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Welcome, Parkgoers! Join Dustin, Logan, and Nate on Parkgoers Go!, your ultimate theme park podcast for everything Disney, Universal, and beyond. From thrilling roller coasters and must-try theme park foods to immersive attractions, insider park tips, and exciting trivia games, we cover it all. Dive deep into the magic of theme parks, discover hidden secrets, and get expert advice to make the most of every park adventure. Perfect for theme park enthusiasts, families, and thrill-seekers alike!
00:00:00 Nate: What are the back side of a drunken pirate auction and a lost Disney ride all have in common one Imagineer. Today we're diving into the wit, storytelling and unrealized ideas of Mark Davis. Let's go! Ahoy there, Parkgoers, and welcome to another episode of Parkgoers Go, your go to podcast for all things theme parks. On today's episode of Parkgoers Go we have a, um, is this creative profiles?
00:00:43 Dustin: It is creatives profile.
00:00:46 Nate: Please keep this in. On this episode of, uh, on this episode of Pokémon Go, we have another special episode of creative Profiles.
00:00:57 Dustin: Boop boop boop boop.
00:00:58 Dustin: I think it's creatives Profile.
00:01:00 Nate: Creatives, profile, creatives, portfolios.
00:01:05 Dustin: It is oddly worded, but it's unique.
00:01:08 Nate: You're the one who made it.
00:01:10 Dustin: It's just like parkour game.
00:01:12 Nate: Yeah.
00:01:14 Dustin: Everything was game.
00:01:15 Nate: It's just slightly off. Well, it stays unique because no one else will.
00:01:19 Dustin: It's slightly off, but still, but still correct.
00:01:22 Nate: Uh, today's creator profile is a very special creative. The one, the only Mark Davis a what? Disney Imagineer and Disney legend.
00:01:35 Dustin: Yeah. And also an animator and whatnot.
00:01:37 Logan: And here he is.
00:01:38 Nate: Here he is now.
00:01:39 Dustin: I know he is dead, but, um, we are, we are bringing it up this week because it's his birthday today.
00:01:49 Dustin: Yay!
00:01:50 Nate: Oh yes. Yes. Happy birthday.
00:01:54 Dustin: How old he would have been one hundred and fourteen.
00:01:56 Logan: Wow. So young.
00:01:59 Dustin: Oh, I just I do want to point out though, that this one I know last creative profile we talked about Joe Roady, which we all love huge fans of, but I do think that in my relatively limited knowledge of Imagineering, Mark Davis might be my favorite Imagineer ever to work at Disney. We need to we'll need to chat about this a little bit, I guess, um, a little bit now. And then at the end where I was trying to figure out what I, how I wanted to word what, uh, Mark Davis was to the Disney company. And I was thinking not to, not to me.
00:02:35 Logan: Mark Davis was to.
00:02:36 Dustin: Me, to me, I, I whittled it down to Mark Davis is the soul of the Disney parks or Disneyland, uh, the spirit of Disneyland or the heart of Disneyland. And I couldn't figure out which one or if there was another way to say this, but, uh, as we talk about it more and I.
00:02:56 Logan: Checked all the boxes.
00:02:58 Dustin: Well, no, I want to pick one. I want to pick one that encapsulates it a little bit. Um, but like I said, encapsulate, encapsulate, same thing, um, hitting all the dialects there. But as we talk about it, I think, uh, we can whittle it down to one of them.
00:03:13 Nate: Well, let's talk about, let's talk about the man. Let's talk about Mark Davis.
00:03:17 Logan: Marky Mark.
00:03:17 Nate: To quote Walt Disney himself, Mark can do story. He can do character, he can anime, he can design shows. For me, all I have to do is tell him what I want and it's there. He's my Renaissance man. Mark was a master of staging and character. He could tell an entire story in a single image. If Walt was the heart of the parks, Mark was the spirit. Oh, I see what.
00:03:41 Dustin: I did right. So. Oh, well, I guess we decided. Well.
00:03:48 Nate: If Mark was the heart of this parks Mark was the spirit, the wit, the elegance, and the personality that gave so many Disney creations those spark. But before we step into the theme parks, we have to go back to the beginning. Mark Davis was born on March thirtieth, nineteen fourteen in Bakersfield, California. From a young age, drawing was not just a hobby. It was survival. According to his wife, another Disney legend, Alice Davis, whenever Mark went to a new school, recess did not go well. Boys would suck around him and beat him up. So Mark adapted. He brought his drawings with him to school. Soon, instead of fists, he was surrounded by kids asking for sketches. He traded his artwork for peace. What began as self-defense became discovery. And that discovery turned into a calling. After studying at the Kansas City Art Institute, the California School of Fine Arts and the oldest art institute, Mark refined his skills and began looking for work. As luck would have it, a new industry was on the rise. Animation. Mark arrived at exactly the right moment. And here's Mark Davis talking about it in his own words.
