How I First Learned to Escape Reality (with Corporate Sponsorship)

Although born in '64, my memory doesn't kick in 'til about '66: I have a flash of being unsupervised one morning, raiding the cookie jar, then arranging about 10 coconut bar cookies along the glass-topped scan design coffee table. Sadly, no snapshots exist of either my gluttonous smile of delight, nor the inevitable drama that followed once my folks woke up. One of the few early photos that does still exist shows me sitting in a stroller in front of a huge metallic globe, embarking on what would become a lifetime habit: themepark wanderer.

Much like myself, the 1964 World's Fair is just a few pieces of relic now. What actually remains has been engrained into our imaginations as most of us have seen that massive stainless steel orb in film or on TV - especially if we watched music videos. They Might Be Giants and Cyndi Lauper filmed there and one of the B-52's latter-day greatest hits packages showcased what's known as the Unisphere on its cd cover. Just as iconic, the towers of the New York State Pavilion feature prominently in Men in Black and Iron Man 2. It's all still there - out in Queens on the way to LaGuardia Airport. Has the New York State Pavilion finally been designated a national landmark? Don't laugh at the impropriety of tax dollars: remember that the Eiffel Tower is also a leftover reminder of a World's Fair.

A World's Fair is another form of a themepark, temporarily constructed to tout a country's culture or a corporation's future tech (aka preview new gadgets to eager consumers). In 1964 it was all about monorails and videophones, jetpacks and moving sidewalks. Fair organizers were adamant about raising the bar on the experience by getting rid of the carny atmosphere that had reportedly made the 1939 expo a low-brow affair. What was needed was a class act, specifically: bring on board the mastermind who had opened that sensational wonderland out in California almost 10 years earlier. And what that gentleman wanted out of the deal was to prove he could be an equally sensational presence on the East Coast, where, according to his sources, audiences were much more intellectual and sophisticated.

There have always been parallels between Disney parks and World's Fairs - especially the concept of a corporation sponsoring an attraction: the trading of free advertising for upkeep. As a kid visiting Disney World in its first years, I quickly learned names like "Monsanto" and never connected them to anything scary like a world-dominating superpower. Walt was originally roped into the World's Fair scheme to oversee the children's area, but he envisioned something much bigger involving some of the era's most powerful acronyms: GE, IBM, AT&T, RCA. Once the corporate world found out Disney was involved, everyone wanted a piece of pavilion. Walt saw this as more than a chance at financial windfall - he wanted to beta test future Disney park attractions with corporate America's millions. Consider that none of the techniques he used at the 1964 World's Fair had ever been practically implemented before speaks volumes about Walt's trust in his imagineers.

Amid the original concepts for Disneyland was the inclusion of Edison Square, a fin-de-siécle themed section off Main Street that would, with General Electric's backing, show off their latest tech. This technology, now being built for the Fair, would feature the then-revolutionary theatrical robots called animatronics, of which 16th US President Lincoln would appear unsettlingly lifelike for a paying audience. Animatronics as a concept is very simple: robots instead of actors = efficiency (and no salary); it's an idea as old as Metropolis. So it's really not so farfetched that perfecting 3D simulation came from an animation studio where control of every movement was compulsive. Lincoln was chosen as the prototype as his speeches tended to carry goosebump-raising awe. Added bonus: the state of Illinois agreed to pony up the sponsorship.

This same tech also evolved into the Carousel of Progress, a theatrical presentation where the audience revolved around a center stage split into living rooms with families from different times of American history - showcasing GE products, of course. Today's attraction, oddly and sadly enough, does not look that different. We go from the turn of the 20th century, to the '20s, then the '40s - and jump right over to whatever tech has just passed us by. (Virtual reality goggles for gaming are currently the big thing). From the 1964 World's Fair brochure describing that last tableau: "The glories of today glitter in a living room at Christmastime, a glass-enclosed, electrically heated patio, a kitchen that all but runs itself."

It's a Small World came to life when Pepsi collaborated with UNICEF and desperately needed an attraction at the last minute; Walt loved the challenge of a tight deadline. One of the first concepts was to have the almost-300 children all sing their own national anthems - not exactly a harmonious idea - probably sounding more like a meeting at the United Nations. Instead, we got a song grown men like me are afraid to evoke out of fear it will stick in our heads all day. After the attraction was moved doll by doll to California, Pepsi handed over the backing to Bank of America, which was succeeded by Mattel. Added thrill - the attraction was designed by the incomparable Mary Blair.

Although the fair itself was a financial disaster, the success of Disney's attractions proved the eastern U.S. was ripe for the type of vacation destination Californians were enjoying and that corporations would agree to back attractions in return for a little promotion (decades before sports stadiums became synonymous with corporate identities). While all this was happening in the Northeast, Walt was also spending quality time quietly creating dummy corporations in order to buy up massive tracks of swampland near Orlando for what he called "Project Winter". By 1982, Walt Disney World would launch what was basically the World's Fair of World's Fairs when it opened EPCOT, part preview of tomorrow, part international showcase.

Work Cited

Foglesong, Richard E. Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando. Yale University. 2001.

Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Random House, NY, NY. 2006.

"THE GREAT FAIR." Saturday Evening Post 237.20 (1964): 26-35. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 7 Sept. 2010.

Koenig, David. Realityland: True-life Adventures at Walt Disney World. Bonaventure Press, Irvine, CA. 2007.

Smith, Dave. Disney A to Z: the Official Encyclopedia. 3rd Edition. Disney Editions, NY, NY. 2006.

Walt Disney Imagineering. Welcome Enterprises, NY, NY. 1996.

Watts, Steven. The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. Houghton-Mifflin, NY, NY. 1997.

"World's Fair 1964 guide book."