Walt Disney Returns as a Surreal Animatronic for Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary

As of this week, Walt Disney returns to his original Magic Kingdom, with a little help from the magic-makers at Imagineering.

Through the audio-animatronics technology Walt Disney introduced when he opened Disneyland 70 years ago, the evolution of the show robots has gone from static positioning with some movements, as first seen on the singing birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room, to a roaming animatronic of Uncle Walt. Stationed in the Main Street Opera House, the (m)animatronic is the crown jewel of the Walt Disney – A Magical Life show, where he, along with the help of Disney CEO Bob Iger as the program’s narrator, gets to sit and stand front and center to share his story in his words.

The experience begins with Iger’s introduction about the mythical man who disappeared behind the omnipresent name in front of so many childhood classic films and theme park memories. We get a little bit about his upbringing in his words over the film and insight into how he fed his creativity to animate his way out of farm life and made his way to Hollywood with the help of one Mickey Mouse. When it gets to how his daughters influenced him to create a space where families could have fun in the form of Disneyland and how that springboarded into an even bigger dream, the curtain rises and you’re in a recreation of Walt’s office. There, he sits on his desk and continues to regale the quite captive audience with more anecdotes about what he does for the company, or at least what he did once he reached Uncle Walt status, the kindly face on the television introducing The Wonderful World of Disney, or the man who would walk around the park—and it’s utterly surreal. Even as someone who wondered what it would be like to run into Walt at the park, I can assuredly describe it as uncanny yet poignant at the same time.

There’s no avoiding the Westworld comparisons, but the intention isn’t to make him an attraction that’s sentient to the world the real Walt Disney built. It’s still just an experiment to invoke the spirit of the man himself in his iconic grey suit and surrounded by the busywork on his desk. Imagineers on hand talked about the inspiration to bring Walt back for Disneyland’s 70th anniversary.

Tom Fitzgerald, Imagineer and senior creative on the project to bring Walt back to his home park, shared, “We’re excited to finally share this new version of the Walt Disney story with our guests. I mean, I grew up watching Walt Disney on television, like millions of Americans. And every week he would come into our living room, and he’d be leaning on the desk and telling us all about the exciting things that were in store for us. But we realized that a lot of that was long ago, and a lot of people didn’t have that connection with him, and [they] don’t understand that Walt Disney was a person as well as Walt Disney obviously being the company,” he said.

“So we really wanted to sort of bring that connection of what we felt growing up with Walt to an audience today. And not just that, but that his story is so relevant. I think when you see the film before you see the figure actually, the life lessons that he learned are really amazing and important ones. Follow your dream, never give up, turn setbacks into success, and give the world your very best. I mean, those are messages that are as valid today as in Walt’s time.”

Disney was one of the last modern influential global figures to make something of himself from the idea that you could pull yourself up by the bootstraps before it became all but a fairytale these days in most places. And it was one that I myself believed in from his story. Yes, the real Walt Disney was a complicated man, progressive for his time yet not free of criticism that has been interrogated over the years since his passing in 1966 as the Disney empire grew. Here we meet him as an idealized figure in the robot shape of Imagineering’s latest breakthrough advancement. He even quotes his well-worn affirmation to “keep moving forward,” a mantra that got me through school and made me feel fulfilled as milestones overcame the hard times as a writer more and more. Seeing him deliver that line left me verklempt; it’s something I needed to hear today. And yet, I found myself a little spooked by the experience of being in the presence of a robot programmed to stand up and walk around as he said those words, complete with a twinkle in his eye.

Fitzgerald reminded the invited audience that a humanlike animatronic isn’t necessarily anything incredibly new for imagineering. “We have done every president, and we’ve done movie stars,” he said, referring to the stationary likeness of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones as well as sitting presidents.

“But when you say, ‘I want to do an animatronic figure of Walt Disney,’ that brings enormous responsibility. Probably as much as Walt felt bringing Abraham Lincoln to life—back for the New York World’s Fair in 1964. And so that became a kind of, what we call, moonshot for our team, which is to say, how can we advance the art form and the technology to create a truly believable figure of Walt Disney? And we felt that with the advancements that we’ve been making in recent years, the technology had progressed to the point where we could do that faithfully.”

He shared that the specificity of the eye twinkle was intentional. “We have [Imagineering] groups that say, ‘Let me figure that out.’ And they figured out that the reason we get that little [twinkle in] our eye is because [of] what’s called a corneal bulge. And so physically our [animatronic] figures had not had that before. And so they replicated a corneal bulge so that when you look at him, you get that glint in the eye, which is amazing.” Additionally, there’s more believable animation behind the muscle structure on the face’s movement, drawn from archival footage of Walt combed through to best capture the subject.

It’s momentous indeed, and, dare we say, fun? But of course we have to put our Ian Malcolm glasses on and consider that while we knew this was something Disney could do, should they have?

“I think because of those moon shots and all the work that was done, we really believe it’s the most fluid performance of an audio-animatronics figure we’ve ever done. It’s really interesting too, because in many cases you’re representing figures that people have never seen before. We don’t know how the presidents actually moved, we don’t know how pirates actually move,” said Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz, portfolio executive creative producer, Walt Disney Imagineering.

“But this is a person that we’re all very familiar with. If you get it wrong, it’s like, ‘No, that’s not how Walt would do that. He’d move his hand like this; he’d already put it back here.’ And so it’s really important that you spend so much time focusing on Walt’s mannerisms and his look as well to make sure that you get it as accurate as possible, because we all love Walt Disney, and we want to make sure this is an homage to Walt. This is not just a figure that is telling his story; it’s actually something we all care about. I know everyone here, we have a deep love for Walt Disney and what he gave to us, and so we’re trying to give that back. It’s great. So also, the figure is obviously the most important part in how that worked, but also there’s so much technology that went into the surroundings.”

Seeing one man’s dream become the first step of an eerie, lifelike animatronic sure is something, though. It speaks to the place where his mind might have started things with a mouse, but it’s led to an impossible place where a mouse of another kind might be what activates him.

Walt Disney – A Magical Life opens July 17 at Disneyland.

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