00:04:57 Imagineer Marc Davis: My own ambitions, I suppose, when I was an art student, was to out paint Michelangelo or Michelangelo and do another Sistine Chapel, you know. Well, uh, they weren't buying many of those when I was right out of art school. But here was here was a this cartoon business and Walt Disney was advertising that he wanted, uh, he wanted artists then about, uh, oh, maybe six months or so later, I came down to Los Angeles and everybody said, well, why don't you go out and see Walt Disney? You know, he's hiring artists. So I did, and I was hired, and this was very fortunate that Walt Disney was just beginning to build his staff and studio to do feature films.
00:05:46 Nate: Walt Disney was preparing to attempt the unheard of the world's first feature length animated film. Bonus points if you can guess what that is.
00:05:56 Logan: Before we say.
00:05:57 Nate: It. Before I say it right now. Mark joined the studio and went on to animate key sequences in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, including the iconic scene of Snow White dancing with dopey. Over time, he became known as Disney's Ladies Man, animating some of the studio's most memorable female characters. These included Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty, and Cruella de Vil, Cruella de Vil in one hundred and one Dalmatians. He also brought warmth and personality to animal characters, contributing to films like Bambi and bringing Briar Rabbit to life in the song of the South. Animation had a gamble that paid off for both Mark and Walt, but Walt was never content standing still. A new frontier was coming and this time it's personal. And this time it would not be on paper.
00:06:54 Dustin: And it would be very personal too.
00:06:56 Nate: Yeah, it would be personal. It would be a park. When Walt Disney began designing Disneyland, there were no experts in themed entertainment. There were no manuals, no experience. Theme park designers to hire. So he talked to the people who already knew how to build the worlds from nothing. His animators, Mark, contributed all the conceptual walk and murals for Disneyland, though he largely remained focused on animation at first. It would not be until nearly a decade later that he fully transitioned into themed entertainment. That opportunity came with the nineteen sixty four New York World's Fair.
00:07:35 Dustin: Yay!
00:07:36 Dustin: Also, when it comes to the World's Fair, I would recommend checking out behind the attractions on Disney Plus. It's a series that shows the behind the scenes of stuff, but the It's a Small World episode talks all about the World's Fair and it's very interesting. I recommend checking it out.
00:07:53 Nate: Disney was tasked.
00:07:54 Logan: New York, New York.
00:07:57 Nate: Disney. Disney was tasked with creating multiple attractions for the show, including It's a Small World and the Carousel of Progress. While Marc contributed across several projects, his most significant work was for the Illinois Pavilion's Tribute to Abraham Lincoln. Great moments with Mr. Lincoln. With deep understanding of anatomy, staging, and character performance, Marc played a crucial role in designing and refining the first fully realized human audio-animatronic figure, Mr. Abe Lincoln himself. He approached.
00:08:31 Dustin: Abe Lincoln.
00:08:32 Nate: Former President Abraham Lincoln.
00:08:35 Logan: Uh, you could just say former Abraham Lincoln. I guess he was.
00:08:40 Dustin: He's no longer Abraham Lincoln.
00:08:41 Nate: Mr. Lincoln, the former. He approached Lincoln. He approached Linc the same way he approached animation, not as a machine, but as a character. The posture, the gestures, the subtle weight and shifts all told the story.
00:08:56 Imagineer Marc Davis: Walt was a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln? So Walton asked me to give it some thought, and I did a number of things of how how simple things work in anatomy, how perhaps a mechanical hand could work. This was a rather naive in thinking, because really our problem was not to create a mechanical man, but rather to create an illusion. Mr. Lincoln would have to rise from a seated position, move one leg forward, and then put himself up into a standing position. We had great technical difficulties in getting the character to move properly in New York, and God would be going great, and then all of a sudden he would do a great jerk or decide to sit down.
00:09:59 Nate: When the waltz proved a massive success, many of the attractions moved to Disneyland once again, war torn Denmark. This time, Mark recognized something important.
00:10:09 Imagineer Marc Davis: When I started working down there, there was nothing that was, uh, funny in any of the attractions that I can recollect. And, uh. And this was the thing all the way through trying that I have tried to do is to bring in humor.
00:10:22 Dustin: Before I jump into my ride that we're going to be covering. Uh, let's real quick, let's jump back to the late nineteen forties, when Walt Disney was first struck with the idea for building a theme park. Uh, he envisioned a place filled with lands of discovery, imagination, and adventure, one of which would become Adventureland, where guests could explore true life adventures. And as it turns out, Walt already had a foot in that world with his short documentary series True Life Adventures, aptly named where audiences followed animals in their natural habitats. Walt wanted to bring that concept into the parks, allowing guests to travel deep into the jungles and see elephants, lions and gorillas from the safety of a riverboat. Thus, the idea of Jungle Cruise was born. And that's the that's the ride that we're going to be talking about right now that I'm talking about. Yeah. But there was one big problem. Real animals are expensive to maintain. And in a place built around good show, animals don't always hit their marks. So they decided to take the wax museum approach and fill the jungle with sculpted, animated figures that had rudimentary movements to create the illusion of life. Um, you may call that animatronics, which to a certain extent they were, um, very early animatronics, not including the audio part. These early figures would include a charging rhino, which is actually really cool if you ever see a video of it because it charges and runs, but you can't see its lower half because it's behind shrubs. Uh, you also see a giraffe lifting its head up from behind a bunch of trees so you can't see it initially. But then the head comes up and moves and pivots and then goes back down, which is pretty cool. And then we also see two lions fighting over the leg of a zebra, which is a little graphic, but it was really cool. They would shift back and forth. The ride itself was more educational and fact based, relying more on the awe of the scenery more than anything else. And The Jungle Cruise for many years would be a very popular attraction until tragedy struck.
