Marty Sklar: Thank you, Cynthia. Those words of Walt Disney at Disneyland’s dedication always take me back and in fact across this town square in the little building next to Disneyland's City Hall, that's where my office was during the first summer of 1955.

Vice-Chairman and Principal Creative Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, Marty Sklar
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Video: Marty Sklar (4 minutes, 4 seconds)
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One score and 17 years ago - 1964 for those of us who grew up with the new math - Walt Disney brought forth to the New York World's Fair a truly groundbreaking show, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Audiences sat in wonder watching the very first realistic Audio-Animatronic figure, all six-feet four-inches of him. And as Lincoln’s speech inspired guests at the World’s Fair, Imagineers began preparing this Disneyland Opera House for the West coast premiere of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, which opened in July 1965 for the 10th anniversary of Disneyland. Now here we are, 36 anniversaries later, very proud to reopen Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln with an all-new presentation.

In updating this show a great deal of care was taken, not only to make our show historically accurate - from eyeglasses to rumpled coat to crowd reaction at Gettysburg - but also to make it compelling to today’s audiences. Now through the use of the latest audio and visual technology, instead of sitting back and watching a show about history, we literally invited the audience into the story. For example, guests will quite literally be put in the shoes of a Union soldier on leave in Washington DC circa 1863. Guests will feel as if they are having their photograph taken by the great Mathew Brady, fighting in a civil war battle and personally meeting President Abraham Lincoln in the White House with the great black leader Frederick Douglass. Where the previous show had Lincoln performing portions of different speeches, our new show climaxes with Lincoln’s complete and emotional Gettysburg Address. This new presentation includes state of the art, 3D audio technology that will deliver Lincoln’s most famous words directly to each and every guest’s ears. And, of course, the Audio-Animatronic figure of President Lincoln is more lifelike than ever. With this new show we wanted to present the many sides of Abraham Lincoln, not just the great public speaker but also as a humorist, a politician and a father figure to the Union army. And just as we wanted to paint a more thorough picture of Lincoln we also wanted to take the opportunity of updating the Walt Disney Story and show our guests a more thorough picture of Walt as well. Guests will find a wonderful new video and still photographs devoted to Walt’s story in our pre-show.

Vice-Chairman and Principal Creative Executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, Marty Sklar
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My colleagues and I at WDI are first and foremost storytellers in the great tradition of the man whose dream and dedication created this Magic Kingdom. Walt Disney grew up admiring Abraham Lincoln who must have known that sometimes short and to the point is the greatest way to communicate. The ten simple sentences at Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address helped to reshape America, to give it a new birth of freedom and became the single greatest speech in American History. We hope our presentation brings new meaning to the young at heart of all ages who visit Disneyland and we hope you enjoy our show. Thank you, Cynthia.

Cynthia Harriss and Marty Sklar
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