Latest / Project Horizons / Epcot Sinkhole Stories Revealed | Imagineer Alastair Dallas

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Epcot Sinkhole Stories Revealed | Imagineer Alastair Dallas · Project Horizons

• Mike: All right, so today we're joined by another great former Wolf Disney Imagineer and author of Inventing Disneyland, Alastair Dallas, started at the WED Architectural Department in 1975, Disneyland Space Mountain, and then later worked on the Epcot Construction site from the entrance plaza all the way to the Odyssey Restaurant, and then eventually made his way to Tokyo Disneyland in 1982. So Alastair, we're thrilled to have you with us today. It's gonna be a great conversation about your incredible career. Alastair Dallas: Delighted to be here. Mike: we're happy to have you with us. want to start by ⁓ going through ⁓ your early career and your eventual career to ⁓ Imagineering. Alastair Dallas: Well, when I was a kid, we moved to Southern California and I went to Disneyland for the first time. a few years, I was convinced that this what I wanted to do with my life was make places like Disneyland. And I thought I was ⁓ like the only with that thought. but over the years, from inside Disney, I see that a lot of people get. ⁓ bitten by that same bug continue, sure. And so I ⁓ really wanted get, I wanted to learn to be an architect. I wanted ⁓ to convince Disney hire me. And ⁓ they were interested an unpaid internship when I offered it to them because they said they had college students who would do that. So I ended up working at Magic Mountain, which had just opened North Los Angeles County. And worked in the planning and development department there as a gopher, basically. ⁓ It meant that eventually I got ⁓ asked to come to Disney and I was, ⁓ I think youngest they had hired. It was a ⁓ paid role, actually, I was a junior drafter. I learned an incredible amount there. And then went on to work in architecture, get an architecture license eventually. And I came back to Disney in 1979 when we were just gearing up for Epcot. I worked on a bunch of things in Future World. And I came to a realization at that point that I kind of got it wrong. I shouldn't have wanted to be an architect. that time I was doing architecture. But what I really wanted was to be a set designer. That's why my hero is Bill Martin. And he was there working on the Mexico Pavilion. I loved what they were doing with sort of creating a mood, creating a feeling of ⁓ someplace else like ⁓ And then I met a fellow Dave Ott, who had been instrumental in designing the Cinderella's at Walt Disney World and a list of great things. And Dave was working on the Canada Pavilion and they were kind of replicating actual buildings, doing it ⁓ down ⁓ doing it different materials and different construction methods, but so that it would look right. And I thought that was just great. And here I was stuck working on Future World. Mike: amazing work in Future World you talk about immersive experiences and going someplace where you feel like you're in another place. Like you walk into the Mexico Pavilion and that's probably one of favorite pavilions there ⁓ and you walk in, you a burst of air conditioning, which is also nice in the summertime, but it's also, ⁓ you're in this other world. in this place where you feel like it's dark out. You're in a ⁓ market. Alastair Dallas: school. Yeah, that's just true. Mike: You have the restaurant, you have the water, you have the attraction. And it's so immersive. And you talk about the castle, how that castle was designed. And I think ⁓ there's no bricks the construction of either castle, as far as I understand. Alastair Dallas: Sorry. scale them as easily. Mike: you mentioned worked with Bill Martin. Alastair Dallas: You know, most of the folks that had known, ⁓ had known Walt, were just really, really pleasant people, you know, ⁓ and tended to be older, and so they were very patient with the younger kids like me. There were a bunch of us in our 20s on Epcot, and ⁓ Bill smoked pipe, and he would ⁓ just listen you and say, well, ⁓ that is... something we could think about, you know. He was like Mark Davis or Ken Anderson was also very generous with his time, Herb Ryman. They were all working on these things and they knew roughly how long things take to gel. so, you know, 20-year-olds, we would come in there and it's like... Well, I gave you this thing yesterday. Have you figured it out yet? You know, it's like, no, it's, you know, calm down, relax. know, John Hench and Marty Sklar be as generous with their time. were really the thick of it. were the decision makers for just about everything. And George Rester was