Dream It! Do It! (Disney Editions Deluxe) (22 page)

One of my favorite reviews of what we had accomplished in Epcot was written several years after its opening as an op-ed article in the
Orlando Sentinel
by guest author Herbert London, dean of the Gallatin Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at New York University, and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Under a headline stating, “Epcot Is the True Embodiment of the American Dream,” he wrote in part:

Disney World’s Epcot Center is advertised as a magic kingdom for adults, a permanent world’s fair, a mecca for kids of every age. It is all of that and more. Epcot is a challenge to the future. In a style that is idiosyncratically American, Epcot dares its viewers to consider the future. This isn’t a future of elitists filled with weltschmerz; this is a future of hope and opportunity…

They also get a message of promise. Energy needs aren’t seen as an intractable problem, but as a challenge. Car companies aren’t resistant to change; they are searching for the best alternative to the combustion engine. Food isn’t characterized as insufficient to feed hungry multitudes. It is as bounteous as our imagination. If one can dream, there is hope. Epcot is for dreamers…

There aren’t any guarantees about the future. The Disney people know that and so do those visitors who pour into the gates each day. But these people know intuitively that the flame of progress must continue to burn if our civilization is to survive. That idea lives in all its majesty at Epcot. It is what children and old folks can share. It is what foreigners find so unique about this land. It is what gives us faith in better days ahead.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Better days” were certainly ahead for many exceptional talents that the Epcot project played an important role in developing. Some of the proudest moments I personally savor that relate to our Epcot days actually occur today, when I meet with or hear about the achievements of some of the young talent who earned their stripes in the trenches on the project. For some, like Monty Lunde, creating special effects for Epcot was his first job after graduating from Stanford; after Epcot he joined with another Imagineer, Rock Hall, to create Technifex. Today, it is one of the industry’s premier companies producing attractions, exhibits, and state-of-the-art special effects.

Glen Birket, an admitted “inexperienced engineer,” was instrumental in creating the technical systems that still make the complex American Adventure show work; today his Birket Engineering works for many companies—including parts of four Disney parks around the world.

Two of the highest-profile post-Epcot achievers are Mark Fuller and Bob Rogers. Graduating from the fountains of Epcot to create WET Enterprises, Fuller has won international renown for some of the most admired fountain installations in the world—in twenty-two countries, in fact. He became a star with The Fountains of Bellagio at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas; built the biggest fountain in the world, The Dubai Fountain (Burj Dubai); and brought his artistry to New York City through the new Revson Fountain at Lincoln Center.

Bob Rogers and his BRC Imagination Arts (he’s the chairman) stopped counting their many awards for the films, exhibits, shows, and attractions they have created for clients worldwide. Their creations have been hits at World Expos from Vancouver (1986) to Shanghai (2010), including pavilions representing the United States itself.

I’m proud to say that we put BRC in business in 1981. General Motors had come to us to design their postshow area for the World of Motion pavilion in Epcot; when we could not free up any of our overwhelmed creative staff for the task, I recommended Bob Rogers—and guaranteed GM that Imagineering would look over his shoulder to assure an excellent project. In fact, several of the attractions Rogers and his team developed—notably The Water Engine Show and The Bird and the Robot—were among the most popular with Epcot’s guests at opening. BRC continued to work with GM on the development of exhibits and shows for over a decade after their experience in Epcot. And BRC also created the
Back to Neverland
film for the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World.

Several also have become important leaders in the leisure-recreation industry. Monty Lunde created the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) twenty years ago; today it counts more than seven hundred companies around the world as members. In 2011–2012, the TEA president was Rick Rothschild, our show director for The American Adventure pavilion. And Bob Rogers has served on the board of directors of IAAPA, the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.

The incredible requirements of the Epcot project made it almost mandatory that we give experienced hands new challenges, and inexperienced (often young) talent their first opportunity to show what they could do. Their achievements ratified my continuing to “take a chance” on young talent throughout my years as the creative leader of the Imagineers. Sound familiar? It was a Walt Disney tradition I wholeheartedly endorsed.

