Walt Disney's InnovationsHere's what silive.com thinks are the top ten greatest Disney innovations 10) Disneyland. Walt Disney dreamed of creating an entertainment enterprise where children and parents could have fun together. Disneyland, which opened on July 17, 1955, was that place. "It was a real place designed by movie makers," was how author and former Disney castmember Jeff Kurtti put it. And it was -- and still is -- a magical experience for "all who come to this happy place." 9) The Single Entrance. When Disney proposed having just one entrance to Disneyland, the critics had a field day. "There are no amusement parks with one entrance." they said. "Tell him to save his money." But Walt countered: "This isn't an amusement park. This is Disneyland." And the single entrance concept was born. Even the Disney Cruise Line has followed suit, using one entrance -- Deck 3, midship -- for all four of its ocean liners. 8) The Berm. Disney surrounded his park with an earthen berm, simply because he wanted to insulate his guests from the intrusions of the outside world and place them in a reassuring atmosphere. Disney Legend Marty Sklar says that his friend and colleague John Hench "used to say that the parks are about reassurance, that the world can be OK, that you can talk to a stranger in a public place and a public place can be clean. It's really so much about that. It's not about escapism. I think John was right: It's about reassurance." 7) The Hub and Spoke. When Disney planned Disneyland, he felt that the park needed a central icon. That icon was Sleeping Beauty Castle. When guests walk through the gate, they see the castle up ahead and are naturally drawn to it. Once there, Disneyland's distinctive lands fan out. It's like the wheel of a bicycle: The Hub is the castle, while the Spokes are each land radiating from it. Each land in Disneyland, by the way, is distinguished by different colors on the ground, making their borders easy to see. The Walt Disney CompanySleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland serves as a central icon and is part of the hub area which radiates out to several individual lands within the park. 6) Forced Perspective. Disney made movies before he got into the theme parks business, so his staff knew a thing or two about making small objects look taller. That's what Disney's creative people did when they designed the buildings along Main Street in Disneyland, as well as in the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. The buildings start out at normal proportion, then get gradually smaller as they get to the second and third stories. They also employ the technique on attractions, making Matterhorn Mountain, for instance, look a lot taller than it is. 5) Presentation. Again, Disney's movie-making experience helped them in created attractions that where a cut above the rest, giving them added tools with which to tell stories. Disney pioneered the use of the CircleVision filming technique, which allowed them to shoot and present movies in 360 degrees, surrounding the audience. Disney also devised motion simulator attractions, as well as 3D movies. They've also been at the forefront of presenting quality, family friendly live entertainment, be it in the parks or on the Disney Cruise Line. 4) Ride Vehicle Innovations. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair saw Disney successfully introduce a number of never-before-used innovations, among them new ride conveyances. When Disney was working on the It's a Small World attraction, it was planned to be a walk-through attraction. But, according to Sklar, "We realized we couldn't handle enough people in a walk-through." So, the attraction became a boat ride, where flat-bottomed boats were gently pushed along by underwater jets. The ride system was so successful that the Pirates of the Caribbean, in the early stages of production in California as a walk-through, was changed to a more realistic boat ride. Rides like Matterhorn Mountain, the world's first enclosed steel roller coaster, and Soarin' in Epcot fall into the parameters of "fitting into the theme of the show." The Omnimover ride system --” ride vehicles gliding along on a continuously moving track -- was developed for the World's Fair and was used on the Ford Magic Skyway attraction. Rides like the Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom (the fabled doom buggies) and Spaceship Earth in Epcot still employ the system. 3) Transportation Innovations. Moving large groups of people quickly and efficiently were some of the main tenets of Epcot, back in the days when Epcot was going to be a model city of the future. Disney pioneered the use of the all-electric PeopleMover system, which was planned to shuttle residents around Epcot proper. Also on the drawing board were the use of monorails for mass transportation of residents to and from the urban section of the city to the suburban areas. Both systems are in use today: The PeopleMover in the Magic Kingdom and the monorail in and around the Magic Kingdom and to and from the present-day Epcot. The PeopleMover actually passes through Space Mountain, where a portion of the model of Epcot -- aka Progress City -- can be seen. The Walt Disney CompanyThe latest version of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln in Disneyland. Honest Abe made his first appearance in the Illinois state pavilion at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair. 2) Audio-Animatronics. Clearly, one of the major breakthroughs in theme park entertainment. This development, too, was hastened by Disney's participation in the World's Fair. The Carousel of Progress, Ford's Magic Skyway and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln in the Illinois state pavilion all featured Disney's never-before-seen robots. The Audio-Animatronic figures moved and talked, grunted and gesticulated like real, live beings. It was a new toy for Disney's creative staff, and a new way to tell stories in three-dimensional fashion. While Carousel of Progress and the Magic Skyway featured rather anonymous characters, both human, animal and even prehistoric, the Lincoln figure had to look exactly like the guy on the face of the $5 bill. Said Bob Gurr, the man who designed Lincoln: "It turned out, in hindsight, to be a radical machine, the first time the world was ever going to see a really believable animated figure, and then a president of the United States to boot. "Not only that, but a tall, skinny guy who didn't have any body to put parts inside. If we’d done Grover Cleveland, I would have had a much easier time ... I would have had a lot more room in there!" The latest, most-sophisticated generation of Audio-Animatronics figures play prominent roles throughout the vast Disney entertainment world. 1) Destination Resort. This wouldn't have been my top pick for greatest Disney innovations, but it does make sense. When Disney was plotting to bring his brand of entertainment to central Florida, Orlando and its surrounding towns were little more than a place to stop over on the way to more glamorous Miami. Disney had to turn more than 27,000 acres of barren, swampy, mosquito-infested land into a place where people would actually want to spend a week on vacation, no small feat. In the 1960s, "€œnobody went there for vacation,"€ Sklar said, "€œso we had to establish a reason for people to go there. The whole focus was on building a destination resort with the Magic Kingdom." They were so successful at building that destination resort, that it has been the No. 1 vacation destination in the country for decades. Disneyland, too, with the addition of California Adventure and the Grand Californian Resort, has evolved into a destination resort of its own. Some other noteworthy Disney innovations I have three other Disney innovations that I'd like to throw into the discussion. The first is the multi-plane camera, which allowed Disney to transform flat, one-dimensional animation into layered shots with depth and movement. It transformed animation in much the same way that computer graphics did years later. The second would be the use of switch-back lines. At the World's Fair, the four Disney attractions drew record crowds, crowds that often spilled out from the waiting areas inside the pavilions into the fairgrounds. The implementation of switch-back lines allowed more people to be condensed into a smaller area and in a more organized fashion. Switch-back lines today can be seen in banks, as well as at airports. Disney has taken the line concept to the next level in recent years, creating what Disney CFO Jay Rasulo referred to as "the no queue queue" in introducing Dumbo the Flying Elephant's indoor waiting area in the new Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom. And finally, Main Street USA in Disneyland is widely recognized as the first indoor shopping mall. Shops on either side of the street have openings which allow you to walk from one shop to the next, all under cover, from one end of the street to the other. The design may not have been done with malls in mind, but businesses sure took the idea and ran with it. (http://blog.silive.com/goofy_about_disney/2012/08/post_20.html) |