children's children for a thousand generations rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and continue to enjoy The benefits conferred upon us by a United... Thank you. Welcome to The 3028, a show about theme park history and pop culture listery. I am Matt Parrish. And I'm Kevin Quigley. Hey, Kev. We are back to...
Get closer and closer to the conclusion of our 1964-65 World's Fair series. I'm so excited about this. I'm really excited. So this episode, spoiler alert, it's about Illinois. And I was listening to the song called Springfield, Illinois by Slobberbone all week. Oh, Springfield, Illinois. You left me standing by the statehouse stairs because it's about the statehouse.
I do not know that song. It's a great song. I think I might listen to it. Hey, by the way, the first time we ever met was in Illinois. It was. We were in Chicago. We went to Three Dots and a Dash and a random Irish pub. uh, that you don't remember, which is pretty funny. It was across from the hotel. Still don't remember it. Uh, three dots and a dash. The only Tiki bar I've ever been to where I forgot to buy merch.
You bought no merch? No, I bought no merch. I can't believe it. Like, I'm like, I went to Three Dots, and then I walk around my house, and I'm like, I don't even have a mug. I'm staring at my Three Dots and a Dash skull mug right now. I'm secretly trying to convince you. Turkey Lake Jeff to go back there just so I can get the mug.
Well, we got to go to Illinois. We got to go to Halle Kahiki, and you need to see that one. Yes, I'm excited about that. And, Kevin, we're going to go to Illinois on this show eventually. But before we get there, we want to tell our listeners who are awesome, have support. So for years, people have said, hey, hey guys, why don't you do a Patreon?
And I said, well, yeah, I don't think Matt would be super into it. And then they would say to Matt, why don't you guys do a Patreon? He's like, I don't think Kevin would be really into it. As it turns out, we're both into it. So now we have a Patreon, everyone. So we launched this Patreon literally...
yesterday and already like we got a billion snaps we have this discord in our patreon people have been talking at the tune-in lounge people have been chatting and having a great time i love the tune-in lounge i'm so excited to like open the discord and see people
in the tune-in lounge it's like dad's den there's some uh birds hanging on the wall there's some mid-century furniture in there not really but it feels like it yeah everyone it sounds like everyone's having like a peanut butter and jelly shake it's a great time. But yeah, so people are just...
Chatting in there and they get access to the secret show. We're going to be releasing some secret shows just on our Patreon feed. So check that out. The link to the Patreon is going to be in the show notes. If for whatever reason you want to... give us money but don't want to join the Patreon, you could still do that. The PayPal and Venmo links are still in the show notes. And, of course, Kevin Quigley Design is still there. So, you know, your support has been really, really...
helpful coming to the patreon has been really helpful and matt also five star reviews have been really helpful five star reviews are awesome that's the currency of the show that helps people find it we are in the 1100 range and uh i think that's really great if you uh
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But if you're in the point now where you're asking questions, you might as well join the Patreon and then you can hang out with us in the chat and you can ask all the questions you want. Right. So without any further ado, Matt, let's jump in. you
From an early age, Walt Disney had an obsession with Abraham Lincoln that went so deep that he dressed as Lincoln on Halloween. His obsession with Lincoln continued throughout his life, and he considered Lincoln to be one of the best people that had ever lived in the United States. symbol of patriotism and liberty and justice for all. When it came time to maybe put Lincoln in the theme parks, there was a
circuitous route that Walt went through. He had to do a lot of other stuff before he actually landed on Lincoln and the presidency of the United States in Disneyland. And to get there, he had to make a pit stop as usual. at the 1964 World's Fair. So Matt, we talk a lot about the Hall of Presidents and Liberty Square in here, but there was a precursor.
to Liberty Square, Liberty Street. Oh, yeah, yeah. We've talked about Liberty Street, you know, indirectly on the edges throughout the history of the show, Liberty Street. a parallel street to Main Street USA as inconceivable as that might seem by today's standards that was an actual plan
from Imagineers, from the mind of Walt Disney, and it included Hall of Presidents, many of the things that we've come to enjoy today. Great moments in history, but just the American parts, Kevin. Like Sam Eagle. So in 1956, Walt said, you know, I want to do a Liberty Street. So he sent out a press conference. He did a press conference and said, like, we're going to be doing Liberty Street.
1957, there was an episode of the Disneyland TV show called The Liberty Story, where he actually talked about it. So there's a lot of feeling, there's a lot of greatness, but there's a lot of synergy in here too, which is very funny. Michael Eisner type synergy. So, The Liberty Story was this show on the Disneyland TV show. It's kind of strange. First, Walt appears next to a record player playing this song called The Liberty Tree, which is great.
And then he goes on this weird long tangent about Robin Hood and King John and the Magna Carta. Very interesting. And then the Bill of Rights brings it all into the Bill of Rights. And then he shows a whole bunch of schematics and artist renderings of... you know, what Liberty Street's going to look like. And he says, but it's all about, you know, Johnny Tremaine. So this is like, this is the synergy. Yeah. It's all about Johnny Tremaine. This is a whole setup.
yeah they're gonna show like bits of johnny tremaine on this thing and It's so strange. So Walt is like, well, you know, we read Johnny Crane, and in fact, this book intrigued us so much that we not only made a Technicolor motion picture of it, so that's a preview, we're also creating an entire new section of Disneyland in the park. based on it. So, the Liberty story...
then becomes bifurcated. There are two big parts of it. There's a cartoon called Ben and Me in which a mouse helps Ben Franklin write up the Declaration of Independence. I love that, by the way. Very, very much love that. Yeah, and his name is Amos the Mouse, and he, like, helps. And he gets mad because...
Ben Franklin electrocutes him, and then he's like, I'll come back and work with you if you write basically this fairness doctrine. So Amos comes up with the words, and then John Adams is like, I need to write the Declaration of Independence, Ben. Can you help me? He's like... Hey, a mouse told me some things that might work for this Declaration of Independence. And then they show, Matt, a full 20 minutes of Johnny Tremaine.
It was going to be in the theaters, but they're showing 20 minutes of it. It's like an extended preview because he wanted people to rush to the theaters to see this movie. So it's in Technicolor. And so this is sort of like...
When Walt is saying, hey, I want to build that Sleeping Beauty castle in the middle of Disneyland because the movie Sleeping Beauty is coming out. This is like, I want to build an entire land to support Johnny Tremaine that's coming out. Basically, you want people to get excited. about these two things at the same time. It did come out in theaters and it was on the show, like almost immediately. It was in theaters in 57 and then on the show in 58. So you're right. This is a full on preview.
