Disneyland's Tomorrowland Original Artwork

Here is the artwork topic of this week, and it's a special Disneyland's Tomorrowland artwork. The renderings below were done by great WDI artists such as Herb Ryman, John Hench, Dale Hennesy and more. As usual don't forget to click on each image to enjoy them in big size!

Walt Disney was fascinated by the future. Tomorrowland is an optimistic salute to "what's in store", a world where "tomorrow is just a dream away". Below, a 1954 Herb Ryman concept drawing with a painting by Collin Campbell of Tomorrowland Entrance.



This 1953 concept for Tomorrowland by Dale Hennesy included a monorail, an attraction which, as we know, did not become a part of Disneyland until the technology became available at the end of the 50's.



Another concept for Tomorrowland entrance - probably by Herb Ryman. The waterfalls evolved into pylons as designers searched for ways to create a visual language of the future. Note the boat which looks like a Jungle Cruise boat...



Next is a great watercolor of a Space Mountain early concept by John Hench, 1965. Detail from this painting at the top.



Always in 1965, John Hench proposed a futuristic adventure called "Saturn" that catapulted guests through the rings of Saturn to a space station.



Let's end with this great painting of Space Mountain at night by John Hench, a real master.



Talking about John Hench, i'd like to let you know that his great book "Designing Disney" is now available in soft cover, now at a very affordable price - only $13.57
! This 160 pages book is fantastic, each page with plenty of John Hench's paintings, and you can order it if you wish through the Disney and more Amazon store HERE



Artwork: copyright Disney Enterprises Inc

Captain EO is back at Disneyland !

Yesterday was a day of incredible excitement at Disneyland as Captain EO was back at Tomorrowland! The videos selection below will give you a pretty good idea of yesterday's atmosphere at Disneyland as hundreds of Disneyland and Michael Jackson's fans were there for the re-opening and Legendary Imagineer Tony Baxter too!

Cable TVs were there to cover the event and in the first video below Tony Baxter talks about this re-opening.



The always excellent Inside the Magic also did a great interview of Tony Baxter. Tony answers of course to EO related questions but also talk about his dream to have a 3D Festival with vintage Disneyland 3D movies, and it's a very good idea!



And how was the fans excitement when gates of Tomorrowland Theater opened for the first new screening of Captain EO? Have a look at the video below to have an idea of the fans hysteria!



What did they think when they got out of the screening? Disney Parks posted yesterday a short video which will show you the "awesome" fans reactions.



Twenty-four years after its first opening on September 12, 1986, Captain Eo is back at Disneyland, and Disneyland & Michael Jackson's fans can experience again the magic created by Michael Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola and Georges Lucas. Michael, wherever you are, we salute you!



Pictures: copyright Disney

Videos: copyright Inside the Magic, athinamj, cazzofanlax and Disney Parks

Plectu's Fantastic Galactic Revue, the "Disney decade" project that never was

"Plectu's Fantastic Galactic Revue" was part of the new attraction/show announced in 1990's famous "Disney decade" project. Supposed to replace the Carousel of Progress at WDW, it was, unfortunately, never built. The renderings of this "Plectu's" project are extremely rare, but here is one showing how the exterior would have looked. Let's thanks Mark Taft from the excellent Insight and Sounds blog who had the good idea to take the picture of the artwork in 1990 at Disneyland.

In one of his famous "Why for?" articles published in 2004, Jim Hill described the building exterior theming as "Like someone had brought the Mothership from "Close Encounters of a Third Kind" in for a three-point landing in the heart of Tomorrowland", and when we look at the artwork, the least we can say is that Jim's description was right!

To know more how this "singing audio-animatronics aliens" and their "outer-space musical-variety revue" would have been - if WDI succeed to have the green light from Michael Eisner - which they never had, i suggest you to have a look at Jim's article HERE

Artwork: copyright Walt Disney Enterprises

The " S.S Disney " , an incredible WDI project - Interview with Mark Hickson

Editor's Note: This is a new version of the S.S Disney article that i've posted six months ago in May. Thanks to Mark Hickson who found back recently old pictures of the S.S Disney model you'll be able to explore in details this fantastic project that never was...and will never be. Here we go with Mark's interview, Mark Hickson captions are in italics under each picture.