also involved in all this. But meantime, you could into. her Ryman's office and he'd show you what he was doing. It was great. Mike: what I find fascinating, learning about the people that were around Walt Disney, is how did he find best of the best? It's like, there's no other place that I could Alastair Dallas: Yeah. Mike: from architecture, from animation, story design, ⁓ in a model shop, and all these things, they were all the best. And ⁓ found them all. Alastair Dallas: Well, the thing is, if you had an ego, if you were going to be feisty and fiery about your career and all that, Disney probably wasn't for you. That was the lesson, I think. There were one or two show designers who were a little standoffish, I think, more than ego. But yeah, I just remember Mark Davis, for instance, would... He put artwork outside his office and if you asked him about it, he'd be glad to give you the whole pitch about what he's proposing for a design. yeah, it was just great. Mike: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Haunted Mansion to Pirates. that's all Mark Davis. how was the culture there working around these great minds? Alastair Dallas: Well, there was, think the studio was organized the same way. I've ⁓ to find out in research that was the creative side, which is like, tell me your ideas. Let's brainstorm in the hallway. And then there was another track that was management. It's like, have to get these things done on time. So you have to be sitting at your desk to work. And I kind of run into the boss of the department was... ⁓ and then Dave Jacobs. And we got to be very good friends. But I was ⁓ there, I was fascinated. I was down in the model shop, or I was over at the research library. And I would come back to my desk, and there'd be a little see me note. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ over to Dave's office. It's look, have you got these drawings done? Well, I'm going to stay late. ⁓ It's like, yeah, right. ⁓ I want these drawings done by the end of the week. Mike: In the track and imagineering, where does the architectural department come into play in the timeline from conception to full scale model or, know, being decided to go into the parks? Alastair Dallas: It can go a number of different ways. It might start with a sketch and maybe that sketch is to scale and that would be more of an architectural input. To scale make sure that you've got enough space to do all the things you need to do and you've got clearances for average-sized people and like that. Or it could be sketch on the back of a napkin ⁓ and a show designer. as ideas for what happens. Or it could be somebody maybe in the model shop just sort of gluing some popsicle sticks together and saying, well, I've got something like this. There was a famous joke. Well, it's famous in my circles. They were working on an Africa pavilion for World Showcase. And they had these big rounded smooth rocks. someone had built the rocks the way they were planning to in the model, but then over here they had put a separate rock and they had split it open and put sour cream and chives in it with a little plastic fork stuck in it. Because that's what the rocks looked like, it was all baked potatoes. So they had a good sense of humor and they could do anything. If you wanted food, they could do food, a kitchen cabaret at Epcot, or they could do buildings. So a lot of times architectural would come in and say, well, okay, there's the model and here's the conceptual rendering. Now we need scale drawings of this so that they can build it. I think maybe American Adventure was that way just seems as if they started with that overall rendering of ⁓ the front facade and then they assumed that a theater would fit there and sure enough, ⁓ Architectural was able to fit a theater in there. You there's lots of space in the lobby, that sort of thing, and it works. ⁓ But something like the Odyssey Restaurant, it was very intricate to get all the functions in that building. and make them all fit in the space that we had. Mike: Let's move to the you mentioned it was not originally called the Odyssey. had a name to before it became the Odyssey. the story behind that? Alastair Dallas: That's right. It's a good story. The thing is, we were working on Epcot when it was just very general, very vague. ⁓ didn't have the overall model of it yet and things like that. But we knew ⁓ it was going to be on the site plan, the whole park. And we knew Future World was up here and World Showcase was down there. There'd be a big lagoon. And we of proceeded on that basis. and they began doing studies of where people were going to eat and where the restroom should be and things like