D23: A Beautiful Tomorrow — Just a Dream Away: Disney at the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair
A remarkable panel that linked the future to the past.
What started as a nostalgic review of one of the more famous events in Disney history, the 1964-65 World’s Fair, turned into a star-packed event that not only showed the importance of that event but also tied its retro-future to the company’s actual future.
Famously, in 1963 Walt Disney was approached by Robert Moses, the Parks Commissioner who was also widely regarded as the most powerful person in New York state, to help work on some pavilions for this World’s Fair. (As noted in the presentation, this, most famous, World’s Fair was not an event officially sanctioned by the organization in charge of World’s Fairs, but they called it one anyway. For more on this, check out the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln episode of our podcast, The Lowdown on the Plus-Up.)
Disney saw this as an opportunity to develop new attractions for Disneyland using funding from the lessees of the pavilions for which the attractions were being developed.
The panel, moderated by Leonard Maltin, began as a series of pictures and short films taken at the fair which were discussed by Rebecca Cline, Director of the Walt Disney Archives; Pete Doctor, Chief Creative Officer of Pixar; Tom Fitzgerald, Senior Creative Executive of Imagineering and Ted Ryan, Archives and Heritage Manager of Ford.
Along the way, the crew talked about the Disney attractions developed at the Fair: Pepsi’s It’s a Small World to benefit UNICEF, The State of Illinois’ Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, General Electric’s Progressland (which became The Carousel of Progress) and Ford’s Magic Skyway (which spun out into the WEDWay Peoplemover and the Primeval World diorama on the Disneyland Railroad).
Soon, Ramsey Avery, supervising art director for the film Tomorrowland, joined the panel to describe how he worked to bring the World’s Fair back to life for that film. The It’s a Small World sequences were shot at Disneyland.
The audience was in for even more surprises, however, as Disney Legend Jon Favreau and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige came out on stage to join the discussion. The two, soon joined by soundtrack composer Michael Giacchino (Marvel/Tomorrowland), discussed hiring the late Richard Sherman — along with his brother, Robert, legendary composers of Disney classics that range from the songs of Mary Poppins to The Enchanted Tiki Room — to write a “‘64 World’s Fair-style song” for Iron Man 2. After being assured that they were not going to make fun of the song’s optimism, Richard took the job writing Make Way for Tomorrow, Today.
Then the two gentlemen shocked the audience by presenting a moving video of Sherman playing them the song for the first time. After the performance, Sherman turns around to discuss the song with the attendees and says:
“There was a time — you guys are too young to know this — people really do believe in happy endings and they believe tomorrow was going to be better and wonderful. They weren’t cynical. There’s a lot of cynicism in the world today and I say that you have to believe tomorrow’s going to be wonderful. That’s the whole thing.” — Richard Sherman
The discussion then took another turn as the group began discussing the upcoming film The Fantastic Four: First Steps and how it was influenced by the optimism and innovation of that World’s Fair. It has already been announced that the film will be an alternate version of the 1960s. The ’60s of mid-century modern palettes and scientific egalitarianism will make this film like no other in the MCU’s canon.
If the next phase of the MCU wants to embrace the optimism of Richard Sherman and the innovation of Progressland, count me in.
Stay with Boardwalk Times as we report all the news coming out of Anaheim during D23 — The Ultimate Fan Event.
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times