TechList: The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow

You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably more than a few puns, because that's kind of how I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to

tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, and I love all things tech, and we are going to listen to another special episode and this entertainment playlist. This is the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, also known as EPCOT, which currently is closed. But it's an interesting story to hear about the origins of EPCOT and how it changed from its original concept to its actual execution. So I hope you guys enjoy

this episode, and uh, let's take a listen. Back on October one, two Walt Disney World opened its Phase two theme park. The original park, the Magic Kingdom, was Phase one that had opened on October one, nineteen seventy one, and this episode is publishing in October one, two thousand eighteen.

So I figured I would do an episode specifically about the concept behind the original Epcot and how that was different from the theme park that would open thirty six years from now, Like back back thirty six years ago, back in time. Well, today's Epcot is presented as a proper noun, So Epcot is just its name, big E, small, PC, O T. But originally the name was actually an acronym. Now there's a joke about what that acronym stands for. The joke says that stands for every person comes out

tired because Epcot is an enormous theme park. It's twice the size of the Magic Kingdom, three times the size of Disneyland, and there's very little shade in the Florida whether can be a bit unforgiving for much of the year,

for example, when I was there. But in fact, the acron him really stood for experimental prototype community of tomorrow, and it was one of Walt Disney's dream projects, a truly ambitious goal that he had set now before nineteen Epcot was a name only a relatively few number of people had ever heard, uh it had not escaped the company and a few small or a few partners potential partners. So Walt Disney had been interested in creating a prototype

city that incorporated cutting edge technology. It would have sophisticated urban planning from the get go, and this was an idea he came up with not long after Disneyland was established in the fifties. He had previously explored the possibility

of creating such a city. In nineteen fifty nine, he got an opportunity with some developers outside of Palm Beach, Florida up He had previously looked at New York as a site, but determined that that was not a very good site for an amusement park, largely because of whether it would probably mean that the theme park would only really be an operation for part of the year, and he wand year long operations because it was the most efficient use of the space. So he had looked around

the Eastern Seaboard. He looked at Palm Beach, Florida. It would have been a joint effort between Disney's company, uh NBC r c A and a billionaire named John D. MacArthur. But the plan fell through. Our c A went through some financial difficulties and kind of had to withdraw from it, and there were disagreements between Roy Disney, who was sort of the financial genius behind the Disney Company, and MacArthur,

so they didn't go any further than that. But Walt Disney had really started to think about this idea of creating a city, and he was resolved to give it a shot if he had the chance. The first time the public got to hear at least a hint about Disney's dream of this community of tomorrow would be back in November nineteen sixty five at a press conference. This was a press conference where the company, the Disney Company, revealed that had purchased nearly twenty eight thousand acres of

land in central Florida. Now, at that press conference, Walt Disney announced that they had in mind something much more than an entertainment offering like Disneyland. Now that's not to disparage Disneyland. I truly love that theme park, but rather to say that Walt Disney had a larger vision for the Orlando deal. Initially, though he was rather coy with

sharing those ideas. They the details for what they were planning were pretty sparse at that press conference, which, by the way, you can watch that press conference is on YouTube. You can pull up the November nineteen announcement of what would become Walt Disney World. At this point it was the Florida Project. Walt Disney didn't want to commit publicly to any one plan that early in the process. He did say that he had many ideas and he wanted the project to at least be the equal of Disneyland,

if not superior to Disneyland. But following the conference, there were news reports that said the site would become the home of a city of yesterday, so presumably meaning a community that harkened back to an idealistic vision of Americana, kind of like the embodiment of Main Street USA at the various Disney parks, and it would also be the home of a city of tomorrow, and that it would be at least three years before anything of consequence could be built on the site of Florida because there'll be

a lot of preliminary work that would need to be done before any foundation could be laid. Walt Disney died on December fift nineteen sixty six, due to cancer. Just a couple of months after his death, the Walt Disney Company sent out press kits to the media, including The New York Times, and those press kits included plans for what was to become of all that land in Florida. And at the heart of this plan was this new