Above: Starboard view of the S.S Disney with shell on. Note the un-themed stern area with stack – we never worked up a plan for it in time for this model.

Today, you will discover an incredible Disney project. So incredible that even in my dreams i would never have thought that WDI could have designed something like this. Really fascinating, as you will see.

The project was called the “S.S Disney” and it’s Mark Hickson who managed the Imagineering development team 15 years ago. Mark started his career at WDI working on the Splash Mountain project for Disneyland, and then became part of the Tokyo Disneyland project office. Over a period of seven years Mark contributed to over 30 Disney projects that included TDL version of Splash Mountain, Toon Town, the new Spaceship Earth Show, the 3-D film "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience", EPCOT Interactive Fountain, Innoventions, etc. He also worked on other Disney projects like the Broadway Production of Beauty and the Beast, Disneyland's 35th Birthday and Tokyo Disneyland’s 5, 10 & 20 years Master Plan.

Mark who now lives in Hawaii is the Chief of Project Controls for the $5.4 Billion Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project. As a consultant to the City and County of Honolulu, his responsibilities are to provide leadership in defining and implementing a comprehensive project controls department for the light rail commuter project.

But back in 1993-1994, thanks to his shipbuilding and theme park master planning experience, Mark was asked to work on the “S.S Disney” project. The idea was to transform a super tanker - a huge ship that normally brings oil from the Middle East to other countries - into a “floating theme park”. No kidding! The idea seems unbelievable, a real floating “Disneyland”. I’m sure you’re dying to know more about it, so let’s begin Mark’s interview.

Alain Littaye: How did this incredible idea of transforming a super tanker in a floating theme park began at WDI?

Mark Hickson: Back in the early 1990’s, at a fund-raising dinner Jim Cora, Chairman of Disneyland International, was sitting next to a U.S Navy Admiral. They were joking and the Admiral said “You know, I have an extra aircraft carrier, you have to put a theme park on top of it!” He was just kidding, but the idea enchanted Jim. The next day he asked his staff if there was somebody at Disney who knew anything about ships. Larry Fink, who worked with me on Disneyland’s Splash Mountain knew about my thirteen years shipbuilding experience and told Jim about me. Later he called me about the aircraft carrier idea. I told him that it would be more feasible to build it on another kind of ship, like a cruise liner, cargo ship, or oil tanker. If I remember correctly he then met with Michael Eisner and they agreed to ask Marty Sklar at WDI to do a study feasibility on this unique idea. That’s how everything started. Since I was the only one that had extensive shipbuilding experience I was charged to be the project manager and technical director for the project. I worked with some really fantastic concept architects, show designers, script writers, concept artists and model makers and over the course of nine months we put together the floating theme park concept.

A.L: Were they enthusiastic at WDI on such an incredible idea?

M.H: Yes! You know, a lot of things we’ve done at WDI may seem a bit off the wall but I think it’s the real power of Imagineering is not being afraid to look at new ideas and to see if they are feasible.

A.L: As you say on your web site, this S.S Disney idea was to bring the Disney theme park experience to locations where they would never build a theme park. Is that right?

M.H: Yes, remember that all this was envisioned before they built Tokyo Disney Sea or Hong Kong Disneyland. The idea was to bring the Disney experience and promote the Disney brand in countries where the company would never consider building a theme park. We looked at a lot of different locations internationally, and gave a lot of thought about what kind of attractions we could put on a floating theme park that will make an experience that everybody will truly enjoy.

A.L: Do you have any idea of the destinations where the ship would have gone?

M.H: Actually, I initially came up with a world-wide listing of ports. We were looking at Europe, at South America, South East Asia, Australia, and the Mediterranean. Later we decided to focus on the West Pacific which included the port cities of Seoul, Beijing, Shanghaî, and Canton, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Manila, Djakarta, and Singapore. We also investigated ports in Australia like Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Dubai, Cape Town, and even Honolulu. We looked at various maps of the different ports to see if we could “park” a super tanker there, and if it was in an area where it was possible to get our guests to. We also had to make sure that the areas were not full of real super tankers!

