Forever Magical
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From July 16 - July 23rd NFFC held its annual convention at the Hyatt Regency Alicante in Anaheim, California. For several days during the convention seminars were held where personalities from Disney and elsewhere discussed Disney history, the future of Disney and everything in-between. In this month's Forever Magical, Rebekah brings you the seminars of the 2000 NFFC Convention through words, pictures and video. This is the second part of the series. Unfortunately, due to previous commitments, Rebekah was unable to attend all the activities during the NFFC Convention, but here are her highlights.
Seminar Day Two: July 20th - Tony Baxter
Tony Baxter
Tony Baxter began his presentation with a photograph of Walt Disney and his model steamer, the Lilly Belle. The Lilly Belle came to life in the late forties on Disney’s backyard Carolwood Pacific Railroad. A close-up of the wheel design showed copyright 1949 WED Enterprises which explains “Celebrating 50 years of transportation.” He continued by showing several opening day Disneyland parking passes, tickets and even opening day color shots that he recently discovered at a Disneyana Show and Sale. One of the more interesting photographs shows the character Pinocchio standing on Main Street holding his character head in his hand. What a different era!
During Disneyland's first summer Baxter became fascinated with the new Park. He sketched what he called a cat’s version of Peter Pan (at the age of 9, tossing Smoky out of a plane with a parachute) and sketches for an insect related ride very similar to A Bug’s Life. Guests would experience life as a bug.
Disneyland 1959 brought the Matterhorn which not only was the first steel coaster but was put inside an incredible structure. And with the Submarine Voyage guests were transported to an environment that couldn’t be created outside, so convincing and believable. However the attraction that appears to have affected the young Baxter the most was 1963's Enchanted Tiki Room. It was a very expensive attraction to create so when the ticket book containing 10 tickets and admission to Disneyland was around $3.95, admission to the Tiki Room was not included. Tiki costs $.75 and you could only purchase tickets at the attraction window. He was so mesmerized he visited the attraction four times using up his souvenir and food money and came home starving. He was hooked. He felt that this attraction “opened up the ability to do anything with synchronization of moving things that came to life endlessly from morning to night.” In fact he described it as a motion picture level experience for guests.
Next Baxter highlighted a model of the Disneyland castle he built and won a blue ribbon for. It had inside lighting and was remarkably similar to the original. It was built with “kid equipment” such as bolsa wood and toothpicks. When he couldn’t afford a train, he constructed a bolsa wood track where marbles could roll endlessly. He said the second generation of that castle along with some of his artwork eventually got him the job at Imagineering. They were impressed with his sense of engineering.