00:12:35 Speaker 7: Oh no.
00:12:36 Nate: There was a drought.
00:12:37 Dustin: No. Even worse, according to Imagineer Randy bright, Walt once overheard a parkgoer say, we don't need to go on this ride. We've already seen it. Walt was crushed but determined to make every visit fresh and unique. Walt wanted scenes that could tell a hundred stories, moments packed with details that guests would notice different times they rode. And to make this happen, he called on one of his most trusted animators, Mark Davis. Now, I'd like you guys to think of a scene from The Jungle Cruise.
00:13:11 Nate: Okay, I have it in my mind.
00:13:12 Logan: Done.
00:13:13 Dustin: And then tell me the scene. You remember.
00:13:16 Logan: Say it.
00:13:17 Dustin: Yeah. Say it. This isn't a magic trick.
00:13:19 Logan: This is. No. Is this your scene?
00:13:22 Nate: He has seen the elephants. The elephants, I also say.
00:13:26 Dustin: All right, so the elephant bathing pool. Okay. That was, uh, Mark Davis. Name me another.
00:13:31 Logan: one.
00:13:31 Nate: Um.
00:13:32 Logan: The pole with the rhino.
00:13:35 Dustin: The rhino? Yeah. The trap safari. That was Mark Davis. Give me another.
00:13:39 Logan: one.
00:13:40 Nate: Okay. Um. The piranhas.
00:13:43 Dustin: Okay. I don't think that one was Mark Davis. I'm not sure about that one. The point I'm trying to get at is that.
00:13:48 Logan: This shrunken heads.
00:13:49 Dustin: The shrunken heads.
00:13:51 Nate: I don't think that's in there. Right.
00:13:52 Dustin: I don't think that's in the ride.
00:13:53 Logan: But where they sell shrunken heads.
00:13:56 Dustin: Oh, Trader Sam.
00:13:58 Logan: Yes.
00:13:59 Dustin: That's actually a good question. I don't know if Trader Sam was, but the vast majority, the goats.
00:14:05 Nate: The gorilla hitting the head of the crocodile.
00:14:09 Dustin: There you go. That's one of them. Yeah. No, pretty.
00:14:12 Logan: Much.
00:14:13 Nate: Found in Tokyo.
00:14:14 Logan: Didn't know what.
00:14:15 Dustin: The goats is.
00:14:15 Logan: Logan, what is the end? Or am I thinking about the safari? I'm thinking about the safari.
00:14:20 Dustin: Oh, yeah. The safari. They do have real Kilimanjaro. Yeah. Uh, and Kilimanjaro safaris. Uh, but the point I'm trying to make is.
00:14:28 Logan: That.
00:14:29 Dustin: When. What? The point I'm trying to make is that when, um, Mark Davis did come in, he did add a whole bunch of these scenes. And this is Mark Davis talking about a few that he added.
00:14:40 Imagineer Marc Davis: I did a redo of the jungle River ride and I added the elephant pool and, uh, the trap safari and that sort of thing to that. And I think that Trap Safari was probably the first laugh that Disneyland had an attraction.
00:14:57 Dustin: All right. And alongside iconic moments like.
00:15:01 Logan: Thank you, Mark.
00:15:02 Dustin: Thank you Mark.
00:15:05 Logan: Thanks, Mark.
00:15:05 Dustin: Also alongside the iconic moments of the elephant bathing Pool and the Trap Safari, Davis also added some other new ones, like the Cambodian ruins with the tiger, the African veldt, the python with the water buffaloes, the gorillas raiding the campsite, Inspiration Falls, Schweitzer Falls, and also the attacking natives, which is no longer a part of it. The one that he did not touch, uh, was the elephant bathing pool. I mean, I'm sorry, not that one.
00:15:35 Logan: Are you kidding me? That would be crazy. No, no, the very first thing both of you thought independently.