The ship would have stay approximately two and a half months in each port and then travel for a week or two to the next destination. The ship would not return to the city for four or five years, so we would not over-saturate the market.

We also had a very innovative design for the entrance area. On the dock side we would create a “portable main gate” with a ticketing plaza using themed containers. They would arrive on a container ship and be assembled in port before the S.S. Disney’s arrival. Here guests could also buy souvenirs and food. When you think about it, the theme park experience would have started on the dock.

A.L: Technically, transforming a super tanker in a floating theme park would have been really feasible?

M.H: Yes, thanks to the super tanker’s architecture. The cavernous volume inside the ship gave us the opportunity to put four to five decks of attractions inside plus more attractions on the top deck.



Port side with shell removed showing the 5 major decks, 01, Main deck, 1st deck, 2nd deck, 3rd deck and Tank Top. In this view you can see the hub’s floor is at 2nd deck.

A.L: What kind of attractions would guests find on the S.S Disney?

M.H: On the top deck there was the Orbitron, Casey Jr. Train, a large Ferris Wheel, Alice in Wonderland’s spinning Tea Cups, Dumbo, and a Fantasyland Carousel under a glass dome! At the stern end of the top deck, there would be It’s a Small World. The center or “Hub” of the ship that receives our guests actually had a big glass canopy over the top of it. It was multiple decks deep, so when you entered the ship you had this beautiful giant caverness entry way. If you went to the right you would find Fantasyland themed attractions and to the left it was Tomorrowland themed attractions. We decided that Frontierland and Adventureland attractions were not needed.

Because of technical issues we decided that we not have any water rides inside the ship. For example “It’s a Small World” originally a water ride, would instead utilize a Omni-mover or bus-bar track vehicles like the ones you have on the Haunted Mansion or Pinocchio attractions.

Other attractions included an Aladdin and a Little Mermaid dark rides, Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin, Toon Town area with Mickey house, Indiana Jones roller coaster, Star Tours, 20000 Leagues under the Sea, a 3D movie theatre, and more! The fact is the ship was so big and deep that we could actually put an iron roller coaster like Space Mountain inside down below the decks. The only difference is you would not see any mountain. Probably we would have to re-named the ride!



Ferris wheel had exterior armatures that would be stowed while sailing to the FTP’s next port. The Orbitron is seen on the bow.




The hub is shown mid-ship as a multi story glass canopy that divides the ships main themed areas, Tomorrowland/Adventureland and Fantasyland.




The Hub’s canopy removed. There were many vertical elements all around with one part reminisint of a future pipe organ, giant retro-telescope and a mini-castle.




Hub area with main deck and canopy removed. The model is showing a little wear from all the use it had being taken apart many times.




Casey Jr. Train loops around a glass enclosed Carousel ride (not shown in this model). Aft is the entrance to It’s a Small World.




Port side looking forward showing themed fast food area in center (at the crossed circle is). Note: those little red things are people to scale. Under the Orbitron, a futuristic multi-story restaurant on the 01 deck.




Main deck removed looking aft from the port side. This is the Toon Town area with Meet Mickey house, central fountain and the entrance to Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. On the left is a major fantasy themed theater with balcony. Shows propose for the theater ranged from The Muppet Show 3D to The Lion King. On the far right to the back you can see a grey disc. This is where the spinning tea cup ride was located.




Starboard side showing Toon Town area with a Treehouse and interactive areas. On the right you can see the theater. On the far left to the back where you can see a grey disc, this is where the spinning tea cup ride was located.




Port side looking forward with the main deck removed. Here you can see the 20,000 Leagues under the sea area - an interactive area and walk through exhibit - with Star Tours simulator (3 black doors on left), Captain Nemo’s laboratory with his submarine seen one deck below, and giant aquarium that divers inhabit (yellow cylinder). There is also a themed seafood dining area.




