‘Have to See It, Yet Boring’: Disney’s Robot Dramas Revisited

Cornfeld, Li

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29322-2_8

Li Cornfeld³

1068 Accesses

Abstract

Cornfeld unpacks the “spectacle of contradictions” that is the Carousel of Progress, focusing on the varying narratives that surround this attraction. While some laud the attraction for its connections to Walt Disney himself—it is rumored to have been his personal favorite attraction—others celebrate it solely as a place to enjoy air conditioning or a mid-day nap. Guided by fan cultures that celebrate the Carousel as both Walt Disney’s brainchild and an object lesson in American history, this essay analyzes corporate histories that shed light on the formation of these narratives: a television broadcast through which Disney introduced Audio-Animatronics to the nation and a series of textual revisions made to the Carousel script throughout its half-century run. Attention to these histories underscores the production practices that shape what visitors “have to see” on the Carousel of Progress—and the promotional practices that shape how we look.

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Notes

1.
For a full analysis, see Cornfeld, Li. 2017. “Expo Afterlife: Corporate Performance and Capitalist Futurity in the Carousel of Progress,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 27, no. 3, 322. September 2. https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2017.1365441.
2.
Bierman, James. 1976. “Disney’s ‘America Sings,’” TDR: The Drama Review 20, no. 2, 64. No recent official tallies of Carousel visitors are publicly available, and Orlando’s Carousel Theater, which lacks the domed opulence and massive scale of the New York and California iterations, accommodates more modestly sized audiences. However, given that the Carousel’s Florida run has lasted four times as long as its run in the two previous locations combined, Bierman’s estimate that the move to Orlando would portend an audience of “another 50 million people” may well have come to pass.
3.
queribus. 2018. “Good grief, it’s awful,” August 3 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (Orlando)—All You Need to Know Before You Go,” TripAdvisor, accessed October 1, 2018, http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g34515-d8563168-Reviews-Walt_Disney_s_Carousel_of_Progress-Orlando_Florida.html.
4.
Courtney D. 2018. “LOVE THIS RIDE,” June 12 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (Orlando)—All You Need to Know Before You Go.”
5.
kater2996. 2018. “One of my favorite rides in Disney,” May 8 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (Orlando)—All You Need to Know Before You Go.”
6.
Peter M. 2017. September 29 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress—Disney World,” Yelp, accessed October 1, 2018, https://www.yelp.com/biz/walt-disneys-carousel-of-progress-lake-buena-vista.
7.
Dolittledigger. 2016. “Walt’s Creation—have to see it, yet boring,” March 12 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (Orlando)—All You Need to Know Before You Go.”
8.
Luske, “Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair.”
9.
Sammond, Nicholas. 2005. Babes in Tomorrowland: Walt Disney and the Making of the American Child, 1930–1960, 322. Durham: Duke University Press.
10.
Ibid., 328.
11.
For a history of early controversy over the role of television in family life, see Spigel, Lynn. 1992. Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
12.
Sammond, 244.
13.
Schiesel, Seth. 1997. “Once Visionary, Disney Calls Future a Thing of the Past,” The New York Times, February 23. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/23/us/once-visionary-disney-calls-future-a-thing-of-the-past.html.
14.
Korkis, Jim. 2012. “The Carousel of Progress Cast,” USA Today, February 8.
15.
Ibid.
16.
Eco, Umberto. Faith in Fakes: Travels in Hyperreality, 45–46. London: Vintage, 1995.
17.
Schickel, Richard. 1997. The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt Disney, 335–36, Third Edition. First Elephant Paperback Edition. ed. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
18.
Ibid., 335–37.
19.
Bierman, James. 1977. “The Walt Disney Robot Dramas,” The Yale Review 67, no. 2, 236. Emphasis added.
20.
Bierman, James. 1976. “Disney’s ‘America Sings,’” TDR: The Drama Review 20, no. 2, 72; Bierman, “The Walt Disney Robot Dramas,” 231. The title of the latter essay inspires this one.
21.
Bierman, “The Walt Disney Robot Dramas,” 231.
22.