00:15:45 Dustin: No, the hippo pool. I'm sorry. The one thing he did not touch was the hippo pool that was there from the beginning. But if you also notice a lot of these scenes, they are a hint of comedy to it, especially the, uh, the scene with the trap safari with the Rhino being, you know, poked up the pole, the gorillas, you have the one gorilla looking right down the barrel of the shotgun. You know, he added this comedy to it. And if you look at the animals, a lot of those animals in those scenes have an air of realism to it, but also has a comedic caricature. And that essence, when it comes to characters individually, is one of the reasons why I point out or I like to say this like he had the spirit, because that is such a quintessential when we think of Disneyland, that is one of the quintessential things. We said it after I said it, but, um, it's, uh, it's so quintessentially Disney. And that's something that transfers over to multiple rides as we're going to get to, um, which I'll bring back up again at the end. But um, when it comes to Mark Davis, he was, he started out as an animator, so a lot of his stuff started off as concept art and he was, if most of the time, if you see Disney concept art from the original Disney days, most likely it's going to be a Mark Davis. And not all of his ideas could make it into the park. So some of his unused gags for this, uh, ride was, uh, two crocodiles doing a death roll, which sounds pretty cool. I kind of wish that would.
00:17:17 Logan: Have made it in.
00:17:19 Dustin: There's also water buffaloes chasing a jaguar up a tree. There's another one where a jaguar is chasing a, uh, orangutan up a tree, and another one where.
00:17:30 Logan: Trains, I mean.
00:17:33 Nate: A lot of trains at Disney trains
00:17:35 Dustin: Wait for your turn, wait for your turn. And also, uh, a mama gorilla playing with her baby. Oh. Oh, mom.
00:17:43 Logan: Mama.
00:17:44 Dustin: But when, uh, Mark Davis did insert his, uh, his little his handprint into the Jungle Cruise, it did create more of a fun vibe to it. And not only were the scenes funny by themselves, but they also went on to add jokes into it to make it more punny. According to a quote from the original designer of The Jungle Cruise, Harper Goff, who was a huge um who had a huge hand in the making of Disneyland. Um, apparently he once met with, uh, Mark Davis's wife and he told her, you know, I was very upset when I heard that Mark had changed the river ride. But now that I've seen it, why the heck couldn't I do something like that? Because he did a darn good job. And I did edit.
00:18:29 Logan: It for.
00:18:30 Dustin: I know I did it, I did edit it for, um, for more of a PG audience, but uh, yeah, no, so even the original, uh, creator of the Jungle Cruise, you know, loved his stamp on it. And like I said, it's quintessential Disney. But when it comes to those characters and those funny scenes, they do spread out over different rides. And the one ride would, uh, he would be tapped next for was our next ride on the list. So I'm gonna pass it over to Nate.
00:19:01 Nate: It is the, the, um, and well, another quintessential.
00:19:07 Logan: I forget what it was. Quinta Brunson.
00:19:12 Nate: Quinta Brunson. Quantum physics.
00:19:13 Logan: Uh, quintessential.
00:19:15 Nate: Quintessential. Another quintessential Disney ride, in my opinion. The Pirates of the Caribbean. The Caribbean. It's funny you mentioned that. What is that funny, actually. It makes sense. It's I think it's like a common theme. We talked about how a lot of mocks, uh, Mr. Davis's influence. He tends to, like, makes a lot of sketches and stuff for concept art. Yeah. Like the concept art, the sketches and stuff, and they kind of mold. I feel like the idea of like the rides that he walks on, but they also kind of go far, though, and I'll get to that in a second, but I just wanted to point that out. Pirates of the Caribbean is a raft. Uh, how do you describe it, a boat ride?
00:19:58 Dustin: Technically, it's an old mill ride I think is.
00:20:01 Nate: An old mill ride.
00:20:03 Logan: But yeah, it's.
00:20:03 Nate: An old mill boat ride.
00:20:06 Dustin: Down by the old mill stream. Sorry.
00:20:10 Nate: Set in the West Indies around the Caribbean Sea, um, takes place during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, which is considered the golden age of piracy, not, um, DVD piracy, but the seven seas piracy.
00:20:25 Logan: Wow.
00:20:26 Dustin: You even dated yourself by saying DVD piracy.
00:20:31 Nate: Um, it follows a band of pirates and their voyages, troubles and exploits.
00:20:37 Dustin: Drink up, me hearties! Yo ho!
00:20:39 Nate: Drink up, drink up. Um. The attraction originally opened in nineteen sixty seven and Disneyland. It is known as the final attraction that Walt Disney personally envisioned and oversaw, even though he did not get to actually ride the ride because he died three months before its opening. R.I.P. Rest in Power.
00:21:00 Logan: No.
00:21:03 Nate: And it was a huge success. The ride ended up going to open in Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World Resort in nineteen seventy three. They also had an own iteration in Tokyo Disneyland in nineteen eighty three and in Disneyland Paris in nineteen ninety two. The original concept for the ride was supposed to be a walk through wax museum.
00:21:25 Dustin: There is one more.
00:21:26 Nate: Oh is, though I only had the three. Yeah, I thought that was oh oh oh and then the, um, it's not the same ride, but. Well, we'll get to that.
00:21:34 Logan: Okay.
00:21:35 Nate: The original concept was supposed to be a walk through wax museum attraction, except after the success of It's a Small World, another Mark Davis influence, right. And the boat ride system. They decided to use that as the main ride system for this one as well. Originally, the ride was supposed to feature historical pirates. Um. Think. Blackbeard. Think. Um, does anyone know.
