a luau, hukilau, or just a family picnic. The flavor of Hawaii is refreshing in many forms, and Hawaiians really know how to enjoy it. Once so rare, only kings could afford it. Pineapple is now known as the king of fruits. Today it is the symbol of hospitality around the world.
Welcome to the 3028, a show about theme park history and pop culture listery. I am Matt Parrish. And I am Kevin Quigley. Hey, Kevin. We are back on the show here. We're finally doing... A show on your favorite Nickelodeon series, Legends of the Hidden Temple. Oh, no, Matt. I sent you the wrong notes. Oh, no. Oh, no. We're doing Legends of the Enchanted Island today. Oh, I thought we were doing the Nickelodeon show. You didn't want to be the Purple Parrots or the... Blue Barracudas?
Look, if it's not, you can't do that on television. I don't want to hear it. I did love Nick game shows, by the way. I was fully in. Double Dare. Yeah, Finders Keepers. There was Guts. I think I could have crushed on guts. I loved guts. Oh, that's so weird. You just unlocked a memory. Do you have it, Kev? Do I have guts? Yes, I do. And the host, her name was Moe.
which I thought was awesome. I think she was British. Anyway, we're not talking about anything like that, but we did have the guts to get together this week and try to get closer to the finish line with our World's Fair series. Yay! Yeah, the cool thing about the world sphere, so as I said to Matt earlier, Walt Disney, you know, we've been talking about this. Walt Disney basically had this idea, and he said, okay. I'm going to have the World's Fair. I want the World's Fair to pay for five...
of my rides, my experiences at Disneyland, and World's Fair said yes to four of those ideas. I mean, that's pretty awesome. It's not a bad ratio. This is the fifth one. Yeah, and this deserves a place in our city. series because not only is it in line and connected to our overall theme, but it's very connected to a lot of the work that you have done through the years. Your personality, your identity is all wrapped up in this theme.
I didn't realize that this was going to be... And I kind of think it's a part of a midlife crisis, even though it doesn't feel like a crisis. But this is very much one... A very me thing that like Jeff introduced me to and that my whole life became this. And then two, it kind of became part of the fabric of the show, which is interesting because in your old show, your brother was the tiki guy. Yeah.
And you did a whole episode on Tiki, like the history of Tiki. And I've said this before and I'll say it again. I skipped it when I was first listening to your show because I'm like, what do I care about Tiki? I don't even, what? Sure. Yeah, we did a show just about Tiki culture. And at the time. Like,
I wasn't really into that. But my brother, he went to the Tiki Cat in Kansas City when it was open, and he was all into that stuff, which was great. It was not really something I had experienced. Because, Kevin, I live in the Ozarks. We don't have... have tiki so much around here. You would argue, and then some have argued, that you need tiki more in places like that. Like the Hikiki Supper Club was in like Columbus, Ohio.
And like some places, other places in the Midwest. But yeah, so Tiki Cat was great in Kansas City. It just didn't last very long because of some things. But we're here. This is like the nexus of all of my favorite things. We get to talk about the New York World's Fair. We get to talk about Disney. We get to talk about Tiki. And we get to talk about it together because we're friends. Me. I'm here. I'm in your nexus. You're one of my favorite things. I'm your nexus six.
Kev, hey, quickly on the show, we don't always do shout outs at the beginning, but we need to shout out friends of the show, Christine and Brian, who sent us our own personal Robits. Our robots. So we did a show about Disney robots and Christine was listening to it and she like cracked up and she loved it. And we talked about the Asamo robot that was at the interventions in Disneyland.
And she sent us her own personal Asimov. I can't believe it. It was like the coolest thing. I opened this package and I was like, what is this? Oh, my God. This is Asimov. Oh, my goodness. This is Isaac Asimov. Yes. Which we made a joke on. The Robot Show. So go back and listen to Robot...
Robotology, a show that we did. The robots are coming. We did that earlier in the season and it was so much fun and a listener loved it so much that they sent us our own personal robots. It's not Garko, but just as good. Just as good. If you're a Disney fan. Asimo is currently on top of my microwave, making sure that I don't overcook the broccoli. I love this. Thank you so much, Christina Bryan, for that. That's really, really sweet. But let's get into some theme parkity stuff before.
We jump fully in. I just want to remind everybody that your five-star reviews are giving us life in the coldness. It is 24 degrees here, and it is... colder where Matt is. So your five-star reviews are warming us up. Also, your donations are helping us. And unfortunately, we've reached our limit for our Club 28.
We got enough. We're doing those. And you folks are going to hear the Club 28 shows in the fall. But the people who bought those, not in the fall, in the spring. Next fall, guys. Next fall. We're going to let you. eventually hear it. I don't know. There's some really great stuff, stuff that we never would have done and that I'm very excited. The research has been so much fun on those. Matt, Matt, we also, oh, we already talked about the sponsor.
Yeah. The sponsor is a listener. Thank you so much for sponsoring us and supporting us and, and, uh, leaving us five-star reviews. And it's the lifeblood of the show. Asimo is looking down at me as I record this. He's, he's big brother and me up in the curio. shelf here behind me, looking down at the show, always watching. So make sure you're leaving those five-star reviews. Yeah, so without any further ado, let's tweet in. Let's all sing. Sing
Earlier this season, we embarked on a journey through the 1964 World's Fair. And while boating around continents and looking down on the magic highways of America have been exciting and fun, This week, we decided to pause and look at one of our favorite subjects on the 3028, Tiki, the fair, and never built stuff, and how they came just short of combining with Disney.
for the 1964 World's Fair. So, Kevin, I feel like we have done a lot of research so far on the fair, and we've taken our listeners through a couple of pavilions. We'll take them through more. But we have got to take a little pit stop here and get into your brain and the history of Disney and see how Disney.
And Coca-Cola may have combined to give us maybe one of the more memorable attractions considering America's fascination with Tiki today. So we have a little bit of a history with Tiki at the New York World's Fair and not just the 64 World's Fair. Brief, going back, we did a whole show about the history of Tiki. We don't need to rehash everything, but like broad strokes, Don Beach, Don the Beachcomber, opened his first bar and restaurant, Don the Beachcomber, 1934, right after Prohibition.
