Latest / The Bill Handel Show / Disney's Original Imagineer Bob Gurr
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to k I AM six forty. The Bill
- 0:03Speaker 1: handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
- 0:09Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Hey,
- 0:14Speaker 2: Happy Friday to you. It is July third. We celebrate
- 0:19Speaker 2: two things on July third round here. It's the day
- 0:21Speaker 2: before Independence Day two hundred and fifty years tomorrow, and
- 0:27Speaker 2: July third we celebrate Shannon Farrin's birthday. She'll be coming
- 0:31Speaker 2: in with Gary just under an hour from now. Stick
- 0:34Speaker 2: around for that, And of course Monks and Merrill are
- 0:37Speaker 2: live today as well. Is Mark Thompson in for John
- 0:43Speaker 2: again today? Do we know that I was listening to
- 0:47Speaker 2: Mark T yesterday? I'm going to assume that he is
- 0:51Speaker 2: back for him today, but we shall see. But right now,
- 0:56Speaker 2: what a treat. I've interviewed this man a couple of times.
- 0:59Speaker 2: He is is He is somebody that is like an onion,
- 1:04Speaker 2: the more you peel, the more you appreciate. And I
- 1:08Speaker 2: just read something about him recently, saw an interview and
- 1:11Speaker 2: I responded to whoever posted it that the more I
- 1:14Speaker 2: learned about this guy, the more I love him, the
- 1:16Speaker 2: more of a treasure I find him to be. He
- 1:20Speaker 2: just is my type of person, hands on, philosophical, insightful,
- 1:26Speaker 2: and his name is Bob Gurr. The movie we're going
- 1:30Speaker 2: to be talking about is called Bob ger Living by Design.
- 1:33Speaker 2: It's a feature length documentary. It celebrates this man's life.
- 1:36Speaker 2: He is a legendary Disney imagineer and beyond. Quite honestly,
- 1:43Speaker 2: do I find that fascinating?
- 1:44Speaker 3: Yes?
- 1:45Speaker 2: Is it the most fascinating thing about him? This is
- 1:48Speaker 2: what got me? No, that's what's weird. Me a big
- 1:53Speaker 2: fan of you know, creativity and all these things, and
- 1:58Speaker 2: that's not the most impressive thing about the guy. It's
- 2:00Speaker 2: directed by Frank Woodward. He's with us too, and it's
- 2:04Speaker 2: coming to PBS. So PBS is lets make sure you yeah,
- 2:13Speaker 2: we're good. So that's coming, and so I wanted to
- 2:16Speaker 2: bring these gentlemen on to talk about it. Frank, why
- 2:20Speaker 2: don't we start with you as the director, to give
- 2:22Speaker 2: a little synopsis about how what sparked this desire to
- 2:29Speaker 2: do this film for you?
- 2:30Speaker 4: Well, the desire to do the film came from these
- 2:35Speaker 4: early discussions that Bob and I had about doing something
- 2:38Speaker 4: about Bob. Bob is extremely well known for all of
- 2:44Speaker 4: his accomplishments at Disney, for sure. So we were told
- 2:49Speaker 4: by his manager and also fellow producer Ernie Alonso, that
- 2:54Speaker 4: we should have a documentary about Bob, but we should
- 2:56Speaker 4: probably go talk to Bob about it.
- 2:58Speaker 3: How'd that go? Well?
- 3:04Speaker 5: Well, my side of the directorship and the movie businesses.
- 3:10Speaker 5: For years, I've been plastered all over YouTube with homemade videos.
- 3:15Speaker 5: I just tended a lot of panels from Disney and
- 3:18Speaker 5: the other where we're sitting on a table answering questions,
- 3:22Speaker 5: a lot of blogs and zooms. You know, you can
- 3:26Speaker 5: just kind of get worn out, same informity, but dumb
- 3:30Speaker 5: questions over and over. And this fellow sitting on my
- 3:34Speaker 5: couch in my living room because he warmed his way
- 3:37Speaker 5: into my life over a couple of years by not
- 3:40Speaker 5: understanding the word no, I'm not interested. But he had
- 3:43Speaker 5: two other guys with him. They ganged up on me.
