MK Walt Disney to Appear in Carousel of Progress with New Audio-Animatronic at Magic Kingdom

[Brer Panther]

Stitch needs an attraction like Inside Out does. It’s just a matter of time.

They could just put a clone of the interactive Stitch Encounter show in the Laugh Floor space.

 

[Chester&Hester Enthusiast]

There's no way to give more time for load and unload because all theaters move at the same time every few minutes

Making the opening longer, or letting people take longer to get seated, would make all the other scenes longer too

They have implied that the entire show is receiving an overhaul, so I don't imagine this is an issue. Presumably the show scenes will be retimed.

 

[JIMINYCR]

I'm happy that Walt's AA, with a speaking part will have an appearance in MK. He deserves more to keep his memory alive in the eyes of his guests and get credit for what he accomplished. I'm excited that CoP will get an upgrade and with Disney putting $$$$ into the attraction it will save the attraction for a while at least from going extinct. Eisner, Iger and Bob C. ( thankfully for not long) only got where they got riding on Walt's coattails.

 

[DreamfinderGuy]

The Festival Center will never happen. It was physically impossible to build the way it was designed.

You think the centerpiece of the Gamma project, which was in development for several years, was something they never bothered to do a feasibility study on? They cleared the land and opened the project up for contractor bids. Permits were filed and work was set to begin imminently when they paused development property-wide. That Festival Center was the one thing they were dead set on with that overhaul and stayed consistent all the way up until they were given the order to build something cheaper and quicker. I hate the idea of that building and I'm very thankful it wasn't built, but suggesting it couldn't be built is insane.

 

[themagicalmemories]

I think I freaking love this!

 

[Bocabear]

They could just put a clone of the interactive Stitch Encounter show in the Laugh Floor space.

Ugh! Don't even suggest that...I am hoping they can figure out a couple of new original attractions for those spaces. They should have built the Alien Swirling Saucers inside the Laff Floor Building and put them in an "outer space" environment with stars and galaxies....other spacecraft flying by....Very Jetson's Tomorrowland... which would have been visually stunning and very Disney, but also would have been an all-weather attraction....But too late now...

 

[lentesta]

if they REALLY want to be true to Walt, they should take the final scene back to the mid-ish 60’s, as it was originally staged.

From your keyboard to God's eyes, my friend.

 

[Disstevefan1]

GOOD SHOW DISNEY ! A massive win for fans of CoP!!!

In past posts I said it’s only a matter of time before they close CoP, I am so happy to be wrong!

I am looking forward to this!

 

[Disstevefan1]

I hope one of the updates happens in the last scene when Sara talks about the “car phone”, it should change to “smart phone”, even “cell phone” is outdated today.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

GOOD SHOW DISNEY ! A massive win for fans of CoP!!!

In past posts I said it’s only a matter of time before they close CoP, I am so happy to be wrong!

I am looking forward to this!

Glad to see you enjoying it! I do quite a lot too, glad we're also getting a whole new animatronic version + this basically solidifies COP imo for the long haul as they fully lean into it being "Walt Disney's attraction at WDW" (After all, you wouldn't want to replace your only attraction with the actual Walt Disney animatronic for a while) Glad to see its also getting love elsewhere in the attraction too. Simple easy win here all around. If Laugh Floor + Stitch + SM mountain get their heavily rumoured updates, I would dare say WDW probably has the best actual Tomorrowland imo

 

[networkpro]

Did you want them to do a ritual to have his spirit possess the Walt Animatronic? Or for the animatronic to start whipping the castmembers and say "No unions! I hate diversity! Grrr!"

Obviously, our vision of Walt is skewed as more of the character he represented rather than who he was. He did this himself and most famous people do too. You didn't know him. I didn't know him.

And Disney will continue using a caricature of him to perform thier current company credo no matter how much it contradicts his own actions.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

And Disney will continue using a caricature of him to perform thier current company credo no matter how much it contradicts his own actions.

I think its worth remembering that Walt Disney has always been more complex than the simplified caricuatures that EVERYONE (including you are) projecting onto him. The company is named after him, they're not going to highlight his super controversial takes from 60+ years ago when he lived in a completely different time because who knows how he would change/act if different things were normalized. The truth is, nobody alive today truly knew every side of him, and history often reduces people to fragments: interviews, articles, soundbites, or anything. Just because you read a wiki article, doesn't mean you truly knew who he was. Many of the people who ACTUALLY worked with him DID stay with the company quite long after his death, some still staying with to this day in some capacity. IF everything Disney now does so deeply contradicted him, why would these people who were some of the closest to him chose to remain around and continue his legacy in this manor?

What we're left with are competing interpretations, but Walt wasn't some wiki page or "dark history" headline nor is he a perfect human. He was a human with faults and a legacy that can't be neatly boxed. You can view the history of Walt fairly easily, you can know some of his true opinions. Right now, he's more of a symbol than anything and that's expected. So yeah, Disney is going to highlight his positive light in their attractions. They've continued to build their parks in a way that does atleast try to champion acceptance (for different kinds of people). While Walt's ideals at the time might not have always reflected this, we do know that he enjoyed other cultures and their ideas and took a lot of inspiration to make his attractions. We don't know how his views would be in this current day and age, and to tell you to truth, we never will.