Opposite side of 20,000 Leagues area. Note access area to vertical circulation column on far side. Within this area are giant elevators and escalators bringing people up from below and down from above. These also contain emergency evacuation stairways. Note the 3 black exit doors for the simulator.




Port side looking aft with 1st deck removed. Here was the entry to Aladdin attraction. Note the carved rockwork as guests’ descend to the 3rd deck from a merchandise area. Eric’s village is the entrance area for the Little Mermaid ride. You can also see the ride maintenance area below on the Tank Top deck.




View from the port side just aft of the Eric’s village showing the theater adjacent to the hub.




Port side looking aft with 3rd deck removed shows the lower part of the Aladdin themed area with a rotating Dumbo style Magic Carpet ride for kids. Further aft you can see the Aladdin attraction.




Starboard side looking forward at the Aladdin attraction. Past that you can barely see the Little Mermaid suspended gondola ride.




Starboard side looking forward with the 2nd and portion of the 3rd deck removed showing the Indiana Jones runaway ore-car attraction (wild mouse roller coaster) on the left and the entrance queue on the right where you see the giant temple serpents. Actually, it was going to be Space Mountain or Indy coaster in this space. The model has Indy since Eisner was so hot for that ride.


M.H: Since the ship could hold about half the rides of a full Disney theme park we decided to divide the opening and closing of the park into two half days at 8 hours each. That would be 10,000 guests in the morning/early afternoon and another 10,000 guests in the late afternoon/evening.

The total number of attractions would have been around 16 to 18. We had a whole list of attractions that we would like to have, but the final choice depended of their capacity per hour, wait time, etc... We needed to make sure that there was a minimum of wait time so people could do and see everything in eight hours.

We had six restaurants. Most of them were fast food because we didn’t want people to sit and eat for an hour when they only had 8 hours to spend on the ship, but we did have one generic Disney themed table service restaurant. We also had Fantasyland and Tomorrowland themed retail shops, a Disney Store and a Disney gallery too. Most of the restaurants and retail would have been located around the entrance hub, under the glass dome. The ship was not only a box full of attractions, it was a completely integrated city with maintenance shops , a central kitchen, waste treatment plants storage areas!

Also on board was an entertainment division with singers, dancers, costuming, and the “zoo crew” - the people who dress up as Disney characters.

A.L: On the model pictures, the facade of It’s a Small World located in the back of the top deck seems to hide the view of the pilot house, also located at the back of the ship...

M.H: We had a clever idea to resolve this problem as the pilot house and the bridge wings would have been incorporated into a themed facade. The ship’s crew could see everything. Also, at the front end of the ship, in front of the Orbitron, we had a secondary pilot house specially designed for docking the ship.



It’s a Small World Omni-mover ride in from of the pilot house. Note the windmill themed bridge wings.



Port side showing the un-themed bridge wing, decks and vertical circulation columns.

A.L: About the cast members, you told me that some of them would have been hired in each location, but I suppose some of them would have been permanent “Disney” cast members?

M.H: Exactly. Let’s say that the “senior” staff would have been permanent and the “junior” staff would have been hired and trained in the location where the boat would have docked. We did some surveys at a few of the ports and found young people in would have a high interest to work for Disney. They would be hired for about three month’s that included two weeks of training before the arrival of the boat. We were looking pretty much at a 50/50 split with half of the cast members, maintenance and technical people “permanent” and the other 50% would have been local people who spoke the local language.

A.L: No parade was planned I suppose, but was a fireworks show envisioned in the evening?

M.H: Yes, but we soon realized that it was not safe to launch the firework from the ship, so we start to looking for an auxiliary ship or a barge that could be used to launch the firework in a safer location like in the middle of the harbor.

Because of safety issues we would not allowed our “permanent” cast members to travel at sea or sleep on board the super tanker so we looked at potentially buying a small used passenger ship to bring them from port to port and to give them a place to live. Otherwise all the “Disney” cast members would have to fly from city to city and reside in local hotels.