- 3:45Speaker 3: Yeah, we came in like a full force.
- 3:48Speaker 2: I find you to be from our interactions, and we've
- 3:52Speaker 2: had some really great time to talk. I've also had
- 3:55Speaker 2: time to talk with Frank and Ernie of course. And
- 4:01Speaker 2: is it humility or is it you just don't want
- 4:05Speaker 2: to bother with it?
- 4:06Speaker 5: No, it's it's sort of a sum of everything. Let's say,
- 4:10Speaker 5: over a long time, from the time I was a
- 4:12Speaker 5: little kid. You know, you're supposed to have hearings heroes.
- 4:16Speaker 5: Some of them are aviation. But over time people would say, well,
- 4:19Speaker 5: who's your heroes, and I'd have to pause. There are
- 4:23Speaker 5: so many people I've worked with or met or read
- 4:26Speaker 5: about in history. All these amazing people have done all
- 4:30Speaker 5: these things. So somehow I am sort of adulation proof.
- 4:36Speaker 5: In other words, when somebody directs that kind of attention
- 4:38Speaker 5: to me, it's like, thank you, sirs are very kind words.
- 4:43Speaker 5: When I know there's other people and I've been with them, somebody,
- 4:46Speaker 5: somebody wants to make a movie about you. Oh my goodness,
- 4:49Speaker 5: I'm gonna call all my friends. I'm and some are
- 4:56Speaker 5: some are to me that did not. It did not.
- 5:00Speaker 5: It's just not of much interest. It was not necessarily
- 5:03Speaker 5: a no per se. It was just no because of
- 5:06Speaker 5: the general experience that I had had with people.
- 5:10Speaker 3: At ninety four years of age.
- 5:13Speaker 2: Now you're like, nah, I've got stuff to do. It's funny, Bob,
- 5:18Speaker 2: because as much as a Walt Disney fan I am
- 5:23Speaker 2: and have been for so long, after meeting you and
- 5:27Speaker 2: spending time with you, I have a feeling that if
- 5:31Speaker 2: I were ever to go back in time meet Walt Disney,
- 5:33Speaker 2: I asked him what it was like to work with you,
- 5:37Speaker 2: because I'd be like, yeah, yeah, you know, I've learned
- 5:39Speaker 2: so much. We'll get into more when we come back.
- 5:43Speaker 2: The Fascinating Life of Bob Gerr, Living by Design is
- 5:46Speaker 2: the feature late documentary you can find on PBS right now.
- 5:49Speaker 4: It's our actually premiere is on the seventeenth of July.
- 5:52Speaker 4: Gotcha on PBS SOCOW and on the PBS app, so
- 5:56Speaker 4: anybody anywhere can see it on the app.
- 5:58Speaker 2: I saw that they were promote voting it, and I
- 6:00Speaker 2: thought that it might be already out and we'll talk
- 6:03Speaker 2: to this ninety.
- 6:04Speaker 3: Four year old young man and all.
- 6:07Speaker 2: The things he's done that you couldn't possibly know about.