Melanie Simon, a young planner/scheduler for The American Adventure during her Epcot tenure and now a consultant working with such clients as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service, said it so well in a recent note to me: “One of the real ‘miracles’ of Epcot is that so many young, inexperienced folks were given the opportunity and responsibility and learned by doing. Gaining the confidence to tackle ‘impossible’ tasks and not be afraid of new things was life-changing. Sadly, I don’t think young people get that kind of education nowadays.”

In America, we have the talent to do anything we put our minds and hands to achieving. Let’s hope we remember that our young country was founded and has grown into one of the world’s greatest nations by creating opportunities for new birds to spread their wings, and fly as high as they can go.

Surprisingly in a company as public and in the spotlight as Disney, no one has told the real story of Disney’s first venture into the international park and resort arena. For several years, I pursued Frank Stanek and Ron Cayo, a Disney strategic planner and a Disney corporate lawyer, respectively—two of the key principals in negotiating the first and most successful foreign venture, Tokyo Disneyland—imploring them to send me notes detailing how it happened.

Several times they said, “Just watch Sofia Coppola’s
Lost in Translation
film with Bill Murray. It has all the cultural and language shock we suffered, but it was played for laughs, and ours was deadly serious!”

Finally, I convinced Stanek to help me tell this story; his extensive notes make the beginning of this chapter a primer for one of the most important developments in Disney park history: the “invasion” of Japan and France (and later China) by exported attractions and entertainment. Five parks have already spread Disney style family fun, to audiences across the oceans. A sixth, Shanghai Disneyland, is now being developed for opening in 2015 or 2016.

This is the Tokyo story—one filled with international intrigue, strong personalities, communication challenges, and ambitious executives seeking credit for making it happen as a stepping-stone in advancing their personal careers.

* * * * * * * * * *

Frank Stanek was WED’s director of research and planning. His department provided research and analysis related to the expansion of Disneyland and Walt Disney World. This position segued naturally into his assignment to begin the process of analysis for Disney’s first park venture internationally. His twenty-five years at Disney involved him in all aspects of new business creation and project development, including the early planning work for Epcot. After leaving the Walt Disney company as vice president of corporate planning in 1987, Frank held key executive positions at Vivendi-Universal Entertainment. As president of International Business Development, he led the international development for Universal Parks and Resorts, initiating the creation of Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, and the acquisition of Universal Mediterranea near Barcelona, Spain.

With Walt Disney World a tremendous success—attracting 10.7 million people in its first year ending September 30, 1972—Disney began receiving inquiries from around the world. Late in 1972, Disney’s corporate management directed Stanek to research Japan and Europe as potential locations for “the first international Disneyland.” To begin understanding these markets, Stanek focused on receptiveness to the Disney brand, economic stability and growth factors, cultural characteristics, and travel patterns. Ultimately, one succinct sentence from Stanek’s summary memo early in 1973 carried the day: “While both Europe and Japan can support a Disneyland project, Japan offers the highest potential for success, even though it may be more difficult to execute.”

The energy crisis of 1974 slowed the expansion process, as Florida tourists, then primarily arriving in the Sunshine State by automobile, curtailed their travel, impacting attendance for the first time since Walt Disney World opened in 1971. But in December 1974, a Disney executive team comprised of Card Walker, Donn Tatum, Ron Cayo, Dick Nunis, and WED’s Orlando Ferrante and John Hench traveled to Japan to review potential sites.

Initially, two locations were presented to the Disney group. One, at the base of Mount Fuji, the 12,389-foot-tall iconic symbol and most distinctive feature of Japan’s geography, was controlled by the Mitsubishi Company. But after visiting the site, the Disney executives were informed that Mitsubishi had “changed its mind,” and the property was no longer available. That left a large tract of land in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture (similar to a county in the USA), about fifteen miles from the center of Tokyo. The main virtue of the location was that it was within a one-hour drive of the resident population of nearly thirty million.