And copycat started immediately. The big one that everyone probably knows is Trader Vic's, Vic Bergeron. So, 1934, this is fine. And then we have this guy named Monty Prosser. I don't think I've talked about him on the show. No, no. He's a big part of my New England Tiki. When I do New England Tiki seminars, he's the big name that comes up because he was an elegant...
hobo. What? He represented famous people in Hollywood and he stole things. He stole concepts. If he liked it, he just wholesale ripped it off. So this guy, this raconteur named Monty Prosser, basically says, hey, I love the Don the Beachcomber idea. It's so cool. He looks around. Instead of enjoying himself, he's taking notes in his head. And then he steals the idea. sale and then says hey i want to open a pavilion in the 1939 world's fair
And he's going to call it the Beachcomber Cafe. He has the zombie village that he's doing based on the Don Beach. libation zombie, the zombie. So, and he even steals the gimmick, like on the menu at the Don the Beachcomber, it says two per customer because they thought it would be dangerous if he had more than two. And so he says the exact same. Same thing, he takes zombie imagery, just this whole thing.
That's kind of fascinating, by the way. Did the first, so Trader Fix and Don the Beachcomber, those were West Coast properties, correct? Yeah, Don the Beachcomber opens up in Hollywood, like right near the Chinese Theater, right near where the Magic Castle is now. And then...
A little bit further down the street was Trader Vic's. And then other places were opening, like the Luau and Skipper Kemp's. But this is all in Hollywood. Okay, so pin that, right? You have a dude who takes a Hollywood-y thing and takes it to... new york right which is exactly a firm juxtaposition against the film industry in the early 20th century taking all of the properties owned in new york technologies ideas and taking them
and doing whatever they wanted with them to create Hollywood. That's so weird. It's so weird. And, you know, so, you know, you have. But the thing is, OK, over here, you've got Thomas Edison and he's being a real jerk about not letting. is technology, not letting people have technology. And then over here, you have Don Beach, who's being real chill about things, and still people are stealing from them. So it's an inter-
Coast situation. East meets West, Kevin. East meets West, West meets East. So New York World's Fair, 1939, you know, the zombie happens. Everyone's... Real into this. I do love the zombie. The zombie is so good. But he's also taking like other drinks, like ripping them off from Don Beach's menu. Got the pie eye, which reminds me of Mickey Mouse cartoons. Planter's Punch.
And so he takes these concepts. It's very, very popular. In fact, some pavilions in the 39 World's Fair don't last until 1940. The zombie cafe, the zombie village definitely did. And then he was so successful. the fair he ended up opening like a beachcomber cafe in new york and then later on like some in new england is is that where like the bamboo lounge and stuff come from in like the 40s and 50s like these ideas that were kind of stirring around
Oh, yeah, yeah. This is all, you know, basically Don Beach. There had been other, like, tropical cafes before. But Don Beach had worked in the movies. And so he, like, worked on the Hurricane movie. And so like was able to take these like sets. from the fake, the quote-unquote, like, realistic Polynesian thing and put them in his bar. Amazing. I mean, that's literally Walt Disney, right? Like, taking from the storybook and putting it in the theme park. Three-dimensional reality.
Yeah, this whole thing. And so Monty Prancer sees this and says, hey, I can make that work in New York. And he does. And, you know, he's unscrupulous. The act is heinous. But, you know, it's the history of American tiki. There's no reason. Real losers here. We can thank him. We can be mad at Monte Prosser for stealing from Don Beach. By the way, Don Beach eventually sued him and he won. But we can also thank him for bringing Tiki to the East Coast.
This is like Magnavox and Nintendo, right? Like maybe it's not theft, but like this relationship that grows the game market we talked about on the Nintendo show. Yeah, it's also sort of a little bit like VHS and Betamax. Yes. You know, that whole, or the Cola Wars, which was... Created a huge market for these things. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, you know...
As a generic concept, Polynesian bars became a thing on the East Coast as well as the West Coast. So we can thank this guy for doing this. So now we come to the sort of the history of the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. Yeah, we talked about this on our Tropical Hideaway show. We talked about the Tahitian Terrace. We talked about Disney finding a way to sort of tie in the world of Polynesia in the theme park in the really in the very early days, even before in Enchanted Tiki Room.
Yeah, the Enchanted Tiki Room is very interesting. And so it's going to sort of weave in and out of this story. So Walt has this idea for the Enchanted Tiki Room. He originally wants it to be... a real restaurant, as you know, I think we may have mentioned. He wants it on Main Street. He wants there to be a model of Confucius.
in this thing to talk and interact with the guests and have birds hanging up all around. In fact, he goes to one of his Imagineers and the Imagineer says, hey, we're going to have birds singing all around, hanging from... perches over this restaurant and Walt says you can't do that they're gonna poop in the food
And the Imagineer, I think it's John Hench, says, no, no, Walt, they're going to be mechanical birds. He's like, oh, mechanical birds. And that's when Walt said for the first time, I only hope we never lose sight of one. thing it was all started by a bird is is that something that walt said the bird that started things for us as we did things and things that's the real quote what is the quote kevin there's uh oh we talked about this there's a a mandela
effect with these quotes. Yeah, so we remember Walt saying it was all started with a mouse, and there's a lot of Disney things named that. It was all started with a mouse. But Walt... probably actually said, and he did say, it was all started by a mouse. And a bird. And a bird. So there's a whole, like, prepositional concept here that, so we might be, as a, As a global community, we might be remembering Walt's quote wrong.
You know, it wasn't a carousel that his daughters were on. They were on a swing set. Oh, my gosh. The whole thing is flawed. Oh, my God. It's an invented history. Yeah, so the idea that, you know, Disney isn't... The only, you know, you talked about Trader Vicks and Don the Beachcomber and Monty Prosser and this whole thing. And there is a flavor that's happening all the way back in the 30s.
And then post-war, it's definitely on the minds of Americans because you have the film industry, you have Walt Disney himself, and really a lot of his animators who have experienced. who come back and experienced Polynesia in a way, tying some of that into the art, tying some of that into the theme park. And then eventually that results in, to me, like the capstone of this, because Walt dies, is the Enchanted Tiki Room.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you have, like you said, the GIs that come back and they, you know, they go through this awful war and then they come back to America and they're, you know, the upwardly mobile, the new middle class, all this stuff is happening.
