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Imagineer Bill Cotter Interview · Project Horizons

• Mike: today we're joined by former Walt Disney Imagineer Bill Cotter, who contributed to the designs of several major computer controlled attractions at Disney. ⁓ And he also a person of great knowledge about World's Fairs, especially the 1964 ⁓ New York Fair, which many of you know has great relevance to Disney parks, especially Walt Disney World in Florida. So, Bill, ⁓ How are you doing today, my friend? Bill Cotter: ⁓ doing fine. Our rain has finally stopped out here in Los Angeles and And people say, you like it out here with all the smog and traffic. And I say, no, we don't have to shovel smog or traffic. But I remain eternally grateful Disney moved me out here from the East Coast. it is always something I thank them for every day. Mike: whenever I'm out there, it's like 75 degrees, never any rain and it's nice. Bill Cotter: You mentioned the 64 World's Fair ⁓ and I had grown up, I was originally from Brooklyn and moved out to Long and the World's we drive by, see it being built and one of my uncles actually worked on the site. So when the World's Fair opened, I went and ⁓ my eyes must have just popped out of my head. was, for a 12 year old it was the greatest thing in the world. mean, First of all, I had the futuristic stuff, know, the worlds of the future, cities under the sea, which also had really cool dinosaurs and, you know, the newest cars, old cars. It was really great. So I went to the fair a lot. It really made an impression on me. but like everything else, the fair ended in 65. I went off to college and I got a degree in electrical and computer engineering. And I was working as a submarine designer. computer systems on the fleet ballistic missile submarines for the United States Navy. were over at Cape Kennedy and we would do our test launches out of there and we had a day off that was unplanned. They weren't sure if the new missile, if it blew up, would survive, the blockhouse would survive or not. So they gave us a day off, everybody else decided to go over to Disney and go play golf. And I said, well, I'm not a golfer, but I'll go over it, I'll drive over it. And I walked in and... There was the 64 World's Fair again. There was Mr. Lincoln and there was the Carousel of Progress and there was a modern rail. And so I went off and applied for a job with Disney thinking I had all this scientific programming background. I could program the country bears or things like that. And I said, well, we got something different in mind. We'd like you to set up a program for Disney computer security. They had none at the time. So I hired on in Florida. And they immediately, before I even got back down to Florida, they decided the job was going to be in California. And I said, oh, OK. So I came out to California. I wanted to make sure I liked it. And I got out here and said, yeah, what's not to like? But hired on here. And then they said, oh, we need you back in Florida. So I was going back and forth. But I had a really great job. I would work a month at the studio. And I might work on something like the studio payroll system. Then I'd be down at Disneyland working on the computer system on Space Mountain. Then it would be pop off to Disney World and go work on something there. And then, ⁓ we need to over to Imagineering. So I rotated for six years around the company. And I really got a, I'd say better than average ⁓ exposure to how the company operated. Like I said, I worked in totally different areas. One day I might be doing something with the division the studio. did movie film strips for the education market. The next day is, do we keep the trains from Big Thunder from hitting each other? So it was great. But then Warner Brothers came along and offered me a lot more money to go run the computer business for Warner Brothers around the world. my wife was working, was a girlfriend at the time, wife now is working at Disney. So I was able to still, you know, have the pixie dust connection there and, you know, be able to enjoy myself. The nice thing was she had a pass to the park so I could still go and I didn't have to pay. So that worked out great. But it was really great because when I got there, I got there in 1976, there were an awful lot of people there that still worked for Walt and knew him really, really well. And they were really, really just wonderful in talking to this young kid. I was all 24 years old. And I'd ask, how did you guys do this? Or why did you do that? Or why didn't you do it this way? And some of them would say, boy, nobody's asked me that question in years, you know, about safety, World's Fair exhibits. So I really was at the right spot at the right time. They needed somebody and it was a great job. And I still freelance for Disney Company today and on history projects, not on the computer stuff anymore. But yeah, it was really a I'm so glad we had that day off at Florida. Mike: I've heard that time and time again from others that I've spoken with about when they first started at Disney, and you meet some of these great names that knew Walt Disney and that worked very closely with Walt Disney in the early days. they're so ⁓ and they want to get your input they want to hear some of your ideas and they want to see you can do. want to put you to work and see the great things that you can create and be involved in. ⁓ Bill Cotter: Yeah, they're very welcoming. As I mentioned, I hired on in Florida. They moved me out here and my boss had not gotten out here yet. So I called him up and said, what do I do? And he goes, well, I'll be out there in about two weeks. Just walk around, get to know people. first office is what was called the Shorts building. But I walked over to the animation building and I walked into the, helping down the halls, looking at all the artwork and the walls. And I walked in ⁓ office, there was a guy doing there some sketching. And I said, excuse me, I'm new to the don't know anything about anima- could you tell me how it works? And he says, oh yeah. And he goes through, there was so much to learn. What is an animator? What is an in-betweener? All that sort of thing. I said, oh, by the way, what's your name? He said, Ollie Johnston. Well, Ollie, one of the nine old men. He's just famous guy. And I didn't know the name at all. It meant nothing to me. But then I see it in the credits all the time now. But then I happened somehow mentioned Ollie that I was interested in trains and oh yeah, you know, didn't know he had a train. I think he had a model or something. So I should like to come over to the house and ride the railroad, you know? So I mean, I was just, and then you go to another meeting and you'd have Ward Kimball, you know, I mean, crazy Ward would just be bouncing off walls and he's soaking up the apricot and everything. And it was, it was just really, like I said, they were not pretentious at all. A couple of were little gruffer than others, but for the most part when they realized that you were sincere in what you were doing and wanted to get to know. I when you come in and say I'm a computer guy telling me about animation, most people would say, back in 1976, what's the connection? Well, were more than glad to explain how it all worked and sketch things out. Like said, I worked at the right time. it's funny how things work. ⁓ We had, ⁓ for example, they were doing a screening of the movie, The Fox and the Hound. it was rough. In some parts, the animation was all done. Others, it was roughly done. And they didn't have the music. They would like what they call track in music from another picture. So I went to the movie and the ending of the remember the movie, The Fox and Todd, The Fox and the Hound. And then there's a bear fight at the end of it. way it was originally done was the fox came out, bit the bear in the ear, the bear got all mad and ran off. And I said, you know, they asked for screen, know, critiques after the screening. And I said, well, look, I've been around a lot of bears in my life and there ain't no bear either. That's just kind of run away. You know, they're going to get no fight. So they put me together with Glenn Keane, who's ⁓ a wonderful animator. And ⁓ I down and said, I think we could do this and do that or whatever. ⁓ And that verified at the end of it, I'm very proud to say, was my suggestion. Now, I did learn that if you don't ask for it, you don't get credit for things, right? So will not see my name in the Fox and the Howl, but my friend Mike Vaughn was there and for the whole thing, he could tell you. But it was really nice because, again, I can't draw the proverbial straight line with a ruler. But Glenn was the sort of guy, and I'm going into saying, you know, the scene you did here, I didn't like it. And he wasn't like, Why didn't you like it? He was like, well, how can we make it better? How do we, how do we, what do we do about this? So that was the thing that was encouraging that you could, participate in things that were outside of your, what you say outside of your wheelhouse. You know, like everything else, you just can't walk into somebody's office and say, sucks. You you're not going to get that far with it. But, for the most part, you could say, have a suggestion and the company was really open and willing to do that. And, You know, I got a kick out of being able to, you know, when I see the movie, you're going to say, hey, that's the bear fight I came up with. ⁓ I've worked on a bunch ⁓ projects for different studios over like an Iron Man 2. They have the whole Stark Expo. ⁓ And ⁓ I agreed to create Stark Expo, ⁓ created around the idea of 64 World's Fair. And so I did a whole and ⁓ X amount of dollars and everything. then it came to me and said, ⁓ we got a problem. You're not in the art directors guild. And if you join the art directors guild, it's going to cause this problem, that problem, and that problem. I said, okay, and what do we do about it? And they said, how about if we pay double your