 

[networkpro]

I think its worth remembering that Walt Disney has always been more complex than the simplified caricuatures that EVERYONE (including you are) projecting onto him. The company is named after him, they're not going to highlight his super controversial takes from 60+ years ago when he lived in a completely different time because who knows how he would change/act if different things were normalized. The truth is, nobody alive today truly knew every side of him, and history often reduces people to fragments: interviews, articles, soundbites, or anything. Just because you read a wiki article, doesn't mean you truly knew who he was. Many of the people who ACTUALLY worked with him DID stay with the company quite long after his death, some still staying with to this day in some capacity. IF everything Disney now does so deeply contradicted him, why would these people who were some of the closest to him chose to remain around and continue his legacy in this manor?

What we're left with are competing interpretations, but Walt wasn't some wiki page or "dark history" headline nor is he a perfect human. He was a human with faults and a legacy that can't be neatly boxed. You can view the history of Walt fairly easily, you can know some of his true opinions. Right now, he's more of a symbol than anything and that's expected. So yeah, Disney is going to highlight his positive light in their attractions. They've continued to build their parks in a way that does atleast try to champion acceptance (for different kinds of people). While Walt's ideals at the time might not have always reflected this, we do know that he enjoyed other cultures and their ideas and took a lot of inspiration to make his attractions. We don't know how his views would be in this current day and age, and to tell you to truth, we never will.

Then would you agree if they use anything but audio recordings or verbatim transcriptions of his words or writing it would be pure fiction.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Then would you agree if they use anything but audio recordings or verbatim transcriptions of his words or writing it would be pure fiction.

I agree that it would be a fictional representation of Walt correct yes. I do not believe that it would be necessarily a bad thing however as my favorite WDW attraction does the same thing with Rod Sterling. I don’t think anyone is pretending that this is actually walt or even a mostly similar thing. Walt is no longer with us. Since this is on a ride, this is Walt playing a character, just like he did on TV or in public. He’s acting as a narrator/presenter for the COP. As an actor/presenter, you don’t have to get into your life story about how you disagree with unions or where you lie politically, he’s there to present the attraction and maybe some detail about why he made it. The attraction is not about Walt now, it’s using his likeliness to present what we’re about to see as it’s one of the attractions he actually influenced in WDW

 

[networkpro]

And thats my point directly, Walt as a piece of intellectual property, not a person.

 

[jah4955]

I think its worth remembering that Walt Disney has always been more complex than the simplified caricuatures that EVERYONE (including you are) projecting onto him. The company is named after him, they're not going to highlight his super controversial takes from 60+ years ago when he lived in a completely different time because who knows how he would change/act if different things were normalized. The truth is, nobody alive today truly knew every side of him, and history often reduces people to fragments: interviews, articles, soundbites, or anything. Just because you read a wiki article, doesn't mean you truly knew who he was. Many of the people who ACTUALLY worked with him DID stay with the company quite long after his death, some still staying with to this day in some capacity. IF everything Disney now does so deeply contradicted him, why would these people who were some of the closest to him chose to remain around and continue his legacy in this manor?

What we're left with are competing interpretations, but Walt wasn't some wiki page or "dark history" headline nor is he a perfect human. He was a human with faults and a legacy that can't be neatly boxed. You can view the history of Walt fairly easily, you can know some of his true opinions. Right now, he's more of a symbol than anything and that's expected. So yeah, Disney is going to highlight his positive light in their attractions. They've continued to build their parks in a way that does atleast try to champion acceptance (for different kinds of people). While Walt's ideals at the time might not have always reflected this, we do know that he enjoyed other cultures and their ideas and took a lot of inspiration to make his attractions. We don't know how his views would be in this current day and age, and to tell you to truth, we never will.

Like each and every one of us, we have things we do great, and other things we're not so proud of. Walt himself acknowledged the difference between his "Uncle Walt" persona and the parts of him that he didn't like. Most of his biographers concur that he presented different sides and different times for different people--frequently in consideration with their personalities. Although there remain very, very few non-actors/non-family who knew him personally nearly 60 years after his passing, those who knew him still acknowledge that, overall, he was a good man, a fair man, and often a generous man--but with flaws just like the rest of us, and, yes, very-much a product of his time and Midwestern upbringing. At 90, Floyd Norman continues to "go to bat for him," and I've seen clips from as early as 2001, but most recently 2025, where Bob Gurr gets chocked-up when speaking of Walt's passing. Even associates who didn't care for him personally acknowledged that when something piqued his interest he instantly went from "wounded bear suit" to "Uncle Walt" mode in his enthusiasm, and how he often brought out the best in them.

 

[BlindChow]

That’s what I’m thinking, at the end they just want you out, so I don’t see them putting something to distract you from exiting

"You're still here? It's over! Go home!"

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Oh, those days in late 2001 when they closed it to a point to become just a seasonal attraction and everyone was going apeschmidt if it was closing for good..

Not without cause - the other attractions that went seasonal during that time are now in yesterworld.

For as much as people say “nobody went to Tom Sawyer island” - it never went seasonal.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

And thats my point directly, Walt as a piece of intellectual property, not a person.

He largely always has been both ... His "Uncle Walt" personal was always kept separate from how he was at home

As long as we remember he is both it is all good

 

[TheMaxRebo]

So what do we thing they will do? Keep all the older scenes and just update the last one? Or space them out as like keep the turn of the century one, then the 40s one, but then do like 80s/90s and then 2030s one?