And they're just expected to be like, oh, yeah, all that stuff that you did in the war, forget all about it. You're in the suburbs now. Let's make money. By the way, the suburbs are real now. And so what they do, one of the ways to cope with this, you know, because they don't talk about PTSD at all, is inventing the only respite they really had from the war was the memory of these islands and how calming this was after all the hell of war.
So here on the mainland, they start, you know, Don the Beachcomber had this idea already, and then they just expand upon that post-war. So tiki bars start popping up everywhere, and... On the West Coast, you know, especially in California, it's not just bars. It's like... uh roller skating rinks and uh bowling alleys and apartment buildings every like the like the luau apartments all this stuff is happening the like architecture
Tiki becomes not just a bar and restaurant thing. It becomes an everything. This is mainly happening in the West Coast. Yeah, yeah. In the movie The Terminator. This is bizarre, but there's a scene in the Terminator late in the film where they stay in the Tiki Motel.
And you have an encounter with the Terminator there who's coming to find Sarah and Reese. And so I always noticed that when I was a kid. I was like, Tiki Motel, that still feels very California. Now I know it's part of this bigger story. Yeah, yeah. There's a whole, like, if you want to really dig into tiki history, there's, like, all these facets that all tie in together. But basically, the broad strokes, and I've said that twice now, is that tiki fever basically encapsulated the...
the nation, especially after 1959 when Hawaii became a state. So Hawaii, Polynesia, everything is merging into one thing. And it basically is a humongous fad that lasts a little over a decade. let's step back a little bit and talk a little bit about Disney's relationship with another thing, which is Coca-Cola.
Yeah, Kevin, we've talked about Disney and sodas. You and I have an unofficial sponsor of the show, the only pepper soda, Kevin, which is Diet Dr. Pepper, originally Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper brought that to a World's Fair. It all connects. But Disney and the soda companies, we talked specifically about Pepsi and that relationship and how it led to the It's a Small World pavilion and attraction for UNICEF.
But Disney and Coca-Cola have this very interesting relationship that goes back to TV. It eventually will play out in the theme parks. But here at the World's Fair, it's something that almost happened. So, yeah, so there's a lot of...
Disney and Coke sort of begin, or they sort of solidify the relationship. There was going to be a Coca-Cola slash Disney movie. This is so weird. That would have seen like elves and sprites playfully enjoying a drink under a waterfall of carbonated... water that an elf named Clumsy accidentally drops fruit into the magical water and creates Coca-Cola.
What fever dream is this? I noted that this is the beta version of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, Kevin. This is old-timey cartooning in the modern age. What era? was this by the way this is in this is in like like the early 50s. Because this, you know, the animated feature is never drawn, but they do, Coke and Disney team up for the One Hour in Wonderland. We've talked about it. There's a Christmas Day One Hour in Wonderland special, which basically was hyping the...
upcoming Alice in Wonderland thing. And there's like a whole bunch of people from the movie. Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy were there too for some reason. And Coke was sponsoring it. It was this whole thing. It was huge. It was huge. Yeah. I put in the notes here and I remember from doing like early research on this years and years ago, it had like an 80 share on TV because there's like three channels. Everybody watched this. It was so it was so popular that they did several like.
subsequent versions in the later years, like 51 and 52. There's Walt again. And this is one of the key reasons why you get the Disneyland TV show. Yeah, yeah. This is the... Basically, it's a prototype of what's going to happen with Disneyland and later on with the Mickey Mouse Club. It's Walt understanding the power of TV before any of these other movie producers.
had any inkling and partnerships. You know, Coke is like this big thing. And I think Disney understands even in the 50s, this is so weird because you think of Coke, we have this like fake version of what the 50s was. this nostalgia, which is not real. I just listened to this podcast about how we think about stuff in the past. Like we think that the mullet was a hairstyle in the 80s and it defines the 80s when it was actually more definitive in the 90s.
everyone forgets that. But it's just a thing that I'm tying in. But if you people think of the 50s as a very specific nostalgic thing and think about coke as part of that nostalgia but in 1950 Disney was tying Coke into an earlier nostalgia. And, you know, Disney's always hearkening back. This is where you get Main Street USA. Coke was a big part of Main Street, even in the 1800s.
Yeah, and I guess that makes sense because we just talked about the pepper soda coming to the World's Fair. I mean, Coca-Cola was a cure-all, right, at the turn of the century and then eventually becomes a consumer product.
consumer product marketing becomes a major part of how media explodes and how you know post-war industries explode and so it makes sense here that coca-cola becomes part of that uh it's very 50s but it's also very turn of the century coke is a part of your your life and your nostalgia in the same way that disney is a part of your life and your nostalgia uh you know there's that whole you know thing
As a suburban family, you have to go to Disney at least once. That's a thing that you do with your kids. It's just part of the American experience. Also part of the American experience is drinking Coke. And then they tied it in with Christmas. We're not going to get into that.
They invented Santa Claus. They invented Santa Claus. Yeah, like the modern version of Santa Claus. Again, marketing. I mean, Coca-Cola, more than maybe any other company, comes to define what modern marketing looks like. I'd like to buy the world of Coke. It's a manufactured reality of what America is. It's a manufactured reality of what Christmas is. And we're in the show talking about Disney, which does neither of those things. They would never do that.
But okay, so we're in the New York World's Fair. Disney and Coke, they have this partnership in Disneyland. They have Coke Corner already. And for the upcoming World's Fair, Koch representatives, you know, they're like, hey, let's maybe do something in the World's Fair. And so Walt shows them this thing called One Nation Under God, which is a forerunner to the Hall of Presidents. And Koch is like...