00:22:02 Logan: Any other.
00:22:04 Dustin: Captain Kidd?
00:22:05 Logan: Maybe.
00:22:05 Nate: Maybe. Who knows? Who knows who was supposed to be, though? But anyway, the Mark Davis decided that it needed a more fun and little more lighthearted, more exaggerated tone and and in classic fashion, to be more entertaining. So they scrapped the historical. Even though they. You do see some remnants of that historical pirates in like some of the artwork and stuff in the buildings. But they decided to create a whole new original characters. Davis designed many of the ride's most recognizable pirates, characters and scenes, some of the more notable, I guess scenes that he personally walked on was the auction scene where the pirates are bidding on the on the townspeople, which was changed a little later on. Um, the jail scene with the prisoners, you know, trying to do with the dog that's holding the the cell keys. Um, the drunken pirates chasing villagers through the town, which was also revised, but still the concept was there. Um, and then a lot of, you know, the other like the gags and stuff that we see throughout the, the ride that makes it lighthearted and, and fun really to, to kind of go through.
00:23:13 Dustin: I would argue too, that you could have also probably done that thing that I did with Jungle Cruise saying, name a scene from Pirates and chances are it would have been him.
00:23:22 Nate: It really is like a, I think a staple in his walk. Same like the Jungle Cruise though.
00:23:28 Dustin: Unlike the Jungle Cruise. And correct me if I'm wrong, Mark was on board with. I'm sorry. Well, no. Nate. Uh, Mark was on board with pirates from the beginning as opposed to Jungle Cruise, where he was brought in afterwards.
00:23:44 Nate: Yes, that is true, because Walt did come, I think came to him with the idea. I think we have I think we have a clip right now.
00:23:50 Imagineer Marc Davis: Walt said he wanted to do a pirate ride. We did a model of the attraction and Walt saw all of that, and then we started building figures.
00:24:00 Nate: So yeah, he was in on it, I think, from the start. So I mean, you can definitely tell he had a lot of like liberties and like creative opportunities, I guess I'm trying to say, but like I said, the ride is a huge, huge success to me. It is the Disney. It's the Disney Park attraction. Mark Davis obviously passed away, as we mentioned in two thousand. When did he pass away?
00:24:23 Dustin: I don't think we mentioned he passed away. Well we did we did mention that. But I don't say with the.
00:24:27 Logan: Time we didn't say when.
00:24:29 Nate: Yeah, well, that doesn't matter anyway, as most people know, this ride was a huge success. It went on to inspire the ever successful franchise movie franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, starring Johnny Depp, starring Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, as well as other many others we mentioned when we mentioned there was there was a fifth poster. Caribbean, right? This one obviously was not worked on by Mark Davis, but it was inspired most. I would say the ride inspired the films which inspired this ride, which opened in Shanghai. Disneyland in twenty sixteen, was called Pirates of the Caribbean Battle of the Sunken Treasure. Some people say this is the best Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This ride is extremely different from the original that Mark Davis worked on, but it is kind of like a example, I guess, of Mark's continuous legacy when it comes to his influence to the Disney parks. It does feel like it's kind of like never ending, if you will. I talked about the art walks when I started talking. He has so many sketches, not only from this ride, but just like in general, that it seems like Disney is constantly taking to create new things, you know, inspire new attractions. You know, when when he was still walking though, obviously, but even like past that and they, you know, it seems like a lot of the his artwork makes it into the parks in some capacity. Like some of those like historical pirates, like odd walks. They've, like I said, they've used in the, in the queue, um, to have some like paintings on the wall and things like that. So he was like an endless and endless pool of creative like output, which is very cool, but that is the place that can mean.
00:26:20 Dustin: There is a book, two volume book series called Mark Davis in his Own Words, came out a let's see, it came out in twenty nineteen, and it was written by Pete Docter and Christopher Merritt. I believe Christopher Merritt as a.
00:26:33 Nate: Not in his own words.
00:26:34 Dustin: Well, it is it has like interviews and whatnot. Um, but it has a ton of just concept art in it. Uh, it's mostly photos with some, uh, some quotes from his wife and himself and other people. But some of the, uh, unused concept art, I would say there's probably more unused concept art than there is used concept art. And it's just fantastic. It's, uh, one of my favorite ones is called surprised enlistment, and it's this guy drinking at a table with another pirate behind him, lifting up his hat and about to swing a bottle to, like, knock him out. It's just crazy to see how much of that ride came out of Marc Davis's head. And it's just. And it's all it's just photos, right? But you can tell the movement, you can sense the movement like you do have one with Carlos, you know, the the mayor where they're pulling out.
00:27:29 Logan: Carlos.