- 6:11Speaker 2: So go nowhere LIKFI Am six forty live everywhere on
- 6:15Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app. Hey everybody, Neil Servader in the morning
- 6:19Speaker 2: crew with you today the day before Independence Day, two
- 6:22Speaker 2: hundred and fifty years of the great experiment that we
- 6:26Speaker 2: get to enjoy, even you know, warts and all, we
- 6:31Speaker 2: have been able to do some really great things in
- 6:34Speaker 2: this country due to our freedoms, and the most important thing,
- 6:39Speaker 2: the ability to build your own path. And what a
- 6:42Speaker 2: way to celebrate that that a man who has built
- 6:44Speaker 2: his own path in a way that amazes me. I've
- 6:49Speaker 2: had the pleasure of chatting with him many times now,
- 6:53Speaker 2: and each time I learned something new. Bob Gerr is
- 6:57Speaker 2: with us. He is a legendary disney imagineer, one of
- 7:01Speaker 2: the first helped build Disneyland. Anything on wheels, as they say,
- 7:05Speaker 2: anything that moves that is on wheels at Disneyland. He
- 7:09Speaker 2: built the Mattahorn thrown into that at the Monorail. The
- 7:16Speaker 2: Doom Buggy was designed by him. The Autopia, you know,
- 7:22Speaker 2: all the cars on Main Street that you see. They
- 7:28Speaker 2: may look old and specific, but they underneath that hood
- 7:33Speaker 2: is reason and engineering beyond what we think about. Well,
- 7:38Speaker 2: his full feature length documentary celebrating his life thus far
- 7:43Speaker 2: in these ninety four years is called Bob Gerr Living
- 7:45Speaker 2: by Design, directed by Frank Woodward, who was kind enough
- 7:49Speaker 2: to join us today as we talk about that film,
- 7:52Speaker 2: which is coming to PBS on the seventeenth of July,
- 7:56Speaker 2: so you can get it, watch it on the app,
- 7:58Speaker 2: you can watch it on PBS California, and all of
- 8:02Speaker 2: those things. And I highly recommend it. I was there
- 8:05Speaker 2: for the premiere and it was. It was heartwarming, it
- 8:10Speaker 2: was funny, it was insightful, and he's with us today.
- 8:17Speaker 3: Well it was it was Bob.
- 8:18Speaker 2: I mean.
- 8:19Speaker 4: That was the thing I wanted to make sure I captured,
- 8:22Speaker 4: is that we got a sense of who Bob is
- 8:25Speaker 4: as a person and as a man. Yes, he's very accomplished,
- 8:29Speaker 4: but some of the insights and enjoy you get into
- 8:32Speaker 4: knowing him is just by sitting and talking to him.
- 8:35Speaker 4: One of the best compliments I got from people who
- 8:38Speaker 4: know you, Bob, like from justin' scard and everything like that.
- 8:41Speaker 4: It's like, my god, you captured what it's like to
- 8:43Speaker 4: be with Bob for an afternoon, and that's.
- 8:46Speaker 2: And just talking about it. You know, it's funny. At Justin,
- 8:50Speaker 2: who I met at the premiere and I was a
- 8:54Speaker 2: fan of his work, turns out that he's a fan
- 8:57Speaker 2: of the station and the show as well. So he
- 9:00Speaker 2: and I have become good friends since that as well. So, Bob,
- 9:05Speaker 2: I get that people are going to want to ask
- 9:07Speaker 2: you about Walt because twelve years you had a very
- 9:11Speaker 2: intimate relationship, driving with him, flying with him, and all
- 9:13Speaker 2: these things.
- 9:18Speaker 3: I want to get into your life.
- 9:19Speaker 2: But I want you to sum up one thing that
- 9:23Speaker 2: impacted you about who Walt Disney was.
- 9:28Speaker 5: Walt Daisy was in a way two extremes. When he
- 9:32Speaker 5: would be dealing with Germans of the border, large companies
- 9:35Speaker 5: who were trying to sell Epcot sponsorship, or when he's
- 9:39Speaker 5: talking to his gardener, or he's talking to his buddy
- 9:42Speaker 5: Dick Nixon. I noticed the tone of voice and the
- 9:45Speaker 5: language was identical. That was a big impression that he
- 9:51Speaker 5: was not impressed by other people in a strong way,
- 9:57Speaker 5: but he respected the level that everybody was. So when
- 10:01Speaker 5: I seen him talking in the model shop, talking to
- 10:04Speaker 5: the imagineers, to anybody around the studio, that tone of
- 10:08Speaker 5: voice is always the same, which meant in some cases
- 10:13Speaker 5: his level of knowledge was way above somebody in the
- 10:16Speaker 5: model shop. Wilets say he never talked down to anybody.