I don't know if we really want to do that. That doesn't sound like it. And also, you have to remember that Walt is running his Imagineers ragged at this point, and they're just trying to get Lincoln up and going. And he's already saying, hey, but we could have all... whole hall of presidents, one nation under God. And they're like, please, please no, please no. And happily, Koch passes on this idea. And wouldn't it have been interesting if they actually did the hall of presidents idea?
and it did come to Disneyland because we know it later comes to Walt Disney World, but in the early plans for Disneyland, you had several...
perpendicular and parallel streets to Main Street, right? You had International Street, you had Edison Square, which was an offshoot of Main Street, and of course you had Liberty Street, which did include... plans for a hall of presidents and so this makes sense disney uh never walt disney himself never losing an opportunity to sell one of his ideas and tie it to a sponsor who might pay for it in in this whole land had all
of these things that would later show up in liberty square yeah it's so funny like uh you know walt was very savvy about this stuff he's like i really want these like pure concepts to happen, just, you know, remembering the history of the country, you know, all the good stuff about it. But I need a conglomerate to pay for it. So it's, you know.
Big business will save us all. He's an opportunist. Yeah, he's an opportunist. By the way, and these companies are dying, desperate to find new and inventive ways to market to Americans. And Walt Disney is just using that opportunity. Yeah, I mean, this continues up through Epcot. So they pass on One Nation Under God, which is fine, because I don't think the Imagineers could have done that. But a second concept was pitched, the Enchanted Tiki Room.
very exciting. So Walt has this idea, you know, he's been wanting to do this Confucius Room. Eventually the Imagineers are like, you know, I don't know if we can get a human figure to talk to us. We're going to do a whole history of just the Enchanted Tiki Room. But suffice it to say, they eventually come across this concept where they're going to have like a Polynesian hut where the birds are going to be singing to you. That's, you know.
The Enchanted Tiki Room in a nutshell. And they originally call it, at the World's Fair, Legends of the Enchanted Island. which is very evocative. I love this. And it's funny. So we think of the Enchanted Seeker Room. It's in a small theater. It's enclosed. You kind of look like, you know, there's the windows.
It could be raining outside. There could be a volcano outside. Everything is enclosed. This was pitched as a large theater. An amphitheater, Kevin. An amphitheater that would have a 31,000... guests' daily capacity. And it was so fascinating that it was going to be completely different from what we eventually get. Yeah. And we probably benefit from the intimacy of the Tiki Room. I saw something today about the Haunted Mansion shop that just came online at Disneyland and how big it is.
and how it sort of runs contrary to the unique, intimate nature of the attraction where you're in these narrow corridors and hallways and things. The building itself is very large and barn-like, and it is interesting to see how these ideas evolve or even devolve over time into what they actually become. But yeah, a 31,000 guest daily capacity for the Tiki Room just sounds like very ambitious.
It's too big. So, you know, at this point, the idea of the Enchanted Tiki Room in Disneyland is still going to be a small restaurant show. It would seat about 100 people. And this giant... thing was going to be like a thousand seat capacity they were going to have 31 shows a day so this show is going to push the limits of ambition okay so there's going to be an island in the middle of the stage entirely surrounded by water just like poo in the book uh it was the like this perfect
example of this presentation filmed as if it's a multi-plane camera this is the coolest thing so the The island is there in the middle of this giant pool. In the far background, there's going to be projected clouds on the wall that are going to drift by. Closer to the right of the stage, there's going to be a black menacing volcano rising above the wall.
water full of all this potential energy. In front of the volcano, there's going to be a jungle with a bunch of tiki totems set into volcanic rock. And on the left side, sort of framing this, are going to be like tiki's more black rock. and like palm trees. And then... Like sort of mid-stage, there's going to be, you know, articulated Tiki figures with like drums in front of them, ready to make noise. And then the most prominent structure is this bamboo and thatch A-frame.
That's sort of like hollow. You just have the A-frame. There's no real building. It's like being held up on stilts. And underneath that is going to be like perches for the birds that are going to sing. So it acts like a canopy more so. than a structure. Yeah, this is wild. See, when I first encountered this and we first talked about it, I thought that this was like a film.
Right, like America the Beautiful or something like that. I did not know that this was going to be like an audio animatronic experience that mirrored something more like Mr. Lincoln. Oh, it was it was so much even more ambitious than Mr. Lincoln because it's going to have like this is like what you would expect from a show nowadays. There's projection effects. There's actual audio animatronics. There's water effects. It's everywhere. So. So you're watching the show.
There's tropical birds clinging to perches or whatever, like underneath this canopy. The audience is introduced through a series of lighting changes. So it's got a light on one bird and then light on another bird. And then this... You'll remember this from the Enchanted Tiki Room. A large bird mobile drops from the center of the A-frame. It twirls. There's musical accompaniment.
Early on in the Tiki Bird history, the Tiki Room history, that bar corollae, that old classical piece, was like a big prominent part of the Tiki Room. So that plays at the beginning. You know, let's all sing like the birdies sing, this novel. song from uh from 1932 this is chosen by George Bruns and so like this is a whole that was even gonna be in the Confucius and Birds thing on Main Street so this is like humongous so they were
going to do this whole thing. There was going to be, they were going to start singing the Tikis on the left. We're going to, the Tikis on the left, by the way, looked a lot like the Tiki. uh, the totems that are in the tiki room. Right. And they're going to open their mouths and start singing. The drummers are going to start, start pounding their drums. There is going to be Matt.
fire effects off the water like jets of fire were gonna shoot up uh lightning storm in the projected background this was gonna like the the uh the volcano was gonna have a projected explosion effect it was going to be this humongous show you know what this reminds me it reminds me of phantasmic yes right like these are all the components that you would find in that with the lighting effects the fire uh you know all of this these different
set pieces at work together, connecting a story. This is way more ambitious. I was trying to think of the... The show that was in Camp Mini Mickey that was the Pocahontas show, the stage show. And I mean, because you have woodland creatures and you have forests and you have lighting effects, but you didn't have fire and all of these wonderful things. So it's like...
Combining the Tahitian Terrace with something like that, and instead of using actual actors or stage performers, you have animatronics and tiki's that sort of put on this show. Yeah, it's interesting because you come into the theater, you sit down, and it looks like a pleasant daylight situation where, you know, a gentle... pond or whatever and like an island happening and it looks tiki uh even the menacing mountain during this part doesn't look all that menacing although it does have like
It's almost personification because there's like horns and there's kind of eyes coming out of the volcano. This is like Yen Sid. Yes, it's very Jensen. It's very... Chernabog. Chernabog. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I said Jensen and I meant Chernabog. It looks like the Chernabog, basically. So they're taking ideas from their own Fantasia, which is very exciting. Yeah, that's definitely apparent.
here. So you're watching this. It's really fun. Everything's good. So as the show draws to its rousing close, the tiki drummers start drumming like big, big time. The tiki totems are singing and chanting. Everything's happening. Everything reaches a fever pitch. I do think that they probably, I don't think I got this in the research, but I do think they're using that chant that eventually comes to the Tiki Room. The Hawaiian War chant. The Hawaiian Warchant.
