry fee as to expose people to Eastern Airlines and promote the company.  This attraction was extremely popular mostly due to the fact that you did not have to use one of your A through E tickets to ride it and it was included with the park admission.  This sponsorship lasted until June 1,1987 when Disney cut ties with Eastern Airlines and the company later filed for bankruptcy in 1989.
     

        Sponsorship did play a major part in the expansion of Walt Disney World, and still does to this day.  The reason that we have lost good things in the parks is due to lost sponsorships, or lack of sponsorship funds.  I hope that companies see the benefits of Walt Disney World attractions once again and put the money toward viable experiences in all the parks.

Here Come The Muppets

           The live stage show "Here Come The Muppets" debuted at the MGM Studios in the Animation Courtyard Theater on May 25th 1990, and ran until September 2nd 1991.  The interesting thing about this show was that all the Muppet characters that appeared were life size.  So no puppeteer, but an actual walk around character in a suit.  Another interesting thing about this stage show was the inclusion of many not so well known Muppet characters.  The show was meant to be a temporary fill until Muppetvision 3D opened.  The stage show ran alongside Muppetvision 3D for 4 months as Muppetvision opened on May 16th, 1991.  When the stage show finally closed it was replaced by the ever popular "Voyage of The Little Mermaid", which opened just two weeks after Muppets closed and has occupied that theater ever since.  

               The Muppets' presence in the studios was planned to be much more extensive than it ever was, or is today. The whole area around the Muppetvision 3D attraction was to be a Muppets themed land.  The "Muppet Studios" portion of the MGM Studios was to have featured a parody of the park's headline attraction, The Great Movie Ride, called "The Great Muppet Movie Ride".  As well as an eating establishment named  The Great Gonzo's Pandemonium Pizza Parlor.  The demise of this project, and the acquisition of the Muppets franchise by Disney fell through when the owner of the Muppets, Jim Henson, passed away on May 16th, 1991.  Disney did finally acquire the Muppets franchise in February of 2004, but the grand plans for the MGM Studios have not been rekindled as of yet.  

              Hopefully with the renewed interest in the Muppets franchise with the release of the new Muppets Movie and a sequel announced for the future, hopefully the Muppets presence in the Studios will be expanded beyond what space it occupies today.   And WDI revisits some of the ideas that were on the table around the inception of the park.

Tower of Terror

    Here are a couple of clear photographs of the first scene in the Tower of Terror in the Studios when the elevator makes it's first stop.  These pictures were taken in 1996, even though the scene has remained mainly unchanged since then.  The occupants of the elevator appear in the hallway beckoning for you, reaching towards you in a desperate plea for help.  And all of a sudden they disappear in a wave of electrical energy. The lights begin to fade into a star field, and the hallway that was once before you becomes indistinguishable.  The window at the end of the hall becomes more pronounced , begins to sway, and then shatters.  As if you have left the real world behind, and where you are now, the physical bounds have no merit.
      This is my favorite scene in the attraction purely for the fact of the perceived distortion of your surroundings.  You are in an actual hallway where apparitions appear in the dead center and then everything vanishes.  Your physical surroundings disappear.  It is one of those effects that make you wonder how they do that.  This type of show scene is what makes WDI shine.  This is the type of experience that me, as a fan, longs for.  I hope that all of the ventures in the future, including the Test Track refurbishment, can bring this emotional response out of me and the many guests that enjoy them.

This detail is pulled directly from the lobby area.
 You feel as if you did just go up a few floors in the hotel

I am surprised this photo turned out so well