type of city. It was a say that was designed to take advantage of modern technologies from the ground up, a city purposefully laid out and integrated so that the people who lived and worked there could spend less time dealing with day to day frustrations and more time being productive and doing what most you know, Americans think of as being the truly American activity, pursuing the heck out of happiness. So in this press kett where concept images

of elements of this city. One of those concept images showed a collection of buildings laid out around in a hub and wheel pattern of what the company referred to as the radial design that would be common to all elements of this new city. You would see this same sort of basic element of design repeated throughout the various incarnations.

Each building in this particular drawing for this industrial park part of the city was shaped kind of like a slice of high but you cut the pointy bit off, so you've got a flat part towards this pointing towards the center, the center being a circular sort of courtyard, and each building is like a slightly separated piece of pie. This industrial complex was supposed to be a place where

corporations would partner with Disney. They would have their locations here to create a kind of a showcase of industry at work. According to the breast kit, so it's supposed to be kind of a a stage almost where American industry could be shown off, not just for promotional purposes, but also a way to interact with the public and

show off the newest of innovations. Uh Walt Disney was a great believer in American ingenuity and innovation, and he wanted this to be kind of a stage for those companies. Another image included a cutaway concept of what the company referred to as the Transportation Lobby. This would actually be located beneath an enormous hotel, a thirty story hotel, so you have a thirty story hotel. And then where you would have the ground level, like where pedestrians will be

walking around outside, you had the transportation lobby. In this image, you can see people walking around on that ground floor, and that's the that's the domain of pedestrians. Beneath the transportation lobby, you would see parking facilities and highways. The road was actually beneath this prototype community of Tomorrow. It didn't run through it, it ran under it. Not that different from what Elon Musk has proposed with some of his tunnel systems that he would like to build under

various cities. So you could argue that Elon Musk is trying to bring to life at least part of this vision of the community of Tomorrow. And these highways would also include specific sections meant for specific types of vehicles. At the bottommost layer would be the the level for supply trucks, so trucks carrying important supplies for the community would actually travel on the lowest level and they would have direct access to things like freight elevators, and then

commuter traffic would be a level above that. But still below ground, and then you would have the ground floor where people could walk around. Above that would be elevated tracks, and you would have a system that was essentially the wed Way people Mover. Anyone who's been to Disneyland or Walt Disney World is probably somewhat familiar of the people Mover, and that would be sort of a short distance, slow

public transit offering, not not a fast travel. But then across from that is an elevated monorail, and that was meant to be for longer distances and faster travel. So, according to the press kit, the Transportation Lobby will be located at the very heart of Epcot, directly beneath the thirty story theme hotel. This will be the central arrival departure point for all passengers using the monorail or the

newly designed wed Way people Mover. Another drawing showed a large indoor shopping district that was meant to hold imported merchandise, foreign cuisine, dinner shows, and roving entertainers native to many lands. So you start to hear a little elements that you might recognize if you've been to the Upcot theme park, but these were meant on a much grander scale. This press kit, by the way, it was just a taste

of the concept. Walt Disney, back in nineteen sixty six, just a couple of months before he passed away, had actually shot a twenty four minute film about this concept. The film would premiere in February ninety seven, so two months after Disney had passed away. In that film, Disney would mention that the details of what was going on in Florida would be this experimental prototype community of tomorrow, or at least a large part of it would be.

The underlying philosophy would be pretty rock solid, But Disney did say that the drawings he was going to reveal were concepts that could easily undergo a great deal of change before they were ever made real. So his plan was to build this community, but he wasn't entirely certain that it was going to look exactly the way his

artists had designed it from the get go. He mentioned that the Florida project, now called Disney World, would include a theme park that would be similar to Disneyland in California, but that would be one small component of the new project, because again, the land in Florida was enormous. You would also have hotels, motels, recreational facilities, and much more. For example, the plans also included an airport of the future at the southern end of the property, opposite where the theme

park was to be located. So the theme park was to be at the north end, and this airport would have been at the southern end. The airport would then feed into what was labeled as an entrance complex was a little bit further to the north, and that would be the entry point for visitors to Disney World. They would go through this kind of like main gates in a way. But this itself was a pretty large complex.