You know, there's gas jets and all this stuff. Then, Matt, an actual rainstorm starts pelting down. This is the tiki room. This is the tiki room. But this is they're going to use real rain. This is why there's a canopy to protect. the birds. No. So was this like an interior show, like 4D in that sense? It's a 4D show. Yeah, basically you're watching this show happen on stage, but you're in this amphitheater. Yeah, and it's like a covered in.
door thing. Wow. That is awesome. Yeah. This is like, I wish that this existed. Oh, yeah. This is so cool. And when you leave the theater, this is the other thing. So there's, you know, you have that island and you have, like, the pond there that's supposed to look like an ocean. But as you're leaving the theater, theater you have to walk over a bridge that crosses over a river uh so like so you're you're interacting sort of with the experience uh it's it's very amazing um but
Matt, aloha, Enchanted Island. Coke says no. What? Coke? Yeah, Coke said no. So there's some reasons. So it is a hefty price tag. Yeah. The Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland will eventually cost so much. They're using space age technology in there. And it costs so much that it is a separately ticketed event. When you go to Disneyland.
They're like, hey, you're here. Everything's, you know, ticket books and everything, except for this thing where you have to pay $1.50 to get in. And they're like, all right, we'll pay it. You know, and that's where Disney got the idea for the Pirates and Princess. I was just going to say that. Dessert party. That's where Dizzy got the idea of special areas to watch Phantasmic.
So, yeah, there's another reason, Matt, and you alluded to it at the beginning of the show, why Coke wouldn't want to sponsor a pavilion like this. Yeah, and I talked about it earlier. As you mentioned, Pepsi. Do you think it's possible they felt like this could be a lesser experience or they didn't want to roll the dice on that or they just didn't like the conflict of interest?
for disney designing attractions for both companies what do you think i think it's a little bit of both so so the price tag was definitely a big part of it but also like coke I think realized that they had a very strong brand. Already. Already by themselves. And in fact, you know, Coke will go on to have its own, just a Coke pavilion. And it looks awesome, guys. It's so cool.
It's very like Googie, very 60s. But yeah, so Coke basically realizes, I think that it's a combination of things. Okay, that makes sense. You know, the price tag, Coke has its own brand identity. It doesn't need to necessarily sponsor. something like Disney, which also has a giant brand identity. Pepsi is going to benefit better. But also, yeah, they don't want to, like, Pepsi is their biggest rival. I mean, at this time, their big, like...
Let's say, and this is just me making up numbers, let's say they have an 80% share of the Coke-type products in the country, and Pepsi has a 15% share, and everything else is 5%. like their closest rival is not really a rival is what I'm saying. Yeah. And the other piece of this, and we can't really dive into the details. I'm just speculating here is that contractually with these other attractions and pavilions, the Walt Disney company took ownership.
of those ideas back to Disneyland, right? So within those contracts suggested that Disney would own these properties, even though another company was footing the bill. And maybe that wasn't as... attractive or sexy for Coke is that they would sort of lose their property at the end. That's possible also. The other situation here is... You know, Coke and Disney, this is funny that this would be the thing to maybe ruin it, but...
they're already part of Disney. They have Coke corner. They have, they already have a presence in Disneyland. They don't, you know, going to your point, they might not need another presence in Disneyland. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. We don't need to do more of this stuff. We can, we can set our interest into the. fair itself and we've already got the corner we've already got the market cornered on main street Another thing here, and I didn't really mention this in the show notes, but this was...
This was a last minute, not really a last minute thing. These are all last minute. All of them are last minute. But basically they had these other four kind of locked in. And then they're like, hey, let's do this fifth thing. And it was sort of like, no, it's too much. This is a very elaborate show. And also, you know, it is an elaborate show with water and fire effects. Maybe this could break down, you know.
All that stuff. There's a lot of reasons. Nothing is really set in stone. But the general consensus is we already have a Pepsi pavilion. It looks like it's going to be very involved and detailed. We don't need a Coke one. is also going to be part of like...
The Hawaiian thing. So they were going to, it was Coke, Hawaii, and Disney that were going to like be sort of part of this pavilion. And so Coke has its own pavilion. And then Hawaii is like, hey, we're a state. We don't need necessarily Disney.
It's so funny. Like, Illinois already, and we're going to get there later on in the season, but Illinois is going to be the state that hooks up with Disney. Hawaii didn't really need to have that. They were sort of still a new state. Everybody was obsessed with Hawaii. They didn't really need to have that. need all this stuff. Like Coke, they had their own identity. They didn't need Disney in the way that other companies or states as it were may have needed them.
I mean, you've got, you've got, oh, Hawaii. This is so cool. Alaska, so cool. Hey, we're Illinois. You need Disney. Hi, we're in Delaware. It's the Wayne's World thing, Kev. It's always back on the show. It always comes back. Crucial taunt. Oh, I loved them. Tia Carrere. So, so awesome. So awesome.
Awesome. So the state of Hawaii actually ends up funding its own 2.8-acre complex. This is great. It has, like, some thatch huts representing the island's past, outrigger canoes, and then this is... amazing you know we're not going to get too deep into the hawaii pavilion because it's not really connected but they had the tropical space age architecture here hawaii's future was represented by five massive stylized white domes in the vague shape of volcano
This is so crazy. It's so crazy. It looks a little bit like nuclear power. I was going to say these are nuclear. Where is Homer Simpson? When this is happening. This is wild. It's so bizarre. So they have a giant circular venue called the Restaurant of the Five Volcanoes. And Matt, there's a tiki bar there. Of course, there's a tiki bar. It says...
