What is the Mount Rushmore of Imagineers?

[britain]

Baxter can get the nod on Indy alone.

One of a handful of attractions where your jaw just drops.

To take the dark ride concept from minor attractions and implement it on that scale, was and is astonishing.

I'm a little cynical about some of his other stuff. Big Thunder looks pretty but is honestly a bad coaster. Every time you start to move it feels like you hit another lift hill. It's just oddly paced.

Tony acknowledged these drawbacks by fixing them in the Paris version of Big Thunder.

 

[mickEblu]

Gurr is an amazing talent worthy of WDI hall of fame, but I always tend to think of him more on the "Engineer" side of "Imagineer." It was John Hench that had the atommobile/doombuggy idea. Gurr figured out how to build it.

When I first posted my Mount Rushmore of Imagineers I was little iffy as I typed it up pretty quickly and had never really thought about it before but the more I read everyone’s responses I think I’m pretty good with my list. The only one I’m a little iffy on is X but I haven’t been convinced of a better replacement. Seems to me like most people have a very confident #1-3 and are iffy on the 4th

 

[britain]

I think it’s interesting that most of the “historically great” imagineers that people think of are the ones behind a relatively narrow slice of WDI history (Pirates, Mansion, Tomorrowland 67). Since that was a very influential slice of history, I get it, but there’s been a lot of Imagineers that have tackled a lot of bigger projects over decades that aren’t mentioned.

Bob Weis anyone? Any Tom Fitzgerald takers?

 

[SuddenStorm]

I think it’s interesting that most of the “historically great” imagineers that people think of are the ones behind a relatively narrow slice of WDI history (Pirates, Mansion, Tomorrowland 67). Since that was a very influential slice of history, I get it, but there’s been a lot of Imagineers that have tackled a lot of bigger projects over decades that aren’t mentioned.

Bob Weis anyone? Any Scott Fitzgerald takers?

Quality is more important than quantity here. I think most fans are far more enamored with 1955-1995 for Disneyland than 1996-2025.

 

[Touchdown]

The invention of the omnimover and other dark ride vehicles and the perfection of the audio animatronic are so central and foundational to the Disney Park experience even today that focusing on the people who made that happen is well warranted. Disney ain’t Disney without animatronics and omnimovers.

 

[SuddenStorm]

The invention of the omnimover and other dark ride vehicles and the perfection of the audio animatronic are so central and foundational to the Disney Park experience even today that focusing on the people who made that happen is well warranted. Disney ain’t Disney without animatronics and omnimovers.

Yes, I'd argue Blaine Gibson needs a spot here. As we've learned since his passing... making a believable animatronic is HARD. He had a way of taking Marc Davis's designs and making them three dimensional... all while ensuring that the figures look believable.

I mean I imagine if he had done the sculpts for the Walt figure it'd look significantly better.

 

[mickEblu]

Quality is more important than quantity here. I think most fans are far more enamored with 1955-1995 for Disneyland than 1996-2025.

Right and is Bob really associated with anything at Disneyland? He’s At DCA I know he worked on Cars Land. Definitely one of the greatest living imagineers. It’s true many of us around here probably have a Disneyland bias (and for good reason as many of the greatest imagineers worked for Walt on Disneyland) but still don’t think Weiss cracks the Top 4.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Right and is Bob really associated with anything at Disneyland? He’s At DCA I know he worked on Cars Land. Definitely one of the greatest living imagineers. It’s true many of us around here probably have a Disneyland bias but still don’t think Weiss cracks the Top 4.

And Fitzgerald, while a legend in his own right, is not at the level of the others mentioned.

 

[mickEblu]

And Fitzgerald, while a legend in his own right, is not at the level of the others mentioned.

Absolutely a Disney legend. Up there with other legends like Anthony Anderson and Patrick Dempsey

Edit: didn’t mean to diminish Fitzgeralds contributions. Just pointing out that that’s what Disney is doing when they make everyone and their mom a Disney legend.

 

[britain]

Right and is Bob really associated with anything at Disneyland? He’s At DCA I know he worked on Cars Land. Definitely one of the greatest living imagineers. It’s true many of us around here probably have a Disneyland bias (and for good reason as many of the greatest imagineers worked for Walt on Disneyland) but still don’t think Weiss cracks the Top 4.

I just think it's interesting that the Imagineer in charge of the original Disney-MGM park, DCA 2.0 (including Buena Vista Street and the Pier improvements, let alone Carsland) AND all of Shanghai Disneyland is still considered a tier below the group that made a few rides in the 1960's. I mean, Yo-Ho is a great song, and the illusions in the Mansion are terrific, but do X Atencio & Yale Gracey deserve higher spots on the mountain than Bob Weis?

I'm not saying I feel differently, I'm observing that we have a soft spot for really just a handful of classic DL imagineering moments.