In fact, on the map, the complex looks like it's larger than what was the planned one thousand acre industrial park I mentioned earlier that was actually next in line to the north so airport. Then you get the entrance complex, then you get the industrial park next to the north. Beyond that was Epcot itself, the full city prototype design, and then at the very tippy top on the north end was the theme park in hotels. Connecting all of those elements was the mono rail system. And to call

it ambitious would be a massive understatement. And Epcot was, as Walt Disney himself put it in that nineteen sixty six film that debuted in sixty seven, the heart of the operation, it was what he was most excited about. That's what the Florida project was really focused on. Was EPCOT. Now, according to Disney, the city wouldn't just be a showcase for the cutting edge technologies of the late nineteen sixties. It would be a community that would evolve continuously as

technology advanced. It would never be complete, it would never be finished. It would be a community that embraced change and advances. So what was Disney proposing beyond these concept drawings and these broad ideas. What was the driving force behind his vision. I'll explain that in just a moment, but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. In that nineteen sixty six film, Walt Disney said that the primary factor that would drive the design principles for

EPCOT would be public need. That designing the city with the public need and mind from the get go would create the best chance of building a community that met those needs from the start. So ideally, you would take all the knowledge accumulated through decades of urban planning and use it to lay out a city in a logical intuitive way, so that the city is adapted to the people living in it, rather than the citizens having to adapt to the city. So how was it laid out? Well,

it goes back to that radial design. Imagine a wheel like a bicycle wheel and has a hub in the middle and their spokes from the hub leading out to the outer edge. That's the basic design of the original Epcot. Disney was attracted to this particular design for a few reasons. For one, it was really efficient. Having controlled points of entry and a radial design allowed for efficient circulation of traffic. And for another, it also made it easy to navigate.

Orienting yourself in such a layout was relatively easy. You had an identifiable central point and predictable layouts surrounding it, so even if you got a little turned around, it would be pretty easy to find your way back to a familiar point and then figure out where you were from there. So at the center, the hub part, the middle of the circle would be the sort of the downtown section of this community would be a sort of

a business complex. It's where you'd find office buildings, corporate jobs, things like that. It's also where you would find major cultural centers, museums, theaters, entertainment complexes, restaurants would be in this section, nightlife locations, clubs, that kind of thing would be there. It would incorporate all the elements we associate

with a ibrant downtown area of a major city. At the very center of the sub would be that hotel I mentioned, the thirty story tall hotel, and that hotel would also have a deck measuring seven acres in size, and that seven acre deck would also have recreational areas including, according to the concept drawings, ponds, there be parks. The deck would be several stories above the pedestrian level of the city center, so you'd have to go into the hotel and go up to the right floor to get

out on that deck. And incredibly, the entire section, this whole downtown part of epp Cut was supposed to be enclosed in a climate controlled dome. There's the center of Epcut was a city in a bubble, which, if you've experienced Florida heat and humidity, was likely a big selling point to a lot of the people who were thinking about this design because being able to stroll around a shopping plaza or walk to work or just wandering downtown without being subjected to the swamping mess that is a

