Last week, I shared some stories I had gotten out of Disney Legend Bob Matheison at a Disneyana Fan Club World Chapter event October 10, 2015.
Matheison was hired at Disneyland in 1960 and then was made a supervisor of the Disney attractions at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. He returned to California in 1966 to head the research and development team for Walt Disney World.
In today's column, Matheison starts talking about the time in 1965 when he began working closely with Walt Disney himself on the planning for the Florida Project.
“Here is a Walt Disney story that will tell you a lot about the man. Walt was getting so much data each day on things for the Florida Project that he couldn’t get to it all, so we had this group that would sort through some of this stuff to summarize it for him or locate some answers to his questions.
“He was thinking way far out, not just a year or even five years ahead. We had gathered all the material about transportation. Remember, we only had to deal with a couple-hundred cars at Disneyland, so we tried to greatly expand on that number. Anyway, we went to the war room at WED that you see Walt standing in for that Epcot film with those maps on the wall, and we make what we consider is a good proposal to him about how to handle the transportation.
“He slammed his hand on the table in front of us and shouted, ‘Damn it! You’ve got to think beyond Disney World!’
“I can still see and hear that as if it happened moments ago because we just froze. His passion had taken us by surprise. We had been too conservative in our thinking. We hadn’t considered expansion and other things that were obviously in Walt’s thinking. Walt knew that the future happens so fast that even though we had some forward thinking plans that they would be outdated before we even started building them.
“You never said ‘no’ or ‘it can’t be done’ to Walt. We all knew that if you couldn’t do something, Walt would find somebody who would and could do it. You always had to work at the top of your game and be better than you ever thought you could.”
Matheison also helped develop a 13-week executive training program for Walt Disney World.
“Walt had this Celebrity Lanes in Colorado [later renamed Celebrity Sports Center in 1962] where he was experimenting with doing a venue different than Disneyland. It was this year-round, but indoor, place with things like 80 bowling lanes, slot car racing, a huge Olympic-size pool, restaurants, shooting gallery and the like. A lot of his celebrity friends invested in it but he had to buy them out when it looked like the thing just wasn’t going to work.
“Walt sent Bob Allen to try to get it in shape but it just wasn’t working. One of the things I did during the program is take these executives up there to see how things were working and not working. We used the place to help train the executives who were going to go to Walt Disney World in things like merchandise, food and beverage, handling people and that type of thing.
“So while some look at the place as one of Walt’s few failures, he was able to use it to get people properly trained for Walt Disney World and, eventually, sold off that property and the new owners couldn’t get it to work either, so it is long gone now.
“One day, I gave each executive a [handicapped] kid from a local organization and told them their assignment that day was to teach the kid to bowl. They all howled and moaned about having to do it, because there was so much else to do. But when I came back at the end of the day to take them to dinner, they all responded that they could go to dinner any time they wanted. They wanted to stay with these kids.
“I’d do things like put them into character costumes at Disneyland and send them out so they could see what that experience was like. An executive at Disney was different than at any other business.
“Walt expected you to get in there and get your hands dirty and help those people who were working. Especially at Disneyland. We had open areas in the office buildings because Walt said it was more important to spend the money to build the show for the guests to see rather than backstage buildings. It was difficult to have any privacy but maybe that helped us all work together and not be isolated from everyone.
“Here’s a story that I love to tell that helps people understand the type of person Roy O. Disney was. He had to take over when Walt passed away and he was different from Walt. He was not as loud or physically outgoing. Walt could be intimidating when he needed to be. Roy was a very down-to-earth individual. Very thoughtful. Very kind. But he knew what he was doing and he never put up with any nonsense. Walt Disney World would never have happened without him.
“We had to move a lot of people out from California to Orlando and the company had never done that before with people for an extended or permanent relocation. So I and the others who were in the planning team did a lot of research about what would be fair. We went to other companies and studied their programs. We looked at financial aspects since it was more expensive to live in Southern California than Orlando. Disney didn’t have an official transfer policy so we had to create one.
“We came up with a really good proposal that we felt was workable and was fair and was better than any other company’s similar policy. We pitched it to Roy and he was silent for a moment and then said, ‘No.’
“We were all stunned. Then Roy added, ‘I want to do more for these people. They are leaving their homes and their friends. We need to do more.’ So he looked through the papers and started adding things including much more compensation.
“That’s the kind of person Roy was. He was a great, great man and doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. He would sometimes call up just to find out what was going on and how you were doing. Not as a critical thing or the check up on whether the work was getting done but just to connect with you to make sure you were okay.
“You know, back on that day that the Yippies showed up at Disneyland to cause trouble in 1970. We had to get help from the Orange County police and we closed the park a couple hours early because they were so disruptive. Roy drove out to the park when he heard.
“He wanted to make sure personally that we were all right and the guests were all right. We worried for his safety but he just waved us off. He was more concerned about the other people and the park. He was in his late 70s, had all the troubles with the building of Walt Disney World and yet he came down to see if he could help in some way.”
In 1969, Matheison was named director of operations at Disneyland. A year later, he carried the title to Florida, where he outlined an operating plan for the new theme park.
“The place would not have opened without Dick Nunis. Everyone knows that. While construction was going on, he would go through the park and record into a tape recorder all the things that needed to be corrected or done and, that night, his secretary Cathy would transcribe all that dictation so we would have notes the next morning.
“Now there was a lot of equipment for Dick to handle including a two-way radio, and one time we hear him yelling that so-and-so better get his ass in gear and get such-and-such painted. We knew what had happened. Dick thought he was recording this for Cathy to transcribe but he had grabbed his two-way radio instead.
