The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair was proceeding despite not being officially sanctioned by the governing body of all World’s fairs known as the “BIE.” As a result the United Kingdom (England, Australia and Canada), the USSR/Soviet bloc and most European nations weren’t going either. So Gotham City officials decided to steer away from the traditional showcase of “people from all nations” in favor of a more business driven exposition. Now, Fortune 500 companies like Ford, IBM, Bell Telephone, US Steel, General Electric, DuPont and many others were busy building huge exposition buildings and Pepsi-Cola was nervous.
Pepsi had reserved a prominent location for its pavilion but they couldn’t find a designer to create their planned “happiest cruise that ever sailed” ride. For a time, Pepsi brass considered cancelling the idea. Just 10 months before the fair’s opening, Pepsi board of directors member, Joan Crawford (yes, the actress) strongly suggested that the board contact her friend Walt Disney. Pepsi first approached Disney in mid-1963 with their idea to create an exhibit to salute and benefit UNICEF (The United Nations Children’s Fund).
Disney already had a huge footprint at the fair, which sprawled over the same square mile in Flushing Meadows as its 1939-40 predecessor. Walt Disney loved World’s Fairs and attended several of them in his lifetime, including the 1933-’34 Fair in Chicago, the 1939-40 Golden Gate Expo in San Francisco and the 1962 Fair in Seattle among others. Oddly, he helped with a pavilion at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair, but did not personally attend. At first Disney declined, citing his company’s already heavy World’s Fair workload. However, Walt eventually accepted the challenge to build “a little boat ride.”
Disney would ultimately spearhead four exhibits for the Fair: Magic Skyway for Ford, Carousel of Progress for General Electric, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln for the State of Illinois, and It’s a Small World for Pepsi. The Disney attractions were some of the most popular at the fair; 135,000 visitors per day visited Disney exhibits during the first year alone. Disney’s secret was that all four exhibits would provide a platform for him to design and perfect his system of Audio-Animatronics, in which a combination of electromechanical actuators and computers controlled the movement of lifelike robots to act out scenes.
G.E.’s Progressland (or Carousel of Progress) featured an audience seated in a revolving auditorium viewing an audio-animatronic presentation of the progress of electricity in the home. The Sherman Brothers song “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” was composed for this attraction. The Sherman Brothers, a Walt Disney favorite, wrote more motion-picture musical scores than any other songwriting team in film history. Their accomplishments included Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Jungle Book, Charlotte’s Web and The Aristocats among others. The highlight of the exhibit demonstrated a short “explosion” of controlled nuclear fusion. The crowd-pleasing loud crack preceding it could be heard by visitors standing on the line outside in the neighboring Travelers Insurance pavilion.
Ford’s Magic Skyway was the second most popular exhibit at the fair. It featured 50 actual (motorless) convertible Ford vehicles, including the newly debuted Ford Mustang, in an early prototype of what would become Disney’s “PeopleMover” ride system. Audience members entered the vehicles on a main platform and moved slowly along the track. The ride traversed scenes featuring life-sized audio-animatronic dinosaurs and cavemen. Disney had earlier been asked by General Motors to produce their exhibit, featuring a similar ride and dioramas, but declined the job.
At the 496-seat Illinois pavilion (the only all brick structure on the fairgrounds), a lifelike Abraham Lincoln, voiced by actor Royal Dano, appeared in “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” Thirty-two-year-old Walt Disney had first seen a realistic looking Lincoln wax statue at the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair. He dreamed from that moment on of creating his own talking animated Lincoln and at the 1964 Fair, he got his chance. The exhibit officially opened on May 2, 1964, and included excerpts from Lincoln’s speeches on liberty, civil rights and freedom. The figure was capable of more than 250,000 combinations of action, including smiles, frowns, and gestures. It was a smash hit and a must-see for all Fair visitors.