that. And they realized that most of World Showcase was going to be high-end restaurants that require reservation and people were going to be very hungry. And they decided that right about the middle, right about where the Plaza Inn is at Disneyland is where you're going to need a high capacity food service. And so... started working on a restaurant complex. there. Maybe it would be more like a food court, maybe it would be a joint, you we didn't know. And so had a kitchen ⁓ consultant, ⁓ a fellow named Doug Peak. He designed all of the kitchens for all of that God in the World showcase. And so he the, you know, sort of the high to the low, he knew exactly what was needed. And ⁓ he said, yeah, gonna be, it's gonna serve burgers and fries and ⁓ soft drinks. and it's going to need this kind of capacity and it's going to need to be completely enclosed and it's going to have, you know, all these requirements and things. And so we started designing it. I worked for a project designer named Gordon Hoops and Gordon designed the Tomorrowland Terrace at Walt Disney World. So he knew that sort of idiom and Odyssey looks a bit like Tomorrowland Terrace, actually. And that's the way Gordon conceived it. ⁓ But I got to be much more involved with this project than others. And I took it from a design to actual working drawings that they could build. ⁓ the soils engineering company, Dames and Moore, came out and said, well, you know, as we've cleared the land, we've discovered that there's a big sinkhole right in the middle of the future world and world showcase it. And so we say, what can we do about ⁓ you can't build on a sinkhole. ⁓ we going to fill it in? And they said, well, it would be, if fill it in with dirt, it will continue to sink. And there be bottom. So there's not much you do. Maybe you could pave over it, but you couldn't put a building on it because it's going to settle. ⁓ so they said, we water over the top of the sinkhole so that it will give a nice even pressure. So we had water now at that point in the middle of project where we hadn't planned it before. it might have been Gordon, it might have been ⁓ structural engineer ⁓ Bingham, but came up with this idea of, well, you can build a pier, ⁓ why we build it like a pier? We'll sink piles into the water and... and we'll float the restaurant above all that. And that has a lot of implications in terms of plumbing and things like that, but worked out. That was what we decided to do, except the structural engineers came and said, okay, it may still slip. And if slips, the whole building can't be occupied. We have to red tag the building. We built it on piles that have built-in sensors. and those sensors get checked, I think, every year. And if they show any slippage, they have to cut ⁓ use of the building. So ended up designing whole building like it was a restaurant at the end of a pier. And ⁓ it makes a really nice reflecting The building looked pretty nice Mike: wrote an article on the website about the Epcot sinkhole. It's great that you brought up because ⁓ I was going to bring it up later, but I'm happy you this up because it's ⁓ so fascinating and it's something that not many people know about. ⁓ was not aware of the sensors underneath the buildings. checked every year just to see if there's any movement, Alastair Dallas: You ⁓ on bridge there are brass caps and you those brass caps and the right down Mike: not just the restaurant but also on the walkway bridges as well. All the sensors are there Alastair Dallas: That's right. had to go through a process of clearing the trees from area. was down there at the mid-79 when they were clearing trees, piling them up and burying them. ⁓ And ⁓ only then could really see the ⁓ of the soil underneath. And they were building drainage canals and things because things were spongy and wet. But if you could, ⁓ you if a simple drainage canal would make it dry, then that was fine. But if nothing you did made it dry, then ⁓ you had a sinkhole. And so they were, the engineer people were going crazy and trying to, you know. were trying to make what had been completely into something that they could build a huge theme park on. Mike: you mentioned Gordon Hoops also worked on entrance of Epcot and I believe designed Spaceship Earth's layout were you in that work as well? Alastair Dallas: Exactly. I was, yeah. I lucky enough to work with Gordon pretty much the whole time. Well, after came back, I worked for Gordon continuously. yeah, Spaceship was originally ⁓ going to something more like the half or ⁓ quarter geodesic something like ⁓ the 67 sphere Buckminster Fuller did. And I think it was Gordon's idea that if we could lift it up on