Hey, remember when I was blogging about Destination D, back when it happened at Disneyland, last year? Remember when I got through the first day and said I’d come back to the second day? Remember when I never did?

So now we’re less than a week away from the second Destination D, out at Walt Disney World, and I thought I’d briefly recap the second day and look ahead to this week’s event.

The second day at Disneyland’s Destination D started with Tim O’Day and Rob Klein’s discussion on Disneyland Through the Eye of Television.

The two reviewed a lot of historical television footage, starting with the anthology series The Disneyland Story, which highlighted a different land in Disneyland each week in an attempt to pump people up about it during its construction. They continued on through the 70’s and 80’s, with commercials, anniversary celebrations, and those often-inadvertently hilarious variety specials that used to be so prevalent when I was little.

This panel was followed by Disney Undiscovered, hosted by Dave Fisher.

In this talk, Dave Fisher went through a timeline of the development and construction of Disneyland, starting from its inspiration in the Tivoli Gardens, through the original designs of “Burbank Park,” the small park Walt was intending to build near his Burbank Studios, to the purchase of the land and its eventual development into the Disneyland of 1955. He also displayed slides of various rarely seen pictures and concept art.

An example of one was a painting done by Peter Ellenshaw, which was a second version of the Disneyland picture done with black light paint, so that they could visualize what it would look like lit up at night.

Some of the never-realized concept art included the frequently mentioned “Rock Candy Mountain,” the Fantasyland Crocodile Aquarium, “Gay 90’s Square,” the Black Cauldron Ride (which ultimately became Maelstrom,) and the Black Hole Ride (which ultimately became Buzz Lightyear.) There was also a large amount of art for a suggested attraction to fill the old Carousel of Progress building during it’s fallow period…

Clearly not all attraction concepts have an equal chance at gestation.

The last talk of the morning was Dave Smith, presenting “Disneyland: The Way We Were.”

He presented a number of rarely-seen construction photos taken as Disneyland was being built, as well as a look back at many attractions/features of Disneyland that have gone away to Yesterland.

After the break, Tim O’Day came back to host “Disneyland: The Happiest Place in Pop Culture.”

In this talk, he first touched upon some of the many contributions Disneyland has made, not only to the field of theme park development, but to the common vocabulary as well.

He then reviewed some of the many celebrities and dignitaries that have visited Disneyland over the years, and showed clips of various films that have used Disneyland as backdrops–from 40lbs of Trouble, with Tony Curtis, to Tom Hanks’ “That Thing You Do.”

Later, he mentioned a number of singers who mentioned Disneyland in a variety of songs, and briefly touched on Disneyland’s role in such societal features as the Rose Parde, Yippies, and the Smithsonian (Dumbo is the most photographed display in the museum.)

After that, Garth Kemp, Weather Anchor for ABC Eyewitness News facilitated “A Word from the President”–a loose interview with Disneyland President George Kalogridis.

He described his personal history, from his family’s history as Greek sponge fishermen, to working at Disneyland as a busboy, to his executive work at Disneyland Paris. He then answered some questions that had been sent in; one of the most popular inquired about any existing plans to bring back the Peoplemover. His response was that they could never bring it back in its old format, as new safety regulations would require stairways to be placed at regular intervals down from the track and the track itself would have to be four times wider for people to be able to walk on either side. He answered a great many other questions as well, but I couldn’t hear them after that, over the sound of my own sobbing.

Subsequently, they had short dance interludes introducing the (then) new attractions Electronica and the Disney Dance Crew.

Steven Clark then did a sneak peek at the upcoming D23 Expo by bringing people up on stage to demonstrate how the Ultimate Disney Trivia Tournament would likely go. An impressive amount of Disney knowledge was displayed, and the winner got a golden ticket to the semifinals (among other prizes.)

After the evening break, we came back for 2 more presentations: Tony Baxter and Ed Hobelman did “The Wonderful World of Vintage Disneyland–In Color!” which was essentially the same panel they did for the Expo the year before, displaying video of Disneyland from its construction/early years; and Tim O’Day came back one more time for “Disneyland, USA Screening and Panel,” which included a discussion with Jack Linquist, Tony Baxter, Ed Hobelman, Dave Smith, and Geri Bumpass (the original Disneyland Tour Guide) about some of their early memories of the park.

One new piece of footage shown was what is believed to be the last film Walt ever shot–a lead-in to an invitation showing of “Follow Me Boys.”

…And with that, the first annual D23 event was over.

Destination D: WDW Style
Looking at the schedule for the upcoming Destination D, it’s clear that many of the talks will follow similar formats, with the content shifted to emphasize WDW’s history. Weird WDW, WDW The Way We Were, and the presentations on WDW as depicted in film and on television are direct analogues to the DL presentations. There is a similar musical concert with Richard Sherman, but scheduled for the evening of the second day, rather than the first. This, along with the placement of the several Disney Legend/Imagineer panels on the second day seems like a response to the feeling from many last year attendees, that the second day was something of a let-down from the first. Having most of their special guests and the concert on the first day left the second day feeling a little anti-climactic, and lacking a sense of closure.

While I was initially a little skeptical as to how they would manage to generate the same sense of excitement about WDW history as DL history, lacking the presence of Walt Disney himself for much of it, they have managed to put together a fairly compelling list of events. I am particularly looking forward to the talk on “EPCOT: Walt’s Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” with the hopes of hearing new information on Walt’s grand plan to revitalize the modern community.

In any case, it should be a great weekend of Disney geekery, well-suited to commemorating WDW’s 40th Anniversary this year. See you there!

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