Hawaii, really big. Florida? Why is it in the picture? It's like, we're also here. We're also tropical. Yeah, the five volcanoes, they're like different heights, right? And widths and like mountains and volcanoes are. But the way that they sit, like, in the distance, it totally looks like you're looking onto nuclear power from the 60s and 70s. Like, the whole thing is wild. You've got water, right? And you've got the...
Outboard motor boats pulling skiers a la Jaws 3D. And what is this island thing in the middle? It's very odd. That is the restaurant, I believe. That's crazy. crazy yeah it's so weird it's or or maybe they do shows on top of that yes that's got to be show platform show platform the other thing is that so the name of the tiki bar is called the lava pit which is awesome yes uh
We have the menu. The menu is going to go in the show notes. Can we talk about it? Can we talk about the menu? Please, let's talk about it. I'm very into it. I love the menu. You've created menus before. I have for, you know, mid-show advertisement. Kevin. Go to KevinQuigleyDesign.com. And you can see my menus. You can see my menus. They had the Honolulu cooler. I want a drink. I want that. Yeah, they had the Trader Vic's Mai Tai. They had a...
a bowl that you could share called the Five Volcanoes. Awesome. Awesome. Great tie-in. So great. Their signature drink was called the Lava Itch. which is so cool clap that gets a show clap kevin the scorpion and the bowl and like tiki's are shaped scorpiony this is very odd i love all of this
And then if you didn't want to drink, this is so funny. I was just at my local tiki bar the other night, and they were hosting a party downstairs for people that weren't into tiki. And the bartender came up, and they're like, yeah. they keep ordering, uh, Martinis. And I'm like, has anybody asked for a Bud Light yet? They're like, all of them. Yeah. But not here, sir. Not at the Hawaii Pavilion. They had their own domestic and imported beers. Yes.
They had Primo beer from Hawaii. And then if you wanted it, Holland's Heineken. Yeah, why not? Just throw a Dutch beer in there. A Heineken. Oh, that's so funny. Only 75 cents. Kevin, this kind of stuff makes me happy. There were also food options, and I know you're a big fan of these. Oh, yeah. The poo-poo platter was there. It had spare ribs. It had potato bits. It had wontons. It had something called chips.
Chick sticks, which I assume are chicken teriyaki. And then mahaima dips. I don't know what that is. Wontons. Oh, man. Potato bits. What? Didn't we did that monster? Monster cereals. What were they calling the... Oh, marbits. Marbits. And sweeties. The marshmallows were called sweeties and marbits. Marshmallow sweeties. Why don't I live in a time period where marbits exist? You know, I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's and his hair was perfect.
Okay, the menu. That's the menu. So, yeah, this is the whole thing. So, you know, it's so funny that 1939, you know, the World's Fair, Monty Prosser brings over, like, the forbidden zombie and, like, Don beat Susan and gets the rights. And then over here. Here in the 64 World's Fair, which, by the way, was a fake World's Fair that wasn't real, we have the Mai Tai. And sure, everyone's drinking Mai Tais now. It's fine. One other thing that's interesting, and I don't know if Coke was a sponsor.
of the Hawaii Pavilion, which would be kind of funny. But Coke, there's an advertisement that I found that kept coming up. that basically said, like, Coke with fun and aloha, snacks to exotic luau dishes. Coke with food, fun, and friends. Coca-Cola, never too sweet, gives that special zing. and refreshes best. So they have this whole ad for the Hawaii Pavilion with the Lava Pit Bar and the Restaurant of the Five Volcanoes where you could find Coke as well. A Leilani Picnic Luncheon.
Sweet Leilani. I like this. This is so great. It's got the traditional Hawaiian family. Of course they're all wearing leis because everyone in Hawaii wears a lei when they eat dinner. Look, what you don't know about Hawaii is that laser happening all over the place. Everybody's always at a tiki bar because that's where Hawaii is where tiki bars were invented, guys. Oh, this is so great. I love this. This is just like marketing at its best and worst. It's so bad.
We're going to talk a little bit about, not too much, but about the other pavilions that are sort of related in the same sphere as all this. Not the Parasphere. The Coke Pavilion, we talked about this a little bit, but this thing is awesome. It is like regal in a way. Yeah.
yeah it's got its own tower right and and that's important because it rises above it's a weenie right as it were in a pavilion style uh environment it's a um is it a full circle or like a like a half circle structure like the communi-core buildings i think it's it's a it's a it's a it's a big circle sort of but like there's a oh i think it's a bottle cap oh it's got to be because there's bottle caps all over this including on the side of the tower so they're known obviously at the
time for their glass bottles. Matt, it's a bottle cap with a notch cut out of it. Yeah, total bottle cap here. Oh my gosh. This is perfect. I'm so happy. This is great. I love realizing things. So you go in, there's an exhibition called World of Refreshment. You're going to pass through recreations of exotic places like Hong Kong, India, a Bavarian ski lodge, which Matt wants to be in right now. Yes, I was talking about that.
this before the show i'm like why don't we have a bavarian ski lodge on the show kevin that we can just go frequent uh when the show's over by the way kev this is california crazy architecture right because it's bottle cap but it's like a modernist twist It's got like it's got googie angles, right? It's got like those those those very stark white things like like stanchions with the curves at the top. And this tower is amazing.
There's like lighting structures that are like tall and they have like a square lamp around it. Oh, it's so cool. It looks like you're at Cabana Bay. Yes, it does look like Cabana Bay. I will say I love Disney. We're going to talk about Disney until the day we die. But Cabana Bay at Universal is one of my favorite places. I hope you like lemon scent.
because you will be intoxicated. But yeah, in addition to Bavaria and all these, you know, we've got a Cambodian forest. We've got Rio de Janeiro. So it's like it's the same sort of Disney thing where you're going. through these.
interactive experience, not really interactive, but like 3D experiences. It's themed entertainment like the rest of the World's Fair. Is that because, so did they tie Coke into these like exotic places because you can have a Coke anywhere? I'd like to buy the world a Coke. Is it because it's like a universal product? Why tie in all of these other places just to give you an experience of walking through them, kind of like the Ford's Magic Skyway Pavilion did that?
with different environments. Let's think about where it is, Matt. What are we talking about on this whole series? Well, it's a World's Fair. It's a World's Fair. So, yeah, exactly like the Forge Pavilion where in the opening area you're going to see
Ford cars in all these different countries around the world. Here you're going to see Coke all around the world. Bad question. Bad question. No, it's a great question. It's a great question. We're still a few years away from I'd like to buy the world a Coke, which is...
