Here's the best proof yet that Walt wasn't planning to clone DL's castle. This sketch was created January 1967, a month after Walt's death. Even though Walt wasn't alive when this sketch was finished, it was started while he was alive by Imagineer Herb Ryman.
Link to article:
http://progresscityusa.com/2010/07/27/the-ryman-centennial-a-whole-new-disney-world/
A book exploring the history and psychology of the obsession to connect Walt Disney to Walt Disney World would be a fascinating read. It has been there since the beginning. Yes, there is the touching story of Roy wanting to honor his brother and keep his memory alive, but we also know this was the start of an era of questioning and I can't help but think there was a fear that people would not embrace a Disney company without Walt.
Yes, I know that. The point I was trying to make from the beginning of all this was that Walt was 100% focused on EPCOT (the city), but that doesn't mean that some of his Imagineers weren't allowed to work on other things (such as the MK). Walt may have had all his attention on EPCOT, but he could have also delegated power to the Imagineers working on the MK. It's like he pointed out people: "You, you, and you, come with me. I need to borrow your talents to help me with a very special project... And you, Herbert, that space all the way on the top... I need you put a Magic Kingdom there... You know what to do... We've done it before... I trust your creative instincts... Just nothing too fancy... We have budgets and deadlines to make... You can use anyone you want but don't distract the people working with me on this EPCOT project..."
This is 100% honest right here: I think it's cognitive dissonance. So many of us can give you a pretty good biography of Walt just from memory. We know his philosophy, personality, likes, dislikes, passions, etc. We love Walt. We love WDW; most of us have spent thousands and thousands of dollars there having the times of our lives. The problem is that somewhere deep down (some deeper than others) in the bottom of their heart, every serious WDW fan knows that the WDW we have today is not what Walt wanted when he died. Maybe he would have done things the exact same way, would have run up against the same roadblocks, experienced the same cultural changes and come to the same solutions as those who succeeded him... but he died. We don't know what he would have actually done. From the moment when the executives of TWDC abandoned EPCOT the city and started planning EPCOT Center the theme park, it stopped being Walt's dying dream and morphed into something else. But we love that something else.
And that Hollywood Backlot corner of DCA is currently the most forlorn, most pathetic, most under-utilized corner of any Disney theme park in North America. It's a collection of Paul Pressler's hip n' edgy stucco warehouses, with forgotten facilities and empty shells where failed and/or temporary concepts used to be. It's so bad they can leave a giant Alice In Wonderland themed nightly dance party set up all day and no one cares. Bring on Monstropolis and a Door Coaster!
It would fit in better at Downtown Disney. Some of the scaffolding and stuff wouldn't even necessarily look out of place during the day, or at least it would look much better than it does now. HOWEVER, part of the "magic" of Mad Tea Party (like Epcot Food & Wine) is getting people to pay for theme park admission and then using their time in a theme park that they paid for to gobble up $12 drinks.
Sums it up pretty well. And I don't even go to the Mad T Party.