A.L: Well that means THREE ships, if my count is right!

M.H: Yes, our very own Disney navy!

A.L: So, finally, and unfortunately, the S.S Disney project was never realized. Do you know why?

M.H: Well, both Michael Eisner and Frank Wells both loved the project, but after Frank’s death, things changed. The strategic planning group at corporate didn’t want to do a floating theme park, they wanted to do a cruise ship. Eventually they convinced Michael that a cruise ship was easier to do. So this wonderful project was put “on the shelf.”

Frankly, now that Disney has a park in Hong Kong and soon another one in Shanghaî I think the time for this project has unfortunately passed. It was a wonderful concept and every Imagineer who worked on it did an excellent job.

A.L: One last question: do you think that the S.S Disney project inspired another project that was built some years later: Disney Quest?

M.H: One thing that Disney does is to use some great ideas from projects that were never done. Disney Quest was what they call a “location based entertainment” or LBE, and if my recollections is right Jan Sircus - who was the lead concept architect on the S.S Disney - next assignment was developing LBE projects. I think it is safe to say there was a synergy between the two projects.

A.L : Mark, thank you so much for this interview, this S.S Disney project was really fascinating!

I invite you to discover Mark Hickson’s web site HERE. On the site, click on "theme park", and then on "S.S Disney" to see others pictures of the model.

Thanks to leave a comment or discuss this interview on D&M english forum on Mice Chat


Pictures: Copyright 1994 The Walt Disney Company. Please do not upload these pictures on other websites or forums, thanks.

Interview: copyright Disney and more

A Grand Tribute to Tim Delaney - Part Three: HKDL Tomorrowland - Exclusive Interview

Today, here is the third part of my tribute to Tim Delaney. In this exclusive interview Tim talks about the design of Hong Kong Disneyland's Tomorrowland as Tim was the show producer of this land. As we know, Tim Delaney was previously the show producer of Discoveryland at Disneyland Paris and for Paradise Pier at California Adventure. Please note that this interview was done for the opening of HKDL, before the opening of Autopia and Stitch encounter.

Alain Littaye: Tim, as we know, you were the show producer of Discoveryland at Disneyland Paris. At DLP the theme of Discoveryland was supposed to be the land of visionaries, and here in Hong Kong the theme is probably different. So, what is the story line of Hong Kong Disneyland’s Tomorrowland ?

Tim Delaney: Well, we wanted to create here something totally different, our biggest challenge was how to create something that is not only tomorrow, but also something that is timeless. So, we took the theme in this particular case of a “spaceport”. All of our attractions relate to space travels: we have Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, the Orbitron - this last one with a totally different style than the one at DLP.




The picture below showsa previous sketch for a Tomorrowland concept finally not chosen.



T.D : So we took the idea of a space port ,we have different style of architecture...it’s a kind of space encampment, a space port where you go when you journey to other planets. We have two very large restaurants, the big restaurant called “starliner diner” have a rocket ship in the front and it’s a place where you go before you go in outer space: there is big posters of space travel inside, we have rockets, etc...this is a place where you go to have lunch and food before you go up to your journey into space mountain and buzz light year...It’s also one of the largest restaurant we ever built in a Tomorrowland with an incredible design







T.D: Throughout the land we’re using these motifs of these planets and an alien landscape to make you feel that you are in another world...You have to see the style of the buildings to see how it looks like. It’s not mean to look like in the fifties, like disneyland was in 1955, it has much more of an organic field to it. We are also using a lot of colours in the land, and the reason for that is that most of the time Hong Kong have grey skies and humid, so we wanted these colours to bring a kind of more of a familiar quality to our Tomorrowland. Secondly, about landscaping, we have a lot of landscaping in covered areas, so we create a sense of the future and tomorrow with more human kind of space.

A.L: I’m pretty sure the design with all these planets is probably beautiful at night...

T.D: It is magnificent, spectacular at night !




A.L: The Orbitron have a totally different look than the one built in Paris or Anaheim , and you have flying saucers instead of rocket jets ...

