EPCOT or Epcot?

My wife was listening to the first part of a recent WDW Radio Show hosted by Lou Mongello while I was playing with our daughter.  Lou and his guest, who I apologize for not getting or going back to before writing this to name properly, were discussing the EPCOT pavilion that used to be known as The Living Seas. 

It got me to thinking more about my childhood and what that park meant to me as a kid and later as a teen.  It has always been my favorite park in Florida, though lately I’ve begun to question whether that’s because of what it is today or what my childhood memories paint over it when I’m there?

I watched the excellent ‘Walt – The Man Behind the Myth’ again this past weekend with my wife.

 

If you haven’t seen it, you REALLY need to check it out.  It’s a very loving portrait of Walt and many of his associates, many of them now departed.  Marc Davis for instance sat for his interview with the movie folks just weeks before he passed away. 

It’s full of memories and discussions with other now departed and very missed souls like Harriett Burns, Peter Ellenshaw, John Hench, Bruce Gordon and too many others to mention.  It’s also produced by Walt’s grandson, Walter Elias Disney Miller. 

The movie is done very well.  It show’s lots of touching, behind the scenes moments and candid pictures of Walt both at work, but more importantly with his family.  He loved his daughters and his family very much and you can FEEL it come through in the words of these people, even ones Walt was very tough on like his animators. 

The movie has room to gloss over less happy times in Walt’s life, but I find that it makes no apologies for some of the silly or strange things that both Walt and Roy did or said nor does it try to delete them from the past by no mentioning them.  To know Walt the man, not the myth, is to know him warts and all. 

On a side note, I grew up in the same geographic area as Walt and his siblings, just some 70 years later in Walt’s case.  My wife finds these movies and biographies fascinating because she pointed out to me that not much has changed in that time in the way most people raise their families or go about their business.  She finds it interesting how much of Walt and Roy’s mannerisms, outlook and disposition are still present in mid-western families like my own.

Anyhow, what got me to thinking about EPCOT (not Epcot) was some discussion in this movie by Ray Bradbury.  Specifically it was about Ray’s great insight and respect for Walt’s vision of the future.

And then it struck me . . . the thing I used to LOVE about EPCOT isn’t really there anymore.  The dream that was Walt’s EPCOT of course we all know didn’t quite make it to what was built in Florida.  But what WAS built made no apologies for our past either.  Instead it looked to the future and told a story that could have only been based on a song line that will echo in your head long after you’ve heard it (and no, I’m not talking about Small World); ‘it’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, just a day away…’ the Carousel of Progress.

The heart of what Card Walker, Marty Sklar, Ray and countless others infused into EPCOT in the late 70’s was their attempt to infuse the park with Walt’s unbridled optimism.  Every where you went was a discussion about our past, our present and a look to our future.  There are remnants of that story still throughout the park, but it’s not nearly as cohesive as it used to be, and that’s a shame.

I mean who doesn’t get a chill when they listen to the ending of The American Adventure?  A song and a movie more about our future told THROUGH our past then the other way around.

I hope that we find that heart for EPCOT again some day soon.  I, like many of you, would like nothing more than to be a part of it.  For it’s more than a ride here or a freshening up there.  It’s a story of innovation, hope, hard work and determinism to leave this place a different and hopefully better place than we found it. 

The story of EPCOT IS that hope and that vision.

You can see more about Ray Bradbury’s encounters with Walt and his contributions to EPCOT in a couple of great articles Wade Sampson wrote for MousePlanet here and here.