This is a Bob Chapek model. He's like, well, we're going to put it in theaters for half a month, and then we're going to immediately put it on streaming. Yes. Yeah. Boost those numbers. So weird. So, yeah. So, Walt is like, you know. Everything's in the planning stage, of course, but our research has taken us back to the period we'd like to create as a reminder that the Liberty story is a story without end. In effect, Liberty Street will be Johnny Tremaine's Boston of 1775.
is great i can't do a walt voice i'm not great at a walt voice maybe you're better at a walt voice yeah i'll work on my walt for the next show but so basically he wants to uh he wants he has two ideas he has two attractions he wants to do an attraction about the signing of the declaration of independence
And then he has the Hall of Presidents. So, you know, the main attraction that's being pitched is this Hall of Presidents. It's going to be a wax museum, basically. And so he has Sam McKim, imaginary Sam McKim, 1960. doing all these renderings, you know, this kind of thought, because the wax museum idea is good. It's like a Madame Tussauds about presidents. But already by 1960, Walt is starting to think a little bigger and a little bit more. robotically.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of things in the work here, right? Like all the Sam McKim stuff. You got the figures that the company is working on. By the way, they did have wax figures in early Disneyland. I believe it was in the General Store in Frontierland. Andrew Jackson and a Davy Crockett, interestingly. But yeah, I think Walt was really excited about Johnny Tremaine because I don't know if you've ever read it, that Esther Forbes book.
is like a history of Boston. I think she actually wrote a history of Boston also. Or maybe she used it, Johnny, as like the surrogate to tell the history. I can't remember as one or the other. But... Walt loved it. It's a very popular story. We watched this in school when I was a kid to tell you how it was still popular into the 1980s. But at the Disney company, yeah, they're looking at how to tell stories.
in a more ambitious way. This is not something they've really done. They've had gazebos and shows and live bands and parades and all this stuff, but none of their shows have featured anything except live actors. Yeah. So basically, Walt is trying to figure out how to bring a show together that is not just live actors, but is like automated.
automated using the same tenants of a ride but doing that as a show so how do we do that uh and he starts to think about robotics and you know how robots could actually do this so this is really interesting he uh He really has all these ideas and he starts to talk to his Imagineers and say, hey, look, you've built cars, you've built ride vehicles. Why don't we focus and see if we can start to build robots?
Walt's main idea is the Hall of Presidents. That's the main attraction being pushed and pitched by Walt. So all these are forces converging when, you know, Liberty Street is being conceived of. Yeah, it's really, really cool. And so, you know, you talk about... you know, IPs a lot. Walt's IP that he's pushing here is obviously Johnny Tremaine, but it's really like American history between the Revolutionary War.
and the Civil War. That's like Walt's bread and butter. It has to be like his most favorite subject in school. The characters in that story are characters he wants to celebrate in the park. I already talked about Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett, but also Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, U.S. history.
is the central tenet of Walt's plans to expand early Disneyland. It's going to happen in New Orleans Square, but he really wants it to happen on Liberty Street. Yeah, it's so funny that he had this whole idea. There was going to be like... tall ships and there was going to be like a fake harbor and you would go in and see all these old Bostonian and New England buildings and stuff. So, you know, this was his whole thing. And this is sort of like...
And not to liken too much about what's happening with Disney right now, but it's like saying, here's the life cycle of water and also Moana. Here is the history of the United States, but also Johnny Tremaine. So yeah, it's this whole thing. It's a way to get IP in and also do the other things that you want to do. So introducing Liberty Street kind of underscores how deeply Walt feels about the history of the country and the liberties.
Walt is also, you know, a corporation, right? Yes. So. Walt's celebrating American history a lot because it's the same history that's allowed Walt to basically come from. nothing and build an entertainment you know at that time at least an entertainment empire that um that he's able to control and expand into different mediums and yeah it's uh this is the big era of like
corporate power. Right, you know, as much as we think politicians have power, they don't have any power without corporate money, at least in a capitalist society. So, Walt is celebrating this structure that gave him all that power. So... He's like, you know, I'm going to talk about American industry. I'm going to talk about, you know, shipping and all this other stuff in Liberty Street. But as we know, Matt, Liberty Street doesn't actually happen. Boo hiss.
And neither does his initial ideas for a wax figure museum about the Hall of Presidents. It was supposed to feature all the U.S. presidents from George Washington till present day. Would it have had a wax figure that looks more lively? than actual people like the Mark Zuckerberg one in-
In Chicago. Oh, it's so funny. It's just like. The funniest meme I've ever seen, by the way. This is a real person. No, it's actually. This is so funny. They also had an idea. This is really cool, Matt. The opening. show was supposed to be a Circarama pre-show and was going to feature enlarged paintings that would depict moments from the nation's founding.
there would be a picture and then like there would be uh you know it would be an animated picture so the climax would have audiences like right in the middle of the civil war battle this violence of war battle and like one part of one picture was going to shoot
into another picture and everything would blow up and you'd smell cordite. It was smell-o-vision. It was amazing. A smellitzer. Kevin, where's your smellitzer? Not a howitzer. A smellitzer. By the way, they... of do this later you're talking about like a full 360 well at least in the hall of presidents eventually they have a 180 version of this same thing now different you know
screens don't shoot at each other but you're hearing the sounds of the cannons and the muskets and you know the different voices and the different people that are involved in these conflicts as they tell the american story this This was kind of a like 2000s, maybe into the like Obama era of like the Hall of Presidents where they really do this same thing.
Yeah, and they expand and refine it with the American Adventure in Epcot. I love how they show old... photo or old like paintings yes and stuff like that and then they move into the present day it's very similar to that you know all this seems a little primitive though because it's you know wax figures and and like you said the andrew jackson davy crocker wax figures it's all very primitive uh in the in the last two decades you know we have
digital cameras, cell phones, laptops, all the stuff that we have to bring on vacation, and we think we're really advanced, and then within three years, people just have their phones. Yes. You know, so technology... We don't, I mean, right now technology is moving faster than ever, but even back in the 50s, technology was already moving really fast. We're entering the space age. Absolutely. And the things that are happening at the Disney company, I think mostly just because of investment.
and because they're trying to push stories along, the technologies that happen there allow the company to tell more advanced stories really, really fast. I mean, we go from the Viewliner. to the monorail in three years. We go from, you know, little dark rides to the Matterhorn in three years. I mean, it's crazy how fast the technology advances that the Disney company is using. And the same thing is true between little rocks that are moving on the Rainbow Cavern's mine train to full-on robots.
that are powered by hydraulics and pneumatics and all these different things. Yeah, these robots are really taking over Walt's mind. He's like, the possibilities are kind of driving him nuts. He's like, you know, this is way more intriguing than wax. He wants the presidents to move.
them to talk. This is tech that's way outside Wed's grasp at the time. He basically wants Liberty Street sponsors to fund the research and tech that are doing this. So, you know, they have a dozen meetings with a dozen sponsors for this. And Matt, guess who this is? chillingly interesting. Guess who the first company they solicit to sponsor the Hall of Presidents? Okay, so I actually read this in the Gabler book. The first Hall of Presidents solicitation was the Ford Motor Company.
