Go Even Deeper Into The Enchanted Tiki Room with Ken Bruce, Author of “Before the Birds Sang Words”

A new must-read book for any fan of the Disney Parks tells the extensive story of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. Authored by Ken Bruce, the book is full of information and history that even the most dedicated of Disney fans has yet to hear. Ken also does his best to shoot down rampant myths and lore and set the story straight on the beloved Disneyland classic.

The result of more than a decade of research, Before the Birds Sang Words is a scholarly, fascinating and playful deep dive into the creation of Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room, the timeless Audio-Animatronic musical revue that’s been delighting Disneyland audiences for over sixty years. Detailing not only the genesis and evolution of the revolutionary attraction, this is a story that also explores the contributing influences and passions of the man who spearheaded it—in turn becoming one of Walt Disney’s most personal projects.

While the Tiki Room is merely the vessel, Ken, in my opinion, has delivered an exhaustively detailed history of Audio-Animatronics, using the Adventureland revue as the guise to tell the story. That said, the Tiki Room is definitely the star of the show, as Ken lays the groundwork of Walt’s early travels and inspirations from toys and miniatures that serve as a setup to the opening of Disneyland and later, the Enchanted Tiki Room itself.

I was fortunate enough to spend a bit of time with Ken and discuss his book, all things Tiki and Tiki Room, Audio-Animatronics, and the occasional generational gap, prompting him to pitch an idea for the next big change to the Tiki Room.

Your book, which is a chunky, hefty read, and which is not just about the Tiki Room… to my great pleasure, I enjoyed it!

A pleasure or disdain?

I would never say disdain because I actually learned things. I'd like to think I'm a very self-proclaimed Disney nerd… and here you've come in with so much stuff I had no idea about.

It was fun to go back and just tear apart all the misinformation out there. There's so much mythology that's wrapped up in Disney fan circles, and it always frustrated me…In my writing I was really trying to break it all down and say “no! no! no! Careful with your facts, kids!" Some of the information is partly true, but boy, when the Disney fans lock into a story, they don't let it go.

So we have all the great Disney lore and everything like that, but I have to ask - why the Enchanted Tiki Room?

Because even at an early age, I knew this was the most consequential attraction at Disneyland. It changed everything. You may or may not love the attraction. There are bigger and faster and more technologically advanced shows at the park. But this thing is museum-worthy because it changed an entire industry overnight. Not only was it a tech breakthrough with Audio-animatronics, but it changed the tone of Disneyland. The park didn't really have a gettable sensibility before the Tiki Room, but once it opened the park knew exactly what it was and where to go moving forward. Walt and his people were still trying to figure out that park, and by the time the Tiki Room happened, and then a few changes on the Jungle Cruise as well, they began to get a real clear idea of what tone that they were selling at the park. So consequently, not only did the show’s technology change everything in theme park history, but it also defined the park moving forward.

I like what you did in the book too, with all the things that potentially or did influence Walt, like little trinkets and toys and miniature music boxes, everything like that, building up to the inevitable creation of Disneyland and then the Tiki Room. Is romanticizing and selling the story like that something you intended to do from the beginning?

I couldn't tell the story without laying that groundwork, because it's all very, very important. I likened it to, well, walking into someone else's funeral. You’re not going to feel anything, or feel as much, unless you actually know the family and— who died and what their life was all about. So for me it's an emotional story. I want readers to feel the feels and to do that I need to lay the groundwork for Walt's passion for, say, mechanical toys. I need to lay the groundwork for Walt as a child who didn't get to play with toys. So by the time the Tiki room arrives and Walt finally gets his very own toy shop come to life, it's not just cool, it's the fulfillment of a hidden passion and lifelong dream of Walt’s. He was, like so many of us nerds, someone who followed passions later in his life based on things he felt he didn't get enough of (or any of) growing up. So that's why I shaped the book that way. I can't imagine telling the story without laying that track.

I ask specifically because I feel like so many others would have approached it with an expanded encyclopedia entry, versus telling it as a story as you did.

