Tarzan's Treehouse
Page 9 of 9
Bruce Gordon
After the vine cutting ceremony opening Tarzan's Treehouse, LaughingPlace.com reporter Doobie Moseley had the opportunity to sit down with Bruce Gordon, Project Directory and Creative Developer for Walt Disney Imagineering, and discuss Disneyland's latest attraction. While Bruce has been instrumental in many Disney projects he is probably best known to most Disneyland fans as the co-author of the book The Nickel Tour, considered by many to be the best book on Disneyland's history.
Doobie Moseley: What was the initial reaction from guests when you decided to close the Swiss Family Treehouse?
Bruce Gordon: Initially, there were a lot of people concerned. There’s always concern when an icon closes at Disneyland. And then I stand up and give my "Disneyland is not a museum" speech which I have given many, many times. If you look back at what Walt Disney did in the Park in its first few years, things came and went. The Viewliner ran in the park for a year and he had a better idea so whoosh! The viewliner was gone, Phantom Boats were gone in a year. He’d put a show in and either change it, fix it, update it or yank it out. This thing was a constantly evolving project. One of his famous quotes was that when he’s done with a film and he puts it in a vault its done forever so what he loved about DL was that he could constantly tinker with it, constantly adjust it, fix it and make it better and that’s exactly what we do.
DM: Have people thus far been pretty happy with Tarzan's Treehouse?
BG: I think it first turned around when people saw the demolition on the Swiss Family tree because we cut the tree back to its center trunk and some of the main branches and everything else was removed. Then they began to realize and see that this was going to be a major project. So they realized that it wasn't just going to be a couple of banners and a balloon that said Tarzan. This was going to be something to pay attention to. And I think they saw the hut started to go up, Tarzan’s big structure with the boat on the front of it , they saw the giant steel go up for the suspension bridge and the trunk, I think that is when it started to turn around. And then once they saw the paint go on and the leaves and the vines everybody went, "Okay, sad to see the Swiss Family go, but hey, they’re back in Switzerland."
DM: Speaking of the treatment you gave Tarzan, normally when a new movie comes out you end up doing a parade or show. What was it about Tarzan that made you think it deserved an attraction?
BG: Tony Baxter started this campaign. We had to something about the tree. The Swiss Family Treehouse was in need of an upgrade, a rehab. The leaves were in sad shape, a lot of the leaves were missing, some of the branches were pretty bare. It was just time to fix it up and Tony had met Glen Keane in Paris at the very beginning of the Tarzan project several years earlier and seen some of the early pencil sketches and thought "hey, this is pretty cool" So he put 2 and 2 together as he always does or put 3 and 9 together and got 46 or whatever he does and came up with the idea "well now there’s a treehouse in the Tarzan movie, maybe we should make the treehouse Tarzan." But we didn’t want to do it until we were certain that the Tarzan film was going to become a classic, that it really was a property worthy of an attraction at Disneyland. So they arranged a screening for us of the pencil version of the film, an early rough-cut of the film and we went to see it and just went this is going to be great, this is a great film. It has all the elements. It’s got the emotion. Its got the deep drama. Its got funny jokes, that are actually very funny. We then went on a campaign to get this approved as Tarzan. So we combined the upgrade, the rehab of the Treehouse with the leaves and the facilities upgrade with the addition of the Tarzan synergy project so that we are able to, instead of doing a parade that’s gone after a few months, we now have a classic attraction that will be here for long time.
DM: It is a permanent attraction?
BG: This is, absolutely, absolutely.
DM: What was involved in turning Swiss Family into Tarzan’s Treehouse?
BG: The biggest challenge was that we had wanted to open the attraction the day after the film so that everyone would go see the film on Friday when it opened and the next day you could come to Disneyland and experience it in person. That’s what Disneyland is all about. And that what was really important to me. I was from the very beginning pounding the table going June 19th we open. And we were (targetted for) August for awhile and then middle of July and I’m going dagnabit this thing is going to open June 19th. So finally I think it was Michael Eisner in a separate meeting that said you better have that thing open the day of the film. So nobody listened to me but they listened to Michael. So miraculously the schedule became June 19th. So that gave us four months to do the whole project. If you’ve ever seen our projects they usually take about a year, a year and a half to two years to do something. So it was a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week construction schedule. There were people on the site round the clock, people on top of each other, just an amazing combination of disciplines in the tree at the same time. Painters up there with the electricians trying to run electricity through the conduits and they’re trying to paint the stuff. At the same time carpenters are in there making last minute modifications to things that were just painted. And the guys in there with saw cutting off the thing the guy just painted. It was organized chaos. But it was a great experience and we got it done and just turned out great.
DM: It doesn’t look rushed.
BG: No, not at all. We got everything we wanted.
DM: Is this the new way of doing projects now?
BG: I think we’ve shown people it can be done.
DM: Normally when Disneyland changes an attraction they leave a bit of the old in there. What did the Swiss Family leave in the Treehouse?
BG: There’s a bunch of stuff. There’s an original branch up in the tree so watch out, there’s one branch left from the original tree. There’s some furniture set around, there’s a book and my great creative concept for the project, my one brilliant idea was the Swisskapolka, the Swiss Family music playing down at the bottom. A gramophone plays a big part in the Tarzan film so of course we had the gramophone down in the interactive area at the bottom. So I said, "You know what we oughta do, we oughta play Swisskapokla on the gramophone." So a guy named Glenn Barker, who is in our audio department, is a big fan of 78’s so he took the recording of Swisskapolka and mixed it together with an old 78, the crackle from a 78 record, and the scratches and zip-zip like its sticking and put together a genius soundtrack of Swisskapolka playing on a 78. And it skips every so often and it’s very funny. So that’s one of the tributes to the Swiss Family. Sit in the chair, look for the leaves and listen to the music of the Swiss Family. And there’s several hidden Mickeys up there. Some of them not so hidden. But they’re there.
DM: At the end of the attraction you have the base camp, an interactive element. Is it becoming more important that you have some interactivity on your attractions?
BG: Yes, it sure is, absolutely. Everybody’s used to that and everybody expects that and it is so much better than just a passive experience. Movies are passive experiences. When you come to Disneyland you’re supposed to be in that world and experiencing what it’s like to be those people. So the ability to actually trash the camp, be in there and pound on the dishes and all that stuff like the animals. To pull on the vines, and do all that good stuff, That’s what it’s all about.
DM: Any near future projects you or Imagineering are working on you’d like to discuss?
BG: The next big one here is Autopia. We close Tomorrowland and Fantasyland Autopias after Labor Day and its going to have all new cars, new load area. It will all load from Tomorrowland. It will still be the same number of cars and length of track but it will be much better organized. And you’ll be riding in all new cars.
DM: And on a personal note, when can fans expect to see the second edition of your fabulous book the Nickel Tour?
BG: (laughs) If it hadn’t been for the Treehouse it would’ve been out by now. We’re aiming certainly for this fall. We had hoped to have it for the NFFC this summer but that didn’t happen. (The NFFC convention is in) two weeks – I don’t think it’s going to happen. But it certainly will be by Christmas. So I’d look for it this fall.
DM: I’d like to congratulate you again on Tarzan's Treehouse, on the Nickel Tour and everything else.
BG: Thanks a lot.