- 10:21Speaker 5: I think that is a key point that any business
- 10:25Speaker 5: person should remember. Never talk down, because that way you
- 10:29Speaker 5: leave that person literally alone in their level of a
- 10:33Speaker 5: conversation with a Walt isn't And the reverse then is
- 10:37Speaker 5: that that person has to get easy dealing with a
- 10:42Speaker 5: person that appears to be the high level by the
- 10:44Speaker 5: working for him, and you gradually bring Waltz talking to
- 10:48Speaker 5: you down to a level that matches you and the
- 10:52Speaker 5: other side of it. The Vice President of the United
- 10:54Speaker 5: States is a dear friend, and the guy calls him
- 10:57Speaker 5: Dick Nixon. In that same level, there's a leveling that's automatic,
- 11:02Speaker 5: that gives respect to everybody that he's dealing with.
- 11:08Speaker 2: But I imagine he had to push at times to to
- 11:10Speaker 2: get things done.
- 11:12Speaker 5: Absolutely. One of the examples is a movie. A movie
- 11:18Speaker 5: premiere always has the full credits at the end, and
- 11:22Speaker 5: all the people work to a movie. They sit till
- 11:24Speaker 5: the end of this long line of fine print, and
- 11:27Speaker 5: one fellow made the mistake of going to Walt and said,
- 11:31Speaker 5: you know, I worked very hard for you, and you
- 11:34Speaker 5: never put my name on the credits. And Walt snapped
- 11:38Speaker 5: at him and said, my name is on the door.
- 11:41Speaker 5: Don't ever forget it. Oh, that's that's how Walt would
- 11:47Speaker 5: snap when snap was necessary. The first time I heard
- 11:51Speaker 5: him use a four letter word, it sort of startled me.
- 11:54Speaker 5: I couldn't visualize a Walt Disney speaking a four letter
- 11:58Speaker 5: word about a children's attraction.
- 12:01Speaker 3: But I got used, and he's gonna leave us. Yeah,
- 12:10Speaker 3: And which four letter word I have my guesses.
- 12:13Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get Let's get the news now with Amy
- 12:17Speaker 2: King and we'll be back more with legendary image Disney
- 12:21Speaker 2: imagineer Bob Gerr and director Frank Woodward. So go nowhere.
- 12:27Speaker 4: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from kf I
- 12:30Speaker 4: AM six forty.
- 12:33Speaker 2: Kf I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
- 12:37Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Neil Sevadra here with the Morning crew,
- 12:41Speaker 2: and tomorrow, of course fourth of July, and I hope
- 12:45Speaker 2: that you are being safe and enjoying it with your
- 12:48Speaker 2: family and friends. Today we are talking with Bob Gerr.
- 12:53Speaker 2: The documentary is called Bob Gerr Living by Design, feature
- 12:57Speaker 2: length documentary, and it celebrates his life. He's a legendary
- 13:01Speaker 2: Disney imagineer, of course, but beyond that his insights on
- 13:05Speaker 2: vehicles and you know, twelve years with Disney, but also
- 13:12Speaker 2: more with your own company and doing One of my
- 13:17Speaker 2: favorite rides was the King Kong Experience at Universal, which
- 13:22Speaker 2: unfortunately burned down. But the documentary is directed by Frank Woodward,
- 13:28Speaker 2: who's here with us as well, and it will start
- 13:31Speaker 2: airing on PBS California on the seventeenth of July. I
- 13:35Speaker 2: encourage you to watch it there on the app. You
- 13:39Speaker 2: could watch it as well if you're listening from outside
- 13:41Speaker 2: of California. Right now, we're talking to these two gentlemen,
- 13:45Speaker 2: and Bob was telling us stories about Walt Disney, who
- 13:51Speaker 2: I am fascinated by. But I have grown very fond
- 13:54Speaker 2: of getting the opportunity to chat with Bob. Insights about
- 14:01Speaker 2: vehicles and aviation and stuff blow me away. I've got
- 14:06Speaker 2: some basic questions about that. Cars today, What are they
- 14:12Speaker 2: doing right? What are they doing wrong?
