Show Daily - Wed, Nov. 16

Disney Legends Reflect on Building a World Without Walt

By Jeremy Schoolfield

In 2011, Walt Disney World is more than just a theme park resort—it's an institution. Its identity and breadth of influence are so vast, the place that creates magic for millions upon millions is now woven into the fabric of global culture.

So it's odd, then, as we celebrate its 40th anniversary this year, to consider the notion that it almost never came to be. When Walt Disney died in December 1966, he almost took his life's biggest dream with him.

So said Marty Sklar and Jack Lindquist, two men who were instrumental in the resort's creation. During Wednesday's annual "Disney Legends" panel—an Expo tradition in its own right at this point—they said Walt's death left an understandably large leadership gap in The Walt Disney Company. Lindquist described it as "a great deal of paralysis," meaning all projects—most notably Disney World—ground to a halt.

"Nobody wanted to step forward and try to take that banner," said Lindquist, who was in charge of Disney theme park marketing at the time and eventually became Disneyland's first official president. It was several months before the company started to recover, and Disney World sat dormant for nearly a year, he said.

Sklar, who eventually went on to lead all of Walt Disney Imagineering, said he soon discovered the only way to break through the post-Walt malaise was to actually stop thinking "What would Walt do?" and start thinking for himself. Because that's what Walt would really have wanted him to do, anyway. Walt gave his team his vision for Disney World—drawing the master plan in his own hand—and now it was up to them to carry it to fruition.

From there the discussion veered into alternately hilarious and endearing stories about the creation of Walt Disney World. Here's just a sample:

n "We were blessed with ignorance—we didn't know we couldn't do something, so we went and did it," Lindquist said.

n "Walt built Disneyland and Walt Disney World and didn't spend five cents on market research," Lindquist said. "He wanted it, he believed in it, and he funded it with his own money."

n Sklar's first visit to the property in Central Florida was October 1967. When he brought Lindquist out two years later, Lindquist had to open a padlocked gate to get onto the property and use a four-wheel-drive vehicle to traverse its swampy grounds. "There were no roads," Lindquist said. It took him three hours to reach his destination, Bay Lake, and "I thought, 'I'm gonna die!'"

So after all the laughter died down and the session drew to a close, Sklar concluded with this sobering and inspirational thought: "You can't do this business without taking a chance. It's not risk-free," Sklar said. "You have to be careful about the kind of risk you take, but don't be afraid to try something new. We'd never have gone beyond Disneyland if we'd played it safe."