By Aaron Wallace
It’s a big day for Disney fans. In addition to the company’s usual Earth Day hoopla (which includes Animal Kingdom’s anniversary and, predictably, a new Disneynature film), this April 22 also marks the 50th Anniversary of several classic theme park attractions: Carousel of Progress, Ford Magic Skyway, and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, all of which debuted at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
(It’s a Small World technically celebrates its 50th Anniversary today too, but Disney chose to observe it earlier this month.)
All of today’s celebrants are dear to me. (Well, I never experienced Magic Skyway in its original form but enjoy its progeny.) In commemoration, I present here an excerpt from my book, The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom, which puts Carousel of Progress in the spotlight as follows:
It’s one thing to live a long life and see technology slowly develop over time; it’s quite another to stand still and witness a hundred-plus years’ worth of progress transpiring all at once. By compressing the passage of time in this way, the attraction poetically underscores just how momentously the standards of comfort and communication can change in a lifetime. Having been born at the turn of the twentieth century, Walt had seen that kind of transformation in his own life.
Naturally, the passage of time creates problems for the Carousel of Progress, as it does for most things in Tomorrowland. When the attraction first opened, only 20 years separated the last two scenes. Then with the updates in each decade, the gap widened to 30, then 40, and now 60. The current setting… in the year 2000 was a thing of the future… in 1994. Today, it’s more than a decade into the past, meaning that audiences are already separated from the preceding 1940s scene by more than 70 years — longer than the entire timeline of the original World’s Fair attraction.
[But] speaking strictly from a Tomorrowland perspective, the finale isn’t out of date…
And while we’re at it, let’s take a look at a mini-excerpt from the book’s passage for The Hall of Presidents (a Great Moments scion.)
Deep inside Liberty Square, there is a sprawling chamber haunted by the ghosts of dead men. Their voices call out from the grave to remind us of their stories. Never resting, they constantly search among the living for a new soul to join them. Every four to eight years, they find one. If you think I’m talking about the ghouls living inside Haunted Mansion, think again. These illustrious spirits (and their surviving successors) hail from the White House. I’m talking, of course, about the Presidents of the United States.
For more on It’s a Small World, Carousel of Progress, Hall of Presidents, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover, and all the other attractions in Magic Kingdom, check out The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Walt Disney World on paperback, Kindle, Nook, iBooks, or in a bookstore near you! (The ebook is currently available for under $8.)
