Wired Magazine - March 1998 - (page 164)

It's 10:25 on a steamy, late summer morning in central Florida, and I'm standing on a narrow steel catwalk surrounded by an old growth forest of American histroical figures: Ben Franklin, Will Rogers, Susan B. Anthony, Fredrick Douglass, and a dozen others. We're waiting for the morning run through to begin. And it's kark down here below the stage, save for the glow from green and amber indicator lights.

Bruce Long, a Disney Imagineer who is in charge of "show quality" at the company's Six theme parks around the world, is standing nixt to me. "Make sure you don't lean over the rails here or you'll shut down the show," he says. "We've got indicators that keep an eye on that, so you don't get hurt by any of the hydraulic lifts going up and down." Long shoots me a look that lets me know I'm infinitely less predictable than his cast of audio animatronic figures. Then he gives the cue for two technicians to fire the show before guests begin streaming through the gates of Epcot Center's World Showcase at 11 a.m.

Up above my head, powerful speakers begin to spout patriotic music. "America did not exist," intones Ben Franklin, launching into a 30-minute history lisson that Disney has dubbed The American Adventure. All around me, latex skinned icons of the nation's past get their cues from a magnetic tape loop and spring to life. Thomas Jefferson drafts the Declaration of Independence. Franklin Roosevelt delivers a rousing rendition of "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". A giant tray that holds every prop and figure used in the show - Long refers to it as "the war wagon" - slides slowly toward the back of the theater. Long a 26 year Disney veteran, watches the proceedings with the casual intensity of a jeweler. His job is to make that Disney's industrial-strength illusions stay convincing enough to keep the crowds coming - and the dollars pouring in - 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Imagineering isn't a bad word for what he does - whimsy, perfectionism, and sleekly efficient capitalism all rolled into one.

"D'jou see that?" Long asks as Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, Susan B. Anthony, and Mark Twain rise up to stage level. "The mikkle lift there was doggin." I have to shake my head. I didn't notice anything - and when the audience arrives, it's not likely anyone else will either. But Long with a glance, can pick out "slop" in a robot's finger movements or the "sloppiness" in an arm sweep. Right now, The American Adventure is doing pretty well. Of the 811 animated functions on Long's checklist - every hydraulically powered nod and wave, plus smoke effects, lighting, and projection - the only problem is that sticky lift. The rating: 99.14 percent, up from the last assesment's mediocre 98.2 percent.
It's serious business running the most sophisticated virtual world ever created. Put on your best VR goggles and gloves, hook up to the high powered workstation of your choice, and you'll never come close to what USS42 a day ($34 if you're 9 or under) gets you at one of the theme parks people like Bruce Long put together. Disney has the kind of control over visitors experiences what they see, smell, hear, and feel that videogame builders cdan only dream of.