Hey, uh, besides, besides, uh, the obvious Mrs. Lincoln, what'd you think of the play? Um, yeah, the Ford Ford motor. It's so weird. Um, they also want G to sponsor Edison square. Uh, that makes sense. That one makes more sense. Madison Square and do all this other stuff. But Ford Motor Company, I just, I can't, would they like have, oh, Matt, would they have named the theater? No, no, Ford's theater. No, no, no, no, no. Don't do it, Kevin. I can't help it.
So all this stuff is happening. They're really trying to do this. And then, of course, Robert Moses enters the picture, because Robert Moses always enters the picture. And he's like, hi, I want you for my World's Fair, and I'm going to double down. I want to bring you more World's Fair stuff. Bring me stuff, Walt Disney.
And Walt's like, well, yeah, sure. I have this one idea for a Hall of Residents. And at that point, when Robert Moses comes a-knocking, he starts calling it One Nation Under God. Yeah, so Robert Moses, like in the... very early 60s, approached Walt about a different attraction. He basically wanted Walt to build an East Coast Disneyland, and he wanted Walt to fund it. it was called what was that called it was called like the children's village well it's like
we don't really want to do the children's village. And so they, they turn their attention back to the things that they wanted to do. And that of course included Liberty street. So how do we get Liberty street funded? We want to get somebody on board. we want to find new sponsors, and we want to bring as many East Coast sponsors in as we can to Disneyland to A, help us test the waters at a potential World's Fair, and help us, you know,
fund attractions and whatever else Walt wants to cook up. Yeah, so Robert Moses wants Disney to foot the bill. Disney wants his sponsors or Moses to foot the bill. And so they're a little bit at an impasse, but... uh basically what happens is you know walt is is already thinking like three steps ahead and he's he's he knows how to sell things yes he knows how to make people interested so
His whole Hall of Presidents thing, he has changed the name to One Nation Under God. And this is interesting because this is at a time when that phrase is fairly new in the United States. That's true, they added that. Yeah, it was, so the Pledge of Allegiance, this is... I learned this history. Pledge of Allegiance was a marketing gimmick from an earlier World's Fair. Did you know that? No. The first version was written for the Columbian Exposition in 1892. Chicago.
Chicago to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival. So this guy named Francis Bellamy, who's a Baptist minister and a Christian socialist, he gets a job working for this magazine called Youth's Companion. This is funny because it has been accepted for years that he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, but now people are saying...
Did he steal that from a boy who submitted it to the magazine? Very interesting. Oh, I didn't know that. No, I didn't know this. I know that the Pledge of Allegiance was something that was brought out again and again and again, certainly during the First World War into the Second World War. World War and during the Red Scare.
Yeah, yeah, this is a big thing. So the original, the one at the Columbian Exposition, it was, I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So basically it's non-standard. using it in World War I. They're starting to use it in World War II. But it's non-standard. Some kids are saying it in schools before assembly. Some kids aren't. Some kids are using different versions of it. And FDR actually...
standardized it as as saying like that as exactly that phrase as the United States entered World War Two to sort of like boost patriotism and morale. And so FDR signs a flag code and puts that in there. It remained that way. No reference to God. Even though a Baptist minister did this, no reference to God at all.
And then in 1954, Ike, Dwight Eisenhower, the Red Scare is happening, and he's like, I'm going to change the wording of this. And he adds that One Nation Under God part in 1954. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating history. By the way, there was also no official...
anthem, national anthem in the early part of the 20th century either. That's also born out of World War I and World War II in the interwar period and the Red Scare, which is going on for decades. It wasn't... officially adopted the star spangled banner was not adopted until 1931 hail columbia was one of the early anthems in in addition to this so there were like three or four different anthems i actually heard that on npr like 15 years
years ago on the 4th of July I was doing one of those early morning 4th of July races and they had this whole thing about like how did they standardize the flag and how did they standardize the anthem you have to think like Things weren't as centralized in the 19th century. A lot more states, right? Thinking about states' rights and all these older histories of the United States. And things become more centralized.
during world war one including things like federal income tax and all the stuff that's born out of the early 20th century the great depression pushes a lot of centralization along our symbols begin to reflect that Donald Duck telling us to pay our taxes. Right. You know, all that stuff. And so...
So it's interesting when you hear Walt saying, I want to call this thing One Nation Under God. You know, Walt was religious, but I don't think he was like, he didn't want to necessarily bring religion into the parks. what walt wanted to do and and this this seems
Weird to say, but he wanted to bring something new, modern, and maybe a little, like, exciting into this Hall of Presidents. Because, you know, you could say, hey, the Hall of Presidents, that might sound like a stodgy idea, even though I love it. So we'll call it the new... thing that's in the Pledge of Allegiance, One Nation Under God. Marketing. It's all marketing. And so, you know, Moses, Robert Moses comes in and meets with Walt about it.
And, you know, the fair would be a perfect place to bring One Nation to God because Robert Moses is the kind of guy who could find the right sponsor for it. And eventually, Liberty Street. Basically, Walt's thinking, as I said, like... you know, seven steps beyond. He's like, I need, um, a sponsor for this attraction at the world's fair that will then continue over to Liberty street. Okay. So, uh, Walt goes to New York, Robert Moses basically sets up.
this meeting with all these different sponsors, uh, they pair, they shorten the hall of presidents into one nation under God and make it a glorious to 32 minute show. Kevin boy. Howdy. Uh, they use true life adventures, Jim Algar, who was a director of that show. And then of course, all those Sam McKim models and paintings and stuff. And Moses sets up this meeting.
They do it in the RCA Victor Theater. And they fly in all the Sam McKim stuff for this. And they bring all these corporate chiefs in. And here's who was there. Colgate. Paul Moliv. Union Carbonide, and Kansas City's own Hallmark, Kevin. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants it. Matt, they ask Coca-Cola. What?
Coke says no. They're the arbiters of American history, Kevin. How can this be? Yeah, it's so funny. They keep going to Coke for all this stuff. They're like, hey, do you want to do Lincoln? No. Do you want to do Tiki Room? No. Basically, it's like... They're that girl in Swimfan, the stalker. You love me, I know it. Swimfan. Swimfan, that means that everyone knows. I saw the Swimfan reference in here.
And I thought it was really sad to know, you know, personally that I have seen Swim Fan. Oh, I feel bad. And I understood the reference. And I was like, oh, that's weird. I only saw the commercial and we thought that was so funny. Me and my friends and my husband. Like back when Swimfan was out, we would call each other up and say, you love me, I know it, and hang up. Swimfan.
Swim fan. Also, yeah, we do talk a lot about Coke a lot in the New York World's Fair. Coke is just a big deal at the New York World's Fair. But yeah, they say no to this. So Walt realizes that the only way to sell any money on the idea of a president's attraction is to actually...
make a president. So Walt and Wed are like, oh, what do we do? Do we do George Washington? Do we do Eisenhower? Do we do... Oh, you know what? Why don't we settle on the thing that I've been obsessed with since I was six? And they go... Hey, we're going to do Lincoln. So they actually start building this prototype without any sponsors in the hopes that they can convince somebody that this will happen.
yeah this is like a side project that's happening in like a special room they they turn to blaine gibson uh to use a lincoln face for this and we know blaine gibson uh you know historically for lots of faces but especially those including authentic faces But Kevin, so there's a lot of like robot back history. The Robits. How did the Robits become part of early Disney World's Fair history and carry on the sort of legacy that would, you know, inform Disney attractions for the next...