legs, we could express the entire sphere underneath. And that would be pretty cool as a way to come into the future underneath this spaceship Earth. Spaceship Earth, of course, the concept came from a write-up that Ray Bradbury had done. He was hired as a consultant, and he had done very poetic thing about, you know, we're just passengers on spaceship Earth so became kind of the theme of ⁓ Future World. Mike: I tell people, you want to get a real taste of what Epcot Center was like in the ⁓ 80s and 90s go ride Spaceship Earth. and the engineering for Spaceship Earth is also fascinating. When it rains there's this drainage system so if you stand under Spaceship Earth, you're not gonna get wet doesn't drain off the sphere Alastair Dallas: That's right. It's not actually an active system. doesn't suck the ring water per se. covered entire ball with a ⁓ black waterproofing ⁓ membrane. then at each node intersection, we have a little aluminum standoff at two feet. And ⁓ that holds the facets on the outside. So there's this two foot roughly interstitial space, we called it. ⁓ ⁓ can actually, there's a hatch in the very top. You can actually get on ⁓ vehicle and let yourself down on a cable and roll between the area in that little two foot space, ⁓ like you have a crawl space under a house. So you can go and do a repair or something if you need to. But right around the belt line, there is basically a gutter, just like you have on your roof at home. And that, rainwater hits the aluminum facets, but they have gaps between them of as much as a half an inch. The rain just naturally goes in there, hits that black membrane and rolls to the gutter. And the gutter then channels the water away to World Showcase. worked on that main entrance. we know that it rains a lot in Florida. So seems pretty normal, I suppose, that we have two covered walkways leading up the sphere. But that wasn't written anywhere. We knew to do that because when it rains, people need to be undercover. So the ticket booths are undercover and then you can walk the pouring rain, you can walk up to Spaceship Earth and get on the ride without getting wet. Mike: that's good project planning. thinking knowing that it rains for about 10 minutes a day, usually every day in the summer. Then the sun comes out dries everything up. Also, it's good shade too, because the sun's hot. Alastair Dallas: right. ⁓ But yeah, I it's the same sort of ⁓ where bathrooms, if you ask the nearest bathroom is, you're not going to say, ⁓ well, you have to go to the other side of World Showcase. You know, it's about a mile and half from here. We have bathrooms in strategic places you need them. Something like Spaceship Earth a project designer that was Gordon and it also has a project engineer. That was the way WED was set up. I wouldn't surprised if it was the same way now. Project designer, project engineer, and they have responsibilities that ⁓ were together. Doug Stapp was our project engineer for Spaceship Earth. And Doug very concerned that were putting aluminum panels 180 feet in the air. so he had one sent to a testing lab in Pennsylvania, I think. They simulated a lightning strike on the aluminum panel, the aluminum facet on the outside. And it survived, but it got a pretty good crater. The aluminum we used is a sheet of aluminum and another sheet of aluminum. And in between is like a garbage bag material, polyethylene. And so we took that sandwich panel, with the electrical force, and it melted the plastic inside. And so it just deformed and all that. But it didn't go all the way through. And so it couldn't affect the actual building inside. This was going to be sort of a lightning screen. And presumably the entire under structure was going to be a sort of a lightning rod protection. my is that he thought about it well in advance and we were testing that to see if aluminum could work for this. Because we could have gone with lightweight concrete or something, plastic, ⁓ who ⁓ something wasn't going to conduct electricity. Mike: And has this design with this aluminum exterior compound, has this done before in other places or was this like new for the time? Alastair Dallas: It was pretty new at the time, but the product is called ALUCOBOND. And I've it in a lot of university buildings and things like that. It's fairly expensive, but it's very dimensionally stable. So it creates smooth planes on a building. And then you can do things like rounded corners. And so I've seen it for effect ⁓ in places. Mike: going to that park, especially in during the early days, ⁓ and just seeing all these structures, seeing the designs, the engineering. everything was so Gordon Hoopes had the right