“I knew I had to save Cathy because she would never get that note, and so the person who needed to get that thing done would never get it, and Dick would go ballistic that it wasn’t done. So I picked up the radio and said, ‘Dick? You just gave the note on the two-way radio.’ There is silence and then Dick goes ‘Oh’. I made sure not to repeat what he had said because then the people who missed it would then know and start talking about it.
“We made a mistake with the sewer piping we originally put in near [Disney's] Polynesian [Resort]. We tried something new because that was the philosophy for the property is to look and see if there was something better than the usual stuff that was always used.
“Anyway, the pipe crosses the road that is the exit over before where the Car Center is. One night it broke and was spewing this stuff out. The lift station was over by the Polynesian and it couldn’t do its job because the pipe was broken, so we had to re-route all the traffic through the entrance way to get out of the area.
“We were using 50-pound bags of chlorine into the ditches by the roadway. I was there but just brought sandwiches and coffee for all those who were working on the problem. You’ve got to let the people who know how to do the job, do it, but you can help by supporting them.
“Everybody always thinks Disney knows what it is doing and always does the right thing. That wasn’t always the case. But we worked hard to correct anything that went wrong and not make the same mistake again.”
Disney Legend Bob Matheison was executive vice-president of parks at Walt Disney World prior to his retirement. He and his wife Arra Mae both worked at the Disney Company for more than 20 years.
Matheison was promoted to vice president of operations in 1972, and then to vice president of the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT in 1984. Three years later, he was promoted to executive vice president of parks, Walt Disney World. He held that job for seven years before he retired in February, 1994. He was made a Disney Legend in 1996.
When Matheison left Disney, he served as president of the Florida Citrus Sports Association and director of the Orlando Area Chamber of Commerce.
“None of us would be here today if not for a guy who passed away at the end of September, Richard Rainwater. You won’t see his name in the books and such but he saved the Disney Company.
“In the 1980s, there were attempts to take over the Disney Company, but Roy E. Disney was able to convince the Bass brothers, these billionaires in Texas, to come to our rescue. However, they needed to make sure that it was a sound investment.
“So, on a Saturday I got a phone call from Ron Miller and he said, ‘I want you to meet Rainwater at the airport and take him on a tour of Walt Disney World. You have 36 hours to tell him everything there is about it. Don’t hold back any secrets. Be totally honest.’ He never told me who this guy was but when the boss tells you to do something, you do it.
“On Sunday morning, I picked the guy up and took him everywhere from wardrobe to the sewer plant. He never complained and some of this stuff must have been completely foreign to him.
“I was driving him down 192 explaining about Reedy Creek and I noticed by the side of the road there was a gate ajar by one of the canals. So I stopped and told him I had to go check. I radioed Security and just as they were arriving, we saw these two guys who were cast members walking up along the canal. They had gone in to fish.
“I don’t know what Security did with them, and I know what I would have done, but I was on a tight schedule. Rainwater never said anything and I took him to Ed Moriarty to tell him about the history of Disney merchandise on the property.
“He was a nice guy and apparently was impressed enough to talk us up to the Bass brothers who stepped in so that the Disney Company was not sold off and split up.”
I asked Bob about a couple of people he worked with at Disney.
“You asked me about Owen Pope. He was crusty. I worked with him and his wife at Disneyland and then later at Walt Disney World. His background was with the rodeo and he developed this act where he had these miniature horses pulling a stagecoach. They would storm out like a bat out of hell and you better get out of the way. They would go around in a circle. It was a pretty amazing thing. I guess Walt saw the act and loved it.
“One of the things we did at Disneyland to initiate new executives who were wet behind the ears was tell them there was this old employee at the ranch who seemed to be losing it. He wasn’t getting the horses out on time. He was arguing with his bosses. That type of stuff. And their job was to go down there and set this old man straight about how Disney does things.
“They would come back ashen and shaking. It scarred them for life but we all had a good laugh. I guess Owen tore them up pretty badly because he would not suffer fools, especially those who told him how to handle his horses.
“I still had my office at Disneyland when I was in the transition to come out to Florida and I would be gone for stretches at a time. One time I was gone for 10 days and when I got back and opened my office, there was a live horse in it.
“Owen had helped out some of the other executives who were my friends, and knew I was returning, by bringing in the horse so they could say that they didn’t think I was coming back and they needed more room at the stable.
“The first girl out in Florida to do Tinker Bell was actually a receptionist at MO7 during the day and earned extra by flying across the sky at night. I forget her name, but I can remember what she looked like. It was tough to find someone to do that because it doesn’t look as high looking up as it does looking down.
“The first woman to do it at Disneyland was Tiny Kline, who was a grandmother in her 70s and had worked in the circus doing an Iron Jaw act. That is where she grabbed this ball with her mouth and twirled and slid down the cable and such. However, since she grabbed the thing with her mouth, she was always looking up, not down. So sometimes when she looked down off the Matterhorn she froze up for a moment and we had to give her a little push.
“At the other end were these two big guys with mattresses, padding and the like and even though she was this tiny little thing, she built up so much momentum that she would knock these guys over. Then she had to rush to wardrobe to change and run to catch the last bus leaving for Los Angeles, which was at 10:30 p.m. so we would all be there shouting and cheer her along as she ran on these tiny legs to catch the bus.”
Matheison now lives in North Carolina with his family where, for quite some time, they have been raising Highland Cattle from Scotland on their M3 Ranch. This breed with its long horns and wavy coats is noted for its tasty meat that is low in cholesterol.
I gave his wife my card because she sure seemed interested in him getting some recognition, so maybe she can convince him to work with someone to tell his story.