50, 60 years, early robots revolve around, well, at least one story revolves around Walt's idea for Chinatown. Yeah, he wanted a Chinatown area also in Disneyland. He had a lot of ideas for early Disneyland.
And part of this is because he wanted to build a human figure out of Confucius, you know, the ancient Chinese philosopher. So he had this whole concept for Confucius, and this actually... is a precursor to the enchanted tiki room basically walt had this idea to build confucius who would answer questions at in the front of a chinese restaurant like you would be waiting to go in and you'd ask confucius questions and he would give words of wisdom um so
He goes to Ub Iwerks, Ub Iwerks to the rescue, as usual, and says, hey, build me a Confucius. And so, you know... Ub says, okay, I got a whole team. In order to get the mouth movements just right, this is so funny. He instructs Imagineers to just watch TV with the sound off, paying attention to the way that people's mouths move. This is interesting. It's fascinating, yeah. And Ub Iwerks is like a technical genius.
by the way he wasn't just like the guy who drew mickey mouse that we think walt disney you know drew it he's this technical mastermind, the multi-plane camera, all the different things that he introduces at Disney. And even he is struggling with this project. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, you know, I'm trying to do this. He wants to fit. The figures are supposed to be surrounded by, you know, moving nightingales.
cages. There was this whole Hans Christian Andersen story called The Emperor's Nightingale with an automaton bird that swings sweetly. So this all happens, but Confucius like... They start to build this Confucius thing, but they try to get him to speak, and his rubber skin won't hold up. It starts cracking. It bends out of shape. It really doesn't work.
The idea eventually dies, you know, so there's no more Confucius. They put a person animatronic in the background and then they say, you know what? You know what was working was the birds. Right. Let's make those the animatronics. And those are easier because they're pneumatic, right? It's just air that's being pushed through those. And the beaks don't have to shape words. They can just move up and down. That's a great point, yeah.
So another idea for early robots, this is crazy one, all right? Goes back to Walt's idea for Lilliputian land. Walt's land of little things. Walt loved miniatures. Kevin, that's your favorite saying. And Lilliputian land is a form by the text of Gulliver's Travel. So, you know, we end up eventually with storybook land canal boats.
where we have miniature architecture, essentially. But there were plans for the Lilliputian land between Fantasy and Tomorrowland where a miniature Americana village would be inhabited by little mechanical people that were nine inches high who could sing and dance and talk to you as you peeked through their windows of tiny ships and tiny homes.
Yeah, this is so strange. You know, this is where we get the whole... It's like, you know, the little man of Disneyland is out. Maybe he's out visiting these people. This is where we get The Dancing Man. You know, so The Dancing Man, we've talked about this before on the show, famously featured at Walt Disney Presents or One Man's Dream at Hollywood Studios. And it was modeled, this is so weird, modeled after...
Buddy Ebsen from the Beverly Hillbillies and the first Tin Man. So basically the Dancing Man was an early audio animatronic that is just like moving... And he's like in front of us. He's on a stage. He's in front of a big curtain. He looks like a vaudevillian performer. And he's like moving up and down. And they recorded Buddy Ebsen's movements.
uh on on screen and then they try to map it to this mechanical tiny mechanical guy uh and it's so strange to sort of think that this is where audio animatronics were beginning but this is This seemed like a breakthrough at the time. Yeah, it did. They used mechanical tape. Kevin, whatever that is. I'm not an engineer, but they use mechanical tape and then recorded these movements so they could be repeated over and over and over. And they studied the movements of a man.
This is crazy too because this is really an echo moment for the company going all the way back to animation when they're doing Dumbo. They're bringing in elephants, right, to determine how they walk and how their bodies move when they walk, how their trunks move, and then using that authenticity as much as they can in the film. They're doing the same thing here with the little man. And this is going to go on to inform how they create Lincoln later.
Yeah, yeah. So they're studying this movement, studying this, and they're like, okay, you know, we sort of have the idea of how people work. So they say, okay, we can actually start building this prototype of Lincoln. So they have a face mask. They have a... Life Mask of Lincoln from Leonard Volk made in Chicago in 1860 of Lincoln. And Blaine Gibson is using a copy of this actual life mask to build Lincoln's face, which is amazing. That's a crazy story. I remember learning about.
that I was like why did Lincoln make a life mask in 1861 yeah and I think that they just do that maybe well you know how the Illuminati built a bunch of robot Lincolns to fight vampires. That's probably why. I think that was in a Simpsons episode also. Yeah, you're right. But yeah, so we made this life mask and Blaine Gibson got a hold of a cop.
of it. So they're actually making something that looks like Lincoln. One of the other funny things I heard about Imagineers talking about is like, why couldn't Walt like Taft? We can't fit all these pneumatics and tubes and all this stuff in Lincoln. He's so skinny and tall, it's ridiculous. We need a big guy. We need a big dude. So...
You know, they're working on it, working on it, and they start to figure this stuff out. And by the summer of 61, this is amazing. The figure had been developed enough so they could do what they were calling the one trick. and it was basically getting Lincoln to be sitting down and then moving into a standing position.
to talk. That's amazing. And they were able to do that. And that blew people, I mean, eventually we'll get to it, but that like blew people's minds when they first saw it, right? Like it makes sense to see, look, we're coming from an era of wax figures and dolls. But then to see someone move or stand as if they're a human, that's a huge breakthrough. Yeah, yeah. So Robert Moses comes to visit Walt. At this point...
he knows Walt's working on. It's a small world and he's working on Progress Land. So he's like, I'm going to see what Walt's up to. So he goes there and he looks out of the corner of his eye. He sees a Hall of Presidents mock-up at the Walt Disney Studios in 1962. and he says, you know what? I won't open the fair without that exhibit. And Walt's like, we haven't even gotten one guy done. But he's thrilled. He's like, I need to have this. So keep this in mind.
Robert Moses is a man who says he immediately wants something and basically expects everybody else to pay for it. Right. And so I want this, make that happen for me, not... Here's how I can make that happen for you. Very, very interesting. That's why he sets up the meeting with Colgate and Palmolive and all those on Walt's behalf. I don't even know if it was for Walt. I think it was for Robert Moses. He wants this more than anyone. So much so that when the sponsors decline, he goes to his buddy.
Franklin Roosevelt Jr., who at the time is the undersecretary of commerce and his assistant and tries to pitch. Walt's plan for One Nation Under God slash Hall of Presidents to them as a centerpiece of the federal pavilion, which was also going to be at the fair. So just another route that he can try to take to get someone to pay for it. for this and they, by the way, also go to Disney.
check out the project, and also determine that it is far too expensive. Yeah, the Nepo Baby thing isn't working here. It didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't, like... Now, it's very funny because Robert Moses tries to do this with politicians and it doesn't work, but we'll see later on. Somebody else does it and it does work. But 1963, Moses comes back. sees the Lincoln prototype standing up, and it extends a hand to Robert Moses, and Moses loses his mind. He's like...