Yeah, and hopefully in an entertaining way…There were things going on in culture and in music that fed into the Tiki Room’s birth. As I was writing it, I kept thinking, well, what's the title of this book? The title can't be something uninspired, like “The Making of Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room" or “The story of Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room." That just sounded dull… But I also discovered as I wrote the book that “wow, I've written a lot and I haven't even gotten to the opening or the conception of the Tiki Room yet," so I can't call it that anyway. And that's why it's called “Before the Birds Sang Words." You can't tell the story of animatronics without going back in time. To the earliest attempts at creating mechanical creatures and what early mechanical figures at Disneyland looked and felt like and how they ran.

The level of research into Audio-Animatronics that you did, naming the robotics companies, and how deep you get. Going back to the storytelling of Disney and everything - like the most versed Disney fan always says, “Well, that was developed solely by X Imagineer and that's a Disney Audio-Animatronic figure." But you mentioned all these other names - X company did this part. This group did this and this company did that….

I had nothing but questions when I started. That said… every tech company, even Apple, doesn't invent in a vacuum. It’s just putting already created pieces together in a brand new way. And (Walt) Disney and his people put the pieces together in an utterly new way. Walt was tasking his animation staff at the studio to do big things and to think like engineers. Wathel Rogers’ story is one of my favorites. Huge hero of mine. Walt basically is asking an animator who happens to love mechanical toys, who happened to put them together in his childhood, to do big, weird things — like put together a room full of mechanical birds that tweet for a restaurant show. Or to find ways of animating a bunch of mechanical figures along a railroad track. The Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland. The first attempts with animatronics. So what do these early-era Imagineers do? They immediately go to what the current tech was at the time. Meanwhile, the government is doing something where they’re recording movement and playing it back. And Disney already has a connection to our Defense Department and our Aeronautics ministers. Disney’s people are gonna ask for help…. One story in the book is, “well, we have this new thing called Audio-Animatronics." The lawyers were like, “well, we can do this, but check to see if someone else has done it before us because we'll get sued otherwise." So they look and they find that there is this guy in England who's got a little tech device for an electric billboard that uses an animated head. So they're like, “well, we need to buy this out from you, will you sell it?" And he's like, “sure, I'm not using it, so it's yours." Creativity is chaos and you find answers any which way you can.

We have the Buddy Ebsen thing that you talk about here in Florida. As soon as I was reading that part, I was like, ‘wait a minute!.’

Yeah, yeah. And I went down there and took pictures and studied every little cable and cam.

How long have you been researching and how long did it take you to write the book?

It was 10 years of research and then six years of writing. But when I jumped into writing, I also had a day job, so it had to be nights and weekends… I was going to finish this thing. I had to finish. I couldn't start it and not finish it. When you tell enough people you're writing a book, you can't go back to them and go, ‘Yeah, I decided not to.’

Yeah. So let me let me spin back there 'cause you have an animation background… The day job. How did the day job help with the extracurricular book?

It didn't help at all. Only got in the way. That day job is completely separate from the book writing. This was just my own little passion project on the side. However, when I was working at Pixar, that was where the book project was inspired. Pete Docter introduced me to someone named Kevin Kidney. Many Disney fans know about him. He and his partner Jodi were at a luau at Pete’s house, and that's where I met Kevin. Kevin inspired the book because he had not only a passion for the show, but a collection related to all things Tiki Room. His collection was incredibly valuable in launching my research. So that's the only link. But yeah, day job – animation – and the book are totally different worlds.

With all the research you did for this book, what was your favorite little tidbit that you learned?

The Polaris program. You know, Walt would run around and go, ‘we used the technology that launched missiles into space’…and those birds are related to the Polaris sub. And none of that was ever fully explained. It just was out there and there was a day where I just was digging and digging and digging to [find out] what the Disney company actually was using that was linked to this defense program and hardware. When I found it, I went through the roof. I was like, ‘that's it!’ It was based on a testing system, on a platform, a motion base platform. Much like what tilts the Star Tours ride now. The defense team programmed motion and then played it back. They would put a missile on the platform and then test out its trajectory readings second to second based on that motion. That motion was the recorded motion of the ocean because these missiles would be on the ocean. So yeah, once the Disney peeps realized there's this thing that can record and play back motion, they were on all over it. The defense program was happy to sell the hardware to Disney because they were already on to a completely different system, so it was declassified and ready for use in the basement of the Tiki Room at Disneyland. Disney nabbed it and it ended up being a great deal. I will say that, once you factor in the enormous amount of money the defense department had poured into the system, the Tiki Room is easily the most expensive theme park attraction of all time. I think Walt personally paid out about $1,000,000, which was huge for a theme park attraction at the time. But then beyond that, the work our government did to make it all run was extensive.

