Remembering Walt...

[MmeLeota]

44 years ago today, the world lost an amazing visionary.
Perhaps we can post our favorite Walt quotes/stories/pics/various memories here....

How amazing it must have been to be at Disneyland and happen to run into Mr. Disney himself! If anyone happens to be in the SF Bay Area, stop by the Walt Disney Family Museum. They focus on Walt Disney - the man more so than anything and it truly humanizes him. What a fabulous collection of artifacts and history! Thank you to the Disney family for creating such a special place where Walt's legacy (as a man, not just the guy behind the theme parks) lives on.

[Len90]

How very true. I often wonder how different everything would be had Walt been alive for so much more. I also wonder how Mr. Disney would approve of the current operations.

[MadEye]

I also wonder how Mr. Disney would approve of the current operations.

He wouldn't. He would probably fire most of the "managers" and "GM's" of the parks (especially WDW). He always said he and his company weren't in it for the money. My how times have changed.

[elizabethswann]

I agree. Also, I would have liked to see what would go on with Walt and Michael Eisner. Oh, the drama.

[theBIGyowski]

I wonder how Disney World would have been built...had Walt not passed away when he did. I'm sure the MK would have been very similar since it kept with the DL model. But I know Epcot would have been completely different and I almost wonder if it would have been successful...the way Walt envisioned it. I would have probably been built sometime in the mid 70s as long as Walt would have gotten the needed funding. He would have been a decade older and times were different. The focus was more on "here and now" and not so much the future like it was during the 60s and the space race.

Does anyone know of any resources or books that documented Walt's detailed intentions for Epcot? I would love to see what his real idea was. We've all seen the video clips and heard the audio of him talking about his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. I just think it would be cool seeing what Walt actually had planned.

[MadEye]

Does anyone know of any resources or books that documented Walt's detailed intentions for Epcot? I would love to see what his real idea was. We've all seen the video clips and heard the audio of him talking about his Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. I just think it would be cool seeing what Walt actually had planned.

Hopefully this will help. I haven't read through the whole site but it looks like it has a lot of information on Walt's Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow ideas.

http://sites.google.com/site/theoriginalepcot/

[dichuy]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

[MadEye]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

Depending on who was in charge of the list at the time, either somewhere in Burbank or shredded in a dump.

[dichuy]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

Depending on who was in charge of the list at the time, either somewhere in Burbank or shredded in a dump.

You are probably right. It would have been so cool to live there in the city as Walt intended it to be.

[MadEye]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

Depending on who was in charge of the list at the time, either somewhere in Burbank or shredded in a dump.

You are probably right. It would have been so cool to live there in the city as Walt intended it to be.

Agreed. It would be interesting to see what Walt would have done with all the land he bought and to hear what people would say about Disney if the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow was actually built. Alas, we will never know.

[mindflipper]

How very true. I often wonder how different everything would be had Walt been alive for so much more. I also wonder how Mr. Disney would approve of the current operations.

Maybe we need to go thaw him out of cryogenics and ask him?

He wouldn't. He would probably fire most of the "managers" and "GM's" of the parks (especially WDW). He always said he and his company weren't in it for the money. My how times have changed.

I don't believe his little empire was built out of philantropy - Walt was an entrepeneur and a capitalist. However, he was from an old school about delivering the best quality in turn for the money he charged. Walt had high standards and wanted the same to be for his company; however, I don't think that is necessarily true today. Many times it has felt like the minimum low-cost quality that the company can get away for the money that its charged to its customers. "Quality" has greatly been cheapened over the years.

[Amy]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

That is cool! I never knew something like that existed

[dichuy]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

That is cool! I never knew something like that existed

My dad would spend HOURS just talking to CMs. One of them told him about the list and we signed up! I think we did it at City Hall since there was just the Magic Kingdom at the time. I even did one interview to work at the MK (this was in say, 1975?), but they wouldn't continue me through the process since we still lived in Ohio at the time LOL.

[Amy]

On one of our many visits to the Magic Kingdom in the 70s our family put our name on a list to be one of the families to live in EPCOT--the EPCOT Walt envisioned. Wondered what ever became of that list?

That is cool! I never knew something like that existed

My dad would spend HOURS just talking to CMs. One of them told him about the list and we signed up! I think we did it at City Hall since there was just the Magic Kingdom at the time. I even did one interview to work at the MK (this was in say, 1975?), but they wouldn't continue me through the process since we still lived in Ohio at the time LOL.

You should inquire about what happened to the list when you go in April!

[MadEye]

Many times it has felt like the minimum low-cost quality that the company can get away for the money that its charged to its customers. "Quality" has greatly been cheapened over the years.

Exactly. Walt was all about quality. TDO has been jacking up the prices of tickets and parking every year for the last 4 or 5 years and will keep doing so until guests stop paying the ridiculous prices and stop going for a few years. Unfortunately, guests these days complain about the prices yet still pay them...