Today, let’s look at some things that you might not know about Walt
Disney World. Some of them are little-known features, and others can probably
be considered secrets.
Hidden in plain sight
One of the best-known “secrets,” though not always easily found,
are Hidden Mickeys. At some point, Imagineers started hiding the image
of Mickey Mouse (usually his head, but sometimes his whole body) throughout
the parks.
The largest of these would be the original Hidden Mickey at the Disney-MGM
Studios, where the entire plaza in front of the Chinese Theater is his
head, Echo Lake is one ear, and the other ear included the roof of the
Starring Rolls Bakery and some of what is now Sunset Boulevard. Of course,
some development on Sunset Boulevard and, more recently, the construction
of the Sorcerer’s Hat (known by some as the “BAH”—Big A**
Hat ) have somewhat diluted the image.
This park map from a 1989 Guidebook shows how much more obvious
the hidden Mickey at the Studios was before the construction of Sunset
Boulevard and the Sorcerer’s Hat. The portions of Mickey’s face that are
shaded grey were painted black on the ground and on the building roofs.
Image © Disney, 1989.
A smaller example of a Hidden Mickey might be the three-circle shape
of the flowers in the purple vine next to the elephant in the Africa room
of “it’s a small world” in the Magic Kingdom. There’s also the
oddly shaped full-body Mickey in the mural over the entrance to Body Wars
in the Wonders of Life pavilion, and the Viking wearing mouse ears in
the mural behind the loading area for the Maelstrom, all in Epcot.
There are also “decorative Mickeys,” which are not designed
to be hidden, but rather part of the decoration, such as those cut into
the backrests of chairs or designed into grillework.
A great resource on the Web for Hidden Mickey information is Tom Shaw’s
Hidden Mickeys
site.
Examining Main Street, U.S.A.
Let’s look at Main Street in the Magic Kingdom for some more interesting
things. Easily spotted, but also easily overlooked, is the heart with
Lady and Tramp’s footprints in it in front of Tony’s Town Square Restaurant.
Tony’s as you remember, was the restaurant behind which Lady and Tramp
had their famous spaghetti and meatball dinner.
While J.M. & E.B. are nowhere to be seen, it is still obvious that Lady
and the Tramp have visited this spot in front of Tony’s Town Square Restaurant
at the Magic Kingdom. MousePlanet photo by Mark Goldhaber.
A little further down Main Street, we pass the Blue Ribbon Bakery. Notice
the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies as you pass. But wait! Is that
really fresh-baked cookies that you smell? No, it isn’t. Disney’s smell
specialists have crafted a “fresh-baked chocolate cookie” smell
that is piped through a vent directly over the door to the bakery.
Why do they do this? Are they using nefarious means to try to get you
to buy their cookies? Well, yes, to some extent. But also, think about
the visually-impaired (or, as my friend’s blind brother refers to them,
“people who don’t see so good”). If they’re walking down Main
Street, shouldn’t they get the joy of experiencing walking past a bakery,
too? How do they know they’re walking past the bakery? They can smell
it.
OK, you say, why don’t they just use fans to blow the smell of the cooling
cookies out the door? Well, actually, they tried that. However, they discovered
that blowing air across the cookies would crack the cookies. Also, they’re
not baking all day long. Rather than make it a hit-or-miss proposition,
in order for everyone to experience the wonderful chocolate chip cookie
smell at all times, they need to do it artificially. By the way, the machine
that generates the smell is called—you guessed it—a smellitizer.
Going… down?
The hydrolators at the Living Seas take you up and down—at least
a little. MousePlanet photo by Mark Goldhaber.
Now, let’s go over the Living Seas pavilion over at Epcot. Now that the
sea cabs are no longer running, you need to take the hydrolators both
down and up when traveling down to Sea Base Alpha. Those deep elevators
must take you down a bit, a least a couple of floors, right? Nope. The
hydrolators actually only move about an inch or so, mostly during the
initial jolt. The rest is done using a shaking floor, growing or shrinking
lights in the ceiling, and the motion of the corrugated surface and the
bubbles behind the glass.
How about the Haunted Mansion? You must go down quite a bit in the stretching
room. Actually, in California’s Disneyland, you do. The stretching room
at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion takes you down below ground level to the
loading area of the attraction. The first length of track takes you out
beyond the Disneyland Railroad tracks, to the main Mansion show building,
where you again go above ground level, until you go back down to pass
under the tracks again for your exit.
At Walt Disney World, however, the ceiling goes up. The Mansion is not
located next to the tracks, so there’s no need to go down to get past
them. Besides, if you went down, you’d be taking away valuable space from
the Utilidors.
The Utilidors? What’s that? Are they underground?
Going up, or down? The Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World does the opposite
of the one at Disneyland. MousePlanet photo by Mark Goldhaber.
Well, after Walt Disney built Disneyland, he learned from his mistakes.
When seeing a cowboy walking through Tomorrowland because there was no
other way to get to his work location in Frontierland, Walt decided that
there needed to be an easy way to get from one part of the park to another
while remaining off-stage.
When the Magic Kingdom was being designed, a subterranean network of
tunnels and offices was created for all sorts of services (such as costuming,
hair, maintenance, kitchens, and locker rooms), as well as for off-stage
travel. However, the water table in Florida is extremely high (just below
ground level, in fact).
How were they to build an underground city under the park when the water
would fill it up immediately? The design team came up with an ingenious
plan: They needed to dredge the Seven Seas Lagoon to make it passable
for the ferries and other watercraft that would ply its waters. They built
the Utilidor complex at ground level, and used the fill dredged from the
lagoon to build up the ground over the Utilidors and grade the approaches
gradually so that people wouldn’t realize that they were actually entering
the park on the second floor.
They ended up being even more fortunate than they expected, finding beautiful
white sand underneath the muck of the lagoon—enough to cover the
beaches of the Polynesian and, later, the Grand Floridian with a beautiful,
thick layer of white sand. In addition, by raising the park up to the
second floor, it becomes even more visible and impressive when viewed
from across the lagoon.
Well, we’ve reached the end of the column, and—whaddaya know? I’ve
got more stuff to tell you! Let’s pick this up again next time. See you
then!
Bonus Factoid of the Week
As a follow-up to my story on hidden tributes
in the parks, a reader contributes the newest tributes at Epcot.
At Mission: Space, at the bottom of the plexiglass panel showing details
of the X-2 in the queue, the three-letter sequences are the first initial
and first two letters of the last name of many of those who made significant
contributions to the attraction.