- 14:15Speaker 5: Cars have morphed into what we call a compliance product,
- 14:21Speaker 5: in which, if you go back in America, back into
- 14:24Speaker 5: the seventy four, seventy five, not past eighty, there were
- 14:29Speaker 5: some sexy, good looking, long, useless, slobbering, dangerous cars. I
- 14:37Speaker 5: think Pindhead, Bonneville, Buick two twenty four, stuff like.
- 14:41Speaker 2: That, the Buick that if you stop too quick it
- 14:43Speaker 2: would split your head on the steel.
- 14:47Speaker 5: We forgot what glorious are These gargantuan dinosaurs were really like,
- 14:53Speaker 5: That's why car shows are so good. I went to
- 14:56Speaker 5: one the other day, four hundred and forty eight cars
- 14:59Speaker 5: of every kind of generation and country, and that they
- 15:02Speaker 5: stuck out like sore thumbs today. When somebody asked me
- 15:06Speaker 5: about car styling, because I was started as a car
- 15:09Speaker 5: stylist the Ford Motor Company when I was twenty years
- 15:12Speaker 5: old after graduating from the Art Center School, my simple
- 15:16Speaker 5: answer is, all BMW's are white refrigerators with wheels on
- 15:21Speaker 5: the bottom.
- 15:23Speaker 2: Tell us how you really.
- 15:24Speaker 5: Feel the problem with compliance cars. You have what's called
- 15:28Speaker 5: the package. There's dimensional points all over that car, inside
- 15:33Speaker 5: and out that have to meet a federal specification. Then
- 15:38Speaker 5: within that there's a little tiny details all over the
- 15:41Speaker 5: car inside and out as another set of specifications. If
- 15:45Speaker 5: you sat down or draw a line between every one
- 15:47Speaker 5: of those points, you are not creating beauty or art.
- 15:53Speaker 5: You are complying with a set of regulations. In contemporary times,
- 15:59Speaker 5: in two thousand all the way to the present, if
- 16:01Speaker 5: you look at all the different cars, there's one line
- 16:04Speaker 5: of cars that have not changed in about fourteen years, Tesla.
- 16:11Speaker 5: Because the designer of the Tesla, Franz van Huldhausen, lays
- 16:16Speaker 5: his own hands in warm clay designing a body of
- 16:20Speaker 5: a car, and you can feel the car. That car
- 16:24Speaker 5: has never changed. I think must is scared to ever
- 16:27Speaker 5: change it now, because as time goes on. Everybody's gotten ugly,
- 16:31Speaker 5: and that car sits as the last pure handfelt body
- 16:35Speaker 5: of a car in America.
- 16:37Speaker 2: Do they still do that clay work these days?
- 16:40Speaker 5: Yes, it's a combination with the computer. Obviously, get to
- 16:43Speaker 5: the production stages. It's all in the computer. But the
- 16:46Speaker 5: problem is you'll have a young designer that's a computer illustrator.
- 16:51Speaker 5: He can make a good look in anything. And then
- 16:53Speaker 5: I asked the kid. I says, that's sexually looking car.
- 16:57Speaker 5: Now do one thing for me. You're out the door,
- 17:01Speaker 5: it's hinges open and closed, and show me how the
- 17:04Speaker 5: window goes down. And they said, no, that was not
- 17:09Speaker 5: my assignment. There's more to an automobile besides what it
- 17:18Speaker 5: has to be and the desire to have it be
- 17:21Speaker 5: beautiful art in general. Over a great number of years,
- 17:25Speaker 5: the Italian cars had the feel American cars, some of
- 17:31Speaker 5: them in the nineteen thirties had the field a Douzenberg,
- 17:36Speaker 5: a Dusenberg speedster designed by my friend when I knew
- 17:40Speaker 5: him in Detroit, Gordon Bury. All these guys are gone.