Just a fascinating thing that I want to do a whole episode about, because that whole thing was so cool. When I first saw it, I was blown away, and I was like eight. I also want to talk briefly about the Polynesian Pavilion. Yes, let's do this. This is... so fascinating because at this time, 1964, 1965, Tiki was such a big deal in America. Mainland American tiki was taking the idealized concepts of what Polynesian was and like making it their own. And so when you go into the Polynesian...
at the World's Fair, I don't think it looks that much like Polynesia. I think it looks like Adventureland. Yeah, and we were commenting on this, just the way that the structures interact with each other, the A-frames, tiered A-frames, and then these sort of pagodas and thatched-roofed huts that you find, all of them sort of work. Working together with palm trees, very, very Adventurelandy.
Yeah, there, you know, even the entrance is a giant tiki. You know, you go through the tikis like it's carved out of a tree. You go through the legs of the tiki. It says Polynesia above the legs. And then it's just this giant... Howering Tiki, this is the weenie for the thing. Why is the sign in his crotch? Look, we don't need to ask. I was trying desperately not to say that.
Also, I'm not sure if it's a hymn because of the rest of the structure. Now, that is interesting. This is New York in the 60s here. Anything goes. This is... Yeah, this is kind of wild. Well, this is the whole thing about, like, the tiki culture and the Polynesian thing is that, you know, and even to the point where, you know, you're looking at...
black velvet paintings, whatever, that's also happening and it's also tied into all this. The concept of America is so straight-laced in the late 50s, early 60s. Puritan. It's very puritanical, especially this close to New England, where... You can appreciate, this is like National Geographic, you can appreciate an island culture, a quote unquote primitive culture on its own terms, even if...
Some of that is made up, and even if it's designed specifically to be tantalizing to American audiences. Absolutely. That's a great point, right? This exotic, the exotic nature of even the... clothing items that non-traditional or traditional Polynesian people might be wearing is supposed to raise your eyebrows in a way that gets you interested in stopping by. Right. And, you know...
In the Polynesian Pavilion, they had a fire show. They had like a luau. And, you know, the women are in sarongs and the men are topless. And in a lot of the paintings and whatever, the women are topless as well. And, you know, it's this part of it is real and part of it is fantasy. And all the Americans are wearing, well, I mean, I guess all the continental Americans are wearing suits as they look at these.
At this point, you didn't go to a tiki bar or a tiki restaurant wearing a Hawaiian shirt unless you were going to a specific luau situation. You were fully dressed. The women wore dresses. The men wore dresses.
more suits. And that eventually starts like, you know, going away. But yeah, so there's a whole concept of what Polynesia is. And it's so fascinating when you tie that into what Disney's doing, because The American, the mainland American ideal of what Polynesian is, they're using words like savage and primitive and even like...
Modern beach bums are calling themselves sophisticated savages if they're into this stuff. And then Disney's coming over here. And, you know, we talk a little bit sometimes about the Disneyfication of things, but here Disney is making it safer. by removing the human element and making only the birds sing and making only the environment dance and talk to you and making the tikis themselves part of the environment. So, you know, you're taking away the human element.
entirely and making it a natural thing, which is sort of what Paulineuse is all about. Well, Kevin, I loved doing this. I actually didn't know that that show was so involved. The proposed pavilion slash... show for Coca-Cola, presented and produced by Disney. It's so weird to me because this seems so exciting and so fun. Tiki is going to sort of wane.
After this, not shortly after. Yeah, it's very interesting. So this is 64 or 65. The de-evolution of Tiki starts happening in early 70s. Part of that is to do with, you know. Fads rise and fall. Generations. Yeah. Generations. People are like, we don't need, you know, the free love generation comes in 1968, 69. Woodstock happens and they're like, we don't need this fake idea of free love. We can have just free love. We don't have to wear clothes either.
We don't have to wear clothes anyway. We're hippies. We, you know, we're baby winners. And also, you know, you, and I think we may have talked about this before, but the idea of the romanticized idea of like thatch huts and then you turn on the TV and Vietnam is happening. Right. Absolutely. A thousand percent. Yes. Yes. And you have GIs coming back too.
Yeah, yeah, like GIs from Hawaii, and it's a very different situation from GIs in World War II. Yeah, Vietnam and World War II, it's a whole different war, and things are a lot... They're willing to admit that things are darker. Even though World War II was... We think of this, heroes and villains, very easy to define. They wore uniforms. We won. They wore uniforms. It was great. But there were so many...
So much darkness that happened in that war. This is not covered. We brought back here and then repressed. Right, right, right. Even the war itself, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's the man in the gray flannel suit, right? He's trying to forget and remember at the same time. It's a thing that we completely ignore in the 50s and 60s, but...
I guess, embrace in a way in the post-Vietnam era that we look at these two conflicts, these two wars in totally separate terms. In fact, Vietnam so much so that we don't even call it a war, right? It's a war, but it's not even officially A war. It's a conflict. So just the way that we describe them is even different. And the way that we describe the GIs and the service members who came back, we describe differently. So a lot of nuance here to this. And you're right. It's a much darker.
The 70s becomes a much darker period. Tiki doesn't really meld well with that. No, it's, you know, kind of a very optimistic, very escapee thing. And people don't want this version of escape, you know. without getting too adult about it, single bars are starting to happen. Disco is taking over. Disco is really what the escape is. Drugs are happening. All this stuff is taking over and replacing these sort of like
the kinder, gentler, culturally appropriationist fun that we were having in the 50s and 60s. That's also becoming part of it, right? We're starting to reckon with the fact that... Are we, is this okay to like take a cultural wholesale and reinvent it? You know, the whole joke is that, you know, we take, when we talk about Tiki, we talk about Polynesian, the Polynesian look.
Chinese food and Caribbean beverages and then pretend it's all one thing. It's a monoculture, Kevin. It's all... Africa is one... One tribe. It's all one group. One language is spoken in India. The United States, Canada, and then we've got South America is one thing, and then Africa is one thing, and then England and France.
