Acquired
03:46:46 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[03:46:46] S0: Well, David, you you and I have had the privilege of being at some pretty cool robotics conferences, and you meet these, like, PhD researchers who are sort of in and out of Disney. Like, that is still where a lot of cutting edge robotics happens. [03:46:58] S1: Yes. So all four of those rides after the fair get ported right over to Disneyland because, of course [03:47:04] S0: Three of the four. The Ford one does not. The part of the deal is that Walt says, you have to pay a million dollars to use my name as a part of your attraction, of course, in addition to footing the bill for building it. But I'll forgive that million dollars if you let us put it in Disneyland afterwards Mhmm. Because we wanna get some value of it out after the fair. And Ford says, we'll just pay the million. [03:47:31] S1: Poor decision on Ford's part. [03:47:33] S0: I know. [03:47:33] S1: Okay. So three of the four get ported over to Disneyland, but all of it leads right into planning for the Florida project.
03:47:33 · David Rosenthal, Ben Gilbert
[03:47:33] S1: Okay. So three of the four get ported over to Disneyland, but all of it leads right into planning for the Florida project. [03:47:42] S0: And I think while the Florida project initially is not a theme park, and Walt very much is uninterested in building an East Coast Disneyland. He says it explicitly over and over again. He does have a nagging concern that an East Coast audience is more sophisticated than a West Coast audience, and there isn't demand for a theme park like Disneyland in Florida. I always think he uses that as kind of his, like, emotional defense mechanism air cover for why he's like, oh, I don't wanna just do the same thing again. I think it's like, I'm afraid it'll fail. And one of the big takeaways from the world's fair is, no. People would absolutely love a Disneyland type thing, especially with audio animatronics and all this cool new technology you're developing for the World's Fair. [03:48:31] S1: Well, obviously, if Disney is gonna do anything on the East Coast, it should be in Florida. I mean, it has the warmest year round weather and even more important [03:48:43] S0: Abundant cheap land. [03:48:44] S1: Abundant cheap land all throughout the state. Yep. So Walt, though, like you said, had no interest in just building another Disneyland. What is this Florida project? I had heard about this lore and legend over the years before doing the research. But diving in, it blew my mind, and it will blow yours too hearing about what Walt's vision for it [03:49:04] S0: was. The ambition.
03:49:04 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[03:49:04] S0: was. The ambition. [03:49:05] S1: So one, it starts with a brand new airport of the future paired together with a vast entrance complex and park. Two, there will, of course, be a theme park, a new Disney World Magic Kingdom theme park that was initially intended to be five times the size of Disneyland just for just for the theme park. Three, a 1,000 acre industrial park intended to house satellite r and d offices for America's greatest companies. Think everybody that Walt is partnering with at the World's Fair, Ford, GE, Pepsi, all the companies that are corporate sponsors back at Disneyland. He wants them Monsanto. Yeah. Monsanto. Move their most advanced r and d teams to this new city in Florida. And then four, most important, the heart of the whole project is Epcot. But, again, not the Epcot you know today. So Walt Epcot was going to be, in his own words, a living blueprint of the future where people actually live a life they can't find anywhere else in the world, a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise. And, basically, it is a sci fi city.
03:50:34 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[03:50:34] S0: Meanwhile, I gotta say, they couldn't open most of Tomorrowland for 1955 when they opened Disneyland, and they're having a really hard time keeping up with the pace of technology. I walked through Tomorrowland even today, and I'm like, this all feels really dated and nothing like Tomorrow. I think Walt himself has a famous quip on this, which is tomorrow comes a lot faster into today than we can kinda keep up with. So you could imagine if they actually built this thing, it it very quickly would would not feel like the future. I mean, you you plow a bunch of CapEx into concrete and futuristic concepts. New stuff gets invented real fast, and then it's ugly and old. That's a good point. [03:51:11] S1: But perhaps you haven't heard the vision for what this city is yet. [03:51:15] S0: Please. Please lay it
03:51:15 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[03:51:15] S0: Please. Please lay it [03:51:16] S1: on me. Okay. It will have a radical radial design plan. So the city itself is gonna fan out like spokes on a wheel from a domed central downtown hub. Yes. You did hear that right. A 50 acre enclosed climate controlled, fully domed central downtown city that will have no surface streets, fully pedestrian walkways. Monorails. Well, yeah. Yes. The the only motorized forms of transportation will be monorails and this new concept of people movers. And then below ground, there will be a vast network of tunnels, a multilayered tunnels underneath the ground for cars and industrial vehicles to circulate throughout the city. On the edge of this downtown dome, there'll be high density apartment buildings. Surrounding that, there is a vast green belt of parks and recreation facilities. And then finally, in the outer ring of the city is low density single family home neighborhoods. And the plan is that 20,000 people will live here in this city with full self governing infrastructure, so schools, public services, everything, and it is all gonna be founded as a new city in the state of Florida. This is unreal. [03:52:52] S0: Self governing, but in a special district carved out and controlled lawfully by the Walt Disney Company.
03:52:52 · Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal
[03:52:52] S0: Self governing, but in a special district carved out and controlled lawfully by the Walt Disney Company. [03:53:00] S1: I mean, it sort of sounds like a I don't know if it's a utopian or a dystopian film or both. Yeah. It's definitely ambitious. So on 11/15/1965, Walt, along with Roy and the then governor of Florida, Hayden Burns, hold a press conference where they announce that Disney has been buying land in Central Florida [03:53:30] S0: Under various subsidiaries and obscured names, so no one would catch on to what they're doing. [03:53:34] S1: Yep. And that a very large new Disney project will be coming to the state. That planning has already begun, and they will be seeking public approvals. [03:53:47] S0: They bought 27,000 acres. That is the size of San Francisco. [03:53:53] S1: Yes. Yes. Twice the size of Manhattan. It's almost 40 square miles that they have purchased in the middle of Florida, and it's all swampland right now. It's uninhabitable. And so in May 1966, so a few months later, they get government approval to drain the swamp and prepare to build Walt's vision. [03:54:19] S0: Let's go.