Florida summer was a truly futuristic idea. Now, on the ground level of the city, the only way to really get around would be by foot. You might be able to use something like an electric UH scooter or a bicycle as well, although that was more intended for further out from the center, but we'll get to that. So you'd really be the pedestrian UH wandering around here because

all the car traffic would be below you. It would be underground, and all the public transit would be above you on elevated rails, either the people mover on its own elevated track or the monorail on its elevated track, And those last two the people move around the monorail would also be electric powered vehicles, so at least in theory, they would operate quietly and they would not generate pollution, although I got to back that up a little bit

because you have to generate the electricity that runs the system. So depending upon how you generated the electricity, you can still be generating a lot of pollution. It's just to be in a different part of the chain, right, a different part of the ecosystem. It would be in the electricity generation part, but not the direct operation of the vehicle. But you still have to look at the big picture. You can't just look at tiny sections and just say

this is automatically better. But it was an interesting idea. The monorail would have a station under the hotel at the transportation center, as I mentioned, so it would still be located on kind of the ground floor of the city itself. Right, the transportation center would be on the pedestrian level of this city, and the hotel would be essentially like the lobby of the hotel as I would imagine, it would be floor too. Now on the outskirts of this sector, the center, the hub of the city would

be high density apartment housing. So this would be for uh, folks who are working right there in downtown. Might be for single people who are working within that city. It could be people who are working in the theme park and who aren't you know, they don't they don't have their own families, but they need a place to live. But this would give them very quick access to that theme park because again the theme park would be connected by monorail to the north. So uh, this was not

the main part of housing. It was just one element of it. The only a small percentage of Epcot's population would be living in these high density apartments, according to the promotional film. Now the next section out from the center, so you've got downtown, you know, the high density apartments. Immediately surrounding downtown. Around that was a green belt of parks. So the next layer out, if you're thinking of it like a target, the next ring outside of the bull's

eye was the screen elt. So you had parks, you had golf courses, sporting fields, you know, football fields, baseball diamonds, that kind of stuff. And this would be the section of Epcot that would serve as the location also for things like schools and churches, and it would be the play space for the city where people could come and spend time outside. So this is no longer in the bubble. This is outside the bubble. And then outside of that would be the low density housing, the suburbs of Epcot.

These would be for homes with uh for families, and it would actually hold the majority of Epcot's residents. Most people would be living out in these suburbs. Each residential area would surround the end of one of those spokes I talked about. So if you again imagine a bicycle that has spokes leading out from the center wheel, or maybe maybe we should say a wagon wheel because there has fewer spokes. Uh, each spoke would be surrounded by

green space. Uh. The spoke itself would represent the act for the people mover, So the people mover track would go uh out and back from the hub along these spokes. Surrounding that track would be this big green space kind of like again more parks, golf courses, recreational facilities. And on the outer edge of this would actually be the houses. And then on the back side of the houses would be a road where people could drive their cars before going underneath to get to the downtown area if they

needed to drive their cars. Although Disney's plan was that for day to day use, you would not even use your car. You would use the people mover transit system to get in and out of Epcot. You would only use your car if you needed to go further or you know, you just want to go take the family for a drive. People would either work in the business center or in the industrial complexes that were south of the community, or in the theme parks that were north

of the community. In the concept, every citizen of Epcot would be guaranteed a job, and the community would be home to around twenty thousand people. The community would be a model for a city unit, and future cities might consist of several communities designed in this way, all linked together by monorail lines. And this was an enormously ambitious idea. Walt Disney himself admitted that the challenge was far too big for any one company to take on by itself.

Epcot would have to be a joint effort between many different companies to become a reality. These would have to be companies that wanted to have a spot in that industrial complex, for example, where they could experiment with different approaches to prototyping and pioneering news systems and practices. The theme park would help bring in money to help support the infrastructure and would provide employment to many of the residents of Epcot. And leading up to this, Disney and

his team had learned a lot. They learned lessons from building out the company's movie studio buildings in Burbank, California. They learned even more during the construction and launch of Disneyland. Disneyland, you may know also employs the hub and spoke design, that radial design. You've got the castle in the center and the different lands like fantasy Land, tomorrow Land, frontier Land,