You know, it's very, very funny. You don't know this history necessarily because you don't care as much about it. Or maybe you do know it. But there's this sort of metaphorical moment in the movie Goodfellas where they literally burn down the bamboo lounge that's in New York.
Of course, they do it, you know, for insurance write off. But it's sort of metaphorical. It's sort of, you know, symbolic of what the 70s, the late 60s into the 70s really means and how Tiki ends up in America for like the next 20. five to thirty years.
Yeah, we don't really come back to Tiki until the late 90s when, you know, a generation has gone by and the Gen Xers are rebelling against the baby boomers and they're like, hey, let's listen to our grandparents' music. Isn't that funny? It is funny. Isn't that ironic? Yeah, it is ironic. It's the reason I listen to 40s Junction, because I know my parents would never.
Yeah, it's this whole thing where like, you know, reaching back and remembering this stuff. And now I think because the Internet, Tiki just isn't going to go away. No, no, everything is different now because the Internet. I mean, at one time it was cool for me and my grandma, who was born in. 1930 to listen to Glenn Miller, but now it's just like, hey, if I want to listen to Glenn Miller, I can access it at any time.
Yeah, my grandparents would listen to 50s music in the car, and then I would come back to my house. And, like, when I was staying with my mom, I would listen to it. And she's like, why aren't you listening to punk rock? And when I would go to my dad's house, he's like, why aren't you listening to alternate music? And I was like, ha-ha, I'm listening to...
early pre-Beatles stuff. That's my rebellion. Yes, it's so weird. With Gen Xers, we are the weirdest. We're so weird. And we're the best. Anyway, Kevin, this has been a lot of fun. I often used to say that this show is just a tour. through your mind. And I think that we did some of that here.
Oh, yeah. I love talking about this. You know, I've done a lot of research on Tiki, a lot of research on Disney. So all of that sort of came to the fore here. I love doing research. I've done, you know, I do presentations now and I've done a few. I love it when, like, I come to this with, like, ideas and then you are like, wait a minute.
a minute why aren't you thinking about it like this and I'm like oh I should be I love stuff like this I love the show I love the show I love the show I love the listeners I love stopping down in the middle of a world fair series to talk about a never built thing that just happens to be in
line with everything else that we enjoy talking about on the show so thank you so much for supporting the show um kevin do we have uh you know we we shouted out our asimo uh donations at the beginning of the show and maybe we should read a glorious five-star review we should we should absolutely so we got it we got this new one by Fletch F Fletch
The Epcot of Disney podcast. Excellent. Matt and Kevin are the best. The level of research and the amount of information they bring to the listeners each and every show is truly impressive. No matter if you're new or a casual Disney fan or a seasoned... veteran, you are most definitely going to learn a lot while being thoroughly entertained.
Two questions for you guys. Oh, here we are. If you could take anything from one WDW park and move it to another, what would it be? And same question with resorts. Thanks for all you do to bring some Disney magic to all of us. All right, let's very quickly. Oh, I did not. prepare for this question. I didn't either. I hit more and there were questions. Take one thing from I would move Guardians of the Galaxy to Hollywood Studios. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a really good one.
I would move Galaxy's Edge out of Disneyland into California Adventure. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I think I would, even though it doesn't completely fit, but it's its own thing. And that's, you know, what is California Adventure now? It's all the different. properties kind of that Disney owns and celebrates the history of Walt Disney in California in the 20s and 30s. I think it fits better there.
But it's just a land situation. So that would be my thing. And the only other thing I think is that, you know, great moments with Mr. Lincoln on, you know, any main street is amazing. But I think that great moments with Mr. Lincoln. could easily be transcribed over into Liberty Square. Yeah, I fully agree. Oh, that would be so good. And now I'm trying to think about resorts. Like, what would I bring from one resort to another? Steakhouse 75, I love in the contemporary.
But I wonder if it would do—actually, I kind of wonder if that would be really good in a park. If that would—oh, yeah, well, it's not the 70s, but I think that would also be good in Hollywood Studios. I would love to eat at Steakhouse 75 at Hollywood Studios. Give Brown Derby a run for its money. Well, let's just stay there. I mean, wouldn't the contemporary, the giant A-frame and monorail look amazing in the Disneyland property?
Like by today's standards, like it's a property that likes to look back on itself. And the contemporary kind of feels more like Disneyland in a way than it does Walt Disney World. Knock down the Pixar place.
building and and put the contemporary in there oh that's such a fun idea i mean you could extend the monorail i mean there's there's a lot of armchair imagineering we could do with this i don't love our chair imagineering i would also say that the polynesian a smaller version of the Polynesian not brought, not taken, but duplicated in a larger Disneyland capacity would really, really work.
Because especially if we're going to echo the lands of Disneyland, I think Adventureland started there first. You could have a... more of a Polynesian vibe going on. I know that they're going to be expanding Disneyland in the next few years, and we are going to talk about that at some point. So why not bring that in?
Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff out there. Thanks for the questions. You can always leave a question in the five star reviews and we will answer them to the best of our abilities, even if we didn't prepare to answer them. So thank you so much for doing it. We would love more questions in the future.
And check us out, KevinQuigleyDesign.com for all your graphic design. You can check out Kevin's portfolio there. Five-star reviews, always available to you on the Apple Podcast app. And... buttons in the show notes for donations donations donations kevin venmo and paypal we we do accept donations and keep in mind everyone the holiday seasons are upon us and We're but humble podcast hosts that need...
cruise ship vacations. So please donate to the show. We need one lump of coal to keep the fire going to warm ourselves during the recordings of these shows. Please, can we... We need to sup upon our cans of Diet Dr. Pepper. Please help us. You can check us all out there. Thanks for listening to this update of our World's Fair series. Yeah, we got two more coming. So from all of us here at the 3028 to all of you out there, thanks so much. And let's all sing like the birdies sing. Tweet.
Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet I love how that show mirrored almost every like plot element of the Tiki Room. That's so cool. It's so amazing. They streamline it, and they're like, oh, this will be better in the round. I can't wait to actually talk. We have talked around. The Enchanted Tiki Room for so long without actually doing a history of the Enchanted Tiki Room. We did Under New Management.