00:27:29 Dustin: Yeah. Don't be chicken. Um, but even all the way to not even funny sequences like the skeleton sequences at the beginning of the Disneyland ride. That's all. Still, it's just almost completely the same from his concept art. And uh, no, I recommend if you if you like concept art, Pirates of Caribbean or anything Disney Disneyland, I recommend looking up Mark Davis, uh, concept art or this book because it's phenomenal. Very good stuff. Love it.
00:27:58 Logan: So much love, love, love, love, love love love love love love love love. Well, we know Pirates of the Caribbean became one of the most successful attractions Disney has ever built. So when Disney began designing a new park at Walt Disney World, specifically Magic Kingdom, they wanted another grand story driven boat ride. But this time the setting wouldn't be pirates. Do you know what the setting would be? It would be the American West. Mark Davis began.
00:28:34 Nate: That was a cowboy. I'm a cowboy.
00:28:37 Logan: That was really good. Thanks. Mark Davis began designing what would become one of the most famous attractions that never existed Western River expedition. The concept was massive. Guests would board boats and journey into a towering mesa deep into Frontierland, traveling through a sweeping comedic version of the Old West instead of swashbucklers and sea shanties. Oh gosh, this is like a tongue twister. Instead of swashbucklers and sea shanties, there would be train robbers, saloon girls, dusty frontier towns and desert landscapes filled with singing animals. One of the most famous planned scenes featured a chorus of coyotes perched on a desert ridge howling a song called Ride Em Cowboys. It was classic Mark Davis character driven humor, visual storytelling and scene staged so clearly that you can understand the joke instantly. In many ways, the Western River expedition was meant to be the frontier land equivalent of Pirates of the Caribbean, a giant multi-season adventure built around Mark's ability to turn environments into storytelling. But when Magic Kingdom opened in nineteen seventy one, guests kept asking the same question um, where's Pirates of the Caribbean? Disney had assumed pirates were closely tied to places like New Orleans and the Caribbean and Florida. Audiences would prefer a Western adventure instead. But the demand for pirates was overwhelming, so Disney shifted priorities. Here's Tony Baxter talking about it.
00:30:11 Imagineer Tony Baxter: I knew they were struggling with Mark Davis had this magnificent Western river ride, and they put it on hold because they had to build a pirate ride because the number one complaint down was down. There was Florida did not have pirates, and pirates was the best ride Disneyland had. So don't go to Florida was the. So they had to build a pirate ride.
00:30:31 Dustin: Apparently it was such a big deal that people were wearing buttons that said, Where's Pirates of the Caribbean into the protesting? Pretty much. Yeah. To be like, where is the park? Yeah. And there's some photos.
00:30:44 Logan: Where are the pirates.
00:30:44 Dustin: The pirates. It's very funny. Yeah. We wants the pirates. We want the pirates.
00:30:49 Logan: So it was quite overwhelming. Prior to the Caribbean was quickly rushed into development for the Magic Kingdom and Western River expedition was quietly shelved. The attraction was ultimately never built, but the ideas didn't disappear. Elements of the project, including the towering Mesa centerpiece and runaway train imagery, would later influence attractions like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
00:31:13 Imagineer Tony Baxter: I came up with how could I take the Western River ride building that had a little runaway train? How could I break that train off and create a project out in front of it? That would be. It wouldn't end the Western River ride. We could still build that, but we could get this going, and its budget was down at a level they could afford. And and then later we could come back in with Western.
00:31:38 Logan: Today, Western River expedition has become something of a legend among theme park fans, a reminder of just how ambitious Mark Davis's vision for Frontierland really was, because if pirates proved Mark could bring pirates to life, Western River expedition would have shown what he could do with the entire American West.
00:31:57 Dustin: No, this one is definitely, as you just said, like a thing of legend for, you know, Disney fans. I remember hearing about this. I don't know, maybe a decade ago. I was, uh, I think I was in like early high school looking into this stuff. And it's just a treasure trove of what could have been. But as you also said, the ride did get frankensteined. You did get a decent amount of it going to Big Thunder Mountain. No, you didn't say Frankenstein.
00:32:27 Logan: And that's.
00:32:27 Dustin: A little. But I guess it's the opposite of Frankenstein. I guess it was anti Frankenstein.
00:32:32 Nate: It was an organ donor.
00:32:33 Dustin: Yeah, it was an organ donor.
00:32:34 Dustin: But another location that also got it was over in Paris. Uh, the Phantom Manor.
00:32:39 Dustin: Petit petit.
00:32:41 Nate: T is the key.
00:32:43 Dustin: To your heart. Oh my God.
00:32:46 Dustin: It's alright. We can sing it because it's a Disney property now.
00:32:48 Dustin: But I don't.
00:32:49 Logan: Think we can sing.
00:32:50 Dustin: But there is a part where you go into, you know, like at the end of, uh, Haunted Mansion, you go into the graveyard. Well, there's one part where you go into a mausoleum and you basically go into this underground western town. And a couple of the ideas from this ride were included in that part of the ride as well. So that's, uh, you know, that's very interesting that they were able to utilize different Mark Davis, uh, concept arts. Now, this is also a great example of ideas Disney had greenlit and then abandoned that were just too big to even scale. Uh, this one. And then also the original Indiana Jones ride that was supposed to include like three different rides, like the Jungle Cruise was supposed to come in, and then it was supposed to be Indiana Jones ride and a roller coaster all inside one area.
