FEEDBACK
Designing Disney
From Robin Allan, author of the landmark study Walt
Disney and Europe: European Influences on the Animated Feature Films
of Walt Disney, responding to my somewhat skeptical review
of John Hench's Designing
Disney: Imagineering and the Art of the Show: I think you are
a bit hard on Disneyland. I went to it in 1985 for the first time
and, indeed, wasn't all that keen to go, preferring my Disney in
two dimensions on the big screen (I had no video then). I hated
seeing photographs of the grotesque giant-size animals walking around.
Full of trepidation, I went only because I felt that, being in California,
I should.
I found it all quite different from the early films but with its
own extraordinary atmosphere, which was quite odd and intoxicating.
I went through the gates and was entranced, but I have noticed on
subsequent visits that there are more and more shops, and fewer
interesting educational events. I hate the thrill rides that have
crept in. You are right about Walt seeing it as a greatly enlarged
model railway, and your account is an interesting bridge between
the critics who are repulsed and the fans who go back again and
again.
 [Allan's
book, published in the U.S. in 1999 by Indiana University Press,
devotes seven and a half pages to some of the most acute published
commentary on Disneyland. I refer you particularly to page 231,
where Allan reproduces an entry from his diary for the day he first
visited Disneyland, saying in part: "The secret of the place,
which no film or slide or photograph or even 3D picture can give,
is the total three-dimensional element of the fantasy. … The
tat and kitschy quality which comes across in flat pictures dissolves
when you go through those turnstiles." MB]
[Posted November 2003]
From Eddie Fitzgerald: Regarding your Commentary on John
Hench's book: I was amazed to learn that you didn't like Disneyland,
even in its earlier incarnation. As for me, I couldn't get enough
of the place. The old Tom Sawyer's Island (before it was reconfigured
for the water show) was magnificent. The cave and hollow tree, the
rope bridge, the log fort and the canoe ride were all surefire kid
pleasers, but my favorite feature was the landscaping and topology
of the island itself. It's as if the designers wandered through
real-life wilderness parks looking for enclaves and grottos that
were especially pleasing and thought-provoking and then reproduced
them at Disneyland. Some of the scenarios were a bit stagey and
catered to people with cameras, but others were amazingly subtle
and evocative. Half the island had the appearance of dense primeval
forest, which, together with the surrounding water, made for a fascinating
accoustic and olfactory separation from the mainland.
Did you like the Swiss Family Treehouse? Isn't it every kid's dream
to live in a house like that? I even loved the jungle ride with
its waterfalls, ruins, skulls, and shields. If only I could have
ridden the stagecoach when that ride was active. I rode a stagecoach
in another park, and I can tell you that one of the purest pleasures
that transport has to offer is the experience of sitting on top
of a tall stage pulled by powerful horses (no sexual inferences,
please). If you didn't like "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" it's
probably because you failed to use the steering wheel on the front
seat. You have to allow yourself the illusion of control in order
to appreciate the chaos. It has nothing to do with the notion of
letting yourself go and being a kid again; it has everything to
do with the need to participate in an experience to milk the fun
out of it. How about the thick wood and the delightful carvings
and toys in Geppetto's workshop in the Pinocchio ride?
The best recent addition to the park is Toon Town. Some of it is
off-putting and cloying, I admit, but other parts are as imaginative
as anything Disney's ever done. The two walk-throughs of homes are
exhilarating and the cartoony cars are more a glimpse into the future
of car design than its past. Next time you're at the park make sure
you push the rugrats aside and sit in one of these. It's not enough
to watch someone else do it, you have to sit in it yourself, hands
on the wheel. Be aware of the open space on your sides, the low
windshield and the fun design of the body. When electronics make
high-speed auto collisions improbable and small wheels are made
more practical then designers will revisit designs like this, I
promise you. Then there's the magic store, the sillouette cutter,
the "Pirates" and "Haunted Mansion" rides, the
water show that is very nearly a gigantic aerial holographic projection
of the Pink Elephants part of Dumbo...what's not to like?
OK, the Country Bears suck.
[Posted February 2004]
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