Tony. I need to remind you, you are of another generation. But it's important for not only you, but the younger readers of my book, to realize what an impact this had back in 1963. Again there was no Pirates of the Caribbean or “it’s a small world," or Haunted Mansion or Carousel of Progress. There was a submarine ride that had some crude figures and the Jungle Cruise that had some figures, but they were clunky and simple. The idea of going into a room and having it come to life and put on a show over 17 minutes long with one surprise after the other —This was jaw-dropping stuff. Absolutely mind boggling. Still enchanting today. But then go back to 1963 and people didn’t know what they were witnessing. It was utterly beguiling and weird. People truly believed there was a rain storm outside and totally got into it. That is a huge part of the story too. The Idea that jaws dropped. I give talks about the Tiki Room and every time I read this one particular guy's quote, they laugh. I'm always bewildered why they laugh. I forget the guy's name – He was writing for medical opinion and review of all things, and he was talking about how the Tiki Room was as spiritual and awe inspiring as his first visits to European Cathedrals. And I get it. This was one unbelievable magic trick back in 1963.

Yeah, I wish I could have gone back to that time and seen it myself.

Yeah, well, it's still there. You can.

Yeah, but it's gone from mind blowing to campy nostalgic classic.

Yeah, a little campy and corny around the edges, but pure Walt. Have you seen the one in California?…The one in Florida is kind of stunted by how large the space is. One of the things about the Disneyland space is how intimate it is. You can pretty much stand up and touch the birds. And so everything is very, very intimate, which is very much part of its charm. For whatever reason, because Disney World had more space, they're like, let's raise the roof and make the space even larger. And it kind of dilutes it a little bit.

That's the whole belief of the park in my opinion, and that's why I'll always say California is better.

Yeah, more intimate all around actually,

You talked with Kim Irvine for the book?

No, that was a quote that I found elsewhere, and I was surprised at how she was so brazen… It was her very direct nailing of a problem with past management, in public. Given what her position is, that was quite a brave move. I was really happy about that because what she brought up is a problem that we still deal with today. That management does not really understand what the parks are about and why people go to them…I will always say they need to stop trying to make the parks so relevant because if you chase relevance, you're gonna go down into a dark place you'll never get out of. Try to embrace originality. If you do chase relevance, you might actually do something like what they did in Florida, which was the “Under New Management" version of the Tiki Room, which is kind of screaming at the top of its lungs – “This is not cool and we have to make it cool" and Disney has never been “cool" and that was always the key to their success. It knows it's not cool. And this is why we go there! It’s some other thing that is charming and sweet and, at its best, not trying to chase after the latest fashions or trends.

I'm glad you brought up “Under New Management." I am all too familiar with “Under New Management." That was here for several years after I got here. I moved here in ‘06 and I think it closed in ‘09 or ‘10.

Management likes to keep screaming “Disneyland is not a museum and we need to keep moving forward" and blah, blah, blah blah blah. And yet, The Tiki Room is one of the last remaining little vestiges of pure Walt at the park. And not only that, but it was incredibly personal to him. If you dig deeper / read my book, you realize why. I share a great quote from Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, who said ‘if you wanna know me, read my strip’ and I will say if you wanna know Walt, go to the Tiki Room because his sensibility is everywhere. And it's not the tiki side of it, not the fact that it's tropical art with singing macaws, but its connection to burlesque and vaudeville and corny jokes that Walt loved so much. It share’s vaudeville’s high-brow and lowbrow offerings (It had an Offenbach number). Walt’s love of music, Walt’s love of mechanical toys. It's all there and it's pure Walt… He was there all the time. He was bringing in VIPs all by himself, He had the room to himself many, many times. He loved it because he put it together. It was his baby and it was his money and it was his sensibility.