00:33:40 Logan: Would have been really cool.
00:33:41 Dustin: Yeah, this is another example of that, and I don't know if we've seen it. Yeah, no. like the closest we've gotten to is like the people mover going through like, uh, space, space mountain or the train going through something, uh, or, uh, you know, seeing some rides from restaurants because we've done that a couple of times.
00:33:57 Logan: Pirates.
00:33:58 Dustin: Yeah.
00:33:58 Dustin: Pirates. And, um, uh, what is it in the Mexico pavilion? They did that as well.
00:34:02 Logan: Oh, and, um. Pinocchio.
00:34:06 Dustin: Yeah.
00:34:06 Dustin: Pinocchio Village Haus.
00:34:07 Logan: Oh, and. And living in the land.
00:34:10 Dustin: There we go. Yes. Living with Land. So we've done this multiple times. Wow. Maybe that's a Tick-It.
00:34:16 Logan: More than I thought.
00:34:17 Dustin: We should make that a Tick-It. Theme park Tick-Its. But, um.
00:34:20 Logan: And no.
00:34:22 Dustin: Going back to that book I was talking about, we just did the. I was just looking through it at the end of it. There is a Western River expedition section and it's forty pages long. So it shows you all the concept art, all the ideas or a lot of the ideas that they had. And also, back in twenty eleven at D23, Tony Baxter actually put together a virtual ride through based off of the concept art. So, um, I'm sure you can find that online. It's very, uh, it's very interesting. We just missed it. That's so sad. That could have been, but no, people wanted their Pirates of the Caribbean on the East Coast.
00:35:03 Nate: Which they could have flown.
00:35:05 Dustin: They could.
00:35:06 Nate: Have flown. This would have been really cool to see. It's sad.
00:35:10 Dustin: It is very sad. Now, did you guys see any of the concept art?
00:35:13 Nate: I think I have seen this at some point and it's like it's like very large, right?
00:35:19 Dustin: Oh yeah, it is. And it involved like a waterfall, uh, or you going over a waterfall, I should say. So very similar to the drop on pirates, but it was supposed to be themed as a waterfall. You go through nature, which was super cool. They actually did have a giant blueprint of it. Um, which I have in my book. You guys don't have the book, so you guys can't see it, but, um, a lot of animal scenes, uh, funny animal scenes. The, the bandit scene though seemed like it would have been incredible, almost akin to, uh, kind of like the vibe that you get when you walk into rise of the resistance and see all the stormtroopers.
00:35:58 Logan: Mhm.
00:35:59 Dustin: Um, but this one, you kind of just witness it. Also, a couple of these scenes remind me of scenes from, uh, World of Motion where you would like, there was a robbery scene on World of Motion. So I wonder if this idea came. Well, I guess it would have. Yeah, yeah. This scene, this would have came before World of Motion because that's Epcot. So maybe they took that scene to.
00:36:20 Logan: What is world of motion?
00:36:22 Dustin: World of motion is.
00:36:23 Logan: Where.
00:36:23 Dustin: Um, it's where test track is now. It was, it was very similar to your, um, like the, oh, what's that spaceship earth, right where it takes you through time. Except for this took you through the history of transportation. But there was a scene with a robbery.
00:36:39 Logan: It makes me think of the scene from Hollywood studios. Um, the takeover ride. Great movie ride. Yes, yes, yes.
00:36:47 Dustin: Well, it's funny that you mentioned that too, because they do have a lot of concept art of a shootout. And there's actually one guy behind a like a barrel, but he's holding his hat on like a stick and his hat keeps on getting shot up so that they don't they don't do that. But there's a bank robbery in this one too. So maybe once again, like we said, maybe that was inspired by this concept art as well. Oh, there's also a funny one. It's a guy standing in front of a wanted sign, but he's making the same face as he is on the wanted sign. That's funny anyways. All right. Oh, God. I wish we would have got this right. Now, how would you guys have felt if they said, hey, we're getting rid of Tom Sawyer Island, but we're gonna put there is the Western River expedition instead of the cars ride. What would you guys think?
00:37:33 Logan: Not great, not great.
00:37:35 Nate: I think what I think if I, if I was familiar with the intention of the ride. Well yeah, I don't know. I would it's like, would they have like, they would need to like update it to be like new technology and stuff. It would have to be.
00:37:53 Logan: Faster.
00:37:54 Nate: For people to be excited about it. Yeah.
00:37:56 Logan: Yeah. Like I wouldn't really want like, I can't, I can't imagine myself getting hyped for a ride that is similar to Pirates of the Caribbean now.
00:38:07 Nate: Well, like the Coco ride. Oh yeah.
00:38:09 Logan: But that's more that's still like its IP.
00:38:13 Nate: Yeah. Or like the Na'vi River journey.