What about the team that did Typhoon Lagoon? Or the American Adventure, or Horizons, or the Grand Floridian? Or freakin Tokyo DisneySea!? There are so many non-DL things out there that are amazing (or were before they were downgraded) made by genius artists and yet danged if I know their names.

 

[mickEblu]

I just think it's interesting that the Imagineer in charge of the original Disney-MGM park, DCA 2.0 (including Buena Vista Street and the Pier improvements, let alone Carsland) AND all of Shanghai Disneyland is still considered a tier below the group that made a few rides in the 1960's. I mean, Yo-Ho is a great song, and the illusions in the Mansion are terrific, but do X Atencio & Yale Gracey deserve higher spots on the mountain than Bob Weis?

I'm not saying I feel differently, I'm observing that we have a soft spot for really just a handful of classic DL imagineering moments.

What about the team that did Typhoon Lagoon? Or the American Adventure, or Horizons, or the Grand Floridian? Or freakin Tokyo DisneySea!? There are so many non-DL things out there that are amazing (or were before they were downgraded) made by genius artists and yet danged if I know their names.

No I agree. It is an interesting observation and I acknowledged that many of us around here have a bias or soft spot for Disneyland. I don’t think Bob Weiss can be placed over Hench, Davis or Baxter but objectively I can see why one would place him above X Atencio or Yale Gracey. Although like I’ve repeated throughout this thread, I think a good case can be made for X even if his contributions were more narrow in scope than some of the other imagineers like Weis.

 

[mickEblu]

And really how can you not have a soft spot for the early imagineers? They all worked under Walt and not only created Disneyland and many of the classic attractions but many of them also worked on some of the best animated films of all time.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I just think it's interesting that the Imagineer in charge of the original Disney-MGM park, DCA 2.0 (including Buena Vista Street and the Pier improvements, let alone Carsland) AND all of Shanghai Disneyland is still considered a tier below the group that made a few rides in the 1960's.

Shanghai Disneyland is a sloppily designed park that was lead with promises of gutting Walt Disney Imagineering…

 

[mickEblu]

artists and yet danged if I know their names.

Maybe I’m just getting old but it feels that way with actors, musicians and celebrities too. I don’t know anyone’s name. There’s too much competition. Too much content. Too much accessibility with everyone on social media all the time. No mystique.

Not to mention those early imagineers were part of some huge moments in American history between Disneyland and Early animated films. We’re talking historical. You can’t compare that to Disney’s 12th park located in Tokyo or the 117th theme park in general. No matter how good it is.

 

[mickEblu]

Shanghai Disneyland is a sloppily designed park that was lead with promises of gutting Walt Disney Imagineering…

I’m guessing he may have meant to put the Pirates ride there instead of the whole park but I could be wrong.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I’m guessing he may have meant to put the Pirates ride there instead of the whole park but I could be wrong.

Weis was lead for the park, not the Pirates ride. And it was done with promises of making Walt Disney Imagineering more like Universal Creative was at the time (predominately outsourcing work).

 

[mickEblu]

Weis was lead for the park, not the Pirates ride. And it was done with promises of making Walt Disney Imagineering more like Universal Creative was at the time (predominately outsourcing work).

Oh I thought he had a major role on the attraction too.

 

[britain]

Weis was lead for the park, not the Pirates ride. And it was done with promises of making Walt Disney Imagineering more like Universal Creative was at the time (predominately outsourcing work).

I'll grant you Shanghai seems to be oddly designed (unlike beautiful Disneyland Paris). I don't care for the Shanghai castle, and the river that's more of a lake. I've never been there, and there are aspects to it that seem ingenious, but on the whole it does seem like a copy of a copy of real Disney Theme Park DNA.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Tony is a talented wild card. It makes sense, him being super creative, but I've frequently been surprised by some of his opinions. He's (if I'm remembering correctly) the one to say to JK Rowling "No, we're not going to build a replica of Hogsmede & Hogwarts. We're going to find a tidy little corner for you within Fantasyland." He's the one that recommended to John Lasseter (right after John got the job as WDI advisor) that the only way to fix DCA would be to make it a publicly accessible part of Downtown Disney and charge for individual tickets for the individual rides already there (in otherwords, there's no way to make it as good as Disneyland, so cut bait and give up).

It's possible Bruce has reached out to him, but Tony may have simply too many opinions and demands that clash with management's objectives. I really don't know.

If you're an engineer, your legacy is determined not by the thousand planes you made fly, but by the three planes you made crash.

If you're an artist, your legacy is determined not by your thousand forgettable works, but by your three masterpieces that soared to heaven.

 

[Figments Friend]

Id imagine most people have Tony Baxter on their Mount Rushmore. It's such a shame that Disney has one of, if not, the greatest imagineers at their disposal and they don't utilize him. Not even to retheme Splash Mountain. Smh

They choose not to because there are still jealous ‘enemies’ working at WDI.

Sad, but true.

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