But it was the Small World ride that turned out to be the most challenging of all, due to being a last-minute addition and having so little time to produce it. In “Pepsi Presents Walt Disney’s ‘It’s a Small World’ – a Salute to UNICEF and the World’s Children,” state and nation-themed animated dolls, birds and animals frolicked in the spirit of international unity as fairgoers enjoyed a relaxing air-conditioned boat ride around the world. The nine minute ride traveled past familiar miniature landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, a Dutch windmill, and the Taj Mahal. The childlike figures sang and danced to the Sherman Brothers’ theme song “It’s a Small World.” Each of the animated dolls had an identical face as directed by Walt Disney himself. Kids paid 60 cents and adults 95 cents to watch more than 300 brightly costumed animatronic dolls representing “the world’s children.”
Above the pavilion at the Fair was the 120-foot Tower of the Four Winds, a fanciful creation of 50-plus colored pinwheel shapes that danced and twisted in the wind. The large kinetic sculpture was designed by legendary Disney “imagineer” Rolly Crump and became a World’s Fair icon. Unfortunately when it came time to move the ride to Disneyland, the expense of moving The Tower proved prohibitive. So Rolly replaced it with the large animated clock at the entrance that sends puppet children on parade. The ride was a fairgoer favorite right up to the closing day of the Fair on October 17, 1965; fifty years ago.
After the fair, officials tried to convince Disney to retain these exhibits on-site in an attempt to convert Flushing Meadows Park into an East Coast Disneyland, but the idea was abandoned. Although Walt passed on the idea of a park in New York, he did take these Fair attractions to his Anaheim, California park. Disney’s It’s a Small World was transferred to Disneyland, as was the Carousel of Progress. A second Abraham Lincoln animatronics figure became the centerpiece of the “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” and eventually morphed into The Hall of Presidents. The two remaining attractions exist as evolutions of the originals. The dinosaurs from Ford’s Magic Skyway became the Disneyland Railroad Primeval World diorama, and the motorized tires embedded in the track which propelled and regulated the speed of ride vehicles inspired Disneyland’s PeopleMover, and later the Tomorrowland Transit Authority of Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom in 1973.
Disneyland still has the original “It’s a small world” and “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” from the Fair, as well as the now-unused track of the original Disneyland PeopleMover from Ford’s Magic Skyway. Disney later used technologies developed for the Fair to create the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. Today’s Walt Disney World is essentially the realization of the original concept of an “East Coast Disneyland” with Epcot Center designed as a permanent world’s fair.
Walt Disney once commented on his involvement with the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair as, “When we completed ‘It’s a Small World’ for presentation at the New York World’s Fair, we felt that we had accomplished what we’d set out to do. We wanted to foster a better understanding among the nations of the world by showing the dress, the customs, the language, the music, and a little of the culture of our neighbors around the world — and we wanted to show it to be a very happy one. And I think it’s safe to say that having fun has universal appeal.”
It’s a Small World stands alone as the last true survivor intact from the 1964 World’s Fair. Although the Carousel of Progress and Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln exist, they are far removed from what they represented at the Fair. Versions of “It’s a small world” are a staple attraction at all five Disney Magic Kingdom-style parks, and its theme song is among the most widely known on the planet.
Controversy plagued the Fair during much of its two-year run and it ultimately ended with allegations of financial mismanagement. The Fair Corporation had taken in millions of dollars in advance ticket sales for both the 1964 and 1965 seasons. However, the sales were all used for that first season. This made it appear that the fair had plenty of operating cash when, in fact, it was borrowing from the second season’s gate to pay the bills. The 1965 attendance was well below expectations. By the end of the 1964 season, it became apparent there was not enough money to pay the bills. The Fair was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. While the 1939–40 World’s Fair returned 40 cents on the dollar to bond investors, the 1964-65 fair returned only 19.2 cents per dollar.
As for Walt Disney, well, he was busy planning for the next big thing, always way ahead of everyone else. In April of 1964, the same month the Fair opened to the public, Walt Disney was quietly buying up land in Central Florida for Walt Disney World. Even back then, Walt was planning his masterpiece. Walt learned from Disneyland that it was far wiser to buy land first, then tell the world later. Disney World would open five years after Walt’s 1966 death. Today, you can fit Disneyland in the parking lot of Walt Disney World with room to spare. And it all started 50 years ago at the New York World’s Fair.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook
