Forever Magical
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Baxter brought in this ticket from "it's a small world" at the 1964 World's Fair

Baxter went on say that by the early 60s Walt had abandoned Disneyland. He had put a fence up around the area that was to later become New Orleans Square and went to New York for the World's Fair. So Baxter’s focus turned from Anaheim but New York was a long way away. He drove to Disneyland and got a job scooping ice cream at Carnation. Then Mr. Lincoln hit the scene. The guests’ perception is important here, Baxter explained. Whereas the audience could forgive errors in movement with the birds at Tiki Room they wouldn't with a human being.

Baxter said he wasn't always satisfied with how Walt did things. Even at an early age he would draw adjustments to things. For example, with Primeval World he could never understand how we traveled from the Grand Canyon to the dinosaurs and felt it would’ve fit better with the Jungle Cruise. He even painted sketches, which he passed along Disneyland officials. But they quickly reminded him he was an ice cream scooper, not an Imagineer.

Finally the walls came down in New Orleans Square. During the construction in New Orleans Square Baxter would often stop by during breaks to follow the construction, peeking in the windows. He thought they were building a restaurant and that he was looking at a serving line until one day it was full of water and boats were going by.

Baxter showed us pictures of the the models of the Blue Bayou, the Wicked Wench and the auction scene. Baxter explained how he saw this scene on a Disneyland Employee tour of Imagineering. They had a complete mock up set up of the one scene Walt saw at the Studio, the pooped pirate scene. He then explained the reasoning behind the change to the scene in 1997. He said they felt the animation (the turntable characters) was sub par compared to the rest of the ride. Also, the dialog of the pooped pirate was rather racy. But it wasn’t as big of a deal as the press made it out to be. However, Disneyland was happy to capitalize on the publicity.

While all this was going on at Disneyland the musical Mary Poppins burst on the scene. In response Disneyland had a Mary Poppins that would go up and would sing Supercalifragilisticexpiladocious and then the fireworks would start. Baxter created and submitted a ride proposal for a Mary Poppins ride called Jolly Holiday.

Baxter showed the audience his drawings of the attraction. It was small carousel that moved on a circular doughnut. You would board a carousel and then that carousel would slip into a back building. Next the carousel horses would jump off and ride through some of Bert’s chalk pavement pictures and then it would rain and the pictures would melt. Then guests would find themselves on the rooftops of London eventually joined by kites flying in the air and then land back on the carousel. Imagineering was impressed with Tony’s birds-eye view of the attraction. He showed a talent for fitting all the various rooms together into a simple box shaped building.