fee? said, works for me. there's been a number of cases in which you work, you know, under the table, ⁓ of the site, try to keep the unions at bay. And, you know, for the most part, again, you get to know people and they get to know you and it's, it's, they'll call you up and say, I can't give you credit on this, but could you help us out on that? And we go, yeah, free meal at the studio or something. Yeah, I'll come over. We'll do it. only time I almost ever dug myself a hole was ⁓ had formed an employee film club. We had a really great thing where we could take home a movie and three cartoons and they give you a projector and a screen. And I sat in my living room and I watched Snow White and I said, okay, now watch Pinocchio and now watch Dumbo work my way through. But we couldn't, they didn't have copies of the TV shows to take home. So I formed being clever a film club and I would screen, you know, like Operation Undersea, the making of ⁓ 20,000 leagues and I'd invite people in from that worked on it to come and speak at the theater. So I had like the story of dogs about the making of Lady and the Tramp. I Jerry Geronimo directed the movie. He hadn't been back to the studio in 20 years. He came in and taught. Well, we were doing a presentation one night where Ron Miller, the head of the company at the time. who was going on about the new Disney. We're trying to revitalize the, get us out of the slump we're in. And Ron was a great guy. I really, really, really liked Ron. But ⁓ he was going on, he had made a presentation at NBC and we're going to do this and that. And he's talking about Disney's great this and Disney's great that. And I put it in my hand and said, Ron, how can you talk about Disney being great when our current movie is Herbie Goes Bananas? Well, the whole room went dead silent. And he said, you need to come over to meet my wife sometime. And I said, why is that? And goes, she hates our stuff as much as you do. Oh, God, what am I talking about? Well, later met Diane. had quite a laugh about it. But that was the sort of thing they could say, well, what suggestions do you have? Or what do you want to do? Or that sort of thing. They were not egomaniacs. then It was a certain environment where back then, and I was not up at the top of the totem pole, was somewhere down there, but I could call up and say, I need to speak to Card Walker, the head of the company before Ron, and they'd say, well, he's really busy, can this wait until tomorrow? ⁓ it can wait till whatever. ⁓ I called up Eiger, that he'd ever say, yeah, come on up and tell me how to run the company. They that sort of people that you could. come up there and at times they'd say, yeah, it's a great idea, but you don't understand everything about it. We're going to do it this way. And other times they'd say, yeah, I mean, one of the ideas I had was to get into computer games for Disney and they did own any computers. So I brought in my, I think I had an Apple, Apple plus at the time, Apple two E plus. And I brought that in and I demonstrated some computer games and had a whole big thing. we, you know, it's like, okay, how do we get into you know, get that business going and running. And the fellow in charge of that was a guy named Jim Jumero. He was the head of all the non-theatrical stuff. And I was like, OK, I don't know if it's quite ready for Disney, but that's something we ought to start thinking about. And again, they would let you, you know, take an hour in the boardroom and you'd get up and make a pitch. And, you know, maybe it was three years later something happened. they were very nice about remembering and rewarding you and stuff. Mike: back then, I think there was, less cooks in the kitchen, ⁓ where you can reach that point. ⁓ today seems like it is multi-layered and depending on what level you are in the creatives or the Imagineering department. I don't know who can speak to Bob Iger And you said you started in 1976. was 1975 when Space Mountain opened at Magic Kingdom. And that was the first computer controlled roller coaster, I believe, in the world, Bill Cotter: worked in the Disneyland version. And you can imagine every time you build something, you build it again, you would think you would clone it. No, the computer business changes so much in year to year year that ⁓ you would change it. You also would get the problem. a big problem when we opened the Matterhorn. We were doing a new ride control system in that, and I was off to the side on that one. And it didn't work. And it was really embarrassing because, you know, they announced the whole big opening and everybody comes out to see the Matterhorn and it's not running. And they had to give out free readmission tickets, come back another day free on us. So I got the challenge of trying to figure out what happened on that. It was like the guys that were doing the Matterhorn were different than the guys doing Space Mountain, which were different from the guys doing Big Thunder. So let's start trying to work on one common thing, you know, cause a roller coaster is a roller coaster is a roller coaster. But every team wanted to have their design. that was, that, see, you do run into politics when you get stuff like that, when you come back and say, we don't need that. We need to do it the old way, which works. uh, you know, that, that, the Matterhorn was an interesting post-mortem to try to sort how that went bad and how to keep that from happening again. basically the watch I'm wearing has more computer power in it now than Space Mountain did back then. But there's sometimes you try things that work. Sometimes you think they're going to work and they sound like they're going to work and in the lab they work and in reality they don't. For example, in Space Mountain, you you're always trying to increase the throughput on the attraction. How do you get more people through it faster or whatever? it's based, people basically know it's you get pulled up by a chain and then it's gravity fed and comes down. Well, if you have a sled with say four people in it weigh 200 pounds each, that comes down with a certain speed. But if you have another sled with only two people in it and that's 400 pounds or even 160 pounds or whatever, know, kids or whatever, it comes down to different speeds. So somebody thought, well, why don't we try to come up with a way to dispatch the rockets, not based on every X number of seconds, but do it basically on the speed of the rocket. So we would take every rocket. Now figure out what the coefficient of friction was on that rocket because each one has different wheels and different characteristics. So rocket one may fully loaded do it at this speed rocket two at this speed. But also let's put a scale in the loading area that when people get onto the rocket, we can now figure out the weight of that, that, that rocket fully loaded with this, bunch of people, and with the coefficient of friction of this rocket dispatch now. And then we could do this one and that one and it worked great. When we put sandbags in and you put, you know, 800 pounds of sandbags in, would work. And you put 1200 pounds or whatever. But when you put people in, it didn't work because sandbags just sit there. People turn and they move and they bounce up and down and they're sitting in a seatbelt and everything. And it just changed the entire dynamics of how the whole thing operated. So we had this great system, you know, that was absolutely brilliant design. The guy that initially came up with the concept. But human beings aren't sandbags, so turn off the scale and dispatch 30 seconds instead. So it's that sort of thing. you said, in the lab, you think it's going to work great. The test works great. And when you put people in the park, it's a whole different situation. Mike: the are the real test. when you get that point, when you reach guests or cast members testing out the ride, know, that's kind of where the real test happens. Space Mountain and ⁓ the Matterhorn have a similar track technology. ⁓ And when both Space Mountains opened in both parks, guess that's the point where they talked updating computer systems in the Matterhorn, after Space Mountain. Bill Cotter: go into Matterhorn. I don't remember exactly what year was done, but it was going from the single car trains to the dual car trains. I think that was about the same time. the Matterhorn to had a whole bunch of new things done. That's when we had to harryl the monster and, you know, the other stuff it. ⁓ You know, was basically again, how do we dispatch these things faster and increase the capacity? Because when you've got the ride, the line for the ride going all the way around the Matterhorn, you know, you want to try to get more people through it. Because again, you know, back in those days, we were still in the ABE tickets, the more people we got through it, the it for the bottom line. But, you know, it was just some technology changes. Like on Big Thunder, one of the last ones I worked on, there was the idea there of how do you tell where the trains are at any point in time? And it was the idea of using a, I think it was an optical sensor where a vein would come through a set of ⁓ electric eyes and here's the train, here's the train, here's the train. worked great until it rained. And then grease ran down the track and fouled up the sensors. And the next thing the computer's seeing, 32 trains out on the track, So take out the optical sensors and go back to the old fashioned magnetic ones because what worked inside the building doesn't work outside the building and worked great until it rained. ⁓ And ⁓ that was a real devil of a to to figure out. Mike: yeah. Were you involved in any attractions at Epcot Bill Cotter: Yeah, I worked on a couple of them. It was really funny. was really trying basically at that point in time to get more into the design side of stuff. I was getting a little bored with some of the computer security stuff I was doing and everything. And I worked on a number of projects and ⁓ it seemed like a bunch of them. If you wanted to get your project killed, you put Bill Cotter on it because I just had the worst luck. There was one, ⁓ I ⁓ an early thing on Living Seas. I was a scuba diver and know, I like to work on that. But the one I really got the furthest on was something called Tron Arcade. know, Tron was just coming out. As matter of fact, part of the set that was designed about my office, how a computer guy would sit at what the desk would be. we came up with this whole idea for some really futuristic computer attractions, video games and 3D branching and all this sort of stuff. We gave a presentation, turned it all in, and we had things that were, I think, pretty advanced. We worked on with some guys from MIT where they had a thing where you would drive through the city, I think it was Aspen, Colorado, and you would be in your car and you would just stop at a stop sign. And if you wanted to go left, you used laser discs. Again, I'm going to date myself, but the laser disc would be ready when you got to a corner to have the left and the right laser disc ready to go when you decide to turn. it was switched to that laser disc, which would then jump up to the next intersection to decide if you turn left again, which one's going to be. So was all pre-positioned. And we thought, okay, this could be fun, you ⁓ know, driving through Aspen is not going to be fun. But how about if you were kayaking and you were going through ⁓ ice flows and we had a really neat thing built with a paddle that could detect how fast you were paddling and that sort of thing. And a polar bear is going to come out and get you. You go down this other way. So we did this whole presentation, put the whole thing together. And they looked at it and said, yeah, that's kind of interesting, but it's nothing really futuristic about polar bears. And I said, okay, yeah, you're right. And I said, how about if we change it all to be futuristic? And they said, okay, watch out in mind. said, well, give me a day. We came back the next day and I had taken all 12 shows and rewritten them. And so now instead of going down the... ice flows, you're in the canals of Mars and a seven-headed hydrax monster would jump at you. And they liked it. ⁓ okay. Yeah, Mars is great. You know, we're doing all this stuff. you guarantee that you can have it open by this date? And said, well, I mean, I can guarantee that my part can be ready, but I can't guarantee you what the construction guys will say or do because we haven't had a chance to talk to them any of this. And they said, well, if you can't guarantee an opening day, we can't do it. So if you see early pictures of Disney World, there's posters up for Tron Arcade. And when it opened, it was a plush animal gift shop. ⁓ it was so frustrating because now when you go to things like soaring over California or soaring around the world, can go, ⁓ that's because we had a virtual hang glider, same sort of thing. You can say, I want to go to this canyon. I want to go over this swamp. So again, stuff we were doing 50, 40 years ago for Epcot, you know, ends up opening decades later. But ⁓ Yeah, so I can look around a little bit some pieces. I've been in a meeting go, how about this? How about that? So yeah, if I go to Disney and kids and they want to go to places like Epcot with me, go, I worked on that. worked on that. They didn't care. They wanted to go meet a princess or go go shake Mickey's hand or something. Mike: Tron It was going to be in Communicore It's even in one of the books from 1982, previewing Tron Arcade as upcoming attractions. Unfortunately, didn't come to be and Outside of that, there's not a whole lot of information about the Tron Arcade. you watch the Tron, which came out the same year Epcot opened, interestingly, it kind of has that similar look when you look at early Epcot and Tron. It's an interesting connection there. Bill Cotter: Yeah, it was fun to work on. had some things and you start learning stuff. Again, what works in the lab doesn't work in the reality. So we built this really nice motion simulator hanging in a hang glider. Well, I know how to do it. My partners know how to do it. But when we brought in the average person and particularly if somebody was very large and you had to help them get on the harness and strap the thing on, you realize, okay, this is taking seven minutes for a guest. How many guests can we get through this thing in an hour sort of thing? So you started, some people were getting motion sickness. Okay, we'll work on that. But even the little things like we had a game where you would try to, remember the old games on the computer, you would try to put it like a barrier around your opponent and have them run into a wall. We had a thing where you could point to a wall and shake your finger and it would change it to your color. And you shake and shake and you're trying to block your other guy in. And we had these little wristbands that would figure your. X and Y axis based on where you're going. And then when you shook, it could light up the dot. Well, it was really great, except when we finished every demo of it, the people would start walking out of the room and not take their wristbands off. So we said, well, you got to leave the wristbands. So then we started putting a cable on it to keep them from walking out the door with it. And then people said, well, we lost the whole magic because now it looks like it's wired in. And all the cable was doing is keeping you from stealing. was waving your arms in the air. And then you get into how many of these people now, how many of these bracelets do we need because we have to sanitize them between each person that gets to use it, just like the glasses and the theater and everything. So, you know, all of a sudden, again, what's the throughput? How many of these, and these things were not cheap to make. How many are we going to have? How do we clean them? How do we get them out? So again, the people from operations at the park would come up and sit there and go, ⁓ God, now what are you guys thinking of? You know, don't do that. whole concept of arcade was to come up with the look and feel it, know, ⁓ the disks and the master control program and all that artwork around the facility. But inside everything was basically ⁓ standalone things that were not connected to the movie. So you weren't playing the game. You weren't on the game grid and people weren't going to annihilate you or anything. But it was futuristic. So the Tron name was used for that. But there wasn't a Tron ride per se. Mike: Epcot at the time when it opened, very high tech. They use a lot of the latest innovative technology to build and work those attractions. And visit Epcot now, you tell your kids, I've worked on that, I worked on this. And so what are some of those other projects? There are other attractions that you worked on at Epcot. Bill Cotter: ⁓ these days some of the stuff's gone. The trouble. ⁓ Do remember a show that was there called the Astuter Computer Review? Mike: The original Communicore Computer Show, yes, in Communicore East. Bill Cotter: Yeah, yeah, it was fun because we were there for the preview of it and there were a whole bunch at that time the official computer company was the Spurri Univac and there were I was sitting in the preview gallery with a bunch of the Spurri people and there were all the stuff down below and the guy's trying to figure out what's that box over there is that the I don't remember what numbers they were saying but is that the DS 2000 controller no that could be the MS5 No, it wasn't. It was a box with our stuff in it painted to look like a Sperry computer because they didn't make what we needed to make. was really good for running our mainframe systems and the hotel reservation and the payroll and everything, but they didn't have anything like what we needed to do to run the park. So although it was sponsored by Sperry Univac, everything you saw in that room was painted Sperry Univac, but wasn't Sperry Univac. There were times in which you thought maybe some things are going to work out. And sometimes budget just comes to be. One of the things I remember saying ⁓ was are we going to get the little old lady from the end of the American adventure out to the parking lot at the end of the day? Wouldn't it be really nice if we put a people mover in and had that theme that you'd get off in the Paris Pavilion, ⁓ the Pavilion, look like, you know, ⁓ the one, their Metro go over to a one that looked like the tube. So again, put you with an artist and we sketch out all this stuff and then people say, ⁓ look at all those zeros. Now people can walk, you know? So that was, ⁓ and when Epcot opened and they're all trying to figure out how to get the little lady out. They had to go to Disneyland and steal the Main Street Omnibuses off of Disneyland, put them on a truck and bring them to Florida. My friend ⁓ in charge of Main Street at the time and he came to work in the morning and the Omnibuses are gone. Well, it's because they needed to get all those old ladies back out around Epcot. ⁓ there was no time to build a new Omnibus. It was just time to steal them. So ⁓ was all sorts of fun dynamics and things going on. whole idea was to theme it to, you know, different stops or different things around there. So, you know, when you got off at, you know, the UK pavilion, it would look like the tube, you know, that sort of thing. But it ⁓ just, became way too expensive to do. It's now why they don't extend the monorails. Buses are cheaper than ⁓ monorails. The Disney that I worked for had lot more vision and I probably cut my throat here with Disney today. But they were really forward looking thinking. When I first went to Florida and I got to the Ticket and Transportation Center and I looked across the water and there's the Magic Kingdom. But one of the things that really impressed me with the ferry boats, you know, I'm from New York, so I took the Staten Island ferry, how many times in my life, but the thought that they were so innovative and rather than just take people in the Magic Kingdom by buses. Let's build a ferry. Who builds ferry boats and does that? And, you know, I have two of them and going back and forth all the time and the modern rails and everything else. was just I an off. ⁓ I am today of the team of men and women that built the original version of Disney, Disneyland and Disney World. How far thinking they were, because what they did was really expensive. mean, really, really expensive. And they could have done a cheaper. And they did it right. I'm just in awe of how they pulled it off. Mike: They wanted to build the best and use the best materials, most designs. ⁓ And did it. It could have been done cheaper, I'm sure. They could have built somewhere else, ⁓ not Florida swamp, where it was very difficult to build on that land and all money that went into fixing the land. But they chose and it was the right choice to build in that area. And so today may have been a different story. Bill Cotter: Yeah, it was really a different environment. When I went there, as I mentioned, there were still a lot of people that worked for Walt. And if the studio didn't have a project to keep you busy, you know, if this movie ended and there was a two month gap to that movie starting, they would find something for you to do. I mean, and there would be people, you know, basically come up and down the hall, got anything for me to do, you know, ⁓ but. They'd keep you on and you might be a model maker, but they go, ⁓ why don't you go help the guys in the photo library for a month? we'll, know, they would keep you on. Well, now, of course, the day that anything finishes, you're gone out the door and we'll bring it back next week or maybe never sort of thing. But there was a real feeling of in both directions ⁓ the was going to take care of you. And I think the feeling was we're going to take care of the company and It was really interesting because, you know, I've worked for a number of companies before and after. Like I said, I went to Warner Brothers. I was at Universal, that sort of thing. When you go to a party and people say, what do you do? And you go, oh, I'm a senior vice president at Bank of America. Oh, okay. You go, oh, I'm a grunt at Disney. Wow, really? I mean, it still has a cache to it that is, it's undeniable. You know, I mean, it's out there. And you all felt. in my experience, and even with a, go to lot of retiree lunches and stuff, and we all still feel that, you know, Disney didn't pay the best. That's why I got mentioned when Warner Brothers came by, they offered me a bucket of money, and I looked at Disney, I looked at Warner Brothers, and I went for the money. I went to buy a house, married, that sort of thing. But when we were all there, you really felt the company was taking care of you. I mean, they paid a good salary. It wasn't a great salary. But if a project died down, It really, unfortunately, though, when Epcot opened, they had promised an awful lot of people that we'll find something else for you. You know, there was the work for Tokyo Disneyland. There was work about doing other stuff. And they laid off all sorts of people. My wife was one of them at the time, and she was lucky. She laid off an imaginary, but came back and she did a number of years at the Disney Channel. But a lot of people didn't didn't come back. And I think that really hurt Disney over the years because now people saw that the mouse could bite you and that a lot of people started doing what I did. They talked to people at other companies and say, I got this Disney expertise, this Disney experience, this Disney know how, how much do pay? And I don't think the company ever really recovered from some of the 1982 layoffs in that regard. Mike: after Epcot opened and especially after, Tokyo was finished, it was a lot of layoffs and was new leadership coming in, no, was coming in that time after those parks opened, there was a change of culture and just, there was change happening at that time. and you also had the dynamic of Universal also opening in 1985, And so you had now another major theme park opening, again, not as big as Disney, but another newcomer in this area. And you have all these layoffs and Universal, I'm not sure what they were paying, but I heard a lot of imagineers and a lot of creatives. went over there and worked on some of those attractions. Bill Cotter: Oh yeah, a whole bunch of my friends said they were already down in Florida, Universal's right there. Where else do I go? And I could do the exact same sort of work that I love. I remember when I was working for Universal, I forgot what year it was. I went down there and went to, it was new at the time, Islands of Adventure. And they had a new Spider-Man ride. And I went in and said, wow, this is really cool. I mean, they did a really great job on this. Mike: Yeah. Bill Cotter: of years ago, ⁓ were down in Florida for a D23 event and I was there with Tony Baxter. We went over to Universal and all Tony would say, ⁓ we tried to do that and they wouldn't give us the money. We want to do that. They wouldn't give us the money. So we spent the whole day going around. I went to ⁓ ⁓ Potter stuff. was away. I thought that was really well done. The little thing, the interactive stuff they did with the kids with the wands. if you do the wand this way, the flower will grow. If you do it that way, I was just thinking when we were doing our stuff with our dots and everything. Now these kids have these RFI wands and everything. I go, ⁓ man, we could have those wands back in those days. So yeah, it is interesting to see what the competition's doing and try to think, how did they get there before us? ⁓ How do we improve upon it? That sort of thing. Mike: a major part of what we see at Universal was a lot of former Imagineers and that were part of those projects. major competitor in central Florida and ⁓ the product in Harry Potter world. epic universe that just opened. the architecture, the attention to detail it's impressive. It's impressive. see the potential of what can be done. Bill Cotter: it's that you probably heard the quote, ⁓ but they opened up California Adventure and John Hensch is walking through it and somebody asked him what he thought of it. He said, I liked it better when it was a parking lot. And they did so many things on the cheap ⁓ for Adventure and it's gotten better now. But ⁓ I defy anybody to say the Superstorm limo ride, how ⁓ anybody have thought that was going to be of appeal to anybody on any grounds. I mean, it was frankly was was an embarrassment. you go to look at that and go, oh, my God, you know, mean, Rod Miller was a really nice guy, but Ron Miller could also run. Miller's only real fault that I saw he let people bully him. He was too nice a guy. And he meeting and people just run roughshod over him. I'd say to him after that, Rod, what do you people talk to you that way? I don't want to create issues or I got to work with this guy forever. You know, whatever. Well, Eisner came in now and Eisner was the sort of guy where he would walk and I've heard this from people more than once. Somebody would come up to a mic. I got an idea. I want to talk to you about or whatever. And Mike, yeah, I call my office. Then he turned us and we said, I hate that guy. I want him gone. You know, I mean, so Mike got you went from a cooperative thing where I could literally again, call a car walker, say, know, meet you. OK, can you come in for breakfast tomorrow to Eisner? You say anything, you know, you're gone sort of stuff. And I think that really hurt the company tremendously that went over one day, I was at Warner Brothers and it was, it's a small incestuous world. guy I replaced at Warner Brothers was now working at Disney. So we went over, ⁓ I over to meet him for lunch and we were in the restaurant they call the Rotunda. It's the ⁓ executive room at the studio in Burbank. And we were sitting there eating and all of sudden he's going like that. And I go, what's going on? goes, I don't want people to see me here and go, why? You know, goes, oh, I got a project I got to get done. They're going to get on me. Why am I up here having lunch and not on that project? I said, do you not have to go to lunch? And he said, oh, no, no, no, let's just hurry up and go. We got to get out of here. You know, I never felt that way in my life when I was there. mean, you know, and that to me was, wow, that was a real eye opener. The environment had changed that much that people were now afraid for their jobs. mean, like when I was there, you did your job, you didn't make a fortune, but your job was going to be there tomorrow, next week or whatever. Now all these people are scared to death that, you know, with Katzenberg and these guys, you know, I mean, they turn out some really, really good stuff. I mean, the days of the Lion King and that sort of stuff, you know, some great films. But ⁓ you got on the wrong side, You know, if anybody ever raised their hand and said, stuff like Herbie Goes to Bananas, they wouldn't be there the next day. You know, back then when I was there, you could do that. Good luck to the people once Eisner got there. Mike: that's the difference. ⁓ if you're a of creatives ⁓ and you have good ideas discuss those ideas, you try make them better because you've reached that point where you're sitting in that you have good ideas. And so they may not be the ones Eisner or anyone else say, well, this is the way, know, but it's an idea that should be discussed or this project wasn't good and let's do this next one better. You should be able to have those conversations because it's about improvement, making it better. Bill Cotter: I was sitting here years because, again, besides all the computer stuff and everything, I wrote the book on the history of Disney television, and ⁓ that became from the film club that I mentioned earlier. I would introduce a Jerry Geronimo and I'd go to the archives, look up, you know, take notes and ⁓ give speech. And over years, I'd be at Warner Brothers and Disney would call up and what show is it we flew the guy in the jet pack around the Matterhorn? ⁓ the Tencential. What was here we did that. So I started doing more and more thinking maybe there's a book in this, maybe I'm not the only guy in it. And Disney agreed to do a thing with the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago ⁓ do 100 Best Hours at Disney TV and they tapped me to come up with 100 Best Hours and I wrote the catalog for it. And it was really neat. They sent ⁓ me, the Dave Smith and Bess Parker to Chicago for the weekend. And ⁓ to me, I was in heaven. mean, ⁓ wow, Fess Parker, Davy Crockett, this is great. And my dad flew in from New York to be there for the weekend. And I still remember sitting in a bar and Fess was a pilot, I'm a pilot. And we started talking about airplanes, about the characteristics of this airplane, the ⁓ airport that it flew to. ⁓ you knew this guy. ⁓ who do you use to get your propellers fixed and that sort of thing. And at the end of the night, Fess came to me and said, you know, This is so nice to talk about something other than that darn coonskin cap for a night. know, my dad is sitting there and he's talking to Fess Parker, Fess News, this guy, I mean, and the three of us were just old friends sitting at this bar having a great time. So when I said, well, you know, I pitched Disney on a book and they said, OK, we'll do the book. I started getting calls from Eisner's office all the time about some of them are really crazy. they'd call with these strange requests and, and, and stuff. They called up one night and ⁓ Dave Smith, the archivist, wasn't available. And they said, Michael's on stage two. And people asked him what we shot on stage two and he doesn't know. And he has to put it in his remarks. So could you tell us what was shot on stage two? ⁓ Yeah. And I was really tempted to say, ⁓ they asked where we did Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or some non Disney movie or something. said, no, no, no. I can't do that. I just want to work for this company. but you know, have to say, know, I deserve any of the interactions I personally had with him, I was okay with. mean, he never treated me personally bad or anything. I just know a lot of people were scared to death of the guy and they would just not say bad idea. And that's how he ended with some of the garbage we ended up with. Mike: attractions have evolved. Designs have evolved. I think, you you mentioned people were, afraid to speak up sometimes. think that post Epcot, post Tokyo layoffs probably scared a lot of people. And they knew that those things can happen. there were some big projects after that where they had other layoffs. so people were aware that these things can happen Bill Cotter: when Eisner came in, they immediately made it known that if you were there beforehand, you were a moron because you didn't monetize everything. Like you didn't put Snow White out on home video. You didn't do this. You didn't do that. And an awful lot of the not invented here. If you came in, there was no glory in taking a existing film out of the vault and putting it on DVD because that was the old guy stuff. So now we got to make the new guy stuff. And I actually had Disney approach me at one point about coming back. And I said, yeah, it might be interesting. So I went over and I went through a whole set of interviews. they made me an offer. And I said, that sounds good. And shook hands and everything. And I guess, OK, we're just going to need a ⁓ couple things from you. What do you need? One of things was we need a ⁓ copy your MBA credentials. And I said, I don't have an MBA. I never said I had an MBA. I said, my job at Warner Brothers, I travel around the world. mean, I've got 4 million airline miles. I don't have time to get an MBA. And I go, oh, well, that puts a different picture on it. I said, oh, the offer's gone? Oh, no, no, it'll still work here. And this is no joke, but it will pay $10,000 a year less. I said, what do you mean? said, well, Michael puts a real high value on MBAs and he wants all the management staffs full of MBAs. And I said, well, let me understand this. My head is exploding at this point. I said, I'm going to sit at the same desk. I'm going to answer the same phone. I'm going to go to the same meetings. I'm going to solve the same problems. But because I have an MBA, you're going to pay me $10,000 a year or less. And I go, well, yeah, but we'll make the time for you to go get an MBA. said, my job keeps me on the road 60 to 70 % of the time. How am going to get the MBA? They go, well, I don't know what any way around this. I said, well, I got my pilot's license. I got my amateur radio license. I got to hang those on the wall. I said, we're done. There's no sense discussing it. And that was the problem. If you didn't have an MBA, there's some really, most of the Imagineers I've worked with do not have MBAs. They're artists, they're electricians, they're hydro-mechanical, sort of the guy. Yeah, and to say you gotta have an MBA or you're nobody, that mindset came in and that was a killer because the MBAs would all be crunching numbers and like one of the things I never forgive them for, sorry for getting a high horse is things like, well, let's take out the country bear jamboree at Disneyland and put in the Winnie the Pooh ride. Oh, it's too expensive to keep the country bears going and it had a low throughput that didn't have a lot of people because there's a dead end part of the park. Today with Star Wars land, I think would be a whole different thing. But it was a really great show and you had the country, the overlays for the Christmas holidays and that sort of thing. You know, every time I see a video of the country bears, I'm just going, oh, I've got to go Florida and see it again. But the bean counters who has just come by and say the cost per guest, out go and you know. put in something else. The that worked in the Winnie the Pooh ride did ⁓ best on it, an average dark ride that you can find in a million different places. The Country Bear was pure Disney. mean, characters all over the place coming down from the ceiling, coming up from the stage. I that was eye-opening, going around and having the heffalums woozing around. It's cute, but there's no comparison for me. And it was all... gaze and the beam counters that were every single thing you like even when I worked there we had the Mickey Mouse Club theater had the lowest attendance I think of anything in the theater the park and ⁓ sort of the same three cartoons over and over and over but it was all in a loop it didn't require anybody to do anything it just ran itself and people like to go in because it was air-conditioned and relaxed and everything so know when we do all the analysis of everything the lowest lowest rated thing and they could have said close it there was no way that was not going to come to Disneyland because the Mickey Mouse Club theater had just closed but if it cost you whatever make up some number a thousand dollars to run it run it some people may enjoy it is better than just leaving the theater empty so they did things like take out the carousel of progress and then put in the America Sings. Okay, that was great. I loved America Sings, but let's take it out and let's not put anything in it, just leave a sign in front of it, coming soon. You know, we're imagineering a new attraction and leave it empty for 20 years. That to me is a ⁓ different Disney than the one I worked for. Mike: the country bears was Walt's last laugh. You know, the history of that. so, talk about attractions that have closed. Epcot has the Wonders of Life Pavilion that closed and basically sat empty since 2007. almost 20 years. and there's other examples as well. you would never see a vacant. Bill Cotter: Yeah. Mike: attraction. You would never see a vacant space. 20,000 leagues under the sea in Walt Disney World sat empty I think it was 94, they closed it. And it wasn't until the new fantasy land opened now it's the site of the seven dwarfs mine train. there's so many examples of that. And you wouldn't have seen that years ago. Walt Disney Productions to the Walt Disney Company. was more, budget focused. Imagineers, have that mindset of a creative. And sometimes with a company as large as Disney, you have to focus a lot on that creativity, on those Attractions that make them the best. that's why you have repeat guests that continue to back year after year, Bill Cotter: Yeah, I'm just working on a presentation I'm giving Thursday to a group about the first five years of Disneyland. And I've been just having fun going through old photos and videos and everything. And one of the examples I use to people all the time is Skull Mountain at Disneyland. Gone now, but you had Captain Hook's pirate ship. then next to it, it was empty. was basically an area to have bunch of your tuna fish sandwiches. and they put the skull rock in there, you know, and with the glowing eyes and the waterfalls and everything. one person, I think, ever said, I want to go to Disneyland and pay money to go see Skull Mountain, you know, but they put it in there because it made the whole area that much better, that much more appealing and interactive. And Walt and his team would just constantly be putting money into the park. And there were things that didn't work, the flying saucer ride and some of the other odd things. but they were constantly putting things in to make it better. And I do have a section in the talk on Thanksgiving Thursday and the failures, you the Phantom boats and some of the other things that didn't work. So you got to try things and not everything you try works just like our scales on the space mountain. You tried it, it didn't work. But they were always, what they were doing is called plus in the attraction. How do you add this and how do you add that? And that's the sort of thing I always get a kick out of. You know, I could go to Disneyland. free, but I don't go much now today because of all the crowds. I hate having to do everything on the app. You know, I want to schedule my bathroom break two hours from now. You know, you know, ⁓ you work on something, I really want to stand on line for two hours for this. You it's just ⁓ random that came in when we opened Space Mountain, the people complaining about the park being crowded, the line went all the way. We had the ramps that went up, the speed ramps that get you up there. Had to turn those up as they kept filling up the top and there was no room for anybody. The line went all the way to the train station. I mean, we knew we had something that people were going to like, but literally we came walking out and walking down and walking down and you get to the hub and you turn and you walk down the street, you get to town square and it's all the way to the train station. And you figure it's a four and a half hour wait. for two minute and 36 seconds or whatever the length of the ride was. know, people aren't gonna do that these days, but boy, we sure had them coming out back then. Mike: they eventually evolved to have Fastpass then it was Disney Genie. Now it's Lightning Lane, which you have to pay for. ⁓ I can remember old Epcot attractions, old OmniMover attractions. I Spaceship Earth is still there, but some of those other attractions like World of Motion ⁓ in the early days had, over an hour wait. ⁓ didn't have the apps, have ⁓ planning out your day, walked into the park and you said, go do this, let's go do that. There was no schedule, there was no plan. that was really a way to appreciate the parks because I think one of the issues is, and again, maybe this generation is different, but... When I walk down Main Street, I want to be looking up. I want to be looking at the architecture and the buildings. I want to be seeing the castle. When I walk into Epcot, I want to be seeing Spaceship Earth. I want to be seeing things, seeing the structure, seeing these buildings. a disservice to the great things that Disney has built over the decades to be spending a good amount of time looking down at your phone. Bill Cotter: Yeah. I feel the same way. mean, everybody is impatient today wants instant gratification. you know, waiting in line is evil in a lot of ways. But, you know, back in the Paul Pressler days, that's where my dissatisfaction with the park really started. When he came walking out of Small World and you were in a theme, a gift shop selling plush figures, he came out of, ⁓ know, what you call a Buzz Lightyear. You're in a gift shop. You know, everything was put you in a gift shop. Sell, sell, sell. And I just think that's wrong. mean, the more you try, always get in this big argument about how it's a double-edged thing. Disneyland is too expensive. It's too crowded. And you go, just stop and think about this. If we made it more expensive, it'd be less crowded, right? But people are going to yell about that. If we made it cheap, it's going to be more crowded. Whatever you do, can't, know, people are upset there or anything. But when you start thinking about what the price of a ticket to Disneyland is compared to like say you go to a Dodger game, okay? I used see some tickets for the Dodgers and I stopped a number of years ago because like the food prices can just drive you crazy and it stinks at Dodger Stadium anyway. you know, they drive out there, you park and you do all this and you go, wow, I had a really great time and it just cost me, ⁓ you know, for a party of four. just cost me $600 for something that lasted three hours. Well, I can go to Disneyland and maybe instead of $600, might be $800 or something, but I can be there from seven in the morning until one in the morning. there's just, I mean, think when you see what people pay for Lakers tickets for Broadway show or anything, I think you get a good value for what you get when you go to a Disney park these days. And if you cut the price in half, everybody be mad because you wouldn't be able to do anything. mean, it would be so I worked there, this is no joke. We used to take our ties and name tags off, go into the park, ride Space Mountain, run and get in a ride on ⁓ the run down the Coke Corner and get a hot dog and go back and eat it at our desk. Today, there's no way you're going to go at lunch hour and ride those two attractions or you're probably going to be waiting on the line just for the hot dog the majority of the time. We could go ⁓ do this stuff. the attendance was really low. and we used to get, there used to be a phone number where could dial in and would tell you attendance to the park at this moment is whatever. They discontinued that. But there were days in which, you know, the park was just deserted. You know, I mean, and now even, I mentioned at the beginning of this talk about all the rain we've had, it can come down in buckets and people are still standing on line. Because now you got to your reservation and, oh, I had a reservation. I better not miss it. I gotta go. I just think it's taken a lot of the spontaneity out of it. Another thing you mentioned walking down the main street is you don't see the entertainment. And that's what this presentation I'm doing on Thursday. There's all the musicians and the different acts and things that would keep you going. all that's been axed over the years, and they brought back a little of it. But again, the being kind of mentality is why do I need to pay these guys to play the saxophone, whatever it's going to cost? Who's gonna come in to the park? When Tony Baxter told me one day, after we had opened up Indiana Jones, was saying that management told him, we're never gonna build anything like this again. And he said, why? says, because it doesn't bring anybody extra into the park that we can fit. We have a certain finite capacity. Now when they opened up something like Star Wars land, they gave them a lot more geography, it's been people out. But if you came up with a really, really bitching show and you said you wanted to put it where the carousel of progress was, and it's only going to be $250 million for the greatest show anybody's ever seen, they would probably tell you no, because we can't fit any more people into this place. And become a real issue terms of ⁓ what you do? How do ⁓ you for something if you can't bring extra bodies in the gate to pay for it? Mike: Yeah, there is a certain capacity. Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. I was having a conversation with someone They were in Disneyland and they wanted to get a Dole Whip. And they wanted to wait in line and get a Dole Whip. Magic Kingdom, could still do that. They didn't have lines. So you have to use the app to get it. You couldn't actually just go up to the window and order one. No, you have to go onto the app. it was just taken aback by it. it's just how everything has become controlled by this computer in your hand. Bill Cotter: Yeah, we were there about a year ago and my wife and I both love Dole Whips. So let's go get a Dole Whip. We walk up and you got to use the app. There's nobody here. Well, we're making the Dole Whips to the people that already ordered on the app. So I'll go on the app and make the reservation for come back in 15 minutes to get my Dole Whip. So we went on a side on a rock outside the restrooms over near Adventureland and we're waiting. And one of the tour, I guess they call them tour guides or attraction, hosts, whatever. Anyway, she comes up and says something about, are you waiting for somebody? I thought, am I, now it's this rock reserve. Do I need to put this on the app? I said, oh, we're waiting for a Dole Whip. And she goes, well, we have extra seats in the VIP area. Would you like to see the parade? And I said, well, yeah, I'd love to do that, but I got to wait for the Dole Whip. And she said, oh, that's okay. We'll wait. And we got our Dole Whip and they were great seats. mean, I don't know what they charge for these things, but I mean, here comes the Christmas parade is coming down, it's going around. My wife is like, did they know you were something? No, they just came up out of nowhere and asked. It made the day for us, you know what mean? But again, we're sitting there killing 15 minutes that we could have been theoretically going to the Haunted Mansion or 15 minutes going to Ride Autopia. But no, they made us sit and wait 15 minutes to get a Dole Whip because they have to have everything done in the app. And that to me, again, you know, don't know at eight o'clock in the morning exactly what I'm going to want to eat for dinner. You know, I mean, I don't walk in and say tonight I know I'm to want to ⁓ Parmesan ⁓ a side of this. You know, at that time of day, I may have already eaten too much popcorn. I don't want to eat at six o'clock. I'll eat at seven o'clock. Nope. You have to tell us now. And now when you make a new reservation, you have to look at the menu and tell us what you want to eat and everything. I enjoy that. Mike: just one of those things parks do change guests change as well, tastes change. Disney is going by what they think is best. I'm not saying, I'm not saying what they're doing is wrong. I'm saying that this is different. This is different. Bill Cotter: mean, obviously. Mike: For a business decision, want to go to Disney World as a whole, Disneyland as a whole, and see familiar names. They don't want ⁓ ride a 45-minute universe of energy attraction. mean, that's the rides we grew up with. But the generation today doesn't want to sit through 45 minutes of learning about fossil fuels Bill Cotter: Yeah, again, you know, I think Disney is doing well. I I look at my Disney stock and I'm very grateful I bought it back when I bought it. You know, it's done well. You know, I go to the park and it's absolutely packed with people. Obviously, they know what they're doing. yeah, and again, I'm very proud of the years that I've worked for Disney. And like I said, I still, you know, they call me up today and ask me to do something. Sure. What do you got in mind? Let's let's go off and do it. You know, like And is funny because about maybe years ago, I was at something at the Wallace Bar and at the ⁓ Griffith And it's the bar where he actually built his trains for people that don't know it. It's at Griffith Park. And one Sunday a month, they have an open house. And they usually invite somebody to come in and talk about Disney or whatever. ⁓ And ⁓ were a thing where some of my friends were doing a book signing. So I went over there. And we're listening to somebody play music there at the thing. And this little kid turns around and tugs on my shirt. And I thought I stepped in front of him or something. And he goes, are you Bill Cotter? And I go, I always joke. said, yeah. Why, does he owe you money or something? And he said, I've seen you on Disney Plus. And I said, ⁓ OK. And ⁓ I was on the Behind the Attractions. I did, I think, six episodes for them. ⁓ But this kid recognized when he wanted to know how to become an engineer, an engineer. And one thing I told him was, well, first of all, you got to be used to people saying no, and you got to keep pushing because if you just try to get in the door, the kids only like 10 years old, 12 years old. But I said, you got to go to school and you got to be really good at school because you got to be better than everybody else that walks on the door and ask for the same job. And I said, you're like, you got to be good in math. No matter what you do, you got to be good in math because I want to build this. What's it going to cost? I don't know. You know, what's the payback on it? I don't know. So I told him, got to be really good. And his father was so happy because he said, I can't get this kid to study. I mean, wow. And like I said, on things like that, and I do get a kick of, we go to places and people do recognize you and want to talk to you or whatever. ⁓ you know, ⁓ funny, my daughter got totally jaded because they grew up in a house full of ⁓ Mickey Mouse, right? ⁓ When ⁓ they had the 9-11 and all the TV went off the air and everything was about the disaster in New York, the first show that came back on ABC was the show Walt, The Man Behind the Myth. And I'm one of talking heads in that. And my wife is telling, know, ⁓ Margo, come downstairs, daddy's going to be on TV. All I hear from upstairs is, I've seen them on TV. It really grabs you. They put you in your spot. But like I said, some have a love-hate relationship with Disney. I definitely have a love, love, love relationship. I met my wife there. ⁓ some of my best friends there. I am very proud of any small contribution I've made over ⁓ the to it. And Disney treated me very well. Like I said, I do hate to come out of Small World and see a gift shop there, but it's not going to kill me. Again, it's Disneyland, it's not Cotterland. Cotterland would be really cool. Mike: Yeah. Oh, I would visit, I would visit Cotterland. Yeah. I mean, it's, there'd be a long lines. I agree with you a hundred percent, Disney is a love, love, love relationship. I visit frequently. was at Disneyland a couple of years ago and company is extremely successful. They've built incredible attractions. They still build incredible attractions. We have certain preferences, but it's a very successful entertainment enterprise. ⁓ see what they've done. And so the results show. Bill Cotter: Absolutely. But no, I mean, I appreciate the chance to talk about this. Like I said, when I went to the World's Fair as a 12 year old, I never ever thought the direction my life would take. And, know, like when I was talking to that little kid at the Wills Bar and I said, don't anybody tell you no, ⁓ know, you know, try for it and go for it. And it's ⁓ I said, it worked out really well for me. We were at Studios about three weeks ago. Yeah, it's just about three weeks before Christmas, I guess it was. And it was, you I go back a couple of times a year and you just, you're walking around and I like to visit my old offices and that sort of thing. But you just start writing to people that say, I know you from somewhere and go, oh, God, yeah. And we got a picture of somebody when we both 20 something years old and you're still here. I can't believe it. Big hug, you know, it's, it's, it's really, you walk through that gate again and I love it. I'm 24 years old again. you know, having just California and you know, it's all all new and it's great fun. Mike: Yeah, that's one of the reasons why you and I started talking is I reached out to you because you, commented and you said that in Disney world, when you were at the Bay Hill neighborhood and you stood at the of Dick Nunes so tell us about that experience when you stood in Bay Hill. Bill Cotter: ⁓ yes, right. a great guy. was a great guy other than his love of Bermuda shorts. mean, I don't know if people are familiar with that, but he decided that Bermuda shorts were an acceptable part of the dress code and that the guys should start wearing Bermuda shorts. And there was no way I was going to wear a jacket, a shirt, a tie, a name tag and shorts. I mean, just whether they're going to do it. But as I mentioned, I would go to Disney World a couple of times a year and it was really nice. got to fly in the company plane down there, you know, sit in Waltz Old Plane and that sort of stuff. we were going, I was going down there so often, the travel department said, look, you must be getting tired of staying in hotels. And if they were putting me in like a Disney property, that was really nice. Cause I liked to stay in the contemporary. ⁓ the, you know, ⁓ of those were great, but they said, here's the deal. The contemporary runs 98 % occupied and we can get X amount of dollars a night. So we'd rather have somebody who pay us that and we'll put you in whatever, the Motel 6 or something off prop. so that the hotels weren't bad, but they weren't great. So I said, you're going down here so often, would you like to stay at the house at Bay Hill? And I said, what's that? And so we have these four houses for executives, and if the executives aren't using it, you're welcome to use it. So I said, okay, I'll give it a try. And I went down and I opened the front door of the house, and it's like, I still don't live in a house that nice. bar and it was better than any bar you'd go into. know, I mean, had every like, well, do I want a beer? Which of the 12 beers am I going to drink tonight? You know, sort of thing. And out in the back, we had a dock. you'd go out at night and the alligators would swim up to the dock because they love to be fed. you know, you throw them something. One night I had nothing but threw ⁓ bucket of ice. Boy, you can hear those gators cracking on that ice out there, you know. But the house next to me was ⁓ Admiral Fowler. you know, riverboat and everything. I had never really met him. He wasn't there full time, but I'd stay at Nunes' house and I had a schedule that Dick was not in town. I could use his house. If he was in town, I had to stay in hotel. And if he was coming to town, I had to move out of the house or go to hotel, vice versa. But one day I decided, I got this big pontoon boat out in the of the house and it's all connected to the Butler chain of lakes. I invited everybody from the office to come over and we'll go out for a party out on the lake. So we put coolers on the thing and we all went out for about four hours, six hours on the lake and came back. And I was putting gas in the boat and the guy at the dock says, you must be really connected. I go, oh, not really. Why? goes, oh, because Admiral Fowler doesn't usually let people use his boat. And I said, what? Well, there were two boats and I take an Admiral Fowler's boat. Not that it knew his house. So I said, Oh God, Oh God, I'm dead. I'm hired. And it was hours to town. saw his car. So I came back and I brought the boat back and I knocked on the door. said, you might be wondering where your boat was. He goes, yeah, I was kind of wondering that, you know? And I said, I'm sorry. I took the wrong boat. And he turned out he couldn't have it. It's not that bad. goes, I never use it. It's okay. But we started again talking about the building of Disney world. And then, you know, I mean, it's like, You know, again, I was just at the right spot. There's no way at my level today, they would ever send you down there and say, would you like to stay there with, you know, this house, a full maid service? know, it was just, I've got some pictures of it. wish I took more, but it was a wonderful spot to say. And then my boss got really mad because he knew I was staying in this really great house and they were putting him at the Motel 6. Well, I was always very, very nice to the people in travel. Hi, it's Bill. I need to go to Disney. Yeah, it's really short notice. Can you fit me in? Can you do anything? No, I don't mind. He'd call, I'm gonna go down there. What the hell do mean? And he'd give him help. So they stick him in a Motel 6, they put me in a base. I've always found treat people nice, it comes back around. Mike: And it sounds like you've done that. to live, next to Admiral Joe Fowler not have had that opportunity. And so ⁓ it's... ⁓ Bill Cotter: tell you when I was standing at his door, what's he gonna say? What's he gonna do? Knock? Maybe he didn't hear it, I can just leave. Knock, and he came to the door. I scared to death. Mike: he was, responsible for how Disney World got built and the construction and incredible life and incredible career. that's why you see his name places on the riverboats everything. Bill Cotter: As I'm getting goosebumps back, that was a scary day. I was scared. Admiral Fowler just doesn't let people use his boat. I tell you, my blood jet ran cold. Mike: I'm sure, I'm sure. You've been around the parks for so many years you've written some books. So tell us about some of the books that you've written Bill Cotter: wrote the book, History of Disney Television, which my son the other day was saying, did you really watch every single show that was in that book? Because I had been working on this book for years. I'd work on it, put it aside, work on it, put it aside. And I would send it out to all these publishers and I'd go, we don't want to deal with Disney because the legal department is terrible. All right. And it was really nice because the Disney, Dave Smith, the Disney archivist and Robert T. Min and his assistant really were I couldn't have done it without them. were absolutely wonderful. although I worked at Warner Brothers, I had a reserved parking spot at the Disney Studios, which people could not figure out ⁓ that came to be. But I would literally finish about four days a week. I'd jump up from Warner Brothers. I'd drive over to Disney and Robert would have a cart with all my files and everything on it that I wanted to look up on writing. And I did all the cool shows first, the David Crockett's, the Zoros. And then I got into the other at the end. But I worked like a maniac. I jumped in the car. stopped. There was a hot dog vendor between the two studios. I get a hot dog and eat it in the car going back to Warner Brothers. So Disney called up one day, we want to do your book. And I was out. My wife answered. And I said, ⁓ it's got to be one of my friends pulling my leg. And she goes, no, it's so and such. I go, that is the lady. So it was really funny because they said, you know, we want to publish it. Can I have it ready in this point in time? And I said, yeah, sure. No problem. And I go, ⁓ my God, you know, ⁓ and they had in mind a 300 page book. I turned in an 1100 page book And ⁓ they had a really, I a really, really wonderful editor that cut it down to 626 pages. And we had to think out all sorts of things that were appendices and she did a great job of cutting out stuff. But I have all that stuff on my website. If you go to billcotter.com. A lot of the stuff I cut out, I sell on the ⁓ DVD or CD, you know, a PDF file of this stuff. But that really was great because it got me to go to Chicago with Fess Parker. you like to go on a Disney cruise and speak about it? Would you like to speak at the D23 ⁓ conventions? it worked out really nice. What was really funny, though, was when I was trying to get them to do the book, I spoke at a Disney National Fantasy Fan Club ⁓ convention. And I gave a whole presentation on Zorro. And I said the first chapter of Zorro is online and you can download it for free. And if you like it, write to this guy at Disney and tell him you'd like to see the rest of the book. So when they called up and said, we want to do the book, I said, OK, well, negotiating. They said, do you have a really big family? And I said, I've got four brothers. And why? Because we've been getting letters from around the world. We've been getting them from Chile. We've been getting it from Madagascar. We've been getting them from Japan. How'd you get so many people to write to us? And I said, well, I put the first chapter in the internet. And I said, what's the internet? This is no joke. I made more money helping set up Disney.com than I made on the DVD book. then like I I'm not trying to sound immodest. really lost track of how many ⁓ DVDs or things I've done for Disney. I have them all on my website if anybody wanted to look. But over the years, I had been long interested in the World's Fair, as I mentioned at beginning, went there. And somebody, they had a guy put together a thing in New York where we went back, I think it was for the 40th anniversary of the fair. A bunch of us went to hotel. We showed pictures, movies, that sort of thing. And then he called me up and said, look, this publisher had agreed to do a book about the World's Fair. And the guy turned it in, it's garbage. They want to know, can he write a book on the World's Fair? But he didn't have any pictures. And I said, well, I got pictures. I've lost track. have close to 60,000 photos of the 64 World's Fair alone. I mean, it's, it's, it's an insane hobby. So he and I wrote the book together and it was really nice. And I'd write chapter one, he'd write chapter two, I'd write chapter three, and then we homogenized and they then came back to it. Could you do a second book? Could you do a third book? And I've done 13 of them now for Arcadia publishing on a variety of different World's Fairs and things. And I enjoy it because I mean, I've got the virtual background here. ⁓ The real stuff is filing cabinets, overflowing of stuff. I'm a big believer. Why have it and not share it? So if you go to my I have two websites, Bill Carter dot com, which is my general stuff at World's Fair Photos dot com. And I try to take pictures of World's Fairs and like the the sixty four World's Fair. Somebody said I own the. ⁓ ⁓ real to real tape recordings that were played at the fireworks show. Do you want them? I bought them, got them transferred. They're on the website. know, again, no, no charge. People just go and enjoy it. My attitude is if I can get anybody interested in it, like that 12 year old kid was interested and anybody has much fun with the stuff that I've had with it over the years, I'm more than you know, we used to have a guy out here, Mad Men months, and he would sell ⁓ cars and then he'd go into the TVs and stuff. But his slogan was, you know, I'd like to give it away, but, you know, my wife won't let me. thinks I'm crazy. Well, luckily, we're very understanding. And the mail today, three more packages of movies showed up that I'm going to scan and do stuff with, you know. Yeah. And like I said, just things on this presentation. I'm working on Thursday looking at something. What was the Frontierland gun shop in the next down that rabbit hole for four hours? You know, so. ⁓ But yeah, and I've contributed to ⁓ a couple hundred books and magazines and things over the years. I used to write on the magazine called Starlog about science fiction stuff. I used to write a lot. And it was always great fun because you get to go on the sets of the movies and see the previews and things before they're done. And always enjoyed writing. ⁓ you know, it's a fun hobby. And occasionally it pays a bill or two. Mike: That's great. have a love for something and to appreciate the history the stories behind the stories these things are part of our collective history, are part of our memories. you have a passion for that and you were able to document all that. the 60,000 pictures alone from the 1964 New York World's Fair. I don't know many people who have that many. That's impressive. You may have the most. should call the Guinness Book of World Records and you should be in there the New York World's Fair used a laboratory for the East Coast audience for Walt Disney in possibly building ⁓ an East Coast park, which became Walt Disney World. Bill Cotter: I think I've got the most, you ⁓ yeah. Yeah, was it with a term you use that imaginary OPM other people's money if you can get somebody else to fund your project that's a lot better than you trying to fund it. saw the World's Fair is a great way to test out having, you know, his whole thing with the East Coast sophisticated audiences like his homespun humor. And, you know, the World's Fair was a great way to define that out. And worked out well, He decided real early on it wasn't going to be in New York. The weather was bad. ⁓ The unions were bad and everything. that's when they were buying up all the land in Florida and getting rich to do that. But I was just thinking again about being ⁓ and meeting people. Real quick aside, The Millionaire? Walt's last live action film. Brick line Stacia Martin, who you really ought to have on and talk to. She's a real great Disney artist and historian and everything. when they did the Happiest Millionaire, I had seen it in New York at the Radio City Music Hall. came out here and I said, ⁓ I'm going to show it down at Disneyland because this is a great thing. And I took it down to Disneyland and it was a very short version compared to what I remembered at the Radio City musical. I looked into it. yeah, they chopped out all these numbers and everything. So Stacia decides that she's going to they found ⁓ some of stuff that was cut out of the film. ⁓ And we ⁓ the Disney Studios and ⁓ but she wouldn't have a party to thank everybody for contributing to put this film back together. And her mother said, how many people are you gonna have at this party? And she said, oh, maybe a hundred people. And her mother said, no party. So we had the party here at our house and we had Dick Sherman over here. And he was talking about, I wrote this music for this movie and I ended up in this movie. But he says, you don't have to have a piano, you? And we said, no, but we've got a keyboard. So we brought down my daughter's keyboard. And he's sitting there doing a sing-along in my living room with Dick Sherman and that sort of thing. I'm going, how did this kid from Brooklyn walk into this? know, I guess, ⁓ yeah. ⁓ then, you know, I was at the Magic Castle years later, took my parents to lunch there. It's a magician's club here in LA. And there's Dick at another table. Hey, Dick, how are you doing? Nice to see you. You know, and again, man, ⁓ I it was. ⁓ I'm sitting here thinking again why I was really lucky. Mike: well, I'm really lucky to get to talk to you. And I think talking about your career and these experiences that, who does this happen to? growing up, how do you expect, you know, that one day in your house, you're going to have Richard Sherman yep, I think this is a really good conversation and ⁓ thank you again for sharing your stories. ⁓ Bill Cotter: Yeah, if any of your viewers or listeners want to reach out again, BillCotter.com, very easy to get to. And that can take you off to the world's fair side or anything else. But if there's anything I can answer, particularly about Disney television, I'd be more than glad to try to answer people's questions or things like that. Mike: thank you for everything you do and for everything that you've done with the parks and thank you for your time Good talking to you. Take care. Bill Cotter: Take