T.D: That’s right, we wanted to create an Orbitron in the center of the land that has more a kind of space-beacon look to it ...there is a very large eight meter diameter globe at the bottom, it has a starfield with fiber optics in it and the flying saucers fly around, and we still have a kind of planet kynetics, which are flying up above, and these flying saucers flying among all about. It is a very visual thing, a very powerful looking thing, and the colours are all different here. We took a whole different colour scheme because we wanted to make the colours much brighter, much "cooler" colours because it is so warming here most of the time.







T.D:...By the way , the 8 meter diameter globe also rotate and due to the painting technique, the whole land reflects in it and, with the fiber optics, it’s a map of the universe! That’s what it is, in fact. The kind of painting used for the globe is call Chromaship, it’s a special painting and what happens is that when the globe rotate the colour goes from a warm blue to a purple blue...






A.L: Talking about flying saucers, it reminds me the Eddie Sotto project for Tokyo Disneyland’s Tomorrowland. It was supposed to be called ”Sci-fi City” , and one of the attraction was supposed to be small flying saucers flying around a huge flying saucer.
So, are the flying saucers in your Orbitron a reminiscence of this previous project?

T.D: No, not really...i just start it all over again from scratch.




A.L: Anyway, it is a good idea to have change the usual rockets for these new flying saucers. About Space Mountain, does this new version have a particular storyline?

T.D: Our Space Mountain continue the overall theme that is your amazing adventure in outer space. We have new effects, new images, the ride system is smooth and fast, and, as you know they’ve re-done space mountain in paris and the one at disneyland, too. And every time we do this we have new effects, new projectors, new imaging devices,etc... And, here in hong kong, we have the latest one, and they’re brilliant. We don’t really have an overall strong story, but we do have a very strong theme and it’s a really great effects show. And the reaction of the guests here is fantastic.
In fact, talking about effects, there is one effect that you have in paris, and that we have, here: it’s the explosion of a super-nova. But in a completely different format.






A.L: What about Buzz Lightyear? I supposed it’s the same ride that we can find in Anaheim or WDW?

T.D: It’s very similar to the one in Disneyland. But we have a totally different entrance for the attraction: we have a 12 foot monumental, kind of “heroic” Buzz Lightyear standing up in the front, and it’s a great photo location... and the ride is as great as in the U.S, of course. It’s amazing how people love this ride, really. And i've heard they’re going to add some internet competition, so people on internet can compete with people on the ride.






A.L: Do you have a kind of big theater like we have in Paris with “Videopolis”?

T.D: We have two large theater in the park, one in Adventureland, and one in Fantasyland, but not in tomorrowland this time!

A.L: Are you going to add more attractions in the “phase two” of the park?

T.D: We are currently designing and actually we are under construction for one more major attraction and two more minor attractions that will open in july of next year. We’ll have a totally unique and different Autopia than the one you have in Paris. We’ll have electric cars, with lighting effects on the cars, a different kind of unique on-board audio-system, and the landscape that you will go through is much more like an alien landscape, another planet kind of landscape... It will really be a fun drive, and actually we’ll also have one of the roadways who comes into the land , because most of the Autopia will be beyond the railroad, so part of the road will come into the land on an elevated highway and returns back down to the location of the attraction, so it really showcases the ride to the people in the land. And people will be able to walk underneath this elevated roadway that you see the cars are going by.












A.L: Do you think you will have later an attraction themed on the pixar movie “the incredibles”?

T.D: No, right now we’re not doing anything on the “Incredibles” theme for Hong Kong.
Before we leave, i’d like to tell you that the whole resort here is impressive, the location is great, the hotels are beautiful, the “Disney promenade” from the hotels to the park is charming, and these hills in the background behind the castle...i really think it really is the best location we ever had for a Magic Kingdom!



I have added below two youtube videos, one of Tomorrowland at night, and one of the Autopia ride!







Thanks to leave a comment or discuss this article on D&M english forum on Mice Chat

Photos: copyright Disney and, for some of Autopia, Alain Littaye