00:38:16 Logan: Yeah, but that's IP.
00:38:18 Dustin: Yeah, but what if it was more like the Indiana Jones and dinosaur ride? Except for you're in, like, a carriage. Do you think that's better?
00:38:24 Nate: Like the Oregon Trail.
00:38:25 Logan: Carriage is taking me out of it.
00:38:27 Dustin: Well, I mean, it still moves. Oregon Trail and Oregon Trail ride the possibility of getting dysentery halfway through. Yeah.
00:38:35 Nate: Uh, it really just depends how it's framed. I mean, some of these like, to me, it's like they would need to have updated it. They would need to have it. Like it wouldn't be the same ride, I guess. Like they could use the concept, but it would have to be different. That being said, if this ride like existed, if you were like, hey, would you have rather gotten this instead of Ireland? I've been like, absolutely. And I would also probably be really excited to ride it like whenever I could because it's like already there, you know?
00:39:07 Dustin: Yeah.
00:39:07 Nate: I mean, yeah.
00:39:08 Dustin: Yeah, yeah. And I would argue that I do think that if this would have been made in place of Pirates of Caribbean, I think it would have been just as big as a classic as Pirates of the Caribbean. Um, just because the time that it came out, I feel like one of the reasons why Pirates is so iconic and such a classic is not only because it is a ride that most people can ride. Um, and that it has once again, every time you ride it, you see at least one thing new, but also because of Mark Davis's touch and his, uh, attention to detail in these scenes, to add the humor and to add the, the flair to be able to keep the audience's attention. But overall, what, how do we feel about Mark Davis and also, how do we feel about what I said that Mark Davis is the spirit of Disneyland.
00:39:58 Logan: I could see it. He's pretty cool.
00:40:00 Dustin: But do you do you think could you think of a better word or do you think Spirit's a good word?
00:40:04 Logan: I think it works. I think it's fitting because it's so many, I mean. Yeah, and just being so close to like the Disney brand and everything just even before coming to it just yeah, it makes sense.
00:40:19 Dustin: And I also want to point out too, is that there have been a lot of other themed family places that want to emulate what Disney is. And if you think of multiple examples, more likely than not, it's going to be a Mark Davis piece. Like if you look at country bears, Mark Davis worked on a lot of the country bears, the whole aesthetic and the vibe, just the emotion on the faces and the personality of each bear. I mean, look how many times Country Bears has been remade. You know, like we have the Chuck E cheese, we had showbiz pizza. We have, um, smaller ones like at Dutch Wonderland and Knott's Berry Farm. It's like you have these Dutch Wonderland. But yeah, it makes you wonder if they didn't have that personality or that touch that Mark Davis added, would they be as popular or wanting to be duplicated? But I do have a quote from Marty Sklar from another book about Mark Davis called Marc Davis Walt Disney's Renaissance Man. Uh, after, you know, named after the Disney quote or Walt Disney quote. And this one says, close your eyes and chances are you can see the fun Mark Davis brought to the parks through the characters in action he inspired through his story sketches. Watch the pirates frolicking and feeding the fires in the quintessential Pirates of the Caribbean. Join a boatload of tourists interrupting bathing elephants in their sacred pool, and a group of explorers chased up a pole by the point of the rhinoceros horn and the reimagined Jungle Cruise. Watch the grim, grinning ghosts as they play and practice their pranks in the madcap haunted mansion. Listen to a conclave of American songs sung by a perfect cast of animal vocalists in American Sings. Follow the fun and historical folly of travels through time in Epcot's world of motion. There you go. So he did work on that to join the singing and guitar and banjo strumming bears in the Country Bear Jamboree. Uh, see and hear the room decor come to life all around you in the enchanted Tiki Room. He did a lot. And not he. End of quote. And then I said, he did a lot. It's um. Yeah, no good stuff. I love Mark Davis stuff.
00:42:47 Nate: Great stuff.
00:42:48 Dustin: We should do a part two. Let's do a part two right now.
00:42:52 Dustin: No.
00:42:52 Dustin: Yeah. Right now.
00:42:54 Nate: Well, thank you, Mark Davis, and thank you for listening to this episode of Parkgoers Go. Um, let us know if you have any favorite Mark Davis attractions or if you even knew who Mark Davis was before we started talking about it. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and let us know if there was any creative profiles. Sorry, creatives profile. Um, you would like us to focus on next. And as always, we'll see you at the pucks. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Puck Goes Go. Catch our new episodes every week and catch up on our old episodes on Spotify. For any updates on new information on theme parks or podcasts, follow us on Instagram at parkgoers. Go or visit our website at www.parkgoersgo.com This episode was produced by Dustin Logan and Nathaniel and edited by Dustin. Our theme song was created by John Riddle. You can follow Logan and I's theme park adventures on Instagram at. The parkgoers and you can follow Dustin at Mr. Parker. If you want to reach out to us, visit our website or Instagram and send us a message. We'd love to hear from you. And until then, we'll see you at the parks.