idea, You into this place you see Spaceship Earth from far away and you get there and it's like, okay, now I'm here and this is a massive 180 foot structure. it's incredible. And I think that's one of the things that brings people back to Disney World and Disneyland Disney parks in general. they may not think about it in the moment, but... They remember these structures, they remember these buildings, they remember sites of something they've never seen before. And I think it's a testament to the work that you've done and other Imagineers to create that immersive environment, that environment that not going to find this environment anywhere else in the world. And I think that's a ⁓ to the great work that you and your teams have done. Alastair Dallas: you ⁓ behalf of all the rest of the team. yeah, the thing is there are a lot of things considered and it's, know, rain protection is one, also John Hench was very concerned with the colors of the buildings ⁓ and the colors of plants and the colors of the concrete walkway and the colors of the monorail going by and that they all be sympathetic to each other. And your vista at any given point, wherever you turn to look, tends to be well composed and balanced. And ⁓ that sort thing is ⁓ just really to get right unless got an organization that has been thinking about that since the first line on paper. ⁓ And that's why I think the real world is a little more chaotic and less memorable maybe, Mike: you were on the construction site, you see this incredible park getting built. did you that it would have become the park that it is over the past 40 plus years? Alastair Dallas: No, I guess not. ⁓ I thought the Magic Kingdom maintain more interest for people than a future world sort of thing. then I again ⁓ in the 90s and saw Animal Kingdom. so, you know, realized that there's room for a lot of different experiences at Walthus New World. Mike: Horizons was probably one of my favorite attractions. ⁓ If not my favorite attraction, these attractions are disappointing when they close and replaced by Space, a... If you have some level of motion sickness, it's not great for some people. Alastair Dallas: Yeah. I don't know. Thank Yeah, they had the show model before I left Disney. The show model was built and you could walk through it and see the scenes in order for Horizons. The show a fellow named Tom Fitzgerald who was still there. He was another one of those Joe Roady sort of characters. It's like, yep. listen to that man, he knows what he's saying. were a lot of folks like that, but second level generation, Tony Baxter and Joe Rode and Tom thing is to see how what is the imagineering, promoted talent. I didn't realize it exactly at the time. On the other hand, they were always looking, ⁓ especially at the younger generation, see, you know, maybe you could handle a little bit more of an assignment. You you could do a little bit more and they move people along and people who stayed longer than I did, Tom Morris, was doing sets for the of Earth ride when I was there. he went on and he designed the Paris Castle all these other great projects. I mean, it's ⁓ very impressive they had ⁓ of like baseball will have teams, you know, and they eventually get up to the big leagues. Mike: a couple other imaginers that I've spoken with said that same exact thing where they were given an opportunity, And you either do it or you don't. And if you succeed and you impress the... Marty Sklar's of world, going to go places. I think, you know, those imagineers have. and we see like Tom Morris, he was given that opportunity to show who he is and what he was able create. Alastair Dallas: Exactly. Yeah, think you mentioned Marty. That's the guy who I think created that culture. that was just sort of his, ⁓ something that he embodied, know, maybe this isn't your time now, but we're not forgetting about you, you know, give it a little time, we'll see what you can do on the next project. ⁓ was with Marty's secretary and I sent a memo or a proposal or something to Marty, just kind of threw it over the transom, as they say. And I the secretary, ⁓ you know, has seen it? And ⁓ she said, would ignore anything. will get an answer. I guarantee it. ⁓ It just takes time because got an inbox like ⁓ He was right, he came back and he said, not at this time, but perhaps, you know, but A bunch of us younger folks had some ideas and eventually, more or less, they all eventually got done. One of the things we wanted to do was a ride that might be different each time. And they did that in Indiana Jones 15 years later. So. smart people came up with that idea maybe on their own, ⁓ ideas that Disney tended to be put in the drawer and