It’s the full story, but as I was reading it, I kept thinking this is an Audio-Animatronics history book in disguise, just using the Tiki Room. So I have to ask, what is one figure now that still stops you dead in your tracks?

They've gotten so amazing that the “Whoa" is gone, but I do remember, and it's no longer there, but … the Wicked Witch of the West, which was at Disney-MGM Studios/Disney’s Hollywood Studios, part of The Great Movie Ride on The Wizard of Oz set. The witch appears and does a little quick performance. It was mind blowing! That was the future of Animatronics right there. Where the movements were whip- fast and the performance was dead on. Now we're used to it. They've already moved on to the next generation and then the generation after that, but that was very, very exciting when I saw that figure for the first time. A huge leap forward.

My figure that I would choose is also of that era, I think they were the A100s - SIR, in Alien Encounter in the pre-show.

Wow. That was great. I'd forgotten about that one… It's frustrating. And this is part of the issue too with animatronics. Just because you can have a figure do something amazing doesn't mean you should. And it's funny because one of the things they could do with Lincoln in later iterations was move his arms out, you know, do a gesture like [spreading his hands outward from his chest like a bird spreading wings]. But that gesture is never done by humans in a casual way. When we're talking in any situation, especially when we're Lincoln, we just don't do that. Watch any speech throughout history and you just don't wave your arms out like that, like you're showing off a cape. My point being, it's one thing to have a sophisticated character, but then another thing to program it in a way that's believable. And quite frankly, I don't think [Hondo Ohnaka] is fully convincing. An amazing character, but not a convincing performance. Then you go to the river ride in Avatar-land and that figure is astounding for sure, but also based on motion capture. When I'm watching that, it's utterly convincing because it's based on an actual performance. The importance of an animator doing their job well when it comes to animatronics is paramount. “Let's do it because we can." No, it looks awful.

In Florida, we lost the Country bears in their original form to be more updated with Disney IP so they don’t have any more questionable songs. Does that strike any kind of fear in you regarding the Tiki room?

I have nothing but fear for the Tiki Room. I had Tiki Room nightmares all the time when I was writing the book. I just had another one of those recently. I have no idea where they come from, but in the dream, I'm back to where the Tiki Room is and it's just gone. So obviously that hits a chord with me. The idea that one day it might be gone and who knows, one day maybe it will be. It came close. Many times. And the show's already been truncated. It had a whole number removed as well as a handful of jokes and an entire chorus of the opening song. Now it zips along. Like a bullet train.

In Tokyo, it's Stitch, in Florida. We got Iago and Zazu for those several years…

And then there’s the whole issue regarding cultural appropriation. A real prickly issue for sure. And that is actually something to worry about in regards to the fanciful Tiki Figures out front, which are very creative and very dignified, and nothing but a joyful homage to the real thing. Yeah, I worry. I think we're alright now, but I think I have also come to terms with the fact that maybe one day this thing will be gone. And I have to get over it, but that's one of the reasons I wrote the book. To remind people why this is so important, and quite frankly, to underline and underscore the idea that it is, whether you like it or not, a pop culture masterwork. A piece of art. It has hung around for good reason and is tied directly to Walt.

We have two attractions that say Walt Disney's in front of it - the other being Carousel of Progress - that immediately come to mind. But yeah, to your point, those are his.

Yeah. A thing to remind people too, is Walt Disney paid for the Enchanted Tiki room out of his own pocket. Quite literally, his own money. Imagineering was his own company. The people that worked on it were getting paychecks from Walt himself. The studio was its own thing, with its own shareholders and its own people who control the studio. Walt had a little bit to do with it, but not everything in the studio was his. But Imagineering was, at least for a brief period of time, absolutely his.

Well, At the very least, we'll see the Tiki Birds singing Moana or Lilo & Stitch songs, right?

Well we got the Stitch version in Japan, and boy, do they love it. It's like the Japanese have embraced their own Enchanted Tiki Room and they love Stitch. They love that. They love the mythos and they sing along in ways that the Disneyland audiences don't anymore. They suspend their disbelief and love their Tiki room. I love that they do that.