Ibid., 236. The full prediction is delightful: “The only step remaining to create a superior breed of robot actors is that they become entirely self-balancing, so that they can dance or leap in the air and land upright without support. When that step is completed, we can expect to see them colonizing stage spaces outside the Walt Disney magic kingdoms—stage spaces that are presently reserved for ‘live drama.’ Such speculation is not intended to cause fear or delight. The fact is merely as it is.”
23.
Lelyveld, Joseph. 1964. “CHILDREN AT FAIR RIDE AND SHRIEK; And Some Get Very Weary Sooner or Later,” The New York Times, April 26. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/04/26/archives/children-at-fair-ride-and-shriek-and-some-get-very-weary-sooner-or.html; Eco, 48.
24.
Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2012. AuthenticTM: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture, 4. New York: NYU Press.
25.
Capek, Karel. 2004. R.U.R., trans. Claudia Novack-Jones, Reprint edition. London: Penguin Classics.
26.
Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso. 2018. Poupées Électriques: Drame en Trois Actes, Avec une Préface sur le Futurisme, Reprint edition. Forgotten Books.
27.
Banes, Sally. 1993. Greenwich Village 1963: Avant-Garde Performance and the Effervescent Body. Durham: Duke University Press.
28.
For a discussion of Disney’s experimentalism in the context of corporate performance, see Cornfeld, “Expo Afterlife,” 318.
29.
Disney press release quoted in Schickel, 335.
30.
Leland, John. 2005. Hip: The History, 195–96. New York: Harper Perennial.
31.
Cornfeld, “Expo Afterlife,” 323.
32.
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. 1985. More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave, 4. New York: Basic Books.
33.
Bierman, “The Walt Disney Robot Dramas,” 229.
34.
Weiner, Lynn Y. “‘There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”: Historic Memory and Gender in Walt Disney’s “Carousel of Progress,”’” Journal of American Culture 20, no. 1 (n.d.), 112. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1997.00111.x.
35.
Ibid. 115.
36.
Walt Disney World. “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress,” https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/magic-kingdom/walt-disney-carousel-of-progress/. Accessed May 15, 2018.
37.
Costa, Mariarosa Dalla and Selma James. 1975. The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community. Bristol: Falling Wall Press.
38.
Cornfeld, 324–25.
39.
For a full analysis of the Carousel’s anti-feminist fantasy of the American past, see Cornfeld, 328.
40.
Luske, Hamilton S. 1964. “Disneyland Goes to the World’s Fair,” Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. Burbank: NBC.
41.
Bierman, “The Walt Disney Robot Dramas,” 229; Eco, 45; Schickel, 332.
42.
Honan, William H. 1971. “If You Gave Mickey Mouse $400-Million, Here’s How He’d Spend It,” The New York Times, October 10. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/10/archives/if-you-gave-mickey-mouse-400million-heres-how-hed-spend-it-walt.html. The article advises readers that “visiting Disney World is like joining a country club; you come to participate, and you have to look, dress, and act the part.”
43.
101jumper. 2017. “A look back at yesteryear,” March 17 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (Orlando)—All You Need to Know Before You Go.”
44.
Ivy H. December 11, 2016, review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress—Disney World.” Although lots of reviewers report having seen previous versions of the Carousel, few if any reviews denote awareness of the extent of Disney’s revisions.
45.
Takemetoalaska. 2017. “Classic/ Must Visit,” January 8 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress (Orlando)—All You Need to Know Before You Go”; Marisa L., March 29, 2016 review on “Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress—Disney World.”

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Hagley Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society, Wilmington, DE, USA
Li Cornfeld

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Weber State University, Ogden, UT, USA
Jennifer A. Kokai
School of Theatre & Dance, Millikin University, Decatur, IL, USA
Tom Robson

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Cornfeld, L. (2019). ‘Have to See It, Yet Boring’: Disney’s Robot Dramas Revisited. In: Kokai, J.A., Robson, T. (eds) Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29322-2_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29322-2_8
Published: 28 November 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29321-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29322-2
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