would come out and somebody would resurrect them when it was their time. But ⁓ that an idea that we pitched Marty about the ⁓ track and kind of thing. And he took it ⁓ and thought about ⁓ eventually happen. Mike: There's so many different attractions and concepts that from over the past 40, 50 years that have never gotten done. And just, know, things from Adventureland to Fantasyland and, Mount Fuji in Japan. the Africa Pavilion. mean, World Showcases has so many concepts that never never came to fruition. ⁓ obviously, there's there's budgetary concerns and other issues. But, Like the Rhine River cruise in Germany would have ⁓ been fantastic. you build everything. ⁓ I understand Alastair Dallas: understand had a ⁓ two-way ride the ⁓ France, but sounds great. Mike: Yes. Yeah. Impressions de France film is actually the oldest attraction in Epcot unchanged since 1982. It Alastair Dallas: Right, that mean that the Canada film is different now too? Mike: Yes, I believe the Canada film is in its third iteration as far as I understand Alastair Dallas: ⁓ well. interesting over the That's good. Mike: Yeah, still kept the song It's the same lyrics, but it's a different they've kept they've kept that consistent. American Adventure is, very underrated. we talk about animatronics and film and story. 30 minutes of air conditioning, which is also nice. and Alastair Dallas: Okay. Mike: a lot of the the animatronics are on these platforms underneath theater, underneath their seats. And they roll out when they're seen and they're very complicated. Alastair Dallas: ⁓ right, Very, very complicated. funny, the feeling when I was there was American Adventure might just be impossible to do. They talk about these ideas that they had for lifts and rolling platforms and all that. And we were all, I'm glad I'm over here on my project and you ⁓ have good day with that one. But ⁓ they made it work. ⁓ Randy Bright, who unfortunately passed away way too young. can't. Mike: glad you mentioned Randy Bright, instrumental in the American Adventure and many other projects. ⁓ Alastair Dallas: you've got to have a champion who sees the whole vision and sees all the way through. And that varies, I guess, on different types of attractions. yeah, the show design group, Tom Fitzgerald ⁓ and Bob Weiss and folks like that. ⁓ They would make sure that the department has ⁓ they need for ⁓ the show and then they would make sure that everything gets recorded. Exatencio was another one of the show designers. They would put it all together. Architecture is subordinate to that just like structural engineering is subordinate and ⁓ model making is But the relative ⁓ project There was one can't remember his name. His first was Al. I by Al. So ⁓ I remember that much. he did all the door hardware. This was before databases, He this all on pencil and paper to keep track of how hinges we had to order, how many doors. ⁓ that locked on one side and then how many doors that didn't have locks and how many door handles and he was just, it ⁓ amazing. But he made sure we ordered all of the door stuff that we needed and didn't up at all that I know of. I was involved the ⁓ theatrical drapes and across the project as well. which is just like the door guy only much, much. We less complex. subbed out a company called Ariel Grosch and and ⁓ provided of the drapes. mean, American Adventure was a big, obviously a big, curtain, but there were curtains ⁓ The Land and various shows. And these guys did all of curtains. I was the resident engineer for things. which meant that I had to make sure this was supposed to be here by the 15th, it's the 14th, is it going to be here? Mike: I mean, ⁓ it's again, another thing regular guests take into account, like the work that goes into getting this, installed and getting this, prepared. it's such an amazing project, theme park design Alastair Dallas: have a lot of respect for imaginators who really came up with out of their imagination. I didn't get to much of that. I have to say I'm pretty boring vanilla architecture stuff. But the load on load area for Spaceship Earth has kind of a curved ceiling ⁓ and there's a matching curve this low wall. ⁓ And I was reminded the day, I did that. was my Mike: your name should be written on somewhere. And yeah, that's great. So I'll think about you when I ride Spaceship Earth. Excellent, excellent. also did some work in Tokyo Disneyland as well, correct? Alastair Dallas: Thanks a lot. Alright, appreciate that. That's right. We sort of rode herd on a lot of different contractors to do Epcot. ⁓ There were just maybe a dozen or more, a lot of them from Detroit actually, but Kishman and Company was involved, Morrison, Knudsen. Anyway, the