This guy has to be in the fair. Make this happen for me. And again, Robert Moses, this is the best thing that I've ever seen. I won't open the fair without it. So, oh, wait, you want me to pay for it? Absolutely not. No way. Absolutely not. We're going to do anything we can not to. We're going to get our political contacts, our friends at General Dynamics working on the war machine. We don't care who pays for it. Just someone pay for it.
Somebody besides me, Robert Moses. I'm going to put my name on it. My legacy is going to be this. I'm not putting a cent towards it. Oh, Robert Moses. Enter, Kevin, the Illinois Pavilion. Yeah, so early 1963, the Illinois legislature passes a bill that establishes the Illinois Commission on the New York World's Fair. So it does not take long for the Illinois Commission to say, we want this to be about the land of Lincoln.
There's this guy named Fairfax Cone, which is the best name I've ever heard. I love this name. It's so good. Fairfax Fair? No, sir. Fairfax Cone. Cone. It's like when you get a handwitch at Fairfax Fair. So Fairfax Cone. Cohen is the temporary chairman of this commission. And, uh, and he, you know, they start talking to him about this Lincoln figure and he's like, Oh, I don't know.
about this it's gonna be whack it's gonna be weird so he goes to the walt disney studio he and his wife go to the studio from illinois he sees lincoln and walt blew his mind he immediately i'm gonna read this letter to you yes I'm sure you know that I was overwhelmed by the realism of the Lincoln figure that you showed Mrs. Cohn and me last Friday.
The possibility of our using the Lincoln figure and the effect of this upon visitors to the New York World's Fair have not left my mind during any of my waking hours since I saw it. I'm going to New York tomorrow to discuss the Illinois participation with the fair people, and I expect...
to be in touch with Jack Sayers shortly to further explore this project. Matt, he is, so this is a very gentle way of saying, I've lost my mind. I can't stop thinking about this. This is a swim fan moment again. Oh my God. Love me. I know it.
Uh, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about Jack Sayers. Who's Jack Sayers? Oh yeah. Jack Sayers. So Jack Sayers is not a central figure in like Disney history. However, if you dive into the minutia of Walt Disney's corporate dealings, you see Jack Sayers names. over and over and over. So Jack Sayers is, um...
He's basically like Walt's corporate headhunter. So he was previously the head of Walt's lessee program, and he's touring the East Coast in the early 1960s trying to find sponsors to fund Walt's exhibits at the fair because he knows Walt wants to use... those sponsorships to fund the project so he can bring them back to disneyland so jack sayers is walt's chess mate and he's going around the country meeting with all kinds of sponsors here's the sponsors he met with in like one year
RCA, American Machine and Foundry, IBM, AT&T, American Gas, General Dynamics, GE, and closes deals. He's the guy, closed all the deals with Ford. IBM, and even had a lead project with Owens Corning. They're like a fabricator in the early 60s. So yeah, Jack Sayers.
is the guy making all the stuff happen for Walt while Walt's back at Imagineering. Yeah, Walt's the face of things, and Jack Sayers is behind the scenes, like, pulling all the strings and doing all the stuff. He's the dealmaker. He's the guy. He's Jason Alexander in Pretty Woman. You got Richard Gere, who's like heading the company, and then Jason Alexander's character is like going around and making all the backdoor deals.
yeah and then and then julie roberts walks in and jack sayers is like no we don't want you in here she's like I got the money, baby. Anyway, so Fairfax Cohn and his wife are not the only ones who are excited. Eventually, they have a permanent chairman named Ralph Newman. And this guy is amazing. He is a Lincoln scholar. You think that Walt liked Lincoln? This guy... is obsessed with Lincoln. He's building up this library of Lincolniana.
Is that how you say it? Lincolniana, just like the biggest in the world, and he's obsessed with Lincoln. He's like, I'm going to go root out anything that's phony about this. So he goes to the studios, and he also loves it. The governor of Illinois. My Otto Kerner comes in. He takes a look. He loves it.
Everyone loves Lincoln. Everyone's obsessed with this animatronic, but there's only one problem, Matt, and that is money. Yeah, it always comes down to money. By the way, these historians, you've seen this guy, John Meacham. He's on TV all the time. He's the presidential historian. That's what...
these guys are like these guys are like hey we're going to tell you exactly how this meeting went in 1871 it was the teapot dome scandal kevin and we have a historian here to tell you all about just almost irrelevant information in history, but... very relevant when you start saying, hey, I'm going to be a purveyor of history inside a pavilion. We need experts to help tell us that. Now, as you mentioned, that's great.
You can do the academic piece. Walt pairs with these people. Illinois is on board. How are we going to garner the funds? Yeah, I mean, what Walt really wants, he... You know, while there's a guy who wants to put a patina of fantasy on everything, you know, including like mythologizing the Old West, you know, we've got Fantasyland.
But when it comes to Lincoln, he's like, this has to be stately. This has to be realistic. And it can't have any artifice in it. So you need the money to make this happen. So it's not... It's not just that it's going to cost a lot to build the audio animatronic, but also to run it and maintain it, not to mention the rest of the pavilion. Like I said, it's not just the animatronic. They have to host all this Lincolniana. They're going to...
have to build a structure, all this other stuff. You know, so... This is like crazy. Copies of every known photo of Lincoln, an original manuscript of the Gettysburg Address. Illinois is not messing around. They really, really want this to come off. Now...
This is a brief sidebar. I didn't put any of this in the notes, but we look at something like the General Electric Pavilion. We look at the Ford Pavilion. We look at it's a small world. All these things are grandiose and fanciful, and this is very stately.
By contrast, but it's still a remarkable undertaking here. You know, just because it's not like mid-century modern and googie does not mean that it was not an impactful, meaningful thing here. They're really trying to make this... as big if not bigger i mean you go to the world's fair you're like oh i'm gonna ride that car i'm gonna you know ride this boat uh and and you sort of make fun of oh i'm gonna go to this illinois pavilion but it was important and it was kind of exciting too
yeah i love this i mean i you know as a fan of one man's dream to me the treatment of lincoln here by illinois by the disney company by these historians is the way that disney treats its own history today right it's the way that it's represented and is some of it narrative of course it is right i mean that's part of the gig is to present walt disney in a way that you know makes him like
Lincoln-like, except in the corporate world. And that's how Disney is treating Lincoln and so I think yes I'm with you I have never honestly looked at this and thought that it was lesser of the pavilions I've always thought it's one of the best and one of the most difficult of the pavilions to pull off Yeah, yeah, it's a very, it's just cool, and it's important, and it's smart, and it's also a space-age pavilion in a different sort of way. You know, so...
Walt and Wed believe in this so much that they're actually willing to compromise with money. They're like, all right, we're going to include all the maintenance and operation costs with the rental fee. That was supposed to be, you know, $600,000. We will include all that.
We're going to divide the rental fee up into two years. So it's not like you're paying a whole bunch now and then nothing later. We're going to separate it so you can afford this. And then, you know, we're going to do this like option that the Illinois Commission. had this exclusive option on renewing the contract at Disney for $65,000 for a $250,000 fee. And they're like, we're going to strip that down a little bit. So WED had actually like broken it all down and said,
We're going to give you basically the biggest possible discount. And they still couldn't afford it. Yeah. So, Kevin, so if, you know, we talked about Robert Moses being obsessed with this. If he's... Again, he's bringing in as many people as he can to fund this. If he really wants Lincoln, he's going to have to put something up. He's going to have to leverage himself at some point to get this attraction at the fair.
He wants all these pavilions to use their own security, pay for rentals and utilities. This is so funny. The Illinois legislature had approved a million dollars, but really didn't know what they were paying for. They're like, yeah, you could do a million dollars for this. They didn't know if that was too high.
or too low they just said a million dollars so as it turns out it's too low they can't afford Moses's demands and Lincoln so Disney and this historian Ralph Newman go to Moses and said hey look we need your help Moses is like Nah, you know, whatever. And I can't believe, Matt, this is so thrilling to me. Ralph Newman pulls Robert Moses and says, all right, well. I'm gonna go see Adlai Stevenson, uh...
the American ambassador to the United Nations. So I'm going to go do that. I'm going to go visit my buddy Adelaide Stevenson. So if you want to reach me, you can call me there at his office. It's a full flex, bro. It's a full on flex. It is amazing. And then to Walt, Newman's like, you know, Moses, if Moses doesn't agree to what we're doing, you know, we're going to have to go through this without the Lincoln figure. And Walt's like, he's going to call you.
You just did the Adelaide Stevenson thing. He's going to call you. And Moses calls him at Stevenson's office and says, yep, I agree. So that's fascinating, Matt. Moses puts more money in than was required. That's... That's hilarious. He got beat. He got beat. The promise and the shiny technology finally appealed to him. He finally put up money because of the shiny thing. Yeah, it's just amazing. So...
We're not going to get totally deep into the technicals of the Lincoln show. We're going to have, at some point, a whole show about great moments with Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland. But this is interesting. So they had the figure. And they made a second figure, you know, there just in case anything broke or there were any problems. And in fact, there were some problems at the beginning, some electrical problems at the beginning. There's a second figure in the chair and everything.
He was stationed below the theater stage, so if the regular Lincoln malfunctions, he could be lowered in a service elevator, and then... a second a seated stand-in or sit-in uh could be brought up on stage so like there was a b show here um but later on bob gerr said you know as it turned out lincoln number one ran flawlessly
through 1964 and 65, they rarely used it. So that's kind of interesting. I like to think Buddy Ebsen for that, Kevin. It was all Buddy Ebsen's dance moves that helped inform what would later happen with Lincoln. We look at this now, and we just talked about what a fantastic, stately... charming attraction this is and was and you won't believe this though there were actually critics in illinois who did not want this to be part of the illinois pavilion
I had no idea about this. This is hilarious. So there was a paper that said the Lincoln Project was a, quote, cheap carnival trick that would demean the memory of Abraham Lincoln and degrade the Illinois exhibit. What? Yeah, that's a good one. And then another one called the attraction Macabre. We're going to raise a dead man and have him talk to you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, if you think about...
when we reacted to the two-pack hologram. I guess I could see what they were thinking. I don't know. I mean, dead Mufasa on The Legend of the Lion King is the most macabre thing I've ever seen. But maybe not this. He's talking to you. Come on. He's not dead. He's like this. We're reimagining. It's like a painting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
A lot of these criticisms happened as the attraction was announced at a dinner, which, you know, at the on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. So I don't even think they had seen this. They just heard the idea of this and they're like, no. We don't want this. We don't want this at all. So eventually the World's Fair ends. A bunch of the pavilions are being dismantled and going to Disneyland. So what's funny about this, and this is something I didn't know.
The first Disneyland version of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln opened on July 18th, my birthday, 1965, not my birthday, as part of the Tensennial, Matt. Yes. Yeah, Miss Tensennial was there, the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, the Opera House on Main Street, USA. This is interesting. This opened while the World's Fair was still happening. Didn't know that. Yeah, I had no idea. So, this is the first time ever that two Walt Disney attractions were happening at different coasts at the same time. That...
Is fascinating. I didn't really think about that, but that is true. It's like Mr. Toad and Mr. Toad, but like not really. Not really. Space Mountain and Space Mountain. So, you know, it opens as an e-ticket. You need an e-ticket. As an adult admission, this is so funny. Whenever you see somebody saying, oh, the, what do you call it? Midway Mania isn't really an E ticket. And I'm like, Lincoln was an E ticket. Calm down. It was downgraded eventually to a D ticket.
But it was so funny. They basically still had the earlier version at the New York World's Fair, and they had an updated and upgraded audio animatronic.
at disneyland so it moved a lot better a little bit more fluidly um you know it was just a a better audio animatronic they had learned in the two years that it was existing at the world's fair how to make it even better yes that makes sense right they're perfecting they're processes and characters and this is going to go on to help inform how they build walt disney world of course and um yeah all of this is is really interesting to see these
attractions go from the fair to the theme park is a that's a process like that whole thing like constructing it's a small world and like the back room of like the disney lot and like figuring out how all these things work and then shipping it to New York, and then shipping it back. Crazy. Yeah, yeah. It's amazing how they did this. So they wanted the state of Illinois to keep sponsoring the attraction, but, you know, that million dollars was one and done. It wasn't going to happen.
They get, this is so funny, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association to sponsor this in Disneyland, which is amazing. That's perfect. It's so good. Why? I mean, why didn't they think of that in the first place? Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, why not? Yeah, right. There's a new pre-show.
called The Lincoln Story, presented on a 28-foot screen. It uses a lot of elements from the World's Fair pre-show, but it takes out all references to Illinois. So it's like Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln. He was from, you know. a state of some sort by the way there's like five states in my region that claim lincoln did you know this really oh god yeah kentucky claims him illinois claims him nebraska claim like everybody wants lincoln the same thing is true
Also, for Ulysses S. Grant, Missouri tries to claim him. Ohio is where he was born, et cetera, et cetera. All of these figures from like the 19th century, like all of these states from that time period, all want to claim all of these people. We have something similar with Edgar Allan Poe here, where Boston, Philadelphia, I think Providence, Rhode Island, there's a lot of places that want to claim.
name edgar allen poe we have a statue of poe like in our downtown and i'm like i think he was here for a little while maryland right yeah yeah yeah exactly Matt, so this is really, so the show in the main theater at Disneyland, it's basically duplicate of the World's Fair presentation. It has the same capacity, but it's way more, like I said, way more advanced.
This is kind of interesting. It also, like the original, had some electrical issues at first, and later on Marty Sklar said it could have been because the opera house is close to the monorail, and the monorail, like... electricity is messing with it. They eventually, like...
you know, fix that. Or it could have been Lincoln's ghost, Matt. Yeah, it could have been. It could have been Lincoln. I was thinking Lincoln's ghost. How come you tried to put me back in the Ford theater? Why would you do this? Why were the monorail and Lincoln on the same circuit? That's my question. Like, come on, guys. Guys, come on. Make a different circuit, guys. It's Lincoln. Kept blowing fuses like the father in Carousel of Progress. That's where they got that bit.
I heard, and I don't know how urban legend this is, but I heard that when, I don't know if it was at the World's Fair or at Disneyland, at one point, one of the hydraulic pumps burst in Lincoln's neck while it was... while he was going, and it looked like he had been shot and was bleeding. I know, it's terrible. And so someone's like, we don't need this kind of realism. It's like someone fainted. I think this might be an urban legend.
But when I did a VIP tour of Disney World, they repeated it. So who knows? By the way, all of my favorite, like... 70s, 80s dystopianism is all from Lincoln, right? It's all Westworld and all this stuff from the 70s is Michael Crichton stuff, bioengineering and androids and creating, you know, authentic.
looking people that are really cyborg. Like all this stuff comes from this era. So there's another like fascinating, like latent effect of it. Everybody sees Lincoln and they're like, the possibilities are now terrifying. Correct. Also, so we talk a little bit about, you know, Lincoln speaking. His voice was Royal Dano, Matt, who was a character actor. Yeah, Royal Dano. I knew nothing about Royal Dano, but if you look him up, he was a Western star.
And yeah, so he's known for a ton of different TV series. Most of them are in the Western category, like Gunsmoke and Big Valley and these sorts. Even, you know, he still works into like the 70s. He's in, Kevin, he was on a merch. Oh. As one of the characters. He was in a movie called Carrie, but not that one. No, in the 1952s Carrie. Yeah, Cimarron and like Have Gun, Will Travel. He was like, he was on everything.
Fun fact, he is not related to Paul Dano. I thought he was like his grandfather or his father or something. I drink your milkshake. I drink it up. That's Paul Dano from... Daniel Plainview's nemesis in Not No Country for Old Men. There Will Be Blood. Yes, yes. But different people, different people. I was thinking Book'em, Dan-o. Is that Hawaii Five-0? I don't know. It was, it was.
We can only do three seconds of a song. He was in that show. He was also in Hawaii Five-0, by the way. Which is really funny. Book him Dan-O, and he's just walking by. He's like, what, me? What? Who? Me? What? Dan-O? Okay. Paul Danova does the voice eventually, right? The first Lincoln voice is Paul Freeze, Kevin. Ah, are your ghost hosts.
yeah that's interesting i wonder i mean if he changed his voice enough to be like not spooky but yeah then they get like this guy gravitas and then they i remember um in the great moments with mr lincoln you see some paul dano clips from when he played Lincoln in a movie. And they're like, we're going to use him.
So that's kind of interesting. So let's talk a little bit about the architects of the actual robot of Lincoln. Yeah, I mean, without these guys, we never have Lincoln. We never have modern animatronics. um it's the the whole thing's fascinating uh bob gerr of course is a is an architect of the original lincoln and we already mentioned him before uh when i spoke with him the one time well i think i met him a couple of times he was
He told me that he had a Lincoln at his house. Oh, really? Yes. And it must have been like the one, like the seated, the sit-in Lincoln, the protestant Lincoln, the one who will not stand for this. Literally wouldn't. But I don't know if he was supposed to or not. Anyway, Bob Gurr, he was an architect there. And then Roger Brogy, who, if you didn't know, he's Walt's like steam up buddy. He's the train man. My brother, I think, met his son at some point, Michael Brogy.
And they were all steam up people, backyard trains. And then you'll know this name, too, because of lots of different attractions. But Mark Davis played a role. Alice Davis's husband. Yeah, Mark Davis worked on 101 Dalmatians. He was this Imagineer. He worked on Snow White. The Totems. The Tiki Totems. The Tiki Totems. He was a big part of Adventureland. He worked on America Sing.
Yeah, it's like just the best parts of the Caribbean. Just like America sings really is the most important one. Harriet Burns is part of this. She did the clothing and playing Gibson. had the face mask, so he did the facial sculpture. And then Walthall Rogers, one of the nine old men.
Yeah. I mean, all these guys that went from animation to wed and then back and forth. I mean, they're all working on these early projects here. I mean, they really trained, you know, later Imagineers to do what they did on. paper, essentially, in real life. And then, you know, it creates this whole cottage industry of theme park designers. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is like a whole thing with, you know, theme park designers become just this whole...
It's a very specialized technology and specialized field where, you know, it starts here. The World's Fair is really where everything kicks off. I mean, they had people designing it. They weren't really, they were the innovators. And now, after the World's Fair and after Link... And you have people who are like, I can be a theme park designer. That can be my thing. So this is very interesting. By the way, according to Disney itself, D23, Waffle Rogers breathed life into audio animatronics.
He is most well known for making the birdies sing. Kevin, at Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. Yeah, we're going to be doing an Enchanted Tiki Room episode probably in season nine. But he is one of the reasons why you see the birds breathe in and out.
you know, in the Chantiki Room. So making them a little bit more realistic. These are all Disney legends. Yes. This is amazing. So the original New York figure is currently on display at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort at the...
Walt Disney presents attraction. You know, one of them is in Bob Gurr's house. Bob Gurr has dinner with one of them every night. Every night he like raises a glass. He's like, hey, Lincoln. And Lincoln just stares. And he's like, yes, exactly. On the 50th anniversary. anniversary of Disneyland, the first 50 magical years, they replaced Lincoln, the animatronic, and they brought in a new one and Matt again.
We're going to replace this Lincoln. We're going to make it look better. We're going to make it more fluid. We're going to make it more lifelike. And of course, people got so mad. I think they took Lincoln out for a little bit when they did this and then brought him back in the teens. I'm not mistaken, but also they they killed. They canceled Lincoln for a little bit in the.
70s and then people got mad and they brought it back again they like went on and off with lincoln for a couple years and then lincoln was there for like 30 years and then when they got to the 50th i think they pulled lincoln out because the first time i went to
wait so for the 50th did they take him out completely with no like explanation that is so weird yeah yeah so yes kevin it was he was removed for like two years two or three years in 2005 which does that make sense to you no i don't understand why that would happen I don't either. I don't either. So the first time I went to Disneyland, I believe that was 07. He wasn't there.
Well, and now there's another controversy because they're bringing a Walt Disney figure in there, and it's going to switch off between Walt Disney talking and Abraham Lincoln talking. So you'll go like half the shows of the day. are going to be Walt Disney and half the shows of the day are going to be Abraham Lincoln I don't hate that no I don't hate it either I think it's a pretty cool idea
Yeah. At least we get to keep both of them. Kind of like Impressions Day France. I can't imagine if that was gone for that other show. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. For the Beauty of the Beast show where LeFou was the hero. Very strange. Yeah. So, you know. Walt had this whole idea, even before the Lincoln animatronic was conceived of, to create a land in his small, perfect utopia where that celebrated the history and the legacy of American liberty.