The property was under development by the Oriental Land Company (OLC), a joint venture of Mitsui Real Estate and the Keisei Electric Railway. OLC had been reclaiming the location, through landfill, developing commercial and residential projects on about four thousand acres on the north portion of Tokyo Bay. In granting the right to reclaim and create this land, Chiba required OLC to devote a portion of the site to the “public good.” Bringing Disneyland to Japan would not only meet that requirement, but would do so in a highly visible and popular way.

It took nearly a year of work by the Disney team, spearheaded by Stanek and the corporate lawyer, Cayo, before a letter of intent was signed in July 1976 between Disney and the Oriental Land Company. There followed a year of work, financed by the Japanese at a cost of $1 million, to complete a thorough study of site conditions and construction methods, market feasibility, and attendance projections. The summary result was that a “Tokyo Disneyland” had the potential to attract
seventeen million visitors
—a number the Disney team found “astonishing” on the one hand, and impractical on the other. As Stanek characterized the report, “It was not possible to build a park initially with that kind of visitor capacity, due to both costs and the time required. So we concluded that the park should be sized for ten million, a number we knew was achievable.” After all, Walt Disney World, with a small resident base, but a large tourist market, had achieved that result five years earlier.

Early in 1977, negotiations to create a definitive agreement for a Disneyland in Japan began in earnest. Before the agreement was signed on April 30, 1979—four and a half years after the Disney executive team first visited Japan—the project’s progress was “like a bottle floating in the ocean, rising and falling as personalities and the issues of negotiating the business agreement moved forward and backward,” Stanek says.

“In the end,” Stanek remembers, “the key issues of contention were: 1) the unwillingness of Disney to invest in the project; 2) the amount of fees Disney would be paid by OLC; and 3) anything to do with the cost burden to be borne by OLC.”

As Disney’s chief executive, Card Walker had committed the corporation to building “Walt’s dream,” Epcot, soon to be under construction for an October 1, 1982, opening. Card Walker was also committed to establishing the Disney parks internationally, but only on the terms he and the Disney board of directors had set.

Compounding Card Walker’s attitude toward the Japanese was his World War II experience, when he served as a flight deck officer on the American aircraft carrier
Bunker Hill
. In April and May 1945, desperate Japanese fighters engaged in kamikaze attacks off the coast of Japan. The kamikaze destroyed as many Allied warships as possible by crashing their aircraft directly into the ships, especially aircraft carriers, sacrificing both airplane and pilot in each suicide mission.

In May 1945, the
Bunker Hill
was hit by two Japanese Zeros piloted by kamikazes while it was supporting the invasion of Okinawa. Card’s son, Cardon, still a Disney Studio employee today, told me his father had the luck of the draw—a brief five-day leave. The attack killed more than three hundred, including many of his service buddies—and the flight deck officer who was serving in Card’s place.

In the 1970s, Disney financed its new projects from internally generated cash, with minimal borrowing. The company’s first priority was the Epcot project, already well under way. Card took the position that Disney needed every ounce of capital to build Epcot Center. Therefore, the company’s strong position was not to invest in the Tokyo project. On their side, the Japanese could not understand why Disney would advance a very positive view for the success of Tokyo Disneyland, yet was unwilling to invest in the project. The Japanese banks thus asked OLC why they should lend money to a “risky project” in which Disney itself was unwilling to invest.

Finally, Stanek says, a compromise solution was reached to avoid what the Japanese viewed as a deal-breaker. Disney proposed a clause in the agreement that would give it the option of investing $2.5 million into the project for a 10 percent share of the ownership. This language swayed the Japanese banks—implying that Disney “might or could invest” at some point. (The option was never exercised. When OLC went public as a corporation on the Japanese stock market in 1996, it was estimated that by not making that $2.5 million investment, Disney left “over $600 million” on the table, according to Stanek.)