California. You brought it up in the book that California seemingly gave up on it, and then I'm pretty sure it was Matt Ouimet, ahead of the 50th anniversary [of the park], did the full restoration on the Tiki Room after Paul Pressler, Cynthia Harriss just kind of let it go.

Yeah. Still it was a shortened show and some great stuff is still missing, and one of my favorite lines. The ladies’s hat joke is gone. The entire Barcarolle is gone. I would love to see a redo of the Enchanted Tiki Room that brings it back to its original length and then, with the amazing tricks at Imagineering's disposal, kind of shapes it into a much more Walt-centric show, maybe even with a real quick pre show to underscore how important this was to Walt. Maybe put a spotlight right under Jose and remind people that Walt stood there many, many times to launch the show. And bring the Barcarolle back. You know it was dull as dishwater even in its day because it was originally planned as the way to open up the show. But after the rousing Tiki Room number everything kind of died when the Barcarolle began. But with the effects that they have and with some technology they have, they could put that thing back in…you can actually reshape it for a new generation and yet make it even more Walt-centric. And I'm all for it.

That's a good angle and I like that a lot too. Especially since we have the new Walt figure coming this year. Your book has also entered my pantheon of required reading for Disney nerds, by the way.

I hear, like when I'm on a bus or a tram at the Disney Parks, the chatter amongst the fans. It's a little blood curdling. Part of me wants to shake them and go, ‘Oh, you're telling the story all wrong!" It’s much more interesting without all that froth. They're the ones who go there for the dream and the magic… I will argue over and over again that the myth is pretty and probably based on a little bit of truth but. But the actual story, though more complex, is much more interesting…and boy, there's lots of these stories. You know the whole, ‘we had a barker bird out front’ and there was a big myth on why it was removed. The story has been around year after year after year, decade after decade, saying it was removed because he caused a traffic jam in front of Adventureland. That's baloney.

I heard it was because people would see that and not see the show, since they didn’t have to buy the tickets to go see the show.

No, no, no, no. The Tiki Room did very, very well and it was a must see. Even Richard Sherman told a story over and over again that he thought was true. Once I dug out the timeline, I realized he was telling a story based on a misconception. An adorable story based a little bit on truth, but not really true. And then also you find out that even when these people had been interviewed, they got things wrong, or misconstrued. Ultimately, the story of the Tiki Room is a story about creative chaos and how something new is created out of thin air by people utterly dedicated and persistent. My love of engineers knows no bounds, and I call them engineers because that’s what they were. My dad was one and I wish he was still around because I'd ask him many more questions based on this book. All engineers are ‘imagineers.’ Utterly creative and imaginative. They are detectives. They are solving problems that have never been solved before, and that is no different from Disney's Imagineers. They were handed problems to solve. Wacky ones like ‘How do we create a musical revue with a bunch of mechanical birds.’ We're used to it, but back then, it was a crazy directive.

I know the campiness of Tiki is still kind of alive and well.

Oh, tiki culture is. I've spoken at some tiki related events. It's going strong, if not stronger than ever. Everybody wants their own tiki bar. Everybody wants to know about the culture, how to make the drinks. Everybody wants to dress in Tiki garb and listen to the music. And it's huge now. New Tiki establishments are beginning to creep in – super cool, super, super cool places. At one time, then during 60s, 1970s, all of a sudden it was absolutely not cool because you had to hate everything that dad was into. Then there was a big resurgence, alongside SpongeBob and Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Mad Men— a resurgent love of mid century everything and Tiki is very much part of that. Walt’s Tiki Room is one of the last remaining vestiges of that 1960s craze. So yeah, everything old is new again and we're still riding that wave. There's a dip in there, but we're still riding it. Much to my great delight, because the Tiki Room is probably the most audacious tiki establishment out there. It doesn't sell alcohol, though. Maybe it should.

Until then, we’ll be getting that alcoholic drink at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar and thumbing through the pages of Before the Birds Sang Words. For more information and to pick up a copy of the book for yourself, be sure to check out the official page for the book, here.

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