Greg Maletic
Page 2 of 2
If we must have Mr. Lincoln, the show could be improved by removing the pretense that it’s a tribute to Lincoln, and instead make it a tribute to the vision of Walt Disney and the technology his WED team created. Use it to illustrate how Audio-Animatronics work. The technology--and the ambition--to create such a figure are inspiring, not the tribute to Lincoln. The Lincoln figure is a failed experiment, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fascinating and not worthy of a showcase.
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln is not a great history lesson. It is, however, great Disneyland history. Repackaging the attraction as such would sell its strengths better. Whether Disneyland should be turning itself into its own museum is another question entirely, but let’s assume for the moment that it should. How about turning the Lincoln theater into a Disneyland Archives? It’d be great to see those old Carousel of Progress figures, the bears from the Country Bear Playhouse, some animals from Nature’s Wonderland, Mr. Johnson from Mission to Mars, and even an old PeopleMover vehicle. With a place to put these memories, the inevitable disappearance of old Disney favorites could be a little easier for us die-hards to accept.
• • •
Writing a previous column on the Tomorrowlands made me a little nostalgic for Walt Disney World's old Tomorrowland. My best memories of it are of arriving to the Magic Kingdom in the early morning with my Dad and brother, standing behind a yellow rope waiting for 9am to arrive and the park to open. Once the rope was lowered, we'd run like crazed hyenas to be the first in line for Space Mountain.
Trying to relive this, I started to search the Web for some images of the old Tomorrowland's beautiful white concrete buildings. After finding next to nothing, I started looking through my collection of Disney books, and--to my surprise--again found nothing! (Not even the supposed retrospective "When The World Began" includes any meaningful photos of the "classic" Tomorrowland!)
Unsatisfied, I set about trying to create my own illustration that depicted how I remembered Tomorrowland to be back when it captured my imagination the most. Using an illustration from the Space Mountain issue of "The 'E' Ticket" magazine as my guide, I drew my memory of Tomorrowland in the style of one of the old Disneyland attraction posters. This is how I remember those mornings.
Discuss It
Note: There are separate discussions for the Mr. Lincoln and Tomorrowland sections of
this article
- Discuss Mr. Lincoln on the LaughingPlace.com Discussion Boards
- Discuss the Tomorrowland poster on the LaughingPlace.com Discussion Boards
Related Links
-- Greg Maletic
Greg's column is not posted on a regular schedule.
The opinions expressed by our guest columnists, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted July 23, 2002