point is riding herd on contractors was very important because we had stoppages and things like that. know, the quality control wasn't always there, they would do something and it's like, well, that's not what it says on the spec, you know, and you'd have to go back and forth with them. And they needed somebody to do that in Tokyo, so they sent me to Tokyo. The Tokyo team had pretty much done, you know, everything. It was just a question of actually finishing it and opening it. But I was ⁓ quality control officer for the whole project. And that meant compiling a very big punch list of things that needed to be fixed before we could open and working with the Japanese folks. And it was just night and day compared to the US contractors who were tussling with us and labor negotiations and things like that in Florida. In Tokyo in 1983, they were, you know, horrified if we didn't like what they had done. And if we said, no, you know, the art director says this stain finish is just too dark. It has to be lighter. And, you know, it's like putting less salt in the soup. It's hard to make stain lighter. you know, the painter would just be beside himself, And he'd bring in lights and he'd stay there all night to make it lighter. And we'd see it the next morning. You know, at five o'clock we say it has to be lighter. The next morning, 8 a.m., he's made it lighter somehow. And it looks much nicer. And the art director signs off. know, it was that kind of an environment in Japan. I was very impressed. But then we had some big deals where the Skyway, we wanted the Skyway to work the way the Skyway worked at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. And come into the station and be... steady. And they wanted it to be more like a ski lift, where it just continuously ⁓ and you jumped into the ⁓ and off. And I think they won that one. I think that's how it opened. so we had some big issues we were really kind of arguing with ⁓ the Oriental Land Company to do our way as opposed to the way they were more used to. Mike: Tokyo Disneyland, like a lot of original architecture there, especially when it was built basically simultaneously with Epcot Center, Alastair Dallas: Yeah. kept hiring and hiring ⁓ in 82, was a busy place. Mike: Yeah, yeah, right. Absolutely, Again, thank you for telling all your stories. you wrote a book, Inventing Disneyland. Tell us about your book and where people can find it. Alastair Dallas: Oh, I'd be glad to. The thing is, I began to realize that Disneyland was created by the same sort of people I was working with in the 70s and 80s. And they hardly get mentioned. know, a lot of stories were being written that Walt wanted this, so Walt built this. And that wasn't the whole story. And so I wanted to dive deeper. I also wanted to give people a sense of how designs developed. There were a lot of things that were intended about Disneyland that were pretty much chucked off, you know, after the first opening. They didn't survive the first contact with the customer. Disneyland evolved over the years, but that first year was key. So anyway, I wrote this book, Inventing Disneyland, that is chronological. you can go kind of week by week and you can see, okay, now they hired this guy and that meant this got a little bit more real. and they hired this guy who knew about trains and he was kind put in the train line. know, just one thing and another and then the panic in the weeks before opening, it opened, ⁓ my gosh, the panic after opening and it was an interesting story to me. hadn't really been told. ⁓ we've got things that are a little bit more and more understanding that a lot of people were involved. But when wrote the book, that was kind of a new idea. Mike: it was a very hot day and concrete was still soft. And yeah, there was a variety of other issues. Some rides were breaking down. So I'm interested in learning about that from your book Alastair Dallas: That's right. Mike: so thank you much for writing that. Alastair Dallas: Good deal. I'm going to plug things, I'm the admin at a Facebook page called Disneyland of the Past. Mike: Excellent. I'll post it on the show notes post a link to your book as well, if you ⁓ Absolutely. It's to know the history. of the park and the people that have made it a Alastair Dallas: Good deal, I'm unpaid Disneyland of the past, so it's just for fun. ⁓ Mike: and so. Alastair Dallas: think you do a great job on the ⁓ the here and now too. glad covered it all. Mike: Thank you so much. Well, thank you ⁓ for joining us. ⁓ You're always back. Any other you may have about your experiences ⁓ within Imagineering, just let me know we'll be to have you on the show again.