adventure Land on the outskirts. It follows that same idea and it has that identifiable center with the castle that lets you figure out where you are in relation to everything else pretty quickly. Uh. Walt Disney learned he wanted more control over the environment after he built Disneyland, because when he built Disneyland, what followed were all these hotels and motels popping up around from other, you know, business owners, and it became kind of a tourist trappee area around Disneyland,

and Walt Disney didn't like that at all. He felt it marred the appearance of disney Lands. So with Florida, he wanted to exert a lot more control over the environment so that people would experience it the way he wanted them to and that they would not have their view of whatever it was that he wanted to look at, for example, the Magic Kingdom, they wouldn't. He didn't want that marred by Tachi hotels or restaurants. And the company had landed some pretty darn good deals with the state

of Florida. Before this announcement was made. There were lots of tax incentives. There were agreements between city, county, and state levels of government and the Disney Company. The groundwork was laid from a political and administrative side, and the stage was set and Disney's plan for a futuristic city, one that would cater to pedestrians and serve as a platform for American industry and ingenuity, which would then be incorporated directly into the homes themselves. People would have the

latest appliances and they would get updated frequently. It was gonna be an incredible city of the future. I'm gonna have your workplace nearby, recreational facilities at at a just a short walk away. It was a phenomenal, phenomenal goal. Walt Disney was really gung ho on this and the whole idea of the American dream, an American industry and engineering. So what the heck happened? Why did this vision that Walt Disney had, Why did this never materialize in this way?

How did we go from an experimental small city to a much more modest in the grand scheme of things, theme park that incorporates some but not all of these grand visions. And what's going on with that Cot now, well, I'll explain, but first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. April nineteen sixty nine, Roy Disney held a press conference. At that conference, he renamed the Florida project.

It had been called disney World. He renamed it Walt Disney World in order for it to be a direct reference to his brother. He wanted to honor his brother, who had passed away in nineteen sixty six. He also talked about the launch of what was called Phase one, which would be this new theme park which we call the Magic Kingdom today. So this was the Florida equivalent to Disneyland. There was no real mention of Epcot at

this press conference. That was a project Walt Disney had estimated would take probably about fifteen years to build out for its entirety. But Walt's death also meant the EPCOT project as it was intended, was doomed to die. Roy Disney held a meeting with some of the head imagineers.

Those are what he refers to as their designers and engineers are imagineers imagination and engineering together, and at this meeting it became clear that without Walt Disney's energy and leadership behind this project, Epcot really didn't have what it was going to need to get through the numerous challenges that the company was going to face in order to

actually build out the city. And it wasn't just that Walt Disney had a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of energy, but as also that he inspired confidence and other people, confidence from companies that would need to partner in order for this project have come to life. Walt could convince people to buy in to his goals, but with his death, landing those partnerships with companies, which would be an absolute necessity to get the project of this

size moving, would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. So without Walt, there really wasn't a chance for Epcot as the original vision had laid it out. Epcot Center, the theme park, as the story goes, grew out of two different park ideas proposed by imagineers John Hench and Marty Sklar. One was a project called the World Showcase, which would bring select nations of the world together into a theme park.

Each nation would have its own section or pavilion, and each nation would employee people from those countries to work in their respective countries pavilion. The other concept was one called Future World, which would showcase cutting edge technology, and combining them together would create sort of what they thought of as a permanent World's Fair as an amusement park,

and that would become Epcot Center. So Epcot Center would incorporate some of the principles that were in the original Epcot concept, like that that shopping district Downtown was very similar in some ways to what the World Showcase was going to be, but this was going to be a theme park, not an actual community where people would live. So gone is the climate controlled Downtown Center, probably the harshest blow of them all, if you asked me. Gone

were the houses, Gone were the apartments. The proposed transportation systems were no longer really necessary, or at least there was no easy way to incorporate them into the design of the park, which is a shame because, as I said earlier, it's twice the size of the Magic Kingdom, three times the size of Disneyland. Walking around Epcot is tough. If you walk around the entire park, it it'll it'll

hurt you. Tutsis in the original Epcot concept residents would use bicycles or electric scooters to travel the last mile between homes and public transit systems. Those would be right out, although depending on the time of year, you can sometimes find a an offer to take segue tours of parts of the park. I didn't see it on my last trip, so I don't know if they're still doing it, but

in the past they have. But in the theme park's Future World section, there were originally nine pavilions, not not on opening not all nine were available on opening day, but there were nine pavilions that were meant to embody certain fundamental aspects of industry and the future. So here are the original nine pavilions of Future World. And I'm not going to go into all the different countries of

World showcase. Uh. There are eleven of those currently and there's plans of possibly opening up another one, maybe two in the near future. Uh. The next one that's rumored to be under consideration is India. But let's get to Future World first. You have the iconic geodesic sphere structure that everyone associates with e cut and that is Spaceship Earth. It's still there, it's still a ride, it's still operating.

The theme of Spaceship Earth is communication and how the development of communication tools has shaped human history, at least in an idealistic vision. It is also about the capability of communication to bring us closer together. Uh. I don't necessarily think that communication has brought everybody closer together, but

it certainly has facilitated lots of flame wars. Next, we're a pair of buildings behind Spaceship Earth that were originally called Communicore, although they later became known as Interventions, and even that got stripped down. So now you've got on one side what used to be one part of Interventions is a meeting great section for various Disney characters. There's also a Starbucks over there, and uh a drink station. Uh.

The other side is still Interventions. But Communicore was meant to be the home of cutting edge technologies, specifically with a consumer focus, and I'm sure one reason it got paired down is that technology changes really really quickly. So you would install an exhibit and then it would go obsolete not long after the installation, because real world technology would catch up or pass whatever it was that was

on display. So very challenging to keep that going in fact, you could argue that for pretty much all the future world you call it future world, the future is always coming, and if you don't keep upgrading your park and updating it, then it quickly ends up becoming a relic. You could argue that parts of Upcot kind of fall into that category. Next was the Universe of Energy that was all about our energy sources, things like fossil fuels and renewable energy.

The pavilion featured moving theaters. You would go and sit down and the actual theater you were in would turn into kind of a very slow moving ride and take you two from scene to scene, and the pavilion would change in nine to become Ellen's Energy Crisis and then Ellen's Energy Adventure, and that version of the attraction was hosted and narrated by Ellen Degenerous. This attraction is now closed. In fact, it's being dismantled. It's being demolished to make

way for a new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. And when I was at Upcut, they were busy disassembling the old building. In fact, I actually went there on two different days and the whole front facade of the building was gone the second time I went. Then there was the World of Motion, and as the name suggests, that

was all about the future of transportation. Had an omni mover vehicle kind of like the systems that are in things like the Haunted Mansion, and this omni mover vehicle would take guests through a ride that was all about the the importance of transportation systems and various vehicles. That pavilion was shut down and replaced in nineteen by test track, so it no longer exists. Next, we have the Land Pavilion, which,

like Spaceship Earth, still exists at upcut. Thank goodness, we've we've actually landed on our second pavilion that's still around. Not all the original attractions that opened with the Land are still there. However, the Land is all about agriculture and food technology, or at least it used to be. It still has the Listen to the Land boat right in it, although now it's called Living with the Land. But it's the same essential thing where you look at

different ways of growing and cultivating food. But gone is the film symbiosis that was there on opening day. It's no longer there. Gone is Kitchen Cabaret, also known as Food Rocks when it was overhauled. In place of that attraction is now the ride Soaring. But Kitchen Cabaret was a show that had animatronic food characters that would sing various songs with hot tunes like Veggie, Veggie, Fruit Fruit. I kind of loved that attraction, but to be fair, I also went to Epcot when it was first opened

and I was very young. In addition, a few other pavilions were built after the initial opening in nine eight two That included Horizons that opened in nineteen three that integrated the various concepts a future world into what it would be like to live in a typical home in America in the future. It was meant to show how transportation, communication, energy, and all the rest would come together to make our future is incredible. And the ride featured a user interface.