Well, the world changes, America changes. This Lincoln has lived on through all that, and he will continue to live on, showing the best that America can be and America's liberties, freedoms, and permissions for now and to eternity. Well, Kevin, this was a lot of fun. This was our penultimate episode in the World's Fair series. So that's really exciting. We're going to wrap things up with the Electric City.
Here coming up soon, which I can't wait to talk about. It's got another dome in it. We love talking about domes. Oh, we got to talk about all the domes. We love Buckminster Fuller and all that stuff. Oh, yeah. Buckminster Fuller is Turkey Lake Jeff's favorite Disney imaginative. He's like, who?
who are you talking about? Buckminster Fuller. Anyway, so that's going to be exciting. But maybe people don't think as much about this pavilion as they do some of the other ones at the 1964 World's Fair. And that's kind of... That's an interesting thing that's almost kind of sad because to me, this is one of the most impressive.
Yeah, I mean, the other ones were, you know, a little bit more obviously space age. You know, a lot of the other ones, in fact, almost all the other ones. So you've got... you've got the uh the ford one and you've got progressland those are looking towards the future you've got it's a small world that looks towards the world culture this is the only one that's really looking towards the past
And, you know, is that important? I think I would argue it's very important. In fact, I think it might now be the most important thing to look at, you know, how we got our liberties and how we retain our liberties and how Lincoln was the perfect spokesperson. I think a lot of people think of Lincoln as a figurehead rather than a real person that got a lot of stuff done.
bring unity to everybody and to bring unity to this country that was kind of falling apart at the time. And so I think having a representation of him and hearing his words are still inspiring and still very necessary in this year. Yeah, that's a great point. And, you know, we'll have Walt Disney, and he was a unifier of sorts, bringing people together for certain things, but not as important as maybe someone like Lincoln, who really, you know...
I would say took on great risk, was someone who wore the burden of his time. And so those kinds of people are important to celebrate and understand. in a modern context and thinking about you know what their words meant then and what they mean now sacrifice being a huge part of that something that you know a lot of people have forgotten i think over time because we're so far away from the themes
of that age. So yes, I am super happy that something like this still exists. I think it's interesting when Disney gets to retell the story or modify the story for modern times or look at different aspects of history as the show updates through the years. And the show was updated about three or four times since the original version at the 64 World's Fair.
Yeah, yeah, it keeps being updated. The figure keeps getting better. It's so fascinating. You know, I think when I first went in 2009, and I could be wrong about this, it could just be like my memory playing tricks on me, but I remember it being like really good, but, you know, definitely a little bit robotic. and I went sort of recently to see this and he's like a real person. At one point I was like, did they replace him with an actor?
it's so weird i think we do need to distinguish him a little bit from a human like you want to make him like so realistic i'm just like Maybe it's okay that he's not just like a person. The other part of the story that I find fascinating too is Johnny Tremaine. That was such a huge part of my childhood. Understanding.
The Revolutionary War through a character like Johnny is something Disney did really, really well. Of course, Esther Forbes writes the text, but Disney is the one that makes the film, and it's one of the... reasons I studied a lot of history, I think, in my life, just a movie like Johnny Tremaine.
I don't know where my whole fascination with American history came in. I was into it in high school, but I never read Johnny Germain when I was a kid. And I don't know, it just sort of, I think listicles. This is so strange.
to say but like when I got when I got into the internet uh later on and there would be like hey did you know this about American history hey did you know this thing and I was like i didn't know that and so that kind of kicked it off and then going to disney kind of like solidified it going to liberty square even though i am literally surrounded by in boston american history uh it really like that kind of kicked it off
you know, the internet and Disney. So, you know, they tell you those things will rot your brain, but they also made me very interested in American history. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Disney, it was always fascinating to me that when we first started recording, you're like, Liberty Square is my favorite land. And I'm like...
Don't you live in Liberty Square? Yeah, but it's less clean here. I know. It's just funny. It's just funny. I see. And it's true, too. Like, I love New Orleans. It's a little bit grimy. But I also love New Orleans Square. I love both versions of New Orleans. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I remember there was somebody who was campaigning for some New Orleans governorship or New Orleans mayorship at one point, and they put her picture in front of New Orleans Square. Oh, yes!
Oh, God, it was the funniest thing. They're like, wait a minute, that's not New Orleans. That's New Orleans Square. That's very interesting. Yeah, so I really enjoyed doing the show. Thanks for putting this together, Kevin, and I really... enjoyed going back and looking up some of the details of the things. I love talking about the corporations of the 60s. I don't know why. They're so funny. Everything seems so, like, writ small compared to now, you know?
united corbonite uh or corbonite or whatever that was just hilarious to me i was like what is han solo like stuck yeah in carbonite uh and i do think it's it's um unique that You know, Disneyland starts obviously the Bank of America connection, ABC and all that, but he's got like. you know, his friends opening up businesses inside Disneyland versus like the mega corpse that come out of the 64 World's Fair. It's a really big growth moment, I think, for Disney.
Yeah, instead of this guy's barbecue place, we've got GE here helping you out. Yeah, so I love doing this. We have one more New York World's Fair show, but we have some other stuff happening before we wrap. up season eight um part of that is uh is because of you guys uh we as we said at the top we have begun a patreon um part of the there are three tiers of the patreon we've got fruit brutes which is the three dollar one uh
We've got Sad Tomato Kids, and then we've got the 3028 Listorians. And all of those tiers can vote in what we do next. And you guys voted for this one. You voted for Lincoln. Yes. You wanted to hear Lincoln next. So thank you so much for that. Join our Patreon. All the tiers have different interesting things. You can get the show a week early. You can get access to our secret shows. You can talk to us on our Discord.
What a fun time. I'm on there right now. Yeah, me too. I've been like talking to people while you've been like talking about Lincoln. I'd be like, oh, hi. While you were talking, I was definitely on Discord. Yeah, literally completely ignoring you. No. But yeah, so join our Patreon. We love our five-star reviews. If you want to still donate to the show, you can. But joining the Patreon seems like a more...
interesting and fun way to throw money our way and, uh, and to get you some stuff too. So, uh, and like I said at the beginning, uh, Kevin Quigley design.com, uh, mention, uh, if you are on the Patreon, you get a 10% discount. So that's great. So Matt, without any further ado, wait, nope. Nope. Oh, we're starting again, Matt. We're going to do Lincoln part two.
American Vampire Hunter. So, from all of us here at the 3028 to all of you out there, thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you real soon. Let's jump in! America's thing! and first they were written, proclaimed to the world an idea new among men. This was the American dream, the prayer for the future. was not to be had without cost. The American way was not gained in a day. It was born in adversity, forged out of conflict, perfected and proven only.