- 17:44Speaker 5: Everything is done by computer and compliance.
- 17:48Speaker 2: And so that coldness translates to the design. Yeah, you
- 17:53Speaker 2: couldn't see you can see cars on the street. We
- 17:56Speaker 2: got a shot at the you know one out here,
- 18:01Speaker 2: and they almost all look the same.
- 18:03Speaker 4: I can tell a BMW from a Hundai or anything
- 18:06Speaker 4: like that. They start the same boxy shape.
- 18:09Speaker 2: What about the switch from the grill with BMW? Most recently,
- 18:14Speaker 2: that front grill that was iconic has now become this.
- 18:17Speaker 5: I do not like horror movies, and I do not
- 18:20Speaker 5: like horror design in the front of a being his
- 18:23Speaker 5: horror design.
- 18:27Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be back with more. Bob Gerr and Frank Woodward.
- 18:31Speaker 2: The Frank is the director of Bob Gerrs Living by Design,
- 18:36Speaker 2: feature length documentary celebrating the life of this brilliant man
- 18:40Speaker 2: who obviously has no problem speaking his mind as well
- 18:43Speaker 2: as his art and his emotions into those things as well.
- 18:47Speaker 2: Legendary Disney imagineer also a builder of many things we'll
- 18:51Speaker 2: get into as well as we wrap up our conversation
- 18:55Speaker 2: today before Gary and Shannon come along. Bob ger Living
- 18:58Speaker 2: by Design Now. It will be airing on July seventeenth
- 19:05Speaker 2: on PBS California as well as on their app. So
- 19:08Speaker 2: if you're listening from somewhere else, stick around. We'll be
- 19:11Speaker 2: back with more. Neil Savedra and the morning crew. This
- 19:14Speaker 2: KFI heard everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. KFI AM six
- 19:18Speaker 2: forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Happy Friday Morning
- 19:22Speaker 2: to you, July third, the eve of Independence Day, twenty
- 19:29Speaker 2: twenty six, which just happens to be our two hundred
- 19:31Speaker 2: and fiftieth birthday. Happy Birthday, America. You look great. No
- 19:36Speaker 2: need for plastic surgery just yet. I am having a
- 19:40Speaker 2: wonderful chat with two gentlemen they've been on the show before,
- 19:44Speaker 2: having them back. Bob Gerr. Living by Design is the
- 19:47Speaker 2: name of the feature length documentary celebrating the life of
- 19:51Speaker 2: this legendary Disney imagineer and beyond. I might say he
- 19:56Speaker 2: is here with us, along with director Frank Woodward, and
- 20:00Speaker 2: it's it's a neat film.
- 20:02Speaker 3: I got to see it.
- 20:04Speaker 2: Gosh, has it been a year. So it's been a
- 20:06Speaker 2: year since it came out in the theaters and now
- 20:10Speaker 2: it is going to be on PBS starting PBS California
- 20:14Speaker 2: starting on the seventeenth of this month, and so you
- 20:19Speaker 2: can see it on PBS California or on the app.
- 20:22Speaker 2: You can watch it if you're out of there. Frank,
- 20:25Speaker 2: the director a question for you when it comes to
- 20:29Speaker 2: because you direct other things as well. Documentary is a
- 20:32Speaker 2: different animal.
- 20:33Speaker 4: For sure, Yes, I mean there are common threads, but yes,
- 20:36Speaker 4: definitely different.
- 20:37Speaker 2: So how do you how do you step back and
- 20:42Speaker 2: allow something? How do you direct silently when you're when
- 20:46Speaker 2: you're wanting to get natural conversation.
- 20:51Speaker 4: Well, it's all about starting a conversation like you would in.
- 20:54Speaker 3: Life as I as I see it.
- 20:56Speaker 4: You ask a question or you bring up a topic,
- 20:59Speaker 4: even if it's something as simple as what do you
- 21:00Speaker 4: think of that car over there? And it's a starting
- 21:04Speaker 4: point for a conversation, and then you just have to
- 21:08Speaker 4: listen and here where it's going to go. Now, if
- 21:11Speaker 4: you're a documentary filmmaker, you're also thinking of how you're
- 21:15Speaker 4: going to edit it together and how it's going to
- 21:17Speaker 4: fit in. I mean, you never really start a documentary
- 21:21Speaker 4: cold without any idea of where it's going to got
- 21:24Speaker 4: to have a beginning mentally, Yeah, you know what kind
- 21:26Speaker 4: of story and what things you want to touch on,
- 21:29Speaker 4: So you're listening for those things. But the trick is
- 21:32Speaker 4: if a topic comes up that's not what you planned
- 21:36Speaker 4: to write it out. Because the good thing about documentary
- 21:39Speaker 4: is a lot of it's built in the editing room.
- 21:42Speaker 4: So when you're around the world with somebody like Bob
- 21:44Speaker 4: and he's telling you these stories, and he's taking you
- 21:46Speaker 4: down avenues that you didn't think about, you follow him
- 21:50Speaker 4: and you record it because there could be gold and
- 21:53Speaker 4: then our hills.
- 21:54Speaker 2: Sure, and you don't want to It's like a scientist.
- 21:57Speaker 2: You you want to observe, don't want to interact too much.
- 22:01Speaker 2: There's a great way of putting it. Yeah, now that's fascinating.
- 22:06Speaker 2: And because there's so many places to go. So you
- 22:11Speaker 2: Bob did two hundred and fifty different projects, you say,
- 22:15Speaker 2: one hundred and for Walt Disney and one hundred and
- 22:20Speaker 2: fifty for other clients of your prod of your own company.
- 22:26Speaker 2: What are some of those projects? We talked about the
- 22:28Speaker 2: King Calling experience in Universal. What are some other projects
- 22:31Speaker 2: that you had your hand in designing?
- 22:34Speaker 5: Well, one of them was nineteen eighty four closing ceremony
- 22:39Speaker 5: of the Olympics in Los Angeles. A fellow had started
- 22:42Speaker 5: with an idea for a fifty foot diameter flying saucer
- 22:47Speaker 5: and the job collapsed a few weeks before the event,
- 22:51Speaker 5: and the job was handed to me as a basket
- 22:54Speaker 5: case with some vendors making parts, nobody had been paid
- 22:58Speaker 5: and no idea of a structure for it. And I
- 23:01Speaker 5: had an idea for a structure. I had a friend
- 23:03Speaker 5: with a small shop. I'll draw drawings fast. You helped
- 23:06Speaker 5: build it, and then we built it and tested it
- 23:09Speaker 5: all in about five weeks start to finish, and it
- 23:15Speaker 5: crashed on the day before it was supposed to be
- 23:18Speaker 5: put into practice. Those things would scare some people, but
- 23:23Speaker 5: the fact that we plod along making sure everything we
- 23:27Speaker 5: draw pictures of, buy and stick together and test is sensible,
- 23:31Speaker 5: even though the whole thing in the hole is completely crazy.
- 23:35Speaker 5: And of course opening night it works. We had a helicopter.
- 23:40Speaker 5: I bought a black cable one hundred feet long, hired
- 23:44Speaker 5: two police helicopters with the lights, and the fa let
- 23:46Speaker 5: us paint our helicopter black with no lights. So people
- 23:50Speaker 5: in the ninety thousand people in the coliseum only saw
- 23:53Speaker 5: a flying saucer. A flying saucer.
- 23:56Speaker 2: Where's that thing today?
- 23:58Speaker 5: It was a bunch of parts. We just took it
- 23:59Speaker 5: apart and threw it away.
- 24:01Speaker 4: Oh, you're killing me as someone who great stills of
- 24:05Speaker 4: it being built, though they killing me.
- 24:08Speaker 5: You see, there'll be an entremeur in this case, it
- 24:10Speaker 5: was David Walper was in charge of the show, and
- 24:13Speaker 5: he had another famous company to get it started, and
- 24:15Speaker 5: then somehow the ball just got dropped and it came
- 24:18Speaker 5: down on my line.
- 24:19Speaker 4: What I love about that project, though, Bob, is that
- 24:22Speaker 4: if you watch, if you look at the stills that
- 24:24Speaker 4: like we found in your collection of the building of
- 24:27Speaker 4: it during daylight, what I love about it is that
- 24:31Speaker 4: you clearly were designing it with the show in mind,
- 24:34Speaker 4: because you knew it was going to be seen at night.
- 24:36Speaker 4: You knew it was going to be see up up
- 24:38Speaker 4: high above and you look at it on the ground
- 24:41Speaker 4: and you're just kind of like, well, what is that exactly?
- 24:43Speaker 4: But you see it in performance in the show and
- 24:46Speaker 4: it's a UFO over the coliseum.
- 24:49Speaker 5: Yeah. See, the flying Saucer was just as you described.
- 24:52Speaker 5: Everything is said that I have to make drawings off
- 24:55Speaker 5: and guide the designing and building testing has to be real.
- 24:59Speaker 5: In my mind, this is serious stuff. But we knew
- 25:02Speaker 5: what it was going to do. And one of the
- 25:05Speaker 5: things you want to do is like magic, you do
- 25:07Speaker 5: something that nobody expects. And of course one of the
- 25:10Speaker 5: things is has never been done. Okay, so it's all
- 25:13Speaker 5: new and it startles everybody just on amerit. Then the
- 25:17Speaker 5: more they look at it. There's something in the human mind.
- 25:20Speaker 5: You see something that says, oh, that reminds me of
- 25:22Speaker 5: when that reminds me, Oh, gosh, Now look what it's.
- 25:24Speaker 5: Oh that reminds me of this, that reminds me of that.
- 25:27Speaker 5: You lead somebody's mind by about five seconds and don't
- 25:31Speaker 5: let them catch up. That's the trick of illusion with machinery.
- 25:37Speaker 2: Last question, have you ever said no, that's impossible or
- 25:42Speaker 2: I can't do that.
- 25:42Speaker 5: No, you never say no. You just don't. What if
- 25:47Speaker 5: the thing worked out that scares you? You might miss
- 25:51Speaker 5: a golden opportunity. So I learned it. Never say no,
- 25:55Speaker 5: And I only had a few the part way into
- 25:58Speaker 5: the job. I'd have to say no because things that
- 26:04Speaker 5: were not fully revealed, and I said, yes, gotcha, Yes,
- 26:08Speaker 5: you had to be very careful of that. I walked
- 26:10Speaker 5: away from an eight million dollar job one day just
- 26:13Speaker 5: because of that.
- 26:15Speaker 2: Well still standing, so obviously not too big of a problem.
- 26:21Speaker 5: No, it was finally improved and replaced by another attraction.
- 26:27Speaker 3: I will leave with that.
- 26:29Speaker 2: Bob Gerr Living by Design, feature length documentary celebrating the
- 26:33Speaker 2: life of legendary Disney Imagineer, Bob Gerr and beyond. I
- 26:36Speaker 2: will tell you there is so much about this man
- 26:39Speaker 2: and so many different layers. Directed by Frank Woodward, It's
- 26:44Speaker 2: just a really exploratory film on the journey of one
- 26:48Speaker 2: really fascinating man. We're lucky to have him in the studio,
- 26:53Speaker 2: both of them today to talk about this and you
- 26:57Speaker 2: can watch it coming July seventeen to PBS California and
- 27:03Speaker 2: on their app wherever you might be. Thanks for coming in, gentlemen.
- 27:06Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. Thankin this KFI heard everywhere on
- 27:09Speaker 3: the iHeartRadio app.
- 27:11Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
- 27:13Speaker 1: Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and
- 27:17Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.