You could actually choose options in the ride, and the ride would show you different things based upon your choices. It was actually pretty nifty. It was sponsored by GE, but GE pulled its sponsorship in The ride would be opened and closed for the next few years, you know, operating seasonally, but it closed permanently in nine The entire building was demolished the following year and where that used to be is now where Mission Space sits in Upcut.

The Imagination Pavilion also opened in nineteen eighty three. It's still at Upcut. It was themed around creativity and imagination had a ride in which you encountered a character called dream Finder and his friendly little critter named Figment. The ride has been revamped a couple of times. The section called a Man and Works has been shut down, part of it has been turned into a lounge for Disney

Vacation Club members, and the rest is unused. Although I understand you can actually glimpse it at certain sections of the Imagination Pavilion, you just can't go into it anymore, which is kind of sad. The ride is typically only operational during really busney busy days, so it's kind of seasonal. The Living Seas opened in NINETI, so four years after the park had opened. It was the world's largest aquarium

when it opened. Is no longer that it included a ride that would involve visitors going into chambers that were meant to look like special elevators. They were called hydro laders, and they appeared to descend in a watery tunnel and actuality. You weren't going anywhere. The floor would shake a bit, the walls would shake a bit, and some bubbles through the windows would create the the illusion that you were

descending in water. But then can we get on an Omnimover style ride and you would ride past several aquarium scenes before were getting to an open area where you could look at different sea creatures. The ride got re themed as Finding Nemo Ride in two thousand four. The Wonders of Life Pavilion joined Future World in nine and was themed around life and health. The Human Body had a ride called Body Wars, which used the same technology

as the popular Star Tours rides would later on. There were other attractions in that pavilion as well, like a show called Cranium Command, which was absolutely brilliant and I loved it. In two thousand four, the Wonders of Life Pavilion would switch to seasonal operations. In two thousand seven, it closed permanently and the entire thing was gutted. Disney now uses the building for special functions. For example, on my most recent visit, it served as the festival center

for the Food and Wine Festival. Today, Future World has Spaceship Earth. About half of interventions UH Mission space test track imagination sometimes, but Land and the Seas would Nemo and Friends. Much of the theming has transitioned away from what Walt Disney's original vision was all about, largely, I think because a lot of those attractions depended heavily upon sponsorships from other companies, and some of those companies don't even exist anymore. They've gone out of business. Some of

them pulled their sponsorships. Maybe they felt they weren't getting a really strong return on their investment, or they needed the money for something else, but whatever the case. Right now, to me, Epcot feels like a park that lacks a real identity, and there's honestly not that much to do from an attraction standpoint when you go to Epcot, Like, you can walk around the whole park of Epcot and think, I rode three rides and there might be one more

in the entire park that I haven't gone on. Uh. There are a lot of shops you can go to, and there are restaurants you can go to, and there are a couple of films you can watch in the World Showcase, but there's not a whole lot to do. Just when you consider how big that park is, there are some big plans for the future, including a potential

new countries in the World Showcase. Like I mentioned, the Guardians of the Galaxy ride is going to be the largest indoor roller coaster in the world as far as I understand it, But it doesn't sound like it's going to get closer to what Walt Disney's original vision was. In fact, it sounds like it's moving even further away from that. Now. There are other things I could talk about in this episode. I could talk about Celebration, Florida.

That is an actual residential area on Disney World property, but it's also a radically different realization of the suburbs of Epcot that Walt Disney had in mind. For one thing, the whole idea that people would use public transit and that they would use bicycles for that last mile that went right out the window over in Celebration, that is a very that's very much a you need a car to get around kind of place. So that was our

episode about Epcot. Hope you guys liked it. If you have any suggestions for future episodes, reach out to me. You can send me a message on Facebook or Twitter. The handle is tech stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y Text Stuff is an I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.