Two long years of drama in these back-and-forth negotiations culminated on April 30, 1979, when Masatomo Takahashi, who had become president of OLC, visited Burbank, and he and Card Walker signed the agreement, allowing the construction of Tokyo Disneyland to begin. By 2011, the project—renamed the Tokyo Disney Resort—now includes a second park, Tokyo DisneySea, and three major Disney branded and designed hotels. OLC, on its own, also designed and built a shopping district, called Ikspiari.

In the fiscal year ended April 20, 2010 (the last full year before the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011), the two parks combined welcomed 25,818,000 guests. Disney and Japanese engineers devised a plan that allowed the entire site—created on six hundred acres of reclaimed tidelands from Tokyo Bay—to “settle” over time at a constant rate. As a result, the Tokyo Disney Resort withstood the devastating events of March 2011 with no significant damage or serious injury to the forty thousand visitors in the parks at the time.

The parks themselves are extreme contrasts—one launched as a carbon copy of the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom, the other created as a new “blank page,” designed as a “one of a kind” concept by the Walt Disney Imagineers.

The Magic Kingdom reflected a consistent attitude by OLC’s executives for the first two decades of their “partnership” with Disney: if it did not exist in a Disney park in the USA, it should not be built in Tokyo Disneyland. Perhaps this reflected the inexperience in the theme park arena of the OLC executive team, but just as likely it was past experience in which copies of foreign iconic product were sold to the Japanese public as representing the original product, when in fact they were poorly designed and made. The Japanese public, by the 1980s, had become discerning about quality, brand name, and true, original product. They wanted “the real thing”; widespread travel had taken many Japanese to Anaheim’s Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. They
knew
“the real thing.”

“Strategically,” Stanek recalls, “the framework for the Tokyo Disneyland master plan was set by Florida’s Magic Kingdom.” As the newer of the two Disney parks, it represented the latest state of the art and was the size necessary to accommodate the ten million–attendance projection.

Cinderella Castle itself was a perfect theme and size, and although Space Mountain was the size of Disneyland’s (two hundred feet in diameter rather than the Magic Kingdom’s three hundred), once the decision was made not to “Japanize” the park (that is to keep it Western, keep it Disney) only a few major design revisions needed to be made. The most significant was to accommodate the Japanese penchant for shopping and bringing gifts home to family and friends. Together with a concern for rain and cold weather—it occasionally snows in Tokyo—the decision was made to cover and enclose the park’s entry. Called the “World Bazaar,” it is an international contemporary shopping “street” with Victorian facades. This decision made it the only Disneyland-style park without a train station at the entrance. The 1890-style railroad was moved to “Westernland,” where it provides an enhanced show as it circles the Rivers of America area.

The close quarters and crowded conditions that reflect the lifestyle of most Japanese also influenced a major enhancement and special show opportunity in Tokyo Disneyland: expansion of the central plaza or “hub” from which each of the lands fans out. This enlarged area between the World Bazaar and Cinderella Castle has proven to be extremely popular with Japanese visitors, who comprise over 90 percent of the Tokyo Disney Resort’s visitors.

The wide open feeling and atmosphere is a great contrast to life in Tokyo, especially. And the increased space has made possible a unique feature for Tokyo Disneyland among the Disney parks around the world: a changeable venue for special seasonal shows that can perform before large numbers of guests, with the castle as a backdrop.

From the beginning there were compelling successes, and abject failures: The candy store in the World Bazaar is one of Japan’s most profitable stores on a square-footage basis. Expanded multiple times through the years, the candy store exceeds $100
million
in revenue yearly.

A major “defeat” occurred when, to ensure that the park could meet the guidelines of the Japanese Education Ministry for school excursions, we created “Meet the World” in Tomorrowland. Based on the historical experiences of foreign visitors (that is Admiral Matthew Perry) and their interaction with the Japanese homeland, the show foundered on its presentation of the empire of Japan’s aggression in World War II—avoiding as much of the actual story as possible. A true failure, “Meet the World” was finally closed in 2002 and has been replaced by a very popular Pixar-based show: Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek.