When Walt was alive his plan for EPCOT was to be an experimental prototype community........

[jec6613]

After Walt's passing, the Disney design teams flatly did not believe Walt's idea of Epcot could ever work.

The teams ended up working on two possible parks being developed . One future world, to follow Walt's idea of a park with the future in it and the other a park with other countries, (remember Walt was big at the 1964/65 New York Worlds fair).

I don't remember the names of the design teams members, but there were two large table top models of the designs they had and they were all debating how to move forward. One fellow just looked up, walked to the models and pushed them together........Vola!..............EPCOT.

AKK

This is the story I've heard, and explains EPCOT's split personality the best. Future World now needs updates, and I think that after DHS, it's up next. Between the Wonders of Life now being shuttered, and the empty space in the Imagination pavilion, plus then there's Odyssey and much improvement to be made at The Living Seas, there's so much potential left untapped from years of relative neglect ... it'll be probably 10 years before it's completed, but I can't wait for it. Since I was little, EPCOT was always my favorite park.

 

[epcotty]

I'm pretty sure I've seen video of Marty Sklar describing that process. There might even have been photos of the tables in question.

I read Marty Sklar's book, it was indeed a combination of the two ideas for the park

 

[ChloesDaddy]

I read Marty Sklar's book, it was indeed a combination of the two ideas for the park

I found a video on YouTube that includes a brief interview with Marty Sklar about this. The show was called "Walt Disney World Resort: Behind the Scenes" and this part is about 20 minutes in. The video name on YouTube is "Disney Parks: the Secrets, Stories and Magic Behind the Scenes." It still seems like I've seen a longer version of this interview, but this is all I've been able to find.

 

[Kalliope]

Isn't that something like what people said when Walt came up with the idea for both Disneyland and Disney World? He had a lot of detractors who thought his ideas were nuts and would be complete financial failures, yet he (and his people, of course) made them work.

Never know what might have been.

Roy made them work. Without Roy, none of wdw would have happened.

 

[rwdavis2]

A good source of history are the Disney Dish Podcasts (google it). Jim Hill has a lot of background info on the parks. Some of them are free on itunes and some you have to pay a buck or 2 for directly from their web site. Well worth any expense.